#vi: running shield
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MAKEUP OR MAKEOUT? - j. champion
You're a new makeup artist, making your debut on Scream VI. Everything seemed to be going well until you were assigned Jack Champion, who always ran late and seemed to give you nothing but problems. You were stuck with the 6 foot something, curly-haired boy for the entirety of filming, spending all too much time together. Separately, you'd claimed each other as enemies, but as time goes on soft touches and fleeting glances become too much for the two of you.
•
June 2022, Scream VI, the start of your career as a makeup artist.
Honestly, you were shocked when you were offered the position. You were 17. It was crazy to think that a big name franchise would offer you, a minor, a position in makeup for their film.
The only downside was that you despised the actor you were put in charge of.
Jack Champion, the only other minor on the set.
The first day he showed up late, spouting out apologies. But every day since then he's been late and every day since then the apologies and excuses have gotten worse. And he couldn't sit still.
It's been a month and a half of this, now mid July. You all only about a month left. Couldn't Jack get his act together?
The door to the trailer swung open, "Late again, Champion." You mumbled, glancing down at your watch.
He scoffed, "I'm aware, thanks, Y/L/N."
You two solely referred to each other by your last names. It was fitting, your first names felt too personal for people who hated each other.
You'd heard Jack complaining to the others about how he wished he had a different makeup artist because his didn't talk to him. Which was a lie. You did talk to him, just clearly not as much as he wanted.
He was already wearing his costume for the day — jeans, a light blue polo, and a jacket with a plaid lining. You didn't want to admit he looked good in it. Especially when he slid the jacket off and it revealed how the polo perfectly defined his biceps.
Especially not that.
"How is your hair always curly but not curly at the same time?" You asked when he sat down, pulling out a spray bottle, mousse, and your diffuser.
His hair frustrated you. Jack had naturally curly hair, but you always had to work so long on it every day.
He shrugged, glancing up at you. "Dunno." You shielded his eyes when you sprayed the water.
But also so you didn't have to endure his chocolate brown eyes gazing into yours. They were dangerous.
"Well, figure it out." You mumbled again, brushing your fingers through his hair to disperse the water.
Then you sprayed the mousse in your hand, rubbing your hands together and then through his hair. You stood behind him, running the product through his hair and ignoring his gazes at your through the mirror. His hair was soft in your fingers and you had to bite back the thought of your hands being in his hair on different occasions.
That would never happen.
He was famous, you weren't. And you hated each other.
Sort of.
At first, the hatred was very real. Now, he more so just annoyed you. But he also intrigued you.
Damn, Jack Champion. Him and his perfect smile and captivating eyes.
"Stop staring at me." your thoughts left your mouth.
You immediately wished you could've taken it back, but turned on the diffuser to hopefully block out any response he gave.
But your wish for him to stop staring only made him stare more. You'd noticed him staring, so now he didn't have to hide it.
Finishing his hair only took a few more minutes. You dreaded the moment you turned off the diffuser, now he could talk and you'd hear him. But he stayed quiet.
He didn't need much makeup. The directors had asked for all actors to at least have on foundation, concealer, and powder. It would eliminate any blemishes or redness, making it to where they would film the same scene over many days and have their faces looks the same.
So, that's what you started.
Occasionally, as you were brushing on the products, your fingers would graze his skin. Or you'd lose your balance and your steady yourself with a hand on his shoulder chest. The touches were doing something to you, and, unbeknownst to you, they were also doing something to Jack.
You'd two had been stuck with each other for a month and a half. Everyday, you'd spend time together. You started every morning with Jack and would see him periodically throughout the day when you were needed for touch ups.
Occasionally, you'd have to run your fingers through his hair to fix the curls or brush more powder onto his face when he'd get sweaty or reapply the foundation whenever he'd inevitably wipe it off. The touches sometimes would end up being more intimate than either of you meant for them to be.
You were nearly done with his makeup when it came time for lip balm. Typically, you'd give it to Jack to apply since it was one applied with one's fingers, but today you did it yourself to speed up the process. You needed him to leave. Your mind was swirling.
His lips were separated as you ran your finger over them. You swore you heard him breathe in quickly when you started.
There was definitely no way you'd look at him now.
"You wanna know something, Y/N?" his voice quiet when you turned to wipe your fingers off from the lip balm.
"Mhmm."
"I stopped hating you a couple weeks ago."
You swallowed harshly. That's definitely not what you needed to hear.
"Me too." you whispered, scared to admit the truth.
You went to walk away, but were stopped when his hand caught your arm. Your eyes connected and a whimper slipped past your lips, betraying you, his chocolate brown eyes held an entirely different emotion than you'd ever seen before.
"Jack." his name came out more as a warning.
You two were so different.
Your lives would forever be one's that shouldn't intersect. You practically worked for him.
Jack decided to disregard your warning, his hand moving from your arm to the back of your neck, pulling you closer to him. With a sharp intake of breath, your lips connected.
And even though everything inside of you was warning you not to do this, to separate now and request a change of actors for the rest of filming to stay professional, you didn't want to. This, kissing Jack, felt so right.
Your knees went weak at the passion he put into the kiss. Jack noticed, his other hand guiding your hips so you'd sit on his lap. You were still in disbelief when you sat down, just barely on him, one hand on his chest and the other in his hair.
You didn't care that you'd have to touch up his makeup and fix his hair. You were practically making out with the actor you swore you hated.
A call came over the walkie talkie you had clipped to the waistband of your pants, letting all makeup and wardrobe know that the actors were needed on set. You were sure that that announcement was the only thing that caused your kiss to break. Both of you were breathless.
Your eyes locked with Jack's once more, both of you searching each other's for any hints of regret. But there was none.
You swallowed your nerves, "I, uh, need to touch up your hair and makeup." Jack fought back the smile on his lips at your nervousness.
Jack's hands on your hips stopped you from standing up. Your eyes finding his once more, this time widened in question.
"Sit here and do it, I want you close for as long as I can have you."
You obliged to his request. Leaning over to grab the makeup products you needed, his hands sliding you further on his lap so you wouldn't fall off. You could get used to this. Being with Jack, touching Jack, felt normal.
Your fingers fluffed up the back of his hair, the curls you'd played with while you kissed. And you touched up the makeup you'd smudged, reapplying the lip balm once more, the product you'd been applying when he'd decided to kiss you.
Then you stood up, sliding off of his legs. The boy stood up too, sliding his jacket back on and walking toward the door.
Only instead of leaving, he paused, swiftly walking back over to you and taking your face in his hands — pressing his lips against yours once more.
You silently cursed him as he left the trailer, but didn't fight your smile this time.
#jack champion#ghostface#scream#jack champion x reader#ethan landry x reader#ethan landry x y/n#ethan landry#jack champion x y/n
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Stay the Night
here’s some old-school Bucky in Wakanda smut. I didn’t think I’d publish Bucky stuff here, yet here we are. Hope you enjoy x
18+, smut, fluff. It's just you and Bucky in Wakanda while the team is away. He tends to his flock, you wish he tended to you.
“Today is the literal meaning of ‘hotter than Hades’,” you announced as you collapsed less than gracefully on a broken tree log as Bucky Barnes shot you a look over his shoulder, sweat protruding from every pore in his tanned, muscular form, a tendril of long, dark hair falling into his glassy blue eyes from the loose ponytail behind his head.
Jesus, a man should never look that damn good, you thought, fanning yourself with your shirt, the material sticking to your drenched skin. Thank god the heat hid your blush.
“Bored?” he asked, scooping up a hay bail and loosening it for the goats he tended to munch on.
“Radio silence,” you replied. “I kind of feel like I’m in the way of the locals when I can’t contact the team. I haven’t heard from Nat, Sam or Steve in a few days. I am pretty useless at times like this.”
“That’s not true,” Bucky said, pointing at the water bottle you had parked beside you. “You brought water. I assume that’s why you’re out here in the midday sun,” he teased as you tossed it to him and he caught it easily with his right hand, twisting the cap off and guzzling the cool refreshment.
Every movement was pure sex, you sighed quietly as his throat bobbed, water falling from the creases of his lips and down his chin. Life seemed much fairer before Bucky Barnes.
“Thanks, Buck,” you rolled your eyes as he finished the bottle easily, crushing it in his palm and laughing at you, walking back to hand it to you.
“No, no,” he nudged your boot with his. “Thank you,” he went back to stacking and distributing hay as you said a quiet goodbye and told him you’d see him later.
You hated when the team was away.
While you’d made some friends in Wakanda, you were still finding your way and mostly felt in the way of working alongside the Wakandan defence and communications teams. They used a lot more sophisticated tech than Stark had ever provided you and you’d never admit it out loud, the tech was somewhat confusing at times, thanks to its gross advancement over what you were used to.
You’d always be thankful for T’Challa and his family for taking you into the palace grounds, a necessity, T’Challa explained. It was beyond amazing and his lovely mother, Ramonda, fussed over you to ensure you were comfortable at all times. It was nice to feel so welcome, but so lonely without your family.
Steve, Nat and Sam had left days ago. Wanda and Vis were off the radar (lie, you knew they were having some kind of rendezvous in Europe and had no intentions of interrupting whatever was or had developed between them).
That left Bucky.
After he’d been woken from cryo, Shuri had run every test known to man on him to assist in the removal of the trigger words, he’d gratefully taken up residence away from the hustle and bustle of the wondrous city and hauled his ass out to the farmlands, simply requesting the peace, privacy and quiet. For the first time in over 100 years, he was able to be his own man without fear of retribution. Sure, the dark memories flickered occasionally, but the words would never hurt him again.
He enjoyed the serenity in the sounds of nature, with the exception of an iPod that Sam had gifted to get him up to speed on more modern music than the 1940’s bops Bucky was more accustomed to –
You sighed, hearing the knock at the door, interrupting the reverie of mindless TV. It was late, too late for guests. After dinner, you’d showered and retired to your PJ’s – your threadbare, well-worn Yankees shirt (your first souvenir of New York City when SHIELD moved you there years earlier regardless of your disinterest in baseball) and loose PJ pants. “Coming,” you replied, pushing yourself up to open the door, surprised to see Bucky on the other side - cleaned up, void of sweat and dust in lazy sweat pants and a white t-shirt. A casual Bucky Barnes. This new development was not helping your crush. Not in the slightest. “Hey. You lost?” you teased lightly.
He showed you a bottle of Glenfidditch and you chuckled a little, moving from the way to let him in. Closing the door behind him, you leaned back against it, a little confused about his visit as Bucky simply didn’t visit anyone aside from Steve or Shuri. You only visited Bucky occasionally to make sure he wasn’t segregating himself, but he did usually prefer his own company when Steve wasn’t around.
“Got ice?” he asked, going to the kitchenette for a couple of tumblers.
“I don’t actually – if I’m going to drink aged whiskey, I’ll be doing it properly.”
“Ooh,” Bucky cooed, a small grin growing on his lips. “A woman after my own heart.”
“Blame Steve – a few years back when we all moved to the Tower… fuck, just after Ultron maybe? Steve brought out a bottle of this stuff and I’ve been a convert ever since. He said you guys would destroy bottles together.”
“Well, he did. I would drink responsibly though I didn’t know at the time I could put them back as well as Steve could with the serum running through my veins,” he said, bringing the glasses to the coffee table, cracking the top and pouring you each a glass. “Are you gonna join me or hang out by the door?”
“Sorry,” your face flushed as you skittered over and sat at the other end of the couch. He handed you a glass and gave you gentle ‘cheers’ before you sat in silence for a while, enjoying the smooth amber liquid. “…Bucky, if you don’t mind me asking, why are you here?”
Bucky raised an eyebrow. “I dunno – you seemed a bit forlorn today. Thought I’d try and be a friend,” he shrugged. “You’ve been pretty accommodating to me since we got here. I guess I could repay the favour even if you’re only checking in on me for Steve. And you’ve got air conditioning,” he tossed in the joke to try and lighten the mood.
“Steve didn’t ask me to keep tabs on you,” you admitted.
“Oh,” Bucky said, sipping his whiskey and easing back on the couch. “Do you like it out here?”
You chewed your lip, dropping your eyes to the glass. “I mean, it’s a hellova lot better than being shipped out to The Raft,” you admitted as he stifled a chuckle.
“True.”
“If I’m going to be on the run for associating with the team, it might as well be in one of the most securest places on the planet.”
“You chose well,” Bucky agreed.
“Would have been stupid for me not to take it. I owe T’Challa, and Steve, a lot.”
“They’re good men.”
“Absolutely.”
Silence overtook the room again though there was no discomfort with it.
“Thanks for havin’ a drink with me,” Bucky said as he polished off his glass. “It’s getting late,” he got to his feet.
“Oh,” you said, surprised. “Okay.”
“I don’t want to impose,” he said with a gentle shrug, collecting his tumbler.
“You’re not imposing. It’s nice to have the company, to be honest,” you confessed.
“'Nother glass then?”
“Definitely,” you said, hoping not to appear too eager. Bucky gave a small nod and poured again.
“I know I’m not much of a talker,” he told you as you sat and cradled your glass close to your chest.
“I just enjoy the company regardless of noise levels,” you shrugged. “It’s different when the team is here, but when they aren’t…”
“When they aren’t?” he pressed.
“I have too much time with my thoughts.”
He raised a glass. “I hear that.”
Your glass joined his. “Why are you in the farmlands then and not in the palace?”
He nodded slowly as you hoped you hadn’t overstepped the mark. Blame the first glass of booze – less than tipsy you would never ask such a question. “Just tryin’ to earn my keep – least I can do since T’Challa is harbouring an international war criminal, assassin, murderer – ”
You gave a gentle laugh. “He’s not harbouring you.”
“Protecting me then,” Bucky corrected himself.
“Maybe protecting you,” you admitted, agreeing.
You both continued a polite conversation, mostly about Steve and the team before you both started dozing at your respective ends of the couch. “I should really head out now,” Bucky said.
“Stay, it’s a million degrees out there.”
He gave you an incredulous look that told you he knew what you were saying, but staying was still a terrible idea. Suddenly overwhelmed, you realised it completely sounded like a blatant invite for sex. It wasn’t, you thought. Was it?
Trying telling your libido that.
“If you stay on your side of the bed, Bucky, and I stay on mine, we won’t have any issues,” you try to regain your composure.
“Are you completely sure?” he looked about as convinced as you thought you were.
“My God, it’s sleep,” you told him. “I would never deny you, of all people, Bucky, sleep.”
Bucky nodded slowly. “Okay. Thank you.”
“It’s far too hot to stay out there overnight. Enjoy a night’s sleep in the air con,” you joked. “If you enjoy sleeping in comfy climates, hey, you might even move in here.”
Bucky raised an eyebrow. “Here?”
You blinked a few times, not catching his tease. “Yeah, like here, the palace.”
He laughed. “Okay.”
“Oh, you thought in here. With me,” you barked a laugh, getting off the couch and heading for the bed, Bucky following a safe distance away. You stifled your discomfort with snark, “Oh, darling,” you leaned forward to cup Bucky’s stubbly chin. “Don’t think so highly of yourself.”
“Oh darlin’, don’t fall for me so quickly. It’ll only end in heartbreak,” he mocked in return. You laughed incredulously, thinking to yourself, ‘too fuckin’ late, buddy’ and moving to your side of the King bed and pulling the pillows towards yourself.
“If you’re truly concerned, here. Build a pillow wall with me. Put that hay bailin’ practice to good use.”
He sighed with a gentle smile, he was thoroughly enjoying this cheeky banter you’d suddenly worked into your conversation and helped you build the Great Wall of pillows.
“Perfect,” you said, fixing the last pillow in place.
“That is an impressive pillow wall,” Bucky concluded, stifling a laugh. “Failsafe.”
“Make yourself comfy,” you told him, laying back as he pulled off his soft cotton t-shirt and folded it, placing it neatly on the bedside table next to him, a habit he’d picked up in military training in the 40s and never really lost it, no matter what control he was under, you imagined.
“Thank you, sweetheart,” he told you. “It is a lot nicer inside than out.”
“Told you,” you replied with a chuckle, raising a fist to him over the wall.
“What is that?” he chucked.
“My knuckles? You’ve never knocked ‘knuckles’ with someone? A fist bump?”
He laughed louder. “No, I’ve never fist-bumped.”
“Then hit my knuckles with yours,” you instructed as Bucky did as he was told. Still confused for a second, his hand met yours gently before opening and clutching your wrist in his warm, rough-skinned hand and bringing your open hand to his lips. The rules of the pillow wall were suddenly crumbling before you. Destroyed so easily.
“You need to behave,” you told him, suddenly very nervous.
“I’m finding it so hard. We’re here and I know it’s not just me that is feeling this, sugar,” he continued kissing to your wrist and moving towards your inner elbow as he got to his knees. Your body betrayed you as goose pimples shot up and down your spine and you found yourself sitting up opposite him. “All I wanna do is compromise this pillow wall.”
You could cut the tension in the cool room with a knife as your eyes burned into his. Chewing his lip, he made no secret of his intentions as he licked his mouth and walloped the pillow wall away.
Suddenly there was no divide and you were looking at each like they were your last meals. “Can I kiss you?” he asked shyly.
“If you don’t, I’m going to kiss you,” you retorted as he skimmed across the sheets to you and pulled your body flush to his. He sunk his fingers into your hair and pulled your face to his, leaving a small kiss on your waiting lips.
“Is that okay?” he asked, almost afraid.
“More,” you demanded as a reply. There was nothing forgiving about it – you were suddenly craving him – his mouth, his touch, his body, his scent and he was surrounding you in a way no other person had before.
He moved back a little. “One minute – I gotta explain…” he breathed gently. “This is kind of my first time being intimate in a long time. I know this,” he looked at his left shoulder, ashamed. “I know it’s not sexy. And if you don’t want to be with me because of it - ”
You grasped his face in your hands, forcing his eyes to meet yours and kissed him lightly. “Believe me when I say I do not care, Bucky. I know you do but I need you to know, this changes nothing for me.”
“I’ve imagined this so many times with you, pleasing you and now we’re here, I just…” his soft Brooklyn accent rumbled. “I just imagined it as me. The old me.”
Your head spun – he felt the same way? Jesus Christ, assassin school taught him surely how to fool you into believing he barely knew you existed.
“Well, I only know this, Bucky – I’m pretty crazy about you.”
His eyes flickered. Maybe it was emotion, you weren’t sure.
“You’re the sexiest man I’ve ever seen.”
This time, he blushed.
“So maybe, you should just lay back,” you said, helping guide him to do so, his head settling amongst the remains of the disastrous pillow wall and you kissed him, he moaned just loud enough to hear. “And we have a good time, okay?”
He nodded, nervously. “Okay.”
“Now, relax,” you said, unsure where your confidence was coming from but you knew he needed you to lead him and you were going to treat him right. He deserved this – you, and all of you. All for him.
You ungracefully tossed the sheets from the bed, they’d just be getting in the way and crawled towards Bucky’s feet, grabbing the loose elasticised ankles and pulling at them, the sweats he wore drawn from his slender hips, descending his powerful thighs and calves before you disregarded them all together, leaving him solely in boxer briefs. Calvin Klein, how so very rude.
And dear, if your mouth didn’t water at the surprise he poorly hid in them.
Kissing his ankle and working your lips up the inside of his legs, tickling behind his knee, he shuddered. He shuddered hard. “Fuck,” he muttered. You smiled against his skin, lips moving again, your hands massaging his powerful thighs. Stopping at his waist, you crept onto his lap and pulled away your shirt. Bucky sighed, his hand reaching out to touch you. You leaned closer to him as his arm skirted around you, pulling your body flush to his to kiss you, your tongue tracing his full lips as he enthusiastically opened his mouth for your tongues to meet. His hand scalded your skin as he groped at you lightly, cascaded your side and tangled into your hair, deepening the kiss as his hips started to move beneath your body, his cock needing the friction.
You paused and raised a finger to him. He raised a confused eyebrow as you scampered off him to lose your sweats, no panties underneath. You didn’t let him get a good, long look at you before you moved to rid him of his boxers, hard cock free and you gave him a few encouraging pumps, his eyes rolling back. “Sweet Jesus,” he begged for mercy. “Please.”
“Please?” you raised a teasing eyebrow and sat on your knees between his muscular thighs. He was asking you to go down on him. You’d never felt so willing before to please a man as you were for to do for Bucky.
“Please,” he tried again as you could see this man didn’t need to be teased, he just needed to be wanted. Adored. Loved.
“Okay. Okay, now you sit back, Barnes. And you let me take care of the rest.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he tucked his arm behind his head, licking his lips as you took him in your palms before an encouraging kiss to the head and taking him into your mouth. “Dear God,” he managed to say through groans. His hand found your hair again, pushing your hair from your face to see what he thought was the most beautiful mouth he’d ever seen work over his body. “Baby, that is so good. So hot,” he encouraged, clutching roughly but not enough to hurt, just enough to spur you on. You continued your ministrations for a few minutes more before he guided you away from him, gasping. “Baby, stop. I’ll come.”
You blinked at him. “That’s okay,” you promised. “I’m a big girl, I can take it.”
He grinned at you. “I’m sure you can. But I don’t want to come in your mouth,” he admitted shyly.
“Oh,” you gave a gentle nod. “I thought I was doing something wrong.”
He shook his head, alarmed. “God, no. You were a little too good at what you were doing,” he reassured you. “Get up here,” he pulled you to his face to meet him for a lingering kiss. “You could kill a man with that mouth.”
“I doubt that,” you got suddenly shy, burying your blushing face in his neck as he guided your face back to his.
“Don’t get bashful now, sweetheart,” he gazed at you like you were about the best damn thing he’d ever seen. You didn’t know how or why, but the look turned you on more than any act prior to right then. You just wanted to make him happy, release him, and feel him come apart under your hands. “I have an admission to make, and fuck, I hope this doesn’t come across as shitty…” he said quietly.
“What’s that?” you asked, suddenly feeling very exposed regardless of you lack of clothing.
“Uhh… I don’t know, logistically, how I make this work without you on toppa me, baby. I’m sorry, I don’t want to crush you if something goes wrong,” he looked as though he wanted the bed to eat him whole.
And why, you don’t know. But his admission gave you the confidence you didn’t expect. “Is this you suggesting I ride you?” you gave a small giggle as he chewed his lip.
“Lil’ bit, yeah. I know that sounds so goddamn selfish – ”
“Giving me the power over you makes you selfish?”
“Well, it takes away a fair amount of effort,” he reasoned. “And you know, I wanna show you what I can do…” his voice trailed off, timidly.
And suddenly you understood. This wasn’t just about a missing limb – this was the pain and terror from all those years ago. The raw, never-ending trauma of Bucky’s initial testing, falling from the train in the Alps. Losing his arm seemed so minute in all of it. Years of physical and mental abuse, and psychological torment at the hands of HYDRA, of the Soviets, whoever was the highest bidder for The Winter Soldier.
This was touch, connection, feeling wanted and adored – oh, how needed to Bucky understand how much you wanted to be the person to help him.
You tutted him and inhaled, gently cupping his cheek, choosing compassion. “Relax, handsome, lay back and enjoy,” you instructed as he nodded slightly and wrapped his scorching hand around your ribs. It was such a simple act, but it turned you on so much. It felt possessive, wanted. “I want to make you feel so fucking good – will you let me?”
You don’t know why you asked, but you knew you needed to hear him tell you he wanted this too. “Yes,” he nodded shyly. “Hell yes.”
“Okay,” you leaned down to kiss him, reached between your bodies and in your warm hands, adjusted your body on his. Viewing Bucky as he felt you sheath your body around his was as good as it could ever get – his plumb lips drawn into his gleaming white teeth, his bright blue eyes hidden behind his long lashes. Giving him some time to adjust, just like you were to his size encouraged you as he lightly raised his hips in hopes for you to move. “You good?” you asked again.
“Better than, amazing,” he told you, gripping your hip and your body slowly started to move above him. “Jesus Christ,” he uttered, raising his eyes to look at you.
Taking his hand and linking your fingers as you relaxed and stopped trying to ensure his good time (it appeared ensured) and sinking into feeling so good yourself, you moved your hips more, craving Bucky deeper, hoping to find that elusive little spot to make you explode.
“Touch yourself?” he pleaded quietly. “Please, sugar?”
Appeasing him happily, he watched your free hand creep down your body and open yourself up to where your bodies met, your fingers putting on a show as you toyed with yourself just for his dark, lust-filled eyes. Your body tightened under the pressure and Bucky’s pleasured grunts and curses was certainly on the rise. His hand relinquished yours as he clutched onto your ass, forcing you rougher into him, his tempo speeding up and urging you to do the same from the friction his body caused yours.
“God, you feel so good. So wet, so warm,” he muttered, his breathing deepening as his hips haphazardly fired into you. “Are you close?” he asked desperately. You were, you so fucking were, you realised, his simple question bringing you even closer. You nodded as you pressed harder against your clit, desperate for your own release and of course, his.
He needs this, you reminded yourself. You needed this. “Fuck, yes,” you replied as he used his abs to sit up, suddenly so much deeper into you as you looked at each other face to face, chest to chest and Bucky kissed you. He kissed you with those beautiful lips and a tongue that knew exactly how you wanted to be kissed as he moaned into your mouth. He wrapped his arm around your waist and took a nipple into your mouth as you started to come – that was the move, the special way to push you over the edge. Realising this, Bucky grinned and looked at you, using those pearly whites to chew lightly and you were coming. Coming so hard that you felt like you might have seen stars as he let out a litany of curses and came hard too.
“Oh, sweet Jesus,” Bucky breathed, chest heaving as he rolled onto his back, taking your body down with him, keeping you wrapped in his embrace and softening inside you. Bucky Barnes liked to cuddle, you realised.
“Holy shit,” you managed to say as you tried to settle your breathing. “That was fantastic.”
“Really?” he asked bashfully. He looked you in the eye and begged you weren’t lying to him. You nodded and tenderly kissed him. “Good,” he gave a small, shy smile and suddenly appeared so boyish. “Thank you.”
“You don’t have the thank me,” you told him. “Trust me, I’m just glad you stayed.”
“Fuck, me too,” he laughed. “Me too.”
Hearing your phone beep, you shot up through the heaviness across your chest and halted you. Bucky’s body subdued you – the body heat he exhumed was hot and stifling. He groaned, pulling you back down to him.
“They’ll call back,” he muttered. “Sleep.”
“It’s the team,” you whispered back. He breathed heavily, reaching out for the phone for you reluctantly and putting it in your hands. Relief washed through you. The team, including Wanda and Vis, were returning to Wakanda imminently. “Did you sleep okay?”
Yawning, Bucky slightly freed you from his grasp. “You weren’t wrong about sleeping comfortably – I mean, I don’t deserve to, but it was the most relaxing sleep I’ve had in years.”
“I’m glad to hear it, Bucky. Truly.”
He soothingly kissed your naked shoulder. “Thank you for last night.”
“I just hope you enjoyed yourself.”
“So much,” he breathed against your skin, rolling you to your back and lightly pining your body under his. You loved the feel of his weight on your body. You would come to crave it. Addicted and all in less than 12 hours. You’d fallen so hard, so fast. “Did you?”
“Yes,” you couldn’t lie. Bucky’s body was made for a multitude of sins and loving on a woman? The top. He kissed each eyelid that fluttered closed under his touch, the tip of your nose, his mouth travelling through your throat to your décolletage. “Behave…” you teased, your fingers lacing into his long, dark, loose waves.
He laughed into your skin. “Okay,” he nudged your knees apart, his hips meeting yours. He felt as if he was flying – he’d never imagined the confidence he felt, that you’d given to him. Or how you could have destroyed it by rejecting him. The power you had over him was stifling. That was a hellova lot scarier than what was to eventually come.
“What did I say?”
“You told me to behave.”
“And what did you do?”
“The exact opposite,” he admitted. “I just can’t seem to keep my mitts offa you. You’ve opened the floodgates, sugar. I don’t know if I’ll ever be the same again.”
Your phone beeping incessantly now, you found yourself in a world where only you and Bucky ceased to exist. The rest of the world could wait another hour.
