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tossawary · 4 years ago

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2,500 words of the Moshang Forced Marriage AU, in which the PIDW plot is turned off and Tianlang-Jun doesn’t fall, but this only causes even more problems for Mobei-Jun and Shang Qinghua. Written on my phone.

Shang Qinghua stumbled back into his leisure house with a jar of Zui Xian Peak’s best light wine in one hand and a sack of Qian Cao Peak’s tastiest specialty melon seeds in the other. He kicked the door closed, kicked off his shoes, and then kicked back for some quality lounging.

“Ahhh, now this is more like it!” he declared, wiggling into the cushions worthy of a head disciple’s house. “It’s all shoving off my chores onto other people from here on out! Having flatcakes on order with a snap of my fingers! Making some other poor bastard deal with Shen Qingqiu and Liu Qingge - at each other’s throats even at Yue-Shixiong’s nice dinner to celebrate our future ascension, eugh. I’ve really earned this! I’ve suffered enough!”

He dropped the sack of seeds onto the side table and fiddled with the wine, embarrassingly clumsy despite the fact that he was sober. As always, he’d been much too chicken-shit to really indulge around other people. He needed his fast reflexes for ducking and running away when he was out and about! Plus, people would freak the fuck out if a transmigrator started running his mouth, giving everyone existential issues and shit, so him waiting until he was alone to drink was really more of a societal service here than sad.

The Transmigration System had also been a concern before, but not anymore!

Shang Qinghua raised his jar and laughingly declared, “The plot is dead! Long live the free author! Ah, this toast is a little late, but better late than never, huh?”

At long last, this transmigrator had managed to get into the Transmigration System’s settings and turn off the plot! It had honestly been a little infuriating just how easy it had been, once he’d hit on the right combination of things to open the right settings menu. There may or may not have been a lot of outraged shrieking and frustrated crying, after all the sweat, blood, and tears he’d shed to become the head disciple of An Ding Peak. All Airplane Shooting Towards The Sky had needed to do, in the end, was flick a few buttons from “on” to “off”. Outrageous.

“No more missions! No more restrictions! And no more bad endings for anyone! Ah, at least for everyone besides Huan Hua Palace Sect’s old master, that is… but, heh heh, I really think that I and the new Empress Su Xiyan can live with that,” Shang Qinghua muttered, then took a drink, wiggling deeper into his lounging and feeling very good about himself.

He felt as free as a bird! As free as the wind! Why shouldn't he celebrate his newfound freedom and future as a Cang Qiong Peak Lord by doing a little bit of nothing at all?

Shang Qinghua shamelessly did his best to become a lump. As he toasted to the distant happy couple and the bouncy baby protagonist on his way, with wine and melon seeds both, he removed all but one layer of clothing, tossed his belt and his jewelry on top of the pile, and yanked everything out of his hair. He slid from a sitting position to a totally horizontal one without realizing how it had happened, then he let heavy eyes fall closed with the knowledge that everything was going to be so much better now.

A person knew things were good when they could fall asleep just like this.

Then a burst of cold air startled him into looking up at a shadowy figure stepping out of nowhere above him. Shang Qinghua shrieked with terror.

"SHUT UP!” the shadow snarled. “Get up!”

“What- my king?!”

Mobei-Jun didn’t wait and grabbed Shang Qinghua by the front of his robes, hauling him to his feet. The wine sloshed against the floor and the melon seeds scattered around them. Shang Qinghua yelped, choked, and then wheezed and flailed, and then yelped again as his loose robes got a little looser with the rough handling and he slipped in Mobei-Jun's grip.

"What- get dressed!" Mobei-Jun snapped, and then dragged him into the bedroom right away.

"The sight of my naked chest offends you this much, bro?!" Shang Qinghua thought, stumbling along. "There's not enough room in this house for two tits-out outfits?! What the fuck is going on?!"

Mobei-Jun threw Shang Qinghua towards the dresser. He just barely managed to catch himself, taking a hard wooden edge to the gut and stubbing his toe on its base, instead of falling and concussing himself at least. Shit! It still hurt, though!

"Get dressed!" Mobei-Jun snapped again, pointing at the dresser for emphasis. "Now!"

"Right away! Right away, my king!" With shaking hands, his heart thundering in his ears, Shang Qinghua pulled out the first set of robes his fingers touched.

"Not those!"

"Aah!"

Shang Qinghua dropped the robes onto the floor. They were the regular everyday robes of an An Ding Peak disciple, plain and sturdy, something that the demon had seen him in many times before.

"Wh- what's wrong with th-these?"

"Too plain!" Mobei-Jun barked, and stalked forward to shove Shang Qinghua aside and go through the dresser himself.

Shang Qinghua stumbled away and took shelter near his bed, quickly retying his current robes to prevent another fucking nip-slip or worse. He watched with wide eyes as Mobei-Jun threw his clothing to the floor as not good enough. The next drawer was yanked open with so much strength that it splintered and tilted crookedly to one side.

"My king, why-?! What's happening?! Are- are we going somewhere?! Who does this servant have to impress?!"

Mobei-Jun finished throwing aside everything in this drawer and tried to shove it back in, but it was too broken to be moved. The demon snarled, yanked the entire drawer from the dresser with another terrible splintering sound, and threw the drawer out of his way. It hit Shang Qinghua in the chest and sent him sprawling back onto his bed.

He lay there and wheezed without shoving it away, just feeling the impact rattle through his ribs. He heard another drawer splinter.

"Ah, so this is how I die?" he thought. "Just as expected: with a bang AND a whimper."

He pushed the drawer to one side and sat up, only to be smacked in the face with the robes thrown at him. They were the nicest robes he owned. The An Ding Peak Lord had ordered them for him for the coming ascension of a new generation of Peak Lords, so they had all sorts of fancy embroidery and several heavy layers, which meant Shang Qinghua fell back against the bed again under their weight when they hit his head. He sat up again and then gawked at these robes he had never worn and wasn't supposed to wear yet-

"Tianlang-Jun."

"Aha, what?" Shang Qinghua looked at the demon lord scowling at him. "My king…? What about Tianlang-Jun…? This- no. What?! My king, you can't mean to take this servant before the Demon Emperor, that would be ridic-"

"Get dressed," Mobei-Jun snapped.

"It's not Tianlang-Jun, right? Why-?! What's really going on here? Are we going somewhere? Are we meeting someone?"

Shang Qinghua got to his feet, but he didn't dare put the fancy robes on, like being nearly naked would save him from being dragged off anywhere else. No amount of nice clothing would ever make the likes of this displaced author impressive to the likes of the OP Demon Emperor, finally sitting on his late sister's throne.

"This servant can't serve his king to the best of his abilities unless he knows what the-"

"My father is dead!"

“...Wh… what?”

Mobei-Jun’s expression was like a thunderstorm. Shadows curled around his clenched fists, as light and heat fled this room that was suddenly even smaller than Shang Qinghua remembered it being.

"My father…" Mobei-Jun repeated, slowly, daring Shang Qinghua not to understand a second time. "...is dead."

Shang Qinghua stared in horror, the robes slipping out of his hands, which itched to count all the years that had just been skipped even though he knew he didn't have enough fingers. Thirty years or so? Definitely more than twenty. His breath came out in a trembling fog as he demanded:

"H-how?!"

"Tianlang-Jun," Mobei-Jun said again, through gritted teeth.

Good point! Good point! Who the fuck else could it be? The real question was why the fuck?! And also what the fuck was Shang Qinghua of all people supposed to do about clashes between OP demon lords?!

Mobei-Jun advances on Shang Qinghua, the shadows in his fists writhing like he's strangling them. "Tianlang-Jun took offense to some of my clan's foolish disrespect towards his human Empress and he made an example of my father. He has threatened to destroy the body unless a suitable gesture is made."

"But… the power of your ancestors…"

Mobei-Jun, looming over him, shoved him down to his knees to pick up the robes he had dropped, and snarled: "Get dressed."

Shang Qinghua snatched up the robes and skittered away to dress himself up for the slaughter. His heart was racing fast, but his mind seemed to be going even faster, almost too fast to actually think and also do things like make sure clothes weren't inside-out as he put them on.

The power of the Mobei clan rested in the ascension ritual in which the new king "consumed" the body of the old king. Spiritually and… er… possibly also physically? Shang Qinghua had no idea if the System had picked up on those implications or not. Anyway, if Mobei-Jun's father's body was destroyed, then he wouldn't receive that power-up necessary to enforce his rule, which would make him the target of every ambitious cousin and every greedy neighbor. The Mobei clan would probably fall into civil war and the rest of the northern kingdoms would follow them into bloody battle.

Shang Qinghua's favorite character, currently glaring at him for the fancy clothes probably making him look even less fancy by comparison, was sure to die. Mobei-Jun's shitty uncle had probably already picked the poisoned knife with which to stab him in the back.

"My king… what… what gesture is being made here…? This servant… this servant really needs to know how he's supposed to be of service…"

Shang Qinghua also needed to know whether or not he needed to take the first available window to run away. He definitely wasn't above leaping out of literal windows. If Mobei-Jun intended on hanging him over to Tianlang-Jun as a human sacrifice or some shit, then promises of loyalty might expire a lot sooner than originally planned!

At the question, Mobei-Jun's expression only darkened and the room darkened again with it. The cold seemed to spread from Shang Qinghua's skin deep into his twisting chest.

"Marriage," Mobei-Jun said, again through gritted teeth. "Tianlang-Jun has suggested marriage to a human as a worthy gesture."

"M-marriage?"

Mobei-Jun looked so fucking murderous that Shang Qinghua knew he hadn't misheard. He had to have misheard, though, because this was absurd.

"Marriage betw-between me and- and…?"

"Yes."

"And… you?"

"Yes."

Shang Qinghua should have been given an award for not fainting dead away. The System should have given him a million points for every second he managed to stay conscious, except… the System had essentially been turned off. No more points. No more plot.

No more Proud Immortal Demon Way plot, at least.

Ah, was this some kind of warped vacuum effect? A new plot come to take its place?

"There will be great riches."

Shang Qinghua refocused on the demon glaring at him. Riches?! What the fuck did riches have to do with anything right now?!

"Mobei Clan is the second strongest in the Demon Realm," Mobei-Jun informed him, but the demon was kind of scowling like he resented this now, instead of bragging. "You would not have to work again."

It was a really fucking weird day when being told that his Dream Guy wanted him and that he'd never had to work again was somehow bad news. It almost sounded like Mobei-Jun was… was… trying to persuade Shang Qinghua to marry him by offering wealth, power, and a life of indolence. All things that would tempt most people! Especially blindly greedy, thigh-hugging sect traitors like his character!

"Did… did Tianlang-Jun tell you… to just pick any human?" Shang Qinghua asked faintly. "There weren't… there weren't any requirements…?"

Clearly Mobei-Jun didn't want to be tied to Shang Qinghua of all humans!

"He asked - laughingly - if none of us knew any humans. I said that I did."

Okay, Shang Qinghua fully believed that Mobei-Jun didn't know any other humans. Mobei-Jun was on a deadline and didn't have time to go find the most acclaimed matchmaker or anything. By default, Shang Qinghua was the best, most handsome, most skillful, most wellborn, most desirable, and altogether most marriageable human Mobei-Jun knew - and he was not feeling super fucking thrilled by this victory.

"What… what did my king say about me..? What is the Demon Emperor expecting?" Shang Qinghua could only hope expectations had been set on the floor, preferably into the floor or maybe even underground.

"A disciple of Cang Qiong in my service."

"Oh…"

"Fix your robes."

"What? Oh, shit. Right away!"

Shang Qinghua didn't have a lot of experience wearing robes this nice and Mobei-Jun barking at him to look less like shit wasn't helping. The fact that he was sweating from nerves and his fingers were still shaking a little also wasn't helping. He skittered around to add tasteful ornaments and jewelry, some of which got violently rejected by Mobei-Jun as too ugly to show anyone, but looking down at himself, he mostly just felt like he was throwing shiny gold onto a pile of crap. How could this really fool anyone?

"My king, what… what am I supposed to say to the Demon Emperor? Do you want me to lie? To the Demon Emperor?!"

"Do not speak unless spoken to."

Sure, Shang Qinghua could do that, but was he really supposed to leave the talking to Mobei-Jun?! To Mobei-Jun?! The protagonist's right-hand man had not been known for his silver tongue! Did he think people weren't going to have questions? Like, "How the fuck do you know some random human?" Or, "Holy shit, you're really going to marry THAT one?"

"Isn't… my king, isn't Tianlang-Jun well known for his interest in humans and human stories… though...?"

Love stories! Shang Qinghua was pretty sure that the man loved a good love story! How the fuck were he and Mobei-Jun supposed to pull off a love story? And make it a love story compelling enough to convince a pissed-off Tianlang-Jun to grant the Mobei Clan mercy? Shang Qinghua wasn’t totally sure he was going to be able to do anything besides break down sobbing and curl up into a pathetic ball on the floor.

Mobei-Jun's face twisted slightly, in the way of an angry demon who didn't want to admit that his lowly human servant actually had a super great point. Tianlang-Jun had already proven himself a man who liked to play with his food a little.

"Do not tell some story," Mobei-Jun snarled finally. "Do not speak unless spoken to. Do not lie."

"Of course! Of course! Very wise not to lie to him!” Shang Qinghua told himself to focus on the logistics here; he was the logistics man; it was what he did. If he just kept focusing on the details, he didn’t have to think about the bigger picture. “This servant will remain silent until called upon, which… when… my king, when will that be? Tomorrow morning? I have to tell-"

"Now."

"-my martial sib- what?!"

"Now," Mobei-Jun repeated. "He is waiting."

#moshang forced marriage au #tossawary updates #tossawary svsss #moshang #mobei jun #shang qinghua #svsss

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i-left-my-room-tidy · 2 years ago

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Haii!! I just want to ask if you find it easier and faster to shift in an alternate reality of your Cr rather than a very different destination like anime and movie Drs. It's not the same as manifesting for things in your Cr, more like getting superpowers and other stuff.

[thanks for this ask!]

alright, so i interpreted your question in two different ways: (1) where I'm shifting to an alternate version of my CR, but have mundane differences in events; and (2) where I'm shifting to a version of my CR but have inherently "supernatural" circumstances surrounding me.

either way, my answer applies for both situations. in a manner, i suppose it is (easier to shift to them).

i consider my current reality to be something largely mundane—and coupled with the fact that it's the reality i spend most of my time in, it becomes the easiest to envision and stay within. note that i usually shift in bursts (my longest single shift having been 4 days), because while i despise most things in my CR, I'm still attached to it.

in that line of thought, shifting back to my CR (and/or other versions of it) is 'looser' than when I'm shifting to, say, fandom worlds. it's the first nature I've learned to know. so, yes, shifting to alternate versions of my CR is infinitely easier than shifting to my favourite movies or shows.

it's also infinitely trying on my patience, if you're familiar with the posts I've made on accidental shifts to versions of my CR 😭😭 lmao i hope that makes sense. like. i perceive an event one way in one current reality, but upon shifting to the alternate CR, i figure out that event went differently. it's quite the inconvenience, considering i look like an idiot in front of people when i "remember things wrong".

on the topic of the supernatural, though; I've never tried shifting to versions of my CR where i do possess flashy powers (like telekinesis or pyrokinesis), but I've seen subtle magic at play before. and not the harry potter type of magic. just some small things, like spiritual presences and intents; realities where my spiritual abilities were just a bit stronger. i do remember the feeling of being watched by ghosts and it's weird. never have i tried shifting back out to a more comfortable reality so fast before.

all in all, yes, it's easier—because again, I'm intimate with the...base reality, so to speak.

#shifting #shifting realities #reality shifting #desired reality #shift #shifting shenanigans

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clonecest-bin-account · 3 years ago

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Relaxing massage

Ship: Jessix

Rating: E

Kix gives Jesse a massage.

AO3 link

When Kix offers him a massage, Jesse immediately says yes, without thinking about it not ever for a moment.

The feeling of Kix’s hands travelling all across his body has to be one of his favorites, if anything because of how good he is at it, always knowing where to touch and where to tease; it helps that, first things first, Kix is a medic, so anatomical knowledge is his forte, and secondly, that he knows Jesse’s body by heart, which makes having sex with him truly something special. He really loves it.

A groan leaves his lips as Kix works at one of his knots of his back. Now more than ever he’s grateful for his cyare’s talent with his hands.

He still can’t help but to think at how readily he answered when Kix asked if he could do this; what can he say, it would’ve been foolish to refuse, and Jesse is no fool. As if he’d ever refuse a chance for some good times thanks to Kix. So here he is, lying down on his bunk, naked, with Kix settled on his legs, massaging his body.

He can smell the pungent odor of the oils he’s using and he gotta say, he likes it. He’s not even the only one who does: as he was passing through to leave the barracks, suspicious empty except from them - almost as if Kix had told them to buzz off beforehand - Hardcase commented on it too, saying that, whatever it is, it’s good. He also commented on Jesse’s ass, but he just laughed and waved him off - they all share the same body, so there’s nothing to be ashamed of.

