#ITS THAT SAME SHOULDER TOUCH THAT REMINDS HIM OF GUTS' POWER OVER HIM THAT MAKES THE ECLIPSE HAPPEN

[paint-it-dead]

are you mentally stable or are you reading through berserk only to realise that the hand that guts cut off at the eclipse is the same hand that he put on griffith's shoulder after the assassination of the queen and also the hand that he put on griffith's shoulder, again, that was the catalyst for the beggining of the eclipse?

[powdermelonkeg]

So, BO2W Breakdown

Buckle up, this is gonna be a long one.

Here we’ve got Ganon’s...energy taking over Link’s arm. Ordinarily, I’d call it Malice, but based on what it turns into, I’m just going to be calling it corruption. We don’t get much information from this scene besides this expression:

Link’s grabbing the corruption with his other hand, and wincing. It looks painful. I personally think it’s for cinematic effect that it was included, but it COULD be a gateway into a Phantom Hourglass sort of mechanic--Link has to function on a time limit, or using the corruption’s power could drain his life.

Next we’ve got a closeup of Ganondorf. F in chat to the rehydration theorists.

And the closeups of his jewelry. The only significant thing I can see is his necklace, which looks like a cross between the Gerudo symbol and a Fleur de Lis:

But what I’M most interested in is this tie on his belt:

For one, it’s WAY bigger than it needs to be, and that’s deliberate. Ganondorf’s got a jewelry aesthetic he’s already hit above; everything else is gold, why not this bit?

Most importantly, you can barely make it out, but the designs either look Sheikah or Zonai--they’ve got that same kind of swirly busy pattern to them. The red tint and tan-ish lines in it makes me think it’s possessed Sheikah tech.

Next, we’re shown Zelda falling. This looks like it happens right after these two caps from the first trailer:

So we reach for her as the ground collapses, and evidently, we fail to pull her back up. So my next question for that scene is going to be what the in-game reason is for us not diving in right after her. Maybe we won’t get one, since the appeal of the original BOTW was that you could fight Ganon whenever you wanted.

Up next, we’ve got a skydiving shot:

The first thing to notice is that Link’s pose while skydiving is just about identical to his pose in Skyward Sword:

Second is that, yes, he’s falling towards a floating island, and that in itself is noteworthy, but he’s FALLING. There’s something either above him that he jumped off of, or a force that carried him high enough TO fall, and I doubt Nintendo’s encouraging magnesis flying.

So, there’s a few options: Loftwings making a return (which is unlikely, but a hope I have), something like Revali’s Gale boosting Link up for a cinematic shot, indicating that the corruption arm has that kind of power, or islands higher than the one shown here.

Now the island itself:

In Skyward Sword, Skyloft looks like this:

And (spoiler alert) we loose this island here over the course of the game:

Now, it’s not a PERFECT 1:1 match, as most things between games aren’t, but a quick rotate and overlay shows it’s got the same kinds of shapes between the two. The same “W” shape along the eastern side, the same tiny island off the northeast point, the same relative edges.

Now, I don’t know what happened to the plaza at South Skyloft, or the Knight’s Academy isle, but it could very easily be drift away from the central island.

The presence of other islands through the clouds seems to support that theory. Now let’s look at Link here:

The outfit is new. We haven’t, to my knowledge, seen one of this design in other games. My gut reaction to this image was “oh, we go back in time and we’re the first hero now!” because it’s vaguely reminiscent of Tapestry Hero.

But upon closer inspection, that theory’s null and void. Under Link’s tunic in the image above, you can see that he’s still wearing the shorts he woke up in in the first game. So either Sheikah boxers haven’t changed in 10,000 years, or it’s taking place in present day. Jokes aside, I’m curious to know if the outfit he’s wearing is modeled after Tapestry Hero.

Next thing to point out is the obvious:

Link’s arm here looks less prosthetic and more...withered, I almost want to say. The corruption here’s made his hand look frailer, and armored them up with Zonai patterns before it fades out at his shoulder. Based on how the tattoos look, I think they’re an artifact of the corruption taking hold.

Also, the belt here:

Aesthetic purposes, or specific function? The presence of the second, smaller one on the side reminds me of Skyward Sword’s adventure pouch, which could be how the new game handles inventory size:

Next we’ve got another flying shot:

It seems like he’s flying towards Ruined Skyloft, and you can see the bottoms of islands above it, possibly meaning that the sky serves as more than just a hub world like it did in Skyward.

Now let’s look at the paraglider he’s using. It’s new.

This is how the paraglider looks in the original BOTW. It looks like we still have the Rito symbol in the center, but other than that, there’s a LOT of changes here.

First off is the color. We’re now blue and gold. The shade of blue makes me think of the Kochi Dye Shop’s navy blue:

So, possibly a dyeable paraglider?

The new pattern surrounding the Rito symbol makes me think that it’s combining the paraglider with Skyward Sword’s sailcloth:

Other than that, there isn’t much else to say about the paraglider besides the handles looking like they’re made of bone. Craftable paragliders? God, I hope not.

Back to Link:

Here we have him in different gear than the last shot. He’s wearing the snow boots, he has a shield with a stylized Eye of Truth looking upwards, and he looks like he’s carrying a traveler’s sword and an unknown bow. The presence of the bow makes me think that the shield here is a lower tier item, rather than this game’s Hylian Shield equivalent.

Now, let’s get a better look at the horizon:

The trees here look a lot like the smaller trees you can find in Akkala, but there’s a distinct lack of red among them.

Then it looks like we’ve got some ruins at the furthest isle.

Whatever the rock formations are over there, they don’t LOOK natural.

Another thing I noticed is the bottoms of the islands.

These look a little too geometric to be natural, too. Now, this one, I’m a little muddy on, because it COULD be a stylistic choice. But it also reminds me of the Shrines if you clip out of bounds:

And a little bit of the dormant Gate of Time from Skyward:

My money’s on the cube-like nature of the islands’ undersides being deliberate, rather than just a far-off render.

And then there’s this thing!

What is it? It doesn’t look broken at all; look how nicely the roof(?) is kept. The ribbing on the sides makes me think it might be a Zonai thing, but the shape makes it difficult to figure out. A giant temple? An airship? A sloped coliseum? This thing haunts and vexes me.

Our next shot is presumably from one of the islands, based on the color. Here we can see that there are definitely ruins all over the place. Link is in the same gear as before, so I won’t touch on him.

This, however, has my interest. The design here has more geometric patterns--Zonai ruins?