#make me regret posting this 😬#bucky with the good hair#bucky fluff#bucky x you#bucky imagine#bucky x female reader#bucky barnes x reader#bucky fic#bucky barnes#james bucky buchanan barnes#bucky barnes smut#bucky angst#white wolf#notroosterbradshaw#reposting from another life#if this bombs I’m deleting it
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Moon peppers (2)
(1)
were!Abby x witch!reader
Summary: Abby runs away from her (former) pack and into your forest. You're not happy with your new (woods?)mate.
Tags: fantasy au, sloppy worldbuilding (fuck it we ball), fem!reader, alpha!abby, witch!reader (so not an omega), sentient forest, stubborn idiots in love who annoy each other.
Notes: Abby really doesn't like sharing the forest with a witch, while you try to prove to yourself that you are the badass who is not afraid of a giant wolf.
Taglist: @abbysbae @poxismind @sidefanficaccounttohidemyshame (if you want me to tag/untag you for the whole series dm me please)
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You are not getting terrorised in your own home. Well. You are not getting terrorised in your own home again.
You wake up with this thought, angry and grumpy, the fear of the night still tightening your chest. You didn't even bathe yesterday, just took your clothes off and went to bed, the last shreds of your dignity not letting you hide under the covers.
It's still hard to feel so powerless, so you're angry at yourself as well for being scared. Of a werewolf no less. It's humiliating, but after the bear you learnt to at least respect your fear - it kept you alive this time. But now, when the sun shines through your curtains and you're a little afraid of leaving your bedroom, it becomes annoying. You scold yourself and get up from your bed, nervously checking the window in case the wolf is still there. You doubt it, but today is your fishing day, so you need to be sure the wolf won't tear you apart the moment you step outside your shields. You try to remember where you put your dagger - as if it will help you anyhow - but then your panicked brain remembers.
There is a wolfsbane bush just to the right of your hut. You can rub it on your dagger and then it will hurt the wolf. So you plan to make a small detour to the wolfsbane bush before heading out to the river.
You quickly bathe, but the temperature of the water irritates you: you're unstable, so your magic is unstable, so one moment the water is warm and the next it boils you alive and the next it's freezing cold. And all of this because of the wolf.
You start the fire for the kettle with matches, cautious of your magic, and while it boils, you check the windows again. No sign of the wolf.
The basket is on the floor still, and you gently pick it up to sort your things out: Caitlyn's baked goods and Vi's booze go into your pantry (you leave one of the pastries for yourself on the table) and the moon peppers go to the still room where you create all of your potions and medicines. The floor is dirty and you don't mind a little work, so you get a cloth and start washing the floors.
Sometimes you forget how much you rely on your magic, but now, knowing you can set the hut on fire or flood it completely, you have to put your hands to work. It's calming, actually, the repetitiveness of it, so you wash your floors clean and only then sit to have your breakfast.
You get ready as if you're going to war, putting multiple daggers on yourself, strapping them to your thighs and smaller ones to your ankles - you're not taking any chances. Usually you wear a cotton vest, but today you dug up a leather vest that is way harder to tear. You put a sac on your shoulders and go out.
The air is colder today, and you look around in case there's any threats - one threat. You even touch the ground, hoping the woods will show you where the wolf is to avoid it, but the forest ignores you.
You make your way to the wolfsbane bush and it's not there. You are sure it was there yesterday, you walk on this trail all the time. But it's not there anymore, and you know it's woods playing tricks on you, and it makes you furious.
You're literally helpless against this wolf and this was the only hope for having a chance at survival. You're scared and you are spiralling, almost cursing the forest for being such a bitch, not understanding why they would do this to you.
Why makes you stop in a cold terror. Because you know perfectly why the woods are not giving you any kind of weapons - you don't hurt others. You just don't, and you don't poison your blades with something that can actually kill a werewolf, and you don't strap a bunch of knives to yourself or think like a warrior.
Yes, you're petty, but you're not vengeful anymore.
You sigh and look at the sky.
“Yeah, okay. I'm sorry.” You grump. “But have you seen this fucking beast?”
The leaves rustle.
“Oh fuck off.” You huff when you get a wave of laughter from the wind.
A witch. There is a witch in the woods and Abby can't be more irritated. Witches are not someone she'd consider nice, they're vicious and you might be the weakest spawn of Satan if you ran from her.
Abby wanted to get some moon peppers for herself to heal faster, but you just had to cut every one of them. She smelled you when she came to the bush and didn't pay it any mind because witches don't have a distinct smell, no. They have creepy fucking eyes that glow in the dark and when you looked at her, Abby felt not only threatened since you were on her territory, but also pissed off, because her moon peppers were taken by a fucking witch.
So Abby wanted to kill you, and if it wasn't for your stupid shields she definitely would - she is hurt, hungry and alone, and she needs you gone. If Abby thought she'd stand a chance against you, she'd have tried to maybe talk to you, but your presence in this forest while she is desperately trying not to die is a threat she is not willing to entertain. She is either going to kill you or you're going to kill her, and this is it.
Witches are notorious for being evil manipulative bastards who blood bind anything that has blood, and Abby had some of her packmates bound to a witch as guard dogs because they needed a potion to survive a wolf fever in the winter. They didn't die from the fever but they sure as hell might've died from serving this witch. But Isaac was furious and of course they went as a pack and tore the witch apart, releasing their packmates from her bounds.
So no, Abby is not planning on being nice to you, she is planning on destroying you. She is still injured and there's blood all over her den, she can't risk you finding it and using it for your own gain.
Abby sighs and crawls out of the den, sniffing around: she is so hungry. She needs to go for a hunt, but she is too weak for it yet. Her hind legs are aching, there's multiple wounds on her sides that she should treat in human form, but Abby is scared she won't be able to handle it yet and it will put her at risk. There is no smell of her former pack, so Abby crawls out further, now able to look around: this part of the woods seems and smells safe. Abby groans and stands up, trying her best to not whine from pain in her body: not only her wounds hurt, but after you tripped her last night she hit her head pretty hard on a root, so now she is also dizzy.
Abby is still scared she will die, which is a sign of, well, dying, so she clings to her life with her claws and makes herself move. The river is not so far away from the den, and Abby is halfway there when she picks up your scent.
It's not that Abby already knows your scent, it's just the only scent with a heartbeat that doesn't smell like another animal, since animals don't smell like lavender and soap. Abby doesn't doubt that it's you because she can somehow feel magic around you, and it makes her tingle in a very creepy way.
Well, hasn't this day just gotten so much better? Abby can just kill you and eat you - actually she is apprehensive of eating a witch, but she is desperate - and this will be the end of her troubles. And your shields will fall, so she could go and loot you. Perfect plan, she thinks.
Now, a giant alpha wolf is not the most quiet animal, especially since Abby is so heavily injured, but Abby tries her best to go as silent as possible so she could first figure out where you are and second - figure out how to attack you. The luck is on her side: you're sitting on the shore with your back to her, so Abby can just jump you and bite your head off with its unnerving eyes.
The thought of finally having some meat makes Abby salivate, but she keeps focused on being quiet - she needs to ambush you, otherwise you'll notice her. So she moves slowly, until you're in her direct line so she could make the jump and kill you.
Abby flexes and shifts her weight before the jump, but exactly when her paws are inches from your body, you turn your head, shriek and your arms fly up in surprise.
The next thing Abby knows is a strong wave of water knocking her back to the ground, while her nose gets overwhelmed by the smell of fear. Abby's animalistic side is roaring from both irritation and satisfaction: even if she didn't get her prey, at least it's terrified of her.
Your heart beats so fast in Abby's ears it is almost too loud, and she sees how your fingers twitch. It makes her quickly get back on her paws and growl at you.
“Don't you fucking growl at me, wolf.” You try to sound offended, but your voice is shaking. “You came to this forest, I live here.”
Well, you have a point, but because you're a witch, Abby isn't going to listen to it.
“Turn back, I know you're a were.”
Fat chance. Abby growls at you again and makes a few steps forward to threaten you.
“Or don't.” You murmur in a shaky voice. “Leave me alone, okay? I won't bother you, so don't bother me.”
Again, you have a point. Again, Abby will ignore it.
Abby comes closer and you stumble back - are you really so weak you can't fight her? - until you trip and fall into the water.
You can't help the feeling that the wolf is laughing at you as you sit in the river, your nets gone, soaked in cold water. It's humiliating beyond belief, and you're really tempted to water whip the wolf, but the backlash is not worth it.
You stand up, huffing and puffing in annoyance, and pull all the water out of your clothes until you're dry.
“Asshole.” You tell the wolf, and it not only growls but also moves closer, ready to attack again. “Fuck off.” Yes, you're shaking, but you can't just give up.
The wolf growls so loud you feel it vibrate in your bones, holy shit.
“If you jump me again, I'll trip you again.” You threaten and the wolf stops growling so loudly.
“I'm fishing here, and I'm not planning on moving. Deal with it.”
The growling resumes and you sigh.
“If I give you a fish, will you leave me alone?”
The wolf hesitates, and you're hopeful for a moment, but then it growls again.
No, you think. You're not moving. You weave your magic and wolf snarls at you, but you only create shields in case it will try to attack you again. Then you sit on the shore and pull your nets back where they're supposed to be, playing it cool, waiting for the fish to get trapped in. The wolf circles you and it's terrifying, you're literally sweating from fear, but you don't give up.
It's tense, but you still sit at least an hour until you get three fish in your net, hyper-aware of the wolf - thankfully, it left a few minutes ago, and you let out a relaxed sigh. You did it. You stood your ground.
Abby is so pissed off it's unbelievable: she is hungry and there's food right in front of her, protected by stupid shields. She tries not to think what can happen if she eats a witch - will it drive her mad? Who knows. But you're also fishing, and Abby is teased with it. The offer you made was tempting until she understood it was a deal and Abby wasn't a fool for making a deal with a witch. So she spent some time just to bask in your smell of fear and laugh at you trying to appear as if Abby's presence doesn't make you want to shit your pants. It's amusing, honestly.
But then Abby feels how she is getting tired - she is in no shape to play games right now. She really needs some food if she wants to survive the night. So Abby goes up the river just far enough to still smell you in case you try anything, and goes into the water, trying to catch some fish with her mouth.
Abby is not a bear, so her fishing skills are not as precise, but Abby is decent: wolves eat fish too, especially if they're alone, like Abby right now. Abby catches the fish, sinking her teeth through its scales, and brings her catch to the shore. The fish still jumps, but it's far enough to not get back into water, so Abby returns and continues her hunt.
It takes Abby a while and she is quite exhausted by the time she gets around twenty fish, so she shakes off the water and goes to her pile of tasty, mouth watering food. Abby is salivating as she smells the fresh fish so she digs in, almost choking on the first one. She coughs, but doesn’t stop chewing, too desperate and starving. She is still on guard, her ear perked up, but the food calms her down and makes her feel lazy. Abby is very tempted to just nap right next to her rapidly disappearing pile of fish, but she knows it’s not safe, so she makes herself lazily walk back to her den.
When Abby smells you close to her den, she sees red. Suddenly her lazy walk turns into aggressive running and she attacks you immediately when she sees how you kneel down on the ground in front of her den. This is not just a direct threat to her as a wolf, it’s a real threat of being blood bound, and Abby is terrified by the mere thought of it.
Of course your shields save your ass, but as Abby lands on her stomach, you also fall from the impact of a giant wolf attacking you. Abby gets up and growls, baring her teeth as a promise to kill you, so you scoot back.
“Do you live here?” You ask as if it’s a surprise. Yeah, like you didn’t know it by the sheer amount of blood around. Abby jumps again and bounces off again, but she is so angry at you and your shrieks are the best music to her ears. “But it’s a bear den! You dumb fucking- Find a better place for yourself, because the bear will come back and I don’t think your furry ass can fight it.” You spit out as you get up quickly and weave shields around yourself.
Abby barks at you and you jump in fear, backing off. You then walk backwards as Abby moves forward, practically kicking you out from her territory.
“Okay-okay, I’m going. Fucking creep.” You murmur under your breath and Abby growls at your audacity: you came to her, not the other way around. Entitled bloodthirsty bastard.
You turn around and start walking back to your hut, but Abby waits until she can’t hear your heartbeat anymore, and only then she goes back to the den.
Your words about the bear coming back actually worry Abby, but she doesn’t have any strength to go and look for another spot - and since she put her scent everywhere, the bear will be angry anyway, so maybe she will have to fight it.
Fuck, Abby thinks. She is weak and dizzy and all she wants is to take a nap and rest until her body feels better, not think about fighting a bear.
So Abby crawls back into her den, wraps around herself, burying her nose in her tail, and falls asleep.
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Starfall with the General (Bonus Part)
Cassian X Fem Reader
Summary: 5 years later Starfall looks a little different for the members of the Night Court, especially for The General and his mate.
Part 1 Part 2
A/N: this was simply an idea that struck me in the shower so enjoy the final installment of Starfall with the General
Warnings: none, this is as fluffy as it can get. It's not proofread.
Word Count:1885
Standing in front of the mirror you smile at your reflection. The dress you wore still fits even years later. Mor comes into your room and smiles, “I haven't seen that dress in ages.” The hairpin and necklaces deigning your neck made her smirk. “He's going to swoon.” Mor kissed your cheek as little feet padded from the bathroom causing you both to look in that direction.
“Auntie!” Violet, your 4 year old jumped into Mor's awaited arms. Spinning her around causing the young Illyrian to giggle. You smile at the sight your daughter wore a red dress with tulle and sequins that complimented her little wings and matched Mor’s signature red look. “I look just like you.”
Mor’s eyes beamed, “You sure do Vi, I am going to see what Uncle Az is doing we’ll see you soon okay?” the young girl nodded and Mor tapped her cheek as Violet kissed her and set her down to exit the room.
Having Violet was a blessing for you and Cassian, Nesta who in the midst of saving Feyre when she was in Labor with Nyx had also adjusted your anatomy to accommodate wings. You had tightly embraced the eldest Archeron sister for her wonderful gift. Cassian followed it up by scooping us both in his arms. Only a few months after that did Madja provide you with the good news you were with child. The pregnancy went smoothly and Cassian was with you every step of the way.
Cassian was a fierce warrior, a wonderful friend, and the most attentive mate, however, all that pales in comparison to how exquisite he was at being a father. The first time she had cried in the middle of the night he forced you to lay back down, whispering in your ear, “Let me.” With that he sat on the chair skin-to skin with your babe, telling the story of how he had met you for the first time and how he fell in love with you. The sight brought tears to your eyes and you awoke the next morning to the two of them in the chair. An image you shared with Feyre and had her paint to give to Cassian as a solstice gift that year.
The first time Violet had a nightmare Cassian stormed into her room you in tow and saw her tear-stained eyes and Cassian’s heart shattered. He spent an hour fighting off imaginary monsters causing the little one to giggle and you saw his face light up at the sound. Then the 3 of you padded back to your and Cassian’s shared room where he held on to both of you tightly wings shielding the night breeze.
“Well doesn’t my niece look beautiful,” Rhys’ voice pulled you from your thoughts as Violet’s face lit up to see her favorite Uncle. Nyx in tow behind him. Rhys bent down arms ready as Violet ran to hug him. The high lord stood still holding your child his eyes met yours and he eyed the outfit his gaze lingering on the necklace he got you all those years ago. He took in the dress and smiled.
“Mommy, looks pretty doesn’t she Uncle Rhysie.” Rhys’ gaze turned to the small child in his arms his violet eyes meeting her Hazel ones and lightly flicked her nose another giggle erupting.
“She does, I think your Daddy is also going to agree.” Rhys set her down and she immediately ran to Nyx as the two began to play. Rhys held out his arm, you walked over and you looped yours through his and you all made you way to the ballroom.
You giggled as Nyx tried to mimic his father and loop his arms with Violet’s but before he could she would run off and he would chase after her. “In the forest that day you found me,” Rhys stiffened but remained quiet, “I thought I was destined to be miserable that I would never get the chance at happiness and peace.”
Rhys with his free hand gripped yours and gave it a comforting squeeze. You continued, “I wish I could go back and tell her how happy I am now. I have that peace and a loving family that my life has been nothing short of amazing.”
The four of you reach the doors of the ballroom, Rhys releases your arm and turns to you pulling you into a bone-crushing hug. “I am so happy you joined our family, Y/N, I love you.”
You return the embrace, “I love you too, now lets not keep the loves of our lives waiting shall we?” you pull away and swipe the stray tears from the High Lord’s eyes.
“Kids, you want to open the doors?” Rhys asks looking over to the two small children. Their eyes light up and Nyx picks up Violet so she can reach the handles and they open the door revealing the party in full swing.
Nyx sets Violet down and it doesn’t take her long to find the one person she is looking for in the crowd. She sprints into the ballroom, “Daddy!”
The sound of his name causes Cassian to stop his conversation with Feyre to find his daughter in the crowd. In the perfect moment bends down as she tackles into him almost pushing him off balance. The way he holds her makes your heart swell. He has his wings tucked comfortably his hair in a half up bun you always enjoy and in his signature black dress shirt and pants. He whispers in your daughters ear as he looks up no doubt looking for you. His eyes meet yours and his smile gives you butterflies.
You and Rhys walk towards your mates as Nyx already was at his mother’s hip. Feyre took sight of your dress and her eyes gleamed with mischief. Cassian still holding your daughter planted a kiss to your cheek. His breath grazed over the shell of your ear, “Well don’t you look beautiful, Sweetheart. I have very fond memories of this dress.”
You giggle as you do a twirl the black lace twirling with you, the red rubies in your hair and around your neck shining in the fae light. Cassian’s eyes gleamed as he watched you showcase the same dress and accessories you wore on the Starfall you found out you were mates.
“Mommy looks like a princess,” Violet nodded her head in approval.
Cassian looked at her, “I agree, but so do you,” the music changed to a slower song and Cassian put Violet down and held out his hand, “May I have the honor of a dance, Your Highness,” Violet smiled wide and nodded her head excitedly. Taking her father’s hand and running to the dance floor. Cassian gripped both of her hands in his and lifted her up so her feet were on his and the two began to sway.
Watching your mate dance with his little girl made you smile wide, tears glistening in your eyes. To watch them both laugh and his big smile, he must have noticed you staring because he looked up and gave you a wink that made your heart skip a beat. There was a tug on the bond urging you to come toward them. You walk to them and Violet squeals, “Mommy, dance with us!”
Cassian scoops Violet into his one arm and slips his free one around your waist pulling you closer. His scent of cedar and leather infiltrating your nose. You wrap one arm around his neck and one around Violet as the 3 of you sway to the musicians and you dance for the majority of the evening. The music shifts back to a slower song as he brings the two of you close once more, Cassian hummed in content, “My sweet Girls.” He whispered as Violet’s head laid on his shoulder as she yawned, ever the daddy’s girl. He kissed Violet’s forehead followed by yours, “How did I get so lucky?”
You smile, “I ask myself that everyday.” You lay your head on Cassian’s chest and you 3 remain like that until the music shifts into an upbeat tempo.
You pull away as everyone begins making their way to the balconies. Cassian leans closer to you, “Let’s go back to our room,” You nod in agreement and you sneak away and make your way back to the bedroom.
“Did you have fun, Princess?” Cassian asked Violet.
Violet yawned again and her eyes beginning to close, as she gave a soft, “Yeah,”
His hand was interlaced with yours as you reached your bedroom, “What about you, Sweetheart?”
You press a finger to your chin in mock thought, “I had fun but not really my favorite Starfall not yet anyway.” Cassian quirked a brow at the statement, as the three of you enter the room. As if on cue the house opens the balcony doors. You slip of your heels and wiggle your feet in the cushy carpet and you three walk outside right as the first star makes its way across the sky.
You lightly shake Violet, “Sweetie, Look up,”
Violet opens her eyes and when she sees the colors painting the sky they widened, “Wow,” she whispered.
You take a moment to look at Cassian as he looks up with Violet and your hands grip the balcony and your gaze moves to the sky above. “Out of curiosity,” You could feel Cassian’s gaze on you. “How would you feel about Violet having a sibling?” Your eyes meet his Hazel ones.
Cassian grins, “I would be happy if we could, but if we weren’t able to have a second child, I have everything I could have ever asked for right here.” Cassian kissed the side of your head, “Why do you ask?”
You give him a shy smile and drop the shield revealing your scent and his eyes go wide his wings ruffle in shock. “Really?” he whispered as Violet had fallen back asleep.
You nod and he cups your face with his free hand and kisses you tenderly. He sends wave after wave of love down the bond. He presses his forehead against yours, “Happy Starfall, Cassian. I love you.” You whisper closing your eyes at his warmth.
He lightly kisses your nose, “Happy Starfall, Y/N. I love you too.”
~few hours later~
Cassian sat in bed watching the rise and fall of his wife and daughters chest. The duo spooned together, drifting off into a soundless sleep. He took a moment to look at you the small smile that graced her features. He tucked a hair from your face and put it behind your ears. In his 500 years he never thought he would find a mate and when he found you, he thought that was the happiest he was ever going to get. Then Violet came in the picture. His gaze moved over to his daughter, she may have gotten all of Cassian’s physical features but her personality was all Mommy. Now there will be a new babe on the way and Cassian smiled as he laid down grabbing his girls and cocooning them in his wings. He whispered, “I love you three so much,” even to the babe in the womb and drifted into peaceful sleep.
#cassian acotar#cassian imagine#cassian x reader#cassian#cassian x you#acotar fanfiction#rhysand acotar#acotar#girldad!cassian x reader#girldad!cassian
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VII. ~Survival~
Summary: You were determined to survive longer than anyone, even if you were set to marry him.
Genre: Historical AU, angst, mature, suggestive, arranged-marriage
Warnings: Dark themes, theme/depictions of horror, swearing/language, suggestive, mentioned pedophilia, child molestation, attempted child sexual assault, mentions of adult murder, implications of impregnating, implied Stockholm Syndrome, images/depictions of dead bodies, slight misogynistic themes (if you squint).
Word Count: 2.8k
A/N: Soooooo... this is the shortest chapter I've ever written, but it wasn't my intention. To be honest, I kept becoming unhappy with the results and kept going back to fix it, but it never felt right. At the end of the day, I decided to touch into an uncovered territory of (Y/n) that I had debated on for a while and enjoyed the results. I promise the next chapter will be longer and will cover more bases! Enjoy Chapter 7 of Survival!!
P.S. I know I said I'd get this chapter out in May, but it's currently June 1st, 12:26pm (for me), so take it or leave it!!! (╥﹏╥)
JJK Mlist•Taglist Rules•
• Pt.I • Pt. II • Pt. III • Pt. IV • Pt. V • Pt. VI • Pt.VII • Pt. VIII
"Y/n, wait up!"
You turned to see your little sister running over to catch up to your quick pace, grabbing her hand as she extended it to you. The two of you were pushing through the crowd in the market, holding on to each other as if it were for dear life. You would rather be damned than lose any of your younger siblings upon your watch.
"We need to hurry! We have to be home before Mother starts dinner," you noted breathlessly, "She cannot even start if we do not get these ingredients to her on time," referring to the basket you were holding close to your form.
Your sister gave an obedient response as she focused on your swift gait. You could only smile at the young girl's compliance— had it been any of your other more youthful siblings, they may have given you replies of retaliation out of their immaturity, but she was a sweet child who clearly looked up to and admired you. Turning your attention back towards the road of the market square, you saw that you were close to the exit that would lead you on the path home, sighing in relief as you slightly sped up your stride; however, before the two of you could exit you felt a hand wrap around your arm, pulling you and your sister into a secluded area.
"Now, what do we have here?" A gruff voice sounded, "Two pretty little buds have stumbled upon my path."
The voice was clearly a male's, and he was undoubtedly intoxicated as his speech was slurred, plus his stride was far from straight as he walked closer towards you. He circled the two of you like a vulture over a carcass, his eyes narrow and intimidating as he looked at your youthful figures, disgustingly licking his lips. The predator eventually moved into the light, revealing his aged appearance. The man was clearly an older one, his rough, oily skin and few missing teeth being a telling sign of his seniority; if he was any younger than you had assumed, he did not age gracefully.
“I-I’m sorry, sir,” you started, unintentionally stuttering as you spoke, “b-but we have to be home before sunset,” you finished explaining, your voice slightly cracking as you spoke due to the fear swelling in your chest. Despite your own terror, you tried to keep your stance straight to give your sister peace of mind, pulling the little girl behind you to act as her human shield.
“No worries,” the stranger chuckled, before reaching around you and grabbing your sister by her forearm before pushing you onto the ground, holding your chest down with his foot, “I’ll make you both into proper women before then,” the man closed his statement, making his advance on your younger sibling first.
You struggled as you tried to push the man’s foot off your torso, but your attempts were futile. The sick individual only grew tired of your punching, moving, and scratching as he decided to kick you to the nearby wall. Your gaze followed his figure as you weakly got up, only to be pushed into the wall once more, feeling cuts and scratches being made upon your flesh. The male took hold of something at the corner of your eye, still keeping your sister in a tight grip as she struggled. In moments, your hands and legs were tied, and a solid heavy stone was placed upon your lap to keep you from getting up anytime soon.
“Y/N!” Your sister screamed with tears in her eyes as the predator began to touch and kiss her pure skin with his contaminated flesh.
Your mind paced watching the scene, bile rising to your throat as you grew repulsed. Before long, the disgusting creature decided to yank at her clothes— that was the moment you snapped.
“Wait, take me instead! I’ll let you do whatever you want to me!” You yelled in haste. The decision was made with little thought, but as long as your sister was safe, you could live with the disgust.
The man paused to think for a moment before a repulsive grin overtook his expression, quickly going to restrain your sibling before removing your bonds. The moment you were free was the moment you were infested by his greedy touches. If the contact of his fingers and lips didn’t make you want to gag, the feeling of his bulge between your thighs made you want to vomit.
You thought that by sacrificing yourself for your sister's safety, you would be able to tolerate his blatant violation, but you could only feel your resolve weaken as his lingering touches began making your skin burn, but not in a good way. Despite your discomfort, you continued to indulge in his horrific actions, deciding to let out your emotions with tears and balled fists. Things weren't any easier as you heard the choked sobs of your younger sibling as she watched the setting, feeling your dignity and pride being washed away. Everything was going as the man wanted– he was getting his fixture of pleasure while two young girls suffered. If his hard-on wasn't a signal of his enjoyment, his chuckles and wretched words were an unmistakable banner.
"You're such a pretty little thing, so obedient for me. Y'know, I think that deserves a reward," the aged man cackled, moving his hands to remove his garments, changing course to strip you as well.
"(Y/N)!!!" your sister screeched, loud enough for her voice to echo in the alley.
Before you could say any words of comfort for the little girl, the man turned around, obviously not pleased with her outburst. The man's nostrils flared as he raised a hand and hit the young girl. The audible smack did not settle with you, and you could feel a temper you had never felt before build up inside you. You do not remember what happened next, but everything went pitch black for a second, and when you opened your eyes...
All you saw was the body of the pedophile lying on the floor, unmoving and breathless.
You stared at the lifeless figure, not knowing what to say as the scarlet liquid began to pool in a puddle beneath his form. Lifting your crown, you looked around to maybe see who the culprit of killing the man was; however, the alley was empty– just you and your sister. Speaking of the sibling in question, you swiftly moved to retrieve the girl only to see that her restraints were already broken and that she was unconscious, yet breathing.
Questions began to fill your mind, but you pushed them aside, focusing on the current circumstances. You wasted no more time as you went to lift the little girl onto your back, picking up the basket of ingredients before making your trek home. Although one problem was resolved, there was still another pressing matter...what would you tell your parents? Unfortunately, you did not have much time to think up an answer to that as you were now at your front door, sliding the object to reveal the worried expressions of your parents.
The couple rambled, asking what had happened, questioning why the two of you were late and battered. The more they interrogated, the louder the ringing in your ears started to develop, effectively drowning out their uneasy voices. You didn't know what to say or what to do. Would it be a good idea to tell them the truth? What if they wouldn't believe you? Would you be punished? How would they even react?
"We were playing in the fields and had an accident, but we're alright now. (S/n) fell asleep on our way back, she really exerted herself."
The lie was sour in your mouth, but you thought it was the better route when you pictured the corpse lying on the dirt floor. How would you explain such a gruesome sight? The answer is you would not because there wasn't an explanation to give– you didn't even know what had happened.
