#( nothing to lose: alliance au )

[blackrosebishop]

-- "You're going to get what you deserve."

[zosan-secondchances]

The Pirate King of the North

Main Themes: Villain Sanji, Alternate Universe, Zosan Ship

AU where Straw Hat Pirates meet old Sanji from a reality where Reiju didn't have emotions.

Warning: Long post ahead and some One Piece spoilers. Contains strong language.

Part 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14

Young Zoro hates the fucker but those scars and piercings are doing a number to his soul.

Old Sanji's story goes like this:

He didn't experience compassion from anyone else aside from his mother, who--you know what happened.

Judge kept him locked away until he was 13. He had him released when he was deemed too broken to do anything, and he was apparently a waste of space. As far as the world was concerned, he was already dead. He gets left behind at some random pirate town in the North.

His swirly brows were recognized by the pirates who took him in--only for him to be enslaved because people would pay a lot to have their way with royalty.

He picked up some skills from the other slaves and became cunning af--because he had to be.

At 17 he started a revolt against the slaver pirates, effectively taking over as their new pirate captain.

He became the feared "Mr. Prince" and his words are as sharp as his bite.

He's underweight because he doesn't give two shits about good food.

"The All Blue? It's nothing but an old fishwive's tale," he says.

He used his cunning mind and new pirate crew to hunt down and kill his own father from the shadows.

He enslaved his own siblings and becomes the new ruler of Germa Kingdom. Over the years, he used them for warfare and expanded the territory of the North.

His heart is a bottomless pit for power and control.

He had a fling or two or several with is closely allied with Doflamingo because god damn they're both mad like that. The alliance eventually lead to direct connections with Celestial Dragons.

Sanji gains more power and becomes the notorious "Pirate King of the North"

Meanwhile at the other side of the world, Luffy didn't make it as far as he could have without a good cook.

Luffy would have recruited one from Baratie but the restaurant was absolutely destroyed before the smaller Straw Hat crew could make a difference. Some of the staff didn't make it.

Zoro left the crew when it fell apart at some point.

Due to Zoro's reputation and bounty that he had occurred during his limited time with Luffy, he was offered a position as a Warlord, ultimately taking over the late Jinbe's old role. He accepted and served for several years before he was assigned a job that he didn't know would be the most challenging one yet.

The Celestial Dragons didn't like the fact that Sanji had started to have more worldly control over their own, so Zoro was quietly assigned to hunt down the great Pirate King of the North. Zoro accepted because he felt that he needed more experience before he could take on Mihawk again.

Zoro quickly realised that this mission is not a walk in the park.

Sanji loves toying with the Demon Warlord so he insists on taking him on by himself.

It becomes an endless game of cat and mouse. Sometimes Sanji chases and sometimes he runs, sometimes he wins and sometimes he loses.

They're at each others' throats everywhere in the world. Any person, city or being of any kind that gets in the way usually gets torn apart in the chaos. The hunt goes on for a lifetime. They're currently in their 40's.

Zoro severs Sanji's left arm during one huge fight.

Because of this, Sanji relentlessly tries to get Zoro to marry him to use him in so many ways he can think of--both as an asset and under the sheets--oh the things that he wants the swordsman to do and beg for.

Sanji likes to refer to the tiniest scar on his lip as "Zoro's love bite"

He was about to get a nice fresh one on his chest when some fuckers teleported him away.

Hearing old Sanji's backstory was a bit much. It was young Zoro's turn to have a nosebleed that day.

----------

Oh yes I had fun drawing old silver fox, damaged Sanji. I wish I have the time to colour it up. I've also been very much into reading AU stories, especially soul brand ones. Keep them coming, you beautiful people.

Edit: Woo! I finally decided to make my own AO3 account. It's about time. Link here for the story: https://archiveofourown.org/works/60686077

[futurepastme]

At King Emry's Court: Full Scene

(The badass King Merlin AU)

Excerpt: Arthur frowned a little, ready to complain, before remembering himself. "You speak of justice…" "I never said anything about justice." Arthur frowned at the interruption again. "I've given your father three options. I offered him peace, I offered him ignorance and I offered him war; the only thing I did after that was make him aware that actions have consequences. This is what this is about; not revenge, not justice, but simple cause and effect."

In the middle of nowhere, northwest from Albion, was the island known by magic users as Elysium. Elysium seemed to have appeared out of nowhere, nobody had ever heard about it until about twenty years after Uther Pendragon started his war against magic.

Slowly, rumors of this island began to grow and eventually what was only a myth became real. Some kingdoms of Albion turned their eyes to the island; interested in their growing economy, the chance to trade with them and the chance to forge alliances. Soon enough the island that was known to be the magic users paradise — their hiding place if you will — became a bustling and well succeeded kingdom.

The King of Elysium was known mostly by name, a hooded figure by the name of Emrys. Few were the people that knew his face, most of them were part of the select group he chose to manage the island while he was away.

Emrys was rarely seen, his way of ruling the kingdom was different than everything one might have seen before for Emrys rarely stayed at the island, leaving it on the hands of his chosen few.

The chosen few were known as the seven, most of their identities were also unknown as they all chose to wear a hooded cape at all times, so they were mostly known as their assigned number.

As the Kingdom grew in strength and wealth, Uther Pendragon began losing allies and what was once seen as a strong man with a just fight in the name of good, was slowly turning into a madman thirsty for revenge and bloodshed.

Trying to save face, King Uther scheduled a visit to the island. He was indeed curious about the kingdom and about Emrys himself, but with his visit he hoped to learn their weaknesses and find enough information to create doubt amongst the other kingdoms of Albion and turn them against magic once more.

King Emrys kindly invited Camelot's party to spend the harvest celebrations with them, a week-long festival where both magic-folk and humans thanked the goddess and the land for the given provisions for the winter. Along with King Uther, Prince Arthur and a handful of servants and knights went on their way to meet the mysterious island.

Upon arrival, Camelot's party were welcomed by the seven, the man and woman that managed the island in Emrys absence. Uther didn't like it, he wanted nothing more than meet the man that dared to go against him, but Emrys was nowhere to be seen.

After two days of not finding the sorcerer, Uther demanded a meeting with Emrys' court and was surprised when he found out that even if his wish for a meeting was granted, Emrys himself still wouldn't see him.

Merlin was Prince Arthur's manservant — he had been for years as a reward for saving Arthur's life — and as the prince's servant he was granted the privilege of joining them on their visit to the island. But Merlin was more than a servant — in Prince Arthur's eyes he was closer to a friend — so Merlin also had the honour to be allowed in council meetings.

That's why Merlin now sat at the back of the room watching as King Uther made angry demands at Elysium's court, screaming at the councilwoman that had been introduced as the main representative and the second of the seven. He watched as the woman was interrupted again and again, as she tried to reason with the mad king that demanded to see Emrys and made threats of war.

He had had enough, there was nothing the woman could do against Uther, especially in the state he was in. Merlin took a step forward, and then another, slowly letting his secret seep out of him.

Upon noticing his movement, some of Elysium's councilmen and women started to move as well, until one of them raised their voice to say "All rise for the Lord Emrys," and Merlin fully let his magic out, allowing it to change his garments into ones more befitting of a king. He walked to his seat at the center of the room and, upon reaching it, turned around taking in the many emotions passing through the faces of Camelot's citizens that were in the room.

Uther's face was red as he restarted his complaints, this time filled with accusations, insults, and even more threats.

"You are nothing but a lowly servant!"

Merlin had enough, he had been done with Uther a long time ago and now he was filled with a rage he hasn't felt in a long time.

"I'm aware of what I am, Uther Pendragon." he started, his voice growing louder in order to compete with Uther's own screaming. "I am a peasant. I was born to grow crops," Merlin continued his speech standing up slowly.

"I was born to scrub floors, polish boots and clean chamber-pots. I was never suppose to be King, I wasn't suppose to have people depending on me, on my choices; I wasn't supposed to have to lead anyone or give anyone hope."

Merlin walked towards Uther, staring him dead in the eyes with such intensity that brought a golden gleam to his still blue irises.

"I never once asked for riches, for power; and I never asked to be King."

He stopped right in front of Uther, still staring at him, and brought his voice down. "You are the one who gave me this crown."

Uther had his face completely red, a vein in his forehead threatening to pop.

"You can scream all you want," Merlin continued, turning around and heading back to his seat. "You can hate me and my people, my kind; you can try and make demands and threats, but I assure you, you will not have it your way."

"Then you have chosen war." Uther said when Merlin paused his speech long enough to sit down.

Merlin looked at the small man in front of him with a mixture of disbelief and amusement.

"War?" He snorted, "you can't go to war with me, Uther. How would that even work?"

Merlin smiled and frowned his eyebrows. "We are in an island, Camelot has no ships of its own. You are here because you used my ships." He leaned back.

"Besides, who says I want war with Camelot? I actually quite like the place, you know? I have a bunch of friends there."

"Camelot is no friend of magic users, we will fight to rid the world of your little nest of pests."

Merlin dropped his smile, his eyes grew sharp once again as he focused on Uther, and he let out a sigh. "By the goddess you are tiresome."

He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees.

"Here's the deal, I will give you three options to choose from. You can choose whatever one you like most, I'll be happy with any of them."

Uther seemed ready to speak again but never got the chance.

"Option number one: We sign a peace treaty similar to the ones I have with other kingdoms where we'll begin to plan trade routs and the such to start collaborating with each other, but you will have to stop your persecution and the bloodshed against my people," Merlin scrunched up his nose. "I'll not even demand that you lift the ban completely, merely that the punishment fits the crime committed and that you stop actively hunting us down."

Uther's face was getting closer to purple and he opened up his mouth. "Option number two," Merlin said louder before Uther restarted his hate speech.

"We sign an armistice and you go back to pretend this place doesn't exist and we will do the same with Camelot."

Merlin leaned back again, "which brings us to option number three: war"

Uther looked taken aback for a second that war was actually in one of his 'options', he looked eager to respond but Merlin raised his hand interrupting him again.

"Let me explain something about option number three before you choose. First of all, even if you manage to find ships to bring your knights across the sea, I assure you they will not make it to the port. The only ships that can anchor at my shores are the ones I allow to."

Merlin let the information sink in before continuing.

"Secondly, even if you manage to bring your man to my island you'll still have the three levels of protection shields that won't allow you to pass. Not mentioning the amount of magic users that would be eager to get their own personal revenge against anyone wearing Camelot's colours."

Merlin shook his head in disapproval.

"Finally, and this is the main one so pay attention; if you do choose to go to war against me, if you are so eager to erase magic from earth that you decide to go out of your way to persecute my kind in this sacred place; I promise you that no knight, no soldier, no innocent human from Camelot or otherwise, will be harmed in your foolish war. The only person that will face consequences if you seek war against my kingdom will be yourself, Uther Pendragon, and I'll make sure of it."

Merlin leaned forward again and rested his chin on his hands. "It's about time you start taking responsibility for your own mistakes, and assume the consequences of them like the man and king you were supposed to be."

The room went silent. Merlin's threat hang heavily in the air taking away the voices of everyone in the room, even from his own council who did not expect that decision. They all knew Merlin loved Camelot, and that he had a soft spot for it's prince.

"You dare to threaten me."

Merlin's eyebrows went up and a startled laugh escaped in a breath and soon turned into a giggle fit that was joined by the rest of Elysium's council.

"You are joking, right?"

"I demand a fair combat between our kingdoms, as a war is supposed to be."

"You are joking, right?" Merlin repeated. "You are not sitting in front of me, demanding war with people that you have murdered for decades and suddenly decide that you are pro-fairness just because things aren't going your way. Because if you are… well that's amusing, really. And befitting"

Merlin cleaned dry tears from his eyes.

"You threaten to murder me…"

"Murder? No, I don't recall saying that. I said that if you went with the warpath there would be consequences and you would be the only one to pay for them. In fact," he looked at the seven man and women he trusted most, the ones that ran his kingdom for him. "I'll tell you what, you have until the end of the week to make a decision, meanwhile councilwomen two and six will gather this week to decide what your fate will be if you choose the warpath."

"And how is that fair?" Arthur spoke and for the first time since Merlin left his place at the back and took his seat as Emrys, Merlin dared to look at him.

While Merlin knew Arthur better than the man knew himself, right now Arthur was using his court face, and even if usually he could read right past that as well, all Merlin could see right now was his steadfast gaze looking right back at him.

"Councilwoman two is a non-magic user, she helps us see the things by the point of view of those who have no magic at all but still have to live with it; councilwoman number six is a magic-user who lived in Camelot for a while, she was on her way to take matters in her own hands when I convinced her otherwise and she came to my island instead."

Merlin rested his chin on his hands again.

"I usually don't mind taking part on the decision-making — of course not, how could I? — but in this case I fear my judgment might be a little…" He let his gaze wander away and land back on the prince. "Compromised."

"I see the reasoning for your councilwomen choice, but how can I be certain that what they'll chose will be fair?"

Merlin let a smirk escape, both from the irony of the word fair related to Uther and for Arthur himself. Then he shook his head.

"You are forgetting that he doesn't have to choose that path."

"I think we both know the likeliness of that."

"What would you have me do, then?"

Merlin watched as a glimpse of surprise escaped through Arthur's mask, followed by a hint of doubt before both of them were suppressed again.

"Let me…"

"No." Merlin interrupted him before he could even start, there was no way he would let Arthur decide his own father's fate if it ever came down to it.

Arthur frowned a little, ready to complain, before remembering himself. "You speak of justice…"

"I never said anything about justice." Arthur frowned at the interruption again.

"I've given your father three options. I offered him peace, I offered him ignorance and I offered him war; the only thing I did after that was make him aware that actions have consequences. This is what this is about; not revenge, not justice, but simple cause and effect."

Arthur stared at Merlin with tight lips, he didn't like what Merlin had said but he also didn't have a good enough argument to go against his reasoning.

Merlin kept his gaze focused on Arthur's face trying to catch another glimpse of his emotions. He could feel his frustration and annoyance but most of all, he knew Arthur feared for his father.

"However" He continued, "I can see your point of view and after careful consideration I have come to realized that perhaps you might have a point."

Arthur looked shocked, not just a glimpse that was escaping through his mask, no, Arthur was completely shocked and it was clear for everyone to see.

"Well of course I have a point"

"Sure"

Arthur scrunched his nose in annoyance and Merlin smiled. Maybe things would be alright in the end.

"Like I was saying, you made me realize that it would be interesting to have the point-of-view of someone that has been directly under King Uther's rule and isn't connected to magic in any way in the decision making process, so I'll allow you, Prince Arthur, to chose someone from your party to speak on your kingdom's behalf."

Uther talked back at that. "If anyone should be choosing my representative, it should be me!"

Merlin had honestly forgotten Uther was still there, in fact he was so focused on Arthur that he forgot that everybody else who wasn't him were still there. He was so glad he didn't see any trace of hate in his prince's eyes that the rest of the world didn't seem to be attention worthy.

Granted, Arthur still had his mask on, but the glimpses Merlin managed to see earlier were all hatred-free, so Merlin was hopeful and if everything turned out not horrible, Merlin was considering to create a new holiday to celebrate this day.

"Honestly, Uther, the fact that you still think you have any say in my court baffles me. You entered here spitting rage and making demands like some kind of entitled child, why you would think I would let you make any decision about anything after that makes me severely concerned for your kingdom, and that's coming from someone who's been living there."

Uther spluttered.

"Arthur is choosing because the argument was his, because he seems to have his bearings and, honestly? Because he's more likable than you."

Uther's mouth opened slightly and Merlin noticed a small smile creeping up Arthur's mouth.

"Now, Prince Arthur, I'm going to need a name but if you allow me an advice, I'd tell you to choose for the kingdom, not for the man."

Arthur looked back at him in the way he always did when he thought Merlin had said something uncharacteristically wise, except this time it came with a weight Merlin couldn't place.

Merlin didn't know but Arthur was looking at him with admiration, Merlin always confused him in the sense that he seemed so much more than just a servant, like Merlin had the heart of a noble and the wisdom of a king. Now that he knew the truth about him, everything seemed to fall into place.

Merlin always had that aura around him — especially when giving Arthur advice — of someone that was destined for greatness. Learning that he was Emrys made so much sense that while looking at him right now, sitting in a throne leading and protecting his kind with certainty, Arthur didn't find it in himself room to be angry about it. Not when that scene felt so right that he wondered why he never realized how magnificent Merlin would look with a crown.

Arthur looked around the room for a while, seemingly measuring the men that had come with them.

"I can have someone brought from Camelot before lunchtime if you don't have what you need here," Merlin offered and Arthur looked surprised at him.

Merlin knew who he would've chosen. It seemed obvious to him but maybe Arthur had a different strategy.

"I choose Sir Leon," he turned to the man himself "If you feel like you're up to the task."

"It would be my honour, Sire." He bowed in agreement.

"Wonderful!" Merlin clapped his hands once which seemed to startle a few people. He smiled at Arthur's good choice before continuing. "Sir Leon will be joining the second and the sixth throughout this week to reach a mutual decision about what would be an appropriate outcome." He waved at each of them as he spoke.

"Meanwhile," he continued. "King Uther has a week to reach a decision of his own about what is to be done with both our kingdoms. While he does so I want to remind the court that the Camelot party are still our guests and must continue to be treated as such."

He looked back at Uther, "you are all, of course, still invited to partake in our harvest celebrations — there's no need for bad blood between us while a decision hasn't been made — and you are all free to explore the kingdom as you will, I just ask you all not to wander through our forests by yourselves, they have a tendency to be purposefully confusing."

He turned his gaze to his court.

"In the interest of full transparency, not more courtly meetings will be held until we gather again in a week to hear Camelot's position, all non-urgent matters shall be postpone to the week after, and the urgent ones can be brought directly to me."

"You will regret this." Uther interrupted, his voice filled with poison and disdain. "You think you can spy on me and my kingdom without consequences, I'll make you pay for your lies and your sins."

The room felt heavy again, Merlin was just tired.

"Can't wait to hear all about it next week. Court dismissed."

He stood up and his court stood with him, differently from what is done in Camelot, the Elysium court always waited for him to leave the room first before leaving their places. He wasn't sure when this began being their way but he had a suspicion it started because Merlin hated attending court and always were the first at the door when it was over.

Camelot's household watched in silence as the whole room of Elysium's court stood in place waiting for their king to leave through the door before moving to leave themselves.

It wasn't long after Merlin left that he began hearing the familiar footsteps following after him. They were strong and decisive and were marching straight towards him with purpose, soon enough he felt a strong hand around his arm and long nails digging at his sleeve. "I want him dead"

"And what else is new?"

