#I was a boring child too I suppose… | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

osarina · 20 days ago

Text

ᡣ𐭩 WERE WE BETTER UNKNOWN?

FEATURING: dazai osamu

SUMMARY: your story with dazai comes to a close... but is it really the end?

AUTHOR'S NOTES: guys. oh my god i have so much to say, i will put it all at the end. but i am so annoyed because the heart in the title looks wonky as hell—for some reason it looks fine on desktop but on mobile it’s fucked ip :’) comments & reblogs appreciated!

GENERAL WARNINGS: fem!reader, port mafia executive!reader, civilian!dazai, dazai's struggles w suicide & sh, reader partakes in mafia business, dazai isn't dazai without a bit of obsessiveness and possessiveness (the possessiveness doesn't come til later but the obsessiveness starts from day 0).

CHAPTER SPECIFIC WARNINGS: hardly edited. mentions of past suicide attempts (dazai). non-sexual nudity/intimacy. reader has 1 scar that dazai points out.

SEE: WASTELAND, BABY! SERIES MASTERLIST

Dazai dreams of a vast frozen lake.

Is he dreaming? He’s not sure. It’s cold, he shouldn’t be cold in dreams, right?

He lets out a shaky breath, and he can see the cool air fan around him. He shivers, hands running up and down his arms to try to warm himself up, but it’s futile—the snow that flutters from the sky is sharp against his skin and the air is bitterly cold, but the wind is oddly still. Eerily still. His shoes crunch against the snowy bank as he draws a bit closer to the edge of the lake, trying to figure out where he is.

“... are we going to…”

Dazai startles at the vaguely familiar whispery voice, eyes wide and searching as he looks around trying to pinpoint who had spoken, but there’s no one in sight. He can hardly see

Hell, he thinks dizzily, is he in hell?

Dazai’s fascination with literature began with his fascination with death. It started as a child—morbid and odd as it might’ve been, he was bored with life. He supposes that it’s part of the reason why his siblings didn’t like him, besides his ability, of course. He always had questions that people couldn’t answer—what happens after someone dies? They go to heaven, honey, his mother would reply. How do you know that? We just do. But how? What if we don’t? What if we just die? Stop asking so many creepy questions, Osamu, his sister would snap at him, curling into his mother’s side. But what-

He would keep asking until his sister got visibly upset and his mother had to take her out of the room. He never really understood why—they were legitimate questions—but his mother’s evasion of the topic and his siblings’ aversion did not deter his curiosity. In fact, when the first of his cousins died at the hands of one of his others, it spiked his curiosity. He almost found himself jealous that they would have the answers to the questions that have been plaguing him for years.

His questions of self-worth and his place here on earth didn’t come until he was a bit older, but he supposes at some point they probably merged together. His own doubts about himself and his lack of normalcy compared to other people led to his general fascination with death slowly turning into fascination about his own death. He found it quite ironic, and maybe a bit disheartening—he can’t even die correctly—that of all of the many members of his family, the one obsessed with death was the one that survived the longest, in spite of actively striving for eternal rest.

His fascination with death was put to an abrupt halt by Odasaku’s arrival in his life. Or well, that’s not exactly right. His fascination with his own death was put to a halt—Odasaku humored all of his questions, even if some of his answers were absurd and nonsensical, but when Dazai tried to spin the conversation back to himself, Odasaku would put his foot down.

Dazai only tried to kill himself once while he was living with him—it was around when Odasaku first took him in, and Dazai didn’t think the man would care all too much if he was gone. Ango was the one who found him in the bathroom, funny enough it was his first time meeting the other man, but when he woke up in the hospital, Dazai decided he never wanted to see that haunted expression on Odasaku’s face ever again.

It was around then when Odasaku started telling him about his book, and he helped redirect Dazai’s unhealthy fascination with death to a different outlet: literature. The Divine Comedy, the Aeneid, the tale of Orpheus and Eurydice—it was Odasaku who introduced him to them all. He enjoyed reading other peoples’ interpretation of the afterlife; he and Odasaku would have full blown debates over which interpretation was nearest to truth.

Dazai isn’t particularly convinced there is an afterlife at all, but he always thought that if there was one, it might look most like Dante Alighieri’s vision.

Like this.

“... can’t just stop, he’ll never let it be…”

This voice isn’t unfamiliar. Dazai’s head snaps up, eyes wide and searching as he tries to seek you out. Your voice sounds like it’s coming from all around him—the wind carries it, he can’t tell where you are and the icy air makes it hard for him to keep his eyes open to try to track you down. The wind is strange though; it stops blowing all around him, and instead begins billowing inward toward the center of the lake.

A foreboding feeling suddenly settles over Dazai.

Lake Cocytus—if this is what Dazai thinks it is, then it’s meant to represent the Ninth Circle. Treachery. A little ironic, maybe, considering loyalty is what got Dazai killed—your loyalty to the Port Mafia.

Is he dead? He realizes suddenly that he very well might be, not quite as pleased with the idea as he might’ve been in the months before he met you. He feels… unfulfilled almost. He never finished Odasaku’s book. He didn’t even manage to get his degree. He felt what it was like to be loved for a few months, but it wasn’t enough. He’d wanted more. He wanted a life with you.

He still wants a life with you, he thinks miserably. Even after everything that happened, he still wants it.

He must not be dead, he thinks absently, kicking at the snow on the banks of the lake before slowly treading out toward the center of it. If he was dead and really in the Ninth Circle of Hell, then he’d be stuck in the lake with the rest of the betrayers. Although, Dazai thinks if he really was going to hell, it wouldn’t be this circle—he doesn’t think he’s ever really betrayed anyone to this degree.

Or maybe he did, his thoughts take another dejected turn. Would his ‘betrayal’ to you count? It’s not like he actively tried to deceive you, so he thinks he should be given some leeway. But maybe it wouldn’t be too bad, if he’s here because he deceived you, then you would certainly be here for betraying him—he wouldn’t mind being stuck in hell if you were there with him. You both could be buried in the ice together, eternally frozen and suffering for betraying each other.

It’s kind of romantic, if you really think about it.

Something bubbles in his chest—maybe a laugh, or maybe a sob, he can’t tell, he thinks maybe he’s a bit hysterical.

It must just be a dream, he thinks again for some minimal solace. Or maybe a warning, maybe he’s somewhere caught in-between and God is striking down his hammer, warning him this is where he’s going to end up if he doesn’t change his ways like the message of the Divine Comedy itself.

The thought makes him laugh.

He sobers up quickly though as he starts his trek across the lake, thinking that maybe if he got to the other side, or the center, he’d wake up. He thinks you would find this funny—one of your first conversations with him had been about The Divine Comedy, and he spent many nights at dinner roping you into conversation about it, and convincing you to read some of the other books and poems that Odasaku had introduced him to. You-

“... one life or hundreds, that’s what he said…”

Dazai nearly slips on the ice when he hears your voice again, looking around as if you would just magically appear around him. You don’t, but it does leave Dazai a little disheartened hearing you repeat the words that Mori had said to convince you to kill him. He sighs as he keeps his gaze trained ahead, careful to not look down at the ice lest he find himself looking at something he would rather not.

The outskirts of the water were the traitors to kin—Dazai remembers that well. The first time he read the poem, he realized that this is where the majority of his cousins and older brothers would be. They spent almost two years killing each other for their grandfather’s inheritance; Dazai went from having seven siblings and almost two dozen cousins to three siblings and a handful of cousins by the time of the coup.

Traitors to country in the next section—Dazai thinks a bit gleefully that Mori would end up there. The Port Mafia isn’t exactly a city or country, but it’s still an entity, and Mori certainly betrayed it when he killed Dazai’s grandfather in his own bed, no matter what the reason for it might be.

Traitors to guests in the next section—this gives Dazai a bit of pause, he doesn’t know if he knows anyone that would fit in that section. Ui, maybe? Inviting him to work with his journalism house only to give him up to the Guild. Maybe Mori again, Dazai thinks, highly amused, because Dazai was a guest to you, and therefore, the Port Mafia, when everything happened.

And the last section—traitors to benefactors. He can’t avoid looking at them; they’re the only ones above the surface of the lake, grotesque sculptures of ice that decorate the surface of the center of the lake. His steps slow as he walks through them all, a heavy feeling settling over him as his gaze focuses on the oddly familiar sculpture in the very center of the lake.

Is that-

“There’s only one way this ends.”

Dazai’s breath catches sharply. He slips on the ice as he rushes forward, eyes widening and hands flying forward to catch himself, but his stomach lurches painfully and before his hands can hit the ground-

Dazai sits up with a ragged gasp, eyes wild and nails digging into the fabric of the soft couch he’s laying on. His head is aching and he feels sluggish; he’s still reeling from what he’d just woken up from, but his heart rate is starting to calm down.

Just a dream, he confirms, but now he’s more preoccupied with trying to figure out where the hell he is and why he isn’t dead, because the last thing he remembers is you lifting a gun to his head and pulling the trigger. The room he’s in is small—there’s no windows, there’s a tiny kitchen on the left side of the room, and on the other side-

“Everyone out.”

Dazai’s gaze settles on you. You’re standing near the far wall—you haven’t changed from what you were wearing at the conference room with the other Port Mafia executives, and Dazai can see Ace’s blood still crusted around your finger nails and splattered on your shirt. Your gaze is focused on him, an unreadable expression on your face, and Dazai is so tunnel visioned on you that he hardly notices that there are a handful of other people in the room: your three subordinates, Nakahara Chuuya, Albatross and one other who had been at the fight against the Guild.

They don’t argue with you, most of them file out of the room without a word, only Albatross and Chuuya linger. The ginger gives you a long look before saying, “We’ll buy some more time. Just… figure out if this is really what you want to do, okay?”

You finally look away from him at Chuuya’s words, cringing and averting your gaze to the ground. You say quietly, “It doesn’t matter what I want. It has to be done.”

Chuuya sighs but nods, motioning for Albatross to leave with him—and then the two of you are left alone. You don’t approach him. Ironically, you look like the one akin to a cornered animal as if you hadn’t been the one to shoot him. If anyone should feel like a cornered animal right now, it should be him.

Instinctively, he lifts his hand to his forehead, frowning at the bandages wrapped around the top of his head. He looks back up at you curiously, but you grimaced and looked away as soon as he touched his forehead, so he can’t catch your eye.

He has a million questions he wants to ask. What happened? Why didn’t the bullet kill me? Why didn’t you kill me? Did you believe me? Do you believe me? Are we okay?

Dazai doesn’t know if he wants to know the answer to the last question, so he settles with: “Where are we?”

Though you’d stiffened as soon as his lips parted to speak, you relax when you hear the question he asked.

“A safe house in Sakae,” you say quietly. Dazai starts to sit up but his vision swims so he has to stop and rest back down against the arm of the couch, blinking furiously. “You should take it easy… You’re probably going to feel a bit off for a couple of hours.”

Dazai is about to ask you what exactly happened, but the words die on his lips when you finally draw closer to him. You sit down on the couch next to where he’s laying, your body brushes his and Dazai feels warm. The remnants of the frigid cold of his dream vanishes as soon as the warmth of your body grazes his—he knows that there are many things that need to be addressed, but he would be content to avoid those topics and bask in your comfort for as long as he can.

His eyes slide shut as you reach up to cup his cheek. He doesn’t even bother reopening them when he feels you lift your other hand to remove the bandages from around the top of his head—he thinks maybe he could almost doze back off. It’s only when you let out a soft sigh and fasten them back on does he finally bother to open his eyes again.

“I don’t have enough bandages on me already?” he asks, his voice is light and the smile on his lips is teasing as he tries to lighten the mood a little, but it doesn’t work.

You don’t respond to his comment. You look down, and the small smile on your lips doesn’t meet your eyes, so his falls off his face as he stares up at you carefully and finally asks the much dreaded question that would lead to even more dreaded questions:

“Will you tell me what happened?”

“We need to go,” Chuuya says, hand wrapped around your wrist tightly. You don’t budge from where you’re standing, staring at where Dazai had fallen back over the edge. It was a short drop with mud softening the fall, he would be okay—if everything went according to plan, that is. Otherwise, the bullet you just shot at him killed him anyway, so the fall is inconsequential. “Come on. We can’t stay here. We have to go.”

“How do-”

“Not here,” Chuuya hisses. “Come on.”

“Chuuya-” you breathe out, voice wavering over his name. You can’t bring yourself to move even as Chuuya tries to drag you away. “Chuuya, I need to kn-”

Need to know if this worked. Need to know if he was able to stop the bullet. Need to know if you actually just killed the boy you’re in love with.

“Not here,” Chuuya replies, voice harsh, cutting you off before you can say anything more incriminating.

This time, he doesn’t wait for you to follow him—he yanks you along with him, not even bothering to steady you when you stumble. You know you should snap yourself out of this, you know Mori has people trailing you to ensure you follow through with Dazai’s execution, but you’re haunted by the expression on his face when you pulled the trigger.

He accepted it.

You had the gun to his head. You asked him to forgive you. He said he did, and he accepted that he was about to die at your hands. A part of you is eager to convince yourself that maybe he saw through your plan, that he realized you weren’t going to kill him, but that look in his eyes…

He didn’t know, and he accepted it anyway.

Your stomach churns. The ragged breath you take in cuts off abruptly as you gag over it—you saw the blood, you don’t know if Chuuya was able to stop it. You don’t know if Dazai’s nullification ability prevented Chuuya from using his own ability to slow the bullet before it killed him. You don’t know if he fell backward because he was shot or because the high dosage sedative that you swiped from Mori’s office set in as quickly as it was supposed to. You don’t even know if Chuuya had been able to inject it in him with his ability. You don’t know anything.

“Don’t you dare throw up on me,” Chuuya mutters as he opens the car door and ushers you inside.

Instead of sitting in the front with Albatross, he sits in the back with you, sharing a sharp look with Albatross before the other man finally pulls away from the ports. He still doesn’t say anything else—he knows better. This is one of the Port Mafia’s cars, tapped and actively being transmitted to one of Kouyou’s subordinates who will report to her and Mori anything that seems off, and you need to buy as much time as you possibly can before Mori realizes Dazai isn’t dead.

Because Dazai isn’t dead. He can’t be dead.

It worked. It all worked.

It had to have.

Just as you expect, your phone rings as soon as the car starts moving. Mori has eyes on you—he was waiting for you to finish with the execution before calling. You’re certain that he’s going to send someone to check the body now; he doesn’t trust you to finish the job, not when something as fickle and unpredictable as love is involved.

Klaus will have to be quick—you don’t even know if he was able to find a lookalike to kill so he could swap out the body. You only were able to give him a twenty, maybe thirty, minute heads up. Dazai is plain looking, yes, and the mud he dropped in should do some work at concealing his identity, but if Mori’s shadow sends him a picture to confirm the kill, the slim amount of time you hope to have bought with your fake out will be halved.

You stare down at the phone and let it ring once, twice, and finally on the third ring, you lift the phone to your ear and accept the call, waiting for Mori to speak.

“Has it been done?”

“Yes,” you reply, voice steady even if your fingers are trembling around the phone. “Do you need me back at headquarters?”

“No, I’m sure that wasn’t easy for you. You should get some rest. I have a meeting with Tolstoy in a bit anyway. I’ll meet with you tomorrow after I have tea with Elise-chan so you can debrief me on the meetings with the Guild,” Mori says easily, his tone is light and airy, and it makes you angry, because how dare he sound so flippant after what he just expected you to do. “... I’m sorry things had to end this way, dear. I’m proud of you. You did well.”

“I know,” you say tightly in response before hanging up and putting the phone back down in your lap.

Chuuya watches you carefully, but he doesn’t say anything, and you stare ahead at the back of the driver’s seat. It’s a twenty-five minute drive from the ports in Naka to Sakae—for better or for worse, it’s going to be a quiet one. For better because you think you might start crying if you have to speak, and for worse because now all you’re plagued with is your own thoughts and the image of Dazai’s face before you shot him.

You didn’t shoot him. Not really.

But you did, you don’t know if Chuuya was able to stop it. You don’t even know if Chuuya knows if he was able to stop it. There was a splatter of blood. You saw that, and there shouldn’t have been blood if this worked, so the worst case scenario looms over you heavily. But you won’t know until you get to the safe house—until you hear from Klaus. Your breath hitches over a sob you’re forced to swallow; your chest burns and tightens uncomfortable.

You had to do it, this was the only option. Anything else and there was no shot he wouldn’t have been killed. Maybe not today or tomorrow, but he would be killed. You wouldn’t be able to protect him from Mori otherwise—he would’ve put a hit out on him, and Dazai would have all of the most dangerous assassins in the underworld out for him trying to get the bounty. You can’t protect him from that. You needed to buy time. You needed to buy time so you could-

You don’t finish the thought.

You don’t think you’ve come to terms with what has to be done if you want to protect Dazai. A part of you doesn’t even know if you’ll be able to follow through with it, but you’ve already set yourself down the path of no return and you’ve dragged Chuuya down it along with you. Either you follow through, or the three of you are going to be on the run for the rest of your lives.

Shit.

Your gaze tracks back down to your phone. Still nothing from Klaus—nothing from Akutagawa either. The silence is too loud, each second that passes has you aching with a pain that feels like knives dragging against your bones. You just need to know, you need to know that he’s okay, that you didn’t-

You rest your forehead against the window when nausea builds back up in your stomach. It’s cool, and a welcome reprieve from the heaviness weighing down on you, but the moment your eyes slide shut, you’re faced with Dazai again and no amount of deep breathing and grounding techniques can stop the way your heart rate sky-rockets, breath becoming quick and shallow.

You see him. You see him, and he’s looking up at you, dark eyes wide and adoring as he looks at you like you’re the only thing in the world that matters to him, and his lips part to say something but before he can, you see something thick and red trickling down his face over his lips, and suddenly something is weighing cold and heavy in your hand but you can’t bring yourself to look down at it, but you can’t drag your eyes from his face. Can’t hide yourself from the way his warm eyes are suddenly wide and glassy, void of all of the emotions that you’d just-

Your arm hurts—sharp and painful and so sudden that you’re dragged from the images haunting you. Your gaze cuts over to Chuuya, who’s giving you a concerned look. You realize he must’ve shifted over a bit, brushed his arm against yours to use his ability to jolt you out of your spiraling thoughts. When he realizes that you’re back in the present, he gives you a pointed look and then directs his gaze outside.

You’re almost there. How much time had passed?

Why hasn’t Klaus or Akutagawa reached out to you?

What is going on?

Albatross doesn’t stop in front of the safe house—there are too many cameras in the street and all of the Port Mafia’s cars are tracked. Instead, he takes a left on the next street because it’s one of the few without a red light camera and a blind spot on the corner. His gaze flickers up to the rearview mirror and he pointedly raises the volume of his shitty music a few decibels louder to cover the noise of the car doors opening and closing as you and Chuuya slip out when he stops at the red light.

You leave your phone in the car and you’re careful to avoid the camera near the bakery on the corner as you follow Chuuya around to the alley that leads to the back entrance of the safe house. It’s not a Port Mafia safe house—it was Itou’s. This was where he stayed in the few months during the Dragon’s Head Conflict where he was on his own, after he left Strain but before you recruited him to the Port Mafia. It was well hidden and well protected, you hadn’t been able to track him down here until he brought you here—he made sure that it was a blind spot in the Port Mafia’s ever-watchful eye over Yokohama, and you made sure to keep it that way once he was gone.

It’s only once the steel door is shut behind you that you can finally speak, gaze focusing on Chuuya desperately as you wait for him to tell you if he was able to do it or if Dazai’s ability…

“Did you hear from Klaus or Akutagawa?” he asks quietly, and that’s enough of an answer.

He doesn’t know.

You feel sick—your stomach lurches and you don’t know if you start to stumble toward the bathroom or the couch or straight to the floor, but it doesn’t matter because Chuuya is darting forward to grab you and guide you over to the couch.

“Chuuya, if I-” you start to say, your words are raspy and you can’t even bring yourself to finish them. “If I-”

“Don’t,” he says, wrapping an arm around you. “Don’t bother going there yet. Wait for Klaus and Akutagawa.”

“But-”

“Stop,” he insists. “All you’re going to do is torture yourself.”

Isn’t that what you deserve? You want to say to him, nails digging into the palm of your hand so deep that it draws blood. Chuuya catches what you’re doing and immediately moves to unfurl your hands. Everything you’ve done. You killed Dazai’s family. His siblings. His cousins. You ruined his life, and then after everything, it wasn’t enough. You ruined his life and then you took-

“Hey, stop,” Chuuya interrupts your thoughts, clearly realizing what path they’re going down. You don’t realize your breath is ragged again until he grabs your chin and twists your head to force you to look at him. “I know what you’re thinking, but we can’t do this right now, we need to plan. We don’t have time, and when Klaus and Akutagawa get here with him, we need to know what we’re doing. You need to snap out of it.”

You don’t respond to him—your lashes flutter and you see Dazai again, you see blood, you see empty eyes, you see the gun in your hand, and you feel something warm and wet trickling over your cheeks. Chuuya spits out curses to himself and wipes away the tears streaming down your face. He’s gentle now, the rough grip on your chin disappears and is replaced with his hand cradling the back of your head as he pulls you closer to him. He presses your ear to his chest, hoping that the steady thrum of his heart is enough to ground you.

“Where the fuck are they?” he spits out more to himself than to you. His breath hitches and you can hear the stammering of his heart, and you know that he’s nervous, but he’s trying to hide it for your sake. “I need you here. What we just did-fuck-”

You try to snap out of it—you do, but every time you blink you see him. You see what you did. You knew this would happen from the very beginning, you knew it, and everyone warned you, but you’re selfish. You’ve always been so selfish.

You don’t know how much time passes. Ten minutes. Twenty. Thirty. It all blurs, it all feels like eternity, but eventually, the door to the safe house slams open, and only a handful of people know about it.

Your gaze snaps up, and you don’t realize you’re holding your breath until Klaus steps into the room with a familiar figure slung over his shoulder like a sack of flour. Both of them are covered in various substances that you think you would rather not know what they are, but you can see the steady rise and fall of Dazai’s back. You rise to your feet abruptly and Chuuya lets out a relieved breath, shoulders slumping.

Klaus immediately points an accusing finger at you. “I had to hunt down a civilian, kill him, crawl through shit and trash with a dead body to swap it out for your boy, I had to carry him across half of the city, and I couldn’t even channel Mephisto because he nullifies him. You better not complain about any messes I make for the next six months,” Klaus demands, and then points wildly back toward a very clean Akutagawa, who casts an unimpressed look his way. “And he didn’t even help me. He stood there and watched.”

“I was ensuring that no one saw what we were doing,” Akutagawa replies primly. “Even more important than your job, considering if someone saw it would all be for naught. You should be thanking me.”