The night went on as usual, your parents buying your story and continuing regular activity. When your sister had risen, she didn't remember a thing, only saying the last thing she recalled was shopping at the market. Your parents didn't think much of it as they gave her a simple reply before having her eat with the family. When you were presented with your plate, you could hardly stomach the sight of the food; however, you knew it would be rude to waste a precious meal, so you ate and shoved whatever bile threatening to scale your esophagus down.
After the meal, you were tasked with helping your mother clean the dishes. It was quiet between you both as you scrubbed the dishware and bowls, not yet feeling comfortable to voice words. Although you opted to stay muted, your mother did not make indications she would do the same.
"Thank you for taking care of your sister," the woman started, giving you a warm smile, "she really looks up to you, and I could not be prouder of that."
Her words broke you then and there as your eyes glossed over, feeling tears cascade down your face. Your mom stopped what she was doing and took hold of your face to have you look at her, "Whatever is the matter, dear?"
"But I didn't take care of her. She got hurt today because of my incompetence. How can I call myself a good sister after that?" You choked out between quiet sobs.
"Accidents happen, my dear," the parent soothed as she pulled you in, petting your hair to calm you, "The best thing you can do is learn from them."
You could only nod into your mother's bosom, not trusting your own voice at the time being. Maybe she was right– you just had to ensure the incident wouldn't repeat itself. You repeated that statement mentally as she held you, so why did you still feel guilty.
"After all, you took care of it, my dear," your mother sounded, "You killed that vile man."
Your eyes shot open, your breathing heavy, and your pulse uneven as you woke from your nightmare. It wasn't the first time that night terror had occurred, but you had to admit it had been a while since it had. Ever since birthing your children, the nightmares had been more consistent.
At first, they were an occasional occurrence, but as the months passed, once or twice a month turned into three to four times a week. Some lasted longer than others, and others were more frightening than some. Either way, your once dreamless nights began to fill with discomforting and restless evenings. Despite the abnormality of some of the dreams, you only deduced it as a result of stress. You kept yourself levelheaded on the outside, but within, you were drowning in your overwhelming thoughts.
Ever since your everlasting pact with Sukuna, things around the temple began to change significantly, at least for you. Perhaps someone with an ordinary eye would not notice these small changes, but you were focused on the finer details. Minimal adjustments such as staffing, specifically the addition of two new guards. It was not a large sum of security, definitely not an army, but for even one guard to join Sukuna's ranks was unusual. Your husband had not much need for any more manpower as he had plenty of that as it already was; however, the stranger part is that they seemed to be patrolling the areas where the mothers resided. This did not go unnoticed by anyone as rumors were already spreading, but everyone seemed to hold an opposite reaction from your own.
"Well, they definitely do not hurt my eyes.~"
"I heard from one of the kitchen maids that they're Sukuna's spies. Apparently, one of the moms here is being distasteful."
"Our dear husband protecting his prizes, how sweet.~"
"This was bound to happen since last year's inspections– truly disappointing how many failed progeny there were."
Meaningless jokes, endearing words, bustling rumors, but no mentions of concerns. You found this new detail far from good because the guards were not focused on the mothers nor the children but rather on the surroundings of the room they inhabited. Their eyes were cautious and were jumping from place to place, their forms tense, almost as if they were waiting for something to happen. Despite these prominent cues, everyone seemed to overlook it– you had heard a few women state that `Sukuna did not want them looking upon his prizes.`
"Y/n-sama, I've been requested to escort you to the gardens," a voice sounded; however, it was not your attendant but rather Uraume who had called out to you.
You had been seeing the individual more often than usual– what started off as passing glances and minimal greetings had turned into confrontational meetings and regular appearances; this happened to be one of those instances. It did not take you long to rise from your relaxed state, moving to take hold of your children before turning to Sukuna's right hand. Uraume did not say anything, only giving you a bow and a gesture to follow them to the gardens, where your attendant would most likely be waiting. Usually, the girl would be the one who greeted you on these mornings, but because of your recurring night terrors, you opted to have her take the time to focus on other tasks, telling her that you could wake yourself; however, when you first brought this conversation up, she hesitated on the idea. After some convincing, your attendant finally caved and gave you the mornings to yourself, but that did not last long.
It took around a week or two for Sukuna to figure out that you were spending most of your mornings alone, which your partner did not appreciate. Despite his detesting of the news, he did not lash out at anybody for it– the man seemed more apprehensive than infuriated. It took only a few days for Sukuna to appoint his direct helper to retrieve you. From then on, you were seen with Uraume for most of the morning before they left to perform their other duties.
You followed the individual down the corridor, glancing at the walls and what inhabited them. There wasn't much decorating the temple as Sukuna was not a sentimental man– he hardly kept his offerings unless they were of necessity. The walls were blank and lifeless, and viewing them could drive you insane if you focused on them.
"Y/n-sama, do you love Sukun-sama?"
Your breath hitched as you moved your gaze to look at the back of Uraume's head. There question left you speechless; however, it was not because you did not have an answer but rather their sudden interest that took you aback. The person did not vocalize their thoughts much, but you could always tell when they were thinking to themselves.
"Yes, he is my husband. Why would I not love him?" you quickly stated.
"You do not have to lie to me (Y/n)-sama."
You could not help but worry at Uraume's comment. Did they know your intentions? Were they going to remove your twins from your care? Had they already discussed this with Sukuna? How long did you have left?
"And where is your evidence of that, Uraume?" you managed to keep your voice leveled despite the anxiety creeping up on you, but you needed to keep your composure if you wanted to win this little tussle, being if you had to fight at all.
A chuckle resonated through the hall.
"You're right... I have no proof, only my own conspiracies. I admire your ability to hold that over me– your defensive side is a site to see. If I'm being honest, when you first came to the temple, I did not think much of you as I thought you were just another woman to bear Sukuna's kin; you proved me wrong (Y/n)-sama. I do not understand how you managed, but you have Sukuna-sama wrapped around your finger like I have never seen before," Uruame voiced, a lightness to their tone before continuing, "Perhaps it is for the best, after all, you are both seem satisfied with your current standing."
For the rest of the trip, you sustained the following stillness, only giving the individual a hum in response to their last comment. When the garden came into view, you internally sighed in relief, glad to rid yourself of this mind-wracking conversation. Too bad things couldn't stay that way.
"Y/n-sama, your village has started to retaliate against Sukuna's command. Truth be told, it has been going on for the past year; however, things have started to escalate— for the sake of your family unit, keep yourself on guard," The righthand warned, turning to leave you to your daily activities.
Just peachy, another occurrence to write down in your list of troubles.
You would not get proper rest in a while.
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April 9th is National Unicorn Day.
In Celtic mythology the unicorn was a symbol of purity and innocence, as well as masculinity and power. Tales of dominance and chivalry associated with the unicorn may be why it was chosen as Scotland’s national animal.
With Scotland being famed for its love for and long history of myths and legends, it is no surprise that a fabled creature such as the unicorn is Scotland’s national animal. Unicorns have been linked to Scotland for centuries. While the animal is mythological, the ideals it represents are what make it a perfect fit as the national animal for Scotland, and because like this proud beast – Scots would fight to remain unconquered.
The unicorn was first used on the Scottish royal coat of arms by William I in the 12th century. In the 15th century, when King James III was in power, gold coins even appeared with the unicorn on them. When Scotland and England unified under the reign of James VI of Scotland in 1603, the Scottish Royal Arms had two unicorns supporting a shield. When James VI became James I of England and Ireland, he replaced the unicorn on the left of the shield with the national animal of England, the lion, to show that the countries were indeed united.
The unicorn representing Scotland in the coat of arms is always depicted bounded by a golden chain, which is often seen passing around its neck and wrapping all around its body. The unicorn was believed to be the strongest of all animals – wild and untamed, and that it could only be humbled by a virgin maiden. It is possible that the entrapment symbolises the power of the Scottish kings – they were strong enough to tame even a unicorn.
You don't have to go far to see evidence of Unicorns in our country, they are on our coat of arms, and adorn many of our Mercat Crosses throughout Scotland, If you want to know more and see examples of this creature head o Perth and visit the new museum where an exhibition is running unti September. https://perthmuseum.co.uk/inside-the-museum/unicorn/
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all hers, part xiii
part i | part ii | part iii | part iv | part v | part vi | part vii | part viii | part ix | part x | part xi | part xii | part xiii | part xiv | part xv | part xvi | part xvii | part xviii | part xix | part xx | part xxi | part xxii | part xxiii | part xxiv | part xxv | part xxvi | epilogue
summary: You deserve everything Ghostface is giving you, you know it deep down. Why should you live while the others died?
warnings: (+18), Tara is Ghostface, mention of murder. Ghost face spoilers for Scream 1-4.
word count: 4.5k
a/n: 👀 smashed through my writers block, let me know your 🔪🔪 theories.
You haven’t left the car - or Tara’s lap - by the time the police arrive.
Sam greets them, watches as they make their way through the house, casing for strewn pieces of clothing, discarded weapons, footprints, handprints, anything.
But there’s nothing to find. Ghostface is long gone.
By the time they’re done, your anxiety is at an all time high, not even Tara’s arms around you enough to quell the fear inside you. Your chest thumps uncomfortably. Your palms are shaky, sweaty. Flashes of the mask, the knife raised against you.
Is this how Tara’s victims felt in the end? Is this how Wes felt?
The only difference between you and Wes is you’d survived. And he’d died innocent while you survived, guilty. It isn’t fair. You deserve everything Ghostface is giving you, you know it deep down. Your will to live is selfish, almost.
Why should you live while the others died?
The answer is pressed to your side. She’s beautiful, as ever, squeezing your hand so tight the tips of your fingers turn white. Her knee bounces steadily, an indication of her nerves. Her dark eyes are wild, flitting from you to the house to the officers on the lawn. Scanning, as if Ghostface will jump out at any moment. God help him if he does, when she’s like this. White-faced, quietly stewing in her own anger and anxiety. You can almost hear the cogs turning in her brain as she runs wild with the possibilities of who it could be.
The police have questions, what feels like millions of them. The most pressing is why. Why would Ghostface target you specifically? Of course, you know why.
You don’t mention the other victims. You don’t mention Tara’s Ghostface mask hidden in a lockbox in her closet. You don’t mention the motive Ghostface had all but spit into your face.
Someone who thinks you should pay.
Tara, a little on edge, tires very quickly of their incessant questions.
“There’s never a why, do you even live in this town?” Tara barks, voice hot with annoyance, “They’re random. They’ve always been random.”
“That’s not exactly true.” It’s Sheriff Hicks. She climbs out of her squad car, slips her gun into her holster as she stands.
Your chest tightens. She makes you so nervous. You’re so scared one of these days you’ll slip, blurt out the truth before it’s too late.
“Billy Loomis blamed Sidney for his mother abandoning him. Nancy Loomis blamed her for killing her son. Roman Bridger and Jill Roberts wanted infamy.” She surveys you, hand resting gently on her holstered pistol, “The question is: what does this Ghostface want?”
The back of your neck prickles uncomfortably under her gaze. You sink deeper into Tara, wear her almost like a shield.
“Forget his motive, what are you going to do about catching him?” Tara says, arm tight around your waist, “I want a squad car here 24/7. I want officers escorting YN to school. I want a walkie talkie and a phone number so we can have direct contact with them whenever we need-”
The thought of stepping foot into that house sends shockwaves of panic through your body. You grip her waist, tight, trying to draw her attention.
“I can’t go back in there.” You say, voice tight, “Tara, I can’t stay here tonight. I can’t sleep here.”
If Tara’s surprised by this, she doesn’t show it. Instead, she wraps her arms tight around your shoulder and presses a long kiss to your forehead.
“Okay baby.” She says, “We’ll stay with your parents, how about that?”
“I can post a squad car.” Sheriff Hicks interjects, “Two officers. I’ll give you their cell numbers. I’m afraid we’re all out of walkie-talkies.”
She looks at you, for the first time in a long time there’s sympathy in her eyes, “You’re going to be okay.” She promises, “My officers are the very best. But you call me if you remember anything. Anything at all that could help.”
The moment is interrupted by the sheen of blinding headlights. You avert your gaze, blink away the stars in your eyes at the sudden intrusion.
It’s a familiar truck, the heavy slam of the door signals the driver has exited the vehicle. You squint, make out Richie’s figure as he rushes towards you.
“Hey. I came here as fast as I could. Where’s Sam, is she okay?” He’s out of breath, a little panicked as he scans the driveway for his girlfriend.
“Sam’s fine.” Tara says, her shoulders tight, “YN was attacked.”
Richie blinks.
“By Ghostface? Are you alright?”
“Of course she’s not alright.” Snaps Tara, “Some psycho just attacked her at knifepoint.”
She pauses, as if something has just occurred to her. Suspicion brews in her eyes.
“Where have you been?”
Richie draws his attention back to her. The lights of the police sirens flash across his face.
“I was meeting some friends at a bar,” Richie says, “Is Sam in the house?”
“What friends? You got an alibi?” Tara asks, her eyebrows drawn tight.
“You’re not serious?” Richie stares back at her.
The Sheriff tilts her head, suddenly interested.
“Do you?” She reiterates, “Tara and Sam are accounted for. We’ll need to corroborate with any potential witnesses who can place you at the bar.”
Richie opens his mouth in disbelief. He looks between the three of you, waiting for the punchline.
“I didn’t make it there. Sam called-”
The Sheriff hums, scribbles something down on her notepad.
“So no alibi.” Tara scoffs, “You’ve been here two weeks and the one night you go out, YN gets attacked.”
“This is ridiculous.” Richie splutters, mouth opening and closing like a goldfish, “Tara. Why would I attack YN? I have no motive.”
But Tara’s mind is made up, she crosses her arms, glares at the Sheriff.
“Are you going to arrest him or what?”
“Tara. I can’t just arrest people.” The Sheriff says, closing her notebook. She looks at Richie, “I suggest you outline to one of my officers the exact route you took to and from the bar. If we can place you on CCTV we can rule you out as a suspect.”
“You can’t arrest people?” Tara challenges. There’s that fire, the one that’s been brewing for the last hour, finally emerging, “What kind of a Sheriff are you?”
“Tara.” You hiss. You turn back to the Sheriff, eyes wide, “I am so sorry, Sheriff, she’s just scared-”
“Scared?” Tara says, sounding outraged. Her dark eyes burn, “I’m furious. I have a prime suspect for you and you won’t arrest him-”
“Just because you don’t like me doesn’t mean I put on a Ghostface mask and tried to kill your girlfriend.” Richie argues, loudly.
“What’s going on?” It’s Sam, finally emerging from the house. Richie and Tara both turn to face her, matching expressions of outrage on their faces.
“What’s going on? Your creep of a boyfriend just tried to murder my girlfriend.” Tara snarls.
Richie throws his hands up.
“Why? Why would I want to kill her?”
“I don’t know.” Tara says, “You tell me. Because you’re twisted?”
“You know what,” Richie says, his nostrils flaring. He points his finger at her, “It definitely wasn’t me, because if I was going to murder anyone, it would be you-”
“Stop it!” Sam yells, “Both of you. God. You’re like fucking children.”
They both fall silent. Glare at each other. Sam storms off, presumably back into the house. With a final dirty look at Tara, Richie turns and follows her inside.
You take Tara’s hand, rub your fingers over the back of her hand reassuringly. Richie is a little strange, granted, but you seriously doubt he’d try and kill you. You’ll talk her down later tonight, you figure. Right now; you want out of here.
“Do you have any more questions, Sheriff?” You ask, quietly hoping the answer is no, “I need to call my Dad.”
She surveys you for a moment.
“I think we’re all good here.” She says, finally, “Call me if you remember anything.”
-
Your Dad is freaked, rightfully so.
In a panic, he demands you come home. He seems to be so frightened he doesn’t even protest when you tell him Tara’s coming too.
She’s still glaring at Richie as she pulls out of the driveway, leaving the slew of officers and sirens behind as she makes her way to your parents home. One hand on the wheel, the other gripping your thigh, tight.
“It’s him, I know it’s him.” She stews, hands tightening on the wheel, “How fucking suspicious can he be. Meeting with some friends, my ass.”
“We don’t know that, babe.” You say, squeezing her hand, “He’s kind of right - what’s his motive? As far as I know we haven’t done anything to offend him.”
“I’ve been on his ass since he got here.” Tara says, “Maybe he’s sick of me. Of us.”
“Or maybe it’s someone else.” You say, staring out the window, “Someone related to the others. Sadie has a brother, I think. One of Aaron’s friends? One of Chase’s?”
There’s a long list of people who would want vengeance on the two of you. It hurts your head to think about.
“Cool it on Richie, please babe. If he is Ghostface, the last thing we need is him getting spooked.”
“I need to get him away from Sam,” She says, chewing her bottom lip, “If he hurts her-”
“We don’t know it’s him, babe.” You say, pressing your hand over Tara’s, rub the back of her knuckles, “Besides, if he is Ghostface, he’s not going to kill her. His beef is with us.”
It doesn’t calm her down. Her knee is still bouncing when she pulls into your parents driveway, grip around thigh so tight it’s starting to hurt. She shuts off the car and presses a kiss to the back of your hand.
“I’ll figure it out, don’t worry baby.” She says, voice heavy. Despite the comfort she’s trying to give you, her eyes betray her. Brown, wide, swimming with worry, “No one’s going to hurt you, I promise. I’m not taking my eyes off you. You’re not going anywhere alone, I mean it. You’ll have to get used to me watching you pee.”
You half think she’s kidding, until she follows you upstairs and into the bathroom.
“Absolutely not.” You say, pressing your hand to her chest and pressing a kiss to her lips, “Wait here.”
“But-”
“Ghostface isn’t hiding in the bathtub, babe.” You tell her, and close the door behind you.
You pause. Check the bathtub just in case.
Your parents make a fuss, like you knew they would. Your mom rushes off to comfort cook, something she does best, and your Dad gets his power tools out, triple checks all the windows and doors for any shaky locks.
If he minds Tara staying the night, he doesn’t say it. Instead, he hovers at the bedroom door, eyeing her up as he reiterates his safety mechanisms.
“Keep the door locked,” He says, voice gruff as you climb onto the bed, next to Tara, “At all times. Front and back. I have a security specialist coming in tomorrow to install some cameras and alarms.”
“Thanks Dad.” You say. It takes the weight of your chest, just a little.
“I’ve got my shotgun loaded and ready to go,” He continues, “If you hear anything- anything at all - just call out and I’ll be here in a moment.”
“Do you have a spare?” Tara asks suddenly, “Gun, that is? I’ll be a little closer, is all.”
He watches her for a moment. That expression is on his face - the one he always wears when he sees Tara. Mild distaste, like he’s just taken a bite of something that’s gone bad. Briefly, you worry he’s going to try to kick her out.
“I can’t give a gun to a kid.” He says, voice curt. Her brows furrow.
“This kid might be the only person who’s able to protect her in time.” Tara challenges, “You’re all the way across the hall. What if he covers her mouth so she can’t cry out?”
“Babe.” You warn, “It’s fine. We’ll be fine.”
Your Dad shifts his weight, staring Tara down. You know he doesn’t like her, it’s written all over his face. But if she goes, so do you. And he understands that, you know he does.
“I have a handgun.” He says, finally. He looks at you, “I’ll give it to YN. Remember those lessons down at the cabin? You’re confident you know how to use it?”
You nod.
When you were younger, your Dad had taken you shooting, taught you how to fire a gun, how to load it - and most importantly, how not to hurt yourself doing it. The thought of drawing out a gun to protect Tara from Ghostface’s knife makes you feel only the slightest bit better.
He looks back to Tara. The distaste is back in his expression.
“It’s for her. You’re not to touch it. Understand?”
You can feel Tara fizzling next to you. Her fingers curl, and before she can give your Dad the dressing down you know she so desperately wants to give, you jump in.
“She understands.” You say quickly, “Thanks Dad.”
“I don’t know what his problem is,” Tara complains, stormy-eyed, when he finally leaves, “I’m just trying to protect you.”
“He’s just being a Dad,” You say, pulling her into your arms and quelling her mood with a kiss, “Don’t take it personally.”
Dinner’s awkward.
Your head is a mess, heart pounding out of your chest every time you think of the looming threat. Tara grips your thigh under the table protectively, as if she’s afraid Ghostface might launch in any second and send the roast laid out on the table flying.
Your Dad glares at Tara. Tara glares back at him. Your mom stares at you, worry in her eyes.
You stare down at your plate, your appetite somewhat dissipated.
“I just don’t understand.” Your mom says for what seems like the hundredth time this evening, “What does he want with you?”
“What does he want with any of them?” You mumble, “He’s a psycho, that’s all.”
You push a rogue potato around your plate, starting to regret the choice to come home. At least Sam’s questions were easily combatted by one of Tara’s swiftly timed jabs. You could hardly expect Tara to snap at your Mom.
“Let’s not talk about it.” Your Dad says, to your relief, “You’re freaking her out.”
“I’m just saying,” Says your Mom, chewing her lip, “Are we sure he was there… for you?”
She lets it hang. The scrape of cutlery against plates stops momentarily, as the entire table takes in the implication. You frown, look up at your Mom.
“And what’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing.” She says, hurriedly. You don’t miss the glance she sneaks at Tara.
“Seriously?” You say, “You’re blaming Tara?”
“I’m not blaming anyone.” She says quickly, “I’m just saying-”
“Well, don’t.” You snap, standing up, “God. Tell me now if you don’t want us here and we’ll go.”
“Of course we want you here.” Your Mom says, “YN, sit down, please sweetheart-”
“I’m not hungry.” You say, scooting yourself away from the table, “Thanks anyway. Come on, babe, let’s go to bed.”
They don’t protest as you lead Tara upstairs and into your bedroom. You slip your pants off, curl up into bed, take Tara in your arms.
“Your Mom’s right, you know.” She says, after a quiet moment, “None of this would be happening if it weren’t for me.”
“Don’t say that.” You murmur. You press a kiss to her head, wrap your arms a little tighter around her.
“It’s true.”
It is true. But she doesn’t need to think that, not right now. You curl your fingers through her dark hair, scratch her scalp affectionately.
“You-” You hesitate, picking your words carefully, “You’ve made some mistakes. But that’s in the past now. You turned over a new leaf, remember?”
You remember it vividly. The night after Amber’s death, making her swear black and blue she’d never kill again. Promising her she’d never have a reason. She shifts in your arms and looks up at you. There’s something in her eyes. Fear. Hesitance.
“Baby,” She says, biting her lip, “Whoever this person is. I have to kill him. You know that, right?”
Your stomach flips.
“No.” You say immediately, “No, Tara.”
“If he’s alive, he’ll hurt you. You know I can’t let that happen. We can’t turn him in, he knows too much. It’s the only way.”
That sinking feeling is back. The one that had been there when Chase died. The one after Amber and the one after Wes. Like everything is crumbling around you. You squeeze her a little tighter.
“I’ll do it.” You say. The thought makes you sick. The thought of her doing it makes you sicker.
“No, baby.” Tara says. She presses a kiss to your shoulder, “Not after last time. Look at what Wes did to you.”
“I don’t care.” You say, shaking your head, “I don't want you doing it. You can’t-”
Be trusted, is what you want to say. The Rage is terrifying, violent, and you don’t want to reawaken it. You hold it back, pull her closer to you.
“I don’t want that part of you back. I don’t like that part of you.”
Tara’s quiet a moment.
“It’s already back, babe.” She says, pulls your hand to her chest. Her heartbeat is wild, out of control, “Don’t you see? It isn’t killing that prompts it. It’s anybody trying to get to you.”
You’re too tired to fight. Too tired to admit she might be right. At the end of the day if it’s her or him, you know what you’d rather her do.
You lean down, press your lips to hers, try to redirect the conversation.
“You will sleep tonight, right?”
“Not likely.” She admits, her grip on your hips tightening.
“Let’s take it in shifts.” You suggest, pressing a kiss to the side of her head, “Half and half so we both get some sleep.”
She nuzzles her nose into the side of your neck.
“Okay. I’ll take first watch.”
She looks towards the handgun your Dad left for you on the bedside table, tugs it carefully over to her side of the bed.
“You know how to use that?” You ask, a little skeptical, “You know to turn the safety off?”
“Yes babe, I know how to use a gun.” She assures, a little irritated you asked.
“Alright, alright. Just checking. The last thing I need is you shooting yourself in the foot.”
“Give me some credit,” She grumbles, “That’s something Chad would do.”
You kiss her, softly, then snuggle down into her chest. Listen to the rise and fall of her breathing, her rampant, crazed heartbeat as it pumps in her chest.
“Remember to wake me.”
-
She doesn’t wake you, as you should have predicated. When you open your eyes it’s the next morning, and she’s pressing a warm kiss to your lips.
You scrunch your eyes, blink her into view.
“Babe? Did you stay up the whole night?” She kisses your forehead, nudges a warm cup of coffee into your hands.
“I wouldn’t have been able to sleep anyway. There was no point in me waking you.”
“Baby.” You groan. Her eyes are red, tired. You press your hands to her cheeks, lean up to kiss her.
“You’re exhausted.”
“I’ll nap in science.” She promises, “Mrs. Fletcher is enough to put anyone to sleep. Besides. I needed to make sure you were safe.”
She kisses you again.
“Speaking of: I asked Chad and Liv to stop by with a few supplies.”
She reaches for a paper bag, empties out the contents onto your mattress. You sit up, interest piqued.
It’s nothing less of an armory. You blink, hold up a small metal device.
“A rape whistle and a taser?” You say, “Babe, how am I supposed to take this into school?”
“Keep them in your purse.” Tara says, as if it’s a perfectly reasonable request, “It’s not like they check our bags. It’s for emergencies.”
She presses a long kiss to your forehead, “But you won’t need them. I’m not leaving your side. Not for a minute.”
“I have Chem today,” You say, heavily, “And you have English. We can’t be together all the time, Tara.”
“We’re skipping.” Tara says, “I’m taking you home early.”
“Tara, if the school calls my Dad and he finds out I’m skipping classes-”
“He’ll do nothing.” Tara says, fire behind her eyes, “You’re eighteen, he can’t force you home with him. And if he tries then I’ll-”
“You’re not killing my Dad.” You say, firmly. She pouts a little.
“That isn’t what I was going to say,” She says, a little put out, “I’d give him a piece of my mind, is all.”
You sit up, pull her into you.
“Sorry, babe.” You apologize, soothe her with a kiss, “I’m just a little on edge.”
“It’s fine,” She reassures, “Just please keep these on you. Please.”
You agree for her sake.
-
Word gets out quick.
People stare in the hallways, everyone trying to get a glimpse of Ghostface’s latest victim. It’s unsettling, this much attention. You grip Tara’s hand tight in yours and try to ignore the leering of the other students as she walks you to your locker.
When you reach it, Mindy, Chad and Liv are waiting for you.
“Is it true you saw him?” Chad asks, wide-eyed.
“Is it true he stabbed you?” Liv asks.
You shoot her a look, open your locker and grab your books for first period.
“Does it look like he stabbed me, Liv?” You ask, witheringly.
“Give her some space guys,” Tara says, pushing Liv back slightly, “She’s not a zoo animal.”
“Still.” Mindy says, “You survived a brush with Ghostface. Not many people can say that.”
You ignore the hot flash of dread that zaps through you at the mention of him. He could be anyone. Maybe he’s even here now, watching you. Waiting to get you alone. It must flash through your face because suddenly Tara’s hands are on your waist, rubbing your back reassuringly.
“She doesn’t want to talk about it.” Tara says, a little protectively, “Why don’t we meet you guys in Math.”
“Come on.” Mindy says, “Not talking about him gives him power. You don’t know who it is, right? Maybe we can help you figure it out.”
“Maybe it’s you, Mindy.” Liv says, voice sweet, “After all, you’re obsessed with horror movies.”
Mindy looks over, sharply.
“What kind of motive is that?” She says, annoyed, “Besides, I’m not the only one who likes horror movies. Tara does too. Maybe even more than me.”
“So Tara attacked her own girlfriend, that’s your theory?” Chad says, incredulous.
