#i was always aware that getting a sea monster to bite off his limbs so he could get out of the chains was nuts but like damn. it's very nuts | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

brutal-nemesis · 3 years

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Saltwater Day 2021: Dinner Date with an Eel 💕

Feel that ocean breeze, baby! Cries in lives in a very landlocked area I hope y’all are having some fun in the salty spray ✨Today we finally get to see a Castys misadventure that I’ve talked about in the tags before: the big boy drowning incident! So sit back, relax, and enjoy the agony <3

Castys Masterlist

Ingredients: drowning, animal attack, self harm to escape danger, sort of self amputation, gore, broken bones, suicide for convenience (immortal)

Castys had jumped off of higher cliffs before. Granted, he had done it because he was too lazy to walk to the bottom, and he’d landed on solid rock, and it had been very painful for all of two seconds, so this didn’t make him any less terrified of being shoved off of this one. And yes, that’s right, he was going to be shoved off of this one, into the crashing waves below, which was certainly how he’d planned on spending the morning. Nothing better to start the day than a pointless execution!

Oh, but why are you being executed, Castys, you’re so good and noble and also immortal so this isn’t going to work is it. No, no it’s not going to work. And Castys was being “executed” because, well...turns out people don’t take too kindly to finding out you’re the dreaded Pirate King Ragnarok. As usual, he’d fought and tried to get away, and as usual he’d failed miserably. So here he was, wrists chained together behind his back, ankles chained to a stupidly large rock, and a cloth tied tightly around his mouth.

He tried not to think about having to deal with this arrangement once he was underwater, which was something he was less than excited for. There was already quite a large crowd gathered so, hey, at least he was popular. Actually, scratch that, based on the looks he was getting, he was definitely unpopular. He shifted a bit, causing the men gripping his arms to tighten their grasp. He huffed, wishing he had the ability to tell them to chill the fuck out.

“People of Meruna, we are gathered her today for the execution of the notorious-“ oh my FUCK nevermind just push him off already this whole thing was already bad enough without a speech about all his crimes and whatever. Not that he didn’t love hearing about his exploits, because fuck if he regretted any of it, but the sun was hot and he was tired of standing. That water was going to feel so good...until it was filling his lungs ugh nope don’t think about it like that he was just going for a nice swim that’s all. He was going to be in the nice, cool water without any of these assholes glaring at him, and he’d get out of these chains somehow and come back in ten years and release all their goats and that would show them.

All of a sudden, the hands on him started to push him towards the edge of the cliff, a third guard rolling the rock he was chained to along using her foot. Fuck, fuck the speech was over they were doing it he was going over the edge he’d just been joking earlier he really didn’t want to even if the water would feel good he’d rather stand out here all day because that sure as hell was better than drowning over and over and over the edge the air was rushing by the top of the cliff was getting farther and farther away any second now he-

Castys screamed into the gag as he slammed into the cold water, wasting his last breath of air like an idiot before he started to sink beneath the crashing waves, pulled down by the boulder attached to his ankles. He could only squirm uselessly as he sank deeper and deeper, the soaked-through gag filling his mouth with the taste of saltwater, just to make things even more unpleasant. His arms were killing him, and, you know what, they took the brunt of the impact with the water, so they were probably fucking broken, weren’t they? At least they would heal after...after he drowned for the first time. Already his lungs were starting to burn, but thankfully the rock had finally hit the bottom, so he wouldn’t sink any further and therefore the painful pressure on his ears wasn’t going to get any worse, at the very least.

Positives, positives, since he was probably going to be here for a while...it wasn’t so stupidly hot anymore, instead it was stupidly cold, and already his fingers were starting to go numb-nope, nope, not a positive, let’s try again. It was rather pretty down here, despite the fact that black spots were starting to cloud his vision, and also things were starting to get kinda...woozy, a little bit, a little, hell-o and goodbye, wasn’t it time now? Yeah, yes, the burning was too much it hurt hurt hurt everything was black and black was good bec-

He didn’t bother counting how many times he drowned. Maybe it would have helped pass the time or something, but, let’s be real, there were better things to focus on than how many times he’d experienced the horrible burning in his lungs and that awful lightheadedness. His broken arms had healed up, so that was something, but they were still very much shackled behind his back. If they were free he could at least get that stupid gag out of his mouth and try to fuck with the chain connecting his ankles to that dumb rock. He settled for looking around the underwater landscape surrounding him, glad that sunset was still a ways off. As far as he could tell.

When he could see and think clearly, it was kind of cool to be down here, circumstances aside. All sorts of fish, many of them varieties that he knew what they tasted like, swam around between the wavy water plants. There was even a really big lookin’ boy off in the distance that he’d seen out of the corner of his eye a few times, though it was coming closer now, and he was just starting to be able to make out...wait-was that a-great. Absolutely fantastic, just what he needed. A fucking shreilian eel. How dare he drown over and over in peace, no, no let’s add a vicious man-eating monster to the mix! At least he wasn’t bleeding, so the creature wouldn’t be immediately drawn to him. He’d get to keep his limbs intact for a little longer-wait wait wait. Okay that was absolutely crazy and sounds entirely unfun, but...it might just work.

Castys mustered as much strength as he could, ignoring the ever-present burning of his lungs, and began to clumsily bash himself against the nearby wall of stone. It was coated in barnacles and the like, but their sharp edges were just what he was looking for. Soon enough, he felt the awful sting of saltwater in the many small cuts that were now littering his arm. Fuck, that was nowhere near enough blood to get that eel over here, and his vision was starting to go dark. If he didn’t get that damn thing over here now he’d die and heal and have to do this bullshit all over again no no no get over here you stupid thing fuck yeah that feels like a nice gash it burns to high hell but so does everything and look at all that bloody water or maybe it’s just getting too dark because it is dark and...so...hurt…

When he came back to life, there was a small cloud of blood swirling in the water around him, but it was dissipating more and more by the second. He couldn’t see the eel anywhere, and if that bastard disappeared on him after all that...Instinctively, he tried to take a deep breath and ended up sucking a bunch of water up his nose like an absolute idiot, his nostrils now burning just as much as his even more waterlogged lungs. His body tried to cough, but it was just painful and useless like everything else he’d done while stuck down here, and he just ended up thrashing around like an injured fish.

Just what the eel had been waiting for.

It felt like he’d suddenly been hit by a mace, slamming him into the rocks, his arm lighting up with the pain of a thousand hot spikes, almost too intense for him to even process, the salty water magnifying every little agony tenfold. Castys was certain he would have been screaming if he had the air, and as much as this was absolutely fucking terrible, he hoped the eel would do it again. It had bitten off a good chunk of his arm as far as he could tell, but not enough to completely sever it and free him from the restraints. And for once, his horrid luck regarding avoiding pain paid off. The eel rammed into him again, ripping off more of his arm with its razor-sharp teeth and causing the bones of his forearm to crack.

Sensing his chance, Castys grabbed the manacled wrist of his shredded arm with his good hand, bit down on the gag, and pulled. He couldn’t give up, couldn’t stop, not after enduring this much, he could feel his flesh tearing, sending out sparks of agony unlike anything he’d ever known, and he had to keep pulling, pulling and jerking and tearing and twisting and praying, praying that he could rip it off before he drowned again, which, hey, kind of a weird thing to want, not that he hadn’t had to amputate his own limbs before, but weird that it was happening again, and honestly, this hurt way more than the other times, but wasn’t that always the case-and fuck there was no way he was going to be able to just snap his bones like this, and he needed it to be completely severed, and there was no time, wedge it against the rocks and pull pull pull until there was a snap and a burst of unholy agony, so intense it almost smothered the relief, so fierce it made him forget he was drowning up until the moment his oxygen-starved brain lost consciousness.

Castys’s arms were free. Well, one was free, and the other one was still manacled, attached to...what was left over after all that. He ripped the gag out of his mouth, resisting the urge to suck in mouthfuls of air that were absolutely not there. Looking down at his ankles, he wasn’t sure if-his body exploded with pain as the eel rammed into him again, taking a chunk of flesh from his side, which was definitely not where he wanted to be bitten. Gritting his teeth against the anguish that almost consumed him, he grabbed the wrist of his severed arm and clumsily smeared blood around his ankles, hoping it would entice the monster to attack them and help set him free.

It worked, and it didn’t. The eel attacked him again and again, no longer pausing in between bites to circle him. Castys wasn’t even sure where it was biting him anymore, he just knew that everything hurt, the saltwater in his wounds magnifying the pain so much that there was no discernible source. He didn’t try to fight the eel off, hoping it would just do enough damage to his legs that he could get free, but he wasn’t sure if he could have even tried to get it away from him if he wanted to. Things were getting so dizzy so fast, all of a sudden, there was nothing to do but wait and die and hurt…

When he came back to life, Castys was disappointed to find that he was not floating to the surface. In fact, one of his ankles felt kind of weird, like it wasn’t shackled anymore, but still...for fuck’s sake. One of his ankles had been freed, torn enough to shreds before he’d died that the manacle had come off, but the other one was...well the manacle wasn’t around his ankle so much as it was…in his ankle. How the fuck that had happened, he had no clue. He just knew he had to deal with it. Looking around, the eel wasn’t anywhere to be seen, probably full to bursting after its meal, and though his heart sank a little at the thought that he couldn’t rely on it anymore, he was also slightly relieved, because that thing had been vicious. It had, however, left a parting gift. He swam downwards and grabbed the smooth fang off of the sandy ocean bottom, gripping it tightly. Just a little bit more.

He had endured so much already, felt pain more intense, experienced sensations more gruesome, but this...this was more active than everything else that had happened down here. More visible. He had to make every stab and slice deliberately, had to watch the tooth do its damage, it wasn’t mindless bashing or praying he’d get bitten in the right places, but an active choice to cut his flesh away, inviting burning seawater into a wound once again, and it was difficult. Part of him wanted to stop, take a break, please, I don’t want to have to do this anymore, I want to let go, just for a little bit, please, but he knew he couldn’t, because he had to get this done before he drowned again or he’d have to start the whole damn thing over.

Relief like he’d never known washed over him as he finally managed to worm the manacle out of his shredded ankle and he felt himself start to rise. The lightheadedness was getting worse, and he wasn’t sure if he’d make it in time, so he wormed his finger into the pouch around his neck and let the death stone’s magic take him before the lack of air could. He was still rising when he came back to, and he propelled himself towards the surface with renewed strength, despite the pain of his ears popping and the odd ache in his joints.

Finally, blessedly, he made it to the surface, and air had never tasted so fucking good. Not that it wasn’t salty, but it wasn’t as salty as saltwater, and he sucked as much of it as he could into his waterlogged lungs. He looked up at the cliff towering over him, now painted with the orange of sunset instead of the gold of sunrise. He...he had been down there all day just...downing. And getting eaten. Kinda fucked. Seeing a nearby rock, he swam over to it and scampered on top, collapsing on its damp surface as he coughed up far too much fucking seawater. Fuck, his head was spinning and his joints hurt, like they probably would have if he could grow old. Well, nothing that one last death can’t fix, now that he was finally on land again.

Castys opened his eyes and sat up, feeling perfectly fine besides the awful, salty taste in his mouth. He looked over at the cliff smugly. Those bastards had tried to get rid of him for good, and they’d failed miserably. He folded down his middle fingers and placed his thumbs over them, a rude gesture in this part of the world. Seeing the remnant of his arm dangling from the manacle still attached to his left wrist, he had a devilishly gruesome idea.

The next morning, the whole town was awoken by the screams of a young couple who had gone out for a stroll.

Right there, in the middle of the town square, was part of a crudely severed arm, its fingers frozen in an obscene gesture, its skin slimy and already starting to slip off. A manacle was clamped around its wrist, attached by a short chain to the other one, which had been broken open.

The execution had failed, and that heinous pirate had escaped.

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

#i wrote something #castys #animal attack cw #drowning cw #self amputation #self harm to escape danger #suicide for convenience #gore #hooray yall finally get his big drowning incident #sorry that it's not super drowning focused i still am not a drowning fan #it's not gory and the application of the pain is more indirect so thats why im indifferent to it #actually writing this has made me realize both how fucking batshit castys is and also that he's really determined #i was always aware that getting a sea monster to bite off his limbs so he could get out of the chains was nuts but like damn. it's very nuts #and when he was ripping off his arm like holy shit dude #you might be a rat bastard but you don't give up. stubborn stubborn man #he's like a fucking weed #castys calls kelp a plant but it's not a plant he does not have access to our biological classification scheme #that's his excuse but i will not support the spread of misinformation #yes the eel is based off the shrieking eels from princess bride #aka one of the greatest movies of all time #i dont accept criticism on this #i didnt want to use a real animal because then i would have to research behavior and shit #and i dont want people showing up like ''ACTUALLY that shark doesn't behave that way uwu''#im just very lazy and i want to bitey monster to do what i want it to do without spening hours reading behavorial articles #not that this didnt make me look at eel life cycles because EEL LARVA ARE SO FUNNY LOOKING LOOK THEM UP #THEYRE JUST BIG FLAT GLASS WIGGLES THAT GO :v #that said i did try to base the eel off of shark hunting behaviors i vaguely remember from shark week #he gets decompression sickness a bit there at the end that's why his joints hurt #saltwater day #saltwater day 2021

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darlingyanderes · 3 years

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Can you do one with Muzan and Kokushibo (bad at spelling 😂) With y/n. You can choose the content

Hi thank you for your request!! I might have gone a little ham on this one, I recently watched a movie called “Forgotten” on Netflix, and it inspired me to write this! I hope you like it (and that it’s not a straight up rip-off of the movie ooop)

Warnings: (fake) illness, drugs, explicit gore, murder, demons eating humans, manipulation/gaslighting, badly written amnesia

Word count: 1731

Take your pills - Yandere!Muzan Kibutsuju x Fem!Reader x Yandere!Kokushibo

Muzan and Kokushibo were always right. Or at least, Y/N had to trust they were always right, since her memory is so fuzzy. When the three first met, they told Y/N that she was ill and needed treatment. They claimed it was still in the first stages, so Y/N of course didn’t notice anything yet. But as they took her to the doctor and got her these pills, her whole head has just become so fuzzy. It was hard to stay in the real world and she could barely remember what she had been doing 5 minutes ago. Y/N wrote it off as the effects of the disease and that it was progressing despite all the medication.