We’ve got another one off in the distance here. Sky checkpoints, like Sheikah towers?

Now this guy here. There’s a LOT to look at. First off is the eye design, it’s the same sort of upward looking one that Link has on his shield in the previous shots.

The energy that’s pulling this thing towards its base looks like the same green energy that surrounds the arm holding Gan in place in Trailer One:

This stuff. That, plus the fact that the robot has to be pulled into its base rather than just existing, implies that either A: Link activates it himself, like a trial thing, or B: that the green energy here functions in the same way Malice does in the original BOTW.

This pattern at its base is intriguing, too. I don’t recognize the gold symbol in the center, but the green around it reminds me of the portals from Twilight Princess.

Which, yes, everyone’s already said that the Twilight Princess patterns look like Zonai things. But another thing this weird dial thing reminds me of is from Lanayru Desert:

On top of that, the color palette of this guy looks like that of the Lanayru Robots from Skyward:

BO2W robot on the left, Lanayru robot on the right. Given that Skyward is a lot more vibrant than other non-Toon Zelda games, I think this is a fair enough comparison to draw similarities from.

And then we get a closer view of the sky ruins from the last shot. I don’t know if the geometric pattern in the corner is a deliberate carving, or wear from time, but since the pattern looks ALMOST mirrored around the corner, I’m going to go with the former.

A better shot a few frames later. The robot has HANDS, which I do not like in any way shape or form. However, we get a better look at the sky ruins.

We haven’t seen this style of stairs before, to my knowledge. The pedestal out front looks like a light source, and it has the same floral egg thing the robot above has on each shoulder; the eggs could easily be a power source for Zonai tech. And at the top of the stairs, we see a pedestal, backing up the theory that these ruins function as our new Sheikah towers.

This is our next shot. Which...

Unikoblins. Can we talk about that? UNIKOBLINS.

Anyways, Link is here again in his old clothes. This is a very early game shot, because his right arm isn’t corrupted yet; this means we get to explore Hyrule before we embark on the main quest. Which gives rise to a question: Where’s Zelda?

The hopeful side of me wants to say that she’s a tutorial companion, like Navi or Tatl, at least for the beginning here. The pessimistic side of me thinks that she’s waiting for us at a predetermined location, and this is just part of getting to her.

Now the unikoblin structure itself is built on a Talus, meaning that the dev team at least intends to have more inter-monster interactions. But if you kill the Talus, does that mean that the base falls apart, or does it just drop down as a separate entity?

Also, what are these background ruins? The one on the left looks like it’s a distinctly different style than the one on the right. It looks almost like a giant guardian arm.

Our next shot is Link’s arm getting corrupted. Which, first of all, the effects look beautiful.

Now, we can see a corner of Link’s hip here, and we know that this is his right arm. So Link’s lying down here. Unconscious? Knowing how Zelda games like to start with Link waking up, probably. Although it looks like at least part of his shorts got an update.

We can see what looks like circuits here. It looks a bit like the electricity puzzles you can find in the Divine Beasts and Shrines in the original.

Then we’ve got these strange symbols.

Whatever this circular stone he’s lying on is, it looks a lot like the Zonai puzzle from the “A Fragmented Monument” sidequest.

This one that everyone thought was the Mirror of Twilight for years.

Our next shot is Link using the corruption powers against enemies:

The spike ball itself looks solid; the question is, is this a duplication power, or a visualization of how the spike ball is set into motion?

We see it barreling over a poor Unikoblin or two, but I’d like to turn your attention to the Moblin and the background.

The moblins here have helmets, and the bases, while they carry the same design, look like they have more cause and effect in mind. The left base’s rock, for instance; that’s a lot bigger than the rocks we got to play with in the last game, and it looks like we can barrel anything in the screen over with it.

The helmet, though, concerns me a little bit. It looks natural rather than forged; like it’s the moblin’s horn, just very much deformed. Does it mean a harder enemy, or is it just for flavor?

Our next shot is this strange flower thing. Note that Link’s right arm is perfectly fine in this shot, meaning that it’s still early game.

This is what Link’s flamethrower looks like. And this:

Is Zonai art.

So the question is, what IS the flamethrower? My first thought was that it’s either a new item in its own, or it’s a Sheikah Slate upgrade. The latter might sound a little far fetched, but Link in this game is right-handed, and in BOTW, he always held the slate in his LEFT hand when using it.

We have more of the weird faded designs that we saw on the Sky ruins:

And we’ve got some kind of pedestal or stage behind the ground flower thing:

It looks like it’s either an altar or a grave, from what I can tell. The stairs aren’t the same design as the ones in the sky, and there aren’t any patterns on it.

More importantly, though, is that this place is underground. This could be a part of the game you’re required to go through, in order to get to Raisin Gan.

A few seconds later, though, we get our answer to what the flamethrower is!

It’s a shield!

Off to the left side, we can see pillars with more weird scribblings towards the top. These match the Sky ruins’ pillar shape, with a narrow base and a wider top.

Our next scene is...weird.

We see a puddle splash in reverse. It’s hard to tell if it’s actually water or not, but the design on the ground implies that it’s either been there for a long time, or that that’s a dedicated splash spot. And the quality and zoom makes me think that this is part of a cutscene. Return of the timeshift stones?

We then see Link...surfacing out of the island? I don’t know how else to describe it. However, his arm is changed again, and glowing, meaning that this is a corruption power. And the “water” he rises out of here looks a lot like the puddle in the last clip.

We get a good look at the Zonai Lights:

A Sky ruin that looks like it contains a room:

And a glimpse of other isles’ ruins in the far distance.

And then as the camera zooms out...

We can place a location!

We’re right over Thundra Plateau!

We also get a mildly better look at the back wall of the sky ruin, which looks to be some kind of table:

The next scene is Hyrule Castle:

The ground shakes and it starts to rise up. However, notice that the columns surrounding the castle are now missing.

We’ve also got red sparks in the air, like we would have in a blood moon. However, due to the sky color, we can assume that this is a conscious decision by Gan himself, and that he isn’t drawing power from his surroundings.

We then see that power bleeding out of the ground. It’s MUCH more red than Malice is, which has always been a kind of burnt pink-ish color.

However, even though Ganon lifts the castle up, he doesn’t lift it very high.

The castle’s about triple the height it was. But since we’re talking Skyloft levels of floating islands, this is still pretty ground-level. What’s interesting to me, though, is that in this shot, despite the game now being about sky islands that we should be able to see from ground level...there aren’t any here. This, to me, means that there’s going to be a sudden appearance of the isles in the sky, rather than them simply being accessible now.

