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#this stuff is relevant to far more than ao3 but these seem like safe tags since they apply there
mementomoriifics · 3 years
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Red Hot - Kirishima x Reader (NSFW)
Tags: Alpha/Beta/Omega dynamics, alpha!Kiri, omega!reader, mating cycles, mating bites, some blood, unprotexted sex (don't do this kids), knotting
Wordcount: 2475
Author's Note: Kirishima is 18+ in this fic. it's also a rework of an old fic from a deleted account so if you recognize this, shhh no you don't
AO3 link
─── ・ 。゚☆: *.☽ .* :☆゚. ───
Living with Kirishima Eijiro currently felt like the biggest mistake you’ve ever made in your life.
Not because he was a bad roommate or anything, no, far from it. Kirishima was nothing if not courteous. He always paid his share of the rent and utilities on time, he gave you your space, gave you heads up about when he would be out of town and such. In short, a model roommate.
You’d even been eager as hell to move in with the man you’d called your best friend ever since high school. (And your crush but that’s a part you were very much denying)
In your eagerness, however, you’d overlooked two key factors.
One, you were an omega, he an alpha
Two, you would inevitably go into heat. In your shared living space. While the alpha was just in the other room, smelling like leather and strawberries and driving you absolutely mad.
When the inevitable happened, you’d ignored the red flags at first. Like how Kirishima smelled even better than he usually did. Or how it felt like someone had been dicking around with the thermostat. Or why you had started to hoard everything soft and comfortable in the apartment.
And as luck would have it, it didn’t dawn on you that your heat had started until it was much too late.
You woke up one morning, your head feeling like it was stuffed full of cotton balls. The next thing you noticed was how absolutely warm you felt, kicking off the blankets to get some fresh air. You were confused, until you felt how wet you were. Your thighs were coated in slick and panic rose in you.
You cast a glance at your alarm clock and shot a prayer to whatever deity was listening that Kirishima had already left for his shift two hours ago. Your worrying wasn’t over, though, as you fumbled with your phone while you were still coherent and called out of work.
Your boss, a beta you got along with decently well, was thankfully extremely understanding about the situation. Not that it made the entire ordeal less embarrassing.
The rest of the day you seemed to float by solely on your instincts. With the fuzzy feeling in your head persisting, you made a nest for a mate you didn’t have, piling together whatever clothes, pillows and blankets you could find. You’d even swiped Kirishima’s Crimson Riot branded blanket, one of his most prized possessions.
That made you feel guilty, just a little.
Said blanket, however, proved to be the anchor still keeping you grounded as your heat worsened. You would bury your face into it, Kiri’s scent filling your senses. It made you feel safe, protected in a way. Just like how Kirishima had always been that for you, like a rock for you to lean on, pun intended. So selfless and strong and handsome…
You had long foregone any sort of modesty, your hand having found its home between your trembling thighs as you kept pressing your face into the blanket you stole.
You felt guilty about doing so, but your instincts overpowered your rational thinking.
Kirishima hadn’t asked for this, for you to defile his stuff, for you to masturbate to the thought of him, and you were eighty percent sure your friend was pining after Bakugo. He had to be, with the awe he carried in his voice whenever the blond was brought up in conversation.
There was no way in hell he’d mate with you, or mark you, and you felt something akin to heartbreak at the thought of it all.
But your heat riddled thoughts were quick to dismiss your hurt, wanting nothing more than for Kiri to come home, find you a dripping wet mess and fuck pups into you. For those sharp teeth to sink into your shoulder to mark you, for his hands to grip your hips so hard he’d leave behind bruises. For him to wreck you completely. Your feelings were something you could sort through later. The only thing relevant now was the burning need that made itself your master.
Your fantasies about Kirishima were running rampant as you fingered yourself, three fingers knuckle deep inside yourself as you pictured them being his instead. You needed relief, you needed-
“Eijirou!”
You all but screamed as your climax washed over you, making your whole body shake at the intensity of it. Your face was dug into the blanket, taking in every bit of Kirishima’s scent still lingering on it. You were drooling, feeling achingly empty as your body contracted to milk a cock that wasn’t there.
You were panting, coming down from your high as you looked towards the door briefly, a vague part of you thinking of getting some water. That thought was quickly flung out the window as to your absolute horror, Kirishima stood in your doorway, gym bag falling from his hand.
Tears of embarrassment welled up in your eyes as you pulled the nearest object - that fucking blanket - over yourself to hide. To safe at least a little of your modesty, though you were pretty sure Kirishima now got an eyeful of all of you.
“Kiri, I’m sorry. I didn’t- I’m-”
You were properly crying at this point, dread and embarrassment coiling inside of your head. Your roommate and best friend had just caught you fucking yourself to the idea of him. How long had he stood there? How much had he seen?
God, if the earth could swallow you whole, you’d be grateful.
A sudden calming wave of Kirishima’s scent filled the room, forcing your shaking body to relax. You heard him come closer, the bed dipping as he sat down on it.
You refused to leave your self-made cocoon of shame, not wanting to face Kirishima right now. But it seemed he had different plans.
He carefully peeled the blanket away, his face almost matching his long, spiky hair as he looked at you. There was a look of concern etched on his face that took you entirely off guard.
“Are… Are you okay?”
You blinked a few times, a little baffled by his reaction to the situation. You nodded, biting your bottom lip and ignoring a fresh wave of tears.
“You were… You’re in-”
“-heat, yeah.” you finished his sentence, looking away and wanting nothing more than to hide under the blanket again.
Kirishima cleared his throat, shifting in place. Sweat started to appear on his forehead, his scent more potent.  It was obvious you were getting to him. Or rather, your heat was doing things to him. But sweet, sweet Kiri was too much of a gentleman to act on it. The feeling of guilt got worse and the tears finally spilled.
“Can I… Help?” He asked, his voice soft. You cast a sideways glance at him and he seemed to be giving you puppy eyes you didn’t think alpha’s were capable of.
Your heart both melted and broke a little bit. Kirishima was too kind for his own good, too caring. You didn’t deserve-
“What about Bakugo?” You blurted out, Kirishima looking very confused.
“What about-? What do you mean?” He asked, eyebrows furrowed in confusion.
“Aren’t you,” you swallowed, looking down and second guessing your assumptions. “Aren’t you… In love with-”
You couldn’t even finish your sentence, the redhead laughing loudly. His shoulders shook with mirth as he doubled over, one hand on his stomach. Your face turned even redder, something you didn’t think possible at this point.
“What? No! Bakubro is bonded to Uraraka. He’s just my best buddy.” Kirishima snickered, still shaking with laughter. “I mean, sure he's kinda cute in a manly way but like,... He's taken, dude. Besides, I have a giant crush on you! I thought it was obvious.”
You froze, your heart skipping a beat. Your eyes widened as they darted to Kiri again, who’s face now definitely matched his hair, his smile fading.
“It wasn’t..?”
You shook your head, opening your mouth to say something but your heat thought otherwise. You crumpled forward, hand gripping Kiri’s bicep tightly as you moaned.
“Hey, easy!” Kirishima spoke, broad hands taking a hold of your upper arms to keep you steady. “I got you.”
The words were meant as reassuring but instead only fanned the flames that were in your lower stomach. It felt like you were burning up and it only got worse when you looked up at him.
Kiri’s pupils were dilated with desire, his mouth parted slightly as his breath came out in soft pants. His tongue darted out briefly to wet those kissable lips. You felt pinned in place by this stare and it made you feel so small and so fucking horny.
“Ei-chan. I need you, please.” You whined, using an old nickname you knew would get him. Eijirou growled, all but ripping his tank top off his body in his hurry to get undressed.
“Don’t worry, Omega. Your Alpha’s got you.”
You moaned loudly at the statement, back arching off the bed. Your hand found itself between your thighs again on instinct earning a soft "fuck." fron the alpha. Kirishima got up for a moment, ridding himself of his shorts and boxers, the seams of the garments protesting at his rough movements.
The scent radiating off of Eijirou grew more potent, more overwhelming. Your head swam with it and one instinctual thought came to the forefront of your lust-addled mind: He was going into a rut.
“Ei-chan. Please.” You moaned again, spreading your thighs for him in an attempt to coax him between them.
You eyed his length shamelessly as he stood there for a moment, taking in the sight of you. Your mouth started to water. It was bigger than you'd imagined, curving up deliciously. A black happy trail leading from Kiri's belly button down to the hard dick you wanted in you so damn bad it almost hurt.
The pro hero growled, having had enough of waiting and finally climbed between your legs. He pressed needy kissed against your neck and shoulders, taking in the smell of you.
“Patience. I’ll make you feel better soon.” He mumbled, one hand gripping your thigh and hiking it over his hip. You felt his length grind against you, gasping as the underside rubbed against your oversensitive clit.
“You made such a good nest for us.” He praised you, a warm feeling blooming in your chest. You wrapped your arms around Kirishima’s shoulders, digging your fingers in his waist length hair as he kept talking. “You will be such a good mom for our pups.”
“Give me- I need-” you whimpered, hands now gripping fistfuls of his hair, making the hero growl low in his chest.
“I will, Omega. I’ll give you exactly what you need.” He spoke, a hand reaching down so he could line his dick up with your entrance. With one, smooth thrust, he was knot deep in you, your head tipping back and exposing your neck in a quiet show of submission. Kirishima pressed kisses up and down the column of your throat, sharp teeth grazing the delicate skin there. He seemed to revel in the feeling of you around him but you wanted - no, needed - more.
You whimpered, moving your hips in an attempt to get him to fuck you. Kirishima, seemingly hellbent on drawing things out, nipped at your throat, a non verbal warning.
His senses seemed to return for a moment.
“Are you okay? Can I-?”
You nodded, wrapping your legs around Eijirou’s thick waist.
“Please, I’ve been ready since you caught me.” you half whined, half complained.
That was all the pro hero needed, dragging his length out of you at a painfully slow pace before thrusting back in so hard he almost knocked the wind out of you.