Klaus’s face goes red with anger as he whips around to face him and roars, “More important? Thank you?!”

You laugh. It’s so startling that all of the anger washes away from Klaus’s face and the goading expression on Akutagawa’s disappears. Or you think you laugh—you think you might be crying again too. Both boys look aghast by the sight of it, looking at each other as if waiting for the other to do something to make you stop.

Eventually, Klaus steps forward and unsurely tries to pass Dazai’s unconscious body over to you as if to try to make you feel better by shoving him in your arms. Chuuya slaps him hard over the back of the head causing him to yelp.

“Put him on the couch, what the fuck is wrong with you? Why are you passing him over to her like he’s a fucking stuffed animal?” Chuuya snaps, giving him a plainly judgemental look before resting his hand on your shoulder.

Klaus looks disgruntled, but he does as Chuuya asks, laying Dazai down on the couch where you and Chuuya had just been sitting. You drop to your knees next to him, and the room is oddly silent as you look down at him. You don’t feel their gazes on you, so you assume they’re giving you privacy as best they can.

He looks… peaceful. You could almost imagine that you were coming home to him napping on your couch after he spent the whole night playing some stupid video game in your living room. You try to imagine that’s what this is, but the bloody indent in his forehead prevents you.

It almost broke through his skull.

He almost died.

You almost killed him.

You feel a bit sick as your fingers trace up to the wound on his forehead. It’s still bleeding, but his forehead is clean compared to the grime that covers the rest of his body. Klaus and Akutagawa must’ve had the brain to stop and clean the wound before it could get infected—that’s probably what took them so long.

You feel someone come to your side, glancing up to see Akutagawa hovering next to you with bandages in hand. He passes them over to you silently before quickly walking away. You let out a soft breath as you unwind the bandages, gently lifting his head so you can wrap them around his forehead. Immediately, they’re staining red—you grimace and look away.

The silence hanging over the room only lasts so long.

“What’s next?” Klaus asks quietly. “This won’t work for long. What’s the plan?”

Your gaze lowers as you rest your hand against Dazai’s cheek, memorizing his face as best as you can. The heaviness in your chest returns, and along with it, the damning reminder of your reality.

“I have to kill Mori.”

Dazai suddenly understands his dream.

“It’s the only option,” you say quietly when Dazai’s expression immediately twists at your words. Your eyes look so heavy and your expression is so crestfallen that it makes Dazai ache. His fingers twitch to reach out for you but you shift away, shaking your head. “It’s the only option, Osamu. It has to be done.”

“But-”

“He tried to have me kill you,” you snap, and he almost rolls his eyes because he doesn’t need reminding of that. He’s abundantly aware of the fact that he almost died at your hands because of Mori. He refrains if only barely. “Why do you care about what happens to him?”

“He’s your father,” Dazai says, watching as you go stiff. He knows he might’ve just made a mistake saying that, but he doesn’t even know if you fully understand the gravity of all of this or if you’re just running off heightened emotions right now. “I don’t care about him, he can go fuck off and die for all I care. I care about you-“

“He’s not my father,” you spit out, voice tight, “and maybe you shouldn’t care about me.”

Oh, here it comes, Dazai thinks dreadfully. That was the opening you needed to bring up the subject Dazai desperately wanted to avoid. He has made a fatal mistake. He should’ve just nodded along and agreed to your plan.

“You’re right he’s not your father,” Dazai immediately agrees to appease you and try to avoid the imminent conversation. “I don’t know what I was thinking. Hey, do you have food here? I’m so hungry all of a sudden, wow, do you hear my stomach-”

You sigh, looking away. Your eyes are suddenly very tired and Dazai’s words falter on his tongue as his gaze settles on you. His fingers twitch to reach out for your hand but you draw them back into your lap. Dazai’s gaze drops at the blatant rejection, but as soon as you notice, you reach back out to intertwine your fingers with his. He feels placated, but only a little, because he still has a tight feeling in his chest that he can’t push away. A looming fear that something is going to go terribly wrong.

“Can we please talk about this?” you finally ask quietly, and even though Dazai does want to say no, he simply cannot bring himself to.

So, instead, he nods, and braces himself for what he knows is bound to be a terrible conversation. He waits for you to say something—you look like you want to, but he thinks that maybe you’re struggling just as much as him at opening the conversation.

This isn’t going to go well, he realizes again, swallowing thickly.

“Come on,” you finally say, rising to your feet. You hold out your hand to him and Dazai stares at it for a moment, confused. “Let’s get you cleaned up, you smell disgusting.”

“I wonder why,” Dazai mutters, and he means for it to come out as a joke, but when the small smile on your lips falters, he realizes it probably came out much too bitter so he quickly grabs your hand instead, letting you help him to his feet. He tries to get you to smile again by giving you a soft one of his own, but now the expression on your face is heavy and conflicted. “Are you gonna take a bath with me?”

“You should probably rinse off before we get into the bath,” you say dryly, thumb running along the back of his hand before you let go of it. “Otherwise we’ll just be sitting in shit water.”

Dazai almost gags. “Don’t remind me what I’m covered in right now,” he pleads. “Where is the shower?”

The light returns to your eyes, a smile flickers to your lips, and Dazai considers it a win even if he is covered in shit and god knows what else. He glances back down to where he’d been laying and winces when he sees the stains. His eyes flicker back up to you and he cringes when he sees the displeased expression on your face.

“I’ll make Atsushi and Akutagawa clean it,” you say more to yourself than to him, shaking your head and motioning for him to follow. “Bonding exercise.”

Dazai raises his eyebrows, unsure if the couch is even salvageable, and almost lets a comment slip about it considering you were so quick to throw out his couch to replace it, but he refrains when a sad expression crosses your face when you think he’s not looking. He frowns, looking around a bit more scrutinizing now.

This place looks nothing like your apartment.

Your apartment is… plain. Minimalistic. The most you have decorating it is a handful of paintings on the wall and a couple of antiques displayed on dressers. Other than that, you have your furniture, your television, and that’s just about it. Dazai had joked once about it feeling like a hotel room, and promptly stole your credit card to buy things to decorate with—gaudy Christmas lights even though it’s not Christmas, a couple of fake pumpkins to line against your wall and a plastic skeleton to pin up near the window. He even bought an inflatable snowman to put in the middle of the room, but it hasn’t come yet. You rolled your eyes every time you came back from work to see some new, seasonally inappropriate decoration in your apartment, but he could tell the more things he added to your apartment, the happier you seemed to be.

This place was actually decorated. Pictures and trinkets set up on the dressers, all of the furniture matched and the walls were a warm burgundy instead of the off-putting, psych ward white of your apartment. You said this was a safe house, but it seems more like a home than your actual one.

“What is this place?” he asks again, because it’s something more than a safe-house, he just doesn’t know what.

“I told you,” you frown. “A safe house.”

Dazai’s lips curl down in response but he doesn’t press, gaze flickering over to one of the side tables against the wall, trying to figure out who exactly is in the pictures on it, but as he strains his eyes to focus on it, pain ricochets through his head and he has to abandon the mission. Disappointed, he follows you into the back bedroom and realizes he’ll just have to figure it out later.

He almost stops in his tracks in the doorway when he sees that the bedroom is just as homely as the rest of the safe house. It’s weird—the same burgundy walls, dark mahogany furniture, there’s what looks to be a handmade quilt draped over the foot of the bed. It’s just so unlike you that it almost has Dazai reeling.

You give him an odd look when you see the twisted expression on his face, but motion toward another door. “The bathroom is in there—go rinse off and run the bath, I’ll be in there in a minute, I’m going to grab a change of clothes for you.”

“Mkay,” Dazai agrees, a jump in his step as he rushes over to the bathroom.

He only pauses for a second to take in his surroundings when he gets in there—he’s not as surprised now by the style. Less modern, more rustic, just like the rest of the house; it’s more like something he’d expect to see in one of those American holiday movies. He leans over the tub to run the hot water before pulling off his clothes. He squints as he starts to unwind his bandages, looking into the shower and realizing that the only soap in there is an unopened bar soap, and a men’s shampoo and conditioner set.

A bit suspicious now, he glances at the door leading to the bedroom before kneeling down in front of the cabinets beneath the sink. With one hand, he unwinds the bandages around his legs, and with the other, he reaches out to open the cabinet so he can snoop. Just as he expected: men’s deodorant, a spare baking soda and peroxide toothpaste that he knows you hate, and a handful of different colognes. There’s one bag off to the side and Dazai reaches for it, peeking in and finding your typical bath soaps and hair care.

Whose place is this? He wonders, pausing for half a second before taking out your soaps and bringing them into the shower with him. It’s not Chuuya’s—Dazai knows that because he hasn’t seen a single tacky hat yet, but then whose?

He’s quick to clean himself off, eager to be with you and still a bit anxious that you might disappear when he’s not looking. The water runs brown as it rinses over him, but it feels nice—Dazai realizes that this is his first shower since he got kidnapped by the Guild, and a part of him wants to bask in it. He wants to wash off all of the unfamiliar touches and the dirt and the blood, but more than that, he wants to surround himself with you instead. Which means he has to hurry out of here and drag you into the tub with him.

He thinks maybe he should be biding his time. He has a lot to think about before he actually talks to you—he’s hardly even had a chance to process everything that happened—but still, he finds himself rushing to scrub himself. It couldn’t have been more than ten, fifteen minutes before he’s stumbling out of the shower and grabbing a towel to wrap around his waist. He almost expects you to be waiting in the bathroom for him, but you’re not, so he frowns and creaks the door back open to look for you.

Your name is on his lips as he steps back into the bedroom, but he falters when he sees you standing in the same place he left you: right outside a closet, except now the door is open and there’s a sweatshirt in your hands. The expression on your face is destroyed, and Dazai isn’t exactly sure what to say, luckily, he doesn’t need to because you hear the door open and turn toward him.

Whatever you’re about to say dies on your lips as your eyes trail over his body.

Another fatal mistake.

Dazai instantly realizes that he has never taken off his bandages in front of you before—that night at the beach house, he thought you were going to ask him to take them off, but you didn’t. He was glad for it, because he wasn’t sure if he was ready, and after that… Well, everything went downhill after that.

Dazai suddenly wants to flee. He becomes acutely aware of all of the scars on his body plainly in view. The warm, dim lighting becomes spotlights shining down on him, highlighting all of the flaws that he’s feared your reaction to. He waits for your face to twist—or, he knows you, you probably wouldn’t have such a visible reaction, so he focuses on your eyes instead.

But they only curve up along with your lips, a fondness in them that he doesn’t expect. You place the clothes down on the bed and approach him, his breath catches when your hands rest on his hips right above the towel. The skin-on-skin makes his chest ache—he’s missed you so much, he hadn’t even realized how hard it had been to breathe without you until he was back with you again.

“I’ve missed you so much,” he breathes out loud, lashes fluttering when your thumbs circle over his hip bones, right over a jagged scar that cuts across his lower abdomen—the product of an unfortunate encounter in Suribachi.

“I missed you too,” you say softly. Your eyes trace over his face like you’re trying to memorize each little detail—usually he feels uncomfortable when under a scrutinizing gaze, he never wants someone to look too closely at him in fear of what they might find, but he feels warm beneath yours. “I’m sorry.”

He’s not sure exactly what you’re apologizing for; it could be anything from almost killing him to letting him into your life at all. He’s not yet ready for this conversation to start, he hasn’t even gathered his thoughts yet, so instead he glances pointedly back toward the bathroom. You let out a soft breath—he can’t tell if it’s irritation or you’re just tired, it might be both, but you do motion for him to go in and he can hear you following him.

The water is still steaming as he lets the towel drop to the ground and sinks into it. His muscles instantly relax, eyes sliding shut as he rests against the back of the tub, letting out a soft sigh. For a moment, he can almost forget everything that’s happened, his head falls to the side to focus on you as you undress, folding your clothes and placing them on the side table. He blinks when you pull off your dress shirt, gaze zeroing in on a scar marring your upper back. It’s small, circular—a bullet wound, maybe? It doesn’t go through to your chest though, he would’ve noticed that.

“How did you get that?” he asks curiously, belatedly realizing he probably has no right to ask about scars considering his body is riddled with them and he’d probably evade most attempts at your prying if you asked.

“Hm?” you ask quietly, looking over your shoulder at him as you finish undressing.

The words falter on Dazai’s lips as his gaze roves over your body. You’re beautiful, he thinks again, a bit more dreamily this time. You’re beautiful, and he’s missed you so much, and he just wants all of this to be over so he can go back to lounging in your apartment and spending your money all day. It’s only when you raise your eyebrows that he clears his throat and nods his chin to your back.

“The scar on your back,” he explains. “How did you get it?”

“Oh,” you realize, making your way over to the tub and tapping his shoulder, motioning for him to shift forward. You slip into the water behind him, circling your arms around his waist and Dazai’s chest feels warm and full as he rests back against you, eyes sliding shut. “An assassination attempt when I was eighteen. I was… reckless, saw it coming and… Well, luckily, the Flags had been in the area. Iceman figured out what was happening and they got there quick enough to stabilize me and get me to Mori.”

Dazai’s throat swells at the implication of what you’d said, trying to distract himself with the feeling of your fingers tracing across his abdomen. He notes softly, “You’re never reckless.”

Your fingers pause in the absent patterns you’re tracing on him, and Dazai wonders if it’s a sore topic, about to retract his words. Before he can, you let out a soft breath and drop your forehead down on his shoulder, arms tightening around him.

“This was Itou’s house. All of the stuff in here, it’s his family’s—stuff he was able to salvage after they were killed. He tried to keep the house like how his mother used to keep it as a way to memorialize her,” you say quietly. Dazai’s eyes widen as he recognizes the name of your old partner. “We were enemies when we first met, y’know? It was during the big conflict six years ago. He was part of one of the foreign organizations. I ended up recruiting him, but he spent a few months on his own here. He was careful to keep it a blind spot to the Port Mafia even after he joined up, I always thought he was paranoid about it, but he was quite insistent that there was no need for people to know about it.”

“Makes sense,” Dazai says dryly. “I wouldn’t want Mori knowing where I’m living either.”

It’s an off-handed quip, but you still stiffen and again, Dazai fumbles to say something else because he clearly upset you. He starts to add, “I-”

“I killed him,” you finally say, voice weak and airy. Your arms loosen around him, but his hands drop to cover yours, holding them in place. “I killed him, Osamu.”

“I thought you said he died on a mission,” Dazai murmurs, hand tightening around yours when he feels the way your fingers are trembling.

“I… Itou was born into this life. Was born into a Yakuza-family based in Tokyo, trained since he was old enough to walk how to use his ability… how to kill. The Yakuza syndicate his family was the head of was wiped out by the Sun and Steel when he was eight… nine, maybe. His mother was able to get him and bring him back to Australia—that’s where she was from. It’s how he ended up with Strain,” you explain, and the water suddenly feels a bit cold—what happened to Itou’s family sounds a lot like what happened to Dazai’s. From the way you pause, you wonder if you realize the same thing. You quickly change the subject, “He tried getting me out of the Mafia.”

“What?” Dazai asks, surprised. He shifts to physically look at you, catching the wistful expression on your face. “You wanted to leave the Mafia.”

The wistful expression shifts into something much more conflicted.

“I didn’t-” you start to say before cutting yourself off. “I don’t know. I think maybe a part of me might’ve wanted to. I was… curious. He was sneaky—he was always such a sneaky bastard. He tried to ease me into it, show me what a different life was like. Called them training exercises, wanted me to blend in with kids my age.”

He remembers you telling him this at the beach house, but he listens anyway because now you do sound wistful. His eyes slide shut as you hold him tightly, pressing your lips to his shoulder blade before resting your chin on top of it.

“His gift to me for my eighteenth birthday was an acceptance letter to university. He pulled some strings. It was for YNU, actually, funny enough,” you say softly. Dazai’s eyes widen as he turns to look at you again; there’s a small, sad smile on your lips and when he turns, you take the chance to steal a kiss from him. “Imagine, we could’ve been first years together.”

Dazai doesn’t dare to respond. His hand tightens around yours—if it’s painful, you don’t let it show. Odasaku dragged him to orientation, and he imagines meeting you there. You’re good at socializing—charming—Dazai can be too when he wants, but he definitely did not want to during orientation. He mostly sulked away and waited for it to be over so he could go back home. He imagines that you’d be in the same group with him, and although he’d probably ignore you the first few times you tried to talk to him, he’d eventually give in. Dazai is weak to pretty women, especially when that pretty woman is you.

Or maybe, you’d meet during a shared class. You would probably be a poli-sci major, but he’s taken classes in the field for requirements. He hated them, thought they were boring, but he probably would’ve enjoyed it much more if he had you to admire all two hours of the class. And maybe-

“I was curious,” you repeat, voice tighter. There’s more of an edge to it now, and Dazai realizes that this story is about to take a turn. “I… I wanted to try it. I told Mori.”

Dazai’s eyes widen and he sits up straight. The water sloshes around him as he physically turns around to face you. He asks, but can’t finish, “Did he…”

“He said it was a great idea,” you say tightly. “He encouraged it. I accepted the spot, and a week before orientation, Itou died on a mission that we got bad intel for. My whole team, they died to make sure I got out alive. Mori denied having any involvement, said he wouldn’t risk an ability user as powerful as Itou, but I know. I know he had a hand in it. I’ve always known it. The government had been after Itou for years—they said he was a national security threat. A couple of weeks later, we suddenly have the skilled business permit that Mori’s been trying to get for months. It was a trade-off. I know it. Two birds, one stone. The skilled business permit and my full focus back on the Mafia for Itou’s life.”

Dazai’s lips part to say something—anything—but he can’t. Your eyes are misty, and the foreboding feeling that’s been haunting him since he woke up intensifies. You shake your head, blinking back tears.

“I never should’ve brought you into this world, Osamu.”

Dazai needs to think now. He needs to figure out how exactly he’s going to go about this, whether he should be soft and demure, appealing to your heart, or if he should be more forceful, triggering your guilt.

He goes with the latter.

“Well it’s too late for that,” Dazai says, keeping his voice steady until he knows how you’re going to react to it. When you instantly shake your head again, his voice hardens. “It’s too late, I’m already in it. You can’t just get rid of me. Take accountability.”

“You don’t think I have?” you question dryly, looking away from him. But he needs you to look at him for this to be effective, so he reaches out to grab your hand, dragging your attention back toward him. “I killed your family, Osamu.”

“She was a girl my age—the previous boss’s granddaughter—she was asleep, had a bear tucked in her arms and a nightlight on the right side of her bed. I slit her throat, then both of her older brothers. They were kids.”

Her name was Akane. Bunji and Touma were her brothers.

They were Dazai’s brothers. Dazai’s sister. The stuffed bear was called Coco, and Akane would clutch it and cry whenever Dazai started talking about things like death. She was scared of dying; more than that, scared of the people she loved dying. She cried for weeks when their grandmother passed, and got angry at Dazai when he didn’t even cry at the funeral. Dazai used to share a bedroom with her and Touma, but he hated her nightlight—it was purple and it was always right in Dazai’s eyes when he laid down. He convinced his mother to force Bunji to swap rooms with him, so Dazai had his own room on the second floor of his grandfather’s estate.

“You were a kid too,” Dazai rasps out the same thing he said at the beach house, but it comes out a bit weaker this time knowing exactly who the people you killed were. “You were fourteen. You-”

“I played a role in tracking your mother down,” you continue. Dazai’s breath catches as his fingers loosen around yours. “It was my punishment for not making sure all of the grandchildren were… eliminated. I was the one that was tracking her down, and I was the one that was going to interrogate her for your whereabouts when I found her.”

“Stop,” Dazai says quietly, voice wavering.

“No,” you reply firmly. “No. You need to understand this-”

“I do,” Dazai insists, voice cracking. “I do understand-”

“You don’t, Dazai,” you raise your voice and Dazai cringes back. You sigh and soften your voice, but the damage has been done, Dazai’s fight or flight instincts have been triggered. This conversation is not going to end in his favor, so he needs to run before he gets hurt, but he can’t because you have him stuck in the bath with you. You reach out again to take his hands in yours, fingers absently running along the scars on his wrists. “You don’t, otherwise you wouldn’t have been so quick to join me in here. You haven’t even had time to process it.”

“Yes, I have,” Dazai whispers weakly. “I have.”

“I ruined your life, Osamu,” you say quietly. “Everything bad that’s ever happened to you started with me.”

“That’s not true,” Dazai argues, nails biting into your skin as he clings to you. “My life sucked before everything really went to shit. The first time I tried to kill myself, I was eleven. You saved my life. I was going to kill myself that night we met at the bar. You saved me.”

“Osamu-”

“You’re not listening to me,” Dazai interrupts, voice taking a more manic edge as he shakes his head. He can talk himself out of any situation—why is he failing now when it matters most? “You’re not listening. You saved me. I love you.”

“I love you too,” you breathe out, but the words don’t settle his nerves because they’re heavy and full of sorrow, and the tears that had been pooling in your eyes finally start to spill over.

“Then why does this still feel like a goodbye?” he begs, breath shallow as he searches your face for an answer.

You don’t respond, but you don’t need to. He finds his answer in your eyes. He always does. You look at him again with that desperate, longing expression, like you’re trying to memorize the details of his face even though you know it’s futile.

This is a goodbye.

Dazai hasn’t spoken to you once since your conversation in the bath.

Chuuya, your subordinates, and the Flags are back now, and Dazai is sulking in the bedroom watching one of his dumb reality shows. You can hardly focus on the conversation at hand because of it, and you know the others are starting to get irritated by your distraction considering the stakes at play right now. If one thing goes wrong, all of your lives would be forfeit. They’re risking everything by helping you right now, and you can't even bother to give them your full attention.

“Out,” Piano Man suddenly says. Your gaze snaps toward him, as does all of the others’ in the room. When nobody immediately moves, he raises his eyebrows and continues dryly, “Are you all hard of hearing? I said get out.”

“Where are we supposed to go?” Albatross demands. “Her boy’s in the bedroom. This place is small-”

“Go crowd in the closet for all I care. Get out,” Piano Man says dismissively. Still, no one moves until his gaze sharpens and they realize he’s being entirely serious. You shift to leave with them until his eyes land on you. “Not you.”

You feel like a child about to be scolded, which is ridiculous because you’re a mafioso, and though Piano Man is technically the same rank as you, he’s not really. He can’t scold you, but you shift awkwardly on your feet and share a concerned look with Chuuya anyway as they all wander out of the safe house and into the small hallway outside.

Once the two of you are alone, you finally glance back at Piano Man, who’s watching you carefully. After a few moments he says, “I take it you told him the plan?”

“I did,” you reply quietly.

“He didn’t take it well?” Piano Man questions.

“You know the answer to that,” you say a bit more dryly before shaking your head. “Would you have taken it well?”