But some things were so odd. That doctor they took her to, was that her usual doctor? Who was that person? When did she start living at Muzan and Kokushibo’s house, and since when did they call her ‘bunny and ‘darling’? The more she thought about her situation, the more questions popped up, and the harder it became to find answers. How could she, when her conscious felt like it was floating in an endless sea?

In the end, thinking became too tiresome. She decided to save herself the useless trouble of looking for answers she wasn’t going to get, and just trust Muzan and Kokushibo. She must be ill, that’s why they’re giving her these drugs. She can’t think straight, that’s why they’re taking care of her. That’s all she knew, and all she had to know.

Y/N stood at the sink in the bathroom, with a pill and a glass of water in her hand. She was about to pop the pill in her mouth, when Muzan suddenly opened the door, startling her and causing the pill to fell out of her hand and beneath the sink.

“You scared me half to death!”

Muzan shot her an apologetic look. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you, bunny. I just wanted to tell you breakfast is ready. Did you take your pill today?”

Y/N looked at her empty hand. She thought that she hadn’t taken it yet, but it wasn’t in her hand. She tried digging through her memory, but it was no use: she didn’t remember even that. Judging from the glass of water in her hand and the absence of a pill, she probably took one. Right?

She grinned at him and said: “Of course! What’s for breakfast?”

---

Y/N awoke in the middle of the night, her eyes drowsily looking around the room. Despite having just woken up, she felt her mind was a bit clearer than it usually was. Rolling over in bed, she realised she was more aware of the softness of the sheets, the faint smell of Muzan and Kokushibo clinging to the fabric, and the warmth radiating from the empty spots where they usually slept.

Wait, empty spots?

Y/N sat up, patting the rest of the bed to see if Muzan and Kokushibo had somehow been lying at the very edges of the matrass, but it was all empty. Why were they both gone?

A scream suddenly ruptured the house. Though it was dampened by the walls, Y/N could tell it was a guttural scream of pure fear. It made the very hairs on her neck stand up. She was frozen in her bed, horrified at the silence that followed. She could only hear her own heart beat frantically in her chest.

Only when the scream came for a second time, did Y/N quickly move from the bed. The scream must have been coming from inside the house. There must be an intruder. Was someone hurting Muzan or Kokushibo? Or even worse, both of them?

She had to help them. Even if her presence would just be a distraction to stop whatever attacker was in their house for only a split second, that would be good enough.

She inched her way through the darkness of their house, following the noise, until she was right around the corner of the bathroom. The light inside was on and the screams of agony kept ringing in her ears. She grabbed her slipper as a make-shift weapon and braced herself, before jumping in the opening of the door and yelling at the top of her lungs: “Stop!”

But what she saw made her drop the slipper in her hand.

The screams weren’t coming from either Muzan or Kokushibo, but rather a deadly pale looking man in the bathtub. His eyes were red and his face was dripping with tears, snot, and blood. He was partially submerged in his own blood and was most likely the cause for all the red smears and hand prints on the bathroom tiles behind him. Even if Y/N was able to perform surgery on him, she could never save him; half of his abdomen had been hollowed out, his intestines draped out for all to see. He was littered with claw marks, and an occasional bite was missing from his limbs.

Right as Y/N had entered the bathroom, a bloodied hand had dug its way into him, tearing his flesh out. The hand belonged to Muzan, the usually neat and tidy man who now had wild eyes and a face smeared red. Kokushibo was crouching next to him, licking the blood off his fingers with that same feral look in his eyes.

With a hopeless dread in her stomach, Y/N fell to her knees. They were demons. She had been living with demons this entire time. Monsters, vicious killers, who posed as loving humans so they could have a cover and continue eating humans in peace. With shallow breaths, Y/N couldn’t stop staring at the man in the bathtub, whose horrifying final moments she was witnessing.

“Y/N? Y/N, it’s not what it looks like.”

Y/N gaze shifted to Muzan, who now turned his whole body towards her. He looked like a tiger about to pounce its prey.

“Go back to bed, Y/N,” added Kokushibo, who tried to show her a calming smile. All Y/N could see were his bloodied fangs.

Y/N shook her head fervently and crawled backwards away from them, tears stinging in her eyes. “You are monsters. You- You killed that man!”

Muzan frowned, before looking at Kokushibo. “The pills should’ve prevented this, right?”

Kokushibo stalked towards Y/N, who couldn’t move away fast enough. “I suppose there’s something we could still do to make this right.”

---

When Y/N opened her eyes, she was back in the bed. Light was shining through the curtains, announcing the start of a new day. For a moment she was lost in the warm comfort of the bed and the two bodies surrounding hers, but then she suddenly remembered the events of last night.

Her eyes shot wide open and she gasped when she saw Muzan’s face right in front of hers. With his usual gentle smile, he whispered: “Good morning, darling.”

When he attempted to brush her hair out of her face, she flinched backwards, suddenly scared of the long claws on his hands. However, she didn’t get far: Kokushibo pressed himself against her back and wrapped his arms around her stomach. After he pressed a lazy kiss on her neck, he said: “What’s wrong, bunny?”

“You killed him.”

“What?”

“You killedhim. How could you do such a thing?”

Muzan once again moved his hand to caress her face, this time succeeding since Y/N didn’t have enough room to dodge him. With a carefully crafted worried look on his face, he said: “Sounds like you had an awful nightmare.”

Y/N frowned. “What? A nightmare?”

It was quiet for a while. Kokushibo propped himself up on his arm so he could look Y/N in the face. He looked grave as he asked: “Y/N, did you take your pill yesterday?”

Y/N opened her mouth to say yes, but stopped. She didn’t remember if she took one. Did she take one? No matter how much she dug in her memory, she just didn’t know.

Seeing the confusion on her face, Muzan sighed and shook his head. As he stroked her cheek with his thumb, he spoke: “You always had terrible nightmares before we took you to the doctor. You’d wake up and be so, so scared, just like you are now. The nightmares seemed so real to you, but they aren’t. They’re just nightmares.”

Kokushibo backed him up as he rubbed Y/N’s shoulder. “We were by your side the whole night, bunny. Right here in this bed.”

Something was wrong. She knew what she saw that night. But then again, why would they have any reason to lie? If they really were demons, they’d just eat her up if she witnessed them doing something like that, right? Demons wouldn’t care if they had to kill one more human, it’d just mean an extra meal for them. And they surely wouldn’t take care of someone like her like this. They must be right. They just have to be. Otherwise it just doesn’t make sense.

This illness really was messing with her head and her sense of reality. She felt like a fool. How could she possibly think that they’d do something like that, when they were always so kind and patient with her? She really was an idiot. In a small voice, Y/N said: “You’re right. I’m sorry.”

“It’s alright, darling, we know it’s hard.”

Kokushibo reached over to the nightstand on his side of the bed and grabbed a pill and the glass of water on top of it. Meanwhile, Muzan sits Y/N up straight, keeping his arm around her shoulders and his hand resting in hers.

“Open wide,” Kokushibo said as he held the pill in front of her mouth. When Y/N opened it, she received a pat on her head. “Good girl.”

She couldn’t help but feel this nagging in the back of her head. Something wasn’t right here. The gentle smiles on their faces, and the way Muzan patiently held out the glass of water for her. There was something hidden behind her eyes, but she just couldn’t put her finger on it. Was it really just the illness that was making her feel this way?

Finally, Muzan pressed the glass to her lips, forcing Y/N to take a sip and swallow the pill.

“From now on, we’ll make sure you take your pills, okay?”

#yandere #yandere x reader #yandere kimetsu no yaiba x reader #yandere kibutsuji #yandere muzan x reader #yandere muzan kibutsuji #yandere muzan kibutsuji x reader #yandere muzan #yandere kibutsuji muzan #yandere kokushibo #yandere kokushibo x reader #yandere demon slayer x reader #yandere demonslayer x reader #yandere demon slayer #yandere muzan x reader x kokushibo #yandere muzan kibutsuji x reader x kokushibo #yandere kokushibo x reader x muzan #yandere kokushibo x reader x muzan kibutsuji

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anika-ann · 3 years

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WINSoD - Pt.3

...from Here on Now

Type: series, soulmate AU series (part 1, part 2, part 3)

Pairing: Steve Rogers x reader Word count: 2810

Summary: In which Steve’s soulmate does something a bit risky that bites her in her ass. Almost. Matt Murdock loses his mind too. A bit.

Warnings: blood and violence, mention of death, brief flashback, language

Part 2

༻༺༻༺༻ღ༺༻༺༻༺

The second thought? Oh shit.

No, scratch that – your second thought was ‘Holy shit, Steve has very quick reflexes.’

The same moment the sound reached your ears and shook your very core, you were tackled to the ground and shielded by Steve’s impressive frame, a flash of panic in his bright eyes. He wasn’t losing any time gazing into yours though, assessing the sudden chaos and switching to his Avenger mode in a fraction of second.

Your mind was slower than his, but one thing wormed its way through your brain immediately; yes, it was in fact an army of fucking robots crashing the party, lined up and levitating two feet above the ground.

The fuck-

You suspected that the robots were mind-readers on top of everything, when one of them, bigger than the others, spoke up into the momentary stunned silence, his voice hoarse and rough as if he was smoking two packs of cigarettes a day: “Sorry to crash the party, folks.”

Another beat of silence and the robots rocketed off simultaneously with the first scream that set off a cacophony of horror.

Steve’s voice broke through the eardrum-tearing noise.

“Stay down and get the hell out of here,” he hissed, jumped to his feet in an impressive speed and took off to be the hero he was.

Why was he giving you opposite orders? That didn’t make any- it took you a moment to realize he didn’t mean for you to lie on the floor and make your escape at the same time, just wanted you not to run with your back straightened.

To be fair, you were too dumbstruck by the desperation stuffed into the simple order, carrying so much more meaning than the actual sentence, to have a clear mind.

Run. I don’t care how and where, I don’t care what you need to do to get out of here, but you run and don’t look back. Get to safety, no matter what.

As you crouched, your eyes flickering over the chaos of a room, you caught Tony’s calculating gaze and gave him an inconspicuous nod; a second later, his gaze fell on something else and you followed his line of sight to Pepper. You exchanged a silent conversation and sprang to action.

Here was a thing: Tony Stark was a technical genius.

His trust in his own technology and security systems was immense.

His trust in his own technology and security systems was not unconditional.

Tony Stark was a paranoid bastard of a man, which was something he could bond over with Steve; the Steve after your death that was.

Because of Steve’s paranoia and understandable fear, Natasha had been forced to teach you a bit of hand-to-hand combat. Jarvis had been forced to go over the plans of the Avengers Tower and escape routes for million times with you.

The part Steve was clearly forgetting now was that Tony hadn’t failed to inform you about the two different panic rooms, technology free; or maybe he was just forgetting the part in which he tended to inspire people around him.

In this case it meant there was no way you would park your ass in one of those panic rooms and let the hell that had broken loose rain on everyone else, on people who were as much of civilians as you were.

And Pepper was about to help you.

Steve was about to kill you later, but you would have to live long enough to let him, so that was the least of your concerns.

As the Captain had told you, you did run and tried to stay down. You just happened to pick everyone you could reach on your way and beg them to pass the information about the panic rooms over. You cursed Tony for his fondness of crowds. This would have been much easier if it was the Avengers and close circle only; mostly because nearly everyone would be able to protect themselves and wouldn’t be busy running while the Earth’s mightiest heroes tried to keep the fight away from civilians.

But life wasn’t always easy.

You spotted Tamara’s blond hair in the sea of faces and soon realized she joined you on your mission, clearly having been informed on the panic rooms as well. You saw several people you had barely become familiar with tonight, a pair of charming dorky lawyers among them; you were relieved when you saw the one with longer hair helping his very much blind friend.

Some women were losing their shoes on purpose, some due to being dragged away by the crowd. You fought your way forward, happy you weren’t wearing any killer heels, people following you like a herd; at least the individuals who hadn’t followed Pepper three floors lower.

“End of the hall, come on. Heavy door, no electronic locks. Just open it and squish as many inside as you can,” you urged a responsibly-looking man whose name you couldn’t recall at the moment, but he didn’t seem bothered by it, instantly following the instruction and speeding up to let the others in. You stayed on the corner, making sure everyone headed the right direction in their panic.

The screams were deafening, the influx of people seemingly never-ending and you silently prayed no one had been left behind. You tried very hard not to think about Steve and others fighting fucking robots.

Finally, the last guests ran past you; well, ran as much as they could. You joined the duo of lawyers (an occupancy that somehow got stuck in your mind), of whom one was an ironic representative of the justice being blind.

“You think that was everyone?” you asked, purposely not addressing one or the other. For one, you didn’t want to be rude, but to be honest, you managed to forget their actual names as well.

“Yeah, I hope so. This is insane,” the one with longer hair hurried and maybe it was only your imagination, but he appeared rather calm considering how insane the situation was.

Then again, some might say you were too. You felt like in some sort of a haze; your body was doing things you couldn’t remember ordering it, acting despite your insides clenching, heart so frantic you might as well go into a cardiac arrest. You were thankful for the autopilot mode; running side by side with the two men definitely looked like a good idea, even if you weren’t aware of coming up with it.

Until you were yanked back by your shoulder and the hem of your dress, sent flying and landing on your side.

“Shit,” you hissed as the sharp pain shot through your whole arm, your ribs crying out as well.

Fuck, fuck that hurt. How was Steve doing it, landing like that all the time and almost making it look like fun?!

Not relevant.

Really not relevant right now.

You scrambled away from the mechanical torso hovering above the ground, almost appearing to examine you. Perhaps it was wondering whether you were about to get up? You didn’t want to, FYI. The pain was coming in waves now, pulsating somewhere deep inside of your muscles. Or was it your bones?