He wonders how long the smell of the oils will linger in the room. It might be a double-edged sword because, if on one hand it would be nice if the barracks would smell good instead that of sweat or something worse, on the other Jesse fears that the association of this smell to what Kix is doing to him right now might lead to some awkward times. Oh well, that’s the last of his problems right now, so he can easily discard this thought.

“Good?” Kix asks, as if he doesn’t know the answer to that question. Still, Jesse humors him with a groan, which makes Kix chuckle and lower his hands until…

A squeak leaves Jesse’s lips when Kix’s fingers circles his rim. He immediately turns towards him, question evident in his eyes. “Kix?” he utters.

“No?” Kix asks, looking like he hasn’t just touched his ass.

Jesse ponders about it. What is he exactly afraid of? By now he’s pretty sure he must’ve done something to convince everyone to stay clear of the barracks, meaning that he must have something in mind.

It would be a waste of a perfect occasion if he says no, wouldn’t it?

“Why not?” he says then, curious to see what Kix has in store for him; it’s surely going to be good.

He’s immediately rewarded by Kix’s smile as he leans down to leave a kiss on Jesse’s shoulder, while he goes back with his fingers to Jesse’s ass, reaching for his entrance.

His movements are featherlike, slow, methodical. The oil is of great help as Kix begins to circle the tight pucker with a digit. It’s just one and yet it’s already makes Jesse twitch from the anticipation.

“Sssh… Stay calm,” Kix gently admonishes him, kissing a line from shoulder to shoulder. That’s easy for you to say, Jesse would love to tell him, but all that comes out of his mouth is a groan; Kix doesn’t say anything about that, so it must’ve been good enough.

Jesse has no idea about how much time has passed, but Kix still hasn’t moved on from massaging his rim. He’s tried already to subtly move in a way that would make Kix understand that he’s more than ready for what comes next, but to no avail.

“Kiiiiixie, c’mon…” he tries, then, figuring that maybe he just needs to be direct.

“Soon,” is all Kix replies with, however, much to Jesse’s frustration. He lets out a groan, burying his face between his arms. Why has his dear cyare decided that he was going to torture him like this today?

And yet, Jesse can’t help but to think as Kix keeps circling his rim, unrelenting, that he doesn’t really mind it. Kix could do any sorts of things to him and he’d take them all.

When Kix moves down, it’s enough to convince Jesse that things are about to get moving, so you can imagine his disappointed when he finds out that he’s doing it only to lay one single kiss to his pucker, making it twitch.

“Kixieeeeee,” he whines, making Kix chuckle.

Something changes, however, before Jesse finally feels Kix’s thumb breaching inside. His cyare is moving slowly, carefully, as if Jesse wouldn’t be able to handle it if he were rougher, though it’s also true that it’s nice being pampered like this.

He mutters a small “yes” when Kix begins to move his thumb in and out. He almost looks like he’s testing the waters, but as long as he keeps moving, Jesse’s happy about it.

Kix goes on just for a little while, then he pulls away, much to Jesse’s desperation. He begins trashing around, trying to get some contact again. “Kix!”

A chuckle. “I’ve got you, relax!” Kix says, soothing Jesse by pressing a finger inside, making Jesse groan. Damn, Kix must’ve ruined him if he’s getting this worked up just for a mere finger!

He shivers at the way the other arches it upwards, crooking it just right. At this point, Jesse isn’t even bothering keeping quiet, letting him know just how much he’s appreciating him.

His moans are getting higher in pitch when Kix adds another finger, scissoring inside him. The stretch feels so good.

Stretching him open, however, isn’t Kix’s objective, and soon, in fact, he drops it in favor of something else.

It takes little effort to find what he’s looking for, and as soon as he does, Kix begins to rub his fingers against that spot mercilessly, without skipping a beat.

It feels nice, of course, but for now that’s it. Still, Jesse doesn’t do anything except enjoying the sensation of Kix rubbing against his prostate. He closes his eyes, exhaling from his nose; he doesn’t think he’s ever been looser and more relaxed in his life, even with the pleasure that is building up inside him, and it’s building up alright.

The more Kix keeps going, the more that small candle fire inside Jesse burns stronger, brighter, until it becomes a wildfire, burning Jesse from the inside.

“Kix!” he moans, shivering. Despite the build-up, Kix is still moving quite slow, which won’t do at all.

“Ssssh,” Kix mutters though, soothingly. “Relax. Just enjoy it.”

Jesse has lost track of time; they could’ve been doing this for an hour or for a minute and he wouldn’t be able to tell the difference.

His entire mind feels vacant, filled up just by thoughts of Kix and the pleasure he’s giving him.

He feels on the brink of exploding, and the fact that Kix hasn’t stopped touching him doesn’t help at all. Every time he brushes against his prostate, it sends a jolt of pleasure all over Jesse’s body.

“’m close,” he manages to mutter, though it comes out more like nonsensical ramblings that actually words. It’s fine, Kix has understood him perfectly, if the way he begins to rub against his prostate more insistently and faster can tell us anything.

“That’s good. Let go,” he encourages him, voice gentle, always gentle. He crooks his fingers, and Jesse knows he’s done for. He does it again, and Jesse comes. Despite the slow pace, it still feels like a kick to the stomach, but in the best of ways.

Kix doesn’t stop moving. Helping Jesse throughout his whole orgasm, and even after then, he keeps rubbing small circles against his prostate, but in a lighter way and only occasionally making Jesse whine.

When he slowly pulls away. Jesse lets out a sigh. His entire body feels like jelly; he doubts he’d be able to move any time soon for any reason, so he hopes that there won’t be any emergencies, because in that case he’d be as good as dead.

Thankfully that doesn’t seem to be the case, at least not for a while.

He barely realizes that Kix is turning him around until he lays down beside him; at that point, he lazily drapes an arm around his waist and rests his head against his chest.

“Holy shit…” he mutters then. It’s all he’s able to say.

Kix laughs - it brings a smile to Jesse’s tired face - and closes his arms around Jesse’s shoulder, kissing the top of his head. “Are you okay?”

“More than okay,” Jesse replies immediately. “I feel great.”

“That’s good to hear,” Kix replies.

He waits for Jesse to have recovered a bit, then, after looking around to make sure that they’re still alone - not that privacy is such a big deal when you live this close to one another, but sometimes it’s nice - he whispers to Jesse. “It’ll still take a while before everyone makes it back. Wanna go for round two?”

So he did stipulate some sort of agreement with the others! Jesse knew it.

Hearing those words has a rejuvenating effect on Jesse, because he suddenly feels strong enough to be able to turn he and Kix around, getting then immediately between his legs. He’d love to repay Kix with his own coin, but he knows he’s not as patient as him; besides, it would be unkind of him to punish him when he’s made him feel so good. No, what he truly deserves is a reward.

“Oh, you didn’t even have to ask.”

#clonecest #cloneshipping #jessix #arc trooper jesse #clone trooper kix #my fics #spicy tag

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butwhyduh · 4 years ago

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Out of the darkness

Damian Wayne x reader

Part 2 of In the Darkness

Warning: a bunch of different phobias explored. Like a bunch. It’s fear toxin and things are bad. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Damian Wayne was practical, classic, precise. He could tell you the time within 20 minutes of the actual time and the direction you were facing no matter where you were. He didn’t believe in getting lost. He mastered Bartok - Violin Concerto No. 2 on the violin at 11. He could identify the origin and use every weapon in the bat cave and many others as well. He many martial arts as well as having a impeccable eye for important details. Damian excelled at many things due to his training from birth to be the best he could.

Poison training and identifying was something that started early. His mother would slip tiny amounts of different chemicals in his food and drinks for him to build up a tolerance. Fear toxin was one of many that he’d developed a fairly high tolerance to. It was a deeply unpleasant experience and the training stopped immediately when Bruce took Damian in. Bruce had been completely horrified.

Currently Damian was half cognizant. He slipped between nightmares and the reality of the situation that wasn’t much better. He was strapped on a table in a cold concrete room. His head hurt and his feet were ungodly cold.

Damian attempted to focus. This is fake. The monsters are fake. I am in this room, he forced. He controlled his breathing as he was taught. His mind cleared long enough to slip from the ties. They were amateur at best. Damian pulled his legs free and he tried to stand.

The room spun and the ground grew heavy. Damian slipped to the ground with a groan. This particular batch of fear toxin was potent. Or was continuously streaming in. He searched for a vent. Top right corner. There wasn’t any green mist falling from it but it could be invisible. Damian steeled himself and stood up to walk to the door.

He tried the knob but it melted apart in his hand like sticky honey on a hot day. Damian gagged a little before trying to push the door open. No luck. The walls began to move inward. He was going to be crushed in the tiny space as it grew smaller.

No.

It was fake.

He tried the knob again and it didn’t turn but it didn’t turn into goo. The wall wasn’t collapsing inward. He could escape. He just needed to work on it.

Your scream pierced his ears and he gasped. He had to save you now. He could hear you through the vent. He could use the vent.

Was it really you, his mind questioned as he shoved the old metal hospital bed towards the wall. The metal groaned before scraping the floor. Damian had no way of knowing if it was really you or his mind.

Damian climbed on the bed and grasped at the grate. The old metal bolts bit into his fingers as he twisted them out. Finally the grate fell on the bed. If Damian did a little jump, he could probably pull himself upwards. It was a blessing and a curse that he had grown so much in a relatively short time. He was pushing 6 foot tall and could reach the grate but weighing 180 lbs, could it hold him?

A menacing laugh filled the air and Damian froze in fear.

He turned to look around and was still alone.

But you might not be.

He jumped up and slid in the air conditioner duct. It was a tight fit. Damian was still smaller than his dad and at the moment was grateful. Bruce would have never fit. Of course, Drake could have slipped through easily. He pushed those thoughts aside.

Damian had no phone. No flash light. Complete darkness. He couldn’t turn around. He was just snaking his way towards the sound he heard of your voice. If it was even you.

It was you.

You were strapped to a hospital bed with leather belts. The material chafed your skin as you tried to yank away. You screamed for Damian. His name fell pitifully from your lips. You’d have no previous experience with any fear toxin and your first instinct was to scream. You could feel the way each scream ripped at your throat.

Damian had told you about his older brother, Father’s ward as he would say when mad. An old warehouse, murdered by the joker but punished with fear toxin first. Jason Todd talked in a smoker’s rasp. He didn’t smoke but the constant screaming had ruined his throat. You could feel the pain in your vocal cords but couldn’t stop.

The Manor was fake. The family there was fake. The room you currently lay in was real. Far too real. The damp musty air and bone trembling cold felt perfectly real.

The spiders crawling on your skin felt real too. You shrieked and tremors shook your body as you tried to throw them off. Tiny hairy legs brushed against your arms. Your face. You clamped your mouth and eyes closed.

If they climbed in your mouth... if they bit you... if they were poisonous. If the manor was fake and this room was real.... the spiders were real.

Damian cursed when you went silent. What direction was he traveling. How far was it till your room? Were you even here? No. He couldn’t think like that. He was already barely above a panic as the vent felt way too small, too tight.

Your violent struggles had one good side effect. The badly placed straps came loose. One hand yanked free and you scrubbed at your face, feeling no real spiders. You untied yourself other hand and tried to get up.

The bed shook and you panicked as you tried to pull your feet free. Cold icy laughter filled your ears and you clenched at your head to keep them out. You pulled free and fell to the floor. Icy water soaked through the knees of your pants and you shivered.

The room was so dim that you could barely see anything as you crawled on the floor. There was no way you could handle standing up. You slid your hands along the ground, touching bits of broken glass and small rocks. They bit into your palm and knees as you moved along. You felt along before feeling nothing. A drop.

You yanked your body back. The floor fell out smoothly. There was nothing in front of you. You grabbed a small stone and tossed it to hear the depth. You concentrated on listening and heard nothing. No sound? You tossed another to hear a similar lack of sound. The hole must be incredible deep.

You slowly slid backwards and turned to your right. Perhaps the hole wasn’t everywhere. You had to get out. You took about 10 paces forward? Maybe. It’s hard to tell when you keep hearing wings fluttering. The ground also stopped with an abrupt fall. The hole must be massive. You crawled back to the bed. It was the only thing visible in the dim light from a high dirty window.

The flapping sounds grew louder and you could almost hearing the fluttering of birds, no bats, right near your ears. You shrieked and swung your arms out to stop them. You could imagine little teeth and claws tearing at your skin. This seemed to make them furious and they hit and nipped your skin. You covered your head with your hands and cried out for Damian.

He heard your pitiful cry. He was going in the right direction. He hurried along the vent. He had no weapon. He was poisoned with fear toxin. And he had no idea what the location looked like. He was also completely blind in the dark vent. Father would have called this unfavorable odds indeed.

The vent took a slight turn and Damian gasped as something dug into his hand. He felt at it with his other hand. A thin metal cylinder connected to a large plastic cylinder that flared out. A syringe. He had a syringe in his hand. Ignoring the disease potential, it really showed how little he could see.

Damian’s hands shook as he pulled the needle from his flesh and he stifled a groan. He had no way of wrapping his hand. He also had another problem: feel for more syringes or turn around and go back to the room where he would be trapped once again. He grimaced before reaching his hand out slowly. There were more syringes. This time he didn’t get stabbed. He grabbed them and pushed them behind his body before slowly pushing forward. This was taking too long.

If you fell in the pit, not even Damian could save you. You felt like you were on a ledge. The world was pushing you to the hole. You grasped the frame of the bed tightly. Your grip on sanity was getting looser and you clung to the idea that Damian had to rescue you. He would fix things.

Damian could no longer slowly feel his way through. The vent felt tighter and hotter and harder to breath in. He was panting and he began crawling faster. You were definitely in trouble the way you were practically crying for him. Syringes bit at his skin in little nicks before one sunk into the flesh of his thigh right above his knee. Damian groaned and yanked it out.

But luck was in his side as he started to see light. The vent opened to another room. Barely visible was a bed and a figure on it. It had to be you crying. Your body shook as you bent over your legs, your head in your hands.

Damian pushed open the vent roughly and jumped in the room.

He was with the League of Assassins. Damian was a small boy again. He fell to his knees as his grandfather held a sword under his throat. Damian was powerless. Tears streamed down his face despite himself.

“You are only alive at my leisure,” Ra’s told him. Damian held back tears as he stared at the older man. “You are a disgrace and I intend to beat it out of you.”

The blade was removed and a boot replaced it. Damian was kicked to the ground and the older man kicked him in the ribs and stomach. He cried out involuntarily. His nose was broken. Sticky warm blood flowed into his open mouth as he sucked in a breath. Damian’s mother stood to the side, watching passively.

This isn’t real. It isn’t real. It’s a bad memory. Fear toxin just fear toxin.

Damian took several deep breaths; quite difficult when he felt the breaking of his ribs. He opened his eyes to see the room. And you crying in the bed. He moved on the bed to grab you.

“Don’t,” you cried as you pulled away. Your pupils were blown and he could see your chest rise and fall heavily.

“It’s me. Damian. I won’t hurt you. I’m here to save you,” he said trying to be gentle. His own heartbeat was flying and he kept hearing the laughter of the Joker that he was 80% sure was fake.

You looked at him warily. Once sure that it was Damian, you flung your arms around him.

“There’s a hole. In the middle of the room. It has to be huge,” you said quickly. You shook like a leaf.

“A pit. Smart,” Damian commented. He really wished he had his night vision goggles. He couldn’t see anything more than a foot from the bed.

There was the sounds of screaming and fighting outside the door. A door. He could finally see a door. It must skirt right next to the edge of this damn pit. How could he get you to carefully walk around it when you were so lost in the toxin?

“I found a door. We have to go. I’ll help you. I’ll help,” he said trying to stand. You grasped at him tighter.

“No! The pit. The pit. You’ll fall. Don’t,” you pleaded, shaking your head side to side violently.

“It’s okay. We’ll be careful. We’ll be okay,” he said before pulling you up. Damian bent to the ground and started crawling. You grasped at the back of his shirt tightly. “We’ll go slow.”

Damian tried to ignore the feeling that he was on a ledge about to fall. Which was weird since he literally jumped from rooftops all the time. He never had fear of heights. You shivered and clung to him. The gaping hole seemed to want to swallow you whole. What was at the bottom? Would you fall forever, scraping at the slick walls until you lost your mind? Would you die quickly? Or was it a slow death as your broken body fell apart?

Damian edged you to the door and prayed that it was unlocked. It wasn’t but the knob was loose. He rolled his eyes and easily pulled it apart. He tossed it in the hole and couldn’t help but listen for the sound of it crashing. It never came. Was it a hole to infinity? He couldn’t think that way. He pulled you into the hallway. It was dimly lit but enough to stand up.

He was back at the League. He was not a little boy any more. His grandfather was on his deathbed. He grabbed Damian’s hand unnaturally tightly. Damian could see the gold and green clothing on his own arm.

“I knew you couldn’t leave. You were always my flesh and blood. Now you will lead the assassins. Your time with your father couldn’t break you from your true self. You’re an assassin. Why try to pretend to be something else? You will always be a killer,” the old man chuckled.

Damian yanked his hand free. “You’re wrong. I’m nothing like you,” he growled and wrapped his fingers around his grandfather’s throat. The old man held Damian’s wrists and pushed his hand harder against his windpipe. He had an awful grin on his face despite being choked.