He felt the nails digging deeper and he was forced to stop. He turned around and found himself face to face with green eyes filled with anger and annoyance.

"This isn't a joke, Merlin. Uther should die, this is the only way."

"You heard my decision, Morgana." Merlin stared back at her with a steady gaze, they had had that discussion many times before and while Morgana always complied with his decision of not going for Uther's throat, it didn't mean she was happy about it. "It's not me you have to convince of that."

"You really think Leon and Hunith will let me sentence him to death? Have you met them? They don't understand, Merlin, not like we do."

Merlin's gaze softened as he stared at her. "Do you know why I chose you to be part of the seven?"

"Because I'm powerful and have understanding of courtly matters."

"That helps, of course, but that was not the reason." Morgana's stance softened in surprise.

"Was it out of guilt?"

"What?"

"Some kind of gift to apologize for the poison?"

Merlin was taken aback with surprise, it had been a while since he thought about that day. "I thought we had put that behind us."

"We did." She sounded relieved.

"Morgana, I chose you because I trust you to fight for our kind in a way I'm not able to. You are angry, and while you might not be out for revenge anymore, it doesn't mean you would casually dismiss it like I would. But most of all, I chose you because after everything you've been through in Camelot, after Uther and after me, you still managed to maintain enough heart to not give in. I admire you, Morgana. You have a strength in you that can inspire people to follow you. I'm lucky to have you by my side and I trust you to make the right decision."

Morgana looked at him in shock, she seemed so vulnerable like this, with big doe eyes that seemed to be staring at the sun for the first time. It was gone quickly enough, she looked down and recomposed herself. "It's because of you, you know?"

"Me? I was under the impression that I made things worse."

"You did, at first, but you reached out to me later and didn't give up. I don't know what would have become of me if you hadn't. The path Morgause was taking us was not one I'd dare to follow today, it came from a place of despair and anger and I would have walked down that road with her til the end if it weren't for your persistence. We might have ended up in different sides of this war."

"I see. I'm glad it didn't came to it then."

"So am I." They smiled at each other before Merlin turned again and offered her his arm. "So, tell me, how's Morgause doing? Did she find new apprentices?"

She took his arm and laughed, "oh, you wouldn't believe it, those poor girls."

They continued their journey down the hallways of Elysium Castle, chatting and gossiping like old friends. Merlin knew there was still much to be done, he still had to find Arthur and explain himself to his prince, and he knew Uther wouldn't spend this week in silence. Just imagining the headache he could bring for his people left him slightly out of breath.

But that was a problem for another time, right now he just wanted to enjoy the pleasant company of one of his dearests friends in the world without any drama to stain it. "Anyway, let's talk about the way Arthur was looking at you, don't think I didn't notice."

Or not

"Did you hear that? I think I heard Lord Erick calling me." He let go of her and started sprinting away while laughing.

"Merlin! Come back here! You will not get away from this conversation! Merlin!" her voice echoed through the hallway as Merlin ran away with the wind.

☽♚☾

[syndrossi]

October Trick or Treat #7: Consummation babies

Aka "what if Rhea and Daemon had conceived the twins on their wedding night" aka "Regnal AU."

x~x~x

“I am pregnant.”

His lady wife had announced the news in the very tone she had used earlier in the day when issuing judgment on two squabbling farmers who’d brought a dispute before her, and she was looking at him now as though he were the farmer on the losing end of it.

Daemon could only stare at her. When he had been summoned to her solar by the maester, he had assumed it was for yet another narrow-eyed lecture on his conduct in town, where he had gotten riotously drunk last night in a desperate bid to stave off the boredom of life as the Lady of Runestone’s unwanted husband.

“You are certain?” he asked, recognizing the question as stupid the moment it left his mouth.

“I waited for the quickening,” she said, hand straying toward her stomach before she seemed to realize, pulling it back to rest at her side.

Daemon’s gaze dropped to her midsection, marking what might be a small bump beneath the fabric of a loose dress. They had lain together no more than thrice in their four moons of marriage, one of those their wedding night, and had happily kept to their personal bedchambers since. For her to be so far along already, the babe must have been conceived that very night.

“That is good,” he said stiffly, in part because she seemed to expect the opposite sentiment from him. “You have my congratulations, my lady.”

She did not frown at him for once, though neither did she smile. “Should not half the congratulations be yours?”

Nothing about this marriage is mine. Certainly not his choice. It had been his grandmother’s scheming and his grandfather’s command, carried out over his every protest. His own father had escorted him to the wedding ceremony at Runestone as though he were his aunt Saera being marched to join the Silent Sisters.

And the very moment Runestone had passed to Rhea at her father’s death, not a moon into their marriage, it had been made abundantly clear to him from every quarter that nothing about Runestone was his, either. She was the lady, he was her consort, and he was to entertain himself with mindless pursuits in a castle whose walls felt smaller by the day.

One year, he had told himself. He only had to endure for one year, long enough to put in a showing that his grandfather would accept, and then he would be free to return to King’s Landing, and fly off on Caraxes wherever he liked, and find someone to fuck who didn’t stare at him throughout with frigid disdain. It had been clear to him from the very beginning that he was nothing more than a duty to her, an inconvenience to be suffered.

A duty, as though he were not the son of the Prince of Dragonstone, the next ruler of the Iron Throne. A dragonrider of pure Valyrian descent, the blood of Aegon the Conqueror singing in his veins. Dark Sister moldered in her sheath, hungry for blood and glory, and he—

He had been just another marriage alliance to his grandfather, like Aemma’s mother before her. A political maneuver by House Targaryen to gain a powerful seat in the Vale through his eventual children, as though their house were not capable of seizing whatever they wished by force.

And now I am trapped.

A babe tied him fully to his wife, to this damp, miserable castle, because he could not abandon a child of his blood to suffer the cold and joyless fate he sought to flee.

For once, Daemon was grateful for every lesson of courtly etiquette that had been drilled into him. It allowed him to act on instinct, even as his mind was elsewhere. He gave his wife’s cheek a stilted kiss, murmured the appropriate words, and then begged leave to write to his family with the happy news.

It was Viserys who he addressed it to, fingers pinching the quill hard enough by the end to snap it, sending a spatter of ink from its tip across the parchment. He did not bother rewriting it, steps quick as he brought it to the rookery, to the raven he could have raced on Caraxes with the news if his grandfather’s command would have let him.

And with quicker steps still, he sought Caraxes and what little air he was permitted.

x~x~x

“Did our father send you?” Daemon murmured as he embraced his brother. It would not surprise him; he seemed to know them at least as well as they did themselves.

“He might have suggested it,” Viserys said, pulling back with a grin before moving to greet Rhea with a brotherly kiss to the cheek.

Daemon turned to Aemma, who held his young niece by the hand. Rhaenyra would be nearly three, and she gazed up at him shyly.

“Your company is most welcome,” Daemon said to his cousin as he kissed her cheek. “As is your experience in these matters.”

There was a teasing glint in her eyes as Aemma smiled at him. “And I am sure you will heed all offered advice, as always.”

Daemon rolled his eyes at her in response, then crouched down. “Are you excited for a baby cousin, Rhaenyra?”

“Maybe,” his niece said, which about summed up his own feelings on the matter.

He picked her up then and sprang to his feet, tossing her up—to an audible wince from Aemma—and catching her. His niece giggled with delight as she settled in his arm, where she spotted Dark Sister and turned her attention to the sword.

Daemon transferred her to his other side, well away from the hilt. “Let us not alarm your mother any further.”

“I shall believe it when I see it,” Aemma told him, standing on tiptoes to kiss his cheek in turn and steal her daughter back.

In truth, he was relieved at their presence, after six moons being surrounded by only Royce retainers and stern Valemen. It was no small distance from Runestone to King’s Landing, either—a week at least by ship, though at least the waters were calm in summer. It was but a two-day ride on dragonback, but Viserys had shown no interest in claiming a new mount since Balerion’s death by old age, which baffled Daemon to no end.

I shall have to take him up on Caraxes while he is here, so that he can be reminded of the thrill of dragonriding. There was a particular stretch of mountain he enjoyed flying over, near the Royce summer manse, that still had snow flecking the tops of the peaks, even this deep into summer.

Aemma greeted his wife warmly, and Daemon recalled that they had known one another as girls. His cousin had tried to reassure him before his departure for Runestone that Rhea Royce was a spirited, adventurous woman. Daemon had seen very little evidence of either, though he supposed a pregnancy was a fair enough reason to avoid adventure.

“You must take poor Fallow out hawking in my stead,” Rhea was saying to Aemma. “I was too sick the first few weeks, and too large now.”

She had grown considerably over the past two moons, and Rhaenyra stretched her arms upward to place them on his wife’s swollen belly. “It moved!” she exclaimed.

“Yes, the babe is quite active,” Rhea agreed, leaning to kiss Rhaenyra on the crown of her head, then straightening slowly, a hand to her back.

Daemon cleared his throat. “Shall we move to the solar?”

“An excellent idea,” Aemma said, her smile at him warm with approval. She took Rhea’s elbow and they started for the holdfast, with Rhaenyra grabbing for his wife’s other hand.

Viserys remained at the rear of the procession with Daemon. “What do you think?” his brother asked. “A son or a daughter?”

His voice was light-hearted, but Daemon could hear the strain beneath it. His brother’s quest for a son had been fruitless thus far, with Aemma suffering two miscarriages prior to Rhaenyra’s birth and two since. Their grandfather had sternly reminded Daemon of his own duty, and that misfortune could befall the king’s heir at any time, as their uncle’s death had painfully demonstrated. Their father was a second son, and now in line for the throne. If Viserys were to struggle to provide the realm with a son, and their own father refused to remarry, then it fell upon Daemon to produce the necessary spares.

Daemon’s gaze went to Rhaenyra’s small form at Rhea’s side, hand swinging as she walked with her, hair long and pale. He imagined a child of his own holding her hand, but the details shifted constantly. Long hair, then short. Light, then dark.

“I do not know,” he said.

“Rhaenyra will love any daughter of yours like a sister,” Viserys said confidently. “And if you should have a boy, then we may have a match in the future.”

Daemon grimaced. He had not even begun to think so far ahead as matches. The one consolation was that their grandfather would surely no longer be around to wrest the decision from him. Their father would not force an unhappy pairing, though he could not imagine his children and his brother’s not growing close.

“How long do you intend to stay?” Daemon asked.

“So eager to be rid of my company?” his brother teased. But then his voice grew serious. “For as long as you like. I am sorry that I could not attend the wedding.”

“Do not be. It was a grim affair.”

And Aemma had been recovering from her last miscarriage.

His brother slung an arm around his shoulder. “You do not seem quite as miserable as I feared from your letter. Are you warming to the thought of fatherhood?”

Daemon bit back a grimace, recalling the letter he had sent. The news had unbalanced him at the time, and he had poured far more into it than he had intended. If Viserys had shared his words with their father, it was no small wonder that he had urged Viserys to visit. He had likely sounded on the verge of fleeing in the night.

“Perhaps.”

He and Rhea had gone from wholly avoiding one another’s company to taking suppers together now in her solar. They had been stilted affairs at first, and he had felt like someone playing a part in a mummer’s show. The first conversations that had not been pure torture had pertained to preparations for the babe. Ensuring the nursery was ready, beginning the search for an experienced wetnurse. Daemon had taken one look at the rickety cradle that had last been used by Rhea’s younger half-sister, Elys, and demanded a new one, which she had deferred to him.

The duties had begun piling on after that. He had resented them initially, viewing them as more bars being added to the cage, or even demeaning—he, a prince of the realm and a dragonrider, seeing to tasks ordinarily left to a lord’s wife. Rather than filling his nights with revelry, however, he had found himself thinking beyond the present. Would his child be allowed an egg in the cradle? When would it be safe to make the journey on dragonback to King’s Landing to present their babe to king and court?

His saddle was already modified to seat two, but he would need something of his own to hold the babe secure. He’d spent more time speaking with the craftsmen of Runestone in the past moon than he had in the air on Caraxes. It was tradition for House Royce to present newborns with a bronze medallion etched with runes to protect them from illness and injury, and it had fallen to him to arrange that as well.

His wife’s castle was laden with history and tradition for her house, and he had none on hand for his own, so he had chanced a trip to Dragonstone, poring over the volumes there for any ancient customs that had fallen out of practice in his own family, finding one at last wherein damaged and shed dragon scales from the mounts of the infant’s parents were carved up and set into a bowl of silver or gold.

Caraxes had been willing enough to make a few donations to the intrigued smith who had forged the Royce medallion, and the end result reminded Daemon almost of a mosaic, with darker and lighter patches of red arranged in a pattern not unlike flame within the gold.

The smiths of Runestone, he was forced to admit, were quite skilled.

“Come,” Daemon said, suddenly eager to show it to his brother. “I have something for you to see.”

x~x~x

“It is too early,” Daemon repeated, mouth dry with fear as he stared at the door, listening to the moans of pain from within.

His father’s hand came down on his shoulder, pulling Daemon into his side. “It is not too early. Not every babe is willing to wait nine full moons in the womb, and it surprises me not at all that one of yours wishes to scream fury at the world sooner than late.”

Daemon leaned his head into his father’s shoulder, grateful that he had come nearly a full moon before the babe was due. Every nightmare scenario played in his mind, presented to him earlier by the maester. A dreaded breech birth. An ill-placed umbilical cord strangling his child. Unexpected trauma to mother or babe, killing one or both.

Rhea’s labor had started the better part of a day ago, and he had been in and out of the room as the maester allowed. His wife was a strong woman, he knew, loath to show weakness even among those she trusted, but she had long since stopped trying to mask her pain.

“It is taking too long,” Daemon said, his worry a wild thing, whipping from one fear to another.

“Shall we go back in?” his father asked.

He had been banished from her sight last time, but she barely seemed to notice their re-entry now. Since Daemon had been chided by the maester for hovering, he settled on the couch by the window, his father sitting beside him.

There were cloths upon cloths stained pink and red, buckets of water, implements he did not recognize. Daemon was grateful that the view was mostly shielded by the maester and his attendants, even as he agonized over their decision to have the birth here, rather than at the Red Keep, with the realm’s best maesters at their disposal.

He clutched the bronze medallion in his hand, thumb running over its runes. Rhea had insisted that he hold onto it, that it was for the babe and not her, but she and the babe were yet one and the same, and if it could afford either of them some protection—

Rhea cried out again, this one nearly a battle shout in volume, and the strain in it gave way at the end to something like relief. A second cry came, this one high in pitch, and Daemon stood up so fast he nearly collapsed, only his father’s steadying arm keeping him upright.

Past the maester, he glimpsed a pink, wriggling shape being handed to one of the maester’s assistants. There seemed to be no alarm as they worked on the babe, but he was waved back when he tried to approach.

“Not yet, my prince,” the maester said. “There is another.”

Another. Daemon stood a moment, uncomprehending of his words at first. Then— “Twins?”

“Yes, my prince.”

As Rhea panted, a sheen of sweat on her face, the first babe was cleaned, cord tied and then cut. Daemon was permitted to approach then, as the screaming babe was handed to her.

“A son, my lady, my prince. Small, but healthy.”

Daemon’s heart fluttered as he gazed upon the child in Rhea’s arms. He had a crown of dark hair, clearly taking after his mother, though with his eyes squeezed shut as he howled his fury, it was impossible to catch a glimpse of their color.

A son. A shout caught in his lungs, and he choked it back, because the birth was not yet over, but for now, his wife was alert if tired, coaxing their son to her breast. The wailing stopped once his mouth found the nipple, and Rhea’s head eased back into the pillow, eyes closing in obvious fatigue.

Daemon dared reach for her hand, and her eyelids fluttered open, gaze landing on him. She did not pull her hand back, and he squeezed lightly. They held one another’s stare for a time, then glanced as one at their son. Their firstborn.

The minutes slipped by, long enough for Daemon to wonder if something was wrong with the second babe, but Rhea tensed then, her grip tightening around his hand. Their son was taken from her breast and given to his father to hold as labor resumed.

The second birth was mercifully quick, the pain either lessened or dulled by all that had come before it. In less than half an hour, another small head emerged, then took to wailing, and Daemon felt himself relax at last at the sound.

The babe was cleaned, cord cut, and the second proclamation made. “Another healthy son, my lady.”

His firstborn was relinquished to him by his father, who had been gently rocking him on the couch, and Daemon in turn gave him to Rhea, who kissed his head, eyes bright with tears, and returned him to her breast. She reached eagerly for their second son, whose head was topped with tufts of pale silver, and he quickly latched onto her other breast.

Dark and light. The contrast as he looked between them felt right somehow. Two sons. I have two sons.

His firstborn, who had already suckled for nearly half an hour, pulled back, face scrunching up as though contemplating another wail, only for it to become a yawn. At Rhea’s nod, Daemon took him in his arms, staring into his face, taking in his impossibly delicate features. His hand wrapped around Daemon’s pinky finger, and he could see tiny fingernails.

His son was staring up at him, his eyes a purple-hued grey, everything about him perfect. His frown, his nose, his dark eyelashes—

Another yawn broke his son’s steady contemplation, and Daemon yawned with him. His father murmured congratulations to them, praising Rhea’s fortitude as Daemon probably would have thought to do if he weren’t so exhausted. He couldn’t imagine having been the one actually giving birth.

Their younger son had finished his own first feeding just in time for the afterbirth. While Rhea was cleaned and the bed linens changed, Daemon cradled him in his other arm, as perfect in every way as his twin. His son’s sleepy eyes blinked at Daemon, a pale lilac that took his breath away when he saw it.

“Aemon,” his father whispered beside him, voice cracking midway through.

They need names. But that was a battle for tomorrow, when they had all slept at last. His son’s face scrunched up as he continued to stare at Daemon, a whimper that became a howling wail that woke his brother, who immediately began fussing.

“Here,” his father said, taking his younger son from him. He rocked him gently, murmuring soothingly at him, and the babe calmed, gazing up at him in a fierce study that was just like Aemon’s. His father smiled at the babe with a joy Daemon he had not seen in years and kissed his tiny cheek.

Rhea eased back onto the now-clean linens of her bed, and Daemon carried their eldest over to her, placing him in her arms. “They are perfect,” he said, because it was truth. The sweat had been wiped from her face, though her hair was still damp. She looked pale and exhausted, but her smile as she gazed at their son was unexpectedly radiant. Daemon took her free hand, squeezing it once more. “I am glad you are well.”

She gave an answering squeeze, understanding his meaning, then gazed about the room. “Where is our other son?”

