#lets just kill them all and be done with it
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The Number You Have Called Cannot Be Reached - Part 14
Let's just ignore I've updated this story three days in a row, @ailithnight asked me to make them cry, so we're giving the challenge a shot. This was written today and may very well have typos. Also it literally can't go on like this, I have work tomorrow.
First | Masterlist
Ship: Dead on Main (Danny/Jason)
Fandom: DP x DC Summary:
Danny is just trying to build a portal home, becoming a thief was just an unfortunate side effect of that goal. Now if only this vigilante family would just leave him alone. Especially Red Hood - the semi retired crime lord whose ghost-like presence keeps drawing Danny to him.
Jason had called ahead to let them know he was coming to the cave and then promptly turned off his comms again. He didn’t need to hear their questions. Not on comms. It was bad enough he had to face them.
He drove into the cave, his resolve the only thing keeping him from turning right around. Everyone but Bruce were in their civvies at this point. Jason shouldn’t be so surprised Bruce had called it a night. Not after ghost jumping off a roof in front of them.
Bruce did care, and Jason could tell himself that now without poison dripping into his ear about how it was only to keep his little soldiers at the top of their game. He was too exhausted to appreciate the missing put at the moment, he just wanted to go home and try to forget for a moment that Ghost had left again, but he had to do this.
Dick was sitting with an arm around Tim on the meeting table. Tim looked wrecked - good, he thought grimly and immediately felt guilty. He didn’t even have the pit to blame and yes Jason was angry about what had happened tonight, but really he was just as angry at himself. Jason might have tried to make them understand that Ghost needed help, but he’d done a poor job of it and they didn’t hear his grief for themselves.
They hadn’t felt Ghost’s terror in their electricity trap, his desperate fight to control his panic, they hadn’t felt it as he fell or the shock of pain as he landed. They hadn’t felt the panic reach a fever pitch and then utter silence.
They hadn’t been 50 yards away on another building, running, because they knew something terrible was about to happen. They weren’t the ones who thought they might have already been too late even as they caught him out of the air.
But Ghost had been alive. He’d been breathing. Panicked, but breathing, yet still utter silence.
Jason had been terrified.
And yes he was angry. He should have never let it get so far even in his desperation. They needed to stop chasing him. It wasn’t working.
It had nearly cost him his life.
He was a fucking burglar, not a rogue! He wasn’t a murderer who would kill someone if he wasn’t stopped. They should have never used this level of force. They never would have used this level of force if it wasn’t for Jason and his erratic behavior. It was on Jason, not Tim who was a seventeen year old kid just trying to keep this cursed family together.
Damian was sitting at the meeting table a few seats away from where Tim and Dick were sitting on the table and for him to willingly be that close to Tim without any needle-ing commentary it was practically the equivalent of a hug.
Jason sighed, then pulled off his helmet and left it on the bike. He couldn’t hide behind the safety of its smooth surface, not for this. He walked over to the meeting table, knowing it would draw the rest over there.
Damian took one look at him, with that sharp judgment that was always in his eyes. “You let him get away.”
Jason grit his teeth, refusing to rise to what was just an observation, but it had been a trying night and it was tempting to snap, that he didn’t let him do anything.
“His powers returned,” he said finally, carefully even-toned.
Tim looked up shortly at that and Dick squeezed his shoulder. Normally, Tim would have been on that detail like a hawk. How long did it last? Did the powers return gradually or all at once? Were there other adverse effects? And probably more questions Jason had not even thought to consider because that was just Tim. Now, Tim was silent.
“Jason?” Bruce asked carefully from somewhere to Jason’s left. Jason couldn’t look at him. Last time they’d been this close Jason had almost shot him.
Stephanie and Cass joined Tim and Dick to sit on the table, and Damian allowed Cass’ hand in his hair only because she could kick his ass six ways ’til Sunday. Duke was the last to join their loose circle standing to Jason’s right.
Jason didn’t have any excuses left. He even saw Alfred standing a ways further by the wall. Everyone was here. Babs was definitely still on comms with Bruce, even if the cowl was pulled back.
He tried to take a steadying breath without being too obvious about it. He probably failed, horribly.
“You have to leave Ghost to me.”
“Jay… you’ve not exactly…” Dick said carefully, the only one willing to even go near the fact that Jason should be the last person to go after Ghost. That he had been far from rational about the whole thing. That he was invested, personally more than they could even guess.
“I need-“ Jason looked to the ceiling, breathing for just a moment, before looking down again. “I need you to trust me on this, to let me handle it. What happened tonight… it cannot happen again.”
He clenched his hands, gathered every shred of courage, then looked to Bruce.
“Dad, please…”
He ignored the gasps from his siblings, from shock or outrage that he of all people pulled this card, maybe both, it didn’t matter. Jason only had eyes for Bruce’s stunned face, for the way his jaw tightened and his eyes were moist under pained brows. He only had ears for the way Bruce’s voice broke partway as he said: “Of course, Jaylad.”
“Thank you,” Jason whispered, afraid his voice would fail him if he spoke any louder. He held Bruce’s gaze with his as he said it, because he deserved to know how much that meant to him. The urge to go over to Bruce was strong, to see if his dad would hug him if given the chance - he thought he would, but that, that would be too much, and the pit would be back in a couple of days.
Jason couldn’t handle any more tonight.
He gave Bruce a tight nod and turned to leave, avoiding looking at the reactions of his siblings.
Out the corner of his eyes as he left, he absently noted the purple backpack he’d stolen from Ghost sitting by the evidence board and that metal cylinder, Ghost had left behind the night Jason had met him, sitting on a shelf amongst other knickknacks.
In the back of his mind an idea was taking shape, but he'd only realize that the next day.
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I made myself cry writing this, that happens very rarely. Jason has had a really bad day, but it was the father-son feelings that did me in.
I do not know when I will update next time, the chapter this part belongs to is like 2/3rds done now, but it's the middle I need to fill out. Oh well, I'm enjoying the writing bug while it lasts.
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Come Back To Me
Currently imagining Arthur Morgans reaction to seeing you again after you supposedly died.
Warnings: Angst, mentions/descriptions of blood/injuries + torture, eventual fluff, no smut (yet), Arthur Morgan x reader, gender neutral reader, religious talk, probably out of character, but he just really loves you okay, so he gets emotional
READ MORE UNDER THE CUT + PT 2 HERE
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Let's say when Dutch was going to meet up with Colm, you offered yourself to act as backup instead, not wanting to make Arthur work any harder than he had.
Infact, seeing how exhausted your husband was, you were about to tear Dutch a new one for trying to make him work even more.
But they needed a sniper. And sure, you were tired. You had just gotten back from another solo job, where you scored a pretty penny for the gang. But you knew Arthur deserved a break. And so you said you'd help instead.
But while waiting on that mountain top for Colm to try something, you got distracted. You were tired, and you got sloppy. You weren't expecting his men to come for you. They snuck up behind you and wrangled you to the ground, with it taking four, maybe five men to keep you pinned down before they finally knocked you out.
When Dutch returned without you, Arthur knew something was wrong. Dutch claimed that you were probably out just doing another job, running off like you always did. Your horse was even gone from where you hitched it. And foolishly, Arthur believed him.
Now, it had been 5, maybe, 6 months after your disappearance. One month in Dutch stopped sending out search parties after they found your hat bloodied in an abandoned house, along with your ring finger.
They knew it was your ring finger, as it still had the wedding band Arthur bought for you on it.
Charles and Javier searched the area for any trails, but all of them were ruined past the point of tracking.
They arrived back to camp, bearing the bad news, that no trail could be found. Dutch pronounced you dead and had a honorary funeral. Swearing they would all eventually get revenge on Colm for this.
Revenge hadn't come.
It became even more of a common sight to see Arthur come back to camp covered in blood that wasn't his. He obsessively picked off O'Driscolls, killing and torturing every camp he found. Questioning every single one; Where were you? Where was Colm? What had Colm done to you? Were you even still alive?
Screaming that if he ever found Colm, he would rip him apart. Telling Dutch he should've killed him when he had the chance.
The image of your severed finger was engraved into his mind. They hadn't even sold the thing. They left it on just to rub it in his face.
He almost collapsed to the floor when he first saw it. He felt like he was dying. Who knew emotional pain could be so physical?
Even after the camp had sat him down and told him you were probably dead, and that he needed to accept that, he had never stopped searching. In fact, he punched Dutch in the face after he told him that.
He drew away from the gang, isolating himself. Dutch, Tilly, Hosea, Marybeth, Charles. Nobody could get through to him. He shut them all out, trying to act like everything was fine.
But nothing was fine. He knew that. He hated the world for moving on without you.
Every night he was drinking himself into a stupor, it was the only thing that let him sleep. He stopped talking or eating much, he was obviously losing weight. Always working, bringing in cash but never staying for too long.
He stopped sleeping at camp. He stopped sleeping much in general. He had nightmares whenever he did.
Your tent reminded him of you. Whenever he did sleep, it was always in your tent. It made him feel less alone.
Nobody ever took it over or moved your things because they all knew Arthur would gut whoever did.
He always thought of you, and whenever he did, he couldn't help but blame himself.
Why did he let you take his place? Why hadn't he searched for you the second Dutch came home without you? He couldn't do anything right. The same thing that happened to Eliza and Issac had happened to you. And all he did was sit around like a fool and let it happen.
How many days, weeks, had they tortured you before you died? Months, even? God, did they even wait for you to die before they took your finger off? Could you still be alive? You've always been a fighter, he knows that. If anybody was to survive being at Colm's mercy, it would be you. Could you still be waiting? In some basement, some hole in the ground, some old shack for Arthur? For the gang? For anybody to come save you? He knew what type of man Colm was. He knows Colm would do worse just to spite Dutch.
Was this punishment? For everything he had done? Was this hell? He wasn't religious, but every night where he went to bed without your presence next to his, it sure felt like it.
He was losing Dutch to his insanity. He was losing his way of life to the passing time.
And now he had lost you.
You.
God,
Why did it have to be you?
Why couldn't it have been him? Why did it have to be you? Why couldn't he have at least died with you? He would spend an eternity in hell if he could spend his eternity with you.
But what could he do about it?
What was he doing about it?
Riding into Valentine to drink himself half dead. Alone. Riding into an endless nightmare alone without you.
As he was hitching his horse outside the saloon, he saw your distinct mare hitched right next to his.
For a moment he was happy. Happy for the first time in a long time. As this was proof that maybe, just maybe you were alive. And then, he realized what had actually happened.
Some bastard after killing you had taken your horse. Like some sort of trophy.
He stomped inside the saloon. He bought that horse for you. Saw it at Strawberry while going to free Micah and just knew that you had to have it after your last one died in Blackwater.
The girl was so sweet, and obedient too. He had hunted down a panther in Lemoyne and sold it to the trapper to make a saddle for you. He made sure to fill up the saddle bags with everything you'd need to care for it, along with a couple of other gifts for you sprinkled in. When he shyly brought the whole ensemble to you, you jumped into his arms like you two were young again.
And now some selfish bastard was making a mockery of it.
He walked up to the Bartender and slammed his hands on the bar, grabbing the man by the collar of his shirt. Demanding to know who rode in with that horse.
The bartender nervously said they had rented a room. Were still upstairs as they spoke. He walked upstairs, unholstering his knife.
He was gonna make this slow.
Treading carefully towards the bedroom, turning the handle. It was locked. He backed up and kicked the door open, pointing his gun at whoever was inside, ready to shoot them in the leg if they tried to escape. No way was he gonna give them an easy death with a headshot.
And then?
He saw you.
Standing near the bed, bruises and cuts, scars new and old littering your body. Wrapped in bandages soaked in blood. Leaning against a bedpost, barely able to stand, pointing a shaky gun at the intruder.
Time stood still as your eyes met.
He dropped his gun. You lowered yours.
He whispered your name, almost like a prayer. Praying this was real.
You said his back.
Then, he ran towards you. Wrapping you in a hug, holding onto you for dear life.
Praying that if this was a dream, he would never have to wake up.
Running his fingers through your hair, gripping onto your shirt, he felt your chest heave. Your tears falling onto his shoulder, wetting his jacket.
You were crying- no, you were apologizing.
To him.
For worrying him.
And then he started crying too.
Crying into the crook of your neck like a little boy.
Arthur never really cried. He hadn't cried in so long. After your death, he never let himself cry. He felt like he didn't deserve it.
But you?
You were alive.
Your hands wrapped around his back, the distinct pressure of your ring finger missing.
Feeling your missing ring burn a hole through his pocket. Remembering the sight of your severed finger.
And the hell you must've gone through to stay alive.
He felt sick, as he sobbed into your shoulder.
What kind of man was he? Needing you to comfort him after you were tortured?
He dropped to the floor, his knees couldn't hold him anymore. Still holding onto your body, now just your legs, for dear christ. Like you might fade away if he let go. He wouldn't let you go.
He missed you more than anything.
You slowly bent down, running your fingers through his hair.
He began wondering if you were real. Was this real?
You got down to his level, sitting on your knees. Kissing him on the forehead and putting your hand on the back of his head. Pushing him into your chest, as he only sobbed louder, blubbering and crying like a fool.
About how he thought he lost you. How the whole gang thought you had died. How he never stopped looking for you. How he thought he was dying after you didn't show up back home. How he never stopped wearing his wedding ring. How he always kept yours in his pocket. How he cradled a photo of you the first time he slept after you died.
How he wanted to bleed the world for killing you.
How he wanted to shoot everything to ashes.
How he missed you every waking moment.
How he dreamed of you every night.
How he would've given anything just to hold you one more time.
Crying into your arms,
Begging you not to leave him.
You rubbed circles onto the back of his head as you comforted him. Whispering that they only tortured you, that you eventually managed to get out, that you were fine. That you're alive. That you're here with him. That you're here for him. That you weren't going anywhere.
The months that he thought you were dead melted away as he felt your fingers run through his hair,
As you promised you weren't leaving him.
You're alive.
You're with him.
You're here.
And he swore to fucking God,
He was never letting you go again.
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Okay, so should I do a smutty pt2 where he REALLY shows you how much he missed you, or should I do one who he goes fucking yandere esque from the prospect of almost losing you?? Or should I do both??
#arthur morgan#arthur morgan x reader#rdr2 x you#rdr2 x reader#rdr2 dutch#rdr2#fluff#rdr2 fluff#arthur morgan fluff#arthur Morgan x you#gender neutral reader#gender neutral y/n#screaming and crying#out of character.#fluff and angst#angst#arthur morgan angst#arthur morgan rdr2
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Icarus Drabbles (Pt.3) | Sukuna x M!Reader
W/C: 3k
#NSFW, Modern AU, ABO dynamics, bottom!reader, top!sukuna, Mob Boss!Sukuna, Alpha!Sukuna, Street Doctor!Reader, Omega!Reader, toxic relationships, age gap, sukuna is mid 30s, yuuji gang and reader are mid 20s, sukuna and yuuji are brothers, fluff, angst, hurt/comfort, blowies are received and given, mentions of character death
tags: @kamote-kuneho @prettorett @better-imagination-9 @flowersatwork @tr4nniez
Done Deal
“You let me fuck you, and I'll give you anything you want.” That was his proposition. No more flirting, no more attempts to seduce you, just his obsessive pining resulting in a deal.
But you didn't seem too bothered sitting across the desk from none other than Ryoumen Sukuna, who lounged comfortably, puffing on a cigar like he didn't just offer to pay you for sex. Granted, it wasn't just the sex he wanted. It was more than that.
You took a moment before speaking. “I thought you were the kind of guy who'd take without asking.”
“Who, me? Come on, sweetheart, I'm a gentleman.” Sukuna grinned and watched you wave the coils of smoke out of your face.
You looked him over, not betraying your thoughts. “And if I refuse?”
Sukuna's smile simmered down, unamused with the mere concept of rejection. “I'll still get what I want. And you'll leave here penniless.” His men locked the doors loudly at the other end of the vast office, making their point. “So? What’ll it be?”
You took a slow breath. “I want a condo. In Tokyo.”
“That's it?”
“Paid in full.”
“Now you’re talkin'.”
You stood from your chair and walked around the desk as you unzipped your jacket. “And my name's going on title.”
Sukuna undressed you with his eyes like the millions of times he'd done so prior. “Ho? You wanna be the one to pay all the taxes, huh?” He turned his chair to you as you approached. Sukuna spread his legs wider to make room for you to stand between, but you instead boldly straddled his lap. He knew he liked you for a reason.
“I can forward them to you.”
“You think I'll pay them?” One of his broad palms groped at your ass. His stomach coiled with excitement; he was going to enjoy ripping you apart.
“I know you will,” you hummed. Sweetly, you tilted Sukuna's chin up to get a good look at his handsome face.
“Oh?”
“Mhm.”
“‘N why's that?” Sukuna whispered.
