#But I might be pale due to me being a shut in who hisses at the sun | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

seijorhi · 4 years ago

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Finders Keepers

the long awaited (sorry!) zombie au. hope y’all enjoy

Seijoh 4 x female reader & Miya twins x female reader

TW Blood, gore, angst, um... toxic relationships?

“Let me see.”

It’s little more than a murmur, but in the quiet stillness of the night your voice carries. It hardly matters; Oikawa has you close, tucked under his arm with his injured leg stretched out between the two of you. He could stop you if he really wanted, but he only watches, those tired, wary eyes fixed on your face as you reach for his pants.

“It’s fine,” he grunts out, yet he can barely get the words out before he’s hissing through his teeth – a knee jerk reaction to the scrape of rough fabric against his wound. His fingers are digging painfully into your arm, and it doesn’t make a difference how gentle you try to be, how many stammered apologies fall from your lips, your fingers are stiff and clumsy and his pants are caked with dried blood and grime, hindering the process.

Pursing your lips, you glance up. “This would go easier if you took these off, you know.”

He cracks a smile at that, strained and tense, but your chest still flutters at the sight of it. “If you wanna get my pants off so badly, cutie, all you had to do was ask.”

“Tooru,” you begin, but he sighs heavily and that brief flicker of mirth glimmering in his eyes fades. Reaching over he picks up his hunting knife, pressing the handle into your palm and letting his fingers slowly curl around yours. The weight of it feels unwieldy and foreign in your hand, and you can’t quite say for sure if the way your breath picks up and hitches is due to your nerves or the way Oikawa’s watching you, his warm hand still wrapped around yours.

“Cut it, then.”

The knife helps, shearing through his pants like butter, but the wound itself is messy – torn threads plastered to congealed blood and dirt – and blunt fingernails sink into your skin and Oikawa grits out a curse when you try to gently ease them free.

It’s worse than you’d thought. A lot worse. Raked over his right knee, five gouges, jagged and gruesome, raw flesh and muscle exposed beneath. Your stomach roils at the sight of it, bile creeping up your throat, and for a moment you’re astounded by how calm he is, sitting there beside you.

If it were you, you’re fairly sure you’d be rolling on the ground howling by now, but the only hint of pain Oikawa’s face betrays is the tightness of his jaw, teeth clenched even as he looses a shuddering breath.

“I-I’ll go see if I can find something to…” to what? Clean the wound? Stitch it? You’re not an idiot, unless this little cottage has an incredibly well stocked first aid kit, you know you’re in trouble. And even if it does, beyond the very basics of clean, disinfect and bandage, you don’t know how the hell you’re supposed to fix this.

Iwaizumi was always the one to stitch up their wounds, muttering obscenities under his breath and glaring at them the whole time. It was their own idiot faults for putting themselves in a position where they could get hurt in the first place, he’d say, they could deal with a little pain while he fixed them up. But as you stare at the grisly mess of Oikawa’s knee, there’s a sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach that this might be beyond even Iwa’s level of expertise.

It doesn’t matter anyway, because Iwa isn’t here.

Makki and Mattsun aren’t either.

And strangely enough, it’s not the fear of the creatures lurking in the woods that’s gnawing at your gut. It’s Oikawa’s injury, the blood and mangled mess that you can’t even begin to fix, the thought of the trap that’s awaiting the others back at the sanctuary. It’s that feeling of helplessness that’s tightening around your neck like a noose.

“Hey,” Oikawa calls, snagging at your wrist when you try to pull away. “They’ll find us, have a little faith.”

Swallowing down the lump in your throat, you nod. “I know.”

You don’t have the guts to tell him that that’s only half the problem.

Making do with vodka and some old bandages you’d scrounged up from a first aid kit under the sink, you do what you can for Tooru’s knee. Working by the light of a few flickering candles, your hands shaking like a leaf, it's a job easier said than done, and you can’t help but wince at every pained hiss and grunt that escapes him.

It’s a hack job, a bandaid over a gaping wound, but he thanks you for it anyway, pressing an affectionate kiss to your temple as he drags you closer once more. “You’re not getting rid of me that easily,” he murmurs, and the words hang heavy over the both of you; a promise and a sobering reminder in one.

Tucked up in his embrace, you shut your eyes and will yourself to fall asleep.

Yet the moment you do, you’re right back there again: the hallway doors bursting open and the undead pouring through. Rotting and snarling, the sound of panicked shrieks tearing through the sanctuary in their wake.

Tooru’s hand in yours, yanking you along as he ran. Your heartbeat, pounding in your ears as you gasped for breath, your chest burning. And the fear, the horror that threatened to choke you as the others fell behind, their frantic pleas turning into agonised screams.

Everybody else first. The words spoken before any one of them left the safety of the sanctuary; you’d always assumed it was a grim kind of joke between the boys, a good luck charm. How many times had you heard Mattsun laugh it, clapping Iwa on the shoulder, or Makki for that matter, or Oikawa?

‘Come home safe’, you’d thought it meant, not ‘rip the guns out of other survivors’ hands and throw them back into the path of the oncoming undead’.

And then you’d stumbled, tripping over your own two feet. You remember Oikawa cursing, the pain that radiated up your knees and the palms of your hands as you hit the floor hard, and the absolute, bone chilling terror that surged through you when you looked up and saw one of the undead creatures lunge for you; jaw hanging loose, more ripped flesh and gristle than an actual mouth–

Oikawa was too far away, too slow, and even if he wasn’t, you’d just witnessed the lengths he’d go to for self preservation. You’d screamed for him anyway, squeezing your eyes shut and praying you’d go quickly when those fingers and yellowing teeth dug into your flesh and ripped you apart.

And in the space of a single petrified heartbeat, three shots had rung through the air, a warm wetness splattering against your cheek. Tooru was there, kicking the rotting corpse away from you and hauling you back to your feet, back safely against his side.

But the next one was quicker, leaping over the husk of its fallen friend, snarling and bloody and savage, and then it was Tooru who was screaming, undead fingers sinking into the flesh of his leg, ripping as it tried to claw him back.

Heart pounding viciously, your eyes shoot open in the darkness.

Even with the reassurance of Oikawa’s frame pressed up behind you, his breath warm against your skin, sleep doesn’t come easy, and the dawn brings little reprieve.

Stupidly, you’d hoped – prayed – that somehow through the night he might’ve gotten better. It was early in the morning when you’d felt him start to shiver against you. You’d tried to roll away, to give him space so you wouldn’t accidentally knock his leg, but Tooru was having none of it, burrowing in closer, his grip tightening.

And when you’d felt him start to sweat, his arms becoming sticky and clammy, his shirt dampening at your back, that slow, cloying sense of dread took root inside of your stomach.

Under the first rays of morning light, the true extent of Oikawa’s condition is unignorable. Without the luxury of being able to properly close the wound, blood’s seeped through the bandages overnight, leaving them a mottled, macabre red. His face is pale, a thin sheen of sweat dotting at his brow and with every shallow, rattling breath he takes, his body trembles.

It’s more than just simple blood loss.

You think for a moment that he’s unconscious, long lashes fanned out over flushed cheekbones, but the moment you reach for the bandages, his eyes snap open. “Don’t,” he rasps.

You frown, “Tooru–”

“No,” he says. “It’s fine. Leave it alone.”

Between him and Iwaizumi, and to a certain extent, Makki and Mattsun, you’ve never had much of a say in how things are run. You’ve never questioned that they’re the ones in charge, Oikawa most of all. They’re the ones who’ve kept you safe, kept you alive all this time, and all they’ve ever asked of you is that you do what they say.

And you have. Always. Because without them, you’d be dead. You don’t have to pick up a gun and fight, because they do it for you. You don’t have to go on supply runs because they take care of it, they take care of you. And it’s never mattered whether it’s just been the five of you out there alone, or if you were banding together with other survivors; that’s never changed – no matter how many dirty looks it earned you from the others.

You are their responsibility, but in return, you do what they tell you without question.

But this–

This isn’t like that. This isn’t you begging Iwaizumi to take you with him on perimeter patrol because you’ve been cooped up for what feels like weeks, or pouting because they’re deliberately keeping things from you again.

And maybe they have kept you in the dark, but you’re not blind and you’re not stupid. The reality of this situation hasn’t escaped you.

The sanctuary’s overrun, and if – when – Iwa, Makki and Mattsun make it back, they’ll be walking into an ambush. Even if by some miracle they do manage to all make it out unscathed and somehow figure out a way to pick up your trail, there’s no telling how long it’ll take for them to find their way back to you.

(You can’t bear to think about the possibility of them not coming home; you won’t.)

Right now, it’s just you and Oikawa, stuck in some abandoned cottage in the middle of nowhere with nothing but a rifle and a baseball bat between you. You have no food, no supplies and he’s getting weaker by the minute.

You’re terrified.

And you don’t have the luxury of sitting back and letting somebody else take care of you anymore. You don’t stand a chance of survival without Oikawa, and right now he doesn’t stand a chance without you.

Swallowing the lump in your throat, you shake your head. “Okay, I won’t touch it, but I’m not just going to sit here and watch you get worse.” Smoothing your palms over your lap, you take a deep breath in through your nose. “There’s a prison–”

“No.”

“Tooru–”

“I said no,” he snaps.

Biting back a sigh, you try again, “Tooru, there might be supplies there,” you plead. “Painkillers, antibiotics, something that might help–”

“I don’t need antibiotics and you’re not leaving. We need to stay here where it’s safe until the others find us,” he grits out, eyes narrowing dangerously.

Normally, this would be the point that you’d back off, running off to lick your wounds before he decided to get mean, but even as some part of you cowers at the mere thought of upsetting him, this time you don’t back down.

He watches warily as you lean over, pressing a kiss to his cheek, gently smoothing damp brown locks back from his sweat slicked forehead. “I don’t know when Iwa’s coming back,” you murmur. “But until he does, the prison’s our best chance, if I can just–”

“No!” he snarls, cutting you off once again.

His eyes are manic now, blown wide and glazed over, he’s shivering, his breath a faint rattle – but his grip is iron, long fingers clutching at you desperately when you jerk back with a gasp.

“You don’t leave me.”

You don’t want to.

It’d be easy not to, to sit and stay with him and pretend that your world isn’t falling apart and he isn’t dying. You’ve never been a fighter, always too soft, too weak, too naive to survive out there on your own. The thought of setting one foot outside of that door without him by your side fills you with absolute terror, but what other options do you have?

He might not like it, but you’re out of time – this decision isn’t his to make anymore.

“Tooru, I-I have to, you know–”

“No!” he snaps, dragging you closer. “You’re not leaving me, I won’t fucking let you!”

Your hand trembles when you reach up to take his, easing it from your shirt and bringing it to your lips. Tears spill from your lashes, falling in heavy droplets against the back of his hand as Oikawa makes a pained sound.

“Please don’t go.”

You both know he can’t stop you.

“Keep the gun,” you tell him, mustering up a tight, watery smile. “Anything but Iwa and our boys comes through that door, shoot it.”

—

It seems a cruel, twisted joke that you find a perfectly good truck sitting a little ways up the driveway, just begging to be used – with no way of getting it started.

Mattsun always made hot wiring look so easy, tossing you a wink when the engine rumbled to life, as if it was a neat little party trick he’d pulled out just to impress you. He did it so quickly, so smoothly, ripping the wires out and sparking them like it was second nature, but he’d never bothered to actually explain what he was doing to you.

And why would he? Between the four of them, there’d always be somebody else to take care of it for you. It’s the same reason they never taught you how to shoot, never taught you how to fight beyond the very basics of self defence.

Now, trudging along the side of the barren road with nothing but your baseball bat and a canteen of water slung over your hip, you find yourself wishing you’d paid a little more attention. Ten miles hadn’t seemed that far on paper – it was less than the trek back into town and you’d figured a safer bet, but walking around in broad daylight without any kind of real protection feels like you’re begging to be preyed upon. Yet by some stroke of luck (and despite that persistent nagging sense that you’re being watched) you manage to make it to the perimeter gates without coming across another soul, dead or alive.

The towering brick walls topped with spirals of barbed wire that line the prison complex are as imposing as they are unbreachable, and for a moment, standing there staring up at them, you feel a crushing sense of disappointment. You’ve walked over two hours, left Tooru in pain and alone for nothing. There’s no way in hell you’re gonna be able to scale those walls, and without any kind of bolt cutters or firepower, you’re not sure how you’re supposed to get past the front gates.

Iwa would’ve known that. Iwa would’ve been better prepared.

But as you draw closer to the guardhouse, you’re pleasantly surprised to find that it’s not a problem. The heavy wrought iron gate’s already unlocked and open, creaking in the breeze. And really, that should have been the first warning sign, but you’re too busy thanking your lucky stars as you slide on through to pay attention to things like that.

The courtyard is just as deserted. The crunch of gravel underfoot echoes too loud, setting your nerves on edge as you make your way towards the imposing structure. It’s quiet, eerily so – even the birds seem to have disappeared. Is this how all raids feel, you wonder as you climb the steps towards the door. This sense of foreboding dread that settles in your stomach, the goosebumps that prickle down your arms?

Your grip tightens around the handle of your bat and you press gingerly against the door – just like the guardhouse gate, it gives under your touch, swinging open wide. It’s dark inside; you hadn’t thought to bring a torch and with the absence of any windows lining the corridor it’s near pitch black. Your heart hammers inside your chest, every cell in your body screaming at you to turn around and run back to Tooru, but you’ve come this far already.

The undead flock to fresh, living meat. It’s been months since the outbreak began; anyone unfortunate enough to have found themselves trapped inside when it happened is probably long dead, and any of the undead likely long gone.

It’s just a little darkness.

Steeling your nerves you creep through the black, clutching tightly at your bat, toeing your way down the corridor waiting for your eyes to adjust to the dim. Every breath you draw in feels too loud, every step too obnoxious. Deserted or not, the sooner you can find the med-bay, get what you need for Oikawa and get out, the better.

The layout’s simple enough – five looming multi-storied wings breaking off like fingers from the central watch-tower, but you don’t have a clue which one holds what you’re seeking. Your only option is to search them one by one and hope for the best.

You’d expected steel bars and heavy locks, but the prison reminds you strangely of a school instead; long hallways lined with doors, each with a tiny window to peek through. They’re all open now of course, whatever locking mechanism keeping them shut having failed when the generators ran out. The first few are empty, barren and stripped of everything but soiled mattresses – it should be a relief.

There’s nothing waiting for you in the darkness but empty halls and emptier rooms. If the others were here, they’d be teasing you for sure. Or Makki and Mattsun would, at least. You always were such a scared little baby – their scared little baby – you’d jump at your own shadow if you didn’t have them around.

And it’s easier to keep going imagining them there by your side, the jokes they’d crack, the warmth of Iwa’s hand in yours, or Makki’s arm slung over your shoulder. You’d feel safe with them. You wouldn’t need to feel afraid.

But no amount of pretend comfort is enough to allay the heavy sense of dread that’s sitting in your stomach, growing harder and harder to ignore with every passing minute. And the problem, you realise, with the prison being so deadly quiet is that every noise, no matter how quiet, echoes.

Climbing the stairs in the dark, you don’t notice the slickness on the walls either side of you, the red handprints smeared messily over white paint. You don’t see the broken, bloody fingernails littering the steps beneath you.

You hear it though, when you reach the landing. It’s soft. A quiet, wet squelching, ripping–

There’s no screams accompanying it like there were back when the sanctuary was overrun, but it’s not a sound you’re gonna be able to forget any time soon. In the dark you freeze, not daring to so much as breathe as you peer down the endless corridor, trying to pinpoint which of the cells it’s coming from.

In the end, you decide that it doesn’t matter.

They’re quicker when they’ve fed, stronger too, and there’s not a chance in hell that you’re going to be able to fumble past in the dark without drawing that thing’s attention. The wooden bat in your hands feels heavy, your palms already slick with sweat. You weren’t quick enough back at the sanctuary; without Tooru, that thing would’ve eaten you. And suddenly it seems laughable that you came out here, that you genuinely thought you could handle this – fight one of them off if it came down to it.

Tooru needs those meds, you know that, and you might be useless and weak and absolutely paralysed with fear, but you’re not stupid. You can’t help him at all if you’re torn apart by one of those creatures.

Your pulse racing, a potent mix of adrenaline and sheer, unrelenting terror coursing through your veins, you draw in a quiet breath, slowly lifting your foot to back away. It hasn’t heard you yet, and so long as it’s distracted–

“Oi, hurry up! I know what I saw, she came in this way.”

“Jesus, just shut up for a sec, wouldja! Ya don’t need to keep yellin’ at me, I’m comin’!”

Through the grate at your feet, you see two beams of light break through the darkness, the sound of loud, heavy footsteps echoing down the wing. Icy claws tighten like a vice around your heart and you still once more, squeezing your eyes shut as you listen, praying…

The squelching’s stopped.

Grip tight around the handle of your bat, your entire body quaking with fear, you watch with wide, stricken eyes as one of the doors halfway down the block slowly creaks outwards.

For a heartbeat, there’s nothing, and you try and convince yourself it’s just the wind, that you’re imagining things and your mind is playing mean tricks on you–

A feral snarl rips through the air, and before you can so much as scream it’s crashing through the open doorway, head swivelling as it searches for the source of the disturbance. In the dark you can’t make out much, only that it’s huge, half its flesh torn and decaying, smeared with blood and filth – but you see it when those white, cloudy eyes fix on you, its rotting mouth bared and salivating.

And this time you do scream. You scream for Oikawa, for Iwa, for Makki and Mattsun and the faceless strangers on the floor below as you cast your bat aside and run. You don’t dare look over your shoulder as you take the stairs two, three at a time, slipping and slamming into the stairwell wall, a sharp burst of pain radiating down your shoulder – you can hear it giving chase, the rabid growls and snarls too close for comfort.

Tears flood your eyes, your chest heaving with every desperate breath as your feet hit solid ground once more and you take off.

“Please!” you sob as you run, blinded by the brightness of the torch beam as it’s shone in your direction. “PLEASE HELP ME!”

You can’t outrun it forever. Even now, you hear it gaining on you, its hot, foul breath puffing against your back – it’s just like back at the sanctuary. It’s gonna catch you, rip into you and feast while you choke to death on your own blood and screams, and this time you won’t have Oikawa here to save you. You’re going to die in agony, torn apart and devoured, and it’s all your own stupid fault.

Your throat tightens, more tears springing free. You can’t see anything beyond those two blinding lights, moving now, dancing across the field of your vision. “PLEASE!” you shriek, desperate and hoarse as the undead creature behind you readies itself to pounce.

Please don’t leave me here to die.

And for one heart wrenching second, you think back to your boys, and the words they’d said before kissing you goodbye. Everybody else first. Maybe this is some kind of divine retribution, you think. Maybe when the world went to hell people became cold and selfish and you deserve this for sitting back and letting others die in your place.

“Get down!” the voice yells, and you don’t even stop to think before you drop, sliding across the floor. There’s another blinding flash, a shot fired into the dark and all you can do is squeeze your eyes shut and hug your knees to your chest as the creature snarls in anger and jerks backwards, a gruesome spurt of blood spraying over you.

“Ya fucking missed! How could ya fucking miss?!”

The gun cocks and reloads, another deafening shot ringing out above you and you flinch, your nails biting into the soft skin of your palm–

But this time the bullet hits its mark. The creature crashes to the floor with a loud thump and doesn’t move again.

You don’t waste a second scrambling to your feet, launching yourself into the arms of your saviour. You don’t care that you’re crying, that you’re covered in blood and filth and god knows what else, you cling to him like he’s a lifeline, sobbing into his shoulder. And instead of pushing you away like he probably should, he lets out a short huff that sounds almost like a laugh, his arm curling around your waist.

“I’m the one who shot the damn thing,” the other mutters sourly.

The man holding you snorts, “Nah, yer the idiot who missed.” Belatedly, you realise that he’s still gripping his gun, the brightness you’d assumed to have come from a torch actually from a light mounted to the barrel. He slings the rifle carelessly over his shoulder, drawing back slightly to appraise you. “Now, wanna tell me what a sweet thing like you’s doin’ all alone in a place like this?”

With your eyes now adjusting to the light, you can see that the two of them can’t be much older than you. They’re both tall, broad shouldered and handsome, the same jawline, the same slope to their nose, nearly identical hooded eyes – brothers you decide, maybe even twins. And they’re both smirking at you, not with the relief of just barely escaping a brush with a particularly gruesome death, but with an odd sort of lackadaisical amusement, as if this – skulking through dark, abandoned places, killing the undead – is nothing out of the ordinary for them.

And from the ease with which they carry their weapons, maybe it isn’t.

Oikawa warned you about men like them. Men in general, really. Even the ones who smiled at you back at the sanctuary, the ones who offered to help you move heavy supplies when they saw you struggling – at least, until Iwa or one of the others stepped in with a poisonous glare. Anyone who wasn’t them was dangerous, a threat, just waiting in the wings to take advantage of a pretty, dumb little thing like you.

And maybe he’s right, but when the one holding you instead drags you closer, wraps an arm around your shoulders and begins to lead you back towards the guard tower as his brother falls into step on your other side, you don’t shrug him off.

Oikawa isn’t here, and they have just saved your life. That has to count for something, right?

“I-I thought it’d be safe,” you confess breathlessly, trying not to focus on the thumb sweeping over the curve of your shoulder. “Well, empty at least. I didn’t have a choice.” And they listen, sharing glances in the dark as you tell them about what’d happened at the sanctuary, about Oikawa and the desperation that’d led you to leave him and walk miles alone to try and find some kind of medicine–

Until a snicker interrupts you. “Sorry,” the blonde mutters, though he doesn’t look all that sincere when your eyes flash to his. “It’s just…”

“Anythin’ worth taking woulda been snatched up months ago,” the darker haired one interjects.

“There ain’t nothin’ here but the occasional idiot tryna set up camp an’… Well, ya saw how well that turned out.”

It hits you like a gut punch, forcing the air from your lungs in a harsh, gasping breath. There was never anything here, everything… all of it was a waste. You came all this way, left him feverish and screaming himself hoarse for you, risked your life, almost died and–

It was all for nothing.

Fresh tears sting at your eyes, they’re still talking but it’s just white noise washing over you. You don’t even realise they’re leading you back outside until you’re walking through the doors, the sudden burst of sunlight making you flinch. But it doesn’t matter. None of it matters anymore.

You’re an idiot.

A naive, dumb little girl who was stupid enough to think this half cocked plan was gonna work. That you would make it back to Tooru in one piece, medicine in hand to save the day and prove you weren’t the helpless damsel they’d pegged you for.

You’ve wasted so much time, for nothing.

There’s no drugs, no food, nothing that’s gonna help either one of you make it through the next few days and suddenly you’re drowning under a wave of hopelessness and bitter disappointment. You fall to your knees in the dirt, taking both your saviours by surprise, and let out a painful, heart wrenching sob. And once you start, you can’t seem to stop. It’s overwhelming, every emotion you’ve bottled up and shoved aside over the last two days suddenly forced into the light. You cry for yourself, for Tooru – for Iwa and Makki and Mattsun. You cry until it feels like you can’t breathe anymore, and then there’s rough calloused fingers brushing your tears away.

You look up through wet lashes to find the dark-haired man crouching before you, his expression sober. “Ya don’t need to cry, sweetheart, we’re not monsters y’know.”

His brother chuckles behind you, “We’re not about to leave some pretty little thing all alone out here to starve to death.” His hand’s resting atop your head now, smoothing down the hair at your crown. It’s soft and soothing, and you’re so attuned to seeking comfort that you can’t help but lean into it, eyes momentarily fluttering shut. “We’ve got some friends nearby, a nice little hideaway stocked full of all kinds of shit. Everything ya could possibly need.”

“Y-you mean it?” you ask, wide eyes flickering to the dark haired one, who smiles at last. “You’ll share them with me?”

“‘Course we do. Meds, food, weapons. Whatever ya want, it’s yours.”

You take the hand he offers to help you stand, your limbs trembling once more – but this time it’s not from fear or exhaustion, but the overwhelming rush of sheer relief. You could kiss him, kiss them both, but you don’t.

Instead you settle for throwing your arms around them once more, breathless thanks falling from your lips faster than they can catch as you hug them tight. They don’t seem to mind though, sharing almost identical smirks as the three of you head out to an old, beat up camaro parked out by the entrance to the prison. While the blonde slides in the driver’s seat and his brother takes the passenger’s side, you climb up into the back seat.

“Is it far?” you ask as he kicks the car into gear and peels out onto the deserted road. Hopefully it’s not, the sooner you can get back to help Tooru the better.

“Nah, not too far. We’ll be home before ya know it.”

Of course, they’re driving you to their friends, but they haven’t promised anything about driving you back to the cottage and Oikawa–

Which is perfectly fine! You’re not going to push your luck, they’re already doing plenty for you. More than they really have to. You don’t even need that much – just some medicine for Tooru and enough food for the two of you to get through the next few days, and you’ll be fine. Whatever you can carry, which, admittedly isn’t much. There’s still a few hours of daylight left, if you’re lucky you’ll be able to make it back to him before nightfall.

Things are gonna be fine. You’ll bring the medicine and once he’s better, the two you can head out to find the others. Everything’s gonna be okay. You’ll be better when you’re all back together, the way things were meant to be.

You need them, if anything this little venture’s proven that much at least.

They’d promised that it wasn’t far, and maybe it’s just the exhaustion of the last few days creeping in, or the gentle hum of the engine as the car drives along the long, narrow stretch of road, but your eyelids start to droop, your breath evening out as sleep beckons.

And you’re just dancing on the edge of consciousness when a hushed voice breaks through the comfortable silence, dark eyes flickering up to watch your slumbering form in the rearview mirror. “Ya think Kita’ll be pissed?”

There’s a snort, “Nah. He’s always had a soft spot for strays, ‘specially the pretty ones.” He’s quiet for a moment, almost contemplative before he opens his mouth to add, “‘Sides, we’re gonna take real good care of her, ain’t we, Samu?”

The only reply he gives is a soft grunt of acknowledgement.

#yandere haikyuu #yandere oikawa x reader #yandere atsumu x reader #yandere osamu x reader #yandere iwaizumi x reader #yandere matsukawa x reader #yandere hanamaki x reader #tw blood #tw gore #angst #toxic relationships #i honestly do not know how to tag this #at this point it's practically sfw #if you ignore all the blood and injuries and zombie stuff

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creativeashproductions · 4 years ago

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A Discovery of Ghosts // Luke Patterson

Summary: Avoiding the house, the eldest Molina sibling has been unaware of the new chapter in Julie’s life until one fateful night.

Warning: Swearing, angst, fluff and overprotective!reader

Words: 2.1k

Oh look! Another JATP fic. Weird how it appeared? Enjoy! I may have a part two for Lost Time. If you want it, let me know!

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The dirty bag dropped on the ground as you cracked your neck heading straight for the kitchen, for the last year you would find Julie in there. Before the loss of your mother Julie spent all her time in the studio whether it be doing homework or playing the piano. Now, with the grief still striking hot within the Molina family even a year later.

“Jules?” You called out pouring a large glass of water. Dropping the empty water bottle in the sink.

In all honesty you hadn’t been home longer than to grab a bite and sleep before heading straight back to the field. It was a way of keeping away from the sadness permeating the house and the absence of your mom. Along with avoiding the awkward conversations of selling the house when it was really only Julie that okay with it.

“Dad?” You called next grabbing the sticky note off the fridge

Girls,

Carlos had a last-minute practice. Money left in the jar for supper.

- Dad

You hummed heading for the stairs to take a shower taking a guess that Julie was either in her room or at Flynn’s place. Bag in hand along with the softball bat you started up the stairs leading to your room. The faint conversation from her room was odd to say the least, the door was closed, and it sounded like more than one person.

The door opened easily under your hand scaring Julie who was sitting on her bed with a disgruntled expression. Her look of terror and nerves was the most concerning. Dropping the bag, you gripped the softball bat tight as you pushed the door open the rest of the way.

“Jules?” You spoke scanning the room, “Why do you have three boys in your room?”

The room went stock still, each boy scanning your form and the bat in hand. Standing in uniform coated in red soil from the infield you were on the more intimidating side.

“You can see them?”

“Jules, are you okay?” You questioned ignoring her odd question with a look of concern, the bat dropped low.

The last year had been extremely more difficult on Julie than Carlos and you given that Julie was closer with Mom with music. Carlos and you hadn’t inherited the gift that Julie had been born with; yet she hadn’t found interest in sports.

“She looks like she could break us?”

You sent a confused look at the trio giving your attention back to your little sister, “I’m sorry I haven’t been around lately, but you shouldn’t be acting out like this.” Julie’s jaw dropped at your words, “I’m not acting out! Dad can’t see-“

“He can’t see this because it shouldn’t be happening Julie.” You sternly told the younger Molina, “Just let me shower and we’ll hang out. You can pick the movie and the snacks, but they have to go. If you want, we can even dig out the projector.”

You pointedly looked at the three boys before turning your heel to head out of her room to yours down the hall. The door was closed tight as it always was, it was your space so when the door was shut no one went in. Trust was important in your family and with Julie uncharacteristically sneaking boys in that could mean all trust on closed doors would break.