Daemon glanced behind at his father, whose back was to them as he faced the window, which he was holding their youngest near to catch the last rays of sun.

“We may have to ensure my father doesn’t steal him back to King’s Landing.”

x~x~x

“If he is to inherit Runestone, he should have a Vale name,” Rhea said stubbornly.

It was an old argument, but this time Daemon had his father, heir to the Iron Throne, present to influence the matter, though he was distracted with both babes currently, a small bundle in each arm.

Their size still kept Daemon awake at night, and he had found himself sleeping in the nursery for the past three, soothed by the sounds of them stirring in their cradle—which was large enough to hold them both for now. Still, the maester checked them every day, and assured him that they were in as fine health as could be hoped for such tiny babes.

“He is my father’s eldest grandson,” Daemon countered. “And he is a prince of House Targaryen. Should anything happen to my brother, he could very well be king himself someday! He cannot be named Rodrik or Hubert.”

Rhea glared at him. “Or Jon—”

“Jon!” he exclaimed, throwing his arms up. “You cannot be in earnest.”

“We have two sons. It would be a sign of unity between House Targaryen and the Vale to name one each in the fashion of both their houses.”

Daemon managed to hold back his instinctive sneer at the suggestion, contenting himself with a frown instead. It was already settled that their younger son would be Aemon. It was a fitting tribute to his uncle, and his father would not hear otherwise. Thus Rhea was scheming to get her way with their eldest’s name instead, using that as leverage.

“Perhaps we should seek the king’s opinion on the matter,” Daemon said. “I am sure he will have one.”

Let his grandfather’s overbearing nature be of some benefit for once. Judging by the endless stream of ravens into the rookery today, they could very well hear from him today. With four days passed since the birth, the responses from his family in King’s Landing would just be arriving.

The king’s would be effusive in its praise, he knew, with a tone of unbearable self-satisfaction at such an outcome less than a year after the wedding.

“You could let the babe decide,” his father said, earning Daemon’s glare. Whose side are you on, Father?

“Baelon and Aemon,” Daemon said, irritated that his father refused to take either the compliment or the bait. “They are twins. That is a bond they will have their whole lives. What better bond to honor than yours and Uncle Aemon’s?”

“I recall Viserys saying you favored Aegon.”

He had, but that had been when Daemon had been expecting a single son or daughter. A grand name, to herald a grand legacy. But two sons who had shared the womb, who already seemed upset to be parted for too long—

There was only one bond like it that Daemon had known.

His father glanced down at Jon, who had woken from a nap to peer at him. “What are your thoughts, little dragon? Do you favor Aegon?” His dark-haired son frowned, almost as though in response. “No? And what of Rodrik?” A whimper this time. “Hubert” was met with a screaming rage that Daemon had to take him in arm to calm, pleased at his son’s good taste, until “Jon” received an alert blink and an excited flailing of limbs.

“Baelon,” Daemon suggested quickly to take advantage of his son’s good mood. The suggestion was not received as poorly as the others, at least.

“That settles it, does it not?” Rhea said.

“It does not,” Daemon said through clenched teeth. Jon. The most plain of names imaginable. He could not believe that his father was willing to play along with this charade. “Let us ask Aemon his thoughts, if we are to be listening to infants.”

Aemon fussed at being taken from his father’s arms, and when his light purple eyes focused upon Daemon’s face, he fussed all the louder. “You were happy enough to be sung to last night,” Daemon reminded him, humming the tune of the lullaby until his son’s upset softened to light worry instead. “Is your brother a Jon?” He paused to give him a moment to respond, but his son continued to stare at him, as though awaiting something. “Or is he a Baelon?”

His son cooed softly, causing Daemon to turn to his wife in triumph.

“He is asking for his grandsire,” she said, her gaze withering.

[trikruismybitch]

Clexa Fanfics

Hey guys these are all the Clexa fanfics that i love and wanted to share!

None of these are mine and all of the fics i added are completed works unless stated otherwise

Clexa

A Different Landing by RhinoMouse ****

The drop ship was always going to have problems coming down. Unfortunately for the 100 they ended up in Ice Nation territory where the locals were far less forgiving. With all the wristbands gone and the survivors unable to contact the ark, the ark never came down. Now four years later the surviving members of the 100 have been assimilated into Nia's army. When Lexa calls for the armies of the coalition to march on the mountain Clarke finds herself leading the Ice Nation forces.

[probably one of my favorite Clexa fanfics. The writing, world building, just everything is so well written and interesting. Highly recommend]

Runners From Azgeda by ellaaa25

Clarke and Raven are sisters only one month apart in age. The day before Clarkes 9th birthday, Jaha drops a block of the ship filled with 40 people to save oxygen with no warning. Clarke and Raven are in a pod and land in Azgeda and are taken to Nia. They are beaten, tortured and broken before being trained in the fighting pits of Azgeda to win their freedom as a pair. At age 16, the sisters are still searching for freedom

The Shadow by Clexa1205

Clarke leaves Camp Jaha and ends up getting captured by Azgeda where she comes face to face with Queen Nia and an unexpected enemy. Two years later, after being blackmailed, tortured, and trained, Clarke is forged into the ultimate weapon: an assassin known as the Shadow.

The Ursa & The Heda by SweeTarts151

Spirits are a large part of grounder culture, when Clarke switches places with Finn to spare him his life and get the alliance, something happens that changes her. Changes the way the grounders and her own people look at her. (Warning torture in first chapter)

When a Fallen Star Finds a Home on the ground by LMS (LMS180)

Torn between the hate Clarke felt for this betrayer and old feelings she wished could be forgotten, Clarke made a choice. And before she could live with the consequences of her actions, life pulled her down an unforeseen path. Today the Skai princess’s story is nothing but a distant memory. One long replaced by curious whispers surrounding Azgeda’s mysterious new Heir, Klark. With a new enemy threatening the Coalition’s Western borders, the Commander had no choice but to summon the 13 clans together. As the clans begin to assemble for the upcoming war, many eagerly await the arrival of Azgeda's mysterious Winter Wolf

(my) Destruction Within Your Mouth by KL_Morgan

Clarke loses: her head, her voice, her heart.

Survivals a Fools Errand by Ebozay

Clarke is spared the same fate as her father by being sent to Earth in a drop pod, a metaphorical canary in a coal mine. All in the name of saving what is left of the human race. To her surprise and short lived excitement she finds that the ground is survivable, that she won't burn as soon as the air touches her. But the scarred and brutal people she encounters? Maybe she's a fool to think she could survive life on the ground after all

Where Green Meets Blue by Clexaisbae

Clarke left Camp Jaha, leaving behind a very confused Bellamy. She stumbles through the forest, lost and unsure of what to do but a pair of green eyes pushed her on. At night, after a close encounter with a panther, Clarke was captured by the Ice Nation and now she has to fight her way out, with only a pair of green eyes to guide her out

The White Queen Running by KL_Morgan

Clarke wakes up wearing the tattoos of the Ice Nation.

(OR: Soulmates, parallel worlds, and Ice Queen Clarke; oh my. Canon divergent from 2x16.)

Clexa Alternative Universes

Blood (Must have Blood) by LexAlexAU

Hunger Games AU

(Just a) Little of Your Love by M_E_Scribbles

Clarke Griffins back in her hometown and working her dream job, as a detective and the leader of Polis Police Department's Search and Rescue. Then she's told to take the SAR to a local kindergarten class for a safety program.

That's where she meets an interesting young girl who takes to her immediately. When adorable handmade cards start appearing at her desk. She goes to the school to thank the girl and runs into a gorgeous woman who begins to invade her thoughts.

Of Sharp Talons and Sharper Eyes by AlexielMN

Daemon AU & Azgeda!Clarke

A Day In The Life of a Demigod by soshy (Sosh_022)

Demigod AU

[azurem]

The first deal™... Well, the dialogue around the first deal...!!

Impressive. You're really in a bad streak. What is this one, the 3rd? 4th?

...What do you want?

Let's not get too ahead of ourselves, now. Say, do you remember what was... this, before Error destroyed it all?

A fell variant of storyshift. AU number 884536736—

Uhuh. My main source of negativity in this area. Can you even fathom how it felt to... just feel it all disappear in a blink? Now, don't misinterpret me. I'm sure you did your best. It's just that... It just wasn't enough.

I don't get where you're going with all this.

I'll keep it simple. An alliance, between you and me.

...Pf. What? Are you being serious?

As serious as one can be. You and I... Have the same end goal, don't we? Preservation of life, for whatever means possible.

You don't know what you're talking about.

No living beings means no constant emotions. You want to preserve those inside the AUs, don't you? Then we wish for the same. Right now, we have the same problem.

...AU destruction?

Very clever, aren't you? Yes. I must admit, a lot of those... AUs of yours serve no function to me as of today. But there are those that are very desired for me. What I want is... well, priority.

You want me to prioritize... negative AUs? For what?

For mutual benefit, of course. Did you really believe I'd ask you something without giving anything to offer?

Stop making circles around it. What's the offering?

I'll lend you my "boys" anytime you feel surpassed by that... enemy of yours. But the alliance gets broken the moment another negative core gets destroyed.

You can't-

Oh, but I can. You have nothing to lose, don't you? Only so much to win.

...

After all, what's a guardian that protects nothing?

[theredofoctober]

MANNA- CHAPTER FIVE: STEAK

Dark!Hannibal Lecter x Reader x Dark!Will Graham AU fic

TW for eating disorders, noncon/rape, abuse, Daddy kink, cannibalism mentions, death mentions, Stockholm Syndrome, nonconsensual choking

Read after the cut

---

Will forces the stiff brooch of your fingers to open, uncovering the flattened clot of meat and the grease sodden note within. The ink is still clear against the page despite your efforts to ball it up in your palm.

Will reads it, his eye line cutting zigzags across your questionable calligraphy.

“One,” he says, and you take a fumbling step towards the stairwell in want of sanctuary from that solitary word.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” you ask, throttling the bannister in your grip. “This is a good idea, right? This is how you prove to Jack that there’s human meat in the house. This is how you prove for sure that Hannibal’s the Copycat and the Ripper.”

You believe the doctor is wise enough to have cleared the basement of evidence in readiness for his guests’ arrival, and know not to bank on it to buy your way out of your imprisonment.

“I told you not to act without me,” says Will. “I should have known you’d disregard me at the first opening.”

His words are like a robber’s knife, going in and in with spiteful jerks.

“But I didn’t do it in the end,” you protest. “I changed my mind. I turned around. Jack doesn’t know anything.”

“It doesn’t matter. Go upstairs and wait for me in Hannibal’s room.”

Your chest constricts at the command.

“Why his room and not my own?”

Will’s lip draws back from closed white teeth, and the threat of him is ozone in the air.

“You know why. Go. And if you disobey me this time not even Hannibal will hold me back from what I’ll do, so don’t bother hiding under his skirts. Move.”

Made pathetic by despair you say, “Don’t do this. You love me, Daddy.”

"And you threw that right in my face. What's the matter with you?"

There is no trace of understanding in the boil of his gaze, nothing of the alliance you’d been so close to cementing behind Hannibal’s back. Whatever that was in its brevity has run from him like liquor from a shattered glass. You cannot pick up the shards, either of you. All that would come of it would be blood.

"You're crazy," you whisper, and Will lunges as though to snatch you up by your neck.

With a squeak you clear the stairs three at a time, crawling the top ones on your gut like a toddler, unable to walk.

You lock yourself into Hannibal's ensuite bathroom and stand heaving chlorinated air, your hands compressing your stomach. Through the freakish eye of your disorder your reflection in the mirror above the sink is a sweating gourd, grossly rotund.

You are surely no good for eating; perhaps that is the reason you will survive this new stupidity of yours, and no other.

Gripped by an awful tension you listen to the ambiguous noises of the occupants on the floors below, chuntering what prayers you remember to what Gods have died in place of the new.

Already you know the motions at work beneath you, how Will must lean into the ear of his friend to whisper of your duplicity, how together they will devise some way to have Jack take a premature leave of the house.

You’d known even as you'd thought to place the paper kiss of Judas in his pocket that you’d be whipped for it by means literal or otherwise. Yet you think you’d rather take leather to the back than be humiliated by sex, so personal and eroding an attack as you take it to be.

They wash you of yourself through such intimacy, your jailers, intend to complete your transformation into their loyal bride until, so wed, you lose the ability to hate them.

Suddenly you miss your parents with an acuteness that brings you to tears. Yet you'd been so scarcely consoled by either mother or father even as an infant that you realise with a choke of horror that it is your abusers you would go to for such love.

You sink down against the shower door, taking comfort in the pain of your spine taking the glass, a kind of penance.

An hour scrapes by, a second, a third. Footfalls rise under you, and doors clap open and shut in their frames.

Voices start up outside the locked bathroom with a suddenness that drives your teeth into your lip against the scream that would otherwise bring you to further shame. Silence is courage of a kind your impulsive nature rarely allows you to keep; it would not be so bad a time to hold it now, you think.

"She's hiding from us," says Hannibal on the other side of the door.

"From you," Will corrects. "Like a child afraid of nightmares.”

“The child she is. I'm surprised we haven’t found her under the bed."

Their mocking you is only the prelude to a harm of brutal extremity, yet you put your hands across your face until tears roll through your closed fingers.

A polite knock strikes the door above your head.

"Come out, Little One. If I must break in to get you out then I'll be far angrier with you then I am presently."

Hannibal’s voice is soft, almost humorous, and for this reason you doubt his rage could be greater if you’d spat in his eye with an oath.

Continuing in that same amiable tone he says, "I know you didn’t go through with your betrayal, which Will and I have taken into account. But you must come out to face us both. You’re adult enough for that."

You answer in a strained, percussive whisper.

"I can't."

“By force or by your own decision you must leave that room,” says Hannibal patiently. “It would degrade both yourself and us if you insist upon the former.”

Will remains silent, his disgust so loud as to speak on his behalf.

There is little aim in examining your options, being that both end with you under a man.

Exhausted, you accept that it was your very foot that tipped the bucket beneath the gallows and, in defeat, open the door.

You see Hannibal peering down at you with the visage of a cemetary angel before Will seizes hold of you, setting you roughly on your back upon the bed. He leans across you, making a lock of your arms in his own, and the stench of him—fish dinner, wood smoke, snow-soaked dog hair, and drink—buries you so densely that you feel like the same animal he is.

He presses his leering face to yours and there is still love in it, that of the autumn killing dream.

“Fight me if you want to,” he says. “Haven’t you figured out that’s what we want by now?”

“I see you’ve reverted to your previous role,” Hannibal comments as you rigidify in Will’s arrest.

“I never really gave it up,” Will answers. “Did you expect me to?”

“I did not, but I’m interested to know why you returned to it so soon. Were you so compelled by her suffering that you couldn’t restrain the urge to correct her mistakes, or were you grasping for a dominance you feared you’d lose through neglect of that power over her?”

Will’s eyebrows start a yard up his forehead.

“We’re both her fathers. That implies an equal standing, unless you’re feeling a particular impulse to submit.”

Hannibal’s gaze pours over Will like resin—searching—hoping for confirmation of an erotic inference.

“Can’t say that I am,” he says at last. “It’s never served me to yield. In the interest of my professional and personal endeavours I find myself needing to be in full control of all variables.”

"And yet she still slipped through your hands, or almost did. She would have sold both of us to Jack, and it's on you for trusting her to wander away from the table without making sure she stayed in her room. Are you losing your head, Dr Lecter?"

"No more than you are. You too left her alone long enough to form dangerous ideas and to act upon them, or near enough. We both hoped that she would develop loyalty to the family by now, and we've each found that hope shattered."

"You hoped," says Will, and he twists the cord of your arms for emphasis. "I doubted. But our problem isn't with her lacking the right emotions. It's that she still thinks she can cut us off like a teenage runaway whenever she feels like it. She's a brat. We haven't purged that trait, and if we haven't succeeded at this stage I doubt we ever will."

"Nevertheless we should persevere with our attempts to tame it, somewhat," says Hannibal dryly. "I believe it’s high time we begin."

Upon that verbal cue Will pulls a thick roll of packing tape from his pocket, brought with him from his home with the clear intent to use should such an event as this arise; he’d already been in doubt of your demure turn in behaviour and had kept his ears pricked for its merest change. That same knowing is in his eyes as he leans on you to tie your wrists together, near winding you with the force of his weight.

As soon as it lifts again you suck in a litre of air and begin to plead with them both.

"I know I shouldn't have done it, I know, I know, it was really bad, but I turned back, right? I did, I—"

"I should tape your mouth, too," Will says. "But Dr Lecter thinks that's a bad idea."

“Her airways must be clear,” says Hannibal with evident regret. “We can experiment with that notion in the near future.”

Thinking of his expensive toys you shudder deeply. A gag or bit between your teeth, the straps cutting the membrane of skin at your lips’ outer corners—

“No,” you say. “Please. Hannibal— Daddy—"

Will drags your head upright, and Hannibal stoops down so close that he could kiss you on the mouth if he were so inclined.

Instead he only says, “Through us you’ll receive absolution. You’d respect us far less if we withheld this from you.”

Then he touches your neck the way he did the day he’d asked how you would kill him, pressing gently down on either side of it until you thrash, light-headed, in the grace of his hand.

The flat gems of Will’s eyes watch, intent, and one of his arms twitches as if restraining the urge to pull the other man away from you, or else to him.

“Grasp her like this,” says Hannibal. “A slight pressure is all that’s needed.”

For an instant you are rendered unconscious, in a state of calm and terrible bliss. How they frighten you with the helplessness of falling into that space of not quite sleep, extending their control over not only your body but your wakefulness, as well.

You can’t deny you would have asked for this in more consensual circumstances. In your old life you’d watched a specific clip over and over you’d found of a pretty actress taken roughly in some false dungeon and had placed your own fingers around your throat until you came.

But in that video the performers had been subtly attentive to each other with gestures and murmured check-ins. Rather gentle, in retrospect.

It’s doubtful these men will ever ask for your agreement. They plunder and consume and have killed with the same irreverence; to ask if you’ll allow your own rape is illogical, a black sort of joke.

Hannibal removes his hand from your throat, then, and without hesitation Will’s takes its place, squeezing far tighter than is necessary to replicate the desired effect.

You go limp within seconds of this, your gaze roaming over the light feature above you as your body jerks with the spasms of an inexistent electrocution.

Without a hint of his previous trepidation Will slaps your cheek to wake you. You rouse slowly, unwillingly; it’s easier to be out than aware of him in his anger with you.