The voices at the end of the hall fell silent and you guessed the last people made it to the room. The raging fight in the party space was still rumbling through the walls, vibrating in your chest. Or was it just your heart?

“Well, this is ironic,” the robotic voice you remembered from when the big robot crashed the party hummed.

How the hell did all the robots have the same voice?

NOT RELEVANT.

You pushed up to your feet, ready to either fight or flee, unsure which you had better chances succeeding at.

You doubted you had the slightest chance at either.

“You’re out of luck. Guess the Captain will have to deal with your loss once more.”

The two simple sentences froze you on spot, crushing something deep within you. A memory of a mad smile, of a desperate voice, of fire and agony coursing through your veins turned you into a statue.

‘With your loss.’

With your death. You were gonna die.

There was no fighting off this thing; certainly not with your simple human nature and lame skills.

You felt the uncontrollable tremor in your muscles, your throat closing off with surging panic. You couldn’t even breathe, let alone defend yourself when the mechanical monster with glowing red eyes raised its arm, the sound of charging nearly causing your ears to bleed.

You spotted Bucky with the corner of your eye, but you knew it was too late. He was too far away; no matter how much he sped up, horror having his face lose all colour, he wouldn’t make it, because he carried no long-distance weapon.

You squeezed your eyes shut, curled into yourself and thought of your soulmate, the way he held you when he found out you were alive and with your memories back.

Steve’s heart will break, for real this time, a small voice whispered in the back of your head, and he’s not gonna handle it. You sent a quick mental sorry.

Funny how you thought of him instead of yelling ‘I don’t want to fucking die!’

And the blast was still not coming.

Instead, there was a loud crash that had you snap your eyes open in an instant, only to come face to face with shocked Bucky; with Bucky, who was still several feet away, crossing the remaining distance in an impressive speed.

Another man was engaged in a furious battle of limbs, a punch there, a spin-jump-kick a second after, knocking the heap of components right onto Bucky’s metallic arm; the robot was cut in half, Bucky’s arm going through it like a knife through butter.

What was left of the machine hit the ground with a clatter, the glow in its eyes fading until it died completely.

A man in a cheap suit was standing with his bloody fists raised, facing a very cautious and panting Bucky. You wanted to say thank you to your saviours, but you couldn’t find your voice, still struggling to breathe in.

It wasn’t until a pair of warm brown eyes appeared in front of your face, blindly staring onto your mouth, until your brain rebooted and made the connection along with telling you to how to breathe in.

It was the lawyer. The very much blind lawyer, an incarnation of the famous saying, one of the dorky pair of defenders of justice.

He just saved your life. By fighting the robot like a Bruce freaking Lee.

“What the- the hell just- hap-happened?” you rasped, the palm of your unharmed arm pressed against your ribcage to feel your own heart, your chest expanding with every breath.

Still breathing. Heart still beating. Not dead. Just really fucking scared and confused.

“Yeah. I was wondering the same thing,” Bucky growled, but with an audible trace of gratitude towards the man. His worried gaze fell on you, searching your face as his intimidating fighting stance eased. “But now is not the time. Let’s get you to Steve before he loses his mind. He flipped out when he saw you helping others instead of running off.”

You took a shuddering breath, closing your eyes and letting the sudden absence of the roar of battle wash over you.

“Hey. You’re okay. It’s gone. Can I touch your shoulder? The one that’s not injured,” a voice coaxed you and you mentally catalogued it as the lawyer’s.

A low warning grumble sounded on your right, but you nodded. You tried not to think about how the hell a blind man, who was apparently moonlighting like a ninja, knew about your shoulder pulsing with agony, hence avoided it skilfully, his gentle touch grounding.

“Hmfg. Let’s go. You have a lot explaining to do, Murdock. But thanks.”

Right. Murdock. He had a nice alliteration in his name, you remembered now. Matt Murdock. His friend called himself Foggy Nelson.

“Yeah…” you whispered, fluttering your eyes open and letting the two men lead you towards where the horror had started. “Thank you, Mr. Murdock.”

“You’re welcome, miss.”

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The previously fancy room was a complete mess; furniture in splinters, clothing torn to shreds, glass in shards, mechanics whirling and cracking with electricity, sometimes with sparks flying around. All of that rained with drops of blood.

Your stomach turned over, but you were able to swallow your nausea and fight the vertigo as your name was shouted from across the room, rapid strides of a huge man crossing the distance in seconds.

“Don’t touch-“ Murdock tried to warn Steve, but that man had already made up his mind, pulling you against his chest, arms winded tightly around your body.

You swallowed the cry of sharp pain in order to let him hug you and you breathed in deeply; freshly washed suit, his cologne, sweat, blood and him.

Your arm throbbed in agony, ribs crying out, but your heart was finding its peace despite still racing.

Now you were truly safe.

And Steve was alive and well. All would be good.

“Oh thank God, you’re okay,” he whispered to your mess of hair, his chest heaving. You could feel his heart hammering against your cheek, a prove of the fright you had given him.

“Punk, stop it, you’re going to smother her,” Bucky noted, sighing. “Plus, she was thrown around and did not land exactly gracefully.”

Steve released you in an instant, his face a mask of horror. Funny how Steve was much more expressive than Cap. You always loved it.

His attentive gaze was scanning you from head to toe, finally taking in your tense posture and stiff shoulders.

“What the hell are you talking about? Doll? What happened?!”

You opened your mouth uselessly, struggling to find words to break it to him gently and without freaking him out too much.

Unfortunately, Matt Murdock beat you to speaking. “A robot grabbed her-“

Steve’s eyes widened, assessing your state again, his choked inhale loud enough to hear. You shot Murdock a glare.

“Traitor,” you hissed at your saviour and then turned back to Steve, your uninjured hand laid on his shoulder. “Mr. Lawyer here took care of it. But yeah, I’ll have a trip to hospital or medical voluntarily. It kinda hurts-“

Steve’s eyes narrowed and you corrected yourself when he wordlessly called out on your bullshit.

“-okay, kinda a lot, but it’s not as bad, considering…“

Steve closed his eyes, taking in a deep breath, only to slowly release it and giving the lawyer a look radiating immense gratitude despite him probably not being able to see it. Which, what the hell, by the way.

“Thank you.”

Matt Murdock only smiled humbly and nodded, at which Steve returned his attention to you. Taking him in, you only thought of four words.

Exhausted.

Serious.

Relieved.

Injured.

He didn’t sustain any life-threatening injuries as far as you could tell, but you did smell and see blood on him and since his opponents had been fucking robots, it was definitely his own blood. There was an angrily-looking gash on his forehead which was not bleeding anymore, few more scratches peeking through his sliced clothes.

Still. He was not unharmed.

“You’re hurt too,” you whispered. Your company clearly decided that it was the right moment to leave you some privacy and went to discuss other things. A game plan, perhaps. What happened in the first place. Oh, and who the hell Matt Murdock was anyway. You only had eyes for Steve now though. “How do you feel?”

His shoulders slumped, careful hand tenderly brushing your cheek, his eyebrow furrowing in concern and indignation.

“Like I can’t decide whether smothering you for not running like your life depended on it – which it did – is an option,” he said honestly, eyeing your injured shoulder.

“That’s fair,” you hummed, not surprised. If he could be sassy though, so could you. “But consider this: I have a great role-model for heroics in my soulmate, so there’s no wonder I tried to help, as pathetically as I did at least.”

His lips parted at the implication of your behaviour being even remotely his fault, but you could tell he was too relieved to be actually mad at you.

“Smothering it is.”

You chuckled, trying not to wince at the tiny motion of your body that sent a fresh wave of pain through you.

“…can I have my arm checked first though? Also, I think you have bigger problems than me coordinating the rescue…”

Steve unwillingly casted a glance to the group of his friends, who all glared at Tony Stark, before looking back at you.

“My biggest problem right now is to get you some medical attention. Then, yes, it does look like I have things to deal with. But remember, doll. You are not off the hook.”

You smiled at him sweetly and kissed his cheek.

“A troublemaker like me? Wouldn’t dream of it…”

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Part 4

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Well. This spiralled quickly, didn’t it? :D Also, I couldn’t resist little Matty in here since I introduced him to Bucky in the previous part of the series ;)

Thank you for reading and for your patience... I know I posted a lot of different stuff before getting to this chapter...

#fanfiction #steve rogers x reader #steve rogers soulmate #soulmate au #avengers #captain america #steve rogers #steve rogers x you #steve rogers imagine #captain america x you #captain america x reader #captain america imagine #steve rogers fanfic #steve rogers fanfiction #winsod #anika ann

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eureka-its-zico · 3 years

Text

Nothing Like Us

Part 1 Part 2

A/N: So this is actually part 3 of a series I decided to do, because a certain person loved these little one shots I made after songs Jungkook sang renditions of. This is the third part of that and the ending. I’ll go ahead and tag the original two on here if anyone is interested. I tried editing this as much as I could while at work and no matter what I did, it couldn’t make me happy. As always, I hope you all enjoy this little piece of fiction. Love, Jenn

Jungkook x Reader

Word count: 4115

Genre: Angst x Fluff(ish)

It was cruel the way the universe placed him perfectly under the halo of the streetlight. The luminescence cascading over a face you’d dreamed of for months; you’d grieved. No matter how much your heart hurt you knew underneath was a monster of rage brewing below it’s depths. The ache in your chest a colossal power that swelled, the waves of grief crashing against you, until it threatened to consume you. When it finally did, it choked your sobs free from your throat with an angry fist.

You counted out hours. Days. Weeks. Stopped counting when weeks turned into full fledge months. Things that you’d spoken in the confines of your mind were now being spoken out loud on brave days to the silent audience of your room. There were days your sadness turned to anger. White hot and blinding: so pure you swore it could’ve torn buildings down to the mortar.

How could Jungkook completely stop talking to you? Seeing you? How could it be possible to not wake up looking for texts from each other or sharing meals together, ending with him still being hungry, because Jungkook was an endless pit. One you happily shared food with just to see him move his shoulders in giddy shakes with every bite.

No one should be able to move on from birthdays where the two of you eagerly watched the other open their gift. Just to let out an unknown sigh of relief at the happiness the present brought. Why was it even possible to let years of knowing become nothing more than fading memories?

You’d spent months wondering these things and in all of them you imagined what it would be like if you ever saw him again. Not on TV. Not your phone from YouTube or Instagram. Saw him the way only the two of you’d shared together. A part of you willing to bet you’d scream at him or yell. Maybe you would cry.

No.

Now with Jungkook a mere few feet away all you could feel was an all consuming need to run to him. A feverish fear heated up your skin at the idea he could turn around and be gone in an instant; nothing more than a phantom of longing you’d created just to see his face. But you knew it was him without ever needing to take another step off the small landing of your porch.

The sounds of the night continued to swell between the sea of pavement between you. Neither of you made a move towards the other. No one moving a finger, as if you shared in the fear if either of you even took a breath it would scare the other away.

Your mind continued to be lost in its endless debate on whether to go to him or to remain motionless. The shoebox and its contents falling flat onto the floor and the only letters scribbled on a photo of you running in tall grass that you’d read flashed over and over: “ I wish I would’ve kissed you first.”

Your mind played them on repeat until your head spun. Your thoughts stuck on his opening words and one of the dozens of photos that accompanied many more. The second one you’d pulled being the first time you’d gone ice skating together. The memory joyous and painful all at once. Your mind was still trying to recover on what to do; your eyes watching him bury his hands deeper inside the pockets of his coat. His gaze hoovering on your figure before he turned and began to move back down the street; leaving you again.

“Jungkook!”

You weren’t aware you were off your porch until you felt your feet moving rapidly down the steps. Your legs burning trying to keep up with the sudden furious pace of your panic. Even then, your lungs were still able to carry enough air for you to continue to scream his name. It didn’t matter if he, your neighbors, or anyone else could hear your pain; the frenzied way you called his name religiously to get him to stop.

Your heart skipped for a split second when he finally did. Jungkook’s body rigid as you came closer to his back while he continued to face away from you. You didn’t know if he was dreading the knowledge that you were coming closer. You had no way to tell if he was just as frantic to see you or wanted nothing to do with you.

It could all be a painful accident that you’d seen him outside your door. He could’ve just been passing through and somehow forgot he just so happened to be in your neighborhood. You knew, it was none of those. Jungkook, some part of him, must miss you or why else would he even be here?

“Jungkook?”

God. How small your voice sounded. How hopeful.

Still, Jungkook would not answer you; wouldn’t bother to glance in your direction. Suddenly, your tongue felt like lead in your mouth. Sour and weighed down by a fear tinged regret at showing your hand at how much you’d missed him. When he had shown you nothing.

You’d grown accustomed to disappoint, however, and braced yourself for what you did next. If Jungkook wouldn’t turn to face you, then you would simply half to walk around to face him. When you were a quarter of the way around, a timid hand reached out to lightly grab at the fabric of his jacket.

You had that sudden sensation again of being lost at sea, in need of something to keep you from drowning, with Jungkook being your only shore for miles.

Jungkook hadn’t expected you to touch him and his body gave a noticeable jolt at your touch. It didn’t deter you. You were now in front of him and could see the pain etched into every line of his features. It was evident he was close to tears as your eyes drank him in. Jungkook was the one person you’d known who’d always been so certain. The man standing before you now looked as lost as you felt, and it all felt more than you could take. Your hand was still holding onto him, but now it felt like maybe Jungkook needed to feel your touch just as much as you’d needed to touch him.

“Jungkook,” you whispered. “It really is you.”

He didn’t answer you. His eyes diverted to look everywhere but where you stood before him. It was driving you crazy. Did you not deserve to have his full attention after all this time? Didn’t you deserve that, at least?

Jungkook wasn’t pulling away from you yet, and it seemed like he didn’t want to take the steps to remove you from him. So how could he continue to act like you weren’t there?

In a blur of sparked rage your gentle hand on his arm released and shoved into his chest. All that anger and weak attempts to hate him spewed back up to make you lash out in all the ways you’d dreamed about doing.