The pace he set was hard and a little rough, his hands and mouth gentle as he held you close, pressing kisses against any part of exposed skin he could reach.
“You smell so good, Omega. And you feel like heaven. So good. So… So… I want to-”
Kiri was lost for words, all the blood in his brain having vacated and moved south. His teeth gently scraped over the junction between your neck and shoulder, the place he could mark you. Where you wanted him to bite down badly.
He seemed to hesitate, his mouth parting and teeth nipping but never committing to a bite. It drove you to the brink of madness. You both wanted each other, right? Why was he hesitating?
After the so manieth nip of pointed teeth, one of your hands flew to the back of his head, trying to force him down. His pace slowed, fucking you gentle and deep. It made your head spin.
“Please, Ei-chan. Do it. Please.”
“Are you sure?” He asked. “Do you want me?”
“I’ve never wanted anything more in my life.” You spoke with more clarity than you had since you woke up.
Something in him seemed to snap and Kirishima pressed a quick kiss on the sensitive patch of skin before his lips parted, sharp teeth sinking into your skin. You cursed, holding onto Kirishima, your Alpha, for dear life.
Every fiber of your body seemed to sizzle with pleasure as the redhead pushed his knot into you. It took only a few, slow grinds of the alpha’s hips into yours for you to plummet over the edge, Eijirou groaning into the bite as he followed shortly after, knot swelling impossibly fat inside of you. The burning in your gut slowly faded, Kiri pulling back from your neck to look at you.
He looked borderline feral, hair a mess and blood staining his mouth. You smiled, gently smoothing down the unruly locks with shaky hands. He grinned at you.
“My Omega.” he said, smiling before he leaned down, nuzzling his nose against yours.
“My Alpha.” You echoed, leaning in and stealing a soft kiss for your… Boyfriend? Yes. Boyfriend. You liked how that sounded.
“’m tired.” You mumbled, hissing as Kirishima slowly withdrew his knot for you with an almost cartoonishly wet pop that made your face burn. The pro hero pressed a soft kiss on your forehead, gathering you up in his arms and sinking back into the nest. You felt wonderfully small and safe, cocooned in an embrace of muscle and red hair.
“Then rest up a bit. Then we’ll get cleaned up and we’ll get some food in you.” Eijirou said, smiling to himself as you snuggled into his pec.
“I want omurice.” You mumbled, already drifting off as fatigue set in. Kiri chuckled, pressing a kiss onto the crown of your head.
“Then I’ll make you omurice. Anything for my Omega.”
You grinned like an idiot as you quietly drifted off, safe in the arms of your Alpha.
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Dark Obey Me AU Outline, Breakdown, Game Mechanic + Specifics, + Some Other Stuff
{Previous post}
Kickoff and Quick Summarization:
Leviathan won a new preliminary horror game with VR aspects from a contest to test the game out before its actual release and invited Mammon and Yuki (MC) to play. This experimental immersion becomes too realistic when Yuki's latent powers takes the experience of the game to new levels when the entire House of Lamentation is sucked into the virtualization. Yuki, now alone and confused to the rules of this blended world of reality and simulation, has to venture through the house and recover the brothers from the game's influence. The game seems a little rigged the more Yuki advanced, so is someone actually pulling strings off screen or is paranoia seeping in?
Type of AU:
Mirror Universe, Interactive AU (you can help build up the world of this event)
Potential tags:
Horror, Psychological, Bloody, Dark, Angsty, Possible Sexual Assault, Death Is Allowed, Bodily Harm
Brief (and Liable to Change) Explanation of How the Game Will Work:
-After the House of Lamentation is shifted and adapted into the game's world, the seven demon brothers are also adapted to the elements of the psychological horror genre and placed as progressively harder bosses that MC has to get through to advance the game and undo the effects of what happened.
-The brothers that MC has converted back to normal will stay on their side and aid them in rescuing the other mentally manipulated boys, some even serving as necessary requirements to further progress. They can roam around the house and their rooms can serve as a temporary safety spots, but MC has to be with them to ward off the game's influence from trying to appeal to their cardinal desires based on their sin they govern and controlling them again.
-MC can try to appeal to any brother at any time, but if they don't meet requirements the struggle will be a lot harder and the emotional toll will be more effective on the chosen brother. If MC fails to convert the brother, not only does the next attempt become tougher, but MC takes damage deemed appropriate by the game based on the sin of the brother.
-The only exception to this rule is Mammon. Mammon is basically the tutorial. He's a mandatory scripted event to teach MC how the gameplay will be, and how they'll make it further in the game.
-Each brother is equivalent as a boss. The only way to progress to the next milestone is to release the grip the game has on the brothers' minds, but it's not as simple as breaking a curse like MC can canonically do with their powers. MC has to make a connection to the altered version of the demons, and to reach that connection they have to tackle each brother's insecurities and issues. Not like resolve them entirely with a heartfelt speech, and voila, they're okay again, but really reach into their hearts and remind them that they're not what the game has turned them into, that they're more than their sins and valued individually by MC.
-Thus having the proper brother on MC's side makes that connection a lot easier when it comes to certain brothers. Once that connection has been made and the game has less control, then MC can use the pact they made in the real world as the final move to disconnect the hold the game has in the virtual world.
-Again, however, it's not as simple as a few deeply passionate words and the veils are lifted from the brothers' eyes. Certain items can be found in each bedroom that helps strengthen the pact to mean something aside from a vow between a human and a demon. Requirements are necessary for progress.
-The pacts MC has with the brothers is a key relevancy to progressing the game. Without trying to appeal positively to their insecurities/fears the game has a strong hold on their minds and the use of their pacts aren't as effective
Rundown of What I Mean:
Mammon is the first demon MC bonded with and that applies itself strongly to their connection and relationship, especially in this event. I might be biased here, and not to mention I'm trial and erroring the story with my MC, Yuki, but I believe Mammon has the strongest connection with MC because of how he feels for them, how empathetic he is, and how emotionally aware he can be.
Mammon governs greed and already easily succumbs to his wants in the real world, but as of now in the canon story, he's grown a bit away from his sin, because of his relationship with MC, like most of the boys have. He can put MC above his own desires, and that influence deals a lot with how MC saves him after he attacks them in their room.
Mammon wants to sell MC's body, bit by bit, blood, teeth, hair, organs, nails, etc., as a means to pull in some serious money in the black market. Greed completely takes over Mammon, and he has very little regard for MC's life. When MC tries to use their pact's powers on Mammon the first time not much is really done, because the connection wasn't made. However, being the tutorial, Mammon becomes less influenced quicker than the rest of his brothers. MC has to remind him he's not a total scumbag that loves only money while Mammon is choking them out. So time is of the essence, because MC is physically harmed in this reality and can die as well.
I'll have a rough draft of this scene up later to better explain the process.
So Basically:
MC has to find items or something meaningful to assist them in helping the brothers become aware while under the game's manipulation, and then making a connection to their actual selves that helps absolve the mind control before using the pacts MC has made to finalize the severance, although it's not totally gone.
How I Plan to Progress the Event (Susceptible to Change) and Suggestions That Have Been Implemented by Other People So Far:
-MC starts the event off at the Lord Demon's castle with Diavolo and Barbatos before returning to the HoL to play with Levi. Before MC leaves Barbatos gives them two coins and a cautionary warning [credit to @jinxed-rose ]
-The unstable powers of MC conflicts with the game and locks the HoL and its residents inside the virtual reality.
-The game treats the brothers as bosses and turns their worst qualities up to 11. The small glimpses of how we saw the brothers in the beginning of the game before warming up to the MC is how they're portrayed in the game. They're meaner, deadlier, and heavily warpped from their original selves.
-MC can physically be hurt and/or killed, so the more of the brothers they can rescue the easier the game will be to traverse.
-The brothers are ranked by the order of when they got a pact with MC. So the optional progression between the brothers would be Mammon, Levi, Beel, Asmo, Satan, Lucifer, and Belphie. The longer MC has been in a pact with the boys the easier it is to sway them out of their brainwashing, but it doesn't have to be in this order [credit to @felix-the-lemon-king ]
-Another option of progress with the brothers can be psychological fortitude. What I mean by that is the boys' durability to withstand breaking down from their insecurities being provoked. So Mammon's biggest fear is MC getting hurt so he's automatically the first boss and Lucifer would be among the last to confront because he's mentally strongest and that's where the issues would lie. [credit to 13ineedpills13 on AO3]
-Levi is an optional boss that can be done early or late in the game, it doesn't really matter. If MC goes for Levi first, he'll be relatively easy to return to normal, but if MC doesn't get to him until later then he'll be a lot harder to help. If MC attempts to rescue the others before Levi and succeeds the game will make him aware of this. Levi will get more and more enveloped by envy and jealousy and his insecurities will worsen, making it harder to appeal to him. [credit to @sunshine-apprentice ]
-The reason Levi is an optional boss to go after at any time is because he has a mystery that reveals itself later as the event starts ramping up and big reveal towards the end. It's not really a secret if you read the notes on prior posts, but shhh. [credit to @felix-the-lemon-king ]
-Lucifer is the assumed main person to look out for, because he is the elder, head of the house, and most powerful and sadistic. He watches from the shadows and sets up elaborate snares and ambushes to sike out and slowly breakdown MC. Beel is more frequent around Lucifer's bedroom.
Somewhat Established "Rules" of the Game:
-Each encounter with the brothers during the actual moments of fighting and struggling will be violent and dangerous. Injuries will be painful and won't magically heal after the fight is done. [credit to syvintri on AO3]
-Death is very much possible, but it's tough for the brothers to die. It's not that hard for MC though. So, perma-death is plausible, but it's evened out with the two coins MC gets from Barbatos.
-The end goal is in Levi's bedroom, but it won't be accessible until after the brothers have all been released from the grip of the video game.
