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#like the question of 'How human are you anymore?' looses its strength when you are still.... very much 100% human
monster-noises · 1 year
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I know I've made like.. this exact post like four other times but it's gunna keep coming back up until I Figure It Out so.. I have been on and off thinking about the actually solid Idea I had for remaking FaHI as an Original text (along side or after FaHI Proper is written) And I think where I've ended up with it is pretty good! It captures a lot of the same themes and the bones of the thing and I like it! And Yet........ I don't think it is possible to 1 to 1 translate FaHI, it will always Loose Things, very very important things that will always make it a Completely Different Story. The same heart around the same ideas, in the broadest sense, but as soon as you take it out of exactly Where and What It Is it becomes something completely different.. Like you can't hit Any of the same story beats in the same way.. The structure of the environment is different so the way everyone interacts changes and thus shifts every important interpersonal moment.. the situation with the mold and the magic changes and changes the characters themselves in inherent ways that change how they interact with the world and each other but I have to change these things else it will be Very Obvious What This Was.. not a revolutionary concept by any means but I'm not entirely sure what to do with it.... FaHI; the fanwork is a story I Very much love and want to share as the fanwork that it is but there's a lot about FaHI that I love and Wish dearly I could share in a professional or personal context and I simply can't as much because of it's limitations as a fanwork... and I want to split the difference but ooo it always feels like I'm loosing so much.. GRAH!!
#monster noises#Also I can't figure out what to name Karl that isn't Karl cause it feels wrong for him not to be called Karl ;^;#I guess this is why most original fiction that stems from fanworks is usually something that's already been abstracted to an AU#you're already far enough removed from the source material that the necessary changes are aesthetic at best#you're not jumping straight from Canon to something Brand New#I think one of the things I'm struggling with the Most the most#is how to let Lazarus and such keep their like.. abilities#or some variation of it#without it becoming just So so obvious what the source material is#cause right now in the Original version that exists in my head#there Is some form of science/magic/Frankenstein nonsense happening#that allows Heis and Laz to Do the thing they Do#but not to the degree they do them in Village/FaHI Proper#like there's not Wornwolves.. no Auger.. Soldats kinda but not really in the same way that they are in game..#Lazarus doesn't have bad blood and Karl doesn't do Magnets because they aren't infected with Mold#and I feel like That#that lack of transformative stuff happening To them that manifests this physical sense of 'are these men or are these monsters'#makes FaHI really really Loose something that's Super important to it feeling like FaHI#like the question of 'How human are you anymore?' looses its strength when you are still.... very much 100% human#at least to me#but for real how do i keep that and not make Karl like Super obvious lmao#everyone else I can fuck around with like my Alci equivalent is not 9 foot#but Karl's gotta be Karl y'know but also he can't be Karl he's gotta be someone else dfgjsksdha#it's all very complicated I shall simply have to continue to ponder
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gren-arlio · 1 year
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The first round of translations are done!
You heard it here, folks. I've successfully finished the entirety of the first video I've sent a few posts back. For the record, I WILL give timestamps to let people jump to what they want to see, don't worry. Every scene has Schezo, and this post will be LONG.
To keep my sanity in check: I'll release this in two parts, because my God this takes a while to type. I'm talking hours. I hope you understand.
Here's how it'll be formatted:
(Character):
(Line 1)
(Line 2)
[Narrator]
(Character 2)
(Line 1)
(Line 2)
Option A
Option B
Option C
----- <- End of Scene
Here's some screenshots of some of the faces. They got a charm to them. Most of them won't be in the first part, but hey, it's still cool.
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
And here's the video:
youtube
Timestamps:
0:14 (Start of the story, has Schezo and Mysterious Voice (Doppelganger Schezo,)
1:40 (After the Tower, has Schezo and Fufufu.)
3:00 (Schezo reaches the theme park, featuring Arle, Rulue, and Minotauros.)
5:37 (Schezo is terrible at directions and asks for help, featuring Kikimora and a Bulletin Board.)
7:56 (Schezo goes to Walmart, featuring Momomo.)
8:26 (Entrance to the Dungeon: Arle Version)
9:21 (Entrance to the Dungeon: Rulue Version. After that, it's just Schezo saying the default phrase for entering.)
11:30 (Skeleton-T boss encounter. Go to 13:11 for his loss quote.)
13:54 (Tickets? In MY treasure chest?)
I will note if something seems a bit off in brackets, or if there could be an edit or the sort. As well, I'll try to keep it formatted like the text in game.
Now before we begin, I want to say two things. The first is that I'm in NO WAY A JAPANESE SPEAKER. Some things might be wrong, so please correct me if they are. Second, I wish to ask a question to the community. I have more of these, but they're not chronologically ordered.
This won't affect if they're posted or not, just when they're posted.
With that out of the way, I hope you enjoy!
Prologue: (0:13)
Schezo:
So this is the Space-Time Crystal...
if I absorb this, I'll grow even stronger...
...It's been a while since I've last seen it. This Crystal distorts space and time.
Every time I stepped outside, the maze changed shape, forcing me to restart over and over again...
A crystal with this much power can be of very good use to me...
[Schezo touches the crystal, and tries to absorb its power. A cutscene occurs, and Schezo stops grabbing the crystal.]
Schezo:
Gwaaaa...What is this power...
Wait...I'm the one...being absorbed!?
Mysterious Voice: (Crystal)
Poor fool...I've become a part of you, and you're now a part of me...
Schezo:
Who is it!? ...Could it be that the crystal is talking!?
Damn, if I stay here...I've got no other choice! (He apparently teleports or runs away.)
Mysterious Voice: (Crystal)
He got away...Hmpf, a smart move.
For a human, he quite evil...Well, if you take this power away, the rest is a bunch of loose ends...
...With this power, it's possible to make a bigger trap. I could make a much larger one...
-----
Finding Waku Waku Puyo Puyo Land: (1:40)
[A while later...]
Damn it, what's happening to me? Oh man...
Ever since that encounter, I haven't been able to do much magic anymore...I have to do something to regain my strength...
[Fufufu enters the scene.]
Fufufu:
Fufufu, you've came.
Schezo:
If you're a merchant...you're also a business man. I'm in a bad mood. Find someone else.
Fufufu:
Fufufu, you see this?
Schezo:
It's just a flyer...Eh? What the-!?
[It show the flyer]
Flyer:
High Tech Theme Park: "Waku Waku Puyo Puyo Land"
The shape of this place changes every time you enter! It's an amazing fighting attraction!
If you clear all the attractions, the "Amazing Magical Item," will be yours! (For the record, they don't really clarify it.)
With this, you too can be a first class mage!
Schezo:
Hey, merchant! Is what said on this flyer true?
Fufufu:
Fufufu, you should definitely go. (Leaves)
Schezo:
...It's just like that tower...It's like the power of that crystal!
Could it be that something similar is there!? I'll have to check it out myself...
[Schezo decides to go the Theme Park mentioned on the flyer.]
-----
Entrance to the park: (3:00)
Schezo:
I'm finally...here at last.
[Schezo got a little lost, but managed to find his way to the theme park.]
Huh? Is that Arle?
[Arle is spacing out at the entrance to the theme park.]
What, you're here too?
(Arle finally comes into view.)
Arle:
Schezo!? You're here alone to play with yourself?
Schezo:
No! Did you hear about the rumors too?
Arle:
Huh? What rumors?
Schezo:
Don't you know what this place is like? If you clesr all the attractions,
You can get a "Amazing Magical Item" or the sort.
Arle:
Heh...Is that so?
Schezo:
Well, I don't have time for idle talk. I'm leaving.
[Schezo leaves Arle and enters the theme park.]
Hm? It's that woman...If I remember, it's that martial artist, Rulue, who's always chasing that Satan around.
Rulue:
...Obtain a magical item...
I'll be the one to get it to match Arle and win over Satan!
(Schezo then entrances the scene)
Schezo:
That's not happening.
Rulue:
Who said that!? ...Oh. You're just the perverted mage.
Schezo:
Who's the pervert!?
Rulue:
What!? No way...
You're after Satan too, aren't you?
Schezo:
Huh? Satan?
Well, I guess you can say that. (I'll take him down eventually!)
Rulue:
As expected...
You're trying to court Satan! That's unforgivable!
Schezo:
What!? No, you stupid bitch! Why would I want to make a move on that bastard!? (Yeah he does this sometimes and it's hilarious.)
Rulue:
Keeeee! What did you say? That's it, we're done!
Minotauros:
You're not gonna make Master Rulue look like a fool. Umoooh! (His battle cry or something, tbh I don't really like Minotauros.)
Schezo:
I can't take such a large swing like that!
...Rulue, I'll tell you this. That magical item is mine,
And I don't plan to give it to a woman who doesn't have a shred of magic!
[Schezo quickly leaves the scene.]
Two troublesome women are here...I'm in trouble...
----
Schezo sucks at directions: (5:37)
Now, where to go...
(He goes to the info board.)
Well, this seems like the place for info. Let's see what we can find.
(Now to tell you guys a bit about some navigation boxes.
You see, they're organized into 4 sections.
Listen (AKA talk to Kikimora.)
Ranking
Bulletin Board
Return
In this case, they click Listen. Please note I'm probably gonna translate the important ones at the moment.)
Schezo: (Again)
Hey, Cleaning staff.
Cleaning Lady: (Kikimora)
Cleaning staff? There's none. Well, I do clean, but...
I'm Kikimora. I'm an usher here.
Schezo:
A usher? Well, if you are one, you're going to have to explain something to me.
Kikimora:
What do you want me to explain?
(These say, in order:
Game Summary (Which the player clicks.)
About items
About shops
About ranking
When in Need (The player clicks later.)
Back)
All of the parks attractions involve the same formula.
You'll be fighting monsters and navigating a maze.
Of course there's all kinds of items and tricks inside also. It's not just fighting monsters.
If you can think carefully and use these items and tricks well, it'll be easier to proceed with your adventure.
If your HP drop to zero, it's a game over, and you lose all the EXP and items you worked so hard to get. (You think Schezo is thinking "The hell is an EXP and a Game Over?")
The first attraction is relatively easy, but each attraction gets harder as you clear them.
So please, do you best.
Schezo:
Alright, got it.
(The textbox opens again, and this time the player clicks "When in Need.")
Kikimora:
This is where we explain things to newcomers.
We also have a bulletin board full of useful and informative information, so please see e check it frequently.
You can also see your rank score, so try to aim for #1!
If you do get a high score, you could get a wonderful prize.
Schezo:
How many points do I need for the prize?
Kikimora:
Actually, I don't know myself.
Schezo:
You're a useless usher. You should know that.
Kiki:
Sorry. (I'm sorry...)
Schezo:
No no no, I'm not judging you.
I was just speaking to myself. Dont worry about it, okay?
Kikimora:
Yes, Sir. (... ...)
Schezo
(Wait, why am I apologizing?)
(The player then goes to the bulletin board.)
Oh, a Bulletin Board. I'll check it out.
(A text box appears saying "Welcome to Puyo Puyo Dungeon.")
Bulletin board:
If you're entering an attraction, try the Puyo Dungeon first!
An exciting adventure awaits you!
-----
Schezo goes to Walmart: (7:56)
Schezo:
So this is a store...
Momomo:
Momomo, welcome to the shop!
Schezo:
Oh! There's the shopkeeper.
Momomo:
There's a lot of danger in the attractions.
You'll be safer if you bought items, so buy a lot.
Schezo:
...What a talkative clerk.
(Text box appears, showing either:
Buy
Sell
Leave <- )
Momomo:
Hope to see you again.
Entrance to the Dungeon: Arle Version. (8:26)
Schezo:
Arle's here... hey, Arle.
Arle:
Hey, why did you come here?
Schezo:
Err, that's none of your business.
Arle:
Aha! Are you here to pick up women?
Schezo:
Huh?
Arle:
I thought you came to chase after girls, like you like usual.
Schezo:
No, of course not!
And what do you mean by "Like Usual?"
Arle:
Because you're always chasing girls saying "I want you!"
Schezo:
I...don't do anything of of the sort!
Arle:
There you go again...well, you are a guy, so...
Schezo:
You know what!? I'm done...
Talking to her drives me nuts...among other things.
-----
Entrance to the Dungeon: Rulue Version: (9:21)
Schezo:
Ah, not this meat muscle woman!
Rulue:
What did you say!? Are you trying to pick a fight?
Schezo:
Hmpf. That's what you get for calling me a pervert earlier.
Rulue:
You pervert, you nonsensical pervert! What's wrong with calling you that?
Schezo:
You're such a child! Don't spout these ridiculous things!
Minotauros:
Umoooo! Don't make fun of Master Rulue!
Schezo:
Cows stay out of this!
Minotauros:
Umoooo! (God I hate typing that.) Master Rulue, can I fuck this guy up?
Rulue:
Do as you please.
Schezo:
I don't have time to be playing games with you guys in a place like this!
Rulue:
Oh? Are you running away?
Schezo:
(Damn that scruffy look on her face. Someday I'll make her into a crying bitch.
Even so, we're still a little behind Rulue and the others...
I can't afford to waste my time here...Sorry, but I can't just stand here!)
After this he just says a generic quote of "Let's go inside the Dungeon!"
-----
Skeleton T boss encounter: (10:17)
Skeleton-T:
Hello? Are you a visitor?
Schezo:
Hm? What are you- What're you doing here?
Skeleton-T:
Hmm~ This tea is really good. Would you like a cup?
(The player says no)
What? You won't drink my tea!?
I can't forgive someone who takes advantage of another's good will!
Schezo:
Well...That's an interesting accusation. Alright, I'll play along.
Skeleton-T:
Ocha-cha-cha-cha! Let's go!
---
Beating Skeleton-T: 13:11
Skeleton-T:
Happaaa... (I used his loss quote from Puyo 7.)
Schezo:
Ha! You were no match for me!
----- (Yep. That's it.)
Tickets? In MY Theme Park? (13:54)
What's this...? ...They're tickets!
(Schezo gets tickets to Fire Mountain, Water Paradise, and the Starlight Stage.)
Here we go. Now we can enter more attractions.
(Then he asks if you want to leave the Dungeon.)
-----
And that's Part 1! Part 2 will release later, just give me time to type it all out.
Hope you enjoyed.
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feral-goblin-24-7 · 8 months
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being immortal
being immortal must suck. Like imagine having to hide the fact that the reason you look late teens-early twenties but have terrible back issues is like, you’re cells just refuse to stop multiplying properly and your spine is still minutely adjusting after falling 10 stories out of a building in New York a couple decades back and you still have normal healing time on that, it just does heal, eventually. Imagine have to see the faces of friends who died over a hundred years ago in your dreams as your ptsd flairs up again. Imagine getting drunk with a history major and admitting you’re an immortal to him, and as he humors you, you go on about the war. He thinks you’re full of it until he realizes when you said “the war” you didn’t mean the Cold War, or either of the world wars, but both of them. Your memories run together a bit, since they took place only one identity apart. In fact you made a “Tom Kelly Jr.”, specifically because the fields in Europe thirsted for more blood, making you question if all the blood you’ve spilt over there over the last few thousand years really meant anything. War in this day and age is easier to hide the fact that you’ve fought in battle before, because people don’t swing swords, axes and spears like they have for the last couple of millennia. Imagine having to go back and get a new degree in a language you already know because of linguistic drift. Imagine the standards for medicine are completely different than they were last time you practiced because of a fringe theory of a crazed person 400 years ago proved true. Imagine technology just baffling you at first but you still look really young so you force yourself to learn it to blend in because you’ve seen what happens when they catch immortals. You really know how Des destinées got its information. You know why the Catholic Church started burning people at the stake, because you can only die when you are completely reduced to ash. Anything less and your cells refuse to die, they just keep dividing, you just keep coming back. You can only see the same faces on strangers so many times, have the weight of so many years weigh on your mind so much, before you snap and loose all sanity. But here’s something humans don’t know. Eventually, the mind will heal. All wounds heal, mental and emotional as well. You can count seven times you’ve lost it all and been reduced to nothing before slowly clawing out of that pit after a century or so. After all, people still fear the wendigo. Sometimes you wake up and forget what era you’re in, sometimes you disassociate so hard you briefly flash back to a different identity, one you haven’t had since you “died” at the vents with the other soldiers in the gap, screams in Greek on the tip of your tongue. How god has an uncanny valley as well and you, a human that cannot die, and him, the being that made humans in his own image and the two differences were immortality and divine power, now watches you like you’re something to creepily close to him. But you remember your life as Icarus, and you do not fly to close to the sun anymore. Not because the heat of the sun melts the wax, but because no matter how strong you are you cannot flap wings long enough and hard enough to fly, and when you have wrought out every once of strength you have and you hit the ocean, still you don’t die. You sit on the bottom of the ocean drowning for years as your body works hard to heal the shattered bones under the pressure of the water. After you walk out of the sea massive changes to the physical characteristics of Poseidon happen and the myth starts to look like you. To many people get suspicious and you have to wander north to the tribes that you wonder if they are still there. You have a strong immune system because you’ve lived for so long, yet your digestive system weakens due to poisoning so many times over the years that you don’t know if you’ll heal up all the way and have to deal with the mild nausea for the rest of your innumerable days…
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ev-pierce-writes · 3 years
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Doll
Pairing: Bucky Barnes (Winter Soldier) x F!Reader
Words: 7.7K
Rating: Very much 18+
Warnings: P in V, oral (fem receiving), light (consensual) choking, praise, James Buchanan Barnes is a sad boy and only you can make him happy, mutual therapy over past trauma, a couple light spanks, and some sexy sparring
Note: Reader had a run-in with Hydra that gave you invisibility powers. Bucky is tasked with training you. Totally not canon, I just kept the parts I liked. Got the idea from a tiktok but I can't find it anymore oops. I'm thinking of turning it into a series of all the places you can fuck Bucky Barnes at Avengers HQ. Enjoyyyyyy....
---
"Alright, so I'm thinking absolutely the first thing you need is a suit. Because we can't have you sneaking around in clothes that give you away."
Tony Stark and Peter Parker stand before you at Avengers HQ, furiously tossing ideas back and forth, trying to come up with ways to build you the best possible suit. Last night had been...interesting, to say the least.
"Who's that?" Stark had said when you appeared all of a sudden from your room. "Come on Agent Hill, don't tell me you're taking in lost kids nowadays."
Your mother had only laughed, slightly inebriated and feeling loose because of all the drinking that was going on in your penthouse apartment. She was hosting one of those parties where too many superpowers drank too much alcohol and got a little too rowdy. "That's my daughter."
Usually, you stay away from such events, go out with friends, and avoid the house until it's all over. For the past four years, you hadn't even been in the house to need to avoid it. But now you're 22 and a recent college graduate and something about the party was drawing you in so you had emerged from your hideaway to join in the fun.
"Alright, Maria, how'd you manage to keep that one a secret?" Romanov spoke up.
Until this point, you'd remained silent, in shock at the sudden attention a group of superheroes had focused onto you. But you couldn't help yourself from responding now. You'd managed to hide away long enough. It was time to come into the open.
"I'm a ghost," you said jokingly, approaching the couch and stealing the drink your mother had been drinking to take a sip. It was strong and burned on the way down. The group laughed at your words, unaware of how true they really were.
It was then that you'd performed your little trick, the one that only a few of your closest friends had ever seen. You became invisible.
The laughter had immediately stopped. The girl who suddenly appeared out of thin air had disappeared right back into it. They could still tell where you were of course. The glass in your hand remained visible, floating in mid-air, giving away your position. And your clothes were still perceptible, not being able to change with you. But your features were otherwise undetectable, not even a shimmer revealing your face. You took another sip of the drink, liquid disappearing into an invisible mouth.
"I want her. On the team," Stark had said.
And that was it. The start of your superhero career.
"Explain again exactly how this works?" Parker asks.
You sigh and start from the beginning, again. "I can distort the absorption wavelengths of my cells so that the reflected light is in the invisible range, usually infrared."
"And how long can you hold it for?"
"About seven minutes now," you explain. "It's sort of like holding your breath. You can go underwater for a while, and you can practice holding your breath longer and longer, but eventually, you need to come up for air. Eventually, I have to 'recharge.' But I've been working on extending it."
Stark turns to one of the many holograms of his supercomputer, working with Friday to design a brand new suit to accommodate your skills. You're so engrossed in watching his process you don't even notice the shadowy figure appear in the doorway that leads to the training facilities.
"How'd you get these powers? Agent Hill isn't lacking in skill but it certainly isn't supernatural."
You knew Stark's question would come up eventually. It always did. Over time, it became easier to tell the story, but now you really don't feel like explaining fully, so you tell the short version.
"Hydra. When I was seventeen. They used me as a bargaining chip against my mom in a mission gone wrong and decided to experiment on me in the process. Left me with a lot of scars and a lot of therapy. Almost dropped out of school."
You don't remember much from the experience. But enough for it to leave lasting damage.
"Hydra?" a familiar voice asks behind you. Only now do you notice that Barnes is behind you. How long has he been watching?
You remain silent, just like you did the night before when he'd arrived late to the party, unable to speak under his gaze.
You had planned to leave not long after you joined the festivities. But when the elevator doors opened, a pair of blue eyes halted you in your path. James Buchanan Barnes, the Winter Soldier. You'd recognize those eyes anywhere. Crystal clear and icy, freezing you under their gaze. He wore a leather jacket and leather gloves, concealing his metal arm, but you knew it was there, hiding behind the layers.
Barnes had always been the one that caught your eye during your mother's briefings. His transition from the greatest warrior Hydra had to offer, and thus S.H.I.E.L.D.'s greatest enemy, to the trusted companion of Captain America and official Avengers member intrigued you. At first, he had been more of a schoolgirl crush, the little girl grappling with her new powers seeking guidance in someone who didn't even know she existed. But age had not reduced your admiration of him. Barnes' face was hard set in serious determination and his glance barely grazed over you before turning to the rest of the group. He paid you not a single ounce of attention, yet you felt dumbstruck in his presence.
But Bucky had noticed you that night. Noticed you in a way he wanted desperately to hide, so he disallowed his eyes from lingering on you. Who were you and why were you wearing pajamas at a party and how did you make them actually look good?
And not only did he notice you, but he recognized you. He wasn't sure how, but something at the back of his head buried beneath decades of blurred half-memories told him he knew you. It was a stupid thought, though. How could he know you?