“No more,” you whimper. “I don’t like it, I don’t like it—”

“If you did I’d start again with something else,” says Will bluntly. “I’m tired of you pissing on every rule we set for you.”

Again he chokes you in and out of that cursed quarter sleep.

Observing, Hannibal says, “Penetrate her.”

"Gladly," Will replies, and with a nasty smile on his lips he lets himself free of his clothes.

You kick at him weakly, not daring to strike the groin or his belly lest you enrage him all the more. He throws your legs apart with ease and snaps the elastic of your undergarments, uncaring of the expense, which is vast.

Then with his hand a gorget around your gasping throat he perforates your resistance, his lean form a weapon of adrenaline. You flail in the maelstrom of him, buffeted by the strike of his palm dredging you out from each choking attack.

For him to have almost lost access to your body, to have been deprived of what is already rationed by his work— he’d love to core your innards with his knife and teach you through death what a bitch you’ve been to scorn him.

But then again perhaps it wouldn’t be a blade he’d employ; from the feel of him you think he’d use his hands.

His beautiful face is pale with a yearning for slaughter as he licks your skin of its taste. Weak from his fucking and the rounds of suffocation you sprawl, a boneless corpse hung upon his cock. Your cunt is a channel of aching.

Hannibal only watches this go on; you're vaguely surprised that he does not touch himself, nor does he say a word throughout the rape.

Only his eyes communicate their want— not for you, but for the man that takes you like a conquering soldier, wishful that he were the one to endure his power.

Will ends the act while you're passed out upon him, slowing to an idle stir of his hips as he fills you with white warmth. When your eyes are too slow to open he catches you by the chin and shakes you about.

"Why do you have to make us so ashamed of you?"

You should laugh in his face, call him a killer again, but you only cry limply, stung by the coarseness of his voice.

As Will stands Hannibal makes as if to have his turn.

"Don't touch her," snaps Will.

The older man stops at once.

"Why not?"

"Because I don't want you to."

Nonplussed, Hannibal turns his head aside as though the angle will assist him to understand.

"May I ask the reason?"

Working up his zipper, Will says, "We aren't where we were with our friendship. The time erased from memory— I'll never get it back. You stole it from me, health and reason, too. I resent how little any of it’s affected you. You’ve lost nothing, and I think maybe you should.”

"I'd like us to begin anew," says Hannibal, and it occurs to you that he is pleading; he may as well be on his knees. "To progress from my misjudgement we can only advance and establish a new way of being."

Will’s mouth warps in a grim smirk.

"It's not that simple. You benefit from my presence here with you, and with her. You've orchestrated every moment of this relationship and feasted upon it like an emperor. For once I want to see you go hungry."

Astonished by the development of this conversation you glance at Hannibal, picking apart each mite gesture of stress in his composure.

"Very well,” he says. “I starved profoundly, as a boy."

Sympathy brushes Will's expression, buried quickly under hard disinterest.

"Then you'll survive."

He swivels to leave, ignoring the trembling heap of you on the bed, the piteous hand extended like the paw of a menagerie animal through the bars.

"You're going?" asks Hannibal.

"The dogs miss me. Winston keeps running away. Can’t let it happen again.”

"And when will you return to us?"

The rapidity of Hannibal’s questions, though spoken entirely without emotion, gives away his distress at being left so abruptly and in obvious discord.

"I'll be by in a couple of days," says Will. "Whenever Jack's squeezed me dry of all I’m worth."

He lets himself out of the house alone, coolly satisfied with his retribution.

In silence Hannibal approaches the bed to untie you and smooth your dress back down over your bare legs again. That he doesn't assault you even after Will has left and is unable to see the act fills you with an inappropriate hilarity. Of the two almost lovers Hannibal— the eater of flesh—is so serious in his submission to the other's desires that he enacts his will like a ritual, private, but nevertheless in hope of it being recognised.

He has you follow him to your own room and bids you to sit as he takes away each of your books and records to lock up in a cabinet along the hallway.

"You'll consume only what I decide for you until I see proof that you’ve learned from this evening," he says. "I think we’ll also return to regular therapy."

You don't argue, merely sit upon your mattress, a doleful waxwork, too stunned by what's occurred to offer a response.

"I read your journal," says Hannibal, suddenly. "There were some interesting ideas covered in even those short entries. I'd like you to continue penning your thoughts."

Stirring, you say numbly, "What's the point? My writing is awful. Even though it's just supposed to be a diary I can't stand hearing my own voice. I wish I was good at it, you know? Poetic, I guess."

It is odd to hold such a dialogue with the doctor after he conducted such sadism upon you through his friend. You are used to it, however, this domestic order of evil.

"Artistic skill comes with practice," says Hannibal. "A worthy exercise is to study a piece of work you admire and attempt to replicate it. For instance, you could take any sentence you like and rewrite it in the style of Nabokov or Dostoevsky to better understand their methods."

You pull a face.

"I don't want to be a mimic, though. I want my own way of writing."

"By breaking down the construction of literature and the patterns within it you'll begin to see how you can apply similar—though not identical—practices to your own work. All the greats have done so with those they admire."

Something of this conversation leads your mind on another track, one connected through the canon of a more vicious form of art.

"Dad," you say. "I'm the Lover's second muse, aren't I? That’s why you’ve involved yourself in the case. It's so obvious. I'm not just a distraction to the killer; he’s been interested in me long before you or Will ever met me. That's why the second wave of girls look like me, and it’s part of the reason why you agreed to accept me for treatment.

“The minute you saw my case and realised who I was you took me from the Lover right from under his nose just because you could. You didn’t want him to kill me before he finished creating enough dolls for him to show Will who he is. You knew I was the perfect gift for him."

Hannibal makes a militantly neat pile of the last of your books and brushes down their spines with his hand.

"Yes," he says. "I did."

Part of you had known it always, had sought out what detail of you raised you beyond the tossing out of the class of Rude to which you belong.

"Jack and Will know, don't they?" you ask. "They know who I am to the Lover."

"They've suspected for some time. Having looked at all the Lover killings anew it's become clearer still. Will chose to conceal this information believing you were not mature enough to bear so sinister a burden. I imagined you'd guess but preferred to allow that thought to develop without my interference and so cause you less harm.”

Your pulse is a drunken rhythm in your temporal membrane; you put your hands to your ears, uncertain how to be rid of a noise inside your own head.

“That’s why you weren’t afraid to speak so openly about the killer in front of me,” you say. “You were never lying about your theories, exactly; you were testing out alternatives to be sure the one you had was right.”

“Just so. Two of the Lover’s past victims were old classmates of yours; it was only missed because both girls had switched schools many times. One of them changed her name when she and her mother fled from domestic violence in her teens.

“The other you knew when you were so young I doubt you remember her, and besides, you were a lonely child and wouldn’t have thought of her as a particular friend. Most of the girls who have been killed are strangers to you. The Lover wasn’t such a fool as to play his hand too openly.”

Dazed, you spill back upon the bed, drawing the sheets over your eyes.

"All this time you've tried to make out you took me because you thought you could help me, but really it's because you liked the idea of me being yours and not his.”

Your tone—brash, accusatory—is met with unsettling calm.

"That's only one reason. The others remain to be true."

"You've put such a target on my back. The Lover knows exactly where I am at all times. What's stopping him from just walking in and taking me? Did you ask him to back off or something?"

"He is unaware that I appreciate the full extent of your importance to him. I left him under the impression that I was an admirer that enjoyed the notion of him toying with the FBI through you. But even if he concludes why we have housed you here the presence of Will and I here will discourage him from descending upon you.

“He knows that I would defend you, and how easily I could reveal him. Jack has offered us police surveillance, but I assured him that wouldn't be necessary. The likelihood of being observed is enough for the Lover to keep his distance for now."

Sniffling, you say, "You just don't want to make things harder for yourself."

"It wouldn't matter either way. The Lover will be apprehended soon, and my pursuits will continue as before."

You peer out from under the sheets with a bleak interest, unable to guess whether Hannibal still means to wait for Will to unveil the Lover's identity or if there is some other reason he resists excising the Lover's presence from his life.

A man as jealous as Hannibal surely cannot stand that this third party hungers so openly to take you to his bed and to the grave. You cannot quite work it out.

"Why aren't you more angry with me, anyway?" you ask him. "You're talking about everything but what I did, and you should be furious. You should want to give me away to the Lover. I don't get why you're so—"

"Your naughty behaviour is unfortunately an expected routine. Besides, you thought the better of your escape: while I'm displeased you even considered such an act I have forgiven Will far greater without reprimand."

Starting, you say, "Will? What do you mean?"

"I know that he suspects me as both the Copycat and the Chesapeake Ripper, and that he has already hinted at his suspicions to Jack. They were dismissed due to Will’s claims that they were caused by his recent illness."

Registering your alarm, Hannibal adds, "You needn't appear surprised. No doubt you've discussed my killings with him."

There is a gentle barb to this last statement that challenges you to lie.

"I didn't know he'd talked to Jack," you say carefully. "I never thought he would. Are you sure about this? What are you going to do?"

"I suspect a conversation will be had with Will when the time is right."

Though too polite to shrug there is something of the gesture in Hannibal's response.

"You're not going to stop seeing each other, are you?" you ask, getting down from the bed with a wince at the throbbing wound of your misused cunt. "You both hurt each other. You're not going to... break up over this, right?"

Hannibal turns from you, carrying your books off into the cupboard which he locks up with a silver key.

"It's in your best interest that we remain together," he says. "But you’ve already come to this conclusion, have you not?"

*

In the days that chase out that the shadow of that night you are disconsolate in the face of a third punishment: the withdrawal of all affection from Hannibal, who becomes as dry and distant a caretaker as your mother had likely hoped of him.

He turns his face from kisses, removes the tangle of you from his body should you attempt an embrace. Sensuality will not win him back after such hurt inflicted on the heart, this he means you to grasp.

Once you would have jigged for joy at the difference, but instead you find yourself feeling lonely and displaced, beginning to doubt that you are as invincible as you'd believed.

Yet you’re still allowed your incredible room, still given access to your designer clothing rather than made to go nude or in rags, yet you find you've become jaded by all this excellence, or else seek it in a more esoteric format.

To your humiliation you find yourself begging for the kindness you've lost one night you cannot eat a steak you know is surely human; something in the taste convinces, something in the colour of blood that flees the hunt of your knife.

"I'll vomit," you say. "Sorry, but I will. I can taste it in my throat. Please, I promise I'll eat dessert, I’ll lick the plate—"

"There is no dessert," says Hannibal icily, and he takes the dish away with a swipe of the hand so sharp as to almost break his code of elegance.

Shortly after, still hungry and secretly proud of your resistance to eating, you're summoned into the living room, stopping short at the sight of Hannibal with a red rope like a serpent coiled through his closed hand.

You recognise instantly the purpose in his stance, the meaning of the table carried to the chancel of the room, its surface polished so severely that you see your master in it upside down, his every detail there preserved.

"Undress," he says, "and lie down. Don't attempt to argue with me. I don't want to raise my hand to you today."

He means to bind you for sex, the rope entwined like bindwood around your naked torso, the lengths cutting obscenely into the flesh, this detail a torture of a uniquely psychological nature.

This has little do with dinner, you realise, but with your previous mistake, one so close to calamity that you may never cease to pay for having made it.

Dizzy with fear you pick off your clothes garment by garment, and lie down on the table on your belly, your chin against the mirror of its face.

"No," says Hannibal. "On your back. I intend you to be seen."

But he turns you himself, his hands under your loins and breasts, the rope already quick at work between them. You sob as he wraps you in a net of his creation, a beautiful fretwork designed to portion up your body in a mosaic of skin and string.

Will steps into the room sometime during the operation, his face like a cyclamen above the upright collar of his dark jacket, lovely and cold.

"What's this, a peace offering?" he comments as Hannibal steps aside to allow him a better view. "You can't regift something I haven't even returned, especially when I've been using it so freely. Try again, doctor."

You strain your neck to get a look at Hannibal's expression, which in a contained fashion seems determined.

"You begrudge me for pushing you towards your transformation," he says, "and yet you indulge in it with such delight. This anger only serves to deepen the fracture in this household; had we remained united as we were before she might never have felt compelled to leave. Your antagonism makes her feel unstable."

Will scoffs at the turning of blame upon him, ripping off his jacket in testy jolts.

"She asked me to tell her I love her. You know that she would never have willingly let that go if she didn't find herself so nauseated by another truth she had to swallow."

"Yet you've known that truth far longer than she," says Hannibal sharply, "and yet you chose to remain. Why did you dissuade Jack from investigating me in the end? Was it for her sake alone or was there something else that you stood to lose?"

The men—Will pacing, almost prowling, Hannibal rigid by the table—come so close that they could easily touch. At least one of them wants to.

"You think I'm still a porcelain trinket," says Will. "That I'd crack at the first length of distance between us."

"I know that you are not, but nor are you a solitary animal. Certainly you could hunt without me, but you'd think of those hours we claimed together and know the pleasure of it could never be recaptured alone. It would be a shallow play, a grasping imitation of what came before."

Will stares into Hannibal's eyes with such spite and fascination that you've never been more glad to be ignored.

"Your arrogance is in bad taste. You haven't even asked me to forgive you."

"Because I don't expect you to, and because you've not asked for forgiveness from me. I've killed for less than you have done, but all I ask is that you remain."

Hannibal reaches out and touches Will's face so lightly that only your proximity to the two men reveals that his fingers make contact. To your amazement Will allows this without turning away, even shifts his proud cheek slightly in Hannibal’s direction.

"So you miss me that much.”

"Yes,” says Hannibal simply. “I began this for you, Will. Never forget it."

Will smiles without teeth.

"You began this for yourself."

"I've never denied the selfishness of my desire. Can you own that of yours?"

The younger man sobers to ponder this.

"When I'm stranded inside the Lover's thoughts you're always what brings me out of it. You reveal him to be so weak. There's nothing beautiful in what he creates, only a desperation to be loved by those that never can. But in what you've done— I see the art. I saw it before I wanted to. I see it now with her."

He lays a hand on one of your trussed breasts, and a stone of pleasure rolls down the path of your imprisoned form. You regret that you cannot hate him so purely any longer, this beast that now knows what he is.

"I want to see you with her,” says Will suddenly. “When you're alone with her I know you can be brutal. I want to witness how you hurt her, and how you make her so devoted to you afterwards."

Hannibal steps in against you, his covered arousal against your despair.

“Join me," he says, but Will shakes his head.

"Not this time."

"Then tell me in plain words what it is you want."

Will stands by your head, looking across you into Hannibal's eyes.

With a foreign silkiness he says, "I want you to fuck her, Hannibal. Please."

A purely sexual thrill runs through the other man, and as you lie speechless in the fog of their joint sickness Will bends to murmur in your ear.

"I love you," he says. “Remember that the next time you try to run away.”

Then Hannibal slides you down the shear of his cock, plying your body under him like mud in a bully's fist, and all the while Will watches the act it’s not you he sees, but him.

[kel-lance]

JJK Mafia Au (JJK x Reader) PART 4

(quick chapter//moving plot)

Warnings:

- TW: Dead dove dont read (DDDR) Minors do not interact (MDNI): SA, Physical Assault, DubCon, NonCon, Mindbreak, Public Humiliation, Breeding, Ownership, Gaslighting, Multiple manipulation, RWORD, PTSD, a lot more toxic sh.

Premise:

Reader lives in a city where the two biggest gangs keep things line until the third gang showed up. That had nothing to do with you though, until dumb luck just happened to favor you one day. Basically You’re picked up and used by every dangerous criminal within the clans due to some alliances they had to create due to some members messing up the previous alliances. ((Almost everyone’s gonna have a turn 🤗)) ( i have 12 chapters planned out right now meaning after i write those ill still be writing more.)

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AN: Sorry for the long update i'm trying not to get evicted bc i was fired a while ago bc of a protest (surprise surprise big companies don't like or care about palestine or other places like it.) but i had to give away my cats and am still struggling i have my socials in my masterpost if you could help if not its okay ily, I hope you like it

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After the three took a break from you, Sukuna pushed Yuuji towards you. Todo just follows along, trying to make sure Sukuna doesn't kill Yuuji as they just don't know what Sukuna could be thinking at times like these.

You lay a top the bed, sheets strayed, your hair messy, your whole body sweaty and broken, you entirely were weak, and Yuuji couldn't stop saying sorry to your fucked out face. "Let's see what you got."

You didn't feel anything for a few minutes until Todo broke the silence. "You've got to do something, brother, you know I'll back you up."

Yuuji just continued to stand there. If he were to fight Sukuna with Todo on his back, he wouldn't know who else would fight with them. Todo would lose everything he already has and would blindly die for him, which he would never ask for. But if he were to go through with fucking you again for Sukuna's enjoyment, Todo would also have to add himself into the situation. This double edged sword was going to stab him either way, but which would hurt you less?

"Don't take too long..." The leader made motion that he was going to start walking towards you two. "NO." Yuuji covered you on the bed, staring off back at his older brother. Todo comes behind Yuuji, putting a hand on his shoulder before giving him a look, and sighing understandingly as he stripped off his shirt.

Todo and Yuuji's was almost awfully awkward at first. They just felt bad, not being able to tell if you were even conscious anymore and continuing to do to you what they were doing.

Really they weren’t allowed to stop until Sukuna was satisfied. Until Yuuji was sobbing, begging him to give you and everyone else a rest. He was asking what would it take to stop this?

The older brother taunts, “Maybe we’ll keep her til she births one of our children, or multiple if she can create sufficient and strong offspring. I don’t know, Yuuji, should I start a farm because of you? I heard the Zenin clan is somewhat similar…”

“Please, please, Sukuna what do you want?” He was breathless. “This has to stop, you can’t-.”

He stops his younger brother, “I have, I did, and I can continue this for as long as you both live. I think that may be the conclusion I’ll come to, don’t you think it would be fun to be an uncle?” His big hands caress your stomach, feigning tenderness to his soon to be child or “sibling’s” child.

- You go back to your room where you stay in for a week.

- A random night, someone breaks in and tries to kidnap you and you didn’t know who it was, obviously you weren’t going with them without an explanation.

-That caused you to fight back as your dealing with everything so far, you were getting pissed being treated like a doll. The person who broke in gets captured, just before he says “Yuuji’s waiting outside, trust me.”

- Sukuna's family come in trying to make sense of the situation and the others had captured the mystery guy

- That's not before he throws you to two female ninjas. They secure you quickly and run back to their master Toji.

- their clan/gang is super powerful, the twins you can guess are Maki and Mai, and Sukuna (the new head of one of the three big families that control the large part of the area, the head of the Kamo gang) had just kidnapped their son, even if he did happen to barge in.