-MC's room is the only actual safe room in the house, so it's basically the headquarters
-Beel is the guard that routinely patrols the hallways, but he can be lured away with food from an area for a bit of time
-Each brother's room has a way to help figure out how to un-brainwash the boys, but they are dangerous to go into
-Overcoming the boys' insecurities and sins are a key relevance in progressing the game
-Line up of the boys in order as bosses (potentially): Mammon, Asmodeus, Belphie, Beelzbub, Satan, Lucifer, Leviathan
Concerns and Questions:
There's still a lot of gaps and unfilled holes that I'm not entirely sure how to connect properly. Trying to figure out how to write the encounters between the brothers that are being manipulated and MC/the brothers rescued is going to be tricky. Making sure the boys' characterizations stay close to how they would be will be a challenge.
So my questions for you will help me figure out what people would like to see and also help me connect dots in the story and plot.
A matter to discuss, for instance, is what a comment said on AO3:
"I think them interacting in a proper manner storywise when they are brainwashed is impossible, and such a drag to read. They should only interact during battles, and after battles, as they go on and save the others."
How should I go about writing the progress of the story?
Should I write it like an actual fanfiction, all detailed and specific and going at a constant pace, or should I skip moments instead of writing every scene that could occur to stay fresh and steady-paced, or should I try to base the chapters like actual event lessons in-game where stuff happens briefly and isn't very long?
Or another comment:
"So maybe this is just me, but I think it'd actually be more horrifying if the 'game' wasn't perma-death. Especially if everyone remembered despite any sort of revives or resets and with in-game injuries actually being painful. There's a high potential for angst is all I'm saying. But I guess that lends itself better for a normal fic rather than a choose your own adventure thing"
How should I write the "fight" scenes?
Should they be brief yet detailed or meaty with the conflict as MC tries to resolve the situation before anyone gets too hurt oor would this be good moments for turmoil between the brothers to arise and brawls break out ooor... I don't know what else.
How would the angst and heavy trauma best be applied according to y'all?
What kind of angst would each brother go through as MC tries to rescue them?
Some other questions:
Is the line up of the brothers as bosses okay, or should they be reconfigured to make more sense? Should it be linked how psychologically weak to strong they are or how their sins correspond to the next?
What would they be like at their absolute worst? How far do you think they could dive into their sins if they didn't have morals?
How dangerous would the brothers be?
How would the game use each character's insecurities and fears as their driving point?
How would you like to see brothers interact with MC during the confrontation? Or with each other before/during/after?
If MC were to die what would be the best way to take them out that would really fuck up the boys and devastate the psyche? Any brother is liable to maim or hurt the MC, but which one(s) could actually kill them? Or if a brother took a hit meant for MC, who would be more inclined to step into the line of fire?
These aren't all the questions that I have knocking around in my head and stumping me, but they're the biggest ones. I would like to hear inputs from others, BUT PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE don't feel inclined to answer everything that I've listed. Those are just questions that I thought of and put on this post as examples of what I'm trying to figure out.
Finishing Off:
So yeah. That's the progress I've made so far, both on my own and from suggestions and opinions from other people.
I'd love to hear what y'all have in mind or would like to suggest or a take on a matter for any scenes, interactions, or whatever. Even if it's ideas of your own that relate to something that hasn't been brought up or mentioned, feel free to comment it or send me an ask.
Something this extensive will require a lot of thought and work to be done right, so that's why I had the notion of making this an interactive AU
So, if you're interested or wanna talk about the concept, hit me up! I'm dying just to ramble about potential stuff or read viewpoints about the brothers that you want to see happen or stances for whatever.
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kae-karo · 3 years
Note
Kaeya and/or Diluc with the banter prompt "don't tempt me" or "you didn't answer my question"
thank u eternally dear anon for giving me the always-appreciated opportunity to write some kaeluc >:} (send me one of these prompts and a genshin character!)
make me melt again - T - 2k
tags: stranded on a desert island, no i haven’t done the event stuff yet, idk if we even get to that part by the time i post this, but i was inspired, kaeluc reconciliation, canon divergence
[read on ao3]
--
“You didn’t answer my question.”
“Which one? You’ve asked an incessant number of them over the past-” Diluc cuts his words off there. Past how long? The sun has set, of course, so he can be relatively certain that some hours have passed, but the exact number is as yet undeterminable.
And Kaeya is doing his best to make it feel eons longer.
“Have you even been paying attention?” Kaeya chides, coughs out a laugh. How he’s finding this amusing, Diluc isn’t entirely certain. This is very far from enjoyable, though he supposes it isn’t the worst situation he’s ever ended up in.
“I tend to tune out when you speak,” Diluc says as he glances over the fire to where Kaeya watches him, brow quirked.
“Hardly an afternoon on a deserted island, and you’re already rather feisty,” Kaeya says with a laugh. “How long until you raise a sword against me again?”
It’s the again that does it, that snaps Diluc’s neutral, unbothered composure. His jaw tics with irritation - of all the people to end up stuck on an island with, it had to be Kaeya, didn’t it? The one person among an entire world who happens to be particularly adept at pushing his buttons.
“You’re welcome to reminisce to your heart’s content,” he grits out, “but I have little interest in rehashing the past.” There is a reason he put all of that behind him, sequestered all his hurt behind an iron wall and locked it away. He does not need it rearing its ugly head now, when they’ve-
Perhaps not reconciled, but they are at an understanding of sorts. They are able to be in each others’ presence without causing problems, though he supposes such a tenuous alliance might crumble under the weight of hours spent on a deserted island.
With nobody to talk to but Kaeya, and nobody to intervene should things turn any less civil.
Not that Diluc will be the one to raise a hand against Kaeya. Never again - he has long passed that place, that dark well of heartache and betrayal. Teyvat moved on, and so Diluc moved on with it. He presumes that Kaeya has moved on as well.
“It was not a particularly pleasant evening,” Kaeya says, his words accented with the crack of a splitting log. Sparks fly up between them, and Diluc catches Kaeya’s eye. Immediately drops his gaze to the dark pit of the burning logs.
“I don’t care to reminisce over it either,” Kaeya adds once the fire has settled. His voice sounds...different. Quieter, less...gods, he can’t believe he’s dredging this word up in relation to Kaeya, but it’s less seductive. So very unlike Kaeya, or at least, the Kaeya that Diluc knows now.
He wasn’t always like that, so inclined to charm every person he meets. So flippant with his flirting that it sets Diluc’s nerves on edge just to be near him.
“We never really talked about it, did we?” Kaeya’s voice carries a hint of humor, and an outright invitation to talk about it now, in spite of his words just a moment ago. Diluc clenches his jaw, fights back the hundred-and-one questions that had burned in his chest after that night. It has taken a very long time to quiet them, and he does not particularly think that they bear any relevance now.
“What is there to discuss,” Diluc says, and means it rhetorically. Kaeya shifts, sticks a leg out and toes his boot off.
“A lot of things, I think.” His other boot joins the first a safe distance from the fire along with his socks, and Kaeya pulls his knees up and leans back on his hands as his toes dig into the sand. “You kissed me the night before that.”
Diluc’s gaze flicks to the side, to the ocean, and he stares hard at the soft flicker of the moon’s reflection on distant waves.
‘And what if I want to?’ Kaeya’d asked. What if he did want to kiss Diluc, then what?
‘Well...I wouldn’t stop you…’ The bravest Diluc could get, even with Kaeya. Far less terrifying to face a horde of hilichurls than to admit how desperately, in that moment, he’d wanted Kaeya to kiss him.
‘But you don’t want me to, do you?’ Bait, he knew it even then, but it didn’t stop him from riding that spark of defiance as far as it would take him. Far enough to lean into Kaeya, push him against the nearest wall and press his lips to Kaeya’s.
“So you do remember,” Kaeya says quietly - this Kaeya, in the present. On a deserted island across a dying fire from Diluc, after so very many years of careful avoidance.
“Of course I do.” How could he forget the rush of heat flooding his veins, the spark in his chest flaring to life at the taste of Kaeya’s lips? The desperate hands at his waist, slipping beneath the hem of his shirt. His own hands searching, too, clinging to Kaeya like he’d dreamed about doing for ages.
No, he might bury it deep in his chest, but moments like those do not disappear entirely.
“But you think that’s not something we need to discuss, is that it?” Kaeya quips easily, and Diluc glances back to find his sleeves rolled up to his elbows, now, his scarf and cape discarded. He looks...lighter, this way. Unburdened, but not by the weight of his excessive accessorizing. More that he seems unburdened by the weight of the persona, the facade.
And out here, who would he have to pretend for? Diluc has certainly never believed the performance.
“I think it happened a very long time ago.” And…
And what? He hears it in his tone, the unfinished nature of his statement. And Diluc fears to even discuss that night, for the fact that it might dredge up feelings he has never quite managed to destroy? He can hardly say that to Kaeya, he’d never hear the end of it.
To Diluc’s surprise, though, Kaeya only hums. Stares into the distance beyond Diluc for a long moment, his gaze unfocused. How does he remember that night? Fondly?
“It must’ve been easy, then.” A pause, intentional, and Diluc refuses to rise to the bait. He waits, and Kaeya continues after another beat of silence. “To cast me out if you never truly felt anything for me.”
The meaning of his words processes slowly, leisurely, a perfect match for the faint breeze that twists through Kaeya’s hair, carries on to brush against Diluc’s cheeks. The soft moment splits in two at the sound of another cracking log, and Diluc grits his teeth.
“Is that what you believe?” His words come out on a harsh breath, low and quiet. Kaeya leans forward, wraps his arms around his knees.
“Is it not true?” Bait, Diluc’s mind supplies unhelpfully, but he will not let Kaeya sit here and tell him that it was easy, that Kaeya meant nothing to him.
That it did not break his heart when Kaeya told the truth of his past.
“It is not,” Diluc says shortly, and he dares to level a stare at Kaeya. Kaeya meets his gaze in turn, and by all accounts, it should be flippant. Should be easy and light, and Kaeya should scoff and dismiss Diluc’s words.
The stare he gives is not any of those things, though. Kaeya watches intensely, with sharp focus and tensed muscles, and Diluc is not entirely prepared to handle the sudden weight of his gaze.