Suddenly smaller softer hands gripped Damian’s wrists and tried to pull back. Tried to pull him off. Damian saw your lips make a small o as you tried to breathe. He dropped his hands instantly and you gasped in a breath. Damian’s hands ran along your face worried he had killed you.

No...Just a bruise. He could have.

He could have killed you.

He had to get you out. Was this real? Was anything real? Damian felt his grip on reality loosen. He grabbed your hand to pull you along but you almost fell over. Damian put his arm around your waist and half carried you along.

It wasn’t long until his legs began to shake from your extra weight and Damian was panting. Normally he could carry you around with no problem but hours? Days? of fear toxin had him absolutely exhausted. The only thing he was certain of was that it was night. Was it the same night as the movie? That felt weeks ago.

He powered through to a set of double doors. He was almost gasping for breath. Damian kicked them open with his foot and he was blinded by light.

It wasn’t night.

It was a well lit warehouse and there was a battle being fought. Batman kicked a guy in a ski mask to the ground and he didn’t get up. Nightwing swooped in and wrapped a rope around a guy who ended up hanging from the ceiling by his leg before he could react. Damian couldn’t see but hear Red Hood kick someone off the second floor delivery dock before the sound of gunshot.

He almost dropped you as he slid down the wall to the floor. You fell against him and gasped. Your eyes showed that you weren’t really there. You were still fighting the poison that threatened to pull Damian back under. You both were so vulnerable just sitting there. He knew he should move but his body just couldn’t.

Red Robin jumped down from a box with his staff in hand. He walked close and Damian looked away when his face split into a gaping blackness. It was fake. It was fake. It was only Drake.

“Hey buddy,” Red Robin said gingerly, walking slowly towards you both. He pulled out a small black leather bag. He pulled out a syringe and Damian wrapped an arm around your shoulder. He couldn’t get up but he tried to shield you.

“Don’t,” Damian tried to say with authority but it came out so softly. He couldn’t protect you. He failed.

“It’s okay. You just need to sleep. You’ll be okay,” Drake said. He popped off the syringe cover and grabbed Damian’s waving arm and gave him the shot despite his groans. Drake pulled out another syringe and gave one to you. You shrieked as you imagined a poison was being shoved into your skin. A green mark spread like tree branches beneath your skin and you clawed at your skin. In just a minute your hands dropped and you both fell asleep.

——————————

You woke in a med bay. A plain hospital bed in a cave. Damian was in the bed next to you and you quickly sat up.

“Slow,” said a woman. She offered a hand and you pulled away. “Don’t fall.”

Damian stirred and sat up too. He took a look at you and the woman and relaxed. His eyes closed and he took a deep breath. You looked at them warily. You’d thought you’d gotten out once.

“It’s done,” he said.

“Yes. You are safe,” she said.

“Cass, where is everyone? What happened?”

“Hold on,” she said motioning for you both to sit. She came back with none other than Bruce Wayne. Normally you would very nervous but you were too tired to care.

“How are you feeling?” He asked walking in to sit on the single chair in the room. Cass left the room. After he was sure that you were physically fine, he explained what happened.

“Scarecrow attacked Wayne tower. Luckily Batman was able to help find you both. It was fear toxin. It can make you see some really nasty things. I have a psychologist that specializes in childhood trauma in retainer. I’d highly suggest you both visit them. But you are safe. You’ve been given antitoxin. Do you have any questions?” He asked. His voice was even and purposefully soft. You shook your head. You were too overwhelmed to consider a single question.

“Did Batman catch Scarecrow?” Damian asked leaning his body over his bent knees. His face had one of his murderous looks. You noticed bandages on his fingers and across one palm. He had a thigh wrapped in gauze.

“No. Not yet.”

Damian’s hands curled into fists. “I hope he does.”

“Of course. Relax. Watch some television. I’ve already contacted your parents that you will be staying here for a few days. I’ll let you take the lead on what to tell them when you go home and I’ll help with any conversation,” Bruce said standing up. He stood by the doorway before leaving. “I’m glad you are both back home safe.”

Damian turned on something on the television mindlessly and sat stiffly in his bed. There was too much space and you felt alone. After a few minutes, you couldn’t help it but climb in his bed and slide into his arms. You hugged him tightly and he slung an arm over you. His eyes never left the show but you could feel him relax. You relaxed a little more. His hand ran across your back soothingly. For you or him, you couldn’t know. After a while you fell asleep on him. His heartbeat soothed the nightmares running through your mind.

Robin was gone for all of 3 days before being seen on the streets of Gotham. He hit harder and was more vicious. He found Scarecrow within 12 hours and almost beat him to death. The villain laid in Arkham in a coma for over a month.

#Damian Wayne #Damian Wayne x reader #Damian Wayne angst #batboys #Robin x reader #Robin

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elriel-oblivion · 4 years ago

Text

So I started this in the last week of 2020, and I'm ready to post it 😊 I've still got a couple other wips I'd started before this one but I haven't been bothered to finish those lol so I'm putting this one out first. Anyway, this'll be 6 parts long; I'll prob put up the next part in three or four days.

I'll put word counts so you can gauge how long each part is and if you wanna read it 😅 Also lemme know if you'd like to be tagged

Word count: 2.2K

AO3

Ashes from the Deep

Part I

The shadows were colder than usual tonight. On better days, their chill wrapped Azriel's bones in an icy embrace, a comforting freeze numbing any semblance of feeling in his wasted heart.

But this miserable night, they were searing cold, the kind of cold piercing the highest of mountain peaks; the kind of cold that penetrated the brain itself. He shivered as he travelled through those shadows, dark mists and wisps coiling like vines about his head.

Maybe he was deliberately searching for the coldest areas. Maybe he wanted a complete absence of feeling: physical, emotional, spiritual. It would certainly be easier to feel nothing than trying to quell the frigid rage inside. How could an avalanche be stopped once it started?

Further and further he moved through his shadows, dawn chasing him from a few hours away. Mountains and villages surged past through those charcoal mists, making way to depthless forests and ravines. He clenched his jaw tight against the cold, memory guiding him home.

But the fresh blood he'd seen earlier, and the mutilated remains of that little girl, one wing torn off and lying bent at the edge of the dirt path ... Her unseeing eyes were glazed, that shine as bright and true on his mind as the glint of moonlight on the blade of Death. And her scream. Cauldron, it curdled his own blood.

He'd been but a minute late. A matter of seconds were all that stood between him and the sadistic bastard who'd brutalised that child. Barely a heartbeat in his lifetime.

He blinked once to rid himself of her stare. Twice.

The image remained, muddying with his path home. His hands clenched and unclenched, nails biting into his skin, but the girl's hazel eyes and her ashen skin and the fingers outstretched for that severed wing remained an imprint on his vision.

Why was this affecting him so much? It wasn't the first time he'd seen horrors like this. But if Azriel wanted to be honest with himself, some days were harder than others simply because they were. Some days, the despair rattled his core and tossed him far out - because he was a person and emotions, feelings, these things were too abstract to be boxed in.

Everything had a limit. Had Azriel ever truly reached his?

Sometimes Azriel himself didn't understand how he kept it all in. How he didn't react or display any sign of having seen or heard the things he did. Sometimes he was repulsed by himself because of it. At least Cassian and his rare vomiting showed some of the humanity inside.

Azriel gave away nothing. Was there even humanity in himself? Everyone but his family looked at him like he was an unhinged monster imprisoned by his Illyrian skin. Like he was moments from escape and they would be his first victims.

Or - not just his family. Her. Elain. Did he consider he family? Perhaps it was too early, or even too inappropriate to do so.

Either way, how could he stain the sudden image of her with himself, with the horrors he'd just seen, had always had the displeasure of seeing? She was lovely and warm and beautiful and he was dark and cold and hideous.

Elain. Something inexplicable stirred in him at the thought of her.

He tried to calm it, this heat, this single star in his midnight sky. But it remained. And it grew.

And he was disgusted. Ashamed. He was not worthy of her.

And it ached. Another unrequited love.

That word snapped something in him. Mocked him.

Love.

A choking sound ripped from his throat and he welcomed it, let it mount into a scream, let it tear through his body and soul. Like that monster was finally breaking free. It was invigorating yet scorching. It burned him from the inside out but the cold of those shadows permeated his mind so heavily, he forgot the essence of corporeality and only his soul seemed to drift.

His ragged breathing sounded, throat parched. Where was he? Through the shadows, all around him, there seemed only darkness. Was he flying? No, the shadows sang their usual baritone thrum as opposed to the high harmony of the wind.

Above, no stars glistened. His eyes strained but nothing peeked through. It wasn't often that his shadows became this thick; usually thin and wispy, they now shrouded his being, coalescing over, in him. He became the cold, a shadow, darkness itself, floating through the ether, higher and higher like ashes on the wind.

But even ashes settled down at some point.

Unless his soul truly were ascending, unless this truly were death. It almost seemed too easy. All the battles, those two great wars, the poison that shot through his veins and stole his breath as per Hybern's whim. Poison that sometimes woke him up in cold sweats, a phantom memory of its iciness picking through his body as though he were being cut up by the sharpest blade ...

Sometimes it even felt like his own blade.

No, this couldn't be death. A mere scream, the image of lives lost, a bloody fight - he hated to admit that these were commonplace among his memories, his life. But in doing so, he knew death was too easy an aftermath for what had happened tonight.

Death, an ascent. But he was sure when his time came, his stained soul would descend like the demon he was.

So he grounded, drifting down weightlessly until the solidity of rock steadied him. He would not go to that darkest of places yet. But he was still exhausted. So damn tired of everything. He feared that if he dropped into a slumber right now, he'd not get up for a lifetime. As it was, his legs almost gave out, but he forced some remaining strength back into them. All he had to do was get home now.

He stepped out of his shadows; Devlon's camp was quiet around him. A fire to his far right sputtered in the harsh winds and Azriel swept himself back into his shadows.

This time he travelled faster, composing himself, locking his muscles and bones up, clenching his jaw. He let that familiar cool comfort drain his rage, cleaning it through his veins before it settled in the frozen lake of his heart where the rest of his darkness lay, inescapable through the impenetrable foot of icy wrath and sorrow. He savoured his shadows, a confidant in their own right, thanked them for their understanding and the escape he found within them.

But they were growing warmer now. Azriel squinted through them as they shifted him across land and water - the scape of Velaris and its brilliant lights greeted him. Closer to home now, he could breathe with a looser chest but this was still unusual; his shadows shouldn't be warmer, they should be cool and refreshing, like the autumn night breeze beyond.

His wings rustled, body reacting to his shadows' autonomy before his thawing mind caught up. 'Where are you taking me?' he murmured.

Mist swirled about him and the shadows deposited him at the far edge of the dimly lit back garden at his High Lord and Lady's riverfront estate. Why would they bring him here? Rhysand and Feyre were at the mountain cabin, Cassian and Nesta were together in Illyria and Mor was at the Winter Court. As far as he knew, Amren was at her own apartment so the only person left was -

'Azriel!' came Elain's voice. It was distant in a way it shouldn't be.

Azriel leaned against a tree, pretending to fiddle with the Siphon atop his left hand. Breathing was difficult but he swallowed and exhaled in a shudder.

He needed to fully compose himself before anyone saw him like this. If only his damn shadows hadn't taken control for those last few moments, he'd be in his own home and lying in that swirling darkness in peace. Though, he supposed, it was his own fatigue that had yielded that control.

'Azriel!' Elain cried, stopping in front of him. Her face was caught between a frown and a wince and her arm was raised slightly. 'You don't look okay.'

As always, he was momentarily stunned by how unafraid this small female was of him. Here he was in his full armour, every bit the monstrous warrior that sent his people scurrying into their homes and locking their doors, and yet Elain stood strong before him. Like she saw not a killing machine but a person.

She never even commented on how his shadows made to disappear around her. Perhaps she hadn't noticed.

He swallowed before he let out what he thought was a light laugh. 'I'm fine, don't worry.' But he could hear the hoarseness of his voice, now facing the consequences of that scathing scream. And his limbs felt even heavier than before, like someone had injected liquid lead into them.

'You don't have to pretend with me, Azriel,' she whispered, lowering both her gaze and arm.

He paused, trying to catch her gaze. The constant light in her eyes whenever she looked at him was a balm to his soul. He could use some of that right now.

He reached out an arm, so impossibly leaden right now - if he could just get to sit down -

'Can I wash your hair, please?'

He started. 'You want to wash my hair?'

Elain's eyes flicked back up to skirt over his, up to his hair, where they stayed pinned. 'I'm positive that's mud and you shouldn't sleep with that in your hair. It'll only take a few minutes.'

Shit. He hadn't even thought of his appearance after that bloody fight earlier. How that had slipped his mind? He ran a hand through his hair, and surely enough, crumbs of dirt rained down.

Although, he really hadn't expected to turn up here of all places. In the privacy of his own home, he wouldn't have cared if he were missing a whole damn limb, if only it meant he could sleep like the dead.

Not to mention that sleeping with a little mud was the least an Illyrian warrior's problems. But Elain's care was something of a punch to his gut. When was the last time someone had truly tended to him for reasons that weren't battle or holiday related?

'You've managed to get some on your face, too,' she said, brow furrowed as she stared at his cheek.

Her eyes were so deep and focused, he wished they would just meet his once. But of course, that level of scrutiny he'd come to learn from Elain meant shyness. Just shyness. She was so endearing, he could've laughed with such fondness if he weren't so damn tired. He wished this whole damn night would be over already.

His leg faltered slightly and he stumbled forward.

'I'm washing your hair. It'll help relax you into falling asleep.'

He raised his brows at her, but she simply took his arm and began leading him towards the house. She looked so small before him but didn't slow despite dragging his bulk behind her.

Halfway across the garden, he pulled her to him with his free arm, his shadows saving the both of them the energy of walking through that mansion of a home.

'My bathroom,' she murmured. Elain didn't balk through the five seconds of that darkness, didn't even look surprised. She showed no sign of hearing the spike in his pulse either. Thank the Mother.

He set them in her bathroom, and she didn't look at him once as she flitted around the chamber, pulling a chair from her bedroom to the sink and grabbing a towel, soap and a jug from the cupboard. Standing there, his breathing began to smooth out.

The window was open, a chill breeze sweeping in. The faelights were dim and their placid light sent a dusky illumination over Elain's features. Some bottles of oils and herbs sat on the edge of the bathtub. Azriel had heard of people using oils for bathing, but herbs? Perhaps they were like flower petals, used for their scent.

Towel in hand, Elain waited at the sink, placing the soap and jug down. 'I think you'll have to collapse your armour for this.'

Azriel nodded, tapping his Siphon. Within seconds, that second skin of cold scales and gleaming wrath was safely stored away. Just his plain black trousers and tunic were left.

Elain's eyes caught every moment of the transformation. 'It's beautiful, all of it.'

He didn't even know if she was speaking of his armour or the basic clothes underneath or what, but his face warmed slightly, wings rustling.

'Please sit,' she said, gesturing to the chair. As he did, she wrapped the towel around his shoulders, fingers hovering above his forehead for a few seconds.

Those seconds felt perennial. He almost shuddered as her fingers made contact with his skin. Her hands were so gentle as they pushed his head back, and he shifted in the seat. He lowered his wings, and she stepped into the space he provided. She was still as he got comfortable, only turning the tap once he was settled. There was a slight crease between her brows, and he clenched his fists to keep from smoothing it out.

Sounding so much like his own mother that his throat tightened, she whispered, 'You can close your eyes.'

So he did.

Feedback is welcomed, thanks for reading 😊

#elain archeron #azriel #elriel #acotar #elain x azriel

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kythed · 5 years ago

Note

Hi luv:) just found your blog, you are an amazing writer! I was wondering if I could request a fem reader (kuroo’s crush) x kuroo (readers crush) where the reader is rlly good at giving massages and he finds this out when his hand is rlly sore and they start massaging it for him eventually rubbing his shoulders and he’s just like 💖Could you add him just being a teasing lil sh!t, and making the reader all flustered by like fake moan a lot (tho not all of them r actually fake:o)

a/n: hi there! tysm for requesting bby <3 you didn’t specify if you wanted this in headcanon form or as an actual fic, so I just went ahead and wrote a oneshot! I hope it lives up to your expectations :)

my little masseuse

kuroo tetsurou x reader

word count: 1,132

Kuroo plopped down next to you, carelessly tossing a big bag of bread from the canteen on your desk. You looked up from your phone and raised an eyebrow. “You carb loading or something?”

Kuroo feigned offense, pressing a hand to his chest dramatically. “Are you calling me fat, (y/n)?”

“That’s not what I said,” you soothed. Kuroo cracked a smile briefly before your next words. “But now that you mention it…”

The smile dropped off his face as quickly as it had appeared and he snatched the bag off the table. “How rude. I actually bought extra today so I could offer you a curry bun or two, but now I’m not so sure.”

“Wait, hey, hey,” you said, trying to reach over Kuroo’s arm for the bag. “I didn’t mean it. Curry bun please.”

“Mmm,” Kuroo pretended to mull this over for a moment before laughing and tossing you a few of the packaged buns. You ripped into them eagerly, having forgotten your lunch at home that morning. “Only because you’re my favorite girl.”