“They’re ghosts.” Julie called out from her open door. The concern for the girl growing at her words, “I know that sounds bad and makes it seem like I need to see Dr. Turner but I’m not lying.”

You sighed at the girl completely in disbelief at the length she would go to lie, “Maybe you should see Dr. Turner Jules. Seeing the doctor doesn’t make you weak.”

Julie was silent as you began to open your door before the blonde boy literally appeared out of thin air in front of you.

“Oh my god!” You screamed stumbling back from the tall male, “Oh God. Scratch that! WE both need Dr. Turner.”

Two more bursts of light happened as the other two boys appeared in front of you with sheepish expressions. You took in a deep breath finally taking into consideration of Julie’s admittance.

“I-“ You choked out, “Does this mean Benny was a ghost?”

Julie blushed at the mention of her childhood imaginary friend that she had had for a number of years. It was also a time that Tía Victoria was not welcome in your home when she went behind your parents to schedule an appointment with Dr. Turner.

“Benny? No, I’m Reggie.” The boy with slicked back black hair spoke shaking his head, “This is Alex and Luke.”

You mutely nodded clenching your fists together, “Good thing you’re a ghost or I would have punched you.”

Luke’s eyes widened at the threat, “Whoa.”

“Now move. I just got home from practice, I’m sweaty and dirty.” You announced side stepping the ghostly trio. You grimaced at the blush appearing on Reggie and Luke, “Dead but still think inappropriately.”

“We’re teenage ghosts.” Alex announced glancing at his best friends. His hands shoved deep in his pockets as you took in his words.

You glanced over your shoulder at your little sister, “Just stay out of Julie’s room. And don’t look under Carlos’ bed.”

With that you opened the bedroom door and slammed in in their dead faces. The room had drastically changed from the previous year mainly the pale pink was painted over by a new colour. It was no longer the little girl’s room your mother had decorated while preparing for your birth. It was a young woman’s room decorated to fit your personality.

Located on a wall was the rack of softball bats with a number of softballs settled in divots on the connected shelf. Your room also had the only other connected bathroom, being the oldest sibling had benefits.

“Ghosts.” You muttered jumping when a thud happened. Turning your heel, you saw that Alex had opened the door and tossed your ball bag in.

“You left this. Sorry for interrupting.” Alex apologized as he left the room again.

“Boundaries!” You called out heading into your bathroom. Alex smiled at how similar he thought you and Julie were to each other.

Half of you had anticipated Julie getting the living room ready instead of using the projector in the garage; it was a part of growing up. The first time you can remember seeing the projector was when you first got your period and it became a thing with your mom. For the length of time for you period you had movie nights in the garage and when Julie got her first period it came a ritual. It helped that as sisters your periods synched together.

“Julie.” You breathed finding that she had surprised you. She had waited in the living room for you, “You didn’t.”

Shyly the younger Molina girl nodded her head and led you to the studio outside where it decorated as if the past year hadn’t happened. The projected was brought out along with countless snacks, fuzzy blankets and soda. It was also barren of anyone else.

“I’m guessing from the amount of time you’re in here that the ghosts live here?” You deduced at the musical instruments placed in an area they wouldn’t get in the way.

“Yeah.” Julie nodded, “I’m not sure where they are.”

“Righ-“

“Reggie!” Alex hissed from the loft with an apologetic expression, “We’re finding something to do while you use the studio. We’re be gone in a moment.”

Reggie and Luke nodded in response while digging through the things that had collected up there since 1995. Your smile turned into a frown at the discontentment they each displayed.

“Jules. Do they have anywhere else to go?” You whispered feeling sad when Julie indicated that this was their only place, “Why don’t we change this?”

“Change what?”

“I know that this feels odd without Mom but maybe we can make this better. Alex, would you guys like to stay?”

The question was barely spoke before the three ghosts flashed down to the ground floor with beaming grins. Each boy nodded happily eyeing up places to sit, Luke having fallen on the couch beside you. Julie shuffled making more room on the couch draping a blanket over her lap.

“So, Julie…comedy, horror, or romance?” You questioned raising one eyebrow up waiting for the reply, “Or we can subject the boys to Twilight. Then again Alex might enjoy Mean Girls.”

After reading the short description of the film Mean Girls was vetoed out along with Horror but the issue came with the move genre. Luke wanted a film with music while Reggie was asking for romance and Alex was just wanting to watch something.

“Pitch Perfect.” Julie and you spoke together nodding frantically, it had a moderately nice balance between music and romance.

“Pitch Perfect.” Alex stated unamused at the title, “How is that romance?”

“You’ll find out.” You smirked at the male dead teenager who would more than likely adore watching films to catch up on everything he missed during his twenty-five years in a dark room.

Every once in a while, Luke would gaze longingly at the food gathered around the only two living people. It was sad given the love he had had with food when he was still alive, he would anything in sight to be honest.

“Oh my god! The Breakfast Club! That came out ten years ago! It’s popular now?” Reggie exclaimed twisting to look to Julie.

“Gentle reminder. It came out thirty-five years ago. It’s a classic John Hughes! Of course, it’s popular.” You chuckled shaking your head by leaning back. You felt the caress of Luke’s gaze on your cheek but when you glanced over, he was staring hard at the screen.

“You good?”

“Yeah.” Luke nodded with a smile painted on his lips getting further into the comedy he found somewhat interesting. It was the song choices that got to him.

The music from your Spotify playlist muted the outside world as you focused on the computer screen open to a document. Eyes shifting between the paper of notes on your desk to the half-written History essay due in a few days. The last week had been mostly adapting to being one of two people able to see the band.

“Y/N.” Luke spoke from the doorway he had poofed into. A frown pulling the corner of his lips down at the lack of attention. In an action of desperation he chucked a pencil on your back; you flinched turning to see him in your room.

“Luke?” You asked removing an earbud from your ear. The joys of 2020 came with Bluetooth earbuds.

“Oh. You were listening to music.” Luke nodded moving to grab the earbud from the desk curiously, “Where are the wires? So small! How do they work?”

Launching into a short history on the change of music technology Luke was enthralled by the passion you carried. What he didn’t know was you were researching the changes between 1995 and 2020 for his benefit. Going as far as to compile a playlist for all three boys to introduce them to modern music.

“This is insane.” Luke mumbled handing the earbud back, “Cell phones are what get me!”

“Hey, doesn’t matter if your seventeen or forty-something…you still don’t understand it.” You smirked flinching when Luke tossed a decorative pillow at you with practiced ease. The squeal fell from your lips as it happened.

“If I was forty-something this would be very wrong.” Luke cheekily retorted tapping a finger on his knee thinking back on everything that happened, “Had everything gone to plan you would have known me only by music.”

“I’m sorry you died but I’m really happy we met.” The nerves evident in your tone, something that you didn’t often show. Softball was important and possibly the only ticket to college if everything went right.

“Me too.” Luke smile at the girl across him eyes so soft he could see what Alex and Reggie were trying to tell him.

Luke had a crush. Luke had feelings for a girl living and unable to feel his touch.

“Hey! I made a playlist for you guys. Let me know when you want to hear them, and I’ll get it playing for you. I have to get back to my essay. Feel free to stay.”

Luke graciously took the earbud from your hand leaning back on the bed as you played the rock he had unfortunately missed out on. Both unaware that his fingers had grazed your hand during the handoff. Luke has a crush and he can touch her too.

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imagine-darksiders · 4 years ago

Text

Old-Timer

Chapter 2 - A new friend

It must be testament to how vulnerable you're feeling that your first instinct is to try and scramble backwards and away from the maker as he carefully lowers himself down onto one knee, his eyes drinking in each little movement you make, as though he's convinced that if he glances away, you might disappear into thin air.

“Well now,” he muses, watching you back yourself up into the base of a gnarled tree trunk, “What manner of wee beastie are you?”

Your body turns as rigid as the wood pressed to your spine when he shuffles closer to get a better look at you, blocking your view of the trees beyond his impressive girth. He must notice the trepidation on your face because he suddenly hesitates, his once eager expression growing soft. Somehow, despite the sense of powerlessness you feel now that you're face to face with a maker who stands at least three heads taller than Thane, you find yourself easily disarmed by the dashing smile he throws at you, and when he speaks, his voice is as low and gentle as the rumble of a faraway thunderclap.

“You're a comely sight to see in these old woods,” he utters gently, his knuckles resting on the soft grass near your shoes, “What's a pretty, little thing like you doing in a place like this, ey?”

Thrown, you're almost inclined to protest to his observation. Covered in streaks of mud from where you'd rolled across the ground, leaves and twigs sticking out of your hair, red-eyed and wounded... You feel about as far from 'pretty' as it gets and even open your mouth to say as much, but the maker opens his first, a curious frown tugging at his sleek, golden eyebrows. “Don't reckon I've seen anything like you before...”

One of his enormous hands lifts to his beard and he gives it a few, thoughtful strokes. “Hmm. You're no demon. N'you're too small to be an angel. Well, that, and -” He pauses, gesturing at you vaguely. “- No wings.”

In contrast to the maker's pensive expression, you adopt a look of bafflement. Either he's been living under a rock and doesn't know a human when he sees one, or -

...Oh.

A chill runs down the length of your spine and you swallow thickly as it occurs to you that you might have travelled further back in time than you'd previously thought.

Wetting your lips, you suck down a lungful of the cool, evening air, not missing how the maker's ears instantly perk up in anticipation. “I-I'm a human,” you manage to croak.

All of a sudden, you find yourself jumping out of your skin when the giant bodily recoils and his eyes burst open, wide as saucers. “Maker's beard!” he exclaims, an enraptured grin pushing at the bristles of his moustache, “You speak Common!?”

“Uh...” Falteringly, you place a hand over your racing heart and raise one, cautious eyebrow at him. “I suppose? I mean, i-if that's what we're speaking right now, then... yeah?”

Huffing out a soft chuckle, the maker tips his head to one side and mutters, “Well, blow me down...”

For several moments, he regards you in silence until the corner of his lips begin to quirk into a coy grin. “S'pose that means you understand me when I say you're about the bonniest little creature I've ever laid eyes on?”

Now it's your turn to bark out a quick laugh. “Ha! You're charming,” you tell him honestly, noting that his very broad, very bare chest puffs out at the praise, “But while the flattery is appreciated, I'm afraid I'm a bit... um...”

'Preoccupied' is probably the most appropriate word for it, but in lieu of a better explanation, you reach forwards and brush your fingertips delicately over the cuts in your leg, hissing through your teeth when even that barest of touches elicits a blinding flare of white-hot agony.

You've never seen an expression shift from warm and amused to sober and serious so quickly before.

“He hurt you?” the maker growls dangerously, shelving any intrigue he holds for his enigmatic discovery, at least for the time being. You find it rather touching that he looks so perturbed on your behalf.

'Huh. Makers,' you muse fondly. Even here in the past, it seems that they're a protective bunch.

Bracing your hands on the ground, you try to push yourself up onto your boots, but the wounds make such a feat more painful than you'd expected and you let out a grunt as you thud back down onto your rear, huffing in frustration before you start to try again.

However, you don't manage to get far.

Movement catches your eye and you glance up, surprised to find yourself presented with the maker's titanic hand, held with the palm pointed to the tree tops and his index finger extended out towards you.

Rolling your gaze up the length of his vast, muscular arm, you meet his eyes...

...and very nearly have the breath knocked out of you by the earnest glow radiating from them. Long, golden lashes sweep gracefully up and down as he blinks at you, and softly, almost in a whisper, he asks, “Need a hand?”

You're so taken aback by the hypnotic pull of his blue stare that you can only nod wordlessly and lift an arm, slowly extending your hand towards him until you can rest your palm on the pad of his forefinger.

The moment your skin connects, the maker seems to buckle and he drops his mouth open, letting a shuddering breath roll out from behind his tusks. You realise that he's moved his gaze down and adhered it to the sight of your hand sitting daintily on his fingertip, looking woefully lost amongst the expanse of rough-hewn skin.

For some time, the maker doesn't utter a sound, nor does he move until eventually, you have to clear your throat, and with a jolt, he gives his head a brief shake, roving his eyes up to meet yours once more. “You're... so small,” he says incredulously, as though he's only just noticed.

One of your brows slants upwards and you level him with a cool smirk. “Yes, well... I'd say that you're so big, if I didn't think you were the type of maker who would let it go to his head.”

He appears appropriately startled by the quip and for a second, you have to wonder if you've perhaps stepped over some invisible boundary by falling back on humour as a defensive tactic, but then, the maker's fluffy moustache quirks up around a grin and he says, “Oh, I think I'm startin' to like you, little one.”

For good measure, he makes sure to flash you a wink that has you ducking your head to hide your face. Still sporting that dashing smile, he raises his hand and tugs you carefully onto your feet. Well. Foot. You make the mistake of trying to place weight on your bad leg and it immediately tries to collapse out from underneath you.

“Wheyup! Easy there.” A thumb and forefinger promptly catch you around the midriff and prevent you from falling onto your backside again. The pads of hot, calloused fingers press into your torso with just the barest hint of pressure, as though the maker is afraid that you'll break if he squeezes any harder.

“I'm okay, I'm good,” you try to reassure him, “Just... need to get my balance, is all”

He looks far from convinced and furrows his brow, giving you a skeptical hum as he begins to turn you around.

At first, you try to resist, perhaps due to some long-buried instinct telling you that having your back exposed to a complete stranger is a terrible idea.

You can practically hear the frown in his tone when he murmurs, “Stop squirming, let me see.”

Swallowing past an enormous lump, you force yourself to keep still whilst the maker drops his face closer to inspect your injury.

All is silent for a few minutes, and you're about to go and ask if it looks as bad as it feels when he suddenly blows a long, drawn-out whistle from his lips. “Shouldn'ta let that demon sod off so lightly,” he grumbles to himself, curling his free hand into a fist and then raising his voice to tell you, “Bad news is, you're still bleedin'. It's slow, but we'll need to stop it, soon.”

“Shit,” you mutter, “What's the good news?”

The maker's warm breath hits the base of your neck as he sighs softly. “Good news is, now we match.” He loosens his grip, prompting you to twist yourself around and raise a curious glance at him as he wordlessly lifts a hand and taps his left shoulder, drawing your attention to a trio of long, pale pink scars that start at the front of his clavicle and sweep over the bulging bicep before disappearing somewhere behind it.

“Ouch,” you grimace sympathetically, “How in the world did that happen?”

Eyes dropping shut, he looks about as proud as a peacock, sticking out his chest until it's almost obnoxiously swollen and replies, “Same way as yours did! Stalker got the jump on me 'bout two thousand years ago. He left his mark, but don't you worry – I left plenty of my own.”

“Glad to hear it.”

With a wistful sigh, the maker's chest deflates and his eyes blink open and return to your leg, a scowl immediately darkening his chiseled features. “Course, that was the day I learned never to give 'em the opportunity to get close..” As he speaks, you notice a few wisps of blue magic trailing off his fingertips like smoke, which he promptly flicks away with a grunt.

“Yeah, well. Believe me,” you huff, gesturing to the back of your leg, “If I could use magic too, I wouldn't have let it get close enough to do... this.”

“Wait. You can't use magic?”

You shake your head.

“None at all?” he urges.

“Unless you count that one card trick I know, then... Nuh uh.”

“Well, I'll be darned...” His blue eyes sparkle with boundless curiosity and his jaw falls open, ready to start bombarding you with an array of questions, but at that moment, a gasp gets stuck in your throat and your face is warped by a sudden grimace, despite your valiant efforts to hide it, and just like that, the maker's jaw snaps shut.

Finding out who and what you are will have to wait, it seems. Right now, no matter the depths of his intrigue, the most pressing matter is that there's somebody who needs his help. And Stonefather strike him down if he isn't a maker with a damn sense of gallantry. Pressing his lips together, he studies you for a few more seconds before suddenly giving a decisive nod. “Right. I've wasted enough time yapping. Before anything else, we need to get those wounds seen to. I haven't had much practice with healing spells myself,” he admits reluctantly, “But we have a shaman back in the village who's better at them than most.”

Wait... Your heart does a strange little buzz. Did he just say a shaman?

Could he be talking about Muria? You have to admit, you could really do with seeing her calm, familiar face right about now – even if she won't recall you. And besides, if she's here, then... perhaps Eideard might be too. You hardly dare hope.

The maker must have misconstrued your anxious expression for fear, because his fingers close around you a fraction more tightly, no doubt to discourage you from trying to flee. “Now, don't you start fretting,” he says in a rush, “You'll be sticking close to me, I won't let nothing and nobody hurt you, understand?”

His conviction is inarguable and for added measure, he thumps a fist against his broad chest, a clear demonstration of the promise he intends to keep. You find it easy to believe him. Death would probably scold you for being so trusting, but then... Death isn't exactly here.

And besides, for even the smallest chance at seeing Eideard again, you're willing to take a risk in trusting this herculean maker.

Speaking of whom... He's fixed you with what you assume is meant to be a stern frown, but the severity of the line between his brows is superseded by an underlying desperation that bleeds into his voice and his eyes, as though he really doesn't want you to say no.

“Listen, m'not leavin' you out in these woods, not like this... I don't want to have to force you but... I'll not be takin' no for an answer.”

As if he really thinks you'd rather take your chances out here alone than go with him to Tri Stone.

Gritting your teeth through another, sudden wave of prickling heat that shoots up your leg, you heave a dramatic sigh. “Well, I guess if I really don't have any say in the matter...”

“'Fraid not,” the maker replies, drawing solace from the slight tilt of your lips, so much like the smile of a fellow maker.

With a final shrug, you take a step back and gesture to the west. “All right then. Lead the way, I'll follow on behind you.”

All at once, the maker's brows furrow so heavily that his luminous, blue eyes almost disappear beneath them.

“...What?” you ask after a few seconds of being frowned at. Again.

In response, he scoffs in such a way that you feel you must have personally offended him somehow. “You're not walking,” he declares, his hand reaching for you.

Caught off guard, you stammer, “Oh, I – I really don't mind,” retreating backwards until the titanic appendage inevitably catches up with you and he proceeds to wrap his thick, immovable fingers around your body, lifting you effortlessly off your bad leg and into the air.

Once he's holding you however, he seems to falter, his expression evening out as he peers down to where you're dangling, small and injured between his fingertips. The moment doesn't last long though, for he soon shakes his head and states, “If you think I'm letting you walk all the way back to my village on that duff leg, you've got another thing coming.”

“But I-”

“-Ah! No,” he cuts you off sharply, bringing you up to his eye-level as he cups a palm beneath your legs, lowering you onto it with a gentleness that shines right through the facade of his gruff tone, “You keep standing on that leg and you'll only hurt yourself more.”

Frankly, you're too weary to argue with him, and you can't say you mind that you're no longer standing on a leg that feels as if it could buckle out from underneath you at any second. Perhaps you should just be grateful that you're being spared a painful walk. Embarrassed to be so helpless, yet resigned to the fact, you expel a defeated huff and allow him to settle you down into his cupped hand, sliding the other one underneath it to keep you steady in a manner that reminds you of how you might carry a butterfly, mindful that every twitch of your fingers might cause it to get scared and fly away. He remains like for some time, hunched over himself with you caught in the hollow created by his palms and the breeze playing through his golden tresses. It suddenly becomes very difficult to keep your eyes from wandering down to his pronounced collar bones, so it comes as somewhat of a relief when he finally gets to his feet.

With slow, measured steps, he strides through the copse of trees and on towards the trail leading through Baneswood, but rather than lift you up onto his shoulder as you expect him to, he instead lowers you to press you flush against his bare chest.

The breath leaves your lungs in a tiny wheeze.

A veritable blanket of soft, silken chest hair instantly begins to tickle at the your face and you become painfully aware that directly in front of you is a half-naked giant, adorned in nothing but a pair of leather trousers and steel-capped boots, a fact that makes it very difficult for you to concentrate on the question he abruptly poses to you.

“So, what species did you say you were?”

You wonder if he has any idea that you can hear and feel every beat of his powerful heart as it thumps away just above your head. “Huh? What? Oh, uh, I – I'm a human,” you fumble, easing yourself backwards so that a tuft of his chest hair stops fluttering across your bottom lip.

“A... a hoo – man?” he echoes uncertainly, oblivious to the warmth blossoming across your cheeks, “Never heard of 'em.”

That, at least, is enough to distract you from the strangely intimate situation. “Huh? Wait, really?” With a grunt, you manage to stretch your injured leg out across his palm and peer up at the underside of his beard. “You've never heard of humans? Humanity? Er, homo-sapiens?”

The maker simply shakes his head once and replies, “Nope.”

Slowly, you draw in a faltering breath and venture one step further. “...Not even E-Earth?”

The anticipation of seeing him lift his eyes to the treetops in contemplation is unbearable.

Mouth hanging open enough for you to get a glimpse of his tusks, he utters a pensive, “Uuuuh,” and then lowers his gaze once again, lips pressed together into a grim line, “Sorry, haven't the foggiest.”

“I... oh...” You fall silent, peering down at your hands. “Okay.” So... Once again, you may well be the only human in existence.... You aren't sure why that fact turns the hole in your stomach into a bottomless pit - it isn't as though this would be the first time you've existed in a universe without humanity in it, after all.

You're too busy staring blankly at the gold-draped chest in front of you to notice that the maker's mouth is flapping open and closed repeatedly as he tries to find a word that won't cause the frown on your face to turn any deeper. Clearly, he must have said the wrong thing, and now the pretty stranger sitting in his palm is... sad? He guesses you're sad, or something of the like, provided your expressions and emotions match up in the same way that his fellow makers' do. Perhaps he's somehow offended you by claiming to have never heard of your species. 'Fix this,' a small voice at the back of his mind insists whilst he stares down at the crestfallen hunch of your shoulders.

“That being said, I, err...” He tries, glancing to the side when you look up at him expectantly, finding that he's incapable of meeting your gaze whilst you're looking so despondent. “Could just be I've never heard of you. I'm not... precisely what you'd call a worldly maker. Hardly been far out of Tri-Stone, 'cept on a few occasions. And, heh, well. I think I'd remember meeting someone who looked like you.”

“Ha.” Though you offer him a polite smile, your mind only half on the maker's soothing timbre. The other half is busy puzzling over how in the world you're ever going to get back to your own time. Even if you didn't have your fellow humans, you at least had Death and the friends you've made on your journey across the universe. At least there, you were closer to home. Here, separated by countless eons, you can't help but feel more lost than you've ever felt before.

Meanwhile, the maker watches your chest rise and fall with a deep sigh.

Damn. Still a frown. No matter, he can be nothing if not persistent. Not many have been able to resist his charm, and there's still a way to go before he reaches the edge of the Stonefather's Vale. He keeps trying. “You know what? I'm betting our elder will have heard of you.”

“Elder?” Like a flipped switch, you bolt upright in his palm, ignoring the spear of agony that tears at your wounds because you dared to move too quickly.

The maker raises an eyebrow at your sudden exclamation, perplexed by the jarring and unexpected shift in your demeanour. “Uh... Aye?”

Noting his bewildered expression, you make a conscious effort to reel yourself back, but deep down inside, your heart is jumping apprehensively. So far, he's mentioned a shaman and now an elder, and there's only one elder maker you know of.

“Eideard,” you breathe, too softly for him to catch.

Tilting his head to the side, he twitches his ears forwards and asks, “What was that?”

You very nearly open your mouth to say your old friend's name a little louder, but something gives you pause and you slowly let your jaw click shut once again, uncertainty creeping in to settle over your brain. How prudent would it really be to let on that you've technically already met this elder and shaman? Do the rules of time travel apply outside of science fiction novels and theoretical physics? How will the knowledge that you're from a different era affect the flow of time? How will it alter the universe, if it does so at all? What if you change something now that has a drastic effect on the future?

Just trying to make sense of it all is starting to give you a headache, so you decide upon the option that won't raise too many questions that you, quite frankly, don't have the energy to answer right now.

Besides, better to be safe than sorry. Offering the maker a casual shrug, you finally say, “Nothing.”

----------------------------

Night has almost entirely fallen by the time you emerge from the gorge that leads from Baneswood into the Stonefather's Vale. It's just dark enough now that you've begun to see tiny pinpricks of stars sweeping across the vast horizon and as your gaze rolls over the valley, you suddenly come to a pause when it lands upon a hill to the north, just poking out above the cliffs that form a hem around the vale. At first, you're puzzled, tilting your head and squinting through the dim light. 'Where is Stonefather's Peak?'

The towering mountain that once cast its shadow across the entire village is... gone? But how? You could have sworn it used to be standing right where that hill is.

“Oh. My. God,” you whisper, letting your mouth drop open as the realisation hits you.

'That hill is Stonefather's Peak!'

“You must be a long way from... wherever home is, eh?”

Tearing your gaze off the distant, juvenile mountain range, you card a hand through your hair and chuckle dryly, “Oh, buddy. You have no idea.”

“Buddy?” he echoes, tipping his head sideways so that his hair falls smoothly over one, bulbous shoulder.

“Buddy? Oh, it means, uh, like a pal, or a friend.”

“Friend?” he asks hopefully as a small smile begins to emerge from underneath his moustache.

Exhaling in amusement, you wave your hand dismissively and sigh, “Yeah, sure. Why not?”

The maker raises his chin high into the air, sporting a proud grin and picking up his gait.

#darksiders #old timer #reader x maker #ha uh oh #Eideard #fluff #whump #oh boy

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write-r-die · 4 years ago

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Prisoner - Part 13

February, 1067

Henry Cavill is a respected Norman baron who has been tasked with finding Lady Thomasin, an ill-tempered Saxon noblewoman, and returning her to London so the king can marry her off to a cruel Norman invader. The two grow close during the long journey, and Henry puts his own life in danger (more than once) to protect the woman he loves.

Masterlist

Thomasin was horribly ill in the morning due to the combination of her courses, sleeplessness, and anxiety. Etheldreda summoned Elaine without needing to be asked.

“Are you often like this in the early days of your time?” Etheldreda asked when she was sure Thomasin was, for the moment, finished vomiting in a bucket.

“Not often, thank God,” Thomasin croaked.

There was a knock at the door. A moment later, a very small Elaine came rushing in.

“Mercia is with me,” Elaine said, following after her miniature. “I hope you don’t mind.”

The little girl looked very much like her mother. Her curly blonde hair was light but still a shade or two darker than Elaine’s straight, pale tresses.

Thomasin did mind but she wasn’t in a place to object.

Elaine removed her satchel and unpacked its contents: around a dozen small jars filled with herbs and flowers. She set a small cauldron of water over the hearth to heat while she muddled peppermint, ginger, and herbs Thomasin did not recognize into a goblet.

The child parked herself beside Thomasin’s bed. “This my doll,” the child said proudly. “Her name Batty.”

“She’s very pretty,” Thomasin said. “Did your mother make her for you?”

“No. It’s present.”

“A gesture of good will from the queen,” Elaine said from the hearth. “It used to belong to one of her daughters.”

“I make her dress. See?” She shoved the poppet straight into Thomasin’s face so she could get a good look at its wrapping.

“Very pretty,” Thomasin said, carefully pushing it away. It had an odd smell to it. Lavender, Thomasin thought, and perhaps milfoil.

Elaine finished ladling hot water into the goblet of herbs and brought it to Thomasin. “You must wait a little before drinking this.”

“How long?”

“Until the water turns brown.”

Thomasin frowned. “Lovely.”

“You sick?” The child climbed onto the bed beside Thomasin. Thank God Etheldreda had already changed the bedding.

“A little.”

Mercia leaned forward like she was sharing a secret. “Is it lady sickness?”

“Mercia,” Elaine called. “Stop bothering Lady Thomasin. She has to drink her potion and prepare for the day.” She gestured at Thomasin to start drinking.

The hot, murky water smelled and tasted considerably better than Thomasin had anticipated, but she would never admit that. She made a face as she drained the cup.

Mercia took the liberty of scooching closer to Thomasin and crossed her little legs. “You got castle?” Mercia asked.

Thomasin looked to Elaine, silently willing the woman to shut her daughter up, but she was back to meddling with her herbs by the fire. “Not anymore.”

“I not have castle,” Mercia said comfortingly. “You have horses?”

“My family had some, yes.” She was without a horse of her own since her mare’s death the year before.

“Not anymore?”

“Not anymore,” Thomasin confirmed.

“I not have horse. You got –”

“Etheldreda, I think perhaps I might bathe. Could you send for a tub? The hot water unknots my muscles.” Thomasin was planning a veritable monologue – as long as she was talking, the child was not – but Mercia had already lost interest in Thomasin.

She crouched beside her mother by the fireplace and plucked dried leaves and flowers from Elaine’s many jars which she then ate.

“A note, milady,” Etheldreda said. She handed the paper over to Thomasin. Thomasin tore it open, expecting something from Henry. It was not. “Are you still ill, Lady Thomasin?” Etheldreda asked.

“It’s from Lawrence,” Thomasin said. All three women fell silent; Mercia tugged at her mother’s hand in a soundless demand for protection and an explanation. “Perhaps I am still unwell.” Thomasin settled back into the pillows.

“What does it say?” Elaine asked.

“He would like to walk with me in the gardens.”