“Because you want to.” Your hands slipped down his neck, down to his shoulders. “Because you think I'll come back for more.”
“I know you'll come back for more.”
“If you live long enough,” you sighed before plucking the cigar from his fingers and snuffing it out. “These things'll kill you, you know.”
Sukuna fucked you on his desk moments after. His men stayed in the room all the while, watching and shifting with unease or simmering urges of his own. He vaguely recalled taking a phone call, too.
So how the hell did we end up here? He had to wonder; back then, he bribed you for your affection, paid you handsomely but purposefully left you wanting more and more and more. He wanted to provide for you, in a weird, twisted way, and that was his method since, well, he wasn't ever sure he'd really get you to stay.
Yet there he was, waking up in a house with his husband next to him and his daughter in the crib beside you. It felt so…bizarrely natural. Normal. Almost like he met a need he didn't even know he had.
He hardly spent his nights at his casino, Malevolent Shrine, any longer. He didn't wander the floors looking for liars and easy targets for his dealers. He didn't head up to his penthouse at the crack of dawn with a new dame on his arm every night; he wanted to come here, to the home he had built to house his new family. Sukuna wanted to collapse into this bed, hear you bitch and moan about Gojo or Geto or whatever idiot employed you that day, spend time with his little pup and listen to her yip and babble about nothing and everything. He wanted these moments. He wanted to cherish the little sparks of light in his life before the universe snuffed them out like–
Gramps is dead, Yuuji had said, voice quivering on the other end of the line. What do we do?
Sukuna closed his eyes and rubbed his face, willing away the memory. He hadn't had to act like a big brother in so long, but the instinct came rushing back to him the second he heard his little brother in tears. It was all handled swiftly, everything from the cremation, to probate, to settling the estate–but the weight of death and finality clung to the air like petrichor after a storm.
Sukuna looked to your sleeping face for respite. It helped to see you, to be reminded that you'd chosen to stay with him through thick and thin. Still, he couldn't help but remember what his grandfather asked him the day he met Touka.
Where does this end, kid?
This. The gang life. The life that's too unrefined and brutal to be considered yakuza. Because Sukuna didn't deal in honour. He dealt in violence, drugs and money–that voice spoke louder than honour and family.
But didn't he reclaim his family? Didn't he honour you with change?
Where does this end, kid?
Maybe with honour and family.
“I can feel you having a crisis,” your scratchy voice mumbled through the static in Sukuna's mind. Your eyes opened a crack to find his own crimson set before you wriggled up to him and half-laid on his chest. “What's wrong?”
“Your bony-ass chin’s digging into my tit.”
“Mmmh.”
“You like money more, or me?” He asked.
You snorted. “I like you and your money equally.” You let your head loll to the side to press your cheek against his chest. “But I like you more, I guess.”
“You guess?”
“I'm kidding, idiot. If I cared about money, I would've married into the Zenin family.” You sat up and looked down at your partner with bleary eyes. “Where's this coming from anyway?”
Sukuna huffed and scowled at the ceiling. “Nowhere. It's nothing. Forget it.”
“Don't be a little bitch. Just tell me.” And when he didn't budge, you added, “Suku. Come on.” And when he still refused to cooperate, you resorted to, “Alpha, please?”
His eyes snapped to you so fucking fast it made his face burst into flames. You grinned, so stupidly enthralled and in love with how the gross, domestic pet name fucked him up and--fucking hell, it was so cute but so annoying.
“Fuck you.”
“N'awe, you're such a cutie sometimes.” You purred in delight and nuzzled all over his face. “My cute, sweet, broody alpha that I love so, so, so much.”
“Shut up,” he snarled before viciously nuzzling back and attacking you with puppy nips and rude licks to your face. “Fucking omega. You're such a pain in the ass, you know that?”
“So are you. That's why we work well together, right?” You held his face still and planted a proper kiss on his lips. “We'll be fine. No matter what happens.”
Your alpha took a deep breath while he looked up at you, and sighed. You looked so calm and collected about the whole thing, so relaxed in the jaws of a shark that could eat you whole and leave nothing behind. Guess that was why he was so enamored with you. Only petty things, like the shitty little fish that nipped at toes, wore you down. Not the big, bad, unknown depths of the ocean.
“You believe me?” You asked as you pinched his nose.
Sukuna grimaced and tugged your hand away from his nose. “Fuckin’–yeah, I believe you.” He bit your fingers in revenge.
It was your turn to make a face. “Disgusting.”
“You wuv id,” Sukuna managed around your digits, grinning like an idiot.
“I have bad taste in men.” You yanked your fingers free when you heard your little one coo and shuffle in her crib. Sukuna always found himself impressed with how fast your omega responded to the littlest of noises, always automatically cooing and trilling back to your baby like you'd done it your whole life.
“But you sure you're alright?” You asked as you scooped up the little one.
Sukuna sat up and leaned back against the headboard as you settled down beside him again. “‘M fine. Just…thinking.”
“About your grandfather?”
“Guess so.”
You nodded and leaned into him, chest purring with comfortable vibrato as his heavy arm looped around you and pulled you close.
“He was a good man. Lived a good life. Long one, too.”
“Guess you’re not wrong. Don’t seem too torn up about it,” Sukuna grumbled, vaguely aware he was on the precipice of starting an early-morning argument.
“People die,” you said, looking down at your babe. “He was old as fuck. I’d talked to him about life and death a thousand times anyway. His point of view on things helped me see things differently.”
“Oh?” Sukuna’s attention snapped down to your little one as her cherry-red eyes sleepily blinked open. “‘N what the hell did the old fart tell you, huh?���
You smiled as Touka screeched happily, reaching up for her father and wiggling around in your lap until she could slug her way over to him (with much help from your guiding hands, of course). Sukuna, the fraidy cat that he was, awkwardly tried to aid his baby girl with crawling onto his lap, too. You kind of understood why–his hand was about as big as her body. He was probably afraid of smooshing her.
“He told me energy can never be destroyed. It can only change shape and form. It’s the same with our souls.”
“The fuck does that mean?” Sukuna grumbled as his daughter determinedly tried to stand to reach his face. You moved to help her stand, but he huffed and took over, uttering a grumpy ‘I got it’ as he carefully, carefully held her up onto her feet like one would a kitten.
You smiled, so horribly smitten. “It means our bodies die, but our spirits can’t. They just change form before coming back and living life all over again.”
“Hmph. Sounds stupid as–” Sukuna paused as a tiny hand landed on his mouth.
“Bah!” Touka chirped.
You pursed your lips and melted into your partner, a happy, summer scent pooling around the three of you.
“Mhm, daddy’s a cranky little bitch, huh, baby?”
“Big bitch,” Sukuna corrected, words muffled by the tiny overlord. He opened his mouth wide, lightly chomping on her pudgy little hand with the gentlest pibble nibbles he could manage. Judging by her squealing laughter, he was doing an okay job.
“Cranky big bitch–my bad.” You rolled your eyes and exhaled deeply. “But yeah, that’s basically it. Mentioned some stuff about soulmates–platonic or romantic or otherwise–tending to find each other in their next lives too. So, technically, you could be holding your grandfather reincarnated right now–”
“Babe, don’t make this fucking weird,” Your husband groaned.
You laughed, loud and brash, before nuzzling him. “Sorry, sorry. Can’t help myself.”
Sukuna scoffed, furrowed brow only easing as Touka assaulted him with little pats all over his face.
“You’re a nightmare.” He leaned in and nuzzled his baby’s round cheeks with playful growls. “You’re a smaller fucking nightmare. Spitting image of your mum. How the fuck is that fair, huh?”
“Well, you better get used to it,” you taunted. “She’s the only one you’re getting.”
Wait. What?
--
Devour
It’d been a while since Sukuna had handled an interrogation. He’d stepped away from doing it himself when you’d both gotten back together officially, thinking you’d be upset if you found out he was still beating the fuck out of rats and cheats wandering through his casino–but the opposite turned out to be true.
You didn’t really care. You didn’t mind it at all, actually. You only requested he kept that sort of business away from the curious gaze of the little girl you both doted on incessantly.
So, he took it to the basement of Malevolent Shrine.
“Y'know, I really needed this,” Sukuna sighed, loosening his tie a bit more before he leaned against the table of lethal instruments and wiped the blood from his split knuckles. “Kid keeps me up all night. Wife's always bitching ‘bout being tired. ‘N then I got dipshits like you sneaking in, trying to access restricted floors.”
The man he regarded scoffed, probably unable to catch his breath to clap back or, well, breathe. The sight had Sukuna grinning, pure delight and satisfaction coiling in his chest.
“Got somethin’ to say?”
The man coughed and tried to pull himself up from where he lay splayed on the floor. Sukuna never tied up his guests, no no, he always gave them a fair, fighting chance, stating they could go free if they could get past him. None ever did.
“Y-you do this to that omega you stole?” The stranger managed as soon as he got on his knees. “Lock ‘im in a room, make them fight their way out?”
Sukuna quirked a brow and crossed his arms over his broad chest. “Only omega I've had in here is the wife.”
“Bullshit,” he spat. “You stole one that was sold to my benefactor.”
The mob boss sighed and scratched the back of his head. “That's what you're here for? An omega that I never had?” Sukuna pushed off the table. “Well, that makes shit boring. You're here on a delusion.”
“It's not–”
“Then who do you work for?”
As expected, the idiot clammed up. Sukuna tutted. Why did all these bastards have to play hard to get?
Ah, but then he had an epiphany--hadn't you mentioned marrying into the Zenin family? You brought it up not too long ago, back when Sukuna first started spiraling about life and death, about where his world of chaos would take him in the end.
If I cared about money, I would've married into the Zenin family.
Right. That's what you said.
“Zenin Naoya,” Sukuna guessed. The heir was a rampant misogynistic piece of shit, wanting nothing to do with women on any level--but you? A man who could bear children, albeit through difficult means? That'd be invaluable to someone like Naoya. He could have his cake and eat it too.
And by the way the crook's body tensed, Sukuna figured he hit the nail on the head.
“No shit. That little freak’s really outdoing himself this time.” Sukuna laughed wildly, enthralled that he managed to piss off the Zenin heir by taking his bitch and knocking him up. God, the damage this would do to Naoya's ego.
“I'll let ya in on a little secret,” Sukuna sang, turning to the table and grabbing a set of pliers. “I wifed up that omega. Knocked him up already. Hopin’ he'll let up on the ‘one pup only’ policy. He's been real fuckin’ strict on the birth control, lemme tell ya.”
“He won't forgive this,” the crook bit out. “He won't just–”
Thwack. Sukuna cracked him upside the head and knelt on his chest, jamming the tool into his mouth and breaking a few teeth on the way in.
“Fucker can try,” Sukuna murmured, voice growing thick with malice. His ruby eyes gleamed with predatory promise. “Killing him's at the top of my bucket list.”
–
You were definitely possessed.
How could you not be? You'd just seen your baby daddy (your very cut, handsome, snarky baby daddy) beat the shit out of one of your tormentor's grunts
“Babe,” Sukuna moaned as you swallowed him down your throat again. You'd taken him hostage in the elevator the second he was done his deeds downstairs. It proved to be…somewhat problematic as people continued to open the doors, but eventually Sukuna hit the emergency stop button, nearly shattering the console.
You hummed around him, pressing your tongue against thick, pulsing veins and squeezing at his base and sacks intermittently while your head bobbed to the beat of whatever tinny jazz played in the elevator. You kind of liked the tune. It sparked the idea of playing music next time Sukuna bedded you–
Bedded you. Ah. That seemed like a good next step.
You pulled back with a disgusting pop and fought to catch your breath between leaving wet kisses and hickeys along his stiff length. Your hand worked him firm and fast, eager to get him to fall apart under your feverish, hypnotic touch.
And he was close. You could tell by the way his hand held the back of your head, fingernails digging into your scalp every time you did something so, so right and so, so unbelievably good for the big bad mob boss you'd tricked into staying faithful to you. You figured you'd reward him for being such a good boy. It's what he deserved for sacrificing his freedom for you, and, quite frankly, you thought you'd been slacking on the praise.
“Gonna cum?” You hummed, looking up at your partner through wet lashes. “Hm?”
Sukuna groaned. His fangs bit into his lip as he stared down at you, pupils blown wide, eclipsing the red of his iris.
You smiled politely. “Mmh. I'll take that as a yes.” You kissed along his skin until reaching his weeping tip and giving it a gentle peck. “Where do you want it? On my face? In my mouth? Down my throat?”
He bucked forward, jamming his tip between your lips and hissing when he felt the scratch of teeth against him. You sighed like he was such a nuisance, and opened up wide again, whining as he gripped your hair up into a messy, shitty ponytail before fucking into your mouth with reckless abandon.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck–” His body shuddered and he slammed inside one more time, squeezing his thick knot into your strained mouth and locking it behind your teeth as he rutted against your face, spilling down your throat.
Your soft gags and chokes only made it better. He pulled your head closer, pressing your cute nose against the hazy line of his happy trail in a dizzy attempt to ground himself through the aftershocks of such a sudden turn of events. Going from beating the shit out of a sniveling sod to this was–
Your frantic smacking against his arm signaled your tap out. Sukuna cursed under his breath and worked in tandem with you to wiggle free the stiff problem stuffing your mouth and throat full.
You gasped for breath. Drool and tears poured down your face as you coughed and swallowed whatever didn't have the chance to slip out of your aching mouth, and you wiped your mouth half-heartedly with the back of your hand. Sukuna hadn't seen a sight like that in a long, long while. Something so reminiscent of the early days of being bribed and paid for your services.
“Christ,” Sukuna breathed as he brushed your hair out of your pretty face. “How much do I owe ya for that, huh?”
You laughed between coughs before kissing his clothed thigh. “Just don't think I've appreciated you enough lately, you know?” You cleaned him up best you could before tucking your man away and standing to loop your arms around his shoulders.
Sukuna caught your scent then; you smelled sweeter than usual. Warmer, too. Fuller. Something that reminded him of dough in the oven, billowing all around him and filling his senses with sinful sweetness.
Your heat was on the horizon.
Sukuna smirked and switched the key holding the elevator closed and inoperable on the ground floor, and it started on its journey up, up, up. Time to get you back in bed.
“Not appreciatin’ me enough, huh. Well, I was gonna mention it–”
“Shut up. Don't be stupid right now.”
Sukuna's grin grew. He leaned down, leaving soft kisses and nips along your neck, being sure to pay special attention to the scars he'd left behind.
“You love when I talk shit.”
“You're free to believe that.”
“Oh? Then tell me what you've been appreciating about me, sweetheart. I'm all ears.”
The doors opened to the penthouse floor, and you fought to drag the other out first.
“Your ass,” you replied, nearly exploding inside as Sukuna kicked the (unlocked) door in. Damn, how come he could do that so easily?
“What else?” Sukuna's lips found yours time after time as you both fumbled your way toward the bedroom.
You yelped as he threw you onto the bed. “J-Jesus–how strong you are.”
“Yeah?” Sukuna kicked his dress shoes off and yanked your kicks off, too, before you had a chance to complain about shoes being on in the house. “Tell me more.”
“That's about it.” A sweet laugh bubbled out of you as he slipped in between your legs and kissed you like this was some highschool romcom.
“Oh? Lying now, aren't we?”
“I think I need to examine you a little to remember, you know?”
With all the strength you could muster, you turned the tables and flipped Sukuna onto his back, straddling his waist and running your hands up and down his chest. He still couldn't tell how you did it, but you flicked open every button of his dress shirt with unfathomable finesse before tracing the dips and curves of his defined muscles with teasing fingertips.
“Hmmm…this is nice,” you murmured, taking your time to drink in the scar-riddled expanse of glowing, bronze skin. You scooted back, down his legs, to be able to plant soft kisses around his navel.
Sukuna watched you with blown-out eyes; you were always good at teasing, at making sex electric and better than just cramming his cock into a hole. Secretly, he liked being pushed to the brink of insanity. Soft touches, whispered kisses, silent praise–it was all so your brand.
“What else?” Sukuna rasped as you left cheeky marks around his happy trail.
“Hm. I wonder.” You took your time sidling up on his lap again, your hands taking charge and leading you up, up, up to his cut jawline and striking cheekbones. “This is nice, too.”
Sukuna licked his lips. “Yeah?” He Asked as he held your waist.
“Mhm.” Your thumb stroked against his bottom lip thoughtfully before hooking inside and yanking his mouth open like a fish on a line. “This is a problem, though.”
Your mate's heart thrummed like thunder. Rarely would he ever admit to liking being used, but when it came to you, his precious little trophy, Sukuna found himself far too eager to please. Too eager to consume. Too eager to be consumed. He could only hope you'd wreck him with whatever you wanted to do with that mouth of his.
“Oh?” Sukuna breathed. Christ, his slacks were too fucking tight again. “The fuck you gonna do about it?”