From the doorway, his eyes narrow in concern, making you feel smaller than ever beneath him. How is that 5 o'clock shadow so enticing? You just want to run your fingers across--
Stark gestures at Barnes, completely ignoring his comment. "Good, you're here. Our young Agent Hill needs to get started with her training immediately. I want her in the field but she can't be going in inexperienced. Teach her the works."
It's rather bold of Stark to assume you have no combat skills. And to assume you even want to go into the field. But you follow behind Barnes in silence anyway toward the training facilities. It doesn't matter what you know and don't know. He's going to kick your ass anyway.
"Feet wider," he says, coaching you on your swing. His blue eyes have somehow darkened, and along with the faint beard, he looks positively dangerous. "Not too wide."
"I know how to punch, Barnes," you whisper under your breath. He's not meant to hear your words, but he does anyway.
"Oh yeah? Punch me then. Go for it." His voice is challenging in the way that reveals he knows he could block any swing that comes at him. But he wants to see what will happen. Your mention of Hydra loosened a memory in his brain somewhere, and though he can't quite place his finger on it, the memory told him you're anything but the kid he's treating you like. He wants to know what you really have inside you.
Your annoyance gets the best of you. You aim for his face, the way your mother taught you. And she taught you well, teaching you all the self-defense skills you might need moving through the world as a woman. But she did not teach you how to fight super soldiers. That's an entirely different world.
Unsurprisingly, Barnes predicts your move and his metal arm comes up to meet your human one, halting your punch mid-swing. His palm fully engulfs your fist, your knuckles slamming into the metal with a ringing sound.
"Fuck, that hurt," you seethe through your teeth, gripping your hand in pain. And yet, you still smile. You mean for your words to sound irritated, but they betray how much you enjoy getting a swing in. "Didn't have to do me like that, Barnes."
He ignores your pain, though secretly it pleases him to find how much force is truly behind your punch. Nothing, of course, his metal arm can't take, but strong enough. "Language, kid. Go again. And this time, try not to be so obvious."
Despite his advice, it's impossible. He predicts every one of your strikes and counters them with four times as much strength as you possess. You give him everything you have, and nothing lands.
"This would be a lot easier if you let me use my powers."
So far, Barnes has refused to let you fight invisible, not that it would have done you much good without a proper suit. But you're tired and sweaty, your hair falling from its ponytail and sticking to your face, your muscles aching and your heart beating fast. Barnes hasn't even broken a sweat.
"Unless you learn to fight without your powers, they'll do nothing more than level the playing field. You need to be at an advantage if you're going to survive."
Survive. You've done plenty of that already. You want better than survival. Barnes recognizes the look on your face, the one that expresses the desire plainly. He knows the feeling, drifting from one day to the next and wanting more than that.
His voice softens a bit. "We can call it quits for the day. Get some rest. We'll go again tomorrow."
He didn't intend to be so kind. It just sort of happened, drawn out of him by the not-so-innocent girl who still has a lot to learn but can hold her own better than most.
---
Tomorrow. Tomorrow's8 like the day before, 9 am at HQ, wait for Parker to get his ass up the elevator so Stark can begin, get sidetracked by coffee, and then finally return to the task at hand.
"Give this a shot," Stark says, handing you what looks like nothing more than a vaguely human-shaped paper suit. "Not exactly protective, but it's a new technology. Should conform to your abilities."
"You did this overnight?"
"Of course. Get changed."
The suit has little support and definitely no protection. You feel like a fingernail could rip a hole through it if you pull on it wrong, let alone a knife coming at you from an angry enemy. But it's a start. An impressive start. You stare at yourself in the mirror of the bathroom as you shift, the suit shifting along with you.
Back in the training facilities, where you know Stark and Parker will be waiting, you remain in your shifted form. They don't look up as you enter, somehow having not heard you, and instead are engaged in a heated discussion with Barnes about something you don't understand. So you creep up behind Parker, lean in, and whisper into his ear.
"I think it works."
You feel a little bad, but only for a moment. Parker jumps straight out of his skin, screaming a scream you didn't know was possible from the kid. Stark lets out a laugh as you rematerialize, and Barnes even cracks a smile at your prank.
"Yeah, yeah, I'd say so." Parker's voice quivers.
"Well, what do you think?" Stark asks.
"Very thin," you say, aware that much more is visible than you really want. "I feel like it's going to rip at any moment. And there's not a whole lot of support in this area."
You gesture vaguely at your chest, not knowing how best to explain to a group of men that a sports bra is a necessity for fighting, but knowing you have to make them aware all the same. You can feel Barnes' eyes on you, a little less polite than the others, and you find you like the way he eyes you up, a bit like a puzzle to be solved or a strategy to be devised.
"Right, right, I'll get on that. Only a prototype anyway," Stark responds nervously. "Back to work, Parker. Hill, Barnes, back to training."
Bucky tries his best not to picture what you might look like without that suit, but it leaves little to the imagination as you saunter away to change again.
And so the days move forward. You've never before been so busy or exhausted in your life. You just graduated college, which is a feat in itself, but all the training, all the work, keeps you on your toes so that by the end of the day, both your brain and your body are tired.
Still, you improve and get better at sparring Barnes, even taking him down a couple of times on your own, though you suspect he's going easy on you.
"Again." Barnes is already on his feet and helping you to yours. Today the sparring room is particularly warm, and you've long forgone your sweats for shorts and a sports bra. Barnes has lost the shirt as well, and his chest glistens with sweat beneath the fluorescent lights. Maybe it's the heat or maybe it's him, but the whole thing feels a bit dreamlike. Here you are, sparring with a man who could take you to the ground with one arm alone, and he's letting you kick his ass every once in a while.
But there's no way you can do it again. You feel destroyed by all the slamming onto the mat.
Barnes is doing his best not to be distracted as well, but those tight shorts and the top that reveals your midriff have to be on purpose. It's easy to admit to himself that he likes you, might even be attracted to you. You fight hard and relentlessly, rising to every one of his challenges and not backing down even when you're tired. You've already come a long way since that first encounter, and Barnes has come to look forward to the two hours a day you spend together in the gym. He had tried to tell himself it was the fun of having a new sparring partner, but in truth, he knows it's the determined glint in your eyes, the way you bounce on your feet in excited anticipation of the fight, the way you collapse on the mat after a hard session, chest heaving deep breaths in and out. But what he likes most is your heated gaze when he pins you to the ground, or even better, you pin him.
"Knock me down one more time and you can be done," he challenges. The familiar determination returns, though a flicker of doubt remains behind your eyes. He can tell you need encouragement. "Remember to use your size to your advantage. Don't let me get ahead of you. Keep me guessing."
You do your best. You really do. You hold your own for almost two minutes, but it's obvious you're only barely staying ahead of him. As soon as you falter, Barnes has you flat on your back on the mat without much resistance, immobilized by a knee on your thighs and his metal arm trapping your hands over your head. His free hand plants by your head and holds him up to prevent him from actually hurting you.
You gasp underneath him, trying to disguise the weird flicker of desire with breathlessness. He looks good from down here, all sweaty and dark and serious. But you're also a bit too tired to care. "I'm out, Barnes. Let me go."
Let me go. Please.
And that's when the memory returns. The full, real memory, the one that has been tickling the edges of his brain since he first saw you. You, a kid, his mission. Kidnap, don't kill. A small voice, your voice, begging. Please, let me go. What has he done?
"Fuck," he curses under his breath, standing up quickly.
"Language, Barnes," you say teasingly. But he doesn't laugh, simply exits the sparring room, abruptly leaving you, speechless and alone on the floor. What just happened?
After a moment of confused silence on the mat, you brush it off and stand, heading to your room for a shower. Stark offered you a place to stay at HQ, and you happily agreed. Though you loved being back with your mother after four years away at college, you cherish your independence. A room at HQ offered you just that.
A nice shower would certainly make you feel better after that confusing interaction. You pull on your robe and shower shoes, leaving your clothes behind so as to carry one less thing. But as you pass down the hall toward the showers, you can hear Barnes' voice drift through the slightly open door to his room.
"I remembered," he says. "It was her. I'm the reason she's--" He cuts off, appearing to be interrupted by whoever he's talking to on the phone. You pause by the open door.
"I know that's not me anymore but I'm still responsible," he continues. "I have to tell her."
Again a pause. By now it's apparent he's talking about you.
"No, Steve, we aren't a team. We aren't partners. I'm helping Tony out. I don't care if she doesn't want to work with me anymore, this is part of my redemption. I have to tell her."
The conversation seems over. You rush to the showers, not wanting Barnes to realize you were listening the whole time. Apologize, he said. Apologize for what? You've known him for a whole of four days and he's been nothing but polite to you. Cold, at first, but he warms upon acquaintance. And then he's downright sweet.
So sweet, you realize, for someone so damaged. He has every right to hate the world, and though he walks through it with a healthy dose of cynicism, he never lets that cynicism touch you. If anything, he's outright positive around you, an undeserving brat. A kid, really, though you don't like when he calls you that. You know you can be naive, positive on the verge of artificiality, and yet he never tries to burst your bubble. In fact, he seems to relish it.
The shower feels nice, but it does nothing to assuage your fears. Maybe it's you who has done something wrong? Now you're spiraling. You have to find out what's going on or it's going to drive you crazy.
You know what you have to do. You have just about seven minutes of invisibility before your shifting gives out. In those seven minutes, you can duck from the showers, sneak into Barnes' room, snoop around, and make it back to the showers unseen. Plenty of time. But you have to go nude. Now would be a great time for the suit, but no such luck. Naked it is.
Out in the hallway, all is quiet. Barnes' door is still ajar, but when you peek your head in, the room is empty.
Easy.
Where to start? His phone is a dead end, being one of those ancient flipping kinds rather than a new, high-tech smartphone. He has few personal belongings, the bed is made perfectly, and his closet contains only clothes.
The drawers of the nightstand are empty. Or nearly empty. At the back of the top drawer is unceremoniously shoved a small booklet with a pen stuck between the pages. It's worn and supple, as though held a thousand times and read a thousand more. You flip through, finding a list of names, some crossed out, others not. Your name does not appear, but something about the list tells you these are not ordinary names. These are the names of his victims, people Barnes hurt as the Winter Soldier. Your heart aches and your stomach clenches, the reminder of his past jarring against the kind demeanor you've come to know. But deep down, you know this isn't him, know he's a good man, despite it all.
You know better than most the first-hand horrors of Hydra's super-soldier experiments. Of anyone, you can relate best to the experience Barnes has been through. Your memories of that long week are blurry, but the pain remains, forever seared into your mind. You can only imagine a lifetime of that pain.
The sound of the door opening jolts you from your reverie and you close the drawer quickly. But you soon realize your mistake. Barnes would know he left the door open, would know exactly how he placed his book in the drawer, would recognize something was off. Unfortunately, you're right.
"Hello?" he calls into the darkening room. The evening is coming on fast and the sun dims to barely glimmer, casting the space in shadow despite the large windows on the south wall.
Bucky knows something is off the moment he finds your room unoccupied, having gone there with the express purpose of confronting you about his actions earlier in the afternoon. And though he has no way of truly knowing, he suspects you are now here, in this room with him, invisible to his gaze. Bucky shuts the door behind him and waits.
You're trapped. You don't have long before your powers give out; already the suffocating feeling that begs you to take a breath is coming on. And Barnes has closed the door, effectively sealing you in, as you can't open it without him knowing for sure that you're here. On top of that, you're clothingless. You've run out of options and Barnes seems to sense this. So, he waits, drawing out the moment of tension, building the suspense.
"I know you're here," he says finally, his voice soft and barely audible. "You can't hide that well. Next time, dry your feet off before you go leaving wet footprints all over the place."
Oops.
"I--" you begin, and immediately Barnes' eyes snap to where your voice originates from. "I'm sorry. I overheard your conversation with Rogers. I shouldn't have but I know it was about me."
Barnes sighs, shoving his hands in his pockets. "Yeah, you're right. I have some things to explain. Though I'd much prefer talking to you if I could see you."
You hesitate. "Only a slight problem there. I'm not wearing any clothes."
If it had been any lighter in the room you would have seen Barnes blush. Instead, you watch him pull his shirt over his head. He hands it to you blindly, the shirt off his own back, soft with wear and long enough to cover the tops of your thighs. It smells of him, salty with sweat and sweet with the scent you've come to recognize only as him. You shrug it on and shift back.
"I'm sorry," you say again, having trouble concentrating with Barnes' bare chest at your eye level. Is that an old bullet wound on his shoulder? The reminder of a knife across his stomach? You can't look away, even at the seam where man meets metal.
Barnes shakes his head. "No, I should be the one apologizing."
He pauses for a moment and tries to begin several times before finally forming a complete sentence.
"It's my fault you're like this, that Hydra tested on you. It was me who kidnapped you, it was me who followed orders, it was me who completed the mission and got you hurt. And I'm so sorry."
You're so frozen in shock that the absurdity of the situation doesn't even register. There's nothing under this shirt, no underwear, no pants, no bra. And here you are standing in the bedroom of your greatest inspiration, listening to him apologize for being the one that facilitated your kidnapping, for being responsible for all the injury, the pain, the nightmares, the isolation, the...
It all comes flooding back, the things you had forgotten, or simply chose to not remember, and one of those things is his face.
You thought you'd dealt with impact. So many hours with a therapist, and you realize all you did was suppress the feelings, not confront them. And then you break, all the anger and sadness and frustration flowing from you at once.
"You piece of shit." Your voice begins as a whisper but soon amplifies nearly to a shout. "You monster, you bastard, how could you? How could you?"
All this time you forgave him for the damage he'd done, excused it as brainwashing and manipulation from Hydra. But now that it's you he's involved, you have somewhere to direct your anger, and you take it out as a shove straight to his chest.
He didn't expect that one. The words he understood. He accepted those, accepted that you would hate him forever. But then you're pushing and hitting him with all your force. Barnes could fight back, could hold his ground. But you need this, so he lets you shove him into the wall with a newfound strength. Finally against the wall, with nowhere left to go, you turn to pummelling his chest with your fists, repeating the words over and over, how could you, how could you, how could you.
For a moment, he lets it happen. But eventually, Barnes reacts, grabbing your wrists and holding them to his chest in an attempt to calm the fury that rages inside you. Surprisingly, at his touch, you still, slumping against him once the anger is replaced with nothing but sadness. That anger, one you never truly realized you'd harbored since your capture, bled from you all at once, leaving you exhausted.
You don't notice you're crying until a soft thumb wipes a tear from your cheek. Barnes releases your hands and wraps his arms around your sobbing body, pulling you close. "I'm so sorry," he repeats in your ear, his words a whisper against the rage inside your head.
Is it hours, or only minutes, standing like that, wrapped up in him, his skin so soft against your cheek? Time has ceased to exist, melting into the nighttime that encompasses the room in near pitch-black darkness. Your breath calms, your heart rate slows, the tears dry. He's only a man, a broken, misplaced, lost man. But he's also impossibly kind to you, caring enough to train you day after day, to pick you up when you fall down, to ensure you're happy here at all times. That's the man you know and rest your cheek against and seek out for comfort in this moment, despite him being the reason for your anger. But he's not truly the reason for your anger, only an easy outlet standing right before you.
This is not how Bucky had expected this to go. Perhaps to never see you again, yes. But to hold you in his arms, certainly not. And not just hold you, but comfort you. It surprises him how much he finds he likes it. And he can't ignore the fact that you're here in his room, wearing his shirt and only his shirt. He doesn't try anything improprietous, just wraps his arms around your waist, but it's not lost on him that your supple chest is pressed against him and the delicious scent from your still wet hair is filling his brain with a flowery cloud. His stomach clenches at the thought of burying his face in that smell for the rest of the night but he pushes it aside. That's not why you're here. That's not what you want.
But your next words surprise him. You pull slightly away, tilting your splotchy face upward towards his to look him in the eye. You take a ragged breath and speak.
"I forgive you."
Bucky is taken aback. That's not why he made this confession, not to seek your forgiveness. "You don't have to do that."
"I know. But I do. And I know you think I'm just a kid--"
Barnes lets out a short laugh, cutting you off immediately. "Jesus Christ, that's not true. You're not a kid. You're smart and strong and capable. And you've seen the ugly world for its true self and choose to remain good and happy all the same. I'm not like that and that makes you wiser than I'll ever be."
He takes a deep breath, unsure if he should admit to the feelings he desperately wants to express to you. The way you're looking at him, with a mixture of hesitation and admiration, makes the words tumble from his mouth without a second thought.
"But somehow being around you makes me want to be good again. Not for my sake, but for yours."
"James, I--" You've never used his first name before, but it falls deliciously from your lips, the sound of it nearly distracting him from the finger you run across the stubble on the cleft of his chin. Nearly. He captures that hand in his own, holding it there against his face.
"You don't have to forgive me. I don't deserve it," he repeats, eyes falling shut to the feeling of your thumb pressed to the corner of his lips. He still holds you close, the other arm wrapping tight around you, and though verbally he rejected the comfort your warmth offered, his body says otherwise, desperate for the acceptance his brain refuses to give into.
"Stop punishing yourself," you whisper. For a moment, he almost feels that he could.
And when your lips find his, soft and delicate, he forgets why you're even here in the first place, forgets his guilt and your anger, forgets even to react.
His lack of response has you pulling away, worried you've done something wrong, but then he's chasing your lips with his own, leaning forward to meet you halfway, gathering you impossibly tighter to his chest. He pauses, mouth mere centimeters from yours, eyes still shut, a deep breath heaving from his chest. He wants more, wants to kiss you again in all the places that count, but he can't quite yet.
"What was that for?" The question's not an accusatory one but simply curious. Have you always looked at him in this light since day one? Has he just not noticed?
"Are you blind, Barnes?"
He laughs and shakes his head. "None of that last name shit, doll, we've moved on to a first-name basis."
But your words are enough to surge him forward, this time capturing your lips in a dominating kiss that leaves you gasping for air. He takes advantage of your open mouth and presses his tongue to yours, seeking to fill his soul with your all-consuming warmth, to wrap it around him like a cocoon of your scent. His fingers slide down your back and slip under the shirt you wear, his shirt, grasping at the bare skin of your ass, filling his hands with your supple flesh.
You moan softly under his touch, relishing in the feeling of being encompassed by someone so large and so strong. The vibranium arm, which you expected to be harshly indelicate against your relative fragility, caresses you with the same gentility of the other. The intense contact sends your heart racing like it did all the times you were pinned below him on the sparring mat. Will he pin you like that in bed? Hold you down while he fucks you within an inch of your life?
The thought rouses a heat between your legs and stirs butterflies in your tummy. You don't even know if that's where this is going, but it invades your brain anyways. You're sure Barnes can feel your racing pulse beneath his lips when he kisses your neck, sending your nerves haywire as he creeps toward the neckline of your shirt. He inhales your scent, the hot air of his breath fanning your cool skin.
Everything about this is sloppy, the wet kisses dragged across your skin, his tongue tangled with yours, your fingers tugging at the hair that brushes the nape of his neck. Even his hips against yours are messy and rough, the heat of him leaving your core feeling slick, the wetness of it rubbing between your naked thighs. And then Barnes is sliding his hands back up your body, this time under your shirt, and tugging it over your head, his lips leaving your skin just long enough to toss the item to the ground.
You expect him to keep surging forward, to lift you in his arms and take you to bed like you want him to. But he pauses instead, hands cradling the back of your head, his eyes staring intensely into yours. Or you think he's staring into your eyes.
"Are you okay? Is this okay?" His voice is full of concern but raspy with arousal all the same.
"Yes, James, yes, I need more."
"Well, I would, it's just that you've disappeared on me again." One look at your hands and you know he was looking right through you, not at you. The swirl of emotions--pleasure, arousal, timidity even--sent you shifting without your knowledge. You can't help but laugh.
"Let me see you, doll," he groans, sounding exasperated that he can't rake his gaze across your naked flesh or find all the places he wants to touch you because they're invisible.
"You first."
A heated understanding lights up his eyes, still vibrant in the darkness of the room. Slowly, he releases his grip on you, relenting to not knowing where you are in space. You take an invisible step back to get a better view of the specimen before you. With one hand, he unbuckles his belt, sliding the leather from his pants and dropping it to the floor with a thunk. And then his pants are gone and he's left in his boxers, tight against the bulging muscles of his thighs.
And other bulging things. He doesn't hide his attraction to you. But still, you do not reappear.
Bucky begins to worry you're never going to, that maybe he's taken things too for. But then, a soft finger trails across his neck and he jerks in surprise. You're tracing the plain of his chest with a feather-light touch, dipping into the indent between his collarbones, feeling along the puckered scar of a bullet wound and the long slice of a knife. He feels healed beneath your touch, but it's not enough to satisfy the insatiable hunger building in the tightness of his groin. This entire evening has been a long, drawn-out, build-up of tension, and if he doesn't release it soon, it will snap like an overstretched rubber band.
He makes his move.
Apparently, Bucky's senses are just as perceptive here as they are on the sparring mat. His metal hand shoots up and wraps around the wrist of the hand on his chest, despite being unable to see it. The other reaches out and grapples at your invisible body in the dark, somehow finding your waist. He doesn't need to see you to manage to flip you around and press your back against his chest. In your surprise, your invisibility falters, and you flicker out of your shifted form with a flustered squeak, one hand suddenly pinned between your back and Bucky's rock-hard chest.
He holds on with an iron grip and walks you toward the bed, holding you up to prevent you from tripping in your ruffled state.
"You're taking too long, doll," he mumbles into your ear, and you feel his chest rumble with the vibrations. Your free hand flies to the one around your waist, which is slowly creeping upward toward your breast to twist at the sensitive nipple. "I know you like it when I pin you on the sparring floor. I can see it in your eyes. I'll take you like that right now if you give me the word."
Fuck, you want nothing more but you can't breathe enough to get the words out, opting for nodding vigorously instead. But Bucky wants words, gently prodding you forward to get a verbal commitment out of you. He will never take you against your will again. So you manage a long, drawn-out please and suddenly you're face-first in the sheets, bent halfway at the waist, your ass grinding against the delicious bulge pressed against your aching cunt. It pleases you that he has been thinking the same wicked thoughts as you when he slams you to the mat over and over again in training.