“In Heaven’s name, why?” asked Etheldreda.

“I’m supposed to marry him.”

Mercia wasn’t totally sure what was happening, but the toddler knew how to distract everyone from their problems. Something she heard from Henry and Simon when she caught them by surprise once.

“Goddamn it!”

Thomasin shouldn’t be surprised that Lawrence expected to spend time with her, since they were, after all, engaged.

She supposed she should be pleased in some way. Or that she would be pleased if she were really going to marry him. He was handsome – or would be, if he weren’t directly compared to Henry. He was long-limbed and slim, a combination which made him look foxlike and sly. He was about Henry’s age, which put him somewhere in his early thirties, at least ten years older than Thomasin if not more.

It was a small age gap by most standards; most women wed by sixteen to men at least twice their age, often far more. Justina’s husband was nineteen or twenty years her senior.

As for Lawrence’s personality . . .

Thomasin originally imagined Lawrence to be the sort of man who took joy in chaos and death. Instead, he was reportedly the sort not to find joy in anything at all. According to Elaine, he wasn’t the angry type either. Indeed, he seemed rather disinterested in general.

The snow had started to melt, so Lawrence suggested a walk through the garden. They had no chaperone, but there were at least a dozen others walking along the paths. Etheldreda had altered Thomasin’s borrowed clothes so thankfully she didn’t get mud on the hem of her skirts.

The conversation was bland, to say the least, until Thomasin grew tired of being polite.

“I’ve heard the stories about you,” Thomasin finally said. “How you killed that baron’s wife and daughters. How you let your men rape the servants.”

Lawrence took a deep breath and shut his eyes, summoning his every ounce of patience. “My lady, that is what soldiers do in war. The reason most of these men came from Normandy in the first place was to enjoy the spoils of war. More often than not, those spoils are women.” He took another deep breath and went on walking. “I tell you truthfully, I’ve never had a girl against her will. That’s more than I can say for most of these other barons.”

“Indeed,” Thomasin said again.

“Does it surprise you to hear that most of the men here at court have raped defeated women?”

“No.” Thomasin wasn’t a fool, but she didn’t like thinking about that sort of thing. “But not all of them. Henry and his brothers haven’t. Roger hasn’t.”

Lawrence snorted. “Roger’s perversion sways him from women to men, and the Cavills are an anomaly.”

Thomasin had no idea what the first part meant but she agreed with the second.

“Henry cares for you deeply,” he said after a moment, tone perfectly conversational. “Tis a pity, that. His family are the most honorable men in Normandy if not the world, but I fear he’s a fool.”

“Why are we speaking of Henry?”

Lawrence stopped walking and raised an eyebrow at her. “Don’t insult my intelligence.”

Thomasin straightened up. “All right. What’s your point, then?”

“I’m sure the two of you will cook up some plot to overthrow me so that Henry can take my place as your intended. Frankly, I’d be disappointed if you didn’t.”

Thomasin made a face which she couldn’t hide. “Then why not just release me and let me marry him?” Her words dripped with judgment at his stupidity

“The king gave you to me, not him. He would be insulted if I gave you up for no reason. Besides, you are the sort that I want.”

“The sort,” she repeated.

“You are beautiful, self-possessed, intelligent, strong. And you speak your mind, which i think saves a great deal of time.” He shrugged. “It’s a sound match.”

Had he just complimented her? The words were kind but his tone was so detached it felt more like an insult.

Thomasin had the thought that maybe she should hold her tongue. Maybe she shouldn’t say what she wanted to. But she did “How sound was your last match?”

His ears went so red that Thomasin thought they might burst.

“There you are!” Elaine said, feigning relief. She conveniently appeared from a bend in the garden path. “I was looking for you.” She folded Thomasin’s arm into her own. “We must get you back to bed or I fear your promenade will be spoiled with sick. Do you mind terribly, Baron, if I take Lady Thomasin back to her chambers for some much-needed rest?”

“By all means,” he said - in a similarly sarcastic tone to the one Thomasin often used. “I’m due to visit your Saxon brethren in their dungeon anyway. I’ll be sure to give them your best.” He smiled and bowed. “Ladies.”

The women curtseyed and muttered farewells.

“Did you hear him?” Thomasin hissed when he was out of earshot. “He mentioned the Saxons.”

“I heard him,” Elaine said tersely.

“Shouldn’t they have been executed by now?” asked Thomasin.

“One of the men told me that William is reluctant. They’re fine warriors, supposedly. The king would rather have their loyalty than their heads.”

Thomasin sighed. “Little chance of that.”

Henry was among the best warriors under William’s command. He was without a doubt a finer warrior than Lawrence, but he was still vulnerable because he adhered to a code of honor that Lawrence did not. Lawrence’s ruthlessness and detachment made him highly effective, though, and Henry would not make the mistake of underestimating him.

There was a large stone courtyard between the castle itself and the wall William was building around it to make it into another bailey. Henry joined Roger, Charlie, and most of their men to train. Knights were expected to keep their skills sharp and were therefore expected to practice their skills, so it wasn’t strange for him to be there. No one suspected he was training for a duel, or if they did, they were quiet about it.

Henry was barely out of the castle before a little voice called his name,

“Henry!”

He turned around just in time to see Mercia, Elaine’s daughter, crash into his solid legs. He barely had time to maneuver so that she wouldn’t run smack into his scabbard.

“Ah, Mercia!” he said brightly, hoisting the girl into his arms. “You must be careful running. You could’ve gone straight into my sword and be chopped in half!”

“I careful,” she said. “I not cut in half. See?” She opened her arms as if to show him she was whole.

“And what about Batty?” Henry asked, nodding to the doll in her hand. “Is she as careful as you are?”

“Batty not a person, Henry. She not need be careful.”

“Ah, of course! That’s why she won’t talk to me!”

In fact, Batty didn’t interact with Henry because of an unfortunate incident in which Kal thought the poppet belonged to him and nearly tore it to shreds. Mercia had yet to forgive the dog. Her mother repaired the doll as best as she could, though it still bore the marks of its ordeal. Elaine was clever enough to replace some of the lost stuffing with the same herbs she used to treat people with similar wounds. It was Simon’s idea to add lavender to it to help the child relax.

“Where Simon?” Mercia asked.

Simon was Mercia’s dearest companion and she was his. He often referred to the girl as his own small angel, and sometimes asked her where her wings had gone.

Henry would’ve gladly been her playmate, ready for a footrace or a game at a moment’s notice, if his older brother had not asserted himself in that role. Simon’s special relationship with her daughter kindled Elaine’s affections for him until they mirrored his own admiration and tenderness for the healer.

Simon, like Henry, longed for the joy and companionship of a wife and family, though his desire was even greater than his brother’s.

Charlie, too, wanted a family of his own, but he would not admit such a thing aloud. He could be prickly and cold to those he disliked while charming, funny, and kind to those he did. He often made up his mind about people quite quickly, and once his opinion was formed it was difficult to change. Such was the case with Thomasin.

“Simon is still in the north, at the castle I told you about,” Henry said to the little girl. “I know he would rather be here playing with you.”

“He coming back?”

“Soon.”

She frowned. “I miss him. He my friend.”

“Am I not your friend, too?” Henry said with false sadness.

“Yeah, you my friend but you not best friend like Simon.”

Henry sighed theatrically. “I suppose I understand.” He looked around but there was no sign of Elaine, only a handful of serving women pinning wet clothes on a line. “Where’s your mother?”

“She with Lady Thomasin.”

Henry broke into a smile at the sound of her name. He always did. “You’ve met Tom?”

The child frowned again. “Who Tom?”

“It’s a name I call Thomasin.”

“Tom is name for boys. Thomasin not a boy,” she explained patiently.

“Of course, of course. Please forgive me.”

“I forgive,” she said, patting his shoulder.

Henry chuckled. “Is your mother friends with Tom? Thomasin,” he corrected.

“Yeah but they not play today. Thomasin not feel good.”

“What’s wrong with her?”

Mercia motioned for Henry to bring his ear closer so she could whisper to him. “Lady sickness.” She pulled away. “Mama say not to talk about it cause it a secret. Cannot tell!”

“I won’t tell anyone,” Henry promised. He was quietly relieved to hear it was nothing serious, but he frowned over it. Was she really sick, he wondered, or had her engagement to Lawrence prompted her to withdraw from court life?

“Thomasin pretty,” Mercia said.

“Very pretty,” Henry agreed.

“I like her hair.” The little girl started wiggling, a silent signal for Henry to set her down. “She sad though cause she gotta marry Lawrence. Lawrence really scary. And it a bad thing so I say, ‘Goddamn it!’” She shouted the curse; a female servant nearby looked shocked and horrified at the sound.

“Shh!” Henry said, putting his finger to his lips. “Who said that in front of you? Where did you hear it?”

“You say it. When Kal sneaked up on you and barked. You jump and you say, ‘Goddamn it!’”

“Shh!” Henry said again. “You mustn’t say that.”

“Cause why?”

Henry didn’t have a good reason handy. “Ask Simon when he gets back.”

“Why you not tell me?” she asked, sticking out her lower lip in a pout.

“Because I’m not your best friend.”

Henry went for two rounds with Roger, winning both. He then sparred with his squire, since it was his responsibility to train the boy, but he lacked the patience for it today. “Practice your footwork before next time, Jamie. It’s too easy to knock you on your arse.”

“We have an audience,” Roger murmured, nodding to a small, barred window at the base of the castle that looked in on the dungeon. A red-bearded face was just visible through the iron grate. One of the Saxon prisoners, no doubt.

“Can I be of service, sir?” Roger called out. He was courteous by nature, but he became excessively so when speaking to a handsome man – even if that man was in chains.

“Are you preparing for a fight?” the man asked.

Henry opened his mouth to tell the Saxon that it was none of his business, but Roger answered instead. “Aye.”

“What are you fighting over?”

“What do you care?” Henry said. The Saxon shrugged. “A woman,” Henry finally said.

The Saxon didn’t approve. “One woman is just as good as another. It is no great tragedy to lose one to another man. Certainly not worth dying over.”

Henry though the Saxon must not have known many women in his life if he thought they were all interchangeable. But fair number of men, Saxon and Norman alike, shared his sentiment: So long as she ran the household and gave birth to sons, a woman was a woman, and her personality was of little consequence.

“I disagree,” said Henry.

“Then she must be the kindest, most loving woman in all of Christendom if you’re willing to die for her,” the Saxon remarked.

Roger smirked. He spoke low enough that only Henry could hear when he said, “She most certainly is not.” Henry shot him a look which he pretended not to say. “What’s your name, Saxon?”

The Saxon sucked his teeth and narrowed his eyes in thought but did not reply.

“I’m Baron Roger,” Roger said. “This is Henry, my brother-by-law. And you are?” he prompted when the Saxon didn’t respond.

The Saxon replied, “Cerdic.”

One of the squires came around with a note from Henry when Thomasin was readying for dinner. It told Thomasin to come to the servant’s corridor at once. She hurried to finish preparing and went straight to the meeting spot.

“Henry?” she whispered, tiptoeing through the silent hall.

“No.”

Thomasin’s hand flew to her chest in surprise; her fist closed around Henry’s ring. “Charlie,” she gasped. She took a deep breath. “You nearly frightened the life out of me.”

Charlie did not look even the least bit contrite. In fact, he looked murderous. “You can’t let Henry get himself killed for you.”

Straight into arguing, then, Thomasin thought. A gentleman of Charlie’s pedigree ought to feign civility before starting trouble, at least in the beginning of the conversation.

“Do you think I want that? That I’m happy to have Henry risk his life?” Thomasin snapped. “Do you think I haven’t tried to reason with him?”

“You must try harder.”

“I must do nothing of the sort.” Thomasin agreed with his sentiment, but the way he spoke to her made her see red. “You try to reason with him! You’re his brother.”

“I have tried,” he growled, each word as sharp as a razor. “He’s determined to kill himself for you.”

Thomasin was ready to murder Charlie. It was a long time coming. “It’s not my fault that Henry fell in love with me,” she snapped. And that was true, wasn’t it? She hadn’t encouraged his affection, at least not at first. Had she? “I can’t control what he does. Go on hating me if you like, but it won’t change anything for anyone.”

“There’s another way.” Charlie swallowed his discomfort. “If you invite him to share your–”

Thomasin shook her head. “I’ve tried that,” she said, blushing all the way to her hairline. “He won’t. He’s too damn honorable for it.”

“Well you don’t need him to now if it’s already been done,” said Charlie.

“I don’t follow.”

Charlie fought the urge to roll his eyes. “I know about that night at the pond, just before you were injured.”

She shouldn’t be surprised to hear that he knew; they hadn’t exactly been subtle. But Charlie assumed too much.

Thomasin took a deep breath and ignored the feeling of blood rushing into her cheeks. “Henry and I didn’t . . .”

Charlie shut his eyes and tried to be delicate. “Madam, you were unclothed –”

“He didn’t bed me,” Thomasin said strongly. A moment later, she added, “Not quite.”

“It doesn’t matter. Just tell the king you are not virtuous; you’ll be released from your betrothal without getting my brother slaughtered.”

Thomasin exhaled through her nose. “I’ve considered this course of action,” she confessed. “But it seems unwise to lie to the king, especially for a Saxon. Besides, Lawrence might demand proof. They’ll know I’m lying if they examine me.”

Charlie believed his brother was too fine a man to take advantage of Thomasin, but he was a bit surprised that she was a virgin – or claimed to be, at least. She didn’t possess many virtues that he was aware of, and he hadn’t expected chastity to be one of them.

“It won’t come to that. Some of the men will attest to what they saw that night in the camp.”

Some of the men? Good Lord, how many of them had seen her and Henry together? The fact that any man had seen them meant the whole group knew what happened; gossip spread through camps like wildfire through a dry forest.

Good. Wonderful. Now she was a shrew and a whore.

Charlie was calmer now but his gaze stayed sharp. “My brother loves you. He says it and shows it all the time.”

Thomasin’s throat tightened. “I know.” There was never a doubt in her mind about it. She had the love of a good man. Not many women could say that.

“Yet I’ve never heard you say you love him. I’ve never seen you show it,” he continued. “I won’t let him die for a woman who doesn’t love him back.”

He was right.

She didn’t love him. She couldn’t.

It would betray the promise she made the night her father died never to forgive the invaders that stole her life away. That promise and the anger and pain beneath it were all Thomasin had left of her old self. She doubted she’d ever see any of her siblings again, or her home. That promise was her quiet rebellion against a change she could not fight.

She was allowed to feel tenderness for him, even affection, but she could not love him.

“You don’t know a damned thing about what I feel,” she snarled. She could hardly contain her fury; her whole body shook with the urge to lash out at Charlie and the difficulty of controlling it.

“Perhaps I don’t,” Charlie said. “But don’t allow a good man get killed for nothing.”

Thomasin’s throat was suddenly dry and tight and sore. “I won’t.”

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justthehiddleswrites · 4 years ago

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Late to the Party | Tom Hiddleston x Reader

Pairing: Tom Hiddleston x Reader

Summary: Reader is running late for Tom's big event and Tom is mad about it. He will make sure the reader is punished for her behavior before the night is through.

Warnings: Smut, Spanking, dom!Tom, Vaginal Sex, Aftercare, Possessive Tom, Light BDSM, Punishment

“Shit!” you hissed under your breath as you slammed the door behind you. You rushed to the bathroom, throwing your clothes off. You would clean up later. You were late. Very late. The kind of late the White Rabbit from Alice in Wonderland spoke about.

Two months into your relationship with Tom, and this was the first big event together. Tom imparted upon you not to be late. And now you were due at his house in ten minutes and you were just stepping into the shower. “Fuck!” you snapped as you stepped out of the car and saw Tom standing at his door waiting for you thirty minutes later.

Tom looked at his watch, exchanging scowls between you and the time. He placed a terse kiss on your cheek as he grabbed your elbow with a sharp yank.

“Ow.” you exclaimed as he led you to the car. Tom pushed into the seat and slammed the door shut before walking to take his place at the steering wheel.

He started the car and took off in complete silence. You waited until Tom got well into the drive before clearing your throat and looking over at Tom. His hands gripped the wheel so tight his knuckles turned pale.

“Thirty minutes.” he said in a cool even tone.

“I can…” you stuttered. His cold tone unrecognizable to you. Tom showed only affection before.

“Thirty minutes!” Tom shouted, his face turning red. “How can you possibly explain thirty minutes?!”

You stared at the floor for a moment. “I lost track of time when I met with a friend. I didn’t mean to be late.”

“You LOST TRACK!” he bellowed as his nostrils flared. “You knew how important today is for me and how important being on time and there is nothing you can say to make that right.”

Tears pricked your eyes. The car came to a stop and Tom jerked his door open. He stomped around the car and pulled your door open. He leaned in to help you out of the car.

“I will deal with you later tonight.” he sneered through gritted teeth, “Let’s get through the rest of tonight first.”

You gulped as Tom pulled you from your seat and snaked his arm around your waist, pulling you tight against his side. The two of you climbed the stairs to the building. A young man at the top of the stairs paced the doorway. His eyes lit up as Tom came into sight.

“Mr. Hiddleston!” he started as he shook Tom’s hand. “We have been waiting for you.”

Tom shot a glare in your direction. “Sorry about that. I was unavoidably detained.”

Your cheeks heated.

“They told me to take you backstage as soon as you arrived.” the man continued, “If your date continues inside, my colleague will get her seated.”

Tom gave a small nod of the head to the man and release you from his vise-like grip.

You hustled inside as the young man ushered Tom down a hallway. Another young man led you to a large ballroom set up like an auditorium. He led you to a seat towards the front. As you sat down, the lights dimmed in the room.

A man walked up to the podium. “Thank you all for your patience. Please allow me to introduce our guest of honor, Tom Hiddleston!”

Tom walked onto the stage to thunderous applause. He threw you a small wink as he stood behind the microphone.

“Thank you all for waiting on me tonight.” the audience clapped. “I assure you, the people responsible for my tardiness will be punished.”

The audience laughed while Tom shot you a knowing face and you furrowed your brow at Tom’s comment. What did he mean punished? you wondered as Tom continued on.

You tried to concentrate on Tom’s speech but your mind continued to drift to Tom’s comment, and you squirmed in your seat but you stopped when Tom caught your eye and narrowed his glance at you.

Before long, Tom wrapped up, and the audience applauded. He headed off stage and the young man who ushered you to your seat pointed you towards the reception area.

As you made your way to the bar, you scanned the room for Tom but there was no sign. You sidled up to the bar and placed an order for a glass of wine. An arm snaked around your waist as the bartender handed you the glass.

“I would suggest something stronger.” Tom whispered in your ear.

You giggled as you turned your head to peer at him.

“What did you have in mind?” you giggled.

Tom’s smile dropped and his eyes darkened for a moment. “Punishment, darling. You made me late.”

Your mouth opened to respond when someone came up to speak to Tom. As quickly as his face darkened, a smile splashed across his face.

The entire evening, Tom kept you close to his side. His hands gripped your waist as though you might escape with hands migrating every so often to splay across your butt cheek. His nails dug into the flesh, enough to sting but not leave a mark.

By the time the two of you left the event, you felt both aroused by Tom’s public displays of affection and anxious by his comments. The ride back to Tom’s home seemed awkward as tension hung in the air. Once you pulled up to the house, you didn’t wait for Tom to open your door.

“Sorry again, honey. I guess I will call it a night.” you called to Tom as you headed to your car.

“Where do you think you are going?” Tom snapped as he slammed the door shut and stomped towards you.

Your brows furrowed in contemplation, wracking your brain for something you forgot. Tom stared you down as he approached you.

“Wait! I remember!” you squealed as you pulled up onto your toes to kiss him on his lips. Tom pressed into you as his arms wrapped around you, pulling you closer.

“Call you tomorrow?” you asked pulling away. Tom nodded.

You turned and headed towards your car but Tom held tight onto your wrist.

“We’re not done here, darling. Get inside.” Tom jerked you towards his house.

“Why?” you stuttered.

Tom leaned in behind you, grabbing handfuls of your ass. “Because your ass is going to be seven shades of red after that little stunt tonight.” he hissed into your ear.

“What!?” you shrieked. Tom glanced around to see if anyone heard you and dragged you into the house. The door slammed behind him and he flicked the lock shut.

“Get upstairs. Take off the dress, leave the underwear. Sit on the bed.” he demanded.

You scrambled up the stairs as his tone left no room for negotiation. You stripped as soon as passed the door and sat on the edge of the bed, hands fiddling at your side. After several minutes, Tom came through the door. He looked at you through narrow eyes.

“So, pet…” Tom popped the “p” in the word. “You have been awfully naughty tonight. Making me late for an important event.” He tsked his tongue as he pulled suit jacket off, hanging it up in the closet. “Whatever am I to do with you?”

You watched with wide eyes as he unbuttoned the cuffs of his dress shirt. With precision, he rolled up each sleeve exposing his toned forearms; you bit your lip to suppress the moan building in your throat. Tom looked at you with expectation.

“I’m waiting for an answer.”

Tom’s words jolted you back to reality. “Um… punish me?” you ended the sentence on an up note.

Tom smirked. “That’s right, love. And how do we punish naughty girls?” He moved to sit in an armchair nestled in the corner, his legs splayed as always.

He rubbed his hands together and beckoned you to sit with him. You rose and walked over in timid steps, uncertain of what will happen next. Your senses on high alert. Tom patted his thigh, and you sat down, more hovering on his leg. Tom’s warm hand rubbed up and down your back, sending shocks of electricity through you. He leaned in and placed soft kisses on your cheek, lips and neck. You let a deep sigh out and your shoulders relaxed. Tom smiled at you and then in a flash, spun you around in his lap and before you realized what happened, you laid across Tom’s thighs, ass on display.

“Now for your spanking…” Tom quipped as his hands rubbed your ass through your underwear, warming the skin.

“What!” you attempted to squirm out of his grip but he held you tight.

“Stop squirming and take your punishment or you will force me to tie you down.” You settled down. “Now… for a first offense, how many strikes? Twenty?” You laid there in silence, too scared to say anything. “I think ten should be sufficient. Do you agree?” You nodded. “I can’t hear you.”

“Yes.”

“Yes what?”

“Yes, sir.”

Tom chuckled as he pushed his sleeves up further. “That’s my girl, now count out each strike, my love.” With no further warning, Tom’s hand cracked against your right cheek.

“One.” you whimpered as the pain radiated through your body.

Another crack to the other side. “Two.”

CRACK! The third strike hitting your lower ass where it meets your thigh. By this time, the assault brought your arousal alive. “Three.” you groaned.

Tom smiled at the change in your voice. His hand hit in a swift motion.

“Four.”

The next four strikes came in rapid succession, with barely enough time for you count each strike. Your ass burned like fire at this point. Tears streamed down your face from both pain and pleasure and you gushed between your legs. You opened and closed your legs against Tom’s thigh, desperate to find relief and friction.

“Almost done, darling.” Tom chuckled at the sight of you. He could see the skin reddening under your thin panties and the wet spot grew larger by the second. He licked his lips and shifted in his seat, his own arousal growing uncomfortable.

You fell limp against his legs, unable to resist the onslaught. Tom ripped your underwear down to your knees and you gasped. Your red skin shone in the room’s light and Tom groaned at the sight.

CRACK! “Nine.” you whimpered, your voice hoarse.

“Your ass is exquisite in red, darling.” Tom commented. You looked at the ground, unable to see the twinkle in Tom’s eye.

The last swat hit directly upon your glistening sex and toppled you over the edge. You screamed in pleasure. You forgot to count, but Tom let it slide. Tom held your body firm against his legs as you came down from your orgasm. He wrapped his arms around you and lifted you up placing you on your back on the bed. Your backside burned, but you didn’t care.

“Darling, look at the mess you made.” Tom gestured to the wet spot on his trouser. He undid them and pulled both his trousers and underwear down to his ankles. His cock erect and leaking pre-cum. Tom took himself into his hand and pumped a few times.

“Fuck!” you panted at the sight of him.

Tom winked. “As you wish.”

Tom crawled onto the bed and propped himself above you. You winced at the pressure of your backside with Tom’s weight, so Tom flipped you so he lied on the bed and you straddled him. He teased the tip against your folds.

“Tom… please.” you begged as you lined yourself up. Tom held you up for a moment, a bruising grip against your hips. In a single thrust, he sheathed himself within you.

“Gods! You are perfection!” Tom groaned as your arousal and warmth surrounded him. He bucked his hips into you, spurring you to rock on his cock.

“Nhnnmhmm.” you moaned as a second orgasm stirred inside you. Tom continued to thrust deep into you, pressing against your g-spot each time.

“That’s it darling, let go. Cum for me.” Tom pleaded, his fingers snaking down to tease your clit. You gasped at the added stimulation.

After a few moments, you orgasmed again. “God… Tom… Fuck!” you exclaimed as you clenched around Tom.

“Y/N!” Tom cried as he released his release, thrusting one final time into you. You collapsed onto Tom’s chest. He slid his hands up and down your back. When his hands ventured onto your ass, you winced.

“Sore, love?” Tom asked, his eyes filled with concern.

You nodded.

“How does a nice bath sound?” he kissed your forehead as he slipped out of you and rolled you off of him. He stood and walked to the bathroom, starting the water in the tub.

You groaned as you rolled onto your side, unable to lift your head or move your arms. The pain from your backside started to radiate into your legs. Tom was not gentle with his punishment. You felt his strong arms lift from the bed and carry you into the tub. The warm water soothed your aching flesh.

“How’s my good girl?” Tom asked as he wet a washcloth.

“Good.” you gave a wink.

Tom gave a devilish grin. “Good to know.”

#tom hiddleston #tom hiddleston fanfiction #tom hiddleston fanfic #tom hiddleston x reader #tom hiddleston imagine #tom hiddleston smut

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sabraeal · 3 years ago

Text

If All Else Fails Just Play Dead

[Read on AO3]

Obiyuki AU Bingo 2021 Swan Princess AU

There is a boy in her house.

Two boys, actually; not counting Uncle, who is the Margrave Entaepode, or Papa, who acts like he is, or Raj, who everyone simply tolerates because there are worse things than having the first prince adopt your heir as their particular friend, and all of them start with denying said prince what he wants.

(And also because when he’s not trying to flex all his royal powers at once, Raj can be almost tolerable. He at least believes in magic, which gives him a leg up over just about every other boy Shirayuki has known, save for uncle, even if he doesn’t know any himself.)

Sakaki is also not to be counted, though she feels bad about it, on account of how often she typically forgets that Sakaki is a boy and not just some boy-shaped furniture Raj travels with, like how he always brings his pillow and his favorite chair. She’ll have to remember to bring him some extra pastries from the kitchen as an apology.

No, these are two entirely foreign boys, shipped straight from the court of the King Who Isn’t, as her father calls him-- though not within his mother’s hearing. Shirayuki is resigned to make the best of it; Uncle asks for so little, and she is the Lady of the Manor, even if she only comes by the title from a lack of older women to fill it. If she must, she can entertain their guests, but that doesn’t mean she has to like it, not one bit at all.

A shelf rattles, jostling the books on their bindings. Shirayuki’s fingers nearly dint a page as she turns it, but she does not look up. To look up would be to give in, and even if she is charged with entertaining, she does not need to be the entertainment.

It rattles again, now with two giggles to accompany it. Excellent. It seems both her troubles are accounted for.

With a sigh, she collects herself. This is what is fair, after all. It is her duty to see after Entaepode’s guests, and Papa is already taking on the brunt of the Her Majesty’s needs, as well as the marquis’ that travels with her. Not that she would have minded if he wanted to switch; Queen Haruto at least seemed like the sort to enjoy a quiet afternoon in the library.

A leg swings over the top of the shelf, long and skinny and ending in a particularly scuffed boot.

Very much, Shirayuki thinks, slapping her book shut on the table, unlike her son and his companion.

“You’re not supposed to do that.” She means to be mild, but each sound falls so waspish from her lips that it could sting. Oh, Uncle will be displeased when he finds out she was rude to their esteemed guests. “It harms the books.”

A sly, cat’s grin shines down on her as a second leg follows the first. “We’re just on the shelves.” Obi twitches his shoulders in a lazy excuse for a shrug. “It’s not like we’re ripping out pages.”

Of the three of them, he’s older-- oh, well, both boys are older than her, but he’s oldest. Only a few years shy of being a man in his own right; the sort of older that’s supposed to know better. Not that he looks it-- Obi’s supposed to be thirteen, but he’s barely an inch taller than Prince Zen, showing none of the stretch in his limbs that boys his age should before they come into their growth.

His feet dangle, just at the level of her nose, and uncharitable irritation itches in her thoughts. Maybe he’ll be one of those boys who’s small forever, a man in a child’s body. The sort of boy she’ll be looking down on instead of up at, should she get Papa’s height, or Uncle’s.

“The shelves are where the books live,” she tells him officiously, fists high on her hips. “And if you knock it over, then you might hurt your spine, or worse, one of theirs! Or even worse,” she adds with no little horror, “you might tear out a page!”

He blinks, those wide, gold eyes flashing like candlelight. “Huh.”

She conjures up Uncle at his most imperious as she says, “This isn’t a training yard.”