Mindy shrugs, “It’s happened before.”
She turns to you.
“YN, ever get the feeling like Tara wants to kill you?”
“I’m going to kill you in a minute,” Tara growls.
“Yeah.” Mindy nods, like her theory is confirmed, “Major Ghostface vibes.”
“Stop it,” You say, reaching for your Math textbook, “Tara didn’t attack me, she was with Sam. And I’d really rather not talk about it.”
Mindy’s shoulders deflate a little.
“Wes likes horror movies too.” Liv pipes up, “Maybe that’s why he ran away. He wanted us all to think he was dead so he could live his true life as Ghostface.”
You roll your eyes. Let them bicker. As you grab your final textbook your finger catches on something soft. Something you didn’t put there.
It’s a t-shirt, worn, gray, ACDC logo on the front. Your fingers curl around it, brows furrowing. Something hard is within the fabric. You fish it out, turn the cool plastic in your hand. It’s a DVD. Stab 2. Your stomach flips.
You slam your locker shut, white as a sheet. It draws the attention of the entire group. You feel a little dizzy, like you might pass out. Someone had been in your locker. It feels more of a violation than it should. Tara straightens, grips your hand.
“What’s wrong, babe?” She asks immediately.
“Bathroom.” You mumble.
You don’t say goodbye to Tara’s friends. You tug her behind you hard and fast, not sure how much longer you’ll be able to stand upright.
When you reach the bathroom, you slam the door closed, fish out the t-shirt and thrust it towards Tara.
“What’s this?” She looks confused. Flips the t-shirt in her hands.
“It’s Wes’,” You say. You take a heavy breath, try to quell the blood rushing to your ears.
Tara swallows. Her fingers brush the DVD.
“Stab 2.” She says, furrowing her brows, “What is this supposed to mean?”
“I don’t know.’ You say, biting your lip, “Nothing good. How did he get into my locker?”
“The school has cameras.” Tara says, thinking fast, “If I can get into the security feed I might be able to see who it was.”
“How are you going to do that?” You ask,
She bites her lip.
“I don’t know.”
“Please don’t get yourself in trouble,” You say, reaching for her hand. You entwine your fingers, “The last thing I need is you getting kicked out of school.”
“I’ll be careful.” She promises. Dips down to kiss you.
Then, she retracts, tosses the t-shirt and DVD in the trash.
“Tara. What are you doing? What if we need that?”
“We don’t need it, babe.” Tara assures, “Ghostface is trying to fuck with us, that’s all. Besides, the last thing we need is for the Sheriff to catch us with Wes’ old t-shirt and one of his movies.”
She pulls you in again, holds you tight.
“Are you going to be okay in class?”
You nod, drop your forehead to her neck. Wrap your arms around her waist. Your hand catches on something in the back pocket of her jeans. You furrow your brow, then tug it out.
“Tara!” You hiss, mouth dropping, “You brought a knife to school?”
Tara blinks back at you.
“Of course I did.” She says, “There’s some lunatic running around. You really thought I wouldn’t come prepared?”
“Baby, if one of the teachers catches you with this-”
“I have it hidden.” She assures, “They’ll never see it. How am I supposed to protect you if I don’t have a weapon?”
You're more concerned with protecting her. There’s a horrible niggling feeling in the pit of your stomach. Like Ghostface has been a little too easy on her so far. The knife in her hand gives you only the slightest reprieve.
“Let’s go to class.” She says, with a kiss to your cheek, “Do you have your rape whistle?”
You shoot her a look, tug at the string around your neck. She’d insisted you wear it at all times.
“Right here, babe.”
“Good girl.” She kisses you once more.
Your fingers curl around the taser in your back pocket. Slip your phone into your backpack and head to class, Tara’s fingers entwined with your own.
You take a deep breath. You're in school. In the middle of the day. Hundreds of students around.
Whoever Ghostface is, he wouldn't be so stupid to attack you in broad daylight.
Right?
next part
#ghostface!tara#all hers#mine#scream#scream vi#tara carpenter#sam carpenter#tara carpenter x you#tara carpenter x reader#tara carpenter x yn#jenna ortega#jenna ortega x reader
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The Ashford Theory and my patience running thin
Welcome, welcome my guys, gals and non-binary pals, to another scream into the void that the Ashford theory is, in fact, very jonsa
On to the arguments!
1. The suitor has to have the correct last name, not family, look at Joffrey Baratheon, you stupid jonsa
Hypothesis - the suitor has to have the corresponding name, not family, and because Jon is a Snow he’s out of the running. The other prong is fAegon who is actually a Blackfyre and not Targeryen, who can also be the suitor.
Thesis - Joffrey is the only other suitor to have a different name. Joffrey and Jon have also been set up as foils from the start of AGOT. Joffrey is a bastard masquerading as the rightful king and Jon is the rightful king (thrice crowned) masquerading as a bastard. It makes sense that they are the only two suitors to have the wrong name as this establishes them as inverses in another way. The last suitor being the foil of the horrible first suitor thereby showing character growth, and plot progression and resolution? Count me in.
As for Young Griff being a Blackfyre, here’s a meta or two, maybe even an argument, for him being the real Aegon VI Targaryen but take my personal fav evidences of Tyrion figuring out that Young Griff is Aegon VI Targaryen and then, Varys literally telling a dying Kevan Lannister about the true Targaryen prince and why would you lie to a dying man? How does that serve your purpose?
This is literally grrm telling us who Young Griff actually is, though this does not count him I out of the contenders, it reduces the weight of him being the fifth suitor, due to story arcs and well, his doomed fate.
Conclusion - While Aegon VI is a strong contender, there is much, much more literary weight and nuance with Jon being the Targaryen suitor.
2. Lady Ashford was not crowned the Queen of Love and Beauty by any champion!!! Take that jonsas
Hypothesis - tQoLaB is a title analogous to a betrothal/love interest
Thesis - there have been no allusions to the title of tQoLaB while trying to foreshadow a relationship, except for a really, really bad one (r + l) that plunged the whole realm into a civil war and we should not take that as a good sign
Conclusion - we’re grasping at straws here besties
3. Dunk disrupted the Ashford Tourney, therefore Sxndxr will disrupt Sansa’s prospects and other things
Hypothesis - Dunk & Sxndxr are are analogous and since there was no conclusion to the Tourney we can safely assume that it’s sxnsxn foreshadowing
Thesis - Brienne is the Dunk asoiaf corollary, not Sxndxr. Brienne is theorized to be Dunk’s descendant. She even has her shield painted like Dunk’s, apart from their striking character parallels and being a true foil to all the other knights in the story. Mr. Gravedigger is just tall :/
“Your door reminded me of an old shield I once saw in my father’s armory.”
Brienne II, AFFC
Brienne has Dunk’s shield in her family home possibly because she’s a descendant of Dunk but then goes ahead and gets her shield painted exactly like this one
“[The painted shield] was more a picture than a proper coat of arms, and the sight of it took her back through the long years, to the cool dark of her father’s armory. She remembered how she’d run her fingertips across the cracked and fading paint, over the green leaves of the tree, and along the path of the falling star.”
Brienne II, AFFC
Secondly, just because the tourney did not have a (satisfactory) conclusion does not mean that the tourney did not exist to serve a purpose. I doubt grrm would likely give out his whole story as early as 1998.
Conclusion - BRIENSA 4eva!!!!!
4. Valarr Targaryen died of a sickness and Aegon VI is doomed to die and is connected to a sickness, are you looking at the nerves popping out of my thick, brainy skull
Thesis - the fifth suitor is 100% Aegon and there’s no one else
Hypothesis - there is a Targaryen.. currently dead.. in the books… (thnk u @istumpysk for ur galaxy brain). The plague in the story serves to connects Aegon more to Dany than to a northern girl he doesn’t know about and might not like since she’s a Stark and his mother is Elia Martell.
Conclusion - jonsa
5. This is all a coincidence & u jonsas are reaching as always
Hypothesis - though george is known to tie every deep end, every crack theory, even farfetched ones that the readers have not caught, this one thing completely skipped his notice because exceptions are always there
Thesis - yes, because this is acotar & not asoiaf and he’s not grrm, i am
Conclusion - JONSAAAAAAAAAAAA
#ashford theory#jonsa#anti sansan#long post#don’t look#rewrote it because i am a loosely strung piñata & god is a 6 yr old girl hungry for more candy#:/#thank you everyone for your patience#and uh pls remember#I tried#thnk u#i wanna delete this :////#i haven't read the og theory but i've heard that it was originally written by a san/san shipper#all of my rebuttals (if you can call them that) are based against rogue comments/posts i have seen here and there#idk what was in the og theory and i don't want to know either if it was san/san
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Dis/nomers: On misnomers, magic-metaphors, and life in general
So, here's the thing: a lot of societal and cultural metaphors around magic and occultism are in the so-called West, frankly, bad and a product of the imprecision in the English language about "power", which themselves are inherently modelled on industrial-capitalist frameworks thanks to the Industrial Revolution, and steam power.
Think about what you mean when you use the word "power" or "intent" and ask yourself whether you are once again running on 19th Century (colonialist ideas: for example see non-Indigenous misconceptions of mana) that boil down to thinking you're a steam engine or some sort of closed system - because that's what the whole popular idea of energy comes from.
Why? Because willpower doesn't really exist.
Now something seems to be going on, when we do certain things. But are we hoodwinking ourselves - barking up the wrong tree, being led down the garden path -by the porting in pop-metaphor? Sure, it's easier, but is the apparent ease and clarity obscuring insights? Is it preventing us from taking our place as part of a living world; not clockwork and piston but inter-and-intra-relating, inter-and-intra-being in an 'animist' cosmovision?
Consider the metaphors you use, and wonder how they're using you. Because they are - we are thinking-with-and-being-with the ongoing worlding of a daimonic (agential) kosmos.
And that All is doing the same-with-us.
Remember, changing the metaphors we use can change the way we think, and how we are in the world.
This is why I mutter about kenning, as found in Old Norse poetry, but also as a method of indirectly approaching experience by folding in the world. Kenning is, in one sense creating a poetic metaphor, a circomlocution that describes a thing without direct nominalisation. A wheelchair user can be a throne-walker; the sea is not just the sea, it is the whale-road and also Aegir's-cauldron, Poseidon's-stable, etc etc.
"It is no coincidence that a kenning is a poetic term of art, a doubling and metaphoric circumlocution of a singular noun or thing – the sea becoming the “whale-road”, a sword seen as the “icicle of red shields”. A singular referent now exceeds itself, drawing the relationality with the whole world of those present. This indirectness, far from detracting from the referent, deepens the knowing. Each portion of the kenning exceeds itself also, thusly thickening the field of the sword or sea, and, in enhancing its relationality, enlivens each further.
Further, this means that the poet acknowledges the excess of the referents, comprehending that kenning may build on kenning, and the full, totalistic mapping of a referent is doomed to fail in terms of completion.
This goes even beyond the usual aphorism from astronomer Carl Sagan: “If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe.” For each element of the apple pie is capable of being defined by the relationality of all presences, in all forms, positions, and configurations in all possible and impossible universes – and each of these in turn relate to each other as they will.
This then, is the joy and horror, the wonder and terror of an animate, fluxing kosmos – there is always more."
- Goêtic Atavisms, Frater Acher & Craig 'VI' Slee
(See link above: also available on Amazon as well as from the publisher if you need that)
Do we want to live in a world circumscribed by misnomers, grandfathered in with extractive and clunky ways of perceiving the world? Or do we want to embrace the dis/abling wyrd strangenesses of the numinous?
The liberatory power of the dis/nomer - the radical proposition that there is always more than can be named, can be contained? That we might ken more if we embraced blurry, uncertain periphalisms which spiral endlessly inward and down into pandaemonic, living, breathing labyrinths?
If we immersed ourselves in relational eddies, tides and gyres eternally returning-and-coming-forth-again - dis/membered and re-membered anew? To dive into currents and flows - the multiplicitous assemblage of influences which are the very bodyof the oceanic river which Herakleitos warned us that we could never enter in the same place twice?
What might we notice is already happening, already ongoing, that we are amidst, then? Might we spot the plurality of Minotaurs engaging in their diasporic fugitivity, nomads in their myriad labyrinths, far older, wiser, and weirder than we thought we knew?
Spaces of monstrously numinous sanctuary, far beyond the ken of the Theseus (their supposed slayer) and his identitarian regime of denial, his heroic ever-intact status quo. Pity the ship-builders in their labour; they work do so under the threat of sword - or is it gun and bomb, these days?
But while Theseus abandons Ariadne, Dionysos does not! And while Theseus eschews the sea route to perform his labours in order to gain heroic glory and satisfy ambition, his oceanic ancestry has the last laugh - both mortal father Aegeus (thrown into the sea that bears his name) and he (thrown off an island cliff - presumably into the ocean) were reclaimed; seized by the sea and its thundering white horses. What might it be, to be oceanically possesed as that hero's mother was? To have one's soul-sea stirred by the Earthshaker?
We can but dream on the matter - while also slyly noting that Athenians kept the Ship of Theseus preserved, as mark of divine heritage in their feted city ruled by the demos. What matters now, in these days when even politicians talk of the so-called "will of the people", is matters of ancestry and history dismissed; lineages of language and its many influences ignored - no entanglements here, vine or otherwise, we assure you!
But thankfully, the ship-builders know the way of wood and net and weave. They know how many planks pass through their hands, how many nails struck, how much pitch is brewed. They know there's more. They're craftsfolk after all - assemblages are their business, whatever the material - they know what mattering is.
And isn't it interesting that the Temple of Hephaistos in Athens was once mistakenly called the Thesseion - The Temple of Theseus, before the moderns realised their mistake?
Watch the words we use, and how they use us.
Be seeing you.
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Nothing's Wrong with Dale - Part Twenty-Three
It’s been a week, but you’re fairly certain your fiancé accidentally got himself replaced by an eldritch being from the Depths. Deciding that he’s certainly not worse than your original fiancé, you endeavor to keep the engagement and his new non-human state to yourself.
However, this might prove harder than you originally thought.
Fantasy, arranged marriage, malemonsterxfemalereader, M/F
AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/41189829/chapters/118476739
Warnings: Violence and Death (nothing too graphic, but its prevalent enough I wanted to mention it)
[Part One][Part Two] [Part Three] [Part Four] [Part Five] [Part Six] [Part Seven] [Part Seven.5] [Part Eight] [Part Nine][Part Ten] [Part Eleven] [Part Twelve] [Part Thirteen] [Part Fourteen] [Part Fifteen] [Part Sixteen] [Part Seventeen] [Part Eighteen] [Part Nineteen] [Part Twenty] [Part Twenty-One] [Part Twenty-Two] Part Twenty-Three [Part Twenty-Four] [Part Twenty-Five] [Part Twenty-Six] [Part Twenty-Seven] [Part Twenty-Eight] [Part Twenty-Nine] [Part Thirty] [Part Thirty-One] [Part Thirty-Two] [Part Thirty-Three] [Part Thirty-Four]
But time is slipping through your fingers. You make your decision and pray it’s the right choice.
“Dale!”
There’s a second of silence before muffled confusion is evident from the hallway on the other side of the door followed quickly by pounding footsteps. Vi spares you a glare, but Clen seems unconcerned, merely readying his crossbow.
The door bursts open before anything else can happen and you can’t help but flinch as it hits the wall.
Framed in the doorway is an alert and worried Dale, his mouth in a hard frown and his hand already on the hilt of his sword. You watch as his eyes land on the four strangers arrayed in front of him. He draws his sword before he unerringly finds you and the unconscious Grandmother. That’s when fury ignites in his eyes.
“What is happening here?” Dale asks, his voice outraged as he takes stock of the situation.
“Northridges simply enjoy asking after the obvious, do they not?” Clen asks Lasky before looking back to Dale. He lifts his crossbow and aims directly at you. Instantly you tense, ready to drop to your knees and out of range behind the heavy wooden desk. You freeze where you are because that would leave Grandmother a free target. “This is a kidnapping, your lordship. If you don’t cooperate with us, your fiance and grandmother are forfeit. Surrender now. Prove yourself more intelligent than the rest of your ilk.”
Keeping your dagger in your strong hand, you grope blindly on the desk for something to use as a shield, cursing yourself for not thinking of grabbing such a thing earlier. As your fingers close around the ink mat, a sturdy leather mat to absorb any ink that might seep through when writing, your eyes meet Dale’s. You can almost see a cold certainty enter them before they slide back to Clen.
“No. You may surrender or run,” Dale retorts. “I’ll not go with you nor will I allow you to continue to threaten my kin.”
“Oh, lordling,” Lasky coos, “You’ve barely begun to hear threats. Wait until you learn of my plans for your spouse-to-be. Not that you will continue to live for much longer, but I doubt you’d still wish to marry after I’m through.”
You swallow down bile and hope Dale hurts him.
Dale growls, a dark, rolling sound that fills the room. You shiver, feeling it resonate through you, and quickly check to see that Grandmother has not yet awoken. The mixture of concern and relief that fills you at that fact doesn’t help any of your nerves settle, not that you expect them to for several days—provided you live that long.
“Do not—” Clen warns before cutting himself off with a curse as Dale charges. He manages a single shot in your direction before he’s forced to meet Dale’s sword with his own. The shot is still good enough that it hits your makeshift shield of an ink mat. The arrowhead pierces through the leather to scrape your arm and knock it back, but it doesn’t make it any further than that through the mat.
The clatter of the crossbow hitting the floor is nearly masked by the shouts and grunts as Clen, Vi, and Lasky begin fighting with Dale. Your eyes find Two, but he’s watching the fight, not you. Dale has managed to get his back to a wall, limiting his opponents ability to surround him. They’re appearing to have trouble ganging up on him without hitting each other, limiting their approach.
With no better opportunity, you place your dagger down on the desk and open the closet door. You grasp the back of the chair Grandmother is on and begin tugging it is in towards the closet. You choose to keep your eyes forward towards the fight instead of putting yourself between Grandmother and the action. Hopefully if you see anything coming your way, you can intercept it before she gets further hurt.
The chair is heavy, but you’re terrified, especially since you no longer have even your thin dagger in hand. The adrenaline seems to help as you drag the chair across the rug, grateful at least there’s no sound to alert the others to what you’re doing. The three assassins currently trying to fight Dale seem to have fallen into a pattern, with Clen engaging Dale’s sword and Vi trying to get at him with her spear from the side, herding him towards the opening in the wall to another side room. Lasky waits in that room, a seemingly endless supply of knives in his hands.
True to your suspicions, both Clen and Lasky seem to have some sort of demonic enhancement to themselves or their weapons, although they remain clearly unpossessed. Clen has a strength to his movements that matches Dale’s own while Lasky’s daggers seem to come back to his sheaths when they miss. You eye the knife lodged in Dale’s leg and wonder if it's a good thing they don’t pull out to return when stuck.
You cross the threshold into the closet and have to focus on maneuvering in the much tighter space. It seems to primarily hold cabinets for files which you realize once you back into an ornate handle. It’s at a perfect height to jab painfully into your neck and prevent you from pulling the chair the final few inches into the closet.
You side-shuffle out from between the cabinet and the chair, mind racing as you check if the chair even will fit. The top of it is just under the height of the handle so you think you can manage it. You scoot around in front of the chair, a nervous glance over your shoulder to see the fight still raging, a confusing knot of bodies and weapons that you can’t make heads or tails of except that Dale is still holding his own.
Kneeling down, you lift the front legs of the chair off the ground so they can get over the higher board marking the entrance to the closet and heave. After a few seconds of straining which feel like an eternity, the chair finally moves those last few inches, thudding into the back cabinet and fully crossing over the threshold into the closet. You set the chair down, trying not to dwell on how it’s likely a bad sign that Grandmother hasn’t woken up for any of this movement.
You get to your feet, glad you’d pushed the chair towards the middle of the closet even before you’d realized how shallow it is. That leaves room on either side for you to fit in. Unfortunately it means that it’ll take too long to turn the chair around and try to wedge it against the door. Or maybe that’s a good thing because your hands are shaking and your palms sting where the wood of the back and legs had dug into your palms. You half close the closet door as you turn around. You're even more nervous now, after having your eyes off the fight for so long. You need to see if there’s anything nearby that might work as a wedge instead and check on the fight.
Dale seems to have gotten more room to breathe, the others all pushed back, but he’s in that doorway, with little at his back to guard it. Lasky takes advantage of that space before Dale can, sending a series of knives flying at him. Dale deflects two and dodges the other two. Unfortunately, with Lasky on the other side of Dale from you, you realize with a jolt of terror that sends the dodged knives in your direction.
One lodges into the desk, but the other flies just over it. You try to move out of the way and you manage—mostly. The knife lodges solidly in the closet door and through your skirts, pinning them in place.
“Darkest damn—” You can’t help but let a minced oath out as you frantically begin pulling on your skirts, trying to get free. How the knife was sharp enough to pierce the fabric of your skirts but not enough to rip them now is proving nearly as frustrating as it is terrifying.
You glance back at the fight and your eyes meet Lasky’s. Desperately, you reach for the knife hilt instead while your other hand fumbles to pick your own dagger up again. You swallow when you notice Lasky is indeed circling the fight, heading for you. You grip the hilts of both daggers so hard the little imperfections on then dig into your palms.
You point your own in the direction of Lasky’s approach while continuing to tug futilely on the dagger pinning you in place. Nothing you do seems to budge it and your hand keeps slipping off given how much you're sweating. You give up on pulling and start to simply shove at the hilt with the palm of your hand.
“Did I pin a pretty little butterfly?” Lasky asks. He’s got another dagger in his hand, but he comes to a stop a few feet from you.
You keep your eyes on him, but don’t answer, giving the hilt of the dagger another strike with your palm. You feel it wiggle and wrap your fingers around it. If you can move, you don’t want him to know in case the element of surprise will help.
At the same time, where can you go? Or rather, can you afford to leave grandmother? She’s hidden now, but if one of these assassins decides they need her or just wants revenge when the inevitable becomes clear. Dale is the only one here who you know will walk away from this fight. Whether everyone else, including yourself and Grandmother, will is still to be determined.
“Did I nick your tongue too?” he taunts. “Do not pretend to misunderstand what your role is. Your little lord is proving more of a challenge than we expected, especially since Two isn’t helping.”
You think he grimaces at that, but it’s hard to tell with his mouth covered. Still, for all his taunts, he’s clearly strung a lot tighter than he had been before. Good.
“So you are going to help bring him to heel, as intended.” He flips the dagger in his hand in a deliberate move to show off. You chance a glance behind him to see Dale finally pushed into the side room and out of your line of sight. You’re certain the idea that you did manage to make eye contact with him is just false hope. You have to figure out how to get out of this yourself. And right now, running isn’t an option.
“You are not going to win this,” you reply, your voice a little rough, but still intelligible and not obviously full of fear, hopefully. “You should leave.”
He takes a step closer instead. “Just because he didn’t immediately fold, doesn’t mean he will triumph,” Lasky corrects, some anger coloring his voice. “He’s outnumbered and once Two remembers why they’re here, he’ll be outclassed.”
“Then should you not be aiding your companions?” you ask, trying to tug on the dagger with as little obvious movement of your arm as possible. Anything to keep from drawing Lasky’s attention to what you’re doing.
The lines by his eyes crinkle, he must be smiling under that mask. You feel more dread pool in your stomach. “Do you not see? That is what I’m doing. For all your threats, you’re no real match for me and while I still do not have any rope, I’m just as capable as taking out an eye as you are, if not more so. You need to remember who you are dealing with and surrender.”
A noise from behind—something heavy crashing into the wall and possibly a bookcase given the cacophony that follows—draws both your attention. Unfortunately, Lasky refocuses just as quickly as you do and so you’re still in a stalemate, both holding daggers, but truly, there isn’t a contest here. There is no question who will this fight, just what the collateral damage could be.
You hate this. You hate everything about this situation, from the fighting and Grandmother’s condition, to Dale in a fight against multiple opponents. Most of all you hate this man in front of you. But what can you do?
Another smash and thud sounds from behind Lasky, but he doesn’t bother turning to look this time, just takes another step closer. He steps to the side, blocking your sight-line to the rest of the fight although not before you see a figure thrown across the room. You can’t even hope to identify who.
With another step, you give up on the pretense and give a final pull. This time the dagger is freed from the wall and you take a stumbling step down along it, away from Lasky. You hastily bring that knife up to bare as well, holding one in each hand. You’ve had no training in the use of two daggers or even much training at all with your non-dominant hand.
It’s clear Lasky knows that too, his confidence is obvious. The secondary reason for that becomes evident when the knife in your hand that belongs to him starts to tug. You’d thought if you were holding it, it wouldn’t try to return to him, like when it had been stuck in the wall, but apparently that’s not true. It fights your grip, attempting to go to Lasky and into its sheath on his arm like the others had.
You hold on tight, not wanting him to be further armed even if you don’t know how to wield it well yourself. He takes another step forward and you take another to the side. You notice that he’s steering you away from the relative safety the desk might have afforded you. The only good thing is that he seems to have completely forgotten about the fight going on behind him. Unfortunately, whenever you move to compensate, he blocks your own view.
Finally he breaks the stalemate you’ve been locked in and rushes forward. You hastily stumble backwards along the wall, unwilling to give up the, perhaps false, feeling of safety it gives you. He slashes at you with his greater reach and you try to dodge, but you can feel his strike connected. Luckily, between the fabric of your dress and the manner in which the corset is boned you’re not pierced or cut by the blade. However, on his pull back, he catches your arm, slicing it and leaving a hot line of pain on your underarm that makes you cry out.
Your mind spins as the attack throws off your balance. You try to ignore the drip of blood down your arm, the sting of the cut, and the satisfaction in his eyes. Your palms are sweatier than ever and you have to focus on not trembling. The pull from his own dagger has only gotten stronger. With half an idea in your head about that, you kick out, slashing with your dagger more in the hopes of gaining back even a foot of space.
It works, you catch some part of him, and he curses as he takes a step backward. “Would you simply stay—”
You lower your center mass and just as he raises his arm for a stab from above, attempting to use his height to get at your throat or chest, you release your grip on his dagger. In such close quarters, it doesn’t have time to turn or aim effectively. Given the strength it had been pulling at, it’s out of your hand like it was shot from a slingshot. Between your attempt at aiming and Lasky’s own speed, it misses its sheath entirely. The blade sinks into his armpit instead and he screams in pain.
Lasky’s fingers release the dagger held in that arm as his other hand clutches at the knife now embedded in him. You don’t waste any time standing there, immediately retreating, trying to find somewhere else to go, somewhere else to hide—anything to keep him away from you.
Should you go for the courtyard? Two’s no longer guarding that door—at least as far as you can tell, who knows if he needs to be near it to stop you from leaving. You feel a pang of guilt and regret for no longer staying to guard Grandmother, but with Lasky specifically focused on you and no real way to hold him off, you’re no use to her except to distract from her. The closet door was slammed shut so hopefully these assassins will just forget she’s even there.
You head back towards where you came from originally, where Lasky’s been herding you. Hopefully you can find some of the Governor’s guards—or anyone, really. You sloppily knock over any chairs, ottomans, side tables you come across—anything to slow down your pursuer as you go. A wild, likely foolish part of you wants to run towards Dale. For all the fight still raging, and him already dealing with multiple opponents, you know he’d try to protect you. But your presence would just make his fight harder. Right?
“You bitch,” Lasky’s voice is ragged with pain and you hear his heavy footfalls getting closer as you round a short couch. “Get—” Whatever words he was going to say next are cut off by a thump and a wet gurgle. Unable to help it, you turn around.
Lasky’s already much closer than you expected, his eyes wide with surprise as he looks down at the raw spike of iron protruding from his chest. You identify it as a fireplace iron and look beyond him to see Dale’s back disappearing from the doorway.
A gasping cough brings your focus back to Lasky in time to see him collapse over the back of the couch and stop moving. You pant where you stand, feeling staggered by the sudden absence of an immediate threat. You can’t dwell on Lasky’s death, you can barely process your gratitude to Dale—there's only relief that Lasky’s not capable of hurting you anymore.