You sighed and shook your head. “God's work, I guess.” And you almost seemed burdened by what you ‘had to do’ as you loosened your waistband and wriggled up until you were straddling his broad chest with your weeping tip pressing against his lips.
Sukuna grinned. “You think I'm gonna–” but he was more prepared for your rude push into his mouth than he let on–or he thought he was, anyway. He'd never really given head before, not really, but he'd given you a couple of handjobs in the past. Still, you were bigger than he remembered. Not as comically, ridiculously, stupidly big as Sukuna’s third leg, but you could probably stuff someone to the point of tears if you really felt the need.
And, well, you were leaving tears in Sukuna's eyes, so theory confirmed.
“You're really bad at this,” you laughed. You held onto the headboard as you pushed into his mouth, letting him get used to it and adjust as a good mate should (maybe Sukuna should've taken notes). Thankfully, the man was a quick learner and a keener. He got used to the feeling of your length nudging against his throat, and posed himself a challenge to push it further.
His hand grabbed at your ass and he pulled you closer, drowning in the sound of your warbled gasp mixing with a surprised yelp. Sukuna's other hand brute-forced his slacks open and fisted around his pulsing hard-on to the rhythm of your greedy thrusts into his mouth, down his tight, inexperienced throat.
Your hips jolted and stuttered. Your hips stayed plastered to his face with weaker and weaker thrusts. Your forehead clunked against the rim of the headboard as your breathing got faster and faster, laced with tiny ah-ah-ah-s until–until–
“Shit–” you tried to pull away from him, tried to save him the grief of having to swallow down a load of cum (first time was always a terrible, terrible experience), but he wouldn't let you yank your hips away; his broad palm pressed against the small of your back and forced you flush against him, his nose pressing against skin as he swallowed and moaned around you like he'd been deepthroating cock his whole career.
Somewhere in the haze of lightning and sparks, you felt him shudder and jolt under you, too. Then, like you'd done not so long ago, a swift tapping on your leg signaling, tap out, tap out!
“Oh–fuck, sorry,” you babbled, hurriedly pulling yourself back and out of his mouth to let him breathe. “You're kind of a natural. I'm shocked.”
Sukuna was too busy coughing and fighting to catch his breath to snap back at you, though, and you couldn't help but laugh.
“Shut it,” he scolded with a swift spank. “Spunk tastes like shit.”
“But you’re not a spitter nor a quitter. You should be proud.” You smiled like the cheeky little shit you were before shimmying off your joggers and tossing them aside. “You did pretty well. Colour me impressed.”
“‘Course I did, who the fuck do you think I am?” He brought his other hand out of his pants and held them up to you, sticky with his own spend. “Deal with this.”
You whistled, and the heat in your face increased tenfold. “I guess you liked it. Good to know,” you said before holding his hand by the wrist and licking up.
“I'd be a freak if I didn't wanna make my bitch cum. ‘Specially when he's in heat ‘n primed to reopen the baby-making factory.”
You looked at him, eyes round and owlish, before abandoning the mess on his hand in favour of kissing him.
“The factory's open,” you assured, no doubt temporarily hypnotized by your body's desire to make your stupid alpha happy.
Sukuna rumbled a purr deep in his chest as he smirked. He'd gladly seize the moment.
“Let’s clock in and get to work, then.”
–
Five is Better Than Three
Sukuna paced back and forth outside the bathroom door, impatient and anxious, waiting for you to just fucking tell me what the hell the deal was.
But Sukuna was anything but a patient man.
“Babe,” he growled, knocking on the door incessantly. “How long does It take to piss on a stick?”
You scoffed. “I'm just--I'm trying to double check, you dumb bitch, shut up.” Your voice quivered the slightest bit, a soft sniffle or two barely making it above the radar.
Sukuna sucked his teeth. He ran his hands through his hair and growled to himself, trying trying trying to stay patient, stay calm, stay–
“Sukuna,” you snapped when the door flung open. You were standing at the counter, an array of different pregnancy tests laid out before you neatly with you lording over them, face hot and eyes shimmering with…grief? Relief? Happiness? Sukuna didn't know, he didn't know.
“Kept me waiting long enough, you fucking brat,” he came up behind you and stared down, clearing your noggin with ease and ignoring your grouchy quips and pinches.
“I was–I just needed a minute, you stupid fuck, I'm--it's a lot!” You tried to push him away but, well, the man was an immovable object, and you were far from an unstoppable force. In the realm of physicality, at least.
“Sukuna–”
“This shit is like hieroglyphics,” he complained, picking up a test and squinting at it. His other hand held your waist to stop you from running away to hide.
“It, uh. It means–well, I still need to get checked out officially but, uh, y'know. It's a yes. For now. Tentatively. All the tests are positive.”
Sukuna exploded with happy puppy scent. He threw down the test and wrapped his arms around you, picking your smaller form up and swinging you around like a shotty romcom man should.
And you laughed through your tears. You hugged him back once he put you down, and exploded into choked laugh-sobs as you pressed your face into his chest. His nice, strong, muscular chest that looked so good in that black tank top.
“Oi, oi, what're the damn waterworks for, huh?” Sukuna asked through a wolfish grin.
“I don't know, okay, just shut up.” You snuffled a few more times before sighing. “Maybe I'm just relieved that an old man like you still has a sperm count.”
“Hah. Big talk from a whore usin’ birth control and making me use a fucking condom ‘just in case.’” He nuzzled at your neck and purred deep in his chest. “Even then, my goods slipped through the cracks, huh? Doubt even getting your tubes tied could stop me from knockin’ your pretty little ass up, sweetheart.”
You bit his tit while he cackled like a madman. “You're fucking gross and I hate you.”
“N'awe. Would creaming on my cock make you feel better?”
“No. Well, maybe later. But coffee and breakfast might subdue me right now.”
#male reader insert#sukuna x you#sukuna x m!reader#jjk#jjk x you#jujutsu kaisen x reader#jujutsu kaisen x you#reader insert#ryoumen sukuna x reader#ryomen sukuna x reader#jjk smut#jjk x male reader#jjk x y/n#sukuna x y/n#sukuna x reader#sukuna ryoumen x reader#itadori sukuna x reader
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now and then | b.b.
pairing: benedict bridgerton x ofc
summary: loraine silva always knew she was not normal. she loves unusual things. she loves her father's guns, horses, boxing, climbing a tree, falling from a tree, engineering, astronomy... oh, and a man eleven years older.
series masterlist
xi. eleven: every word you say
the sunlight did not reach her face. there was no sunlight in sight at all, aside from the most external door that shows a little hint of the visible spectrum. she stirred awake on the hard floor she slept, if she had any at all. she slowly sat up, finding the colonel on the adjacent cell, staring into nothingness.
they have yet to acknowledge each other's presence, trapped in their own battles inside. it was a surreal thing—to feel that it was both the end and the beginning. they have long let go of any hopes in receiving a lighter sentence, and that act is what made it possible for them to breathe despite the stifling feeling.
they have found freedom. losing all hope was freedom.
hence, the young silva raised her gaze to the ragged man across. his rank is not apparent on his current state, stripped off of dignity and proper legacy. she pulled him to the deepest ocean floor a man has never explored to.
"i am so sorry, raphael." raine broke the silence, feeling utterly apologetic for bringing the man with her in this fate.
"there is no need." he replied, closing his eyes as he leaned on the wall.
there really was no need. although his tone may have sounded frustrated, it was not directed to the girl. coming to think of it, he believes he would have done the same. he actually did, when he admitted to the suspicions just so she could be saved. the young silva, however, was hardheaded. a small chuckle left his lips as he looked at her in thought.
"you know, your father would be proud."
"oh, silence." raine rolled her eyes in jest, "i have not slept well with how much my eyes poured last night. do not make me cry again."
"but it is true."
"i know," she turned to him with weak eyes, "he asked me one time, if he was being too forceful in making me the viscountess or also the fact that he taught me things that a proper lady would not have preferred."
she laughed at the memory of her father teaching her how to hold a dagger at four, and her mother in utter worry as she caught them both.
"he was afraid he turned me into something he wanted instead of being someone I want to be."
the lady chuckled before continuing, "i told him I do not see myself embroidering at all. he laughed like crazy."
raphael weakly laughed at the story. by the mention of the girl's teaching experiences, a memory resurfaced in his mind as well.
"did you know that your father used to say you shoot like—i apologise for the term we use in the military amongst men—a virgin?"
despite being above average compared to the general public, her shooting really did not pass her father's standards. she could shoot, yes, but it would not have been enough for war. armand concluded that it was enough at the very least for self-defense.
raphael lifted one end of his lips, "i bet he would say otherwise now."
"that is because now i am not." she said with indifference, missing the way the man sat up from his leaning, turning to her fully.
"...wait, what—you mean...?" he asked curiously, his will returning to his voice in spite of their current situation.
raine looked at him and she found it interesting how curious he was at the topic. she let out a short giggle before slowly nodding. his mouth noticeably went ajar at that as he pried more.
"the bridgerton son?" she nodded once again, raphael leaning back down in surprise, shaking his head in disbelief, "your father is going to kill you."
"no need. the crown is doing it for him."
both laughed in chorus—how they could still jest in a situation like this is lost. perhaps, it was there saving grace. little joys do really count.
"i cannot fathom what you could possibly find so amusing in a place like this."
the queen's voice announced her arrival, her face grimacing in disgust at the place. the two greeted her with respect, standing from their position. she looked around, as if assessing their surroundings before settling her eyes to the girl.
her majesty sighed resignedly, "why ever did you have to shoot him?"
"he talked too much."
"that he did." she had no problem agreeing with that statement at all. the lord had been bothering her as well before about royal familial matters.
she clasped her hands, forming the words to say, "i have spoken to have a private execution for you both. it was granted. this is the least i could do, considering everyone has voted for a beheading instead of hanging."
raine nodded thankfully at that. she did not care much. either way, they would be dead. she inquired further, "the soldiers?"
"all free from the charges."
the two released a breath of relief. that was one of their main goals—for the rest of the troop to be able to go home and spend the following years with their families.
"thank you, aunt lottie. that is all i ask." she smiled warmly to the older woman.
"it will be in an hour." the queen noted, pertaining to the execution.
it must already be five in the afternoon already. the young silva did not know how time flew by so fast. she neared the girl, pushing a hand through the bars of her cell. raine held her hand as she continued.
"make death proud to take us."
raphael and raine's ears perked at that, their brows crossing as the queen took back her hand slowly, "how do you know of it?"
charlotte offered them a smile before she turned away, "your father had been a good company."
after the queen, major gilbert and the viscount bridgerton also stopped to visit them. the former relayed the gratefulness of the soldiers by the news of their freedom, while the latter updated her on how the queen is working on for a proper investigation against the said involved people in the treason with the help of the papers that was left to him. they did not take long, of course. the prison had that effect. it was very suffocating.
yet, her breath came back at the sight of the man in front of her.
"what are you doing here?" she said in concern, her lips quivering as she scrambled on her feet.
benedict reached to her, cupping her face with a tearful smile, "i told you. i will always be here."
she shut her eyes in shame of her current state, "you should not see me like this."
he chuckled with tears in his eyes, "like painfully beautiful?"
"like dying." she corrected in all honesty as he went silent, his heavy breathing speaking for himself.
his lips formed a thin line, features traced with painstaking gaze, "you are so unfair."
"i know," she admitted, knowing exactly what he meant, "i am so sorry."
he hushed her, his palms still on her cheeks as he soothed—both tracing the tear marks that intensified their emotions.
"forget about me. let go of this grief completely." she bleakly uttered, torment clear on her voice.
benedict immediately responded a multiple series of 'no' with an intense shaking of his head in disagreement. he would do anything to not forget her, both the joy and painful memories. he would cherish everything that she was present in. he would cling onto every word she utters.
"and in case you do forget about me," she continued, cupping his face with the utmost care, "i hope you remember by my touch alone.
he nodded fervently, "i love you."
he leaned his head to hers, their breaths exchanging as if he was used to the taste of pain on a dead friday night.
"i love you too."
they wanted to be together for as long as they could, and if that's not very long, well, then that's just how it is. and so, they held each other for the last time, coming to terms that if this life will be this cruel, he would spend the rest of his life praying that the next will not be.
he wanted to badly stay with her, to stop the time and prolong this moment. but, it seemed like he had angered the gods as a guard knocked his truncheon on the door, calling for him to exit for the fifteen-minute preparation before the execution.
━━━ ✦ ❘ ☽ 【❖】 ☾ ❘ ✦ ━━━
no later, guards entered the cells, taking both prisoners with no austerity in their touch. it was so strange for them to the point that it was hard to swallow. they have seized and lead criminals of darkest crimes to their end, yet they find themselves wanting to break the two out.
a viscountess and a colonel, both still children in their own way.
they have never thought there comes a day they would dread their work, and the executioner would say the same. because just as they all arrived in the execution stage, the forty-five soldiers, four members of the bridgerton family, and the queen are in attendance. as she caught sight of them, raine offered a brief, forlorn smile. these people are the ones who she is most thankful of.
executions happen at a faster pace than the young silva thought. one moment they were walking, the next they were kneeling. the executioner bowed to the both of them when they arrived, now asking for forgiveness on the duty he must do in a while. loraine granted him that.
he stood back up, announcing clearly, "you have been granted to speak your final words."
she turned to take a look at raphael, the latter nodding as a sign for her to speak for them both. raine casted her head down in thinking of the words she must say for the last time. she looked back at them all, to no one in particular, and dared to raise her eyes to her terrible fate as she began.
"when a crime goes unpunished, the world is unbalanced. when the wrong is unavenged, the heavens look down on us in shame. we too must die for this circle of vengeance to be closed. we will leave this record of our courage so the world will know who we were and what we did."
as she ended, they both tied the cloth firmly to cover their eyes. at the absence of sight, fear started to creep in. she could hear the executioner stepping away from her and to the colonel first. he declared with resolve, a means of comforting the two souls.
"death is proud to take you."
raine exhaled peacefully at that. it was a reply to their previous convictions—a way of reassuring they have done well.
and so, she did not panic, even when the sound of a drop on the floor filled the place.
raphael had been a great friend, soldier, and a person. the silva would not mind having to fight beside him once again.
the room stayed silent, with no other noise but the small whimpers of the audience. however, it was immediately overshadowed by the sound of footsteps, nearing her one step at a time. she guessed this must be it.
loraine's mind became blank. she hurried herself to think of memories—those that she would love to relive. she had a strange belief that it would not be as painful if she was feeling happy. but, it was also strangely hard to be one in the moment. all she could think of was that maybe, dying is the best option for her in this life. there was no home for her anymore.
and when she greets death, she hoped it is gentle. she hoped it is like going home. she believed a great happiness awaited her somewhere.
and for this reason, she remained calm as the axe hit her neck.
the audience found themselves letting go of the prolonged silence, breaking out to their cries. however, one person did not have any tear or voice left in himself anymore as he stared at the trail of blood that was starting to accumulate and flow away from the body.
indeed, a lot can happen in a day.
he was annoyed by her in one, taken by her in one, and loved her in one. he is grieving for her in one, and he will long for her in one.
and so, he was left with nothing but to face reality—realising that a very frightening thought is now shadowing him intimately.
when tomorrow depends to a person, what should one do? when that person is lost, does that mean tomorrow is too?
love was there. it may have not changed anything. it may have not saved anyone. but, it still matters that the love was there.
because, raine did not need to be saved. she needed to be found and appreciated for who exactly she was. her father has taught her that this world was only a preparation for the next, that all they can ask is to leave it having loved and being loved.
and benedict, until the very last moment, made that known to her and everyone else. she was found. she was appreciated. she was loved.
all by him.
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#benedict bridgerton fanfiction#benedict bridgerton x oc#bridgerton#benedict bridgerton x reader#benedict bridgerton
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Empathy. ( Noa x Human! Reader.) Part Six.
me: i hate cliffhangers
me: whoops.
Title: Empathy.
Fandom: ( Kingdom of the ) Planet of the Apes.
Rating: T.
Pairing: Heavily Implied Noa x Human!Reader.
Words: 6.2K.
Summary: You had shown Noa empathy once and had to explain it. Was he able to reciprocate?
READ THE SERIES HERE.
●・○・●・○・●・○・●・○・●・○・●・○・●・○・●・○・●・●・○・
Mouth agape, you found words beyond your comprehension. What were you supposed to say to an Ape who just gave you back your freedom? Who salvaged you from mere moments away from death, holding you in an almost animated state as you drifted in and out of consciousness before tendering to your wound, always so diligent, always so careful. The words ‘thank you’ sprang to mind, but between the tears falling down your cheeks, wave after wave of relief and grief striking at your senses and numbing your fingertips and toes, that seemed juxtaposed.