Bucky pulls your arm out from underneath you, joining it with the other and holding them together with his metal fist at your lower back, forcing your chest further into the mattress and your ass higher in the air. There's no way for you to move, no matter how hard you try. But you don't try, won't try. Bucky has you right where you want to be.
"Tell me if it's too much," he murmurs in your ear and you breathe an affirmation. His teeth nibble suddenly at your ear lobe and you squirm, the sensation of his breath fanning your skin sending goosebumps along the trail of kisses he leaves down your spine. Somehow, you know this is only the calm before the storm, the gentle caresses of a man who's about to rearrange every organ in your body, all the way up to your heart if you aren't careful.
It doesn't matter to you that it's pitch black in the room; you wouldn't have been able to see anything with your face shoved into the comforter, even if the lights were on. But Bucky's starting to regret having left the lights off, wishing he could better see the curve of your hips, the swell of your thighs, or the bloom of his handprint on your ass when his hand comes down with a smack. He resigns to being satisfied by the mewling gasp that escapes your lips and your soft pleas to Do it again, harder.
So he does. Smack.
And then he's sinking to his knees and you can tell because he leaves a wet stripe of skin with his tongue over the globe of your ass and blows a shock of cool air across the rawness of your skin.  He replaces the sting of his hand with the bite of his teeth and then a kiss to soothe you again. The rollercoaster of sensations has you moaning against the mattress and rocking your hips toward his face and Barnes chuckles at your movement, your actions giving away the desperation you feel to have his tongue move to more sensitive places.
He is happy to oblige. You hadn't even noticed you'd been squeezing your thighs together until he slid a hand up between them, forcing them apart. It's a blessing your legs aren't doing any work to keep you up anymore because they feel like jelly under his touch. The hand between your thighs moves higher still until you feel his thumb pressed to your sensitive clit, warm and twitching with anticipation, desire coursing through your veins and dripping from your wet cunt. Your ears barely register that he's speaking, the blood is pumping so hard in your ears, but his words are exalting.
"Look at you, so wet for me." The hand around your wrists tightens just slightly. You are surprised by the extreme control he has over the cool metal fingers, and you almost wish he'd use those on you instead. And then he says, "you like it, don't you, doll, being at my mercy," and you forget all about the arm and decide it doesn't matter what hand presses down with a gentle strength on your clit as long as he doesn't stop. And he doesn't. Doesn't move, doesn't flinch or twitch or falter, just holds steady until your gasping mewls die down just enough for you to say, "yes, all for you, all for you, all..."
With those words, his thumb slips, between your slick folds into your pussy, finding the soft spongy flesh and pressing down again and you cry out with a careening moan that tapers off into a silent sob. He's taking his time, picking you apart, pulling at the laces that bind you together, and undoing them to release the tension he knows you harbor. But what about him? Is it not torture for him?
You breathe in a rough gasp, enough to squeak out a few more words. "I thought we were going too slow for you."
He laughs, he actually laughs, at your words, but relents.
"I hear you, doll."
I hear you. Oh wow. His tongue replaces his finger and you lose all coherence, able only to blubber some iteration of his name as the smooth muscle traces circles around your clit, finally allowing your orgasm to build with a steady contraction in your pelvis. Barnes moans between your legs like he's never tasted chocolate or buttercream or any of those other wondrous flavors and there's only you. And that moan sends you overboard, the vibrations diffusing down your legs and you tremble into your first orgasm. Your first orgasm.
He keeps going, riding out the waves of your high until you're crying that it's too much, James, too much and he pulls his tongue away from your oversensitized clit only to move down your legs. He's working you up again, teasing the smooth skin of your inner thigh with gentle nips and kisses until your body is craving release again, your cunt clenching around nothing but the memory of his mouth. He is deliberate in his ministrations, methodical in the way he must be with his missions. The flood of your first orgasm has dripped steadily down your thigh and he cleans you with his tongue, dragging upward along the sticky trail of your musky release until his tongue makes contact again and he pulls an orgasm from your desperate body once more.
He still hasn't released your arms.
"You know how long I've wanted to do this?" he groans, as you shudder again into the pleasure of his touch. He kisses back up the length of your spine while you twitch under him, his free hand dragging shock wave after shock wave from your cunt. It strikes you that this man is truly 106, not 26 like his body suggests, and you absentmindedly wonder if that's why he's so good at it, that he's had years to practice. And then his cock is pressing against your folds and you forget the notion halfway through thinking it. "You're so good to me doll, so good for opening up for me. Wanna feel your tight pussy around me."
You push backward, or do your best to without the employment of your arms, wanting desperately to feel him inside you. He is warm and all-encompassing and part of you thinks his cock spilling his seed inside of you would complete you like nothing else. But you know that's a bad idea and you can hear him already unwrapping a condom (where did he get that from?) and your body trembles with the anticipation. You haven't even seen him yet but you know he must be big, the way he grunts when the tip of his erection teases your entrance.
When he enters you it isn't gentle like the stroke of his tongue. It splits you open with a rough thrust, the laces of your heart fully undone and releasing you from their confinement. You choke on your own air.
And then he's releasing your arms, and before you can react, Barnes has you lifted, your back to his chest, your knees shoved roughly into the mattress so he can stand and fuck you from behind. The metal arm finds your neck and forces your head back, his lips dragging hot against your soft skin and muttering filthy praise into your ear, his hand gently on your throat to hold you there. Your hands fly to his, not to pull him away, but to convince him to squeeze, just a little bit harder. The pressure is grounding, and then the hand around your waist is trailing toward the bud of your clit and rubbing in urgent circles and you let out a silent gasp as he thrusts into you at a pace astounding for the position you're in.
You come hard, over his hand, around his cock, and for the first time Barnes falters, stunned by the intensity with which you clamp around him and if he hadn't made you come two times already he might have held out a bit longer to pull another one of those stunning orgasms from your slick cunt. But you're sagging, using him to hold you up against the exhaustion of repeated abuse so he releases, riding the wave of pleasure you started. Bucky groans out your name, surprising you with the gentleness of it on his tongue despite the rough hand around your neck.
When he releases you softly back onto the bed, you sink heavily into the mattress, feeling high on pleasure and drunk on his hands. He pulls away and shuffles around the room, and if you had had any energy left you might have complained at the loss of him but as it sits nothing will rouse you from the intense desire to simply fall asleep.
He continues to move about and then... the lights go on? You groan at the harsh treatment of your eyes as they adjust. But Barnes returns and pulls you against him and apologizes for the rude awakening.
"Sorry, doll," he mutters. "Wanted to get a better look at you." His fingers glide along your back and his face nuzzles into the top of your head, breathing into your hair as you press your forehead into his chest. Despite being exhausted himself he trails his hands all over your body, exploring the side of you that has been shoved into the sheets for the better part of the evening. You let him, although your nerves feel fried and oversensitive to touch.
"Watch what you do with those hands," you giggle as his fingertips brush over a nipple, "unless you're ready to go again."
"Already looking forward to next time?"
"You wish," you tease, but already you know for certain that there will be a next time.
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tossawary · 3 years
Text
2,500 words of the Moshang Forced Marriage AU, in which the PIDW plot is turned off and Tianlang-Jun doesn’t fall, but this only causes even more problems for Mobei-Jun and Shang Qinghua. Written on my phone. 
Shang Qinghua stumbled back into his leisure house with a jar of Zui Xian Peak’s best light wine in one hand and a sack of Qian Cao Peak’s tastiest specialty melon seeds in the other. He kicked the door closed, kicked off his shoes, and then kicked back for some quality lounging. 
   “Ahhh, now this is more like it!” he declared, wiggling into the cushions worthy of a head disciple’s house. “It’s all shoving off my chores onto other people from here on out! Having flatcakes on order with a snap of my fingers! Making some other poor bastard deal with Shen Qingqiu and Liu Qingge - at each other’s throats even at Yue-Shixiong’s nice dinner to celebrate our future ascension, eugh. I’ve really earned this! I’ve suffered enough!” 
   He dropped the sack of seeds onto the side table and fiddled with the wine, embarrassingly clumsy despite the fact that he was sober. As always, he’d been much too chicken-shit to really indulge around other people. He needed his fast reflexes for ducking and running away when he was out and about! Plus, people would freak the fuck out if a transmigrator started running his mouth, giving everyone existential issues and shit, so him waiting until he was alone to drink was really more of a societal service here than sad. 
   The Transmigration System had also been a concern before, but not anymore! 
   Shang Qinghua raised his jar and laughingly declared, “The plot is dead! Long live the free author! Ah, this toast is a little late, but better late than never, huh?” 
   At long last, this transmigrator had managed to get into the Transmigration System’s settings and turn off the plot! It had honestly been a little infuriating just how easy it had been, once he’d hit on the right combination of things to open the right settings menu. There may or may not have been a lot of outraged shrieking and frustrated crying, after all the sweat, blood, and tears he’d shed to become the head disciple of An Ding Peak. All Airplane Shooting Towards The Sky had needed to do, in the end, was flick a few buttons from “on” to “off”. Outrageous. 
   “No more missions! No more restrictions! And no more bad endings for anyone! Ah, at least for everyone besides Huan Hua Palace Sect’s old master, that is… but, heh heh, I really think that I and the new Empress Su Xiyan can live with that,” Shang Qinghua muttered, then took a drink, wiggling deeper into his lounging and feeling very good about himself. 
   He felt as free as a bird! As free as the wind! Why shouldn't he celebrate his newfound freedom and future as a Cang Qiong Peak Lord by doing a little bit of nothing at all? 
  Shang Qinghua shamelessly did his best to become a lump. As he toasted to the distant happy couple and the bouncy baby protagonist on his way, with wine and melon seeds both, he removed all but one layer of clothing, tossed his belt and his jewelry on top of the pile, and yanked everything out of his hair. He slid from a sitting position to a totally horizontal one without realizing how it had happened, then he let heavy eyes fall closed with the knowledge that everything was going to be so much better now. 
   A person knew things were good when they could fall asleep just like this. 
   Then a burst of cold air startled him into looking up at a shadowy figure stepping out of nowhere above him. Shang Qinghua shrieked with terror. 
   "SHUT UP!” the shadow snarled. “Get up!” 
   “What- my king?!” 
   Mobei-Jun didn’t wait and grabbed Shang Qinghua by the front of his robes, hauling him to his feet. The wine sloshed against the floor and the melon seeds scattered around them. Shang Qinghua yelped, choked, and then wheezed and flailed, and then yelped again as his loose robes got a little looser with the rough handling and he slipped in Mobei-Jun's grip. 
   "What- get dressed!" Mobei-Jun snapped, and then dragged him into the bedroom right away. 
   "The sight of my naked chest offends you this much, bro?!" Shang Qinghua thought, stumbling along. "There's not enough room in this house for two tits-out outfits?! What the fuck is going on?!" 
   Mobei-Jun threw Shang Qinghua towards the dresser. He just barely managed to catch himself, taking a hard wooden edge to the gut and stubbing his toe on its base, instead of falling and concussing himself at least. Shit! It still hurt, though! 
   "Get dressed!" Mobei-Jun snapped again, pointing at the dresser for emphasis. "Now!" 
   "Right away! Right away, my king!" With shaking hands, his heart thundering in his ears, Shang Qinghua pulled out the first set of robes his fingers touched. 
   "Not those!" 
   "Aah!" 
   Shang Qinghua dropped the robes onto the floor. They were the regular everyday robes of an An Ding Peak disciple, plain and sturdy, something that the demon had seen him in many times before. 
   "Wh- what's wrong with th-these?" 
   "Too plain!" Mobei-Jun barked, and stalked forward to shove Shang Qinghua aside and go through the dresser himself. 
   Shang Qinghua stumbled away and took shelter near his bed, quickly retying his current robes to prevent another fucking nip-slip or worse. He watched with wide eyes as Mobei-Jun threw his clothing to the floor as not good enough. The next drawer was yanked open with so much strength that it splintered and tilted crookedly to one side. 
   "My king, why-?! What's happening?! Are- are we going somewhere?! Who does this servant have to impress?!" 
   Mobei-Jun finished throwing aside everything in this drawer and tried to shove it back in, but it was too broken to be moved. The demon snarled, yanked the entire drawer from the dresser with another terrible splintering sound, and threw the drawer out of his way. It hit Shang Qinghua in the chest and sent him sprawling back onto his bed. 
   He lay there and wheezed without shoving it away, just feeling the impact rattle through his ribs. He heard another drawer splinter. 
   "Ah, so this is how I die?" he thought. "Just as expected: with a bang AND a whimper." 
   He pushed the drawer to one side and sat up, only to be smacked in the face with the robes thrown at him. They were the nicest robes he owned. The An Ding Peak Lord had ordered them for him for the coming ascension of a new generation of Peak Lords, so they had all sorts of fancy embroidery and several heavy layers, which meant Shang Qinghua fell back against the bed again under their weight when they hit his head. He sat up again and then gawked at these robes he had never worn and wasn't supposed to wear yet- 
   "Tianlang-Jun." 
   "Aha, what?" Shang Qinghua looked at the demon lord scowling at him. "My king…? What about Tianlang-Jun…? This- no. What?! My king, you can't mean to take this servant before the Demon Emperor, that would be ridic-" 
   "Get dressed," Mobei-Jun snapped. 
   "It's not Tianlang-Jun, right? Why-?! What's really going on here? Are we going somewhere? Are we meeting someone?" 
   Shang Qinghua got to his feet, but he didn't dare put the fancy robes on, like being nearly naked would save him from being dragged off anywhere else. No amount of nice clothing would ever make the likes of this displaced author impressive to the likes of the OP Demon Emperor, finally sitting on his late sister's throne. 
   "This servant can't serve his king to the best of his abilities unless he knows what the-" 
   "My father is dead!" 
   “...Wh… what?” 
   Mobei-Jun’s expression was like a thunderstorm. Shadows curled around his clenched fists, as light and heat fled this room that was suddenly even smaller than Shang Qinghua remembered it being. 
   "My father…" Mobei-Jun repeated, slowly, daring Shang Qinghua not to understand a second time. "...is dead." 
   Shang Qinghua stared in horror, the robes slipping out of his hands, which itched to count all the years that had just been skipped even though he knew he didn't have enough fingers. Thirty years or so? Definitely more than twenty. His breath came out in a trembling fog as he demanded: 
   "H-how?!" 
   "Tianlang-Jun," Mobei-Jun said again, through gritted teeth. 
   Good point! Good point! Who the fuck else could it be? The real question was why the fuck?! And also what the fuck was Shang Qinghua of all people supposed to do about clashes between OP demon lords?! 
   Mobei-Jun advances on Shang Qinghua, the shadows in his fists writhing like he's strangling them. "Tianlang-Jun took offense to some of my clan's foolish disrespect towards his human Empress and he made an example of my father. He has threatened to destroy the body unless a suitable gesture is made." 
   "But… the power of your ancestors…" 
   Mobei-Jun, looming over him, shoved him down to his knees to pick up the robes he had dropped, and snarled: "Get dressed." 
   Shang Qinghua snatched up the robes and skittered away to dress himself up for the slaughter. His heart was racing fast, but his mind seemed to be going even faster, almost too fast to actually think and also do things like make sure clothes weren't inside-out as he put them on. 
   The power of the Mobei clan rested in the ascension ritual in which the new king "consumed" the body of the old king. Spiritually and… er… possibly also physically? Shang Qinghua had no idea if the System had picked up on those implications or not. Anyway, if Mobei-Jun's father's body was destroyed, then he wouldn't receive that power-up necessary to enforce his rule, which would make him the target of every ambitious cousin and every greedy neighbor. The Mobei clan would probably fall into civil war and the rest of the northern kingdoms would follow them into bloody battle. 
   Shang Qinghua's favorite character, currently glaring at him for the fancy clothes probably making him look even less fancy by comparison, was sure to die. Mobei-Jun's shitty uncle had probably already picked the poisoned knife with which to stab him in the back. 
    "My king… what… what gesture is being made here…? This servant… this servant really needs to know how he's supposed to be of service…" 
   Shang Qinghua also needed to know whether or not he needed to take the first available window to run away. He definitely wasn't above leaping out of literal windows. If Mobei-Jun intended on hanging him over to Tianlang-Jun as a human sacrifice or some shit, then promises of loyalty might expire a lot sooner than originally planned! 
   At the question, Mobei-Jun's expression only darkened and the room darkened again with it. The cold seemed to spread from Shang Qinghua's skin deep into his twisting chest.
   "Marriage," Mobei-Jun said, again through gritted teeth. "Tianlang-Jun has suggested marriage to a human as a worthy gesture." 
   "M-marriage?" 
   Mobei-Jun looked so fucking murderous that Shang Qinghua knew he hadn't misheard. He had to have misheard, though, because this was absurd. 
   "Marriage betw-between me and- and…?" 
   "Yes." 
   "And… you?" 
   "Yes." 
   Shang Qinghua should have been given an award for not fainting dead away. The System should have given him a million points for every second he managed to stay conscious, except… the System had essentially been turned off. No more points. No more plot. 
   No more Proud Immortal Demon Way plot, at least. 
   Ah, was this some kind of warped vacuum effect? A new plot come to take its place? 
   "There will be great riches." 
   Shang Qinghua refocused on the demon glaring at him. Riches?! What the fuck did riches have to do with anything right now?! 
   "Mobei Clan is the second strongest in the Demon Realm," Mobei-Jun informed him, but the demon was kind of scowling like he resented this now, instead of bragging. "You would not have to work again." 
   It was a really fucking weird day when being told that his Dream Guy wanted him and that he'd never had to work again was somehow bad news. It almost sounded like Mobei-Jun was… was… trying to persuade Shang Qinghua to marry him by offering wealth, power, and a life of indolence. All things that would tempt most people! Especially blindly greedy, thigh-hugging sect traitors like his character! 
   "Did… did Tianlang-Jun tell you… to just pick any human?" Shang Qinghua asked faintly. "There weren't… there weren't any requirements…?" 
   Clearly Mobei-Jun didn't want to be tied to Shang Qinghua of all humans! 
   "He asked - laughingly - if none of us knew any humans. I said that I did." 
   Okay, Shang Qinghua fully believed that Mobei-Jun didn't know any other humans. Mobei-Jun was on a deadline and didn't have time to go find the most acclaimed matchmaker or anything. By default, Shang Qinghua was the best, most handsome, most skillful, most wellborn, most desirable, and altogether most marriageable human Mobei-Jun knew - and he was not feeling super fucking thrilled by this victory. 
   "What… what did my king say about me..? What is the Demon Emperor expecting?" Shang Qinghua could only hope expectations had been set on the floor, preferably into the floor or maybe even underground. 
   "A disciple of Cang Qiong in my service." 
   "Oh…" 
   "Fix your robes." 
   "What? Oh, shit. Right away!" 
   Shang Qinghua didn't have a lot of experience wearing robes this nice and Mobei-Jun barking at him to look less like shit wasn't helping. The fact that he was sweating from nerves and his fingers were still shaking a little also wasn't helping. He skittered around to add tasteful ornaments and jewelry, some of which got violently rejected by Mobei-Jun as too ugly to show anyone, but looking down at himself, he mostly just felt like he was throwing shiny gold onto a pile of crap. How could this really fool anyone?  
   "My king, what… what am I supposed to say to the Demon Emperor? Do you want me to lie? To the Demon Emperor?!" 
   "Do not speak unless spoken to." 
   Sure, Shang Qinghua could do that, but was he really supposed to leave the talking to Mobei-Jun?! To Mobei-Jun?! The protagonist's right-hand man had not been known for his silver tongue! Did he think people weren't going to have questions? Like, "How the fuck do you know some random human?" Or, "Holy shit, you're really going to marry THAT one?" 
   "Isn't… my king, isn't Tianlang-Jun well known for his interest in humans and human stories… though...?" 
   Love stories! Shang Qinghua was pretty sure that the man loved a good love story! How the fuck were he and Mobei-Jun supposed to pull off a love story? And make it a love story compelling enough to convince a pissed-off Tianlang-Jun to grant the Mobei Clan mercy? Shang Qinghua wasn’t totally sure he was going to be able to do anything besides break down sobbing and curl up into a pathetic ball on the floor. 
   Mobei-Jun's face twisted slightly, in the way of an angry demon who didn't want to admit that his lowly human servant actually had a super great point. Tianlang-Jun had already proven himself a man who liked to play with his food a little. 
   "Do not tell some story," Mobei-Jun snarled finally. "Do not speak unless spoken to. Do not lie." 
   "Of course! Of course! Very wise not to lie to him!” Shang Qinghua told himself to focus on the logistics here; he was the logistics man; it was what he did. If he just kept focusing on the details, he didn’t have to think about the bigger picture. “This servant will remain silent until called upon, which… when… my king, when will that be? Tomorrow morning? I have to tell-" 
   "Now." 
  "-my martial sib- what?!" 
   "Now," Mobei-Jun repeated. "He is waiting." 
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lady-ragnvindr · 3 years
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I’m back! My final of the day was horrible but at least the horny juice is pumping! (also I may or may not have become too excited about this particular scenario so now it’s also becoming its own X reader for AO3 when I finish it oops)
*cough* just clearing some warnings first... 👀
Omegaverse (obviously), size difference, reader has two cocks and a 2ft tongue, scent kink, sex pollen but it’s actually reader’s scent cause they triggered a rut, tongue fucking, mouth knotting, animalistic/primal sex, overstimulation, cum inflation, breeding kink, spitroasting (male receiving), marking/claiming bites, double penetration (male receiving), breeding kink, dragon cum confers semi-permanent immortality, slightly yandere characters
———
Okay, so in this setup, Teyvat’s dragons are these secluded and solitary creatures, that are only seen very rarely and decades apart. One is lucky to see a dragon come out of their secret lairs in their lifetime, but they don’t consider it as such, because dragons only ever come out for three things: treasure, war, or... mates.
The thing is, no one knows what happens to these ‘mates’. The dragons just come, towering over the tallest of alphas, roam around the land with their horns and fangs and claws, and then leave with their ‘mates’ on their arms...only for them to never be seen again. So, in the mouth of the people, ‘mates’ are just another word for ‘food’... only with a worse fate. Not that anybody dares to say it to an actual dragon.