Mouth full of bread, you felt your face grow warm and hoped the blush didn’t show too badly. It’s not like you tried to keep your huge crush on Kuroo a secret, but… you kind of hoped he didn’t catch on. You two had such a great friendship going, and you were hesitant to throw it all away over some silly schoolgirl crush. Plus, there was no way he liked you back. He was athletic, charismatic, popular, and you… well, you were just you. “I am not your favorite girl. Quit lying.”

“I speak the truth,” Kuroo insisted, and you rolled your eyes before he set another packaged bun in front of you. “Also, d’you think you could open this for me? I’ve had this awful cramp in my right hand all day. Hardly been able to write.”

You furrowed your brow as you neatly opened the package and set it in front of Kuroo, who thanked you and took a huge bite. “Why’s that?”

“I dunno,” he said around a mouthful. You motioned for him to swallow before he continued. “Maybe I slept on it weird? Too much note taking?”

“Too much volleyball, maybe?” you suggested. That’s about all he ever did these days. Volleyball practice, volleyball games, volleyball volleyball volleyball. You couldn’t count the number of hours you’d spent huddled on Kuroo’s couch watching some pro volleyball game with him while he analyzed each play and provided excessively loud and enthusiastic commentary the entire time. You figured you’d probably hate volleyball by now if it wasn’t for that adorable gleam in Kuroo’s eyes whenever he talked about it.

“No such thing,” he scoffed, shoving the rest of the bun into his mouth.

“Mhm,” you said. Then you held out your palm. “Give me your hand.”

“What, are we playing thumb war or something?” Kuroo stared at you suspiciously.

You sighed and gave him a look. “Just do it.”

Kuroo shrugged and gingerly placed his large hand in your small one. He had long, slender fingers with calloused palms and fingertips, the result of years of bumping and spiking and lifting. You began to gently rub small circles across his palm, trying to feel for knots. “Where does it hurt exactly?”

“Uh, a little bit to the left, yeah, like right-- ohhhh,” Kuroo sighed deeply, relaxing his hand as you dug your dexterous little fingers into it. “That feels good…”

You continued massaging, a small smile growing on your face as Kuroo closed his eyes and hummed in contentment. “Is it getting any looser?”

“Much looser,” said Kuroo, rolling his head back with a lazy smile. “Mmmm.”

“Kuroo Tetsurou,” you said, eyebrow cocked, still massaging. “Was that a moan?”

“Maybe,” he said with an impish grin. With his other hand, he brushed his bangs out of his face. “What can I say? I got a pretty girl to look at and a world class masseuse all in one.”

“If you’re getting this turned on over a simple hand massage I’d be scared to know what you’re like when you really get going,” you joked, trying to cover the tremble in your voice. He’d called you pretty in a joking way before, but somehow it seemed different while the two of you were sitting in such close proximity, basically holding hands.

“You’d love to see me when I’m all hot and ready to go,” Kuroo said as you finished the massage. You snorted and rolled your eyes with a small smile. He flexed his fingers experimentally. “Wow, you really are good at this, (y/n). Do you think you could get my shoulders, too?”

“Oh, uh, sure,” you said, moving to stand behind Kuroo. You began working into his shoulders. He certainly had plenty of knots, probably from bending over a desk all day and practicing serves and spikes all afternoon. You also couldn’t help but notice the rolling muscles in his back as you kneaded them. Your heartbeat got a little faster and your cheeks grew a little warmer. You were trying to focus your attention on simply massaging the knots out, but Kuroo’s impressive physique and suggestive comments made it a little difficult.

“You know, I have good hands too,” he said conversationally. “Nimble fingers.”

“Oh?” you said, humoring him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I mean, I could make you feel good, too, (y/n),” he said, adopting a rather suggestive tone. You almost choked on air and dug into Kuroo’s shoulders a little harder than you meant to. He yelped.

“Sorry,” you said, apologetically rubbing the spot you’d tweaked earlier. “You mean you’d give me a massage too?”

“Sure, I could do that,” Kuroo said, leaning back into your chest a little. “Or I could-- ahhhh.”

Kuroo melted into your touch as you rubbed a particularly tight spot at the base of his neck.

“Stop making those noises,” you complained, giving his shoulders a final squeeze. “And stop flirting.”

You sat back down at your seat with a huff, adding under your breath, “Especially if you don’t really mean it.”

“Who said I don’t?” Kuroo raised an eyebrow, stretching his arms high above his head. You flushed and stared at him, struggling to find words. “For your future reference-- I always mean exactly what I say.”

The bell signaling the end of lunch rang, and Kuroo rose to return to his own desk, but not without giving you an overly dramatic stage wink first.

“Don’t you dare wink at me!” you scolded, but he just laughed and sauntered over to his seat by the window. You slumped over on your desk and buried your face in your arms, hoping to hide the pink dusting your cheeks. That Kuroo Tetsurou was going to be the death of you.

#haikyuu #haikyuu headcanons #haikyuu imagines #haikyuu scenarios #kuroo tetsurou #kuroo #kuroo tetsurou x reader #kuroo x reader #haikyuu x reader #kuroo tetsuro x reader #kuroo tetsuro #kuroo tetsurō #kuroo tetsurō x reader #kuroo headcanons #kuroo tetsurou headcanons #kuroo tetsuro headcanons #kuroo tetsurō headcanons #underratedhq

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the-blind-geisha · 4 years ago

Note

Nobody ever really mentions any flaws Demi might have. Do you have any ideas for some?

There's actually one I brought up in Amnesia and will probably be a continued thing for me--his breath. lol

He's a demon who devours meats (as far as I see things). However, because eating/ drinking and all of that is more a luxury than a necessity for demons, Demiurge doesn't care to focus on his oral hygiene. Because of this, he has a very awful odor that is reminiscence of old meats. I know Bunngy called it 'carnivore breath', and yeah, that's pretty much how I see it. xD;

As for other personality flaws, I can easily see that territorial side of Demiurge making him act without thought. Normally, he is well put together and thinks things through that he's immaculate and hard to stump. But, when someone threatens his s/o, his territorial/jealous side comes through. He doesn't think things through as he normally does, almost making him easy to take down depending who is using this against him.

He is also pretty blind to anybody having romantic feelings for him. Because of this, if an underling were to act out via jealousy for wanting his love by attacking his s/o behind his back, it would throw Demiurge off guard. He's not sure what it's like to have 2 beings fight over him. It's a very foreign concept because he has the 'horse blinder syndrome', I call it, where he focuses on things he's tasked with. He also just believes he's not easily loved or wanted by others.

The passage from Amnesia: A Dreamer's Requiem

Demiurge took to your wrists, putting your hands into a cupped shape just below your chest. “You're so tense,” he commented, his fangs seeming to sneer with delight at that (unseen by yourself). “You really should learn to be a bit looser, Lily. If not, you will lose focus and control all the faster.”

“Umm.. forgive me,” you stuttered, looking away from him. His breath... it was right there near your cheek. You hated to confess this but it didn't smell the cleanest. It smelt of rotted flesh. You could only assume that was because he ate meat far more than any other thing in the castle. You tried not to show you were a bit appalled by it.

#poor boo needs a breath mint #demiurge #overlord demiurge #demiurge headcanon #headcanon #overlord #overlord anime #mod answers #anon #character flaws

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nicka-nell · 4 years ago

Text

Prompt Event

Request: @solelytobios CONGRATULATIONS ON 500 FOLLOWERS MISS GURL!!! I’m still fairly new to the blog and tumblr in general but I love your work 🥺 🤍 I was wondering if you could please do tobio angst and possibly include prompts 12, 33, & 44 from the list? That would be utterly amazing

Hi Blue :))

Thank you for your kind words, that’s so sweet of you. ♥ I hope you like tumblr and that you enjoy everything here and especially the incredibly nice community. Of course! But I have to say that I had trouble making this really like something you call ‘angst fic’. ;-; Buuut I hope you like it anyway and that there is enough angst for you. ♥ Stay healthy and safe and have fun on tumblr :)).

Prompt Event | Masterlist (coming soon)

Pairing: Kageyama Tobio x reader Words: 2.598 Warning: angst

Promots: 12. You’ve shown me what love can feel like. 33. We’re not just friends and you fucking know it. 44. Isn’t it obvious? I’m in love with you!

You can’t help but giggle when you watch at the face in front of you, which looks desperately into his workbook and smashes his arms over his head. Who gives everything at volleyball with ambition. Who from the fingertips to his feet is fully concentrated.

But when it comes to school, it’s all gone. All you see is a pile of misery when you look in his direction. Recognize the despair in his face. But it’s not just this, what makes you laugh.

It’s all about Kageyama that makes you kind of happy. His smile, his uncomplicated, honest manner and his proud grin, which he wears in all his games when his team has scored a point.

It was a slow process but more and more you noticed that Kageyama not only makes you laugh, but also makes your heart beat faster every time he appears before you, when he hits slightly from behind against your back, with a straw in his mouth begins to mumble and says hello to you. When he looks at you with sparkling eyes, when you got one of the last gun-gun yogurts for him so that he can eat it. With every touch, every word, every breath, he turns your head.

“Can we take a break?” Brings you Kageyama’s sound back to the present. Still smiling, you nod, now put your book out of your hands before you fold your hands on his wooden table and place your head on it, imitate Kageyama and watch him in the eyes.

Long time you say nothing, are drawn into his spell by his deep blue eyes until they close at some point while you see how Kageyama’s body moves up and down quietly. As he slowly begins to breathe more deeply, sinking into the world of dreams.

Your gaze wanders from his eyes to his lips, which smile slightly at you. What it’s like to kiss those lips? To feel how soft they are? Immersed in your mind, you lean towards him, coming so close to him with your face.

But just before you can kiss him, he opens his eyes again, stares at you with large pupils, but does not move. “What are you doing dumbass?” he mumbles. Scared, you dodge, notice how your cheeks are starting to glow.

You quickly lick your thumb to press it against Kageyama’s face and pretend to wipe ink off of his face. “Ehhh… There was a stain!” Your voice sounds in an unusually high tone. But Kageyama only pushes your hand away and then rubs his cheek.

“Hey, dumbass, stop it! How would you like it if I licked your face?” He grumbles, and before you can answer him, he holds your head with his hands and moistens your cheek with his tongue.

“Ah Tobio, stop it!” You laugh when you try to dodge him and fall on the ground with the man in front of you. With a dull sound he lands on you, squeezing your upper body with his before he stares at you with slightly reddish cheeks and falls silent.

His hair tickles your forehead, and now you see nothing but Kageyama. Again you look at each other, jet you have the feeling that if he moves a bit in your direction, he could hear your heart loudly.

“I’m sorry.” He apologizes and straightens up, pulls you up with a jerk, before he scratches the back of his head and looks to the side. “It’s late, isn’t it? You should go home.” He just stutters, and aims his gaze at the room door.

Somewhat irritated, you look at his wall clock, nod as you see how late it is and leave him with a fleeting goodbye. Because if you stay with him another second, your heart will explode.

The next few weeks are flying by, you are still doing something together almost every day, laughing a lot, as if this incident had never happened a few weeks ago.

Today you are alone again, lying together in Kageyama’s bed and watching a volleyball match of the Japanese youth team against the Argentine youth team on his laptop. He clamped a pillow between his back and the wall, drawed you into his lap, so that you lay between his legs on his chest, his arms bound around your upper body like a belt.

You feel his heartbeat on your back, how it beats faster than usual. Almost in line with yours. It hurts to know that Kageyama is your best friend, but that you’re actually acting like a couple.

Is it normal to lie in bed like this when you’re just friends? If it’s better to ask him how he feels, or do you destroy your friendship with this question?

His breath lays down on your skin like a veil as he suddenly presses his head against your temple. “Kageyama? What would happen if we were together?” It comes out of you dull, and at the same time you regret your question.

“Together? But we are together dumbass… Or do you have a twin sister you always send to me so you don’t have to come here?” You should have known that Kageyama misunderstood the question that he doesn’t directly understand what you’re trying to ask.

Relief but also a stabbing pain spreads in your body. “Hehe yes, you are right. I’m a dummy.” You laugh a little embarrassed, but notice how your false smile does not convince even Kageyama.

The grip around your shoulders becomes looser, he straightens up again and looks at you with his blue eyes questioning. Doesn't talk to you, just stares.

For a blink of an eye, you decide whether you should tell him to go home now, or to stay, before you turn to him. But unless you can say anything, Kageyama holds your chin, watches at you seriously as he slowly comes towards you, fixating your tender lips.

You have the feeling that your heart rings five beats faster, that your body has reached a temperature that is anything but human. But just before his lips find yours, loud cheering sounds from his laptop, as the Argentinean team has won the first set.

“Arrg I can’t believe it! Ushijima should finally use his hands for blocking and not just for attacking mmpf!” He shouts angry through the room and goes annoyed through his hair. Sulking he looks at the screen, almost as if he has forgotten that you are there.

“What an annoying game.” He mumbles, before he leans back against the wall and pulls you back into his arms, as if the previous moment didn’t happen at all. Like he didn’t want to kiss you a second ago.

Silently, you let him hold you, are okay with the fact that he won’t try to kiss you again, because it’s clear to you now that he feels the same way you do for him. When the next break is coming up, you set yourself the goal to ask him another time, and this time hopefully also get the kiss he almost gave you a second before.

But at the beginning of the next break, you are already sleeping deep and firm in his arms. Even Kageyama falls asleep after the victory of the Japanese youth team, doesn’t mind that you lie in his arms.

The next morning he wakes up first, is tense, because he has lain badly. Just sees your body connect his and you slumbering peacefully. Actually, it’s not such a bad sight to see you so calmly. To know that you don’t just open your mouth and whine about something stupid to him. Unconsciously, he begins to smile.

Carefully he tries to shake you awake, but you only turn around in his arms, lay your temple to his chest as you start to murmur quietly to yourself. “I love you Tobio.” Your words sound softly, kissing Kageyama’s ears.

He falls silent, doesn’t move a bit, almost doesn’t breathe anymore to really make sure you don’t wake up now. Did you just say you loved him? What exactly do you mean by that? How can you speak of love when you are friends?

You guys are friends, right? After all, you’re always there for him. You are the person he likes and always has at his side who doesn’t bother or annoy him. But you’re just friends… right?

Would he like to know what it’s like to kiss you? Maybe, yes. Does he like to feel your closeness? He would lie if he said no, but if you then speak directly of love? What if he doesn’t love you? When he realizes that it’s only enough for a friendship and in the end lose you as his girlfriend and best friend?

He has to come up with something now… And if it means that he has to do something that you hate him, just to forget that you love him, he will do it. Because nothing is worse than losing a person that is so important to him.

It’s best to think about everything… But first he has to wake you up.

“Hey, dumbass, get up and go home. You’ve been here too long.” He wakes you up rudely and makes you jump up, tired of rubbing your eyes. “Tobio, you idiot! Can’t you say that a little nicer?” You hiss, before you reach out and look at the clock.

It’s really way too late, you should just pack up and go home before anyone else worries about you. Quickly you pack your things, say goodbye to him and go home.

Several weeks go by, almost months in which you do less with Kageyama, in which he has less time, almost distancing himself from you. Last week, you only got one message from him. At home he was never to be found and also otherwise he completely disappeared out of your grid.

But this time you will stand at his doorstep, waiting for him to come back to confront him. And after more than two hours, you see him. Laughing and moving slowly to the door, still hasn't noticed you.

But he is not alone, in his arms is another woman. A girl you don’t know. Jet she’s so familiar with him. Holding him like you always did, looking at him the way you looked at him, and driving him through his soft hair like you used to.

He still doesn’t notice you when he stops and looks at this girl. Tentatively caresses her cheek, places a strand of hair behind her ear, before he bends down to her and gives her a tender kiss. A kiss you thought was meant for you.

A bittersweet feeling is floating your body. Takes you almost the air to breathe away, when you notice how your eyes are getting warmer. Warmer since crystal gleaming tears form in them. Tears running silently down your cheeks.

The girl walks away, when Kageyama also sets in motion, watching briefly at this girl, before he looks forward petrified when he sees you.

Your face filled with tears makes him angry. For a moment, he wants to know why you’re sad, who made you unhappy, and who is responsible for you crying bitterly. But then he remembers it’s him. That’s why you look at him like that.

You just want to run past him, run away from him, when he instinctively grabs you by the wrist and stops you. He doesn’t even know why his body was acting like that when he knows you don’t want to see him now.

At least he doesn’t want to admit it, but right now he knows best why his body works against his mind. Why his body won’t let you go. Understands secretly why he didn’t feel anything when the girl kissed him today, why she wasn’t important to him. Why that kiss he gave her earlier even pissed him off.

“What the hell, Kageyama? Who is that girl? Why did you kiss her?” You yell at him.

Kageyama, not Tobio, what a slap in the face. A slap that enters deeper, hits a point in his body that now hurts more than a real slap in the face. “I’m sorry.”

“We’re not just friends and you fucking know it!” You still yell at him.

I know. But “I’m sorry.” is the only thing that leaves his mouth. Jet he leaves your wrist, looks at you dumb.

“Oh you’re sorry, yes? Are you blind, Kageyama? Are you that blind? So naive?” Your voice still trembles as you see him blurred before you, looking at you emotionless.

“I’m sorry.”