A subtle, faint smile flickers to the edge of Kaeya’s lips, a daring thing for how rigid he looks right now.
“Tell me it hurt,” he says then, quiet. Voice laced with a years-old ache that Diluc feels in his chest, and he’s seventeen again - eighteen, almost, just about. Tomorrow. But right now, he and Kaeya find a hidden alcove in the back of the library, and Kaeya kisses him until he can’t catch his breath.
“It hurt.” The words hurt, too, but he says them. Speaks them to the fire and knows that they pass through the flames to reach Kaeya.
“Did you regret it?” Cautious, probing. Diluc blows out a breath.
“For a very long time, I did not.” His gaze flicks up, just enough to meet Kaeya’s for a brief moment before he turns toward the ocean again. “I feel...differently now.”
The closest he can bear to admitting that he lost not one, but two irreplaceable people in his life that night. And that one loss was entirely his own fault, even if he’s learned to forgive himself for his father’s death.
“Time changes things,” Kaeya agrees, and Diluc watches from the corner of his eye as Kaeya shifts, climbs to his feet. “Care to see if it’s changed anything else?”
Diluc’s heart catches up to the words a moment too late, then redoubles its efforts at the idea of what Kaeya could be implying. He swallows, inhales dying fire smoke and grasps within his mind for anything to steady him.
A hand appears before him, then, the lifeline doomed to drag him under, and Diluc’s gaze drifts up to find Kaeya standing over him, a gentle smile on his lips. Not teasing, not put-upon or overly seductive.
Just Kaeya.
And oh, Diluc’s heart aches, begs him to reach out and take Kaeya’s hand.
“There’s nobody here,” Kaeya says softly. “Just us.”
Diluc lets his gaze fall again, back to Kaeya’s outstretched hand. He shifts carefully, lets his heart guide his hand to take Kaeya’s. And oh, the way his heart races when Kaeya’s smile widens.
He pulls Diluc to his feet, then huffs out an amused breath that puts Diluc immediately on guard.
“Are you not sweltering?” Kaeya’s free hand tugs gently at the lapel of his jacket, though, and Diluc’s brows furrow.
“Trying to undress me?” he asks, entirely deadpan, but it pulls such a sweet laugh from Kaeya’s lips that Diluc has to fight a grin of his own.
“I’m trying to prevent heatstroke, but don’t tempt me.” An amused warning, and Diluc sucks in a sharp breath at the hand that skates across his chest, the thumb that hooks around the inside of his jacket. “May I?”
Diluc holds his breath, finds it impossible to do anything but nod.
He will admit - though not to Kaeya - that he’s grateful for the cool night breeze that his jacket had kept at bay. Kaeya sets it alongside his own discarded accessories, then glances down at Diluc’s feet.
“Fine,” Diluc grumbles as he sets about removing his boots as well. At this rate, Kaeya won’t be satisfied til he’s-
A flush crawls up Diluc’s cheeks, and he rushes to discard his boots and socks alongside Kaeya’s. And, to his relief, Kaeya seems to find Diluc’s state of partial undress satisfactory. Again, he extends a hand, and Diluc does not hesitate to take it this time.
He leads Diluc across the sand, vaguely in the direction of the water, and Diluc takes a moment to- to miss this. The comfort of Kaeya’s presence, when it’s so often been little more than an irritation. He lets his steps waver closer to Kaeya, until they walk with their shoulders brushing. Kaeya does not pull away.
The water is cold when they reach it - or, rather, when it reaches them. It curls its way up the shore to meet them, and Kaeya draws to a stop as it swallows his feet for a moment. Diluc turns to watch him, to watch the sea breeze whip at his hair and pull it back from his face.
His eye remains closed for a long moment, a subtle smile tugging at the corner of his lips, and his hand tightens in Diluc’s in the short second before he opens his eye again, catches Diluc staring. His smile widens.
“What do you think, Luc?” Diluc’s heart stops beating for a breath. “Has anything changed?”
He steps closer, hears his blood rushing in time with the waves, and lifts his hand to Kaeya’s cheek. Thinks that he missed this, that he did not expect to ever have it again. To ever want it again, but here it is. Here he is, and here Kaeya is.
And once again, he does not answer Kaeya’s question. Just leans in, lets his lips brush Kaeya’s, and melts into the feeling of Kaeya pressed against him.
No, he might’ve said. Everything has changed, but not this. Never this.
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she-toadmask · 3 years
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I’m kind of in a mood suddenly so below the cut there will be me just talking about fanfics I have read or am reading and why I like fanfic and stuff because I need to just
Fanfiction fucking rocks the basic part before all the stuff about it as the story just...it’s so easy to access and there’s so much and it’s just all there on the internet I don’t have to find a physical book
And on AO3 (where 90% of good currently-updating fic is afaik) there is TAGGING where you will know what you’re getting into (unless the author suddenly adds a sex scene and only then updates the tags but at least they give a warning at the start of the chapter but it doesn’t bother me as much as it did a couple years ago as long as I know it’s coming I know it’s a tool and it has its uses) with character drama and deaths and all that jazz not to mention how Ash being a badass has a specific tag and just other random things having tags that are important parts of the story
Like there are multiple fics I have found (not all of them are living fics sadly) of writing Ash’s journey in the beginning differently, like there was one I saw once that I kind of forgot to keep reading where he went to Sinnoh (and was still rivals with Paul and I think their ship tag was there?) and it said it was following game plot and then there’s one that I definitely don’t have open anymore because it didn’t update for some amount of time where he had a Joltik and then a Ferroseed and it’s really cool and a different one that’s still living and it’s called Pity of the World and Jesse + James (who is genderfluid in this fic) + Meowth are good people and stuff and just steal abused Pokemon and they run into Ash and they all end up being travel buddies and Ash understands Pokemon (not literally of course that’s not this fic) and also just knows what James’ gender is before they say anything and also in one chapter Zapdos is in Gringy City and says something about friendship being for mortals or something??? idk we’ll see and then there’s a different fic that I was reading and lost when switching devices and Ash was raised by Pokemon and literally can speak Pokemon and it was really neat but I haven’t tried to find where I left off because I’m too lazy for that tbh but it is still updating it’s Symbiosis or Symbiotic or something like that
Most things involving Ash that aren’t shippy or weird like that (ok there are some I’m not interested in but whapdfajaldjakjdf) end up being really cool because he’s a fucking legendary magnet which can either be played for laughs or deadly serious or just not be part of the fic if it isn’t relevant and so many fics use Aura it’s really cool (including Pity of the World I think he mega evolves Pidgeot (who evolves before leaving) when he fights Sabrina who does not have a doll in this fic) and there are different ways they do it and the thing I was mentioning about his connection with Pokemon like maybe it’s just a bit more than normal or it’s just yes he is everything and I kinda skipped out on gens 6 and 7 of the anime but I get enough to understand what they mean in chat fics and when referring to it in other fics it’s really cool
I think I mentioned Creepypasta and how there were two Harry Potter Creepypasta fics, one that was one and was slow to update if it wasn’t dead and one that was on the fourth one actually I was wrong about what number it was I think and updates every two weeks the first one is more lighthearted/written by a younger person like Slendy is a character and Harry x a lot of the ‘pastas I guess and it takes place starting before 4th year and the beginning is kinda meh with some weird dialogue and absurd levels of Dumbledore Ron and Hermione bashing but it does call out some of the other legitimate problems like how the lake trial in the tournament just kidnaps people which is very big because it was Ben who was kidnapped so big yikes there and honestly it’s not what you want to read if you want something really high-quality and serious like not that it doesn’t take itself seriously but it feels closer to something I would have read when I was in middle school than most of the Sanders Sides fics I read (just using that as comparison because the vast majority of that is well-written stuff). Then the other one!!!! For one it has a much more realistic/developed take on the Creepypastas’ existence like how the stories are how they exist with Slenderman being a cosmic horror being thing more than a character with character which is always really cool and Jeff kidnaps Harry as a baby (he is Boy when he is with the Creepypasta and Harry when at Hogwarts and there’s some really cool stuff about how they’re different) and, having lived with murderers, Harry gives zero fucks about things and kills Fluffy in the first book long before other stuff happens, Quirrel tries to use him to get the stone but gets annihilated at the mirror because family and then Voldemort is just a giant white snake for the rest of the series so far and also because he sucks Lockhart tries to exorcise Harry because Harry is fucking nuts and it’s great and also Harry is a Hufflepuff and there is probably more Gryffindor bashing than is necessary and pretty much all the adults get bashed for sucking (like in book 3 the boggart stuff is called out for being hella dangerous for them also Harry can’t cast the Patronus charm make of that what you will idk what) though Harry does make for quite the conversation topic among the teachers, Harry x Neville is the main ship and Neville eventually gets resorted into Hufflepuff because the Gryffindors are being massive dicks to him, also Harry flirts with Draco because Harry gives no fucks and it’s great (also both books give Luna lots of love, like the young one she’s a Seer like from Madame Macabre’s old webcomic that’s dead as it gets and the long one she’s just a good character and shit) and Harry makes these books to spread Slenderman’s legend throughout Britain/the Wizarding World and Draco may have gotten one and survived???? but now Neville has one during the summer months (and also through feeding Fanged Geraniums or whatever live stuff and blood instead of bonemeal he is creating Audrey II and straight-up says something about having to call it Harry Jr. but that’s probably just a little joke and isn’t going to stay beyond this but it’s just fun because Little Shop of Horrors slaps) and I have big fear about him doing the stuff and getting hurt and Harry/Boy conflict will be scary
There’s this other fic I found when trying to find good fics involving Ash and it’s kinda weird and seems to be written by a younger author but we’ll see where things go, like Harry got transported by Celebi to the world of Pokemon and Giovanni is Silver and Ash’s dad and they live with him and also Harry does too and he’s in a wheelchair and also is really smart and I wish we had gotten to spend a bit longer seeing their dynamics before when Harry is 14 the Goblet of Fire somehow spits his name out and Celebi helps with getting Harry (and also the other three because of course) safely there without dying because dimensional travel is hard and Celebi is friend and Luna gets to be important here too I think she’s shown up as a named student and guided them to a room and seems to know things about the castle and that’s kinda all there is so far there’s a bit more but it’s not got a lot yet I hope the author keeps going it’s a weird idea but I’m looking forward to seeing where it goes
Oh I forgot to talk about it but there’s this whump Ash fic that was being written under one title but it got dropped and now it’s being rewritten with the same concept but under a new title and going about a lot of things a different way it’s just the same starting premise and the fic is Helpless and Ash almost dies multiple times and there’s this theme of adults failing him and also Gary fucks a thing up and Ash needs support and therapy (a good number of fics have Ash needing therapy but given the shit he’s been through that is not surprising especially from my limited knowledge of Kalos holy shit Lysandre was doing some mad shit) and it’s just good but it is a lot of hospital and Ash being hurt and almost dying so be warned if that isn’t a safe read for you
The reason I don’t just outright block explicit anymore despite the horrors of trying to find safe Pokemon fic on AO3 amidst the consensual porn, incest porn, pokephilia porn, etc., is I randomly decided to try and find some Sonic fanfic on AO3 because a couple people on YouTube have been doing Sonic story stuff (Sonic What If has some good stuff that’s just... what-if scenarios and then there’s Sonic Rewritten which takes a game’s plot and then redoes it but good like the Deadly Six having personalities or Sonic 06 not having maybe bestiality or Generations being more than ‘oh past and present stages now have nostalgia’ and Robotnik and Eggman are significantly different people in that one and it’s really cool) and I thought maybe I would find some good stuff on AO3 (which I have but nothing that I want to ramble about specifically though there was one fic where Eggman does Tails clone and then his original body dies so he’s stuck looking like Tails and it’s kinda wild) and I found a fic that was marked explicit because torture and violence (honestly it wasn’t that bad) and I like it and don’t want to miss something that I might like by accidentally blocking it and now when I try to find Pokemon fic I have to see Leon x Hop and Pokemon x human smut.