Should you return to Grandmother? You hadn’t actually gotten that far with how messy the room is. Hide in that closet to defend her if need be? Hadn’t you just proved how ineffective you’d be at such a task? You got in one good blow that was more accident than anything and still needed Dale to—.
You hesitate and absently use your dagger to finish a cut made to the fabric of your dress. You take the strip of cloth and wrap it around your bleeding arm. The sudden pressure on the wound makes you flinch and grit your teeth against the renewed pain.
Just as you secure that makeshift bandage in place and resolve to leave to find help, Vi comes running full speed out of the side room. You know the moment she spots you because she changes direction, heading for you. Immediately, you try to run for the door, but she anticipates your movement. She runs around wide, blocking that as a viable exit.
Without thought, you turn, heading back the way you came and for the courtyard. She’s fast though, faster than you with her sturdy boots and training while your skirts and soft shoes only slow you down. She catches you just before the desk and closet you’d started this mad dash from.
A side hit from the spear bruises your side and you cry out as you are spun around. There’s desperation in her eyes as Vi lunges to cover that last few feet between you. She slams you back against the wall, her spear shaft across your throat. Your wrists too are pinned up in the skilled maneuver. Her wide, terrified eyes bore into yours. “What the fuck is he? You’re going to—”
The clash of metal on metal followed by a wet cough and a triumphant growl from the other room cuts her off. You only try to wrestle her for control briefly. You’re no match for her strength. Instead, you try desperately to wriggle your hands free, trying only to get more room to breathe. Your head is tilted back, your throat throbbing as she fixes her gaze back on yours. You try to say something, you don’t even know what, but she doesn’t give you a chance.
“They lied, he’s not human,” she spits. “He’s a skinwere.” It’s clear Dale’s revealed enough of himself that she knows he’s possessed, not enhanced. Another word for a possessed human is a demon wearing human skin or skinwere for short. It’s a very negative term and you think she might be local—you’ve heard that term used more in Northridge than even at school. No wonder she’s scared out of her mind.
She must be able to tell you’re not surprised by the news because her eyes narrow, “You knew.” It’s not a question, but you can’t speak or even move your head to answer anyway. She doesn’t seem to need you to.
She pushes against you with her spear, completely cutting off your air before she pulls back enough to let you speak. You cough, gulping in air as she orders, “Tell me how to kill it. Tell me—”
Before she can make any more demands, you drop your whole body down heavily. There was enough space now between the spear and the wall to let you, although it still wrenches your wrists and hands painfully. Your head hits the wall as you tilt it back to allow the movement.
Wrists and head hurting from the spear, backside throbbing from smacking into the ground as a dead weight, you’re moving before you can think about it. Crawling around her legs on your hands and knees. You scurry towards anything that can be perceived as safe. The sound of something heavy being flung into the wall makes you flinch.
A heavy blow to your back makes you yelp, collapsing onto your stomach. “You’re not going anywhere,” Vi snarls, the butt of her spear, pressing down with insistent force. “Not until—”
The pressure abates abruptly and you turn on your side to see something long and black around her wrist, pulling her weapon off of you. Your vantage point, combined with your throbbing head, makes it hard to follow all the action, but it looks like a black snake that Vi tries to tug off with a yell.
She draws a knife with her free hand to strike the black thing, but the crack of bone breaking causes her to scream as her spear drops from her limp hand. It falls harmless to the floor. You manage to pick it and throw it far away. You know she’d be more capable of taking it from you than you would be at wielding it.
Vi finally looks behind her, following where the solid shadow stretches from and screams at whatever she sees. You only see another long dark ribbon of tangible blackness wrap around her neck before she’s pulled backwards with a strangled sound. She disappears out of your sight.
Another thwack and gasping whimper make you wince, paralyzed on the floor, mind unable to decide what to do next.
You hear footsteps heading for you accompanied by a tap of wood on wood. Then you hear a worried, “Sana?”
Relief floods your body and you desperately need to see Dale, to reassure yourself that despite the horrible clashes and yells, the violence and the destruction, he’s whole. No matter what he must look like given what you’ve seen and how his voice still has an echoing, deep quality to it. You brace yourself on your palms to push yourself up. Opening your mouth to answer him, you’re interrupted by a crack before you can.
“I knew it,” an unfamiliar voice meets your ears. It has a strange, otherworldly grit to it and you freeze instantly. “How all these other humans are so blind, I’ve no notion.”
Dale hisses, “Hide,” before you hear him move away from you and towards the voice. You follow his suggestion, too cowed by the return of the threat to want to do anything else. Half crawling and half dragging your tired body, you tuck yourself under the heavy wooden desk.
“As though you are a paragon of subtlety,” Dale snaps back. He’s clearly nearly in that other side room once more, but his voice carries more than perhaps he’s even aware.
“Ah,” the voice concedes, the sound carrying just as easily. Is that a demon power? you wonder with only slight delirium, projecting your voice? “ But I am not trying to be. Neither of us are.”
“Us?”
“Yes,” a far more human voice replies this time. “Us.” The two voices overlay on that word before the more inhuman voice continues, “We are not all so rude as to kick out the original owner. Some of us know what it is to share.”
You realize it’s Two, who has apparently decided to finally enter the fight and who’s strange nickname suddenly makes a lot more sense.
“I care not how many of you are fitted in that body,” Dale replies. “You’ll do no more harm here. You’ll not fulfill your mission.”
“Perhaps,” the casual menace of this voice is not intimidated by Dale’s confidence or orders. “Or perhaps there is simply more to be gained and less to be shared.”
Dale must see no more reason in talking because there is only the sound of movement and metal after that. Grunts sound from all three voices, perhaps more distinct given your inability to see and only to hear. They’re not enough to tell you who’s winning and you’ve no notion of how Dale stands in contest with another actual demon. Neither are likely attempting to hide their natures, but is that an advantage to one or the other? Or a wash?y
Does the Two being both help or hinder them? They had also implied that Dale was not sharing his own form, which meant the human who had been Dale was gone, didn’t it? Neither of them are mentioning Clen, so is he dead too? What sort of creature was the demon in Two? You know demons vary wildly, even the intelligent ones, in a manner far greater than humans did, what if this one was more powerful than Dale?
It feels like ages of simply listening, though in reality is likely only a minute or two. You can’t take knowing so little about what is happening. You hesitantly move forward and cautiously kneel up to see just over the surface of the desk.
They’re indeed still in the other room, moving so fast you can hardly tell who’s who. Front he glimpses you catch, neither of them are in forms that are entirely human anymore. Part of the fight seems almost mundane, the swords meeting and breaking apart as they circle, engaging and dodging stabs and slashes. The shadows in the room move unnaturally and at least two seem to be even more independent than that. They whip around Dale to meet and deflect animate stonework, colored grayish-green with a rusty red shot through it. The rock seems both to come from the columns and walls of the room beyond, despite looking nothing like ones in this room, and from nothing at all.
Your heart is nearly in your throat as Dale’s shadows seem as if they would be far weaker than something so sturdy. A big chunk of stone falls from the ceiling causing Dale to need to dodge to the side. He catches Two’s sword stroke awkwardly as a result. A clatter reveals that he’s been disarmed. His sword sent flying from his hand to land behind Two.
Dale retaliates with a riot of shadows which erupt between them and forces Two back. It also nearly leaves them out of sight of the doorway and you straining to follow what’s happening. Dale’s back is to you and only half his body visible, while Two’s nearly on the other side of that room. From what you can tell he’s beginning to resemble a statue more than a person, if a moving one.
“I believe you’re unarmed now,” Two says with a smirk.
“I do not need a weapon to be armed,” Dale snarls, the shadows of the room flickering dizzyingly. His entire body seems more amorphous than ever before. You think he looks taller than he typically is, but thinner too. The arm you can see is oddly shaped, as if it is bare but also, more like a medical mannequin from class—bone and muscle with no fat to be seen. He brandishes his hand to better display the black claws he now has. In fact, you’re certain he’d been wearing a green suit earlier, but it’s black now too. Even his dark hair is even darker, untied and wild, longer than it should be.
You keenly appreciate Dale’s rebuttal, but you still hate that his sword is gone from his hand while one remains in Two’s. They shift their stance and you automatically try to compensate with your position to keep your view. You bump into a lamp that’s been knocked to the floor.
As you push it to the side, something on the ground catches your attention. You peek around the edge of the desk to get a better look and very deliberately don’t look too closely at Vi’s body, only a few yards away. Instead you focus on the long, thin piece of polished wood instead. Dale’s cane.
Instantly, you know you need to get this to Dale and more than that, you want to do something, anything to help him. Carefully, you put your hands down on the cold stone floor to steady yourself. Then you move just far enough out from behind the desk to grasp the foot of the cane and pull it towards you.
You grasp it firmly in your hands and peer back over the top of the desk, checking to make sure that Dale’s still the one closest to the doorway.
Once you see that he is, you call out, “Dale!” Then you lean up high on your knees and throw the cane like you’ve seen others throw a javelin. It soars through the air and into the further room where Dale and Two are tangled in a confusing knot of shadow and stone.
They break apart at the sound of your voice and Dale leaps backwards as if propelled by some of the shadows under him. A hand, black, like he’s wearing gloves or dunked his arm in ink, and clawed, snatches the cane out of the air with careful precision. You think you see the glint of a blue eye on the back of his hand, practically the only color standing out against his form now.
“Will that do you any good?” Two asks, seemingly curious more than anything as he watches Dale hold the cane. You can’t tell if his lack of anger over this fight, the way he keeps treating it like a tournament fight for entertainment, is a good thing or not.
Dale says nothing, merely twists the handle. He carefully pulls off the wood to reveal a long green rapier.
“Jade,” Two hisses, taking a full step back. “A dangerous weapon for one such as ourselves to wield.”
“All weapons are dangerous,” Dales replies brusquely. “Humans regularly use weapons as deadly to themselves as they are to their enemies.”
“How adaptable. All the shade in your nature, I presume,” Two says, a mocking edge to his tone.
“You are not the only one who can use stone to their advantage,” Dale bats back as easily.
Two lets out a bark of laughter and the sound seems to come from far more than two mouths, let alone one. You would give nearly anything for him to never do that again. “It has been so long since I spoke with one of us with intelligence still left to them up here. The sunlight seems to drive too many insane. Almost a shame to kill you.”
“A good thing then,” Dale says as he charges, “that you will not.”
The visibility of the fight becomes impossible after that. There’s too much movement from shadows and they move further into the room. You’re back to primarily trying to gauge the fight based on sound alone: thuds and crashes and ripping that you can’t identify.
“So close. But perhaps you are correct,” it’s the human voice this time, panting but not demoralized. Some of the sight line clears and you see Two hunched over, a hand on their chest. “I shall not be able to kill you nor collect the bounty so generously placed on your head.” They pick up their head, “However, the knight had the correct idea.”
“Yes,” the grating demonic voice picks up and they slowly straighten. “I’m certain you must have supplies or books worth perusing. I can tell your form is impeccable underneath, despite your essence spilling out. This body, with him intact, still gets a bit stiff if I’m not careful. I shall be intrigued to ascertain how you accomplished such a thing.”
“You think I will allow you to leave?” Dale hisses. “After all you’ve done.” He throws a hand out to emphasize the general state of destruction around them.
Two laughs and it's one of the most unsettling things you’ve ever heard. It has a screech to it that makes your skin crawl. You are resisting the urge to cover your ears or yell yourself in order to drown him out when he looks over and meets your eyes. His dirty red eyes, the color of dried blood, bore into yours across the distance and he rushes for you.
He crosses the distance faster than he should be able to you and there’s a ripple in the walls that seems to respond to him. Panic seizes your heart and mind as you instinctively dive back down and under the desk. Your hands desperately latch onto and drag a broken ottoman to cover the open part of the desk.
Curling up behind it, you feel something slam into the makeshift shield, pushing you and the desk back, the wood squealing against the floor as it moves. A wordless roar comes from further away and another crash echoes through the room. The sound of what you think are books falling to the floor and a heavy grunt follow.
Then, silence.
You cough a few seconds later, unable to help it due to all the dust the stone moving has kicked up. You think you hear a smothered groan while you attempt to stop, but you stay rooted in your hiding spot, waiting.
After another dull thump, Dale calls your name. His voice is still strange and yet you can hear the confusion and worry in it. You can hear a lot more than that actually. Your eyelids flutter despite being unable to see anything other than dust and dingy wood.
Your name sounds different than when he’s said it in the past. There is a depth to it, meaning below the surface that you can hear when he’s like this. Like emotion and inflection and neither of those.
There’s a layer of softness, of imagery that it conjures up, that you can almost feel through his voice. Of gentle sunlight through the window on a clear day. Your favorite chair and the taste of fresh, sweet honey melting on your tongue, soothing and comforting. Its respect and harmony and the potential to be more than you are alone, of joining and of belonging. Tension leeches from you in waves, like taking off so many heavy coats to stand unburdened. You want to drown in the sensation, you want to hear him say nothing, but your name for the rest of your life.
You want to come out, to go to him, regardless of what you might see. Hesitantly, you push the ottoman away and start to crawl out from beneath the desk. Shakily, you stand up and turn to face Dale.
To your surprise, he looks far more human than the glimpses you’d gotten of him during the fight. His eyes still glow unnaturally and his hair is too long and wild. He’s roughly the correct height again with no too tangible shadows or extra eyes, though you’re not looking at his hands on purpose. His skin for the most part is a shade of human coloring once more. He doesn’t seem to be bleeding either, no obvious large wounds or injuries.
You can’t handle a direct conversation about his nature now, not after all of this, and so you look beyond him to assess the rest of the situation, although you can tell by a feeling in the air that Two is gone.
The room beyond him does look as though the bookcase closest to you had been tipped over or thrown towards the desk, but Dale is standing in such a way as to suggest he’d caught it before it fell. His free hand is also held open in a gesture towards the wall behind you, where you can see large bricks of rock have come loose, though not enough to threaten the integrity of the wall itself.
You meet his eyes once again and he finally relaxes, shoulders drooping as you both stand in the aftermath. Then he’s striding forward and the cool fingers of his free hand grip your chin as he examines you.
“I am fine,” you say, which would probably be more convincing if you couldn’t feel tears dripping down your cheeks. His eyes rake up and down your form, obviously trying to assess that for himself before finally settling back on your face once he’s done.
Something that might be relief starts to spread over his face until he freezes. He withdraws his hand abruptly from your face, tucking it behind him with a speed you don’t bother to try to match. Instead you resist the urge to sway towards, wanting his touch once more as it had felt grounding.
Then he blinks, his eyes darting around the room with renewed concern. “Where?” Dale asks.
After a second of confusion, you realize who he’s asking after. Your hand closes around the door handle for the closet and you pull the door open to reveal a still unconscious Grandmother hidden away safely.
You grab one arm of the chair and Dale the other as you pull it out from the closet. You don’t even care that he’s clearly doing the majority of the work. It takes a second before you can see her chest moving with her breathing.
“Grandmother will be too,” you say, not sure who you’re trying to convince more.
“Good,” Dale says. He carefully brings a human thumb to wipe away your tears with a tenderness that does not match the danger that lingers in the way he still holds himself. You can’t help but lean into his touch, the safety he offers, if only to you. “It would only be worse for them if you were not.” His eyes slide to Grandmother’s unconscious form and menace seems to drip from his voice. “It shall be bad enough for them as it is.”
You jump at the sound of a door opening, looking past Dale to see two of the governor’s guards walk in. They stop, gaping in the doorway.
Dale straightens, ignoring the reinforcements that have finally shown up. He doesn’t respond to Grandfather’s concerned voice calling his name and Grandmother’s and even your own. His head swivels to the direction of the courtyard, where Two went.
Fear grips your heart and your hand lands on his forearm, “No.” He doesn’t look back at you either. He gently, but inexorably pulls out of your grasp. You can’t stop him, you know that you can’t, but you can’t stand the thought of him leaving, of him pursuing this threat. “No. Dale. Don’t go after him!”
He ignores you, jade rapier in hand, and runs out into the courtyard.
“Damn you,” you say, voice tight as you try to stop more tears from welling up. What if he’s found out? What if Two can do more to hurt him? What if there are others in wait and he’s outnumbered? What if—? You wipe your eyes more harshly than perhaps you need to as you force yourself to focus on what you can do, who you can help.
While the other guards race to follow Dale, Grandfather hurries across the room to be on the other side of the chair, calling Grandmother’s name. You can feel her breathing, but you need to see if her heart is in trouble. You check her pulse as you tell him, “We need a doctor. Now.”
[Part Twenty-Four]
#my writing#story: nothing's wrong with dale#nothing's wrong with dale#dale#story part#terato#exohilia#monster romance#monster bf#reader#male monster#osha compliant#slow burn#arranged marriage#this chapter is a beast#its literally the longest chapter int he whole story so far#probably should have been cut in half#but i couldn't do that to you#dale gets a secret weapon too#fight fight fight#lots of moving parts in this one#hope its lived up to everyone's expectations!#tell me what you think!
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vi. sword & shield
blood&pearls mlist
wc: 4.1k
summary: you are a curious creature, trying to explore the depths below and the lands above. your curiosity may get you in trouble with a world that you do not understand.
warnings: monsterfucking, blood play, demon sex, mermaid sex, mentions of violence and drowning
a/n: omg it has been almost 2 months since i updated...please accept 4.1k of word during this sukuna-less time...pls rb/comment if you enjoyed!
Despite Sukuna’s protections and charms over this domain, it does not stop others from visiting your lake. Word has spread to the tiny villages on the outskirts of the forest that there was a magical pond where the water was always sparkling and the sun always shone on it.
It’s become something of legend, like the elusive fountain of youth. All you have to do is offer a curl of your lips and a coy look over your shoulder for curious townspeople to come visit you bearing gifts.
You’ve received foreign fruits flowing out of gold encrusted plates- cherries, persimmon, and sweet peaches. Enough for you and enough for the fairies several times over. They come with shining jewels and glittering gems just for one look at you.
It means nothing to you but nevertheless, you smile sweetly with your fangs bared.
You toss the jewels in the sea, only for them to sink to the bottom where only dead sailors would ever cross paths with the hidden treasures.
The white-haired man comes in the summertime. His hands are empty but bright blue eyes burn into you even as you hide under the surface of the lake. Something about him has you hesitant in your own home, but you’re no coward.
You know he can see you with those striking eyes. Sukuna has told you very little about the jujutsu world, but you know enough now to know what those awful eyes mean for you.
Perhaps you should have taken him up on his offer to stay in the shrine. Instead of being “stubborn” and “bull-headed”, as he had so kindly said to you several evenings ago-
“If you spent more than a second doing anything other than laying bare in the sun, you would understand the dangers of-”
“I do not simply fill my time by laying bare in the sun! I am a thing of many distinct interests.”
“I do not care, girl. You will stay in the shrine until I sort these fools out.”
“I will stay in the water for as long as I wish.”
Trying to busy yourself with lining the shoreline of the sea with your shiny shells, you ignore the gaze of the man you do not know. He watches with several others near the trees, far enough away from you. You hear their whispers, their desire to understand and harness the powers of the sea in their own self-made crusade. The fairies stay hidden as well but you can hear them buzzing softly in the trees, shielding themselves from the sudden influx of strange energy over the course of many moons.
Hues of bright, celestial blue haunt you even as you lurk in the comfort of the murky depths.
Your heartbeat is jarring in your ears as his tongue parts your wanting lips while the air in between you and Sukuna ignites. There is no space between you, not where his chest meets yours or his hand cradles your cheek to face him. There is no space between you, and the rhythm of your breaths nearly makes you combust.
You claw at him with razor sharp nails that manifest from nothing, rivulets of blood running down his back.
All you listen to is the fervent racing of your heart, the way it sings and roars with each pass of Sukuna’s touch on your glistening skin. You chase the roaring in your ears with more, more, more- arms twisting to reach for him, lips panting for him, body bending to him…
Until he squeezes your throat and murmurs for you to stop.
Smaller hands push against his solid, marked chest to no avail. You try to intertwine your tongue with his and coil yourself around him, desperate for Sukuna to just look your way, give you an inkling of attention.
But he holds you still with a firm hand squeezing your cheeks tightly.
“Stop,” Sukuna says quietly but roughly.
“Why?” you mumble petulantly into his mouth. Your eyes flash red for just a second, the same shade of red as his own eyes.
Sukuna raises an eyebrow and holds you at arm’s length as if he is committing you to memory. Something trickles from his shoulder down his back and to his surprise, he finds blood dotted on his fingers when he reaches behind.
You gasp, lurching forward to reach for him, just to gasp again when you glance at your hands.
“What,” you mutter, “What is this?”
Your nails are long, the same length as Sukuna’s. Painted the same color as Sukuna’s nails as well.
“What magic is this?” you ask again with wide, frantic eyes, “There is this inferno inside me-I need-”
The erratic beating of your heart pierces your ears, leveling your head with a rough buzzing noise. You wonder if Sukuna can hear it. Hear how desperately your heart beats just for a wayward glance, a stray touch of his. Your sharpened nails claw at his skin, bright red blooms emerging with your touch. He barely flinches as rivulets of blood stream down his chest.
His lips are rough against yours as he harshly tries to quell your rising restlessness. Sukuna brings you to his bed, laying you upon it with an unceremonious thump. You reach for him when he pulls away for half a second.
“What have you done to me?” you whisper. It is not an accusation, but merely a curiosity. No man has ever made you feel as if you were the embodiment of a hurricane, raging and unleashing anger and impatience at the rest of the world. He is the eye of the storm, the only burning balm that can simmer you down at this moment.
But Ryomen Sukuna is no common man, as you have come to learn.
Many nights have been spent in this very bed, where he’s bent you over with the strength of ten seas in one hand. You have felt this burning before, the yearning before it takes over your soul completely. When his cocks are slick with your wetness, when all of his eyes are trained on you.
You had never felt as bare as you did when Sukuna watched cocks sink into your warmth, or when he watched his own cum drip out of you and onto his silk sheets.
Sometimes your magic leaks out and converges with his, twisting and tangling together. Scarlet and midnight meld together as his name escapes your lips in soft, breathy whines.
This time, it’s his back against the cool sheets and your nails digging into Sukuna’s chest as you throw your head back and moan freely into the air. Sukuna holds your hips loosely with his bottom pair of hands. The top pair rises to twist your hardened peaks. It’s as if you feel nothing and everything- his touch is blazing, small flecks of fire lighting up your shimmering skin.
You breathe him in and out. Sukuna is decadent in a way that is comparable to sin, something spicy and delicious sitting right under the artery that slithers up his neck.
You give Sukuna no opportunity to take control from you- placing his hands exactly where you want them and lacing your fingers through his as you rock your hips against his hardened cocks. You tease yourself, uncaring that you are teasing him as well.
Sukuna does not miss how your eyes flash red when he attempts to ease his cocks into you. You wish to take your time. To indulge, as he’s taught you to many times in this very bed.
Your teeth bite into his neck with a sigh as you sink onto him as you take a moment to adjust. It is only a moment, just to relish the feeling of being completely, utterly full. A shiver rushes down your spine, your chest heaving as you keep him nestled with your warmth.
The moon shines on your face, making your eyes look iridescent. As if you’ve been possessed by an angel. Or a demon, the one lying beneath you, in surrender to your touch.
You sink your teeth into his chest and sharp fangs pierce skin unforgivingly. You can feel his gaze on you as blood drips down your lips and onto your neck. Tilting your head, you press a hand to his left side, where his heart should be. You apply pressure as your nails, an extension of him, shred the skin there as well.
But you stop and lick your fingers, Sukuna’s blood fresh and ripe on your tongue.
“Take it,” he rasps, holding onto your wrist tightly. The King of Curses never begs, but for you, it’s nearly on his tongue.
You consider it, allowing your fingers to ghost over the silence of his heart before squeezing down once more. Sukuna groans loudly before repeating the command to you again.
“No,” you reply easily, “Maybe next time.”
Instead, you sink your teeth into his neck once more and the fruit of death is ripe on your tongue. You pull one of his thick digits into your mouth, coating specks of his own blood on his finger with your lips. The vibrations of your hum resonate through him and his hot, sticky cum shoots inside of you.
A moonlit halo covers your head, as if you are a goddess looking down upon him and he is at your altar on his knees.
Sukuna comes to you hours past midnight, when he knows you will be awake and moonbathing on your precious rock. He knows you will be waiting for him with open arms and glistening eyes that contain the depths of the ocean that you come from.
But this time, you’re nowhere to be seen. He can sense your energy, but he just can’t see it.
He rolls his eyes and scoffs. How juvenile, playing games and hiding from him when you know that it is futile.
A gentle laugh and buzzing breaks the silence of the night. It must be those pesky fairies flying around and planting silly ideas in your head.
“Something must be disrupting your thoughts,” comes your voice from far away, but he hears it echo, “It has been some time since the king graced me with his presence, after all.”
“Not long enough, I suppose,” he replies, wading into the water to meet your outstretched arms.
Sukuna barely takes several strides before you part the water for him to join your embrace. It must be a whirlpool, the way the water spins and suctions you both down deep into the dark abyss.
He blinks to adjust to the sudden darkness but you illuminate the seafloor with your glowing, honeyed eyes and bright green-blue scales. Sukuna has never seen you in your true domain but when you smile at him with sharp fangs and wrap your tail around him, he wonders why you willingly gave up this power.
Only a simple flick of your fingers pulls him closer to you with an unseen force. He understands now. Your heartbeat is one with the heartbeat of the sea.
Not only have you made a home out of the meadow surrounding the water, but you’ve made a home out of the water itself. It is silent here, as if every hidden creature waits for your command. In spite of the darkness, tiny shining corals and flowers live and thrive near the cave at the bottom of the ocean floor that you frequent.
You smile at him with warm cheeks and eager hands before swimming away and letting your tail nearly whip him in the face.
��Don’t get lost, darling. You’re in my domain now.”
Your sweet voice is loud in his head. Sukuna rolls his eyes but follows you towards the cave, nevertheless.
Inside your cave, the air is warm and completely dry. The water does not touch this patch of underwater land, somehow. Perhaps Sukuna does not know as much of your powers as he presumed.
You beckon him forward and gesture for him to sit on the ground, where shells and rocks line the entrance of the cave.
“I am a god,” Sukuna hisses, his eyes flashing, “You demand a god to kneel before you?”
“You have kneeled before me many times before,” you reply easily, “Don’t hesitate just because you exist in my domain. I do not demand you to do anything that you do not already want to do, dear.”
It suffices and he sits beside you as your magic flows and presses against Sukuna’s cursed energy. Dark blue swirls poke and Sukuna’s feet, surging around his broad shoulders and caressing the lines on his face.
You laugh when his own energy wraps and curls around you far more roughly than your magic.
“Come. I wish to show you around my home.”
*****
Time does not pass normally underwater as it passes on land. There must be something cosmic about the tinkering of time here, because Sukuna has certainly made a home in between your legs for the better part of the night. Surely, the sun must be rising in the east by now. But it does not matter, because the only radiance he needs is right here.
His tongue is shiny with your desire, pearls dotted on your lips as a gift to him. The seam of the mouth on his stomach splits open in a menacing smirk to lick your heated skin.
Quiet whines echo off of the walls of the cave, reverberating into the water in waves. Sukuna braces his lower arms against your impatient hips as a furrow forms over your eyebrows.
The image of the dark, thick lines on his face reflects in your opaque, half-lidded eyes. His thumb is warm against your cheek as he drinks you in. Your eyes are different than they are above water- still dark and deep, but sheer. And your pupils have shrunk, barely visible to his gaze. All he can see is a sea of darkness illuminating your eyes.
Sukuna is once again reminded that you are not a fragile human. His fingers are firm on your throat and you tilt your head to the side for him to press down harder.
“You may take me,” you murmur serenely, your smile a song, “I wish to show you something.”
In the caves, your lips and your words are coy and fleeting, much like how you behave when you remain perched up on jagged rocks in the ocean without a care in the world. Waiting for an untoward sailor claiming innocence to come your way.
But you have brought him into the sea, where you glow like the seashells and coral delicately placed at the bottom of the seafloor. With bright eyes and shimmering skin, you do a dance with him. Your tail wraps around, closing around him as golden warmth spreads-
Air does not escape his chest and water does not enter it. Something breathes for him, though he is not sure what.