“Really Kageyama? Then why did you do that? Can’t you see what we both have? Can’t you feel that this isn’t a normal friendship we have? Isn’t it obvious to you?” Your last words are barely heard, your voice so fragile. Fails almost at the last word. But Kageyama’s gaze does not change. Still looks emotionless like before.

It is. But “I’m sorry.” again leaves his mouth.

In you, anger, grief and hatred boils. “You know, Kageyama, I wish I could hate you, but I fucking love you, you idiot!” Your fists find their way to his chest, pounding on it. Won’t make Kageyama move away from you at any moment.

Because he’s letting you take all your anger out on him, that he’s the scapegoat. That he gets what he deserves now that he’s made you so unhappy.

“I’m sorry.”

“Can’t you think of anything else then I’m sorry?” Your crying eyes look at him full of hate.

“I’m s-”

“No, shut up, shut up! Why are you doing this to me, Kageyama?” You want to know from him when you sniff and try to stop your runny nose.

“I’m sorry.”

You’re dumbfounded how few words he finds after ignoring you, meeting someone else now, not even telling you about it. You thought for a moment that he loved you when he was the one who wanted to kiss you several weeks ago. But you were wrong.

“You’ve shown me what love can feel like. Disgusting, painful and wrong!” You say in a trembling voice that it is quieter than before, but you can hear the disappointment in it even from a distance.

“I’m sorry.”

“I hate you Kageyama, I hate you! Don’t call me, don’t text me, just leave me alone.” You sniff this lie, while your voice gives in to every word more and more, loses strength and becomes more shaky.

I won't, I won’t, I will.

With your chilly hands you wipe away the tears from your eyes. Don’t want Kageyama to see you like this for another second. Without even saying another word, you turn around, this time you won’t be stopped by Kageyama when your legs move away from him and leave him alone in the cold.

Kageyama Tobio, your best friend, your crush, is nothing now. What does he think he is, this Kageyama Tobio…? Just another idiot.

You, his best friend, the only woman he didn’t want to lose completely, whose friendship was more important to him than anything else. A friendship he did not want to lose out of selfishness, did not want to risk a friendship that is obviously more than just a friendship… Not there anymore.

“Isn’t it obvious? I’m in love with you.”

His voice is so quiet, so calm, that even he hardly understands it while he looks at your silhouette, which slowly disappears in the distance, just as it is best for a lonely king.

#haikyuu #haikyuu x reader #kageyama x reader #tobio x reader #nelas500

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ayyyez · 4 years ago

Note

ohohoho here's one... scenario or hcs - whichever you prefer - angry/jealous sex with tobirama... i'll leave the reason entirely up to you 🤭

a/n: ahhhh hot sex with Tobirama while jealous/angry is such a vibe omg (lowkey have an idea with my OC Asana and Tobirama jealous sex scenario ehe but we will save that for another time) also I did both lol jealous and angry sex warnings: 18+ only, sexual content, teasing, grinding, groping, handjobs, biting, scratching, kissing, jealous sex and angry sex

Jealous sex

This man doesn’t get jealous often but when he does he hates himself. He just gets so frustrated if he hears people talking about you or interacting with you a little too familiarly. And if you smile/laugh in their presence or even just indulge them he’s jealous af.

Will not address it in the moment. Instead he will bottle it and let it grow all day until he gets home to you and he just wants to take you right then and there to affirm you only want him.

He doesn’t though. Tobirama has practiced patience many times. He just kind of comes home and looks at you with that stern expression. His brow is twitching because he is trying to hold back.

You look at him and KNOW something is up. You greet him then ask what is wrong? Something you can help with? And he is just internally like yes you can help right here right now.

He gives you this look. You sigh and ask what is it again. He steps closer and looks you up and down. There is a question on his eyes, you can see it there but he doesn’t ask it. He just leans in and kisses you hard. Not just hard but with all the frustration that had pent up exploding into the kiss.

He is pressing himself against you. Your back hits the kitchen counter and he is just sort of grabs hold of you and kisses you like you’ve never been kissed before. It’s a kiss that says you are his. But it’s always a question: you are his right? Kiss him back with equal need then he has his answer.

Then you bring a hand to his chest and push him away. ‘Bedroom.’ You whisper - command. And you walk to your shared bedroom with Tobirama following you.

Now you’re the one who is frustrated. He isn’t using his words and you want to know what is up but he is never like this and it’s an opportunity you can’t pass up.

The moment you enter the room he is behind you, tugging off your clothes and kissing your back, shoulder and then your neck. He is never so forward when he comes home. But you don’t have time to comment because now you’re naked and he is pressing himself against your backside.

He’s hard already. Wow pent up to max. His hand is on your waist so you put yours on top and begin rubbing your ass against him. He lets out a grunt and you smirk.

You turn your head back to look at him. ‘What’s gotten into you?’ You ask, all sultry like. He kisses you hard and passionate. ‘That’s not an answer.’ You say, pulling away ever so slightly.

But he is on you again. ‘I just wanted to remind you that you are mine.’ He latches his lips onto your neck. You almost snort at his comment. So that’s what this is about.

Okay so maybe you knew he was watching you with your friend. Maybe you wanted him to make a comment and you reassure him. You never imagined this reaction but oh did you welcome it.

You pulled away and turned, pushing him onto the bed. ‘Perhaps it’s me.’ you said, climbing on top of him, ‘who should be reminding you that I am yours.’ He is surprised by this and you take the opportunity to kiss him. It’s passionate, ongoing, like it is never going to end.

You reach down and take his erection, hot and hard, and begin stroking him teasingly. Your grip is a little looser than he likes and no where near as hard as he needs. He lets out a strangled moan. He’s annoyed but he still wants you.

He pulls his attention to you and begins preparing you thoroughly. He doesn’t tease, he gets to the point because he is so damn needy right now he just needs to fck you.

Once you are nice and ready you swat his hands away, take his cock in your hand and guide it to you. You usually take your time sinking down onto him but he was being a brat so you sunk down hard and fast.

It stung a little but you were prepared enough to recover quickly. Tobirama groaned when you did, hunching forward with a crease etched on his brow. He wanted it fast he was getting it.

You wasted no times, rising so his cock was almost out completely before slamming back down again. He groaned again but he didn’t protest. His hands did find your waist to try and control you motions but you ignored the firmness of the grip and continued on your own time.

Your pace grew faster but every time you sank back down on him you made sure to do it as hard as possible. He wanted reminding of who you belonged to? He was going to get it.

It wasn’t long before he couldn’t handle it anymore. He grabbed you and threw you onto your back and began thrusting hard and fast. Tobirama hit you so deeply you couldn’t help but smile. Yep this was bliss.

The intensity of the moment peaked and the both of you are cumming before long. Tobirama falling on top of you and you reaching up to stroke the back of his neck. Together you came down from your high. Maybe this was something you should explore more often lol

Btw his jealousy is gone pretty much once he comes down lol he is like yep you are mine, no one else is making you feel that way, It’s a bit of an ego boost tbh.

Angry Sex

The hottest of hottest sex with Tobirama. It happens after the two of you have a heated argument. It’s not over anything in particular but the two of you were just so stressed it came out and took it out on each other.

You stormed off to your room and he stormed out of the house. I mean he didn’t leave he just needed to be dramatic. He pretty much just chilled outside until he calmed down.

A part of him had been stressed because he hadn’t really spent much time with you and now you both fought. Ah if only he could relieve this pent up frustration. oh wait he can he just needed you.

He wasn’t about to apologise but maybe he could calm both of you down. lol okay Tobirama. He comes back inside to come and find you sitting on the bed. You seemed calmer too.

‘Have you come to fight again?’ You asked, not looking at him. ‘No.’ Is all he says before he comes over and kisses you. It’s soft, testing the waters. A part of you wants to slap him but you have sort of missed him the past few weeks.

With a sigh you lean in and return the kiss. Then you pull apart. You still feel angry. ‘I just don’t understand why-’ He frowns. ‘Enough already.’ You stand up the anger returning 10x. ‘I was just saying I don’t understand why you can’t just talk to me instead of taking things out on me.’

‘I do talk to you.’ He says, now he is angry again. ‘No you yell and you bottle and then you-’ He kisses you and cuts you off. ‘This is exactly what I’m-’ fuck it you kiss him hard, like you want it to hurt.

He grabs you and pulls you against him. His touches are firm and unforgiving too. He pushes against you hard. So hard and firm. God he is actually hard already. Is he getting off on this?

Then you falling against the bed with the full weight of Tobirama against you. The battle begins. You roll him so you are on top and start grinding against him hard. The friction is good and stings all at once.

He grabs the back of your head and pulls you into for a heat kiss. He tries to take control and you bite his lip. That has him rolling you over and ripping you clothes off.

It’s not long before both you are naked and grinding against each other again. Your nails are digging into his back. He is biting your neck. It’s time for you to take control again.

This little back and forth goes on the whole time. By the time he enters you the two of you are on your sides. He doesn’t take his time and you add more heat to moment by sinking down as he pushes inside. With a hearty moan he enters you.

Then he begins pounding into you like no tomorrow. You bite his shoulder while meeting his every thrust. It’s hard and by the time you pull away there is an angry red bite mark on his shoulder. He doesn’t even acknowledge it as he continues.

It’s pissing you off, so you push him off you and onto his back. He growls but you ignore him. You take his cock in hand and give it a drawn out pump with your firmest grip. Then you’re sinking back down on it again.

You have no mercy to wait and begin fucking him hard and rough. Your nails dig into his chest as you hold on. The grip he has on your waist will leave bruises.

He meets you thrusts every time. Its fast and rough. There is no way this can go on it’s to much. He cums first and then you are right behind him. Riding him mercilessly through his orgasm.

You fall on top of him and immediately roll off. Neither of you is angry anymore but your bodies are battered and bruised. You sneak a peak to see the angry bite mark on his shoulder and smirk. Then you look down at the red marks on your waist. Yep definitely doing to be bruised tomorrow.

#request #anon #tobirama #tobirama senju #tobirama/reader #tobiramaxreader #angry #jealous #headcanons #tobirama headcanons #biting #scratching #and I oop #hot damn tobirama #I'll do this with him any day #Anonymous #Ask

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bubonickitten · 4 years ago

Link

Summary: Jon goes back to before the world ended and tries to forge a different path.

Previous chapter: AO3 // tumblr

Chapter 14 full text & content warnings below the cut.

Note: There are text messages in this one. The AO3 posting uses a custom work skin to format them. I’m going to upload them as images for the Tumblr post. Might be easiest to read on AO3, though. (Particularly if you use a screen reader or have difficulty reading white text on green backgrounds and need to highlight those portions of text.)

Content warnings for Chapter 14: Buried-typical elements (claustrophobia, inability to breathe/move, etc.); mention of past suicidal ideation; some anxiety/panic symptoms; brief description of a past depressive episode; relatively mild blood/injury; swears; some Unsettling Spider Trivia (personally I think it’s fascinating but if you don’t like spiders maybe just skip a bit ahead when you get to that part). SPOILERS through Season 5.

Chapter 14: Up and Out

Much like the ebb and flow of the Buried, that sensation of being pulled vacillates. A few times now, it’s disappeared almost entirely, leaving Jon disorientated and suddenly doubting whether he’s headed in the right direction despite being certain only moments before. It always comes back before long, but each time it’s happened, he’s had to pause to fight down the knee-jerk influx panic.

Right this moment, he’s stopped – both because that sensation is dwindling again and because he’s simply winded. They’ve been in a particularly tight squeeze for quite some time now, and he’s aching and exhausted from the struggle.

“Jon?” Daisy prompts, panting even more heavily than he is. Nearly eight months of muscular atrophy and restricted lung capacity haven’t done any favors for her stamina. “A-are you okay?”

“Yeah. Just – just taking a break. Getting my bearings.”

“Anchor f-fading again?” He has a feeling she was aiming for casual, but the trepidation creeps into her voice anyway.

“Yes. But don’t worry, I’ll find it again. I just need to catch my breath.”

Daisy laughs. It comes out as some combination of a wheeze and a whimper.

“I d-don’t think I’ve been able to catch my breath in… I – I don’t know how long.”

“You will soon,” he promises, rubbing circles on the back of her hand with his thumb.

“I – I c-can barely remember what that’s like. F-feels like I’ll never know it again –”

“I know,” he says gently, “I know. I – I know it’s worse for you – you’ve been here longer – but I do remember that feeling. I promise I’ll get us out of here.”

“And – and then what?” she says in a near-whisper. “The – the Hunt, it – it’s going to come back, isn’t it?”

“Yes. I’m sorry. But – but you’ll still be you, and I’ll still be me, and we’ll – we’ll both fight to keep it that way.”

“I – I never thought about it, b-but – I’m prey too, aren’t I?” Daisy makes a noise that straddles the line somewhere between a laugh and a sob. “It – it’ll always chase me down, and it’s – stronger, f-faster –”

“Maybe, but I think you might be more stubborn.” Daisy gives a weak chuckle. “We all are, aren’t we?” Jon continues, emboldened by her reaction and intent on distracting her from her burgeoning panic. “Wonder if it’s somewhere in the job requirements: must be stubborn, curious, and preternaturally unlucky.”

This time, Daisy actually does laugh – clipped and wet with barely-contained tears, but a laugh all the same. For a minute she’s quiet, before sniffling once and clearing her throat.

“Can you tell me what happened last time? Did I – was I able to…”

“You fought it, yes,” he says slowly. “The call of the blood was always in the background. Distractions helped to take the edge off, sometimes. You spent most of your time with Basira. You and I spent a lot of time together, too. Tried to listen to the quiet. Both of us.”

“It sounds like there’s a ‘but.’”

“There is,” he admits.

“It caught up to me,” Daisy guesses, sounding resigned.

“It did. But… you refused it right up until the point where it was your last resort. The Institute was under attack, and Martin was in danger, and the two of you stayed behind to deal with the threat to buy me time enough to find him. A pair of Hunters cornered you. Basira couldn't take them both, and you… were too weakened from resisting the Hunt to stand a chance against either of them. You let the Hunt back in because it was the only way you could protect Basira. You made her promise to find you and kill you when it was over, and you told her to run.”

“Do you – do you think if not for that, I would have kept resisting? Or was I just – using that as an excuse to give in?”

“I don’t know,” Jon says truthfully. He hesitates, attempting to balance honesty with tact. “You were wasting away. We all thought that refusing to feed the Hunt might kill you eventually. But whenever the subject came up, you said you were willing to die rather than let it back in. You were – adamant. And I… think you would have followed through on it. Resisting, I mean. Even if it meant dying.”

“I see,” she murmurs.

“Actually, it’s – probably morbid to say, but I envied your resolve. You didn’t want to be a predator again. You thought death was preferable to being lost to the blood. Right up until the end.” He shakes his head. “But – but maybe we can find a – a different way. Me coming back has already changed some things that I thought were inevitable. Just – don’t give up hope?”

Daisy makes a noise of acknowledgement, but Jon can’t glean anything else from it.

“I know it sounds bleak, and – and maybe it is. But for what it’s worth, I’ll be right there with you. I’m not taking live statements this time around, and it – has similar effects on me that refusing the Hunt does for you. Reading old statements takes the edge off, sometimes, but based on past experience, it… won’t be sustainable, and I’ll – have to cross that bridge when I get to it, I suppose. It’s not exactly the same, obviously – our patrons operate in different ways – but it did… help, last time, having someone nearby who knew what it was like.”

“You… know things now, right?”

“It’s… complicated. There are a lot of constraints and” – he huffs – “I don’t have as much control over it as everyone wishes I did, but… yes.”

“Any educated guesses on our chances?”

“None,” Jon says with a grim half-smile. “The Beholding tends to be uncooperative when it comes to concepts like escape and recovery. I won’t lie – marks don’t fade, and as far as I can tell, once someone is fully an Avatar, there’s no undoing it. You embrace it, or you wither away. You feed it, or it feeds on you.”

“Sounds about right.”

“But,” Jon says emphatically, “you should also know that no one had ever escaped the Buried before we did. And we’re about to do it again. So… who knows. Maybe there’s a third option and we just haven’t found it yet. I can’t promise there’s another way, but if there is… we’ll find it.”

“Or die trying?” Daisy replies, a wry edge to her tone now.

“Suppose so. But not without making a nuisance of ourselves first. I still don’t Know if the Fears are sentient, but on the off chance they are, I find that spite is a decent motivator.”

“Naturally.” Daisy snorts. “I wonder what annoys the Hunt?”

“Don’t know. Fraternizing with someone who was marked as prey, maybe. You told me once that on bad days, my blood was the loudest thing in the Archives. We theorized the Hunt wasn’t too keen on you letting me go.”

“You… weren’t you afraid I’d turn on you?”

“No.”

“Is that because you were suicidal, or because you honestly thought I wouldn’t kill you?”

“I wasn’t –” Jon sighs. “My mental state aside, I trusted you. You were as stubborn as I was. Maybe more. Even if we weren’t friends, I imagine you’d have snubbed the Hunt anyway, just on principle.”

Before Daisy can reply, the earth around them begins to shake again, soil coming loose and raining down on them from above. They both hold their breath, waiting for the impending crush – but it doesn’t come, and after a few seconds, they exhale simultaneously. Jon’s comes out as something of a cough, jolted out of him by the now-familiar sensation of an insistent upward pull.