“Why come here if you can’t speak to me, huh? Did you come just to hurt me more!? Is this some kind of game to you?”

You hurled your words at him and watched as they struck home. All the frustration and tears you’d thought you’d shed came flooding back like a monsoon. You weren’t able to control the tears from streaming hot and raw against your cheeks. Jungkook eyes now hopelessly transfixed on you as you moved forward to shove against him. His hands easily reached out to take hold of your shoulders and kept you firmly in place. The movement caused you both to be only a few inches apart, and oh how you hated the small amount of distance between you.

“I never wanted to hurt you in the first place, Y/N!”

His admission made you go rigid mimicking like he had earlier. The pain in his gaze quieted the last remaining fire of your anger. Instead, what rose up felt even worse. You’d missed him so much. He was still jungkook: your Jungkook, but different now. His features carved out from that baby softness to now show a more mature him. Your hands registering easily that his lean frame had grown thicker with muscles. The muscle bunny he’d always wanted to be. Looking up at him now your lips came alive with the memory of him and you hated yourself for that.

“Then why did you leave me alone in the park, Kook? You never answered a phone call or a text. You didn’t even try. You let me go.”

The despair your parting words held hit home like a hammer. All this time you felt like you were missing a part of yourself. A phantom limb. Jungkook was that limb. Being so close to him you knew there wasn’t ever any doubt. He was much a part of you as your own self and standing there with him felt like it’d finally come home.

You were so lost in your sadness that when he released your shoulders and embraced you, a small shriek of surprise left you. It was an embarrassing noise. One Jungkook knew would ultimately leave you blushing into his chest; the same chest that vibrated with laughter.

A part of you wanted to stay upset with him. To demand what was so funny, but even you could feel a smile curl your lips and the tension in your shoulders ease as you found comfort against him.

You couldn’t stop your hands from pinching at his ticklish sides and playfully demand, “What was so funny?”

“You always did sound like the tiniest mouse when you were scared.”

Jungkook pressed his lips against your hair as he spoke. The intimacy of it sending a breath of goosebumps along your skin.

“This is about you abandoning me not my odd noises.”

Your words came out in mumbles with your mouth still pressed into his chest. If you wanted to be more serious about the issue you would’ve pulled away from him, but your arms were helplessly glued around him. The heavy sigh that escaped Jungkook’s lips sent your hair fluttering, and you knew he wasn’t letting go either.

“I know. It’s just easier to talk about how cute your noises are than about what happened.”

“Fair enough.”

You risked moving just enough to look around. It was close to eleven-thirty when you’d heard his knock on the door. The time now closer to midnight or after; the night is perfect to hide you both. But you couldn’t risk people walking by and gawking if one of you had an outburst. Besides, something so private deserved no audience. Even from the night herself.

Reluctantly, you stepped back from him. Your hand beginning to reach out to take his own. You nodded in the direction of your apartment in hopes he would understand where you were wanting to go.

“Come on. I think it’s safer if we just talk inside.”

Jungkook gave a simple nod that he agreed. His gaze wandered down to your hands as you began to take the few steps back to your home. Neither of you spoke as you walked to your front door. The only time you stopped was to pick up the box you’d discarded on your stoop.

The silence continued to follow you both to your front door. Your fingers moved quickly to type in the code to enter with the sound of the deadbolt sliding home seconds later to allow you entrance. The two of you headed inside; your body resting on the door to hold it open for Jungkook to enter.

You watched the careful way his feet carried him over the threshold. His eyes roaming around the small studio apartment, taking in everything he could as he came to a stop inside the hallway. Your apartment was a messy thing to behold.Books in towers, clothes hung up on makeshift closet racks, and the wall of art.

A part of you wondered how long it would take him to realize what exactly it was that decorated that particular wall. This small shrine to a time when everything seemed so simple. Jungkook moved to remove his shoes, his head still looking up to take in an apartment he’d never seen, when his eyes lit up with the realization of what it was he was looking at. His gaze fixated on the wall of drawings and paintings. Every single one signed in the form of bunny ears and exaggerated initials.

His eyes were so engrossed on them that he fumbled in taking off his shoes. So distracted he was by it that he fumbled, in a goofy dance, while trying to remove his shoes. His eyes on something he deemed more important.

“You - you put up all the art I’d given you.”

His voice was little more than a whisper of wonder. Jungkook finally taking his eyes off the wall to look back at you. Appreciation brightening up all the features of his face until he practically glowed.

Your nerves were beginning to fade as his attention was now falling back on you. Your free hand digging down into the pockets of your dress, the other tightening around the box in a weak attempt to stop them from fidgeting. You knew if you began to talk, they would fly around everywhere. A tell-tale sign that Jungkook knew meant you were two syllables away from stuttering.

“Of course I did, Jungkook. You gave me one during every single holiday. Why would I throw them away?”

“We haven’t seen each other in years, Y/N, and yet, you kept these.”

You allowed yourself a brief moment to prepare yourself for what came next. Sure, you needed to take off your shoes but could’ve done so easily while still talking to him, but you needed to look away from him. To gather your wits and fight off the ache that swelled viciously back in your chest. Your fingers gingerly moving to touch along the lid of the box and reminding yourself what was inside.

“Just because we ended...whatever it was that we were, Kook, doesn’t mean I would throw them all away. One bad moment couldn’t possibly diminish all the good ones.”

It was Jungkook’s turn to stand there with a face that told you plainly he didn’t believe you. A sad smile was the last thing you saw before his eyes turned to the floor. His own hands now deeply planted inside the pockets of his sweater.

“I guess you’re right.”

“I am right,” you replied with certainty. It earned you a snort as he brought his face back up to look at you.

The length of his hair hide his face from perfect view. Only allowing a small curtain to part just enough to allow one eye to peek through.

“Let’s sit and talk about this. Ok?”

You put the small box in front of you and gave it a good shake for good measure. Just in case there was anything else he randomly thought you wanted to speak about, but Jungkook knew.

The two of you moved in silence towards the couch. When you sat down you somehow ended up both together, barely inches apart. The way you always used too when you had to share. A hidden air that nothing had changed between you when, of course, everything had.

The box sat in your lap while your fingers drummed out a beat against the worn cardboard. Your body painfully aware of how close he was; closer than he ever used to sit before the kiss. This was ridiculous. It was just Jungkook - a much more grown, somehow even more handsome, version of the boy you kissed out there on the grass.

You willed yourself to turn and look at him. Your breath hitching in your throat in surprise a second after. Jungkook was already staring at you. His gaze mapping out the contours of your face like he would save them to memory. As if he wasn’t sitting right beside you. His hand moved out to rest on the top of the box. His fingers grazing over yours making their way to its edge, and gently began to open it.

“At first,” he began, voice breathless beside you, “I wasn’t sure if you’d want to see me. I wasn’t even sure if you’d take this.” His hand moved to open up the box, exposing the contents inside little by little. “The time we spent apart left me to think a lot about our time together. The memories we made. The ones I treasure.”

As Jungkook spoke his hand moved the dozen of photos around inside the box. You thought maybe he was just stirring them up; a way for him to fidget while he talked. He proved you wrong when his fingers snagged a photo he’d been searching for: a photo Yoongi had taken. You’d gone out with them to grab a bite to eat after they’d finish learning a new choreography. Taeyhung came along and Yoongi played the adult chaperon.

Tae teased Jungkook relentlessly with a chant that he had a crush on you. When Tae had first started his teasing, every time his words went without a denial from Jungkook your heart felt like it was ready to burst. You could still feel the heat on your cheeks that you desperately tried to hide so he wouldn’t see. The time came eventually though, when Jungkook would answer him, and when he finally did your swelling heart began to break.

“She’s my best friend, Tae.You can’t crush on your friends, anyways.”

You were so caught up in the memory you didn’t see when Jungkook had turned the photo around. Exposing the stark white of the back that was now covered in a letter of writing.

“This day was the first day that I lied about us.” Jungkook said, his voice barely above a whisper now. So light you felt like you needed to lean in even closer just to hear him. “Taehyung was just embarrassing me so much and I thought if I denied it, he would leave it alone. But the truth is, I did have a crush on you.”

Jungkook’s words fell away into a backdrop of noise. You tried your best not to let your emotions carry you away from reason. You promised yourself all you wanted was an explanation to what happened between you, but you felt yourself breaking that promise as your eyes scanned over the back of the photo.

“I told you I didn’t have a crush. I spoke it so loudly; I almost made myself believe it. But the rest of the time at dinner all I could recall was the way your face lit up with laughter. How you offered up extra food for us to take home for everyone else…

But Mostly I remember how you looked

At me

And I knew then: you were my happy place”

The tears you told yourself you wouldn’t shed pricked mercilessly to be released. Your head turning just enough to really take him in, and wasn’t the least bit surprised to find Jungkook already looking back. His hand now discarding the photo back inside the box and reached up to rest the palm of his hand on your cheek. And just like that, the first tear fell as yours eyes closed and you nuzzled into the feel of his hand.

“Jungkook-“

“I needed to write down these moments for you to keep. The things I was too scared to say in fear of ruining what we had. You deserve to know, Y/N that I love you. The way you loved me, cared for me, has stayed with me for so many years.”

You were now only inches apart. So close if Jungkook really wanted he could have breathed you to him. You were both looking at one another, but there were moments you both stopped; your eyes falling to the others lips. The two of you so damn close, and yet your body was close to freezing up. The hidden panic of being rejected again keeping you from going those extra few inches.

Jungkook’s thumb lightly moved across your cheek. The same painstakingly slow movement like when his eyes traced your face earlier. Committing this moment to his memory with the chance that you would pull away; deny him. How could you ever deny him? Didn’t this idiot know how much you loved him?

“Y/N.”

“Yes.”

Your voice was raspy from disuse. Your tongue licking across what felt like the desert now resided on your lips. And of course, Jungkook’s eyes hungrily ate up every flick of your tongue.

“Would you allow me a redo of our first kiss?”

You wanted to scream at him, “Of course you idiot! Just do it and stop teasing!”

In reality, you stayed quiet. The only answer you were able to give a soft nod of your head. Jungkook’s face lit up like a firework, literally the bloom of your yes made his features light up in phases until the glow it created was absolutely breathtaking. The smile you’d witnessed a thousand times now felt brand new all over again; especially in the way it made your body feel like you were floating.

You felt your lungs hold in the last breathe you took, a kidnapper of air, as you helplessly began to wait for him to make his move. The ugly sadness of the last few years began to try and rear its ugly head once more. Whispers about his lack of movement causing the fear of doubt to spring into your chest. You wanted so badly to put it out until it spread, but you were so accustomed to that voice you weren’t sure how you could ever defeat it.

And in the span of a millisecond, Jungkook filled that last bit of space between you. His lips brushed against yours in a soft caress; waiting for you to move in those last few inches. He didn’t need to wait long before your body turned to fully face him. Your hands losing their previous grip on that shoebox, full of memories as love notes, and instead curled into the soft cotton of his sweatshirt.

It was all the answer Jungkook needed to deepen the kiss. The soft caress of earlier turning more frantic; his other hand moving to mimic the other. Both holding each side of your face to tilt it up just right to meet his hungry lips. The kiss was now fueled by a desire that had long been suppressed between you. A feeling like he would consume you from the mouth down, and you were more than willing to let him.

A soft moan escaped your lips that somehow broke this spell that had overtaken you both. He pulled away just enough, enough to show a satisfied smirk curl his lips, as he placed his forehead against yours.

“Well, I would say that went better than expected.”

“And what were you expecting?”

You were still trying desperately to slow your racing heart. To not be consumed in the moment but ultimately found yourself reminiscing about the girl that day in the park. Who was so afraid to take that leap, and looking at Jungkook now you just wanted to tell her that the choice she made to take it was the best thing she’d ever done.

“To be honest,” he said between another peek to your lips, “I had this terrible fear you would just throw me out.”

“I mean I still could,” you teased.

Jungkook’s hands finally moved down from your face allowing you enough time to notice his body wasn’t the only thing that had changed.

“You have tattoos now!” You gawked.

A breath of laughter escaped him as he looked down into his lap, at his right hand, and back at you.

“Quite a few, actually.”

“Wow. It seems there’s a lot we’re going to have to catch up on.”

“I totally agree.”

Silence enveloped around you as you both began to work into a nervous dance. Neither of you exactly knew where it was supposed to go from here or the steps to get from point A to B. I mean, where did you begin? Did you go right into talking about the last year or so? New hobbies?

Luckily, Jungkook saved you again as he leaned in and planted a lingering kiss on your lips. When he pulled away that sly smirk was back as he asked, “Would it be okay if we kissed a little while longer?”

A smile of your own spread wide across your face. Your reply a sweet kiss against his lips.

#jeon jungkook fanfic #jeon jungkook fanfiction #jeon jungkook #jungkook fanfic #jungkook fanfiction #jungkook fluff #jungkook #bts fanfiction #bts fanfic #bts #bts fluff #kpop fanfiction #kpop fanfic #series

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curiosity-killed · 4 years

Text

a bow for the bad decisions

canon-divergent AU from ep. 24 (on ao3)

There are seven paths through the mountain, and Wei Wuxian strikes off on one of his own. His fingers still twitch, itch, with the indignation and rage that had licked up his arms when the Wen prisoners were drug out in front of the targets. He draws in long breaths, tries to remember what it felt like to harmonize his qi with the rhythms of the air and the ground beneath him. It’s harder now, with resentment hissing where golden energy once sang. As he passes away from the rest of the participants, winding through the quiet wood, his heart steadies into an easier rhythm, and he can feel his shoulders loosen. “No mess,” he breathes out. He turns in a slow circle, more for the sake of movement than any surveying purpose. Energy winds restless and eager through his limbs, unsatisfied by the long walk up the hills. He’s tired and antsy in a way he can’t wholly blame on the competition.