“Come, follow me,” you say. Except your voice is not spoken, it is in his head. It is… jarring, as if you have access to the fabric of his brain matter.
Your tail whips around him, parting the water with a force equivalent to a domain expansion. The only thing he can see in the murky waters is the light of your sharp fangs as you beckon him to follow you.
Moonlight glistens on your tail as rays from above pierce through the water. The darkness is illuminated with the blessing of the moon. And in the middle of it all, there you are. Floating, with your eyes fixated on him. Nothing moves here and yet everything moves. In the place where life bloomed at the bottom of the ocean floor all those millenia ago.
Even as you both float downward towards the blue ocean floor, the light shines on you. Making you a beacon in the abyss.
The water wraps around him warmly like a cocoon when you press yourself closer to him. You cup his face with your hands and he is curious when he sees that the skin connecting your fingers is webbed.
Is this the true version of you, with your endless tail? Or is it the version of you on land, with your endless legs? Perhaps it does not matter.
Sukuna hears you in his head. Closer… just a little bit closer…
His lips are on yours in half a breath that he does not need to take, hands dipping down to feel the shape of your tail in his palms. His upper pair of arms wraps around your waist as a hand circles your neck to hold you closer. As you wish.
The breath from his lungs is stolen by you as your fingers brush against his neck, where his skin pulses suddenly.
“What have you done to me?” Sukuna asks, though no words come out of his lips.
You only smile at him and reply in his mind, “You are able to breathe in the water now.”
The slits on his neck are foreign, but Sukuna pays it no mind. Instead, he chooses to focus on you and presses his tongue to your neck.
You shiver, a whine escaping your lips. But he hears it.
“This is sensitive for you,” he states, his lip curling into a sneer.
“If you need to ask, then perhaps you should continue.”
Sukuna rolls his eyes and runs his fingers over the slits on your neck. You let out a little moan and he smirks, clearly satisfied. Replacing his lithe fingers with his lips, he grins wolfishly when you press yourself against him immediately.
It’s a rare smile from him, one more animalistic than anything else.
Your tail wraps around him, the tender parts of your fins tickling his thighs and his abdomen. Sukuna does not know where to look- at the slits on your neck, or the larger slits on your torso that are glistening with your wetness, or the way your scales shimmer and move. As if wanting to part for something hidden in the crevices of your body.
Instead, he allows for you to wrap your fins around his cocks and lazily move up and down, up and down, until he is fully erect. You don’t break eye contact but if he was a lesser god, he may shirk at the sheer lust blown in your eyes.
“Does this feel nice for you, Sukuna?”
Sukuna does not have to answer for you to already know the answer, and you both know it. He feels weightless, stood still by the power of time as you stroke his cocks languidly. You pull him in closer to press kisses to the slits on his neck and his hips abruptly buck into yours.
“I do not like surprises,” Sukuna mutters.
He surrenders control to you, surrendering to the foreign feeling that bursts in his chest. He groans in your ear, cocks moving of their own accord.
“You were made for me,” you murmur, “Are you going to cum for me, darling?”
He shakes his head, wanting to savor the moment and eyeing the slits on your torso. You seem to understand and shoot him a smug grin. Unraveling your tail from around him, you press yourself closer so that his cocks rub against the silvery slits molded into your skin. You’re unable to stop a sharp moan from leaving your throat as he ruts against you.
The watery friction is nothing that he has ever felt before, and yet it reminds him of the warmth of you when you are laid on his bed and he enters your cunt mercilessly. You are everywhere all at once.
Sukuna impatiently swallows your moans with his tongue and feels his fangs pierce your lips. The drops of your blood are honeyed and savory while his fingers toy with the slits on your neck.
Your eyes are hooded and you pulse with the heartbeat found at the bottom of the sea.
“More, Sukuna,” you mumble, “Faster, want you to cum for me like this, want to see you cum all over me-”
With a sharp gasp, you cum harshly and Sukuna greedily licks your wetness before his own cum lands at the slits of your torso. You look at him curiously, offering him a disarming smile and infinite eyes.
“As I said. You may take me.”
The hidden moon is in the company of a thundering downpour on the night that they come. You are quietly arranging your rocks and your seashells when your ears perk up. Multiple voices and sets of footsteps echo as the sounds carry through the trees. It is jarring in the stillness of the night, and something dark washes over you.
The fairies look at you urgently, then at each other before immediately skittering away. They tell you to leave, that they have weapons and great powers, greater than you’ve ever seen. But they do not know the ruler of the sea.
And where will you go? This is your home now.
You stay hidden below the lake with your teeth bared, waiting for piercing blue eyes to find you just below the surface where your world splits open.
When you were a child, your mother told you that your magic was divine, given to you by Ryuujin himself. Perhaps her intent was for this knowledge to humble you. Instead, it made you wish for more than just a life in the sea. You wonder if she regrets instilling the belief that you are touched by Ryuujin.
The legends say that every millenia, there is a chosen creature of the sea. One who can unite the warring land and sea, or one who can destroy both.
If Ryuujin chose you for something greater than yourself, something meant to end the maelstrom that contains humans and curses, you cannot bring yourself to care. All you care about is protecting the lands in which you live so that you may continue to live there.
But your protective wards cannot stay up forever, even with Sukuna’s cursed energy to enhance yours.
Perhaps if you were less stubborn, less foolish, you may have seeked refuge in Sukuna’s shrine. Nonetheless, when they come, they come in a blinding blaze of glory in hues of reds and blues and purples. Trying and failing to break down your protective wards.
The power of the white haired clan’s energy nearly surpasses Sukuna’s own energy. You shiver.
Perhaps you will simply drown them instead.
“You should have listened to me, but instead you choose to remain insolent,” the great demon king of these lands says. You expect that anyone else would be fearful to be in his throne room while he speaks to you with death on his tongue and vexation in his eyes. But not you.
“I will not live in fear-”
“You are tempting fate each time a Gojo sorcerer comes your way,” Sukuna seethes, his face only inches from yours, “Do you think that drowning them will be the last of it?” But you do not back down, sending him a poisonous glare of your own.
“Are you not the king of curses? Won’t you do anything about them?” you taunt him with a smirk.
“They will not rest until they have you,” he hisses, “Them and every other clan-”
“Human matters are of no concern to me! Why should I hide when I have every right to be here as much as them? As much as you?”
“You will get yourself killed for your arrogance.”
You scoff. “You lecture me about arrogance?”
Sukuna forces you to look at him, taking your chin in his large hand.
“You are not safe here. Why do you continue to disobey and stay here?”
“If you have not figured it out by now, then you are just as foolish as the humans you claim to reign over.”
His eyes flash and he drops his hand as if you’ve burned him. His energy angrily rises, swirling around you and prodding your skin.
“If you refuse to accept my protection here, I cannot help you. You are a girl in a world of gods and monsters. Go home, girl. Go back to the sea. ”
There is none of the wordless affection in his eyes that you are accustomed to, only cold distaste and fury. His words are poisonous and you have only heard this level of vitriol pointed at others. Never at you. You pull away from him immediately, feeling your hardening heart sinking to the ground.
You are certain your heartbreak is written all over your face. After all, it is not the first time that you have been devastated by a man.
“You are afraid,” you say softly, “You are afraid that you are not the god you think yourself to be. And you are afraid of me.”
You turn your back on him before Sukuna has the chance to drive the bloody knife further into your spine.
tags: @kentobean @misslovingpearl @aeanya @threadbaresweater @aboveasphodel
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Moon peppers (3)
(2)
Palestine: what can you do
were!Abby x witch!reader
Summary: Abby runs away from her (former) pack and into your forest. You're not happy with your new (woods?)mate.
Tags: fantasy au, sloppy worldbuilding (fuck it we ball), fem!reader, alpha!abby, witch!reader (so not an omega), sentient forest, stubborn idiots in love who annoy each other.
Notes: near-death experience, Caitvi being the cutest.
Taglist: @abbysbae @poxismind @sidefanficaccounttohidemyshame @pjmispunk @herdelreydear @lmaoo-spiderman (if you want me to tag/untag you for the whole series dm me please)
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Annoyance prickles you all the way home. You feel a little exhausted after having your shields around yourself for so long, and if it wasn't for the stupid wolf, you'd be fine. You can't shake your irritation: you even offered the wolf peace, and it still attacked you! You keep in mind that the wolf might not be lucid - like it was with the bear, and you had to bring it back to the human form while avoiding getting killed - but on the other hand, it moved away when you threatened it with magic.
“Fucking weres.” You spit and trip on a root. “Ouch. What, you have a soft spot for them?”
The woods don't answer and you huff. You're used to the forest’s weirdness and mood swings, but sometimes you don't understand them. Who would have thought you can have an argument with a forest? But you had, on multiple occasions, and it showed that the forest remarkably worse at communicating than an emotionally stunned man.
When you see your hut, you let your shields down and take a long, tired breath. The wolf destroyed your sense of safety in the woods, and it makes your blood boil from fury, but you take another breath and try to calm down.
After all these years your anger is still the hardest to control. You still shake with the desire to just hit something, but it is still better than the desire to choke someone until they go cold and stiff. But it's hard to let go of this irritation and you haven't found a way to let it out-
Oh. Actually, you know a way.
You sigh and slump on your porch to take a small break and recharge. The shields around the hut are not powered by your flow of magic, rather than by the bunch of stones and threads underground that you have to charge from time to time, so at least this is not draining you right now.
Fucking werewolf.
You look over the edge of your shields and get angry again at the wolf. Your anger springs you into action, and you go inside your hut to get your things together. You take the fish out and put it in the chest full of ice - you're not cooking dinner today, you have no patience for it.
You put another bottle of special tincture and head out, eager to go somewhere where there's no crazy werewolves. You're grim and the woods feel it, and they're rightfully offended by your attitude, but you can't bring yourself to care right now. Your mood is not directed at them rather than at one furry monster, and you know the forest knows it too, so you don't bother with sorries or excuses: you are not going to lie about your feelings, and you're tired from bottling up your anger.
As if not feeling anger is a goddamn requirement to be a good person.
When you're out of the forest, the sun gets closer to the horizon, and the evening's lights are beautiful enough for you to forget your spite for a moment.
Then you continue stomping your way down the path and past the village, until you reach the odd house.
You knock, shifting from foot to foot, and wait for someone to open the door. It takes a moment, but then Vi opens the door and the suspicion on her face turns into surprise when she sees you.
“Damn, what happened to you?”
“Can you spar with me?” You ask impatiently and come inside when Vi lets you in.
“Is it a bottle in your sac, witch?” The dwarf grins and you roll your eyes. “I'm always happy to kick your ass, don't worry.”
“Thanks.”
Vi leads you to the kitchen where Caitlyn is cooking something and you shiver when you feel her magic: elven magic comes from stars, so it always feels cold. It's unnerving and makes you feel deep loneliness, and you don't know how Caitlyn deals with it. Do all elves feel as lonely as her magic makes you feel?
But then Vi leaves a quick kiss on Caitlyn’s cheek and you chuckle. Vi, as any other dwarf, works with fire and metal, she always runs hot or is covered in coal, so you guess she balances Caitlyn and keeps her warm.
“Darling!” Caitlyn smiles and hugs you, sending another wave of shivers down your spine. “You came back earlier than I expected.”
“She is going through some shit.” Vi immediately tells on you and you throw her a nasty look. “Listen, I didn't come here and ask to spar instead of saying hello.”
You huff and sit down on a soft chair, unloading your sac on the table. Vi grabs the bottle right away, but Caitlyn gently takes it and places it on the shelf.
“Did anything happen?” The elf asks carefully and you let out a depressed snort. Caitlyn pours tea for all of you while Vi grumbles that she wanted her booze, but she still takes a sip.
“Another fucking were.” You say, defeated.
“No fucking way.” Vi groans. She was the one who had to deal with the bear after you brought it back and let's just say, they both didn't enjoy the experience, cursing and cussing at each other nonstop.
“It chased me to the hut, tried to jump me at least five times, refused to change back into human form and took Sevika's den. And when I warned it that she will come back and kill it, it made me walk backwards until I was out of its territory, growling and snarling at me. Un-fucking-believable.” You sigh. “And I'm so anxious my magic became unstable. I almost boiled myself alive.”
Caitlyn's face is so full of sympathy and concern it's hard to look at, so you look at Vi instead. She looks puzzled and just as annoyed as you are.
“Is it a bear? Again?” Vi asks and it's almost funny how she is still full of spite after the werebear. “Why do you always get the crazy ones?”
“They fucking sense my own crazy.” You grump. “It's a wolf. A giant one, I've never seen them this big.”
“Probably an alpha, then.” Caitlyn says. “It's strange. Wolves live in packs.”
“Well, this explains the aggression.” You try to joke, but you sound more anxious than before. “I fell into the river today because of it.”
Vi cackles and you want to punch her.
“So I'm angry. This is why I want to spar.”
“I think it is not wise for you to spar with Vi when your magic is unstable. I much prefer my starlight healthy and happy.”
Vi is clearly embarrassed by being called starlight - as always - but Caitlyn's loving look stops her from complaining and you from teasing. Elves are infinite and their love is too big and encompassing for mortals, however long they can live (Vi has another 500 years ahead of her, you think), and it's too much sometimes.
“Have you been meditating like I showed you before?”
You feel stupid.
“No.” You sound embarrassed, as you should be, but again - your anger management is still work in progress.
“Well then. Let us go to the garden and I will guide you through it. Then you can spar with Vi, if you still wish to.”
You nod and follow Caitlyn.
It's dark when Abby wakes up, and she feels better. The food and sleep helped her recover, and now she can finally change into human form to treat the rest of her wounds.
The problem is, she doesn't have any supplies, since you took all of the moon peppers. So she will have to find something that will help her before she returns to her human form.
For a brief moment she considers talking to you, since you are too weak to be a threat, when she gets better, but then she remembers you standing next to her blood stains near the den and the consideration is forgotten.
So Abby cautiously shows her nose out of her den and takes a long sniff. Thankfully there is no one around who can hurt her, so Abby gets to her feet and goes for her search.
Her wolf nose is more sensitive and she can smell more plants and animals around her than when she is a human, and it takes her less time to get to a comfrey bush. It's not in bloom, but Abby can still use it on her injuries to help with some of them that still bleed.
Abby takes a breath and turns into her human form. She stands on her fours, shaking and grunting as the new level of pain washes over her body, but it slowly subsides. Abby is breathing deeply through it until her head stops spinning and the shaking goes away. Then she is able to sit down and check herself.
Abby slowly raises her shirt up and winces in pain. Her right side has three deep long scratches that have been closing but not fully, so her shirt is soaked in blood, but that is what comfrey can help with. Her left thigh and calf have seen better days, and the hole from the claws stings painfully when Abby tries to move. It might be infected already, and this thought terrifies Abby. She thinks about going into the village to see their healer, but she might give herself away, so she will have to deal with it herself.
Abby slowly breaks a few stems and starts turning them into mush - it would have been easier if she actually had a mortar, but alas, she has to adapt to her current situation, so she just kneads the stems in her hands until it's as gooey as it could get. Then she applies it to her side and moans in pain.
“Fuck.” Abby whispers, but the mush helps immediately: her werewolf healing is way faster than anyone's in the world and her wounds finally close for good. It doesn't mean it's healed fully, but at least Abby stopped losing blood and avoided infections.
Abby smells her former packmates one second, and the next second she is back into her wolf form. They're surrounding her from every direction and Abby tries her best not to panic, but somewhere deep in herself she knows she is not going to make it this time. There are obviously more wolves than before, hell, did Isaac bring the whole pack just to end her?
Abby hears growling from behind and turns around to face her threat, but the blow comes from the side, and Abby falls. She expects them to immediately go for her throat, but the wolves step away, clearly waiting for her to get up.
Oh, so this is going to be a whole humiliation party, Abby thinks, but stands up anyway. They want to make an example of her - well, she is not going to let it happen. If Abby is going down, someone will go down with her.
Abby narrows her eyes and tries to pick up Isaac’s scent and attack him, but he is nowhere to be found. Abby then moves to her closest target and attacks the wolf, going straight for their neck - it's a weaker one and Abby is sure she is going to kill it, but they're quick and Abby misses, falls on her feet again.
Someone jumps on top of her and bites into her shoulder, but Abby throws them off and leaves a nasty bite on their stomach - even if they escape, they will die on their way home. That brings her some satisfaction, but it's short-lived: another wolf jumps and bites her scruff. It hurts, but Abby throws them off again.
Then they're relentless: she throws off one wolf and another attacks her. Abby is getting exhausted and it's hard to get up now, but she still does. Her hind legs are shaking and her just closed wounds are open, but she snarls at her previous packmates, not giving up.
Abby is happy she doesn't pick up Manny's scent among them.
Suddenly wolves stop and step away, and Abby smells Isaac. Fucking coward waited until his wolves tired Abby out so he would stand a chance against her. He'd never win in an alpha on alpha fight, and everyone knows it. It makes him look pathetic and Abby knows wolves can smell her contempt and feel how Isaac's presence triggers her alpha’s pheromones. Some wolves whine, scared of her even when Abby is so weak she takes two tries to stand up, and Abby's smells like boasting.
Isaac growls and shows off his own pheromones, but Abby overpowers him by a mile, which in return pisses him off and he lunges at Abby.
They clash and Abby puts all her strength into most fatal attacks, clawing at his most vulnerable spots, but Isaac gets away from her.
Abby is panting and shaking, she is getting dizzy as her body starts to give up, and Isaac feels it. He lunges again with more force and keeps biting and clawing, waiting for Abby to slip up.
And Abby slips up.
Fangs sink into her throat and Abby whines as a piece of meat gets ripped out of her. She can't breathe, she is choking on her own blood as everything starts to fade away.
Her former pack leaves only when all of them are sure Abby is dead and her heartbeat can't be heard and her scent can't be smelled.
Isaac huffs in triumph at Abby's lifeless body and leads his pack out of the woods.
“So, do you still wish to spar with Vi?” Caitlyn asks after you finished your meditation. It's not the most comfortable experience and you'd really like to have some hot tea now, but you feel calmer and the flow of magic in your body is more stable.
“No. Thank you, Caitlyn.”
The elf smiles gently and leads you back to the kitchen where Vi is already sipping your tincture.
“You can't be left alone, can you?” Caitlyn sighs lovingly and Vi grins.
“Try it. It's great. Not to your posh elven standards, your majesty, but you will like it anyway.”
Caitlyn huffs, embarrassed, and lightly slaps Vi's bicep. She just chuckles, catches her hand and leaves a gentle kiss on her palm.
“You're adorable.” You coo and Caitlyn smiles at you. “I think I'll be going now. The forest wasn't happy with me.”
“Just like that?” Vi complains. “Next time bring two bottles.”
You laugh and leave after saying your goodbyes to the odd couple.
It's dark outside now, and you come back to the forest with a lighter heart than before. The forest is silent, but you don't feel any anger towards yourself, so you're a little puzzled.
And then your path suddenly makes a wrong turn. You don't question it and just follow wherever the forest leads you: it happens from time to time and you're always happy to help, especially now, when you're in such a good mood. You get suspicious when you recognise the path leading to Sevika’s den, but then it takes a different turn and you calm down. This is the way to comfrey and you walk confidently since it's familiar.
You reach the bushes and then you see blood on the ground. Oh, this is not good.
You follow the blood and you see the big shadow of the wolf on the ground. You flinch, scared it will attack you again, but it doesn't make a sound and it doesn't move. You come closer and now you can see it’s covered in blood and its back doesn't rise like it's supposed to if it was breathing.
“Fuck." You whisper. "Hey!” You call, but the wolf doesn't react.
You make a few steps closer and then you run to the wolf when you exactly how much blood is there. There's a giant hole where its throat is supposed to be and you feel the cold dread crawl on your back.
“Fuck. Fuck! What do you want me to do?” You ask the forest angrily. “I'm not powerful enough, I can't do shit!” You're on the verge of tears: yes, the wolf is annoying and scary, but it doesn't deserve to die!
The woods respond with a gentle warm breeze and you take a deep breath as your fingers grip wolf's fur. Okay. Okay, there is an option which you're afraid to use, but it will work. Well, if the forest agrees, of course.
“Give me one of your trees and I'll be able to save the wolf.” You say quietly, knowing you have no right to ask for it, knowing the woods have no reason to trust you or believe you won't become dangerous again, but it is literally the only way.
You're also afraid and you don't trust yourself, but the wolf is dead and you can save it. You can bring it back to life. You have no idea what happened to the wolf, but it simply doesn't deserve to die.
You sigh and go around the wolf to the tree behind it. Your hands are shaking but you firmly put them on the bark and gasp: you feel the life energy flow in it, the forest will let you do this. It's so much your breath hitches but you calm yourself and begin to drain the tree.
You hear the rusting of the leaves as they turn into ash and your body gets filled with the life force of the tree. It's exhilarating and you can't help your surprised giggle when you feel your magic grow. Fuck, it's been so long since you felt so powerful and you feel alive.
The half of the tree is gone and you now notice that your hands are glowing. But it's not your hands that are glowing, these are your tattoos and runes. It makes you flinch in terror as memories flow through your head, but you keep going and try not to pay attention to every line and letter and patch that glows through your clothes. You haven't seen them in years and you'd much prefer not to see them ever again, but alas, the power comes with consequences.
Everything now is covered in ash and you feel like you're going to burst from this amount of life energy in your body, so you quickly come back to the wolf and hold its head between your hands, and then you start pouring the energy into its lifeless body. Your tattoos stop glowing so violently as time passes and you see how the wolf's throat grows back and gets covered in fur. The wolf finally exhales loudly and inhales again, and you feel its heart restart.
You sigh, relieved, and sit down, still holding the wolf's head and putting more energy into it, but now you're calm: the wolf breathes and gets warmer with every second.
You murmur a spell that will let you continue giving the energy to the wolf and then you cast another one that makes the wolf float and follow you to the hut.
You notice the blood on your hands and take a shaky breath as an ancient temptation gets the hold of you: you can put this wolf in debt, you can make it leave you alone (which is a not a fair price, but you have priorities), you can do whatever you want since you have its blood.
You swallow sickly and shake your head to calm down.
When you get to your hut you're not sure where to place the wolf: it will take a night and a day to finish healing, but the moment the wolf wakes up it will try to kill you, so you need to do something. It's not your greatest idea, but you really have no other option except to leave it outside and risk the wolf running away and breaking the bond. So you go to your stillroom, put all the protective spells you know on everything so the wolf won't trash the place, and summon some furs so the wolf won't be lying on the cold floor. You stand there for a second and cast restraints on the wolf - again, stupid idea, but it's for your own safety. Tomorrow, when the wolf wakes up you'll explain everything and release it, of course, but if you want a chance on said explain, the wolf should be restrained.
When you go to bed you become aware of just how much energy will stay in your body after this, and it makes your heart sink.
You only hope it won't drive you mad.
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The Golden Lions of Heaven
S2 has several prominent lion symbols in it, and at first watch they don’t appear to have anything to do with the main story line. But there are lions in both seasons, and they are all connected.
Lions are intrinsically linked with royalty, and are often called King of the Beasts or King of the Jungle. They also symbolize courage, nobility and strength.
Whenever lions appear in GO they are always coloured gold, which is associated with Heaven. Nearly all the angels have some bit of gold on them somewhere - unless they have just discorporated.
In Christian iconography Jesus is represented as a lion upon his return. When he was crucified he was a sacrificial lamb, but the Second Coming is a time when he returns to reign again. As a descendant of the royal house of David, it therefore seems quite logical to assign this symbol to the king of kings.
There is also this paragraph from the Medieval Bestiary:
“In Christian allegory, the three main natures of the lion each have a meaning. The lion erasing its tracks with its tail represents the way Jesus concealed his divinity, only revealing himself to his followers. The lion sleeping with its eyes open represents Jesus, physically dead after crucifixion, but still spiritually alive in his divine nature. The lion roaring over his dead cubs to bring them to life represents how God the father woke Jesus after three days in his tomb.”
There is also an often misquoted line “when the lion shall lie down with the lamb,” but it’s not that at all. The full verse is:
“The wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them.” [Isiah 11:6]
It is referring to a time of peace that should come once Jesus returns. Somehow I don't think we are going to get that in S3.
The Two Lions in the Dirty Donkey
There are two large golden lions sitting on the ends of the bar in the Dirty Donkey. Because one of the underlying themes in S2 is about the Second Coming, even if its not obvious until the end, its fairly easy then to interpret these two as being connected to this event. The Dirty Donkey itself can be seen in several ways: a simple donkey that needs a wash, or a black horse. Both are relevant to referencing Jesus. In the former, Jesus rode a donkey into Jerusalem the first time to signify he came in peace, but the second time he arrives will be like on the back of the black horse of a conqueror come to rule. One lion for each occurrence.
The Lion under the lamp in Jimbriel’s room
While there is some argument for Jim’s character in S2 re-creating parts of the life of Jesus from two thousand years ago, such as the cleansing of the temple and facing temptation from demons. I think we shouldn’t also forget that this is also Gabriel the Herald, and he was doing some ominous heralding of doom at various points in S2 that in hindsight we can see were warning us about the Second Coming. So this lion at the base of the lamp Jimbriel is playing with has to alert us to Jimbriel’s connection with Jesus. (I will probably revisit and add/rewrite this one in the future, I think there is a bit more to it)
The Lion Rampant on Aziraphale’s Ring
At the end of S2 we learn that Aziraphale has been manipulated into going back to Heaven to run the Second Coming by the Metatron. In hindsight, its hard to see how he wouldn't be involved, somehow. What is surprising, however, is that this expert in prophecy didn't see it coming - but then he didn't expect to see Jimbriel arriving either!
Usually the first thing we notice about Aziraphale's ring is the stylized lion rampant on the shield. We know it's definitely a lion because it upright - if it was down on all four paws it would be referred to as a leopard. The upright tail tells us its on guard.
There are more elements to the ring that also add to the story here, it's a much more complex ring than Michael's. The crown on the top is a symbol of victory and sovereignty, and also a connection to God, who considered the "King of all." On either side of the shield are two stylized sprigs of laurel, reinforcing a picture of triumph and fame.
Then there are a fringe of feathers, banded in sharp triangular spikes. Feathers signify willing obedience and serenity of mind in heraldry, so I would tend to lean towards the former. The triangles represent celestial rays, so they reinforce his obedience to the will of Heaven.
You might think, "well this makes sense, Aziraphale is a Principality, he's a protector, that's why there is a lion," but I think it more complicated than that. It tells us something about both the past and the future at the same time. The purpose of the rings remain a mystery to us at the moment, in that we don't know why some angels have them and others don't, or if they have any function. Aziraphale has a tendency to touch his when he is feeling troubled or worried (its easy to miss if you aren't paying attention,) so perhaps it helps to strengthen his connection to Heaven somehow, or is a reminder of his duties.
There is another connection Aziraphale has to a lion, and that is through his past status as a cherubim in the Job minisode in S2E2.
As pointed out in this post, the pattern is stylized to represent the four wings that Cherubim are said to have, with a pearl in the center for an eye. These Cherubim also have four faces: an ox, an eagle, a lion and a man. Well, we sort of get all of those with Aziraphale at some point in the wider story. And the angel set at the eastern gate of Eden with the flaming sword was supposed to be a Cherubim, too. Yes, Aziraphale changed rank from Cherubim to Principality, we just don't technically know whether it was a step up or down...
The Honolulu Roast Lion
There is a lion you don’t see in S2 – the lion logo for the Honolulu roast coffee, mentioned briefly on a blackboard in the background of a shot inside the coffee shop.
The islands of Hawaii were a kingdom up until 1893, when a commercial coup took them over and allowed them to be annexed by the US. You can read more about it here. While the op in that post relates it the Eldritch Ball in S2E5, it still connects a lion to royalty.
The lion at the beginning of S1E1
Right at the beginning we have a lion as well – a real live lion! After Adam and Eve leave the Garden of Eden they meet a big lion out on the dunes. As Aziraphale and Crowley watch and talk atop the walls of the Garden, Adam confronts the lion with the flaming sword Aziraphale gave him and eventually kills the lion before he walks away with Eve.