In the middle of this, you’re a dragon just over a hundred years old, and you’re just out of your parents’ nest, roaming the land in search of treasure and possibly one (or a few) mate(s) before finally setting yourself with an adult lair.
The humans, however, are nowhere to be seen from where you stand, closing the doors when you pass and hiding their children, and you’re mildly confused, but chalk it off to them having never seen a dragon in their lives. Well, you’re truly majestic, even among other alpha dragons, with your two sets of curled horns and beautifully long tail, but it still hurts a bit seeing the mortals avoid you when you had been so eager to meet them, ever since your infancy’s tales.
And then, a presence makes itself known- or three, to be more precise. Two omegas and a beta, you can tell, and you wonder why they’re approaching you so cautiously, but you’re excited nonetheless. From their smell, you can tell they’re unmated, and you hope that if they’re not here to be your friends, they’re here to be your mates.
The first to approach is Scaramouche, in service of the Tsaritsa to investigate he rumors of a dragon descending (form where, he doesn’t know). He smiles and talks with glee in his eyes at the smile filled with pointed teeth that greets him, and you can feel your chest swell with pride. It’s all going well (all too well even, the unmistakable scent of pleased alpha making his omega reel in want), until the traveler comes too, scowling at him and loudly warning you about Scaramouche’s hidden nature and his probable ill intentions (nothing you hadn’t already noticed, of course).
Aether goes on, introducing himself and offering to help you for a while if you don’t know where you’re going, ignoring the tiny part of his brain that tells him he also wants to use you for his own benefit, finding his sister, but also the much louder one that screams ‘alpha! mine!’ in the back of his mind. Well, if he gets what he’s here for, he might as well be lucky enough to-
And then the third man comes forth, a refreshing smell of qingxin coiling around him just like the white snake on his shoulder, and Baizhu ropes you in his talk, friendly and surreptitious and he sounds out information about you you’d gladly give him in an instant had the ruse not been up. He asks about how life is like for a dragon and curious questions about your tail, and hides his need for knowledge just as much as the saliva already pooling on his tongue at the sight of you, your built form more than a head taller than he is, and the sheer strength you carry in yourself (And the other dragons said you were small for an alpha...)
The curious behavior of them is enough to rope you into their banter, a purr almost forming in the back of your throat at their sight and their scent, mixing so well with your own, but you hold it back for a while, knowing neither of them has tried anything with you. But they will, you’re sure, and you can wait for it for as long as they want.
It’s a few weeks later until your prediction comes true, a week full with lingering tension and careful touches that last just a bit too long and just a bit too little to be not nearly enough at every turn. You’re in the cave you’ve claimed as yours for your stay in the mortal world (only waiting for your little mates to come around), tail loosely curled around the three of them just enough you can chalk it off to a mindless behavior. You chuckle at yet another bickering between Scaramouche and Aether, the sore jabs and quick nips exhilarating to watch, as you prop yourself against the stone wall and play with Baizhu’s hair, his head resting on your lap.
And then, a hand is grabbing at your wrist, propping it against Baizhu’s cheek and him nuzzling against it, vibrant amber eyes staring straight at yours. “So, how do dragon mates work, even?” he says in that silky, languid voice of his, and you feel yourself twitch in interest.
The sounds of the conversation around pause all of a sudden, and now all three of them are looking directly at you, breaths hitched and scents sweetening just a tad, making your mouth water. Slightly nipping at your lip, your gaze wonders through each of them, finally setting down on Baizhu again only to ask, tone a bit more low now, “What do you want to know?”
The curious eyes shift lower on your form, and you feel, just for a moment, that the glint in their eyes could be more menacing that what you see. And then, Aether is shifting closer, now right in front of you sitting back on his knees, and Scaramouche has moved to your side only to stare closely into your face with a devious smirk.
Baizhu turns, and your attention is back at him now. “Perhaps... you’d like to demonstrate?” he says, already trailing a hand through your waistband and you can’t contain yourself anymore.
You snap, feeling the fire burning through your veins, liquid lust escaping through your scent and into the air. You grip at Baizhu’s neck only to pull him up for a fierce kiss, your tongue unraveling from within to shove down his throat, and he whines. Your tail is curling around the other two, death grip as it pulls them by the waist to pile against your heating body, and Aether whimpers, the steady filling of your cocks rubbing on him now that he’s climbed up your lap.
Scaramouche grips at your bulge then, still covered by your clothes, and you groan, leaving Baizhu to grasp for air as he holds right to your frame as you bite into the harbinger’s neck, fangs already extended and ready for marking. The surprised moan that escapes his mouth is almost as nice as the way he turns limp into your arms from shock, only to grab your hair and hold you against his neck, you biting and licking all too eagerly before you feel cold air and deft fingers hit your skin.
A sigh leaves the blond’s pretty lips, and you look down just in time to see him start nuzzling into your cocks, inhaling your scent and looking hazily up to you. He moans as he takes one of your cocks into your mouth, Baizhu’s trembling hand reaching to caress his cheek and tug at your other cock, and you groan as you pump out more of your scent, wrapping your tail tighter against Aether’s waist and moving to rip your mates’ clothing off.
You don’t waste time to maneuver Scaramouche’s hips into your face, his always smug face contorted in pleasure as your tongue breaches his hole, a frenzied rhythm inspired only by your growing need to mate, and breed and to claim. You grip into Baizhu’s head to guide him to your other leaking, dripping cock, and he moans as he laves his tongue on it, intent on pleasuring you the best he can as you hold right to his hair with pricking pain that goes form his scalp right to his cock.
The messy sounds in the cave get drowned by the rain outside and you feel yourself on the brink at all the sensations, thrusting up into the receiving mouths working desperately at you and making Aether gag, taken aback, and Baizhu thank his lack of a gag reflex. Scaramouche, you know, is also more than desperate to get off, shaking his hips and trying to send himself further down your tongue, crying already with a fucked out face and you wonder just how sensitive he is as you lick more intently, feeling your thighs flex and high peak as you slam both Aether’s and Baizhu’s heads into your new protruding knots.
You feel Scaramouche come on your tongue then, triggered by the smell of pleased alpha inundating the cave, and your tongue works faster as the slick drops down his thighs, cum spurting from him only to fall into his stomach and the wall on the back. You don’t stop your licking though, working him up again to a strangled cry as he’s forced to quickly wind up again on it and cum until your knots come down enough to get to actually fucking your mates dry.
The growls you make reverberate against the walls of both the cave and Scaramouche’s hole, and the minor twitches on your cocks has Aether’s eyes suspiciously water, his tongue doing its best to lap at you and keep you satisfied.
Baizhu leaks his scent then, the calming scent just enough to get you to let Scaramouche up, shaking legs struggling to hold him as he drops on your side and drapes his head on your shoulder, and you ride the rest of your high out to his satisfied purrs.
You must have fallen asleep at some point, because when you wake it’s to your little mates draped all over you and the burning need to breed. With much less grace that you’ll want to acknowledge later, you groan at the feeling of your rock hard cocks dripping on your chest, and makes quick work of lifting Aether up and unceremoniously dropping him into your cock, and he screams as he wakes up, feeling a size much too large for himself breaching into him all at once. He pants, feeling your soothing hands on his hips as you nip his neck in apology, but you don’t stop until he’s flush against your hips and barely a second to adjust before you’re hammering up into him, grunting at the feeling of your other cock rub against his cleft.
It’s not nearly enough to get you off and you’re about to try and jam everything inside Aether all at once when Scaramouche wakes, scowling at the noise, before stopping himself to the sight. You growl at him, and he looks at you with sheer want on his eyes, and it’s in more of a roar than an ask that you tell him to ride your cock, and he whines, yet makes no move. You sneer, reaching for his hair as you mercilessly yank him into your cock and stuff his hole full all at once, copious slick aiding your work and you can feel him clench at you as he chokes on his words. He whimpers and cries as you thrust up, roughly, barely hitting his prostate in a way that has him screaming for more and arching his back, and you stuff your tail up in his mouth to stop his whining, leaving only muffled whimpers to fill your ears.
Baizhu stirs awake to this vision, the pretty blond clutching at your back and arching to rub against your belly as you fill him up and fuck the pretty, loud sounds out of his lips, and the other artificially arched in a bow as he’s fucked on both ends, and he can’t believe how hard he’s gotten and how grateful he is he left Changsheng and Qiqi to go over on a mission for the week. He wastes no time in nuzzling to your neck and hump into your side as he bares his glands to you, and you waste no time to accept it before diving down and biting hard enough to draw blood. He’s moaning, then, trailing wet kisses over your skin as he speeds up his humping, panting and moaning as if he was a bitch in heat, which he might as well be at this moment.
You dive down as you feel yourself reach completion again, speeding your thrusts and slamming Aether’s hips back on yours as Scaramouche is sluttily rocking back and forth on your other cock, and claims the blond’s bare neck in a single, twisted bite, your teeth so large against his slim neck you grunt and cum right on the waiting bodies above you, knots firmly against the omegas’ stretched entrances, and Baizhu is panting loudly and cussing as you lick the blood away from Aether’s neck only to open again the matching wound on Scaramouche’s.
They come, untouched, still riding on your hips from oversensitivity and Scaramouche is tamer than you’ve ever seen him before, and Baizhu is trailing up again to catch your lips as he grunts and comes on your side, and Aether’s looking so pretty you might as well just keep on fucking him until he can’t take it anymore (and then do it again).
Your omegas look so beautiful like this, fucked out on top of you and even falling over each other, too tired to even process it, and their cum stuffed bellies bulge and satisfy a primal urge in your alpha to keep them well-bred, full of pups and begging for more.
You wrap your tail around them, and decide to wait again for the next wave of your rut, only for Baizhu to tell you to ‘wait for him for a bit’, with the calm playfulness only he can achieve and you thump your tail lightly on the ground in acknowledgement.
It takes not long before he notices when your cum starts to leak from where your knot subsided, and it’s at this moment that he gently pulls the two omegas (or tries to, before you move them yourself) to both your sides and out of your cocks. You whimper at the loss, cold air of the cave and the rainstorm outside replacing wet, tight heat and is about to protest before he groups both of your cocks together and aligns to his hole, sinking down with a hitched breath.
He sighs, adjusting slowly to the intrusion, before he pouts, “I didn’t get to have my fun yet”, and moans when he’s finally meeting your still barely deflated knots with his shaking hips. As you move your hands to his waist and grips, hard enough to leave marks for days, he smiles languidly and laughs, saying there’s something he noticed on your cum. “It heals people, doesn’t it?”
You grunt, thrusting into him the softest you can so as not to wake the tired out omegas on your chest, and nods, saying it’s what helps dragons keep their mates for their whole lives. His eyes sparkle and he gasps, sinking down harder and you can barely contain yourself as to not flip you both out and fuck into him like there’s no tomorrow (someday, you think distantly through you lust-dazed mind).
“Yes, I noticed,” he gasps, and it seems he’s hit an extra good spot, so you shift your hips until you’re aiming right at the spot, the double girth brushing at all his right places at once and he has to hold himself back as to not be too loud. “I wouldn’t be able to take both these monsters at once if not,” he gasps, finishing his thought as you chuckle. It’s not long before he’s coming, clenching down on your cocks as he shivers, and you moan at the welcoming heat, spurts of slick still so little compared to your omegas but delightful nonetheless. He crumbles onto your chest, grumbling something, and nods when you grip harsher at his hips, and you waste no time in wrapping two rings of your tail around his waist, propping his head up with the tip and setting up a much harsher, much faster pace, seeking to destroy the beautiful man you’ve been gifted with. And his self-control is gone at his time, muffling his whines and pleads only by biting into his own hand as harsh as he can, the other twisted into your hair in a tug that makes you want to ruin him. And you do, diving down for the final mark on your beautiful strike today, right over his gland, and he’s spurting again with a hitched breath, making him clench and trigger your orgasm as both of your knots are shoved in his right hole, and he swears he’s gonna cry himself dry at this point.
As you leave his neck and licks soothingly at the wounds, you can’t help but rumble again at the beautiful sight of all your three mates, stuffed full and fucked out for the day.
It’s not for a week later that the four of you leave the cave, your rut finally done with and thankfully not triggering any of the omegas’ heats, thanks to their steady use of suppressants. You smile as you walk towards the nearby town, preparing to finally decide where your adult lair is gonna be, and you couldn’t be happier as Aether pulls your hand, leading the group as Baizhu saunters behind and Scaramouche is snarling and snipping sarcasm at the blond’s behavior, and discreetly snarling at everyone who looks at you slightly too long. Your smile grows larger, appreciating how cute they are, clinging to you and scaring off the few people that seemed a bit too interested as well.
So cute, just for you.
Even if you know they would try to kill anyone who ever upset you or tried to talk to you again, but that’s okay. With three beautiful mates like these, who would need any more?
———
This has gotten much longer than I wanted even with all the cuts and edits I made, so I hope you like it bestie 👊🏻😭
~🐃
Babe this is some good shit, each time I kept scrolling I didn't wanted to end 😫
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hey, could you do Cal Kestisx reader from the grumpy prompts (16)? i would love you for ever
And I will love you forever for requesting a Cal Kestis story because ahhhhh this cinnamon roll owns my heart and I can't believe he's not talked about more in the fandom!
Cal x reader | 1k words
"Hey now... I'm not going anywhere. I'm gonna stay right here. Right with you." from this prompt list.
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It was all becoming a bit too much for you.
You hated to admit such things. You'd worked hard in recent years to overcome fears and doubts and worries, to build yourself up into a decently functioning human that may not always be perfect, may not always have good days, but at the least embraced the world and all its crazy adventures with spirited gumption. And now... now you felt it all regressing back into that anxious, overwhelmed state of being from your youth. It would have been maddening, if it wasn't even more exhausting.
You'd collapsed by the lake some point earlier that afternoon. Another argument had broken out on the Mantis between the few of your friends that remained. The ship was docked in a clearing not too far away, central to some aesthetically pleasing views. Your favorite was the craggy hill that rose above the forest line, providing visibility of the rolling terrain and clear skies. But you hadn't had the energy to make it up there today. You'd slinked out of that ship as soon as the first passive aggressive words started getting thrown around, and you'd practically stumbled to your current spot on the lake before laying right along the bank and trying to rid yourself of the unwanted weariness that was threatening to settle itself in your very bones.
Your gaze shifted in and out of focus. Sometimes watching the rippling of the water before you, sometimes getting lost in the middle distance as your thoughts tried to untangle themselves from your feelings. You really, really didn't think you could keep going like this. Not with so many of your friends gone, and the few left constantly at each other's throats. Not when you were reminded daily of your lack of a home and purpose. And not even with that cute redhead around.... No, it was far too much for you to handle.
You weren't sure when the tears had started but they quickly soaked your cheeks and blurred your vision. You pushed yourself to sit up once your nose started getting stuffy, with your arms wrapped tightly around your middle and your head hung low to face your lap.
Too, too much.
You felt his presence before you saw it. You could always feel Cal. He was the one clear thing you could latch on to. You would normally force yourself to focus on his clarity, his stability, and then the overwhelming emotions would end up drifting away. But now he was anxious, you could tell as he sat next to you cautiously and carefully. And that wasn't a very calming energy to take in.
"Go," you said before he could do anything to offer you comfort. You weren't crying anymore, but your words came out in short bursts while you still tried to catch your breath. "Please, Cal... I just... I'm so tired. I'm tired and my head hurts all the time. I can't keep up anymore. I just... can't...."
He was silent for a moment, his eyes scanning your hunched form and his mouth drawn down in a tight frown. He really did feel worried.
You continued on, unable to contain the words that fought to express the heaviness of your spirit. "You all need to leave me here. I'm not worth the trouble. I'm just going to be a further burden and then everyone will start resenting me next and then next thing I know, I won't have any friends left. It'll just be me. So might as well cut me loose now while you still can."
Your breaths grew quicker as you tried to stave off the next wave of tears that threatened to fall. Surprisingly, you felt Cal scoot closer to you, placing his arm around you in an unprecedented move of physical comfort. He was always so respectfully distant in that way. And while it caught you off guard, you felt yourself lean into his embrace, seeking the solace it promised to give, despite the little speech you just had about needing to cut ties.
"Hey now... I'm not going anywhere. I'm gonna stay right here. Right with you."
You squeezed your eyes shut and tried to focus on Cal. He was still concerned, still upset to see you like this, but that inner strength of his wasn't completely gone. It was still there, ever hopeful, ever resolute. It didn't completely replace your own instability, but it was better than being left alone.
"We all get tired sometimes," Cal eventually spoke. "That's okay. You just need to rest."
"No," you shook your head, removing it from his shoulder. "No, it's more than that...."
"Maybe," he cut you off gently. "But have you tried? Have you tried to rest yet?"
You looked up at him with rueful, red-rimmed eyes, answering his question with just a single look. You whispered one more time, "I can't."
"Yes you can," he smiled softly. "I'll stay with you until you do. And then we can talk about whether you can keep going or not."
He spoke so decidedly, as if he was saying the truest thing in the universe. He believed in you. Every part of you. Even the strength you didn't feel you had any more.
"I'll send the others off with Greez and Cere to get supplies," he said. "No arguments. No research. No fights. Just you and me for a while. Should be plenty of space to rest."
"No." You were still fighting him. You weren't sure why. It was just so hard to accept that the solution could be so simple. "No, you all need to keep going. Don't stop for me."
"We're not stopping, we're resting," he laughed a little, bringing you back in to lean on him. "And don't you ever think you're not worth it. I'm serious."
You couldn't stop the tears now. You let them flow freely against Cal's shoulder, only slightly mortified at how quickly they seemed to soak through his poncho. But he didn't move away. He didn't complain. He let you work through whatever you needed to before you could let yourself rest. And even after you had exhausted yourself, he continued to do exactly what he had promised.
He stayed right with you.
186 notes · View notes
marshmallow-phd · 3 years
Text
Gravity
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Genre: Angst, Unrequited Love
Pairing: Junmyeon x Reader
A/N: This was basically just a therapy write. 
**
What is worth? It is neither tangible nor seeable. It doesn’t have a body or a shell. Yet, the endless chase to catch it, to hold it captive, is a never ending disease that eats away at the brain and tears apart the heart. It’s only descriptor is feeling. A judgement. Something either is or isn’t. When it's an object in question, the call for worth is passive, innocent. It’s wanted or it's not. The deterioration comes into play when the worth is applied to a person. 
Kim Junmyeon was worth the world. 
With a smile that could chase away a storm and a heart too good and pure for the human populace, he was truly worth more than the world. He was worth more than you deserved. 
Not only was his face kind, but it was handsome. Beautiful, even. Candid photos were museum worthy masterpieces. There was a gentleness, a softness to his eyes and cheeks that contradicted the sharpness of his jaw and the strength of his body. His laugh was infectious and his mind as vast and deep as the ocean. The sum of his whole was worth so much. 
But you were not worthy of such a person. You weren’t as stunning as a sunset over the mountains or as extraordinary as a new discovery. You were simply… you. Staring from afar, admiring but never touching. 
You wished you could be worthy. You wished you could be special enough - good enough to be with him. Pretty enough would be something decent to settle for. But you were invisible. A person on the sidelines. Out of the spotlight. You were an admirer - not one to be admired. 
“You’re doing it again.”
You blinked, your attention torn away from the spot where Junmyeon was standing, laughing and chatting with a few of his seniors. Kyungsoo, who sat to your left at the small table in the entertainment building’s cafe, didn’t even look up from the script he was currently reviewing. He’d only been given it the day before and was still considering if he wanted the part that was being offered to him. 
Your gaze dropped to the opened yet untouched notebook lying in front of you on the somewhat sticky surface. Someone must have spilled their syprup-y coffee and didn’t do the best job at cleaning it up. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Without moving his head, Kyungsoo looked at you over the rim of his glasses. Even though you were sure you were nothing more than a blur to his eyes at the moment, he could always see right through you. “If you keep staring at him like that, you’re going to give yourself away.”
The ultimate nightmare. The humiliation of being found out. The sweet but awkward rejection that you knew would follow. With his laugh still ringing in your ears, you forced yourself to tune Junmyeon out. 
Pushing his glasses up his nose with his middle finger, Kyungsoo straightened and closed the script. “We can go somewhere else, if that would help.”
You wanted to argue no. That you weren’t a coward. That you weren’t going to run and hide simply because you looked at him like he was the night sky while you were stuck on the ground. You used to have better control of yourself. You used to be able to hide it better. But lately, it had only gotten worse. 
And you were a coward. 
“Yeah. Maybe one of the practice rooms is empty.”
“There’s usually one.”
After gathering up your things, you followed Kyungsoo out of the cafe, stealing a final glance. Junmyeon didn’t so much as twitch in your direction. It wouldn’t have been surprising if he hadn’t even realized that you were there in the cafe for the past half hour. 
Kyungsoo settled into one corner of the worn navy blue couch while you squeezed into the other. Not speaking a word, he went back to reading the script. That was a nicety of your friendship. Comfortable silence was more than readily available when needed. He didn’t push or give unasked for advice. He was an ear to listen and a presence to take in when you didn’t want to be alone. 
You stared down at the notebook in your lap where your next story ideas were supposed to be filling the pages. But nothing was coming out. Not even the vague pictures you’d had earlier this morning. The only things being called to the paper were the sentences held in the invisible tears you refused to shed. Words of wishes and frustrations swirled around inside the tiny droplets, every letter as heavy as lead. Your cruel mind kept echoing at you the conversation that had constricted the air in your lungs. 
Two days ago, you’d accidentally overheard a drama staff worker jokingly say that Junmyeon and his current co-star seemed awfully close, more than merely friends. Stomach lurching, you ran to the nearest bathroom. Nothing came out but almost fifteen minutes of deliberate breathing had gone by before you emerged again. Kyungsoo was quick to dismiss the comment after barely three words from you. The effect, however, still lingered. 
Despite the history of your intrusive thoughts, you wanted to believe that you could be good enough. That you were worthy of being beside someone like Junmyeon. His co-costar was stunning, even in real life. Someone who didn’t need photoshop to draw out gasps of awe and astonishment. Someone you most certainly couldn’t compete with in any race. 