“Anchor’s back,” he gasps out. “Ready to move?”

As they move forward – up, Jon assures himself, we’re making progress – the perpetual squeeze begins to open up into a narrow passageway. Sometimes they need to dig to bypass blockages and widen their tunnel, but the closer they draw to the surface, the hard-packed earth gradually gives way to looser soil.

Between one moment and the next, Jon’s fingertips – already raw and bleeding from burrowing through the debris – scrape against something much harder and rougher than packed earth. Solid rock, hidden by a few inches of soil. He hisses as he feels another layer of skin peel away at the abrasive texture, but he brightens at the memory of the stone steps and walls at the entrance to the Buried.

“We’re getting close, Daisy,” he says excitedly, tugging on her hand. “We’re almost there –”

The Buried compresses in a blink, crushing them up against one another.

“Shit,” Jon hisses. “Shouldn’t’ve said anything.”

“Jon?” Daisy says, her voice pitched higher than usual, shot through with barely concealed panic.

“It’s okay, Daisy. This happened the last time, too. Just” – the earth contracts further, forcing a whine out of him – “wringing one last bit of t-terror out of us before we leave.”

“Th-that’s – greedy of it,” she rasps with a nervous chuckle.

“I find that – a-all the Powers tend to be – like that. Needy, spiteful things, all – all of them.”

So do their Avatars, for that matter. He thinks of how Helen couldn’t resist frightening him one last time before parting ways at Hill Top Road; of how Jude Perry knew she was going to die and chose to spend her last moments pulling him down to her level; of how Manuela Dominguez knew she had failed, but still wanted to take someone out with her; of how Peter Lukas couldn’t lose a bet gracefully, how he dragged Martin into the Lonely and tried to trap Jon there as well; of how Jonah wasn’t content to just have Jon read out his ritual, but had to hijack Jon’s voice to monologue first.

And Jon himself isn’t all that different, is he? Didn’t he force himself to confront Jonah in the Panopticon, even though he knew it would have no impact on anything? Doesn’t he regularly provoke the Eye with small acts of rebellion? How many times has he mouthed off to an assailant threatening his life? He just said it himself: spite can be a decent motivator. Failing that, sometimes it just feels satisfying.

“It’ll – let up,” Jon says, for himself as much as Daisy. “J-just – give it a minute.”

As if to be contrary, it actually takes several minutes before the pressure begins to withdraw. Slowly, so very slowly, the collapsed tunnel begins to expand again, releasing another downpour of dirt in the process. The passage is still tight and they have to squirm through in small increments, but after some of the squeezes they passed through on their way, even a few extra centimeters of wiggle room feels like a luxury.

That said, Daisy’s breathing is increasingly labored, punctuated by soft whimpers.

“You doing alright, Daisy?”

“Y-yeah, ‘m fine.” Her breath catches and comes out as a pained groan. “Chest hurts,” she says brusquely, before Jon can express concern.

“Your lungs aren’t accustomed to having this much room to expand,” he says instead, striving for a bland tone.

“W-well, they’ll just h-have to – get used to it.”

“They will, but – take it slow? Last time, you had a fair amount of bruising. A few cracked ribs as well. We both did.”

In fact, he thinks they might just be the exact same ribs he injured last time, if the pain is anything to go by.

“Listen,” he says, “I – I think we’re coming up on the exit soon.”

“Soon soon?”

“Fairly certain, yes. Before we leave, I should tell you – Elias doesn’t know that I’m from the future, doesn’t know how much we know, and I’d prefer to keep it that way as long as possible. He can’t See us while we’re in here, but as soon as we’re out – the only safe place is the tunnels, like before.”

“Got it.”

“And also, I…” Not much for it, he tells himself. Make your peace with it now. “I might lose my voice again as soon as we’re out. Maybe – maybe even before then.”

“Again?”

“I – I mean, I’ll be able to talk, just – not in my own words.” Jon tries to wet his lips and immediately regrets it, succeeding only in drawing more dirt into his mouth. He grimaces and sputters a bit, to no avail.

“Jon?”

“Y-yeah, sorry. I, ah – remember what I said, about – about the Archive? I’ve – outside of here, I’ve only been able to speak using the statements in my… library, I suppose.”

He says the last part with distaste, all but spitting the words out as if they’re poison.

“Huh.”

“It started partway through the apocalypse, and it followed me when I came back. Being in the Buried’s domain has cut me off from the Archive for now, but once the Eye can reach me again, I – there’s a chance it’ll take over again.” He sighs. “More than a chance, it’s – probably more of a certainty. I just wanted to let you know now, I – I’m still me, it’s just – the Archive puts limits on how I communicate, and it can be – off-putting. And annoying. And… abhorrent.”

“Abhorrent?”

“I mean… appropriating other people’s trauma any time I want to speak? It’s…”

There’s no succinct way to capture just how – how perverse it is, exploiting the words of the people who lived through the horrors retold in the statements. Some of them, Jon himself victimized. More than some, if he considers the billions he condemned in his future. Claiming their terror for his own use doesn’t feel all that different from actually taking statements: dehumanizing, objectifying, degrading. It’s all on the same ghoulish spectrum of monstrosity, just… slightly different shades of wrong.

All he says aloud, though, is the last part: “It’s wrong.”

And yet, you do it anyway, he thinks, disgusted with himself.

“Like going from one hell to another, isn’t it?” Daisy says after a pause. “Getting out of here, only for the Eye and – and the Hunt to be waiting on the other side.”

“Yeah. As much as I want to get out of here, I’m… not looking forward going back to – to that.” He sighs, then rallies himself. “But fresh air and a drink of water do sound nice, don’t they?”

“And a bath,” Daisy says, as if it’s the most beautiful word in the world. Jon laughs quietly.

“The Institute only has the one shower, I’m afraid. No tub, terrible water pressure, occasionally –”

“– occasionally runs cold without warning mid-shower,” Daisy finishes, an audible grin in her tone. “I recall. You won’t hear me complaining, though.”

“Nor me. Not for the next couple weeks, anyway.”

“Mm. Yeah, I’m sure you’ll hear me swearing up a storm at four in the morning about water temperature at some point.”

“Assuming that trivial detail hasn’t changed since I was last here, yes, I will,” Jon says with an amused chuff. He readjusts his grip on her hand and tugs gently. “Come on, we’re getting closer.”

Martin sits in his office, head in his hands and the heels of his palms pressed to his eyes.

Eight days. It’s been eight days since Jon went into the Coffin, there have been no signs of when – if – he’ll return, and there’s nothing Martin can do to reach him.

Stupid, he thinks fiercely, to think that sitting there and talking to a – a box of dirt would do anything.

Keeping vigil at Jon’s bedside at the hospital for months had done nothing to bring him back. Why would this be any different? When Martin’s predictions panned out, he felt almost vindicated that he was right – comforted by the confirmation that he is still all alone in the world, relieved by the reassurance that nothing will disturb his solitude after all.

There’s a part of him that still has the decency to feel ashamed at that impulse, but it’s small and distant and shrinking by the day. And yet… it’s still there, withered though it may be: a sentimental sliver of attachment that stubbornly refuses to die, both to his dismay and – to a lesser but nonetheless undeniable extent – his relief. No matter how pessimistic his outlook has become these days, he had still hoped against all the odds that reaching out to Jon would have some sort of effect.

It didn’t. Of course it didn’t. That sort of hopeless romanticism is for fairytales. Sure, given the existence of extradimensional fear entities, it isn’t inconceivable that some sort of… long distance psychic bond, or link, or – or whatever could exist. But Martin has yet to see any evidence pointing to the existence of powers like hope and love to balance out the existence of Smirke’s Fourteen.

That admission alone is enough to whittle away at that stubborn sentimentality of his just a little further.

And that’s for the best, he tells himself.

He can feel a bitter smile flicker at the corner of his mouth. The Lonely’s really got its hold on him, hasn’t it?

But no matter how well-suited he is to the Lonely, no matter how resigned he is to the idea that he’s destined to be alone, and that that’s exactly as it should be… Martin still cares for Jon. His emotions feel dulled most days, as if they’re happening to someone else, but the act of caring… he doesn’t have to feel in order to go through the motions. It takes effort and thought, certainly, but the impulse is second nature.

Peter tells him that he’ll be free of it before long. Martin doesn’t know how he feels about that. Nothing, usually, or something adjacent to it.

Apparently he hadn’t cauterized his feelings as much as he’d thought, though. For the past week, the sense of detachment he’s built up over months of practice and resignation and goal-oriented focus has been interrupted. The calm and quiet that have become so comfortable to him have been punctuated by windows of raw, wild emotion and sensory overload and sharp, racing thoughts, and it’s too much – especially all at once – after months of fog and cold and single-minded resolve.

He still doesn’t know what he feels, but it’s something rather than nothing, and it hurts.

“Brooding, are we?” comes a voice from right behind Martin, sending an icy chill through him.

“Peter!” Martin nearly snarls, glaring over his shoulder at him. “I told you to stop doing that –”

“So, Martin,” Peter continues, smoothly overriding Martin’s complaints, “I can’t help but notice you’ve been quite… distracted recently.”

Martin looks away, clenches his teeth, and says nothing.

“Oh, I’m not upset, Martin. I’m simply curious to know where we stand. To gauge the magnitude of this… little setback.”

“Setback?” Martin whips back around, incensed. “You really think I care about – about my progress right now?”

“Judging by your tone, I imagine not.” Peter smiles, that customary aloof smirk that doesn’t reach his eyes. “Not very reassuring, but I thank you for your honesty. It shows that we do still have our work cut out for us.”

Martin should keep his composure. He should keep his mouth shut. He should feign indifference and continue playing the long game to which he’s committed himself, but he can feel his heart hammering in his chest and he can hear his blood rushing in his ears and all the words he cannot – should not – has to say are brimming in his throat and –

He almost doesn’t recognize his own voice when the outburst claws its way out.

“I don’t care, Peter. You promised –”

“That I would protect your coworkers from external threats,” Peter says mildly.

“You don’t think one of the Circus’s monsters just – waltzing unnoticed into the Archives hauling a bloody gateway to the – the literal manifestation of claustrophobia counts as an external threat –”

“By the time the intruder’s presence came to my attention, it had already been dealt with. Quite handily, in fact. As for the Coffin itself, our agreement did not extend to saving a self-destructive Archivist from his own foolhardiness. There’s only so much that I can do.”

“Then apparently I need to pick up your slack.”

Once again, Peter ignores him and steers the conversation to his liking.

“I will say, I was pleased to see that the Coffin’s call has no effect on you. It shows that your connection to the Forsaken is still intact.” Peter begins to pace slowly, hands folded behind his back. “I am interested to know why you’ve been spending so much time so close to it in the first place. Why you were… speaking to it.”

Martin huffs irritably. “I thought it might help.”

“I wonder where you got that idea.” When Martin doesn’t reply, Peter stops his pacing and sighs. “I don’t mean to be invasive” – Martin snorts derisively; Peter continues without pause – “but I notice you’ve spoken to that – woman quite a few times.”

“She’s no one,” Martin says hurriedly, hoping that Peter doesn’t notice his momentary nervous flinch.

“Is that so?” Peter gives a contemplative hum. “If she’s trespassing on Institute property and interfering with day-to-day operations, perhaps I should have her… removed.”

All at once, the world around Martin rushes into focus: clearer, sharper, brighter, louder, more real – every sensation more immediate, every thought more acute. He feels his spine go rigid as he sits up straight and locks eyes with Peter.

“Peter,” he says, balanced on a razor’s edge between firm and furious, “we talked about that. You agreed to let me handle –”

“Workplace disputes and employee conduct,” Peter says. “Not interlopers.”

‘Interlopers’? Martin thinks. Really, Peter?

“Here I thought you might be glad to have someone like her around,” he says, forcing calm back into his voice. “Give me some practice pushing people away.”

“Perhaps. But if she’s posing a distraction in the workplace –”

“Like the Archives aren’t a distraction all on their own,” Martin seethes, his impassivity quickly teetering into agitation again, “what with the – the spooky murder tunnels, and monster attacks, and clandestine coffin deliveries, and the watching –”

“You know what I meant. If she’s distracting you from your work –”

“When have I ever left any administrative tasks unfinished, hmm?”

“Martin.”

“Yes?” Martin says, meeting Peter’s eyes with a level stare. There’s a muscle twitching almost imperceptibly in the other man’s jaw. It’s not easy to provoke that sort of response from Peter, and Martin would be lying to himself if he said he didn’t feel just a bit gratified.

Peter takes a breath and when he speaks again, he’s regained his usual mild manner – but Martin can still detect just a hint of tension underneath.

“As I have told you before, you are the only one who can do this. The plan –”

“Which you have yet to explain –”

“– requires a servant of the Eye, imbued with the power of the Lonely. And the cultivation of that power depends on your voluntary isolation. I can’t force you to cooperate, Martin. I can only tell you of the consequences should the Extinction emerge – and if it emerges because you choose not to act, then, well…” Peter shrugs. “You can’t keep anyone safe from that sort of power, and that includes the Archivist.”

“You still haven’t convinced me that your theories regarding the Extinction are true.”

If anything, Martin is less convinced than ever. Jon didn’t exactly elaborate on what he knows, but he seems certain that the Extinction isn’t a threat. If that’s the case, the only other reason for Martin to cooperate with Peter is to keep Jon safe – or, barring that, to at least keep Peter away from him. And if Jon is gone, then… what’s the point of any of this?

Peter takes a step closer and slides a folder onto Martin’s desk. Judging by how thin it is, Martin doubts there’s much follow-up or supplementary material within.

“Then you’d best get reading,” Peter says amiably, backing away again.

“Peter,” Martin says, stopping him before he can take his leave.

“Hm?”

“If she disappears,” he continues, mirroring Peter’s faux-pleasant tone, “you can count on my non-cooperation going forward.”

“Come now, Martin. We both know you wouldn’t allow the Extinction to emerge over a single life.”

Martin lifts his chin defiantly and gives Peter a hard look.

“I’d do it for Jon.”

“And he’s gone.” There is an almost hungry glint in Peter’s pale eyes. The temperature plummets a few degrees as thin tendrils of fog begin to unfurl from around his feet. “You’re alone.”

“Exactly.” Peter’s smug expression wavers at Martin’s non-reaction. “You’re a gambler. Shouldn’t you recognize when you’ve shown your hand?” Martin shakes his head with a thin, humorless smile. The mist creeps closer: wispy eddies and grasping coils stretching across the floor to pool at Martin’s feet. “If Jon’s gone, you’ve lost your best bargaining chip. I’ve nothing left to lose. At this point, you really should be thankful for whatever leverage you can find.”

“You’re bluffing.”

“Try me.”

Peter simply chuckles, but Martin can detect the faint uncertainty laced through it.

“I mean it. If my work performance is unsatisfactory, just feed me to your patron now if you can’t resist. Seems a waste to do it before you’ve gotten what you need from me, but it makes no difference to me; I’m Forsaken either way.” He leans back in his chair. “The only one who stands to lose anything is you.”

“And the entire world, should the Extinction evolve unchecked.”

“In that case, let her – let everyone connected with the Archives be. And don’t disappear any more staff, either.” Almost as an afterthought, he adds: “Or statement givers.”

There is a long silence in which Martin stares into Peter’s eyes, willing himself not to blink or falter. Eventually, the fog recedes and Peter’s fake, plastered-on smile reappears.

“Well, I think I’ve kept you from your work long enough.” Peter nods at the statement folder. “I’ll leave you to it.”

The moment the telltale static of Peter’s departure fades, Martin lets out a heavy exhale and rests his head in his arms on his desk. Every encounter with Peter tends to leave him feeling drained, but that one was more intense than usual.

“Prick,” Martin mutters to the empty office.

It takes a few minutes for him to register the low whirring coming from underneath his desk.

“Were you listening the whole time, then?” Martin scoops up the tape recorder from the floor. “Or,” he sighs, his eyes flicking to the waiting statement, “are you just hungry?”

Martin still doesn’t know what to make of the recorders. On the one hand, supernatural artefacts never bode well. There’s no telling what’s they are, what’s listening on the other end, what controls their spontaneous appearance or why. Eavesdropping and surveillance are on brand for the Eye, but Jon had a point when he said that the Beholding would have no need to use tape recorders to listen in, especially within its own temple. They weren’t Elias’s doing – apparently all of his spying is done through eyes. The Web, maybe? But to what end?

On the other hand, Martin has grown so accustomed to their presence that he was actually unsettled by their absence while Jon was – away. When they started manifesting again, Martin was… relieved, almost. It isn’t the same as having Jon nearby, but it feels like having a connection to him all the same. They’ve almost become a welcoming, comforting sight – at least for the first few seconds after their appearance, before they start making their usual demands.

Sometimes, Martin wonders whether Jon might be subconsciously manifesting them himself. Even before his paranoid episode, he seemed keen to document and catalog the world around him, as if it was the only way for him to make sense of it all. It made Martin's heart ache, how Jon could never seem to relax, to let himself just be in the moment. His hypervigilance was exhausting by proxy, and it’s only gotten worse as time goes on.