Of course you were thankful, the Ape who gave you such an opportunity had to know that. What he didn't know was why you were crying, face contorted almost to the point of unrecognition, salt exploding on your tongue when you gasped and sucked some tears into your throat. Coughing slightly, you raise a hand to cover your mouth and then wipe at your eyes in a bid to get yourself grounded again so you could say something, say anything to Noa who looked at you like he’d just clipped your wings instead of giving them back.
“Why?” You finally managed to peep something out of your lips despite your mouth being incredibly dry and desolate.
Earning to phrase more than that, your mouth fell lax on your face as you looked at him, green eyes looking back with the glow of the firepit illuminating the undertones of gold that lingered delicately along the landscape of his irises. This was a question that wasn’t needed. In what right mind where you to even ask why you were being let go? It wasn’t as if either of you really had the intentions of you staying beyond the care they gave. Noa had told you once, and you wondered if that was going to be his answer here.
The Eagle Clan, unlike the others of the valley, did not kill humans unless they were an extensive threat, and they certainly did not mercy kill. It never rested well with you that that’s the only explanation you’d gotten. Your hands rolled into balls at your side, the encapsulating white nature of them from the pressure of your grasp was evident to Noa’s eyes which were quick to dart to your face. You didn't appear angry.
Why?
Why heal me?
Why just let me go like that’s it?
The idea arose in your mind, a bitter hypothetical that you just wanted to throw in his face but you refrained in fear of the possibility of him snapping and frankly attacking you. They say they’re peaceful, but how peaceful are they? You could have been a terrible human, done terrible things and these Apes, this… Noa just wanted to believe your words when you told him that you weren’t a bad one, a leap of faith off a terribly built bridge. A bad Echo, like he and his friends had seen. You could leave here and tell other human groups about the danger, about the existence of a Clan that did not want to kill humans by law, but chose to save them. They’d never believe you, the other humans.
They’d find it a joke, they’d hunt down the Clan out of fear like you were irrationally considering at the moment. They scared you, the way that Noa looked at you and understood what you were saying with a deeper level of understanding scared you.
You could tell them the Apes were a threat, the thought beaten into your mind from years upon years of hearing the same thing. They could be coming to kill all of them, and burn this place to the ground so the village was nothing more than a heap of ashes that you’d parade around in. He wanted to believe your words just as much as you wanted to believe theirs but no matter how many nights you spent awake here, tossing and turning and muttering like a madman about it, trying to come to some semblance of understanding, it never became clear to you. Two dominant species, one slightly advantageous from a number stand point, could not co-exist together. Noa had to know that, you knew it better than most, a flash of red hit your eyes.
You wanted to scream at him for not answering you. You wanted to shake him into submission. Nothing but a pitiful silence blanketed over the two of you as Noa intently contemplated his answer, which was not typical. When you had asked why all of this happened, it was the same answer. Always the same set words and phrases that were always enough to tide you over until you asked again, futile, but eager to hear something different from the male Ape.
Bile bubbled at the back of your throat at the meager thought that you enjoyed the drawing of Noa’s vocals - so strained, delicate around some words and more aggressive with others. He spoke often to you but used a mix of sign language and speech with the others. They could have been using signing to talk about what to do with you right in front of your face and you’d have no idea. His voice was always gentle though - settling you into a moment of peace when he’d come for meals, when he’d stay a bit longer than either of you felt was necessary. You just wanted him to speak, even if the answer was not one you wanted to hear.
“Why?”
“Eagle Clan does not-”
"Why?”
“I… don’t understand…” Noa quipped at you and came forward on all fours. Instinctually, your shoulders tensed up in preparation of being attacked - it never came but you fell into a rather tedious stare down with him. There was no way to get him to understand, it was such a human element, that morbid curiosity to know more about the metaphorical saviors and why they’re just letting you go.
“You call tell me all about the Eagle Clan and that they don’t kill humans who aren’t threats,” You uttered to him and un-balled your hands from your side so you could push a piece of rebellious hair behind your ear. Noa watched the movement and flex of your fingers, subconsciously his elongated fingers moved along with yours against the ground. “I get that, that’s all you’ve ever told me but… I just want to know… why you’re doing this to me. Why just heal me and then let me go? A-aren’t you worried I could bring other humans back here?”
From the look on his face it was obvious that the thought had transpired for Noa. It was a heavy weight on his shoulders, the idea that you were worse than he bargained for. But, taking chances was what Leaders needed to do and the shift in his demeanor when he thought about just keeping you prisoner was uncomfortable. All he yearned for was to be better than he was, to do something beneficial for his people, for their advancements.
He could feel his Father inside of his mind, like a guiding hand at times but this was past that and Noa found himself straggling for advice from Koro even though he had gone to fly with the Eagles of the past. Noa felt alone and isolated in his thoughts, the only solace that came was when he’d think about Raka, or when he’d preen Eagle Sun in meditation. The young Ape was worried. Beyond that, he was terrified to lose everything again.
“Echo could…” He hated himself. Oh, how the loathing set in to his shoulders, his spine and his ribs with passionate fire as he proceeded and pushed himself apart from the fear of the unknown, “Could stay… With the Eagle Clan.”
Your eyes widened, tears still bubbling at the corners. “Wh…”
“Make agreement,” Noa was setting forth a transaction, you realized and tried to bring yourself down from the terror that rose in the back of your mind that he was even capable of that and understanding it as a means to get what he wanted. Intelligent, far away from what humans had thought. “You stay, Clan can offer you food, shelter…”
He paused and looked over at you. There was something written on your face that he was unable to read. Your eyes were staring at him, widened almost to the point where Noa wondered if you were ever going to look at him with normal gazes, your mouth had fallen open, jaw slacked a bit. He could see the sheen of saliva against your tongue as you grappled, wanting to speak but nothing coming to fruition.
There was another part to this. There was no reason to keep you unless he himself got something in return. That’s how transactions worked, that’s how you played a game with invisible chips. You braced yourself, it had to be something awful. Had to be otherwise Noa would just come out and say it, at least, that was your assumption. You had no way of knowing, you barely knew him.
“You tell me about Echo’s. How… do they live, what… beliefs they have.”
You blinked at that. If you weren’t all there and able to process, at first glance, this seemed like an incredibly good deal. You got the assurance of safety from being with the clan, you got fed and could say goodbye to the nights of lost sleep due to starvation, you’d get shelter, no longer having to brave the cold of winter and sweltering of the summers. All in exchange for… you telling him about your culture, about how humans are. It was incredibly biased, you didn't speak for the whole of mankind but from the earnest look he gave you at the proposition, he’d already weighed that into this calculation.
“For how long?”
Noa didn't need to think that through as he replied quietly, “As long as you are able to help me understand.”
“Understand?”
"The ways of Caesar.”
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It was like you had forgotten how to speak. The ideas in your mind were rampant and ripe, the opening of himself to you was more than a draw, it was yearning and pulling you in with an invisible point of gravity. Sickening, but all the more delicious on the tip of your tongue. You took your time to trace the outline of his open hand that presented itself to you.
Swallowing back a choked cry was easy enough as you raised your head to get a better glance at it, but the tears were still fresh against your skin and kissed the delicate nature under your eyes like a thousand bricks. Your eyelids were red, you knew, your lips felt chapped and your mind was stagnant now after being so flooded. Unable to think, unable to process. You… had no idea what to reciprocate with, and no doubt lingering in your position was pure torture to the Ape who was holding out for you to do something.
There was nothing, you felt a small push in your chest as your heart rose to beat against the base of your neck - uncomfortable and all encompassing, you felt like you were being suffocated. Like Noa had a hand against your throat and he was pushing in with all his strength to get the last of your breath for his own selfish intent. You’d let him, your voice rang inside of your head, the first thought to finally leave your battered mind. You’d let him touch you like that if it meant you were able to feel him against you.
Your shoulders dropped in some form of disappointment that you were able to will yourself back into a state of awareness. You had wanted to drift into nothingness and let your mind follow suit, maybe then you could get a break from the pull you had toward the Ape in front of you and the subsequent push you found yourself contemplating when you thought about it too long. The push you gave yourself, backwards, away from Noa, away from his hand, so open and ready for you. You were grasping at the ground with your hands, someone pulling at your feet and no matter what you tried, you were unable to leverage onto anything to stop from being pulled right under.
There were no indications as to what Noa was doing when your mind finally caught up to itself; this was in nature similar to how you had seen other Apes apologizing, but he had nothing to be apologetic about. His question? Completely reasonable, unlike the absolute thrush of agony that laid out as a result. Your emotional response had to have startled him - the crying had to have been off putting, your hands wrapped around yourself blocked Noa from reading you. None of it is Noa's fault, you told yourself over and over again as you stared at his hand. The rise and fall of his shoulders captivated your attention, how frantic it was. He was breathing through his nose, you could tell from the nature of ragged inhales and exhales.
Maybe this entire thing could have been avoided if you were just truthful with him in your answers before, if you didn't seek to keep a part of yourself to yourself. That wasn’t the case anymore, it felt like a radical transformation happened and you were reeling from the turnaround, dizzying in nature, enough to make your stomach surage in a pleasurable way when you took time to think about it. The fact that you became so dependent on Noa, that you didn't find yourself wanting to burrow away from you own being and you wanted to share it with him. It scared you. It terrified you. And all you wanted to do was run away.
The grasp he could have on you if you went for it and placed your own palm into his own, the sheer force of his elongated fingers encasing yours, holding onto it in a bid to never let go. Your mind flooded. Why would he never want to let you go?
Human.
Echo.
The overbearing thought of having to unravel yourself was smothering. You didn't want to - you liked the hold you had on yourself, compressing into what felt like nothingness. The seething fire of your ribcage pressed so snugly into your knees, your arms holding themselves around your kneecaps to keep formation. All so soothing, all so lonely and encapsulating. You met eyes - lush grass coloring poured into you and for a second, maybe more as you often found yourself lost in Noa’s eyes, as you returned the stare, you felt like you were going to be picked up and drifted off.
Noa didn't falter - he steadfastly kept his hand out for you, shifting forward an inch or two on his feet to beckon the silent question again that he was posing with his hand. Noa felt like he was encased against you. The wall that had been stacked brick by brick by the two of you was demolished and laid pitifully on the ground covered in dust and ashes.
You… needed to accept him, Noa pleaded inside of his mind and shut his eyes pensively, waiting and drawing close to the line of impatience. He didn't know what he would do if you were to reject this moment, to choose to go on with your life and force him to deal with the consequences of getting emotionally involved with an Echo. He’d never trust again, he’d never bring himself to. That was incredibly finite but Noa refused to rationalize any further.
What he wanted from you - what you wanted from him was known to both, was never spoken to either.
“I don-- I don’t know what you want.” Whispering softly, your voice came to a taper of a stop when you felt tears exploding down your face again.
You were so weak, you weren’t even able to accept whatever it was that he was offering, as if Noa knew that himself. He didn't. The same tug you had that sought for more but always hesitated and pulled him back was more than evident when his hand shifted mid-air, backwards towards himself. A moment's worth of hesitation before he thrusted it back forward. He was not weak this time. He refused to fall back and let forces take away from the good of his life. Noa had to burden that enough with the loss of his Father. He’d wrestle and fight aggressively against any forces stopping him now.
“Echo word…” Noa’s voice was remarkably smooth but you knew better. The shaking around the words was evident, the dip in his tone was more than forthcoming. He was holding himself together by a thread. “Told me once…Noa… Noa feels what you feel.”
Empathy.
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Solace was found in his mind when there weren't heavy conversations happening. They were frequent, and Noa enjoyed listening to what you had to say. He’d sit and process for a few days, maybe more if he had thoughts regarding the Echo topic he had chosen to ask about, and would come back to you with inquiries days later but… He also liked the languid silence that encased you when there wasn’t any pressure to talk.
The shift of your bodies next to each other, Noa’s shoulders bracing with dexterity as he worked with both hands, your fingers tightly at work on your own personal hobby. He thought about the delicate touch that your hand had against the twine you were working on making. The fleshed out wood, splintered into thin angular pieces as you essentially braided to your heart's content to complete a piece that was only a few inches in length. Most likely for jewelry, Noa thought to himself with a small chuckle.
While you were not good at basket making, you did excel in the realm of making necklaces or bracelets, the intricate detailing you used with beads made of rocks, some smooth, some flushed and coarse, most were black or gray in color, naturally rounded by years of beating around the bottom of the river floor. Some red from the valley clay, some more blue and blistered with black in the cracks, some even carved from wood.
Lightly placing a hand against the small pouch the Eagle Clan leader kept near his chest, he thought about it a bit longer. Inside held a gift from you, which at the moment of giving, you had been uncharacteristically nervous. It was a bracelet you had made for him, but without ever actually touching his wrists, you had made it inadvertently too small but Noa still kept it on himself and often liked to think about the smile you had given him when he accepted it, pushing aside notion that it was special when you gifted Anaya and Soona similar pieces. As you should, Noa was no different to you than they were.
Acquaintances by circumstance, friends by choice.
The detailing that went into your work was always attentive, much like how Noa worked Always, he found parallels and dwindled on them but was too oblivious to take note of the way your eyes fell when he was near, so similar to how he would look at you when you were not paying any attention; seemingly the only time the young Chimp was able to look at you with a softer touch.
The male Ape next to you was carving out chunks at a time from the wooden piece in his right hand, a meter or so in length, hopefully to complete a fishing spear that was more suitable for your smaller hands. He had seen the struggle only recently - a few days ago at the river with Anaya and Soona and the absolute embarrassment you had at trying to hold up Noa’s spear but to no avail. You had nearly toppled straight into the water, face first when the spear left your hand from the sheer momentum it garnered from its distributed weight. The wood was thick and heavy and you explained to him quietly that you didn't have the upper arm strength to use it.
This sort of tandem dance, without Soona or Anaya, was what Noa and yourself found when not conversing. Not that there were complaints, there were none and you found yourself enjoying the spotted glances you got of him, taking in the close details of his face and his body language.
The smoothing of his forehead, brow now taking a less intimidating stature, his shoulders laxed with trust that had been built between the two of you, his eyes so intensely focused on the task at hand. Your breath hitched in your throat when you looked at them and somewhere deep inside of your subconscious, you wanted nothing more than to have him look at you with that primal intent. Unbeknownst to him, moments like these were now your seldom favorite.
You drew a deep breath in, Noa could hear it as his head tilted to the side so he could look closer at the spearhead he deemed worthy to use for your fishing spear, “I’m sorry about your Father.”
That tore Noa out of the daydream he was holding onto while his hands suddenly found themselves finnicking around a spearhead and the piece of wood he was working with. You never brought up topics of conversation around him, it was always the other way around. Noa had figured that maybe you just didn't care - you were both with each other to fulfill a sense of duty and you never delved too far into personal issues at this point. He had asked you about yours, having been shut down and you only got glimpses of his own - probably in a bid to get you to trust him further if he showed a bit of openness.
The topic of conversation was completely out of left field and for a second it felt like you had a serious case of not being able to keep your mouth shut and knowing your place - you had only talked about his Father once before a few days ago during your last intent session of conversations, when you had to help him come down and explain that things were not his fault. There was nothing tethering either of you to continue that topic of conversation but you found yourself reaching for it. Sure, your thoughts that he was not to blame were based in truth from what he had told you about the events.
How the fire consumed almost all his Clan, how Noa fought to the edge of his life against Sylva, a Gorilla who then took his Father away. Noa never went into detail about that, and you were surely going to consider yourself lucky if he continued this particular means of speaking to you. You wanted to, you felt your chest surge with unbridled selfishness. You wanted him to talk to you about it and wrap you into his embraced words with fever. Noa never quite shook the feeling away from his chest that consumed his senses when he thought about it but when he looked at you, the warmth of your gaze, he placed the spearhead and wooden shaft down on the ground in front of him.
It was his fault, he had not been fast enough to warn his people. All those lost that night, all those lost when Mae betrayed him and having to come to terms that they were gone and his Clan was more thinned as a result. How could he not put the blame on himself when he leaned so heavily into his Father’s ways now and never appreciated them in their entirety until they were gone? He shifted with discomfort and looked over at you momentarily - the eye contact lasting less than a second before he looked back at his hands. You recognized it, mentally slapping yourself on the head at the fact that you were so bold as to bring it up.
“Why Echo apology?” He finally asked, quiet and reserved, he had his chin tilted downwards so you couldn’t see his face properly. That was a terribly good question, you posed to yourself and looked down at your hands in a mimic of Noa’s action. One that you couldn’t bring yourself to quite garner an answer for. There was nothing said as Noa looked over at you, kindly twirling a piece of twine between your fingers. You were lost in deep thought, he knew the crease of your forehead very well. “Just…” You spoke so caressingly that Noa was entranced to watching your lips form the words, “It’s called empathy.”