And that’s the whole trailer! I have many questions.

My blog! If you have any opnions/questions/theories, feel free to drop an ask!

Part 2 is up! We missed a lot!

[mypoisonedvine]

𝐩𝐨𝐨𝐥𝐬𝐢𝐝𝐞 𝐬𝐞𝐫𝐯𝐢𝐜𝐞 || helmut zemo, bucky barnes and sam wilson x reader

(this is a sequel to 𝐟𝐢𝐫𝐬𝐭-𝐜𝐥𝐚𝐬𝐬 𝐬𝐞𝐫𝐯𝐢𝐜𝐞, I recommend reading that first although it’s not 100% necessary... it would make this make a lot more sense though)

𝐬𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲 : it was just a matter of time before he upped the ante, all four of you knew that, but taking you all on a vacation specifically for this was a bit over-the-top.

𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭 : 7.9k (hoo boy)

𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬 : smut (foursome/group sex + a scene that’s just zemo/reader, cockwarming, d/s dynamics, brief oral f receiving, a touch of dubcon/cnc but it’s very subtle and the reader is 100% consenting), established zemo x reader, sugar daddy relationship, ‘sir’ kink (with zemo), ‘daddy’ kink (with sam), orgasm control/denial, overstimulation, creampie, praise with light degradation, possessiveness (but also sharing, lol), exhibitionism/voyeurism, choking, brief anal mention, once again technically cuckolding but not in the typical sense, slight corruption kink?, too many robes, latin sokovian (or as I like to call it, serbukromanian), also assume that whenever the reader and zemo are alone they are speaking sokovian even though I write the convos in english for the sake of simplicity

thank you for being my beta @nsfwsebbie​ !!

                   When your Baron told you he wanted to take you on a vacation, you immediately assumed it would be to the mountains or some European city full of history and culture.  Instead, you were a bit surprised to hear he was interested in a beach resort, a private villa he had purchased in French Polynesia.

And then you found out he wanted to bring Sam and Bucky along too… and you were simultaneously more and less surprised.  More, because who brings tentative coworkers one barely gets along with on a romantic vacation?  Less, because of course he would do this.  Of course he had plans to dress you up in the tiniest bikinis he could find and show you off to the men who had already become pawns in his perverted game of social chess.

Not that you minded; you were the Queen of the board and it didn’t bother you if it was what the King wanted.

~

You spent the first night in the villa alone with him, which you appreciated.  It had been a while since you two had some real quality time together, and you were craving him more than ever, in every way.

After a beautiful day spent swimming in the crystal blue ocean and enjoying the sights your new temporary home had to offer, you took a shower and tried not to get too excited about how you might be spending the evening with him.  But, of course, you were only a few minutes into washing the saltwater off your body when you began to imagine his tongue on you, god that man could use his tongue to destroy you any way he wanted: with his words, with his kisses, or perhaps best of all with it tasting every inch of your cunt.  It was amazing how he could get on his knees for you and still have all the power.  He liked to make you keep eye contact with him while he did it, make you beg him to let you come, whatever it took to remind you that you were thoroughly and properly owned.

And you loved every second of it, you loved being helpless to him.  He made you feel so safe that being vulnerable with him by now felt like no risk at all.  You could remember early on when your fears and insecurities made you more hesitant to submit to him, and it was only with gentle patience that he coaxed you into it, never pressure or anger.  You weren’t a virgin when you met him but, sometimes it felt like you might as well have been since you were so inexperienced and undersexed then.  In fact, he was the first man, the first person other than yourself to make you come… and he made you come more ways than you had known possible.

Okay, so maybe the plan to not get your hopes up wasn’t going so well… you were already struggling to keep your hands from between your legs. Frankly, you would’ve already done it if you didn’t know that touching yourself was against the rules.

You’d gotten so used to taking care of yourself while he was in prison, at which point he obviously suspended that rule, and it was a hard habit to break at times.

You emerged from the bathroom in the fluffy robe you found on the door, smiling when you saw him lounging on the bed in a matching one, reading Анна Каренина (known by the West as Anna Karenina).  He looked contemplative, as always, and you always thought he looked especially sexy in his reading glasses.  You slipped into the bed beside him, resting your head on his chest as he found a position where he could read comfortably with his arm around your shoulders.

“You must’ve already read that book a thousand times, Helmut,” you sighed.

“And it gets better every time,” he mumbled back, turning the page.

You pouted slightly, nuzzling into his shoulder, and he chuckled.  “Is my little lutka in need of some attention?”

You nodded, and he kissed the top of your head softly.  

“Why don’t you keep me warm while I finish this chapter, hm?” he offered, and you involuntarily clenched your thighs together at his words.  He phrased it like a question, but it felt more like a gentle demand, and you were happy to agree either way.

“Yes, sir,” you hummed as you sat up and straddled his legs, undoing your robe and opening his to wrap your hand around his half-hard cock.

He reached his full potential with only a few slow strokes, and you found yourself absent-mindedly licking your lips as you saw the way your fingers just barely met with your thumb and imagined how your body would be pushed to its limits to take him.  Good thing you were already dripping wet even though you’d just been in the shower.

You indulged in rubbing your pussy over his shaft for a moment, enough to coat him in your wetness, before you lined up his tip to your entrance and sunk down onto him with a sigh, feeling like you could never tire of being stretched open by his thick cock.  

When your hips met his, and the tip of his cock brushed against the deepest parts of you, you had to bite your lip to suppress a whimper.  After so long apart, you were still readjusting to taking him and being on top didn’t make it much easier.

Honestly, you really weren’t trying to move; you just found your hips rocking slightly, seemingly of their own accord.  You moaned under your breath as your clit rubbed against his body, but you were pulled from your trance with a whine as he slapped your thigh.

“No moving, draga, I think I made myself clear,” he reminded you sternly.

“Yes, sir,” you breathed.

You were pretty sure that at some point, you were a patient person. But you couldn’t imagine that now, not when all you could think about was how amazing it would be to just ride him right there, memories running through your mind and making your inner walls ripple unintentionally.  He either couldn’t feel it or didn’t care, stoically continuing to read even as you were struggling to stay still.

Your plan was to be good for a while and then hope that you could convince him later… but you know what they say about best-laid plans, so you ended up cutting straight to the convincing pretty fast.

“Can I move yet, sir?”

“It’s hardly been a minute,” he frowned.