“How would you know?” The shelf wobbles, and a pale white mop heaves itself over it. The second Prince of Clarines is pinch-faced, like he’s always just finished sucking on a lemon, and pale as an invalid. She could believe he was bedridden, from the way he keeps waiting to be served. “It’s not like you’ve ever been on one.”

A breath hisses between her teeth. It’s not from lack of trying, she wants to say; her last birthday, Papa has trousers sewn for her, plus a shirt and waist. He’d promised her a sword, even traipsed her through the halls to the yard, but Uncle had been waiting right at the gate, mouth drawn to a forbidding line.

What are you thinking, Mukaze? She’d heard him growl, her ear pressed tight to the study door. My own heir, and you put a blade in her hand.

If she were a boy, you’d have thought I’d done it too late, Papa had replied, easy as always, the way that would drive Uncle mad. I don’t see the harm--

Of course you don’t. Uncle had never sounded so cold, so bitter as he did in that moment. You never do.”

Her stomach twists, slithering around like a nest full of snakes, only getting more knotted, more sick as she thinks about it. Uncle and Papa were close as brothers, surely--

Surely, she shouldn’t be worrying about this at all.

“Why are you wearing all that black?” she snips instead, ignoring the heat that licks up her neck. “It’s summer.”

It’s not doing him any favors either; all that thick velvet just makes his limbs skinny and his face more drawn, like he’s a skeleton rather than a boy.

The prince stills, legs no longer kicking, lips no longer flapping; just a steady, slow rise and fall of his chest. Obi-- a study of constant motion-- doesn’t even do that; instead he sits, utterly immovable, and stares.

With a voice chilled with the winter he’s never felt, His Highness finally says, “My father died.”

She’d known that, she had. His Majesty died a year ago, her Uncle even told her, their legs pressed tight on his study’s sofa. She liked doing that, lining bone to bone, like they might one day be a matching set, margrave and heir both. Another pair of shoulders to carry the burden of rule, after so many years of an absent, broader pair.

Her Majesty has ever been a bosom companion to this family, he’d continued, a strange tightness to his voice. Now that her mourning is over, she is bringing her youngest son to visit. I’m sure your father would be pleased if you became...as close as they.

So much for that. Uncle would be so disappointed-- not only had she scolded the prince, but she’d insulted him too, and--

And he had started it. Her mouth settles into a thin line, so like Uncle’s.

“So did my mother.” So long ago that she is barely more than a song and a scent. Still, there is no ceding ground, not to Prince Zen; every inch she gives him yields a mile, and he considers it his due. “And you don’t see me walking around in velvet during high summer.”

The prince’s skin is pale as moonlight, the envy of every maid in the manor, but it flushes an angry red now, his body trembling to contain him. “My father, he sputters, leaping off the shelf, “is more important than your stupid mother ever will be.”

Papa praises her for her even-temper. Just like your mother, he laughs, not as boldly as he is wont. You never let anything under your skin. Not like me. Though all our impulse certainly bred true.

Anger, Uncle would say in his soothing voice, every syllable measured, makes a man a fool. You would do well to eschew it if you can, my little girl.

So it is not that Shirayuki is angry; oh no, she is incandescent.

Her finger curl, carving pitted crescents in her palms. For once she is glad that magic is consigned to history books and scholars in their towers, for if she could but call fire to her fingertips, this whole library would be alight. Her mother may be more sense than solid to her, but there is not a stone here she has not touched, and--

Well, Uncle is right, but Shirayuki is content to be stupid.

“Maybe so,” she says, so calm, so even, just as Uncle might. “But at least people liked her.”

For a moment, Prince Zen looms, every line trembling, and she is convinced that he will raise a hand to her, that he will truly treat her as her father’s mouth has earned her. But instead he spins on his heel, stalking out of the library with naught a word.

Wrath leaves her at once, a spirit exorcised from her chest, and oh, she’s dizzy with the lack. Her hand reaches out, meaning to grab for the chair--

But another hand grabs it instead. Shirayuki had never noticed at what a patrician angle Obi’s nose sat, not until he stares down it at her, his face a smooth bronze mask.

“That,” he says, finally sounding his age, “was badly done.”

Had her father sat her down after that terrible, disastrous morning, and told her that one day she would consent to marry the prince, Shirayuki would have--

Well, she would have done something Uncle wouldn’t approve of, surely. And she had, when Papa sat her down not too long after the queen’s carriage disappeared into the horizon, and told her that their union had been agreed upon, dowry and all. But to think she would ever want to, that she herself would gladly make the plans-- impossible.

If only it had stayed that way. If only she had remembered why she’d waved him off at arm’s length every summer, why she’d tossed him in the pond when he tried to kiss her at fifteen and told him he’d have better luck finding a princess of his own species in there. At least then she might be able to scuttle this whole wedding, instead of having Papa and Haruto cluck at her pitifully when she asks, telling her that it would all work out eventually.

After all, hadn’t she loved him just last night?

Shirayuki huffs, rolling to her side. She’s no longer livid, which is an improvement; last night she’d thought quite long and extremely hard about how many tapestries she would need to tear from the walls to get a good, solid bonfire to catch and burn Wistal palace to its very stones. Once she started considering where the custodians might keep turpentine, or whether she could wheedle the key to the cellars out of the chatelaine, she’d forced herself to lay down. Few things had ever made her so angry that they couldn’t be solved by a good night’s rest.

Wrath and rage has cooled, but not to her usual levelheaded calm, the answer filling her with vim and vigor and a dangerous determination. Oh no, instead her fine barrel of fury has turned to melancholy, and with each minute that ticks by, she drinks a deeper draught.

Is beauty all that matters to you?

Even now her breath catches at the roiling confusion in Zen’s eyes. What else is there?

“What was I thinking?” Her fists clench at her sides, but it’s not enough, not until she brings them to her eyes and pressed down, colors sparking across her eyelids. “Why did I...?”

She thought he had changed. They all had, these last few years, hadn’t they? No longer the three children that had tripped over each other in her uncle’s halls, bickering and pinching and causing trouble wherever they roamed. Shirayuki’s temper had mellowed. Zen had grown taller-- or at least tall enough to please him. And Obi--

Obi should be here. And now he’s not, and it’s yet another why she has no answer to.

A timid knock brushes against her door, followed by an even softer, “M-my lady?”

Shirayuki pulls her fists from her eyes, blinking away the blur. “Come in.”

A small girl slinks inside, dark eyes wide and round. “M-my lady...” Her brow furrows. “Your hands are wet.”

She glances down, staring at the fingers laces so tightly in her nightgown. Her knuckles do indeed shimmer in the light, right where they had been pressed along her eyes. “So they are. I...suppose you are here to dress me.”

“Ah...” The maid loses her certainty, eyes darting around the room. “About that...”

Her heart leaps in her breast. “Has something happened?”

“Ah, well.” The girl winces. “There’s a bit of a, um, problem. With the arrangements.”

“The arrangements?” Shirayuki echoes.

“Ah...”

That’s when she hears the screams.

Her twelfth summer marks the moment that this arrangement becomes completely, irrevocably unfair.

“I don’t see what the problem is.” Branches shiver above her, the only sign of Obi a few flashes of black and buckskin and the leaves quivering in his wake. “You two have gotten nearly civil these days.”

“But you’ve gotten tall,” Shirayuki grouses, tucking herself between the roots of the old oak, book sprawled upon her lap. “Any day now you’ll be head and shoulders taller, and what if Zen’s the same? I can’t be the smallest.”

“Well.” She can’t see him, but she knows he settles above her, perched on a branch too precarious for his size. “You are a girl.”

“That doesn’t mean I can’t be tall.” A finger taps against the page, thoughtful. “Haruto is.”

“For a lady.”

“For anyone,” she corrects primly. “It’s fine enough for you to be tall-- you’re tolerable. But Zen...” She grimaces. “His height it the only thing that keeps him humble. The king isn’t tall, is he?”

“He is,” Obi informs her with relish. “Almost taller than my father, and he’s not done growing.”

She pictures it, Zen being able to look Haruka square in the eye, and shudders.

“I was afraid you’d say that.” Shirayuki sighs, finger knitting in her lap. “Uncle should forbid you from coming. You can stay for now, but next summer is right out.”

It’s strange how even though she can’t see him, she can feel his grin on the air. “I’m sure nothing would make him happier.”

“Or me,” she admits, wistful. “What good neighbors Zen and I might be, if we never had to look at each other again. Save for weddings and births and funerals, of course. And you’d always be welcome, Obi.”

“Thanks.” He drops down one of his too-long legs, toes curling in the air above her, the only visible part of him. “But I wasn’t talk about the Young Master.”

Shirayuki blinks, mouth curving in confusion as she parses his words. “You can’t mean Uncle.”

Obi leans, just enough for her to see his dubious, arched brow. “Why not?”

“Uncle’s always liked Zen.” He’d been the one to calm her when she’d come crying, distraught that Papa would make her marry a boy as pompous as him. Plenty of boys grow out of their pettiness, little girl, he’d told her, smoothing the wild riot of her hair, at least as many that don’t. “Even now, he’s with him, showing him the march.”

“Only because your father asked him,” Obi says, settling back into the canopy. “The next Margrave Entaepode needs to know what his lands can bring. Especially if he means to bring them to his brother.”

Shirayuki frowns. “I’m the next Margrave Entaepode.”

“No,” Obi hums. “You’re the next margravine.”

Shirayuki is not sure what she expects when she walks into Clarines’ great hall, but it is certainly not carnage.

“What happened?” she breathes, picking her way over a toppled chair. There’s not a scrap of fabric that’s not torn, not a table nor chair without a wobble. Flower petals lay strewn on the ground, and the cake--

“Oh no,” she sighs, “I was so looking forward to desset.”

It’s toppled, every tier crushed to the stone beneath it, buttercream and jam and custard smeared up and down the aisle. It had been a gift from the Seirans; Zen had been so excited to know their much-beloved cook had made each layer with him in mind-- Except one, Obi reminded him, swiping a bit of cream from a spoon. You know who Cookie loves best.

“A beast did it,” the steward tells her, near to tiers. “Knocked it over, then even stopped to take a bite.”

“Three bites,” a maid chimes in. “Odd, it was. I could have sworn it thought about it too, just stood there looking as Cook came in, shouting to high heaven, and ate its share.”

Shirayuki glances down. “Flew? As in-- with wings?”

“Yes,” the steward agrees, “it had wings, and a mouth with cruel teeth.”

“There weren’t no teeth,” the chatelaine snaps waving the wailing man off. “It was just a bird. Swan, I think, from the size. And the meanness. Came in here like a holy terror, it did.

“It was a beast with teeth,” the steward insists, “and it bit one of the footmen!”

The chatelaine huffs. “What did you expect, trying to grab it like that?”

Shirayuki can’t help but agree; she’s bitten more than a man or two that tried to catch her as well. But that’s not what has her attention now; instead it is the cake on the floor, those three big bites out of it, baring chocolate sponge and raspberry custard. The layer Cookie made special. The one she thought would go to waste when...

“Where is he now?” At their looks, she amends, “I mean, it. The beast.”

“Outside,” the steward says, sending a narrow look toward the door. “A few of the maids managed to chase it out, but I’m afraid it will have gotten into the decoration-- my lady, where--?”

“I’d like to take a look,” Shirayuki calls back, slippered feet already carrying her to the door. “I, ah, think I might know how to solve this...problem?”

The steward blinks. “Is there some...Tanbarunian folk tradition for this? Ridding the grounds of a foul beast?”

Her feet stutter at the threshold, and she swallows down a laugh. “Certainly something for removing one fowl.”

At thirteen, Shirayuki will admit, Zen becomes tolerable. Not without extreme duress, and certainly never if Obi is around, but being in his presence no longer feels like slivers under her fingernails. Now it’s just that unpleasant drone of cicadas, the same that herald his arrival every summer.

“Are you supposed to be climbing?” she asks, settling herself at the base of the tree’s trunk, as always. “Your mother won’t thank you for ruining those trousers.”

Obi laughs, already deep in the canopy. “I think you mean his laundress.”

“I have plenty more,” Zen scoffs, levering his boot over another knot, giving him the height to reach the first branch. “And I think you’re only so cross because you can’t climb for beans.”

She retracts her opinion. His Highness has certainly not become tolerable in the least.

“Come off it,” Obi laughs, so easy in his bower. “Anyone can climb.”

Zen grins down at her with smug authority. “Not Shirayuki, she’s a girl.”

“So is Kiki,” Obi reminds him, “and if she heard you talk like that, she’d come up and throw you off that branch herself.”

“Kiki hardly counts as a girl--”

“--That’s not what Mitsuhide would say--”

“--And that doesn’t mean Shirayuki can,” Zen adds, tone brooking no argument. “She doesn’t even have trousers on.”

“Shirayuki can climb in a dress just fine.” Obi swings down, right to the lowest branch. Or rather, the second lowest, since Zen hasn’t vacated the first. “Come on, I’ll tell you how.”

She spares the tree a dubious glance. “Are you sure--?”

“Always. Don’t you trust me?” He lowers down a hand, callused and bronzed, and she takes it. “Good, now put your foot there. Now just...think up.”

She sends him a dubious look. “I don’t think it’s possible to just go up by thinking it.”

He grins down. “You’d be surprised.”

Shirayuki is definitely ruining her dress.

“You’re sure it’s up here?” she calls down, a worried swarm of footmen huddling beneath her. “Waterfowl aren’t really...tree-dwelling birds.”

“I’m sure, my lady,” one pipes up beneath her. “Took to wing, then hopped up the branches easy as you please.”

Shirayuki casts a long look up the oak, sighing. “Of course he did.”

One slippered foot lifts, hooking over a thicker branch, resting her weight right by the trunk.

“Just think up,” she murmurs, irritation rising with every word. “Just think up and it’s hardly anything at all.”

“HONK,” agrees the goose above her.

“Oh.” She blinks, taking in the sleek white body and the webbed feet tucked unnaturally beneath it. Well, not that the pose was unnatural, but the place. “You’re not a swan at all.”

“HONK,” the goose informs her, wistful this time.

“Be glad,” she says, reaching for him. “If you were any bigger, I wouldn’t be able to carry you, and you’d be stuck up here with your big wings and bad decisions.

The goose ducks it head, abashed. “HONK.”

“You better,” she starts, trying to wrangle a bird his size beneath her arm, “be exactly who I think you are.”

This close, her fowl friend doesn’t dare express his opinion at the only volume nature saw fit to give him, but instead, cuddles right against her neck. For one, weak moment, Shirayuki leans against the trunk, letting her head sink into his feathers. Please let this be him. If it is, she can worry about the how later. Maybe even the why. As long as he hasn’t abandoned her, there’s nothing--

“Not to interrupt you,” a lady’s languid voice drawls beneath her. “But I’m assuming that you might need some help getting down.”

Fifteen is when Shirayuki is made aware of just how utterly unfair her life will be from now on, now that she’s to be the wife of a prince.

“No, no,” Obi laughs, nervous. “I think the Young Master has it right this time, Miss. You can’t come.”

“Why not?” He’s gotten much taller now, taller even than when he arrived, and she has to look up to guilelessly meet his eye, much more than she’s used to. “If I can climb trees with you, I can splash around in a pond just fine--”

“Yes, but--” his mouth split into a pained grimace-- “climbing trees doesn’t involve taking off clothes. You can see how that might be a, hm, problem now, can’t you, Miss?”

“No.”

His exasperation is completely unwarranted, considering how exasperating he’s being. “You’re a lady.”

“One that can swim,” she counters. “We’ve done it before, I don’t know why it’s bothering you now.”

“Because you’re...” He waves a hand at her, a harried up and down, but she only stares back. “Of all the things for Master to leave to me...”

“I can keep my shift on,” she offers, “if that helps.”

“It really doesn’t, Miss.” Obi sighs, one hand coming up to rub at his shoulder. “Surely your father-- no, your uncle. Surely your uncle’s talked to you about how boys and girls shouldn’t, um...you know.”

“I don’t.”

“It’s just...” He takes a steeling breath. “Miss, you’re a woman now. You can’t be naked with men.”

She wrinkles her nose. “I said I would wear my shift. And besides, you’re not men, you’re boys.”

Obi head rolls heavenward. “Only to you.”

Shirayuki gives him a considering look and pulls out her trump card. “Would you let Kiki Seiran come?”

She doesn’t know this Kiki Seiran, not from anything more than what’s been said in her presence, but she knows-- whatever a man does, Kiki does, and better too. The moment her name leaves her lips, Obi drops her a helpless glare.

“Kiki,” he says, as if savoring the word, “doesn’t count. No one lets Kiki Seiran do something, she just does it, and we all live with the consequences.”

A fond smile flickers across his lips, and for no reason at all, her stomach twists. “You should marry her.”

Obi blinks. “Huh?”

“Kiki Seiran,” she says lightly. “It seems she’s really quite impressive.”

For a long moment he stares at her, unblinking. Then he coughs, one, twice, until it’s no longer a cough but roaring laughter.

Shirayuki stares at him. “Is something funny?”

“Oh, Miss,” he wheezes. “That’s some vote of confidence, but Kiki Seiran-- she’s not for the likes of me.”

The sick knot in her stomach dissipates into affront. “Why not? There’s nothing wrong with you.”

“Again, you really know how to compliment a man,” he teases. “But no count worth his acreage will marry his daughter and heir to a bastard. With her pedigree, they’re probably planning to marrying her to Elder Highness as we speak.”

“Well, that’s silly,” she huffs. “You’re worth a thousand princes Obi. Any lady would be lucky to have you.”

His smile wavers. “I wouldn’t be so sure about that.”

“You should bring her next time,” she decides. “I can talk to her.”

“Ah,” he coughs, shaking his head as he traipses after her. “That won’t be necessary at all.”

This is not how she thought she’d meet the illustrious Kiki Seiran, her wedding dress torn to rags and goose hugged tight in her arms, but it would not be the first time today fate thwarted her expectations.

“I’m fine,” Shirayuki assures her, slowly making her descent. “But do you have, um, water?”

One elegant brow arches. “Water?”

“Ah, yes.” She drops down before her-- oh, Lady Seiran is...quite a bit taller than she’d imagined, and at least twice as pretty. No wonder Obi always smiled when he talked about her. “Like a, um, lake? Or a river might do?”

“A lake?” Her gaze drops, mouth canting into a thoughtful line. “For your avian compatriot, I suppose. You think his home must be close by.”

“Yes,” she lies, because babbling about ancient texts she’s certain she was never supposed to see and magic of the blackest sort seemed a poor first impression to make. “It would probably, uh, help with the...destructive behavior.”

“He has left quite a spectacle behind. It will take hours to clean that up. Or days,” she adds with a pointed look toward the goose. “Your wedding seems to be thoroughly postponed.”

Good, she doesn’t say. This Kiki Seiran is Zen’s friend too, after all. And even if Shirayuki could have shaken him to pieces last night, she’s that too.

“Water?” she says instead.

It’s the right thing to say, since Kiki turns around, gesturing toward the treeline. “There’s a pond back there. Just follow the cobblestone path and it should take you right out to the dock.”

“Perfect.” Shirayuki takes two hurried steps before pausing, turning over her hip to add, “It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Lady Kiki. I’ve heard a lot about you.”

There’s that brow again, lifted into an elegant arch Shirayuki could never hope to mimic. “Only good things, I hope.”

Her stomach lurches as she replies, “The best.”

#obiyukibingo21 #obiyuki #akagami no shirayukihime #snow white with the red hair #swan princess au #my fic #ans #listen this is another fic where like #i want to write the 50K lead up #the political intrigue that leads to this whole arrangement #and the magic #and obi and shirayuki and zen as kids who BARELY like each other and then become besties and then have this LOVE TRIANGLE #the whole terrible relationship between Uncle and Mukaze and Shirayuki's Mom and Haruto and KAIN #sideplots with Izana and Raj #like guys i have THOUGHTS #one day i'll come back around and write more of this #or someone will make me #WHO KNOWS #😂

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darkficsyouneveraskedfor · 4 years ago

Text

Eye of the Storm 18 🌩️ Finale

Warnings: nonconsensual sex; tied up; violence; blood.

This is dark!Thor and dark!Loki and explicit. Your media consumption is your own responsibility. Warnings have been given. DO NOT PROCEED if these matters upset you.

Summary: You are a new servant at the palace of Asgard but the job isn’t so easy as you thought.

Note: So this is the finale (aside from a planned epilogue) but it’s been a fun ride and I hope y’all enjoyed.

Thank you. Love you guys!

As always, if you can, please leave some feedback, like and reblog <3

In an instant, Thor was king again.

And you were nothing.

He led you into the palace, his broad shoulder regained their usual bearing as lords and ladies alike passed him with deference. As his veneer changed so too would he; his selfish cruelty would return with the same repugnant desires. The royal entitlement to everything and anything. You couldn’t help but ponder if it were preferable to the prince’s ploys. Or perhaps, absence had dulled your recollection.

At his chamber door, Thor stopped short. His hand hovered over his father’s name along the branches of the tree etched into the stone. Then his fingers fluttered and he traced the letter of another; Loki. He frowned.

“My brother awaits me,” He declared. “One of his rats must have informed him of my homecoming.”

“Should I go, my king?” You asked meekly.

He looked at you keenly and tilted his head. “Let my brother pout in envy. Despite myself, I did miss his petulance.”

You bowed your head and waited for him to enter. Instead, he pushed the door open and ushered you ahead of him, his hand on the small of your back.

“Loki,” Thor greeted plainly. “Do you insist on pestering me so soon after my return?”

“I would not if it weren’t urgent.” Loki remained seated on the sofa as his fingers crawled along the cushions where you had messed it in your lust. “Welcome home, brother.”

“A warm welcome, I’m sure,” Thor’s cape swept over your shoulder as he brushed by and he gestured you onto the bedchamber. “Do make whatever it is brief.”

“It is best if the maid remains,” Loki lilted.

You froze and turned back warily. You watched the prince’s dark hair as his arm stretched over the back of the couch. Thor motioned for you to stay and squinted. His jaw twitched and he sighed as he nodded for Loki to continue.

“Your queen has fled the city in your absence,” Loki announced pointedly. “I was unable to impede her but I did manage to snag her accomplice in the debacle.”

You went rigid and held your breath. No, he couldn’t. Had he not already punished you enough?

“Oh,” Thor crossed his arms and raised his chin. “And did you see that they were delivered justice. As I recall, I did trust you to oversee my kingdom in my absence and I return to a traitorous queen nowhere to be found.”

“Why, brother, I thought a real king’s justice would be much more appropriate to the culprit,” Loki slithered. “As you see, she is rather close to you. I dare say, she is dear to you, even.”

Thor shook his head and growled. “Speak plainly, brother.”

“Your little pet did seek to wriggle free of her own lead,” Loki flicked a hair away from his face nonchalantly. “I caught her before she could join your queen and in the least, made certain you did not lose both.”

Thor’s eyes slowly drifted to you and you lowered your head. Both to hide your fear and anger. Damn Loki and his lies.

A loud roll sounded from the distance and seemed to shake the palace. The pale blue sky darkened to a sombre grey and shrouded the chamber.

“Brother,” Thor uttered tersely. “You may leave us. I shall deal with your incompetence in turn. I suppose I should be grateful you’d even the foresight to keep my pet in her cage.”

“Brother.” Loki rose stiffly and swallowed bitterly. “There is one more matter.”

Loki neared the kin and reached into his jacket. He revealed the familiar leather pouch and pressed it to Thor’s armoured chest. He whispered in his ear and smirked. The room flashed as a crack of lightning landed just outside. Thor took the pouch and shoved his brother aside.

“I suppose I was gone for too long.” Thor snarled as he stared you down. You barely noticed Loki’s swift exit as the shut behind him and waves of thunder turned the sky black. “I have been good to you pet and you would leave me?” A bolt of blue electricity struck before your toes and had you retreating. “You would deprive me of the one thing I ask of you?” He tossed the pouch and another strike came down and you took another step back. “It is treason to kill an heir to the throne… worse before the child can even draw breath.”

“My king, your brother is a liar,” You pleaded. “It is true that I did try to follow the queen but only to keep her from going.” You brought your hands together and the next bolt barely missed you. His eyes glowed an intense blue and his entire body had grown to a storm of anger and electricity. “And whatever other lie he has told you is not true, I have only served you--”

“I don’t believe you, little mouse!” He roared and another bolt came down as you stumbled into the bed chamber. “If you cannot do your duty upon your own whim, then I shall have to guide you more firmly.”

Several more flashes of lightning had you at the foot of the bed. Thor seized you and dragged you up onto the mattress. You kicked as he pulled your wrist to one corner and pinned it with his knee. He took a pillow and shredded the case into strips. He wound one around you wrist and then the post before he did the same to your other arm, then your ankles. He had you spread across the mattress, entirely prone, entirely afraid.

“It is I who holds you, not you I.” He snarled. “I am your king and you will ever be my servant.”

He grabbed the front of your bodice and tore it open. He pushed aside the crimson silk and his large hands spread across your chest. He kneaded your breast as his eye glowed even brighter.

“You will never know my benevolence again.” He spat as he shoved himself off of you. “You will only have my spite and my seed until you deliver me your due.”

“Please, my king--”

“I haven’t so much need of your mouth so best still it before I am want to break your jaw.” He warned as he unclasped his cape.

The thunder without boomed and the electricity that sparked from his flesh sizzled across his armour. He lifted the golden mail over his head and let it clink to the floor with his sword belt. His sweat-stained tunic landed atop it and his dusty boots were kicked over as he shed his socks. His trousers fell on their own weight as he stood straight. You pulled on your bounds desperately as you watched him.

“My king, if you believe I have betrayed you,” You whimpered as he lifted a knee onto the bed, “Then why is it that even now I do feel a stirring in my womb?”

He stopped and stared at you. His eyes rolled over you and his lip curled.

“Better to ensure there is truly a whelp in you,” He planted his hands on the bed and crawled over you. “You will not leave my bed until I am certain of it.”

“Please.” You begged. “Please, my king--”

He clapped his hand over your mouth and squeezed until your jaw ached. “A maid. Nothing.” He hissed. “And I did make you my pet.” His nose touched yours and a buzz of electricity flowed through you. “I have been too patient upon your duties… and as my queen is now gone, you take hers too.”

You closed your eyes as tears swelled. His hand slipped to your throat and he tugged at your golden collar. You trembled and his hand snaked further down. He pressed between your legs and shoved two fingers inside you. The remnants of your reunion remained.

He shifted and angled his tip along your folds as he withdrew his fingers. He guided his throbbing cock to your entrance and took a heady breath. He thrust into you, hard, and you exclaimed. He pushed his fingers in just above his cock and began to rock, stretching you past your limit.

He sat back on his heels, his thick thighs against yours as he rutted into you, pulling his fingers apart as if testing how far he could push you. You bared your teeth and whined as your body convulsed in pain.

“It will hurt much more when you give me my heir,” He sneered. “I should delight in those screams as much as I do now.”

You sobbed as he jolted into you harder with each tilt of his hips. The bed quaked and your nerves bounced off each other as electricity coursed from his body into yours.

“And do not think a child your saviour. Even as you are round with my bastard,I shall use you still. And I shall beget on you as many babes as I can, until you are broken.” His voice rose as his hand slipped from your cunt and he gripped your hips. “Until your only thought is to bend to me so that I might fill you up… again.”

He grunted like an animal as the clapping of flesh mingled with the crackle of lightning and the roaring thunder. Your entire body ached as he crashed into you. You were breathless; terrified.

He sank into you as far as he could and his hips jerked spasmodically. His hand held your hips down as your pelvis felt as if it would shatter. He let out a bellow as he spilled into you.

But he didn’t stop.

His hips kept their motion and he sped up until you felt his cum along your thighs and ass. And he slammed into you, over and over, until you were whining, begging, and blathering for him to stop. Until you were calling to him in a flood of tears, afraid you would break into pieces beneath him.

Your eyes rolled back as every muscle in your body tightened and your entire being radiated in agony. You gasped for breath and one last surge of lightning blinded you before it all went black.

🌩️

When you woke again, it was night. The moonlight peered through the windows as you were kept as you were by your bounds. Thor slept beside you, his arm and leg draped over you as he snored on his stomach. You let out a pathetic noise as the pain returned before the memories.

You stared at the canopy. You were nauseous and could smell his sweat on you. You could feel him inside you still and yet you felt an unending emptiness. You felt like a shell along the shore; tossed and tainted by the salty water until you were brittle and bleached.

Thor woke as the sun replaced the moon. He said nothing and took his pleasure again. You left you as if you were only a part of his and when the chambermaid came to tidy, she looked at you in disdain before continuing her work. You knew her; her name was Gilna, she used to sweep the lower floors.

That night passed like the one before. Thor let you free only to relieve yourself and eat some. When you refused his first offer of mutton, he shoved it in your face until you ate. He did not wash it away and let the juice rot and stink on your skin until the next day. Yet he still used you and slept beside you.

On the fourth day, he bathed you with a rag and basin. Your whimpering amused him as he wiped your skin raw and used you again.

You counted a week by the moon and the sun. You found your stomach often queasy and your meals sitting heavier and harder. Your mind was shrouded in Thor’s presence and absence. When he was there, you were terrified and tortured; when he was away, you dreaded his return without distraction.