Since that night, since Jiang Cheng found out, he’s been trying to bully Wei Wuxian into getting more sleep, as if the problem is Wei Wuxian not wanting to rest. It’s sweet, almost. For all that the world has hardened and sharpened Jiang Cheng, it’s nice to know he’s still naïve in some ways.

The problem isn’t that Wei Wuxian doesn’t want to sleep. He’s been walking around half-exhausted since he stopped using resentment to prop him up during the war. He would love to sleep if it weren’t for the screaming, clawing, raving hands that scrabble across his throat and rip into his chest every time he tries. He’s no longer sure how much of it is from the seal and how much he carries on from the Burial Mounds, wraiths as a reminder of his bargain. Either way, the only way to quiet their wailing is to wait until he’s so exhausted oblivion takes him out at the knees or to drink until everything is sodden and soft-edged. With Jiang Cheng and shijie’s new campaign to ensure he takes better care of himself, he’s been cut off from either option. Instead, he’s left dreading evening, skin crawling at the thought of lying down. It leaves him brittle, dry-edged, like a leaf turning crisped and fragile in autumn. He perches on a fallen tree and sets to playing. It’s a gentle song, softer and brighter than any he played in the war. Monsters like music, it turns out, as long as it’s played right, as long as it sounds like an invitation. He lures them on and into Yunmeng Jiang’s nets and stops when there’s just enough, when he feels the pressure on the mountain ease just-so. He could draw all the creatures of the mountain into their nets. He could lure the dead from their graves and send them dancing all the way to Jin Guangshan’s bedside in the middle of the night. With the seal humming against his chest, there is so very little he cannot do. But – Jiang Cheng doesn’t want a mess. So. Lowering Chenqing, he settles back into his perch and exhales. The air is sweet up here, purified by the trees and the living things growing through the soft soil. Closing his eyes briefly, he drinks it in and lets the sunlight dapple his skin with warmth. He’s tempted to fold his legs beneath himself and meditate in the afternoon quiet. As a kid, he always struggled with their meditation classes, too aware of the rest of the disciples sitting around him and constantly tempted to open his eyes, to check how much time had passed, if he was doing it correctly, if there was something he was missing. But outside of their classes, floating in the cool lake waters or sitting alone in the grasses, he had slipped into it like the softest sea. Listening to the gentle murmurs of the universe, feeling the expanse of his own breath, has always settled him. The way the rhythms of his own body echo those of the tide, the wind, the steady earth, makes him feel small in a way nothing else does: like he is only a piece of a whole, a bud on an endless tree, rather than a child running, bleeding, from hungry dogs. There’s a noise, the quietest scuff of feet on the road, and he shifts, opening his eyes. Lan Zhan walks carefully between the shadows, upright and alone. Sunlight catches on the silver of his hairpiece, the summer blue of his robes. A smile pulls at Wei Wuxian’s lips, instinctive, reflexive, and he straightens up to call out to him. Unbidden, Zewu-jun’s words return to him. I hope you will not be so selfish to the people who care about you. Back when they were young, before, he and Lan Zhan were an even match. Strong enough to challenge each other, to hold each other up. There was a reason they’d worked so well on the hunt for the yin iron. Now, though — how can Wei Wuxian possibly be Lan Zhan’s match? Lan Wangji, Hanguang-jun, the righteous and indomitable. His stomach twists sickly, grief and regret and hurt coiling deep in his low belly. It would be selfish, to try to keep Lan Zhan, to try to bind him to his own dead weight. Steps sound steady up the slope toward him, and Wei Wuxian barely scrambles to his feet before Lan Zhan is there, directly in front of him. “Ah Lan Zhan,” he greets, trying to steady his voice with some of his old lightheartedness, “I heard you were tired of mending your family’s principles in Cloud Recesses.” “I made some progress composing the music score,” Lan Zhan says, “and I wanted to share it with you to see how it works.” Disappointment slides bitter down Wei Wuxian’s throat. Of course he’s only interested in fixing Wei Wuxian, as if he’s ever been anything but a problem. He taps Chenqing against his open palm. “Lan Wangji, who do you take me for? Can’t you leave me alone?” he complains. He’d rather be left on his own than have to deal with this constant nagging reminder of what he’s thrown away. “Wei Ying,” Lan Zhan says stubbornly, “who do you take me for?” He swallows, suddenly caught by the earnestness in Lan Zhan’s voice. That bitter part of him, the teeth and claws he grew in the Burial Mounds, wants to bite back that Lan Zhan is nothing, that he is only a mythic hero just like everyone else thinks him and Wei Wuxian has no need of his concern, his presence. Hanguang-jun, it wants to say. I take you for Hanguang-jun, cold and aloof and empty. He can’t. As much as he could lash out and fight back in the war, it never really lasted that long. From that first night in Gusu, the first shuddering connection of his sword against Suibian’s sheath, Wei Wuxian has had a tether sewn into his soul, pulling him always back to Lan Wangji. Now, he breathes out and looks away. “I had once taken you as the one who knew me in this life,” he says. It falls from his lips like spring blooms, delicate and easily bruised. His whole self feels newly raw with the admission, as if he has opened himself to Lan Zhan’s inspection. “I still am.” His eyes flit up to Lan Zhan’s face, startled and unsure. There is no doubt in his amber eyes, no hesitance in his reply. In the face of that certainty, Wei Wuxian is left shaken, rocked. How? he wants to ask. How can Lan Zhan stay so firm in the tempest wake of Wei Wuxian? How can he answer so surely when Wei Wuxian has lashed him with rebuke and insult and distance? It is terrifying to feel that unwavering gaze on him, the weight of his conviction too much for Wei Wuxian’s exhausted shoulders. “Lan Zhan,” he says, because the words are now pressing to his lips, the confession budding on his tongue, “Lan Zhan, there’s something I need to tell you.” His brow tenses, just the faintest line of shadow between them, and Wei Wuxian knows he needs to say it even as he can’t fathom how to begin. It was easier with Jiang Cheng and shijie, when it came out by accident. Now that he’s had time to think and prepare, he finds himself with none of the right words. “There’s— I—” he starts, stumbles. He wants to make it easy, to grab Lan Zhan’s hand and press it against his chest over that gaping hollow gnawing beneath his skin. “Wei Ying?” Lan Zhan asks, swaying half a step closer. Before he can find any word or betray himself by reaching out, Wei Wuxian catches footsteps behind him and twists, tugging Lan Zhan with him. It’s instinct more than anything, paranoia the smallest cost of survival. Annoyance rears up when he catches Jin Zixuan walking alongside shijie, boasting about Lanling Jin’s hunts. Shijie looks miserable, eyes downcast and posture carefully correct. She deserves better than this, deserves someone who brings the smile out on her lips and the brightness into her eyes. Jin Zixuan deserves far more than a single punch to the face. “Wei Ying,” Lan Zhan chides, a hand on his arm, and he subsides with a scowl. He holds out until Jin Zixuan plants his foot firmly in his own mouth and shijie starts stammering, nerves catching up to her. It’s far more patience than he really owes the peacock, he thinks. “Wei Wuxian? Why do you keep showing up?” “I should be asking you that question,” Wei Wuxian snaps back. “Why did you stop her after she rejected you?” For all that he’s tried to respect shijie’s wishes in regards to this match, he can’t understand what she sees in the man. Every encounter Wei Wuxian has had with him, barring a few councils in the war, has further reduced his opinion. He’s less of a peacock and more of an ass draped in fine silk; no amount of gold or perfume can cover that stench. The rustle of his sleeves is all the warning he has before Jin Zixuan has drawn his blade, swinging it down toward Wei Wuxian. He presses back, straightening to better shield shijie, but before he can lift Chenqing, there’s a ringing retort as the blade connects with another, far more familiar. “Hanguang-jun?” Jin Zixuan demands, stepping back in surprise. Lan Zhan lowers Bichen but remains just in front of Wei Wuxian and shijie, as if he’s taken up the role of guard. Despite himself, Wei Wuxian is glad for his presence. Before any more can be said, before he can demand Jin Zixuan explain why he just drew a sword on an ally without provocation, there’s the sound of footsteps from either direction and a flock of descending Jin disciples. Wei Wuxian’s hand tightens briefly around shijie’s wrist in a wishful thought of just turning his back on all of them and walking away. “What happened? Zixuan, did Wei Wuxian cause you trouble again? I’ll deal with him,” one of the Jin cousins declares. He looks familiar in a way that means Wei Wuxian probably ought to know his name, but a cursory search turns up nothing in his memory, and he’s too irritated right now to try harder. “Wei Wuxian, what do you want? Why do you keep troubling Zixuan?” the man demands, shoving forward. Leaning back enough to breathe his own air, Wei Wuxian huffs out a breath and turns to face him fully. “Who are you?” he asks. Immediately, the younger peacock stiffens, all those gold feathers ruffling while Wei Wuxian waits with an eyebrow lifted. This is ridiculous. He just wanted to stop idiot Zixuan from bullying shijie and now this moron wants to take a swing. “How dare you not know who I am?” he blurts out. “Should I?” Wei Wuxian returns, breathing out a laugh. “You—!” He’s kept from drawing his own sword and waving it in Wei Wuxian’s face by Jin-furen’s arrival, along with her apricot-robed attendants. She crosses between the men as if she can’t see them, immediately reaching out for shijie’s hands. Wei Wuxian retreats half a step, lowering his gaze. Jin-furen’s always treated shijie well, cared for her like the daughter she wished she had. He’s glad of that, grateful someone else can see shijie for who she is and want to protect her. He just wishes she didn’t look at him the same way Madam Yu did: like he’s an animal brought in from the woods, something diseased masquerading as a pet that might bite at any time. “A-Li, why do you look upset?” she asks. “I appreciate your concern, Madam Jin, but I am fine,” shijie answers with a small smile. She’s not fine, Wei Wuxian wants to say, but he’d never shame shijie that way. Her eyes are still damp with tears that don’t quite fall, and her smile trembles a little. “Did my intractable son bully you again?” Jin-furen demands. She twists around to glare at Jin Zixuan. “Zixuan, what’s wrong with you? What did you promise me before leaving?” It is, Wei Wuxian will admit, a little satisfying to watch Jin Zixuan bow his head under his mother’s scolding. He holds himself on such an arrogant pedestal he ought to be reminded that the same dirt touches his shoes as everyone else’s. Beside Jin-furen, though, shijie has her head dipped and lips thinned in a way that signals embarrassment, her quiet retreat from the trouble she’ll blame herself for causing. Wei Wuxian steps forward and takes her wrist gently. “No matter what he promised, Jin-furen,” he says, “from today on, he and Yanli will no longer have any association with each other.” A little pull and shijie turns with him to leave. “Wei Wuxian! My aunt is your senior. How can you talk this way? Aren’t you being too proud?”

#mdzs #cql #the untamed #untamed fic #yunmeng siblings #wei wuxian #jiang yanli #accidentally wrote this entire chapter yesterday and it's almost 2k longer than intended :|#@me can you not?

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zedecksiew · 4 years

Text

d100 Adventure Beginnings

Feeling anxious, indoors because of the Covid-19 quarantine, I adapted an idea from Khairani Barokka and asked Twitter to give me emojis.

I’d turn these emoji into oddities, instigations, opening to adventure.

Guess I wanted to travel? In my head, far afield. It took the weekend, but it made me happy. There were many, many typos, but I visited a hundred different microcosms, with a hundred different persons.

Original thread begins HERE; tweets in the thread were tagged / attributed.

d100 ADVENTURE BEGINNINGS

1. 🥐 The sandwich comes to you via delivery. You unwrap the foil as the quadrotor buzzes away. There's something in your sandwich, between tempe patties -an oil-stained slip of card. "Come alone," it says. There is a street address. ~

2. [Photograph of a vine tendril] Watering the garden, you see your morning glory stir.

Its tendrils uncoil. Its vines unclench, recede. Knot in on themselves, twine into thin limbs.

They let go of your fence. They have a face. Flower eyes: two purple trumpet blossoms. They offer a hand to shake.

3. [Italian flag] Morning ritual: put coffee on, wash face, check phone. Twitter takes a half-hour.

You smell burning. Coffee! Your moka pot is now sooty, long past hissing. A man stands next to it, made of steam.

"Salve," the steam ghost says, tipping his steam cap.

4. 🕯️ A warm night. The air is still. The candle flickers in your partner's face. She is checking her wallet. Slips it in her pocket as the candle dies.

"Ah!" she says, in darkness. "So over this power cut."

Time to get more candles.

5. 🔧 This is a *great* spot to get a flat: Lonely road, no streetlights, trees knitting their branches overhead. You shiver. You hate that you shiver. You're an adult. You make noise to assert this. The jack clunks on the ground. "Darling?" somebody whispers.

6. 🦚 "Make way for Lady Lerna!" cries the page, swinging his censer. Behind him a dozen men bear a gilded litter.

Laughter. Ringed fingers part the curtains. A powdered dowager wearing a cartwheel ruff of peacock eyes peers out. She holds her nose.

You hate her.

7. 🐷 Suckling pig. Its split-jaw-ed head faces you. You have never been more aware of an animal corpse.

Goldteeth Liu sips his cognac and asks: "Hey boy, why you not eating? My food not good enough for you is it?

"You feel sweat on your chest, where the wire is.

8. 👻 An ordinary corridor. Sconces, faded wallpaper, a painting.

"Behind the painting," a voice says.

A button behind the painting. Press it. The wall goes click. A crack appears.

"Now can I go?"

You unspool your spell, and the spirit leaves for her afterlife.

9. 🎲 The dice land. "Nine! Woo!" She moves her token, counting every space with a smack.

"What's with you?" they ask her.

"What you mean?" she giggles. She never did know how to play it cool. But she doesn't have to. Under the table, she puts her feet in your lap.

10. 🦷 When you took this assignment, they gave you two false molars:

The one in your right cheek is a transmitter -- a signal for Ops to start the evacuation; The one in your left is a cyanide pill, in case of capture.

Or was it the other way around?

Shit.

11. 🐉 From heaven a serpentine form, golden and gleaming. Growling like thunder ground out of the earth.