“Of course not, I’d be livid,” Piano Man says immediately, making you cringe. “Does this mean we’re changing the plan?”

“No,” you tell him. “We can’t. This is the only option.”

“I know,” Piano Man says with a thin smile. “So stop sulking and get your head in the game so we don’t all die trying to perform a coup.”

You’re startled by the sudden sharpness in his voice, but you suppose you shouldn’t be. Piano Man has always been capricious, going from his whimsical moods to more cold and ruthless ones within a matter of seconds. You can hardly meet his eyes now, looking down at the ground to avoid them.

“Why are you helping me?” you ask after a few moments.

You don’t have to look at Piano Man to see the way he raises his eyebrows judgmentally. “Excuse me?”

“I was going to kill you earlier. I held a gun to your head. Why are you helping me?” you press, the words weighing heavily on you as you remember the way he met your eyes when you lifted the muzzle of your gun to his temple.

Piano Man has the audacity to look amused. “When I first recruited Lippmann, I tried to drown him in the harbor because I got paranoid he sold me out to the feds after a mission went wrong. It happens—the next time it does, I’m going to be pulling my own gun out though. So, don’t let it happen again, yeah?”

“Yeah,” you agree quietly. “I’m sorry.”

You don’t apologize often, even when you know you’re entirely in the wrong. Mori has taught you only to apologize when it serves you, otherwise you should never make an admission of guilt or liability. So it’s not surprising when Piano Man’s eyebrows shoot upward, but his expression softens after a moment. He reaches out to pat your head.

“I know this isn’t easy,” he murmurs, “but we need you at the top of your game if this is going to work.”

“I know,” you reply. “... I know.”

“Good,” he says, patting the top of your head yet again before sighing. “Let me go get them and we’ll get back to planning, okay?”

“Mkay.”

You lean back against the wall as you look down at the table Lippmann set up for planning. The Flags, your subordinates, Kajii Motojiro—they’re non-factors in the planned coup. The Flags will support it, your subordinates will support you, and all Kajii cares about is his experiments. Paul Verlaine is not quite as secure, but Chuuya is confident that he’ll support whatever Chuuya goes along with.

The issue lies in Kouyou and the Black Lizards.

You already feel a headache come on just at the thought, lifting your hands to your head and rubbing your eyes as you knock the back of your head against the wall and let out a heavy sigh. Kouyou and Hirotsu won’t support the coup, you know it. They’re both loyal to Mori—both victims of the previous boss who found refuge in Mori when he took over. They’ll fight for him, and you know better than anyone that during a forceful transition of power, all dissidents must be removed, especially ones that hold significant power and influence.

But it’s Kouyou and Hirotsu. Kouyou, who was the one to teach you how to do your makeup properly, who bought you your first kimono to match her own. Hirotsu, who was always quick to execute anyone that openly disrespected you, who took you to a movie on your fifteenth birthday when Mori was busy dealing with the power transition so you didn’t spend it alone. The thought makes you sick—they were family, and maybe Hirotsu could be convinced. He’s loyal to Mori, yes, but more than that, he’s loyal to the Port Mafia. If you can manufacture a legitimate reason for the coup…

You sigh as you glance down the hall where Dazai is hiding in the bedroom, startled when your gaze catches his familiar brown. He’s seemingly just as surprised that you caught him spying, immediately slamming the bedroom door shut to retreat back into the safety of the room. Your lips curl up into a small smile, which is quickly washed away when your subordinates, the Flags and Chuuya all file back into the room.

“I’ll talk to Ane-san,” Chuuya finally says, reigniting the conversation. “I’ll make her see reason.”

“There’s no time for talking, Chuuya,” Piano Man tells him. “This all has to be done within hours. If we let word get out about what we’re doing… The coup is risky, and a civil war would be the end of this city.”

Frustration flashes across Chuuya’s face. “I’m not budging on this,” he says, voice tight with thinly restrained anger. “Either you give me the chance to talk to her, or I’ll withdraw my support.”

“Chuuya,” you sigh tiredly, wanting nothing more than to just sit down.

“No,” Chuuya interrupts you. “I won’t actively stand against you, but I won’t stand with you if you don’t give me the chance to talk to her.”

“Fine,” you finally say even though you know it’s a mistake. It’s asking for trouble. Piano Man gives you a sharp, disapproving look, but you shake your head. “It’s fine. She won’t be keeping her executive position.”

Chuuya’s face twists. “But-”

“No.” This time you interrupt him, holding up your hand. “I’m not budging on this. If you want the chance to talk to her and convince her this is the best route, I’ll give you it, but you need to meet me halfway. She’s not retaining her executive position.”

Chuuya looks unhappy, but after a few moments, he nods. “Fine.”

“I can’t risk it, Chuuya,” you tell him quietly. “I need people who I trust in the inner circle. I can’t trust her after what just happened.”

“I get it,” Chuuya says. “I just don’t like it.”

“That leaves three executive seats we need to fill.” Piano Man lets out a heavy sigh as he sits on the edge of the table, tilting his head back in exhaustion. “Your’s, Ace’s, and Kouyou-san’s. Do you even have three more people who you trust?”

Klaus and Akutagawa, you think to yourself, but neither of them are executive material. Your gaze drifts over to Albatross, Iceman, and Doc, each of them pointedly looks away, none of them want the open seats. Lippmann can’t take it, not with what you have planned for him. So, who else-

“Verlaine?” Chuuya offers. “He’s got a ton of experience with the European organizations—we’ll probably need it considering Dostoevsky’s involvement with the Guild, and this Book that’s apparently somewhere in the city. If it gets out to the public, we’ll have organizations swarming just like during the Dragon’s Head.”

You don’t like the idea of Verlaine being an executive, and you don’t think Piano Man does either considering his unfortunate first meeting with the man, but Chuuya raises good points. You have your own experience with the European underworld, but it’s nothing like what Verlaine has.

“Okay,” you agree, “and the other two?”

The Black Lizards are its own command unit that answers directly to the Boss. They don’t have a seat at the table because it’s not their field. Their field is war, not politics… but what other options are there? The people you trust are far and few in-between, you can probably count them on one hand.

“What about Tolstoy?” a familiar voice asks quietly from down the hallway. You look up immediately, gaze focusing on where Dazai is standing in the door of the bedroom, hands shoved in the pockets of his sweatshirt, shoulders hunched. He doesn’t like the attention of everyone on him, so he keeps his eyes trained fully on you. “Mishima?”

“They’re not part of the Port Mafia,” Chuuya dismisses, “they don’t get seats.”

“But what if they were?” Dazai presses, shuffling forward. He hardly spares Chuuya a glance before looking at you again. “The transition of power is going to be shaky, you need to strengthen your position in other ways, otherwise…”

“You think we should merge with the Three Deaths and the Sun and Steel,” Piano Man realizes, sitting up straighter as he considers Dazai’s proposition. “Doesn’t that risk destabilizing us even more though?”

He looks at you for an answer, but your gaze is focused on Dazai. He’s not even gone yet, but you already miss him desperately; all you want is to be with him, but it’s just not possible. You can’t have him and run the Port Mafia at the same time; he will die because of his affiliation with you, just like he almost did when the Guild captured him. It wouldn’t matter how safe you tried to keep him, one mistake and he would die. And that will lead to every decision you make being centered around him, not what’s best for the Port Mafia and that will lead to its inevitable ruin.

“No, Osamu’s right,” you say, and Dazai preens at the praise, but then quickly deflates again. You want to reach out for him, but you refrain. “Not a merger. An acquisition. The Three Deaths and the Sun and Steel are already pretty much extensions of the Port Mafia, we would only be formalizing it. I trust Tolstoy and Mishima—I pretty much built the Three Deaths into what it is today myself. We’d give the Port Mafia an official foothold in Russia, more sway over everything that happens in Tokyo. It’s a good plan. Great one, even.”

“Will they even agree to it?” Chuuya asks doubtfully. “Go from being fully autonomous to answering to us.”

“They pretty much already do just answer to us,” Albatross mutters.

“They’ll agree to it,” you tell him quietly. “I’ll make sure of it.”

Tolstoy won’t be hard to convince. He, Chekhov and Gorky are all good friends of yours, you helped them build the Three Deaths, you helped them win territory battles against the Pale Flame and the Red Chamber. All it would take a few words of convincing for them to agree to it. Mishima might be more difficult, but all you have to do is convince his daughters, and they hang off your every word.

There might be some dissent from the Sun and Steel executives, but even then, you think it would be minimal at worst. It’s a good plan. Having Tolstoy and Mishima sitting at the executive table would lend you some much needed support during the transition, and with the Port Mafia subsuming the Three Deaths and the Sun and Steel, it would provide a major deterrence against any foreign movements from Cao Xueqin or Yi Sang.

“What about Hirotsu and the Black Lizards?” Akutagawa asks, shifting awkwardly when all eyes turn to him. He doesn’t meet anyone’s eyes, and you know it’s because he actually cares about what your answer might be. Akutagawa likes to pretend that he doesn’t care about anyone, but you know he has a soft spot for the unit that took Gin in so easily.

“We can’t afford to lose the Black Lizards,” Iceman notes as he lights another cigarette. “Especially if we’re bringing in other organizations. We don't want our own people to feel like they’re being lost in the mix, y’know?”

“I’ll handle Hirotsu,” you finally say. “It’ll be fine. I just need to figure out how to frame this. Needs to be framed in a way that makes him feel like this was the best, and only, course of action for the Mafia. He’s loyal to Mori only to the extent that he’s good for the Port Mafia. I’ll figure it out. Leave that to me.”

“Ace’s subordinates?” Albatross prompts. “They been handled? We can’t have them knowing about him. Can’t have anyone knowing about him.”

“Dead,” Akutagawa says. “I killed them.”

“Security cameras? CCTV? Any record of this kid being affiliated with us?”

“Wiped,” Klaus answers flippantly. “We’ve gone through it every day since they met. Weren’t allowed to sleep ‘til made sure everything from the day was wiped. There’s no physical record of him ever being around us.”

“Okay, so we get this settled, and then we wait on Repin for the rest of us, right?” Albatross asks. Dazai cringes at the mention of Repin, and you look away from him, unable to watch the pain that crosses his face.

“Yeah,” you say quietly. “It all needs to happen within no more than a couple days otherwise we risk the wrong people finding out so…”

“So we should get started,” Chuuya sighs, pushing himself off the wall. He squeezes your wrist as he passes by you, walking in the direction of the door. “We’ll give you guys some time. I’ll let you know how things go with Ane-san.”

You nod, eyes following him as he leaves. The others follow, filing out of the room until it’s only you and Dazai left again. You turn to look at him, so many words on your lips but incapable of pushing a single one out. Instead, you reach out to cup his face between your hands, running your thumbs across his cheekbones. His lashes flutter shut as he leans into your touch.

“It doesn’t have to be like this,” he whispers, brown eyes heavy and glassy as he looks down at you. “We can figure something else out. I know we can. Just give me some time, I just need a little time, I’ll figure something out.”

“We don’t have time,” you say, voice cracking over the words. “I love you, Osamu.”

Dazai pulls away, shaking his head. He wipes quickly at his eyes before looking at you again. You expect what he says, but it doesn’t make it hurt any less.

“I won’t forgive you. Not for this. Not ever. I can’t.”

“I know.”

SIX WEEKS LATER

“I must say, I wasn’t expecting this invitation,” a familiar voice hums as the door to your box opens. You don’t turn to look at him, keeping your gaze trained down on the performance taking place below. “Not from you, and not after everything that’s happened.”

“No?” you ask absently. “It’s unlike you to not expect something, Dostoevsky. Less like you to admit it.”

“Fyodor,” he corrects as he comes to stand next to you. He’s close enough to you that you can feel his body brushing yours. You finally turn your head to look at him—his lips are curved up into a deceptively soft smile, violet eyes glittering with a type of mischief that you know is dangerous. “We are well enough acquainted to be on a first name basis, no?”

“Dostoevsky,” you repeat pointedly, looking back down at the show as the first act reaches its climax. Of all of the shows you’ve seen, Tosca is still your favorite. This rendition here at the New National Theatre isn’t quite as good as the one at La Scala, but you’re enjoying it well enough.

Dostoevsky lets out a huff of laughter, you don’t turn to look at him when you feel him reach out to touch you. His fingers trace along the maroon scarf hanging loosely over your shoulders. You barely withhold a shiver when you feel his knuckles skim your neck—rumor has it, skin-on-skin contact alone with Dostoevsky is enough to kill. You don’t die, but it’s enough to beckon your attention back to him.

“Red is your color,” he murmurs, looking down at you through his lashes. “You look beautiful.”

“It isn’t yours,” you reply quickly, glancing down at the red tie tied neatly around his neck. “Neither is flattery.”

Dostoevsky does laugh this time—it’s soft and short, pretty like a bell. Unbefitting of him, just like the color red and false flattery.

“It isn’t?” he asks, keeping his voice deceptively playful. “I wore it for you. Since you invited me, I thought it appropriate that we match. I heard of your success in Yokohama. I should congratulate you on your new promotion. Or perhaps extend my condolences for the death of your father? Are condolences still proper when you were the one to drive the knife into his back?”

It’s a dig, an attempt to get under your skin and throw you off before getting into the meat of the conversation. You can feel his eyes on you, the soft playfulness gone and replaced by a sharpness that has you on edge.

“You said it yourself. One life or thousands.”

“It was a bullet to the head,” you correct idly—the words taste like poison on your tongue, but you’re careful to not let it show on your face. “Condolences are unnecessary. He was not my father.”

“It’s okay, dear, this was how it was always meant to be.”

“Hm,” Dostoevsky hums, amused. “I was quite pleased when I found out about the coup. I wasn’t expecting it.”

He wants to add something else but he decides against it. He’s very calculating with his words, he always has been, but he is especially now. You know that each word he speaks is chosen for a specific purpose, and it’s hard, even for you, to break down each one as he speaks it to understand why he says it so you can choose your own words carefully in return. Fyodor Dostoevsky is the only man capable of consistently beating you in exchanges of words, and that is concerning.

It’s why you invited him here—you need an idea of what he’s planning while you solidify your newfound position.

“It seems you struggle to expect many things I do,” you note. “I should add it to my resume. I doubt many people are capable of repeatedly surprising Fyodor Dostoevsky.”

“It is true,” he agrees with an airy laugh. “You are a… difficult opponent. I will admit it.”

“Is that so?”

Dostoevsky makes a soft noise of agreement, lashes fluttering as he glances over at you once before he looks back down at the show taking place down on the stage.

“You are not guided strictly by logic,” he muses. “It's there, of course, you are very intelligent but it’s laced with so many emotions. It is difficult for me to determine your course of action because I can never predict when you will lead with emotion, and when with logic. And even then, there are grades to it. I could account for dozens of plans of action and miss the one you take because you are just a bit less emotional than I anticipated… I did not predict that you would go for Zelda Fitzgerald, it was quite bold—there was a high risk for failure. You make things… much more interesting. I enjoy it.”

“You would find something like that enjoyable,” you say sarcastically, taking a sip of your champagne. “There is something seriously wrong with you, Dostoevsky.”

“Fyodor,” he corrects again with a light smile.

“Dostoevsky.”

“Heh,” he laughs quietly. “I will… wait for things to settle before making another move here in Yokohama. I’m curious to see how all of the chips fall on their own. You’re in for quite the storm with that bill that just passed through the Diet, aren’t you?”

You don’t respond. You got the answer you needed, so there’s no reason for you to keep entertaining his snide comments; you’ll just watch the show in peace. You’ll have the bit of time you need to get things settled before Dostoevsky makes his next play. Though the man is a compulsive liar and you have no reason to trust him, Dostoevsky has never lied so blatantly to your face, so you’ll take him at his word until you have reason to believe otherwise.

Dostoevsky takes your silence as an opportunity to continue talking, naturally.

“I did have a question for though,” he says, a bit too thrilled by the prospect of your answer. You don’t like the way his eyes are lit up, and you especially don’t like the smile on his lips. “Entertain me?”

You raise your eyebrows pointedly, waiting for him to ask it.

“I heard rumors that the reason behind your sudden decision to overthrow your father was more… intimate than most believe,” Dostoevsky murmurs, leaning like he’s sharing in some schoolgirl gossip with an old friend. Your brows furrow as you process his words. “You must tell me what boy has managed to steal your heart. He must be something special. Not even I was capable of that, I’m almost jealous.”

You look at him now, gaze sharp but confused as your eyes trail over him before focusing back on his face. He seems surprised by your reaction, tilting his head to the side and studying you carefully.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

to be continued in ... the land is inhospitable (but are we?) [est. release: early feb]

WOWWWWWW GUYS WE FUCKING FINISHED CIVZAI .... or well, ;) civzai1. some notes:

i promised a happy ending, i know ... but i promised it for civzai in general, and they DO have a happy ending ... just not yet. pls dont bully me ill cry i'm so proud of this. i didn't lie.

i always intended on there being two parts to this series because i feel like time apart is essential in the pmreader universe. when dazai defected in canon universe, and now with her taking over as boss and wiping her memories of him. the first part was always gonna be the guild arc, the second arc is gonna be my rendition of the hunting dogs and the decay of the angel

this is the ONLY universe where pmreader becomes port mafia boss ;) i actually had it noted that there was only one universe on the background page in wykyk once i started writing wasteland, baby but no one caught it ;) i was wondering if anyone would put two and two together

i actually went back and retconned chapter 1 to have them talking about the divine comedy instead of petrarch because of the first scene in this chapter. i thought it would be neat coming full circle with the themes of betrayal and death, + the hozier song this chapter is based on is about the 9th circle in the divine comedy. so everything just tied together too neatly for me to not add it.

;) just remember now with repin involved, reader's narration is now entirely unreliable. we don't know what's truth and manufactured by repin.

i was actually really tempted to base civzai2 off of a mother mother album just because hayloft II fits what's going to be the first half of it SO fucking well, but i had to go with mitski because the whole album literally captures the vibes of the second series perfectly

#dazai x reader #dazai x you #dazai osamu x reader #dazai osamu x you #bsd x reader #bsd x you #bungo stray dogs x reader #bungo stray dogs x you

451 notes · View notes

natalievoncatte · 2 months ago

Text

“Okay,” Alex said, “listen, prepare yourself. She’s acting… strange.”

Lena strode next to her, clenching her fists as if she could grip her own cold fury with them. The audacity of Danvers

(Alex)

to call her in like she was some employee after what Kara had done to her, was shocking. She would have told her to fuck right off if not for the desperation in her voice. She almost hung up on her when Alex said it was about Kryptonite, and they needed an expert.

Outside the exam room, Alex directed Lena’s attention to a screen. Some two-bit “villain” (how she hated that word) was on the screen. She wasn’t sure what he was going for with his outfit but he looked like a cross between a cable repairman and a wannabe Ghostbusters with a helmet that reminded her of the cap on a salt shaker. He was thrusting a wand device at Kara, spraying her with a fine pink mist.

Some of the substance had been gathered into a small vial, currently residing in a lead canister. Lena turned the vial in her hands, watching the tiny, powdery crystals flow over each other like sand.

Lena swallowed, hard.

“She’s not on a rampage, so it’s not red kryptonite.”

“It appears to be pink kryptonite,” said Lena.

“Your scientific skills of observation astound me,” said Alex. “Marie Curie would be so proud.”

Lena gave her a flat look.

“Fuck you, Danvers. I haven’t had a chance to say this to your face yet, but fuck you. Fuck all of you, playing your little games mocking me to my face when we were supposed to be friends.”

“We were friends,” said Alex.

“Not friends enough for Kara to tell me the truth.”

“I told her not to,” Alex said, coldly, “and I was right. Maybe I kept at her too long about it, but she ended up keeping the secret because she was afraid you’d flip out and blow up your whole friendship over it, you fucking drama queen.”

Lena screwed the lead canister shut. It looks like it was meant to hold radioactive flour.

“Do you want my help or not?”

“Please save her. I’m prepared to deal with your sanctimonious bullshit if you save my sister.”

“I’ll need to work on the sample, but I should examine her first. Is it safe?”

“She would never hurt you.”

Lena rolled her eyes. Alex stared at her flatly.

“You two, Jesus Christ. If you were anyone else I’d just call it out, but fuck it, let’s keep this professional.”

Lena crossed her arms. “Call what out?”

Alex arched a brow. “Should I start with the office full of flowers or the literal billion dollars you spent on her?”

Lena’s nostrils flared and she felt red creeping up her cheeks. “That wasn’t about her, that was about keeping Edge from owning his own media empire. Murdoch is bad enough.”

“It’s a fashion industry magazine,” said Alex, “and Edge could just start his own. The difference is Kara worked at CatCo, where you started working instead of…”

“Do you want my help or not?”

Lena huffed. “Fine. Let’s go.”

Alex opened the door. Kara was seated sideways on the exam table, swinging her feet like a bored child. There was a faint pinkish tinge to sparking points on her pale skin and she looked up with a slight pink gloss to the whites of her eyes, visible at a distance.

“Heyyyyyyyyy~”, said Kara.

Lena blinked.

“Kara? How are you feeling?”

Kara stared at her hands. “Why are you here? I thought you hated me now.”

Lena felt a sharp sting of regret deep in her chest, but brushed it off, like crumbs from her sleeve. It was as meaningless as crumbs. Kara’s honeyed words were always to sweeten her lies.

Kara resumed staring at her hands. “Humans call them fingers, but I’ve never seen them fing. Oh,” she giggled, wriggling her fingers, “there they go.”

“Kara?” said Lena.

“Oh, hi, I didn’t see you come in,” said Kara. “Some dude sprayed me with glitter and now I’m all funny.”

Alex leaned over. “We only got her in her by convincing her the Backstreet Boys were waiting inside and she spent three hours singing those stupid songs with Nia before I called you.”

Lena licked her lips. “Ah, I see. Kara?”

“Yeah, babe?”

Lena flinched. Babe? What?

“How are you feeling?”

“I feel great,” said Kara. “Kinda… kinda relaxed but excited. I’m excitalaxed! I made up a new word!”

“Would you excuse us a minute?” said Lena.

“Sure,” said Kara.

Lena stepped out and closed the door after Alex joined her.

“Alex,” said Lena.

“Lena,” said Alex.

“She’s high,” said Lena.

“I know,” Alex sighed.

“That’s incredibly dangerous. If she was just a dumb blonde we could let her sleep it off, but she can bench press an aircraft carrier. What if she gets some inane idea in her head and levels half the city?”

“She isn’t going to hurt anyone.”

“Didn’t she throw Cat Grant off a building the last time she was under the influence of something? It was on TV, Alex.”

Alex scowled. “That was different. Also she had it coming.”

Lena’s brows shot up.