And one day, the ninth, you laid as you had anon and the servant came to tidy up the king’s clothes. She was bent over to gather his tunic when he entered. You noticed but she did not. He watched you and smirked as his eyes flicked to the unknowing maid. She stood and saw him at last, a frightful yelp squeaked from her lips.

“Your majesty,” She said shyly, “My apologies, I was not aware…”

She trailed off as his eyes flitted over to you and back again. You could see the calculation in his gaze. The appraisal of her worth to him.

“Not at all,” He waved away her apology, “Carry on in your duties. I will not get in your way.”

He went to the window and peered out. You watched the maid gather the rest of his garments into the wicker basket. Then Thor spun back and tore your attention from the innocent girl. She was eager to please as she smiled at him and bowed.

“Is there any other task I might complete for you, your majesty?” She asked with a bat of her lashes. Foolish girl.

Thor neared her and gently took the basket from her. She preened coyly as she let him.

“Will you hang my cloak for me?” He asked as he set the laundry aside.

“Your majesty,” She dipped her head again.

He stooped so that she could unclasp his cape and she hung it as you had a dozen times in the tall wardrobe.

“And do you mind aiding me in the removal of this heavy armour?” He asked sweetly.

She glanced at you and blinked. She nodded and went to him. He showed her how to loosen his chest plate and eased it over his head. She tended to him closely and placed the armour in pieces neatly along the table.

“Is that all, your majesty?” She asked.

He ran his fingers along his bottom lip and hummed.

“I am sure you know of this wench and how she has failed in her sworn duty to me.” He gestured to you blithely. “That she does displease me… and it no secret that my wife has turned traitor and abandoned me.”

“Your majesty, the kingdom shares in your grief,” She said. “I must admit I feel it deeply myself. To see you, my king, betrayed so. And to think that amid such a crisis, the prince has himself disappeared.”

The girl’s words both irritated and surprised you. Loki was gone? When? How? Not that it mattered to or your existence. He’d sentenced you to this waking nightmare and you doubted he had any intent of breaking it.

“Oh, and that these crimes against me do trouble me so,” Thor played the part well and this maid was too naive to sense it. Or perhaps she was too greedy for the king’s favour. “I have no one but this troublesome whore and she does not offer me comfort. You see, I must keep her to punish her for her deceit but it only serves to punish me in turn.” He hung his head and sighed. “I am the same as any, only I sit the throne. I feel, as any does, and my pain is deeper than any.” He looked out the window. “To be so alone.”

The maid was silent. You saw her hesitation but it was not enough. She tiptoed closer to the king, entranced by his show of vulnerability.

“You do not have to be alone, your majesty,” She touched his arm daintily. “I am but a servant but I could listen? Perhaps, offer you the comfort you seek?”

It was Thor’s turn to be silent. Tension mounted between them and finally he broke. He turned to the maid slowly.

“Would you?” He asked as his fingers danced down her sleeve.

“I would do whatever my king wishes of me,” She breathed as she caressed his cheek.

He smiled and cradled her hand against his cheek then brought it to his lips. “Let me then…” He began as his eyes strayed to you for only a second, “See all of you.”

“Your majesty?” She murmured.

“Did you not mean what you said? That you would offer me comfort?” He played with the top of her bodice. “Do you lite to me as so many others have?”

“No, your majesty, it is only…” She paused and looked at you. “I admit I am shy of such things. It is not that I haven’t been seen, your majesty, but only in the act of bathing.”

“You are a maiden still?” He wondered.

“I am, your majesty,” She lowered her eyes.

“Then I would be remiss…” He drew away and she caught his hand. He gazed into her eyes and slowly she let go. She turned and put her hands to her shoulders.

“I should require help, if you might, your majesty?”

Thor grinned and his fingers crept along the laces. “I might,” He hummed and worked at loosening her bodice.

You pulled on your bounds. You did not despise this girl, you pitied her. Even as you lay in the wrath of the king, she fell so easily into his trap. She did not, could not, realise how she might become as you.

“Don’t.” You called out. “Don’t do this.” She looked to you haughtily and Thor lifted a brow sharply. “Your name, it’s Gilna, isn’t it? Please, listen to me and go.”

She scowled as her body was jerked back as Thor pulled her bodice open.

“Do not listen to the wench, sweet Gilna.” Thor bid. “And you.” He snarled in your direction. “Quiet or I shall make you quiet.”

He pushed down Gilna’s sleeves and she shimmied free of her dress. She turned to him with a pout, a feigned modesty as she fixed the low neck of her shift and pushed her chest out.

“Oh, Lady Gilna, you are beautiful.” Thor purred.

“Your majesty, you forget, I am not a lady.” She trilled.

“To me, you are,” He leaned in until his lips were before hers. “I am sure you taste as one.”

He kissed her and she welcomed him. Her arms swept around his neck as he bunched her shift in his fists. He pulled it up until she parted for him to remove it entirely. His lips returned to hers ravenously as he dropped the plain cotton and he angled her to the bed.

He stopped at the foot of the bed and turned her abruptly. He pressed his body to her and bent to kiss the crown of her head and he fingers traced along the top of her stockings. She shivered and pushed back into him.

“There is a game I used to play with my queen,” He rasped. “Would you like to be my queen?”

“Yes,” She muttered as his hand came up to cup her pert breast. “Yes, your majesty.”

“Good, sweet queen,” His other hand went to her hip and he pulled her feet back as he bent her. “Put your hands on the bed.”

“The bed?” She looked at you again.

“She is part of the game, my queen,” Thor said. “Do not worry yourself for her.”

You twisted your hand as you tried to break the linen strip. You could not another fall at his feet. You could not wish your fate on any. You grunted as you strained against your bounds, helplessly watching this girl slip deeper and deeper.

“He will make you like me,” You said. “Please, he lies. And if he does not he will toss you away as he does a soiled handkerchief.”

“Silence!” Thor ordered and squeezed Gilna’s hip. “Sweet queen, do not listen to the wench.” He took her hands and pressed them to the mattress. “Like this.” He drew back and felt along her sides. “My queen, are you ready for your king?”

“I don’t--” Gilna’s eyes rounded in a moment of doubt. “I don’t know, your majesty, I never--”

“Thor!” You hollered as you struggled.

He froze and glared over her head at you. To use his first name was as good as spitting in his face.

“Don’t do this, she is just a girl. Please.” You begged.

He gritted his teeth and slowly raised his hands. He backed away from her and rounded the bed. He grabbed your head and lifted it roughly. He turned to look back at Gilna as she pulled her hands away from the mattress.

“I didn’t say you could move,” He barked. “Don’t you fear, girl. You shall watch what I would do to you so that you may be ready for your king.” He turned back to you and climbed onto the bed. “If you look away, I shall know. Don’t be a bad girl, Gilna.”

He straddled you and pinched your nipple harshly.

“Is it jealousy?” He taunted as you squirmed. “Hmm, my pet want her master?”

“You’re a monster!” You sneered. “I hate you.”

“Oh?” He snickered as he bent over you and his hand stretched over the golden collar. “You will not know hate until I’ve torn your child from your arms and sent you back to your knees.”

The collar snapped in his grip and the metal dug into your skin as he squeezed.

“Perhaps, I was wrong pet. How easily I could have another in your place.” His nostrils flared as you gulped for breath. Your vision began to dot as your chest burned and he squeezed tighter and tighter. “How easily I could--”

He was thrown forward suddenly. He landed atop you the large hammer flew back and broke the bed post above your left ankle. Gilna stumbled back with a shriek as the right one was struck next.

Thor rolled off of you and you kicked until the linen strip came free of the broken post. He held out his hand and the hammer stilled. You gaped at Mjolnir as it trembled against his will and was suddenly moving again. Just as swiftly, the heavy metal broke through the other two posts and the canopy collapsed.

The top of the frame crashed down and pinned Thor. You were barely between it and the edge of the mattress. You tore the linen straps from the splintered wood and fought your way free of the busted bed.

Your legs were weak as you tried to stand straight and your ears filled with Gilna’s screaming.

“What is happening?” Thor grunted as he tossed aside the broken bed frame and once more reached out for Mjolnir. “Here!”

The hammer flew towards him and past him. It barreled through the air at you and you shield yourself pathetically with an open palm. The leather wrapped handle met your hand and your fingers clutched it instinctively. You blinked and stared down at your hand as you grasped the hammer easily; as light as a feather in your grip.

“No…” Thor muttered and jumped across the splinter covered mattress. “It cannot--”

You pulled back the hammer and knocked him away as easily as you would a gnat. He crumpled like a paper doll to the floor.

“Go, Gilna!” You hissed. “Now!”

The maid scrambled for her clothes. She would sound the alarm as soon as she was gone. That would be your doom.

If Thor didn’t rise first.

You waited for her to go and kept your eyes on Thor. You moved blindly around the bed and felt behind you along the front of the wardrobe. You opened it and pulled out a large tunic. Thor sat up just as you poked your head through it and threaded your arms through the sleeves, passing Mjolnir between your hands.

You reached for a pair of breeches and pointed the hammer at him in a wordless threat. It flew from your grasp and struck him across the jaw. You stepped into the long trousers and tied them tightly, rolling them to keep them from slipping. Mjolnir whooshed through the air in another lap around the chamber before returning to you.

You caught the hammer’s strap and spun it around your fingers. Thor lifted his head, blood smeared across his face as he touched his jaw. The hammer turned and turned, brewing a storm around you.

You shook as a wall of blue light began to grow in Mjolnir’s path. Thor’s figure grew fainter as the chamber faded. Your veins flowed with cold flames as you were engulfed in the storm. You closed your eyes and the world went dark as Thor’s angered shouts were smothered in the whirlwind.

“Take me away,” You said to the hammer as you were swept up in its overwhelming power. “And let us never come back.”

🌩️ 🌩️ 🌩️ 🌩️ 🌩️

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for-the-ninth · 3 years ago

Note

Hey it's Friday! For DADWC, how about “There’s something strange going on with my head.” “You may be unfamiliar with these things—they’re called thoughts.”

Hello and please enjoy three mages (including the Inquisitor) being mean to Cullen lololol

Context: Elspeth & Aedan are Inquisitor Lavellan's apprentices and they go everywhere with her bc it's funnier that way

@dadrunkwriting

***

"Who's going to tell him?" Elspeth leaned over Aedan's shoulder to whisper—to the extent Elspeth could whisper, anyway— to Shielan.

Aedan scoffed and shoved her out of his airspace. "The Boss is, obviously." Shielan side-eyed the pair, and he added: "If the Boss wants to, of course. Personally"—he gulped down the rest of his drink, and slammed the bottom of the stein against the table—"I think it's hilarious."

"Hilarious?" Elspeth smacked Aedan needlessly in the chest, and leaned in, her voice rising. "Inquisitor, with all due respect, half the bar is already whispering about his behavior. As many times as you've emphasized discretion tonight, one would think—"

"One would think you'd have the sense to whisper along with them instead of shouting in a bar filled with Andraste-fucking shem," Aedan hissed.

Elspeth's posture straightened, and she flipped her hair over her shoulder, waving one flippant hand half-heartedly in Aedan's direction. "As if you haven't lived among 'Andrastian-fucking shem' your whole pathetic life. Inquisitor"—she turned to Shielan, jerking her head across the table at Cullen—"we need to get him out of sight before somebody starts asking questions."

Cullen sat on the opposite side of the table alone, one hand loosely grasping his drink, and the other clutching at the side of the table. His face grew pale at the mention of his name. "My head"—his neck bobbed forward as he spoke—"something strange is happening."

Aedan leaned across the table and flicked Cullen on the forehead, chuckling. "Those are called thoughts, champ. Guessing you don't have them often?"

"Oh, do be careful," Elspeth said, sulking down into her side of the booth and rolling her eyes. "You might confuse the poor fool further."

Don't laugh. Don't laugh. Don't—

Shielan pinched the skin of her elbow beneath her cloak and spoke through gritted teeth, hoping her tone would be received as stern rather than amused. "Both of you, shut up." She downed what remained of her bitter drink and nodded at Cullen. "He's fine."

Cullen's bleary, bloodshot eyes floated down to the amber liquid in his cup, then back up to Shielan. "I think something was in that drink she gave me."

"Poison," Shielan replied, and cleared her throat to stifle a chuckle that would no doubt be the least appropriate response to this situation. "Bartender's been eyeing me since we walked in, so I assumed it was meant for me."

"Then how did it end up—"

"Because I switched mine with yours." Shielan met his wavering gaze with a blank stare. "You did say you owe me your life."

Aedan burst into raucous laughter, eliciting a stern slap on the shoulder from Elspeth. "This is about to be the funniest murder I've ever seen."

Elspeth rolled her eyes and scoffed, arms folded over her chest. "If your head wasn't in the fucking clouds during alchemy lessons, you'd know Adder's Kiss isn't even lethal."

"A man can dream," Aedan replied, grinning as he watched Cullen sway back and forth.

Above the influence of poison, Cullen's eyes might've widened. Instead they twitched defiantly against his attempt to move them, sending Aedan into another fit of chuckles. "I said it and I meant it, Inquisitor. If tonight is to be my last night—"

"For fuck's sake, Rutherford," Shielan sighed. "How much poison would I have to add for you to save me the dramatics?" She held her cup in the air and nodded at one of the barmaids. When the young woman came to refill her drink, Shielan watched her carefully. The barmaid's eyes flitted from Cullen's face, down to his drink, and then straight into Shielan's knowing gaze.

Shielan leaned forward, lips pulled into a small, polite smile, and said: "Tell your man to try deathroot next time."

#da drunk writing #my writing #dragon age fanfiction

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themarvellouswriter · 4 years ago

Text

TEAR YOU APART

DAMON SALVATORE X DARK HYBRID! FEM! READER

Summary: The reader is Niklaus Mikaelson’s full sister, an Original hybrid. Having known the older Salvatore brother in the 1920s, she finds herself erasing his memory of them together before disappearing with her siblings. Time skip to the present, she is back in Mystic Falls and eager to take back what was hers.

Genres: Smut, angst and overall darkness. DO NOT READ IF YOU ARE YOUNGER THAN 21 AND/OR EASILY TRIGGERED.

Words: 6.1k

Notes: This is dark and talks about killing nearly the entire group of the Mystic Falls kids. Not going to lie, you will not like this fic if you like that gang. Set in S2 near the end. Major canon divergence. Also, not beta read.

Warnings: 21+ Dub Con. Non Con. Character Death. Swearing. Blood. Gore. A mildly toxic relationship. Death mentions. Murder. Lots of torture. Maiming. Possessiveness. Blood play. Ugly, ugly jealousy. Emotional manipulation. This is bad, traumatic stuff I’m warning you in advance.

Present Day

Y/N smirked to herself as she walked towards the Mystic Grill. Klaus and her plan to break the Moonstone curse was going along swimmingly. They had all the ingredients for the spell. A vampire, a werewolf and a doppelgänger. They needed two of each just to be on the safer side so she’d found another, Tom Avery, Stefan’s doppelgänger. Although it would be a shame to kill such a pretty face, this was for the greater good. It was much easier to find werewolves. Vampires could always be made so that was nothing to worry about.

She walked inside and took a seat at the bar, knowing it was about time that Damon would show up for their nightly sessions. She’d allowed herself a small victory in knowing that she had compelled him to forget about her as soon as their time was up. He would remember everything all in due time but for now she would reassure herself in the feeling of tearing everyone apart. For the greater good of course. All for the greater good.

She hears his familiar footsteps as he sits down next to her after ordering his drink. She gives him a smile, aware of all the prying eyes on them. “You look lovely as always, pretty one.” He raises an eyebrow at her. “I know, sweetheart. And you’re a nutcase. And this is coming from me.” She looks at him amused. “And what makes you say that?” “You’ve been making and killing vampires for sport all week. How the hell do you expect me to look at you like you’re not the deranged psychopathic bitch you are?” She shrugs slightly, standing up. “Never denied it. Come on now, lover. Things to be done before daybreak.” He looks at her incredulously, sipping his drink. “You’re going to let a big bad vampire be alone with you?” “I keep forgetting nobody knows that I’m an Original. It’s adorable really.” She gives him a charming smile as she compels him. “Get up and follow me outside in a few.” She quickly leaves after paying her tab because she was nice that way. She found herself on the roofs, easily jumping here and there. Getting Damon alone was harder than you’d think. Always the centre of the crowd and enjoying the people around him. That was one of the first things that had drawn her to him in the first place.

Chicago, 1922

Leaving her siblings and their new friend Stefan Salvatore in a separate corner of their speakeasy, Y/N made her way to the dark, curly haired man sitting at the bar and flirting with the women flocking around him. He was extremely good looking, she’d give him that and the way he held everyone’s attention was fascinating.

She walked up to him, dismissing the other patrons with a wave of her hand and giving him a charming smile. “Y/N Mikaelson.” “Damon Salvatore.” He gave her a quick once over, noting that she was one of the three people who were drinking with his brother. Her eyes sparkle in delight. “I’m assuming that the handsome Ripper there is your brother?” He rolls his eyes. “It’s pretty obvious that I’m hotter one. And saner too, vampire. Not that its any of your business since you’re one of the people corrupting him.” She lets out a soft laugh. “You love the corruption otherwise you’d have done something about it by now.” She leaned in close to him, brushing her thumb over his sharp cheekbones and looking into his eyes. “Such a pretty thing. So fragile too.” She grins, moving away. “It’s late, isn’t it? Walk me back to my house please. It is quite unladylike to be wandering about the city alone.” He blinks, slightly taken aback by her behaviour, not used to being left speechless with such sudden change in one’s actions. “Right. I’m sure a vampire like you can take of yourself.” Her grin widens. “Of course. But I insist.” He finds himself getting to his feet and holding out an arm for her. The second she pressed herself into his side, letting him escort her back to the Mikaelsons’ residence, he felt a sudden surge of warmth and protectiveness as he looked at her. She was different and something told him that time with her would be unforgettable. Unusual but he didn’t feel like he minded. She stopped outside the door pressing a chaste kiss to his cheek and promising that she would be seeing him again soon as she left him standing outside looking vaguely unsure about what had happened.

Present Day

Y/N turned around and grinned at Damon’s face as he approached her, his guard up. “You should remember everything now, lover.” She says once she’s sure that they’re alone. His eyes glaze over before zeroing in on her. She nearly tackled him, throwing herself into his arms. “I don’t like her touching you.” He buries his nose in her hair, sighing softly. “Me neither, Y/N. I still don’t understand why you’re doing this.” She looks at him sceptically. “I told you. I need to break the curse so I can take control of my full power.” He sighs again. “You’re perfect for me, I don’t want any of this. We could go run away together and never look back.” She shakes her head, growing irritated. “We’ve had this conversation before. I’m not in the mood to do it again. It’s for the greater good.” He rolls his eyes. “You and your greater good. I want you, not your wild agendas.” She hits his shoulder lightly. “You get all of me.” “I am painfully aware Y/N. This needs to be over fast.” “It will be done in a few weeks. I promise.” “And then I want you to tell me why you ran from me in Chicago and why you compelled me to forget you.” “All in due time lover. I sense that you’re being missed by the little Gilberts. You should leave now that they need their little baby sitter.” “When will I see you you again?” “When I break the curse of course. I won’t let you or Stefan be sacrificed. You’re too good for this world.” “I disagree. I’m a big, bad vampire who eats puppies for breakfast.” She snorts, cupping his face to kiss him deeply. “Cute. You’re mine. And I’m going to make sure everyone, including you, knows it. Now go and forget who I am to you.” She promises, her voice laced with bitterness as she puts the compulsion back in place. She gives him one last, slightly forced smile before disappearing into the night, leaving him alone wondering what he was doing there before heading back to the Salvatore Boarding House.

She finds him alone a few days later, cornering him in the woods as he fed from a poor soul. She smirked coldly as she saw him drop the half dead, withering human to the ground, blood dripping from his mouth. “You always did look better with blood over you.” “Honestly Y/N it’s like you’re following me around.” Her mood sours at his words. “You’ve been kissing and declaring your love for the doppelgänger. I don’t like it so that’s why I’m keeping a close eye on you.” He doesn’t bat an eye. “I do love her. Elena is a beautiful soul once you get to know her.” She clenches her jaw, wrapping her fingers around his neck and slamming him into a tree. “You don’t. Because the only one you’re allowed to love is me.” He raises an eyebrow, not fighting back. “I love you too but with Elena it’s different. I’m never going to get her.” “That’s right. It’s different because you need to stay away from her. If I see you even look at her like you do all tenderly, you’re not going to like what I do to you.” “Ooh, kinky.” He manages to say. Her grip on his throat tightens as he tries to push her off of him in vain. She growls. “Stay the fuck away from her. You’re mine. Do I need to show you?” He feels his vision blur, if she went on like this she was going to end up killing him temporarily. “It has been decades since you showed me, hasn’t it?” She partially shifts, her fangs out as she glares at him, letting go of her grip on his neck and ripping off the front of his black shirt and shredding his jacket. “Fuck you, Damon Salvatore.” She snarls tossing the torn clothes aside and digging her fingers into his collarbones dragging them down to the waistband of his jeans, leaving thin trails of blood in their wake. He barely manages to control a soft moan at her actions. He enjoyed being used even though he would never admit it out loud but somehow she knew. She always knew what he wanted and what he didn’t and this was one of those times. “Y/N.” He whispered quietly. “Shut the hell up Salvatore.” She snapped back, getting on her knees and pulling down his jeans. “You need a reminder. You belong to me and I am not going take you pining over that daft bimbo of a doppelgänger like some sort of silent watcher.”

She traces a path up his thighs, marking his pale skin with her fangs, knowing they’d take a bit longer to heal because of her werewolf side. If he wanted to go out and flirt and kiss others in front of her, well she was going to make him regret everything. “I own you and you don’t have a say in anything I do to you.” Minus their safe-words of course. “Yes you do. And I love it when you get all demanding when I get around.” Her grip on his thigh tightens almost painfully, bruising his skin. “Did I or did I not tell you to shut up?” She hisses. “You might have mentioned it.” He says shrugging, trying not to get affected by the image of her kneeling in front of him, the moonlight hitting just right and making her glow in the darkness. Perfect features, sharp eyes, fangs dripping his blood and blood smeared fingers now wrapped around his length. “Are you going to shut up or do I need to remind you what happens when you don’t obey?” She hisses, slowly moving her hand up and down his hardening member and drawing out a long moan from him as he muttered profanities under his breath. “I’m sorry.” His voice came out rougher than he expected and her mouth twisted into a tight smile. “Beg. You know the drill don’t you, lover?” Her voice was sweet like she wouldn’t leave him all riled up and bleeding with no way to let out his tension. He nods, pulling her up to her feet and guiding her free hand to wrap around his neck and wrapping his arm around her waist his free hand sliding up her thigh. “I’m sorry that I did it. Nobody can ever replace you. You own me and I would do anything for you.” He looks at her in the eyes, meaning every word. She doesn’t say anything, silencing him with a sloppy kiss and licking the blood away from his mouth. She increased the pace of her ministrations bringing him closer and closer to the edge, the barely breathing human lying forgotten next to them. He moaned against her skin, her name falling like prayer from his lips as he finally came undone in her hand, chest heaving with the exertion and face flushed as he looked her.