You weren’t asking for much. Just to be able to hold his hand, your fingers interlaced between his own. The fantasy you allowed yourself to indulge in at times wasn’t a grand gesture or a modern fairytale. You wanted simplicity. The smaller moments that could mean so much. Mundane, to some eyes. 
Warm sun rays leaked through the closed blinds over the living room windows. A clock on the wall ticked away the meaningless minutes. Sometimes soft music hummed in the background, sometimes there was nothing but silence. Junmyeon would lay across the length of the couch with you wrapped around his side. His fingers would absentmindedly caress your shoulder or arm. In his other hand was a book, held open by his thumb and pinky. Your own hand drifted through his hair while he read aloud. 
The two of you had dozens of endless conversations about books. About the ones you loved and the ones you hated. About deeper meanings and the reflections of life. His love of literature - from the celebrated classics to the obscure unknown - had been what initially drew you in. Everything else was what made you stay.
A muscle in your hand cramped. The peaceful scene faded from your eyes. The page was now filled with barely legible, ink-smeared words. You’d written the entire scenario out, along with your heart, without even realizing it. 
In a panic, you ripped the paper from its spiral hold, crumpled it up, and tossed it to the trash can across the room. It missed. 
“I doubt whatever you wrote was that bad,” Kyungsoo murmured. He read the final few lines of the script and closed it. 
“It wasn’t,” you admitted bitterly. “But I shouldn’t have written it.” You described the scene to him while your eyes stayed trained on the loose thread twirling between your fingers. 
He sighed. “You’re never going to tell him, are you?”
“I can’t.”
“You can. You’re just stopping yourself.”
You scoffed. “Why would I deliberately set myself up like that? Break me the rest of the way?”
Kyungsoo stared at you, long and hard, his expression blank to those who couldn’t read the tell-tale signs that his thoughts were in overdrive. “You’re really hurting, aren’t you?”
You sniffed, though no tears were yet forcing their way to the surface. “Most days.”
“Then walk away.”
“I can’t.” Your voice broke - just like your heart. The world blurred when you shook your head. “I can’t… simplify it. But-- It’s like I was this stupid lump of rock drifting aimlessly through space, content with my life. Then suddenly, I came across this brilliant star that shined so brightly and… we collided. And now I’m stuck in his orbit. But he just keeps on spinning while my whole world had changed completely. He’s… my gravity. I don’t know anything else anymore.”
“Maybe it’s time to find your own orbit.”
Afraid it might crack again, your voice was barely a whisper. “I don’t know how.”
The door creaked open and your heart leapt. Junmyeon stuck his head inside. Had he overheard everything?
“There you are! I turned away for a second and suddenly you two weren’t in the cafe anymore.”
He’d… He’d seen you? In the cafe?
“It was too loud,” Kyungsoo lied, covering up for you like he always did. 
“It’s always too loud for you,” Junmyeon teased. Then his face morphed into that leader-esque expression. “We need to head to rehearsal. You’re welcome to join us,” he nodded to you.
“No, that’s okay,” you said quickly in response. “I have a writer’s meeting.” No, you didn’t, but space felt like the right choice at the moment. You tried not to focus on the lack of disappointment coming from the direction of the door. 
“Maybe next time.” Junmyeon slapped the side of the door. “Let’s go, Soo.”
You were actually the first one on your feet, muttering goodbyes to both of them and then walking down the hall perhaps a little too fast. 
You didn’t allow your mind to think the whole way home. Every action was done in automatic mode. Only the minimal amount of awareness was used. But when the apartment door clicked behind you, when the near darkness wrapped you up, when the silence crept in and the empty couch mocked you… you broke. 
Knees buckling from under you, the cold hard floor came closer and you didn’t leave that spot just inside the room as the tears and sobs crashed out in waves. 
This was what you hated the most. The breakdowns that came with no excuse. They were built up by your own mind, by your intrusive thoughts. You tortured yourself with what you could never have. The attacks were random and it was only recently that you had learned to hold them in long enough until you were safe within your own walls. One time, you hadn’t made it. Kyungsoo had been there to pat your shoulder. 
Kyungsoo. He was right. 
That clarity was coming through as the tears dried and your breathing evened out again. You needed space. You needed to separate yourself from what wasn’t good for you and not see him. Not even have the temptation to. 
This was going to hurt like hell. 
**
The office somehow looked smaller with the bare walls. Since the day you moved in, you tried to liven it up, give it character, make it reflect the interests you loved. How were you supposed to write if this place felt like a stifling corporate desert, dry of any creativity?
Not that you ever actually wrote in this twelve by eight space. This place had been reserved for meetings and other usually boring necessities. You didn’t know the next time a budget meeting or an email check would be conducted here. You could be back in a few months and move back in as if you never left. Or someone else could take over. Only time would tell. 
The box that currently had your attention was nearly full. You’d have to come back for the rest. There wasn’t much left, anyway. You took another look around to see if there was anything else you could do at the moment. The monitors were black, the tower underneath - so much smaller than the one you’d had as a kid - was powered off, and the chair that was aligned just so to your favored adjustments was pushed into the gray desk. Saying goodbye to this place really did hurt. 
But you needed to do this. 
And yet, you felt like you were drowning, being dragged deeper into the black water. Your lungs were screaming for relief. 
“You’re really leaving?”
Your shoulders stiffened. At first, you didn’t look up at him. You weren’t sure what to say to him. Being here… it was the last place you expected him to be today. Kyungsoo would have told him, but you wouldn’t have waited around for him to appear. 
“Hi, Junmyeon.” You folded up the top of the box, overlapping the pieces so it would stay shut in transport. 
“I thought you liked it here?”
“I love it,” you confessed. “But I- I need to go home for a little while.”
“Are you homesick?”
“Something like that.” Definitely some version of sick. 
He nodded. “Will you be gone long?” His eyes drifted over the holes in the walls leftover from the frames that used to hang in front of them. 
“I don’t know.” You shifted your weight from one foot to the other. This was…. You should go. Pushing your fingers under the box, you started to lift it to take it home. 
“Do you have to go?”
The question stalled you. Confused, the box went back down on the desk. “Why are you here, Junmyeon?”
He shrugged, though it didn’t shake off the stiffness in his shoulders. His hands were stuffed in his pockets, his arms all the way to his wrists covered up by the sleeves of his shirt. Lately he had been rolling them up. You wondered what had changed today. “You’re our friend.”
Friend. 
Friend. Friend. Friend. 
The word rang over and over like a declaration of war. Our friend. 
The smart thing to do would have been to nod, say goodbye, and leave. But - instead - you opened your mouth. 
“I will always be your friend.”
That didn't make him smile like you would have thought. “So, then why do you have to leave?”
You rubbed your eyebrow, fighting within yourself. You lost. 
“Have you ever had a friend so head over heels for someone that won’t even look at them twice? But they don’t care? Because as long as the person they’re looking at is happy, then they’re happy. Even if your friend is completely miserable in the process. Because they no longer care about their own self. They just keep looking at the other person, doing anything that entails that they’re still happy.” You swallowed thickly to try and keep your voice steady. By your sides, your hands were trembling at this roundabout confession. “And you want to shake them. You want to tell them to get out. Because as long as they stick around, they won’t look at one else. No one else exists. Well, this is me. Getting out.”
The frown on Junmyeon’s face deepened as he let your words sink in. “Who is it? Will you tell me?”
No. Because this was enough of an admittance. Because it was time to find your own sense of gravity. 
So, without a word, you picked up the box and left the office. 
Waiting for you when you came back was the scene you had written in the practice room that day, flattened out but still wrinkled as it laid on the desk. 
118 notes · View notes
peachy-panic · 3 years
Text
Truth & Lies
(This picks up directly following this piece)
Tag list: @whumpervescence @shiningstarofwinter @distinctlywhumpthing
CONTENT WARNINGS: General BBU warnings, human trafficking, referenced/implied non-con, mentioned past minors of minors, blood, restraints, medical setting. 
Panic washes over him the moment the door closes behind them, putting him alone in the exam room. In the silence, he can hear only the sound of his labored breathing, obstructed by the plastic intrusion that has been secured between his teeth, straps cutting into his temples. His hands are bolted to the front edge of the table on either side of his thighs. The position pulls his posture forward just enough to be uncomfortable, his shoulders curling forward to accommodate the short buckle on the cuffs. He tries, to little avail, to calm the rising panic at the feeling of restraint. 
And all he can think is that he has done this to himself. 
He messed up. He had messed up so, so badly and the reality hadn’t fully settled over him until the door clicked shut, and the blur of the past several minutes came crashing into him with a sudden, sickening clarity. And now there is nothing he can do to take back his actions, his words, and he knows that no apology will be enough to smooth it over regardless. Still, he feels one bubbling in the back of his throat uselessly, trapped behind the gag and the slow, constant trickle of blood.
Suddenly, the sensation steals all his focus, until all he can feel is the warm liquid in his nose and throat, and the suffocating realization that he is helpless to stop himself from choking to death alone in this room, chained to a fucking table. 
His arms tug instinctively against the cuffs, but the steely hold on his wrists only serves to bolster his panic. Oh, god. What has he done? All at once, he is sorry. Jaime is so, so sorry and he wishes he could take it back but ‘sorry doesn’t do shit for me, baby,’ he can hear Mr. Torley’s rumbling voice clear as day in his ear. 
He jerks forward away from the phantom presence, a whimper caught in his throat that has nowhere to go. These flashes of imagination feel so real sometimes and Jaime can’t always tell them apart from what’s in front of him, just like when the Handler had pulled his sweatshirt over his head at intake, and when the gray fabric cleared his eyes it had been Mr. Torley’s face staring back at him, grinning in the glow of the bedside lamp that had been harsh, white Facility fluorescents only seconds before. 
He hadn’t meant to lash out. Jaime can’t recall ever stepping out of line like that, not since… not since his first week in the training facility. He has enough sense to know that fighting back won’t get him anywhere good. But something had snapped in his mind when they began undressing him of his street clothes, and it was as if he was no longer at the helm of his own body. His arm had lurched forward on instinct, striking out at the figment in front of him because this wasn’t right, he was supposed to be done with Mr. Torley, he had served his six month contract and it was supposed to be over.
It was supposed to be over. 
He had barely recognized the crunch that gave under his fist in the moment, nor the white blare of pain as the blow was reciprocated with double the strength. There was blood and a struggle and a distant screaming that made his head vibrate like the sharp, resounding clang of metal on concrete.
And then he blinked, and now he was here, and his head hurts and he can’t breathe right with all the blood and he is so, so sorry no matter how much it won’t matter in the end. It never matters.
He hates that he is sorry. He hates that he is back here. He hates that he can still feel Mr. Torley like static on his skin even though he isn’t legally his anymore. He hates the feeling of the bit between his teeth, reminding him of a hazier time in his memory, carved out with white tiled walls and bright lights and constant, unyielding pain. 
Jaime lets his head fall forward, cringing at the sticky dampness of his t-shirt against his chin, and focuses all his energy on trying not to cry. More than anything now, he needs to retain his already limited ability to breathe.
Even so, he can’t stop his breath from catching when he hears the telltale swipe of a clearance key at the door.
*******
Sebastian’s feet stutter beneath him as he pushes through the door. His eyes are drawn immediately to the anchor points along the front of the exam table, which currently serve to immobilize the terrified young man between them. He can see that the skin around the restraints is already pink with irritation. The boy’s head is ducked in what looks to be a quiet surrender, and he can’t see his face but he watches as a drop of blood hits the lap of his pants. Sebastian’s muscles freeze up. It’s only a fleeting moment, but he’s sure his recovery is not nearly as graceful as he hopes it is as he clears his throat and steps into the room. 
He lets the heavy door fall shut behind him, effectively sealing himself into the reality that he is now in charge of this person bolted to a table. It has become a daily occurrence long ago to question every life choice that had brought him to this place, but especially now he can’t help but think he’s made a horrible mistake. And then the light clinking of metal on metal draws his focus to where the boy has twisted his hand inside his restraints just enough to grip the side of the table, knuckles white and trembling, and it occurs to him how selfish he is for thinking that he is the one in the room who has earned the right to fear. 
He should say something. He knows he has to be the one to say something, because the Companions - the patients - aren’t allowed to initiate conversation without direct invitation. He knows this, but the knowledge doesn’t un-stick his tongue from the roof of his mouth or dissolve the lump that’s blocking his airway. For a moment, all he can do is stare. 
“Hi,” he says finally by means of a feeble introduction. He clears his throat, trying for something that doesn’t sound so much like a question. “I’m Dr. Tate. Sebastian. You can… just Sebastian is fine. If you want.”
Incredible, Seb. Off to a confident start. 
He might see the slight incline of the patient’s head in acknowledgement, or he could be imagining it. Either way, he moves on. 
“What is your…” He pauses, clearing his throat. Name? Is that what he wanted to say? He knows as well as anyone that he isn't allowed to use his. If he does and anyone hears him, it will only land him in deeper trouble. Which is maybe the last thing on Earth Sebastian wants. Instead, he asks, “What can I call you?”
For the first time since he entered the room, Sebastian sees unmistakable movement in the muscles of the boy’s neck. There seems to be a moment of hesitation, and then he lifts his head to level with Sebastian’s gaze, and he nearly takes a step back.
By some miracle, Sebastian has made it this far into the program without witnessing - or god forbid implementing - the use of heavy restraints on a patient. Today, it seems, his luck has run out. The boy stares up at him with dark, empty eyes over a round bit of black plastic secured over his mouth with the WRU logo emblazoned in silver. A fucking gag.
A slow-dripping acidity makes its way into Sebastian’s stomach. The picture in front of him is so starkly, uniquely horrifying that it stops him in his tracks. It’s exactly the kind of raw imagery that WRU conveniently left out of their pamphlets and commercials and brightly-colored career packets. This, he thinks to himself, is the truth behind every lie they sell. 
“Oh,” he says, stunned, the word slipping out of him in a breathy gasp. He forces himself to take a step toward his patient, choosing to ignore the quickly concealed flinch. “I don’t… I don’t think we really need that, right?” He says a pitch too high. The patient’s eyes track him warily as Sebastian moves closer, an outstretched hand hovering in his direction. “Uh. Can I?”
Instead of the permissive nod he expects, the young man’s eyes flit over to something to the left of Sebastian’s shoulder then back again, holding his gaze. Sebastian turns and finds a tin box affixed to the wall just behind the door. He blinks, and when he looks at the patient again with confusion written all over him, the boy hesitates — which he seems to do before each new move — and then angles his head just enough so that Sebastian catches a flash of silver at the back of his neck.
A small padlock. Holding the straps of his gag in place. 
The room wavers around him. 
“Key,” he chokes out dumbly in a whisper. “Right, I— right.”
He turns on his heel and crosses stiffly to the box on the wall. His hands are shaky when he opens the hinge, fingers brushing over the small selection of keys dangling inside. For a horrified moment, he catches himself wondering what other inhumane devices these could possibly go to. He doesn’t allow himself to linger on the thought. It won’t be helpful here.
The smallest key catches his eye, looking to be the most likely to fit the lock. 
“Is it alright if I—?” He turns back with the intention of seeking his consent, but he finds that the boy has already lowered his head to allow him easier access to the lock. “Okay,” he says quietly, mostly to himself. 
Sebastian works as quickly as his nervous fingers will allow and feels a tangible weight lift from his chest as the lock releases. 
“There,” he says, stepping back immediately once the intrusion has been removed. He tosses it into the sink basin in the corner, not wanting to look at it for a moment longer, as he is sure his patient would agree. “Better?”
The patient waits a moment before raising his head again. “Th...thank you.” He murmurs without meeting his eyes. His voice is low and brittle and nearly knocks something loose inside Sebastian’s chest. 
A slow trickle of blood swells out from his bottom lip, the bit from the gag almost definitely having irritated whatever injury had already been put there. For half a second, Sebastian wonders why he doesn’t reach up and wipe it away, and then he realizes—
“Shit! Your hands.” He’s back at the box before he can spare another thought, sifting through the row of seemingly identical keys. He doesn’t really allow himself time to consider the possible reasons why he shouldn’t be removing the restraints, including but not limited to breaking protocol on his first day off probation and having no actual idea if this person was a physical threat to him or not. All he knows for sure is the visceral feeling he gets in his gut every time he sees him bleeding and bound to a fucking table when he should be here to receive care.
“Sir?”
He whips around to find the boy watching him with naked apprehension, as if he isn’t sure he has clearance to have spoken. 
“Really, Sebastian is okay,” he reiterates. “Or Dr. Tate, if you want to be formal.” Of course he’s going to be formal. His entire existence is a series of formalities, meeting new strangers and having to pay them undue respect, and none of it has anything to do with what he wants.
Sebastian watches something flicker in his eyes, a momentary break in the solid wall before it closes up again. “Yes, Dr. Tate,” he says with an automatic obedience that flips Sebastian’s stomach. His lips part just slightly as if he is going to say something else, but instead he glances pointedly down toward one of his wrists. The way he holds it allows Sebastian to see the silver hook attaching him to the table with what looks to be a similar mechanism to a heavy-duty carabiner. 
Oh. There is no key for these. Just a simplified method that doesn’t allow the restrained person any access to release the clip. 
He wastes no time crossing back to him. “You’re not going to start swinging on me, are you?” Sebastian says, mostly as a joke to cut the tension, but it’s the wrong thing to say, and he knows it as soon as the boy’s eyes darken and fall away to his lap.
“No, S— Doctor Tate. S-sorry,” the boy stumbles through a rushed assurance, still not meeting his eyes. “I didn’t mean to— I… it wasn’t…” He seems to slow himself with considerable effort, forcing in a deep breath, then out again. “I’m sorry. I will not step out of line again,” he finishes in a quiet, frustrated tone of defeat. 
Sebastian is glad for the distraction of unbuckling his cuffs, which he goes straight to work on, because he’s not sure what to say to any of that. “Sorry,” he murmurs as he frees his left hand from the restraint. “I was only kidding.” 
Another thought pops into his head, and only just stops himself from saying, “Whatever happened, I’m sure those Handlers had it coming.”
Once he is freed, Sebastian tosses the cuffs onto the counter, eager to get them out of his hands. The patient wraps his arms around his middle as soon as he’s able to, keeping his shoulders drawn in even now that he has full mobility to sit up. Sebastian forces himself into clinical mode. He may feel out of his element here and his sense of morality may be steadily decaying in this place with each passing day, but he’s a good doctor. He knows he is. And he needs to remember that he is the one with any amount of power in this room, and he isn’t doing either of them any favors by floundering helplessly. 
“Let’s get you cleaned up before we do anything else,” he says decisively, turning with a bit more confidence in his step to wet some paper towels in the sink. 
“Thank you.” His patient accepts them with something like genuine gratitude, bringing the damp towel to his nose. It seems the bulk of the active bleeding has stopped, so they at least have that going for them. 
It takes a conscious effort to stop himself from staring as the boy cleans himself off with soft, calculated movements. Instead, Sebastian tears himself away to claim the stool in front of the monitor beside the bed. One quick scan of his key card gains him access to the patient intake home screen.
“So, um.” Sebastian clears his throat. “Let’s try that again, shall we? What can I call you?”
“110750, Domestic Services,” the answer comes automatically, as if he didn’t need to be in his own head to recite the words from memory. 
Wordlessly, Sebastian types the numbers into the system. A moment later, a digital chart appears in front of him, and he has to bite down on his cheek to keep from cursing. The photo in the top right corner is dated just over nine months ago, but the person in it looks… so fucking young.
He can’t help but toss a glance at the man on the bed he had just unshackled, gingerly wiping his injuries, and then back at the screen. Less than a year separated the two faces, and yet there was a world of difference etched into the space beneath his eyes, the posture of his spine and shoulders, the hollowness of his gaze. In the photo, he looks afraid. Here, in front of him though, he looks… dismantled.
Which is a horrible thing to think about someone, Sebastian scolds himself immediately. Had things gone differently in his own life and Sebastian himself had somehow landed in this boy’s position, he is quite sure he wouldn’t be handling it with an ounce of the composure most of these people seem to have. He doesn’t like to think about that. 
“Here you are,” he says mostly to fill the silence, nodding toward the screen. “Let’s see…” His eyes scan down the monitor until he sees the highlighted red portion at the bottom, which generally lists the reason for admittance. In his, he finds two lines he immediately wishes he could unread.
Domestic Return Intake Physical.
Comprehensive STI Panel.
As if the words themselves are not enough, it’s the small text inserted next to the second line — only the second line — that really delivers the blow. In barely-there letters next to a bold asterisk, it reads: 
RFR.
Sebastian has seen just enough during his probationary period, in the fleeting glances over Dr. Geer’s shoulder, to understand its meaning. 
Redact From Record.
Sebastian’s mouth feels dry around the swallow he attempts. Despite his best efforts, he’s sure his expression is not as impassive as he hopes. The screen is angled away from his patient, but if what they say about some Companions still losing their literacy during training is true, maybe that doesn’t matter. WRU claims that’s no longer a part of the training process since their rebranding, but as Sebastian is well aware, it wouldn’t be the first or most heinous lie they’ve told. Not by a long shot. 
With the words buzzing around like angry hornets in his skull, Sebastian forces himself to turn toward patient 110750. The blood has been mostly wiped from his face, leaving only trace amounts of pink-tinged skin in its wake, and he has pressed the paper towel into a soiled wad in his fist. 
He is watching Sebastian carefully, like he’s preparing himself for something. Or… like he’s preparing himself for anything, because of course he can’t know what to expect, only that he is helpless to prevent whatever comes. The haunting revelation tucked away inside his patient file is kerosene on the wildfire of Sebastian’s imagination, supplying him with a litany of past horrors that must be swimming behind those eyes to fill them with a dread so pure. 
He suddenly remembers the Handler’s words when they had dragged him in, and it makes more sense now. “Freaked the fuck out at strip and started throwing punches.”
Sebastian can imagine why. 
Overturning the Romantic division of WRU had been the largest, most public part of their new regime. It had come on the heels of several small pockets of the company being blown wide open to expose the outlawed buying, selling, and subsequent abuse of minors within the system. At that point, they’d been left with little choice but to make a big move to save face in whatever way they could. 
There had been liberators that moved in some of Sebastian’s (very small) circles in undergrad. He had heard their vocal disdain for the company’s half-hearted attempts. Sebastian had never once stood in defense of the system, but perhaps some small part of him had always hoped for a grain of truth in their promise to turn over a new leaf, if only for the poor people who are stuck inside of it. 