What are we to think of this? I've see one op suggest that it was Aziraphale "throwing them to the lions" as his first act. To me it seems more like Adam has just slain God instead to gain their freedom.
The Lions on Crowley’s “throne”
There are two lion heads on the arm rest of Crowley’s “throne” (I don’t know what else to call it, really) in his Mayfair flat in S1. If I understand correctly, this should first be viewed as a homage to the US show Supernatural, as this chair is the exact copy of the one the demon Crowley in that show sits in, only his one is black. But if I’m to look at it in terms of GO symbology, my brain keeps going [error 503: Server cannot process the request due to a system overload; should be a temporary condition...] because I can’t quite believe what its telling me. And I should, because I’m the one running around touting a list that is now 22 items long for why Crowley was once a very powerful archangel and written a batshit-crazy meta on King Arthur themes presenting in GO. So I’ll just present my quandary this way: There are lions, they are golden, of course, so they are connected to Heaven, and a symbol of royalty – but they are being used by a demon in a residence paid for by Hell…(too.much.gold...! what were they thinking?)
Further reading: The Golden Lion by Cobragardens
#good omens#good omens 2#aziraphale#crowley#good omens meta#good omens analysis#lions#gold#golden lions of heaven#the second coming#angel rings#celestial crown#laurel#celestial rays#cherubim#honolulu roast#being thrown to the lions#royalty
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Si Vis Amari Ama
III. A Gladiator’s Oath
SERIES MASTERLIST
Pairings: Rooster (Roman Name: Gallus) x Female Reader (Roman Name: Sabina), featuring Hangman (Roman Name: Carnifex) x Phoenix
Summary: A girl whose freedom was stolen to pay her father’s debts. A gladiator enslaved for the entertainment of Rome. A love they never thought possible.
Author’s Note: We finally get to meet the rest of the gladiators! As previously mentioned, all of the TGM characters have been given Latinized names to fit with the time period of the story. Check out A Roman Guide to the Daggers (which is also pinned on the series masterlist) as a cheat sheet if you ever get confused!
Word Count: 8.2k
Warnings: Slavery in the ancient world, mentions of physical abuse, gladiatorial training/combat, discussion of minor injuries, brief language, tension/pining, alternating point of view.
“Gallus, duck!”
The echoes of harsh grunts and heavy breathing filled the air, the unrelenting thwacks of wood on wood reverberating across the open grounds of the training arena as bruised and battered men sparred with their practice swords.
You couldn’t help but glance up at the sound of his name, your eyes drifting past the other dueling gladiators until they landed on the familiar figure at the center of the main ring. He was in the middle of a heated bout with one of Dominus’ other prized champions, the two of them glaring at each other with an intensity that spoke of a rivalry that ran deeper than just friendly competition.
The advice Gallus had been given had evidently been sound, as the other man was swinging at him with his heavy shield, aiming straight for his head. You could feel your heart in your throat for a moment, but Gallus quickly parried with his sword and jumped backwards out of the reach of his opponent.
“He almost had you. You’ve got to be quicker than that,” the dark-haired man shouted, the one who was standing at the head of the training grounds, feet planted firmly on the ground and muscular arms folded tightly across his chest. He was older, probably around the same age as Titus, and from what you had gathered, he was in charge of training and conditioning the gladiators at the ludus.
Gallus only glared in response, his mouth turning down in irritation as he lunged at his fellow gladiator, the two of them engaging in the brutal power struggle once more.
At the sound of Phoenix clearing her throat beside you, you spun back around to the task before you, feeling warmth rise to your cheeks.
“Enjoying the show?” she teased, smirking knowingly as she wrung out the tunic in her hands with a forceful twist. “There are many in Rome who would envy you, you know. Getting to see all this, up close and personal. And for free, too,” she added with a laugh, blowing a loose strand of dark hair out of her eyes.
Your cheeks were positively burning now as you dropped your gaze to the basin in front of you and reached for another piece of dirty laundry to scrub clean. “Oh, no, I was just—well—I’ve never actually seen a gladiator fight before. I was just a little curious,” you admitted sheepishly, carefully running the bar of salt that was burning your palm over the filthy tunic you’d just lifted from the pile of dirty linens that you and Phoenix had collected earlier.
Phoenix’s hands stilled as she sat up straighter and looked at you with wide eyes, clearly shocked. You weren’t sure you had ever seen Phoenix surprised before in all these months you’d known her.
“Aren’t you Roman by birth?” she questioned, arching a dark brow curiously.
“Yes,” you murmured in response, feeling almost embarrassed of your heritage. Your people—if you could even still call them that—were the ones who had stolen your friend from her homeland and sold her into a life of slavery.
“And you’ve never seen a gladiator match before?” she demanded, as if she simply couldn’t believe something so outlandish could be true.
You sighed, brushing a bead of sweat off your forehead with the back of your hand. “Well I was only a child when I—my parents never took me—and neither did any of my masters. I’ve never even stepped foot inside the Colosseum,” you confessed, scrubbing at the laundry until you felt your fingertips would bleed.
“Hm,” Phoenix murmured thoughtfully, shaking her head before getting back to work herself.
“Have you? Ever been to the Colosseum, I mean?” you asked curiously. Though the two of you were around the same age, you felt that Phoenix had a sort of worldliness that you didn’t possess. You trusted her to explain things to you that you’d never experienced yourself, or didn’t understand.
She nodded, sitting back on her heels as she bent over her work. She draped the tunic she’d been wringing out over the edge of her basin as she pressed a fist into her lower back, deftly massaging the ache that throbbed there. “A few times. My last dominus would take his wife and daughters to the games sometimes, so I’d accompany them. And I’ve been there a couple times with Domina,” she added, doing her best to refrain from rolling her eyes at the mention of your mistress. “But we never stay long. She always complains of the heat.”
“I’ve only ever seen it from the outside. Are the games as grand as everyone makes them out to be?” you wondered, sitting back on your heels as well and taking a moment’s respite.
“They can be,” Phoenix nodded, tossing her long braid over her shoulder. “It depends on who’s hosting the games, and how much they’re willing to invest. Those who want to worm their way into Caesar’s good graces usually pay for at least a week’s worth of games, sometimes with exotic animals and chariot races. The crowds go wild. You’ve never seen a place so packed with people in all your life.”
You shuddered slightly, your skin crawling at the mere thought of it. Maybe you wouldn’t like the Colosseum so much after all.
Just as you were about to ask Phoenix to tell you more about the games, however, you heard a familiar voice from behind you.
“Hey, you two, back to work!”
Titus’ jovial face suddenly came into view, the old medicus circling around the two of you until he was planted in front of your wash basins, grinning down at you.
“All we do is work, old man. Our fingers might just fall off soon, and then where would that leave you?” Phoenix joked, lifting yet another wet garment to wring out.
“Hopelessly lost, that’s where,” Titus winked. “They’ve got you on laundry duty, eh? Tough break, my girls. I’ve never met men who stink so badly in my entire life,” he said, wrinkling his nose as he gazed across the training grounds at the pairs upon pairs of fighters.
“We’ve dealt with worse,” Phoenix said nonchalantly, shrugging her shoulders as she glanced over at you.
“Ah, I see,” Titus nodded, eyes twinkling as his focus shifted towards your face. “Is that right, Sabina?”
You looked up and met his kind eyes, those eyes that seemed to look within and know you in a way you didn’t understand. You smiled, though it didn’t quite reach your eyes. “It’s no trouble,” you answered him, picking up the bar of salt once more.
“You didn’t answer my question,” Titus responded, though there was no judgment or condemnation in his tone. He simply continued to look at you for a moment, a curious tilt to his head, before his smile returned in full force. “But I won’t pry, especially considering how kind you’ve been to help me around here.”
In the past couple weeks since you’d assisted Titus in caring for Gallus, you’d been tasked with more duties around the ludus. You had a feeling it had something to do with a private conversation the medicus had had with Dominus. In addition to your chores around the villa, you were now also responsible for tasks such as cleaning the gladiators’ cells while they were out training, delivering meals to the men, and tending to any injuries—and there were many of them. Occasionally, on days like today when the laundry wasn’t being sent out to the fuller, you and Phoenix were responsible for that as well.
Domina had not been happy when your master had first brought up your new assignment.
“I need her here in the house with me. That Greek slut assists Titus enough as it is. Take one of the other girls if he needs someone else. That fat cow from the kitchens. Oh, what’s her name? Flavia! He can have her,” Aurelia had pouted, tossing her dark blonde locks over her shoulder.
“He asked for Sabina, and Sabina is who he shall have,” Dominus countered evenly, taking a long sip of his wine. He didn’t even look up from his cup as he spoke to his wife.
You stood before your masters with your head lowered and your hands clasped in front of you, trembling slightly. You wished more than anything that they would just dismiss you.
“But I told you—”
“Enough, Aurelia!” Atticus suddenly barked, slamming his hand down on the low dining table.
You and your mistress both jumped.
“There are plenty of slaves in this household who can braid your hair and paint your face,” your master snapped, waving away the slave who approached to refill his cup. “But there are very few who Titus trusts with the care of my gladiators, and so if he says this girl is needed, then she is needed. And that is where she shall go.” Atticus stood suddenly and towered over his wife, who lifted her head to look up at him. “Do not forget who is the head of this household,” he ground out through gritted teeth before turning on his heel and stalking out of the room.
Aurelia sat silently on her dining couch for a moment, stunned into a rare state of speechlessness. Dominus rarely spoke to her so harshly, and he rarely refused to give in to her demands, so it was clear she was reeling.
But only for a moment.
When she turned her head to look at you, her dark eyes narrowed sharply. Rising gracefully, as was her way, she adjusted her stola, her bracelets clinking along her slender wrists.
“Look at me,” she demanded coldly, grabbing roughly at your chin until you obeyed and lifted your eyes.
“I don’t know what game you think you’re playing here, but I see right through you. Don’t think I don’t,” she whispered, her voice edged with something dangerous.
“Domina, I’m not—”
Her slap hit you like a clap of thunder, the sound of it bouncing around the room until it rang in your ears. You resisted the urge to step back and cup your face, knowing it would only make her angrier, although you couldn’t stop the tears that sprung to your eyes unbidden.
“I did not ask you to speak!” Aurelia snapped, adjusting her rings as though irritated you had disturbed them. “If my husband commands you to go work in the ludus, then there isn’t much I can do about that. But know this,” she muttered, stepping closer to you and grabbing your wrist so tightly that you almost cried out in pain. “If the day comes when you grow swollen with the bastard of a savage, I will throw you out of this household faster than you can cry for mercy. So I’d keep those legs closed if I were you.”
You did your best to swallow back your tears as you gazed up into the cold eyes of your domina, the pain in your wrist shooting up to your elbow as she twisted cruelly.
She smiled. “Do I make myself clear?”
“Yes, Domina,” you nodded meekly, nearly gasping in relief when she finally released you.
“Get out of my sight,” Aurelia dismissed you with a careless flick of her hand, tossing herself back onto her dining couch and calling out to the other slaves to fetch her something to eat.
“She’s a miserable bitch,” Phoenix muttered later, after you had told her what happened. The two of you were sitting alone at the end of the table in the corner of the kitchen, Phoenix carefully examining your bruised wrist.
“Phoenix,” you whispered frantically, gazing over both shoulders. “You shouldn’t say such a thing.”
Your friend waved her hand in the air, a look of defiance flashing across her face. “Oh, what worse can they do to me? And besides, she is.”
“I don’t understand why she’s so upset,” you sighed, tears pricking your eyes once more as you thought of her violent treatment earlier. “And what she said—I have no intention of—”
“Of course you don’t,” Phoenix said in a soothing voice, resting her hands over yours and squeezing gently. “Ignore her. She’s just projecting her own fears onto you.”
You cocked your head in confusion, looking at your friend. “What do you mean?”
Phoenix looked back at you, startled, and then started laughing. “Oh, my sweet friend,” she murmured, lifting your hand and kissing it in a sisterly fashion. “You truly are too good for this awful world. Are you telling me you’ve been in this household for nearly three months and you really don’t know?”
“Know what?” you blinked, beyond perplexed at this point.
Sighing softly, it was now Phoenix’s turn to glance over her shoulders. Satisfied that no one was around to eavesdrop, she leaned in closer. “Aurelia has quite the taste for those savages she supposedly loathes so much,” she whispered, lifting her eyebrows pointedly.
It took a moment for the pieces to connect in your mind, but then your eyes widened. “You mean Domina is—”
Phoenix nodded, covering your mouth with her hand. “She might consider them barbarians, but she certainly can’t get enough of them in her bed. I can only imagine how terrified she is that one of them is finally going to get her with child.”
You blanched at that, your jaw falling open in shock once Phoenix released you. “D-does Dominus know?”
“He’s not a stupid man,” Phoenix shrugged. “Everybody else knows, so why wouldn’t he? But he turns a blind eye. You know how he is. He pretty much lets her have whatever she wants,” she muttered. “Except,” she emphasized, “his Pugiones.”
Pugiones, you had come to learn, was the nickname Atticus used for his champion gladiators—of which Gallus was the foremost. You weren’t sure why, but it suddenly made you feel less sick to think that your mistress hadn’t gotten her claws into him.
“So she hasn’t—?”
Phoenix shook her head. “As far as I know, she only sleeps with the newer recruits, the ones Atticus doesn’t care as much about. He puts all his money and attention into his stars. They’re the only ones that are off limits.”
“How many gladiators does he own?” you asked, realizing you didn’t even know.
She thought about that for a minute. “It’s hard to keep track. We lose some, and then we get some more. But I think at last count, we were up to thirty.”
Your eyes widened at that. You hadn’t realized it was so many. Besides Gallus, you’d really only ever seen a couple others, and only from a distance.
“You’ll get to know them when you start helping me and Titus,” Phoenix said, as if she had read your mind. She hesitated a moment, then added, “Just don’t get too attached. There are many who don’t come back.”
It had only been two weeks, and your friend’s warning had already proven to be true. As you began assisting with the medical care of the men, you spent much of your time among the newer recruits, the men Dominus had only recently acquired, who lacked the skills and training necessary to fight without badly injuring themselves. When they left for their bouts in local arenas or the Colosseum, many of them did not return. But Dominus always refilled the ranks with more, determined to build an elite army of gladiators.
You didn’t see much of the Pugiones. As seasoned as they were, they didn’t injure themselves quite as often, and Titus and Phoenix usually managed any issues that they had. There had been a few instances where you’d felt their eyes on you, but you always kept your gaze averted and avoided them at all costs. You didn’t want any problems with Domina.
Today, however, as you watched them all fight, you realized that you didn’t know much about them at all. You didn’t even know most of their names. Phoenix had said it was often better that way, but it seemed that you should at least know the Pugiones. After all, they were the champions. They always returned.
After speaking to you and Phoenix for a few more moments, Titus turned and began walking around the perimeter of the training arena, watching a few of the men in particular with those careful eyes of his.
That’s when you turned to look at Phoenix, dropping the tunic you’d been scrubbing into the basin. “Would you mind telling me a little bit about them?” you asked, nodding your head in the direction of the stars of the ludus. “I feel like I should know something, especially if they’re the most popular gladiators in Rome,” you added, a small smile tugging at the corners of your lips.
Phoenix smirked, standing up slowly and stretching her arms over her head. “Oh, alright. I’ve known those idiots for quite a while, so I suppose I can tell you a little bit about them,” she grinned, taking your hand and pulling you up beside her. “Come, let’s act like we’re going to hang some of these linens up to dry,” she said, handing you an armful of damp clothing.
As the two of you walked, you passed by one gladiator who was practicing sharp thrusts with a long, pointed sword. You’d learned that when it came to simple practice bouts, the men used wooden swords. Perhaps they had become too elite, and Atticus feared arming them in his own home.
“That’s Caius,” Phoenix whispered, glancing briefly in his direction. “He grew up in Egypt. He can’t even remember where he was actually born, but he’s been a slave most of his life. See the long shield he carries? He fights as a Secutor.”
You nodded to show your understanding, trying not to stare too long. He was handsome, now that you could see him up close, with a strong jaw and a focused gaze.
Next up was a tall, lean gladiator with skin like ebony whose size belied the gracefulness of his movements. His shield was similar in shape to Caius’, but slightly smaller.
“Pollux,” Phoenix whispered. “They often call him ‘The African.’ I know you wouldn’t think it to look at him, especially now, but he’s one of the funniest people I know. He’s a Murmillo. Similar to the Secutor, but you can see his shield is a little smaller.” She stopped a moment to adjust the pile of wet tunics in her arms. “Sometimes he gets paired to fight with Felix,” she explained, nodding her head in the direction of the gladiator practicing beside him.
Your eyes landed on the shorter man, with tan skin and a head full of riotous black curls.
“Why doesn’t he fight with a sword like the others?” you asked quietly, noting the trident and net that Felix held in his hands instead of a sword and shield.
“Felix is a Retiarius,” Phoenix told you, keeping her voice low as the two of you continued to walk. “He fights with the trident and net, as you can see, and very little armor. The Retiarius is popular in the arena, but he has to be skilled to survive. Felix is the best there is of his class.”
You and Phoenix stopped short when you came closer to the main ring, where Gallus and his light haired opponent were still battling one another.
“I believe you’re already acquainted with Gallus,” Phoenix murmured with a sideways glance, chuckling under her breath.
Embarrassed, you glanced down at your feet for a moment. Your attention was drawn back upwards, however, at the sound of the men’s loud grunts.
“And who is that?” you questioned quietly, looking intently at the man that Gallus had been pitted against. From what you could see, they were almost evenly matched in skill and ability.
Something flashed briefly in Phoenix’s eyes, but she quickly scoffed and shook her head. “They call him Carnifex. He lives for the attention the crowds shower on him,” she replied, rolling her eyes. “He’s smug and arrogant and hates the fact that the crowds love Gallus just a little bit more than they love him,” she went on. You noticed that she hadn’t taken her eyes off him, even as she complained about him. “He’s a Murmillo, like Pollux. From Gaul originally. They tried to execute him there, but even the hangman could not kill him. That’s how they gave him his name.”
“And their trainer?” You glanced over at the older dark-haired man, the one who was still watching Gallus and Carnifex with the eyes of a hawk.
“Magnus,” Phoenix stated. “He’s a Rudiarius. He used to be a gladiator—one of the best, in fact. So good that he finally earned his freedom. Now Atticus pays him to train his men and make them the best of the best. He does a good job of it, too.”
The two of you stood quietly for a moment, listening to Magnus bark out orders, which Gallus seemed particularly resistant to.
“Magnus fought in the Thracian style,” Phoenix explained, glancing over at you. “It’s the same style Gallus fights in now, so he’s particularly hard on him,” she said, her voice softening slightly as she looked over at her friend.
You glanced between Phoenix and Gallus for a moment, and couldn’t explain the sudden lump that formed in your throat. Unbidden, the memory returned of Gallus demanding to know where Phoenix was when you’d gone with Titus to patch him up.
“You and Gallus—I mean, it’s none of my business, of course, but the two of you seem very close,” you stammered, suddenly feeling a bit foolish. “Are you—?”
“Me and Gallus?” Phoenix asked, throwing her head back with a laugh. “No, no, no. Nothing like that. He’s like a brother to me, nothing more,” she assured you. “He and I have known each other a long time, that’s all. We’re comfortable with each other.” She turned to look at you. “We belonged to the same household before we got sold here, so we look out for each other, you know? The same way I look out for you now,” she smiled, slinging an arm around your shoulders.
You smiled in return, feeling an odd wash of relief.
“He and Carnifex really seem to be going for each other’s throats,” you murmured, your eyes widening as you watched the two of them lunge back and forth, their half naked bodies glistening with sweat in the midmorning sun.
Phoenix sighed, nodding. “Old rivalries don’t really die,” she said under her breath.
You blinked in confusion. “But they’re from the same ludus. Surely they don’t actually fight each other?”
“Not now,” Phoenix agreed, pursing her lips. “But Carnifex didn’t always belong to this ludus. When he and Gallus were first starting out, first making names for themselves, they used to get pitted against each other all the time. I think there’s a part of them that can’t really let that go, even now.”
The both of them seemed to be tiring out now, their breathing growing more labored as their swords and shields clashed. You realized, looking at them and all the many scars that littered their bodies, that these were men who had been pushed long past the point of human endurance. They’d been forced to fight and fight and fight for so long that they didn’t even know how to stop anymore.
Suddenly, however, with a move so swift your eyes nearly missed it, Carnifex knocked the shield from Gallus’ grasp and dropped him to the ground, the larger man grunting as he landed on his scarred shoulder.
“You’re getting slow in your old age, Gallus,” Carnifex smirked, standing above him triumphantly with a smug expression on his admittedly handsome face.
From his spot on the ground, Gallus glared up at him, his dark eyes stormy and filled with barely suppressed rage. Lightning quick, his leg shot out and swiped at Carnifex’s feet, knocking him onto his back.
“And you’re getting complacent in yours,” Gallus shot back coldly, the tip of his wooden sword planted into the sand, mere centimeters from Carnifex’s face, as he pressed his knee into his chest.
“Alright, that’s enough for today, you two,” Magnus called out, lifting his hands up into the air. “That’s enough.”
Gallus and Carnifex both rose from the ground with quiet groans, neither looking at the other as they separated.
Magnus slowly approached Gallus, looking up at the larger man as he began speaking. “Gallus, that was good work out there today, but you need to—”
You watched in surprise as, without even looking at his trainer, Gallus pushed past him with a frown and stomped off to the trough to get some water. Gaze slipping back in Magnus’ direction, expecting him to scold or punish Gallus for his insolence, you were even more surprised to instead see a flash of hurt cross his face before he turned away and began talking to the other gladiators.
“What was that?” you asked Phoenix, your curiosity piqued despite yourself.
“I have no idea,” Phoenix told you, lifting her shoulders as if in surrender. “Something happened there, but no one knows what. They used to get along just fine, and then one day it was as if Gallus couldn’t even stand to be in the same room as Magnus. But he won’t talk about it, and I won’t push.”
You nodded, accepting her response and leaving it at that. If even Phoenix didn’t know what the problem was between Gallus and his trainer, then it certainly wasn’t your business.
“Ladies,” Titus called out to the two of you, approaching quickly. “Finish hanging those things to dry, and then come meet me back here. I need you to tend the Pugiones today while I deal with the other men,” he sighed, rolling his eyes skyward. “Six broken fingers, three broken ribs, a dislocated shoulder, and four teeth knocked out. These new recruits will be the death of me.”
Hurrying off, you and Phoenix made quick work of the laundry and then returned to the training grounds, where all the weapons and shields had already been carefully collected and stored away. Your dominus was nothing if not fastidious in the management of his ludus, and nothing was to be out of place.
The newer recruits, the ones that Titus said he would deal with, were gathered at the far corner of the grounds, some of them lying flat on their backs, while others sat clutching at various injuries. You could hear their moans of pain even from where you stood.
The Pugiones, however, were stoic and silent as they sat upon the low stone wall on the outer edge of the training arena, waiting for you and Phoenix to come tend to their wounds, which were decidedly much less pronounced than those of the younger men.
“None of them got hurt too badly today,” Titus explained, appearing over your shoulder and making you jump slightly. He wasn’t a small man, but he did manage to be stealthy when he needed to be. “Just your usual bumps and bruises. With two of you working, it shouldn’t take long to see to it,” he said, nodding his head once with certainty. He started to walk away, then turned back to look at you. “Oh, Sabina, I would appreciate it if you could check on Gallus’ injury, the one from a couple weeks ago. I removed his stitches just the other day, but he’s being a stubborn mule, as usual.”
The medicus didn’t even give you a chance to reply before he was off again, whistling a jaunty tune as he made his way over to the other gladiators.
“Is he sure he doesn’t need one of us to help him?” you murmured, biting down on your lower lip. You suddenly felt a strange knot developing in the pit of your stomach. “The newer men’s injuries seem so much worse. Surely only one of us needs to tend to the Pugiones.”
“Oh, would you like me to go help Titus and you stay here alone?” Phoenix asked, giggling at the horrified look on your face. “Don’t worry, I’m only teasing,” she smiled, bumping your shoulder with her own. “Titus likes to handle the new recruits on his own as much as possible. He knows how hard it can be when you come to care for someone, and then they don’t come back, so he tries to spare us that as much as possible,” she explained, her smile dimming slightly as she reached for the basket of medical supplies that Titus had left for you. “Come on, let’s go deal with this lot.”
As the two of you approached the men, who somehow seemed even larger and more handsome the closer you came, Carnifex looked up and smirked, releasing a low whistle.
“Well if it isn’t my favorite Grecian goddess, Phoenix,” he called out, a twinkle in his eyes, which you now noticed were a startling shade of green.
Phoenix smirked in return, stopping in front of the Gallic gladiator and dropping her basket at his feet. “Well if it isn’t my least favorite gladiator, Carnifex.”
Pollux, Felix, and Caius snickered at that, which earned Caius, since he was the one sitting beside Carnifex, a sharp elbow to the ribs.
“Ow,” Caius complained, rubbing at his side with a frown. “Come on, you set yourself up for that one.”
“You know Phoenix could probably drop you faster than all the rest of us, right?” Felix jumped in, laughing. You liked his laugh. It was open and easy and quickly made you forget that he was one of the fiercest fighters in the Colosseum.
“And she would, too!” Pollux added, chuckling. He glanced over at you as he said it and smiled. He had a nice smile.
It was funny. You’d been so terrified at the thought of living in a household with these men, but they were so—ordinary. They weren’t monstrous killers. They were just men.
Carnifex grumbled under his breath, his eyes quickly taking in Phoenix’s figure before he looked away.
“Aw, don’t be mad just because Gallus bested you today. He’s bested us all,” Caius grinned, earning him another shove in the ribcage.
Gallus, for his part, just sat quietly on his perch, gazing forward without looking at you or anyone else.
“I’ll have you all know that you’re making an absolutely horrible impression on our new friend here,” Phoenix scolded them, holding up a hand in your direction. “See, Sabina? I told you they were idiots, the whole lot of them.”
“Oh, so this is Sabina,” Pollux smirked knowingly, shooting a glance down the line at where Gallus sat, his spine stiff as he stared straight ahead.
“We’ve heard good things,” Felix nodded. “From Titus, of course,” he added quickly at Pollux’s subtle nudge. “And Phoenix.” He held out his hand towards you. “I’m Felix,” he introduced himself with a grin.
You found yourself smiling as well as you stepped forward and placed your hand in his, shaking it firmly.
“I’ve already told her who all of you are and all the stupid things you do, so don’t think you’ll be impressing her,” Phoenix grinned, reaching into the basket to pull out a vial of acid vinegar and some clean bandages.
“Aw, but you love us, Phoenix. Don’t pretend that you don’t,” Caius pretended to pout, winking playfully in your direction.
Phoenix merely harrumphed in response, ducking her chin to mask her smile.
“Alright, Carnifex, you’re first up,” she said, grabbing his hands and examining the knuckles. “Looks like Gallus really put you through your paces today.”
Carnifex bristled at that, his back straightening. “A cheap trick he pulled at the end. I would have had him otherwise.”
“You would have had him if you weren’t so cocky,” Phoenix shot back evenly, glaring at him.
You couldn’t help but notice the look that passed between them as they stared into each other’s eyes, some subtle challenge, some underlying current of tension.
Maybe it wasn’t Phoenix’s relationship with Gallus you should have been asking about.
“So,” Pollux cleared his throat, cutting through the sudden strain in the air. “Sabina,” he called out to you as you began lifting Caius’ knuckles and examining the damage. “How long have you been a part of the esteemed household of Atticus Cornelius Juventus?” You didn’t fail to detect the note of sarcasm in his voice as he asked the question.
“Nearly three months now,” you replied, dabbing some acid vinegar onto the fresh cuts you saw littering Caius’ hands and forearms. “My last dominus passed away and his property was auctioned off, so I was sold here.”
“Three months? And this is the first we’re seeing of you?” Felix questioned in surprise, his dark eyebrows rising as he looked over at you.