Descending, approaching --

But getting no bigger? Is it shrinking?

It is in front of you, now. It is as big as your forearm -- no, your finger.

"Bite me," it squeaks.

12. 🍞 The curfew has gone on for months. You have survived through food shortages, power cuts, rumours of civil unrest.

But now you are in trouble. Now, you enter your second trimester. Now, you crave.

Gardenia white bread.

You will brave cordons to get it.

13. 🧎‍♀️ You are hurrying to your car when somebody calls: "Girl? Girl!"

The voice comes from a red altar under a tree, past the kerb. From a songkok-ed uncle, as tall as your calves.

"Got food ah girl?" the roadside god says. "Two weeks already uncle hasn't eaten."

14. 👀 Someone has been pasting googly eyes on your stuff:

Your mailbox in the lobby; The telephone pole in front of your parking spot; The flower pot on the balcony.

Creepy. "It's not me!" your housemate says.

This morning, you find googly eyes on your forehead.

15. 🔐 The padlock on your front door is broken.

The door swings open onto an empty living room. On the floor: rectangles of dust, where your shelves and cabinets once stood.

As well as a shred of newsprint. "Take this, Mat!" it says.

Your name's not Mat.

16. 🎟️ Pa played the lottery on his birthday. Always with the same numbers: 1406, 2902. Ma's birthday. Yours.

Pa died last week. Yesterday was his birthday. You bought his numbers from the ticket counter.

Today you check the results: "First jackpot: 1406 2902."

17. 🦖 Dusting Dr Khoo's shelves, you accidentally knock over a novelty Tyrannosaurus piggy bank.

It shatters on the parquet floor.

There are ceramic shards, change -- and a passport with Dr Khoo's photo. Under a different name. In Cyrillic script.

Uh oh.

18. 🍳 Eggs in your cast-iron pan -- the last three eggs you have.

Ina: "What are we going to do for protein, now?"

Gan: "We can search the shophouses in town. Or hope to catch a lizard?"

Ina makes a face. You shrug. With your cast-iron pan, you can cook anything.

19. 👻 Knock before you enter a hotel room for the first time. Say: "I'm coming in, okay?" Let its other occupants vacate.

But:You bustled in, dropped the card in its holder, threw your suitcase in the closet, dumped yourself on the bed.

So, now:

Don't look up.

20. 🙆‍♀️ From you balcony, you watch your neighbour in the community playground. She is a dancer. She plays music on portable speakers. She practices pirouettes.

You wish you could work up the courage to talk to her.

She looks up, sees you watching, and waves.

21. 🗝️ "The key will open any lock," the goblin said.

The key feels heavy in your hand. Plain and iron. But when you bring it near the queen's jewellery box it shifts: turns silver and intricate.

A skeleton key!

"The key only works once," the goblin said.

22. 🎥 You don't like the protesters. So naive. And look at how they've spray-painted the street! Anarchists.

The cops charge with riot shields. They are beating protesters --

What are you doing?

You are recording this on your phone.

A cop points his baton at you.

23. 🥳 On your birthday you are surprised at the door. Balloons, food, music to dance to. A party! Laughing, you thank you friends.

"Thank Brian!"

"Brian?" you ask.

"Your cousin Brian?" they say. They point. He smiles and waves back. You don't recognise him.

24. 🤦‍♀️ Your headache gets worse. On day three your vision blurs; you collapse in your bathroom.

You wake to familiar voice: "Hey."

It is your voice. "Don't panic," your doppelganger says. "You're okay." She dried you off, put you in bed. She will not harm you.

25. 🍳 You tried to steal from the Pasha. He is magnanimous, and decided not to behead you. Instead, you will serve him.

You will journey into the wastes. You will brave the fire. You will acquire the Phoenix's egg. The Pasha is a gourmand. He wishes to eat it.

26. 🐙 "Finding the Perihelion Squid is not a problem," your captain says. "It glows in the water."

Sunset. A ray catches your captain's arm and belly, throwing the sucker-shaped burn marks there into textured relief.

"The problem is fighting it," your captain says.

27. 🚦 You stop at the lights. You look at your phone.

Somebody bonks your side-view mirror. "Oi!" you say -- but more people are rushing past. The drivers of the cars in front of you. What are they running from?

Across the intersection, a stampede of water buffalo.

28. ™️ "Breath Easy," the billboard says. A beach panorama, with a white family in the foreground: father, mother, daughter -- all three in pastel shirts. Eyes shut, chins up, smiling.

"VitaOX, premium bottled air," the billboard says. "A Sinochem-McDonald's company."

29. 🦥 The Colossal Ground Sloth is a geographic enormity.

See that hill, blocking our view of the rising sun? That's not a hill. That's a sloth. It sits, seemingly smiling, covered in trees. When it shudders the birds take flight.

Look: it opens its lake-like eyes.

30. 🗽 When the Statue vanishes, America freaks. Who's to blame? Terrorists? SJWs?

Then it turns out the Statue is also missing from all visual media: T-shirts, postcards, patriotic paraphernalia.

The White House settles on its favourite scapegoat -- China.

31. 🧩 The map to the Treasure of Sagely Fu is borne on the back of the Divine Tortoise:

Its scutes represent the 38 provinces of the Empire. Its coloration represents the hills and valleys. When Sagely Fu fought the Tortoise, he kicked a chip-mark into its shell.

32. 💙 The Heart Of Ice is a crystalline fortress, so high above the sea that the sky is twilight and the air freezes you solid.

There rules the Queen, a goddess of pure and alien elements. If you can make Her shed a tear she will grant you your heart's desire.

33. 🌼 The pontianak is a monster -- born when a pregnant woman dies, wronged.

Seeking vengeance, she hunts men. She takes the form of a comely woman. One of her signs is the fragrance of frangipani blossoms.

"Hey," says the bar hostess. She smells of night flowers.

34. 🦊 "My foxies," the witch says. "My vulpies."

In her hut are bones, bones, bones. Piled in a bucket. Mounted on display stands. Sniffing your ankle -- fox skeletons, moving as they did in life.

"Can you do cats?" you ask, nodding to the bundle in your arms.

35. 🥾 The search parties assemble quietly. A trekker is lost on the mountain. Nobody is happy.

"I told him," one of the guides whisper. "I told him. Don't take anything, I said. You don't know whose things you're taking. But I saw him slip a stone into his pocket."

36. 🐬 The pool is still. Park management turns this fountain off at 10pm.

You like walking here, at night. You like the granite dolphins, mid-jump, frozen in time. You toss a coin into the fountain for luck. Clink.

There is a splash. A flash of motion. A fin.

37. 📚 In the book you find a letter, in delicate cursive:

"Dear Emily, Bought this book for your birthday. Which is also Valentine's Day. I will never be able to tell you that I love you. So I will never give this book to you. Sara."

Sara is your mother's name.

38. 🌲 A postcard of evergreens. A landscape you've only seen in photos.

You stash it in a notebook, stuff that in your bag.

"Over here," Michelle says. She grins, shimmies out of a space between leaning shelves. A box of double-A batteries. Meaning: jackpot.

39. 🥡 You bike to the pick-up.

It's a commissary in the middle of an industrial park. The guy at the counter says nothing. Just looks you up and down. He licks his lips.

"What's in this?" you ask, pointing at the takeaway pack.

"Meat," he says. He licks his lips.

40. 🎏 The airships of Vo Langka are fish-shaped.

Carp and arowana are most common -- but advances in aeronautics have made wing-form (ie: stingray-like) aircraft possible.

You are a pilot. Today you will test the first ever flying machine made in imitation of a bird.

41. 🐗 The boar charges your golf cart. The caddy veers onto the green.

Gunshots!

Your bodyguards down the beast. It came from the forest behind the golf course -- the one you've earmarked for clearing.

It's not the only forest creature that wants to murder you.

42. ♻️ Your body slides into the furnace.

Your husband will pick through the ash and bones. Tomorrow he'll take a boat, sail a kilometre out, empty your urn in the sea.

The day after, silver pomfrets will school in a person's shape, and you will see the ocean.

43. ✨ It's a clear night. "Honey?" you call. "Come see!"

She whines -- you are tearing her from her work, she says. You insist. You point up.

Orion and the Dipper, the soft shine of the sickle moon.

"Wanna go for a walk?" you ask. She slips her arm into yours.

44. ✒️ The auto-pen you own is old. Picks up too much background chatter. The newer pens have noise-cancelling wards.

See? You've stopped dictating, but the pen is still writing:

"NO AH NO IT MOTHER PLEASE IT HURTS MAKE IT STOP"

Hell's not a good muse.

45. 🌌 The transitcraft trembles as it descends on its pillar of plasma.

"Sorry you didn't make it," the pilot says. "Cosmofleet is not for everyone." He's trying to be kind. This does not help.

He leaves you on the pad. Here you are, with packed bags, back home.

46. 🤫 The librarian drags you under the counter, pale with terror.

You hear the tread of the logovore. The meaning-eater. Books impaled on its spines -- leeched of their ink, their substance, going see-through, disappearing.

It does that to humans, too.

47. 🍥 You spit the fish cake out. From surprise, really. Because it is candy.

A confection of flour, sugar, pink food colouring, floating next to beef slices, on the oily surface of the noodles you ordered.

The kitchen makes you a new bowl. The chef is baffled.

48. 🛰️ Satellites no longer obey us.

Meteorology reverts to fortune-telling. Intelligence becomes earth-bound. Defense satellites play games of laser tag.

Broadcasting ends -- well, not really. When you turn on your TV it tells you: CALL YOUR MOTHER SHE MISSES YOU.

49. 🌿 Where you buried your cat, something is already growing:

A fresh stem of basil, putting out its mild scent; its green, convex leaves.You pluck a leaf, put it in your mouth. Your cat jumps into your lap. You feel her scrape your finger with her tongue.

50. 🐸 The Weed Toad sprouts spiky fur filled with chlorophyll. Basically: it's a frog with grass on its back. It can be a pest.

When you step into your garden something squeaks.The toad jumps away, incensed. Its siblings hop off, too. Your whole lawn, leaving you.

51. 👾 Pixel Goblins are voxeloids, walking about in waking life. Refugees from a reality whose servers shut down two years ago.

They eat electricity. They line the sidewalk. "Hungry," the Pixel Goblin says. She looks at your phone, hopeful.

You have 11% battery left.

52. ✴️ "I am chaos!" the boy shrieks. "A conduit of magick!"

You can hear that hard "k" from here. Baldie in an Invisibles tee and factory-distressed jeans, thinks he knows magic? Please.

Then he pisses on your headstone. Which is rude. So you possess him.

53. 👣 Footprints, made with oil. They cut across the driveway, onto the grass, leaving rainbow sludge on some clovers. They turn the corner of your house.

You turn the corner, too.

In front of you, the prints have stopped, side by side. Their toes now face you.

54. 🐷 In the middle of his emergency pandemic address, during a live broadcast, on national television --

The Prime Minister oinks.

He blinks. Clears his throat, looks at the teleprompter -- and oink-oink-oinks.

The PM's eyes blink tears. Then the broadcast cuts out.

55. 🌙 Can we trust the moon?

See its phases -- the way it goes from a bright circle, wanes into a crescent, shuts completely, then opens again, waxing half into full --

Like a creature blinking: slowly, ever so slowly.

The moon has not looked directly at us. Yet.

56. 🌺 You tuck a hibiscus in her hair. "It's pretty!" you say, before she reacts. "Plus it's patriotic."

She rolls her eyes.

Day after the party she wants to meet you. That makes you happy. She's not happy. The flower's driven a root into flesh, behind her ear.

57. 🍜 This bowl of noodles, made from soup powder, desiccated ramen, the last remaining tomato in the fridge, one overcooked egg --

It's the most delicious thing you've ever tasted.

This shouldn't be possible. You cry. You'll never have anything this good again.

58. 🥦 "This," Mother says. "This needs to be half-size."

You know this moment. The kitchen was never your thing. You made an excuse and left to play videogames in your room. Two days later Mother died. Car accident.

This time you stay. You cut the floret in two.

59. 🌵 The Blood Prickle's blossom is prized by cities that border the Pebble Sea. Dried, smoked, its fume delivers accurate prophecies.

The Blood Prickle only blossoms when watered by the viscera of living creatures. You lead your herd of sheep into the desert.

60. 🕸️ The bungalow is covered in gossamer, like a suitcase shrink-wrapped at the airport. Shreds stick to you, glue.

"Go away!" the bungalow's owner says. You see her eight eyes peer at you from a window.

"Babe, please," you say.

"Stop stalking me!" she shouts.

61. 🐼 The ghost bear waddles across the plaza and through a wall.

They felled a forest to build this strip mall. But they did not exorcise its ghost. Ghost vines hang from the ceiling. Ghost trees fill changing rooms. In the car park a ghost brook babbles, incoherently.

62. 🕯️ You blow out the candle. "Happy birthday!"

Your friends have grey hair. Others dance to Kelly's playlist. Something in your brain snaps -- you do not know how old you are.

There is only one candle on the cake. It tells you: you are however old you want to be.

63. 🍥 At the bottom of an empty paint bucket in your backyard shed, you discover a giant millipede, dark red, curled into a spiral.

You name her Millie. Obviously.

You boyfriend is disgusted. Slightly jealous of the attention you allot her. He was always insecure.

64. 🍡 The city is a shadow. Office towers in shards. Hypermalls with their skybridges broken. Collapsed nightclubs.

In the midst of all this, on an overgrown street, incongruously -- the smell of boiling soup. Fry-oil. Fish balls. A lok lok truck, greasy and pristine.

65. ✨ The light in her eyes die when you tell her to leave.

You lose your job at the production house. Once again, you are a freelancer. Interviewers pooh-pooh your portfolio.

You will learn how to draw again. Your muse was a crutch. You must do this on your own.

66. 🔮 Everything is as kitschy as you expect. Fake-velvet curtains and tablecloth. A set of tarot cards from Etsy. Even a crystal ball!

But when the fortune-teller looks up and sees you, she says: "No no, out."