“What? She was a bitch to my sister. She made her cry like three times a week. I don’t buy into that hardass girlboss mentor routine, I never liked Kara working for her. It was a relief when you bought the company, I had hopes someone would finally be looking out for her. She’s fragile, Lena.”

Lena blinked. “What?”

“Yeah, turns out that having your planet explode and losing your entire culture, family, and way of life, then losing your foster father, and then having to kill your aunt who is your mother’s twin sister can do a number on you. Might make you a little bit clingy and weird and paranoid about losing everyone you love. Shit, Lena, out of that whole list I just lost my dad and it was not make me a drunk for six years and captain of the varsity slut team. And I’m gay.”

Lena stared at her.

“Why does everyone I know need therapy?”

Kara chose that moment to throw the door open, making them both jump. She was grinning ear to ear.

“I don’t need therapy, I need rum,” said Kara. She turned to Lena and stage whispered, “alien rum that I can get drunk on.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea, Kiddo. Why won’t we go sit down and try to rest.”

Kara snapped her fingers. “I know what we can do! We can go clubbing! Come on, Lena, let’s go clubbing. If I go clubbing with you it’ll make Lena jealous.”

“We are so fucked,” Alex muttered.

Kara started forward, but Lena stepped in her path and pressed a hand to her chest.

She froze, staring open-mouthed at Lena. Lena could feel the muscles flexing under her palm and fingers, the nearly infinite strength pressed against her simple touch and yet yielding to it.

“Kara,” she said, softly, but firmly. “Let’s just go back in the room, okay? You’re intoxicated by the altered Kryptonite you’ve been exposed to and you’re not thinking straight.”

Kara looked her up and down, slowly. Lena felt a hot tingle pass through her and her legs quivered in her slacks. Kara’s eyes had gone dark and her chin dipped slightly and holy shit she was staring directly at Lena’s mouth.

Alex looked at her nervously.

“Lena,” Alex said, in warning.

“She won’t hurt me,” said Lena.

Brainy walked into the lab. “I have good news,” he said. “The half-life of this particular type of Kryptonite is very short, by my calculations it should only last a few… hours…” he trailed off, then added quickly. “I have business elsewhere, excuse me,” and fled the room.

Lena gave Kara a tentative push and the invincible Kryptonian stumbled back. Lena ended up guiding her into the room again and sat her down.

Alex began to follow.

“It’s fine,” said Lena.

“Are you sure?”

“She won’t hurt me. Close the door.”

Kara sat down and stared between her feet, fiddling with her hands.

Lena waited for the door to close and sat down next to her.

“Are you mad at me?” Kara whispered.

“Yes,” Lena murmured. “I’m so angry at you that it makes me want to scream.”

“Oh,” Kara said, her voice small.

Lena sighed. “I’ll never be mad enough to let anything happen to you, Kara.”

“But you’re mad.”

“I’m mad. I let you in, you didn’t do the same for me. I let you see who I am, good and bad, and you held back from me.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I know.”

“But you’re still mad.”

“Yeah,” Lena sighed.

Kara rubbed at her arms, sniffling.

Great, Lena thought, she’s coming down.

“Everybody changes,” said Kara. “Everybody goes away and leaves me. I’m so scared, Lena. I’m so scared of being alone. I was alone forever and ever in my pod and it hurt so much,” she choked out a little sob. “Everyone goes away and I can’t take it. I can’t stand it. I didn’t want you to go away so I lied to make you stay. I’m sorry.”

Lena, haltingly, put an arm around her. Kara leaned her head on Lena’s shoulder.

“Can I make it so you’re not mad at me anymore?”

Curious, Lena thought.

She wasn’t mad at all right now.

Kara began to sob softly, and suddenly, all at once, being mad didn’t make so much sense after all. She still felt it burning in her chest but it had gone from hot coals to dying embers, from raging magma to something bitter and sticky coating her lungs, making it hard to breathe.

“I think you can do anything if you try hard enough.”

Lean smoothed back her hair and curled the sleeve of her designer jacket around her hand and used it to dry the tears, and Kara hugged her, tightly but gently in her insistent way.

“I’m sorry.”

“I know, darling. Just relax and breathe, I promise it’ll be better soon.”

It was a funny thing, when Kara kissed her. It happened so naturally, so easily, that once it began, Lena was hardly aware how it started. It was not a lustful kiss, though she could feel that was there in the hungry way that Kara’s lips tugged at her own, almost pleading. Nor was it sad. It was hopeful, and it made something flare in her chest.

No, more than that. A crushing blast of warm air snuffed the dying embers of fury in her chest and in their place a new bonfire blazed into being, a sudden explosive joyful warmth that would blaze in her forever until the sun went out and the sky went cold. It was as if Kara had given her some red sun fire.

On instinct she lunged into the embrace and suddenly they were on the table, Kara swinging one leg lazily off the side as Lena straddled and locked lips with her.

"Oh God," Lena blurted, yanking back.

"What's wrong, baby?"

Lena almost fell off onto the floor when Kara called her that. She was sitting on Kara, panting.

"We can't," said Lena. "Kara, please, you're high as a kite."

Kara let out a soft, sad sound. Lena brushed her cheek softly. "It's okay. Just let me lay with you."

Kara shifted so Lena could join her, and they lay facing each other.

"I love you," Kara whispered. "You are my red sun, my scarlet sky, my beacon calling me back from the void."

Lena's breath caught. She tucked in close and kissed Kara on her nose.

"I'm tired," said Kara.

"Go to sleep," Lena whispered. “It'll be okay. I'll still love you tomorrow."

With a contented smile, Kara closed her eyes, looking so peaceful that Lena wanted nothing more than to watch over her.

When Alex came in and laid a blanket over them, she had the most frustrating grin on her face.

Lena decided she'd allow it.

577 notes · View notes

appleblueberry-pie · 9 months ago

Text

YOU ARE EVERYTHING.

Where: You were Satoru's young caretaker when he was a child being raised by the clan. You became everything he ever wanted, and when he needed you most, you were taken away by the people that made him who he is. He takes it to heart and sought out for you when he becomes an independent adult. (7 year age gap)

With you, he was nothing. With you, he wasn't a weapon. A gun with its only purpose being to fire its trigger when it was pulled. With you, he wasn't a clan member, riches covering every inch of his floors and face. He wasn't the fear forced into those he faced, whether he liked it or not. He wasn't the balance of the planet he lived on. With you, he wasn't secretly scared. He wasn't silent. He wasn't silenced. He wasn't numb. He wasn't a thing. He wasn't an it. He was simply nothing. And being nothing with you made him become everything he could've ever hoped for.

He was a child, but he wasn't treated like one. And being his caretaker in such an....intimidating "home" made you sad for him. He was a blank canvas. He could've been rude to you. He could've spoken your ear off, threw things at you, berated you, cried, hid, smiled, anything. But he seemed so empty, alone, even though he was everything nature could've made him.

He was tired. You knew he was. A child shouldn't look at you the way he did when he first met you. So, in return, you gave him everything he deserved in hopes he'd realize that the way things are for him isn't how it is for everyone. And that he deserves a chance as well. At life, at living, loving, knowing and learning. So you cared.

I mean, it was your job to do it. It's in the name damnit. But that's not what they wanted you to do. You were just his baby sitter. Watch him for 5 hours a day, and they'll train him for 11 and then he sleeps for the rest. But with those 5 hours, you knew it could be more than just sitting around in his room or garden all day. So you attempted to incorporate some fun in every once and a while to try and get him to warm up to you.

You believe he was too used to people being there just to check on his well being; if he was living and breathing. So you gave some conversation crumbs. "Are you alright?", "Do you feel okay?" and the most difficult one, "How do you feel?" He would be a little taken aback by this last question(his face was still, but he would hesitate to answer). But he would answer, nonetheless. It felt like great progress knowing that he wouldn't flat-out ignore you. This was a great first step, in your opinion. And from there, you would continue talking to him.

Asking him how his day was during his lunch time. Offering to walk him around his place of living if he was bored of staying in his room. Asking if he wanted to wear something more comfortable if his traditional clothes bothered him too much. Making(one-sided) conversation while you cleaned his room. You would talk, but eventually, you would see him watching you talk as you cleaned.

About a few weeks later, he would finally warm up to talk back to you. Asking you questions about your little stories you'd tell him about your personal life. What would be provided during lunch that day, what he'd do once his break was over, asking how the weather would be. He'd also make requests that weren't the usual. Which includes the business his family would deal with that he's not usually provided with, if he could go with you while you did laundry across the hall, if he could stay with you during your break time, and....if you could help him with his assigned homework. He began to ask you to stick around while he did mundane tasks, and you realized how much of an impact you've made on his life just by being around and asking him to be present while you were there.

It took a month for him to become attached to you. You warned him multiple times that he shouldn't be so close to the women that are supposed to help around the house, and only help around the house. He didn't care and just wanted to stay by your side 24/7 when he realized how sweet affection could be, especially from someone as pretty and kind as you. You often snuck him little sweets from the kitchen, helped him read his favorite books, and you let him clean his room with you so that you two could spend more time together. You could tell he would always look forward to spending time with you and would nearly complain to his family when he had to go. Those 5 hours became less of a mindless bore and more of a mental exploration of what love and care truly is.

You were promoted to one of the head-maids in the house when his family realized how much easier it was to manage him when you were there to do it instead of the other women. He would comply so much more easier and obviously had a brighter look on his face when you came around to solve things that he was making hard for everyone else to deal with. Now, you were there when he woke up and went to sleep. You helped with his clothes and helped serve his lunch and his dinner. You made things easier for him to bare in the house. Which was your goal. You wanted him to be happy. And happy is what he finally was.

Days flew by with you there. Nights were softer and more beautiful when you were there towards the end of his day. Food tasted better, his training was easier to do and he felt something.

Something in his chest when you were around. It felt weird, but good at the same time. You often caught him rubbing his chest when you laughed at his sassy attitude and would see his ears turn pink. You'd tease him about him being shy and would pinch his cheek, which made his ears and neck turn red, which would make you laugh harder. It was nice having a friend for once, he would think.

But maybe he shouldn't have gave in to his desires. Maybe he should've pushed you away like he did when you first started interacting with him. Maybe he should've ignored his chest when it increased its beat when you came around. Because maybe then, his family wouldn't notice how much of an impact you've had on his life. Maybe they wouldn't separate you two since you guys loved being around each other so much. Maybe he should've ignored you when you told him with a sad face that you would only be around until tomorrow to pack your things.

If only he saw the way his own face dropped when those words slipped out of your mouth. The way his face when to horror, to sadness, to that stone cold look he's had for the longest time. You wanted to caress his face to soften the hard tension that resided in his forehead and cheeks. You wanted to hug him like he let you do when he wanted to cry so badly, but wanted to be a man. Well, a man is what they made him the moment they took away the one person that mattered to him.

When you left the clan house, you took his heart with him. But his devotion always stuck deep, deep in his stomach. And it wouldn't leave. He had never felt as angry as he did when you finally were escorted by car away from the home and his father had the nerve to tell him it was "for the best". He never clenched his fists so hard. Never wanted to wipe the tears off of his face so bad. But he didn't, in case you came back and wiped them off for him. Like you always did. But they dried on his face and remained until he washed his face in his bathroom alone. Too big for an 8 year old like him, but another person's presence would've been enough for him to ignore the empty, unneeded space.

And he remained that way. Alone. For years and years to come. And his yearning for you and your special care and love has been on the back of his mind as he continue to learn and grow, and he eventually became the weapon he was meant to be. He promised himself that he would never forget you. And he never forgot. He always remembered the warmth of your hands. The aura of your cursed energy, and how it felt when it lightly tickled his skin when he sat close to your side. How calm it made him feel. He never let himself forget, in hopes that he'd find you again one day. Little did he know that his efforts to remain in touch with the memories he had left wouldn't be done for nothing.

He couldn't believe his eyes. It was too dark. Too dark to see, but it was clear as day. That hair. That skin. That nostalgic scent and that energy. He ripped his blindfold off and felt his heart ache as it beats faster. "Whatthefuck." He muttered under his breath. It was cold and it certainly couldn't be comfortable like this. How long have you been here? Why were you here? Who did this to you? Was it really you? Was he dreaming?

He was informed of a missing sorcerer that hasn't been found in the past few weeks. Someone had hid you well with high security surrounding the area. No one could get in, so they obviously brought in their best weapon, him. He got through the "security" in a matter of seconds and reached you without so much as a blink of his eye. But you?? Why you? Is this what's been going on when he's been gone? You haven't gotten the strength to protect yourself so you go missing and let some nothings kidnap you and ruin your life?

He feels anger bubble in his stomach. Surprise and happiness surge his heart. The horror and confusion makes the rest of his emotions unbearable to handle. He doesn't know what to do or say. You're blindfolded, gagged, tied up and in thin clothing. From what he can see, they haven't done much but roughed you up and neglected you of things like food and water. Everything else seemed taken care of. Were they waiting for someone to bargain you back? The thought makes him grit his teeth and he'd rather not think about it. When he begins to undo your restrictions on your wrists and ankles, you let out noises of resistance and he tries to soothe you to tell you he's there to help you.

He removes your binds, your gag, and blindfold. You couldn't even hold yourself up, so he impatiently just teleports you back to his hotel room that was provided to him by the higher-ups for this mission. You immediately grow weak in the knees from the random moment of time-splitting transportation and drop to the floor, but he catches you. "I got you, I've got you. Let's get you on the bed, okay?" You're shaking in his arms and it takes everything in him to just not bombard you with questions and throwing past information on you to get you to remember him.

All you knew was that this random man that is intimidating the shit out of you with his cursed energy transported you to a hotel room after being tied up in a dark room all fucking week. A group of religious sorcerers out of nowhere asked you to join them one day when you were minding your own business at a flower shop. You declined and the leader stepped forward and dealt with you accordingly. You put up a great fight and his little family was going to step in, but you just couldn't get to him. So, he finished you first and kept you in a random dark room for 'safe keeping'.

But who was this? What was next after being kidnapped? Was he going to hurt you? Hurt you in ways the others hadn't? You hoped that for once in all of the time you had been held captive, that you'd finally catch a break and be given the necessities you needed to survive and be happy.

You blinked your eyes open, which was hard because the light from the ceiling-to-floor windows were nearly blinding you. The man had a tight grip on your arms and he continued to ask you questions about your well being that you couldn't understand at the moment. You scramble onto the bed and finally gain the sight and courage to look up at him. When your vision finally cleared, you were immediately flooded with memories of the past when you look into those familiar, tongue-numbing eyes.

You stared up at Satoru Gojo quietly for the first time in about 19 years.

.......That's right. It had been about 19 years since you last spoke. Years since you last gave up that life of following those dumb rules and took it upon yourself to teach yourself about the things they wouldn't tell you. To be better than they claimed you were. The byproduct of the people who nearly ruined your life was standing in front of you. No wonder you didn't like his energy. He had so much cursed energy oozing out of him that it made your muscles tense in a way it hadn't before. But that look in his eyes said something else entirely.

".....?" He wanted to say something to you badly, but you looked so scared. You averted your gaze before clenching your teeth. "Where...where am I?" You pathetically croaked out the words. You hadn't had a drink of water in so long. Satoru immediately rushed to the one on his night stand and opened it for you, giving it to you. You eyed the bottle, hand hesitantly reaching out. But you took it anyways, your drive for a drink overtaking your paranoia.

Most stress in your body faded when you drank the delicious mineral water and drained it in one go. Once you finished, you heaved a sigh in relief, the empty bottle hitting the ground. "You're in my hotel room. It wasn't safe where you once were. So, I just took you here."

You don't know if the man in front of you is still the boy you grew to love. But what you did know is that for the time being, you'd have to put your trust in him. You aren't healed, and you don't want any sorcerer government of any kind to know about your possible return. You'd have to ask him for help.

Satoru was more than happy to help you in any way he could. For so long, he was searching for you. His heart nearly broke into pieces when he kept searching, kept searching, and you just wouldn't be there. Not outside his door when he woke up. Not there when he would cry himself to sleep some nights with pounding headaches. And not there when he plainly lifted his head to the sky for forgiveness. He needed you. And here you are, needing him. And that look on your face was all he needed to know that this was his chance at redemption. To rebuild what once was broken. And to eventually gather warmth from being in your arms once again.

1K notes · View notes

aeralux · 2 months ago

Text

"Old Friend" - Aegon Targaryen

Summary: Out on the town on a summer evening, you run into your old friend. Old memories come crashing back, and you find yourself where you once were. In his arms. ModernAegon!au

Warnings: SMUT; slight breeding kink; Aegon is a sweetheart, actually?; oral (f! receiving); drinking and smoking; just intense sex (vulgar language is obviously used); they go for multiple rounds; Aegon is quite rough, but reader likes it; possible that I have some slight grammar mistakes

Words: 11.4k (they go for multiple rounds)

Notes: Aegon is the heir to the Targaryen family business empire. The reader is also from a powerful and rich house (old money ;D), but it isn't specified which one. No descriptive language of the reader is used.

-- aera xx

Aegon Targaryen, the heir of the Targaryen business empire, relaxes in the back of his sleek black Mercedes-Benz S-Class Coupe. The luxury interior features hand-stitched leather seats and shiny wood accents. Dressed in a tailored dark suit with a crisp white shirt, he exudes confidence. His silver-gold hair falls in loose waves around his shoulders as he leans against the rolled-down window, one arm on the doorframe. Holding a cigarette, he takes slow drags and exhales smoke into the warm evening air. At the same time, his captivating violet eyes scan the surroundings, reflecting a mix of interest and boredom.

Suddenly, Aegon's gaze is caught by a striking young woman strolling down the sidewalk. Instantly captivated, he sits up straighter and narrows his eyes to take her in. A slow, confident smile spreads across his face, highlighting his natural charm. "Hey there," he calls out, his voice smooth and inviting as he gestures to you without coming on too strong. His warm and rich tone reflects the charisma and allure he radiates effortlessly. "Yeah, you! Would you come over for a moment?"

Walking in the evening usually doesn't sound like a smart choice, but this was a good neighbourhood. Excellent even. And according to some, the best. So, walking around South Kensington in the evening hours didn't feel worrisome.

Until you heard a male voice call out to you. You flashed a look at the man. At least he wasn't a bum. He definitely had a nice car for your average cat-caller.

Usually, you wouldn't have considered him at all, but there was something familiar about him that caught your attention.Then it hit you. Aegon 'fucking' Targaryen. The young Targaryen heir. You shook your head as you looked at him, tongue poking in your cheek.

You knew Aegon and the Targaryen siblings since you were a babe. Your families did business together, and you often vacationed together during the summer. As a child, you had nothing against them, even including Aegon. They were all nice kids, and at one point, you were all really close friends. But as you all started to grow up, your encounters got less and less frequent, and you all drifted apart. The last time you talked to them was two and a half years ago at some boring gala.

In such an amount of time, a lot can change. Aegon had grown into a man, more or less, from what you could tell in the poor street lighting. You had become a woman, getting ready to start working full-time at your family's business, as was your older brother, who would eventually run the business.

"Aegon..." you started walking over to him, your heels making a sharp sound on the pavement. "Is that how you greet an old friend?" You couldn't stop the smirk from appearing on your face, teasing him.

Your sharp and teasing voice carries through the evening air, reaching Aegon's ears. He can't help but let out a low chuckle, the sound rich and amused. His dark eyes dance with mischief as he takes another drag from his cigarette, holding your gaze with a look that's both challenging and inviting.

"An old friend?" he says, his voice smooth and confident. "I don't recall ever being just friends." He pauses, letting the words sink in before continuing. "But I suppose time blurs the lines of memory and intent."

Aegon takes one last drag from his cigarette before flicking it out the window, the glowing ember arcing through the air before disappearing into the darkness. He leans forward, resting his forearms on the open window frame, his eyes never leaving your face.

"It's been a while, hasn't it?" he says, his tone almost conversational, but with an underlying current of something else,something more intense and raw. "You look well." His gaze travels over your form, taking in the sight of you in a way that's both appreciative and calculating. "No, more than well. You look... breathtaking."

He lets the compliment hang in the air between you, his smile widening just a fraction. "What brings you to this part of London? Surely not just a stroll through the city on a summer's eve."

There's a challenge in his voice, a subtle encouragement for you to reveal more. He's always been drawn to you, even as children, and seeing you now, all grown up and even more captivating than he remembered, has only stoked that fire within him.

"Or perhaps," he continues, his voice dropping to a low, conspiratorial tone, "you were hoping to run into someone like me? Someone who knows how to show a lady a good time?"

He lets the words linger, his eyes locked with yours, waiting to see how you'll respond. There's a glint of excitement in his gaze, a hint of the wild, chaotic energy that lies just beneath his carefully composed exterior.

You hummed at his words, memories of your carefree days in the Hamptons flashing through your mind. The warmth of the sun, the coolness of the water, and the heat of your secret kisses. How you snuck out to skinny dip and make out in the cool clear waters. How long has it been since then?

"Thank you," you said with a genuine smile, accepting his compliment. And I actually live here, have for quite a while now." You pointed towards your penthouse, looking down at him sitting in his car.

"I should be the one to ask you this question," you continued, your tone playful as you returned his challenge. "Seeing as you lived in Notting Hill the last time we saw each other."

Your playful tone and the way your eyes sparkle in the dim light catch Aegon off guard for a moment. A flicker of genuine surprise crosses his features before his usual confident mask slides back into place. He leans back slightly, one hand moving to loosen his tie as if the mere mention of Notting Hill has suddenly made the air too close.

"Ah, yes," he says, his voice cool and nonchalant. "Notting Hill. A lifetime ago, it seems." His eyes narrow slightly, a hint of defensiveness creeping into his expression. "Things change. We all move on, don't we?"

But despite his words, there's a tension in his body, a coiled energy that belies his casual tone. He runs a hand through his hair, the silver strands catching the light and shimmering like liquid metal.

"You're living here now, you say?" he asks, his curiosity getting the better of him.

He reaches into his pocket, pulling out a sleek silver lighter shaped like a dragon, the symbol of his family crest. With a practised flick of his thumb, he ignites the flame, bringing it to the end of a fresh cigarette. He inhales deeply, the smoke curling around his face before he exhales it in a slow, measured stream.

"Tell me," he says, his voice low, "has it been as lonely for you as it has for me?"

The question hangs in the air between you, charged with meaning and implication. Aegon watches your face, searching for any sign of recognition, any hint that you feel the same pull, the same longing that he does.

His eyes lock onto yours, searching, yearning for something. Maybe it's a connection to the past or perhaps something new. Whatever it is, he can't seem to look away, his gaze intense and hungry.

You look at him with a sort of melancholy smile, sighing as you glance away for a moment. "I might need a cigarette if you want an answer to that," you tease, a smirk slowly spreading across your face.