She kissed him once again before stepping away. “Finish the blood bag will you. I don’t like moving food.” She says nonchalantly, licking her fingers. He stares at her, half indignant as he comes down from his high. “You’re seriously not going to let me fuck you?” She tuts disapprovingly. “After the ritual. And you still have to make up to me for messing around with the doppelgänger.” He sighs, pulling up the trembling body and ripping the head clean off and throwing it at her feet before licking off the blood dripping down the neck. She gives him a placating smile. “You would’ve had you not declared your undying love for her. And here we are. I will see you in three days under the full moon.” She says flatly, ignoring the hurt in his expression as she walked away, the compulsion falling back into place as she disappears from sight. He looks down at the body horrified and then at his shredded clothes and then the blood still pouring from the thin lines over his chest, unable to wrap his head around the fact that he’d somehow become a ripper and then forgotten all about it. He shakily made his way back to the Salvatore Boarding House in the early hours of the morning after burying the body. He was still shaking as he curled up in his bed, ignoring Stefan and Elena who were talking in hushed whispers about his odd behaviour. He was missing hours from his memory and he had no clue how it was possible, he’d made sure to stay away from all Originals but somehow it was affecting him and his sanity. His thoughts plagued him as he slowly drifted off into a restless sleep.

~~~~~~~~~

The witch, Greta Martin, had started doing the spell. The two vampires, a freshly turned Jenna and Katherine, the two werewolves, Jules and Tyler, and the two doppelgängers, Elena and Tom. Y/N resisted the urge to laugh. They’d thought they needed one of each but they didn’t know that two curses were going to be broken tonight. Bonnie Bennett and the younger Gilbert, Jeremy or whatever his name was, along with a few measly humans, Matt and something or the other, and Caroline were working on a way to save everyone. But there was no saving anyone when the Mikaelsons had decided they were going to die.

Stefan Salvatore was such a noble soul, bless his little heart, wanting to replace Jenna with himself. Y/N and Niklaus exchanged amused smiles before compelling him to watch the ritual and see them shift into their wolf forms. They had just removed the hearts of the wolves and staked the vampires when a slightly pale faced Damon appeared, trying to call off the ritual. Feeling a sudden surge of anger at the hold the annoying doppelgänger had on the brothers, Y/N pulled her towards herself and sank her teeth into her neck, draining her of all her blood as the Salvatores watched her in a mix of rage and horror as she dropped her body to the ground, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand and looking at them pointedly. Niklaus had killed Tom and was waiting for the rest of the spell to finish when Bonnie stepped in from the trees and Damon used her appearance to his advantage to snap the witch’s neck, ending the spell. The Mikaelsons let out a scream of barely controlled fury and pain as Bonnie used her magic to fling them both against the trees. The older Salvatore didn’t even look twice at Y/N, cradling Elena’s limp body as she stirred, Bonnie’s spell having resurrected her.

Y/N felt smug satisfaction as Bonnie’s strength waned after holding two Originals in place and performing an extremely powerful spell to swap lives. Ripping free from her spell she slowly got to her feet, resisting the urge to shift and run around like Niklaus had done. Now was her chance to make them suffer. And suffer they would. She marched up to a surprised Bonnie, pulling her heart out as she fell to the ground, immediately dead. She gave Stefan an icy glare before yanking Damon away from Elena who was staring up at him wide eyed and slack jawed. “God. How I hate your pathetic family. Your line has brought nothing but bad news for my brothers, always fighting over Tatia or Katerina and now your stupid ass.” She spits out before turning to face Damon. “You absolute dumbass, so many warnings I have to give to stay away from her and yet you follow her around like a puppy.” She grips his face, making him look into her eyes. “Stay and watch and I want to hear you scream while I show you what I do to people who I hate.” Her gaze flicks over to Stefan. “You too Stefan, my sister doesn’t take kindly to cheaters.”

Damon stands, unable to move as he watches Y/N practically lose it. “Stop all your crazy, woman. You lost.” She lets out a cold laugh, caressing his face and making him look at Elena’s terrified face. “You know I never lose, lover. You’ve seen me kill way too many people.” She murmurs in his ear, making sure everyone could hear her. She pulls Elena up to her feet, defiant till the last minute. “Go to hell, Y/N.” “Been there done that sweetheart, where do you think I came from?” She practically purrs, slowly almost lovingly, biting her neck again. “You’re so lucky we need your blood. I know so many ways to get all of it.” She says against her skin as the Salvatores watch her, revolted. She maintains eye contact with Damon as she drags the kicking and screaming doppelgänger to the altar and shoving her down on the ground, hearing a satisfying crack as her spine shattered at the force. Y/N looked at Damon, eyebrow raised. “She’s paralysed now. Still want this fragile, useless creature? Pathetic.” She crushes her left knee under her heel as Elena screams loudly. She looks at her irritated, compelling her to stay quiet. “Shut up. I want to hear my love scream as I break you. You’re not going to die yet. But you’ll wish you were dead I assure you.” She promises. She kicks her arms above her head as she breaks her shoulders. Damon feels tears come to his eyes as watches the scene unfold before him. The woman he loved get tortured by a deranged Mikaelson. Y/N looks at him inwardly delighted. “Crying so soon D? I haven’t even started yet. The human body has 206 bones. I’ve only broken about eight so far.” She says thoughtfully turning her attention back to Elena’s trembling form. “Stop. Please. I can’t watch anymore.” She pretends to think for a moment, playing with her fingers. “Hmm. I don’t think so.” She harshly breaks them, twisting them in odd angles as tears stream down the doppelgänger’s face.

Damon looks away before turning to glare at her, eyes blazing. “I’m going to kill you myself.” “Good luck sweetheart.” She says unbothered, breaking her elbow and bending it at an awkward angle. “Now all you have to do is wait for a few hours.” She says thoughtfully, pulling out her phone to text another witch to come and drain Elena of her blood in front of Damon. She stretches, pulling off her jacket and tossing it at him before turning to Stefan. “Sleep. You can wake up when I turn back.” Stefan falls to the ground, unmoving and limp. Damon seethes in his place, trying to force himself to break out of the compulsion and tear Y/N apart with his bare hands. Unfortunately, the affects of the werewolf bite were starting to get to him and with the pain, emotional trauma of watching Elena get tortured in front of him was too much. Y/N stripped down to nothing, walking over to him and running her hands down his chest as he let out a low, guttural growl at her actions, trying to back away. She laughs, blood dripping down her chin and running down her chest, distracting him from his previous thoughts. This was not supposed to be attractive! He was supposed to despise her and kill her for hurting the people he cared about, albeit grudging care. She noticed his gaze and smirked, slightly shaking her head. “Even compelled...” He tears his eyes from her body, turning the full force of his glare towards her. “I hate you.” He says bitterly. “No, you don’t, lover. As punishment for your idiocy, you have to watch her die in excruciating pain.” She says sweetly, as if offering him a treat. She ruffles his hair affectionately. “I am just anticipating the angry sex after this. Beautiful.” She takes a few steps away, falling to her hands and knees as the change begins. And then nothing as she tears off into the darkness leaving Damon to watch Elena slowly die as the new witch came to drain her, Stefan lying near him, unmoving.

He was shaking, livid and in so much pain. As much as he wanted to stop watching Elena slowly die in front of him, he couldn’t tear his eyes away, feeling his heart shatter as he started to hallucinate because of the bite, feeling his fangs come out against his will. The Sun had risen, Elena’s breathing laboured and her mouth forming words, reassurances but not a sound coming out. It would be so easy to just flip the switch. Not feel anything ever again. He tightly shut his eyes, trying to block everything out when he felt a warm palm pressed against his back. Y/N. He was so ready to kill her or die trying. She was standing beside him, chin resting against his shoulder as she watched Elena slowly ebb away. It was a downright miracle that she was still alive. “I admire your tenacity doppelgänger. But unfortunately, it’s not going to help you today.” She says, ruffling Damon’s hair who flinched from her touch. “See, pretty one? This is what happens when you disobey.” She murmurs, cutting open her wrist and holding it to his mouth, forcing him to drink her blood, healing him. She hadn’t bothered getting dressed, kneeling beside Elena and feeding her some of her blood to prolong her life, feeling his angry gaze on her back as she snapped all the broken bones in place. She turned around to give him a soft smile. “Come on now, lover. Don’t you want to see what she feels like? Like you’ve been aching for her touch?”

He takes reluctant steps towards them, looking pleadingly at Elena who swayed on her feet. “Don’t move now doppelgänger. I’m not done yet.” Y/N’s voice comes out sharp and demanding as she compels her. “See, I’ve known the Salvatores since the 20s and the things we got up to would make your toes curl. And since they met you and your little Team Save Elena, they’ve grown soft and it’s revolting to see such uselessness from two of the most feared killers in history.” She continues, ignoring both of them as she examined her nails in the early morning light.

“You know nothing about me.” Damon hisses, finally snapping having had enough of the Mikaelsons and their mind games. “Oh, but I do, lover. I know you want adventure, that’s why you’re still here in front of me. You like to rebel. You want mystery, passion, romance and a lot of danger.” She smiles easily, brushing away the blood from his lips. “If I thought you were a weakling, I would have let you die a hundred years ago.”

Chicago, 1922

Y/N and Damon were dancing together in the speakeasy, having grown close over the past few months. They twirled around in the room, unable to take their eyes off of each other. Rebekah, Niklaus and Stefan were drinking blood together in a hidden booth. Damon smiled affectionately at her. “You’re really something Y/N and you fascinate me like nobody else.” She laughs, giving him a cheeky kiss. “Do you think so, lover? I’ve been around a long time and you’re still so young.” He grins, shaking his head. “I don’t think you can say that after the little Ripper fest we enjoyed in the church last night. And you looked so pretty covered in blood and screaming my name as I fucked you in the confessional.” He murmurs against her skin, hands firmly resting on her hips, holding her tightly against him. “That was nice. The thing you did with the pastor after taking me on the altar was lovely. I was quite into that.” She agrees, letting out a dreamy sigh. “Sadly the cover-ups are a bit annoying.” He hums in response but before he can say anything the speakeasy erupts into fearful screams. Y/N watches the human and vampire patrons get staked around her, afraid for the first time in a long time. She pulls Damon to the floor beside her as panicked people try to escape, huddling together against the wall. When he meets her eyes, he sees barely controlled fear which surprises him greatly. “Y/N. Do you know the hunters?” “The hunter is an Original vampire. And my father.” She says quietly as bodies fall around them, the screams reaching a fever pitch. “You need to run. Be safe. I’ll find you I promise.” She murmurs, tightening her grip on him. “No. I’m not leaving you. I love you Y/N. I’m not going to let anything happen to you.” He cups her face before kissing her gently. She gives him a forced grin, “I know. I love you too. And I need you safe.” She looks into his eyes, her heart breaking as she compels him to forget her till she says he can remember her again. She presses a soft kiss to his forehead, standing up and escaping the building with her siblings. She’s the last one out, watching Damon from the shadows. She smiles to herself as he pulls out a wayward stake from his shoulder as he runs out, unknowingly in her direction. Knowing the stakes were poisoned with werewolf venom, she pulled him into the dark alcove she was hiding in and pressed her bleeding wrist to his mouth wordlessly, making sure he couldn’t see her face. “Run far away, pretty one. Stay safe till I find you again.” She whispers before disappearing into the night with her siblings.

Present Day

Elena stares at Y/N, terrified about what was she was going to do. As if reading her mind, a cold, cruel smile graced her features. “I’m not going to do anything to you doppelgänger. This one, the one you’ve been playing with all year, is going to be tearing you apart.” Her eyes widen in shock as she tries to speak. Damon vehemently shakes his head, “I’m not going to do ANYTHING you say.” She tuts. “You don’t have a choice, lover. Now, tell me what you like about her, wrong answer and our dear Elena loses an organ.” He grits his teeth trying to force the words back. “Her kindness and the love she has for everyone.” “Wrong. I think we should start with the kidneys. Take the left one out please.” He watches in horror as his hand rises of its own accord, sinking into her body and pulling out a bloody kidney. Elena doubles over at the loss before Y/N compels her to stand properly and not move at all. “Next. Continue.” “The way she thinks everyone can be saved.” “Wrong again. The small intestine should do nicely. Pull it out.” Dread had properly set in as he shut his eyes, pulling out the organ and dropping the long, snake like thing on the grass. “Hmm… I’m not enjoying this as much as I should.” She muses before brightening up. “You can scream now Elena, I don’t mind.” Looking just the faintest bit relieved, she lets out an ear piercing scream as her body begins to shut down to deal with the intense blood and organ loss. Damon lets out a barely audible whimper at the sound, hating Y/N more than he thought possible.

It goes on for what feels like hours as she makes him pull out all her organs one by one till the ground is just a pile of different bloody body parts and bones. Her heart lies on top of the pile, right above her crumpled form. Damon is shaking, body racked with pained sobs as he looks at the sight in front of him. Y/N presses herself against his back, playing with his belt loops and palming him gently through his jeans. “See, lover? Can you blame a girl for doing this to get her man to stay loyal to her?” “I am not your man. I will never be yours.” He says bitterly, rage fuelling him as numbness sets in. “I’d like you to remember everything that happened in the twenties. It is now time.” She says calmly, looking into his eyes.

He feels a sudden flood of memories come to him from a century ago, he drops to his knees overwhelmed by the intensity. He realises that whatever he had felt for Elena was nothing as compared to what he felt for Y/N. She was everything to him, his everything. If he had her, he didn’t need anything else. She was perfection personified and he loved her like nobody else. But the amount of emotional trauma she had inflicted on him was not going to be brushed off so easily. It was a weird dynamic they had but it worked well for them.

He gets to his feet, thoughts organized for what felt like the first time in forever and glared at her. She merely smiled in response. “You’ve been through a lot, haven’t you, lover?” He snarls throwing her against a tree, ignoring the bodies around them, hearing a satisfying grinding sound as the tree cracked under her weight. She let out a soft groan, her back getting scratched up and her nose starting to drip blood. She gives him a feral smile, wiping the blood off. “There he is. Are you going to fuck me now for giving you so much crap? For playing with your emotions and making you cry over some stupid chick you don’t care about?” She says, taunting him with her words. He takes the bait, pining her against the tree, holding her wrists above her head and forcing apart her legs with his knee. “Do not fuck with me like this again or I will leave you.” He threatens. Feeling incredibly turned on, she nods. “I’m not letting you go ever again. You’re mine.” “And you have to stop strutting around naked all the time, it is incredibly distracting.” He murmurs, biting her neck and drinking her blood. “I was making a point.” She manages to say in between soft moans as he rubs his free hand right where she needed him. “Point made. None of that anymore or I’m going to tie you up and leave you in the basement alone and begging for me.” She nods vigorously. “Yes, yes of course. Now just stop talking and fuck me properly.” “You’re so lucky that I’ve missed holding you that I’m not going to take my time like I usually do. Later today, you’re going to show me what you’ve been doing all this time without me.” He says pulling off his clothes and throwing them away haphazardly. “Of course I will.” She promises, tugging him towards her and curling her fingers in his hair as she kisses him roughly. “Good girl.” He whispers appreciatively, digging his fingers into her hips, hoisting her up higher against the tree and pushing his entire length into her in one go. He doesn’t give her time to adjust before he ruthlessly begins to thrust into her, silencing her moans by kissing her again. She feels heady with desire, enjoying the feeling of him all around her after literal decades of waiting. “You feel so good, lover.” She murmurs against his skin. “Next time in the Fell’s church for old time’s sake?” “Maybe I’ll gag you then. You’ve started talking too much.” He muses, letting out a breathy moan of her name as she clenches her walls around him, close to the edge. “Then you won’t be able to hear me call your name as I climax, would you?” “I’d still be making you scream when I cut you up with those daggers of yours dipped in wolfsbane.” “I missed you and your sadism.” She gasps out after a particularly hard thrust, the bark tearing her back and waves of pain mixing with the pleasure he was providing her. And he felt so good as he pounded into her, leaving rapidly healing bites over her neck and chest and licking off her blood. She finally reaches her peak burying her head in the crook of his neck to stifle her broken moans. He doesn’t let up as he overstimulates her, feeling himself close to the edge. “Again. Come for me again.” He growls, gently nipping her ear lobe and kissing her jaw. She trembles in his arms not yet used to the heightened feelings that came with being a proper hybrid. She tightens her grip on his hair drawing out a pleased moan from him as he finally climaxes, her following shortly after. She slumps weakly in his arms as they exchange lazy kisses, recovering from their highs. She rests her head against his shoulder as her back heals itself.

Out of the corner of her eye, Y/N spots Caroline, Matt, Jeremy and Alaric staring at the bloody scene in front of them in a mix of fear, shock, repulsion and horror. She smirks, unlatching herself from Damon and speaking up for everyone to hear. “Well Damon, I think it’s time we send the rest where the others are?” He gives her a feral grin as he pulls on his underwear and runs a bloodstained hand through his hair. “For the greater good.” He agrees.

With that the duo launches themselves at the four taking them by surprise, tearing into them and killing them with relative ease. Y/N lets out an appreciative hum wiping the blood from her chin and kisses him again. “I enjoy it when we feed together. It’s a nice bonding activity.” “I enjoy our Ripper phases. Can’t believe I thought humans were worth keeping safe.” She gives him a smug smile. “Exactly my point. Now, back to the Mansion where you’re going to show me how much you love me and what all you’re willing to do for the greater good.” He laughs, picking her up bridal style before his gaze drifts to his brother. “Aren’t you going to wake Stef up?” “Yes, that. Rebekah should be here soon, she can take care of him.” She looks in the direction of the younger Salvatore. “Wake up and go to the Boarding House, Stefan dear.” She throws an arm around Damon’s neck before kissing him again. “The things we do for love.” “For love and for the greater good.” He gives her a soft smile, reserved only for her on rare occasions before kissing her softly. They quickly made their way to the Mansion where they spent the rest of the day in the throes of passion, marking each other as their one and only.

And what exactly what this greater good? Y/N’s happiness of course, no matter who came in the way or who got hurt in the process, her happiness was the most important.

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jaskierswolf · 4 years ago

Text

A Thirst Like Flames

Part 4/6 (1, 2, 3, - 5)

Ship: Gerlion - Rated: E (for smut) - Also on AO3

CW: (for this chapter only) canon-typical violence, animal death

Summary: There was an itch prickling over Dandelion’s skin, a constant ache in the pit of his stomach and his mind felt hazy at all hours of the day. He watched the sun creep behind the horizon, quill in hand, the long feather brushing against his cheek, willing for some kind of inspiration, anything to distract him from the never ending lust. He couldn’t help it, he was a young man in his prime and he’d spent the last few months in the wilderness with a rather gorgeous witcher.

Dandelion had forlornly watched Geralt leave the room, his afterglow sufficiently shattered even as Marie curled up next to him, her hands resting on his chest. He felt hollow. He hadn’t meant to say Geralt’s name, but the habit was hard to shake and, with the witcher watching him so intently, was he really to blame?

Dandelion sighed, his own fingers dancing along the length of Marie’s spine. She was beautiful and very talented at her profession. She hadn’t made any move to continue their activities once Geralt had left the room, which Dandelion was surprisingly grateful for. He wondered what Geralt had been thinking when he left. Did he resent Dandelion? Had he just ruined everything?

His adventures with the witcher were probably over before they’d even truly begun.

And yet, Geralt had reminded him of when they were due to meet. That had to mean something. He sighed dramatically and stared up at the ceiling. Sharing a whore had seemed like a great idea at the time but now he was really starting to wonder whether he’d irreparably damaged their budding friendship, he’d grown too greedy too fast.

“Why don’t you follow him?” Marie asked.

“Excuse me?” Dandelion stammered, blinking down at her. He hadn’t expected her to talk but he supposed he was being rather miserable company. Not at all up to his usual standards. He knew that whores talked, and he knew he had a reputation… and this really wasn’t it.

“Instead of moping in bed with me, why don’t you follow him?” Marie asked again, poking him in the chest.

“Ah, yes, well. I really don’t think that’s a good idea, my dear,” he sighed, eyes flickering back up to the ceiling. He scoffed haughtily and rolled over in the bed, turning his back on Marie. Yes, he was sulking but he was a poet and he was allowed to be dramatic, especially after he’d destroyed the best thing that had happened to him since he’d left Oxenfurt.

He heard Marie sigh behind him and that was the only warning he got before he was dumped unceremoniously on the floor. He squeaked as he landed with a thump, and he was sure he’d bruised his coccyx, he hoped that it wasn’t broken. He’d never broken a bone before but he was sure it couldn’t be more painful than this. He hissed and turned to glare at Marie who was smirking down at him, still looking as lovely as ever, and if he wasn’t so furious he would be tempted to go another round.

“Get out, poet,” she said simply, her tone leaving no room for arguments.

“Well, excuse me?” he gaped at her. “I thought…”

“The witcher is waiting for you, we’re done. Get out, before I call for help.” Dandelion went to grab his clothes, quite adept at getting dressed quickly before climbing through the window, but Marie stopped him. “Out!”

“My clothes!” he whined, only just managing to swipe up his small clothes before he was booted out the door.

He stared, pouting at the door, one hand on his hips and the other running through the mess of curls on his head. The door stayed shut, despite his silent prayers and he really didn’t want to face the witcher with no clothes on. He’d humiliated himself enough for one day. Before he managed to turn and walk way, the door finally flew open and his poor, very expensive, clothes were flung from the room and he had to scramble to catch them.

“Oh bloody hell!”

It was only when he’d reached the street below the brothel that he realised his precious lute was still inside. With a pathetic whine he turned to head back inside but the window above him slammed open.

“You forgot something, bard,” Marie yelled down to him and his eyes widened as he saw his lute in her hands.

“No, no, no, my lute! Careful she’s fragile!” Dandelion cried, dropping his clothes and stumbling forwards to catch his darling instrument as it was dropped from the window. By some miracle she didn’t break and he cradled her in his arms until he noticed the strange looks he was getting from the surrounding villagers. “Oh, bugger off.”

He scooped up his clothes and darted into an alley to get dressed. The sun had set before he managed to flee the town, luckily avoiding the thugs that were lurking by the gates. Having mud covered clothes had probably helped, he looked much less like the noble he was born to be.

“Blasted whore,” he muttered as he tried his best to brush down his clothes but they were a lost cause.

Dandelion sighed, adjusting his hat on his head. It would need a new feather, but he would look for one in the next town. For now, he just needed to find Geralt… wherever he might be.

___________

The woods were dark and unforgiving, nothing like the warmth of the brothel, but it suited Geralt’s mood just fine. He stared into the fire, watching the flames dance, licking at the air and swirling into nothing. The heat prickled against his skin, a comforting feeling that kept him grounded as his emotions brewed into a storm in his chest.

Dandelion had wanted him.

And Geralt had left him.

Roached snorted from the edge of the camp, stomping at the ground. Sometimes Geralt wondered if she was more human than horse, she certainly seemed to have opinions on every choice he made in life. He rolled his eyes and cast her a withering look. “I know, I fucked up.”

Her tail flicked and she whinnied loudly.

“I know, I’ll wait for him, even give him until noon. Gods know he won’t be up at dawn,” he sighed and turned back to watch the fire once more.

Geralt wasn’t sure how long he watched it, but a familiar scream pulled him from his thoughts.

“Dandelion?” he jumped up and grabbed his swords, making sure Roach was secure before running towards the sound of the poet. His brain was supplying images of the very worst scenarios, Dandelion cold and bleeding out on the ground, bandits or monsters looming over him.

And it would all be Geralt’s fault. He hadn’t been there to protect his friend.

“Geralt!” the poet yelled again, “Geralt help me!”

The world sharpened around him as he focused his senses, the sounds and smells of the forest almost overwhelming but he was skilled at blocking out what he didn’t need. A familiar lavender and chamomile scent caught his attention and he turned his head towards the vibrations of Dandelion’s heartbeat, the sticks and leaves crunching underfoot as he tried to scramble away from his attacker. Geralt sniffed, picking out the scent of wet dog among the trees, a low rumbling of growls filling the air.

Wargs.

“Damn it!” he cursed as he ran, his steel sword ready to strike. Time slowed as he burst into the clearing. Dandelion was on the floor, his doublet covered in mud, tears ripping through the fabric but Geralt noticed with relief that there was no trace of the poet’s blood. The rips seemingly from his rush through the trees.

Geralt’s sword swung through the air just in time. The warg yelped as steel slashed through fur. Dark eyes met golden, snarling and growling as it bared its teeth. The witcher and the warg danced a lethal dance, sword versus brute force, steel versus claws. Geralt tried to ignore Dandelion’s whimpering, focussing on the task at hand. Pirouetting, dodging, lunging, a blur of white hair as the final blow hit. His sword buried into the creature’s brain, and the warg whined as it fell to the ground.

“Oh gods,” Dandelion groaned, arms wrapping around his stomach. His face had gone a ghostly pale white, resembling the wraiths that haunted the realm.

Geralt squatted down beside his friend, cupping his cheek and brushing the matted blond curls from off his face. “You’re safe, Dandelion.”

Dandelion just sobbed, gripping onto Geralt’s armour, his long fingers scratching at the leather. It was so rare to see his friend so distraught that Geralt wasn’t sure what to do. He tentatively wrapped his arms around the poet, closing his eyes as he let Dandelion cry himself dry. Witchers don’t feel, it was the thought that had been plaguing him ever since he’d met the poet. Witchers don’t feel, and yet Geralt’s heart felt like it was bleeding, aching for the fragile human that he held so close.

“My lute,” Dandelion whispered, his usually soothing tenor cracked and hoarse. “Oh gods, Geralt my lute.”

Geralt frowned, scanning the forest for the bard’s instrument, but he found nothing. That was strange, the lute was normally strung round Dandelion’s shoulders or tucked safely away in their room at inns. Geralt gripped the poet’s shoulder, tucking a finger under his chin so that watery cornflower blue eyes were shining up at him, his bottom lip quivering and looking every part the delicate flower that he played.

“What happened, Dandelion?” Geralt asked with a cock of his head.

“I- I- I tripped, when- when I first saw it,” Dandelion choked on his own sobs, stammering over the words where he would normally be streaming poetic nonsense with very little effort. “The wolf, monster, whatever the bloody hell it was!”

“Warg,” Geralt answered without thinking but Dandelion’s answering glare made him wince.

“Yes, thank you, my dear. That is not the point!” Dandelion snapped, wiping the snot from his nose.

“I know,” Geralt said softly, swiping his thumb along the poet’s cheekbone to brush away the tear that had fallen. “I’m sorry, your lute?”

“I fell on it, shattered by my own hand!”

“Where is it?”

“Oh, does it matter?” Dandelion whined, waving his arms wide.

“Yes, now show me.”

They walked cautiously through the trees, Dandelion hanging off Geralt’s arm, sniffing as he went, and the scent of his misery permeated the air. Geralt knew they were close when Dandelion let out a pitiful whine, and his fingers gripped tighter onto Geralt’s arm. The lute lay splintered on the ground, the neck only attached to the body by the strings.

Toruviel’s lute, broken beyond repair.

Unless…

Geralt gathered up the pieces in his arms, ignoring the whines and cries from his companion as they walked back to camp. The lute was tucked into Roach’s saddlebags and they settled down for the night. There was a chill in the air but not enough to warrant sharing a bedroll, and yet Dandelion curled up close to him. Neither of them questioned it, content to hold each other close after the long and emotional trials of the day.

#the witcher #gerlion #geraskier #geralt/dandelion #geralt x dandelion #wolfie's witcher writing

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unknowntoyou2205 · 4 years ago

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"Don't listen if someone says you aren't good enough" Peter Parker x sister

Details: Peter and his sister y/n live in the Avengers tower with Tony Stark as their guardian. At home, she seems fine but in school, she's far from fine. With the bullying being constant she ends up making herself ill/ How will the avengers react when they find out?

Ding!!! The bell went off, signalling the end of school. Y/n gathered her bits and pieces before heading towards her locker. Once sorted she closed her locker and turned to see a group of girls. Not just any girls, r/g/n's (Random Girls Name) group.

"Oh look, it's the orphan." R/g/n teased causing the other three girls to laugh. "Leave me alone r/g/n" Y/n sighed, trying to get by. "Oh we haven't even started yet." R/g/n stated, pushing her back into the lockers/

Y/n looked over the group of girls heads to see her brother and his best friend Ned walk out of the school. She sighed as Happy drove off.

"I bet her parents killed themselves to get away from her. I mean, who could live with that face living with them." Another girl in the group stated. "I know I can barely stand seeing it in school." R/g/n agreed as the others laughed. R/g/n grabbed y/n's chin, forcing her to look her in the eye.

"Your just a nobody y/n. Just face it. Your ugly, fat and somebody no one cares about. You could die today and no one would care. Peter just acts like he cares about you but he doesn't give a damn. As soon as he's able to leave you, he will. Your a loner and no one will ever want you. Your a pain to everyone. The fact that I'm talking to you right now is a miracle. Do us all a favor and leave. Never return here again." R/g/n hissed at y/n before throwing her away from the group. "Stay away from here slut." One yelled. "We don't want to see you until you lose some pounds." Another followed as y/n left. "More like lose the ugliness." R/g/n stated to her group once y/n was out of sight causing the girls to laugh.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

"What about y/n?" Peter asked as Happy drove off. "She was late so I headed off." Happy replied. "But hows she supposed to get home?" "She has feet doesn't she?" "Well yeah but........" "Listen kid, Tony wants you home as soon as possible. Y/n will be fine on her own." Peter sighed and slouched in his seat. "What does Tony want that we couldn't wait for y/n?" "I don't know Peter. Why don't you ask him when we get there?" Happy exclaimed, getting annoyed. "Still think we should of waited." Peter said after a moments silence. "Peter." Happy exclaimed causing Peter to keep quiet.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Y/n entered the Avenger tower lobby. She quickly got in the elevator and pressed the top floor.

"Miss Y/n, welcome back." Jarvis voiced as Y/n stood in the elevator. "Thank you Jarvis." "Shall I inform the others of your arrival?" "No!! I mean, no Jarvis, thank you. I'm a little tired so I think I might lay down." "You do seem pale miss Y/n, shall I inform Doctor Banner to check on you?" "No Jarvis, there will be no need. I should be fine after a good rest." "Alright. I'll wake you when dinner is ready." "Don't bother. I'll get it when I wake." Y/n lied. "Very well. Rest well miss y/n." "Thank you Jarvis." Y/n sighed as she pulled her curtains closed.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Jarvis, inform everyone that dinner is ready." Pepper asked. "Informing tower residents of dinner." Jarvis recited.

One by one the avengers slowly piled into the kitchen. They each grabbed a plate before heading into the kitchen. Tony messed with Peters head as he passed him before eating in silence.

"Where's y/n?" Peter asked after a few minutes silence. "I don't know, she should be down here by now." Pepper stated. "Jarvis,where's y/n." Tony asked. "Miss y/n is sleeping sir. She asked me not to disturb her if dinner was ready before she woke." Jarvis said. "Why on earth is she sleeping at 5 during the day?" Natasha asked. "Only one way to find out." Tony stated as he got up and left the room.