- Megumi’s been friends w Yuuji since they were kids but they never shared that.

- they met bc they were fighting bc yuuji was taught to fight ppl who give them looks (Sukuna wanted him to protect the family name no matter what, and megumi just had that face… and when they realized that they were part of the other side they had to come to extremes before realizing they were different from their families.

- they knocked each other out senseless and somehow one was still alive, megumi sat with yuuji while he regained consciousness and they started to talk more. Battered and bloodied but Yuuji finding the humor in it while Megumi thinks enough to like his character and realizes he’s just a big strong idiot.

- Maki and Mai are close, as sisters should be and they both have their loves (nobara and momo) and we all have to go team up with the gojo clan in order to make sure this trade off is safe and megumi and yuuji aren’t dead

- because now yuuji is with you at the toji clan too, it was supposed to be just you getting captured and then yuuji leaves to live his own life but now he’s in front of toji saying it was his fault that megumi’s now with his brother (sukuna)

- Yuuji explains that he and his son were friends since childhood, he says everything and everyone's on edge bc toji does what he wants, whenever, whatever, really anything for money.

- He says he knows he doesn’t have money, but the only thing he does have was something they both risked their lives for, so toji gets curious and wants to try you out.

- Toji fucks you senseless, making you think the train ran on you were more merciful. He was trying every hole, every position, just dressing you up and doing whatever he could with you, you were actually at your limit with him, enough to bring you back enough to start fighting again. You were getting sick of it, actually you think you were getting sick.

His inconsideration was on par with Sukuna's, though Sukuna cared more about his new objects while Toji wants them to know their place and to leave when he tells them to. He had to know why they would do all that for you//how did you survive so long in that clan he just has to see how durable you are and he’s LOVING IT.

- He asks you what you’ve been through and you don’t respond so he hits you again and again but you don’t cry so he does it AGAIN and you flinch enough to stop him, and start taking off his pants. His only response was "e’s like "Oh so they already trained you."

- You suck his dick and he pulls you up to kiss him, by your neck and places you on his dick and fucks you in the air, using gravity to its full advantage, that was the start of it all before the days of relentless attention and use, you were more sore than any of them have put you in. The hitting, cuts, just the amount of violence he's integrated into your sessions felt like training again, but worse.

- He’s wondering if he could keep you as his slut but remembered that it would be stupid to start a war when his kid couldn’t keep it in his pants. He blames Megumi for having a cold heart compared to his father's icy one.

- Toji makes up his mind to help and plans to betray/kill the sukuna clan when they get megumi back bc he doesn’t care but doesn’t say that.

-He plans a meeting with the other clan the top three have been fighting over the position of this location for years and now and ofc they’re all on edge.

- Gojo comes to the meeting with his clan, they’re not worried bc they know some of their clan can befriend some of the others involved. No ones been dead so they have some sort of unspoken treaty to leave each other alone but they never asked much from the other ever.

- Gojo settles down with his group, smug and tired bc everyone needs them to fix other peoples' problems for them. The community relied on the Gojo Clan to protect them when they also work with the Kamo and Zenin gangs, the people outside are just as gullible. He sits down and asks what could big ol Toji need from him,

- “It’s Megumi”

- Gojo drops his smile. Their other unspoken alliance was when Megumi was beaten up at a really young age bc of his status and itadori happened to be there too (same elementary school). Gojo beats the fuck out of the people who targeted the kids/second to heir the clans, and left, but Megumi finds him and asks why would he help them.

- Gojo said he can’t have his competition get angry, his people are at stake. (referencing to the shifting power in-between the gangs that they didn't know about yet, and that his person was leaving his clan to join the other, he didn't know why he was doing anything anymore at that point but he couldn't let more powerless powerful children get hated on.) Megumi says thank you and takes Itadori back near his gang before disappearing back to his clan.

- Gojo actually has been in contact with his friend who's joined the other clan. That's how he knows what's usually going on with them to keep them rangled up and behaving as much as they could to not cause trouble or cause attention to groups like theirs.

Gojo and Geto were very young when they met, and since their lives were everything but normal, they were given the chance to take in more young bodies to add to their clan. They raised them together, but geto left.

Gojo begged for days for him to reconsider, they day he left he was inconsolable, especially since he took the twins too. Geto couldn't separate the girls, but he could separate himself from Gojo, in his head it's to help Gojo in the future because of the power he'll have.

Gojo didn't care about that, he didn't want help he just wanted Geto. That was all he needed, he had decided. He could have ruled the world and done it confidently if he had Geto by his side, but things don't go through when you're young, and now you're about to catch as many years he hadn't been able to get out.

- He's not nice at all when you're under his care. With Geto leaving at a critical age in learning, his feelings had been all over the place. He was completely disordered, his goals and morals and everything went awry, with the years he couldn't get himself out of the timestamp of when he knew happiness.

- So he asks you about Geto, his best friend, the only one that could make him feel real again. The one person who didn't do things for him because of his name and status, and yet left with the excuse of protecting Gojo from future evil. It was enough to drive the strongest insane.

- He asks you everything by torture, not too physical that anyone can see. WHen trading you back you should at least look and act like you're in the same condition, if not better than what you were when they traded you off. Just anything that Toji didn't already give you, Gojo would have mindless enjoyment from digging his fingers into the fatter parts of your belly, legs, and forearms.

- He’s only doing this to see Geto again. He just wants to pass the time until he can finally feel good again. He's strong, he's smart, he's beautiful, when would life be good to him instead of him making everyone else's lives better just by being there. It made him coky, it made him secretly weak willed to his own desires, so his processing was different than most.

- He asks u what he looked like and everything about him while fucking you. it was the closest he’s got rn. "I don't know's" made him reel back more, his strikes becoming almost boneshaking and shattering. He was making Toji seem gentle. Now that something he cares about is just a memory away, he just couldn't stop himself.

-You were so close to him, even if you never spoke to him, even if you never saw him in the maybe month you were staying at the Pink haired clan. But his aura seemed to have darkened when you mentioned twins. There were just so many either of you could have known but it just seemed to rile him up more. Seriously you would need a doctor and healing time after this. You couldn't let that happen again.

-There was nothing else to take from it, it was a hell you would only wish for the person already committing it. It made you miss the tenderness of Sukuna and the warmth of Toji, it didn't matter what they did or how you got there, anything sounded better than Gojo being without his favorite things. And you were barely part of it.

[always-just-down-the-street]

Okay, chat, so I am trying to work out a timeline for the Misremembered Lanes AU, and I am realizing there are two very interesting points to tackle before I even get to the finale- And honestly, both of them are way too interesting of topics to just do myself, so for the fans of the AU, here are your two major points.

Everything's A-OJ in Season 2.

OJ's elimination in Season 3.

These both feel like the first major wrinkles/differences in this AU's timeline compared to canon- because these two moments, they tackle directly into something I mentioned OJ struggles with. Control.

What happens when he's finally given control of the show, but now has to deal with new contestants that...don't know him enough to excuse his egomaniac/control freak tendencies or have the subconscious belief that because he won last season, he must be good? What happens when people actually question him, not like the people who just stay in the hotel do? Would his facade slip? Would anyone notice?

On the other hand- what happens when he finally loses all control? When against all odds, the "king of Inanimate Insanity"...finally has to face failure, face elimination? Would he begin to relapse into his original programming? Would he feel a relief he hasn't felt in so long but can't explain why and now chases after it once he's back at the hotel?

And on the other side of the coin, how does Taco change before the finale? Does she have any lingering feelings haunting her during S2 like OJ does? How does this influence her alliance with Microphone or her attempt to take over the show in Truth or Flare? That's definitely a fun one.

Consider this a post where anyone can post their headcanons or ideas for the Misremembered Lanes AU- they can follow these points or they can just be general ideas you might have about the AU involving OJ and Taco, maybe Suitcase and Box since they're included now, and obviously in saying that, all spoilers are allowed. Who knows, maybe I'll even make them canon if I think they fit enough (or are cool enough)...

In fact, let me begin with an idea of my own, get the wheel spinning.

~ 0 ~

What if Taco and OJ's buttons in MeLife are flipped after the S1 finale?

OJ's button spawns Taco, Taco's button spawns OJ- MePhone thinks it's some weird kink that occurred due to the 4S downgrade and it becomes one of the many things he hides, this one half because he just doesn't want anyone thinking he's about to revive Taco apropos of nothing and half because he genuinely doesn't know why.

But when the revelations start happening, MePhone distracts himself by wondering a question:

"Why would the downgrade cause OJ and Taco's buttons to be flipped, anyway? Neither of them died while I was dead, else they wouldn't respawn at all like Bow- did 4S do something? Or…"

And that's when he remembers those initial drawings he made.

OJ - Egotistical, Hates Losing, Caring?, Manipulative? Taco - Unpredictable, Wild Card, Underdog

…Their buttons aren't flipped.

They're flipped.

And consequently, when Suitcase tries to summon OJ and Paper…Taco's just as confused as everyone else when she appears next to him instead.

~ 0 ~

So, what do you all think? Feel free to say so in reposts or comments or whatever you do.

[marvelous-llama]

Seventeen recs

<<original book

most of the mentioned works is 18+ NSFW, MINORS DNI

pls don´t hesitate to hmu, if any of mentioned links doesn´t work or you have suggestions for more fics... thank you so much for all the love and comments

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series

[dorminchu]

Every Day Like The Last: Chapter I

Summary:

A year has passed since the Battle of Heaven and Earth. P. Galliard and P. Finger are married. Vice Captain A. Leonhardt steps down, waiting for her ailing father to outlive her. Eren Jaeger is exiled from Paradis as a renegade to spend his days in Liberio as an expat. Without the threat of Titans or a country to divide them, what comes after the armistice?

Rating: T

Pairing: Annie/Eren, Pieck/Porco

Genre: Drama | Hurt/Comfort | Romance

a/n: Formerly titled despicable animal. The beginning of my (penultimate) swan song for Attack on Titan. Big shoutout to @vaegtersang and @lazyveran for listening to me ramble about this AU of an AU and generally being very supportive. And to @lunarcrystal for her VC!Annie AU and all the brainworms :)

Can also be read on ao3 | ffnet

Sgt. Magrath's successor T. Mueller assumed the position before the funeral took place.

In the weeks following the Battle of Heaven and Earth it was decided that the Warrior Programme would be disbanded. While Marley already struggled to maintain both a victorious air and its tenuous cooperation with the Mid-Eastern Alliance, the Queen of Paradis came forward. Rather than put Eren Jaeger to death as a traitor to Paradis and humanity alike, he was deemed fit to stand trial. 

Mueller suspected the reason had less to do with the good of humanity, and more with Paradis’s wealth of untapped natural resources. Without the Pure Titans and Walls, there was nothing to stop the rest of the world from pouring in. Kiyomi was eager to act as a mediator between the Mid-Eastern Alliance, Marley and Paradis. Now, Paradis’s Queen was open to the possibility of trade, but not before reformation of its own borders. This had been the subject of every other meeting for several weeks, aside from the exact details of the armistice.

According to the latest report, the trial deemed that the Founder's influence had driven Jaeger into a state of psychosis, and he could not be held entirely responsible for his actions within Marley or Paradis after killing Wilhelm Tybur and his collection by Paradis's Scouting Legion. To many in Paradis, he was a renegade who swore annihilation against all who would oppose him, rather than a defender. So he was to spend his remaining years in exile. A good deal of Jaegerists demanded to be exiled as well. Unlike their namesake, there was no Titan-induced psychosis to excuse the myriad reports of destruction and savagery unleashed upon the inner circle under their reign. Their consolation was a firing squad.

Mueller was ethnically Marleyan, but had first-hand experience with Marley’s use of zeppelins within Fort Slava. He saw the surviving Eldians not as monsters but humans that had been given power beyond their understanding or ability to control on their own terms. They were not to be ostracized without first giving them a chance to prove themselves rational, as many had pledged their alligance to Marley before and died for that same cause. Now, with the death of Ymir and The Worm, so too did these Eldians lose their connection to the devil that slept within their blood. There was no immediate reason to fear retribution from the Titans or their kin. To eradicate them now would be an act of genocide.

While the world was preoccupied with rumors of Paradis' retaliation, the Titan Biological Society was quietly disbanded. The details of Warrior Unit and its invention were similarly declassified. Civilians who grew up with Warrior Programme in their formative years were exposed to the horrors behind their most prestegious and dangerous branch of the military.

Eldians and Marleyans alike would gather outside the wraught-iron gates of the HQ. They rallyed around the surviving Warriors as an example of a civilized Eldian. This sentiment was growing quickly, much to the disgust of the Mid-Eastern Alliance whose only experience with Eldians came down from the sky in zeppelins.

"God damned kids," muttered Otto, a fellow Captain who had been present when the aeroplanes were first sent during the last year of the Paradis Operation. "The internment zones and hospitals are already flooded with Eldians. And now you want to bring in their figurehead." Otto scoffed around the cigarette in his mouth. "It's madness, all of it."

To say Mueller had his work cut out for him was being charitable. At a tenuous stage such as this, Marley's success was just as much about the politicking as a show of force. The younger generation was the future, and had more energy behind them than the embittered servicemen or displaced, smaller nations that lacked Paradis's berth of natural resources to justify their existence. It was true that the Warriors had not asked to be made into monsters. They had survived despite the devil in their blood and it was only right that they eke out their remaining days as civilians.

"He's only a renegade," Muller said. "If we let Jaeger die a martyr, this will only get worse."

Otto had no argument. He flicked the butt of the waning cigarrette out of the train window without looking to see where it landed. "You'd best hope you're right."

The Azumbaito family had encouraged Marley to accept Jaeger into their settlement as an expat where Paradis would not. They argued that Jaeger's actions, in part, had brought mankind together to end the war in a twisted way. Jaeger was a traitor and renegade and war hero, depending on what was most convenient. After weeks of reasoning with Marley's top brass, they had set aside an hour for Muller to speak with Jaeger, who would be sent in by boat and kept in a holding cell. If Mueller could convince him to cooperate, Jaeger could be rehabilitated, just as the others of his kind who grew up in Marley. The only difference between them, Mueller argued, was their willingness to concede.

Jaeger had been living in a burgeoning Marleyan settlement, the remnants of what was once Fort Slava. In the cell, he was no pariah or Devil of anything. Just another prisoner of war, rebuilding the very civilization that was trampled at the behest of his enemies.

Sgt. Mueller had his own interests in agreeing to the plan. He could accept that Jaeger had his uses, but selling him as anything other than a lesser evil to humanity was going to take time. As an inheritor of Eldia's power and its curse, Jaeger wouldn't live long enough to see the outcome of his survival. He was the perfect candidate for Mueller to work with.

Jaeger, a taller man than he was in the photographs, looked at the red armband and back to Mueller's face without emotion. He was dressed in a simple button-up shirt and chinos that were cleaner than Mueller had expected. A white scar stuck out across his throat. His dark hair was cut short.

"The Progenitor didn't want to let go," said Jaeger, holding Mueller's eyes. "They had to cut me out."

An uncomfortable silence settled between them. Muller said, "You haven't been healing. Isn't that as easy as breathing for someone like you?" Jaeger didn't respond. Muller tried another approach. "I hear you left a lot of supporters behind. The Jaegerists, weren't they? In Paradis. You must have had a good reason to abandon your people."

"They cared nothing for the country. Only what they could destroy in my name." His eyes, closer to green than gray, bored through Mueller and the wall behind him. The guard shifted in place, fingering his rifle. Mueller ignored him.

"If you were to emigrate to Liberio, you'd have a pension and a tenement. Perhaps a chance to explain yourself. There are those among us who would be willing to listen, I'm sure you've seen the protests." Mueller's lip curled. Jaeger was unmoved. "Your own countrymen didn't afford you the same opportunity. The strain of spinal fluid that was introduced into your bloodstream is no determinant of your worth."

Jaeger glanced down the hall. "You must have hundreds of men like me back in Marley's hospitals. But they're out of their minds or too burnt up to speak in your stead."

Mueller paused. He made an effort to keep his face placid. This gutsy son of a bitch was exactly the man he was looking for, even if he refused to accept it himself. "It's true that I could just as soon leave and find one of them. But you're cognizant and able to reason with me. Most are not."

Jaeger levelled with him. "That's why you're here."

Mueller forced a smile. "I'd ask you to think about it, but three years isn't forever, and in that time Marley could just as well decide Eldia isn't worth preserving without Titans. If you refuse you'll go back to breaking rocks with the other POWs. If that's your wish, I won't refuse it."

Jaeger shifted from one foot to the other, his expression difficult to read. He looked at Mueller. "The block in Liberio was destroyed."

"It's been rebuilt," Mueller said. "You'll have a roof over your head. Then you can drink yourself to death in the privacy of your own apartment, if that's really what you're after."

For the first time Jaeger chuckled. "When was this decided?"

"Last month, by Marley. And a few of your sympathizers in the Azumbaito family."

A flicker of comprehension in Jaeger's eyes. Mueller saw cruel satisfaction. The prospect of reaching the very people that once considered him scum. If he could not wipe them out directly, he could get into their heads. Manipulate the minds of their progeny. Idealistic and desperate to prove themselves, who else could know better than him.

"Fine," he said. "I'll agree to live here."

Mueller was taken aback. "You've no other conditions?"

Jaeger stood up. "No, sir."

Mueller had expected more of a pushback. Evidently he was mistaken. But he kept his nerve and said, "You'll be situated here by the end of the week."

As he walked out of the cell, he didn't look back. Jaeger made no sound.

After the declaration of war, the Mid-East Alliance and other civilized nations decreed to destroy Paradis with the full might of their aeroforce and naval ships. Eren's first mistake was to entrust the rebels as anything more than a distraction. His second was to force Historia's hand as a terrorist. If not for Mikasa, he would have succeeded in eradicating all of Paradis's enemies abroad, but not on the island itself. So Paradis would be left to rebuild its forces in peace.

Not much had changed from the last time he set foot upon Marley's shores. The ampitheater was still in ruins, but he'd not gone by to see for himself. New faces took place of the ones he'd slain. A family next to him and an aging vet whose brother wound up in one of the zeppelins. They were Eldian, but none of them Warriors. Eren had yet to speak at length to one of the Warriors at length. His new life was an echo of the ten months he'd spent as Eren Krueger. Without the imperative of a war on the horizon, he was only subsisting.

He kept a relatively clean apartment. He took up journalling to retain his purpose and give himself something else to think about beyond the pit of ennui in his gut. Keeping down dates, small happenings. He got by, even as a serviceman looking for work. The Marleyan who ran the post office took to him like a second son, or else he was eager to appeal to the political wave of empathy towards Eldians. Eren had no interest in asking.