“Please,” you sighed, just barely moving your hips without even meaning to.

“Not yet,” he asserted, sounding a bit annoyed, but you needed this more than anything.

"Please let me move, please; I just wanna ride you so bad,” you begged.

He sighed, clearly irritated, and just when you thought you’d made a grave error, he finally put his book aside and looked up at you with a grin.  "If I had known you would be so whiny, I would have had you keep me warm with your mouth.”

You opened your mouth to respond but let out only whimpery moans when he ran his hands up your body, toying briefly with your nipples before wrapping a hand around your neck and pulling you down into a rough kiss.  Moaning into it, you couldn’t hold back any longer and started to rock your body atop his, savoring that perfect drag of his length along your walls that you’d missed so much.

Before you got a chance to really set your pace, he grabbed you tight and rolled the both of you over, pinning you under his weight as he fucked you in that way that was somehow rough and slow at the same time, moving his kiss to your neck and holding you down by your wrists.

“Fuck, th-thank you, sir,” you sighed, your cheeks warming when he chuckled against your skin.

“You really are too sweet, draga,” he whispered.

Your arms wrapped around his neck while your legs did the same to his hips, keeping him deep inside you while his lips and tongue teased your collarbones, his fingers interlacing with yours.

He spent the entire night somewhere between making love to you and fucking you within an inch of your life, making you come more times than you could count, only taking breaks from fucking you to eat you out like a starving man (and one time for a quick drink sometime around 3 a.m.).  It was no wonder, then, that you passed out just a few moments after he finally came inside you, sleeping soundly in his arms until well into the morning, nearly noon in fact, when the sun was streaming in through the massive window.

After a relaxed breakfast of champagne and fruit (the native pamplemousse was unlike anything you’d ever eaten before), Helmut encouraged you to shower again and meet him at the pool, which was a bit surprising since he normally liked to have you keep his come in you as long as possible.  “Our guests should be here this afternoon,” was his only explanation, and you had a few ideas about what that meant, all of which made your gut sink in an oddly pleasurable way as you were filled with anticipation.

“Wear that bathing suit I bought for you, the new one,” he added finally as he stepped out onto the back patio.

~

It might seem silly to have a pool on a property right by the beach, but on days like today, where the ocean water was just a bit too chilly, you were thankful to have the heated pool to take a dip in.  Honestly, you were a little surprised that Helmut didn’t make you swim in the ocean to see your nipples get hard through the tight black bikini, but then again, they were already getting there just from sharing a pool chair with him.

He was lying against the cushioned chair; your body sat between his spread legs as the back of your head rested on his chest.  And, this is entirely unrelated, but you really liked how he looked in the round sunglasses he had on.

You hummed contentedly as you reached up behind you to touch him, rubbing his shoulders and pecs.  You wiggled a bit, slowly, and imagined how it would feel if he got hard right against the small of your back.

"Mm, what's gotten into you, lutka?" he purred, rubbing your arms.

You rolled your eyes playfully.  "You know the effect you have on me, don't act surprised."

Just before anything exciting could happen, Sam and James entered through the fence, apparently already having changed into their swimsuits; you wished you had thought to wear sunglasses so they couldn’t catch you ogling their muscular bodies, but instead, you just tried to keep your cool as you waved hello.

“Welcome!” Helmut called out, both of you getting up to greet them properly.  “I hope your flight was alright…?”

“Yeah, it was great,” Sam nodded, “thanks.”

“You really own this whole place?” James added, glancing around.

“Yes, would you like to have a swim?  I hear it should be warm enough tomorrow for the ocean, but until then…” Helmut trailed off.

Sam went right ahead, diving in and smiling wide when he popped back up.  That man had such an infectious smile, you thought he should charge people to see it or something because you felt spoiled seeing it for free.

James jumped in behind him but seemed a little surprised when he returned to the surface to see you back in your chair with Helmut.  “Care to join us?” he asked you.

“Um, no, I already swam a bit this morning,” you remembered, suddenly shy, “I think I’ll stay by the pool a while longer.”

“Aw, I was looking forward to getting to know you better,” he pouted, and everyone else raised an eyebrow at that statement.  “Um, verbally, I mean,” he added, cheeks flushing slightly.

“What would you want to know?” you asked, sighing as you relaxed against Helmut’s chest.

“Well, what’s your story?” he shrugged, swimming up the edge of the pool to hang his arms over the edge.

“I… suppose it’s a rather short story,” you realized, “I was born in Sokovia, but my parents were immigrants.  I was a bit of an ugly duckling as a child, I think.”

“You look like quite the swan now,” James winked, and you hoped Helmut wouldn’t notice how much that affected you.  

“Oh, thank you,” you mumbled.

“Which reminds me, that’s a cute bikini you have on,” he complimented.

“Do you like it?” you hummed coyly.  “Helmut picked it out.”

“Why don’t you give them a better look, darling?” Helmut prompted, and Sam swam up to hang over the edge too as you stood up and fought the urge to cover yourself with your arms.  The Baron motioned his finger in a circle, silently instructing you to twirl so they could see the back, and you did though you felt a bit self-conscious about it.  Finally, once you were sure they’d had an eyeful, he let you sit back down in his lap.

“Cute, isn’t it?” he cooed as his fingers travelled slowly up your sides.  “It’s Chanel.”

“Yeah, whatever,” Sam dismissed, unlatching himself from the edge of the pool and falling into a backstroke.  “This is weird.  I just wanna swim.”

“You didn’t think this was seriously a free vacation, no strings attached, did you?” James shot back, getting up out of the pool and shaking some of the water off of himself before sitting down in the chair beside you two and letting his eyes wander over you.  “So, Chanel, huh?” he prompted, and you nodded.

“Helmut says I should only wear the nicest things,” you explained, sitting up slightly.

“Why does it matter?  You’d look beautiful in anything,” James cooed, and you felt a little dirty for how much you liked his attention.  Good thing you liked feeling dirty.

“And a rare wagyu steak would taste just as good served any way, but you wouldn’t put it on a paper plate, now would you?” Helmut countered.  “Well, maybe you would…”

James rolled his eyes but brushed off Helmut’s insult, returning his attention to you.  “I guess I’m just… hungry enough that it doesn’t make much of a difference.”

You reached up to trace your fingertip over the silver chain dangling off of his neck, biting your lip as you hooked your finger around it and pulled him closer.  “Are you hungry enough that you don’t mind that it’s another man’s meal?”