He's still seated in his sleek car while you stand there, looking down at him. Your heels are slowly starting to kill you, but your pride won't let you ask him to let you into his car. No, you won't give him the satisfaction of seeing you struggle.

Instead, you shift your weight to one side, hoping to relieve some of the pressure on your aching feet. The action causes your skirt to ride up ever so slightly, revealing a tantalizing glimpse of smooth, soft thigh. It's a move you know will catch his eye, a teasing reminder of what he's been missing out on.

A snort of laughter escapes Aegon's lips at your teasing comment, his eyes crinkling at the corners with genuine amusement. He takes another drag from his cigarette, blowing the smoke out slowly, his gaze never leaving your face.

"You never used to smoke," he remarks, his voice a low drawl. "I seem to remember you had a thing about the smell." His lips quirk into a small, knowing smile. "But then again, a lot has changed, hasn't it?"

His eyes follow the movement as you shift your weight, the subtle lift of your skirt catching his attention. He inhales sharply, his gaze lingering on the exposed flesh of your thigh for a moment too long before he forces himself to look away.

"Get in," he says suddenly, his voice taking on a commanding tone. "Your feet look like they're killing you, and we both know standing here isn't going to resolve anything."

He gestures to the passenger door of his sleek car, his expression unreadable. "Unless, of course, you'd prefer to continue this conversation on the sidewalk. I'm sure the neighbours would love the show."

There's a challenge in his voice, a subtle dare. He knows you won't ask him for help, knows that your pride won't allow it.But he also knows that your feet are hurting, that the concrete is unforgiving under the delicate soles of your heels.

The door unlocks with a soft click, the sound echoing in the quiet street. Aegon leans back in his seat, one arm draped casually over the steering wheel, waiting to see what you'll do.

His eyes never leave your face, watching for any sign of reluctance or hesitation. There's a tension in the air between you, a charged electricity that crackles like lightning on a summer's eve.

The ball, as they say, is in your court.

With a small sigh, you make your way around to the passenger side of the car, the soft leather seats beckoning you. You slide into the plush interior, the cool air conditioning kissing your heated skin.

Aegon holds out a cigarette, his long fingers brushing against yours as you take it from him. You bring it to your lips, waiting for him to light it, your eyes locking in the process.

"As you said," you murmur, repeating his words from moments ago. "Things change, we all move on."

The words hang in the air between you, heavy with meaning and unspoken history. A part of you wants to ask him what exactly he means by that, but another part, the part that's been hurt before, tells you to tread carefully.

You take a long drag from the cigarette, the nicotine hitting your bloodstream like a shot of liquid courage. "So," you say, turning to face him fully, "what have you been up to since we last saw each other? Still causing trouble for your father's company?"

You can't help but let a teasing smile play at the corners of your mouth. Aegon was always the outgoing one, the one who pushed boundaries and challenged the status quo. It's part of what drew you to him, even as a child and as a teenager.

Your eyes flicker down to his hands, noting how they rest on the steering wheel, strong and capable. You wonder, not for the first time, how those hands would feel on your skin, exploring, caressing, claiming...

But you push the thought away, focusing instead on the present moment. The car is cool, the engine purring softly, and beside you sits Aegon Targaryen, his dark eyes watching you with an intensity that makes your heart race.

A slow smile spreads across Aegon's face at your words, his eyes glinting with a mix of amusement and something deeper, something more intense. He takes another drag from his cigarette, blowing the smoke out slowly, letting it curl and twist in the air between you.

"Move on?" he says, his voice a low, velvety purr. "Oh, we both have moved on alright. But some things, some people, tend to linger in the mind, no matter how far you go or how much time passes."

He reaches out, his fingers brushing lightly against your cheek, tracing the line of your jaw with a feather-light touch. His eyes never leave yours, the intensity of his gaze almost palpable. His hand retracts quickly, the touch leaving almost an imprint on your soft cheek.

"As for causing trouble..." he trails off, his lips curving into a mischievous grin. "Let's just say I've found new ways to keep myself entertained."

He shifts slightly in his seat, his body turning towards you.

"But enough about me," he says, his voice dropping to a whisper, "I want to hear about you. Tell me about your life here in London. What do you do when you're not strutting around in those sinfully high heels?"

"Have you found someone yet, someone to share your bed and your life with?" he asks, his voice tight with a hint of jealousy. "Or are you still playing the field, breaking hearts left and right?"

He leans in closer, his breath hot against your ear as he whispers, "Or maybe you're just waiting for the right person to come along, someone who knows how to make you feel things you've never felt before."

You scoff and shake your head, a small smile playing on your lips as you take a drag from the cigarette. The smoke spirals out of the open window, dissipating into the cool evening air. "No, not yet. I guess I was too focused on university, and now, well..." You turn to look at Aegon, your eyes locking in the dim light of the car. Suddenly, the air between you feels thick, heavy with a tension you can't quite name.

"No one has caught my eye so far," you admit, your voice barely above a whisper. In the background, Chappell Roan's haunting melody fills the silence, and for a moment, you're transported back in time. You're that same sixteen-year-old girl, hopelessly in love with Aegon, dreaming of running away with him and leaving behind all the expectations and responsibilities.

But that was then, and this is now. You are not that naive little girl anymore, but as you sit there in the close confines of Aegon's car, you can't help but wonder what might have been. Would things have been different if you had followed your hearts all those years ago? Or were you simply too young, too unprepared for the kind of love you thought we had?

You close your eyes for a moment, letting the music wash over you, mingling with the scent of Aegon's cologne and the lingering traces of cigarette smoke. You take another drag, letting the smoke fill your lungs once more.

Aegon watches you closely, his eyes tracking every movement, every expression that flits across your face. The soft glow of the streetlights bathes the car's interior in a warm amber hue, casting shadows across his angular features. As you speak of no one having caught your eye, a flicker of something crosses his face—a mix of relief and disappointment that's gone as quickly as it appeared.

"Don't sell yourself short," he whispers, his breath hot against your ear. "You're a goddess among mortals. Anyone would be lucky to have you."

He pulls back slightly, his eyes meeting yours with an intensity that takes your breath away. "But I have to admit," he says, his voice low and husky, "a part of me hopes that no one has caught your eye. A selfish part of me that wants you all to myself, even if only for a moment."

"Like before, when we were young..." he says, his voice barely audible over the music.

The music swells in the background, the haunting melody intertwining with the pounding of your heart.

Your heart races as you listen to Aegon's confession, your mind spinning with a whirlwind of emotions. You search his eyes, looking for any hint of deception or insincerity, but all you find is raw, unfiltered honesty.

"We were young," you say softly, your voice barely above a whisper. "I'm not saying that I feel exactly like an adult right now either, but we were teenagers back then."

You take a drag from your cigarette, letting the smoke curl around your face as you contemplate his words.

Aegon nods slowly, his eyes never leaving yours. The soft glow of the streetlights casts a warm amber hue over his angular features, highlighting the strong lines of his jaw and the sharpness of his nose. The air in the car is thick with tension, the silence stretching between you like an endless void.

"You're right," he says, his voice low and smooth, like velvet over steel. "We were just kids back then, too young to know what we really wanted, too afraid to reach out and take it."

He takes a drag from his own cigarette, blowing the smoke out slowly, watching as it curls and twists in the air between you.

"But sometimes," he continues, his voice dropping to a whisper, "sometimes I can't help but wonder..."

The music swells in the background, the song intertwining with the pounding of your heart. You can feel the heat radiating off his body, the closeness of his presence almost overwhelming in the confined space of the car.

"Do you think about it?" he asks, his voice barely audible over the music. "Do you ever think about what could have been?"

You let out a breathy laugh, the sound a mix of nerves and amusement. "What I think right now," you say, flicking the ash from your cigarette out the open window, "is that I need a drink." You turn to Aegon, giving your best doe-eyed look. "Where can I put this out?" you ask, gesturing to the offending cigarette.

The air between you is thick with tension, the charged atmosphere of the car making your skin prickle with awareness. You know you should probably just put out the cigarette and make a polite exit, but something keeps you rooted in my seat.

The rational part of you knows that getting involved with Aegon could be a disaster, that your families' tangled histories could make any romantic entanglement full of complications. But the other part of you, the part that remembers the thrill of your secret kisses, whispers that perhaps this is a good idea after all.

You take a final drag from my cigarette, holding Aegon's gaze as you exhale the smoke slowly. The moment stretches between you, heavy with unspoken words and unacknowledged desires.

Aegon chuckles softly at your comment, his eyes sparkling with amusement in the dim light of the car. "A drink, huh?" he muses, his voice a low, velvety purr. "I suppose we could head to my place. I've got a fully stocked bar there, and we can continue this conversation in a more... comfortable setting."

"As for where you can put it out," he says, his voice dropping to a teasing whisper, "I think I can take care of that for you." He reaches out, taking the cigarette from your fingers, his fingers brushing against yours in a fleeting touch that sends a jolt of electricity through your body. He brings the cigarette to his lips, taking a deep drag before rolling down the window and flicking the cigarette out into the night.

He leans in closer, his breath hot against your ear as he whispers, "Let me take care of everything."

With that, he starts the car, the engine roaring to life with a loud purr. He pulls away from the curb, the city lights blurring past the windows as he navigates the streets with practised ease.

The air between you is thick with tension, the charged atmosphere of the car making your skin prickle with awareness. You can feel the heat radiating off his body, the closeness of his presence almost overwhelming in the confined space.

As you drive, the music fades into the background, replaced by your own heartbeat pounding in your ears. You can't help but steal glances at Aegon as he drives, admiring the strong lines of his profile, and the way his silver hair gleams in the moonlight.

Suddenly, he reaches out, his hand finding yours on the centre console. His fingers lace with yours, squeezing as he guides your connected hand to rest on your bare thigh. The touch is electrifying, sending a shiver down your spine.

The car speeds through the night, carrying you closer and closer to Aegon's penthouse, and whatever awaits you there. The anticipation builds in your stomach, a heady mix of nerves and excitement.

Goosebumps prickle across your skin as Aegon's touch sears into your thigh, his fingers grazing your sensitive flesh through the thin fabric of your skirt. Your breath catches in your throat, and you pray he doesn't notice how his proximity affects you.

"Have you got wine?" You manage to ask, your usually confident voice wavering slightly. Get it together. You chastise yourself silently. Don't revert to that lovestruck teenager now.

Aegon's eyes flick to you, a knowing smirk playing at the corners of his lips as he catches the slight tremor in your voice. He gives your hand a reassuring squeeze, his thumb tracing lazy circles on your skin.

"Of course," he purrs, his voice low and smooth. "I've got a lovely bottle of Bordeaux."

He guides the car into an underground parking garage, the concrete walls closing in around you like a cocoon. As the carcomes to a stop, he turns to you, his dark eyes intense in the dim light.

His breath is hot against your skin, sending shivers down your spine. You can smell the heady mix of his cologne and cigarettes, the scent intoxicating in its proximity.

Slowly, he releases your hand, reaching for the door handle with a fluid grace. He steps out of the car, his tall frame filling the space as he rounds to your side. He opens your door for you, offering his hand to help you out.

"Shall we, m'lady?" he says, his voice a mixture of charm and challenge.

You take his hand, the warmth of his skin seeping into your own as you step out of the car. The cool air of the garage hits you, a stark contrast to the heated atmosphere of the vehicle.

He leads you through the maze of the garage, his footsteps echoing off the concrete walls. As you walk, you can't help but steal glances at him, admiring the way his suit clings to his athletic build, and the way his hair falls in tousled waves over his forehead.

Suddenly, you find yourself in front of an elevator, the doors sliding open silently. Aegon gestures for you to enter, his eyes never leaving yours. As you step inside, he follows, his body pressing against yours as he reaches past you to press the button for his floor.

Your heart races as Aegon presses flush against you in the confines of the elevator, his body warm and solid against yours. You catch your bottom lip between your teeth, your gaze transfixed his fingers as he presses the button for his floor. A sudden flush of heat pools between your thighs, your body acutely aware of his closeness.

"How long have you lived here?" You ask, desperation colouring your attempt at casual conversation. Focus. Stop thinking about how much you want him. "I think I have a friend who lives here, Jace. Do you know him?"

You hold my breath, praying the change in the subject matter will calm the frantic pulsing of your heart. The last thing you need is for him to realize how easily he can still unravel you with a brush of his skin against yours.

Aegon's eyes darken with something unreadable as you mention Jace, a flicker of irritation crossing his handsome features before it's quickly masked. He straightens, putting a bit of distance between your bodies, though the small space of the elevator does little to ease the electric tension crackling in the air.

"Jace, yes, I know him," Aegon says curtly, his gaze sliding away from yours to stare at the slowly climbing numbers above the elevator doors. "Can't say I know him personally, but this place is full of young, wealthy types. Probably knows more people than I do."

His hand rests on the small of your back, the heat of his palm searing through the thin fabric of your dress.

The elevator dings, signalling your arrival at Aegon's floor. The doors slide open, revealing a sprawling penthouse suite that takes your breath away. The walls are lined with floor-to-ceiling windows, offering a stunning view of the city skyline. The space is sleek and modern, with clean lines and minimalist decor.

Aegon's hand remains on your back as he guides you out of the elevator, his touch lingering a moment longer than necessary. "Make yourself at home," he says, his voice a low purr. "I'll go grab that wine."

He saunters towards a sleek, modern kitchen, leaving you alone in the living room. You wander over to the windows, your fingers trailing along the cool glass as you take in the view. The city spreads out before you like a glittering jewel, the lights twinkling like stars in the night sky.

Suddenly, you hear the sound of a cork popping, followed by the gentle clink of glasses. You turn to see Aegon standing in the doorway, two glasses of wine in his hand. He removed his suit jacket, and his shirt sleeves were rolled up to reveal forearms corded with muscle.

He hands you a glass, his fingers brushing against yours once more as he does. "To old times," he says, raising his glass in a toast. "And to new beginnings."

As you clink glasses, you can't help but watch the play of the city lights across his handsome face, the way his eyes sparkle.

"Cheers," you take a deep breath, savouring the rich flavours of the wine as they coat your tongue. "Mmm, this is delicious," you murmur, your eyes sparkling with genuine appreciation. "You really do have good taste. Even though I hate to admit it."

A soft giggle escapes your lips as you take another sip, the cool liquid a welcome relief against the heat building within you. You can feel Aegon's eyes on you, his gaze intense and all-consuming. It sends a shiver down your spine, a delicious thrill that settles low in your belly.

"How about you?" he asks, his voice low and smooth. "How long have you been in the city? I seem to remember you mentioning university earlier."

You meet his gaze, your own eyes wide and honest. "Yeah, I just finished my Bachelor's in Oxford, so now I'm back in London," you say in a low voice. "It's good to be back in the big city, but Oxford will always have a big piece of my heart."

Your eyes can't help but wander over his toned physique, the fabric of his shirt straining against his well-defined muscles. You bite your lip, suddenly feeling flustered under his scrutiny.

Aegon's eyes rake over your form, a predatory gleam shining in their depths. He steps towards you, his movements slow and deliberate, like a big cat stalking its prey. The air between you crackles with tension, the charge palpable.

"Oxford, huh?" he murmurs, his voice low and husky. "I bet you were quite the hit there. A gorgeous girl like you, all on her own..."

He takes another step, closing the distance between you. His presence envelops you, his scent filling your nostrils. It's a heady mixture of expensive cologne and something unique that makes your heart race and your skin shiver.

His hand reaches out, his fingers ghosting along your jawline. Your breath catches in your throat, your pulse pounding in your ears. He tilts your chin up, forcing you to meet his gaze.

"You know," he whispers, his lips a hairsbreadth from yours, "I always regretted letting you go. Letting you walk away from me."

His hand trails down to your waist, his grip firm as he holds you against him. You can feel the heat of his body through the thin fabric of your dress, the hard planes of his chest pressed against your soft curves.

"Not tonight," he breathes, his lips brushing against yours in a feather-light kiss. "Tonight, I'm not letting you get away. Not until I've had my fill."

His mouth claims yours in a searing kiss, his tongue delving past your lips to tangle with your own. He tastes like wine and desire, the flavour intoxicating. You moan into the kiss, your free hand fisting in his shirt as you pull him closer.

He breaks the kiss, leaving you panting and desperate. A smirk plays at the corners of his lips, his eyes dark with hunger.

You smirk in return, shivers going down your spine as you feel the cool glass pressed against your back. You carefully hold your wine glass and take another sip, the cold liquid helping you cool your body.

"So you've always regretted it, huh?" You hum, your eyes looking him up and down in a worked-up state. The hunger in his eyes sends a thrill through you, your heart pounding.

You arch an eyebrow, your voice low and teasing. "Too bad for you then, isn't it? Because I'm not the same naive girl I was back then."

He sets his wine glass down on a nearby table, his movements slow and deliberate.

A smile plays at Aegon's lips, equal parts charming and dangerous. He takes a step closer, his body pressing against yours, pinning you to the window. The cold glass against your back contrasts deliciously with the heat of his skin.

"Oh, I know you're not the same girl," he murmurs, his lips brushing against your ear. "That's what makes this so damn exciting."

His hand slides up your side, his fingertips trailing fire in their wake. He cups your breast, squeezing gently, his thumb brushing over your hardened nipple through the thin fabric of your dress.

"I want to explore every inch of this new you," he growls, his hot breath fanning over your neck. "I want to taste you, touch you, make you scream my name until you forget about any other man who's ever touched you."

His other hand tangles in your hair, tugging your head back to expose the column of your throat. He nips at your pulse point, his teeth grazing your skin.

"Tell me you want this," he demands, his voice rough with need. "Tell me you need me as much as I need you."

His hips press against yours, the evidence of his arousal pressing insistently against your core. You gasp at the contact, your head falling back against the window. The wine glass slips from your fingers, shattering on the hardwood floor below. The sound seems to spur him on, his kisses becoming more desperate, more urgent.

You yelp in surprise as Aegon rips your dress open, exposing your breasts to the cool night air. Your nipples immediately harden, pebbling under his intense gaze. The sound of shattering glass below only heightens your senses, the wine pooling around your bare feet.

He tears at your dress, the fabric ripping under his hands as he exposes your breasts to the cool air. He takes one in his mouth, his tongue swirling around your nipple as his hand palms your other breast.

"Fuck," he groans, the sound muffled against your skin. "You feel even better than I remembered."

His hand trails down your stomach, slipping beneath the hem of your skirt. He cups your sex, his fingers pressing against your clothed slit.

"Fuck," you mewl, arching your back as he sucks on your sensitive nipples. Pleasure shoots straight to your core, making your toes curl against the hardwood floor. Your hands, now free from holding your glass, tangled in his hair, pulling him closer, urging him on.

Desperation consumes you, your body aching for more of his touch. You grind against him, the evidence of your arousal soaking through your thin panties.

Aegon groans against your breast, the sound primal and needy. His fingers dip beneath your panties, stroking through your slick folds. "Fuck, you're so wet for me already," he growls, his fingers circling your clit. "I've barely touched you, and you're ready to come undone."

He sinks to his knees, his hands gripping your thighs as he pushes your skirt up around your waist. His hot breath fans over your exposed sex, making you shiver with anticipation. "I'm going to taste every inch of you," he promises, his voice low and husky.

His tongue laps at your slit, the first brush of his mouth against your sensitive flesh drawing a sharp gasp from your lungs. He explores you with a thoroughness that borders on reverence, his tongue delving deep, tasting your essence.

"Gods, you taste divine," he moans, his words vibrating against your most intimate parts. "I could spend hours worshipping this pussy."

His hands grip your hips, holding you steady as he feasts on you. He licks and sucks and nibbles until you're a writhing, desperate mess, your fingers tangled in his hair as you grind against his face.

"Gods," you whimper, your thighs trembling with the effort to hold yourself up. "You're doing so good," you praise him in a breathy tone, trembling.

Your head thrashes against the window, the cool glass a sharp contrast to the heat of his mouth.

He chuckles darkly, the sound sending shivers down your spine. He teases you, his tongue flicking over your clit.

"Mmh, yeah?" You continue, letting out a pornographic moan as you grind your hips, dragging your wet heat against Aegon's eager tongue. You're thankful no one can see you through these floor-to-ceiling windows, high up in the sky as you are. The wet sounds of his licking fill the room, mingling with your pleasure-filled cries. "You're so good," you whimper, your fingers tangling in his hair, pulling him closer. You're lost in the sensations, your mind hazing over with lust. You never want this moment to end.

Aegon growls against your sex, the vibrations sending shockwaves of pleasure through your core. He doubles his efforts, his tongue delving deeper, exploring every fold and crevice.

"You taste even sweeter than I remembered," he murmurs, his voice rough with desire. "I could feast on this pretty pussy for hours."

He teases your entrance with the tip of his tongue before plunging inside, fucking you with deep, deliberate strokes. Your walls clench around him, desperate for more friction.

"That's it, baby," he coaxes, his voice muffled against your flesh. "Let go for me. Come on my tongue."

His fingers join in, two digits pumping in and out of your dripping channel. The dual stimulation is almost too much, pushing you to the brink of ecstasy.

Aegon moans against your heated flesh, the sound muffled but no less affecting. He laps at your slit like a man starved, his tongue delving deep, stroking along your inner walls. His nose nudges your clit, the sensation making you see stars.

Your thighs begin to shake, your body tensing as your climax approaches. "Fuck, fuck, fuck," you chant, your voice rising in pitch. "Don't stop, don't stop, I'm gonna... I'm gonna...!"

Aegon redoubles his efforts, sucking hard on your clit as he curls his fingers inside you, hitting that perfect spot. Your orgasm crashes over you like a wave, your vision whiting out as pleasure consumes you.

You come hard against his mouth, your juices flooding his tongue and chin. He laps it up greedily, prolonging your pleasure until you're boneless and spent against the window.

He releases your thighs, letting you slide down the window to the floor.

You whimper as your body slumps against the floor, your thighs spread wide, juices trickling down your trembling legs. Chest heaving, you struggle to catch your breath, the cold wood a sharp contrast to the heat still simmering under your skin. You can feel Aegon's heated gaze on your exposed body, his dark eyes roaming over your flushed flesh.

You lift your head, meeting his intense stare. Your lips curve into a sultry smile, even as your heart races. "I'd almost forgotten just how good you were with your tongue." You purr, your voice husky with satisfaction.

You spread your legs wider, giving him an unobstructed view of your glistening sex.

Aegon's eyes darken with lust as he takes in the sight of your splayed form. His gaze is hungry, raking over every inch of your exposed flesh like he wants to devour you whole.

"Oh, I'm just getting started, baby," he promises, his voice low and rough. "That was just the appetizer."

He stands, towering over you. His pants tent obscenely, the outline of his thick cock clearly visible. Your eyes widen as you take in the sheer size of him.