Now, there’s no shielding himself away from the truth that had always existed, and he felt like an idiot for ever believing their intentions could ever be anything but malicious. Divisions and legalities aside, the people here are given numbers instead of names and sworn to a secrecy disguised as confidentiality regarding the people who have unlimited access to them. They have no legal standing. They have no power. 
The word “Domestic” is etched into this boy’s designation line, but Sebastian knows that doesn’t mean shit. 
Now, Sebastian looks into his wide, guarded eyes and thinks about how his first task as a solo practitioner is going to be forcing this person to undergo a full panel of invasive testing. And he feels the first spark of what he’s sure will stoke a flame of the desire to see this place burn.
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luminois · 3 years
Text
— 𝐡𝐲𝐮𝐧𝐣𝐢𝐧;
𝐝𝐞𝐯𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐡, 𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝐨𝐧𝐞
𝐰: 𝐫𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐢𝐨𝐮𝐬 𝐢𝐦𝐚𝐠𝐞𝐫𝐲, 𝐧𝐨𝐧-𝐬𝐞𝐱𝐮𝐚𝐥 𝐜𝐡𝐨𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠.
𝟏𝟕𝟖𝟓 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐝𝐬, 𝐟𝐞𝐦!𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫.
𝐦𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭.
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looking down through the hole in the clouds, your wings fluttered in excitement and trepidation. the white feathers caressed your arms as they closed in on themselves, hugging your figure reassuringly.
you could see the whole world from above, magnificent and so far away. you hadn’t been an angel for long, and the memories of your past life were still present in your mind. they were nothing more than specks of light, little presents from the past that made you smile. someone laughing, a farm, the taste of freshly picked grapes, naked feet running on the grass. you had lived surrounded by animals and wheat fields, simple tasks filling up sunny days. you’d been happy, that’s what the memories suggested, and you were happy now. you didn’t know what you’d done to earn eternity, but you knew you wanted to help others reach it too.
an archangel, in his luminescent beauty, was calling the names of the angels huddled around the cavity. every time one of them got closer to the archangel, the world became bigger and bigger until only one, specific place on earth was visible. that was where the angel was being sent to, where a great amount of humans had lost themselves to sin and were in need of an angel to bring them back to the right path. you had waited for decades to be sent on earth, and now the moment had finally arrived.
the archangel called your name and you went, light on your feet, the golden path cold under them. everything in paradise was chilly, made of glass and crystal and precious metals, breathtakingly perfect. you’d always found it somewhat unsettling, how everything seemed so easy to break and nobody ever tried to. would a swift move of your hand or just a little more pressure shatter what had been there forever? you were convinced the answer was yes, and the idea of being the first was fascinating, even if you’d never act upon it. you wondered.
the place you were going to was nothing more than a town. it had been the perfect place to live until the residents had started to be uncaring of the things around them, and now it had become dirty and unpleasant. litter filled the streets, graffiti ruined every wall and many shops had closed down, now only displaying shattered windows.
“the devil has found his way to these poor souls’ hearts,” the archangel said. his voice sounded like it didn’t come from him, like it was resonating in your own head. “they’ve lost their path. the greatest of gifts is a lighthouse in the dark, tumultuous sea. go and be their light, and they will be grateful for eternity.”
the archangel leaned down to kiss your hair, and when you opened your eyes again your wings were gone, and you weren’t cold anymore.
“i can’t thank you enough, sweetie. you’re an angel.”
you smiled as you handed the paper bag filled with freshly made bread over the bakery’s counter. the elderly man with teary eyes was a regular, and one of your favorite people in town. the darkness hadn’t reached his soul directly, he was too good hearted, but he’d been greatly affected by everyone’s wrongdoings. his share of bread was always on the house.
“i’m really not, sir,” you said, “knowing i’m being of help is a pleasure.”
the man showed his almost toothless smile and left, leaving you alone to rest against the counter, taking a breath before going to check the pastries cooking in the oven. being a human was exhausting, even if it was just play-pretend. you now had to sleep and eat and you were often tired, concepts unknown to otherworldly creatures.
it had been a little over the human equivalent of a month since you’d reached earth. you didn’t know how much had passed in paradise, years maybe, the working of time wasn’t a topic you were interested in. your time was infinite, the one thing you didn’t have to worry about.
you’d had to make up a story, explaining who you were and why you’d suddenly appeared out of thin air. like almost every other shop in town, the bakery had been abandoned when you first arrived, so you fixed it up and became a young girl starting a small business in a lovely town. or the remnants of it, that is.
behind the facade of the bakery, your true job was to make things better, and you could confidently say it was going well. the mayor was a corrupt, money-hungry woman who had left her town to care for itself. but since she didn’t care about what her citizens did, you hadn’t found any resistance upon asking permission to start your own public initiatives. it had been hard to convince people to work for anything other than personal gain, but you’d discovered that kindness was the best remedy.
yours was the only bakery in town, and everyone had visited it sooner or later. watching people go from being nothing but rude to reserving their best smile for every time they opened your door was priceless. now the streets weren’t as dirty thanks to the people who had volunteered to help you clean them, and you were planning on removing the graffiti next. you didn’t have much power over unemployment and poverty, but you were sure everything would fix itself once everyone would have found the right path again.
you took out the pastries from the oven before sighing in satisfaction and walking to the door, turning the open sign. you murmured to yourself the list of things you had to do now that the bakery was closed as you walked to the back, entering the room you called home. you’d promised to help the woman who lived down the street bake a cake for her son’s birthday and plant some daisies in her garden. only days prior you’d helped her paint over the worn-out outside of her house, and it was really starting to look like a lovely place.
you took off your apron before facing the mirror next to the door. you knew your wings weren’t there, but seeing yourself without them was a surprise every time. you turned as much as you could to look at your back, moving your hair to the side as they covered the space between your shoulder blades. how could something that was a part of yourself just disappear like that? what was even more surreal was that you didn’t particularly miss the expanse of white feathers. you were just unused to their absence, but you were capable of doing everything without them just fine. the only thing left to show your angelic nature were your brightly golden eyes, staring back at you before you looked away.
you should’ve been afraid of walking by yourself in the seemingly deserted street, but you knew you weren’t alone. you could feel eyes boring into your skin as you walked, following you like a predator and its prey. that’s why you didn’t scream when someone grabbed your arm and your back hit the brick wall of a narrow alley, but a hand was still pressed over your mouth.
you always felt warm on earth, not missing the freezing air of paradise at all. right now, through, you felt more than warm. your skin was burning, like the fire in the stranger’s red irises.
he was beautiful, more than any of the angels you’d met, more than the archangels and more than what you’d imagined the highest would look like. strands of long hair touched his cheeks and the corners of his smirking lips, pitch black like the tattoos on his arms and the sleeveless shirt he was wearing. his eyes were filled with amusement and something dark that came from within. a demon. you gulped, and he noticed.
“oh little angel, am i scaring you?”
your wide eyes looked up at him, and he cooed. he was tall, hovering over you with his wide shoulders, the heat radiating from him making your cheeks bloom with crimson. his tone had been sweet, but there was sarcasm and bite behind his words.
“what have you been doing, uh? going around and ruining all the work i’ve done before you came. that’s a mean thing to do, angel. why are you being so mean to me?”
the big hand covering your mouth moved to loosely wrap around your neck. you gulped again, unable to look away from him or say a word, and his eyes flickered down as your neck moved. the demon could feel your heartbeat under his hand, rushed as your heart tripped over itself, and he bit down his lips as his smirk got bigger.
“i asked you a question, angel. it’s rude to ignore people like that,” he said, raising his eyebrows at you, waiting for your answer.
you opened your mouth a couple times before any sound got past your lips, the demon’s fingers holding your neck a little tighter. “i’m making things better because you ruined them.”
he gasped, but so exaggeratedly it sounded fake. you knew it was, and it made you blush more.
“you’re such a good girl, aren’t you?” he said, his sugary tone mocking you. “you say you’re making things better, but i think you’re ruining them, we’re not going to get along like this. what should we do?”
“you should stop,” you said, your voice a little more sure as the fear started to wear out.
he was bigger and stronger, but you were both humans right now. he had no more power than the sheer strength in his hands, and even if that was enough to kill you it wouldn’t have. the highest wouldn’t have let one of his angels die on earth like that. or that’s what you hoped.
“you know i can’t, this is what i do,” the demon said. the hold on your neck disappeared, but he got closer, his lips grazing the shell of your ear. “hyunjin. learn my name, angel, we’re going to be spending a lot of time together. whenever you ruin something i’ll fix it, mmh? would you like that?”
both of hyunjin’s inked arms were resting on the side of your head now, his bicep right in front of your eyes. he wouldn’t have had problems with shattering the entirety of paradise with his fists, and he wouldn’t have hesitated either. your words were caught up in the knot stuck in your throat, keeping you from answering. but if you hadn’t been petrified by his presence and the boiling blood running through your veins, what would you have said?
you wondered.
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mmvalentine · 3 years
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hey so i have a prompt request? feyre and rhys hooking up under the mountain, there's like not a lot of good fics for this so i was wondering if you'd write them please. maybe like hate sex and rhys CoN persona? thank you also you're writing is so great :)
I am very amused by how my mood affects my writing. When I was first sent this, I had just finished writing my starfall/ first kiss scene and the thought of my loves UTM was unbearable. Today I am angry at everyone and actually, kinky hate sex seems right up my alley... so cheers to us dear anon. Hold on tight.
Fuck You, Feyre Darling
I landed on the floor of my cell for what seemed like the thousandth time. My grazed palms caught the stone, and the rumble of the bars sliding closed vibrated in my bones. I pulled my knees into my chest, and just lay there, seeing nothing. 
There were nights that I had spent crying, and nights that I had raged. Today, I was just tired.
That is not to say, of course, that the despair was no longer there. It was just that my body was spent, and I was now too exhausted to feel anything at all. In some ways, it was such a relief, that I wouldn't have to drown in those emotions. In other ways, the emptiness stretched out like a desert and it swallowed me more completely than my feelings ever had.
I didn't care.
I couldn't tell you how much time passed, but at some point I became aware of Rhysand sitting against the wall, just watching me silently. Somewhere far away, I wondered why he was here all the time. Why anyone would spend a second of their free time in a vile little cell with me. And then I stopped caring again.
"Well," he said, "it's quieter. But I don't think it's better."
I didn't know what he was talking about, but I didn't ask. Rhys explained anyway. 
"I mean usually with you it's cry, cry, cry. My arm hurts, I miss Tamlin, the tasks are hard, blah, blah blah blah, blah. I have to say the silence is not an unpleasant change."
I glared at him, but couldn't quite muster the energy to say anything. He'd probably get bored and leave anyway.
"Of course, now I have no one to play with," Rhys went on. "I can't very well spar with myself, can I?" He eyed me for a minute, and I turned away again.
Rhys stood then, and wandered over to me. "Come on now, get up off the floor. You're not this pathetic." "I'm not pathetic," I said. "I'm just exhausted. Leave me alone." "No," was all Rhys said, and then he was picking me up under the arms and hauling me up. I had no strength to resist.
I swayed on my feet when Rhys finally had me standing. 
"What are you doing in here?" I asked him, my tired voice tripping over the words. I folded my arms across my chest to keep them from dangling at my sides. "I came to see you, of course." Rhys said. "Why, am I interrupting something? Are you entertaining?" He looked around the cell theatrically. "Are you hiding Tamlin somewhere in here?"
I said nothing.
"Oh, that's right," Rhys continued. "He's not here, he's never here, because all he does is sit back and watch you get tortured." Something hot lit in his eyes. 
"Hey," I said. "That's not fair. You know he's under Aramantha's thumb at the moment. She watches his every movement." "And what am I, a free bird?" Rhys argued, arms gesturing out wide. "And yet here I am. If you want something enough, you find a way. He's a fucking High Lord, what's he doing just sitting there?"
Anger flickered in my chest.
"Aramantha cut off his power," I said through gritted teeth. "Aramantha cut off everyone's power," Rhysand countered. "But I've been here, even Vanserra's been in. And where's your great love? If it were me, if I were the one who loved you, I'd be doing everything I could to help you. I'd spend every second trying to be near you. Aramantha be damned, I wouldn't care if she took my head off, at least I'd be trying to save you. Tamlin's a fool and a coward.”
Rhys started to turn away from me, but suddenly that small flicker blazed into a roaring fire. I slammed him back, far beyond caring that he was a high lord and my human girl arms were completely useless.
I must have caught him off guard, or maybe he just let me. Because he thudded back against the wall of the cell, eyes widening in surprise. Then, infuriatingly, a smile bloomed in the corners of his mouth. 
I hated him. In that moment, I hated him more than I had hated anything or anyone in my short life.
“Hit a nerve did I, Feyre darling?” he asked. “I’m not your darling,” I snarled. “And you’re wrong.” “Oh I’m wrong am I? Then do bring out your lordly love, show me where indeed you’ve been keeping him this whole time.”
And Cauldron damn him, I couldn’t. Couldn’t prove him wrong. But the idea that Tamlin could be here if he really, truly tried, was so intolerable that I didn’t dare consider it. Rather than have to answer him, I threw my fists into his chest, and I was shocked by how good the impact felt.
Rhys only grinned wider.
“What the fuck are you smiling at?” I demanded. Smug bastard. “You,” Rhys said. The picture of calmness. “Well I hate it,” I spat at him. “You look ugly when you grin.”
Rhys folded his arms. “Well now that’s just not true,” he said, and before I knew what I was doing I slapped him hard across the face. To see if I could wipe that stupid smirk off completely.
Indeed Rhys’ smile dropped, and cold satisfaction curled down my veins. But he didn’t move.
“Damn you, fight back,” I said. He didn’t move. His stillness infuriated me so much I just started pummelling him, my hands and elbows against his motionless torso. It was like fighting a mountain.
“Just... fight... back... you... fucking... prick,” I ground out between lashes. Rhys was a statue. “Fight back, do something,” I screamed, and to my deep frustration my voice cracked on the last word. A sob scraped up the inside of my throat, and finally, Rhys moved. 
In between one strike and the next, Rhys grabbed a hold of my flailing wrists and strode four steps across the cell, pushing me back until I was shoved up against the opposite wall. His hands pinned mine to the bricks.
For a second, Rhys stared down at me with utter fury, and it both scared and thrilled me. And then the next second, I couldn’t quite tell who moved first but his lips were on mine and we were snarling at each other with tongues and teeth. 
Anger now rolled off me like hot smoke, scorching my skin but heating my blood. I raked my nails down Rhys’ arms, as if I could shred his immaculate jacket. I tugged his shirt down, looking for bare skin, and clawed at his exposed collar bones, even as my neck strained to get closer. To kiss him deeper. 
Rhys responded by moving a hand to my throat, pushing me back but not squeezing hard enough to cut off my airway. Just enough that I couldn’t push back. Just enough that I could feel the wall pressing into the back of my head, and when I resisted against him he was unmovable. Rhys stepped forward into me, and now there was cold brick all the way down my spine and the backs of my legs, and Rhysand’s warm body all the way down my front. I lifted a foot against the wall for leverage, but Rhys had me pinned, and slowly he wrested control from me. 
The strangest thing was, the more he took over, the more relief I felt. My anger poured into him, and it didn’t feel like it was going to kill me anymore. So I moved the leg that was trying to push off the wall, and slid it up Rhys’ thigh instead. He didn’t hesitate, grabbed it and hitched it to his hip so he could grind his hips into me, and when I felt the hardness of him pressing into my lower abdomen, I gasped.
The movement broke the kiss, and Rhys pulled his face back only far enough to stare into my eyes. I read the questions that swam there, and couldn’t bear the answers.
So I just tilted my head back defiantly, and said, “Are you gonna fuck me or just stare at me some more?”
The world blurred, everything went dark and then we were in Rhys’ room. 
I wobbled, took a step back to steady myself and my calves hit his bed. Rhys’ arms tightened around my waist, so I didn’t fall. He growled low in his throat, and put his teeth on my neck.
The pressure and slight pain grounded me, and before the awful, intolerable thoughts could form again, I went for his lips and he responded with a hunger than took my breath away. I kissed him back, and sighed my relief against his tongue.
Then the prick laughed. 
I bit down hard on his lip, and was rewarded with a soft yelp. He landed a stinging slap across my backside, and as shudders rippled through me, my hands went for his belt. Whipped it out from its loops, only for Rhys to snatch it from my hands, fold it in half and press the leather to my mouth. I let him slide it between my teeth, and then his hands were gripping my hips and turning me sharply. Dragging me back to him, something hard now shoving against my ass as he palmed my breasts and a moan from somewhere in my stomach made its way past the belt in my bite.
Rhys’ left hand found my throat again. His right hand slid between my legs.
"Is this what you wanted, Feyre darling?” Rhys crooned. He took the belt from my teeth and looped it loosely around my neck. Like a collar. “Still not your darling,” I spat, and then his fingers slipped under the waistband of my pants and my knees buckled. “Want to bet?” Rhys hissed. “Because your soaking wet pussy says otherwise.” 
Rhys moved his fingers all the way down and then back up the seam of me, and I couldn’t argue. Not when he started to circle my clit, and words died in my mouth. His hand tugged the belt a little tighter around my throat, and then he pushed two fingers into me and this time my moan was louder.
“That’s right, moan for me and show me exactly how you aren’t mine,” Rhys mocked. “Fuck you,” I gritted out, even as his fingers pumped inside of me and pleasure curled tight in my belly.  “With pleasure,” Rhys responded, and next thing I knew I was being bent over the bed, my pants yanked down over my backside and my hips tilted up sharply. I braced for the first pressure against my entrance, but instead another slap sang out over my exposed ass. I gasped in shock, and barely had time to register the sensation before I was smacked again.
“You know, I’m starting to think you rather enjoy a little pain,” Rhys said. I could hear the bloody smirk in his voice. “Yes,” I retorted. “You are a little pain.” Another slap, and the pain burst across my eyes. Along with a searing pleasure that had me writhing on the bed seeking friction.
“Oh trust me darling, there’s nothing little about me,” Rhys said, and then suddenly he was pushing inside me and fuck if every cell in my body wasn’t clamouring for more.
“Gods, fuck Rhysand,” I said, my lips moving without thought. “Rhysand?” he asked. Drew out and then thrust slowly in again. “Only my prisoners and enemies call me that.” His voice strained, as he landed deeper this time. “Sounds about right to me, Rhysand,” I managed to shoot back, swallowing my moan. So good. He felt so good. 
“Oh enemies, is it?” Rhys asked. He paused his movements, now seated right to the hilt. “Well, in that case.”
And then he threaded his fingers through the base of my ponytail and made a fist against my scalp, pulling my head back and fucking me hard while he had me by the hair.
The suddenness and roughness of the movement had me aching, and I could feel the bruises between my legs and where his fingertips now dug painfully into my hip. But the way my head emptied and spun was intoxicating, and I found myself arching my back to get him deeper, harder into me.
I didn’t even realise at first that the high pitched keening sounds I could hear were coming from me.
“I’ll fucking show you ‘Rhysand’,” Rhys was muttering as he pounded into me. “You don’t have to be my darling but you sure as hell are mine.”
My hands clenched in the bedsheets, and I wanted to argue but at this point I was too far gone. 
“I’d make you say it,” Rhys told me, “but I kind of like it that I can fuck you speechless.”
And then pulled me back up against him, and sucked my earlobe in between his teeth at the same time as one of his hands snaked down to rub against my clit. His other hand crushed my breast in his fingers, and this increase in sensation all over me had me free falling toward my climax.
“I told you you were mine,” he whispered, and then fucked into me so hard I fell forward again, and then I was coming with my hands planted on the bed and Rhys’ nails running down my spine.
I was only vaguely aware of Rhys pulling out of me and spilling his release over my lower back, as I collapsed onto the black satin sheets. The heat of it dripped over my skin.
And then it was whisked away as Rhys cleaned us up by magic, before falling on to the bed beside me.
We lay there, breathing in the dark for sometime. And then Rhys rolled over, pulled the belt from around my neck, and with an uncharacteristic gentleness, asked, “Would you like to stay here tonight?”
I knew it was a pointless question. Knew there was no way I could be out of my cell for a night without someone noticing. But more importantly, I knew I’d never give Rhys the satisfaction.
“I’d rather rot in jail,” I shot out, and Rhys just chuckled. “As you wish,” he said, and the the world tilted again and we were back in my cell.
I expected cold air to hit me, but instead I just felt warmth as I collapsed onto my hay pallet. My body felt spent, but this time in a good way, and I was surprised to find sleep right behind me.
“Good night, Feyre darling,” Rhys whispered, and then he was gone.
****
Oooooh okay that was WAY too much fun but also now I gotta go write something fluffy as after care 😂 Thanks anon for that delicious prompt! Also gotta do a big ol shout out to the brain trust @asteria-of-mars, @feyrearcherons and @thehaemanthus for once again getting me over the line.
Now who wants to wear Rhys’ belt like a collar?
UPDATE: Part 2 by special request.
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mhevarujta · 3 years
Text
Zoya and the Darkling [Rule of Wolves Spoilers]
It’s a pity that fandoms mostly focus on romantic/sexual relationships, because The Darkling and Zoya have one of the most epic dynamics in the Grishaverse. The way they affect each other is so complex.
Zoya did not go to the Little Palace after being tested in the usual manner of Grisha travelling across Ravka to recruit children with powers. She was a young girl, a child really, living with a bitter and broken mother, in a home where her Suli inheritance was not appreciated, in a country that would condemn her both because of the power she let her demonstrated AND because of who she would have been without it. She was basically sold as a child-bride and her mother deluded herself into thinking that her daughter would not be raped by the old man she was marrying so that she’d feel better about herself, not to mention that she poisoned Zoya with her fears and made her afraid of her own heart. At the wedding her power broke loose and her aunt took her to a hard journey to the Little Palace so that Zoya would be tested and have a chance at a better life.