Five days a week he would sort letters in the back of the store, out of sight of customers, and attend clerical duties once the son moved further towards the countryside in pursuit of his own fortune. The father would lament about this often, but appreciated Krueger's talent with a bucket and mop. Krueger rarely said much.

Despite the influx of Eldians into Liberio, the old security measures were still in place. So, there would be no letters couched in innuendo to his compatriots back home. Nothing that would be sent outside the internment zone. Despite the ocean of difference his thoughts were consumed by the home he'd given up.

On his off-time Krueger had been visiting the newsstand. Lately he was keeping tabs on the Tybur family's whereabouts and who had inherited the Titan Biology Program. The Warrior Unit was dissolved on public record. Most of those Eldians who were injected wound up in hospital. Some were stable enough to move into the tenements. The ones too advanced to release were shipped off to parts unknown. Warriors were still discriminated against by their non-Titan Shifting Eldians and Marleyans alike. There was no reason to pretend to respect them, now the war was over. A bunch of devil-blooded freaks who lost the war in spite of their God-like power and cost Marley a fortune.

Galliard and P. Finger were to become ambassadors for Marley by next year, but there were other Eldians with serum in their bodies who never made it into the papers. Vice Captain A. Leonhardt had stepped down around the same time of the dissolution of the Warrior Unit, but he could find little mention of her afterwards. B. Hoover and R. Braun were marked down as MIA.

The same circle of Marleyan policemen in plainclothes would follow him about his daily routine, as if he were unaware or plotting another revolt.

At times the old pull of the Founder ushered him downwards into an endless oblivion. He could drink himself into a stupor, but escape was fleeting. Everything he'd fought for, watched other soldiers die for, the culmination of that falsehood lay before him in an expanse of unbroken sky. Despite his exhaustion he strained to reach out and feel the freezing air against his face. No longer fighting for the sake of his friends, safe in Paradis. 

The Hallucigenia clung to him at the nape. Hundreds of tiny legs piercing flesh. It burrowed and burrowed past his steaming flesh into his brain, connecting to him as he had once connected to the other body in miniature. Burdened with a taste of power, then wielded by an inhuman, timeless entity, he must relearn how to live as a mortal man.

When he was still recovering, the Marleyan doctors expressed a great interest in these dreams. They'd chalked it first up to shellshock, but they'd also told Eren to document as much as possible so that future generations might understand the burden of inheriting their closest approximation of God himself. Eren had thought little of it at the time. What could a Marleyan possibly understand? It was not the wielding itself but the act of being wielded by something far greater and impenetrable to understanding. He had been connected to the Founder in spite of his common blood.

There would be no epiphany or God to heal him or bring back the friends he'd lost. Pledging his life for their survival was a hell of a lot simpler when he was convinced they would outlive him. In the end they would still go on and he would give his life for humanity as he'd wanted as a boy, beneath the old chapel in Mitras.

He slept lightly. Old friends occupied his waking moments. A zoetrope of faces trapped in time, hounding him in dreams. Every night he'd wake up in a cold sweat. The pain in his knee was a new development. He couldn't fix it and throw the remains behind the butchershop like he used to. He got up and felt around in the dark for the edge of the mattress. Throwing his legs over the bedside. Testing his weight. He could walk, at least, despite the discomfort. Nothing worse that what he had endured before. He sat there until his eyes adjusted to the room, underlit by moonlight.

He walked slowly over to the desk. There was enough light by the window that he could write. In the blueish light of the moon the ink stained the page, close enough to blood.

He wrote for half an hour and sat in silence until the sun broke over the horizon. He checked his wristlet before getting ready for work. He was en route to the train station and decided to stop by the newsstand out of habit.

Today was an off day. He'd been so wrapped up he had forgotten. With little to occupy his time, perhaps his best bet was to make contact with the surviving Warriors. They were closer to his own countrymen. If he was to remain off of Paradis for the next two years, what harm could come of speaking among his own kind?

"Sir," the man said, "you're going to have to buy that if you want to read it."

Eren went home without buying anything. He walked about Liberio, considering his approach. He had a few hours to burn. He went back to the tenement with a newfound mania. The old man downstairs had bought a phonograph and was very pleased with it. He'd play music from the outside world. Eren would stand and listen. Even if he couldn't pick out all the words, the dialect was familiar.

Eren shook himself from recollection. The old woolen jacket he favored had a few holes. Nothing he couldn't mend. His upbringing in Shiganshina and time as a serviceman had taught him plenty, so he didn't stick out here aside from his foreign accent. He fixed the jacket to his satisfaction and replaced it and the sewing kit. For the hell of it he did a preliminary dust check. It wasn't yet noon, and he might sleep through the day if he chanced a nap. Exhaustion had run its course, giving him the opposite problem. He was too exhausted to let himself relax.

He read through his old notes on his father's journal. He transcribed a little more of it to the best of his recollection, then walked the length of the room and back again.

There was no grasp at freedom. Just a bigger cage full of people who would not learn from their ancestors. For the same reason Armin had nothing to say to him, and Mikasa agreed to kill him if it came down to it. No soul on Paradis could understand the brunt of what he once did, but neither did he, sitting here with bloodied knuckles and bruises and a rush of blood fading from his head. He'd convinced himself of the lie, for it was simple when he was ready to give up his life. He'd always been so simple, even as a boy.

The armistice was not his only way forward. Its true purpose eluded him still. He'd thought it all simple, back then. If he were to revert his choices and pledge himself now, it would not be for some child's idea of glory or freedom. Perhaps there'd come a day when their faces became indistiguishable. But he'd be long gone by then. He could content himself with that, just as he had before.

Asking around for names was risky, given his previous involvement. He'd kept quiet up to this point. Anyone who wanted to have business with him would've come forward by now. He had little to lose by trying, at least.

There were a number of Eldian pubs he could look into. The Warriors, despite their prestige, couldn't leave the internment zone without a waiver. It was less hassle to stick to the ghetto than deal with the paperwork, just for the chance for a Marleyan to spit in your drink. A boon for Eren, as it lowered the number of places to look.

A few days of hanging around. No one gave him trouble. A second glance was the most notoriety he'd experienced after a few attempts. He always sat in the back and watched the customers.

Today, the usual. A man with a red armband sat at the bar. Krueger was in luck. He took the seat next to him and ordered.

"I haven't seen you around before." Krueger turned. The man offered his hand. The glint of a band around his finger caught his attention. "I'm Galliard."

Krueger shook. "Tomas."

Coming from the same Galliard he'd used to crack open Tybur's shell and funnel her remains, he was unsure what to expect. "My wife should be along soon. We're waiting for a colleague to join us." Eren gauged this possibility. Could be an old friend from the war. Could be anyone. As long as he kept his emotions in check, there was no harm in playing along. "She's never been very sociable," Porco muttered. "She's been taking care of her father a lot. Lousy son of a bitch isn't even appreciative."

Krueger's hand on the counter tensed. "Your wife?"

Porco paused. "Oh, but of course you wouldn't know." He chuckled. "I'm sorry. The colleague is a mutual friend of my spouse. We served together in the same unit while the war was going on." He shrugged. "Now that the war's over, we come down every week or so and drink."

Krueger said nothing.

"Do you think you're better than me?"

"No," said Krueger. "I just don't usually come here to talk."

Porco barked out a laugh. "You're right to the point. You'd get along with Leonhardt."

"Is that her name?"

Porco froze. "I&emdash;oh, damn it, look. If you see her, you didn't hear from me."

"I won't," Krueger said.

The doors opened. Porco glanced over and his expression changed. "Thank God, she's here. With the situation outside of Liberio as it is, I wish she'd take the same train as I do."

A small, dark-haired woman took a seat next to Galliard. "Sorry I'm late." Her eyes moved from Galliard to Krueger and fixed there. Krueger watched from his peripherals as he took a drink. "There was a delay on the train. Nothing serious."

"I'm just glad you're here," Porco said, oblivious to what was happening.

"I was about toe were fighting the wrong enemy," Porco said shortly. "It's never been about Eldia or Marley. I didn't always see it that way."

Eren fell quiet.

"He's just drunk," said Pieck. "He doesn't know what he's saying."

"Leonhardt is still in Liberio?"

Porco frowned. "What business is it of yours?"

It was Pieck who said, "Don't mind him."

Krueger stopped and the silence prolonged itself past comfort. Porco's expression changed. In Paradis he might have been a renegade and in Marley he was simply a had-been. A lifetime of service had conditioned Pieck and the other Warriors to be secretive. Of course it struck him that Annie wouldn't be thrilled to learn he was alive. She would rather regrow her arm tendon by tendon than talk about her personal feelings. 

"I've seen you before," said Porco in a low, uneven voice. "You're lucky the war's over." He slapped his money on the counter and got to his feet. "Pieck."

The woman kept her seat. Porco stared at her in disbelief.

"I have no interest in causing any harm," said Krueger. "To you or anyone else." 

"Go to hell," Porco said, and left.

The woman watched him go. "I suppose that's better than you expected."

Krueger, glancing at her, said, "You're ambassadors."

Pieck shrugged. "Moreso in name. Someone has to make sure Marley and its enemies don't forget the past too quickly. The younger Warriors don't care much about politics. Porco took to it, though." Her fingers drummed idly on the table, idiosyncratic. "I suppose Reiner would've made a good diplomat if he'd lived." She kept her tone warm and easy, but her eyes trained on him were anything but. "You spoke to him before, didn't you? During the Paradis Operation."

Krueger didn't answer. 

"I didn't mean to pry," Pieck said. "I just wondered what you must think of everything, now that you're here."

"What does it matter?" It came out acerbic, without pretense. "It's been settled, even if we won't live to see how it ends."

Pieck didn't flinch. She looked at him with an expression he could not describe. Too close to pity for his liking.

"A week ago," she said, "I was supposed to be dead. Porco will have ten years. Maybe I only have a week left. Or a year, perhaps ten years. Without the constant strain of regeneration, there's a chance we might regain some of the time we'd have otherwise lost."

Krueger was staring fixedly at his drink, untouched. She set her money on the counter with a sigh and stood. He paid and followed suit.

"I suppose this must be awkward," she said, "now that we're not speaking around a gun." Krueger laughed. She gave him a wan smile he wasn't used to. "I hope we can talk about it next year."

"Yeah."

Eren watched her leave. He swallowed past a lump in his throat, then moved on himself. Rage simmered in his blood with no purpose outside its expulsion. A question brewed in her absence, interfering with the easier promise of his early death. He walked along the street, blood in his ears. Figures moved past his gait. He bumped into one and kept moving. A man's voice shouted. Krueger turned to face it.

He'd never gotten in a fight in Marley. Once or twice the thought crossed his mind. But he was crippled then. Growing back his leg just to get into a pointless fight was more expenditure when he could simply redirect his energy into fixing his eye. In this moment the capacity to survive longer than his term limit was unbearable as subsistence.

Years of training ingrained against the promise of a scrap, just to feel anything. The older urge won out. Bloody and senseless. As a boy he didn't care about winning or losing. Just hurting something else that could feel the same pain as him. The shock of healing like a normal man. This existence his father sought to deny him, pitiable and fragile, he could finally claim for his own.

Stumbling home. He went over to the armoire and opened the bottommost drawer and fetched some gauze. He took a seat and bound his hand in silence. 

[ultimate-v3lvetfang]

whenever someone rightfully argues that Curly did not do his job to protect Anya like he claims he would do for her and the whole crew, someone always hits you with ohh it was a difficult situation, jimber yimpy could’ve acted out/hurt anya, they’re all in one ship, they can’t report it cuz pay blah blah oml someone even went to say that no one would know what to do in that situation because finding out his friend did that to someone must be hard BRO?? YK WHATS HARDER??? WHAT ANYAS GOING THROUGH???

very weird that everyone goes to defend Curly so EASILYY and don’t get me wrong i still don’t paint Curly NEARLYY as bad as jimbilimy ofc not, what junky did was monstrous and inhumane, Curly was just a bystander and that loses the respect anyone can have for him but he’s not as bad as jimmy I MEAN jumbo i’m running out of variations

but oml so many of y’all missed the POINTTT ofc it’s an uneasy situation you’re trapped in one ship in space which is half the reason this situation came to be in the first place, but not even pointing out the fact there are several risky but better than NOTHING solutions, the point isn’t what was best to do, the point is CURLY DID NOTHINGG that’s the problem. like i CANNOT get around the curly x anya ship (at least post crash curly and anya) he clearly cannot protect her oh well at least not when it comes to his best bestie jimber me timbers. and people still go wait nooo…. he had it hard guys…. he didn’t know what to do… poor curly fries :(( now he watches his crew die :((( yeah and that’s WHAT? the consequences of his actionsss why are we more sympathetic of curlyyy and not anyaaa like WHATTT….

im sure Curly was a decent guy but he did not TAKE RESPONSIBILITY (i did the thing) and that was just a testing moment that he most definitely failed. not to mention when anya tells him and he asks who she says “i told you,” which i never fully understand, but im assuming this refers to the fact she has maybe off-screen expressed being uncomfortable with Jimmgle bells or maybe she outright said how he was a threat to her, but again, Curly chose to be a bystander and not have to argue with his friend who was already very CLEARLY a JERK to even Curly since the beginning.

The point isn’t “well what COULD he have done” that point is that because it was a tricky situation, he had rather do nothing and that created a domino effect and serves even more evidence for one of the games themes, male dominance in the workplace and male alliance even if that ally is the Worst Guy Ever

theres more to be said but im not very articulate however this image may help

ALSO WHILE I HAVE YOU, STOP TREATING AFTER-CRASH-CURLY LIKE A CREATURE…. that’s a full grown man, just cuz he baked doesn’t change that. really weird when people draw him scaring people with his face to defend Anya in au’s where they all make it out alive, like??? and biting at people???? who?? why would you why???? isn’t the whole point of those au’s for it to be the good ending….give him a lil communicator, or prosthetics and he does asl, or communication cards or a walker or SOMETHING OTHER THAN ALLAT…. THANK YOU…

[sadlynotthevoid]

Has anyone else here read 'Waratte! Sotomura-san'? Because I have a little fic idea.

LCF highschool AU where, for some reason, the characters go to the same school that Sotomura and co (co? What co? lol). And so, og!Cale and Natsuki (that's Sotomura's name) become friends.

Maybe they end in the same class, or maybe they run into each other outside classes/school doing something that doesn't fit their reputations at all. The fun thing is that it works either way. Any of them can be the one doing the "OOC" thing (like helping or petting an animal, secretly looking after someone, doing something really cute) and any of them can be the one witnessing it.

They're both secret softies with bad reputation. The difference is that og!Cale does it on purpose, while Natsuki is just really bad at dealing with people (oof).

Also, even if they're just in the same class and don't witness that, og!Cale is way too fearless. He wouldn't be afraid of Sotomura just because of baseless rumors and scary smiles. "She looks evil"? He has been dealing with actual ill intended people for years. He had seen both, double faced "nice" people and shameless disgusting bastards, and he can see she has no signs of being any of them. He thinks she just looks nervous.

Sotomura doesn't judge people by rumors or "not being nice". So, of course, she doesn't think Cale is a bad person. Moreover, he isn't afraid of her and even helps her when he can. Of course they become friends.

Meanwhile, everyone else is losing their shit because the two "worst delinquents" of the school have an alliance (friendship).

Other things about this AU:

-Cale meeting Haruno and thinking she and Natsuki are girlfriends. They correct him once they find out, but are really confused about why that was his first conclussion instead of, you know, a normal friendship. He explains that is because they seem close and his brain just forgot being straight was an option.

-Ironically, they end up dating a few months later.

-Due to the school worries, the student council president has to go and check the "lout-delinquent alliance" situation. Cue Alberu entering into Natsuki and Cale eating deserts and reading sewing magazines in an empty classroom. He comes to the (right) conclusion that this two are just doing normal friend stuff. There's nothing to worry about.

-The next day, the first and second top best students, Rosalyn and Kim Rok Soo, along with three members of the kendo club blow up a small school building. He has to question everything in his life. How is it that the so called good students commit crimes in their free time, meanwhile the two most infamous ones just sit in peace and have a nice chat? He bets it's Rok Soo's fault.

-Alberu looks so bad that Sotomura and Cale pity him. They take him to drink tea with sweets to a cafe to relax. Cale pays because Alberu is having a stress induced breakdown, Sotomura is saving money and doesn't want to exclude Haruno.

-This becomes a habit. Now Alberu's face instinctically loosens out of relaxation when he sees them.

[druidonity2]

hey you wanna hear another fanfic idea (based on an old doodle) i'll probably never write ok here it goes-

(What if, in her dying breath, Onyxia split Anduin into two, and nothing Varian tries is putting his son back together.)

Varian was able to fuse back together, but to his surprise, he found two boys where one once was. In her final moment, to further soe chaos and seek revenge, Onyxia channelged her power into the boy. And despite their attempts, they cannot get the boys back to one. (They try and use shalamayne, but really they can’t fully recreate Varian’s rejoining, for it would threaten the boys’ health and saftey. They spend the next year trying to locate any magic users who could help, but unwilling to risk their lives, there isnt much they can do. They must be raised as twins.)

Ann and Dulin are identical as young kids, and seem very happy with eachother, and it almost seems like they are better off now that Anduin isn’t really an only child. But then, as they enter their teens, a distinction between the two forms, and it slowly becomes clear that they are halves of a single soul. And their flaws are ever stronger for it. That they arn’t balanced. 

(-Little moments as the boys grow up, playing together, learning together, etc.

-Varian hoping at least one picks up the sword, but so far both boys are awful. He struggles, but is reminded they are the same person, of course if one cant do something the other cant either. 

-they both shared an interest in light, and learned fast bouncing practice off eachother. Both learn under Velen.)

Ann and Dulin are priests, but Ann is more rebellious and runs away more, and is more open to voicing his opinion, even at the wrong times. Dulin is much more clinging to rules and professionalism, and is quiet and more hiding of his voice, preferring to listen. They bicker more, disagree, and it slowly reminds Varian of his struggle as he and Lo’gosh could not come to agreements despite being one person. And he fears that as they age, Ann and Dulin will further be torn apart.

It does happen, when Ann and Dulin get into an argument, and Dulin uses shadow. 

-

MoP is Ann and Dulion getting shipwrecked. Despite his interests in Pandaria Dulin wants to go home as soon as the Alliance finds them, but Ann refuses too, and so Dulin follows along. Ann is the one to confront Garrosh, and Dulin is the one to get him help.