There’s one Sanders Sides fic that I was reading and I don’t remember the name nor do I know if it’s updating I think I lost it but it started from the beginning of the series with the Dark Sides being a platonic poly family and when they weren’t in the episode they were talking about it/the Light Sides and it’s honestly really really good and the author just decided to have Deceit’s name be Janus and it was amazing when it turned out that was his real name it was just great but IDK if the fic has been abandoned, I think I lost it in the shift, but it was really good (but sympathetic dark sides and unsympathetic patton and roman and logan for a bit so do be warned if those aren’t comfortable for you)
Oh yeah I remembered another fic I can talk about there was this one Creepypasta fic and it’s completed and it is a Jeff x Reader but it kind of just stops being about the romance after a certain point and just goes way off the rails. It starts like ‘oh this will be a normal x reader with mansion and Slendy is dad and Zalgo is probably evil’ and then NOPE SLENDERMAN HAS BEEN RAISING FAMILIES THAT LOVE HIM TO TURN THEM INTO CRYSTALS TO MAKE HIM MORE POWERFUL AND ZALGO IS AGAINST THAT and it just is great like I never see Zalgo being good, like Slenderman being evil or whatever is plenty common (especially in the innumerable ARG fics I don’t read because I don’t have the attention span to learn what the fuck the source is) but never in tandem with Zalgo being anything but chaotic evil n shit it’s wild and it’s great and also Slenderman’s parents have faces I guess idk that was weird also there is one smut chapter but like the author said you can skip the smut and I did and didn’t feel like I missed any plot stuff so if that’s a no for you just keep an eye out for the author’s warning. It is by a younger writer, as demonstrated by its daily updates while it was being written, tiny chapters, and some general writing style stuff common to younger writers, but honestly I just love it for being something so wildly different, under the guise of a typical x Reader fic.
Speaking of ship stuff and Creepypasta the trilogy of Sans x Creepypasta fics are amazing. The writer definitely improves over time, the beginning of the first book kind of has the weird ‘then I knew I was in love’ stuff from a couple of the pastas (then again I’m ace and demiro so starting romance is just generally weird) but it is just a really good series. Sans ends up with seven kids in the third book and, while everyone else in the Undertale cast is bashed in the first two, Papyrus does seem to get some redemption in the third, so there is that. Also Murderer Sans is a fantastic tag, Gaster made a deal with Zalgo to create the skelebros and Sans is more demon than Papyrus by a lot and Zalgo is trying to kidnap Sans and Sans’ children so he has his family together to destroy the world and wander free and it’s wild and also Chara and Flowey show up and also LJ being an angel is mentioned and relevant to the plot for a bit so that’s neat and I don’t know all the details of how it ends because I lost it when I shifted and didn’t want to find where I was but it’s a great fic (albeit with a few things I can argue on) and the author has also been writing other Sans x Creepypasta stuff but I haven’t read it because idk
I really wish I had a good Minecraft fanfic to gush about but I really don’t it’s hard to find Minecraft fic that isn’t tuber-based, either Dream and friends (which occasionally I find a good one but so much is either Dream SMP which I have no interest in getting into, involves people I don’t know from Dream SMP, or just is shippy or straight-up doesn’t have a premise I’m interested in) or Hermitcraft (I fell behind so I have no idea what’s happening anymore) (but also like Mianite and Aphmau stuff but not as much as used to, but now Dream rules all so), and it just sucks. Like if some of it was Team Crafted fic I would be on board like hell yeah give me that nostalgia juice but it’s so much shit I just don’t know. I love the idea of Minecraft fanfic because there are so many options for the world and you can either make your own characters and you probably have to but then there’s just if you use Steve Alex Herobrine or Notch how they are written depends on the author and I live for that shit it’s a big part of why I read Creepypasta fic it’s because I like when there are different ways characters can be done (not unsympathetic or sympathetic like Patton so much like straight-up different characters) like Herobrine and Notch are the big ones like good vs evil, involved vs not, serious vs comedic, there are so many different ways to play them and I’m so disappointed AO3 doesn’t have much of it and so much of it is just Dream stuff and it usually just isn’t what I’m after in a fic.
The only other fics coming to mind right now are two wildly different fics involving Springtrap x Reader, one of them is being transferred from Wattpad for copy reasons, complete with tiny-ass chapters and that language that’s just so middle-school in the best way possible (like William and Springtrap are different consciousnesses and they way the author describes their struggle at one point is just so similar to a stupid thing I did and I have so much affection for it) and the other is legitimately really really good and the reader-insert has recently found out that Springtrap is William Afton and has murdered many children and they are currently dying multiple times to help his victims pass on because they can see ghosts and it’s actually really good and I have no idea where things are going, reader has currently met up with Michael Afton, currently all purple and dead and stuff, and has learned about remnant (weird-ass shit from modern FNAF lore) and it’s getting wild. I feel like there are two types of FNAF fic, ones in the style of FNAF 3/4 and earlier and ones from maybe 4 onward. Like ones where the lore was basically ‘bad man committed murder against children and they’re possessing the animatronics and that’s why they’re trying to kill you’ and then 4 starts having some more expansive lore ish and then after that it just goes everywhere with remnant and scooping and even more locations and also the books matter probably??? There is this one fic involving Glitchtrap that hasn’t updated in a bit and it’s fun, I like the idea of Glitchtrap and really wish I could read more fic just centered around FNAF VR. Then again, BEN was always one of my favorites and after I stopped being absolutely terrified of Herobrine I really liked his possibilities, maybe I just like the story utility and possible execution of characters with wide-ranging powers over technology and affecting the real world outside of it, IDK.
Ok I’m out of ramble energy, and also topics unless I go more in-depth about specific character options, but my energy is gone so I think that’s the end of it. I typed 3,000 words about fanfictions I’m reading and probably could have talked more about some of them if I wanted. This is my new hyperfixation. I guess. At least I know I have one, it’s reassuring to know for some reason, like for a while I missed how much Pokemon was my life in elementary school and Minecraft was in sixth grade, like it was nice just having something to focus on, though maybe that’s just the college and depression talking.
That was good, I’m glad I did that. Y’all are loved.
If you seriously read this entire thing... Wow. I really appreciate you digitally listening to me talking about random fanfic shit that I like. You’re really really cool.
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Who Wants To Live Forever (The Witcher, a Highlander AU)
A/N: A warning was given. No assassins were sent. I wrote The Sad. Summary: Jaskier is not immortal, but rather is An Immortal. What better way to keep your head than to hook up with a witcher and pretend to be helpless? But time marches onward. And all things must end. Content Warning: Major Character Death, implications of suicidal thoughts Word Count: 1628 Cross-posted to AO3: here 
He would be needing a new name soon. “Jaskier” had gotten a little too popular and started bringing the wrong kind of attention. In the last town, while Geralt was off fighting a particularly vicious vampire who had been plaguing the region, a hunt that he said was too dangerous for Jaskier to tag along on, he had encountered another of his kind.
“We don’t have to do this,” Jaskier offered. “I just want to be on my way, entertaining the masses. I don’t care about the Game.”
“Well I do,” the other man sneered. “If you don’t want to fight, just stand still and let me have your head.”
“I said I didn’t care for it, not that I was willing to surrender and die.” His sword came out in a flash from where it lay, hidden, along the back of his lute case.
He held it before him, waving slightly, taunting the other swordsman. The man was larger than Jaskier, with a massive two-handed broadsword, clearly the sort to rely on brute strength over actual skill or talent.
“Last chance, don’t make me do this.” Jaskier’s eyes were stormy and the warning firm, dropping all the cheer of his normal tone of voice.
“Hah! You can’t possibly think you’ll win!” The man lunged, a move Jaskier was easily able to sidestep, graceful as a dancer compared to the lumbering fool.
“Okay, so we’re doing this.”
The fight was over even faster than Jaskier had predicted, the other man bleeding and on his knees, sword in the dirt far from him and Jaskier’s blade pressed to his throat.
“Promise me you will leave, never trouble me again, and you can still walk away from this,” he offered, pacing in a circle, never taking his eyes off his enemy.