In any case, ever since Jon’s coma – half-death? – proved that the recorders’ existence is dependent on his, Martin has started to see their regular appearances as decent indicators as to whether Jon is alive at any given moment. And here they are, still showing up. Which means… what? Martin already knew that Jon is still alive. The Coffin doesn’t let its victims die; death would be a release, and it's incompatible with a realm predicated on unending pressure, on the experience of being trapped with no hope of escape. But if Jon was entirely cut off from the world, lost and unreachable, wouldn’t his connection with the recorders be severed as well? So, if they’re still here, does that mean Jon isn’t gone yet? That there’s still a lifeline tethering him to the surface?

If so, it’s a useless lifeline, isn’t it? The tapes always make their way to Jon in time, but what good does that do in this situation? It’s not like they’re two-way radios; Martin can’t communicate with Jon in real time.

Unless…

No. No unless. It’s not even a long shot, it’s just – daft.

But hasn’t he already been treating them as stand-ins for Jon for the last few weeks? And is it really any more foolish than talking to a coffin?

Martin sighs as he eyes the tape recorder, its reels still insistently spinning. It isn’t going to leave until it gets a statement. He waits it out for another minute or so, but in the end he gives in, just like it knew he would.

“Hi again, Jon,” he starts, picking at his cuticles as uncertainly as he picks through his words. “I doubt you can hear me. At least not right now. But I know you listen to all the tapes eventually. Don’t know if you’ll ever get to hear this one, though. If not, I suppose this is rather pointless, isn’t it? You’re always so diligent about listening to them, too.” Martin huffs. “Well, if you want this one, you’ll have to come back and get it. I’m very cross with you, and I’d prefer to tell you in pers-”

Shut up, shut up, what are you saying?

The recorder lets out a short burst of static, as if protesting the break in his confession.

“Oh, shut it,” he grumbles. “Not – not you, Jon. Sorry. I mean, not like you’re hearing this anyway, right? Whatever, just – you’re needed here, alright? It’s been too long. It’s time to come home.” Martin shakes his head and smiles weakly. “Funny, I – I remember when I used to have to nag you to go home at night. The more things change, the more they stay the same, right? Don’t know what good a persuasive argument does in this case, though. It’s not like you need convincing –”

Martin stops short, a sudden thought crystallizing cold and heavy in the front of his mind. For all he knows, Jon’s gotten it into his head that he needs to stay in there to keep the rest of the world safe. It sounds like the sort of conclusion Jon would reach.

“I mean, I – I – I hope you’re not willingly staying down there out of some misguided belief that it’s – safer, for everyone? Jon?” Martin laughs nervously, on the edge of hysteria. “I – I don’t know why I’m talking like I’ll get a response. Anyway, it’s – it’s probably more likely that you want to come back and you can’t, right?” He chuckles again, and realizes too late how teary it sounds. “I don’t even – I don’t know which of those options is worse, but – but it’s not like there’s anything I can do in either case, so – what’s the point of this, of any of this?”

Martin clamps both hands over his mouth to stifle his abrupt, stuttering intake of breath – the precursor to sobbing, if he isn’t careful. He takes a long moment to compose himself, swallowing back tears and slowing his breathing.

“W-well, in case you do need to hear it… things are not better with you gone, okay?” His voice still sounds thick with emotion. In an attempt to steady it, he ends up overcorrecting, his next words coming out far more vehemently than he had intended. “They aren’t. And I don’t know how to make you believe that, but – but – if you don’t come back, you’ll never get a chance to learn, and it’s not like you to pass up a chance to learn something, right, so – so just get back here, will you?”

He stops again. After months of suffocating, deadening quiet, raising his voice even slightly feels like shouting. He finds himself leaning closer towards the tape recorder, as if he’s sharing a secret. Despite the conscious effort to lower his volume, it does nothing to temper the intensity of his speech.

“Jon, you’re late, and everyone’s waiting. Georgie’s worried. Basira spends most of the day camped out in front of your office, just… listening for any change. I – I don’t think she’s been sleeping much. And Melanie, she –” Martin flounders. He hasn’t spoken to Melanie in weeks, but he has no reason to assume her feelings towards Jon have changed. “Well, she – she’ll be angry if you break a promise to Georgie, yeah? And I’m – I…”

Martin doesn’t know what he is.

“Look, Jon, you – you need to come back now,” he says, more softly. More like a prayer than a demand. “Come home, and we’ll… we’ll figure things out.”

He wracks his brain for more, but comes up speechless. There was a time when he could have spoken volumes about what Jon means to him, and the words would flow from him easily. Now, anything he could possibly say feels shallow and jumbled and meaningless. Absolutely useless. But since when did words make any difference anyway? Jon has always been resistant to an outstretched hand. He rarely accepted any offers of help or invitations to talk; could barely handle a kind word or comforting gesture some days. He seemed to be opening up in the weeks prior to the Unknowing, but then –

Martin lets out a sigh and shuts the tape recorder off. Almost immediately, it clicks back on.

“Seriously?” He stares daggers at the thing. “That wasn’t enough for you?”

He depresses the button again, perhaps a little harder than necessary. The moment he removes his finger, the reels resume winding.

“Can’t you just – piss off and let me have some quiet for five minutes?”

It can’t, apparently. After several more foiled attempts to stop its droning, Martin gives an aggravated groan. As tempting as it is to hurl it at a wall, all the archival staff know from experience that the recorders are practically unbreakable, taking only superficial damage regardless of the attempted means to destroy them. Martin could toss it into a bonfire and at most it would come out a bit worse for wear; the casing would never melt or warp so badly as to render the buttons entirely nonfunctional.

More than once, Martin has caught himself wondering whether they get their durability from Jon. It’s a morbid thought and Martin is always quick to shut it down, but, well – there it is again.

At least Jon’s persistence is – charming. Martin glares at the tape recorder some more. Unlike –

The recorder crackles with another impatient uptick of static.

“Fine!” He flips open the folder on his desk, seizes the statement roughly, and gives himself a papercut in the process. Another hiss erupts from the recorder when he swears. “Yeah? Well, I don’t care if personal commentary is unprofessional,” he snaps at it. He doesn’t know who he’s talking to.

When he finally turns his attention back to the statement in his hands, he makes no effort to hide his foul mood.

“Yet another statement about – I don’t know, but I’m sure it’s bleak and horrifying, or else it wouldn’t be so keen for me to read it. Recording by Martin Blackwood, Assistant to Peter Lukas, Head of the Magnus Institute…”

Daisy draws in a sharp breath and stops short.

“Daisy?” Jon tugs lightly on her hand. “You alright?”

“Jon, I – I feel something, like a – like a pull, I –” Daisy laughs breathlessly. “There’s an up.”

“What,” Jon says, grinning to himself, “didn’t you believe me?”

But Daisy isn’t listening to him, instead continuing in an awestruck tone: “I’m – I – I’ll get to – to see Basira again.”

Her voice pitches up ever so slightly towards the end, making the statement sound almost like a question – as if she didn’t believe until this moment that seeing Basira again was even a possibility, as if she still doesn’t quite dare to believe it.

Jon has repeated the same promise dozens of times now along their trek to the surface. Once more can’t hurt: “She’s waiting for you.”

“I know,” Daisy whispers, almost reverently. Then, louder, her mounting anticipation crowding out the remnants of disbelief: “I can feel it.”

So can Jon. For quite some time now, that feeling of being pulled along – almost like he’s an anchor being reeled in, oddly – has been relatively consistent. The strength of the sensation still fluctuates from time to time, but it’s been awhile since it last disappeared entirely.

Of course, now it’s also shot through with a far more unwelcome pull. He swears he can feel the Archive drawing closer the more they near the exit. Maybe it’s simply his imagination, increasingly overactive as his dread intensifies, but the outcome is the same either way: the Eye will have him again, and soon.

“Come on, then,” Jon says, suppressing the grim edge threatening to creep into his tone. There’s no point in worrying Daisy just when she’s started to feel hopeful. “Almost home.”

Not long thereafter, the passage widens again. They still have to walk single file with their shoulders angled, forced to sidle through a few tight spots sideways, but the soil has finally transitioned entirely to solid stone walls and there is a noticeable upward slant to their path. All the while, Jon doesn’t let go of Daisy’s hand.

He grits his teeth against the lancing pain surging through his leg with every step as the incline grows steeper. From the sounds of Daisy’s labored breathing behind him, she’s having a far worse time of it. He’s just about to reassure her again that they’re almost there when his foot connects with something and he stumbles, pitching forward and nearly pulling Daisy down with him. His free hand flails in front of him to break his fall, and that’s when he recognizes –

“Stairs,” he whispers, feeling the shape of them, their flat surfaces and angles.

“What?”

“Stairs, Daisy.” After pushing himself to his feet, he places his free hand against the wall as a guide. It’s still pitch dark, and it will be until they manage to lift the Coffin’s lid. “Not much further now. Watch your step, and go slowly. They’re uneven.”

Despite an abundance of caution, they both end up tripping several times on the way up. The steps are all different heights and depths: some short and wide shelves, some steep and narrow ledges nearing two feet high – which may seem negligible were they both not so weakened, winded, and wounded. Occasionally, a step that felt solid moments before would crumble underneath them, giving way like gravel; a few times, Jon could swear a step disappeared entirely just before he put his foot down.

He’s so focused on keeping his footing that he forgets to be wary of his head. When he places a foot on one particularly sheer step and propels himself upward with the other leg, his head collides violently with something just above him. The pain races through his skull, his neck, his spine, and he nearly topples backward in the momentary daze of the impact. He has just enough presence of mind to throw his weight forward so that when he loses balance, he collapses against the stairs instead of tumbling down them.

For a few seconds, all he knows is a high-pitched ringing in his ears and fireworks in his vision. He’s dimly aware of Daisy’s hands patting at him blindly, frantically; her voice is muffled, but he can detect the urgency there.

“‘M’fine,” he slurs. He tries to tell her to just give him a minute, that he recovers quickly from this sort of thing, but he’s pretty sure it comes out something more like gim’nit.

When he finally starts to come around, Daisy’s words, once fuzzy and indistinct, start to break through the haze: “Jon? Jon, are you alright?”

“Will be,” he groans. He pushes himself up with one hand and reaches up with the other, groping blindly. Either it’s closer than he thought or he put too much force into the gesture in his disorientation, but his knuckles collide with rough wood and he hisses when he catches a splinter.

“Jon?”

“Lid’s right above us,” he says unnecessarily. “Watch your head.”

Daisy snorts. “Noted.”

“I – I might need some help lifting it,” he says, his vertigo gradually fading. He places both palms flat on the underside of the lid. “Last time, it was a lot heavier on the way out than it was going in.”

“Got it.” Daisy crawls up a few steps to kneel next to Jon, and he can feel her hands brush against his as she reaches up to find a grip.

“Feel it?”

“Yeah,” she says. “Ready?”

“On three. One – two – three –”

As expected, it offers more resistance than it should, as if a force is pressing down from the other side. For a terrifying few seconds, it refuses to budge. Then, with a prolonged creak of protest, it starts to give. Even just the dim light of Jon’s office filtering through that first tiny crack is enough to hurt. Judging from the startled yelp next to him, Jon assumes Daisy is shutting her eyes as well.

Jon can hear the low chatter of the tapes he left behind, as well as something louder and clearer cutting through the white noise.

“I don’t know how much longer I can do this on my own.” Basira’s voice, overlaid with the crackle of radio static. “I’m here, Daisy. I need you to be here, too. I need –”

As soon as the opening is wide enough to stick a hand through, the pressure lets up all at once and the lid swings up the rest of the way. Jon scrambles over the side and grabs both of Daisy’s hands, dragging her up and out. He winces sympathetically when she cries out – she hasn’t properly stretched those muscles in months, and it must be agony.

The moment she’s completely cleared the lip of the Coffin, Jon drops her hands and eases her to a kneeling position on the floor. Rising unsteadily to his feet with a pained groan, he takes hold of the lid and drags it back into place. He stumbles the short distance to his desk for the key and hastens to replace the chains and reaffix the padlock. On the way, he kicks a tape recorder and it goes sliding across the floor; an instant later, the knowledge comes to him: Not a tape recorder. A two-way radio.

His hands are shaking so badly that he fumbles the key four times before he manages to fit it into the lock. He’s so absorbed in that simple, seemingly insurmountable task that he barely notices the swearing and clattering coming from just outside the office as someone on the other side goes through the exact same struggle to unlock the door. Just as Jon turns the key, the office door swings open to reveal Basira, panting and wide-eyed, the radio in her hand dropping to the floor as her eyes rest on Daisy, shivering and gasping for air.

“You’re back,” Basira murmurs, frozen in place.

“Hi,” Daisy says with short, almost giddy laugh, before promptly collapsing forward onto the floor. It’s enough to spur Basira into action, lurching forward and going to her knees next to her.

“Daisy,” she says urgently, shaking her shoulder. “Daisy, please –”

“She’s – she’s alright,” Jon says breathlessly, on hands and knees in front of the Coffin, gulping for air to fill his screaming lungs. “Just – needs to –”

He freezes.

“Jon,” Basira says, disbelieving. “Your voice?”

“I – I – I thought I would – I would lose it again,” he stammers. He begins to move his hand up to his throat, but stops when his other arm trembles violently, unable to hold up his weight on its own. “I don’t – I don’t know, I – I might still, it – it –”

The thought turns to static and the words dissolve on his tongue.

“…it barely even sounded human as it – as it spoke in a strange monotone –”

Jon shakes his head frantically, bringing the lingering pain from his earlier head injury back into the forefront.

“…it was then that I became aware of them – hundreds of glossy dead eyes staring at me from all directions –”

“– a tremendous eye – turning to focus upon me –”

“– staring into me, acutely scrutinizing my reaction –”

“Jon!” He stops and looks up at Basira, suddenly realizing that she’s been repeating his name for several seconds now. “You’re hyperventilating. Just – breathe?”

He latches onto Basira’s voice, forcing himself to breathe – oh, god, he can breathe again –

“Good,” she says after a few moments, calm and steady. “Okay. Can you try talking again? No, Jon, listen – look at me,” she says when he shuts his eyes and starts shaking his head again. “Try talking again.”

“…but my inability to speak –”

“Humor me.”

“…it’s still there, still watching me. There’s nowhere I can go, a place I can hide that it doesn’t keep looking at me – I can’t sleep because they’re watching me – those unseen eyes that hover everywhere and won’t let me rest –”

“– I’m sorry – it won’t let me say the words –”

“Yes, you can,” she says. Firm, but not cruel. Authoritative, self-assured, decisive – a solid presence to fixate on. “You’re just – too in your own head. Focus on me and try again.”

“I –” he begins, then stops short. Not the Archive. He gives Basira an uncertain, panicked look.

“Keep going. Try – try something simple. Tell me your name.”

“My name is…” His voice quivers as he forces the words out one syllable at a time.

“Go on. Who are you?”

“The Arch –”

The Archive, he almost says, before a fearful part of him remembers that Jonah might be listening. Besides, right now it would be inaccurate, wouldn’t it. The Eye does not typically dispense outright falsehoods, and its Archive has no use for fictions. Deception is for the Stranger, for the Spiral, for the Web –

“Try again,” Basira says patiently, drawing his attention back to her. “Who are you?”

“The Archivi –”

“No. Who, not what.”

There is a long pause in which he cannot parse the instruction.

“Full name.”

“Jon,” he says slowly. The sound feels strange on his tongue. “Jonathan Sims. The Archivist.”

“Could’ve done without that last bit, but good enough.” Basira relaxes her posture. “You alright?”

“I – I don’t understand.” Lightheaded and trembling, Jon releases a shuddering breath and leans back on his heels, slightly hunched over with his hands on his knees. “How did you know that would work?”

“I didn’t. But you were spiraling, and I imagine that’s exactly what the Eye wants.”

“R-right. I, ah –” Jon runs a shaky hand through his hair. “I don’t know how long it will stay away, the Buried severed the connection temporarily, but now it –”

“Don’t dwell on it.” At his blank stare, Basira sighs. “Yes, I realize that’s not quite your speed, but try anyway.”

“But –”

“We’re dealing with things that feed on fear and can rewrite reality as they please, right? You said yourself that the feeling is all they care about. Maybe feeding it your fear just makes it easier for it to write your reality – in which case, accepting a hypothetical bad outcome as an inevitability is just creating a self-fulfilling prophecy for yourself.”

“That’s… certainly a theory,” he says cagily.

But it’s a theory that Basira must be invested in, because she leans forward, her eyes as bright and interested as when she’s engrossed in a good book or pouring over some compelling research.

“Yes, it is, but I don’t think it’s too far-fetched. Georgie and I have been pooling ideas, and – I don’t think ‘mind over matter’ is a panacea, but mental state does seem to factor in. I was studying the statements you left for me, the ones involving anchors, and – I’m still not sure about the exact mechanics, but would an anchor help someone survive one of the Fears if state of mind wasn’t a key variable? It might not be the most important aspect, but it does seem significant enough to affect the outcome. Not all the time – not even most of the time – but in some cases, at least. Under the right circumstances.”

“And the Fears wouldn’t even exist without minds to experience them,” Jon says, brow furrowed. It’s uncanny, hearing some of the same ideas he bounced off of Daisy to pass the time in the Buried parroted back at him by Basira now.