Zoya was taken in and she was separated from her family, but her aunt was ALWAYS in her heart. She started training and she was stronger than most, she was also driven and resilient. She arrived at the Little Palace when she was 8-9. When she was 13, she was the youngest one to be chosen as part of a group that would travel with the Darkling to Tsibeya to find the white tigers of Ilmisk because one of them was supposed to be an amplifier. By that age, Zoya was half in love with him already and she lived for his rare appearances at the school. She was the best, she had fought to be so, and he wanted him to see it. The Grisha were focused on hunting the female tiger, but the amplifier was a male one. He tried to kill the female’s cubs and Zoya gave them the protection of her body, she got scars that she never had tailored and she almost died, and killed the tiger to defend the cubs; not for the sake of power.
It wasn’t HER turn to get the amplifier, but since she killed the tiger only she could claim it. And THIS brilliant scene happens:
Some part of me always feared that he would send me away, banish me forever from the Little Palace. I told him I was sorry.
“But the Darkling saw me clearly even then. ‘Is that really what you wish to say?’ he asked.”
Zoya pushed a dark strand of her hair behind her ear. “So I told him the truth. I put my chin up and said, ‘They can all hang. It was my blood in the snow.’”
Nikolai stifled a laugh and a smile played over Zoya’s lips. It dwindled almost instantly, replaced by a troubled frown. “That pleased him. He told me it was a job well done. And then he said … ‘Beware of power, Zoya. There is no amount of it that can make them love you.’”
The weight of the words settled over Nikolai. Is that what we’re all searching for? Was that what he’d hunted in all those library books? In his restless travels? In his endless pursuit to seize and then keep the throne? “Was it love you wanted, Zoya?”
She shook her head slowly. “I don’t think so. I wanted … strength. Safety. I never wanted to feel helpless again.”
  “Like calls to like” fits the Darkling and Alina, but it also fits Zoya and the Darkling… in fact it fits Zoya and Aleksander even more so. Both were powerful and KNEW it. Both eventually learned to be unapologetic about it and saw it as their safety net. Both were taught that power would give them safety, survival, fulfillment in some ways, but not love. And yet, as much as they denied it and hid their hearts they DID want to be loved more than anything.
Zoya only rises thereafter. She gets her rank, she is one of the most valued Grisha in the Little Palace, she is admired for her strength and beauty, she armors herself with arrogance, and ruthlessness. But she has not friends. Both her and the Darkling are surrounded by people, they are admired, but they don’t have people close to their heart. The Darkling always cared about Baghra as much as he could still manage and Zoya cared only bout Liliyana and Lada (an orphan girl that her aunt had taken in).
The Darkling SAW her. He saw how she tried like no other, he saw her pain, her anger and he considered these to be things that he could use to control her and to push her towards the direction he desired. And despite not being appreciative of her devotion when he had it, he missed it when it was gone.
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When Alina got in the picture everything changed for Zoya. Yes, Zoya had feelings for the Darkling and I DO believe that her feelings and vanity would have been hurt to some extent by the intimacy in the way he approached Alina, but the primary problem was Zoya’s sense of injustice. Zoya had tried for YEARS, had trained hard, had sacrificed to be where she is. Alina never asked for any of it, but from Zoya’s perspective Alina would have been an untrained Grisha who got all the status, power and recognition that SHE had fought for without even trying. Until then, Zoya had been praised for wanting power, but when her anger is not convenient anymore, the Darkling punishes her for it and does not have a second thought about her.
And yet she remained loyal as always.
Even more so than rank, the Darkling and Liliyana were Zoya’s safety-net. And in ONE MOMENT, by genociding Novokribirsk, Zoya’s own mentor, the one who gave her safety and who was meant to create a haven for the Grisha, a person who KNEW her and who KNEW that she had family there, showed that he had no care for her, not care for human life and she wiped out the last people that Zoya loved.
He left her broken inside. In Siege and Storm, Zoya was at her lowest. She has to plead to Alina to have a position in the second army and she has to reveal a part of her heart; not just her loss of Liliyana. Her voice BREAKS when she says that the Darkling could have warned her of his plan; her pain at the idea that he did not give a crap about taking EVERYTHING from her is raw and cutting.
But she is not a quitter. She adjusts, she pulls her pieces together fast, she is a warrior and she stays on the right side without a question.
Then the Darkling attacked the very Grisha he was supposedly fighting for and killed half the people that Zoya had EVER KNOWN. And she still keeps fighting.
 Enter Rule of Wolves. There is SUCH DEEP IRONY in this book and the way Zoya and the Darkling’s arcs interconnect is a prime example of Leigh’s amazing writing.
The Darkling had told Zoya that they would change the world and he completely stopped paying attention to her the moment the potential of Alina’s power blinded him to anything else. And yet, when he returns Zoya has gained the kind of power that could eventually rival his own. But he STILL thinks that he should be the one to rule Ravka. He still thinks that he is the best option for the country. And once more, he criminally underestimates Zoya and overestimates himself.
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Who else is vengeful and afraid of his own heart, I wonder…
Aleksander considered Zoya weak for the very same things that were his own fatal flaws.
But unlike him, Zoya SAW her flaws. The Darkling shut himself off more and more in order to save himself from pain. Zoya eventually opened up her heart to grief and pain to become the person her country needed and to embrace her power. She opened the door, when the Darkling did not manage to do so. She showed more courage than he did… and he SAW it.
Aleksander hoped to become the savior during the battle, he wished to demonstrate how only HE could save Ravka. But seeing Nikolai and Zoya defending the country is the first time it registers that there are others who are up to the task and who may be better suited than he is.
And he becomes essential in Zoya being accepted as a saint and in her rise to power partly because he wants to gain her favor but also because he finally sees all her potential, all she can achieve, how a Grisha queen of such power might give the Grisha the haven they need, when he clearly can’t.
And what is left for him to do? What does he want? He wants to serve the country he loves in a way that will affirm his sense of self-importance (he wants to offer something that no one else can) and he wants to be loved. So his new objective is to stop the blight.
The blight was created because of his own power. This man who hunted down and ruined the life of a young girl (Alina) in order to force her to be his balance, so that he could freely use his power in a very imbalanced way, finally realizes that HE is responsible for his power and that HE can be the only one to balance it and himself. So there is a new path he sees ahead of him: he can sacrifice himself to stop the blight and in the process Ravka might finally see that he always wanted to protect the country… and it might love him back. He KNOWS that he has committed crimes, he does not seek redemption, but he desired for all he has done to matter. And it can’t matter if he is not at all responsible for its country’s well-being and if everyone hates him. He has lived so many lifetimes without happiness or fulfillment and they would all have been wasted.
But he can’t achieve this by himself. This man who always thought that he could do things alone, and who took away everything Zoya had fought for, NEEDS her allowance for his centuries-long life to gain a scrap of meaning. He needs her allowance to be appreciated and loved.
I can’t be the only one who sees what a beautiful twist of fate this is.
At the same time Zoya herself understands the Darkling. She understands how anger and using power as a coping mechanism can corrupt. Knowing herself and seeing how he turned out are essential in her becoming a good ruler. He is the cautionary tale of what she could but will never allow herself to become.
When he explains his plan, she KNOWS that he’ll be in eternal pain and she has does not mind that his will be his fate. But when she sees the aftermath of his sacrifice and when she feels the kind of pain he’ll be experiencing for eternity, it leaves her shaken. She feels that pain in her own heart and this is not a fate that she wishes even on him. Genya and Alina are very much willing to let him rot but Zoya, who also believed that she could forgive him, feels that she has to.The Darkling has not redeem himself. He is doing penance. But as Genya mentions, there’s a fine line when one has to do the math of how much a person has to pay and of how much pain they have to feel before their punishment stops being just and they become victims instead. Zoya, being afraid of becoming him, knows that learning to show forgiveness is the only way forward, it’s the way for her to keep her heart open and not become the avalanche.
Zoya Nazyalensky has become everything that Aleksander Morozova, the lost boy, wished to be. Poweful, eternal, with friends, with a true partner, holding the best position a Grisha could imagine without forcing her rule and finally giving their people a true chance without comprominsing them. 
The Darkling was hoping that Alina would have been his balance. We are told how she might make him a better man and she might make him a monster.
But at the end of the day it’s Zoya who allows the Darkling to become the closest thing to decent that he can be at this point.
It’s the Darkling’s life that allows Zoya to see the lines that she will not cross and how to not become a monster.
And it’s Zoya’s ability to forgive him and her willingness to save him that becomes the backbone for the next phase of the Grishaverse, whenever Leigh decides to write it.
The way their paths entangle will always be at the core of the story.
_______________________
@myfriendscallmeraba​ I’m tagging you because you asked for it. It’s very encouraging to have someone interested in my ramblings.
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hawksky · 3 years
Text
You wake up on your ex's fire escape; wc 2.5k
A/N: I don't really know how to categorize this ? starts as funny, gets into angst with a happy/hopeful ending. I might write this again for another character and make it 0 angst but using Megumi just let this get away from me. Thank you @sixeyesgojo for reading through my first draft, it helped me edit a lot since 😘. Although I have not looked over the ending since I wrote it, I'm done working on this fic so sorry if it falls flat.
CW: Mentions of excessive alcohol consumption.
Suggested listening: song 1 and song 2 you can pick just one to cater your experience (they are VERY different vibes) or switch over around the shampoo situation.
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Objectively, there were good ways to wake up. In the arms of a beautiful person, with cold sheets and a warm body, or with the scent of your favourite breakfast wafting through the air. No disrespect to mornings at all, there were good ways to wake up, you were mature enough to recognize this.
A perplexingly rough, wet, and warm sensation gliding across your cheek, while last night’s jeans dug into your waist, and there was a pounding in your head? It was fairly safe to say this was not a good way to wake up.
It spoke volumes for how out of it you were that it was only just beginning to register in your brain that you weren’t at home, you were not even on a bed, and that the continued licks across your face were the work of animal far too large to be one of your friends cats.
“Fucking hell you’re supposed to be intimidating” you hear a voice grumble without much heat behind it.
As you forced your eyes open you are met with an excited dog tapping its paws in excitement of your presence, and the man behind the half hearted grumble. His gaze was unmistakably familiar, but his expression could not be more foreign to you.
“uhm, Hi” you croaked out while plastering a wide grin in hopes he wouldn’t murder you.
His eyebrow raised on instinct in response. You knew he was waiting for you to explain what you were doing, but the reality was you didn’t have an answer.
“I wish I could explain, but honestly I’m not sure what happened – last thing I remember was being bought another shot… Wait, where am I exactly?” You were desperately hoping you came off as charming instead of pathetic given the circumstances.
“How out of it are you?” he scrunched his face in confusion as he muttered to himself. “You’re on my fire escape, it’s in Ikebukuro? Tokyo… Japan, in case you needed the reminder”
It felt infantilizing to have him scold you like this, which only made this next part all the more difficult. You were not supposed to be Ikebukuro. You were not supposed to be in Tokyo. You were supposed to be in Yokohama. What was even more concerning is that you were definitely not supposed to be on your old fire escape, the one connected to the apartment your ex still lived in.
As you painstakingly pushed yourself upright, a warm weight laid on your upper thigh, a furry face nuzzling into your stomach – you wondered if she was aware of tension between you and her owner. You scratched behind her ears, letting Jade know she was in fact a good girl despite the earlier reprimand from her owner.
As much as you’d love to spend the day sitting on a fire escape petting your ex’s dog, you had to go home, you just need to call –
Your phone. Where was your phone? You felt around frantically for your phone, only to come up with nothing. A light sense of panic bubbles in the pit of your stomach, only to be swiftly interrupted.
“it’s already charging, I plugged it in last night, you dropped in inches away from falling down”
So, he was still watching you despite having returned inside long ago. It was difficult for you to parse this sort of gesture, how caring could it be to plug someone’s phone in when you still left them to sleep outside? Maybe he was just doing everything he could to get rid of you. It was too much to try and analyze for someone who blacked out and woke up in a different city.
“Why did you come here?” you hear him bite out from inside. It sounds harsh, but it feels like his stange way of inviting you inside.
“I don’t know what you’ve picked up from these circumstances, but not knowing is kind of a part of the problem. Believe me, there’s no amount of conscious desperation that would leaf me to sleeping on a fire escape, even yours”
You glanced around the apartment to avoid his void expression; it was spotless. But it was even harder noticing, the turned over picture frames, your favourite quilt still on the back of the couch – remnants of the past living in the present.
This tension only increased as a mug of freshly brewed green tea was placed in front of you. How thoughtful to remember you hated coffee, to realize your throat was probably killing you – you would have tasted a creeping bitterness from all these emotions, if it wasn’t overpowered by what was the distinct taste of your favourite brand that had to be special ordered.
He had always complained, there were plenty of good options for tea at the grocery store, why wasn’t that enough for you? It was so much extra effort to special order from a tea shop across town, the only place that you were able to charm the owner into ordering for you.
“How are you still so fucking awful at taking care of yourself?” he spat the words out like an insult, it was jarring honestly. Despite the time away from each other, it was no less strange to feel his detachment.
He moved towards the door beckoning Jade to follow. “There’s a towel and change of clothes in the bathroom, you should probably take a shower. If I’m not back by the time you leave, just lock up before you go, I haven’t moved the spare key.” Without looking back or waiting for a response he left.
You were starting to recognize your growing frustration – you had known him how long? Dated and lived together for a not-insignificant amount of time? Yet here you were, no idea how to interpret this strange morning, much less his last comment. Did he want you to be here when he returned? Were you supposed to leave and act like you had never been there? Could he genuinely be as indifferent as he wanted you to believe? It pissed you that your feelings were probably plain on your face.
You searched for your phone, finding it on what used to be your side of the couch. It felt ridiculous to think you ever had a side of the couch, but you were both creatures of habit and slowly without even thinking you both made your own little sanctuary mere metres away from each other.
You awoke your phone, expecting a flood of texts and phone calls from your friends, only to find nothing. Not a single check in from anyone. You open the group chat and furiously tap out a message.
<Hey assholes who let me go home on my own last night? Anyways good job I blacked out and I’m on Fushiguro’s fire escape! You are all absolutely useless to me I swear to god.>
Your phone vibrates rapidly as you place it down but you’re not in the mood to field their questions.
You’re tempted to leave now, just to get it over with, go home and crawl into bed and forget any of this ever happened. But, you felt gross, it was late enough in the morning that you could run into someone you knew, and you missed the water pressure here.
As you got ready for your shower you surveyed your options. You refused to smell like him, but the only other bottle in the shower was doggy shampoo. Surely dog’s fur and human hair weren’t so different right? Jade did have a beautiful coat, very soft and shiny… You reprimanded yourself for the ridiculous idea, but the point remained, there had to be something else for you to use.
Your brain, far more alert than it was 30 minutes ago, thought of all the things he hadn’t changed, all the fixtures still in place. You had always kept an extra set of all your supplies under the sink. By the grace of all that is good on this cruel cruel earth, they were there, in all their dusty glory, your prized hygiene products sat unmoved under the sink. It would have been sick and twisted to have to leave your ex-boyfriend’s apartment smelling exactly like him, left to spend the rest of the day agonizing over whether you should take another shower.
As you entered the shower you wondered more. He had to have noticed the softness in your eyes, the faint smile you wore just having an ounce of his attention again, the way ti widened at every caring gesture, and falling with every biting remark.
Yes, it hurt every day missing him. Yes, it would hurt if he hated you. But none of that compared to the feeling of not knowing. What were you supposed to do with all these residual feelings that have yet to go away? Were they worth the suffocation or should you strip them away?
You were proud of yourself, all these reminders of what you once had, in a place you once loved, and you had yet to break down, not even shedding a tear. If you weren’t wrapping yourself in a towel, you would’ve given yourself a pat on the back. This victory was short lived, everyone’s strength has its limits and you had taken yours too far past it already. But then you saw it, something you were completely unprepared for.
Laid neatly on top the closed laundry basket was THE outfit. It was nothing special to anyone else, just a grey sweater and loose joggers, but how many days had you spent alone breathing in his scent for comfort while he was gone? How many hard days at work had you reaching for these exact pieces as if they were the cure to all your problems?
Unable to support your own weight anymore, you fell to the tiled floor, tears spilling out, as your already sore throat grew even more hoarse – you felt like everything was collapsing around you. You weren’t expecting to see him, and you certainly weren’t expecting to need him in so many little ways. It was easy to forget how easily he weaves himself into your life, encroaching on everything you do.
The world disappeared behind each shallow breath, and an endless stream of tears you couldn’t control. Your fingers scratch against your forearms repeatedly, trying to ground yourself in some reality you could no longer grasp. It is so exhausting trying to be over him, going through these cycles of strong emotions, over and over and over again.
Suddenly, for the second time in as few hours, you felt an overwhelming weight encompass your body.
Of course, his stupid fucking perfect dog would still know how to bring you out of a panic attack like he had spent so much time training when you started dating. You clutched to Jade as your breathing slowed, but it did nothing to stop your sobs, if anything it was just another painful reminder of everything you let go.
“Uhhh….” Megumi was frozen at the door, for the first time today he didn’t know what to do. His indifferent façade dropped as he observed the scene on his bathroom floor.
There’s nothing left to lose, not for a moment that he has seen this morning have you possessed more than an ounce of dignity, “So that’s it? You don’t know what to do either? You know it’s been a whole fucking year and I still haven’t figured out how to live without you. A whole year and I’m still a mess. I can’t survive being reminded of us, look at me. And yet every attempt to get over you was a knife twisting because they’ll never be you. Now I’m here and I get to witness the wonderful Megumi Fushiguro, unaffected, and you… you have it all together.” You trail off, giving to him everything left in you.
You weren’t expecting the confused and indignant expression on his face, “You think this is having it together?” His voice lightly raising with each word “This place might as well be a sealed shrine to you and our relationship. I haven’t thrown a single thing out, moved any furniture, bought anything new – the only thing that’s ‘new’ is your stupid tea I keep buying even though I hate it, and for fucks sake y/n I should’ve moved out. Every part of me that looks like I have it together is just my version of a mess.” He brushes a stray strand out of your face, his own face moving far too close for this to be purely platonic anymore “y/n I’m no better off than you are, I’ve just kept everyone from looking”.
“So what are we supposed to do with all this?” Your eyes shining, naïve hope seeping through your defenses at the confirmation that he couldn’t live without you either.
“We could try again” Somehow, it wasn’t quite what you needed to hear. “I, am going to get dressed, and then we’ll talk, I’ll meet you in the kitchen.” He nodded lightly, pulling himself up and exiting with Jade on his heels.
Dressed in the clothes you thought would burn your skin to even touch let alone wear, you let out a long sigh as you sit on at the breakfast nook. “Look, Megumi, I need to know if you’ve worked through it, any of it? I can’t, I can’t wait another three years for you to tell me you can’t say the words I love you, that you can’t commit to more than a yearly rental, I can’t just have you here I need more security than that”
He pursed his lips, unsure of what he could say to that, how he could make sure you didn’t leave again.
“Megumi, I don’t need you to say it to me today, I don’t need you to commit to anything today, but I have to know you’ve tried that I can’t keep waiting for you”
“I… Just give me a minute, please” his voice weak pleading with you. You waited, knowing better than to rush him, laying a hand on top of his assuring him you weren’t going to run out the door.
“y/n, I’m supposed to be honest and vulnerable, I’m supposed to tell myself that people won’t abandon me just because I give them access to who I really am. I want to tell you I love you, because there’s no other explanation for feeling this way. For feeling like your eyes outshine the stars, that your mind is more brilliant than the sun. I’ve tortured myself for a year with the idea of you meeting someone who could give you everything I couldn’t, and selfishly I prayed they were awful, I wished you were miserable so I pretend the truth wasn’t real that I was not enough for you, that I couldn’t give you what you needed. I’ve never seen a loving relationship, certainly not for long enough to form memories, but I look at you and I can’t imagine anything else”
Your thumb reaches to brush away the stray tear sliding down his face as he spoke to you. Manoeuvring yourself around to be on the same side of the nook as him, you pull him into you, letting him bury his head into the crook of your neck. You placed a gentle kiss into his hair before whispered into his ear “You were always enough, I just needed you to know it too.”
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not not a tag list: @satosuguslut @sandyscastle
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gukieater · 3 years
Text
Fic idea 1 : Apocalyptic Heart
Pairing: Jungkook x OC (f) X Taehyung
Genre: Post Apocalyptic World, Zombie, Special Ability (Jungkook), experiments, evolution, illegal medical trial, inhuman treatment, Survival, Angst, fluff (eventual smut), possible future yandere (Jungkook), blood, possible dismantling, biting, death of minor characters, age difference, noona.
Disclaimer: This is not a full fiction or story, merely a plot. Please read this post before proceeding. If you are reading this, you can reblog the post if u want to!
Music Recommendation: Wolves of Odin- Colossal Trailer Music
Plot or Synopsis: It is about an apocalyptic world where the human population is overthrown by mutated creatures, who once used to be human. L/N Y/N is a 21 year old girl surviving on her own. She's constantly on the road, salvaging supplies for survival, on her daily run, she meets lone or group of survivors but she never sticks around, living by her rule "Alone is Safe".
On her journey to survival she meets a pregnant woman who seems to be on the run and in a pretty bad shape. Around 3 years ago, Y/N lost her sister when the breakout started, and she remembered how she was helpless enough not being able to save her sister. Seeing the pregnant woman, she is reminded of her elder sister and gets attached. So she decides to stay by her to take care of her and her unborn baby and breaks the one and only rule she lived by so far, to survive alone.
Soon she realizes the woman is being chased by people, not just brain eating monsters. They seem powerful and battle ready. She kept asking the woman why she was being chased and she told Y/N the less she knew, the safer she will be. Running from them being the 1st priority, she doesn't press the woman for further explanation. One day while supply run, they are cornered by those mystery men's and they go into hiding. The anxiety and stress leads the woman to go into labor and she gives birth to a boy. But soon their hiding location is compromised and they need to run again. After the birth the woman is too weak to run. So refuses to go with Y/N saying she will slow them down. So Y/N now has a choice to either stay and get caught by those men or take the baby and run, leaving the mother behind. The woman insists she does the later. Y/N doesn't argue further, knowing that's the only logical thing to do. So even though she feels guilty, she vows to the woman to protect the child and runs away while the woman buys her time by tricking them thinking she has the baby.