The other man spit at his feet. “Just kill me already. You know how this goes, know the rule.”
“I do.” The bard sighed, raising his sword back and swinging it down viciously. “There can be only one.”
The storm rolled in from nowhere, making the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. He quickly set about tucking his lute and doublet into a safe spot, sheltered from what was to come by a trough, upturned and placed on the distant edge of the open field.
The first strike of lightning drove him to his knees with a scream. It was unsurprising that the man, with all of his self-assuredness and aggression, was a powerful player. Still, that meant this part, never his favorite experience, would particularly suck today. He could only hope he recovered and made it back to the inn to change out of bloodstained clothes before Geralt noticed. Someday, he might tell the witcher the truth, but it wasn’t a conversation he wanted to have now.
~
It was funny, he thought, how easy time escaped you when you knew that you had centuries. He hadn’t considered that when he’d attached himself to Geralt, all the way back in Posada, those witchers live an extraordinarily long time if they’re not killed by the creatures they hunt. And Destiny had been kind. The pair had managed to keep each other alive for so very long. Yennefer was of course, a sorceress, and the closest thing to truly immortal besides his own kind that he knew of. The one time she seemed to have died, it failed to hold her. Even when they added Ciri to their little family, she was a child with something magical about her, and seemed just as determined to outlive the average human, by will alone if she had to.
But he knew all too well that, whether it be a ballad or an adventure or a life, all things must end. Even love could only keep something for so long, and a life was not a flower, to be pressed between pages and held close with care until it was preserved for eternity.
If he had been able to keep them, it wouldn’t have been fair. The world had moved on. It was tame now, and quiet, with no need of monster hunters and mages in the wake of science and settlement. Geralt had seen it long before him, proclaiming that the world had no place for witchers anymore, and Jaskier had denied it, fleeing from the idea as if it was the worst monster they’d ever faced.
The four of them had stopped their adventuring near Oxenfurt. Jaskier had taken up teaching full time, Geralt guest-lectured when he wasn’t busy running the orphanage he’d founded. Even Yennefer occasionally deigned for a class or two, and then got bored of it and went back to her usual…whatever. Ciri was the least settled, serving as a diplomat and travelling the world still, only coming home on occasion to visit.
He never did tell any of them about his particular affliction. It wasn’t that he’d intentionally deceived them, but with their own longevity it never seemed relevant. Ciri was the only one who ever questioned it, once late at night while they both sat up with a cup of tea. He had shrugged and told her that he was nothing special, just very long lived. Which hadn’t technically been a lie, there were in fact a number of his kind (he didn’t know exactly how many but he’d wondered more than once), and her suspicious glare told him that he hadn’t completely fooled her, but she had dropped it anyway. He wasn’t sure why he didn’t admit everything, but after so long of avoiding it, it had come as a reflex to deflect.
~
The occasional challenger came for his head, and always he offered them the chance to walk away. He had no interest in power or being the last man standing. He just wanted all the time he could to read and wonder and learn, to love the world and love the three people he called home.
“Come back in a century,” he would say, “come back when they’ve left me. Maybe then I will give you my head; I will have no more need of it once I’ve lost my heart.”
When they refused, he would lead them away from the city, dispatch them quickly. He was not one to toy with his competitors, or even to take their heads if he could prevent it. A last offer of mercy, a feigned distraction to let them escape, a dive into the sea to end things a bit early.
~
Losing Yennefer had been…confusing. She had been caught up in some sort of magical accident at Aratuza that had left the magical school a crater of ash and smoke and death. At first, none of them believed that she was truly gone. After all, she had survived a fatal event before. But as weeks, and then months passed, they began to accept it. Geralt openly wept; Ciri returned early from her latest assignment, heartbroken and hollow, and tried to be strong for her adoptive father. And Jaskier carried on, the stability they sought as their world turned upside down.
Geralt had the unique honor of being the only witcher in all of history to die of natural causes, fading away in bed, a peaceful sleeping death. At the funeral, Jaskier had laughed about how he would have hated the distinction. They buried him beside Yennefer’s empty grave, and every three weeks they refreshed the wreaths of lilacs and forget-me-nots against the headstones.
It was just Jaskier and Ciri for a long time after that. He occasionally nudged her toward other people, suggesting that romantic connection and a family and all of that typical stuff might be more enjoyable than spending the rest of her days a spinster with her dear uncle. Secretly, it was because he was afraid. He didn’t know if he could handle losing her too, and if he saw her happily settled with someone who wasn’t him, he could disappear into the night, reinvent again, and not have to face the reality that such a day would come. It might hurt, but not as much as watching her die.
She refused. It had led to a horrific fight once, and they didn’t speak for months. He thought to leave then, but couldn’t bring himself to let their end be angry. So instead he had watched the Last Rose of Cintra blossom and grow, and eventually wilt, as all things did. By that time, the world was nothing like her youth, and a part of her had decided that it was time to move on from it, that it wasn’t meant for her anymore.
“But what about you, Jaskier?” she asked, lips dry and voice rasping. “You never aged, and will be the last of us. What will you do?”
“I am a bard above all else, and consummately able to adapt. I’ll carry on, and carry all of you with me.”
The night he buried the princess beside her parents, he used his savings to buy a boat, too small a craft to be called a ship, something he could pilot alone. The world was changing, and he needed time. A few years adrift to come to terms with who he should become, with everything that had gone.
He looked at the map and set his sails toward a little, distant point on it, marked now with his own flowing script as well as the cartographer’s.
“Here there [might still] be monsters.”
One could only hope. Otherwise, he might come back around and just let one of those pernicious little upstarts with only decades under their belt have him. Let pride be damned and it be said that only the witcher kept him alive all those years.
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damienthepious · 5 years
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i’m back on my au bullshit again fam
Made A Garden (Chapter 1)
[ao3] [ch 2] [ch 3]
Fandom: The Penumbra Podcast
Relationship: Lord Arum/Rilla
Characters: Rilla, Lord Arum, Rilla’s Parents
Additional Tags: Second Citadel, Alternate Universe - Childhood Friends, (categorized as ‘other’ bc arum is nonbinary when i write him bye), Lizard Kissin’ Tuesday
Summary: Rilla's parents take her out when they do field work. She's a smart kid, and she knows how not to get in trouble when they're caught up with their experiments and research. This time, they've taken her to an enormous, beautiful swamp, and their theory is that the monstrous presence in this place should be entirely dormant- which is why Rilla is so surprised, when she meets a monster for herself.
Notes: Once upon a time, I completely misinterpreted when the Concierge said that Rilla was meeting an old friend at the beginning of The Treacherous Heart. So, what if Rilla somehow knew Arum before the events of the podcast? What if, somehow, they were friends as children? Hopefully this will be as fun of an idea to y'all as it is to *me*, because I am hyper excited. I've got ideas for the time they spend together as kids, and then maybe some stuff about how this would change events later on, when they're adults. Also, I don't have specific ages for either of them quite pinned down for this, but I'd say that Rilla is somewhere between eleven and thirteen, probably? And Arum is a comparable age relative to her, with his weird monster biology. Title from the song Honeybee, by The Head And The Heart, and tbh the entire album that song is from is thematically relevant to this story.
***
She meets him in the water.
Her parents are busy. They usually are, but they’re doing Important Work and Rilla is always a little smug when they trust her to be safe out in the wilderness. Her father explained about this place; the swamp is in a sort of hibernation, just now. A period of rebuilding and regrowth, and the monstrous presence here should be mostly dormant as it goes through this process. It’s a rare occurrence, and probably the only time that her parents will have the chance to safely catalog the life, the rare medicinal plants and fungi that grow and thrive here. They aren’t far away as they work – they would never leave her in danger and she trusts that knowledge implicitly – but even though they’re in earshot (and the whistle they gave her for emergencies would reach them even further than that), she can’t see them.
Rather. She couldn’t see them if she were standing. Of course she can’t see them now, because she’s drifting, floating on her back in the water, and she can’t see much of anything at the moment besides branches and leaves and sky. She discovered a pond, clearer water among the more murky swamp, cool green dotted with lilypads she compulsively chimed out the species of as she identified them. The pond is small enough and the sun is low enough that the light isn’t too bad in her eyes, dappled through the canopy and gentle on her face, and among the cicada noise and frog noise and gentle lapping of the water she feels serene. She’s never had an exact feeling to match that word before, but Rilla thinks that she understands, now. This place is magic – her parents told her so - and it feels like magic. It feels sleepy, and untroubled, and safe. It makes her feel… something. It’s like the opposite of how she felt about serene. Instead of knowing the word but not knowing the feeling to match, she just doesn’t have the right label for the way this place makes her feel.
She knows that it makes her want to stay here as long as her parents will allow, though. It makes her want to sing, too, so she does. Soft, bouncing rhymes, mostly. Not quite lullabies, but fairy-story-songs, like her mother sings while she’s working, like her father sings in the kitchen. She thinks the songs sound even nicer out here, with the hum of heat and bugs and birds for accompaniment.
Because of how still her little pond is, she very easily notices, after a while, when the ripples in the water change.
She tilts her head backward, hoping that she’ll catch a glimpse of a heron of some sort, or a duck, or maybe a big frog, but all she can see is the waves in the water, spreading in concentric circles from a point near the shore, upside down from her angle.
Rilla furrows her brow, and lets her feet sink down until she’s paddling instead of floating, but even when she’s closer to upright she can’t quite see what’s caused the disturbance.
“You are trespassing.”
Rilla startles, splashing and spinning with a sharp indrawn breath. Behind her, there is a monster. Her hand flies to the whistle around her neck, but-
Well. Rilla has never actually seen a monster before.
He’s mostly beneath the water, with only his head above the surface. He looks like a lizard, with shiny mottled black-and-green scales, and a half-flared frill, and two small horns on the top of his head, and jagged, pointed teeth, and bright purple eyes with diamond-shaped pupils, and Rilla’s mind races, because this creature is fascinating.