"Like what you see?" he asks, a smirk on his lips. He palms himself through his pants.

"Bedroom. Now," he commands, voice rough with need.

He scoops you up into his arms, carrying you towards the bedroom. You wrap your legs around his waist, your dress hanging off your shoulders, your breasts bared to the cool air.

"I'm going to fuck you so hard, you'll forget your own name," he promises, his hand reaching for his belt. "I'm going to claim this sweet cunt, make it mine."

Your heart races at his words, your body already eager for more. Anticipation coils tight in your belly, your pussy clenching around nothing, aching to be filled.

You gasp as Aegon kicks open the bedroom door, throwing you onto the plush mattress. Your heart races, your pulse pounding in your ears as he looms over you, his eyes dark with hunger. His shirt is rumpled, his hair a tousled mess from my eager hands.

You prop yourself up on your elbows, your breasts heaving with each ragged breath. Anticipation courses through your veins, your thighs rubbing together in a desperate bid for friction.

Your eyes lock onto his tall, muscular form as he stalks towards the bed, each step deliberate and full of promise. "Gods," you whimper, your pussy clenching in anticipation. "Please, Aegon... I need you."

Your plea falls on eager ears. Aegon practically rips his shirt off over his head, his lean muscles flexing with the movement. His pants quickly follow, joining the growing pile of discarded clothing on the floor.

He stands before you, gloriously naked. His cock juts proudly from his body, thick and hard and ready. The bulbous head is already glistening with precum, pulsing with each heartbeat. He strokes himself slowly, his thumb swirling around the head, smearing the bead of precum that's gathered there.

"Fuck," you breathe, your tongue darting out to wet your suddenly dry lips. "You're huge."

Aegon smirks, clearly pleased by your reaction. He crawls onto the bed, his large frame blanketing your smaller one. You can feel the heat of his skin, the hard planes of his muscles pressing against you deliciously.

He captures your mouth in a searing kiss, his tongue plundering the warm cavern of your mouth. His hands roam your body, tweaking your nipples, stroking your sides, gripping your hips. He sets your nerve endings alight everywhere he touches.

"Fuck, you're so damn perfect," he growls, his voice rough with need. "I can't wait to be inside you again."

He notches the head of his cock against your entrance, teasing you with shallow thrusts. You whimper at the contact, your hips bucking up to meet him.

"Please," you beg, your hips rocking shamelessly against his thick shaft. "I need you inside me. Now."

Aegon obliges, notching the thick head of his cock at your entrance. He teases you, rubbing your clit with the tip of his cock, making you delirious with need. He notches the head of his cock against your entrance, teasing you with shallow thrusts. You whimper at the contact, your hips bucking up to meet him.

He pushes forward, the thick head of his cock popping past your entrance. You moan at the stretch, your pussy struggling to accommodate his girth. It's intense, bordering on uncomfortable, but the ache is quickly swallowed up by pleasure.

He sinks deeper, inch by inch until he's fully sheathed inside you. You feel impossibly full, stuffed to the brim with his hard cock. Your inner walls flutter around him, trying to adjust to the intrusion.

"Gods," you gasp, your nails digging into his shoulders. "You're so deep in me."

Aegon grins down at you, looking immensely pleased with himself. He rolls his hips, grinding against your cervix. Sparks of pleasure shoot up your spine, making your toes curl against the sheets.

"Gods," he groans, his voice strained with pleasure. "You feel like heaven around my cock."

He sets a brutal pace, pounding into you with abandon. The bed creaks beneath you, the headboard slamming against the wall with each powerful thrust.

Screams of pleasure keep falling from your lips, your eyes rolled back and your back arching. You've never felt so stretched out and filled before. The pleasure clouds your mind as you mumble incoherent pleas and praises.

"Oh gods, Aegon, yes! Fuck, you're so deep! Harder, please!"

Your nails scratch his back, leaving red marks as evidence of your passionate encounter.

"Ungh, you're fucking wrecking me," you whimper, your pussy clenching around his pistoning cock.

Your thighs quiver, your toes curling as you lose yourself to the relentless pleasure. At that moment you knew, you weren't going to be able to walk tomorrow.

Aegon pounds into you relentlessly, the bed creaking beneath your joined bodies. His cock hits your cervix with each powerful thrust, sending lightning bolts of pleasure shooting up your spine.

"Fuck, you're so tight," he grunts, his fingers digging into the flesh of your hips.

"Gods," you moan, your back arching off the bed. "Don't stop, please don't stop."

Aegon complies, fucking into you with renewed vigour. The obscene sound of skin slapping against skin fills the room, mingling with your cries of pleasure.

"Fuck, you take my cock so well," he praises, his voice strained with pleasure. "I'm going to ruin you for anyone else."

Sweat beads on his brow, his muscles rippling with exertion. He leans down, capturing one of your bouncing nipples in his mouth. He suckles hard, his teeth grazing the sensitive bud, sending sparks of pleasure-pain shooting straight to your core.

Aegon's thick cock stretches you so deliciously, filling you in ways you've never experienced before. Tears gather in the corners of your eyes, spilling down your cheeks as pleasure overwhelms you.

"Aegon, oh fuck!" You whimper, your voice is high and needy. "You feel so good, so deep inside me."

Your words tumble out in a desperate stream, barely coherent. Your mind is foggy, consumed by the relentless pleasure of his cock pounding into your wet heat.

You cling to him, your nails scoring red lines down his back as you hold on for dear life. "Harder," you beg, your voice strained. "Ruin me for any other man."

Aegon obliges with a smirk, fucking into you with a ferocity that steals your breath. The bed creaks in protest, the headboard slamming against the wall with each punishing thrust. But you don't care, lost in the haze of pleasure, your body a willing vessel for his desire.

Your legs wrap around his waist, ankles locking behind his back, urging him deeper. You can feel every thick inch of him stretching you, filling you, owning you. It's intense and overwhelming, but you never want it to stop.

"Yes, yes, yes," you chant, your head thrashing against the pillows. "Don't stop, please Aegon, don't ever stop fucking me like this." Your pussy clenches around him, greedy for more, desperate to milk his cock.

Your body writhes beneath Aegon's as he continues his relentless assault on your senses. His thick cock stretches you, fills you, reaches depths you didn't know existed.

"Gods, you're so fucking tight," he groans, his fingers digging into your hips. "I'm going to ruin this sweet cunt."

You're beyond words, lost to the sensation of him moving inside you. Each thrust sends shockwaves of pleasure through your body, your toes curling.

"Ungh, so big," you mewl, your nails raking down his back.

Aegon smiles wickedly down at you, his eyes glazed with lust. He leans down, capturing your lips in a bruising kiss. His tongue plunders your mouth, mimicking the motions of his cock in your pussy.

He breaks the kiss, trailing his lips down your jaw, your neck. He sucks hard at your pulse point, leaving a dark bruise in his wake. His teeth graze your skin, adding a delicious sting to the pleasure.

Aegon continues to pound into you, relentless in his pursuit of your pleasure. His cock is like a battering ram, each thrust driving you further into the mattress. The wet, obscene sound of flesh slapping against flesh fills the room, a lewd background noise to accompany your loud moans.

"That's it, take it," he growls, his hips snapping against yours. "Take my fucking cock."

His hands roam your body, squeezing, kneading, leaving red marks on your skin. He pinches your nipples, rolling them between his fingers, sending sparks of pleasure straight to your core."Fuck, you're so responsive," he praises, his voice rough with desire. "Love how you moan for me, how you beg for my cock."

"Gods, I could fuck this pussy forever," he groans, his hips never ceasing their relentless motion. "So tight, so wet, so fucking perfect."

His words wash over you, stoking the fire burning in your belly. Your pussy clenches around him, trying to draw him deeper, desperate for more of him.

Your eyes must be permanently rolled into the back of your head, absolutely lost in the waves of pleasure crashing over you. No coherent words escape your lips, only loud screams of ecstasy and desperate whimpers.

Aegon's thick cock stretches you and fills you utterly as he pounds into you with abandon. Your pussy clenches around him like a vice, making it impossibly difficult for him to move. But he doesn't stop, grinding his pelvis against your clit with each relentless thrust.

The familiar heat builds in your core, the telltale tension coiling tighter and tighter in your belly. You bring two fingers to your mouth, sucking them hard, drenching them in your saliva. You imagine it's his fat cock between your lips, the taste of him on your tongue.

Pulling your fingers from your mouth, you reach between your legs, finding my swollen clit. You rub the sensitive nub in fast, tight circles, your legs already starting to tremble.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck!" You cry out, your back arching off the bed. "I'm so close, I'm gonna cum!"

Your fingers work furiously at your clit as Aegon continues pounding into you from above. His cock is relentless, each powerful thrust sending shockwaves of pleasure through your entire body.

"That's it, touch yourself," he encourages you, his voice rough with lust. "Make yourself cum on my cock."

You're so close, teetering on the edge of oblivion. Your thighs begin to tremble as your climax builds, your pussy clenching tightly around Aegon's thick shaft.

"I'm gonna..." you barely manage to gasp out, your words dissolving into a high-pitched keen as your orgasm crashes over you like a tidal wave. Your entire body seizes up, back arching off the bed as wave after wave of pleasure pulses through you.

"Fuck!" you wail, your voice echoing off the walls. Your pussy spasms almost violently around Aegon's cock, desperately milking him. You're lost to the sensation, drowning in pleasure.

Aegon fucks you through it, not letting up for a second. His own climax builds rapidly, his hips snapping against yours with bruising force.

"Fuck, gonna cum," he growls, his voice strained.

"Gods, you're squeezing me so fucking tight," he groans, his rhythm starting to stutter. "Gonna fill this pussy up with my cum. Breed this tight cunt, make you mine."

His dirty words send another shock of pleasure through you, your pussy clamping down hard on his cock.

"Please," you beg, your voice ragged. "Cum in me, Aegon. Fill me up, make me yours."

With a guttural groan, Aegon buries himself to the hilt, his cock throbbing as he empties himself inside you. You feel the hot splash of his cum painting your inner walls, marking you as his.

Aegon rolls off of you, his cock slipping out of your sore, abused pussy. You whimper at the loss, feeling empty without him inside you.

Your body is covered in a fine sheen of sweat, your hair a wild tangle around your face. Your cunt throbs, sensitive and abused from the intense fucking.

Aegon pulls you into his arms, nuzzling your neck. "You're mine," he murmurs, his voice low and possessive. "My little dove."

You snuggle into his embrace, trying to catch your breath. Your thighs already ache from the rough treatment, a delicious soreness that you know will linger for days.

As you shift slightly, you feel Aegon's hot seed dripping out of you, staining the white sheets below. Without thinking, you reach down, scooping up some of the mixture of your releases. You bring your fingers to your mouth, licking them clean.

Aegon watches with hooded eyes as you lick your fingers clean, savouring the taste of his release mixed with yours. His cock already twitching back to life at the erotic sight. He chuckles lowly, the sound sending shivers down your spine.

"Fuck, that's hot," he murmurs, his hand coming up to cup your cheek. He tilts your face towards him, claiming your mouth in a filthy kiss.

Aegon rolls, flipping you onto his chest. Your legs straddling his hips, your slick folds against his semi-hard cock. Even spent, he's massive, the thick length pressing insistently against your sensitive flesh.

"I'm nowhere near done with you," he promises darkly, his hands roaming your back, your sides, your ass. He squeezes the globes, his fingers digging into the flesh.

"Gonna mark up this sweet body," he vows, his voice a low rumble. "Leave hickeys on these pretty tits, bite marks on this tight pussy, bruises on these lush thighs."

He punctuates each word with a squeeze, a grope, a pinch. His touch is possessive, and greedy, like he can't get enough of you. Like he wants to stake his claim, show the world that you belong to him.

"Everyone will know you're mine," he growls, his grip tightening. "My pretty little plaything. Mine."

The filthy words make you clench, your abused cunt throbbing with need.

You grind your aching, messy cunt along Aegon's thick shaft, shivering from the overstimulation. You tease him, dragging your slick folds along his length without letting him slip inside.

"Mmm, yeah?" You moan, your voice breathy with desire. "You don't want anyone else to fuck this sweet pussy anymore, huh? Want me all to yourself?"

You lean down, your lips brushing his ear. "Well, if that's the case, then you're also mine. No other woman is ever going to even come close to making you feel the way I do."

You punctuate your words with a slow grind, your slick folds gliding along his hardness. "And if they even dare come near you," you purr, your finger trailing along his sharp jawline, "well, I have the money and the power to make that tramp disappear."

You smirk down at him, your eyes glinting with mischief and dark promise. "You're mine, Aegon."

Aegon's eyes darken with lust at your words, a predatory grin spreading across his face. He reaches up, fisting a hand in your hair and yanking your head back. His other hand lands a sharp smack on your ass, the sting radiating through your sensitive flesh.

"Fuck," he growls, his hips bucking up, trying to bury himself inside you. "Love it when you talk like that." The notion of you ridding him of any competition, of you fighting for him, for your claim on him... it's almost too much. His cock twitches, leaking precum, smearing your folds with the slick fluid.

"I'll burn this world down to keep you," Aegon vows, his eyes blazing with intensity. "Tear apart anyone who tries to come between us."

"Good," you purr, your voice dripping with satisfaction. "Because I don't share what's mine."

Your words are punctuated by another slow grind, your slick folds gliding along his hardness. He shudders beneath you, his hands tightening on your hips.

"Fuck, the things you do to me," he groans, his hips bucking up to meet yours. "You're going to ruin me for anyone else."

He yanks you down, crushing your lips in a bruising kiss. His tongue delves into your mouth, claiming, conquering. He bites at your lower lip, soothing the sting with his tongue.

"I'll fuck this sweet cunt raw. Ruin you for anyone else."

Another sharp smack to your ass, his fingers digging into the tender flesh. He's marking you, claiming you, staking his possession over you.

"No one else will ever make you feel as good as I do," he promises, his hips rolling, grinding his hard cock against your slick folds. "No one else will ever satisfy you like I can."

He buries his face between your breasts. He licks and sucks at the soft skin, leaving dark hickeys blooming on your flesh. He bites down on one pert nipple, soothing the sting with his tongue.

"Mine," he growls against your breast, punctuating the word with a sharp nip. "This body, this pussy, these tits, all fucking mine. Gonna fuck this pussy raw, make it remember the shape of my cock. You won't be able to sit for a week after I'm done with you."

His hands roam over your curves, squeezing, kneading, leaving red marks on your skin. He's possessive, insatiable like he can't get enough of you.

"Gonna fuck you in every room of this house," he vows, his voice rough with desire. "Gonna claim you in front of everyone, show the world who you belong to."

You couldn't take it anymore, your aching cunt clenching around nothing, your juices leaking down his thick cock and onto his thighs. You needed him inside you, stretching you, filling you. Guiding your hips, you sank down onto his thick cock, taking him to the hilt in one smooth motion. A guttural moan tore from your throat, your eyes rolling back at the sensation of being so full. As soon as you felt his thickness back inside you, your mind went blank.

Aegon groans as you sink down onto his cock, your tight heat engulfing him. His hands fly to your hips, gripping tightly, guiding you as you ride him.

"Fuck, so good," he pants, his head falling back onto the pillow. "Love feeling this pussy squeezing my cock."

You begin to move, rising up until just the tip remains inside, before slamming back down, taking him to the hilt. The obscene sound of your skin slapping against his fills the room, mingling with your moans and his grunts.

"That's it, baby," Aegon encourages, his hands sliding up your sides, squeezing your breasts. "Ride my cock. Show me how much you love it."

You lose yourself in the pleasure, your hips undulating, your pace growing faster and harder. The bed creaks beneath you, the headboard slamming against the wall with each powerful thrust.

Aegon's hands are everywhere, gripping your hips, your waist, your tits. He pinches your nipples, and rolls them between his fingers, sending sparks of pleasure straight to your core.

"Fuck, I love watching you bounce on my cock," he growls, his hips snapping up to meet yours. "So fucking hot."

The sight of you lost in pleasure, your tits bouncing, your head thrown back in ecstasy... it's enough to drive him wild. He'd never get enough of you, never get tired of seeing you unravel on his cock.

You switch between bouncing on his thick cock and grinding yourself down, the lewd sounds of your skin slapping filling the room. If the walls weren’t soundproof, the entire tower would hear your moans. You throw your head back as you lose yourself in the overwhelming pleasure.

By now your moans resemble those of a cam-girl, your eyes squeezed shut and brows furrowed in pleasure.

"Fuck! Yesss!" You whine in pleasure, your thighs shaking from exhaustion already.

Aegon watches you intently as you bounce on his cock, your pleasure-filled moans driving him wild. The sight of you losing control, your eyes squeezing shut, your face contorted in ecstasy... it's the most erotic thing he's ever seen.

"That's it, baby," he encourages, his hands gripping your hips, helping guide your movements. "Ride my cock just like that. Fuck, you look so hot."

You're a vision of debauchery, your hair a wild mess, your skin flushed and glistening with sweat. The lewd sounds of your bodies coming together fill the room, the wet slap of skin on skin mingling with your wanton moans.

Aegon can feel his own release building, his balls tightening, his cock throbbing inside you. He wants to make this last, to draw out your pleasure, but he's only human. The feel of your tight heat gripping him, the sight of you unravelling on top of him... it's too much.

"Fuck, I'm getting close," he grunts, his hips snapping up to meet yours. "Gonna fill this pussy up again."

Aegon sits up, wrapping his arms around your waist, pulling you flush against his chest. The new angle allows him to go even deeper, the head of his cock hitting that perfect spot inside you.

"Wanna feel me cum inside you," he growls, his teeth latching onto your neck. "Wanna breed this pussy, make you mine."

"Oh gods, Aegon!" You cry out, your voice breaking on a scream of pleasure as he starts slamming into you from a new angle. Your words dissolve into incoherent babbles of ecstasy as your body goes pliant in his arms, surrendering completely to his possession. "Too much, it's too much!"

But even as you utter the words, you know they're a lie. There's no such thing as too much with Aegon. His powerful thrusts drive you to the edge of madness, each stroke igniting sparks of pure bliss.

You let your head fall against his shoulder, giving yourself over to the pleasure. Your body goes limp in his embrace, letting him fuck you as he wants

Your eyes flutter shut, your lashes casting shadows on your flushed cheeks. You're lost to the sensation. Your body is no longer your own, it belongs to Aegon, to be used for his pleasure.

And gods help me, you've never been happier.

Aegon can feel your body go pliant in his arms, your surrender absolute. The knowledge that you've given yourself over to him, that your pleasure is in his hands... it's heady, intoxicating.

"That's it," he murmurs against your ear, his hips never ceasing their relentless pace. "Let go. Surrender to me, to this pleasure."

You're a vision of debauchery in his arms, your head lolling against his shoulder, your face contorted in ecstasy. He drinks in the sight of you and memorizes every inch of your pleasure-drunk expression.

Aegon's hands roam your body, possessive, greedy. He wants to touch every inch of you and mark you as his. His fingers dip between your thighs, finding your clit. He rubs tight circles around the sensitive nub, pushing you closer and closer to the edge.

"Gonna cum for me, baby," he growls, his hips pistoning faster, harder. "Gonna make this pussy mine."

"Fuck," he grunts, his hips snapping up one final time. "Take it, take my cum."

Aegon buries his face in your neck, muffling his groans against your skin. His cock pulses inside you, flooding your womb with his hot seed. He fills you up again and again, marking you, claiming you, making you his.

Aftershocks of pleasure ripple through Aegon's body, his hips still rocking gently, drawing out his release. He stays buried inside you, his softening cock plugging up his cum. He never wants this moment to end, wants to stay joined with you forever.

A high-pitched moan tears from your throat as you cum, your hips bucking wildly against Aegon's. Pleasure crashes over you in waves, your body shuddering and convulsing in his arms. You are lost to the sensation, drowning in ecstasy.

Your walls clench and flutter around his cock, milking him for all he's worth. You feel him twitch and throb inside you, his own release triggered by mine. He groans lowly, his hips grinding into yours as he fills you up with his hot seed.

It's so much, more than you can handle. You can feel it painting your gummy walls, marking you as his. Some of it spills out around his shaft, trickling down my thighs. The obscene sensation makes you mewl, your hips still weakly rocking against his.

You are spent, boneless, your body going limp in his embrace. Your heart races and your breath comes in short, sharp gasps. You have never felt pleasure like this before, never been so thoroughly claimed and used.

Aegon groans lowly at the feel of your walls clenching around him, milking his cock for all it's worth. Your release triggers his own, his hips grinding into yours as he fills you up with his hot seed.

He buries his face in your neck, muffling his groans against your skin. Each pulsing spurt of his cum seems to last forever, painting your insides, marking you as his. He grinds into you, making sure every last drop finds its home deep inside your womb.

When he finally pulls back, he's left breathless, his chest heaving. He looks down at you, a satisfied smirk on his face.

"Fuck," he murmurs, his fingers trailing lazy patterns on your sweat-slick skin. "You took my cock so well, baby. Such a good girl, so eager to be filled."

He reaches down, scooping some of his cum that's leaked out onto your thighs. He brings his fingers to your lips, slick with his essence.

"Clean up my mess, baby," he commands, his voice low and husky. "Lick up every last drop."

But even as he gives the order, Aegon's touching you gently, tenderly. He cups your face, brushing away the damp strands of hair from your forehead. He peppers soft kisses across your face, coaxing a smile from your lips.

"You're mine now," he whispers, his eyes boring into yours. "I'm never letting you go."

You gaze down at Aegon through your lashes as you take his cum-coated fingers into your mouth. You bob your head, your tongue swirling around the digits, cleaning them of his thick seed.

Aegon's eyes darken as he watches you service him. "Stay with me," he pleads, his voice raw with emotion. "Be mine, only mine. I'll give you anything you want, everything you want. Just don't leave me."

Your heart races at his words. You smile around his fingers, reassuring him of your devotion.

"I'm not going anywhere," you murmur once you've cleaned his fingers. You press a soft kiss on his palm. "I'm yours, Aegon. Forever."

Aegon gazes up at you with a mixture of relief and gratitude. Your words wash over him like a soothing balm.

He cups your face in his hands, tilting his chin up to meet your gaze. "You promise?" he asks, his voice barely above a whisper. "You'll stay by my side, no matter what?"

You nod, your eyes shining with sincerity. "I promise," you vow, pressing your lips to his in a soft kiss. "I'm yours, Aegon. For better or worse, for richer or poorer..."

Aegon's heart swells at your words, a warmth spreading through his chest. He knows he doesn't deserve your devotion, knows he hasn't earned it. But gods, does he want to.

He leans forward, capturing your lips in a searing kiss. It's not gentle, not tender. It's a claiming, a branding, a marking of what's his. When he finally pulls back, you're both breathless, your lips swollen and glistening.