There was a tug inside of you to just fess up why you actually were offering an apology. It made clear sense to you that the concept and grasp of empathy was strewn between the two of you. There was no vivid detailing to you that Noa even understood what that meant - the pull to offer condolences instead of apologies because you knew how it felt, that he wasn’t alone and neither were you. That line between yourself and Noa shifted but you couldn’t bring yourself to acquire any personal artifacts to back up your words. You swallowed, finally able to feel your saliva coating your throat so you could speak properly. Echo word, echo explanation.
“It’s uh…” You cleared your throat and pressed onwards, “That feeling you... get when you share a feeling with someone, or at least understand what someone else is going through.” Noa narrowed his eyes at you in a tranced confusion. Share… feelings? He waited patiently for you to continue, to give context but it didn't come.
You were looking back down at your hands again, unable to make contact with Noa’s gaze. You were opened and then closed in such a quick fashion that it left him feeling secluded, reaching for an answer you weren’t going to get him and leaving him all the more confused than before. Silence surrounded the two of you again, this time, Noa felt like he was trying to swim to the surface of breathing but found that he was willingly letting himself be submerged innately.
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Trying to swallow, you found it difficult as your throat closed at his words. This was something known to the Apes but they didn't associate a word to the emotion until you told him about it in a fleeting moment of rare openness of the past. That habit of saying sorry for the most mundane of things, things that had nothing to do with you, came from a place of empathy especially when you explained it using his Father’s death as an example. You never explained your based premise, and how you knew how it felt, you just… Sunk your eyes into Noa’s, so deep that you had an imaginary grasp on his lungs, and whispered to him that you were sorry. Nothing else in that moment mattered - it didn't need to.
There was no fear anymore, you had torn past that months ago when you noticed the gaze he gave you would soften, when you noticed the way he talked to you smoothed… All terror gone, replaced by the morbid hope that there was something more happening, that he would allow something more to happen. You’d always pinned it on loneliness - on wanting a sense of belonging. There was no more of that, it was evident in the way you looked at him when you were in the throes of conversation, how you leaned towards him when you were standing close to one another. You had always wanted him to reach out and now that he did?
You were frozen.
Noa’s mind was relentless with deprecation. You were going to reject this. There was no benefit to you to accept, there was no way for you to know what it meant, to know that it meant more to Noa than at first glance and that gave the Eagle Clan leader pause as his mouth fell open and he panted quietly next to you, eager and desperate to ease some of the oppressive state his lungs found themselves in, his heart felt like it was going to fall right out and bury itself into the ground to escape the absolute torment.
He could make you, he thought. He could take it upon himself to be more forthcoming and force you to accept his offering. Maybe… he muttered to himself and tilted his head to the side in contemplation, maybe that’s how Echo enjoyed it. Would you? Would you want him to grab your hand in his and force the action onto itself? The idea was entrancing, the ghosting of your fingers against his, scrabbling to let go as he shoved you down to submit.
Swallowing lightly, even Noa thought that a bit extreme. He had always played along to your comforts, your desires and wants. To dive into his own like that could end in disaster, injury to you surely or you ultimately leaving him as it dawns upon you that life here, life within the Eagle Clan, was not as satisfactory as you had wanted it to be when his initial offer for you to stay arose.
It was one of empathy, he tried to convince himself, one of understanding. He knew how it felt to lose someone with great meaning, he just wanted to let you know without words that he understood the mental twisting you were going through. That’s just what he told himself to ease the pain of rejection a bit more; this was a mutual understanding, similar in nature to when you agreed to stay with the Eagle Clan. There couldn’t be emotions, there couldn’t be any senses entrapped with ideas that anything more could actually bear fruit for either of you.
Chimpanzee.
Ape.
Noa squeezed his eyes shut at the feeling of your fingers barely grazing against his palm. At first, he thought it was just his imagination playing tricks on him, there was no way that you had moved forward and he didn't notice. Noa always noticed the most subtle of your movements, even the less graceful ones that left you embarrassed. He took solace in that for the time being, your face scrunched as you told him it wasn’t funny that you had tripped, that your balance was not on par with his own. How you looked at him, how you looked away, reddened flushed against your cheeks.
For a split second, the fur on his shoulders rose at the sensation, anticipating more than what you were giving him. He’d let you go on - grab at him in frustration, dig your fingernails into him, he deserved it. Leading his eyelids forward, he slid his gaze open and dropped it. You hadn’t moved your hand away, instead, you were placing the pads of your fingertips against the calloused nature of his palm, almost like you were aiming to trace the lines that encased his skin there.
So… so soft, he wanted to break them all, every one of your phalanges, every one of your tendons, all the way up to your wrist. Just some feeble attempt to make you his, mark you as his. You had no idea what you were agreeing with this time, you didn't feel like asking which Noa found a bit of a relief at knowing he didn't need to provide a tender answer right then when your fingers twitched against his skin. Noa, in all honesty, had no idea what he was asking of you either. The decimation of his thoughts exploded before him, before he had time to put them in a safe spot.
The redness of your eyes and nose rubbed away, tears along your cheeks, drying now, but fresh ones still held their grasp at the corners of your eyelids. The glow of your small fire pit illuminated the air around you and gave the illusion that your hair was encased in a delicious afterglow of orange and mild yellow. He stopped breathing, at least that's how it felt to have you holding him. You were… holding him like he mattered to you. He couldn’t stop himself from the mild obsession about it, knowing that when the intricacy broke and you asked him to leave, he was going to still feel your fingers burning holes into him. He wanted nothing more than that, if he were rightfully honest.
You had seen it done between Noa and Anaya, an embrace of sorts where they grasped at each other's forearms. Temptation bit you. Would… Would Noa be accepting of that if you pressed inwards? If you touched intimately, in private? Would he shake it off in denial and tell you that it had passed the line he had drawn for himself? What did it mean to Apes when they did that?
It was a burning question you had since you had first seen it, but it seemed so far out of your grasp to ask Noa what it meant when you were there to give him answers, not the other way around. It’s not too far from a side hug, it wasn’t like a hug of familiarity and mutual feelings it was more of a … a mutual understanding, you put it lightly in your mind to hinder the annoyance that this pull towards each other was more than just your imagination.
You opened your mouth to stagger out a phrase, though you had no idea what you were even going to talk about but Noa broke the contact first and dropped his hand in the air so you weren’t connected anymore. Your fingers splayed for him, following downwards before you brought your hand back towards you to tightly spring around your knees once again. He had no reason to linger, you told yourself, he had no reason to want to touch you, in all your Echoness.
Finding your eyes resting on the fire, you lightly brought your head up to watch as the flames bustled against themselves, fighting for some dominance back and forth before becoming one larger entity. Bile rose in your chest like a bee sting - gross and infected around the edges, you felt like you were going to throw up. You had broken down in front of him from a question he posed and you accepted his apology in return, never looking at the action as more than that. As Noa had intended it to be looked at.
An acceptance of himself.
An acceptance that this was going to work, one way or another.
You accepted an apology.
He was denied satisfaction and knowledge that you… felt the same as he did.
The way he shifted his body away from yours made you want to crawl away, it looked so defensive. It was obvious from the tightening of his shoulders, his hands setting on knuckles on the ground below, that he was deeply focusing on the introspective of what happened. Never in the moment as it happened, Noa had a tendency to drive himself down with thoughts afterwards. It was an apology he was asking for, you finally put two and two together. He was apologizing to you for even asking that question again, one that he knew would garner him an unfavorable response due to your lack of having answered it before. You accepted the apology without a care. Without reserve and now you two sat in petulance, grief riding on you and shame rising against Noa.
“Noa I---” You were weeping to apologize to him. He had done nothing wrong, you needed to tell him that. You needed him to look at you like he always did - with marvel and wonder, like you actually meant something to him rather than just a means to get knowledge that was outside of his grasp. Your fingers slicked across the skin of your arms and tightened themselves.
“I have… one more thing I… I need to know…” He told you, looking out the window pensively. He wasn’t looking at you anymore, he was solely focusing on the sky outside, looking through the small window of your hut that was often covered for privacy as it drifted from a midnight navy to a pitch black. Midnight, maybe later.
“D...-” Noa stuttered and clamped his teeth together out of minored frustration. Gritting his teeth against each other, he relished the feeling it gave him, so coarse and mean, enough to keep him grounded to ask, “Do--- Do you think about leaving…” Me? He wanted to prospect but couldn’t bring himself to do that. “Leaving the Eagle Clan? To find more Echo’s? To--- Have a family, not Apes who don’t understand. Noa want--- I need… To know.”
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Lookism guys comforting YOU
G/N hc feat all my blorbos. Jakey, Sammy, Goo, Gun, Vin, Ryuhei
You're stressed and upset. Overwhelmed. Day gone from bad to worse and you're seeking comfort-
Jake comes in with the jokes, makes you laugh even when you want to cry.
Wipes away your tears with careful fingers, yourself not even sure if they're from laughter or distress.
He does pick his moments though, and knows when to put a serious face on.
When you're too upset and it's not the right mood, he'll pull you into his lap, envelop you with his arms.
Tells you how amazing you are, how precious to him, how much better you make his life. Until little by little, you start to feel more like yourself.
Samuel holds you steady against him.
Lets you sniffle into his expensive shirts, breathing shaky breaths against his skin.
Offers you something to blow off steam. One of his vices: drink or nicotine or maybe violent retribution.
Or even something pretty and expensive and sparkling, to take your mind off it.
If you opt for none, he'll sigh and hold you close. His nose nestled in your hair, your head resting on his chest.
He's a busy man with things to do, but you always come first. He'll be there for you for as long as you need.
Goo is outraged at whatever has pissed you off or upset you.
Takes it as a personal slight, whether it is someone making you cry, school stressing you out, job not going well or anything in between.
How dare they do this to you.
Bad mouths whatever has pissed you off so much that even you're feeling a bit bad for them.
Eventually tries to buy your happiness, or tests the water to see if it's something casual arson or grievous bodily harm may solve.
When it's none of the above, he just says your name with a soft sigh. Cups your face, peppering you in kisses until he sees your smile again.
Gun sits and listens to whatever is on your mind.
He's great at it, never showing any impatience. Quietly taking in everything you're saying.
Gives hums of encouragement, nods every now and then to urge you to continue.
Gaze focused and attentive, never glazing over or drifting away.
At the end, when you're finishing sniffling into his shoulder, he asks how he can help.
With your hand in his, thumb running over your knuckles, sweetly offers to kill anyone you like... It's not a joke.
He himself feels a pang of disappointment when you turn him down.
Vin pokes fun at you, initially.
Defaulting to his mean self even where you're concerned and especially when he's feeling uncomfortable.
At your wet eyes and downtrodden expression, he feels bad. Awful actually.
Changes tact and puts his arm around you. Gently directs your head to his shoulder and calls you an idiot for crying.
Rubs your arm soothingly regardless. Pats your head awkwardly but makes up for it with kisses to your forehead.
Asks what or who has done this and silently vows to make them puke blood all night.
Ryuhei immediately reaches for his weapon, asking "who did this to you?!"
He has promised to never make you cry or upset but that doesn't mean someone else can!
When you say no, he offers to take your mind off things in other ways. Specifically in bed-
Again you say no but he drags you to bed anyway.
"No funny business," he promises and you lie down.
Curls up behind you, wrapping you in his protective embrace.
Whispers in his native language to you, soothing and like a lullaby.
#lookism#lookism x reader#jake kim x reader#samuel seo x reader#goo kim x reader#gun park x reader#vin jin x reader#ryuhei kuroda x reader#ryuhei x reader#jake kim#samuel seo#goo kim#gun park#vin jin#ryuhei kuroda#lookism fic#lookism webtoon#lookism manhwa#lookism headcanon#wannaeatramyeon
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You reflect on your prior experience as the team's ectobiologist. It seemed like you were doing something so important at the time. Finally everything made sense. This was why you were here.
But what was the point? You are all clearly going to die the most pointless deaths possible. [...] You are no ectobiologist. If only there was some other title more befitting of the true discipline you practice, and the death sentence given to whatever you do the disservice of creating.
Oh, I get it. Karkat's the CarcinoGeneticist, so his universe spawns a session with a tumor.
The Tumor was described as a mutation, so it might literally be a form of cosmic cancer. Perhaps Sburb sessions are part of their host universe's body, and the kids' frog has faulty cells.
And what about the OTHER twelve wigglers you spawned? Who were they? Probably further proof this was all meaningless and random. Could it be that they were the true heroes meant to be sent back to play this game, while your team was the superfluous crop?
That would be the ancestors, the troll Guardians that Eridan mentioned. It seems they might have an actual role in the story, especially if they really are the ancestors who were giving Aradia orders.
Sollux is up, but his glowing eyes are gone, presumably indicating that his psionics are offline. I was relying on him to turn the tide against the murderers, and losing his support is a pretty serious blow. Let's hope it's temporary.
EB: so… what about jack? […]
EB: are you still planning on killing him? […]
EB: it is much better than killing friends.
AG: Yeah, you're right.
AG: And to tell you the truth, part of the reason I wanted to kill him was to protect them. It's not just a8out glory you know.
I don't doubt it. It's always been apparent to me that Vriska does care about the people around her. The problem is, every time she tries to express that affection, it comes out in weird, fucked-up ways.
At best, she comes off as rude and confrontational.
At worst...
...let's not talk about it.
AG: 8ecause if I don't do it, then who will?
EB: well, we have a plan to defeat him too, so there's that.
AG: Yes, I know a8out your plan.
AG: I guess two plans are 8etter than one, right?
Not always. In this case, I'd argue that a single collaborative plan would be better than two unworkable ones. If you don't rendezvous with Karkat soon, there's every chance that Gamzee will get to him before he's done helping Jade.
Then, once Jack's reduced you to atoms, we'll have zero plans.
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The medic leaned over his captain, wiping away the sweat on his forehead with a damp cloth. The man himself was out cold, as he had been for the past day. Tan skin had become a pale shade and a strong body had been reduced to a limp shell of itself. Heavy breathing became the only thing that showed he was still alive and struggling to be.
He wasn't getting better.
The wound had festered and the infection must have gotten into his bloodstream. Medic had been too late to notice and the captain had been too occupied trying to keep as many of his men alive as he could whilst completing their mission.
The platoon stopped advancing yesterday when their captain collapsed right in front of them.
But the general had had enough.
One man wasn't enough reason to abandon their assignment.
"He can't even sit up by himself, sir! He won't survive if we-"
"We aren't bringing him. He will stay here,"
"With all due respect sir, this platoon needs their medic with them-"
"I said that your captain is staying here. Not you,"
The medic's heart dropped when the general's words started to register. He was being ordered to leave behind his captain. His brother by everything but blood.
"Look at him, medic. I doubt he will still be alive by tommorow. You're wasting your supplies,"
"General! He isn't dead yet! He just needs time-"
"Time that we do not have, soldier. We will move by sunrise tommorow. We are advancing without him,"
A small whine answered the general before the medic could, making both men turn to the weak body on the cot. The general sighs as he walks to the young man's side, placing a gentle hand on a too warm forehead. The captain's eyes were hardly open, but he was conscious and had heard the whole conversation.
"I'm sorry, son. You were a good soldier and one of my best men. But this mission is of higher importance,"
"My men...take care of 'em, sir,"
"I will. For your own good, you need to let go. You don't need to hold on anymore, son. You've done your part,"
The medic's hand trembled as he watched the two high ranks.
"m' sorry, sir...dying...is not as easy as I thought,"
"I know. Which is why I will help you. You don't have to suffer like this anymore, son,"
The general said as he passed the medic a small packet of white powder.
"Sir?"
"It's cyanide. Mix some into water and feed it to him tonight,"
"You're...you're asking me to kill him, sir?"
"He's in pain, soldier. You're going to do him a favour,"
The captain was partially conscious now but he had seen the powder. Medic made the mistake of meeting the captain's eyes, seeing the fear in them under the haze of sickness.
"I will allow you to bury him properly before we depart. Make sure it is done by sunrise," the general said before leaving the tent.
-----
Medic cradled his captain's upper torso, the mixed concoction of poison ready in a canteen. The captain's head laid limp against Medic's shoulder.
Medic noticed that his captain was trembling.
No, wait. It was him.
He was trembling.
A weak voice pulled the medic out of his haze.
"Medic...I...I don't want to die," a voice he didn't recognize said, soft but shaky.
"But...you're in...pain. You won't survive anyway-"
"I don't wanna die...please...I'm scared..."
Medic put the canteen down, instead wrapping his arms tightly around his captain. The captain was built bigger than medic, but he seemed incredibly small in his brother's arms.
"Okay. Okay. You're not going to die, alright? I'm not...I won't do it,"
"But...the orders..."
"Fuck the orders. I am a medic. Your medic. My task is to keep the men alive, not kill them,"
The captain didn't answer, savouring the warmth of his brother holding him.