Her mouth hangs open for a long moment, and the lizard glares at her, but he doesn’t make a move. He just sinks slightly down into the water until it is almost over his nose, a low ticking growl rising from him.
“Oh,” she says, hoping that she doesn’t sound as breathless as she feels. “Oh, uh. I didn’t know?”
The lizard’s eyes narrow further, and he lifts his mouth out of the water again to say, “That’s not an excuse.”
His voice is interesting, too- it’s half growl, but it’s also a little reedy, and petulant, and his inflection is a little off. He sounds young, she thinks, and he actually seems much smaller than she was expecting a monster to be.
“Well. I just wanted to swim,” she says, not backing up so long as he isn’t coming towards her. “Am I disturbing anything? I was really careful not to pull on any of the water lilies.”
The lizard’s eyes dart around, taking in the still water and the plant life gently moving in the soft wind, his tongue flicking out into the air. His low, continuous growl pitches a little lower, and a little softer, and when he looks back towards her he shrugs beneath the water, his expression begrudgingly placated. “Nnnnno… you haven’t disturbed anything… yet.” He lifts himself a little further out of the water, tilting his head in consideration. “But humans don’t belong here.”
Rilla snorts out a laugh, and the lizard, shockingly, flinches back at the noise, his eyes going wide.
“Well, yeah. But if humans didn’t go where we don’t belong we’d never go anywhere. And this swamp is a monster place, but it’s supposed to be dormant right now.”
“Dormant?” The lizard tries to sneer, but something about his expression looks more confused than anything. “It’s a swamp. It’s not like a swamp can sleep.”
“It’s supposed to be going through a rebuilding and regrowth period,” Rilla insists, tone utterly confident and her phrasing directly echoed from her father.
“It’s my swamp, I think I would know if it was…” he trails off, his brow furrowing thoughtfully.
“Your swamp?” Rilla asks after a moment.
The lizard focuses back on her, and his frill flattens against his neck as he raises his snout in the air smugly. “My swamp,” he repeats. “I am Lord of this place. Lord Arum.”
Rilla laughs again, and again the lizard startles, staring hard at her. “Arum like the lily or Arum like the corpse flower?” she asks, and he scowls.
“Neither,” he says in a more insistent growl. “Arum like me.”
“Well,” Rilla says, and he might be a monster but he’s so interesting that she can’t help her grin, “my name is Amaryllis. Like the flower, and like me.”
“Amaryllis,” he echoes. “Those are poisonous, you know.”
Rilla laughs again, and thinks, he’s not really trying very hard to make me leave, is he?
Then, Rilla's dad calls out her name. Closer than expected, but still out of sight.
Arum blanches, sinking even further into the water, until he is chin-deep. “H-how many humans are in my swamp?” he asks, voice frantic and eyes wide.
“Just-” Rilla almost swims a little closer, but she stops herself. He looks… very scared. She didn’t know that monsters could get scared. “Just my parents and me,” she says. “Don’t worry. They aren’t knights or anything.”
“I’m-” he growls, but it comes out a little weak. “I’m not worried. Of course I’m not-”
Her father’s voice comes this time, closer still, and Arum flinches, his frill flaring like a bird puffing out its feathers to make itself look bigger.
“I… uh. I should go,” Rilla says, and Arum blinks at her for a moment in confusion before he nods very vigorously.
“You- you shouldn’t be here in the first place,” he says quickly, stiffly. “I don’t- this is- this was a warning,” he growls. “Next time I won’t be so-”
“We’re gonna be here for a couple weeks,” Rilla offers. “Maybe a month? My dad says we’re not supposed to disturb a single leaf if we can avoid it.”
“How very generous,” Arum sneers, “and how very unlikely. Humans always disturb things.”
Rilla tilts her head, frowning. “How many humans have disturbed you before?”
“I-” Arum jerks his head back, his tongue flicking out anxiously. “Well. That is-”
“Am… am I the first human you’ve ever met?” Rilla asks, a smile starting to creep across her face.
“N-” he growls louder for a moment, then shakes his head. “Well- you- I’m certainly the first monster that you’ve ever met,” he counters.
“Yeah,” she says, “obviously.”
“So-” he scowls, gesturing through the water with a clawed hand, “so why are you not afraid of me?”
It’s clear almost instantly that he hadn’t meant to say that. His scowl deepens, and he lowers himself back in the water until he’s pretty much in an alligator stance, with only the top half of his face glaring up at her from the cool green water.
“I…” Rilla stares at him, and- well, she hadn’t really thought about it. She was a little spooked when he snuck up on her, of course, but he hasn’t really done anything. He has claws and jagged teeth, but so does the big dog that lazes in Festival Square and begs for scraps. Just because Arum has them, doesn’t mean he’ll use them. It’s like her dad says- it’s not about the weapon, it’s about whoever wields it. Her parents have always taught Rilla to believe the evidence, and currently, Rilla’s interpretation of the evidence is that this monster is just as curious about her as she is about him. He keeps talking to her, and he hasn’t even tried to hurt her, and he hasn’t even really threatened anything. Rilla isn’t scared of him because he hasn’t been at all scary. “I don’t-”
“Amaryllis.” Her dad comes out of the undergrowth suddenly, at the bank of the pond, scowling but looking incredibly relieved. “What are you doing? Why didn’t you answer when we called?”
“I-” Rilla looks where Arum had been moments before, but of course he’s already gone. She wonders if he’s under the water, or if he somehow managed to slip away in the moments before her dad arrived. “I’m sorry,” she finishes lamely, kicking her way closer to the edge of the water. “I- I just didn’t wanna leave yet.”
Her dad smiles softly and holds his hands out to help lift Rilla out. “You can come back tomorrow,” he says as he sets Rilla back on her feet, and then he tucks a bit of loose hair behind Rilla's ear. “You’ve still got time, sweetheart.”
Rilla nods, and then she stares back at the water, holding her dad's hand. She watches the ripples fade, until the pond is precisely as serene as it was when she found it.
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joeybelle · 7 years
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Starlight - Cassian Andor x OFC Chapter 4
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Relationship: Cassian Andor/Original Female Character
Rating: Mature
Tags: Pre-Rogue One, Romance, Slow Burn, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Foul Language
Read on AO3: Starlight
Summary: Cora is a doctor on an Imperial class Star Destroyer when a wounded rebel barges into the med bay. Having wanted to leave the Empire for a while now, she decides to save his life in exchange for a lift out of there.
Author’s note: English is not my native language, so there may be some mistakes that either I or my lovely beta @hostoyevsky might have missed. Any feedback is much appreciated, any questions you may have, I will be glad to answer. Enjoy!
It had already been a few days since Cassian had stumbled, almost dying, into the med bay and then stumbled, a little less dying, out of it, mere hours after having surgery. Doctor Crane had insisted that he spend at least a whole day recovering in the infirmary, but he didn’t want to stay there any longer than it was necessary. It smelled like disinfectants and death and it creeped him out. So he took off the moment he didn’t feel like fainting and went back to work.
His superiors didn’t agree with this decision and forced him to take a week off. He argued it, but in the end it wasn’t all that bad. He needed a break, even though he would never admit it. As things got more tense between the Empire and the Rebellion, he often found himself so absorbed in his work that he neglected even his most basic needs. So he took this opportunity to catch up on sleep and eat and take care of the personal stuff he had been delaying for months.
He still had to attend the intelligence briefings every other day, but that didn’t bother him. He liked to stay informed. He felt like he was still relevant even if he was grounded. It gave him a purpose and a sense of direction. It’s easy to get lost when you have nothing else to do but to listen to the voice in your head.
And right now the voice in his head was telling him that he’d made a huge mistake regarding the whole Corinthia Enoch situation. He had been so blinded by rage that he didn’t listen to the voice of reason, if he even had one at that point. She was right. He should have just dropped her off someplace and then forget all about it. Hell, for a moment he even wanted to help her get fake papers and maybe recruit her for the Rebellion. They were always in need of specialists, and a medic with military training wasn’t something that easy to pass up.
But then he heard her name and all his composure flew out the window. All the people that had been killed by Admiral Enoch and his ISD Corinthia, all the pain and the suffering caused by the Empire, in that moment, he blamed it all on her. All his bottled up anger had been spilled and he wanted revenge.
He started regretting it the moment he calmed down a little. By that time they had already labelled her a spy and locked her in a cell and there was nothing he could do to get her out. If when they had left the star destroyer she was no danger to the Alliance, right now she knew the location of their base, their names and who knows what other things. Even if she had never been an imperial spy, they had made an enemy of her. And he blamed himself for that too.
General Draven was a distinguished general and strategist, but he wasn’t very good with people. He dealt with armies and ships and troops, not with individuals. He was stubborn and proud, hated to be defied or contradicted, and Corinthia was nothing if not defiant. He had made it his personal quest to expose her and drain her of all her secrets. From what he’d heard he was conducting the interrogations himself, which wasn’t that odd given the importance of the prisoner, but to Cassian this wasn’t a good sign. He was afraid the general would turn this into a personal vendetta.
On the other side, Mon Mothma had changed her opinion on the doctor a little after Cassian had been debriefed on the mission and actually objectively spoke in her favour a couple of times. He had told them everything that had happened and he didn’t avoid emphasising her role in the success of the mission. Draven argued that they had too much luck leaving the ship so they had to have been allowed to leave and she was too well prepared not to be a spy. Cassian didn’t think of it that way. Yes, they had both been very lucky getting out of there, but she had no way of knowing he would stumble into her infirmary one day. It’s not like she had been trained to do this and that if she ever ran into a rebel. It wasn’t a believable scenario. She had a bag ready, but no matter how much they had searched it they still didn’t find anything that would prove their assumption that she was an agent working for the enemy. She had some clothes, medical supplies and equipment, survival gear, some personal effects, a blaster gun and 20000 credits in coins. It looked like the bag of someone who really wanted to run away. She had seen him as her ticket to freedom. And he put her in jail. So much for gratitude.