His blue eyes went wide for a moment before glancing down to your lips and back up to your unwavering gaze, your brow raised as if a challenge while his furrowed as if he were considering accepting it.

“If he’s willing to share…” James whispered back.

“Then kiss me,” you requested softly, pulling him closer by his dog tags one more time until your lips met.

The way James kissed you was… difficult to describe.  Gentle, but with this edge of intensity— like he was restraining himself, like there was so much more passion teeming beneath the surface.  You wanted to bring that out if you could; you wanted to see how far you could push him until he lost it.

As James carefully ventured his tongue into your mouth, only to pull back and nip your bottom lip with his teeth, Helmut kissed you too— on the back of your neck, that spot that always made you wet and desperate right away.  You moaned, and you couldn’t be sure exactly who it was for, but James sure decided to respond to it either way, tilting his head more to let his kiss explore you deeper.

Helmut’s teeth dug into your shoulder right as James nipped at your bottom lip like they had somehow explicitly coordinated to make you desperate; your right hand reached up to weave into James’ hair, your left squeezing Helmut’s wrist at your side.

The kiss ended just a moment too soon, and there was a delay before you blinked your eyes open to look back at James, who seemed quite proud of himself.

“Touch me,” you pleaded in a whimper.

“Where?” he asked, somewhat innocently.

“Y-you know where…” you mumbled.  

He grinned wide, all trance of innocence gone.  “I know, but I want you to say it.”

“My cunt,” you whispered, and he snarled just a bit at the word.  “Please?”

“Of course, which one do you want?” James prompted with a grin, showing you his hands as your eyes instantly gravitated to the metal one.

“I think you know which I’m going to choose,” you mumbled shyly, and he smirked as he reached forward with the vibranium arm to brush his fingertips over your stomach, moving down to the top hemline of your bikini bottom.

You just barely gasped when the metal digits swiped over your clit and began to rub gentle circles, almost too slow as if he wanted to tease you… which, of course, he did.

"Do you like the way he touches you, draga?" Helmut whispered.  His voice in your ear was like honey on your tongue, like honey everywhere.

"Yes, sir," you nodded, looking down at James' hand buried into your bikini.

"Hey, tell me you like it, too," James protested, "I'm the one doing it after all."

"I like it, James," you repeated, looking up at him.  "I… don't have a title for you.  Should I call you something when you touch me like this?"

"You can just call me Bucky from now on, okay?  I think we're well past close enough now for that."

"Okay, Bucky," you sighed, watching the way his jaw clenched when you called him by name, "please put your fingers inside me."

"Both?"

"Yes, please," you breathed.

"But my fingers are thick, they're hard metal, and you're so small and delicate…"

"I want them to stretch me out, just please—"

A loud moan of shock jumped out of your mouth when he pushed the fingers in all at once, and though it reawakened some of the soreness from when Helmut had fucked you the night before, it felt wonderful enough to make your back arch up from the strong body behind you, his erection now digging into your hip.

It was certainly loud enough to get Sam's attention, who suddenly appeared beside the chair while he towelled off his chiselled chest.

"Damn, what are y'all doing to her over here?" he wondered aloud as if he were concerned for your health.

"Just playing with Zemo's little doll," Bucky answered.  "She's really fucking tight, can barely fit two fingers."

"Wait, move over, let me see," Sam insisted, making Bucky pull his fingers out and Helmut holding you more firmly as Sam slipped his hand into your bikini as well, poking his fingers at your entrance before pushing them in.

His fingers were even thicker and longer than Bucky's, just by a slight margin yet enough to make you mewl and arch your back as your eyes fluttered shut.

"Fuck, yeah, you were right," Sam breathed, and you felt more hands running over your body but you couldn't even tell anymore whose they were; you knew one that reached to pull up your bikini top and expose your breasts was Helmut's, because only he would be so bold, but the fingers teasing your nipples, the rough palm running up your legs… they could've belonged to anyone, and that realization made your clit throb.

"Okay, okay, that's enough. I was here first," Bucky mumbled as you felt Sam's fingers slip out and the metal ones push back in— not to mention the thumb reaching up to circle your clit slowly.

He wasn't just exploring you this time; you could tell he had a mission.  The way he instantly curled into your spot, the way he moved quickly yet deliberately, all made your thighs begin to quiver.

Helmut kissed your ear, gently tilting your head to access your neck better where he began to suck hard enough to leave a mark, mumbling something in Sokovian about how good you were being for him and his guests.

You loved being good, and the praise made your hips lift a little so you could rock yourself onto Bucky's fingers; the three men chuckled proudly.

"Feels that good?" Bucky pressed, and you nodded quickly.

He fingered you even faster, harder, and you cried out.

"Ohhh fuck, Bucky!" you gasped.  "Bucky, I'm gonna come!"

"Oh no, you're not," Helmut groaned, giving you a quick spank on the inner thigh as you whined and jolted.  "James, take your fingers out."

"Do I have to?"

"You do if you want a chance to fill her with more than just your fingers…"

That worked right away, Bucky pulling back as you pouted at being empty again.

“Let’s take her inside, and we can continue this there,” Helmut suggested, and Bucky lifted you up into his arms as the Baron led the group back to the master suite.

The convenient thing about bathing suits is that it takes so little time to get naked, which is why the second the patio door was shut, Bucky and Sam were stripping as their hard cocks bobbed up against their stomachs.  As if that weren’t overwhelming enough, Helmut stepped away for a moment (which left you feeling more alone than usual) just as the men began to help you strip; Sam untied the back of your bikini while Bucky knelt and pulled down the bottoms, leaving you feeling exposed as you were totally bare before them.  Bucky smiled up at you and kissed along your thighs while Sam grabbed a handful of your ass and growled a bit under his breath.

When you looked over at Helmut, you saw he had actually dressed in his robe rather than stripping, nearly making you whine with disappointment.  But you couldn’t focus on that long as hands moved all over your skin, both of them still just slightly wet from the pool, and you shivered for both of those reasons.

You gasped when Bucky suddenly licked a thick stripe right over your folds, and if it weren’t for Sam’s arms holding you up, you might not have been able to stay standing.

Looking down at where Bucky was devouring you, he looked back up at you with a lot less dominating intensity in his eyes than you were used to seeing.  Not that you minded; after all, no one could do what Helmut did as well as he could, but maybe Bucky could do something different, and it would be just as enjoyable.  His tongue lapping at your clit was certainly wonderful so far.