Y/N is not the kind to stay in the same location for long as it draws the undead but she needs a place to keep the baby safe, since she can't carry him to her daily run. So she decides to settle down in some outskirt, to raise him in safety. But things starts to get complicated when she notices the kid isn't an average child. He is growing at an unprecedented rate and shows undisputable strength. By the time the child was 1 months old, he already grew into a 1 year old kid.
Although she decides to take the child in to protect it and raise, in the back of her mind she somewhat resents it, knowing it was the reason the mother had to sacrifice herself. It reminds of herself, how her elder sister sacrificed herself to a group of undead when they broke into her house in the middle of the night so she can buy Y/N some time to run away. If it wasn't for either of them, her sister and the mother would be alive. So she never cuddles the baby, only holds him when he's crying, doesn't name him, never shows any affection towards it. She feels kind of relieved for the child's growth as she didn't need to care for an infant for long. But there is something in the way the child looks at her, like she holds the moon and star for him, sometimes it bothers her as if the child sees through her.
After 4 months of settling down in a outskirt school near the hill, one day she returns home after salvaging for rations, she saw that the boy was not in the room. She clearly remembers locking the door when she left but seeing the door unlocked, she starts to panic. She starts looking for the boy and curses herself for not naming him. While calling out to the boy, she hears a faint voice. She followed the trail of voice and as she moved closer, the faint voice became clearer and she can clearly hear someone calling for 'Noona'. When she stepped into the backyard she could she the boy crouching down to a half-dead plant. As the boy touched the plant she watched in her dismay the plant coming back to life. Noticing her presence, the boy looked at her direction and calling out to her as "noona". She was both shocked and scared because she never taught him to speak neither spoke much around him. The boy observed her and watching her act distant and frightened around him made him upset. As he tried to approach her to hold her hand and comfort her, she kept looking at the plant. She saw the plant wither and eventually rot as he took a step further to her direction. She was startled, she tumbled on her feet and fall down on her back and called him a monster. With teary eyes he told her his name was Jungkook,not monster or "kid". Jungkook, that's what his mother wanted to call him.
She had a lot of questions to Jungkook. Like how he opened the lock, how he knew what her mother wanted to call him, how he knew how to speak and knew what monster meant and how was he doing that to the plant. He said that he felt sad and lonely so he wanted to find you, at first he didn't know how the lock worked but he figured it out. When he made it to the backyard, he the only thing that felt alive in there was the plant and it was dying. He felt like he could help it. When she asked how he knew what sadness and loneliness was he said he shared the memory of his mother from her pregnancy. She would often cry and feel restless what she termed as sadness or loneliness until she came along. That's how he knew who Y/N was, why he called her noona and how he knew he could trust her, as he described how his mother felt around her, safe & warm. She doesn't question further about the wilting plant. After talking to Jungkook, she started connecting the dots about why his mother was chased and how Jungkook was no ordinary child. She realized maybe keeping Jungkook safe won't be just as easy as raising him.
Jungkook learned and picked up on things quite easily so going to runs was getting quite easier but still uneasiness settled in Y/N's mind. She can't control the situation when she's away and the thought of Jungkook taken away or even worse getting attacked was quite startling. She never shows it but she deeply cares about the kid. Jungkook himself was quite clingy towards Y/N although she never reciprocates the affection. She simply keeps up the role of a provider. it's been already 16 months since they've been living in the outskirt and the undead are picking up on her scent due to her daily trail in the same direction as she keeps seeing more and more of them in the surrounding area.
So after a few close encounters and trial salvage run with Jungkook, she decides to move out of the outskirt and target bigger cities. She avoided bigger cities so far thinking the people chasing Jungkook's mother may still be looking for him. By the time living there, Jungkook already grew up to become a teenager so she reasoned, the people looking for him would be looking for a child, not so much of a well-build boy who looks like who is in his late teen's. She thought maybe it's time to move around. But maybe it was not a good decision after all. Things starts to shift, not always for the best interest. Few days in the city, Y/N starts to realize that Jungkook is perfectly fit to tend for himself and rather than keeping him safe, Y/N is the one slowing him down and making him vulnerable. If she's caught with Jungkook they can use her against him to make him comply but if she's not with him, he is perfectly capable and trained to slipping away.So she decides its time to go back to her old way of life. But things doesn't go as easy as she thought as with time she got extremely attached to Jungkook. On the other hand, Jungkook experiences the same thing unfold in front of him again. At first it was his mother, who was separated from him and now his Noona whom he loves very dearly is abandoning him again. He is upset and he doesn't understand why is she leaving him and it's driving him mad. He can't even read her as he promised he won't do it without her permission. Jungkook's heart is breaking but he departs from her without any objections.
On a run close to a suspicious facility, Y/N meets a survivor who she helps escape from people that looked a lot like the people chasing Jungkook's mother. The boy, not more than 2/3 years older than her introduces himself as Dr. Kim Taehyung, a young scientist from the facility. At first she doesn't trust him but things take turns and Taehyung proves to be someone reliable. Eventually she discovers a lot about the breakout, the undead and how the facility handled the things only to make it worse. Then he mentions something about the authority going crazy about a subject escaping the facility more than 1.5 year ago and Y/N becomes alert. The description of the escaped subject eerily matched with Jungkook's mother. So she questions taehyung about it and what she finds out leaves her frantic and full of fear & guilt. She sets out to find Jungkook with the help of Taehyung as soon as she can. When departing from Jungkook she knew they would both suffer but what she did not know that, growing up, the bond he shared with her, breaking it or separating Jungkook from her would take a big toll on Jungkook. With every passing moment without her, Jungkook will loose a piece of him that made him human, made him the boy Y/N knew & raised and turn him into more of a thing Y/N feared him to be in the beginning, a monster.
PS: is it a plot anymore? I'm not sure 😅. The plot I intended to write turned out to be more detailed than I would have originally liked but ehh, whatever. If anybody does decides to write about it, they have the full liberty to make changes into the plot or turn or take the story further in any direction they want. Whether they decide to give me a credit for it or nah, it's their discretion but if they do, it would be appreciated so the readers finding this blog may enjoy the full story as well ❤️
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This picture is inspired by the entire storyline so far. The pictures I used to make this collage are collected from Pinterest, I don't own them.
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atc74 · 4 years
Text
The One With The Letter
Square(s) Filled: Breakup for @spngenrebingo, Free Space for BTZ Bingo
Warnings: breakups, angst, tears, angst, confessions, love, fluff, implied future smut
Summary: After another break up, Dean can’t just sit back anymore. Will he be the man of action like we know him to be, or will he surprise us all?
Pairing: Dean x Reader
Word Count: 1585
Written for: @supernatural-jackles Bi-Weekly Writing Challenge (prompts in bold) and @smol-and-grumpy Nat’s SuperFriends Title Challenge
Beta’d by: @amanda-teaches
A/N: Thank you to my cheerleader and friend @waywardbeanie, for always saying the things I need to hear. Inspired by Billy Joel’s An Innocent Man, lyrics have been worked into the fic throughout. 
Like Dean’s scent? Buy it here from @scentsfromthebunker!
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From the curved entry of her front door, Dean watches as his best friend, his rock, weeps. Another failed relationship that she no doubt blames herself for. But the truth was, she was attracted to a certain type of guy. A clean shiny penny on the outside, but on the inside, worth less than that. Not a single man she had dated in the last few years had treated her even close to how she deserves to be treated. How he could treat her. How he wants to treat her. No matter what, Dean is always there to hold her, to pick up her pieces and hold them together until she finds the strength to move forward.  
Y/N had been there for him when he hit rock bottom, too. A string of terrible relationships with women who would never hold a candle to her. That is why they failed. He knew that going in and yet, he kept going. For the last few years, she has been the only woman for him. He tries to make her see it, between douchebags, but he can never get through to her. He has been biding his time. Maybe, just maybe, tonight she’ll listen to him.
Because, he is an innocent man in this situation. He has never hurt her, has never lied to her. He hates seeing her like this. If she opens that door, lets someone in, fearful of a touch, living with the anger of having been a fool. She will not listen to anyone so nobody tells her a lie. For three weeks, he stops over each night after work to find her in this state of pain and anguish. With measured movements, he lowers himself to the sofa beside her, pulling her blanket a little tighter around her. Y/N involuntarily flinches at the soft touch. 
Sniffling and wiping at her eyes, Y/N pushes him away. “I don’t want to talk to you right now.”
“I know you don’t, sweetheart, and you don’t have to. I wasn’t sure if you wanted to see me either, but I wanted to see you. See how you’re holding up,” Dean’s soft voice rumbles through her small living room. 
Dean murmurs gently, his words encroaching further on her space. “I’m not going to talk to you if that’s not what you want. Please call me later, Y/N. You can’t ignore me forever. Let me know you’re okay.” 
“I don’t owe you an explanation, Dean,” she snaps, immediately regretting her words, her tone. Dean is always here. Each and every time she fails, he is right here to mend her broken pieces. “I’m sorry.” 
“No, you don’t owe me anything, Y/N/N. I just want you to feel better, and I’ll do anything to see you smile again,” he whispers, pressing a kiss to her temple. “I’ll be back tomorrow.” 
With that, Dean rises from the worn sofa, dropping an envelope from his jacket pocket before turning and leaving, the door clicking loudly behind him. He uses the spare key she gave him to secure the lock, a heavy sigh leaving his lips. “I love you, Y/N.”
~*~
The daily alarm wakes her from a fitful slumber. Y/N blinks slowly, trying to clear the cobwebs of sorrow and tears from her heavy eyes. The first rays of sunlight dance across flecks of dust floating in the air, landing on the cluttered coffee table, illuminating the plain white envelope, her name written across the front in Dean’s simple block lettering. 
A small hand snakes out from the beneath the warm blanket, snatching the envelope from its resting place. With shaking fingers, Y/N opens it and scans the letters scrawled across the page. She takes a deep breath and starts at the beginning. 
Y/N, 
I know you’ve been through some shit, none of which you deserve. None of it was your fault, so stop blaming yourself. You’ve been my rock so long, I don’t know what I’d do without you by my side. I’ll be here for you through anything, good or bad, come Hell or highwater. 
I know you don't want to hear what I say. I know you're gonna keep turning away. But, I've been there and if I can survive, then I know you can, too. I can keep you alive. I'm not above going through it again, for you. I’ll do anything for you. 
I know you’re only protecting yourself. I know you’re thinking of somebody else. Someone who hurt you, but I’m not above making up for the love you’ve been denying you could ever feel. I'm not above doing anything to restore your faith if I can. Faith in humanity, in men, in me. 
I’ve held on to these feelings for you so long, too afraid to open my big mouth and lose the best thing that ever happened to me. But I can’t keep it to myself any more. I don’t just want to be the one to comfort you when you’re hurting, I want to be the one to protect you and keep you safe, so you don’t hurt anymore. I want to be the reason you smile, because you’ve been mine since the moment we met. 
Some people say they will never believe another promise they hear in the dark, because they only remember too well they heard somebody tell them before. I know you’ve heard them before, but this is my first promise to you, I will never make you a promise I don’t intend to keep. 
I don’t want to sleep alone every night. I want you by my side, to curl into you, create a safe space for you to just be, to feel, to be loved. 
But, I've been there and if I can survive, I can keep you alive. I'm not above going through it again. I'm not above being cool for a while, so if you're cruel to me I'll understand. That's your decision, but I'm not below anybody I know if there's a chance of resurrecting a love. I'm not above going back to the start to find out where the heartache began. To hold you until you believe the promises I whisper. To hold you until you believe that I’ll never hurt you. To hold you until you believe in you, in me...in us. 
I’d never do anything to ruin what we have. I guess some people hope for a miracle cure, or some people just accept the world as it is. But, I'm not willing to lay down and die without you, not without a fight. I’ll fight for us, but more importantly, I’ll fight for you. 
All my love always, 
Dean
Through the tears, Y/N reads his letter over and over until she can no longer see. Wiping her eyes, she unlocks her phone and shoots him a text. With new found resolve, she jumps in the shower. When she emerges from the steam, feeling better than she has in months, she finds her best friend sitting on her sofa. 
“Thank you for coming, Dean. After I pushed you away last night, I didn’t know if you would,” she whispers, taking a seat next to him. 
“I’ll always be here when you need me, or want me. You know that, Y/N,” Dean assures her, taking her hands in his. “I see you read my letter.” 
“It’s always been you, I was just too scared and selfish, and foolish to see it,” she replies, shaking her thoughts loose. “I never thought my feelings would be reciprocated. Nobody’s ever written me a love letter before.”
“I knew I couldn’t say all of that out loud, I was so scared to say anything, I didn’t want to lose you. I guess we’re a couple of idiots, huh?” Dean chuckles. 
“We found each other. That’s all that matters,” Y/N smiles, resting her head on his shoulder. 
“I don’t know about you, but I could use a nap,” Dean yawns, running his fingers through her hair. 
“Didn’t sleep well?” she questions, looking up at him. 
“Not when I slept on the floor outside your door.” 
“You did not!” Y/N smacks his shoulder playfully. 
“I bet the neighbors know my name,” he grins sheepishly, pointing at his work shirt, his name clearly on display. 
“Not how you hoped that would happen, is it?” Y/N giggles, teasing him.
“It made you laugh, though. I missed it; your laugh, your smile,” Dean says, cupping her cheek. “I missed you.” 
“I’m sorry,” she mumbles. 
“Don’t be. Where there is no struggle, there is no strength. We will be strong together,” Dean vows. 
“Did you just quote Oprah Winfrey?” she laughs.
“I did. You’re a bad influence on me, what can I say?” he shrugs.
“Let’s get some rest. We can be bad together later,” she winks, rising from her seat and reaching out her hand for him. 
“Can we fight so we can have some angry make-up sex later?” Dean smirks, wiggling his eyebrows. 
“Slow down, Winchester. Nap first. We’re only about ten minutes in, I don’t know if I’m ready to have our first fight yet,” she scoffs. 
“Well, if it helps, it will probably be my fault and I’ll spend hours apologizing,” Dean offers. 
“So the neighbors really know your name?” she giggles. 
“As long as you keep laughing and smiling, I don’t care what they call me, as long as you call me yours.”
Did you like it? The nicest thing you can do for a writer is reblog their work and tell them, and others, how much you like it!
The Whole Enchilada: @iwantthedean @dolphincliffs @mrswhozeewhatsis @flamencodiva @blacktithe7  @amanda-teaches @hannahindie  @kickingitwithkirk  @wi-deangirl77 @hobby27 @gh0stgurl @alleiradayne @idreamofplaid @manawhaat @crashdevlin  @emoryhemsworth  @fangirlxwritesx67 @winchesterprincessbride @waywardbeanie @jensengirl83 @anathewierdo  @winchest09
The Dean’s List: @jerkbitchidjitassbutt @dean-winchesters-bacon​ @adoptdontshoppets @supernatural-jackles @fandom-princess-forevermore @akshi8278 @thing-you-do-with-that-thing @deanwanddamons @rockhoochie
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septic-skele · 3 years
Text
UT - You and Me (Against The World)
Summary: If Pap was the sun, then he must be the moon: a ball of scars and craters, whose only shine was a lesser reflection of his brother’s.
“But if you weren’t there to be the moon,” Papyrus answered, so simply, so kindly, “who else would be a light in the darkness?” Sans and Papyrus, in fifty captured seconds.
Comfort
“This is not at all an admission of helplessness, surrender or defeat…but if there is anything I haven’t yet tried, brother, anything at all that might help you, I need you to tell me.”
Kiss
The human’s lipstick had formed a decidedly unpleasant texture on his teeth, Papyrus mused with a shudder as he grabbed his toothbrush to scrub away the evidence.
Soft
Sans rarely ever raised his voice, but then he didn’t need to; a low growl could be far more threatening than a shout.
Pain
“Nngh…Almost there, I think,” Sans hissed, struggling to stay loose and relaxed as Papyrus gingerly manipulated the deformed joint of his shoulder back toward its socket.
Potatoes
“Not once have I seen a potato subspecies that grows on couches,” Papyrus admitted, “so I’m afraid I cannot speak for any resemblance between them and Sans!”
Rain
“I seem to recall a well-prepared skeleton advising his lazy brother to wear sneakers on their outing today,” Papyrus snarked as Sans’ sodden slippers squished and squelched with each step.
Chocolate
Chocolate sauce was chocolate sauce and spaghetti was spaghetti, both good things independently, so…Sans could assume Papyrus had made them better together, right?
Happiness
Papyrus had genuinely laughed at what was admittedly his worst material, and that was more than enough to lift the corners of Sans’ wan smile.
Telephone
Sans had thirty-four frantic texts, a full voicemail box, and no memory of the last three days to offer as an excuse.
Ears
Papyrus couldn’t help but marvel at Frisk’s dedication to being so cool; they had put new holes in their ears not for better hearing, but simply to decorate with tiny pieces of treasure!
Name
“I’m just Sans—well, ‘Comic Sans’ if you want to be particular about it—but if you really need a surname,” Sans began, mischief sparking in his eyes, “it’s, uh, Lewis. C.S. Lewis, heheh.”
Sensual
Finally Papyrus could understand why Sans so loved spending time in bed; these new silk sheets seemed to float around his bones, gently shushing him to relax and rest.
Sex
“Turns out the humans have a label for everything,” Sans remarked with a wry grin as he spun the striped button pinned to his coat. “I’m what they call an ace in the hole.”
Touch
For reasons he couldn’t quite justify, Papyrus flinched when Frisk wrapped their arms around his neck.
Death
“I’ll see you soon, Tori,” he mumbled as he brushed his hand over the memorial’s stone base, “because if I know anything about that kid, they’re not gonna let you stay down forever.”
Weakness
All of Sans’ strength had been spent in the shower; his juddering legs and the cold embrace of the bathroom floor dictated that dressing would have to wait.
Tears
“I’m always alright,” Papyrus whispered, though he made no effort to dry his streaked cheekbones.
Speed
Papyrus doggedly insisted that the sign had said ninety miles per hour—until he recalled a particular prescription for glasses that still needed filling.
Hero
“It’s not my job to be nice or helpful or cool,” Sans announced flatly. “It’s my job to give judgment, no matter how much it might hurt.”
Freedom
“Not all humans are like Frisk, Papyrus; some of them would rather sweep us off the street than crack a smile at us.”
Life
In response to Sans’ apathetic “What do you want?”—Papyrus poured his soul into a scream: “I want you to treat your life like it matters!”
Jealousy
“Undyne is always away with Alphys and the human Frisk is busy with their plethora of school friends; I don’t know who my ‘besties’ are anymore!”
Hands
“My glove is the wrapping and my hand is the present; I’m just waiting for the day someone special wants to take it!”
Taste
Spongy in the middle, crisp around the edges, swathed with butter and spices that melted in the mouth…If only Papyrus could drag the garlic bread out of the cookbook picture and onto the plate.
Devotion
“Long live the King,” Sans murmured as he pried the crown from his exhausted brother’s head and tucked his cloak closer around him for the night.
Sickness
It was unsettling to see Pap so limp and lethargic, snoring on and off between miserable sniffs and the few coughs his abused throat could muster.
Melody
For once Papyrus regretted that he wasn’t a stealthier skeleton; he would have liked to hear Sans sing another bar or two before he jumped at his presence.
Star
Mettaton had been acknowledging everyone in the first several rows, but surely the celebrity had glanced at Papyrus a few seconds longer than the rest!
Home
Their Surface house felt like a resort—airy, open, relaxing to some degree, but Sans still had the nagging urge to keep his bags and boxes packed.
Market
“Sans, I have no intention of purchasing seventeen boxes of Twinkies!”
Hair
“Oh, so I’m not allowed any Twinkies to repackage as ‘dessert dogs’ for my booming business, but you’re allowed four different brands of shampoo for hair you don’t even have.”
Confusion
“These puzzles I’ve submitted are sure to be a much greater challenge for this week’s column, don’t you think?” he questioned smugly as his brother stared at the sheet of incomprehensible twists, turns, and teasers.
Innocence
“Doesn’t ‘hanky panky’ mean that you are ‘hankering for a pancake’?” Papyrus demanded as Sans choked on his coffee.
Fear
“I think, uh, I’d rather take the stairs, be proactive like you’re always telling me,” Sans decided, recoiling from the cramped, groaning walls of the elevator.
Sky
The pure blue expanse made Sans’ head swim with its enormity, stretching further than his eye sockets could ever see.
Lightning/Thunder
Papyrus couldn’t help but wonder if that terrifying noise was the sun, roiling and roaring at the dark clouds for blotting out its rightful place.
Forever
“Why do you always leave me behind?” Sans wanted to say, instead forcing a smile and wave as Papyrus strode toward his terminal.
Technology
Papyrus’ first college semester, Sans kept his phone charged and at full volume more consistently than he had in the last five years.
Blood
“Stay awake for me, Sans, just keep your eyes on me!” Papyrus begged, because if he didn’t keep their eyelights locked he would have to watch the pool of red grow.
Hell
Sans’ HP hung by a decimal point, slipping, and Undyne wrestled her arms around Papyrus’ shoulders to keep him back as he screamed.
Safe
“It’s thanks to you that I’m still here, bro; I won’t go anywhere if you don’t.”
Bonds
“We skeletons have a soul sense for such things; I can feel my brother’s aura of bad jokes, dirty socks and disappointment in this room.”
Gift
“It was on sale!” Papyrus lied, brightly and effortlessly, because he hated to see Sans look so guilty for receiving a good thing.
Smile
Sans chuckled fondly as he admired the worn, creased photos, tracing a finger over his baby brother’s beaming face.
Child
Papyrus wouldn’t mind having a little one to raise someday—someone to look up to him for his greatness and guidance, the way he had once looked up to Sans.
Waves
Seafoam swirled gently around his ankles, beckoning him closer, deeper, against his better judgment; if there was a choice to sink or swim, Sans would sink every time.
Moon
If Pap was the sun, then he must be the moon: a ball of scars and craters, whose only shine was a lesser reflection of his brother’s.
Hope
“But if you weren’t there to be the moon,” Papyrus answered, so simply, so kindly, “who else would be a light in the darkness?”
Heaven
Most gods Sans heard about were not gods of mercy, but he would keep looking; he would find the one who gave eternal peace as a gift, not as something to bargain for.
Completion
As his wavering steps gave out and the twirling lights softly faded, Sans closed his eyes and breathed, soundless, “Finally.”
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