"I love you," Aegon murmurs against your mouth, the words slipping out unbidden. "I love you so fucking much it hurts."

He's never said those words to anyone before, never even come close. But with you, it feels right, feels true. Like it was always meant to be this way.

"You're my everything," he continues, his arms wrapping around your waist, holding you close. "My heart, my soul, my reason for living. I can't imagine my life without you in it."

Aegon buries his face in your hair, inhaling deeply. You smell like home, like belonging. Like everything he's ever wanted but never dared to dream of.

"Stay with me," he pleads, his voice cracking with emotion. "Have my babies, grow old with me. Let me love you the way you deserve to be loved."

Aegon knows he's asking for a lot.

Aegon's words hit you like a freight train, stealing the breath from your lungs. I love you. Three simple words that carry the weight of the world.

For a moment, you're transported back in time. To when you were just a couple of lovesick teenagers, sneaking out under the cover of darkness. You can almost hear the crash of the waves, and feel the sand beneath your bare feet.

You look at Aegon now, your heart swelling with emotion. He's the same boy you fell for all those years ago. The same boy who confessed his feelings to you, his eyes wide with vulnerability.

And now, he's yours. Completely and utterly yours. You're not going to walk away again, not this time.

You cup his face in your hands, your thumb tracing the line of his jaw. "I love you too," you murmur, your voice trembling with the depth of your emotions. "I never stopped loving you."

You lean in, closing the distance between you. Your lips meet in a soft, tender kiss. It's a promise, a vow, a declaration of forever.

When you finally pull apart, you rest my forehead against his. "Let me have your babies, grow old with me, live on a farm for the rest of our days. Let me love you the way you deserve to be loved."

You've waited your whole life for this moment. For Aegon to be yours, body and soul. And now that you have him, you're never letting go.

Aegon's heart soars at your words, your promise of forever. He feels like he's floating like he's on top of the world. You're his, completely and utterly his. And he's yours, now and always.

He kisses you back, pouring all his love, his devotion, his gratitude into the embrace. It's a kiss that says I'm here, I'm yours, I'll never leave you. Not now, not ever.

When you pull back, Aegon rests his forehead against yours, his eyes searching yours. They're shining with unshed tears, with a joy he's never known before.

"You're my whole world," he murmurs, his voice thick with emotion. "My beginning and my end. I can't imagine my life without you in it."

Aegon's hands roam your body, mapping out the curves and dips he's come to know so well. He traces the line of your spine, the swell of your breasts, the flare of your hips. Each touch is reverent and worshipful.

"I'm going to make you the happiest woman in the world," he promises, his lips brushing against your cheek. "I'm going to love you, cherish you, worship you. Every. Single. Day."

432 notes · View notes

tnsophiaonly · 9 months ago

Text

Uh just a thought:

cw: yandere, cussing, bad grammar, scara being scara, Childe is Childe, fatui, blood is mentioned at least 1 time

Imagine a Y/N\Reader who does everything for their family, so like your brother/sister/mother/father anyone you love!! got super sick and the cure for it is expensive as hell! (8,765,432,765 mora)

So you work for the fatui to get better expenses, you were skilled enough to immediately be recognized by your superiors—ahem, harbingers— and the first one to recognize you was Childe. Childe is just so down bad for you, he loves fighting with you, anything that gets your attention, if he could, he'd always have you by his side when he does missions.

And there's this thing, your fellow friend (who's been to the fatui far longer than you) in the fatui had a gambling habit and would make bets. One time they talked about giving away millions of mora to whoever gets to be The Balladeer's secretary and survive for 3 months.

You, eager for the mora, you immediately did too well, acted like you were obsessed with him to amuse him, did so many things to the point of getting Scaramouche's attention, he finally made you his assistant.

Of course Childe is pissed as fuck. How dare this dwarf get you before him??!!

At first Scara was just humoring your fake obsessive behavior just for entertainment, telling himself he'd throw you away soon and laugh at your fake reactions.

3 months passed and Scaramouche started humoring another fatui agent in an attempt to get you to break and snap and make you jealous, you used that opportunity to slowly part ways from him. He took a whole week to notice how you were basically disappearing from his life. You didn't leave the work though, you did the remaining paperwork and missions before disappearing.

Scaramouche who slowly notices the difference in his life when you left, you left a great impact in his life. This new fatui agent he humors doesn't do as well as you do, they keep fucking up to the point that Scara doesn't find it funny anymore. Yeah, he admits, your perfectionist personality helped a lot in his work, you were boring yeah, but at least you got the work done! After yelling and punishing the fatui agent for fucking up again, Scara grits his teeth and walks out to cool himself down.

But that's where he saw you sparring with Childe. Childe is out here feeling gleeful that you were finally back to him, while you just went back to him because you are an agent under him.

The sparring ended with Childe winning, you almost won, but Childe was stronger as expected, he walked up to you and almost gave you a kiss before you pushed him away, shocked. Childe frowns, he keeps you caged in his arms, he doesn't care about the dirt, blood, snow, and sweat that mixes when he has you in his arms, what matters is you.

Scaramouche, gritting his teeth in anger and getting more frustrated and annoyed than ever—why is that obedient pet of his with Tartaglia?— he's mad.

You felt that cold and electric glares sent to you, you nudge your head and saw Scaramouche watching the both of you hug with a blank face, fffuck. You were not supposed to be seen by Scaramouche.

And Childe notices it too, he smirks and holds you closer, nuzzling his cheek on your hair.

Scaramouche was about to rush into both of you and demand an explanation, but why does he care? He isn't supposed to care about something like this! He always said he could replace you anytime, but he never said you could replace him.

I want to add more harbingers to this thought, imagine Columbina and Arlecchino 😻

1K notes · View notes

atlabeth · 10 months ago

Text

true luck's kiss

pairing: luke castellan x daughter of tyche!reader

summary: luke is stuck with a streak of bad luck. what better way to get rid of it than with a child of tyche?

a/n: so this was supposed to come out on st patrick's day but unfortunately im the slowest writer in the world and ive also been doing nothing but watch basketball because we sleep in may. anyways here's a short fluffy blurb because it is getting way too sad in here with my hurricane fics lmao

wc: 1.2k

warning(s): none, this is all fluff. i know crazy coming from me

You grimaced as you pulled the arrow back. Sweat dripped down your forehead and you itched to brush it away, but you ignored the urge as you let out a deep breath.

“Just like that.” Kimia nodded as she stopped behind you. “Perfect angle—now let it fly.”

You did, and the weight lifted off your shoulders once the arrow embedded itself in the center of the target.

“Ending on a bullseye,” she said with a grin. “Great work.”

“Only way to do it,” you said, smiling at her. “Am I a worthy opponent yet?”

She chuckled and patted your shoulder as she moved on. “Maybe one day you’ll be as good as Cabin Seven. Today’s not that day.”

You shook your head with a laugh and took your quiver off your back. “Keep telling yourself that!”

A bow and arrow had become your weapon of choice since the moment you stepped foot into camp, and you’d gotten good over the years—so much so that it was a surprise when your mother claimed you. One day, though, you would get an Apollo kid to admit you were better than them.

You’d just finished putting all your equipment away, and when you turned back, you were met with a mess of brown curls and shining eyes.

“Luke,” you said, pleasantly surprised. “Didn’t know you were in archery today.”

He shook his head. “I’m not. I didn’t come here for archery—I came here for you.”

You chuckled as you gestured with your head, and he got the hint as you started walking together. “How forward of you.”

“It’s a living,” he said with a smile. “How was practice?”

“And small talk?” You pressed a hand to your heart and shook your head. “It must be my lucky day.”

Luke’s smile widened as he ran a nervous hand through his hair. “That’s what I came to talk to you about, actually. I do wanna hear about your day, though.”

You shrugged. “It was boring. Killed it at archery, nearly got killed on the climbing wall—I was gonna head back to the cabin to chill for a few hours before dinner, but it looks like you’ve taken that slot.”

He chuckled. “So you are free?”

“I’ve always got some time to listen to Luke Castellan,” you mused. “What’ve you got?”

“I’m cursed,” Luke said.

You stopped in your tracks and looked him right in the eye. “...Cursed.”

He nodded. “I know it sounds stupid, but it’s gotta be true. I mean, nothing is going right for me. I’ve been off my groove with my sword, I’ve lost every canoe race, I nearly burnt my eyebrows off last time I was in the forge, and my team hasn’t won a game of capture the flag this entire month—”

“I know,” you interrupted. “I’m in your cabin.”

“So you know how bad my luck’s been lately!” he exclaimed with a gesture. “It— it was embarrassing, but now it’s just pathetic.”

“You know I can’t fix it, right?” you said wryly. “I’m not my mom.”

“That’s what Annabeth said,” Luke mumbled. “But— but I’ve seen the way you live—you’ve got luck on tap! Your strawberries are always the ripest, you somehow find drachmas on the ground, and your volleyball serves are better than anyone’s.”

“I play varsity back home,” you said. “No luck needed.”

“Still,” he emphasized, “you’re naturally lucky. You’ve literally got it in your DNA, and I’m fresh out of it. That’s gotta be worth something.”

“Not really.” You crossed your arms. “So what do you think I can do about this?”

Luke shrugged. “I dunno. Say something?"

You barely managed to stifle a laugh. “Like what?”

“Pray to Tyche,” he said. “You’re her only kid here—she’s gotta be listening.”

You bit back your smile as you shook your head. “Fine. Just for you.”

“Thank you,” Luke sighed, watching with bated breath as you cleared your throat, closed your eyes, and pressed your hands together.

“Tyche, dearest mother, goddess of luck and fortune—I ask you to shine on Luke Castellan on this day. Smile upon my friend and break his very real curse. If you do this for him, in return, he will do all of my cabin chores for the next month.”

When you opened your eyes, Luke looked quite unimpressed. “Very funny.”

“Feel any luckier?” you asked with a smile as you started walking again.

“I don’t think so,” he said, falling into step with you once more. “Especially because you’re putting conditions in your prayers. I didn’t know we could do that.”

“My mom has a sense of humor,” you mused. “And I also think I might be her favorite.”

“Not all of us have that privilege,” he said wryly. Suddenly, his eyes lit up, and he grabbed your arm to stop you.

“I think I’ve got it,” Luke said. “How about a kiss?”

Your eyebrows rose, but you couldn’t help showing your amusement. “Now it’s a kiss that’ll break your curse?”

He shrugged. “Like I said—you’ve got luck in your DNA. Maybe you could pass that along.”

“Really,” you said dryly.

“I’ve kinda tried everything,” he said. “A kiss from a lucky and pretty girl is far from the worst option.”

You chuckled. “You really know how to flatter ‘em.”

“I try,” he grinned. “Are you up to it?”

You bit your lip as you looked at Luke. Obviously, he was attractive—you’d always held an appreciation for his curls and the way they would constantly get in his eyes. He cut an impressive figure from constant, year-round training, and he even made the camp shirt look good. And gods, that damned smile got you.

There were worse things than kissing you, and there were certainly worse things than kissing Luke Castellan.

“Alright,” you sighed, taking a step forward. “Pucker up, Castellan.”

Before you could really doubt yourself, you leaned forward and kissed him. You weren’t really expecting to actually… like it.

Your first thought was that Luke’s lips were softer than they had any right to be. Your second thought was that his cologne was the scent always floating around the Hermes cabin. You didn’t really mind, though.

Luke gently put his hand on the back of your head to keep you there, and the moment lasted much longer than you initially planned. You also didn’t mind, though your thoughts were far more muddled than they should’ve been when you finally managed to pull away. He seemed to have a gift for that.

You felt your cheeks flush as you looked at him, not even trying to hide your smile. Turns out kissing Luke Castellan was actually pretty great. “Feel any luckier?”

“Yeah,” he said with a soft grin, his eyes twinkling. You wondered if he had the same thought about you. “Yeah. I really do.”

“I think that means it’s worked, then,” you said.

Luke nodded with mock austerity. “We should probably stick together for the rest of the week, though. Just to make sure this bad luck goes away for good.”

“You might be right,” you said. “And uh— you think you need an extra boost?” You glanced away as you bit back your smile. “Just to be safe and all. To really get rid of this curse.”

“You know,” he drew your attention back to him as he brushed a loose strand of hair behind your ear, and you leaned in closer. “I think I might.”

#luke castellan x reader #luke castellan fic #luke castellan fluff #luke castellan imagine #percy jackson and the olympians x reader #pjo x reader #x reader #sadie writes

1K notes · View notes

help-itrappedmyself · 11 months ago

Text

Danny Punches a Clown part 2 I guess

shoutout to @that-random-fangirl

Masterpost

The batmobile pulls into the batcave as usual once they’re done dealing with the Joker’s hostage situation, but no one is celebrating at a job well done tonight. Because while the Joker is back in Arkham, for now, it wasn’t one of them that stopped him. While the rest of them dealt with the goons downstairs, Batman went up to where the Joker was supposed to be hiding out with the kids, only to find him on the floor with a growing bruise on his face. The kids were nowhere to be seen.

So, Batman sweeped the room, making note of a video that was still recording on the computer. Probably a taunt for him that the Joker never got to release. He pulled all the files from the computer and brought them with him when he left.

The police arrived, the civilians were taken care of, but none of them had any idea what happened in the room the Joker was in. Apparently none of them heard anything, despite the fact the Joker had a gun with him no shots were fired. And none of them knew what happened to the kids.

So the family gathered around the batcomputer to try and find out what had happened. They rewound the video back to the beginning, hoping to at least find out if the kids were okay.

The video opened to the Joker being his usual self, holding his gun, looking like he hadn’t yet gotten punched in the face.

“ Bats! Wonderful to see me isn’t it? I know it's been too long, and I’ve got some presents for you!” Joker turns the camera to show three kids, two no older than six, both blonde and terrified, and one that could be a teenager, probably around twelve to thirteen with black hair and looking bored. The camera swings back to the Joker after a moment. “ Of course, I have a bunch of adults too, but these little kiddos are just for you! I have such plans for them bats!”

“Hey, crazy clown?” They hear, coming from one of the children. Joker stops ranting to look past the computer, probably at the kid who’s speaking and the bats all look at each other in disbelief.“ Look, I’m sure you have some sort of reason for all this hostage-taking and gun-waving, probably even for dressing like that.”

“ Oh, this kid is insane.” Tim mutters.

“ However, I already have one fruitloop in my life and that is more than enough for me, so I’m going to have to leave now.”

The Joker starts laughing, he bends over and wraps his arms around his stomach laughing his normal cackle that has most of the room cringing. They watch as the child, the older one, walks right up to the Joker, who is still laughing, and punches him in the face.

They watch in silence as the Joker falls limp to the floor. Jason whistles. Then the boy turns more toward the camera, but really towards the children as he starts talking to them and they see him fully for the first time. Black hair, blue eyes, looks exhausted and he just punched the Joker in the face. The kids look amongst each other for a moment, all thinking the same thing, before turning back to the screen to see the boy, this tiny boy who called the Joker ‘crazy clown’ and punched him in the face helping the other kids escape out the window.

“ Bruce, no.” Dick mutters. “ We don’t even know who this kid is.”

“ This kid just knocked out the Joker in one punch, if Bruce doesn’t nab him, I will.” Jason states.

Everything devolves into arguing from there, all the kids shouting amongst themselves arguing either for or against the adoption of the kid. It goes on for a while before Bruce speaks up.

“ Let’s just find the kid first.” Bruce says, He’s already pulled up facial recognition and is chatting with Oracle about the CCTV footage by the warehouse. “ All of you go get some rest, I’m going to go see if I can track him.”

“ Hey! If you’re going back out, we’re going back out!” Dick complains. “ We’re concerned about the kid too.”

Bruce starts to argue with him, but is cut off by the sound of motorcycles as Jason and Tim start to head back out, already talking to Oracle about where to start. Dick heads out after them and Damian goes to sit in the batmobile, waiting. Bruce heaves a sigh before climbing in after him.

“ Okay, Oracle what do we have?” Batman asks.

“ I was able to track him into an alley, but nothing after that.”

Now with part 3!

#dcxdp #dc x dp crossover #batman #danny phantom #my writing #I have no idea where this is going really #it has no ending #just middle ideas #dp x dc

2K notes · View notes

samkerrworshipper · 2 months ago

Text

the lawn is dead. pt.2

hi! i wrote a part 2! i’m on a unofficial hiatus but had some inspiration the last few days and had to finish this. hope it provides a little bit more comfort then the last chapter .. sorry xo

warnings: suicidal themes, self harm themes, themes of depression, anxiety, dark thoughts. viewer discretion advised.

You can describe the carpet of this office better then most people can describe themselves.

It’s a rug, for the most part, except for the where it’s clear a person has chosen laziness in favour of lifting up the heavier furniture to place the rug down underneath it. Where the rug doesn’t cover, there is bleak grey carpet that feels more boring then the time you spend in this room.

Where the carpet lacks in literally everything, the rug makes up for it blindingly.

It’s a messy mixture of far too many colours, pinks, purples, blues, greens and neutrals. It doesn’t make any sense in your mind, why somebody would chose for the focal point of their room to be a rug that doesn’t match with any of the furniture. It’s another sign that the furniture came before the rug, all of the furniture is dark mahogany, beautiful pieces that look as if they’ve come from and English period piece, whereas the rug looks so modern it’s almost painful.

The rest of the furniture has been picked with similar taste.

The painting on the wall looks like what a child would vomit after going to a birthday party. Every time you’ve come here you’ve had a new analogy, but this week that is the one, it looks like stomach contents and you can’t get past it, to the point it’s made you physically nauseated.

From the painting moves onto the bookshelf, where there is a odd mix of medical textbooks, classics and selfawareness books, all stacked in such disarray that you have to keep your eyes away because it makes you uncomfortable.

Beyond the furniture is your psychologist, with her stupid fucking note pad, stupid glasses perched on the very tip of her nose and stupidly calm face that never really changed.

She was supposed to be a specialist, the best of the best, supposed to be the greatest and getting to the bottom of the most famous athletes problems and yet you found pride in alluding her.

One hour, every four days was what you were down to now, a couple of weeks ago it had been every other day and that had been fucking torture.

Sometimes all you wanted to do was rip her eyeballs out, or her brains, or something else. You swore she made your ears bleed and your will to live deteriorate with every second and it was already pretty low.

“You can’t avoid my question forever.”

It was also that annoying tone that sent you, the sort of tone that meant she knew that technically for the whole of the hour she could ask you whatever she pleased and you were technically supposed to answer her. Defiance on your end just ended up in you being suspended from something else that made your life just a tiny bit more liveable.

“No, I haven’t talked to Mapi yet.”

You’ve been avoiding it, there have bits and pieces of homework from your therapist, but this one is by far the hardest.

“How about Alexia, how does she feel about that.”

You don’t want to tell her that you and Alexia are in shambles as it is, add on the pressure of her best friend being psychologically destroyed because of you and just talking about any of it at all and it’s like dynamite.

“Supportive.”

Your therapist nods, but in the way that you know she doesn’t quite believe you.

“Have you started to reintegrate with the team? I know last time we talked you mentioned that before the incident you’d been feeling quite isolated because of your ankle injury. It’s important that you start to normalise your life again before you start to self isolate.”

You don’t call it self-isolation, you like to call it self protection. You protect yourself by pushing against the grain, by keeping to yourself. It’s a lot easier that way.

“I’ve been busy.”

It’s a lie and a blatant one, your days are filled with complete nothingness. You can’t play football, not until she clears you, and you know that it’s not going to happen anytime soon based on the trend of your current sessions. There has been the same amount of progress as there was two weeks ago when you started with her. You shut down at every attempt she makes to try and open you up, you talk when you have to. It’ll probably get you sent back to a ward. You don’t remember much from your transition from the hospital to home, but you do remember signing something that referred to you making significant process or else you would be sent back.

Progress for your therapist is getting more then two word responses from you. You’re aware she’s in kahoots with Alexia, that Alexia is probably providing her more information then you are.

“You’re giving me the look that means that you’re writing something down along the lines of ‘unncooperative’.”

She is also in kahoots with the staff at Barcelona, another thing you signed was that she would work in conjunction with the clubs doctors to get you back to where you were, or somewhere in the vicinity.

They know every time you have a bad session, you’re guaranteed a consolation call from one of the coaches or even sometimes a teammate check-in telling you how brave you are and how strong you are for doing this.

You don’t agree, you nearly took the cowards way out and you’re proud of it. You wish it had fucking worked, every single second, of every single day, you wish you’d succeeded, wished that this hadn’t all ended up how it did.

“That’s not what I wrote, I wrote a observation. Uncooperative would be you refusing to speak to me like you did for our first two sessions, even if you lie it’s still trying.”

You don’t want to be curious of her, you’ve tried to give her as little attention as possible.

You’ve adapted the act that you call, therapised you.

You do your best job of smiling here and there, or at least when you know that you’re supposed to. Therapised you extends to a few people, Alexia, coaches, physios, people on the street.

You believe you’ve become a seasoned liar.

The funniest part is that sometimes you start to believe your act, you start to believe that all the ash and embers in your chest is really alight with flames, like you’re truly alive.

But then, you would pause, sit down, lie down, dissasociate and you would be reminded that that wasn’t your body. Your body wasn’t a place of life and prosper, it was as dead as anywhere else.

“What was the observation?”

You try not to be curious over her, or curious in general, you keep everything to yourself.

“You’ve told me time and time again that you attempted because you believed that not a single person would care if you were gone. Yet you wrote a letter, you knew that somebody would care, somebody would miss you. Guilt is what kept you from doing it earlier and guilt was what kept you from vanishing without a trace. Your conscience was clean in your own words, but that’s not true, your conscience was anything but clean. So what pushed you over?”

You hate that therapists have a way of worming out weird bits of information that they can use against you to worm out more bits of information, like they know your brain inside to out.

“My conscience was clean.”

Your therapist pulls her glasses up from her nose and scribbles on her pad again.

“Why’d you write a note then, specifically why did you write a note to your ex girlfriend?”

There are so many things you could say to that, but you can’t quite find the words.

“Let me rephrase to make it easier. When you were in the hospital, and Alexia reacted so viscerally, you weren’t surprised. You expected her to feel something about what happened, you didn’t seem surprised at all by her words or actions. You knew that she was going to be hurt by what you did. So, how was your conscience truly clean?”

Thinking about Alexia in the hospital makes you feel as nauseous as the furniture does.

Your still mad at her, still mad at yourself for never changing her as your medical contact and medical proxy. It had all been a clusterfuck.

“I didn’t know Alexia was going to be there, I though that she’d washed her hands of me. I left her a note because I thought there had been things left unsaid between us and I didn’t want to leave that way.”

Your therapist nods, she doesn’t scribble this time and that makes the itchy feeling all over you die down a little bit.