“I work mainly in the villa, for Domina,” you explained. The tension returned to the air at the mention of Aurelia. “I had never been inside the ludus before, not until a couple weeks ago when Titus asked me to help him.” Care for Gallus, you left unsaid, but when you glanced in his direction, you found that his eyes were suddenly on you.
“Well lucky for us then,” Caius grinned down at you as you carefully wrapped his hands in white linen strips. “You really do have gentle hands.” At the sound of Gallus clearing his throat, he hastened to add, “Unlike Phoenix here. She manhandles us worse than Titus.”
“Mhm, and it’s what you deserve,” Phoenix smirked, finishing her work bandaging a cut on Carnifex’s arm. She pointedly avoided his gaze as she moved down the line to Felix.
“There you are,” you told Caius with a smile, glancing up at him when you were finished.
“Thank you, Sabina,” he smiled in return, flexing his hands carefully.
As you stepped back and started to move towards Pollux, Phoenix suddenly stopped you in your tracks. “Oh, I’ve got Pollux. He and Felix don’t have many injuries today. Why don’t you go check Gallus like Titus asked you to?”
You weren’t sure why it suddenly felt like everyone’s eyes were on you, but you had never wanted to run and hide more than you did in that moment. Knowing you couldn’t do that, however, you simply nodded and offered your friend a tight smile. “Okay,” you said softly.
Heart fluttering uncomfortably inside your chest, rather like the birds Dominus and Domina kept for decoration in the garden, you approached Gallus while staring down at your bare feet. Soon enough, however, the intensity of his gaze drew your eyes upward until they were meeting his dark ones. They were a dark brown, you realized, as the sun hit them. They were the most beautiful eyes you had ever seen.
“Hello,” you stuttered, your mind recalling the last time you had truly spoken to him, when he had apologized for his behavior the first time you’d met.
“Hello,” he murmured in response, his voice even deeper than you had remembered it. He sat completely still as you moved closer to him, his eyes never leaving your face even as you ducked your head to gingerly lift his hands and examine his knuckles.
Feeling uncomfortably warm under the heat of his stare, you found yourself entranced by the many scars that traced their way across the backs of his hands. Your thumb lightly brushed against his bruised knuckles, and you couldn’t tell if it was him or you who shivered in the midday heat.
Reaching for the vial with trembling hands, you carefully dabbed at his very minor injuries with the acid vinegar, admiring the way he didn’t even flinch at the sting. You were so focused on wrapping his hands with bandages that you didn’t notice the way he was now staring at your arm.
“What happened?” he asked quietly, reaching out to lightly brush his calloused fingertips against the yellowish bruise that was still marring your wrist.
Startled, you glanced down in embarrassment, your skin feeling hot where he had touched you. “Oh, nothing,” you answered quickly, mortified at the memory of where that mark had come from. “I’m just clumsy, that’s all.”
Gallus wasn’t buying your excuse, not for a second. “That isn’t a mark that comes by accident or chance,” he said, stilling your movements as he raised your wrist up with a surprisingly gentle hand and further examined the bruises—the ones that matched perfectly with the shape of your domina’s fingers. “That’s a mark left by a human hand.” There was something in his voice as he said it, something rough and angry, but you knew it wasn’t an anger directed at you.
“It’s nothing, Gallus,” you murmured sharply, his name slipping off your tongue as you pulled your arm from his grasp. You softened when you saw the way he stiffened. “Please,” you whispered, your voice cracking slightly over that one word. “Just leave it alone. I promise I’ll be more careful.”
“You’re not the one who needs to be careful,” he said in a low voice, his eyes narrowing. There was something dangerous in the way he said it, a veiled threat that wasn’t meant for you, but that made you shiver all the same. His eyes softened a fraction when he realized his words had unsettled you. “Forgive me. I’m a brute, as Titus never fails to remind me.” His fingers closed over yours for a moment as you finished bandaging his hand. “I just—I don’t wish to see you hurt.”
“Nor I, you,” you whispered, swallowing past the lump that had lodged itself in your throat once more. You cleared your throat, mindful of the fact that the others were sitting just a few feet away from you, though they seemed lost in their own conversation. “Speaking of Titus, he wished for me to check how your healing is coming along,” you told him, raising a hand towards his chest.
Gallus was silent for a moment, just looking at you, but then he slowly removed the straps attaching his armor to his body, giving you an unrestricted view of his naked chest.
Titus really was a master medicus, for the mark of his stitches was already fading fast, a clean line across Gallus’ chest that would hardly stick out amongst all the other scars marking his body.
Taking a breath, you stepped in between his legs and ran your fingers over the wound, freezing when you felt the way his body tensed under your touch. “I’m sorry, did I hurt you?” you asked in concern.
“No,” Gallus said stiffly, shaking his head. “It no longer pains me. I’m fine, really. You don’t need to check up on me.”
“Titus said you were being stubborn,” you told him with a small smile, glancing into his eyes as your hands stilled on his chest.
“Titus would know,” Gallus muttered, a tiny smile gracing his own features. “He’s one of the most stubborn men I know.”
You couldn’t help but laugh at that, and it pleased you to see Gallus’ smile grow wider. He had a lovely smile, made all the lovelier by the fact that he didn’t seem to smile often.
“So will you be around here more often then?” Gallus asked after a moment of silence, watching as you stepped back and began to pack up the remainder of the supplies. “With Phoenix and Titus, I mean.”
“Yes, I think I will,” you nodded. You weren’t sure what possessed you to say it, but you suddenly added, “So I suppose you’ll be seeing more of me.”
Gallus didn’t say anything in response to that, just continued to gaze at you with a thoughtful expression on his face.
Before you could embarrass yourself further, Magnus suddenly appeared in the middle of the training grounds, calling out to the men. “I’d like to speak to you all for a few moments,” he announced, noting that Titus seemed to be almost finished tending to the younger men.
The rest of the Pugiones rose, bidding you and Phoenix farewell, but Gallus remained where he was for a moment, his thoughtful expression turning to a frown.
“Gallus, Magnus is calling for all of you,” Phoenix told him, hefting the basket and resting it on her hip.
“He can wait for a minute,” Gallus snapped, in a tone that was evidently harsher than he intended, considering the apologetic glance he threw Phoenix’s way. Sighing, he slowly rose from the wall and glanced between the two of you. “Thank you, Sabina,” he murmured, lightly touching your arm before he turned and made his way over to where the rest of the gladiators were gathering.
“The two of you seemed cozy,” Phoenix whispered after he had walked away, nudging you with a playful wink as she helped you clean up the rest of the supplies.
“We were just talking,” you insisted, feeling heat rise to your cheeks as you avoided her gaze.
“Mhm,” Phoenix grinned, resting a hand on her hip. “But there are very few people who Gallus enjoys talking to,” she emphasized, nudging you again with a laugh.
You were saved from further interrogation by the unexpected arrival of Hrodebert, one of Atticus’ chief stewards in the household. You didn’t deal much with the stewards, but you’d come to know him quite well over the past few months because of his close friendship with Phoenix. A quiet and studious man who had been kidnapped from his homeland in Germania when he was a child, Hrodebert had developed an affinity for numbers and figures, which was why he was one of the most trusted members of Dominus’ household, so trusted, in fact, that Atticus had placed him in charge of the accounts related to the ludus.
He squinted in the sun as he approached you and Phoenix, and you felt a stab of sympathy for him. Over the years, Hrodebert had been expected to stay up all night, burning the midnight oil while poring over accounts and ledgers, and it had significantly impacted his eyesight. There were times, you knew, when Phoenix stayed up at night to help him in secret because of how badly his eyes ached.
“Hello, Hrodebert,” Phoenix greeted him, momentarily forgetting about your interaction with Gallus as she approached her old friend. “What brings you over to the ludus?”
“You and Sabina,” Hrodebert replied, his mouth twisting into an apologetic frown as he looked from Phoenix over to you. “Domina is demanding—ahem, asking—for your presence in the villa. According to her, you’ve spent enough time over here with—and I quote— these filthy savages.” He let out a long-suffering sigh. “And you’re to clean yourselves up before you enter her presence.” Grimacing, he added, “I’m sorry. Don’t shoot the messenger.”
“It’s not your fault, Hrodebert,” you told him kindly, resting a reassuring hand on his arm. “Thank you for coming to get us.”
Hrodebert smiled, nodding. “Of course. I figured it was better me than someone else.”
“You’re right,” Phoenix nodded as the three of you began walking back towards the villa. “Because another messenger I might just shoot.”
You and Hrodebert couldn’t help but laugh at Phoenix’s indignant tone.
As your two friends began walking ahead of you, chatting about some account that Hrodebert was trying to organize, you couldn’t help but glance back over your shoulder at where the gladiators were currently in the midst of some sort of debriefing with Magnus. And though you knew you shouldn’t be seeking him out, your eyes somehow landed immediately on the tall, broad-shouldered Briton who had quickly become the most challenging puzzle you’d ever encountered.
Your heart skipped several beats when you realized that his gaze was fixed on you as well. Nearly stumbling over your own two feet, you turned hastily and followed after the others.
He couldn’t explain the ache in his chest as he watched you walk away, being swallowed up by the impenetrable walls of the villa of Atticus Cornelius Juventus, but it persisted all the same.
You had consumed his thoughts these past few weeks, ever since that day when he’d opened his eyes to find you standing above him, your hands as gentle as a dove when you touched him.
It would only grow worse, this ache, now that you were working around the ludus more frequently. He didn’t know if he could stand it.
But he also couldn’t stand the thought of you staying away.
Watching you disappear inside the villa, he felt an unsettling fear snake its way up his spine and squeeze his heart—or what was left of his heart, anyway. Those bruises on your wrist. He couldn’t get the sight of them out of his mind’s eye. And he knew exactly who had put them there, even if you wouldn’t say. That miserable bitch. She took anything that was beautiful and good and crushed it for her own sick amusement.
The thought of her hurting you made him want to burn that villa to the ground.
He had to talk to Phoenix and Hrodebert, had to make sure that they protected you where he couldn’t.
Where he couldn’t? Had he deemed himself your protector now? How could he protect you when he couldn’t even protect himself?
But he would protect you. Of that, he was certain. He didn’t understand the feelings that you had awakened inside him—he didn’t want to understand them—but he knew that he would do what he had to do to keep you safe.
As he and the others began trudging their way back to their cells, exhausted after a long morning of training exercises, he was pulled out of his silent reverie by the conversation happening around him.
“She was sweet,” Felix was saying, running an exhausted hand through his dark curls. “And Phoenix likes her a lot, so clearly we can trust her.”
“Titus likes her, too, so that’s two strikes in her favor. If she can win over that grumpy old man, then there must be something special about her,” Pollux nodded in agreement, rolling his aching shoulders back.
Gallus realized they were talking about you.
“Pretty, too,” Caius added, waggling his eyebrows with a grin. “You think she has a thing for gladiators?”
“Stay away from her,” Gallus said sharply, causing all of their heads to turn in his direction.
Pollux and Felix exchanged a look, while Caius and Carnifex raised curious brows.
“Do you have a thing for the pretty new slave girl, Gallus?” Carnifex asked, a smirk playing at the corners of his mouth. “And here we thought you were celibate, considering how you never seem to—”
“Just stay away from her,” Gallus said darkly, taking a tense step in Carnifex’s direction. “She’s here to help us, not to warm your beds.”
Carnifex smirked challengingly at Gallus, but the rest of them threw their hands up in surrender.
“We’re not going to bother her, Gallus. You have our word,” Felix promised, looking at him seriously.
Pollux and Caius quickly echoed his sentiments, and even Carnifex finally relented and nodded in agreement.
There were very few people on this earth that Gallus liked, and even fewer that he trusted, but his fellow Pugiones were among them. Even Carnifex, as much as he may have disliked him most of the time. If they gave their word that they wouldn’t bother you, then he knew it was as good as a blood oath.
“We need to look out for her, the same way we look out for Phoenix,” he told them, glancing over his shoulder in the direction of the villa. “Don’t let anyone else bother her either, otherwise they’ll answer to me.”
The rest of them nodded, exchanging silent glances once more. They’d never seen Gallus, usually so aloof and cold, like this before.
“Alright, men, let’s get some rest before Magnus drags us out for some new form of torture,” Carnifex announced, stretching his arms over his head.
Letting out tired groans, they nodded and headed off to their own cells. As the champions of the ludus, they were each afforded their own space, which was more than could be said for the newer recruits.
As Gallus trudged into his cell, he pulled off his sandals and dropped down onto his bed, ignoring the fresh pitcher of wine that had been left on his table. His body ached and his joints popped as he rolled over, staring at the wall and trying to get the image of your face out of his mind.
It was no use. As he drifted off into a restless sleep, he could see nothing but the beauty of your smile, hear nothing but the melody of your laughter, feel nothing but the gentleness of your touch.
In all his years risking his life in the arena, fighting for the entertainment of those who had enslaved him, he had never felt as helpless as he did when he thought of how he could do so little to keep you safe.
You held him captive, and for the first time in his life, he found that he didn’t mind.
#bradley rooster bradshaw#rooster x reader#x reader#x female reader#top gun#top gun: maverick#miles teller#hannix#hangman x phoenix#Ancient Rome AU#si vis amari ama ⚔️
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A few Arcane HCs I haven't quite gotten to in my fics, but have been running in the background while I'm writing:
Jinx's and Vi's dad was an inventor: clever as a fox, boisterous and sly, smoker's gravel on his words. He sang when he drank, and he got angry: at himself, at the ceaseless cycle of working the mines, at a world he felt trapped in. He did his best, though. He was loving and kind, always driving ahead: vowing to make promises the world wouldn't let him keep. Powder (Bluebird, he'd call her) was his little girl. They'd tinker together when she was very young. She doesn't remember him much, but she misses him. Mirrored against Vi, against Vander, against Silco, is always Papa.
Jinx has her own routines with Dustin, Ran and Lock. When she first came into their crime posse, the three of them held her at arm's length, skittish at venturing too close to the boss's ward. Slowly, though, they all took her under their wings. Dustin taught her how to throw knives, and how to dance—not gracefully, of course, but lively, freed, fun. Ran taught her how to sharpshoot, and how to cook steamed sweet-doughs with her favorite fruits. Lock taught her how to throw a punch, and how to strum a folk-fiddle pretty enough to make it sing. She's closest to Dustin. He doesn't talk much, not sincerely, but there's a lot they can relate to. If she ever needs someone to sit with, he's her second-choice. They'll sit at the bar together, prattling over their music and painting designs on their nails.
Silco has tattoos—several, in fact. Most are hidden beneath his clothes. Jinx and Sevika both have caught glimpses, when his sleeves are rolled up. On his left arm is a leviathan that cords its finned tail from the inside of his elbow to a set of gaping jaws over his shoulder. A painter's dozen litter his back: patterned motifs, a sweeping snake of sea-kelp, death's-head moths split by glistened daggers, a devilish star. Hidden on the underside of his right arm is a sliver of ink: a bleeding eye caged between fanged teeth. Most others have been smattered with scars, over the years: bullet wounds, knife slashes, shrapnel.
Sevika occupies a rare state of limbo among their crew. She's seen flavors of vulnerability Silco has bared to no other, and has laid down her shields, in turn. One would be unwise to call them lovers—their tastes in all things, down to preferred partners, skews polar opposite. But they have weathered similar hells, and know how to navigate them. Silco knows that she will cry when her rage burns out, and only then: a Vesuvius that takes years to boil up and over. Sevika knows that dragging a hand over Silco's nape, palming slowly into the dark quills of his hair, will make him jitter on his feet: a conflated snap-reaction of hackles raised and walls crumbled. They have shared meals, baths, beds—and, on few occasions, rooms at the brothels—but they are a partnership that leans towards wedded servitude before it ever greets affection. Still, they are intrigued by each other. A mutual curiosity at the layers that unfold, if one only dares to look beneath them.
Vi sees herself first as Powder's sister; Jinx saw Vi first as her own mother. Their relationship has been weighted by this ever since the bridge went up in flames. Vi remembers their mother vividly: how she hummed folksongs when she worked, made them warm stews and stitched their clothes with bright thread; Jinx remembers only a shadow, a lovely voice, and Vi's hands—hands that had Papa's anger, that smashed things and threw them far, far away, kicked and shoved and roared, fizzled out to quiet, frustrated apologies. The cannery fire wasn't the first time Vi had let her anger get the best of her, but it was the most explosive. She's held the shame of it with her, her whole life—and it's a fear Jinx has never been able to detach from.
Despite this, Jinx is touch-first and speak-second. She was always a tactile child—even more-so, after everything. Ironic, then, that she's so often sewn at the hip to a man who's, on the surface, touch-averse and impeccably clean. He's had to peel her off him like glue, more than once, leering at the soot stains she'd leave on his suit. (Child...you do know how to bathe?) But it brings out a quieter, forgotten part of himself, that closeness. He's tactile, too—something long staved off by his betrayal, by the nature of his position, by the violence he enacts and commands; but memory makes easy habits. It's not uncommon to find him making room for her at his desk; letting her nest in his arms while he lounges on his office's chaise, a book in hand; sitting shoulder-to-shoulder with her, folktales murmured late into the night, until her eyes stutter closed, her comforters tucked lightly over her shoulder. And all of it isn't Vi, to her—but it's a shadow of something Jinx remembers; a quiet warmth, a tired voice, a face she's forgotten.
Silco has had many drift in and out of his life, over the years; mentors less-so than bloodied beacons. With Vander, it was a young, prickling, heartached obsession—a desire to prove, to be seen, to be worthy. A manifestation of all his childhood ails, emboldened to their ugliest frenzy. Vander goaded; he chased rooftops and leapt from ever-greater heights; his ambition soared as far as his body could take him, as long as it took for someone to fall behind in the chase. But Silco could outwit him, outpace him, with strategy and scheming—the two of them unstoppable, unmatched, and enmeshed with unbalance. A hound on a killer's leash; a killer baring the hound's teeth. After the betrayal, Silco spent months in the reclusive company of the doctor. Science became a second language, and Piltie business rode on its coattails. The doctor got him through back-door loopholes into Topside medical labs, bartered connection with tutors in law and policy and business, and laid the foothold for investment. Silco's penchant for wordsmithing a crowd and eye for industrialization did the rest.
As a byproduct of the doctor's work, Jinx inevitably crosses paths with Viktor. She learns of him from afar, early-on in her settling in at the reacquired Last Drop. A little errand of passing off reports from Silco to Singed and back again leave her ogling Viktor's work, at every chance. He wants nothing to do with her, at first—until she prattles off her knowledge on chemical reconstruction, shows her inventions, wins his favor. They become good friends, over the years. In the aftermath of Fishbones' explosion, he's one of few who make active efforts to see her: they'll sit at the banks of the Pilt and share fishcakes, pickled cabbage, and thermoses of black tea. She'll talk shimmer varients; he'll talk chem-augmentations with Hextech. Together, they'll compile their shared notes in a tome she dubs Hohenheim (Hohie, for short). It's one of her most treasured possessions.
#arcane#arcane headcanon#writing#jinx#vi#silco#singed#viktor#the jinx & vik stuff i have a WIP for I'll pick back up someday#ALSO - things not in here but loosely on the frays:#jinx and ekko have a similar dichotomy with jinx and vi#ekko was powder's closest friend and now jinx's harshest enemy#he sees them as two separate facets of her identity - with jinx being a manipulation of what silco wants#sevika only followed vander through the onset of the cause and turned after deals with enforcers were struck#she was already working under silco's thumb long before she 'formally' quit vander's rung#at that time silco was terrifying to her - tunnel visioned and unforgiving#he's warmed up to someone else over time (who she might admire more if jinx wasn't a rusted nail between them)
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Dream series ~
Porco Galliard
Okay so, I've upset myself writing this new chapter of Crossroads. How Isayama and other writers do it I will never know.
Anyway, it's prompted me to start the "Dream Series" where you're with your love in a modern AU and what happens to them in canon is just a horrible, horrible dream.
Requests for series are open
Female bodied Reader X Porco Galliard
Warnings: Fluff. Soft sex. Cockwarming. Praising (both ways)
Tag list 🐙
@greeniegreengreen
@dreamerdeity
@XOYOURONLYAMORRXO
@koo-detat
@5feetofwrath
@lilshades
Your eyes fly open to be greeted by a void of blackness, the dark room creating familiar yet fuzzy shapes as your eyes focus on the amicable furniture of your bedroom. The room you share with your love -
You bolt to a sitting up position as you gather your bearings, the dream you had feeling like it had gone on forever.
"...Babe?" Porco asked, opening one eye to look at you. The open orb is squinting through the dark, his vocals drawled and half-asleep.
You flick on the bedside light, heart still hammering and the wicked heat of panic surging under your skin.
Porco immediately flinches and puts his head into his pillow to shield him from the light.
"Ah, a warning next time?"
If you were in your right mind, you'd apologise.
But instead, all you can do is choke on a sob, burying your face into your hands, the light chasing any and all demons from the shadow realm of nightmares back where they belong.
Porco's ear pricks when he hears your broken sob, sitting up with his bed hair sticking here, there and everywhere - eyes still squinting as his large hand softly palms your back.
"Woah, woah... hey, what's wrong?"
Turning, you throw your arms over his bare shoulders, the solid muscles beneath his skin tensing as he embraces you, holding the back of your head as if he were cradling you.
"I had the worst dream. And it felt so real. Eren was this... monster. So were you, a-and Reiner. And you were all fighting. You got hurt. Real bad. Your head was half missing and you were eaten by a - "
"Hey..." He laughs softly. "It was just a dream. It's over now. I'm here with you now, right?"
You nod, withdrawing from the embrace, his head lowering to catch your gaze.
"It wasn't real." he reiterates, fingers now running through your hair.
Using his large thumb, he pushes your tears off your cheeks, his auto "man must protect" instinct clicking on like a light switch at how precious you were, crying and trembling the way you were.
"Come on, let's get you feeling better. You want a drink?"
You shake your head as you inhale deeply, pulling yourself together.
"Tea?"
"No, thank you."
"Hmmm....Soda?"
"No."
"I know, how about a nice cold vodka?"
A smile spreads across your beautiful face. "Ew, no Porco."
His heart warms at seeing you smile, giving your arm a little squeeze.
"Alright. Let's get you back to dreamland, missy."
He felt you tense, knowing you weren't quite ready to risk going back into the unknown sovereign state of your unconscious.
"Alright..." He whispers, his nose now nuzzling at your neck. "Let me make you feel better in other ways..."
You melt instantly as his lips caress your neck, his palm sliding down your arm.
"Let me show you I'm really here..." He breathes, the feeling of your soft skin instantly stirring him awake.
He catches your mouth into a deep kiss, his eyes closing while that cute pink hue brightens across the bridge of his nose; no matter how long you'd been together, he always felt so privileged and lucky to be able to have your gorgeous form to himself. He'll never take you for granted.
He gently pushes down your form, grabbing the light switch on his way down, and clicking you both back into the darkness.
"I'm here, baby..." He breathes heavily, vocals quivering as he meekly climbs on top of you, his sturdy arms keeping himself hovering above you.
You nod from within the black cloud, both pairs of eyes once again adjusting to the new spectrum of vision.
He paws at the thin strap of your tank top, pulling it down your arm and freeing a breast, his warm textured tongue running up your nipple before giving it a nibble with his teeth.
A gasp escapes you at the sensation, running your fingers through his bed hair; lavishing the fact that you're the only person he allows to touch his hair.
As his strong neck works his head across your breast, his hand then grips your bare thigh firmly, tugging down your tiny bed shorts and pulling them down your beautiful pins.
"Let me make you feel safe..." He whispers as he comes back up to your neck, licking it slowly - tasting your natural skin and pheromones. "I'll keep you safe..."
"Oh Porco..." You sigh, wrapping your legs around his waist and feeling his solid manhood standing to attention under his pj bottoms.
"mmm" He hums in between deep kisses of random parts of your neck and chest. "I love it when you get needy for me, gorgeous."
Your own sex is now heated up, pulsing and throbbing on its own accord as this beautiful man who absolutely adores you makes a meal out of your skin.
"You're so perfect, Porco." You whine as he now pulls your top off you entirely.
His heart skips a beat at your words, his form taking shape now your eyes have had time to become familiar with the dark, you see his pink hue deepen to red.
"I love you..." He groans, now kissing your low stomach with such passion, you almost felt that titan steam from your dream emit from his form.
Your nails sink into the sheets as he slowly and deeply starts making out with your slit, his brows sewing together as he pleasures his queen.
Your legs tense and shudder as he groans into you, his tongue now rolling over your sensitive spot.
"Porco, ah ~ you make me feel so ~ good..."
His whimper at your words tugs at your heartstrings. You need to let him know how much he means to you, how amazing he is.
"I need you..." You breathe.
Tearing himself away he sits up, drying his mouth with the back of his wrist before hovering over you once more.
"You've got me. Always."
He pushes himself at your sex, hunching over you and gasping as he slowly slides inside, clinging to you as if you were about to be blown away to another world.
Your lips part and nails cling to his arms as his girth stretches you deliciously, his pathetic whimper once he reached the hilt like music to your ears.
He stays still, you can feel his angry cock pulsing within you as it begs its master for some friction.
As bad as he is at it, Porco adores cockwarming you - but his self-control is null and void and he never manages to last long. Distracting himself, he paws your hair kissing you as if you were his last meal on this earth.
You bring your legs up in a bend, resulting in him sliding in deeper.
"H'nrgh..." He grunts into your mouth, a deep breath blowing you away.
"You're my every... ah ~ tsss... my everything..." He hisses as your constrictions spasm and flex tightly around his length.
"I love you, Porco..." You whine, trying your best not to buck your hips into his. "I'm all yours..."
Your tongues dance within one another's mouth for a small while, entwining and tasting the other, wrestling gently with adoration that pours from both of your entire beings.
Immersing himself into your soul, he grits his teeth and places his head against yours, his hot breath panting and blanketing your face. He whines, he whimpers, he's at your total mercy; all from just reactively tightening yourself which was half an automatic response anyway.
"Never leave me." You whisper. "Don't let this be a dream."
"If I am... I'm waiting for you, somewhere." He replies with honesty. "If i'm a dream. If i'm a character from someone else's world... I'm here, waiting for you to meet me."
A single tear threatens your eye but you blink it away wrapping your arms around his shoulders and neck, closing your eyes as you cling onto his body.
"I love you."
"I love you too, princess. Just.. wait for me, okay?"
You nod as he begins to slowly withdraw himself. Your breath is taken away as he firmly thrusts back inside of you. Once. twice. Then giving up all reservations and thrusting his cock into you at a nice rhythm and pace, your hips rocking with his movements.
One arm hooks around you, keeping your body pressed against his, the other on the headboard as he rocks himself in and out of your tight squeezes, his whimpering gathering volume as well as the ferocity of his movements.
You cry out his name as he chants yours in a groan, your breasts bouncing with each powerful hit, the hit that's taking you closer to your high.
"Ah ~ babe... you feel so good... fuck... I'm close... uhuh..." His voice breaks as you come undone, shattering and breaking but at the same time becoming whole as you share your orgasm with your lover, your reflexive insides pulling him in deeper as his thick hot nut bursts with force within you, colliding with your cervix.
You lie asleep, Porco watching your soft, satisfied smile as you're cradled in his arms. His small smile of pride is evident as he gazes at your form. Juvenile pride that he just fucked you happy, but also a deep routed sense of feeling proud, that you were his. That he had made you happy.
His head then turns to gaze out of the window at the moon that is slightly in the view from a sliver in the drapes. His smile fades to a thoughtful frown.
What if this was some dream?
What if he were the dream, and when she slept here - that dream world is her real world and vice versa?
His brain started to hurt so with a shake of his head, he returned his gaze to his love.
Whatever the case, wherever you might really be... he is waiting.
End.
a/n: I found an audio thing that is the closest thing I could find to what Porco's moans and whimpers sound like when he is feral. WARNING: It takes you to a porn website (a safe one, promise) so keep that in mind, don't want to give you any nasty surprises.
Here it is here. This is so close to Porco when he's going absolutely nuts for you. Ignore the dialogue at the start though.
You're welcome.
#porco smut#porco x reader#porco x y/n#porco imagines#porco x you#porco fluff#porco thirst#snk x reader#snk x y/n#snk headcanons#aot
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