Sam guided one of your hands back behind you to stroke his cock, your mouth falling slack, which he took advantage of by turning your face and capturing you in an open-mouthed kiss.  You heard your moans stifle against his tongue, felt his cock flex a bit as you smeared the precum you found at his tip.

“I think that’s enough for now,” Helmut interrupted, and everyone turned to look at him.  “Darling, come here,” he instructed with a curled finger that pointed to the bed, “hands and knees.”

You nodded and pushed the other men away, taking your place on the bed and looking up at him as he held your jaw gently.

"How long has it been since you had another man inside you, lutka?" he asked lowly.

"I can't even remember,” you admitted, “it's been so long…"

“Are you willing to try it?” he asked gently, no hint of domination or pressure in his tone, and you found yourself searching his eyes for the right answer.

“What do you want?” you asked him instead of answering.

“Draga, I’m asking what you want,” he reminded you, but you were afraid he would be hurt if you showed interest in the other men.  Sure, previous evidence indicated that wasn’t an issue for him, but your gut instinct was to deny your attraction.  So, you compromised. 

“All I want is you,” you answered first, “but…”

“But?”

“But is it awful if… if I want them to fuck me, too?”

He smiled, kissing your forehead.  “No, I don’t think so.  Only as awful as it is that I want to watch them fuck you.”

You looked up at him and smiled back, brimming with gratitude that he was so gentle with you.  It was fascinating how he wielded complete control over you and yet never used it against you.

“I have one rule, draga,” he added firmly, “you cannot come for them.  You only come for me.  Do you understand?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And stay on your hands and knees, so I can always get a good look at you, yes?”

“Yes, sir.”

He kissed you one more time before pulling away and sitting back in the chair in the corner with his ankle over his knee, looking at Sam and Bucky expectantly.  Every chair he sat in seemed to look like a throne as soon as he was in it.

“Well, get on with it, then,” he instructed, motioning to you.  The men looked at you and looked at each other before some kind of silent agreement took place and Bucky stepped up first.  Sam sat down to watch you as you felt Bucky stand near the bed behind you, flesh and metal fingers running over your back until you shivered.

Then he pressed his cock against you, coating himself in your wetness, and that made you shiver, too.

You braced yourself as he lined himself up, whimpering slightly as he pushed his cock into you as well as hearing him moan lowly.  The hand at your waist tightened as he hissed in a breath through his teeth.

"Fuck," he breathed, holding you still so he could fill you completely.  “S’tight…” he slurred.

“How does it feel for you?” Helmut asked you, raising an eyebrow as he examined your expression, your mouth fallen slack, yet your brow furrowed.

“It feels… different,” you stammered your answer.  You gasped loudly as Bucky started to move, and yes, this was very different.  His cock was curved differently and though it didn’t exactly reach any new parts of you (you were sure Helmut had already touched every part of you physically accessible), it did stroke them in new ways.  

He gained speed rather quickly, clearly too on edge himself to stay patient, and you didn’t blame him although it sent you moving faster toward the edge than you would’ve liked.  At first you wondered if it would even be a challenge to keep from coming like Helmut had demanded… you chided yourself internally for ever being so hubristic.

His legs pushed yours apart, spreading them wider, and he began to really fuck you in earnest, fast and needy and each slam of his hips against your ass harder than ever.  “O-oh fuck,” you choked, forcing your eyes shut and scrunching up your nose for a second when he slammed the tip of his cock right into the deepest spots inside you.  This position left you with nowhere to go, put your whole body on display for him along with giving you no escape from his onslaught of pleasure.  Worst of all was that you were pretty sure he wasn’t even trying that hard to make you feel good, and yet feeling used like that only turned you on more.

"Bucky, please, slow down," you whimpered.

"Absolutely do not do that," Helmut interjected sternly.  "Don't let her tell you what to do."

And, possibly just to spite you, he actually fucked you faster.  You sobbed and bit down on your lip, fighting everything building up inside you.

“You’d better not come,” Helmut warned through his teeth, “you’d better not fucking come.  You know how bad it would be for you if you came for another man.”

“Y-yes, sir,” you nodded.

But Bucky was slamming right into your spot, and he knew it, too. He knew how desperate you were becoming, and apparently, he didn’t mind at all that you’d be punished for it.  He leaned down to growl against your ear, “I know how close you are.  Don’t you think it’d feel so good to just let go and come on my cock?”

You shook your head, tears streaming down your cheeks as the force it took to hold back your orgasm became painful.  “No, it would only feel good to come for Helmut…”

“C’mon baby, just stop fighting it and come for me,” Bucky taunted, “squeeze me tight with that sweet little pussy; I know you need to so bad.”

He wasn’t wrong, but you blinked with teary eyes up at Helmut and wanted nothing more than to please him and make him proud of you.  “Please, m-make him stop,” you begged, “I won’t be able to hold back anymore…”

“He’s not going to stop until he comes, lutka, and you need to stay strong,” he explained, his voice soothing you slightly.  “You need to be my good girl.  Can you do that?”

“Yes, sir,” you whispered.

Bucky held your hips tight as he pulled your body back onto his cock, and you forced your eyes shut to try to focus on not coming.  No other man had made you come in your life but Helmut, and you had no intentions of breaking that streak.

“Think you can make me come before I make you come?” Bucky challenged.

“I have to,” you answered breathlessly.  “And I want you to come… I wanna make you come so bad, Bucky, please…”

“Mhmm?” he encouraged.

“Please, I want it, please come for me,” you whimpered.

“Fuck, I will,” he promised darkly, fucking you even harder.

Helmut interjected a brief instruction: “Pull out.” 

Bucky nodded a little, breathing heavily as you felt his cock throb slightly, especially at the base where each movement stretched you out even more.  It was so beautifully erotic and you were tensing every muscle inside you to try not to come, which helped speed him up quite a bit since you were gripping him so tight.

“Fuck,” Bucky grunted, “fuck!” 

He pulled out and instantly painted your back with a roar, sliding his cock over your ass as he pumped stream after stream of come onto you.  You sighed happily, satisfied that you had managed to stave off orgasm with perhaps only a few seconds to spare— you’d never been so happy to make someone come before because this time it brought relief that you had done well for your Baron.

Then again, you always felt that way when you made the man himself come, but this was different because you had been moments away from failing him.

Speaking of the Baron, he stared down at you proudly the whole time, kneeling down slightly to swipe his finger through the cooling spend on your back and bring it to your open lips.  “Mm, you really are my perfect little girl,” he mumbled as you sucked his finger diligently.  But he turned his attention away from you to call out across the room, “Sam!  It’s your turn.”