“Alright, let’s move on. Your ankle injury, how’s that going?”

You look to the window, it’s a horrible day outside, just your luck when you’d chosen to walk to your therapists office on what was supposed to be a 20 degree day with sunny skies. It was the epitome of your life, high expectations, low realities.

“Well three weeks between a hospital and psychiatric facility are probably the best thing anybody can do for a injury.”

You let out a self-deprecating chuckle and your therapist does nothing but scribble.

“So you’ve been doing your rehab as advised then?”

Rehab, both kinds, is mind-bogglingly boring. You go to your therapist and she tells you all the ways you have to work to rehab your brain, she gives you medication after medication and exercise after exercise. The same happens every time you see your physio, test after test, exercise after exercise.

Your stuck in the same cycle of boredom, it makes you wonder how people ever expect you to get better when all you are doing is living in a constant state of suffering.

“The physios are happy with me, say that if I continue on the track that I am I should be back on the pitch in a few weeks, with psychological clearance.”

At the current therapeutic rate your going at, you don’t think you’ll see a psychological clearance until your 50th birthday, if you’re lucky.

“How does it feel coming back from that injury, especially considering how the decline in your physical health simulatenously resulted in the decrease in your mental health?”

You keep silent, because you know that if you talk then it’s doing to be something emotional. When you don’t know how to answer questions without exposing yourself you opt to keep quiet, it’s a obvious tell that you feel uncomfortable with the question. But giving away a tell is a whole lot better then starting an emotional downpour.

“Y/n?”

You look at your shoes. You only were allowed to start wearing one on your bad foot a week ago, and you’d forgotten how hard it was to coordinate shoes with your clothes. This morning you’d thought that they matched with your pants but now they look much darker then they truly are against the grey carpet. The mix of your navy adidas that you might have stolen from Mapi’s wardrobe a couple of months ago when she was complaining about the amount of shoes she’d been sent with your grey wide leg pants was a interesting choice but therapy wasn’t a fashion parade. The shoes don’t quite fit your feet, that’sc how you remembered they weren’t yours. When you’d taken them, it had been during some kind of team bonding night at Mapi and Ingrid’s apartment. Life had been so good, Alexia and you had been so good and for once you’d kind of felt like you were beginning to fit in.You’d never felt that way before that era of your life.

But like most things, it was now a far distant memory.

“The injury wasn’t what made me depressed.”

It’s a half truth, you suppose. Yes, the injury definitely contributed to the factors that trigger your depression, but it wasn’t a sole cause.

“I disagree.”

More scribbling on her note pad, in your opinion it must be some psychological form of torture. You’ll google it when you get home, check to make sure that this isn’t a form of manipulation to somehow convince you to say the things that she wants you to.

“If you disagree then tell me why you think that.”

It’s daring of you to say, there is nearly a 99.99 percent chance that whatever she says you are going to deny vehemently. Even if she hits it right on the nail.

“I think that you don’t give yourself enough grace for the challenges that you’ve gone through. You came to Barcelona because you were running from things, from your past. You’ve never stopped running, truly. Everytime somebody gets close enough to begin to try and worm their feet into your shoes to try and relive some of it with you, you shut them down and stop it. For most people, shoes are a means of getting to where they want, for you, you keep running because if you stop you feel like you’ll suffocate, like your feet will be wrapped up in barb wire and you’ll be stuck. For whatever reason, you don’t think anybody will ever be able to empathise with that. You think that if you ever let anybody in for long enough that they learn what you’ve been running from that they’ll try and stop you, that you’ll be faced with everything that you’ve ever struggled with. So, you keep running, and running, you’ve always been in a state of escape. With your relationship, you finally stopped running, you slowed to a jog. Then, you got injured. All of a sudden you felt like you were stuck and instead of letting yourself finally come to a stop and accepting help and complete love for once in your life, and being vulnerable. You chose to start running again, running from your friends, running from your team, running from every single good thing that you’d gotten in your life until you were so consumed with all the running that you just wanted it all to stop. But you didn’t know how to stop parts of your life without stopping other parts, so you chose to stop it all.”

You don’t know what to say for a few seconds. You’ve never had the feeling that you’ve been experiencing your whole life summed up, you don’t know how to feel about it.

You look at your psychologist, and somehow she looks back at you in a way that you somehow feel like she understands, you’ve never really felt that way about her.

It’s always felt like she’s judging you, like it’s her job to judge every single thing you say. Or at least that’s the way you’ve always seen it. It’s her job to make sure you don’t fall of the rails again, to make decisions about what you can and can’t do. It’s never been a possibility for you that maybe she’s here for a little bit more then just the business side of it all.

“Is that it? Did you come to a point where it felt like you had no other option but to just make it all stop?”

You bite your lip so hard you think it might just bleed, it’s a mission to try and stop the tears that have begun to cling to the back of your eyes at bay. You’ve never cried during a therapy session, and there is no reason why today should be different. The amount of people you’ve cried in front of is limited to a very, very short list of people and you don’t intend for your psychologist to be added.

“It would be okay if that was it. It’s okay to admit that for you at that time it felt like there was no other option but to make it all stop.”

You feel muzzled, like you can’t speak without admitting to something that you don’t want to.

“I thought it would make it all better.”

Your therapist puts down her notepad, and you feel a whole load of anxiety rush out of you.

“You thought it would make what better?”

You keep your tooth pinned to your lip, if it draws blood, it draws blood. The pain helps to take your focus off of the word vomit you can feel coming up.

“Everyone else’s lives.”

Your response is croaky, and when your therapist points to the glass of water you don’t shake your head like normal, you find yourself reaching for it and taking a few tentative sips.

“What about your life, what about making your own life better?”

You take a few more sips, because it stalls the conversation for long enough that you can think up an answer that doesn’t make it sound like you are completely insane.

“I was never really thinking about it like that.”

You look at her, eye to eye again, and there is this weird understanding between the two of you. You can feel it, whether or not it’s real, for the first time you feel like you aren’t crazy for thinking the way that you do. It’s a weird kind of safety that you’ve never had.

“For a minute, I want you to close your eyes and think about exactly what you want, whether it’s the future, it’s right now. Not football, not other people, nobody else. Just you.”

You humour her, and close your eyes.

For a few seconds, you can’t think of much. You’ve never been a future thinker, not beyond emergency plans and second options.

You think about death for a few seconds, a couple of weeks ago it was all you could think of. Permanent, irreversible disappearance. Even then though, it wasn’t what you were actually yearning for, not truly, it was just an easy solution to complex problems, problems that still haven’t been solved.

You think long and hard, and eventually you find a pleasantness.

You want to resolve things with Alexia, you know that for sure. It’s been impossible trying to navigate your relationship in your new reality. You want to get to a place where it’s less impossible. You want happiness with her, pure happiness. You also want some kind of return to football, you don’t know how. You’ve never really played football because it’s what you love, you’ve never loved your sport, it’s more been about having something that could take you places when inevitable wherever you had been was no longer an option because you’d somehow fucked it up.

You want a better relationship with yourself, you want to understand why you think the way you do and why you can’t think the same way and be the same way as everyone. You want to get past the fear you have that you will never be the same.

When you have nothing else to think about, you open your eyes, to your psychologist smiling at you.

“That’s our hour, I’m really happy to leave this here and circle back to some of it in a couple of days. The progress you’re making is definitely getting bigger and I’m happy to sign off on you getting some hours in the gym if your physios are happy with it. I’ll call the team tonight and we can work out a plan that works best.”

You’re in slight disbelief as she speaks.

“You’re sure?”

You stay seated for the sake of making sure that you haven’t somehow dreamt up what she’s just said.

“If you try and make some progress with your homework. I want you to try and talk to Mapi, a text message, coffee, something. I want you to talk to Alexia beyond her being a caregiver for you and I want you to make progress with your teammates, don’t avoid the gym if you know they are going to be there, don’t avoid team events, dip a toe in the water with them and I can guarantee you will have a very different outcome then what you think.”

Contingencies. One thing you’ve learnt about therapy is that there are always contingencies, it’s always a give and take, never one or the other.

You nod your head anyways, somehow, with her weird manipulation games you’ve managed to agree to something that the version of you from and hour ago never would have.

“I’ll try.”

Your therapist smiles and stands up, for whatever reason there is always a part of you that loves the end of your sessions but also never wants to leave.

Whether it seems like it or not, you actually do want to get better, you just don’t know what better looks like for you and that’s scary. You’ve never met the version of yourself that is ‘better’ or ‘normal’. You can’t say that you want to be your old self because there hasn’t ever been a version of yourself that feels better. You’ve always been in the slums, always been dragging yourself through the thickest mud to try and make it to the end of a day or month or year. You don’t actually want to survive like that, you want to live your life properly, or whatever non-sluggish life looks like for you.

Your still desperately trying to work that out.

Alexia is waiting in the carpark as usual, it’s always the same carpark, always the same consolation hot chocolate in her hands afterwards.

Once you’ve sat down in her passenger seat, put on your seatbelt and the takeaway cup is settled in your hands she broaches the topic of your session.

“How was it?”

There is always an awkwardness around your sessions, Alexia picks your up from every one, on the odd occasion she’ll join in if your therapist thinks it would be good. Otherwise, she spends the time sitting in her car and picking up hot drinks.

It’s infinitely awkward between the two of you, but Alexia in your opinion is mostly to blame for that.

She’d been the first person to put her hand up to be your carer, your glorified babysitter.

You know it’s a guilt thing, she feels guilty that part of your pain could have been because of her, even though you’ve insisted time and time again that it wasn’t.

“Fine.”

Therapy is a tough topic for you, mostly because you’ve never wanted to be there in the first place. You’d been tricked into going from the beginning, Alexia insisting that she was taking you to a appointment to check up on your scars when really it had been to your psychologists office. You’d yelled and screamed and insisted that she take you home, but at the end of the day if you ever wanted to play football again it was obvious you were going to have to suck it up.

You hadn’t talked to Alexia for days after that, which is funny because that was less then three weeks ago and now you’re here.

“Fine?”

You nod your head, it’s hard to find words after a normal session, but after this one it’s ever harder.

“I made some progress.”

Alexia nods, you know there are probably a hundred questions going through her head right now, but she won’t ask them. She’s too scared that if she asks them, she’ll get an answer that will terrify her. One that will restart all of the problems, even if that isn’t really how it works. Alexia doesn’t understand mental health, that’s become frighteningly obvious over the past few weeks. She doesn’t understand your struggles because she’s never experienced them. She’s never had self hatred or depression or overwhelming anxiety. It’s what makes you feel so alienated and so out of place amongst your peers. You feel like a shark amongst a sea of dolphins, like you look the same but when it comes down to it you are completely different.

“That’s good, no?”

You nod your head, disguising the grimace on your face by the mouth of the lid on your hot chocolate.

“She says I can start doing some hours in the gym.”

Alexia smiles, big and wide, like it’s her whose been given the good news.

“That’s good bebita, you’ll be on the pitch in no time.”

The pitch. It’s all Alexia cares about.

When you can be back, how she can get you to the point you can be back. Because when Alexia is injured, it’s all she cares about. What she can do to get herself back on the pitch, how she can make the rehab process faster, she thinks of every single logistic and possibility.

You want to make it back to the pitch, or you think you do. But it’s not your priority. It’s become abundantly clear that your main priority has to be yourself, figuring yourself out.

“Mhm.”

You focus your energy on counting how many bike riders pass Alexia’s car as she navigates through peak city traffic. You get to 38 before she interrupts your intense search for every person on two wheels.

“Vicky’s supposed to be coming over later, I promised I’d help her with a school project. I can go to her house instead if you’d prefer?”

Every time Alexia’s broached the topic of teammates you’ve immediately refused any contact, and your immediate reaction is to say no. but you think about what your therapist said.

“I might text Mapi and see if she wants to talk to me.”

You hear the sound of Alexia’s shock in the form of a choken sort of cough, she tries to cover it up by slapping her hand against the wheel of her car, but it doesn’t do much.

“I think that would be a really good idea, bebita, I think she would be really happy to see you.”

You don’t look at Alexia, you don’t want to see the look of perplexion or shock or whatever emotion she’s going through. You haven’t seen Mapi since the hospital, and as little as you remember from then, you remember Mapi very clearly.

She had been just as out of it as you’d been, refusing to leave your bedside but Ingrid having to do everything for her to keep her alive. Every time she visited you, she looked like she’d seen a ghost, or something worse. You weren’t sure what was worse, seeing somebody dead or seeing somebody who was hanging on the cliff of life and death and having to save their life, knowing that if action hadn’t of been taken they would be dead.

Definitely the latter.

“I’ll text her, see if she can come and pick you up before Vicky comes over?”

You nod your head, allowing yourself to focus back on counting your tally, except moving over to motorcycles this time.

You shower with the bathroom door halfway open. There are no sharps anywhere in your apartment, knives, razors, scissors, nail clippers, vegetable peelers, glasses, anything that could cause any kind of bodily harm. For now, you aren’t allowed to be left alone for longer then an hour. You sleep with your bedroom door open and Alexia sleeping in the guest room next door. You eat a set meal plan, you do two hours of rehab every single day, you live on a schedule that is so carefully planned that you have no time to yourself and yet every single moment feels lonely.

It’s a process, you’ve been told. It’s crucial to your recovery that there are measurements in place to assure your ‘success’.

Alexia knocks on your door every five minutes whilst you shower, you yell back every time.

It had become a rule after the first time you’d showered with the door open you’d made a joke about using the shower curtain to harm yourself, because what did they really expect you to be doing?

It hadn’t gone well, Alexia going silent for a few days and a very heated conversation with your psychologist about the inappropriateness of making jokes about suicide.

It was your trauma, it was your fucking story, and everyone was acting like it was their most sensitive issue.

Bathrooms are a bit of a touchy subject, you don’t shower in your ensuite bathroom anymore, you can’t. The room has permanently been blocked off, completely forgotten about.

The first thing you want to do once you’ve ‘recovered’ is leave this apartment, there are to many bad memories, it feels like you’ll never be able to recover if your stuck in the same place that you were in when it all went bad.

It’s a problem for when you can deal with the stress of packing up your whole life and moving it to somewhere.

When you shut the water off and step out of the warm stream you let yourself breathe, showers are the only real alone time you get. Everywhere else you are supervised, watched like a hawk to make sure that you don’t try anything else that could jeopardise your return to football. The reality is that Barca can’t afford to have you sit on the sideline for a whole season, they need you back, they can’t risk another slip up.

Alexia at least gives you the privacy of getting dressed in your own wardrobe, all of your wired bras have been removed, but for the most part it’s all normal.

You get dressed in another sweat suit, it’s become your new uniform over the last few weeks, no draw strings of course.

Your hair gets swept into a messy bun, it’s too much effort to deal with the brushing and braiding and tying that you would have normally gone through with a couple of weeks ago. You aren’t allowed to wear jewellery anymore so your accessories consist of pretty much nothing. You’re bare from the bones to your clothes, your soul feels as bare as the rest of your body.

You’re allowed to wear laced shoes, but you often opt not to, slip on birkenstocks or uggs are just easier. The Barcelona January chill has been getting to you recently, so you upt for your ugg boots.

Your outfit choice is the most choice you get in your day, so you try and put as little thinking into it as possible, it’s easier for you to just succumb to the reality that everything in your life is controlled by other people.

By the time you’ve finished, you’re towing very close to the time Mapi had told Alexia she’d come and meet you. You collect the things that you might need from your vanity and shove them in your pocket, before making your way out to your living room.

It’s unofficially become Alexia’s office, her laptop and books cover your dining table now. She lives out of your apartment, leaves only for training and barcelona commitments, so it’s fair to say that she’s made herself at home.

When you were living together before, it had bothered you more, having her things everywhere. Alexia is a organiser, of everything and everybody but herself. You’d spend hours telling her to pick up her shoes from random spots around the apartment floor or getting her to pick up random clothing items laying on top of pieces of furniture. This mess is different, it reflects how the situation is different. There is nothing comfortable about your predicament, it’s not the same kind of comfortable coexistence you had when you were dating Alexia.

There is a boundary between the two of you now and it makes it all so much more confusing.

Alexia isn’t just your friend or your teammate, she’s you caregiver, the person who holds you accountable, unofficially the person who is supposed to keep you from doing anything to yourself. It adds a whole layer of stress to the situation, you can’t relax around her the same way you used to.

Your relationship is never going to be the same, but parts of you wished that Alexia hadn’t taken over the burden of caring for you, because maybe the two of you could work on rebuilding yourselves as a couple instead of Alexia trying to rebuild you as a person, as if you are a broken lego set that needed to be put back together.

She spends most of her time in your living room, doesn’t push the boundary of your bedroom unless it’s needed.

She’s sat at the kitchen table, preparing herself to help with whatever project it is that Vicky needs help with.

“Shouldn’t Vicky have maybe asked one of the younger girls? You’re practically ancient now, they probably teach the kids these days history from when you were growing up.”

Whatever Alexia looks like she’s going to be helping with looks like something she’s definitely not qualified in, although Alexia’s never the person to say no.

“You’re acting like I’m a dinosaur, I’m only four years older then you.”

She rolls her eyes at you and it feels so normal, for a second you feel so much more normal. Life would be so much easier if everybody stopped treating you like a fine fucking piece of china. An eye roll here or there, a yell here or there, some kind of emotion beyond sympathy would be nice.

“I mean, in comparison to Vicky you’re pretty much from the stone ages.”

Alexia rolls her eyes again, she looks like she’s about to fight back against you but a knock at the door silences you both.

All of a sudden the little smile is gone and the air goes thick again, thick with the reminder that you can’t just exist in a bubble of nothingness were nobody else exists and you can just be free from everything.

Alexia gets up to open the door, and you let her, allowing yourself to loiter around the table and enjoy the moment for just a little bit longer. It’s that moment that might just get you through what is about to happen.

Alexia calls for you and you know it’s Mapi, you know it’s Mapi because Mapi won’t step foot in your apartment.

Ingrid had come to visit when you’d come home, along with a handful of other people, but Mapi hadn’t been one of them. Ingrid had explained that it had been to hard for her, that she’d made it to the door but couldn’t come in, and you couldn’t find it in you to blame her.

Mapi smiles at you when she sees you, it’s the first time you’ve seen her since the hospital and the both of you look very different since then.

She looks less dead, that’s the first thing you take notice of. She doesn’t look like she would blow away into a puff of smoke if a gust of wind came past. She looks good, she looks healed.

Mapi and you don’t talk, for whatever reason, you take the normal walk you would every sunday morning before it happened.

Down from your apartment, onto the main street, up to the mouth of the road, across the street and then onto the boardwalk.

It’s the main reason you chose your apartment, it’s right next to the beach. Perfect for post matchday swims and a morning walk on the beach. It used to be yours and Mapi’s pregame routine and it’s easy to fall into the rhythm of your feet moving down the sidewalk.

No words are spoken until the two of you are seated on the sand, a wordless agreement that you both come to when your toes hit the beach.

You’re both seated, your eyes looking over the horizon. Your too scared to break the silence, so you wait for Mapi.

“You look good, chica.”

You nod your head, you feel better, you must look better then how you did.

“I feel better.”

Mapi nods, when her hand reaches out to sit on top of your own on the sand, you don’t flinch away, it feels good to have a physical connection with a person who isn’t Alexia.

The silence falls over the two of you again, except this time it feels less uncomfortable. You let it linger for a little bit, before you feel in a place to speak.

“I need to say thank you. I know I said some things in the hospital, I meant it in the moment but I want to take it back now. You saved me, you did something so brave and amazing and the version of me now is so grateful that you did.”

Mapi stops your rant, before you can say something else.

“I would have done it for anybody else.”

The problem is you think, that you aren’t anybody else. It would be so much easier to give cpr to a random person on the street and never see them again, never have to be worried that you would see them again and there would be some kind of problem.

“But you did it for me. You saved me from myself, and I want you to know that I genuinely am so thankful for you. You didn’t choose the easy option and I put you in a extremely hard position. If anything had of happened to me, you would have blamed yourself and it wouldn’t have been your fault but you would have felt like it was.”

Mapi nods, and then you hear a sniffle and it makes you feel horrible.

Mapi’s crying, she’s crying and you don’t know what to do.

“You begged me to reverse it, in the hospital, you didn’t say some things. You begged me to stab you or do something. You told me it was my fault you were alive and that it was my responsibility to undo what I’d done.”

You take a deep breath, you didn’t remember it being that bad, but you remember Alexia telling you that some of the things you’d said had been unrepeatable.

“I can’t reverse what I said, in that moment I was in so much pain Maps. I actually can’t tell you how much pain i was in, all I wanted was to disappear. I’m working through not feeling that way and that starts by apologising. You did not deserve to experience what you did. You did not deserve to see what you did. You did not deserve to hear what I said to you. I am sorry. There is nothing I can say that will make any of it okay, I am sorry that for whatever reason god chose you to be the person burdened with this. I am so sorry.”

Mapi sniffles again. You knew that the possibility of no reconciliation was possible, that Mapi would reject any offer of apologies you had, you’d just really hoped it wouldn’t be like that.

“You’ve been like a little sister to me. I know you didn’t feel like we were that close, but I saw so much of me in you from when I was younger, and that was part of the reason I ended up at your apartment that night. Because I was worried, more then anybody else. I had this weird feeling, and I hated that I was right about it. You were like my little sister, and I watched as they strapped you onto a gurney and wheeled you off whilst telling me that they would try their hardest. I don’t blame you, there is no blame for something like this. But I need you to understand that I can’t just get over what I www, I’m working through it, I’m trying. My therapist has really been helping me, but it’s not going to disappear.”

You nod, Mapi and you have been through two mirroring experiences, and oddly you feel the same way about your own therapy. You’re working through it, you’re trying, but nothing that has happened is ever going to disappear, with yourself or with your peers.

“Maps, you’re allowed to experience however you want. If you never want to see me again I won’t hate you.”

Mapi shakes her head.

“I don’t know how I feel yet, I just need you to know that I understand that the you right now is different to the you from weeks ago, and you are entitled to separate yourself from that person. You don’t have to be that person if you don’t want to be. Let yourself live in the new version of you, the old version died back then.”

You bite your lip, there is beginning to become a permanent divet from your front teeth, you like it in a weird way.

“I’m trying, I’m really trying.”

Mapi nods, raising her arm from your hand, to your shoulders, bringing you into her side.

“We’ll try together then, huh? You try for me and I’ll try for you?”

You nod your head, and for the first time it doesn’t feel like you’re totally alone in the battle that you’re fighting. It’s still very much your battle, but it feels like you have somebody in your corner letting you know that you are going to be okay.

—————————————

well aware it’s not edited… if u have an issue with that such my dick xoxo

hope you enjoyed !!!! 🫶🫶🫶🫶

429 notes · View notes