#leader whumpee#whumpblr#whump community#leader whump#whump tropes#whump prompt#whump#whumpee#sick whump#team dynamics
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aftermath - higuruma hiromi
cw: blood, death, homicide, manga spoilers (I mean, if you know who tf he is you're fine tbh), language
notes: established relationship, gender neutral, inspired by if I killed someone for you by alec benjamin (was gonna put the song in but I refuse to put the gigantic eyesore that tumblr auto gives me and idk how to fix it)
synopsis: how should one react when their lover shows up on their doorstep covered in blood?
You didn't mean for your breath to hitch in your throat so violently, creating an audible gasp from the air that lodged itself. Your fingers gripping the edge of your opened door with a grasp so desperate your hand already began to ache. Nails digging into the hard wood as you tried to decipher the pressing image before you.
"Hiromi-" you choked out. Voice wavering as his presence alone was enough to make your knees buckle. Dark, unwavering eyes boring into you. Seemingly nothing within them but a glimmer of something primal, macabre, and- desperate. You weren't a stranger to the unyielding looks, always transfixed on something well beyond his reach, but this was different. A look of a monster, and his attire following suit.
He was usually a well dressed, dapper man. But as he stood upon your doorstep, your opinion flipped instantaneously. A ruffled, crumbled suit jacket littered with dark blotches around the cuff, his white shirt underneath being the tell tale sign of what the mysterious blots were. A stark contrast, red on white, staining the previously ironed shirt right down to the threads. Cheeks splattered with the same red, a large spill just under his eye, like he had tried, unsuccessfully, to wipe his face. "What have you done?" You whispered, speaking softly as if it would untangle you from seeing him so heinous.
"Can I come in?" A gruff, almost uncaring, voice in comparison to your own. You didn't know why you hurriedly nodded, why you shifted out of the way for him to enter your home, why you thought letting this man back into your home was a good idea. It was against your better judgment, but you wracked your brain about the thought of 'there has to be a good reason.' This was the man you loved after all, not a cold hearted killer, or so you came to believe.
Hearing the door click shut and the lock engage, his eyes scanned his surroundings before returning to you. Tired eyes once again looking into you, almost trying to see through you with the intensity of it. "I killed them," he said bluntly, without regard and without further context. His words made your shoulders slump, your body creating shivers as his words hit you so profoundly.
"Who?" Was all you managed to ask, the word escaping your lips so quietly you hoped he would be able to hear it at all. Not asking why, not asking where or when. Who.
"The retrial was today," he said simply. It was all you needed, an impactful statement to which your eyes widened and your mouth opened. Quickly shutting it as no words were found on the tip of your tongue, your throat suddenly dry at the revelation, you could only stare. Looking over him to find any sort of answer, your eyes stopping at the collar of his suit jacket. There once was a small sunflower pin on the lapel, one you had gifted him years ago to replace the former. It was gone. It came off. Could the man you love really be so violent? So much so his beloved pin was ripped from him in the heat of the moment?
You couldn't say what had possessed you to step closer to the man, your lover, the murderer. Each step becoming easier as you neared him, stopping just before him and looking up. So close you could smell the gruesome, irony twinge mingling with the scent of his cologne. It made you nauseous, wanting nothing more than to spill your guts right then and there. But you swallowed hard and forced yourself to look upon the man who had sworn he'd love you to the end of his days. "Are you alright?"
A man of his situation might have said no, should have said no. "I've never felt better," he answered honestly. Looking down at you with a ghost of a smile, a mind fraying image now engraved in your psyche. Your fingers reached for his shoulders, letting out a shaky breath as your hands came in contact with him. It was damp.
"Oh my god," you spoke, forcing yourself to close your eyes at the sensation. You feared to lift your hands to what you would see on your palms, subconsciously pushing down the thoughts to the deepest part of your mind. "Oh my fucking god," you repeated, unable to form a single coherent thought as you couldn't stop yourself from circling back to the feeling.
But the hand, drenched in the same crimson, that gently touched your cheek made your eyes snap open and you inhaled sharply. There was blood on his hands, staining his fingers in sin so much so it was under his nails. That blood was now on you, ripping your stomach right out of your body as you wanted to heave. Desperately searching his features for any sort of answer, but only coming to the same conclusion.
The man you loved killed two people - and liked it.
oh I'm definitely making a part 2 are you kidding??? I wrote this shit in an hour that's a new fucking record for me
#jjk#jujutsu kaisen#higuruma hiromi#hiromi higuruma#higuruma hiromi x reader#higuruma x reader#jjk higuruma#hiromi higuruma x reader#jjk x reader#jujutsu kaisen x reader#tw blood#tw death#tw homicide#tw murder#jjk spoilers
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Hi, I love your work! Your writing it's truly amazing,but while I was reading I had a thought seeing how Alice is pregnant. How would Alastor react if his wife died during childbirth? How would he treat the child? And do they have a gender they prefer? You don't need to answer if you don't want to
Hello, dear. I’m happy you enjoy my works, as twisted as it can be. Well, now those are interesting questions.
Alastor would not care for the baby wellbeing, his main priority is you and only you. When the doctor told him you were gone but the baby survived, he felt anger in his body. He didn’t show it of course, he just smiled, asking if he could say goodbye to you.
He felt hollow, saying he was sorry he wasn’t the first to go but he asked you to be patient. He would follow you when his work here was done.
When the baby was given to him, he just stared at him before asking his mother to take care of it. A girl or a boy, he didn’t really care, they took you away from him.
He didn’t feel any attachment for the baby, he might have felt something if the baby had your eyes, or when they were older had some of your mannerism, but if not he wouldn't care.
Alastor isn’t a good father. He doesn’t care for his child, he might sometimes talk with them if they have the same interests as him but if not, he would let his mother or your parents take care of it. If not, he would force his child to be the best, never showing any weakness, they had to be the best, in your and his image.
I still think he would be a little softer with a daughter, he would see you in her but would feel pain each time his daughter would do something that wasn’t like you used to be.
He would be torn between talking about you to his child or keeping it for himself. In the beginning, he would say nothing, they didn’t deserve to know how amazing you were. But then, Alice began to talk about you, and his child began to grow curious about their mother.
He would open up to them about you if they really seemed curious about you. He would tell them your oddly cute habits, hoping they would get this habit themselves.
He would definitely try to ask Baron Samedi for your soul back against his child if needed.
If his child was as twisted as you and him, maybe they could have some kind of parental bound. Even in his twisted mind, Alastor would see it as a threat. After all, his child already killed you, he would certainly try to kill him too.
#alastor headcanons#human alastor#human alastor x reader#x reader#painted smile headcanons#painted smile#human alastor headcanons#scenarios#alastor scenarios#hazbin hotel imagine#alastor x reader#alastor imagine#alastor hazbin x reader#hazbin alastor#hazbin hotel alastor x reader#hazbin hotel alastor#alastor x you#hazbin alastor x reader#painted smile imagine#painted smile series
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TW- Yandere Manila!Mikey, Implied murder, Threats of murder, Implied kidnapping, hints of noncon, forced affection, Abuse, Implied stalking in Y, Manipulation, Victim blaming.
Affection: How do they show their love and affection? How intense would it get? Manila Mikey, in this timeline, is pretty standoffish. He's not super affectionate besides the occasional kiss or round of sex, he just.. watches you. He'll sit and stare until you start to get chills, he's not the most friendliest or passionate at this point.
Blood: How messy are they willing to get when it comes to their darling? Well, in this timeline, he's already killed his friends, so obviously, he's not against killing for you. I do see the relationship more of a convenience for him, as in, he was probably lonely or you caught his interest. So he's willing to do whatever it takes to keep you safe until he's done with you.
Cruelty: How would they treat their darling once abducted? Would they mock them? He'd be very upfront with you, he may not tell you his intentions at first, but he'd make it known from the get-go that you are too behave and follow his rules. He won't be cruel or mock you and he can be pretty nice- sweet even, when you behave. He mostly leaves you be, sometimes when your asleep, he'll run his fingers through your hair.
Darling: Aside from abduction, would they do anything against their darling’s will? Yes, he would. He truly doesn't care what you want, if he wants sex, you're having sex. If he wants a kiss and you try to move away, he'll grab you by the throat and kiss you, shoving his tongue down your throat. If he wants to hug you and you push at his chest, he's pinning you to him and holding you there until he lets you go.
Exposed: How much of their heart do they bare to their darling? How vulnerable are they when it comes to their darling? Not any really, you have caught him in moments of vulnerability, where he's thinking about his past and the friends he killed, reminiscing about Toman and the fun he had as a child but that was all accidental, he'd never purposely be vulnerable.
Fight: How would they feel if their darling fought back? Don't. Fucking. Try. Mikey, himself, has said he doesn't hit women. I do believe he wouldn't put his hands on you unless he was deep in his dark impulses, but he is much stronger then you, more experienced in fighting, his reaction time is faster, I mean, this man got hit with a steel fucking pipe and took it, like it was nothing. There's no point in fighting or trying too fight, cause you'll lose. 100%.
Game: Is this a game to them? How much would they enjoy watching their darling try to escape? It's not a game, don't treat it like one, cause it will end bad for you. Don't try too escape either, he will catch you and he'll either bring you back and tie you down or he'll kill you, simple as that.
Hell: What would be their darling’s worst experience with them? The first time you, in his words, threw a tantrum. Right off the bat, he makes it known that he won't take any bullshit, no bad behaviour, no back talk, no escape attempts. Nothing. So, when you throw a "tantrum" he wraps his hand around your throat as he holds his gun to your head and stares you down, eyes empty as he flicks off the safety.
Ideals: What kind of future do they have in mind for/with their darling? He doesn't have one, he wants his life to come to an end. With you though, if he's done with you, he'll kill you. But, until then, he'll just go with it and whatever happens, happens.
Jealousy: Do they get jealous? Do they lash out or find a way to cope? So, you're locked away, in his apartment. You're not going anywhere, you won't see anyone, won't talk to anyone but him. There's no one too get jealous of because there's no one but him around you. You're family and friends are gone, you'll never see them again. It's just him.
Kisses: How do they act around or with their darling? As I said, he's pretty standoffish but he can be sweet, rarely. If you've been relatively good for him, he'll let you sit on his lap and lay on his chest as he plays with your hair and nuzzles into your neck leaving the occasional kiss.
Love letters: How would they go about courting or approaching their darling? He doesn't court or approach you, he takes you.
Mask: Are their true colors drastically different from the way they act around everyone else? No, Mikey doesn't beat around the bush, he's very upfront with you and what he expects from you and how you should behave. He sees no point in playing pretend when he has you too himself.
Naughty: How would they punish their darling? Well, depends on what you did. He has different punishments for certain behaviours. If you try too or succeed in escaping, he might break a bone or tie you down. If you refuse too eat, you don't get food for a while. If you act like a brat and give him mouth, he'll bend you over his knee, and this man? He hits hard.
Oppression: How many rights would they take away from their darling? He gives and takes privileges, depending on your behaviour and his mood. Like I said , if you refuse too eat what he gives you, you'll go hungry for a bit. If you try and lock yourself in a room, you're not allowed any privacy. You're taking a piss? Don't care, keep the door open. But if you're good, he'll give you high quality food, buy you the best smelling body washes, give you the pretties clothes and treat you nice.
Patience: How patient are they with their darling? He can be pretty patient, but again, he doesn't take disrespect from anyone. It doesn't matter that you're starving and you're irritable, you'll need to ask him nicely and behave. He has the mindset that if he lets you get away with one thing, you'll try and get away with multiple things. So, it's best he shuts that shit down immediately.
Quit: If their darling dies, leaves, or successfully escapes, would they ever be able to move on? He would do everything in his power too get you back, no money, resources or manpower is enough. But, if you do successfully get away, however that may be. He wouldn't care at first but then he'd start too miss having someone around and if he really did like you- love even. He'd be very upset.
Regret: Would they ever feel guilty about abducting their darling? Would they ever let their darling go? No and no. He doesn't feel guilty because it's not about you, if he wants you to stay with him, you will stay with him. No amount of pleading and crying will change that.
Stigma: What brought about this side of them (childhood, curiosity, etc)? I'd say, boredom and loneliness. His friends are dead, his family's gone, he has no one. So when he sees you, looking so pretty and sweet, he wants you, and he takes you.
Tears: How do they feel about seeing their darling scream, cry, and/or isolate themselves? You can't isolate yourself, there's no door he can't kick down, quite literally. There's no space he can't get you out of and there's absolutely no place you can hide. Screaming and crying though? Depends on how he feels, he might just sit there and watch you and wait it out, or he'll get become very hand's on and make you stop crying and screaming because sometimes, it does piss him off.
Unique: Would they do anything different from the classic yandere? He's not super obsessive or clingy, he's sometimes not even around because of his... job. Also, like I said, he will kill you when he's done with you.
Vice: What weakness can their darling exploit in order to escape? Not many if any, you obviously can't fight him, can't really run from him or hide. So, it'll mostly have to be mental. You could try and play on the little empathy he has left, if you did know his family, you could play on that. Ask him what Draken and Shinichiro would think if they knew what he's done or how his friends would think of him now... but be careful because that could get him too back off or piss him off even more.
Wit’s end: Would they ever hurt their darling? Yes. Yes he would. Especially if you try and challenge his authority, he's very used too people bowing to him, following his every order and looking up to him like a God essentially, so, when you challenge him and test him, he'll lose it.
Xoanon: How much would they revere or worship their darling? To what length would they go to win their darling over? There's no winning you over, you're his whether you like it or not. Worship though? No. You, are supposed to worship him, not the other way around.
Yearn: How long do they pine after their darling before they snap? There's no pining, he does it more on impulse, he would only wait if there's people around and he can't take you away. He doesn't have a problem fighting or killing people but it's so much easier for the both of you if you just come quietly and behave.
Zenith: Would they ever break their darling? If it was necessary? Absolutely, yes he would.
#baby-tini#yandere manjiro manjiro#manjiro x reader#yandere manjiro#Manila!Manjiro#manjiro sano x reader#manjiro sano#sano mikey manjiro#sano manjiro x reader#tokyo revengers sano manjiro#manjiro x you#Manila!Mikey#yandere manila mikey#tokrev mikey#toman mikey#mikey x reader#mikey sano#yandere mikey#tokyorev x reader#tokyo revengers#tokrev#tokyo rev x reader#tokrev x reader#tokyo revengers smut#manjiro mikey sano#yandere manjiro sano#sano manjiro#yandere tokyo revengers#yandere tokyo rev x reader#yandere tokrev
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Tyrian Callows - The Master of Murder, Mayhem & Multitasking!
So, I recently saw a post discussing Tyrian Callows and I wanted to go into why I find him quite interesting despite his overall demeanor seeming to be that of a nihilistic serial killer.
Off the cuff, when I first saw Tyrian I hated him, "Oh good, another cackling serial killer, I hope e only exists to die & be replaced".
Then he ambushes RNJR & suddenly, oh suddenly I'm having fun!
Because he's not just cackling & killing, he's bombastic, spewing purple prose and strutting around like he's on a stage, then flinging himself through walls for dramatic poses. He waits after receiving major surprise attacks to reveal they didn't hurt him.
He is in essence, a theater kid who happens to also be a cultist and serial killer and I think that is incredibly entertaining if nothing else.
Beyond that I find his fawning behavior on Salem intriguing. Like, even beyond his failure, when Salem is growing in fury & others like Watts & Hazel know to get the fuck out. He starts irrationally offering her acts of service in a bid to make her happy before fleeing as well.
Like, whatever is going on there is interesting if nothing else, I think.
Then there's the fact he is far more insightful than characters like him are usually written as but, its not at the expense of is manic disposition as it often ends up being with say, Joker, bleh.
What I mean is, Tyrian is very good at analyzing people, what they want, what they feel, what will hurt them the most, what above all drives them & can articulate it very easily. Ala his confrontation with Mercury only knowing violence & being too afraid to leave it.
Yet at the same time when out under pressure by Clover, Qrow & Robyn he very quickly starts losing his cool, his mannerism and behaviors become more unhinged & wild, he is legitimately not all there. & it is isn't until he's had time to cool off in the airship that he's back on his game.
Finally there is his 'rivalry' qith Qrow.
To me the fun thing is that there is zero rivalry on Tyrian's end.
Qrow is just someone who he met in V4 and knew to be a capable fighter & important enemy agent. He was excited to fight & kill him & was briefly knocked off his game when disarming Qrow did nothing to slow him down.
Most Hunters based their fighting styles on their weapons so disarming them tends to be a winning move unless they are Hazel, Tyrian or Yang style combatants.
But he was back on his game in short order and still having a great time and even managed to essentially score the win... Right until Ruby dismembered him & he did not take it gracefully.
To say the least, Tyrian is definitely arrogant, I think that much is self evident.
It makes sense, it took a cooperative operation of Mitral Hunters & Atlesian Specialists to take him down. The Queen of Grimm came to collect him herself. His Semblance lets him take Aura out of a fight. & by all accounts he definitely seems to be among the most dangerous combatants on Remnant even without said Semblance.