After the Bell scene.

Ann nearly died, and while Dulin didn’t get hurt, it seems he’s fallen ill too. He’s fine, up until he faints infront of everyone. Confused, someone reminds Varian, “They are not complete people. They are halves of a single individual, and that brings with it consequences. They were never meant to grow up apart, their souls are joined and that greatly effects their mind and bodies. I suspect if Ann had died, Dulin would’ve passed away soon after. If you lose one, you lose them both.” 

“When you were two, one half was a spineless noble easily charmed by wealth and beauty. The other half was an angry warrior, hot headed and unwilling to listen to opposition. Apart, you were two deeply flawed people who could not agree on anything, and you came close to killing yourself, until one made a sacrifice for the other. It was only because you shared a son did you come to terms with one another.” “I believe having the boys raised together is partly the reason they still get along, but they are very different from one another, and their lives would be better if they were joined again.”

Wrathion believes he knows how to rejoin the twins, and Dulin seeks that help, even behind Ann’s back. (It does not work).

(war crimes scene where Anduin holds his AU self as he dies, only in this fic it is Ann and Dulin watching an au version of Anduin die, seeing what they would look and act like if they were one person, as they should be. This event deeply effects them, acting as a constant reminder that their fractured existance is wrong)

-

-Because of their bickering, it's decided one will take the throne and the other remains prince. Dulin takes the throne, which is actually one of the only things the two agree on, for Ann dislikes the restrictions the title of King would place upon him. Ann still does work for Dulin, represents him in meetings he cant go too, etc, especially durring war, but still runs off sometimes.

-Dulin is taken by Sylvanas to the Shadowlands, and it is Ann who demands to go to find his twin. He felt the moment Dulin crossed into the veil, He feels the moment his twin is corrupted, and feels his soul aching. If Dulin dies so will Ann, and Ann can feel his brother's soul weaken by the day.

-JAILER RAID SCENE but Ann runs into the black smoke, Sylvanas cannot stop him in time- Ann embraces his brother, and a rush of energy envelopes the area. Sylvanas believes it to be the bomb, but as the smoke clears and they live, a single man is left in the middle-

Ann and Dulin fused back together.

the end.

-

Epliogue:

Anduin, newly rejoined into one person, disappears for several years in order to 'find himself', soul searching or whatever. Now that he is one person, who is he really? Who does he want to be? How does he cope with his past truamas was one person, when half of him experienced things differently?

Epilogue explores how Anduin honestly still feels like two people in one body, that being fully one in heart and mind may be truely impossible, but as time passes, years go by, it seems that healing truely may be possible.

[fruit-salad-ship]

I took a run at the Viking/Druid AU. This one’s a ‘married for political rest, hate each other at the start, then learn to appreciate.’

Story draft under cut

This particular group of Vikings might be a bit of an off shoot, they were led by peachs family for a fair few generations sucessfully, a notoriously violent lot, theyve come to be knows for their brutality. BUT that was peachs mother, the generation before, and the world needs a calmer head sometimes, so when peach was handed the reigns, her mother dead in battle as she'd always wanted to go, the weight of the village was suddenly on her shoulders. sure she'd prepared for this, but she thought she had more time to goof off and be young and free. alas, this shift fored peach to grow up, to watch her people die through her bad choices at times, to see them hungry or sick, and have to learn on the job how to avoid this, or fix it. Older generations have tried to overthrow her, but she proves she is the best fighter, if not the biggest, certeinly the fiercest, and smartest. She is tall and muscular, but her real edge is in her ability to be five steps ahead. She keeps a calm head unless shes in a besrker rage, something she doesnt do unless she ABSOLUTLEY has to. Triggered by a cocktail of plants, a tonic of strength essentially. the recipy was taught to her by her mother, and her mother before her, and so on, back many generations, and is unique to the family tree, a secret to them only. Peach goes and forages for the plants and parts often. so a few years later, with several mutinies squashed, a village of now healthy, fed, happy people, who trust her leadership, and believe that the young blood in this case has done well, is an accomplishment. Grey is her captain of the troops, hes vital, her confidant, her child hood friend, a guy whos very level and reasonable, traits she has been TRYING to get people to adapt to, and reduce how much bloodshed her people have brought to others.

They still raid and fight, but they pick and choose more wisely, taking from those who have more troops and more to lose, pinching from farmers and villagers is a cowards fight, they have pitchforks, and nothing worth taking. but kings? lords? princes? ohhhhhoho, they got shit they can stand to lose, their lives included. so they target bigger fish. arguably their trade with local hunters is also quite key, being good on the waters means fishing is their lifeblood, and many neighbouring villages have built a tentative truce with the viking settlement in order to trade and barter. it is...hard to work with, as her people are prone to fighting, but peach manages to delegate and calm raised tempers with a surprising level of reason. This same reason extends to the druid population. Her faimly have...perhaps been known to slaughter them upon sight. She has seen it, she had watched her blood strike down witchcraft in a heartbeat through fear, and peach does not wish to extend that fear further.

that being said, she is kind of terrified of druids.

low key tho

so when the druid council arrange a meeting with her, no weapons, no threats, a simple plea for peace, she is open to hearing it. Peach and her council go to discuss, and a peace can be arranged if there is a show of trust. Notably, marriage. A viking leader, to a Druid patron of the gods. if this can be done then surely they can trust in an alliance together. Peach is SO not here for it. She however is overruled by the council, they all agree this is a very reasonable arrangement, and peach is left taking one for the team, so to speak. and its honestly something that puts her in a foul state of mind from the get go

she has no clue who shes being married off to, and goes home sulking, telling grey everything over drink, and he is roaring with laughter. the towns most unapproachable, inhospitable woman has finally been shackled down. he cant even believe it, and does not give a rest to the pokes and prods of his taunting. A fortnight passes and no news, nothing from the druids save for a charm of favorable winds for their ships that arrives by raven. Sure enough the ships do prosper, the winds are behind them, and the fish are plentiful. Peach begrudgingly watches her village flourish, and dreads the next step, one she alone has to venture forward with, one she is honestly mortified about. She toughs it out, and soldiers on. And then the letter to the ceremony arrives. She is to meet her betrothed in a week, and the first meeting will be within the druid community, where peach will come with no more than two escorts to agree to terms, and collect the person in question to return home with. There is no exit clause, this means peace for their people once and for all.

and that long long hike to the heart of the woods where the druids exist is...hell. Shes got real nerves, doesnt even get like this for battles, in fact she states on several ocasions that she'd rather be in the thick of a war in the mud and the dirt and the blood than in the calm of the woods. its almost too calm, lets her mind wander to what kind of awful person shes been tied to for the rest of her life. she pictures an old crone, a witch of the woods, a crusty old being, and shudders, while her two companions make jokes that she'll have to have horrible weird druid sex with an old person. and shes there trying not to throw up.

the druids welcome them in with more hospitality than expected, this is of course a negotiation for peace, and peach activley hands in all her weapons, right off the bat with no arguing. she has to berate the other two ONCE, and no more, to do the same. So theyre in a community of 75-100, all of which follow this weird and wild magic, all somehow touched into natures way, and the vikings are just there, strangers in a foreign land, and people are very wary of them. They are taken to the leaders, sat, offered food and drink, to which peach is feeling too sick to really partake in all that much, picks at best, but her attention is toward the new setup of what is to be rules on how their people interact with each other. No more unnecessary deaths. The work of it all nearly lets her mind slip from the end result, her people will no longer hunt druids, offer trade, military aid and services should need be, and for all forward purposes consider them allies, unless violent action is taken against them, in return they will gain access to medicine and the occasional charms to aid the villagers, magic to bolster their people. It is a truce. A good one. A better one than peach was expecting to get. their negotiations go on into the early hours, and finally the leader of the druids says its late, and peach must be eager to meet his daughter. She pauses, looks up, processes, and then recalls the arrangement. she had NO idea this man she talked with was to be family, she'd have tried to be a little more impressive and imposing, but perhaps her subdued and calm approach was fine. they walk to a rather lovely building, draped with vines and hidden deep into the mossy dirt, he sighs, and looks at peach. a warning is given, his daughter was...not, thrilled about this situation. she may be fierce in her actions and words.

peach is left to knock the door, her brides father not entering, simply waiting a few paces back, calling in a name, a pet name from the sounds of it, and from inside peach can hear the light footsteps of someone. the door opens, plum sticks her head out, glares past peach to her father, shouts 'NO' and slams the door. Peach cant help but laugh.

he sighs, waves a weary hand, and turns to go stating taht peach best get acquainted with his daughter, this is out of his hands. and so peach tries again, calls in to at least ask her name, and gets no response. just told to go away. their conversation starts on a hostile point, and peach sits against the door and tries to reason with her. plum is every bit as stuborn and hard headed as peach is, but shes really throwing a fit about this. peach ends up just as mad, as if this is ideal for either of them?! but its not about them, its about their people, and moving forward with a sense of peace. surely as a druid, of all things, plum could reason with the notion of peace? and thats when the door opens, peach tumbles back, lands looking up, met with a VERY mean glare, plum saying she has no idea what druids should or shoudlnt reason with, that shes just some bloodthirsty idiot with nothing between her ears. harsh but fair. the girls row. and fight, and argue, and get to understanding that they couldnt be more further apart. this goes on for hour, until it becomes a fight, and peach is trying, TRYING not to take the bait, shes twice as big as this little druid and not about to break the truce on the first night. plum however does not care, and eventually peach has to defend herself. it is a close quarters, brutal little spat, and they both end up scraped and bruised.

by the morning peach is ready to go home, black eye and bites and scrapes adorned, the truce is made, plum has been appeased by her father and a whole host of others, she is in NO WAY happy about this, but has come to the bitter conclusion that its for the good of her people. the travel back is mind numbing. plum stops to look at things all the time, shes never really ventured out of her territory for fear of vikings. they have to slow down, get caught in rain, get their path crossed by a bear. the two with peach go to attack it, she tells them to back down, leave it be, and plum at the VERY least appreciates that she lets it pass unbothered. by the time theyre back at the village its all hands on deck to get ready for the festivities, everyones happy to see them, but peach suggests she'll hold a meeting tomorrow once rested and settled, to introduce her...betrothed (she is still mad about it) and inform everyone of the events. natrually some of the older vikings are not happy with plum there, they eye her with hatred, and skulk away. peach doesnt notice, those old farts are always angry, theyre old, its what they do, but plum gets a bad read off them. peach and plum go back to the girls new home together, a longhouse with fair space and one too many weapons. Plum is mildly interested in some of the strange trinkets peach has stolen, but doesnt ask, she is given a bed, a space her own, away from peach, and shown around enough to feel at home. it is very much laced with snide jabs and comments from both sides. things plum does notice: peach makes her own beserker tonic, and seems to be mid-way making a batch now. peach of course doesnt reveal what is in it, nor what its for, it is none of plums concern, and plum pulls the 'well ill be your wife soon enough you may as well tell me now.' card. peach hates it. doesnt cave.

it is another restless night for the girls, they bicker and fight about every little thing. plum kicks her shoes off anywhere, peach never remembers to throw a log on the fire in time, plums constantly tripping over things shes used and not put away, peach cant stand the smell of the tea plum drinks, a home blend. By the time the meeting in the village comes the next day, peach is hardly awake, grouchy, and fed up. but the information of a truce is given, plum is introduced, and the village sets about trying to come to term with the change. Grey is the life saver, he is very calm, and offers to show plum around, giving peach a break. one that she spends the entire time sleeping through. grey and plum actually get on fine, she finds him much less irritating, and perhaps even nice, if she can put aside his murderous skills. she learns the village, the people, the trades, the buildings, she pets the animals, she sees some of them trying to farm, others hauling in fishing nets from the boats. all in all, plum is quietly surprised the vikings have this level of civilisation built, tales and stories would suggest theyre all mindless brutes who do nothing but kill and steal. she is at LEAST pleasently surprised.

she gets home to peach fast asleep by the fire, on a number of furs, and proceeds to dump a jug on water on her, for the fun of it.

the 'i have to marry you, i dont have to like you' comments they share are laced with seething disdain, peach goes to fish, plum goes to forage, they dont see each other unti the next day, and its over a very hostile breakfast. Eventually peach is thankful to leave to fight, and plum is left home to her own devices. This raises issues. While peach is out doing her thing, the older villagers start to fuck with plum, and she has to recall the truce, and not to hit back. they say some horrible things to her, perhaps even get in her face, but it never gets physical, so she leaves it be. She can tough this out for her people, the village will get use to her, shes just new. peach and her raiders get home a week or so later, they haul in goods stolen, and peach has cleared her mind of rage, and tried to be the bigger person...not literally, she already is, but she has returned, and gets home, and doesnt say a word about the tea smell, instead pulling a rather pretty broach from her pocket that looks like a branch of blossom in golds, inlaid with some kind of pinkish gemstone. A peace offering. Plums right, she does have to marry her but he doesnt have to like her, but maybe if they just, got along this could all be a little less shit. Plum says nothing, sees peach is battered and hurt and tired, her body is on the rebound off beserker tonic, so she needs rest. She slinks off, runs herself a bath, and tries to soak her aches out. plum sits and looks at the broach and doesnt say much, rolls over and goes to sleep by the fire. peach finds her curled up, pulls a blanket over her, and goes to her own bed to try and do better tomorrow. well that doesnt quite work out. the next two weeks the girls are slowly at each others throats more and more, its becoming obvious to everyone.

they foil each others fun, ruin each others things, have spite for one and other that extends to their personal space and privacy. Grey watches them both get run ragged by the endless torment they throw at each other. And then finally, the wedding arrives. The dreaded day. it is traditional viking style, with a few tweaks to include the druid nature of one of the brides, and honestly everyones just there to feast and drink afterwards, something the two new wives hardly do. well. peach drinks. a lot and plum throws berries at her for the boring bits. they go home, sleep at opposite ends of the house, and try to just get on with this. its for their people, both say to themselves in the quiet of night. every time peach has to host to other leaders plum is subtly spiteful, makes her look bad tbh, which is fine, but after one particular disaster of a meeting with a local leader who could have been a useful allie, peach sees them off and turns to plum to remind her, NOW she is fucking with pech's people, and another reminder, they are now HER people, shes the chief's wife, she is one of this village too, and shes shooting her own in the foot because shes a spiteful witch. peach is furious, she needed to barter that better, this is less than ideal. plum finally sees that perhaps she went too far. this isnt just a dig at peach, and she hates to say it, but peach is right. these are now her people. and most of them, save for a few, have been nothing but agreeable towards her, some even nice. plum sits up, peach is asleep turned away, ad the druid has time to do something good for once. she sits up and starts to do what she does best.

peach awakens the next day to a myriad of smells she does not know, and finds plum still awake, concocting a whole host of small bottled items. plums things are sprawled out, she hardly notices peach, and when she does, she doesnt say anything, feeling a little bad for the day before. peach asks, has to, its taking up half the house, and plum says shes working. thats as good as peach will get, she knows that, she leaves, goes to help with building a new barn, and doesnt go home until late that day. this goes on for two more days, before peach wakes to the house quiet, no plum, no things out, the chaos has subsided, its cleaned up, mostly. herbs hang and dry neatly, a huge mortar and pestle sits clear of debris, theres a bowl of petals drying, some jars of unusual powders all lined up, its like...plums settled in. her things have places, and has become part of this setting. weeks of not getting along or finding her place here, and finally it seems to be happening. Peach doesnt find her in the yard out front, not the woods when she goes to check the perimeter, nor alogn the lakes edge where plum goes walking. No. Peach finds her in the village, she spots the drift of her curls and peaks out to see what shes doing. Going around offering help, she found the man with the bad cough, the kid with terrible itchy skin, the mother who cant sleep, the man with no luck, even the cow with a funny limp. Plum has made a fix for most of the ailments. She is not the bitter twisted little shit peach has been presented with now, she is calm and kind and open, and seems to radiate true druid energy while doing this kind of work, she is a different person. Peach doesnt say a word, but they clock each other, theres no smile shared, no look of taunt or smugness, they just...they know. they know that plum took on board that these are also her people.

and dare peach say it, shes thankful for her, for once. The villagers repair, thrive even, but some still do not care for her meddling. Peach catches her back at home, coming in late, hands full of splinters, a fresh batch of jerky brought in from the drying racks, she traded a few bits for actual apples too, nice ones from a farmer that came through! She's in a surprisingly good mood, but there is still caution coming home. She doesnt want to cause any more arguments. She tells plum about the apples, to help herself, and leaves her alone to go soak her hands and try to get the splinters out. it is a slow process, but methodical, she quite likes the joy of excavating a big splinter, getting a good sharp blade and sitting in the bath to start this process. She has since become numb to plums tea, she actually has even started to like the smell perhaps, its certainly not nice, but its definitely a smell of home to her now. It shocks her when plum comes to sit with her, the first time ever. Neither talk immediately, peach is trying to catch the wood i her hand and pull it free, so her focus is mostly taken up, and plum is poking at the fire with a stick, sipping her drink, not really paying much attention. its quiet company. after a while, Peach syas she's grateful, her people benefited from plums skills today, she got a lot of people telling her that druid magic helped them with this and that. plums short 'mm' back is enough. they continue in quiet, peach getting slowly more frustrated by one stubborn splinter, going to cut into her hand to get it out, until plum notices and stops her, wordless, takes the knife, finds the problem, and carfully pries it out. takes two goes, and the chip comes free. there is a BRIEF moment where she still holds peachs hand, and looks at her like shes looking for something in her gaze, before giving the knife back and going back to the fire.

this quiet existence is a nice change to the arguments. for weeks after they bicker less, but still of course snap and disagree over so much, but certainly have less quarrels, and come together to put on an air of power should people visit for talks of trade or alliance. peach gifts plum a shawl that was her mothers mothers, a hand woven thing that holds a lot of meaning, and displays her families mark clearly, its not a huge deal, but it kind of is. the girls play it down, but peach is quietly happy to see plum wears it when the chill in the morning air is too much, or when shes wandering the village working. their marriage was not conventional, nor chosen, but they are finding a midground. even if they annoy eachother endlessly. its for their people, not them. but with time the things that bugged them start to hold less weight. Plum can no longer find irritation with peach not putting things away because shes changed, she does actually return items to where they belong. The endless weapons have their own storage, she doesnt leave them lying around. There is never a leak in the roof she cannot fix, and for such a merciless killer (plum thinks, shes never seen her fight) peach holds a calm note to all decision making, and typically never puts her own wants above others in terms of whats good for the masses. She has very little, and gives what she can, but somehow it comes around, and she is never left wanting. Her good nature, and speed to help her own pays back. Plum sees she is not all harsh edges. Peach however has also come to herms with plums temperament. The woman knows when plums going to kick off in a meeting and always manages to calm the situation. plums need to create went from an annoying clutter in the house to something peach finds joy in looking over now.