Your eyes went wide.  “W-wait, Helmut, I’ll come!”

“No, you won’t,” he hissed, eyes darkening again, “because I told you not to.”

And Sam was already behind you, taking Bucky’s place who had already cleaned himself up a bit and returned to his seat, letting the Baron pour him a drink which he gulped down in one go.

When Sam pushed into the end of you, your natural instinct was to arch your back up to try to keep him from going too deep, but he growled and pushed your back down again with a strong hand that made you feel so small for a moment.  “No, baby, no running away… you’re gonna take it all.”

“Yes, daddy,” you breathed, yelping a little when he roughly shoved in that last inch.

From then on, he went much harder on you than Bucky had, spanking you and gripping your ass while he fucked you, and the most embarrassing part was how much harder it made it to keep from coming.  It was clear that he realized making you come would give him power over everyone else in the room for different reasons, and he was determined to gain that power.

“Does he fuck you this good, huh?” he groaned.  

“He fucks me better,” you shot back right away, making Helmut chuckle slightly.

“If your plan is to make her switch allegiances, you’ll have to do better than that,” Helmut taunted, and Sam doubled his efforts as one hand pinched your clit and the other groped your breast.  You almost lost it right there but managed to pull yourself together, your whole body shaking with the effort to keep the pleasure at bay.

“Well, if he can fuck you better then why doesn’t he?” Sam continued his leading questions, even though you could barely keep up a conversation at this point.  “Why does he keep pimping you out to us if he’s fucking you right all on his own?”

“Don’t you understand?” you breathed, your head falling down onto the bed as you were almost able to look back enough to see his face.  “This is my punishment.  He knows I don’t want anyone else; that’s why you’re here.”

Sam smiled, perhaps in pity, and yet you honestly had to close your eyes because his smile was so lovely that it could’ve brought an end to your restraint.  “Poor thing, he’s really got you whipped.  I… still can’t believe I’m doing this, but you feel too good to stop now.”

He yanked your head back by your hair for emphasis, making you yelp as he fucked you brutally.  Your toes curled and your fingers dug into the sheets, and you had to close your eyes because the way Helmut was staring at you made this all much too difficult.  Maybe it was just that he didn’t seem jealous at all, or angry; but he didn’t seem like he was getting any excess pleasure out of this, either.  It was… almost neutral, but something burned behind his eyes brighter than maybe you’d ever seen it, his legs crossed and his fingers interlaced as he waited for you to either hold or break.

With the top half of your body fallen limply onto the bed, you reached out above your head and felt Helmut’s hand grab yours, squeezing slightly, and it helped keep you grounded as you held his fingers.

“Oh fuck, ‘m gonna come,” Sam groaned out his warning, “gonna cover this pretty ass in my come, you want that?”

“Yes, please,” you shuddered. 

“Keep begging for it,” he demanded, rushing his words as you felt his cock start to throb against your walls with his impending orgasm.  

“Please come, please come, please come on me, Sam, please,” you chanted, over and over, struggling not to come and hoping that if you could speed him up, then you could make it.

He grunted through his teeth as hot ropes of seed covered your ass; though your body was left wanting, dangling on the edge so close to your release, your mind was satisfied that you had managed to follow your Baron’s rules.

Sam stepped back to admire his work, finding another spare robe to cover himself with as he rejoined the other men across the room.

“Would you like a drink as well?” Helmut offered to Sam, unfortunately letting go of your hand in the process.  Sam was still catching his breath, running his hands over his short hair as if he was processing everything.

“No, but are those cigars up for grabs?” Sam replied, pointing to the ornate box propped open, and Helmut nodded.

“Of course; what’s mine is yours,” he answered, presenting the box and lighter to him.

“Yeah, you can say that again,” Sam added flatly, the three of them all looking at where you were sitting, covered in come and waiting patiently for your next command.

Just as you feared they’d all have their cigars and whiskey and ignore you completely, your Baron knelt down to look at you face-to-face, smiling proudly.

“You did so good for me, darling,” he cooed, and your insides clenched as if you could come just from hearing that.  “You don't think I'm horribly cruel, do you?"

"No, sir," you smiled weakly.

“I’ll be right back,” he promised with a kiss to the tip of your nose as he stepped away to the master bathroom.  

You glanced at the other men— Bucky with his crystal glass of whiskey, Sam puffing at the cigar stoically— and wondered what, if anything, you could possibly say.

“So, how’s your weekend been so far?” Sam asked you plainly, breaking the silence.

“It’s only Friday night,” you realized, sighing as you tried not to imagine how much debauchery the Baron had in store for you.  Right now you were so exhausted that it sounded like too much work; and you were so desperate only for Helmut that the idea of anybody else being involved intimidated you.

Helmut returned quickly with a washcloth, sitting beside you on the bed and placing it gently on your back.

“As pretty as you look covered in come, I’d rather not make too much of a mess,” Helmut explained as he wiped you down with the damp cloth, your skin tingling and your body crying out for more of his touch.

“Will you fuck me, sir?” you mumbled, somewhere between an honest question and a desperate plea.

“Yes, I will,” he answered, making you hum happily, “and I’m finally going to let you come.”

You bit down on your lip, trying not to moan just from hearing that.

“But I’m not going to let you stop.”

The lump in your throat was impossible to swallow, but you tried anyway as he tossed the rag away and circled the bed, standing behind where you were laying limply.  He grabbed you by your ankles and pulled you down to where he needed you, covering your body with his as he kissed the back of your neck slowly.

“I bet you’ll come the moment I’m inside you, draga,” he whispered.  You nodded in agreement, gasping a bit as you felt his cock teasing your swollen, sore pussy.  Just the tip bumping into your clit was enough to make you think you could come right there, you’d been on the edge so long.

But then he pushed into you in one stroke, not rough yet enough to reignite the soreness of being filled by two men already, and your walls started to pulse around him.  A million words swirled in your mind, words about how perfect he felt and how you’d missed him so much and how no one could fuck you like he could, but none of them made it to your mouth where you could only moan loudly.

He wrapped his arms around you, he kissed everywhere he could reach, and waves of pleasure washed over you until tears filled your eyes.  You lost count immediately, coming on his cock over and over as you became a limp, whimpering mess right away.

“You two really did miss out,” Helmut taunted the other men between his own moans, “it feels so fucking amazing to be inside her when she comes.  She gets tighter every time… blyat, so tight I can hardly control myself.”