So yeah, not surprised that he was both knocked off his game & angry about the injuries but after that he doesn't seem to dwell on them much the way Cinder spent several volumes seething over the damage Ruby did to her.
His little foreshadowing moment to Ruby before the election massacre & enjoying Qrow's suffering during Volume 7 very much seem like things he'd have done regardless cos he's just like that.
Tyrian will however exploit the idea of a rivalry to his advantage.
What I mean is, Qrow makes it clear when ambushing him with Clover & Robyn that he holds a grudge over their last fight. Tyrian doesn't utilize that in the three on one beatdown he gets, he's barely keeping his head above water most of that fight.
But once he is back in the game he's cheerfully egging on the break down in the Atlas and Mantle alliance. He's completely ignoring Qrow until the man jumps on him & even then doesn't offer him any unique attention.
Its only once he's established that things with Qrow and Clover have degraded as far as they have that he jumps in. He avoids starting off too violently to see how things go & is well pleased by Clover's dogged commitment to his orders.
Also likely dismissing Tyrian as just a violent lunatic.
It is then and only then that he leans on the idea that he actually wants a rematch with Qrow. But even then he still patiently waits for Qrow to float the idea first. He is playing into Qrow's grudge & Qrow's belief in a Shounen style rivalry & with it the belief that Tyrian will ignore Clover themoment he is not interrupting the fight and duke it out with Qrow.
But Tyrian only plays along with that and instead uses Clover's defeat to end his fucking life and frame Qrow for it.
He certainly has fun twisting the knife but again, this is stuff he does with everyone when he gets the chance. & it serves to make things more complex for Atlas and the now rebellious heroes than it would if Clover & Qrow had died together. Especially as enemy reinforcements are coming.
After this, again, neither Qrow or Ruby warrant a mention from him.
This is his job, they were parts of his assignments and Tyrian just happens to love what he's doing. Which humorously aligns very well with the life advice he gave Emerald and Mercury. Even if that was just because he thinks it'd be fun to be given the chance to kill them.
Anyway those are my takes on Tyrian Callows, evil as fuck, but smarter & more interesting than the usual portrayals of his archetype!
Thanks for reading!
#RWBY#CRWBY#greenlight volume 10#tyrian callows#rwby tyrian#This is why I don't think there will be a thing with him & Qrow in Vacuo#Or if there is it is Qrow tricking Tyrian into thinking there is such an obsession to exploit#Then not falling into whatever trap Tyrian sets
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Hello! I saw your series of genshin characters if their s/o dies and I wanted to request it, if possible, with Alhaitham, Pantalone, Dottore and whoever else you want to add
𝑶𝒏𝒄𝒆 𝒎𝒐𝒓𝒆 𝒕𝒐 𝒔𝒆𝒆 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒑𝒂𝒓𝒕 𝟒
𝑻𝒉𝒆𝒓𝒆 𝒘𝒂𝒔 𝒂𝒏𝒐𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒓 𝒓𝒆𝒒𝒖𝒆𝒔𝒕 𝒇𝒓𝒐𝒎 𝒔𝒐𝒎𝒆𝒐𝒏𝒆 𝒘𝒉𝒐 𝒓𝒆𝒒𝒖𝒆𝒔𝒕𝒆𝒅 𝒂 𝒇𝒆𝒘 𝒄𝒉𝒂𝒓𝒂𝒄𝒕𝒆𝒓𝒔 𝒔𝒐 𝒊'𝒎 𝒈𝒐𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒕𝒐 𝒂𝒅𝒅 𝒕𝒉𝒐𝒔𝒆 𝒄𝒉𝒂𝒓𝒂𝒄𝒕𝒆𝒓𝒔 𝒂𝒔 𝒘𝒆𝒍𝒍!
𝑪𝒉𝒂𝒓𝒂𝒄𝒕𝒆𝒓𝒔: 𝑨𝒍𝒉𝒂𝒊𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒎, 𝑷𝒂𝒏𝒕𝒂𝒍𝒐𝒏𝒆, 𝑫𝒐𝒕𝒕𝒐𝒓𝒆, 𝑳𝒚𝒏𝒆𝒕𝒕𝒆, 𝑭𝒓𝒆𝒎𝒊𝒏𝒆𝒕
𝑷𝒂𝒓𝒕 𝟏 (𝑪𝒚𝒏𝒐, 𝑨𝒍𝒃𝒆𝒅𝒐, 𝑿𝒊𝒂𝒐 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝑲𝒂𝒛𝒖𝒉𝒂)
𝑷𝒂𝒓𝒕 𝟐 (𝑫𝒊𝒍𝒖𝒄, 𝑲𝒂𝒆𝒚𝒂 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝑰𝒕𝒕𝒐)
𝑷𝒂𝒓𝒕 𝟑 (𝑲𝒂𝒗𝒆𝒉, 𝑻𝒊𝒈𝒉𝒏𝒂𝒓𝒊, 𝑭𝒖𝒓𝒊𝒏𝒂, 𝑳𝒚𝒏𝒆𝒚, 𝑨𝒓𝒍𝒆𝒄𝒄𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒐,𝑵𝒆𝒖𝒗𝒊𝒍𝒍𝒆𝒕𝒕𝒆)
𝑻𝒘!! 𝒃𝒍𝒐𝒐𝒅 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒅𝒆𝒂𝒕𝒉
𝑨𝒍𝒉𝒂𝒊𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒎
You and your fiancé Alhaitham had to go to the desert for a few days. Alhaitham didn't explain much he just said it was for work and you of course agreed to go with him. It was the second day there and Alhaitham had left the tent you both had set up for just an hour or so to get the business he needed to do done. When he came back your entire camp was ransacked. Things were stolen, everything was messy, but Alhaitham didn't care about that. All he cared about was if you were okay. He rushed inside and saw you lying on the ground.
He ran over to you and picked you up and cradled you to his chest. "Y/n.. who did this!?" He asked desperately. You tried to speak but you were too weak, your vision was beginning to get blurry and the last thing you saw was your fiancé desperately trying to speak to you. When you shut your eyes Alhaitham broke down in tears he was so angry with himself for not being able to protect you and keep you alive. He brought you back to your family and there was a funeral held for you.
Alhaitham was grateful you at least got to have a funeral, but he was still furious with himself for not protecting you. He tries to hide his grief from everyone, He tried to act tough for everyone and he even was comforting some of your family members at your funeral. He stayed close with your family years after your death, and he would talk to them often, it made him feel close to you again. It gave him comfort and closure that he couldn't feel anywhere else.
𝑷𝒂𝒏𝒕𝒂𝒍𝒐𝒏𝒆
Pantalone was against you using a delusion. He told you they were dangerous, and he didn't want anything happening to you. However, you still started using one despite your husband Pantalone complaint's. And sure enough, you died on the battlefield from complications from the delusion. When he got word from one of his subordinates that you had died, he was in shock. He couldn't believe it, his s/o? dead? from a delusion? he refused to believe it. He wouldn't believe it.
But when his subordinates brought your body back from the battlefield for the funeral and he saw you all of that disbelief and denial came crashing down on him. He just looked at your lifeless form in shock and in disbelief. He held out his hand to cup your cheek, and when he felt your cheek, you were as cold as ice "Leave." he said to his subordinates, he didn't want the people under him to see him like this.
He just sat there in the corner of your once shared bedroom crying. He felt weak for letting his emotions go so easily but he couldn't help it. You were everything to him and he didn't know what he was going to do without you. After the funeral he took a few months off from the fatui. He kept the delusion that killed you to remind him every day of the fact that a part of this was his fault, He should've just taken the delusion away.
𝑫𝒐𝒕𝒕𝒐𝒓𝒆
This whole thing was a complete accident. Dottore had done this experiment at least a hundred times on different species and nothing had gone wrong. So, when he asked to try it on his s/o he wasn't worried about it going wrong at all. It wasn't even supposed to be painful he would've never done it if he knew what was going to happen.
During the experiment something went wrong, he wasn't even sure what but one moment you and Dottore were laughing and just talking about random topics and things that interested him while he was conducting the experiment and the next moment you were unresponsive. He immediately dropped what he was doing and tried to see what was wrong. Your body had reacted negatively to one of the experiments and it had completely shut down. You were dead.
It happened so fast Dottore didn't even see it coming, He was just so in shock when he realized what happened. He spent years just trying to figure out what had happened. That was his way of coping, if he could figure out what had happened to make you react that way it would give him closure. He shut himself off from the rest of the fatui and neglected his duties for about two years. Two years just trying to come to terms with your death and trying to figure out what really happened. After those two years he knew, he couldn't keep neglecting his work but even after he returned to his work, he still tried to do research on that experiment whenever he could.
𝑳𝒚𝒏𝒆𝒕𝒕𝒆
You and your girlfriend Lynette were out late one night. You two were making it back home when you both had been ambushed by monsters. You both fought the monsters off or so you thought, "Y/n, are you alri-" She started to ask before a monster appeared behind her. You gasped and pushed her out of the way, but you got hit in the process. Lynette reacted quickly and fought the monster off and then rushed to your side.
You were bleeding profusely from your stomach, and she knew that you couldn't make it home. She scooped you up in her arms and she cradled you against her chest as she laid her head on top of yours. She cried and told you how much she loved you as you died in her arms.
You didn't live long after you had gotten hit. Around the time Lynette got to you, you had died already but Lynette was so caught up in everything she hadn't even noticed you were dead she just thought you were still alive. While she cried, she looked down and noticed you weren't breathing anymore. She brought you back to the house and got her siblings. She was frantic and she was trying to explain to Lyney what happened but between her crying and how worked up she was Lyney couldn't understand her. Lyney got her to sit down, and she explained what had happened after she had calmed down.
Both of her siblings took really good care of her while she was grieving for months, she spent most of her time just in her room trying to come to terms with your death. she would have nightmares for years after your death about the night you died.
𝑭𝒓𝒆𝒎𝒊𝒏𝒆𝒕
(𝒑𝒐𝒐𝒓 𝒃𝒂𝒃𝒚 𝒐𝒎𝒈 :( 𝑰 𝒍𝒐𝒗𝒆 𝒉𝒊𝒎 𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒔 𝒉𝒖𝒓𝒕 𝒕𝒐 𝒘𝒓𝒊𝒕𝒆)
You had always been quite sickly and prone to getting sick whenever there was something going around Fontaine. So, when you got sick a few days before your boyfriend Freminet had to leave the nation for work related things you didn't think of it as a big deal, and you insisted that he didn't have to stay back with you. He wanted to stay back and take care of you like he always did when you were sick, but he couldn't miss this his father would've been angry with him.
He had every faith that you would be okay, so when he got word that you were dead, he was absolutely shocked and devastated. His father gave him permission to go home early and when he got back, he found out that you were indeed dead.
Months went by and Freminet wasn't any better at all. He kept having nightmares about you dying and seeing your lifeless body to the point where he would miss out on sleep. The nightmares eventually went away but he never forgot about them, and he never forgot about you. He became more and more distant from everyone, and he never fully moved on from you.
𝑻𝒉𝒂𝒏𝒌 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒔𝒐 𝒎𝒖𝒄𝒉 𝒇𝒐𝒓 𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒅𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒍𝒆𝒕 𝒎𝒆 𝒌𝒏𝒐𝒘 𝒘𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒆𝒍𝒔𝒆 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒘𝒐𝒖𝒍𝒅 𝒍𝒊𝒌𝒆 𝒕𝒐 𝒔𝒆𝒆!!
#genshin x reader#genshin fluff#genshin headcanons#genshin impact x reader#lynette x reader#lynette fluff#freminet x reader#freminet fluff#freminet angst#genshin angst#alhaitham x reader#alhaitham fluff#alhaitham angst#pantalone x reader#pantalone x you#pantalone x y/n#pantalone fluff#dottore x reader#dottore x you#dottore fluff#dottore angst
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any moment now
a season 5-ish ficlet that just kinda. spilled out of me while trying to write something else. pretty much just very emotional angsty hurt/comfort
content warnings for discussion of the cancer arc & mulder-typical suicidality
tagging @today-in-fic
———
Look, she didn't mean to keep it from him, and she never lied because he never asked, and maybe she would have if he had. Maybe she wouldn't have. Is it still a lie if the truth behind it is the same?
She's fine. She is truly, completely fine, except for the moments when she looks at him and sees a gun pressed to his temple. except for when she passes out on the plane and wakes up with her head on his shoulder, his arms around her, and she wants to fall out of the sky.
Immortality isn't not dying; it's finding a moment worth living in and then never leaving, and that is the crux of the problem, isn't it? The "never leaving". The "finding a moment worth dying for".
Worth dying in.
She knows how to die now, and it doesn't scare her anymore, but it scares him, and she is scared of his fear. So, sure, she is afraid of dying and of what will survive, and for how long. There is no moment without him, and she knows he won't hesitate, just like he didn't hesitate trapped in a hospital room. Crumbling on the floor of his childhood home.
Crying next to her in the middle of the night, kneeling and twisting his sorrow into a prayer, and God did not hear him, but she did.
Some days, she wants to leave behind their guns and run away. She wants to take his hand and make sure he holds hers, always, never a weapon. Never something that might kill him, but she might kill him too, and she cannot tell if she's the gun or the bullet or the finger pulling the trigger.
If she really wants to stop him from following her, knowing there is nothing left to find alone.
An hour until we land, and she closes her eyes again and doesn't move. Neither of them moves anymore, they're done dancing. His lips are in her hair, and every turbulence is a spark of hope. They're burning up or dreaming that they are, or maybe this is her kneeling next to him with no prayers left.
They could fall out of the sky, and he would still put himself between her and the world, no matter how futile. He always will, unless the world is inside of her and killing her on its way out. He tried to dig up the truth marking her for death, having found it just to wish he had never started searching at all, pleading with nothing to allow him to take her place.
Her not him, him not her, and they keep wrapping the same ribbon around their hands—standing in front of the desk that is their altar, the office turned sacred ground turned graveyard dirt.
Let me save you on my way to the grave, as if they aren't going to be buried in the same coffin, the same earth. Not a moment worth dying for, but a person, a life imagined and lived over and over and over. Maybe this is the time they got it right. Maybe they always have. Maybe that's their immortality, a shared life worth dying in.
Any moment now, she thinks, and he thinks, and she takes his hand, even though it's not the flying that scares her anymore.
It's the landing.
#alex writes x files#txf#the x files#x files#dana scully#fox mulder#scully x mulder#mulder x scully#msr#txf ficlet#msr ficlet#cancer arc
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one hell of a reunion.
a continuation of this, but from Buck’s point of view, which was fun to write. this is for the prompt "reunited". trigger warning for discussion of character death & depictions of injuries — Viv references a beating but doesn’t go into explicit detail. Our favorite pilot isn’t doing too well! Don’t look too hard at any historical inaccuracies it’s my party and we can have some inaccuracies for the plot as a treat.
—
i.
There is nothing quite like it: the dread of waiting.
He’d felt it during the week without Bucky, when Brady showed up asking for him about three days after Buck himself had wound up here. It was miserable, waiting at that fence like some kid waiting for the mailman. Miserable still, when Inez and Harriet came the day after Bucky, asking about the rest of their crew, and Buck quickly realized he was not done waiting.
They talk about it: what and who went down — although it’s more like Inez talks about it and Harriet’s head hangs low in a way Buck’s never seen before, and it kills him a little bit. She’s got a black and blue bruise curling around her eye that he doesn’t ask about for the sake of not losing his own mind on one of these guards.
Two unlucky bastards from the 95th were their stand-ins for Willie and Jo, the former in the hospital, the latter probably on her way to the flak house. He could see it, Viv fighting to get in the air anyway because everyone else was going.
“It was like our whole tail got blown off,” Inez is holding Harrie’s hand tightly, like she might slip away otherwise. “Fighter jets tore up our whole waist. Then there was a rocket. Engine fire on the way out. We lost Fern, Carrie, Lorraine.”
There are two sides to waiting.
Knowing that three of them wouldn’t be coming home doesn’t bring any comfort. Knowing three of them were still out there, probably, perpetuates the restlessness Buck has been feeling for days.
June, Lena, Viv — Benny starts pacing around so often that Buck thinks he just might start digging a trench that takes up the whole block. Bucky and himself are little more than ghosts staring at the fence when the siren goes off, a few steps behind Inez and Harrie, the former clinging to the fence like a lifeline or a promise.
As much as they all knew nothing was guaranteed, there were still parts of them that wanted to believe some things could be. Even Buck himself wasn’t immune to it: being shot down never once occurred to him, Bucky being shot down two days later never occurred to him. The prospect of Viv dead somewhere never once crossed his mind. To his credit, neither of them would ever let him think like that if they could help it.
And so he hates this: this waiting, the hoping, and the dreading, and all that comes with it.