Tony left the avengers and made his way to the elevator. Once he got to y/n's room he knocked and waited for an answer. Upon getting no answer he opened the door to see y/n laying in bed. Moving closer he noticed sweat all over her body. He carefully placed his hand on y/ns forehead before pulling it back. He moved the covers and gasped at what he seen.

"Jarvis get doctor banner, now." Tony ordered with worry laced in his voice. "Right away sir." Tell him to hurry."

"Tony, what's wrong?" "Look at y/n." Tony said as he moved towards Bruce. "Oh no." "What?" "Get her to my lab. Jarvis tell Peter to meet us there. I'll go get things sorted." Bruce ordered as he rushed off.

------------------------------------

Y/n slowly began to move. Peter sat up as she slowly opened her eyes. Blinking, she turned to face her brother.

"She's awake." Peter called, turning to face his sister. "WHat happened?" "Your body began to shut down due to lack of food and nutrients." Bruce explained, checking over her. "Wanna explain why you were starving yourself to near death." Tony asked, crossing his arms at the bottom of the bed. "Notings going on." Y/n blurted out. "I didn't ask what was going. But something must be for you to say that." Y/n sighed and looked down. "The girls, they wouldn't leave me alone. Fat, ugly, slut, a nobody, orphan, all they did was go on my looks or how I live. I had enough of it, I wanted to be like them. Pretty, but I wasnt. I thought starving myself would work." "Is that why you cut yourself?" Peter asked sadly. Y/n looked at Peter. "I'm sorry Peter. I know you said I could go to over anything but I felt alone." Y/n said as she broke down. "It's okay, we an help you. You'll get better, I promise." Peter said as he placed his hand on y/ns shoulder.

----------------------------------------------

4 months later, y/n was in the kitchen eating breakfast. With the help of the avengers she became better. She slowly gained weight and soon felt confident in her own body. Tony and Steve had went into the school to talk to the principal and the girls who bullied y/n into starving and cutting herself were suspended till further notice. Overall y/n was much happier the she was to start with. And it was the avengers who, liked true heros, helped her.

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hillnerd · 4 years ago

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Waking Up - Chapter 4

Rating M A03 ff.net [ Previous Chapter] [start at the beginning] Giant thank you to @abradystrix and @divagonzo for betaing and being so supportive and wonderful.

CHAPTER WARNINGS: cursing, depresssed/anxious thinking, talk about eating & weight gain/loss, PTSD, brief mentions of substance abuse

Previously, on 'Waking Up'

Hermione struggles on her own with plans to get her parents back, eating, and nightmares

She and Harry have a tiff over her putting silencing spells on herself (to keep anyone from hearing nightmares)

Harry Ron and Ginny play quidditch- and afterwards Ron and Hermione have a all out fight about her lack of self care and his doting

Harry has a panic attack from a loud noise Ron witnesses (Hermione sees from hiding)

Hermione and Ron make up with some grinding behind the shed

George comes back (had previously been drunk and arrested- but only Ron and Arthur know about this)

The trio get formal invitations to the Aurors and Order of Merlin

Ron and Hermione have a convo where she says how dumb she thinks it is for Harry to become an Auror

=======================================================

CHAPTER 4- THE VILLAGE

His stomach swooped like he’d missed a step. The blaring panic, the contraction of his muscles as he wildly tried to keep from falling, the disequilibrium... It was all there, only there was no missed step: just him following Hermione into the house for lunch.

He slumped into a chair and stared around him.

George mostly kept his head down, unable to look anyone in the eye and forcing his gaze up only when he had trouble focusing on a question. Harry was still pale and making little jerky movements when there was a noise. Ginny was putting on a smile and pretending everything was alright, but he saw her mouth twitching and faltering every time she thought no one was looking. Mum was trying to keep the conversation going with George and spectacularly failing. With every failed conversation she looked a touch more deflated, a touch more wane, a touch more close to saying ‘I need to take a nap.’ Hermione was barely eating her food again, staring at Harry with concern. And Ron couldn’t find it in himself to do anything to help anyone.

He didn’t have words anymore. He’d used them all up over the last twelve hours. He’d gone to the Ministry to get George, he’d talked to the Minister about his future, he’d talked to his Dad about his past, he’d gone to the hotel to deal with George’s mess, he’d played Quidditch, he’d fought with Hermione, he’d tried to be there through Harry’s panic terror, then he and Hermione had gotten off behind the shed in the most spectacular way, but George was back, and now Hermione hated the idea of Aurors and would think he was an idiot for taking up with them and... And he couldn’t take any more.

He knew it was ridiculous. It was nothing! He’d basically done nothing all day, but somehow Ron felt close to passing out.

“Eat up,” Ginny prodded him, giving his plate a quizzical look. Oh right…

Ron took a bite of sandwich and muscled it down his throat. He mournfully gazed at the sandwich. It had looked so appetizing before his talk with Hermione. He was relieved she had no interest in being an Auror, but he hadn’t predicted everything else.

He’d thought she’d be proud of the idea. It wasn’t an accomplishment that Ron had been asked to be an Auror, since everyone and their owl seemed to be getting asked, but wasn’t joining the right thing to do? Wasn’t it a career choice she should be proud of him for?

Apparently not.

She’d snorted and rolled her eyes at Harry joining. Harry! The Boy-Who-Defeated Voldemort! If she thought Harry couldn’t handle it, he couldn’t imagine her thinking any better of him. In fact, he knew she wouldn’t like it.

He started to see why Hermione couldn’t eat. Who could? Everything was so horrid it was through pure force of will that he was able to eat his sawdust sandwich and swallow each bite. His body felt jittery and weak, and every time he reached for his glass of water, he was less and less sure he’d be able to hold it without it slipping from his grasp.

“I’m going to go shower,” Ron mumbled to no one in particular, pushing himself away from the table, surprised at how together he was able to sound.

“Don’t you want to stay and celebrate the sandwiches you made?” George asked. He had a panicked look in his eye that plainly said ‘don’t leave me here alone with them!’ Ron wavered in place. Maybe he could find it in himself if—

“He’s ripe! Let him shower,” said Ginny. “Why don’t we put on the wireless and listen to the game? Kestrels and Harpies are the first pair doing a post war charity match. It’s set to start in a bit.”

Some of the tension in George ebbed, and Ron vowed to give his little sister a giant hug when he wasn’t feeling close to unconsciousness. He discreetly picked his letters up from the table and without another word he dragged himself up the stairs, one plodding foot at a time. He nearly caught his foot on the final stair, but finally made it safely to the bathroom. He placed his Ministry letters next to the sink and as the shower water heated he dared to look at himself in the mirror. He was pale with great purple bags under his eyes, but other than that looked better than he had when on the run with Horcruxes. Good. He might not be able to feel good, but he could look the part.

He turned the spigot to the shower and as hot water hit him in the chest he let out a sigh. The shower was the only place that really felt safe from everyone. Keeping watch late at night always had the chance of someone coming upon him, but in the shower with the too hot water pounding on him, he could rely on at least a moment of being completely alone. Safe and alone. Never clean though. No matter how the water scalded him, or how hard he scrubbed his skin raw, he never quite felt clean anymore.

He bent at the knees and stooped, chin tucked to his chest, to properly wet his hair. Given how tall all the Weasleys were, he wondered at how they’d never gotten around to installing a higher shower head. After only a few minutes of scrubbing he was too exhausted to stand, much less stoop so low.

Not ready to leave his steamy sanctuary, he put in the plug, and sat in the tub as it filled with water.

He hadn’t expected to see George there today. Maybe a few days out… The moment he’d seen him crossing the lawn he’d hoped George would lose his nerve and go away again. He knew it was awful to wish it. He couldn’t feel any relief at George’s return. His brother looked like a dead man walking, and still vaguely smelled of booze, whether it was sweated out from his binge the night before or from a fresh bout of drinking, Ron wasn’t sure, despite George’s reassurances.

He sat in the tub, letting the warmth lull him into a dozy calm state he hadn’t felt in ages. It didn’t matter that the water barely made it a few inches above his navel and his legs were bent at a funny angle to keep as much of him underwater as possible. He finally turned off the faucet and propped his head against the still cool tile, letting sleep cloud his mind.

“Got you to scream good and loud for me, didn’t I?” came a voice. He could feel the hot breath in his ear, the weight on top of him.

“Ron?”

He kicked out but was paralyzed and unable to move. He shook, fear clenching at him, invading his pores.

“Ron, you drowning in there?”

Ron startled and began to sit up, hand slipping as he tried to gain purchase against white porcelain. His whole body shook. His arm was curled under him and throbbed. The comforting warmth of the tub water had turned cold, but he couldn’t help but feel that his shaking was due to the half-formed memories bubbling to the surface as he slept.

“Ron!” his sister called, more insistent than before.

“I’ll be a minute, Ginny!” he hoarsely called back, sitting up straighter and blinking his eyes, willing wakefulness back into them.

“You’ve been there well over an hour already.”

He dazedly looked about for his wand to reheat his water, not ready to face anyone. What was the spell for heating up water again? The only one that came to mind boiled water.

He should know this! He had to use it in the shower when they were on the Horcrux Hunt every time. His mind remained blank.

With a resigned sigh he shakily removed the stopper. No more warm bath for him. Maybe he would go upstairs and nap. He hugged his long legs close to his chest and flexed his numb left hand. His fingers only partially complied.

“Stupid bloody arm.”

He shook it and hit the side of his fist against the tiled wall a few times. The fingers stuttered and twitched but finally started to move. He let out a pained hiss.

“Ron?”

“What!” He bit out.

“It’s been over an hour!” Ginny insistently cried out.

“If you need the bathroom so bad, use it!” he yelled back, fumbling for his wand on the ground before opening the lock with a twist of his wand. “It’s unlocked. Have at it!”

He jerked the curtain more tightly closed and roughly scrubbed his face, shivering at the slight breeze the opening door caused.

She shut the door and he heard the telltale sniffing of Ginny trying to keep herself from crying.

“Alright?” he asked.

“Oh yeah, really swell,” she shot back with a wavering voice. She wasn’t all out crying, but she was close enough.

The curtain almost imperceptibly swayed, and he could tell she’d sat herself on the floor next to the tub.

“It’s been really... really great down there,” she said, sniffing even harder.

Ron leaned his head back against the tile wall. So much for naps.

“Give me a few minutes and I can meet you in my room.”

“Yeah?” Her voice sounded small and young; that, along with the brittle hope he heard in her voice, made his resentment evaporate.

“‘Course.”

“I’ll see you there,” she murmured, quickly leaving the bathroom.

He wanted to sit in the uncomfortably cold cast iron tub well after the last of the water had circled the drain. No matter how jittery his guts were feeling or how his eyes were burning with fatigue, he knew he couldn’t.

He hadn’t heard her sound that vulnerable in so long, it was almost a relief. After Riddle’s diary it took her years to find her footing, but when she finally did there were a whole lot of walls up. She’d always been chatty and excitable, but now there was a forced enthusiasm she’d wheel out that never felt fully authentic to Ron. She’d always had a wicked sense of humor, but now it was more barbed and defensive. She’d always been a tough little thing, but now she exaggerated it and laid on the sass and swagger thick

He hoped there’d be a day he didn’t notice the toll Voldemort took on his family, but that was unimaginable at this point.

He Accio ’ d some clean clothes from his room and changed. He glanced at the mirror and saw an imprint of the tiles on his cheek.

“Nothing for that…” he mumbled to himself, giving a yawn before going up the stairs to his room, Ministry letters clutched once again in his hand. He had never particularly minded how many flights it was up to his room — it was one of the only reasons he was afforded any privacy in the overcrowded house— but lately he’d begun to hate how many flights of stairs he had to ascend. When he was bone weary, and not fully trusting himself to apparate safely, it was a real kick in the bollocks. He gave a knock on the door before going in.

Ginny sat on his bed, her face blotchy and red.

He sat beside her and waited for her to say something. When she stayed silent he put an arm around her shoulder and pulled her in for a one armed hug.

“It’s just...” she said with a deep inhale, before a sound burst out of her, somewhere between a laugh and a sob. She stifled it behind a hand. He gripped his shaking sister tighter.

“You saw George! And Mum is… I’ve never seen her so tired, so bloody old .” Her voice shook and her eyes filled with tears. “And Hermione is still acting off and Harry… I don’t know what happened, but he’s been shaking ever since Quidditch and his hugs have been too tight, and I don’t… I don’t know!”

Ron quietly nodded, as his sister turned her head into his shoulder and hot tears soaked through his shirt.

As children she used to cry all the time, half of the time just to get her way. After her horrifying first year there had been plenty of nights he’d found her crying. Those nights he’d stay with her until morning. Then the crying stopped. Her eyes might flood with angry or worried tears, but she didn’t cry all-out in front of him after that. Ron caught her sniffing and trying to stifle her tears after Harry dumped her late one night. She never asked him to help her or to stay, but he stayed with her until morning that time too.

Minutes passed and finally her silent crying slowed.

“Sorry,” she muttered into his shoulder.

“S’nothing,” he said, gently patting her back in small circles, the same way their Mum did.

“I’m just glad you’re doing alright. At least someone in the family hasn’t gone completely mental on me.”

Ron breath stilled a bit as he continued to consolingly pat her. He wouldn’t think of the dream he’d had in the bath.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” he choked out. He swallowed and hoped his voice would come out steady. “Tonight we’ll go out and have some fun, yeah? I bet we can get some smiles on their faces, between the two of us.”

She gave a watery laugh, pulled away from him, and wiped at her eyes with the palms of her hands.

“Yeah, between the two of us,” she said with a smile. It faltered and she looked at her hands. “But we won’t be able to team up for much longer, will we?”

“Wha’dyou mean?”

She bit her lip. “You’re going to join the Aurors with Harry, aren’t you?”

Ron let out his breath between his teeth. “Yeah. Yeah I am,” he said, bracing himself for a lecture. Instead he felt his breath squeezed out of him by a fierce hug.

“I knew you would!” She pulled back, smiling at him.

“Yeah, well, someone has to make sure Harry doesn’t get blown up or something.”

“Exactly! If anyone can keep him from that, it’s you.” She rubbed at her eyes again.

He didn’t know whether to be flattered or offended by her response. He wanted someone to be happy for him, of course, but the way she was looking at him she seemed more happy he’d be there to keep Harry safe.

“Don’t tell Hermione I’m becoming one.” Ginny gave him a questioning look, prompting him to explain. “She’s not too keen on the idea and I want to figure out a way to tell her myself.”

“How do you know she’s against it?”

“I felt her thoughts out for it, didn’t I? She made a fuss over Harry becoming one, saying he was ‘throwing his life away,’ how it was a ‘ridiculous choice.’”

“Well,” she said rather slowly. “I can’t say I entirely blame her…”

“How’s that?” Offense rose inside him. Did everyone have a meeting to agree they thought he was weak?

“Oh come off it. Auror isn’t exactly the safest of jobs, is it? And with the war we just went through and Fr—” Her voice stopped short. “With everyone we lost, it won’t be easy for any of us knowing you’re out there fighting Death Eaters again. Only this time we can’t help you.”

“We’ll be fine,” he said with a nonchalance he didn’t feel. Ginny gave him a sharp look. “Don’t worry. I’ll keep your boyfriend safe.”

“I’d like you to stay safe too, you know,” she said, jabbing him in the side with one of her pointy little elbows.

“Aw, Gin. You do care!” he said with a forced laugh, hoping to prod her into better humor.

“Only for Harry’s sake. He’d never function with you,” she snorted and smiled fondly at him, before giving him a punch to the arm that would have hurt if her fists weren’t so tiny.

“You’d miss me if a Death Eater spelled my brains out.”

“You’d have to have brains in order for them to be spelled out!” she snickered.

“Well I’m sure the Ministry would be just as happy to have me be a human shield for Harry, so it doesn’t matter if I have much brains or not.”

She gave him a much less friendly strike to the arm before snapping, “Don’t talk like that!”

Tingles erupted down his left arm where she’d hit him.

“Sorry,” Ron said sobberly. He needed to stop making comments like that around his family. Gallows humor wasn’t as easy to traverse as it had been before, or even during, the war. He massaged his arm where she’d struck it.

They looked at each other before she sighed.

“Better toughen up a bit before you join,” said Ginny. She attempted to smile at him, but it was a miserable attempt. So much for cheering up his sister. She rose from the bed with a sigh. “I’ve been gone a bit long for a trip to the loo— not that they’d notice, they’re all so out of it— You coming?”

Ron shook his head.

“I want to fill out my Auror documents before someone tries to talk me out of it.”

Ginny gave an understanding smile. “Yeah, best to get it over with now. Gives Hermione less to hassle you about if there’s ‘Official Ministry Paperwork’ already submitted.”

“Cheers,” he replied as she left.

He collapsed back on his bed and unfurled the Auror paperwork Kingsley had sent. Much of it was just forms he had to fill out, questionnaires, and towards the end was an outline of the program, pay, and signing bonus - information he hadn’t even considered. Refreshingly, he’d be making his own way right off the bat!

He needed to get all sorts of documents sent in to them as well: permission for release of grades and medical records from Hogwarts, a written out CV of sorts, and he’d need to have medical and mental evaluations that would be arranged through the Auror office, as well as a final interview.

He dropped the papers on the bed and ran his hands through his hair. His chest tightened.

Kingsley hadn’t said anything about evaluations or interviews…

Looking at it laid out in black and white made his decision become more tangible than before, and the thought of failing made his gut clench. So far no one seemed to think him capable of being a competent Auror. Maybe he’d not even be able to qualify after all. If his doubters were right about him it’d just be another time he’d fucked up and disappointed everyone.

Hermione might think becoming an Auror so soon after the war was stupid, but if he couldn’t even get past the evaluations he knew she’d respect him less. If Harry failed an evaluation or utterly bombed an interview Ron had no doubt they’d still let him through. He was The Boy Who Lived, the Chosen One, or whatever it was they were calling him now. But Ron? He was a complete nobody. The only reasons Kingsley talked to him were because of the family connection and their need for warm bodies in the department. The bar was as low as it could ever be, and Ron could still fuck it up. It was one thing when he’d privately agreed to be an Auror, but now everyone knew he’d been asked. They’d all know if he fucked up.

He thought it was a guarantee, but now... Now it was this looming uncertain mass of chaos, where anything could happen. He could let everyone down, just like he always did. He could fail and not get in.

Or worse, what if they let him into the Aurors and he fucked up the same way he had in the war? He was so weak he’d just stood by while Fred died. He was so weak the Locket had almost made him kill his best friend. He was so weak he’d abandoned Harry and Hermione. He was so weak he’d been captured by Snatchers in minutes and they’d —

He fled to his wastebasket and gagged over it before he splattered sick into the container. The foul taste made him vomit again, making tears sting his eyes. He couldn’t stop the retching and continued until it was nothing but dry-heaves.

“F-fuck...” he panted, and wiped at his eyes. He pushed the small bin away from himself, face curled into distaste. He spelled the sick away and did a quick tooth cleaning spell as well, which only helped remove the acrid taste from his mouth so much. The smell didn’t entirely dissipate from the room either.

The Auror forms still sat on the bed.

Ron grabbed them and nearly shut them in his bedside drawer when his hand stilled. He laid them on his pillow, gently un-creasing them.

He’d told Kingsley he’d sign up. He’d told his dad. He’d told George. He’d told Ginny. His mother was expecting him to sign up. Harry couldn’t go it alone.

He let out a trembling breath. He needed to get a quill and ink before he lost the will.

Finding no writing implements in his bedside drawer he looked about in his old Hogwarts trunk. After diving through old robes, essays, books, chocolate frog cards, and other detritus, he’d not found one intact quill. The only ink bottle he’d found was completely dried out, a large black stain beside it marring the bottom of his trunk’s interior. He riffled through Harry’s belongings and was still empty handed, only finding a very dull quill on its last legs, but no bottles of ink that weren’t dried out with flakes of ink rattling in them.

How did two of-age blokes not have one quill and ink set between them? Giving up, he made his way to Ginny’s room. He unsuccessfully poked about in her small roll top desk when he noticed Hermione’s book bag.

Jackpot.

She’d been writing just earlier. He could nick what he needed and return them before she knew they were gone.

He gave a chuckle as he found numerous bottles of ink, and quills galore at the bottom of her stuffed bag. Only Hermione would have brought that many backups on her person to translate runes in a field. As he put everything back, her somewhat ratty copy of Tales of Beedle the Bard fell open, scattering parchments across the floor.

He gave a groan and stooped to the floor, trying to put the papers in some semblance of order. He’d read the book enough to know what order the stories went in at least. Her usual neat and ordered writing looked almost as loopy and sloppy as his, but after a tick he realized he wasn’t holding translations at all.

There were haphazard notes and semblances of ideas, none about fairy tales or runes.

Portkey. (need to research obtaining one and cost) Taxi. ( £60?) Hotel. (??) Food. (???) Yellow pages. Government records. Private investigator. (cost?) Go to library? Research prices and conversion rate. Check on house. How many days would I be gone?

It took a few moments to decipher the cryptic list. Conversion rates? A portkey? Where was she planning on going? Then it hit him with all the subtlety of a bludger to the head. This was about her parents, and Australia.

He’d been so taken up with his family he hadn’t really thought about Hermione’s. They were safely away, and though Hermione had talked about them in passing, she’d never mentioned going to get them.

Normally he could imagine her dealing with this on her own. Her sharp mind always parsed problems with ease, and she was a bit of a genius to boot. Lately though… It wasn’t like she wasn’t still incredibly intelligent, but there was something off in just about everything she did. The way she ate, the way she talked, the way she slept… Her usual meticulous notes were haphazard and directionless, laid out in a mess like he’d never seen from her before.

Funds- £56 5 Galleons, 2 knuts. Sell jewelry from home? Get loan? Rent house? Ask Harry? Get job- where? Muggle or wizard?

He wasn’t exactly sure how much fifty-six pounds was in Wizard money, but he doubted it could be all that much, if the local Muggle market’s grocery prices were anything to go by. He couldn’t imagine her getting a job or sorting all the details out on her own in her current state.

Ron carefully tucked the pages back into Beedle and placed it in her bag.

Sure he’d put things back in their place, he bounded up the stairs and began filling out forms at a haphazard pace. Giving the forms a final once over, he called Pig over to deliver them. Before he’d even had a chance to attach them, his little owl excitedly chirped and flew straight into the window.

“Shit! Pig, you ok?” Ron asked, picking up the little owl. Pig shook his head and cheeped at Ron, eagerly cuddling up under his chin. “Alright alright! Calm down! Keep it together. I need you to deliver these for me. This goes to the Auror Admissions Office at the Ministry. Think you can find that and not fly into any more windows?”

Pig preened and twittered in confirmation as Ron tied the forms to his leg.

“You’ve got this, little guy,” he said, before opening the window and watching his owl fly into the distance.

Hopefully the department would get him assessed quickly. Even with his starting money from the Auror program he wasn’t sure it would be enough to cover a trip around the world to recover her parents. Maybe he could work somewhere to make some more money for her? If he started by the end of the week, perhaps he could save enough to get Hermione to her parents before Hogwarts commenced.

She didn’t know where to find her parents, but he knew exactly who to seek help with for this. Percy had been put in charge of family reunification. Sure, Hermione had split her family up, not the war or imprisonment, but surely she’d still qualify for help. It was the least the Ministry could do for her after everything she’d gone through. When he went to the Ministry for his assessments he’d nip on down to Percy’s office.

Semblance of a plan in place, he loped down the stairs. In the living room the match between the Kestrels and Harpies was still playing over the radio.

George had nodded off in a corner of the sofa, while their mum sleepily knitted in her usual chair, looking a bit more herself. Ginny was seated on the other end of the sofa with Harry leaning against her legs. His friend looked thoroughly blissed as one of her hands went through his hair. She caught Ron’s eye and gave him a small smile that he returned. Part of him wanted to roll his eyes seeing his best friend look like that with his baby sister, but he didn’t have the heart when they looked so very calm and happy.

As pleasing as it was to see things had calmed down, none of them were the person he was looking for. Ginny caught his consternation and indicated her head towards the kitchen.

He spun and found Hermione putting some mugs on a tray. She turned to him and smiled. In a few strides he was behind her, putting his arms around her and kissing her temple. He reveled in the feeling of her relaxing into his chest and held her even tighter.

“Mmm I missed you,” she said in a languid voice. Visions of her damned lists for Australia flooded his mind.

“M’sorry I haven’t been here for you,” he mumbled into her hair.

“I must admit, listening to a Quidditch game on the wireless is not exactly my idea of fun,” she said with a small laugh.

“I’ll make it up to you.”

“Oh?” she asked, turning around to look at him, her full lips just barely turning up in a mischievous smile. Her hair was mussed with the ends of her waves fraying in several errant directions, just like they had earlier behind the shed. Her questioning gaze pierced right through him, making him feel ten feet tall and as small as a gnome all at once. Merlin, she was the prettiest thing he’d ever beheld.

He leaned in to catch her lips, hand grazing her soft cheek, before leaning his forehead against hers.

“You’re being awfully sweet,” she whispered.

“You need some sweetness,” he said, kissing her on the forehead. “I’ll get the tea, you go sit.”

“I was thinking of taking a nap, actually.”

“Yeah?” he asked, putting the kettle on the stove. “Would you mind some company?”

“I actually do want to nap, and not… Not the activities we did earlier.”

“Activities?” he slowly repeated.

“Er… Behind the shed.” A wonderful blush tinged her cheeks, making his own neck start to heat up.

“Oh right!” His voice embarrassingly cracked a bit. He grabbed a tin of tea from the shelf, before looking across to Hermione. “Well— well, as much as I enjoyed those activities , I really could use a kip.”

“Wouldn’t your Mum mind?” She bit her lip, looking far too worried about something as silly as a nap next to her boyfriend.

“Honestly, given her reaction to catching us snogging the other day, I don’t think she’d much care, seeing as we’re only napping…” He squinted and scrutinised her, before giving a cheesy grin. “Unless you were planning something else?”

“No, we are definitely only napping!” she primly replied, her little nose scrunching up to glare at him.

He loved it when she scrunched her face like that. He’d keep poking her until she’d be warring between laughter and throwing up her hands in disgust. She could scowl and pout and even stomp her feet saying he’d crossed some indecorous line— but after years of teasing her, he had a good sense for where the actual lines were drawn for her. Honestly, it was a bit thrilling to walk those lines, waiting to see how she’d react.

“What was that line from that Shaker guy… The lady doth protest too much?” Ron asked.

“Don’t think Shakespeare will make me think you’re less disgusting!”

“Hey, I just want to nap. You’re the one who’s inferring all sorts of filthy things.”

“I’m not!”

“Who brought up our time behind the shed, and who brought up actually sleeping?” She rolled her eyes, but her flush deepened. His grin grew broader. “That’s what I get for dating an older woman.”

“Older woman?” she snorted.

“Older and wiser in the ways of the world. Trying to corrupt this poor youth,” he said, giving her a pat on the head. She gave what was supposed to be an intimidating glare, then landed a playful swat at his arm, looking around to see if anyone had heard.

“We’re only napping! Stop being such a troglodyte.”

“I dunno… Are you certain you can keep your hands off me?”

“Quite,” she muttered, though her mouth was twitching. “You’ll be lucky if I ever want to look at you again, you prat,”

“Good thing, that, cause I am absolutely knackered,” he said with a yawn that started feigned, but ended up rumbling through his ears and becoming quite genuine. “Couldn’t keep up with you and your endless seductions if I wanted.”

Her face was so flushed, he was surprised she hadn’t broken into a sweat. Instead she hid her face in her hands and let out something between a groan and a giggle. “Sto-oop!”

“Fine, I’ll stop.” He leaned down and kissed her hair. “But only because you’re cute when you blush.”

She smiled in earnest at his compliment. He liked how bashful she got whenever he did it. He needed to do it more.

“I guess we’ll meet in your room then?” she asked.

“Yeah, I’ll meet you upstairs once I’m done serving this lot tea.”

He watched her go with a look that had to be besotted beyond anything, but he didn’t care. He was still shocked he got to kiss her every day. Not wanting Hermione to change her mind, he quickly got tea to the living room, finding Ginny was the only one left awake.

“Can you put a heat-preserving charm on the teas for when they wake up?” she whispered.

He silently fulfilled her request and headed up the stairs, muffling a laugh behind his hand. He’d remembered the heating charm for water! He didn’t mind the stairs knowing he had Hermione waiting in his bed, and took them two at a time.

He gave a knock and opened his door to find his orange room didn’t look the same as it had earlier.

“Looks nice in here,” he said, looking around the room.

There had been bits of mess in all the corners when he left, but she’d tidied them all and spelled some curtains over the windows, making the room feel a whole lot less like a rank teenage boy’s room and much more a cozy den for dozing. His bed had also been expanded by a few feet.

The best sight was her, though.

She was curled up in the corner of his bed, sleepily blinking at him, a little smile on her lips. He considered changing out of his jeans to be more comfortable, but maybe she’d been right about warning him from any activities. With her head on his pillow, hair enticingly falling around her shoulders, and her wrapped in his sheets… Yeah, it’d be best to keep the jeans on.

He slipped in beside her and felt a charge run through him as she snuggled up to his chest, her arm ribboning around his middle. The contented keenness he’d felt quickly faded as her breathing evened out and she quickly fell asleep.

Alone, and with nothing to distract him, his mind teemed with Australia, the Aurors, and about a million other things. He tried concentrating on the feel of Hermione in his arms, the whiff of vanilla lipgloss she always used, the cadence pattern of her breath. He closed his eyes.

Sleep gave him a giant middle finger as a feeling of dread settled in. Shit. He’d become such a fucking sad sack!

At one point in his life he had been able to silently sit with himself. He used to be able to lounge and happily daydream. He could allow his mind to blankly relax, and the only chatter would be that of Hermione’s, spilling over him like a warm bath.

Now his mind was overly full, and Hermione silently held him. She hadn’t excitedly gabbed about things in ages. She had dark bags under her eyes and looked so thin and fragile it made something deep in his chest ache.

If she could hear his thoughts she’d be berating him, claiming how very un-fragile she was. Until the past few weeks, he never would have dared to dispute it. She was tenacious and determined, using her brains and stubbornness to push herself beyond her comfort and limits all the time. Perhaps she’d pushed herself too many times. Maybe her body and mind had finally given out, like a Patronus when a herd of Dementors bore down on them.

His breath hitched as memories began to dredge up.

“You awake?” he whispered.

He felt her, rather than heard her, give a small irritated grunt that vibrated against his ribs.

“Right, sorry. You said you needed a nap…”

She nodded and squeezed him before going lax against him again. Minutes passed and he could tell she was asleep from her deep even breaths.

She was asleep. And everyone else too. No one was keeping watch.

If someone came to the house there would be no one there to stop them. They could push right in and blow the living room up without a second thought. Or a few well placed demolishing charm explosions could bring the whole place down if they wanted.

Mind rattling like a broom pushed too far and fast, a restlessness stole even the whispers of sleep from him. He tried to peer out the window without moving, but Hermione had done too thorough a job blocking out the windows.

He was being ridiculous. No one would wage an attack in the middle of the afternoon. Or would they try because it was less expected and there would be less people defending the house? Everyone knew his dad worked at the Ministry and could trail him easy enough, and there was still a long list of Death Eaters, political criminals, and even Snatchers on the run who all might want a piece of them. If he bailed now, then it only left Ginny awake. Did she even have a wand on her?