What?

"You. No. Get out," she says, afraid.

67. 🥵 Ten laps in the pool. Then you pant to the sauna.

Stones sizzle as you open the door. Somebody is here, already. You take the opposite bench. He has an athlete's thighs. Sweat on his obliques make them look oiled.

He looks you up and down. Smirks. Judges.

68. 🗨️ In the kitchen Khan grunts. Khan being Khan, you think.

Sylvia comes in. She makes an oinking sound.

He grunts. She oinks again. Hoot-hoot. He hisses in reply. It appears to be a conversation.

Sylvia sees you staring. Waves a hand in your face, asks: "Moo?"

69. 👹 "They are going to hate me," she says, frowning around her tusks."

They are going to love you," you say.

In her nervousness she walks up to the microphone, no intro, just launches right into it. Her poem is electric. She is electric. And she is yours.

70. ⚛️ Guards, gyrocopter patrols -- Coilhaus Atomworks’s compound is well-protected. Which is as you expected.

You didn't expect the hex-wards in the inner compound. When you set foot on the manager's balcony, the teak floor shrieks: INTRUDER INTRUDER INTRUDER HERE!

71. 🌂 The Bum Under The Overpass jumps out. You yelp.

"Flee, peasant!" he growls. He reeks. He has a bin lid for a buckler, a brolly for a sword. "I shall shield ye against yon creature!"

You peer into the dark under the overpass -- and notice the hulking shadow there.

72. 💀 The captain wears a cutesy plastic skull on a silver chain. You don't think it fits with her camo grease, her fatigues.

"My daughter made this," she says.

You nod. You miss your son, too. All this -- the pay you earn, burning villages -- you do for your children.

73. 🦧 "Orangutan Kong". Some sort of gangster moniker?

No. Kong is actually an orangutan. He escaped from the Zoo, and started working in Goldtooth Tat's crew. As comic relief. Everybody who laughed at him is dead now.

If you want to work for him you should know.

74. 🧠 The robot ploughs through Market Street. Tiles scatter like confetti; cars are stomped flat. Pressure in your ears -- a thunder clap! The police van up the road explodes.

"There!" your partner shouts, pointing. A brain in a glowing jar, in the robot's belly.

75. 💈 You grew up here.The broom, the hair -- the chairs, Naugahyde over industrial frames. The mirrors, angled slightly, either side leading into infinity. The sink where Uncle Kuppu rinsed his razors and shaving brush.

Uncle Kuppu's gone. This place is yours, now.

76. ⚗️ The alchemist stumbles backwards, knocks over a beaker.

"My formula," he whispers. "You're an assassin from the Bankers’ Guild? You can't have me turning lead to gold."

You shake your head. "No. I work with the Silversmiths' Guild. I'm here to protect you."

77. 🔭 It is the fourth victim he has brought home.

They are always young, with tattoos. He restrains them, strangles them by the neck on the floor of his bathroom.

You watch, through your telescope. You should report him. But you like to watch them struggle.

78. ⛩️ The way to Grand Andropolis is lined with 417 red gates -- each one for a glorious victory the Imperial Legions have won over lesser races.

Gate 412 marks the time they slaughtered your parents. You touch it, and swear quietly: you will burn Grand Andropolis.

79. 🌻 The men at the big table drink beer, munch kuaci, laugh.

A woman with sunglasses arrives. The restaurant people tell her: "Kitchen closed already. Drinks?"

Just kuaci, she says.

She watches the men. When she bites the seeds open, you see long canines.

80. 🤖 You've never considered yourself technosexual. You thought robots cold. Then you met MARY-K8.

Her bright crystal optic sensors. Her omni-articulated limbs. Her way with words:

"HEY HUMAN USER," she synthesises. "HEART-UNIT NOT FOUND. PERHAPS YOU HAVE IT?"

81. 🦖 "The job is a museum," your master sighs. "Museum's are the worst."

You ask him why.

"We are exorcists, dumb-dumb! You know how many things the damn spirit can hide in? Can throw at us?"

When you master sees the T-rex skeleton in the atrium, he sighs again.

82. 🎍 Treaties signed between the Yun Empress and the Princes of Elemental Wood have resulted in the Type-4 Rhizomic Footsoldier --

A stiff, lanky construct; needing only sun and soil; grown in vast groves; with souls of bamboo and therefore without mercy ...

83. 🧜‍♀️ Each year, the mer send an emissary to bargain with the dry world.

The tide swells, then withdraws just as quick, leaving a carriage of driftwood and flowering coral --

"Dammit!" a voice says. Rattling, from within. "Door's stuck!" A sigh. "Some help, please?"

84. 🧠 "You're always going on about life hacks. So here," Mark says.

His gift is a book. "Telekinesis In 100 Days", its title says.

Mark smirks. "Enjoy!"

You'll show the bastard! It's just day 13. Already you can toss 50-cent coins with a lift of your eyebrow.

85. 📯 The footmen blow their horns. The herald crows: "The Tyrant and Lady van Sur!"

They descend the stairs. The man frail, tubes stuck up his nose; the woman in silk, her wig so heavy it is held up by grav-suspensors --

One push of your remote, and the suspensors fail.

86. 🥶 You jolt awake. Ice is pressed to your ankle -- no, chilled skin. A toenail. Feet.

"Jesus. Your feet."

His apology is a snorted murmur. He curls further, pressing into the heat of your belly. His hair tussled, smelling of lavender.

What's his name? Can you remember?

87. 🚪 The heavy door is shut. Padlocked. Your lock sprite shakes her head. "Mechanism's rusted solid."

Your spell-dwarf grumbles. "Lead brackets, see? Shock hex won't work."

"Lemme try," your slip-spirit squeaks. Flattens itself, slips under.

Doesn't came back.

88. 🌵 The Saguaro Sea is a vast tangle of sole-cutting rock, thorny brush, towering cacti broad as hillforts.

Here is found the Weeping Roc -- whose cry is a woman wailing; who steals children to feed its blind, featherless chicks.Children like your six-year-old.

89. 💃 Flamenco star Magritte Tanaka's talent is such that people say it is more than just grace and training.

They say she made a bargain. When she dances a devil helps her; plays her like a puppet on strings.

Truth is he forces her. She never wanted to dance.

90. 🎸 You stole the keytar of synth legend Razzak Luminem from the Museum of Sidereal Art last month.

Tonight you host its auction. Many have shown up: demon worshipers; glamrock stars; violist perverts; members of the Critics' Cartel -- troublemakers.

Watch yourself.

91. 🙆‍♀️ To fear the sky falling is silly --

Except in Fading Dassho, whose most dilapidated districts sit twilit under an obsolete stellar shield, its support struts increasingly ancient and tottery. A shutter collapsed, just last week -- shattering six thousand souls.

92. 🤖 We sent unmanned drones through the Hell-portal; we assumed exposure to Ultimate Evil would be bad for the human psyche.

All moot, it turned out. Because drones are robots -- and, you know, that cliche about robots turning bad, turning KILL ALL HUMANS?

Well.

93. 🏚️ A manor-turned-hotel, on a cliff, with a history of homicide? TrueCrimeFest 2018's organisers could not resist.

Three days of signings, panels, cosplay -- and a podcaster found garroted in her room.

Horrible! Horrible. (But, really: Best. TrueCrimeFest. Ever.)

94. 🤪 The Rictus Worm causes paralysis. Distorts the muscles of the face.

Your eyes pop, your tongue hangs lolling. You speak drool and sputters. You try the chirurgeon. He thinks you are fooling. Kicks you out.

The Rictus Worm is rare. You feel it in your nape.

95. 🌌 One by one the stars disappear. Without their light -- were they ever there?Constellations vanish, nebulae fade. The moon hangs alone in the night sky.

Only our sun and its huddling planets remain. An isolated, solipsistic, self-obsessed apocalypse.

96. 🤗 She welcomes you with open arms. "Happy you're home, Ah Boy," she says, kissing you, Tears on her cheek transferring to yours.

She is your mother; she calls you Ah Boy. Return appropriate amounts of affection. Your mission depends on how well you fool this woman.

97. 🅱️ The mark is made in red ink. The letter "B". Not so bad, outsiders might think --but yours is an euphemistic society.

This is the Competency Test, through which all citizens are streamed. An "A" means you get to stay above-ground. A "B" sends you Below.

98. 🎡 Anna gets into the pod before you. The ferris wheel begins to turn.

Travelling carnivals! Holdovers from a previous world, now surmounted by app-stores. You don't get the appeal. It's not even ironic --

High up, in the pod, Anna kisses you.

Now you get it.

99. ☄️ You still remember your wonder --

A bright blue star, trailing a bright line, bisecting the sky. Staring at it would spoil your eyes, they said.

In your cockpit, as the countdown begins, you think: now you will be a bright blue star. There will be a young girl on the ground, watching.

100. 🥑 When you halve the avocado you don't find a seed. You find a tiny baby.

It is curled up foetal. It is the colour of mahogany. It fusses slightly -- then starts into a full-blown caterwaul; big droplets of blood well from where your rough knifework has nicked it.

+++

#fantasies #writing #twitter #gygaxian democracy #random generators #adventures #covid-19 #quarantine

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ivanrahal · 4 years

Text

date: march 19th, 2019 time: 4:00 p.m. location: orion’s house closed to: @rafaellacapulet featuring: @dukemassetti

Orion’s voice on the phone is cutting before they’ve even begun. “I’m going to make this clear only once: if you put Rafaella into a state of further harm, I will find you, and I will make your balls into decorative earrings and sell them on the black market while you die slowly in my playroom, with only starving rats for company.” It sounds like he’s pacing; he probably is. “Until she can fight for herself again, I’m a loaded gun in her hand. You do something she doesn’t like, she knows what she can use me for.” This is a reminder that Rafaella, too, doesn’t always trust Ivan, and that Orion is certain of his place at her side. “I’ll see you in an hour. Don't be late, or we won’t be taking visitors.”

The voicemail cuts off with a soft click, and Ivan looses a breath he didn’t realize he was holding. Everything within him feels...tight. Coiled. Like a rubber band pulled too taut, a tenth of a second away from snapping. The bones in his hands ache from the stiff clench of his fists, and he’s gnashing his teeth together so hard that he thinks his jaw might shatter. It kills him—to bow to Orion Massetti like this kills him.

Ah, the things we do for… Lust? Like? Not love, but maybe something like it. An echo of it, or a shadow, perhaps—rotten and dark and convoluted. A far cry from what love ought to be, but no less devoted; no less crazed.

He swallows as much of his pride as he can stomach and begins the short trek from Handkerchief to Orion’s home with stiff limbs and an uncharacteristically heavy-footed gait. Distantly, he notices a few Veronesi nervously shy away from him as he trudges through the city’s cobblestoned streets, judging the scowl on Ivan Rahal’s face to be an indicator of a looming hurricane. Their judgment is sound.

By the time he reaches Massetti’s front door, he feels feral, restless. His nerves are frayed and his pride reels as he lifts his hand to rap on the front door. His still-healing ribs twinge, but the ache of broken bone pales in comparison to the ache of broken ego, and his entire body screams in protest against having to ask Orion Massetti for permission to do anything, even something so juvenile as entering a building—especially something so juvenile as entering a building.

It takes every last scrap of self-restraint he possesses to smooth his face into something that resembles boredom, and when Massetti at last opens the door, Ivan’s ruse is fully intact, and he looks equal parts resigned and indifferent. Cool eyes flick from Orion to the foyer behind him, and he sneers with naked distaste. “Your taste in decor leaves something to be desired, Massetti,” he says by way of greeting as he shoulders past Orion and strolls into the living area. His bark lacks any real bite, for Orion has somehow managed to get ahold of Ivan’s leash, passed from Rafaella’s hands to the whoremonger’s, and he’s painfully aware that if he so much as raises his hackles, he’ll be choking on his own collar—Orion will make sure of it. So he lets the slew of insults burning on his hateful tongue fizzle and peers into Rafaella’s room. Empty. She must be in what he assumes is Orion’s bedroom. He turns and reaches for the doorknob, but a sharp “tsk, tsk, tsk” sounds from behind, and he pauses. He turns to look at Orion, who’s promptly wagging his index finger at Ivan. “Ah-ah,” he warns. “Knock first.” Ivan gapes at him. For a moment, he considers cutting Orion’s tongue out of his mouth and making a door knocker out of it, but he decides this is in no one’s best interest, least of all Rafaella’s, so he acquiesces. When he knocks, he hears no invitation, but he also hears no objection, so he enters the bedroom and makes a vulgar hand gesture at Orion as he shuts the door behind him.

Tension branches in the corners of his mouth and eyes, and he can’t tell if it’s because he wants to kill Orion Massetti or because he wants to kill Matthias Warren. She’s a shadow of the woman he kissed and fucked and laughed with mere weeks ago, and for a moment, he struggles to reconcile the wound-addled, broken-winged bird before him with the vicious, foul-mouthed harpy he’s come to know. As he perches himself on the edge of her bed, he pushes the sensation away with ease, comforted by what he finds in her eyes: matching lagoons of sea-glass blues and greens, flickering dimly with life and ferocity. Ah, there she is.

“Ya amar,” he murmurs, voice uncharacteristically soft, perhaps softer than it’s ever been. Tentatively, and with excruciating slowness, so as not to startle her, he reaches out to sweep a lock of hair away from her face, tucking the golden curl behind her ear. He touches her with impossible gentleness—the sort of gentleness that a monster of his caliber should not be capable of; the sort of gentleness that looks nearly unsettling on the likes of Ivan Rahal, king of nightmares. Relief and concern wash over him all at once, and the polarity of the two emotions agitates him. She’s home, she’s here, she’s alive. But she’s left something behind, he thinks—her strength, maybe, or her passion. Something’s missing. He resolves to recover whatever it is she’s lost, and to make those who robbed it from her beg at her feet on bended knees.