There is no privacy here. They feign it anyway. They pretend not to hear Harriet’s quiet sniffling on the first night, up in the third row of bunks. That nearly kills Buck. By the fourth night, Bucky laments in a quiet mumble how he didn’t set things up right with an air of finality to it that doesn’t sit right in Buck’s bones. He doesn’t push for details. He doesn’t have to. Your move, Viv, is all Buck thinks, into the silence of the room. Now or never.
That last part, even in his head, sounds like her.
It is four more days of trudging along. Eight days — longer than a week, and on that eighth day, Buck doesn’t bring himself to wait by the fence anymore, and neither does Bucky, so Crank goes instead with the girls. There’s something implicitly unsafe about leaving them alone in a place like this, and Crank’s been good to them. Kept his head on straight, miraculously enough, and for that, Buck is grateful. Better than Benny, who paces, or he and Bucky, who are being consumed by their waiting, or Brady, who looks guilty for things he can’t control.
Willie’s back in England after all, but of course John Brady will be guilty over the one, minimal comfort he has.
On the eighth day, Harriet practically knocks the door down — a bat out of hell — and Buck can’t believe he’d forgotten how much of a livewire the girl could be. She’s flush-faced and panting, but still points decisively.
“Need… hah… one’o you big boys… Cap ain’t walkin’ right,” is what she says between wheezes. “M’not… not tall enough.” And Buck startles, half-because he thinks Harriet’s about to collapse but she bats his hands away with a smile and a “Not me, you goof! Over there!” Gesturing wildly to the outside, and Buck follows her as Brady moves to get Harriet water and guide her into a chair. Bucky’s right behind him as they step out into the grayscale yard.
They walk maybe a couple feet before stopping and Bucky says exactly what Buck is thinking.
“Holy shit— Viv?” Disbelieving, gaping, even from a few feet away. Buck recognizes the faces instantly: the bright red of Lena Connolly’s hair and the golden blonde of June Cielinski.
“That you, Cleven?!” It’s Lena who speaks, not Viv. Viv currently has an arm slung over Crank’s shoulders, leaning on him. Buck knows it’s taking Bucky everything in him not to break out into a run like a madman, but they’re both moving with a sense of urgency.
It doesn’t take a genius to know they’ve been through hell.
There’s a split running through June’s lip and the three of them look gaunt and tired. Lena still smiles from ear-to-ear and he reaches out to give both June and Lena’s arms a meaningful squeeze. They were careful now, with the girls — not wanting to draw attention to them with loud welcomes and tight embraces. But he lets Viv use his shoulders as Lena recalls that their pilot’s been limping since the crash and took a hard fall on the train platform. There’s something relieving about the weight on his shoulders and how real it feels.
“Should get that checked out. We could ask around about a doctor.” He keeps his voice low. Viv shakes her head and lifts her gaze and Buck finally sees how tired she looks, dark circles coupled with a bruise on her cheek that has his jaw clenching.
“Don’t need it. I’m fine.” Her voice is hoarse, scratchy. Buck’s brows furrow.
“You kidding? You can barely stand.”
“But I am.”
“Viv—”
“Cleven I swear to God—” Viv snaps. Cleven, not Buck, not even Gale. He doesn’t think he’s heard Cleven leave her mouth since Nebraska. He isn’t sure if those fingers digging into his shoulder are a means of grasping onto him tighter or a means of warning him like the way a dog bares its teeth. And then she reels back and breaks away from looking at him — her voice softer like she’s remembering who he is. “Just… I just need to sit. And get the boot off.”
This is not the woman that he knows. Maybe he’s seen her in passing, but Buck’s not used to these bared teeth being flung around so carelessly. She’s already made up her mind. Bucky gets the door on the way in, and June and Lena take off with that whirlwind swiftness that’s so intrinsic to that whole damn crew. Viv hasn’t said a word still.
They make it to their room, to girls in a tight embrace, and they wait until Viv’s eased into a chair to shower her with the same relieved affection. Her eyes just flutter shut for a moment with a long sigh as Harriet hugs her head. Everything is in motion, except for Viv herself, and that sight unsettles Buck to his bones. June is walking past to throw herself into Benny’s embrace, so tight that Buck thinks for the briefest moment they might crush each other into dust as Benny buries his face in her hair.
He doesn’t miss the stiffness to Bucky’s shoulders as he grabs another chair and goes about undoing Viv’s boot, he doesn’t miss how neither of them have hardly said a word. Viv reflexively reaches for Buck when he pulls the boot off, squeezing the life out of his wrist and face contorting into a wince — her whole damn ankle swelled up like a baseball. Bucky looks up, Viv looks down, Bucky looks at Buck.
“I’ll go poking around for ice. Maybe an extra pillow.” He rubs on her ankle for a moment before Harriet goes to snatch one of the pillows from an unclaimed bottom bunk to put on the chair as Bucky rises and sees himself out of the room.
Buck would hardly call it a reunion.
ii.
The Vivian that Buck knows and the Vivian that arrived at the Stalag feel almost completely different, and Buck knows that he isn’t the only one to notice the shift. She’s quiet, more often than not. She still waves off any attempt to help her, which she’s always done — but the patience is gone. Maybe not gone, maybe just in short supply; he’ll be the last to complain about anyone being in a bad mood, and it’s not like she’s started breaking things.
She stumbles, once, and there’s at least eight hands there to keep her upright, and it’s the first time Buck’s seen her look ashamed. Avoiding eye contact with anyone who helps her — no exceptions — and he’s pretty sure that part of it is killing Bucky a little bit. It’s killing him too, if he’s being completely honest, in the same way that Harriet’s sniffling on her first night did. The same way that waiting did.
Sometimes cracks of the woman Buck knows seeps through: when Lena says something especially sarcastic, or June and Benny start bickering quietly over their sad excuse of a dinner. He always finds himself looking over at her, hoping for a smile. The most he gets these days is the steely gaze softening a little, a small twinge of the corner of her mouth.
He keeps a careful eye on the other four girls and doesn’t try to hover too much. Bucky keeps things within reach of her hands or in places where she doesn’t have to move too far, but just enough to keep her a little bit independent.
“She’s just gotta get her head right,” The reminder sounds more like her voice than his own, even as he says it aloud. Bucky gives him a skeptical look. “It’s this place. Once she’s walking right it’ll be different.”
“You really believe that?”
When did Buck become the optimistic one?
“I do.” Another week has gone by, and it doesn’t take a genius to know that this place has a way of sucking the life out of you. You either end up restless or resigned. He can really only imagine what it feels like to show up half-alive already.
He gives Bucky’s shoulder a squeeze before heading into the billet, and stepping into the room.
Viv is sitting at her usual spot at the table, foot propped up. They couldn’t do much in the way of ice, so rags doused in water and left out to freeze overnight were the next best solution. Beside her is a half-eaten breakfast of bread and potatoes. He eyes the book curiously, before letting a small smile creep onto his face.
“Don’t let Bucky catch that, he’ll never let you hear the end of it.”
“Oh he gave me the earful last night when I asked him for it,” Viv peers over the battered copy of Runyon a la Carte. “‘Takes a crash landing and an ankle sprain for you to give it a shot’ he said. Kept going on and on…” She trails off, head bowing like a dog with its tail between his legs. Buck can see it now: Bucky, probably trying to make her laugh, and Viv not being able to give him much in the way of a reaction. Do you really believe that?
It’s really the most she’s spoken in days, and Buck feels almost greedy to keep her talking. Like it’s some proof of progress.
“And that ankle?”
“Hurts.”
“Could be worse.” Viv snorts, something sardonic and venom filled as she shuts the book with a shake of her head.
“Oh yeah,” sarcasm seeps into her words, “I could’ve blown up somewhere over Germany. Give you all one less problem to deal with? That’s way worse.”
“Is that what you think?” Gale asks, somewhere between hardly believing her words and understanding them completely. Viv gestures to the space around them.
“That’s what I know,” she counters, like she’s taking root in her stance with no intention to change it. “You’ve got that… that radio you’ve been working on. And when it’s not working right that’s how Bucky keeps himself useful. Benny’s fucking knitting. Most I’ve done since fucking Bremen is taken a beating in a transit camp ‘cause they thought I was lying about June being American. So don’t—” her voice cracks a little bit as it trembles on each word. She looks away for a moment. “Don’t you dare tell me that I’m not a problem sitting here doing fuck-all. I know what I am.”
There’s so much that Buck wants to say, but he’s combing through the words. Because he could tell her about how even in the moment that they’d seen her it was like they could all breathe again. No longer the kid waiting for the mailman — he didn’t care that she wasn’t going straight to work. They just wanted her to be here.
And then Buck thinks of Viv promising to get Bucky back to barracks when he calls it an early night, and Viv wrapping her knuckles after knocking the teeth in of a stranger who’d gotten too close to a replacement, and Viv worming her way up to the control tower to count forts — and doing it on the tarmac, too, hair all mussed from the helmet, scratches on her face. The letters she’d written to crews’ families just because she knew them and would call them friends. A runway in Nebraska, star-filled night: none of this works if you’re not onboard with it, too, Cleven. Don’t make me haul you up here with me.
Christ, she’d been making herself useful since the beginning. Didn’t complain, didn’t have a fit about it, didn’t even expect a thank you. Viv was the last person who should’ve been worried about being a problem.
“Think you’ve earned it — it’s not any trouble, you know that, too,” Buck reaches over to grab the back of her chair, pulling it closer to his own before reaching under the table leg for the half-finished radio he’d been working with for the past few days. “What you are, is alive, and you could ask anyone who comes through that door if they think you’d be better off dead and I think you’d already know the answer to that,” he continues, then sets the radio on the table. “But if you want to be useful, hold this in place for me.” He gestures to the wooden platform that the radio’s being built upon.
Viv looks at him for a long moment, like she’s waiting for something. She looks… small, in a way that he’s only seen in minor increments — when it dawned on them that Curt really wasn’t coming back, or when Dye pointed out how many crews they’d lost by the time he hit twenty-five missions. But she doesn’t quickly mask it like she might’ve before. Her lips, in spite of that small, bordering on kicked-puppy expression, curl into a smile. Something proper and alive, as opposed to the ghost of a lip twitch that she’d been giving sparingly.
“There she is,” Buck can’t help it, and Viv lets out some type of breathless laugh, knowing what he means. She rolls her eyes in a way that’s both playfully annoyed and so, so familiar.
“Shut up, Buck.” She holds the base steady while Buck fiddles with screws and wires.
It’s one hell of a reunion.
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Character Analysis on: Narinder (The One Who Waits)
Where we try to analize what really drove Narinder to betray the bishops of the Old Faith in the first place.
As a warning, the game leaves a lot to interpretation so a lot of gaps here and there will be filled with some theories and headcannons but you're welcome to ignore that and just take the pure analysis!
Alrigthy, lets begin!! (Rambles below)
He who lays a soul to rest...
But before we can talk about the time he was a God, we need to talk about the time before the red crown sat upon his brow.
We need to see the time when he was a mortal. As we know, all gods in COTL were once mere mortals, ascended by the power of the crowns.
This is the part where i mostly play with some headcannons so feel free to jump to the next tittle.
Before Godhood.
Now, we know Narinder is a black cat. This is one of the things that make his design so attractive. The god of death is a black cat and he has all the mysticism and mythology of this kind of cats attached to it. It's a great design!!
The thing is, before godhood, Narinder was STILL a black cat, without his god status, he was subjected to the whim of the mortals. And we now our dark furry friends don't have the best reputation...
This is mostly headcannon, but i think Narinder as a mortal had a pretty bad time. Everytime something went wrong in whatever village or place he was, he was quickly the first one to be accused, shunned out and despised. Seeing as a omen of bad luck and death himself, he could never find a place to call home.
We know the devs used the lamb as their main critter because lambs were one of the prefered animals to use as sacrifices for gods. But you know black cats are ALSO sacrificial animals?
Have you ever seen those PSA in halloween were it will say things like "If you have a black cat as a pet, please take care of it. Weirdos at this time of the year kill black cats for their weird ass rituals" or stuff like that?
Well, with this i mean that cats like Narinder, their blood was not even worthy to be spilled in the name of the gods... But in the name of demons or other kind of bad spirits...
Heck that must suck.
I know the game itself never gives us an indicative to say that black cats or any other kind of critter faces discrimination. But the only thing i have to defend this theory of mine is Forneus!
We all know sweet ol' Forneous. Cute shopkeeper, mother of Aym and Baal. Sweetest thing but have you noticed she never stays in the same place for too long?
We have a lot of NPC's we can find during crusades but that they also have a place where thay stay mostly and call home. Think of Plimbo, Midas, Sozo, Ratau and his friends.
"But Boku! There are other NPC's that are only found in Crusades and don't have another place where we can find them!" While yes but that's because those NPC don't have neither of this 2 characteristics:
1. They play a part of an important mechanic (Like selling seed, followers, teaching us new things, etc)
2. They have some kind of lore relevance
If an NPC doesn't play part of a game mechanic like fishing, or have a bit of lore to them, then why would they need a place to stay where we can find them besides crusades? The thing is that Forneus has these 2 characteristics.
She's a shopkeeper and the only way we can find the little gifts, some blueprints, follower forms, and even gold! And she has lore relevance as the mother of Aym and Baal and (Alledgedly) one of the few followers of the One Who Waits before the Lamb started the cult.
Heck she's all done! She could have her own little shop at any of the locations of the game where you can go to buy things (Maybe even have a "trade" kind of mechanic) where we can get more gifts for the followers, collars, and etc.
But she doesn't! And that's weird! She doesn't seem like the kind of NPC that deserves the treatment of "It has only 1 gimmick and that's it".
So, unless there's something that keeps her from having here own very shop at a specific place and instead has to be always traveling, Always moving around...
That's just a theory, tho!!
Going back to Narinder, as a summary, he had a pretty bad time as a mortal. That until Shamura found him and he was bestowed the red crown. Narinder had finally found a family, a place to call home, and on top of that was granted the blessing of godhood!! Things were meant to go swell for our favorite wet cat, right.....
Right....?
During GodHood.
Now Narinder was the god of Death in training, what an honor!! It is said that the bishops we know were kind of around before the purge of the gods ocurred (Shamura was there, called "A young god of war" by the ancient tablets).
So, things are going well for your found family, you're enjoying your time with your spider sibling and squid bro, helping to raise up a little frog and a squiggly worm who are also meant to be crown bearers.
All goes well until BAM! The purge begins. We don't have information on how it happened, or what incited it. We just know it was the biggest bloodshed ever seen, leaving only the bishops we know as survivors.
Narinder was still quite young when this happened. He saw how gods that were supposed to be friends or family betrayed each other during this war. He saw that not even goodhod was truly eternal.
Shamura and Kallamar were old enough to not be as affected by it. Leshy and Heket to young to remember all the details. But Narinder? Narinder was at an age, as an infant god, to be deeply affected about what war meant, and the things, horrible things people are able to do to get atop of a power struggle.
But at least he has his family. He had the bishops. They would never do such a thing! They were brothers in arms, there was nothing they couldn't do together, they would never turn their backs on each other! There was nothing they couldn't understand.
And so, the years went by. The purge of the gods transforming more into a myth, no longer considered history to be told. Things were calm but...
Narinder noticed something that deeply worried him. Things were not fair between him and his brothers...
Never say his name.
Shamura, Kallamar, Heket and Leshy... They were loved, adored by the mortals.
Narinder?.... Narinder was feared. Every mithology in this world has always being a little to afraid to even speak the name of the gods of death outloud, fearing them more than they loved them. Think of Hades.
"The Greek god Hades was the lord of the underworld, which actually gave him more authority over maintaining the balance of the universe than nearly any other deity. Still, the Greeks greatly feared him and saw it as unlucky to draw his attention. To avoid saying his name, they often used epithets for Hades instead."
It wouldn't be to crazy to think Narinder was given a similar treatment by the mortals, considering HE was the BISHOP OF DEATH.
For Lamb sake, he's literally the ONLY BISHOP WHO USES A VEIL. He was so freaking feared, mortals couldn't even bare to see his face.
It must be hard, seeing your brother be showered in adoration, love, affections, and prays that elevate their names. While all you receive is fear, wails, and prayers that beg to keep you away...
It must be hard, to be a god. And yet, feel as unloved as you once did, when you were nothing but a little kid.
This, my brothers in Lamb. This is what incited that first spark of jealosy, that would later develop into something nastier, that would end in the fall of the Old Faith all together.
End of the Part 1.
That's it for the first part of this character analysis!! Bare with me because part 2 will come very soon!! Your bovine brother in lamb says bye for now!
https://www.tumblr.com/cowbok/752997791785189376/character-analysis-narinder-the-one-who-waits?source=share ----> Part 2!!
#cult of the lamb#cotl lamb#cotl narinder#narinder cotl#cotl shamura#cotl heket#cotl leshy#cotl kallamar
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