theres even a quiet love for plums cooking, which is arguably better than she thought it'd be, somehow she expected druits to chew on twigs and berries, but no, plum can and does make many nice things, and so they can take turns and give each other breaks from that task. peach even likes when plum is busy weaving and shes carving some wood and they sit quiet;y by the fire together. its...calm company. quiet. Is peach horny 24-7? yes, but again, shes had to put that aside and ignore it, this is not a marriage of joy, its one of peace.

the scalding tone of 'oh, so you survived then.' every time peach gets back from a trip has become welcoming, plum does not care, she knows, but at least she acknowledges her entering the home now. its something.

it is on one of these late nights, when peach gets in from a volatile battle, the village hit with a violent downpour, the people are struggling to pull the ships in, everyones out to lash them to post and stop the waters taking them, even plum is out helping as best they can to calm animals and settle people. when peach is away, plum acts in her stead, she is the wife, she has to. so shes out, in this miserable weather, and while everyones busy trying not to lose ships, peach notices she cant see plum. not anywhere. with things under control she goes looking. plum however has seen a bunch of goat bolt, a pen left open, a crack of thunder spooking them, and chases them down. cant lose a flock like that, she can get them. but it was a trick. those old vikings, ones who saw peachs mother rule with her bloody iron fist, do not care for this new alliance, and have been compelled to kill plum and break the truce, they dont like this peace with witchcraft users, they liked things the old way. Plum is busy trying to get these goats to come to her, a quiet whisper to them that they understand, to calm, to come to her, and they do. She only turns in time to see three villagers coming at her with an uneasy look, plum says its ok, shes got the goats, asks if they others wrangled the boats? and they dont answer, she takes a step back when she spots theyre armed, and starts considering the peace pact, the tentative nature of this situation. they attack her, and she can retaliate, but it'd scare the villagers, potentially break the peace, peace she'd finally managed to come to terms with herself. she tries to talk them down, reason with them, but they spew old world hate, words plums not heard in the mouths of men for a while, they want the druids gone, they dont trust nor like them.

she winds up a low powered warning spell, firest it at the floor and tries to spook them, but theyve fought druids before, and dont fear her small show of strength, shes pulling punches , big time, and they keep advancing. So she charges up an even bigger hit, warning them, telling them, urging them not to risk the peace, and they dont hear it. In the raging weather, they dont hear the person running in, the three villagers swing weapons, and plum fires a defencive spell. Both hit, but not as they had wanted. between them both peach stands, she has redirected the spell, pointing plum upwards, and taking a fair brunt of whatever she cast, and her other hand wields a weapon blocking the one at the front who swung first. Chief is back and pissed, she barely stepped off the boat, she didnt even get to see the villagers, she didnt have a moment to rest, and now her own are beign traiterous bastards to the peace. She tells everyone to step down, cool off, this is not worth it. She will let the three leave with their lives if they stop now. They made an attempt on her wife, she will not allow them to stay, but in any other situation, theyd be put to death for it. She is giving them a chance to pack, and leave by morning. they dont hear her. Plum is completely preoccupied with the spell she fired off, it was a harsh one, one thats settled under peachs skin, not a direct hit but plenty enough to graze her, she can see her words are a bluff to some degree, shes tried, she was hurt when she got back, now shes more hurt because of her. The men do not back down, calling her a coward in the shadow of her mothers wake, and so peach is forced to fight. and boy does she fight. harder than ever, with a brutality plum has never seen on her. She is fast, and precise, and despite injury plum thought would slow her, peach fells three and is still standing.

she however is now very much out of momentum, she looks plum over, shes fine, the goats are fine, the boats are tied, and she drops as soon as the relief hits. plum is left trying to turn her from drowing in the rain, goats chewing on her hair, being shooed away, plum eventually being found and helped, they get peach in her home and she for the first time ever, tends to the injuries. She is exhausted, the effects of the spell that grazed her are very much settled, and her injuries from the battle are painful but not fatal. Peach will live, but she really pushed herself. plums wondering how she has druid resistance, the spell she cast shoudl have done a lot more damage than this. She doesnt know the tonics peach has ingested all her life have built her tolerance to some things, and she doesnt know peachs family are old school druid killers, all dead now, but peach technically is her natrual enemy. not that plum knows that. peach groggy with pain awakes inside, warm under so many furs and throws, the fire crackles, she can squint out details in the low light, and plums there, asleep next to her, the cold cloth in her hand fallen but still held to her head. Its a very surreal moment. peach is convinced she died, this is not her wife.

she shifts and in that shift plum startles awake, seeing peach now somewhat awake, if not a little hazy. they have their first civil ish conversation after nearly half a year of marriage.

there is a quiet thank you in plums actions, not her words, she wipes blood from peachs skin as they talk, a soothing that chief didnt think she'd ever want, nor need, yet here it was like being cradled, her body cried out for contact, this long with nothing but hostility, this was a welcomed change in her sorry state. plum does tell her she was stupid to redirect magic like that, it was dangerous, and peach can only think of the peace brokered, how fragile it is, now scared people would be if a death was caused by a druid and not her. No one will question it if she cut them down in defence of her wife, thats a reasonable motive for deaths, she warned them, she gave them a chance, they didnt take it. on their head be it. for the first night ever, peach settles on her side, and plum does not go to her own bed, she stays by the fire and lies down and they drift off together. This whole thing does not stop the girls arguing, but their bickering seems mostly laced with concern, or reason. they grow mildly closer by the day, its slow, tentative process, but plums starting to see the joy in her big strong wife, who is surprisingly calm and patient, and peach cant help but notice how intelligent and beautiful the druid is, convinced she might be going mad but accepting it. Its not like anything would happen between them anyway, this whole thing was for the people, not for love of any kind. She is resigned in the thought that she gets to watch plum fuss over a potion or incantation, and sit quietly and see how the light hits her just so when shes by the window grinding up herbs, wiping her brow and ending up with all manner of colours on her face.

it is quiet admiration from a distance, on both parts, too resigned by the situation to act on anything, even when they catch the other looking. even when plum helps peach with a minor injury, or when peach brings home "too many flowers" for a dye, and just happens to leave them for plum on the table. They have a quiet language between them, and their bickering really does mask it day to day. Eventually however theres a new person in town. Another druid brought in by hunters, they found her wandering hurt, and with the new alliance, they offered help as agreed. chief and her wife are overjoyed at this show of hospitality, her people are learning! its a big step, and so with some digging, they find this druid has no allegiance in this area, and had no clue about the treaty. She is weary and seems to drift directly towards peach, who to most holds a very calm reassuring presence, so this is not unusual. They welcome her in, ask if she has any family, she is put up in a small hut, given a job, shows their ways, and once healed seems happy to be part of things here. Plum wakes often to find this new woman with her wife talking, she watches from the house as peach and the druid chat while working, seems like shes always close to her, and certainly is quick to help should anything go wrong with Peach. Plum saw her patch up a cut, and pull a splinter, and hang fish to dry, all simply to spend time. Seems no matter where peach geos, somewhere close, that new druid hangs by. eventually plum catches peach alone at home, night a welcomed break, and tells her to keep an eye on that one, shes got an odd feel to her. peach just laughs, says she sounds jealous if anything, in a mocking kind of teasing tone. The accusation causes an argument, and they end up sleeping on opposite sides of the house in angry heaps of furs.

this continues, the closer the druid gets, the more peach pulls back from her duties, plum picks the slack up, starts to notice peach doesnt come home for longer, is less talkative and interested in plums day to day goings on. This was a marriage of peace, of politics, not of love. so why does she feel awful seeing this? then one day peach goes missing. no one can find her, plum has to take on the role of leader, and calm everyone, reassure them they will find her, and oddly, the other druid is gone too. whispers start to spread. People really like plum now, shes helped so many, proven shes good natured, and cares for them, and start to worry if this is some scandal. Plum reassures them its probably nothing, and sets about working out where peach has gone. she puts an appointed council in charge and gathers her things and does what she does best, using magic and logic to track the path peach last took. it winds plum into the forest and grey catches up to see if she needs help, something she is fine with, theyve grown to be good friends. they wander deeper into the woods, noticing a path, keeping on it. The druid might manouver these forests with ease but if peach is with her, then she will be as haphazard as youd expect of any viking going on a nature trail.

they come to some kind of clearing after a while of travel, signs of a struggle, theres blood, its not animal, its human, and the trail seems to lead further up, a small mountainous peak ahead. they amble up, following the blood drops into a rather discrete cave half way up, slinking further in. Plum feels no natural life here, everything in this area is dark and twisted, the energy here is...disturbed. uncomfortable even. they peak around a rocky outcrop as the muttering of a person is overheard, finding the druid at some kind of alter surrounded by bones of many kinds. sat on her knees behind the other druid, peach, her gear pulled down to reveal her top half streaked in red, blood? no doubt, the druid also seems to have slapped on the same markings with hands, as if she adorned them both with warpaint. her mutterings are so low plum cant catch the incantations, but nothing like this is ever good, and the energy is all off, whatever god she's pulling from, its not a decent one. Plum goes to cast a block, to stop whatever happening, but its not strong enough, bounces off, and also alerts the other druid. So here they stand, Grey tries to be the valiant fighter, and he is good sure, but magic like this trumps anything a sword or axe can do. He is knocked back, not by a spell, no, peach has gotten up, turned to face them, and is brandishing her weapon. her eyes are not her own, the bloody markings all over her skin look like theyre hot from burning, she gets between her wife, grey, and this new druid, and takes a stance to defend the new witch.

if peach fought like a demon before, this took it to a literal point. plum can tell somethings residing in her body, a vessel for something, the runes drawn on her seem to hint at that too, and greys struggling to keep up with her at all, hes getting hurt. an almighty fight plays out, mostly of plum casting double time to not only try to knock the other druid down but defend and bolster grey enough to stand up to whatever peach has become. its exhausting, but quickly they realise grey is not a threat, the real problem is plum, and both attackers go for her, target the caster specifically. this works well, but plum gets to pull one some big-bollock kind of spells shes never got to use before, tells grey to run out of direct sight, and he does, before she casts. the cave is flooded with light, searing, cleansing light, her druidic hail mary, and its fantastic, downs the druid, and dislodges whatever is in her wife, but that things stubborn, got its claws in her. Plum cant think to do anything when shes grabbed and thrown down hard, peach now on top of her, it is not her face, or expression, or eyes, thats not her, but shes in there, plum can sense it, shes hesitating. where peach didnt before, she seems to be now. Plum cant think of anything else to do, so frustrated with seeing what was a good woman in this state. she gets free for a second of peachs grip, lunges forward and kisses her. one last spell, a cleansing one, needs direct contact, these kinds of spells dont tend to work so well without thre being real oomph behind them, a real tether to the afflicted. Plum can move away and cup her wifes face, peach has comepltly stopped, focus flickering from fierce and full of hate to a far softer one. plums little 'come back to us. come back to me.' that no one hears, pulls, and pulls, and drags whatever evil was in there kicking and screaming out.

they can leave there, and leave with their chief dazed, and a little confused, but alive. Greys got under her arm, plums taken the journal from their dead foes body, a coded druidic shes slowly figuring out, unravelling the truth of what happened. Peach was charmed, heavily, from day one, and lured away thanks to that deeply ingrained charm to be a willing receptical for some kind of evil spirit. to bring it into the human world. the druid she killed was essentially a cultist, and a good one at that

very nasty, very devious, knew about the druidic treaty and took advantage of it

it is once peach is home, her people calmed now shes been found, the situation explained, in a way that was careful not to put fear of druids back in them. plum handles it very well, and can go home to her wife, who she now realises she quite enjoys, and sits with her quiet as ever by the fire. she gets peach to try and rehydrate, gives her some of her tea, with WAY too much honey in it, but peach likes it that way, and tries to get her to rest. Peach is so confused, she doesnt recall the last week, her actions werent her own, whatever happened she totally lost herself. plum fills the blanks in, and gets to the point where she cant NOT tell her wife, a woma nshe was bound to in marriage out of oath, not love, that in fact she saw her with this other druid and felt... sad. a flash of peachs old teasing comes back 'jealous much?' and plum laughs, smacks her arm gently, not too hard, peach took some serious damage, but they seem to be acting like normal.

for the first night ever, peach curls up in her bed, in so much pain, trying to find comfort, and plum comes in and crawls over, she could hear peach in the dark struggling, and joins her, a small incantation to repair, like a gentle healing aura, the best she can do for her wife right now. She gets in as the big spoon, and peach feels relief from her touch, the magic helps her sleep, helsp the pain slip away, and they can recover in peace.

they still bicker nd argue, peach has a slow but steady recovery back to full health, but something always resided in her after, something that kept her up at night, something that made her see things in the darkest shadows. Whatever spirit was put in her, plum suspects it left somethign behind. None the less peach leds her people with patience and care, and plum, despite her awareness of peachs new problem, finds ways to improve her situation, and the situations of all the villagers. They are her people too, after all. the wives slowly find new ways to love each other. plum likes the water, so peach takes her out to swim, knows a clear calm river in the wood thats perfect for it. they girls get to drink together on long windy nights, and talk about their families, about each other, about what they like, dont like, where they love being, where they'd want to go and see. they find beauty in each other. It doesnt take too long before they finally find themselves FINALLY getting intimate, as most married couples do

[jalebi-weds-bluetooth]

Saheb, Bibi aur Ghulaam

#3

Thank you to the lovelies @arshifiesta for celebrating IPK and setting up the great moodboards and AU.

1878, Calcutta

Eleven years old Arnav Mullick had not spoken a word in a year.

Some thought it was his parents' traumatizing deaths that led to his silence. But death was nothing new. The house had lost its middle son, his Mejda Akash at tender age of 19.

So no, death made no difference to Arnav. In fact he was happy when his philanderer of a father died of drinking as well. He deserved it. Not once had he seen his father home at night.

Arobindo Mullick would often scoff when stopped, that if any man of this house had ever spent a night in his own house?

So then some speculated that Arnav's behavioral issues had gotten worse, hence why he stopped speaking for a year.

If his darling mother was alive, she would've wrestled with anyone who thought such against her Arnob. Shyam, Arnav's Borda (boro-dada = older-brother) would perhaps be the only one to chuckle and agree with the society. Arnav was tempestuous as a child.

But quiet? Never quite.

The society would never understand that it was Akash's falling for a Baiji (courtesan) at the age of seventeen, his frequent visits leading his early introduction to alcohol despite their mother's best to protect them for it that hurt Arnav the most.

This was when Arnav swore off love.

That his otherwise pious brother was gullible to follow his father's footsteps to a kotha - where Arobindo Mullick spent all his nights.

It was his mother's haunted face and tears that left Arnav speechless. Or rather Arobindo's reply to her request to stay at home.

Has any Mullick ever spent a night in their own home?

This was when Arnav swore off marriage.

Or that despite Raja Rammohan Roy having abolished Sati-pratha a good sixty years ago, Arnav's mother was dragged to her undeserving husband's pyre by her conservative in-laws to follow patni dharam.

This was when Arnav swore off religion.

But if maa was alive, what life would she have had? Arnav saw how his uncle, Kaku, eyed her. And Arnav had seen that in the months prior to his mother's death, how she was shaved, dressed in white and forced into a strictly ritualistic dreary life.

His mother, whose hair spilled like the Ganges from Himalaya, had a beauty who could rival the Goddess, lived a life none deserved simply out of rituals and religion.

Thus when Shyam gave their mother mukh-agni, Arnav found his devotion die in his mother's pyre. And when his only hope, Borda (Shyam) set sail to London abandoning him, his words died as well.

-- -- --

1880, Calcutta

Arnav had been wrong about Borda. He returned as a Barrister from London, swiftly kicking out Kaku (father's younger brother) by bringing up property possession rights and threatened the rest of the Mullicks with incarceration for having forced their mother to die.

Thirteen years old Arnav did not know what to do when the brother he thought so wrongly about did the most just thing. It was then he decided that he too would run away to London when he came of age.

But the other thing he couldn't figure out was what to do with Boudi (bhabhi; sister in law). Their grandmother had fixed Borda (Shyam's) alliance with a member of the Tagore family.

Barely two years older than him, fifteen years old Anjali Devi was to manage the household of a twenty five years of Shyam Mullick. How could Arnav accept her as the lady of the house when the post truly belonged to Maa and only her.

But Arnav realized no rebellion was needed. Boudi arrived with the biggest reverence to their mother, along with the grief of losing her own. She chatted constantly with Arnav, not questioning his silence at all - Borda had gotten fed up after a few tries.

And over the years Arnav realized he had a sibling more in Boudi than in Borda.

Perhaps, perhaps maa's essence found its way into Anjali Boudi. It would explain why Arnav's first words were celebrated by Anjali as if it was her first child who had uttered their first words.

A child she was unable to give through all of her married life.

And perhaps his family was cursed against joy for the moment Arnav saw his mother in Anjali, he saw his father in Shyam.

The easy money he made as a barrister faded quicker given his lavish expenditure in trying to out-host the British and the Indian royalties. He belittled Anjali's lineage as much as he could and tried to prove that he was a bigger industrialist than the Tagores.

Lawyer he was, businessman he wasn't.

And thus at age eighteen Arnav had to run to London, no longer chasing any dream, but at least attempting to make the fortune his brother boasted of having.

-- -- --

1893, London

London was far more accommodating than India would ever be. This was what Arnav believed until, of course, an intellectual sparring with Boudi's cousin - Rabindranath - would get him thinking about perspectives.

To think of it, majority of India's existing regressive laws were nothing but British Victorian laws.

Then who was regressive?

It had been a lazy afternoon where Arnav was entertaining his thoughts, alone, as usual when a telegraph changed his life.

URGENT STOP SHYAM DA MARRYING AGAIN STOP

Arnav tossed the telegraph aside, grabbed his documents and hailed the first ship - premier class - to India.

He only had two goals.

Stop Shyam Mullick from marrying and ruin everybody who stood as an obstacle to Bo- Didi's happiness.

-- -- --

A/N: Yes, babua is here and so is his very very painful history! Lemme know what you all think :)

Tagging @shiyaravi @maansiloves @featheredclover @chutkiandchotte @laad-governess @msbhagirathi @phuljari @hand-picked-star @barshifan (updating it slowly and steadily)