At the end of the meeting Cassian realized he hadn’t heard half of what was discussed and cursed himself for letting his guilt get the best of him. He was supposed to be level-headed and smart, but right now he wasn’t displaying any of those traits and it was getting on his nerves. Which, of course, made him even less focused.
General Draven asked him to stay behind after the meeting and Cassian had a bad feeling about that. He wasn’t allowed to go on missions yet, as per doctor’s orders, even if his wound had almost healed, so he assumed what Draven wanted to talk to him about had something to do with Corinthia and right now he wanted to stay as far away from her as possible.
“Captain,” the general addressed him, closing the door after the others had left the room. “How’s your injury?”
“Much better, thank you.”
“You take your time and rest. We wouldn’t want to lose your services,” he continued, fiddling with some datapads.
“I will, thank you.” Cassian was sure he didn’t keep him there just to ask him about his health, so he was waiting patiently for the general to get to the point.
“About our prisoner…” he finally spoke. “We haven’t been doing much progress.”
That much Cassian knew. He expected the doctor to be difficult, but they had their ways of getting the information out of people so it was just a matter of time until they broke her.
“She refuses to tell us anything relevant,” the general continued.
“Have you tried everything?” Cassian asked, furrowing his brows.
“No! No.” Daven started rubbing his eyes like he was too tired for this. “Commander Mothma opposes the use of any kind of force or… coercive measures in this case. She thinks that we can still win her over as an ally, and torturing her if she’s innocent wouldn’t be a moral thing to do.”
“And what do you think, General?” Cassian took the liberty to ask.
“I think that innocent or not she may have information we need. What’s the sacrifice of one, when you could save millions? Don’t you think so, Captain?” he asked, giving him a sideways glance.
“It’s not my decision to make, Sir” Cassian replied automatically, but a cold shiver was running down his spine.
“You’re right. It’s mine.” Draven took a datapad out of the stack on the desk and offered it to Cassian. “That’s what we know about her so far. There are records of the interrogations that have been conducted until now. She’s yours.”
Cassian reluctantly took the datapad. “With all due respect, Sir, I doubt that she’ll be more willing to talk to me.”
“Then make her. Threaten her, earn her trust, lie to her. Hell, torture her if necessary and I’ll deal with Senator Mothma later, but find out what we need to know.” There was a mask of anger not very well hidden on the general’s face and Cassian wondered what exactly was making him lose his composure like that.
“What if she doesn’t know anything useful?” he asked, without looking the general in the eye.
Draven came closer and put a hand on his shoulder in an act of reassurance. “Then it’s my mistake. Your conscience is clear, Captain.” The general’s hand felt heavy on his shoulder.
Cassian replied with a very unconvincing nod.
He looked over the data pad with disgust. Once again he had to do something he dreaded. Usually he could keep his conscience silent by repeating that this had to be done and if he did it, no one else had to go through this moral debate. But today wasn’t one of those days and the voice in his head kept screaming at him that it wasn’t worth the damage it was doing.
He saluted and left the room thinking that he should have stayed in the fucking hospital for a month.
*
The nights were the worst. During the day she could find ways to entertain herself, whether she tried to see animals in the discolorations on the floor, or counted the iron bars for the millionth time, at least there was light and she could keep a part of her brain busy.
At night, surrounded by darkness, she felt lost. It wasn’t complete darkness, fortunately. The lights on the corridor were always on, but dimmed so that it took some effort to distinguish anything. There was also a small night light above her bed, but that one would automatically turn off after five minutes, so it was useful if you needed to use the toilet, but not much else.
In the dim light her cell looked eerie, like the deep dark shadows could come to life. She had never been afraid on the dark, not as far as she could remember, but in here it seemed at the same time endless and constricting. Claustrophobic was also something she had never imagined she’d end up being, having lived most of her life either on ships or in boarding schools where space had always been a luxury. But in this cell there was nothing that made her feel safe, that made her feel at home. It was just a box and it was suffocating her.
Her nightmares were back, too. On the ship she managed to keep them at bay by working long hours and going to bed so tired she almost fainted. And if that didn’t work, there were always the pills. Even if she woke up in the middle of the night she would just turn on the light and maybe read a few lines from a book until the dream was forgotten and she could go back to sleep. Now, with nothing but darkness surrounding her, the nightmares felt real.
She dreamt of darkness and screams and running scared of threats that she couldn’t define. Sometimes she dreamt that she was choking and dying slowly, sometimes she dreamt that she had to kill the ones she loved. The pain and the fear were ever-present. And every time she woke up, her heart beating a million times a minute, she struggled to realize that it was just a dream. When you live in darkness and dream about darkness it is so easy to get the two mixed up. So she gave up sleeping at night altogether.
The “night” lasted nine hours. She knew because she had counted how many times she had to turn on the night light until it the main lights came back on. She always felt relieved when it was finally “day” and she could go to sleep knowing that if she woke up from a nightmare at least she could recognize her surroundings. She tried to keep busy at night by pretending she had an exam in the morning and she had to revise, so she spent most of the time remembering the theoretical parts of her medical training. It felt familiar, she had done it a million times during her school years and it helped her stay grounded. Occasionally she’d fall asleep, but most of the time she could stay awake long enough for the night to pass without any incidents.
She usually slept until noon. She guessed that because she woke up around the time the guards would bring her lunch. She was starting to get used to the food, it tasted like mud but it was an edible sort of mud. She missed the food on the ship though, at least there they put up an effort to make it look nourishing. Actually she missed everything about her former life, including her colleagues and the whiny stormtroopers. Most of all she missed the illusion of being in control of her life.
After a particularly restless night, as she was sitting cross-legged on the bed, her back to the wall trying to alleviate the pain in her spine, Cassian appeared in front of her cell. She didn’t expect to see him again. He never took part in her hearings, it was always someone else asking the questions. There was no reason for him to visit her alone unless he wanted to personally twist the knife in her metaphorical wounds. Well, maybe that was the exact reason he was there.
“I thought I smelled shit,” she spoke, her voice betraying her exhaustion, “but I never thought you’d materialize in front of me.” She smiled but she was too tired to keep it on her face for more than a second.
The rebel approached her cell and leaned on the metal bars. He had lost his frown and his body language showed less hostility than last time she saw him. She couldn’t help but notice that he looked good. Not that he was ugly before, but now he looked well rested and clean. His hair and beard were groomed and his sand coloured uniform fit him. He was doing well while she hadn’t seen herself in a mirror since… She wasn’t sure how long she had spent in that dreaded cell.
“Does it make you feel better throwing insults at everyone?” he asked her, lifting an eyebrow.
“Obviously, fuckwad, otherwise I wouldn't be doing it.” It didn’t make her feel better. Nothing short of a mild coma would make her feel better at that point. There was a perpetual sneer imprinted on her face, she didn’t have to look into a mirror to know it was there. “Did they sent you here to interrogate me?” she asked for the sake of making conversation.
“Yes,” he answered, looking at her through the bars.
“Not a great plan.” She uncrossed her legs and got up the bed. Pain shot through her back again but she did her best to hide it.
“Maybe it’s not. But maybe it is.”
“What makes you think that?” She took a few steps closer to the door.
“If you cooperate, maybe I can help you out a little.” His voice was even and professional, not betraying any emotion.
Cora crossed her arms over her chest and leaned on the bars, somewhat mirroring his position. She was close enough that she could just stick out her hand and touch him.
“Oh, you’ve helped enough, thank you very much,” she said, putting as much venom in her words as she could. “I ain’t telling you shit.”
“Are you sure?” He tilted his head a little and the light emphasized the angles of his face. “You aren’t getting out of here anytime soon, and I could make your stay a little more bearable. Let’s make a deal, you answer one of my questions, I’ll bring you a book.”
Cora didn’t think, she acted. She slipped her hand through the bars and missed his nose by only a few millimeters. She really wished she could leave him with at least a scratch on his face for having the nerve to propose a deal to her after what he had done. But he was a lot faster than her, she had to admit. Almost like...
“A weasel!” Cora started laughing. It was a nervous, hysterical laughter, that had no happiness in it. She took a step back from the door, running her hands over her face and then through her hair. She was laughing so hard she had to sit down on the stone floor in order not to stumble and fall.
“A what?” Confusion could be read all over Cassian’s face as he approached the cell once again.
“You look just like a weasel,” she said when she finally stopped laughing. She hadn’t laughed in so long it felt strange and invigorating, even though it was just a byproduct of her fatigue. “Small furry creatures,” she said, trying to get her breathing under control and wipe the tears that had formed in the corners of her eyes, “with cute little faces and noses and tiny little toes. Really cute, but annoying as fuck. They’re so fast and flexible and full of energy and they keep slipping through your fingers when you play with them. I kept thinking you reminded me of something, I just couldn’t put my finger on what it was.” With her breathing steady she got up the floor and dusted herself, even though a little dust couldn’t make her look more deplorable than she already was. Cassian still looked genuinely confused, so she continued.  
“One of the girls at school had one. We weren’t allowed pets but she hid it in the dormitory and let us play with it from time to time. It was a cute little critter.” She sighed, remembering the rest. “They found it eventually and killed it.”
She didn’t need this memory. She didn’t need any of the memories from boarding school to come flooding back, but it was too late for that. Her brain refused to let go of anything that could keep it busy for a while. “I don’t know what they did to the girl,” Cora continued, unable to stop now that she had opened up, “but she didn’t speak for a week after that. We never asked her, you learn really fast to not ask questions.”
She turned around and lay on the bed, feeling exhausted again. The high given by the sudden outburst of laughter was now gone and it left her even more drained of energy than before.
“Can you tell me more about your school?” Cassian asked, and Cora thought once again that his voice was pleasant when he wasn’t angry. She looked at him. He was resting his forearms on one of the horizontal bars of the door.
“It’s not a nice place,” she finally told him, turning to face the wall. “Never send your children there.” She pulled the blanket over her head trying to shut the outside world out, but more than that to stop him from seeing the tears that had started running freely on her cheeks.
When she finally gathered the courage to turn around, he was gone. She was alone once again.
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