“Exactly,” she says excitedly, then closes her mouth just as she’s taking a breath to start on her next thought. She clears her throat, looking slightly self-conscious. “I’m getting sidetracked. We can talk more about it later. For now – priorities.” Her expression turns sharp and focused again. “What should we do with the Coffin?”

“Artefact Storage. Tell them – tell them about the compulsion, make sure they take special precautions. Maximum security. No interaction or hands-on research.” He forces the words out rapid-fire, still expecting the Archive to take over any moment. “Store the key separately, same restrictions. No public cross-referencing, keep the link between the two on a need-to-know basis, preferably restricted to the head of the department. In – in fact, refer them to case number 9982211. Joshua Gillespie had a rather – creative way of containing the key. Simple, but” – Jon laughs, shaking his head – “incredibly effective.”

“That’s…”

“The best we can do without –” Jon huffs. “Well, burying it. Sealing it in concrete.”

“Not a bad idea,” Basira says thoughtfully. She raises an eyebrow when Jon doesn’t reply. “Is it?”

“I – I don’t know. We got out, and it seems – wrong, to completely eliminate that possibility for all the other people trapped in there.”

“You think you can help them?”

“I… I doubt it,” he admits, voice dripping with guilt.

He could try, but he suspects he was only able to reach Daisy because he had a personal connection to her, plus the recording of her voice to help him navigate. Finding anyone else in there would mean wandering around aimlessly until he eventually crossed paths with someone by chance, hoping he could reach them before the Buried whisked him away again.

“But if someone else does make it this far,” he says, “I – I don’t want to be the one responsible for the moment they try to lift the lid and find it cemented shut. The chains will still be there, but at least there’s a chance of someone hearing them, helping them? Probably not, but – sealing it off entirely feels… I don’t know, final? Like we would be condemning them personally.”

“Yeah, okay.” Basira sighs heavily, absentmindedly stroking Daisy’s hair. “Point taken. Can you stand?”

“Not yet. Give me a few minutes. I’ll – I’ll be fine here, though, if you want to move Daisy. Put some distance between her and the Coffin. It’s a good idea.”

“Don’t read my mind, Jon.”

“Sorry.”

“Are you sure you’ll be okay? I don’t feel right leaving you alone after…”

Jon meets her eyes again, tilting his head to the side slightly. Last time, she had no qualms about ushering Daisy away from the Coffin the moment she got a chance. She didn’t leave him alone for long – she wasn’t cruel – but still, he was undeniably a lower priority. He clears his throat and tries to look less stunned.

“I’ll be alright, I promise. Go ahead.”

Basira watches him shrewdly, frowning as she considers her options. Eventually, her shoulders slump and she relents.

“If you’re sure. I won’t be gone long.”

“Careful moving her,” Jon says. “Sorry, that – probably goes without saying? But just – mind her left side. She has cracked ribs on both sides, but two on the left are broken.”

A flash of sympathetic pain and vicarious anger crosses Basira’s expression.

“Thanks for the heads up.” Her voice is clipped, but not unkind. She’s simply trying to keep a tight rein on her emotions: deal with the situation at hand first, break down later – in privacy – if at all. “As soon as I have her settled, I’ll come back and – and help you move.”

He nods tiredly.

“Jon.” Basira waits until he looks back up at her. “Thank you – for… I really thought I’d never – I…”

“Basira, it’s okay,” he says as she fumbles for words. “I understand.”

“You know, or you Know?”

“Oh, uh…” Jon grimaces. “Maybe both? I’m sorry –”

Basira snorts and begins to gently position Daisy to be moved. “I was teasing, Jon.”

“O-oh. Right.” He shifts awkwardly. “Still, though, I – I apologize. I realize the Knowing can be – invasive, and – I don’t have as much control over it as I would like, but I should –”

“Jon, it’s fine.” Basira says it with an air of finality, but she doesn’t sound angry. “I’ll be back soon.”

“Sure,” he says, not quite knowing what to do with her lenience. “Thank you. I’ll just – I’ll just wait here.”

“Yes, you will. You’ve met your self-sacrifice quota for the month. No more pocket dimensions. In fact –” She stands and swipes Jon’s phone off his desk where he left it, handing it down to him. “Call Georgie, let her know you’re home. Keep you occupied until I get back.”

As Basira leaves with Daisy, Jon does exactly that. Georgie picks up on the first ring.

“Jon? Jon, is that you?”

Jon closes his eyes and smiles at the sound of her voice.

“Yeah, Georgie. It’s me. I’m back.”

“You got your voice back?”

“Seems so,” he says tentatively. “For now, anyway.”

Something about the tone of Georgie’s sigh tells him that she’s rolling her eyes at him.

“Why are you such a pessimist?”

“I’m not, I’m a –”

“Don’t you dare say ‘realist.’” He keeps his mouth shut. “Does Basira know you’re back?”

“Yes –”

“Are you hurt?”

“No – well, I mean, yes, but – nothing too serious. Nothing unexpected. I’m alright.”

“Okay. Did you find Daisy?”

“Yes. She’s with Basira now.”

“Good.” Georgie breathes a sigh of relief. “I was worried, Jon. Do you know how long you were gone?”

“I –” Jon pauses as the knowledge comes to him. “Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“I’m – I’m sorry, Georgie, I really didn’t expect it to take – and it’s impossible to tell time in there, so –”

“It’s – it’s alright, I’m just – glad you’re back. Did you let Martin know?”

“Not – not yet, I – I’m not sure how he would feel about me contacting him.” Jon bites his lip. “Do you think I should?”

“Don’t know. He doesn’t seem to know what he wants. But I’ve spoken to him a few times now, and he seems to be – I don’t know. Thawing, I guess? Seems less cold. Easier to get through to him than it was that first time. Or – easier to get a rise out of him, at least. He’s actually got some fire in his eyes now.”

Jon smiles to himself again.

“Georgie Barker, are you annoying him out of the Lonely?”

“I –” She pauses, considers, and then chuckles. “You know – maybe? In my defense, it’s not difficult to do. He’s very moody.”

“O-oh. That’s…”

“Not necessarily a bad thing, Jon. I mean, it can’t be comfortable for him, but – at least he’s feeling something, interacting with the world around him? It’s like – well, he sort of reminds me of…”

“What?”

“Me, at certain points in my life? I think I’ve told you before, but – the lowest low of a depressive episode for me has always been when nothing can reach me. Feeling nothing, wanting nothing, being unable to envision any sort of future at all and not even caring about it.”

“You did, yes. I – don’t think I fully understood then, but now, I – I think I have an idea.”

“Well, when I start to get better, it can look like I’m getting worse to other people, because they can see the hurt, where before it was – quiet, subdued. All the things I couldn’t feel before, they all come out at once, and it’s – overwhelming, after so much nothingness. But it’s part of the healing. At some point, you have to let yourself feel again, even if it hurts. I know it’s not a perfect analogy, but – this might not be a bad sign, is what I’m saying. Sometimes recovery is messy. It helps to have someone to lean on for support.”

“But if he’s determined to be alone –”

“The thing is, I don’t think he is. But that’s something he needs to figure out for himself. I’m not saying you can’t remind him from time to time that he isn’t alone, but…” She exhales heavily. “You can’t force someone to accept help. You reached out to him. Give him the space to reach back.”

“So… don’t contact him? Because – because I want to respect his boundaries, but –”

Georgie gives an exasperated but fond-sounding sigh.

“Jon, if you want a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer, I can’t help you there.”

“But – but what do you think –”

“I think it’s your call. He might not respond, but… he’s been worried, and I do think he would appreciate knowing you’re back.”

Jon makes a noncommittal noise.

“Well, you think on it,” Georgie says. “Listen, I’m walking out the door now, okay? Be there soon.”

“Oh, uh – right. I’ll – see you then, I suppose.”

“You’d better.”

When the call ends, Jon stares fixedly at a speck on the wall, debating whether or not to… what, send an email? That seems too impersonal, but a phone call might be too much. He could always text, but…

Glancing at the screen, he notices that he has several missed text messages. His thumb hovers uncertainly over the icon. It’s unlikely that any of them are from Martin, but he has an irrational need to prolong the confirmation one way or another, to put off knowing as long as –

The Eye informs him that they’re all from Naomi, and Jon heaves an agitated sigh. Not at the knowledge itself – he enjoys his interactions with Naomi, however sparse his side of the conversation tends to be these days – but at having the option of knowing removed from him. When he starts to read her messages, though, his sour mood rapidly evaporates.

“There,” he says with a private little smile. “One for each day I was gone. To start with.”

Once he sends the reply, he sets the phone aside. His mouth is dry, the taste of dirt clinging to his tongue. Luckily, he thought ahead and stored some water bottles here for when he got back, knowing it would take some time before he was ready to drag himself to the breakroom for a drink. Unluckily, he’d been so preoccupied with all his other preparations in the half-hour prior to entering the Coffin that he hadn’t had the foresight to put them within easier reach. As it is, they’re still stored in the hollow under his desk.

He’s still sore and stiff and lethargic, but the prospect of washing the grit out of his mouth is enticing enough to get him moving. Gingerly, awkwardly, he shuffles around to the other side of the desk. It’s slow going; he practically has to drag himself, and he spares a moment to be glad that no one is here to watch him.

Well. Except the Eye, he supposes. And possibly Jonah.

A noticeable chill shivers through him and his breath catches in his throat. Jon shakes his head to rid himself of the thought. He really needs to stop giving Jonah Magnus real estate in his head.

Just as Jon gets a grip on one of the bottles, his phone dings from where he left it on the floor. He bumps his head on the underside of the desk when he starts – not as hard as he did in the Coffin, but enough to send a new wave of pain coursing through him from head to toe. The phone dings several times more in quick succession.

“Okay, alright, give me a minute, Naomi,” he grumbles, rubbing the sore spot at the top of his head. No blood, but there’s definitely a bump. It won’t be there for long. He should be glad for his healing abilities, he supposes, inhuman though they may be.

The text messages continue pouring in as he makes the return journey to his previous spot.

“Guess she really is sending a photo per emoji,” he says to himself. The alert goes off once more just as he reaches for it. “Or more than one.”

When he glances at the screen, it’s not Naomi’s name that he sees.

Martin is typing up the new rota that Peter requested when it happens.

Seemingly out of nowhere, a tape recorder drops onto his desk with a loud clack. Before he can think on its sudden appearance, another comes plummeting down, smashing two of his fingers against the keyboard.

“Ow! What the –”

Another collides with the top of his head, and on impulse he covers himself with both arms. Four more fall – one glancing his elbow, three clattering to the floor around him – and then there’s a lull. Cautiously, he brings his arms down and looks to the ceiling, half-expecting more to come raining down. When none do, he relaxes somewhat.

“Huh,” he says to himself, bewildered. “That’s new.”

He’s used to the tape recorders materializing, of course, but usually it’s only one or two at a time, and they don't drop from the ceiling. They just appear – sometimes within plain sight, but more often slightly hidden from view: under his chair, behind his computer, once in a potted plant in the breakroom. They always click and whir to announce their presence – as if they want to be found, as if to reassure him that they aren’t trying to spy unnoticed.

Martin rolls his eyes at himself. Why is he always anthropomorphizing them, assuming they have intentions?

In any case, being pelted with a tape recorder shower is unprecedented. He rubs his hand where the second recorder hit him, then his head. He’s bound to have bruises, and his fingers are already swelling up.

“What the hell, Jon?”

Before he even realizes what he’s doing, he has his phone in his hand and he’s tapping out a text message.

He briefly contemplates taking shelter under his desk. When no more fall, he turns his attention back to his phone.

Martin leans back with a sigh, dragging one hand down his face. What is he doing? It’s not like Jon is waiting by the phone for him.

Maybe that’s exactly why he’s doing this. It certainly highlights the loneliness. He probably wouldn’t be texting Jon if there was any chance of him answering, would he?

In the span of a blink, that loneliness turns to frustration. For months, his emotions have been dulled, almost to the point of numbness. Things were quiet. It felt comfortable; it felt right; it almost felt safe, the fog blanketing the world and muffling all of its sharp edges, shielding him from all the things that used to leave him hurt and grieving and wanting.

Then Jon went and ripped that blanket off him, leaving him exposed all over again. Ever since, it's been nothing but sensory overload and raw emotion that doesn’t even have a name. All he knows is that it’s too much and it’s all at once and he has nowhere to put it, and it’s manifesting as irritability and mood swings and a pervasive, indistinct sense of hurt that he thought he’d left behind.

He feels everything after months of feeling next to nothing, as if all the things he wouldn’t allow himself to feel are being regurgitated all at once in a nebulous chaotic tangle, and he isn’t equipped to handle it –

“Alone,” he says aloud. That’s it, isn’t it? It’s too much to cope with on his own. He is alone, and for the first time in what feels like forever, that scares him.

Biting his lip until he tastes blood, he picks up his phone again.

He blinks back tears. It feels wrong, unloading all of this onto Jon, but he’ll never see it, so what does it matter? It has to go somewhere or Martin is going to shatter.

Martin stops mid-rant, mind going blank when the typing indicator pops up. For a seemingly interminable amount of time, he holds his breath, watching as it stops and starts and hesitates before finally –

And before Martin realizes it, there’s a tearful, slightly manic laugh bubbling up in his chest and out through his mouth and he’s crying, when did he start crying? He's giving himself whiplash with his own erratic mood swings, but it doesn't matter, because he can just picture how frantic Jon is right now, stumbling over his words, mussing up his hair and muttering to himself. Martin probably shouldn’t find it so endearing, but when has that ever stopped him?

Martin rubs furiously at the tears streaking down his cheeks, sniffling. He’s debating on responding to save Jon from his own self-consciousness when another few messages come through.

Martin can’t help it: he starts laughing again. Then immediately feels a bit bad about it. He doesn’t have much time to dwell on it before the next message comes through.

“Jon,” Martin says, shaking his head in fond amusement.

This is a side of him that Martin has always adored: how easily he gets sidetracked and carried away with his rambling, his tendency to trip over his words when he’s excited, the informational diatribes he launches into at the drop of a hat.

And now Martin’s tearing up again.

“God, what’s wrong with me,” he sniffs, rubbing at his eyes with his sleeve again.

It’s the heart that does it. Martin doesn’t know why – it’s such a little thing – but that last ounce of doubt evaporates and his reticence crumbles, just like that. The transition is unexpectedly gentle: an easy slip from one state into another, like stepping into a well-worn shoe, a stark contrast to the dramatic, jarring shift he would have anticipated.

He begins typing out a response.

Martin smiles into his hand, pressed to his lips. He’s always found it cute, if a bit silly, how stilted Jon can be sometimes, even when speaking through such informal medium.

And the idea that an emoji is somehow more forward than an overt declaration of love is just…

Martin’s heart glitches at the reminder of what Jon must have just gone through. If he really is more receptive to help now, maybe he can be persuaded to actually rest and recover for once, but Martin doesn’t have his hopes up.

Martin can feel the flush creeping up his neck and onto his face.

“Wait,” Martin says, squinting down at his phone screen. “Is he still…”

“Unbelievable.” Martin huffs an incredulous laugh. “He is unbelievable.”

Martin groans when the three dots repeatedly disappear and reappear.

“That’s a lot of typing for just fixing a typo,” Martin says, tapping his foot impatiently. “Go on, Jon, spit it out.”

Martin rubs the back of his neck and tries to ignore the heat pooling in his cheeks, on his neck, along the tops of his ears. One good thing about the Lonely: it all but eliminated his embarrassing tendency to broadcast his emotions to the world with a blush. Or maybe it just made it so that there wasn’t much to broadcast in the first place.

“So much for that,” he mutters sheepishly.

By necessity, Martin has learned to be adaptable. If circumstances have changed this drastically, he needs to reconsider his trajectory. Steeped in some disorientating mixture of emotion – mortification, giddiness, fear, relief, regret, and so much else he still can’t put a name to – he watches the clock and quietly starts to review his options.

End Notes:

hhhhhh hopefully you’re all okay with a slow-moving plot bc I have a feeling I’m going to continue drawing out the character-focused stuff?? (I know where the story’s going but my outline is extremely loose, which means my pacing has a personality of its own.)

Citations for Jon’s Archive-speak: MAG 144; 054/020/083; 002; 060/019

re: Archive-speak – I do plan on explaining the newest development more, I just didn’t get to it in this chapter. But expect more original dialogue from Jon from here on out, with some Archive-speak mixed in.

I used this lovely guide to help me puzzle through creating an AO3 workskin so I could format the text messages properly. (On which point, I hope the texting isn’t OOC. I admittedly had a bit too much fun with it. Especially Jon’s. He said ADHD!Jon rights and I agreed.)

Fun fact: Naomi and Jon have a system wherein any cat emoji translates to “Duchess status update, please”. It’s good she takes a lot of photos, because Jon makes judicious use of the cat emoji. Having a bad time? 🐱 Can’t sleep? 🐱 Bored? 🐱 Just looking for something to distract himself from the mortifying ordeal of Knowing and being Known? 🐱 Of course, she sends a lot of photos unprompted, too, as any new Enthusiastic Cat Parent is wont to do.

#tma #tma fic #the magnus archives #tma spoilers

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