“If you’d wanted to play with bondage, cuore mio, you only had to ask,” he teases, looking pointedly at her wrists, both of which are red and raw—a byproduct of too-tight bonds, he’s sure. Tenderly, he draws his thumb over the pulse of her wrist, trying in vain to leech the hurt there with skin-to-skin contact. In hindsight, perhaps now is not the appropriate time to make jokes about bondage, but he wants only to see her smile. He realizes with sudden apprehension that he can’t remember the last time he saw it—her smile. “I would’ve been happy to oblige you.” I always am. He searches for something else to say—and comes up short. His words have never failed him before, and for the first time in a long, long time, he doesn’t know what to say. So for the first time in a long, long time, he tells the truth: “You were missed.” The closest thing to “I missed you” that a beast like him can manage.

#torture mention tw #c: rafaella #l: orion's house #d: march 19th of 2019 #s/o to rogue for coming for my life w/ that first para #rogue is Baby #rosey............#suffer #(:

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lumberingleviathan · 5 years

Text

Demons Unknown

I know I normally write x reader stories, but I wanted to introduce you guys to two of my OC’s. Loshya a demon boy who’s aware of most things, but not being with someone- and Vishka a human who loves him very much.

Word count: 2,817

Warnings: Lemon, some mentions of past violence.

-x-

Vishka feels like there’s eyes on her through the dirty windows. Looking in on the pair of bodies pressing together. While winter creeps it’s way under the door, keeps trying to gut the fire.

Tonight’s the first night in her new home though, and she chalks up the unease to it. How cramped this section of the cities housing is. How through the walls she can hear a family of twelve. Some shrieks of joy, others low quiet sobs muffling into their pillows. The street is a river current of movement. Loshya tells her it is always this way, there is always someone coming and going.

It’s the nature of the city, Vishka. It is always awake, it is always fighting.

Loshya with that fire making his eyes gleam under the dark fan of lashes. Making his smile heat up her chest. Reminds her why she fell in love with him in the first place. WHy she chose to give up a life of riches. In a cage made of fine furs, of dinners eaten in silence. WIth stony faces. Those same faces laughing, drinking, dancing at lavish parties where the help spit in their drinks behind their backs.

Loshya who is an infernal thing, who only like this sheds the visage of a man. Who like this feels like coals within the fire; who like this has the curve of ebony horns through the shock red of his hair. He has lived the streets a beggar, but she thinks him a god as he is. His tail where it curls securely around her ankle now. Pulls, and tugs.

It had taken everything to convince Loshya to marry her.

He had wanted so much better for her.

Loshya who has never known another's kisses, another's skin, precious Loshya with the heart of a warrior. Who’s knuckles are worn callous, are bloody smears most nights he comes back. Who insists on washing his hands before he’ll let her see to them.

I don’t wanna get-- it on you.

Everything's iced over beyond the window; VIshka wonders if the city is ever anything other than perma-winter.

Things like autumn, or spring only draw up blanks of memory. She says as much to Loshya, who's got that smile that's more a wince turned back at her. While a fire burns low, throws off shadows of orange difused to coal black across them both. While Loshya defies the natural laws of winter beside her: He Who Is Summer Come Again; sweat pooling down the arc of shoulders; radiating a heat unmatchable even by the fire he set to a few minutes ago.

Vishka who always runs so cold, is still chattering teeth under her furs.

Although - she has him now. Here, with her feet tucked in beneath his thigh. Lifting up her toes every few minutes to press up against the skin. While hand that was draped over back of couch makes its slow-set course to her ankle as if it is only oh-so-casual.

This is a new game he's just starting to learn, so she indulges the novice with a soft smile hidden at corner of her mouth. Until his fingers clasp around ankle, roll skin against bone - until she feels the slight pull that means hey; that means up. So she draws her knees in closer to her chest, and hums a note of approval while he's drawing her legs out across his lap.

They stay like this while the fire makes shadow puppets across the line of his jaw. While VIshka chews at her thumb nail, and her thighs squirm in feigned restlessness until she can feel him getting hard beneath the never-quite-enough friction she's rationing out. If she were to look up, she knows his jaw would be cut from stone. Same way his fingers are tensing up at the pinch lock of her knees.

The blue of his eyes glowing in the dimness. How a demon could be so innocent is beyond her. How she wonders that she isn’t the monster of the two of them. Preying upon the darkness, stalking it as she has all this time.

"What's the matter?" Drawling the words out; lowering her fingers just enough to talk around it. "Pull something doing your...?" She gestures at him; how his chest has stopped moving from exertion of previous exercise regimen. Not that she’d call it that; not the way he does it - makes her think too much of chosen tortures... but maybe that's the point. He's in a good mood, though; she knows because he pinches the skin of her thigh lightly. Doesn't need to say he's calling her out on her bullshit. Not with how easily her legs draw apart the further his hand shifts up.

All of this while heat crawls along her spine, makes itself know in the new shake of an exhale. She understands that when her arms come up to catch around his neck; uses the anchor of him to draw herself up. Slides into his lap with a self-satisfied smirk at the way he's already nosing at her.

"Hey..."

His fingers go curling into her furs: tug, pull, shift... but never take it off. How considerate he is even about this - so now what she wants seems an even more needful thing than before. "Baby..." and all of a sudden she's got fists full of licorice-red curls. Doing her best not to get distracted; trying to forget about natural phenomenon like undertow. Like erosion... like sink holes…

One hand shifting through the sweat stick of his hair to wrap solidly around his horn. All but anchors herself with it.

Shifts her weight forward, and oh, see, now

How he recedes instantly; how he lets her, with just the barest of pressure, put his back against couch once more.

While she's mumbling:

"Wait -"

and

"Just -"

This sort of almost-girlish giggle tickling the back of her throat what with that glassy-eyed confusion he's following every move she makes. That nothing she does will manage anything remotely like a surprise, and so subtlety is discarded. Until she's gotten his pants all twisted up somewhere down around his calves. Has to go catching at his hands again, and this time he's got a huff of air pressing at her mouth for the halt.

While she's already feeling dizzy at the way he lets her draw one of his arms over the back of the couch. That he leaves it there; even knits his brows together for it... but does it just the same. Vishka has been busy learning the thousands of things he's saying without ever saying a single fucking word. Which is fair; she's got more than enough for the both of them. So "I want you to show me what you want," comes blunt force trauma from her lips straight to the way he shrinks further back against sofa.

Thins his gaze and pops his jaw while her hands are taking up his right into both of hers. Turning it palm up - and he still hasn't said anything, but he's turning this new shade of red she doesn't think she's seen from him before. Which, all things considered, seems almost hilariously adorable. (Pretty sure saying as much might not be the best move, though, so observation stays tight in her chest.)

Of course he isn't looking at her... but his chest is doing that subtle shudder that means he's not breathing quite right either. Is murmuring "- the fuck for?" Which is what he either chooses to say, or just says because he doesn't really mean to say anything at all.

Is starting to figure out words for Loshya slip and slide like children learning to ice skate: clumsy-limbed precious doves who can't quite yet transition to surface traction.

She's diligent, though; is oh-so-at-ease, since... see? Nothing to fear here; not when he's indulging her oh-so-sweet this way. So she keeps right on going: "Because... well, you've only ever been with me. If you don't know what you want..."

He's looking up at the ceiling now, and it's her turn to get his stand-by of eyeroll.

Has to move his palm up to her mouth and sink teeth into the fleshy heel of it. Just hard enough to dent heavy callus; keeps adding pressure until there's the telltale twitch of vein in his neck that says she's finally got his full attention. "You're gonna wanna watch this." So runs her preface before she's rolling her tongue from teeth's indent to score across life line. Reading his future beneath slick muscle until it's slotting between fingers; until she's sucking at his index; until - there: his gaze becomes a gravitational pull sectioning her out from the rest of the world.

Her laughter is this kind of delirious trill of noise while saliva is shining up her lips. "Oh... so now you wanna listen?" And oh, what leash does he have around all his inborn threat that keeps him a steady-shaking beast beneath her?

What line that says here, but no further - and is it just because she alluded to it at all?

Drools into his palm, working spit up by rolling her tongue against the roof of her mouth.

He makes that whine of his when she asks, "What, you wanna help now too?"

And he's oh so red now; staring at her from beneath lowered half-moon of darker lashes. This, she's got no defense for; just has to lean in to catch his mouth.

Her exhale breathes, "Shit. Wait -"

And god, if he isn't good at stage redirect: her chest is flushing pink this time when she spits into his hand. Has to lead his wrist with her nails biting into bone just to get him to move this time.

"Come on, show me: I wanna watch."

His face goes ducking out of sight. He's making some sort of noise in the back of his throat that might be annoyance, or simple shyness. Judging by the way he won't look at her; she'd guess the latter. Leans herself back just enough to watch between them the way he all but scalps his cock. Furious quick movements that remind her of the way he slams into bridge-of-nose with that crushing up-strike move she's seen him pull Out There in the world of Revolution, of VIolence.

"Hey. Hey - go slow, baby..."

But he isn't listening; is oh-so-intent on getting this over with as quick as he can. Left hand still afloat in far sea; far, far away from its delinquent mirror-twin. Fingers twitch at fabric, or go burrowing into stuffing where seams threaten to rip.

It's her turn to push at him, then. Knocks her forehead against his and grasps for his hand. "Slower," she purrs - and does: long, falling gesture of gentle push-down in drawn-out exhalation of breath. When she pulls their conjoined hands up, she adds more pressure; makes his fingers cinch just that much more. Holds steady at head of cock already beading up with seep of fluid. "That's good, baby; just like that. Feel it..."

Starts up word-noise that is enthusiastic; is encouraging; is practically dripping now with oh-so-badly-wanting -

His shoulders tense; roll up and start to curve in like wings. Making a shelter of the hot-house they've made of themselves. There's a summer in between her thighs: the cresting temperature point that is high-noon sun; is supernova blowing her pupils wide, and letting spit seep out of her mouth into the faster, slicker pour that is pre-come; all of it sweat-salty and softened by saliva. Keeps up the slippery friction of movement at a slower, easier glide; has strong fingers shaking now beneath the slim pressure of her own.

"Loshya... don't you wanna look at me?" Pouted out while he's been push, push, pushing his forehead against her own. Their breath mingling in half-pants while she's shamelessly grinding herself down against his left thigh. While seam of couch fares far worse, even: creaks, groans, rattles until stitches go popping under pressure of white-knuckled hands and billow out snowstorm of inner stuffing.

She can't hear the fire anymore; can't even feel the grip of winter where it was knocking just an hour ago at her bird-hollow bones. Not when summer has granted her this blessing like no other - how she can't even look at anything but, now; even if it means her vision will blot out later. It wouldn't matter, having seen this: the way his shoulders start up that steady-state shudder, and the shape of his open mouth is a silent trace of her name around the clamped-down strangle of noise clawing at his throat; keeping back everything he still won't say even now.

He's trying to shift forward on the couch; makes his hand stall out, so that she gets to say "Ah - I didn't say stop" in that tone that's all breathy tease; the one that has his jaw nudging at her own until his teeth are catching at her earlobe. Low-pitched whine of noise is easier to hear, and oh, she knows what he wants. Of course she does; but this, too, is part of the game, so.

"What? What do you want, baby?"

Each time she helps guide his hand over jerk of cock there's more pressure; increasing upward draw before it all but dissipates on the downstroke.

He's all but coming apart, and she... oh, god: she's never seen anything oh-so-exquisite as this. Is drunk to giddiness with it; is already moaning at the way he's knocking his knee up against her. Bouncing her in quick-timed rhythm at poise of position on thigh, and -

"Come on, come on -" Just rush of words now; fresh plea of her own that starts picking up pace. "That's it. Come on- jus'-" and oh, here is slur and tumble of speech when he's trying to drown her words with his mouth. Only... he can't quite get his to close, either, and she's not going to be deterred. Not now.

Not when she all at once slows: almost stalls, but never quite stops the slick-twined mess that is their wrapped-tight hands now. Interlock of fingers; bones grinding at each other when -

It's enough to get his gaze to snap to hers, though. Where all that blue - better than any April morning sky - are fixed on hers so glassy-bright. "Please," is what he says first - whispered thick and low; like his tongue is plucking words out of the very limits of vocabulary available right now - which is imagery enough to get her laughing again.

His eyes so wide she's going to drown in all that ocean-blue while she agonizingly draws out just two more strokes; just to watch the way his hips buck up into it.

"I want - "

He starts - stops - she can almost hear his teeth grinding themselves down to enamel dust. Only when he tries again there's no white powder residue; just the letter of promise that will undo her completely in soothsayer-reading of palmlines when he says:

"I wanna fuck you."

And she doesn't even have time to try teasing back; not when they're a sudden frenetic rush of movement that is her hands twisting and twisting into his hair.

He's going for her hips; makes a drag of her along the length his thigh. How even then she swears she sees some touch of smug at the way her moans go blistering up against the back of her teeth. Until, until, and this at last: she is full of sunlight. Is gilded vessel suffused with summer heat, and every inch of skin beneath surface is lighting up to doomsday-nova nearness.

The kind of close there is never any recovering from: how not even Apollo could claim dominion over her now. This gift he gives her in the clash of teeth, in the hiss of noise; in the way skin splits like sofa overfill at the back of his neck. Can hear the lowly-chanted chorus of her own voice still trying for "just like that" even when he's giving her this exquisite torture-grind of hip bones - until even that patience is broken for crest of golden warmth that will remain hours later still - when limbs finally stop their shiver-shake of worn.

In this, she is finally chosen.

In this, there is the delicacy of spring: where flowers bloom. Where sun says:

You I know

and

You I love.

When her breathing comes back to normal, later while they’re a twine of bodies on the floor. When her furs are used for nothing more than blanket spread out against the cold of the world, her voice comes much softer. “Why’d you pick me?” she asks in delicate sugar spun breakableness that makes Loshya’s heart sputter. Has him nosing under her chin, tracing out the pulse hidden there in her throat. Exhales against it, grins at the way she squirms beneath him.

“I didn’t, you choose me.”

#exophilia #monster boyfriend #demon x human #demon #my writing

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