So many thoughts pressed against his skull that they barely felt his own. He knew what it was to share his mind with outside forces; to have thoughts not his own intruding, slithering between the cracks and widening them into chasms. He didn’t need a locket to do it now, though. Worry after worry rattled at him until he couldn’t lay still another moment. He had to check outside!

He did his best to gently extricate Hermione’s thin arm, despite his anxiousness, and opened the window covering enough to have a proper look out. Nothing. There was nothing.

Everyone was napping and able to find some semblance of peace, but there he was with a rattling brain. No one was awake, and there was no way to force himself to sleep at this point.

He felt ridiculously alone, despite having Hermione just feet away in his bed. He hadn’t felt nearly this alone in the tub, which made zero sense.

He went to the bed and gently pushed some of the curls away from Hermione’s face. Her brows creased with worry even in her sleep. He knew what he could do to ease her worries. He brushed a kiss against her forehead headed for the garden. Eventually either people would awaken or someone would arrive— either way he could leave after and solve one of Hermione problems. After only a few minutes there was a ‘pop!’ of apparition.

“Dad!” he called out. They exchanged security questions before Ron said, “Didn’t expect you back so soon.”

“Well, even with things at the Ministry in such a mess, we need a bit of time off,” he replied, looking every bit as tired as Ron felt. “It helps that Kingsley knew I could use some sleep after last night. Were you able to get a kip in?”

“A bit.”

His father looked at him with concern, but said no more on it. “I didn’t expect George to come home so soon. How’s he been?”

“When he arrived I stopped him out here to make sure he was able to handle all of— of this...” he said gesturing to the house. “He thought I was saying he couldn’t ‘be happy enough’ or something… Got a bit shirty, so there’s that. ”

Ron went on to explain the outing George and everyone were planning for the evening.

“Do you think that’s wise, given what happened last night?”

“No, it’s daft, but everyone could use it. Even bIoody Harry looked pleased about it. Don’t worry, though. I can watch after George.”

“You don’t have to watch after your brother.”

“Well if I don’t then—”

“If he breaks his parole by apparating drunk again, that’s on him. Not you,” his father said with finality. “He’s a grown man and he shouldn’t have a child tending to him.”

“I’m not a child. I’m eighteen,” said Ron, drawing himself up, making sure his father could see how he had a fair few inches on him. “I need to go to the village.”

“Oh?” He waited for an explanation but Ron didn’t give one. “Get some bread and rashers while you’re there?”

Ron gave a grunt, but grabbed some muggle money from a tin on the shelf.

It was a familiar walk he had taken many a time before. He could remember running alongside his much older brothers as they went on errands for their mum, and other times sprinting on his own to find the secret little spot he’d found hidden in the village.

In a house so crowded it was rare to find a moment to oneself. He’d been elated to find his own place to hide that no one knew about. A little spot all his own! How clever he’d felt to have a hideout no one knew of. There was a giant stump that must have been one of those old world trees, it looked so massive. Sunbeams would freckle the bit of earth and willows with sunlight, and the nearby bakery made it smell like Mum’s kitchen.

The spot was abandoned and close to an apparition point. He could apparate there quite safely and save himself and his tired body the walk. It wouldn’t be like last time. It would surely be safe to apparate there now. He would not be surrounded. He would not taste blood in his mouth. He would… much rather walk.

As he walked he felt the warmth of the sun penetrating his skin, most likely bound to give him a sunburn. Stupid bloody ginger complexion. Despite his ambling pace he reached the village in a short time and saw a familiar pub. He’d called Hermione from it enough times to know the help there by face, but never by name.

Stepping in he saw the most familiar face glowering at him from behind the bar. Ron ducked his head a bit, seeing the annoyance and recognition on the man’s face.

“You come to yell into one of me phones again?” the broad man asked him.

Ron’s ears burned. That wasn’t very fair. He’d only screamed into the phone a few times. He’d learned since then and had done a pretty good job of volume control since. He was surprised he was recognized. He was over half a foot taller than he had been, and definitely wasn’t as scrawny.

“I came to see if you have any work I can help with, or know of one hearabouts,” he said rather stoutly.

“Just so happens we could use someone on the late shifts for a few pickup hours here or there. Bussing and washing dishes,” the barman said, crossing his arms as he looked Ron up and down. “You have any experience?”

“I can clean and know how to drive,” Ron ticked off. Ron had never driven a bus, but had enough experience washing dishes. Maybe not the Muggle way, or in a restaurant, but he could manage. “I live a ten minute walk away and I’ll work real hard.”

“What motivates yer then?”

“My girl,” he answered simply, though it made his neck burn.

The man rolled his eyes. “Jaysus— I meant what can I say to make you move your arse.”

“Oh! Well… Just tell me to and... and I will.”

The barman kept looking him up and down with a surly expression on his face.

“Well, I’ll think about it. I can call you later to give an answer.”

“But I don’t have a phone.”

“Not at all?” the barman asked, his heavy brows scrunching even further together. “Just buy one at the shop around the corner.”

“Well, we don’t have el- electricity at our place,” Ron tripped over his words. Electricity was one of those words so often said wrong in his house it was hard to remember the right term. “It’s just an old farm.”

Ron hoped it didn’t sound too off to the Muggle man. He was looking oddly at Ron, as if trying to work out a puzzle about him, but was no longer scowling.

“If you’re worried about giving me schedules or whatever, maybe you can put a note in the window with my hours?” Ron offered, filling up the silence, not comfortable under such direct scrutiny. “I can check it every morning and night to see if you need me.”

“You’re more trouble than you’re worth,” the barman sighed.

“I’d work hard, I promise!”

The man barked for someone to come out from the kitchen to cover the rather barren bar, and walked through a swinging door to the back, leaving Ron to awkwardly stand about, not knowing what to do with his hands.

“Well? You coming?” the barkeep growled.

“Oh! Yeah!” Ron said, following him. He wasn’t that familiar with Muggle customs, so perhaps it was a thing to just walk off like that? He followed him past some metal tables and a giant metal door to a small humid room.

“This is the dishwasher,” he said, pulling a lever to reveal scalding dishes and tons of steam. “Dishes and such get scraped and rinsed with the hose, put through this, then once dry you put 'em out for us to use. Easy enough?”

It was simple enough. His dad would be over the moon to inspect the shiny metal box and gadgetry. He was not looking forward to scraping plates if he were to be hired, but the Muggle didn’t have to know that he’d just be scourgifying stuff in the back half the time. It was private enough back there that he could do it without being seen.

“You got any rubber shoes?”

“Rubber?” asked Ron, perplexed.

“So you don’t scald your feet with hot water.” he said, pointing at Ron’s scuffed trainers that had definitely seen better days. They were a bit too tight and his toe almost popped out of one of them. His newer pair was buried on Dobby’s tiny body. “Well?”

“Oh! Er… I have some leather boots or wellies I could borrow.”

The man gave him the same studying look at Ron.

“That’ll do. You come in tomorrow at two tomorrow afternoon.”

Ron stopped short. “So… Does that mean—?”

“I’m not asking you to come use our phone, am I? This is a trial period only, but if you move your arse you get to stay and make decent wages.”

“Right!” he said nodding before smiling. He hadn’t realized the barkeep was the manager or whatever of the pub, and he most definitely hadn’t realized he’d just been hired. “Thank you so much!”

“We still need to fill out your paperwork. How old’re you?”

“Eighteen.”

“This your first job?”

“Does that matter?”

“Cagey, you are…” the barkeep said with a scrutinizing look. “But long as you’re on time I don’t much care.”

He was handed a form, which made it the seventeenth form of the day he had to fill out, but he couldn’t mind. He now had a way to make Hermione money for her trip! This plus the signing bonus from the Aurors should cover the costs. He started to fill it out with a pen, but quickly found they wanted all sorts of numbers and information he couldn’t give without thinking up a lie, or enchanting the paper to fool the Muggle manager. Making up his mind to finish it later, and find out what a National Insurance Number was, he took his form and left.

He found some of the restless tension he’d wrestled with since the wee hours of the morning had dissipated. He’d finally been able to do something right and took steps towards making a difference.

He turned the corner to grab some the groceries his father had requested when all the elation fled his body.

A fence had been torn down, because it normally wouldn’t be visible from the small lane. He could clearly see the stump he’d apparated to all those months ago. His childhood safe spot that had been desecrated. Part of him wanted to go explore it, but the other wanted to burn the little area to the ground. Instead he stood and stared at it, completely frozen.

He wasn’t sure how long he’d stood there staring, but by the time he came to himself the form he’d been given by the pub manager was wrinkled to shit, his nails had driven themselves deep into his fisted hands enough to bleed a tiny bit, and a clock was chiming the the hour, when he’d sworn it was a good thirty minute til.

He turned around and returned home, wiping the blood on his jeans.

As he arrived home, he saw Bill and Charlie setting up tables and chairs outside.

“Ron!” cried Charlie, a rumble of chairs and benches walking into place across the lawn. “Order of Merlin? And the Aurors! Brilliant!”

“Yes, well done,” added Bill, giving Ron a nod and look of approval. At one point Ron would have preened at such attention from his eldest brothers, but he just felt raw and strange under their gazes.

“Not much of a surprise, though,” said Charlie, giving Ron a thump on the back that nearly sent him sprawling. “After all you did the last year or so, they were bound to want you.”

Ron tried to smile at them, though he knew it was more of a grimace.

“I’d better help Mum, if she’s cooking for everyone.”

“Don’t worry, Fleur’s got it,” said Charlie, heading inside to get more chairs.

“How’re you doing?” asked Bill. He had a discerning look on his face that Ron wanted nothing to do with.

“‘M fine,” he said with a shrug.

“It’s an ok day, though. You got awards and job offers. And George is back, of course.”

Ron gave a snort. “I guess.”

“Well you’ve been doing a lot around the house. Glad you’re going out tonight.”

Ron gave huff. “I’m not exactly looking forward to it.”

“Why not?”

“Just don’t feel like it.” He couldn’t say how George would need babysitting, how Harry was one loud crash away from killing someone with a spell, how Hermione looked ready to keel over, how Ginny was almost crying all the time, or how he was so fucking tired. Bill was waiting for an explanation. “There’s just… There’s a lot going on.”

Bill gave a nod. “If you want to get away from things for a bit, maybe you could come to Shell Cottage for a visit.”

“I’m not running away to your place to escape my responsibilities anymore.”

“Ron, that’s not what happened.”

“Don’t tell me what happened!” Ron snapped. His fists clenched and he felt the raw crescent cuts in his palms sting.

“Fine then... Dad told me what all you’ve been up to, including George last night. It’s great you’re helping out everyone, but you can’t keep running yourself into the ground.”

“I’m not,” he replied with a forced calm, “I’m fine.”

Bill looked unconvinced.

“You look like shit. Maybe you should take a nap before going out.”

“Cheers,” Ron said with a roll of his eyes, pushing past Bill into the house.

As usual it was a crush of people inside. In the corner he saw Lee Jordan and Angelina Johnson had joined their party as well, giving him even more cover.

No-one noticed another redhead amongst the lot and he was able to escape to the stairs without anyone the wiser. When he got to his room he found Harry, Ginny and Hermione convening, so he quickly stashed the form for the pub in his back pocket.

“Look who’s back,” said Ginny with a smile. Harry and Hermione both turned, Harry looking immensely relieved and Hermione looking worried.

“You alright?” Harry asked, as Hermione simultaneously asked, “Where were you?”

He stutteringly explained he’d gone to the village for some supplies, and though Harry and Ginny seemed to take this at face value, Hermione didn’t look convinced. She didn’t have time to question him, though, as they were all called to dinner.

“You don’t normally go to the village alone for supplies,” Hermione noted, as Harry and Ginny walked well ahead of them.

“Yeah, well, usually Mum's the one to get stuff, isn’t she?”

She looked inclined to push him on it, so as they took their seats Ron wedged himself between Ginny and his Mum, knowing both would be too distracted by others to bother with him.

He was happy to not speak to anyone and just listen to conversations.

“Well, Percy couldn’t come because of his work with family reunification at the DMT. His desk is just swamped with people looking for their families,” Mum was explaining to Fleur.

“Weren’t you playing Quidditch for the Bats?” Charlie asked Angelina.

“The Tornadoes, but you need peripheral vision and mine’s a bit shit on the right side since the war.”

Down the table Lee sat with George, whose smile almost looked genuine. Lee’s hair was a bit lopsided where he’d had to shave it off. Part of it had burnt off, and he had a wicked burn scar down the back of his neck.

Ron couldn’t help thinking how there were so many ways a person can lose things in a war: careers, body parts, dignity, friends, a brother.

“Hey, everyone, a toast!” George suddenly burst out. Ron winced, but everyone else seemed happy to raise their glasses. “To The Tallest of Little Brothers and his fine sandwich making skills, the Brain who set out the flatware so nicely for this meal, and The Boy-Who-Kicked-Arse at playing chess against Charlie, who sucks balls.”

Everyone laughed and said cheers, with two exceptions. The first was Mum, who was chastising George for his language and ‘not saying a word about what they’d actually accomplished,’ though she had a bit of a smile on her face she was trying to hide.

The second was Ron, who wasn’t sure if he’d ever feel like celebrating anything again.

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Thanks so much for reading and all the support, lovlies! :D If you like this, please leave a comment! :D They mean so much to me and motivate me so much as well.

Sorry it's been a while between updates. In a very intense grad school program :P

KEEP SAFE! KEEP IT MAGICAL! :) -Hill

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theodora3022 · 4 years ago

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Freaking Me Out

Pairing: Neito Monoma x F!reader (I’m not really good at this kind of stuff…)

Summary: What scares Neito Monoma more than death, is his irrational attraction to you. He was able to hide it behind his petty insults often, until one day he saw you injured, something in the blonde snapped.

Notes: Reader is a student in 1A. If you do not like it, the exit button is there for you. Otherwise, enjoy! I honeslty don’t like how this turns out, but there you have it.

Warning: Verbal abuse (It is Monoma come on, what’s the surprise), superiority complex (obviously), fluff?Insults?

“Now I hear sounds in the hallway,

rocking chairs are moving on their own,

I’m falling for you, so much so

It’s freaking me out.”

You’re a student of class 1A, that is a good enough reason for Neito to pick on you. Even though you have always been polite and friendly. His distain is towards 1A in general, you just got caught up in the wave.

He might still act like a bully towards you, but that doesn’t mean he hates you, in fact, he found you quite charming, it almost made him want to stop with his verbal abuses. Almost.

Ironic enough, Neito has a soft spot for sociable people. Most people would be appalled with his rude attitude, which is what he expected. But he never got any reaction out of you with the usual insults. You brush them off as if they were nothing and kept that friendly façade, keep treating him with kindness. You are too nice, abnormally so.

Neito is curious, what could make you lose your composure? You are always so calm and collected, it’s honestly irritating. How can he rip off that smiling mask off your face and see who you really are? Class 1A is full of idiots, so why are you any different. The way you act all welcoming, it’s all fake right? Inside, you must be just like those egotistic maniacs you called friends. Nothing had drawn the blonde’s attention this much in a long time, so when he caught a glimpse of your backside, walking towards the library, Neito followed.

You had a terrible day, you got a bad mark on a recent test, accidently slipped on a banana skin, and landed sideways. It’s only a minor injury, so you didn’t bother to visit the Nurse’s office.(They must have more pressing injuries to deal with then a small cut) Now you got a bandage on the left side of your chin. So, you decide to treat yourself some quality time to relax in the library, surely nothing worse can happen in that calming atmosphere?

Oh, how naïve you are.

Coincidentally, it happened to be a bad day for Neito too. What’s his favorite pastime these days? Read Franco-Belgian comics Make fun of someone he doesn’t like. You’re just sitting there, concentrated on a history book, as if inviting his insults. The library is nearly empty, and the table you’re sitting at is behind some shelves, far away from the Liberian’s prying eyes. Perfect.

Inviting himself to your table, Neito sits down across you with that arrogant smirk on his face. Then he starts to examine you. Oh, how adorable you look, so focused. Suddenly the book makes him feel jealous, how pathetic of him. He really got it bad. He wonders what you’re going to look like all angry, finally letting out your true self.

“What you’re reading there, (y/n)?”

You are now scowling; obviously not too happy he had interrupted your reading. “Good afternoon to you too, Monoma. Has anyone told you it’s rude to interrupt?” You were hoping to ignore him, that he would leave on his own. Well, that’s evidently not happening.

She seems annoyed. Never seen that before, interesting. Then Neito notices the small bandage on the side of your chin. It’s clearly not properly treated, as he can see blood leaking from its edges.

“You’re hurt?” That smirk is gone…Is that concerns you see on his face? You never imagined someone like him is capable of such compassion. “Oh this? I tripped and I cut it. No big deal though.” Avoiding his caring gaze, you’re starting to feel uncomfortable. He is acting so…nice? Who is he and what has he done with the real Neito Monoma?

No big deal? If it is not cleansed and closed properly, it could very well leave a scar on your flawless face! Monoma doesn’t know why this bothers him this much, what he does know is you need to get proper medical attention immediately. “None sense. Come, that’s get you to recovery girl.”

“I’m fine, really. Hey, let go of me, Monoma!” He took your left hand into his without permission? What the hell? The next thing you know he is dragging you out of the library.

“If you don’t want to cause a spectacle in the hallways, better stop being a brat and shut your trap.” Ah, there it is. The normal insults of Neito Monoma. You silenced yourself, nevertheless. Thankfully, it’s afterschool, so no one is in the hallways. You can just picture how rumors were going to spread if someone sees you and Monoma “holding hands” like this.

The Recovery girl is busy with someone’s training injury. Much to your surprise, after taking some antibiotics ointment and a couple of cotton swabs, he decides to tend to your wound himself.

Slim fingers carefully peeling the bandage off, the blonde’s brows knotted when you let out a hiss of pain. “It might hurt now, but it’s going to scar if you just leave it like this.” He is so focus on cleansing your cut that he missed your shock. After making sure the wound is hygienic, Neito starts applying the ointment with such attentiveness, making sure no corners are missed. His eyes are filled with worries, instead of the usual condescending attitude. It all looks too good to be real, so you stay quiet.

Neito used to be quite clumsy as a child, so he learned how to tend to minor wounds such as yours. Fortunately, your cut is not deep or long, with the correct care it would heal in no time.

It was not until he finishes up, after putting a new bandage over your treated wound, that Neito realizes what he has done. Not only he had literally dragged you here, but also tended your wound himself! If he does not know better, he would say he genuinely care for you. Biting his lower lip, the Blonde’s head start to spin, to think how he can excuse himself out of this awkward situation.

“Neito?” You are calling him by his first name now? That is new. Not that he hates it.

Then you just look at him with those innocent eyes, those beautiful eyes. And those lips, they look so tasty, he would not mind a tast-

Wait, where did all those obscene thoughts come from?

You two are standing in an empty hallway beside the nurse’s office, staring at each other in silence. “Thank you for that, Neito. I really appreciate your help. I wouldn’t want to have a scar.” Is that all you have to say? Normally that would be enough, but for Monoma?

“You got two options, (y/n). One, just walk away, pretend this never happened and carry on with your normal life.” He paces towards you, you realized how he had backed you into a corner. He is close, too close-you can feel his breaths gently brushes your cheeks. Up close, you noticed he is actually quite handsome, with that well-trimmed blonde hair and those crystal blue eyes. If he were not such a jerk, he would have been quite a charmer. Wait…is he trembling?

“What’s the other option?” You asked that out of pure curiosity. Childish, you know, but you cannot help but be amused at the blonde’s shacking form. It is not everyday you get to see so terrified and flustered, a major blush across those usually pale cheeks. A rare but delightful sight.

Don’t you get those hints? Your innocence, while cute, is driving Neito crazy. He is so done with playing subtle. Let his knuckles brush against the uninjured side of your face, touches so soft that can be mistaken as lover’s.

“Or” He whispers near your ear, almost towering over you; “You can show me how thankful you are for my care. I been thinking about kissing you for a while, you know.” He is buffing. Neito is screaming in his head, praying that you reciprocate his feelings. It is the least you can do after making him swoon over you for so long.

How dare you! How dare you making him feel attached? Like you are the only thing he wants in this world? Who gives you the right to make him obsess over you?

Neito is scared, terrified, even. This had never happened before. Due to his handsome appearance, there had been girls interested him before, but they all backed away once they learned about his personality.

You were too astounded to move. Neito Monoma, the infamous rude prick from Class 1B, has feelings for you? Someone pinch you on the arm, to make sure this was not just some lewd dream. “What, so shocked that you can’t even speak?” Forcing your chin up with his thumb and index fingers (but still careful not to touch your wound), his face begins to lean close. You shut your eyes, half-hoping for it to happen.

But you only felt a quick peck on your cheek. Of course he would not steal your first kiss here. Neito would want to make it a moment he could treasure forever, after a date. Not in this little dark hallway.

“You, me, tomorrow at noon, in front of the gate.” Then he left without saying a word, almost stumbling. Only his faint cologne still lingering around you, reminding this is all real.

#bnha x reader #bnha #bnha neito monoma #neito monoma #neito x reader #neito monoma x reader #bnha self insert

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hellisheuphoria · 5 years ago

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Chapter 5: Withdrawn.

The MC skips class, and runs into problems soon after.

[This chapter contains scenes describing blood, wounds, stitching and vivid dreams, so read at your own risk. And thank you for reading <3]

You did not know if your eyes were open, swirling darkness blinding you everywhere you looked. The air was frosty and cold, chilling you to your very bones.

It was silent, but muffled. You opened your mouth to speak but nothing could be heard. The silence engulfed you, lulling you to a sinister lullaby.

The darkness pierced your skin, biting you with its horrible, sharp claws. Black ink swirled through your skin like a tattoo, slowly spreading through your body.

You could breathe it in, you could feel the ink choke you from the inside and drown you slowly, filling your lungs with a feeling of desperation as you clawed at your chest for air.

It trickled down your hair, turning it into a beautifully menacing black. It was intoxicating you, a corrupt pleasure you’d felt like no other.

It whispered in your ears, muttering a mad gibberish than you could not understand. Its whispers echoed in your ears, bouncing and ringing on and off. It all merged into one, deafening your ears.

You could taste it. It tasted like deep mourning, melancholy, the feeling of hopelessness and anguish. A pure lamentation.

Everything came to a still, yet you could feel a presence behind you, frost nipping at your skin as the hair on the back of your neck stood at its end.

You could breathe, but it did not satisfy you. You could breathe, yet it poisoned your insides.

You could breathe, but you were dying.

His eyes were dark and soulless, filled with emptiness and sorrow of a malicious kind.

His arms wrapped themselves around you, bringing your bodies together as dread coursed through your icy veins, your body unwilling to move.

His hands found themselves wrapped around your neck, slithering around you like a noose.

”Oh, my dear, sweet MC...” His lips curled into a venomous smile, the whispers ringing in your ears like alarms, the volume increasing by the second.

”It’s too bad that I hate humans, you see.” He closed his eyes, relishing the aroma of fear dancing around the both of you.

”Otherwise, we may have gotten along quite well.” His claws dug into your neck, your body limp against his.

The only thing you could see was the glow of his eyes, crinkled with the pleasure of watching you die, unable to move and unable to speak.

Before the world melted away, and your soul ceased to exist in such a transparent, spurious world.

———————————————————————

”MC-“ A hand swatted at your shoulder, shaking you from your spot on the sofa.

”MC! Wake up!” You slapped away whoever it was standing over you, refusing to open your eyes.

Suddenly, a rush of cold water slid down your neck and you jumped forward, shivering in shock.

Luke stood over your form, looking guilty and holding an empty cup. He was already dressed in his usual attire, beret and all. You stared at him, and he nervously looked away from you.

”Uh, MC! I’m sorry, but- but you were gonna be late if you didn’t wake up, and I don’t want you to be late so I had to throw water at you.. It wasn’t a lot though! Just a-“

You hushed him, putting a finger to his lips in your drowsy state. “Luke, I understand. Just, let me relax for a bit. I can run to school, we’re at the dormitories anyway.”

He nodded his head vigorously in response, still feeling guilty for his method of awakening you.

”Uh, MC..” You turned your head toward him, eyes droopy.

“I- I’m so sorry I didn’t help you last night! I thought you wanted some space to yourself, and I thought it was the right choice!”

He rambled on, ”I could hear you crying, but I didn’t come to help you, I’m really, really sorry! It was selfish of me, I’m sorry, MC!” He exclaimed, looking down and avoiding your gaze as you stared at him in confusion..

”Wait, crying? Luke, I don’t remember crying last night. I went straight to bed. At least- I don’t remember crying.” His eyes widened, clearly as muddled as you were.

”But, I could- I could hear you crying. Look, there are tear marks on your pillow right there!” Your head snapped to where your head had just been resting a few minutes ago. If you looked close enough, there were really tear stains.

Your fingers unconsciously brushed your cheeks as you looked back at Luke, who stared at you in bewilderment as you had done the same.

Perhaps, these dreams were getting out of hand.

———————————————————————

“MC, will you really be going to school without your uniform on? Won’t you just get sent back?” Simeon spoke, his beautiful eyes staring back at yours.

”Yeah. Either I go, or don’t go. I’m pretty sure that everyone would rather I go.” You nonchalantly replied, glancing at the mirror as you fixed your hair.

”Hey, how about you guys go on to school without me? I might take long, due to, uh, getting ready...? You know, I still gotta look decent. ” You tried your best to act as casual as you could, and hoped he’d fall for the trick.

He sighed and smiled at you, “Okay, we’ll see you at school, alright? Don’t take too long.”

You were relieved he took the bait, otherwise you would have really had to go to school. Who could be asked to go, knowing that there would be a whole bunch of drama waiting for them? Certainly not you.

You heard the groups footsteps become more quiet and quieter, until they couldn’t be heard at all. You silently opened the door and stuck your head out, looking at both sides of the hallway.

You then closed the door and sighed in relief, standing by yourself in Luke’s dorm. He wouldn’t mind, would he? You needed this day for yourself, no questions asked.

You opened the door and then locked it with the spare key Luke handed to you, and took off in the other direction, set on going back to the House of Lamentation to collect your things.

———————————————————————

The floorboards creaked as you silently stepped into the house, closing the door behind you and attempting to try your best at staying as unnoticed as possible, like a mouse.

Nothing could be heard except for the pitter- patter your feet made as they stepped on the floorboards, but you still kept on trying your best to keep them as short and silent.

You opened the door of your room, rushing in there as fast as you could and shutting the door. Everything was in its same place as you had left it last night, your bed unmade and your clothes in heaps of piles everywhere.

You quickly gathered your school clothes, your laptop, essential items and other things you would need. You didn’t plan on staying here for a little bit, maybe a few weeks. You could probably couch-surf between dorms. If they let you, of course. If they didn’t, you always could just roam around for a little bit, pulling all-nighters or sleeping on benches.

The minute your grabbed your laptop, the shelf above it collapsed and fell, causing a huge ruckus. Your froze and your breath ceased, flower pots fell from the shelf and broke, the shards cutting the back of your hand.

You winced and pulled it back, wiping the blood on your shirt, and trying to press on it. It still bled quite heavily, and it looked as though you would need stitches, but you were no professional.

Something ran across the hallway, making their way towards your room, you closed your eyes instinctively, facing the other way when they opened the door, panting.

”MAMMON! What the hell-“

Levi burst into the room, his phone in one hand and a violent aura being emitted off him.

”Wait, you’re not Mammon! You’re MC!” He gasped, out of breath.

”I thought Mammon was in here stealing your things, what are you doing here? Didn’t you run away?” He eyed the bag in your hand, full of your belongings.

”Oh..” His eyes darkened, an envious tone surfacing in his voice.

”So you’ve ditched us, huh?” He grabbed your injured hand and pulled you closer, hurt and betrayal swirling in his eyes.

”MC..” He noticed your pained expression and looked down at both of your hands intertwined, feeling the blood ooze out of your wounds, a horrible contrast to his pale skin.

He looked back at your desk where broken flower pots lay, shattered into fragments.

”Oh, MC! We have a medical kit in the kitchen- follow me there!”

He ran off to the kitchen, with you trailing not too far behind. He grabbed a small kit off the top of the refrigerator and opened it, pulling out surgical thread and a needle. You winced at the sight of it.

”I’ve done this before- it’s a story for another time- but it might hurt for you because you’re human. I’ll try my best, but I can’t guarantee anything.”

Blood was beginning to drip into the table, and so you tied your best to stay still as he disinfected it, trying to wash off the blood at the same time.

When he pierced your skin with the needle, you hissed in pain- and Levi anxiously went red, panicking that he was being too rough. When he finished, he bandaged it and packed up, hiding the evidence that someone had been injured.

”Levi?” He turned towards you, humming in response.

”I’m sorry for getting blood on you, if you want, you can change and I’ll wait.” He looked down, noticing the blood on his shirt, but then also noticed the blood on yours, too. He raised an eyebrow jokingly.

”Oh, right- I have to change too, haha.” You smiled in response, relieved he wasn’t treating you any differently.

You went to your room and Levi went to his. There was still broken fragments everywhere, so you would need to be careful. Especially of your hand, too.

You changed out of your bloody clothes, tossing them to the side onto the pile of your dirty laundry. You then noticed the bag sitting untouched on your chair and picked it up, retrieving your laptop and placing it inside of your bag.

You heard him come inside of your room and close the door, walking behind you. You hummed and slung the bag over your shoulders, finally turning around.

”Oh--“ Your words died in your mouth before you spoke, recognising the person in front of you.

Belphegor.

He stood in front of you, his tall figure looming over you and his usual frown on his gorgeous, yet evil face.

”MC,” he smiled in relief, yet still looking tired and drowsy. “We looked for you for so long.”

You shifted anxiously, your eyes darting everywhere but on him. “I-I know. And I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to worry you guys.” You meekly responded, feeling intimidated by his figure.

He noticed the bag in your hands and his expression soured within less than a second.

”MC.” His voice willed you to look at him, your eyes meeting his.

”You’re leaving?” He looked so hurt, so vulnerable, his eyes glistening with crushed hope, his bottom lip trembling with sadness.

His eyes hooked onto yours, the world being zoned out as you could feel yourself being pulled in, your mind in a drowsy state as your body took a life of its own, unwilling to obey your commands.

”Belphegor...” you whispered out his name in a weak tone, feeling ever so sorry for him. You didn’t realise it, but you were falling deeper into his spell, sin ravaging his aura as he willed you to close in on him and forget your childish tantrum so you wouldn’t leave him behind.

Levi’s voice cut through the air as he crashed inside, holding his phone in the air with a worrying expression.

”MC, they’re on their way here!”

Belphegor and you separated as Levi jumped in, practically bouncing with energy as he yelled.

”Levi, Belphegor,” you worriedly spoke up, grabbing both of their attention.

”I need your help to hide me.”

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