It was already hot to hear him speak to you like that in these moments, but for him to speak to someone else, to keep you from forgetting that you weren’t alone and that these men had just fucked you and were watching you come right now?  You hadn’t even imagined before what that would be like.

“Please, please, sir, please,” you chanted, your voice breaking until you could barely whisper.

“What is it that you want, lutka?  Do you even know what you’re begging for anymore?”

“I want whatever you want, sir, please,” you cried.  He reached around your body to rub your throbbing clit, and you all but screamed.

“I know you do, beautiful, I know,” he breathed, kissing your back and shoulder tenderly to calm you.  “I love you so much, draga, you know that, don’t you?”

“Yes, I love you too, Helmut,” you whispered, “more than anything.  I love being yours.”

“Aw,” you heard Bucky briefly sigh.

“Dude, shut up,” Sam corrected him harshly.

“It’s sweet!” Bucky defended.

“It’s weird; this is all so weird,” Sam frowned.

“You didn’t seem to mind before…” Bucky trailed off.

Two of Helmut’s fingers swiped over your open lips and you immediately sucked them into your mouth with a satisfied hum, the taste of his skin always comforting you.  When he rolled you onto your side, it was so much easier for him to touch you wherever he wanted and it only did more to keep you overwhelmed with pleasure until you worried you couldn’t take much more.  But you kept sucking his fingers, tears still falling which he occasionally kissed away, until he took his hand away to wrap around your neck instead.  You nodded a little to let him know it was okay to choke you, and your loud moans fell to sudden silence when he tightened his grip.  

It made your eyes roll back, it made your walls flutter and your toes start to go numb, it made you wonder if you were going to pass out whether or not he let you breathe again because your body was already ready to give in.

You sucked in a gasp when he let go, sobbing his name as a particularly deep thrust knocked you right into your peak again.  He kept one hand on your neck as the other reached between your legs to play with your abused pussy as he fucked it harder than ever.

“I can’t come anymore,” you assured, shaking your head and trying to push his hand away from your sore clit.  “I— I can’t…”

“Yes, you can, draga, I know you can. Just relax and let me keep making you feel good,” he instructed, somehow both gentle and demanding all at once.

“I… I can’t…” you breathed, nearly incomprehensible between thick sobs, but you were already coming again in spite of your words, shocks of pleasure electrifying your body from the inside out.  He choked you out into silence again, praising you all the way through it.

“There you go, shh, it’s all right,” he soothed, “you’re so beautiful, darling, so good for me, just keep going…”

You reached back to lace your fingers into his hair and tug, which did nothing to deter him from kissing your neck just beneath where his thumb gripped it, same as your hand wrapped tightly around his wrist didn’t stop him from quickly rubbing your clit.

Breath filled your lungs when he let go, and you were so desperate for relief that you felt like you weren’t even in control of your words anymore.

"Please come inside me," you begged mindlessly, "please, I need you so bad, please…"

“Is that what you need?” he groaned.  “You need to be full of my seed?”

“Yes, please, want it deep in me— fuck, Helmut, please!”

He growled and bit your ear lightly, mumbling his promise to fill you up in Sokovian— sometimes you thought he spoke Sokovian when he was about to come because he was so distracted that he forgot English, but you didn’t think that at the moment because you were currently too cockdrunk to think about anything.

His low moan echoed right through your body as you felt his cock flex and throb with each pump of come, just as deep as you’d wanted, and you sighed happily at the familiar feeling, finally relaxing into the mattress.

But perhaps you relaxed a little too soon because he made you come one more time after he’d filled you, whispering something about he wanted to use your pussy to milk every drop from his cock, but after that finally he pulled out, and you collapsed face-down onto the bed, ready to pass out even though the sun was only just beginning to set and you’d slept until noon earlier.

“Well, I think we sufficiently knocked her out,” Sam chuckled.

“‘We’?” Helmut repeated, sounding a bit offended yet bemused as he redressed.

“Okay fine, you did most of the heavy lifting, but only cause you wouldn’t let her come for us,” Sam relented with a frown.

“I swear, I was this close to getting her to break,” Bucky interjected, sighing before taking another slow sip of his (third) drink.

“Yeah, what would’ve happened if one of us made her come, anyway?” Sam wondered aloud.  “She seemed pretty worried about whatever punishment you had in store for her.”

“Nothing too terrible,” Helmut shrugged, “I just would’ve fucked her in the ass.”

Bucky choked on his whiskey as Sam tried and failed to suppress a smirk.

“She lets you do that?!” Bucky blurted out between fits of coughing.

“She lets me do whatever I want,” Helmut replied, “I’m surprised that hasn’t become abundantly clear to you by now.”

“I guess we’re still adjusting to it, that’s all,” Sam explained.  “I don’t know about you,” he looked at Bucky, “but this is new for me.”

“I was born in 1917; everything is new for me,” Bucky frowned.

“Well, this is new for us too,” Helmut assured, “especially her, she was so inexperienced when she met me…”

He paused for a moment to reminisce before glancing at you lying prone on the bed and looked totally fucked-out.

“But look at her now!” he finished.  “She takes it all in stride.”

“Yeah, she’s a trooper alright,” Sam agreed.  “Be careful with her, Zemo, ‘cause I think if you hurt her too bad, Bucky here is gonna be waiting in the wings to steal her.”

“I— what?!” Bucky snorted defensively.

“Don’t think we can’t see you giving her googly eyes, not that I blame you or anything… getting deepthroated for the first time will definitely make you catch feelings,” Sam smirked before taking a puff of the cigar again.

“It’s not like that, I’m just… listen, I guess I’m just a bit more conventional than you perverts,” he frowned.  “I don’t mean to sound ungrateful or anything, I just can’t imagine having a girl like that all to myself and letting anybody else lay a finger on her.”

“Not everyone is as insecure as you, James,” Helmut shrugged.  “Women can’t be stolen.  They can only go where they want to.  And she wants to be with me.”

He turned back to ask you if you agreed, but you were already fast asleep.  Smiling slightly, he grabbed a blanket from the foot of the bed and unfolded it to drape over you; you instinctively cuddled up under it without waking up, letting out a quiet sigh.

“Goodnight, draga,” he whispered with a kiss to your forehead.  “Rest well, you’ll need it for the morning.”

[emiewritesthings]

doctor, doctor - jay halstead

jay halstead x fem!reader

summary: in which y/n takes it into her own hands to look after a sick jay 

a/n: i’m not gonna lie i think this is one of my fav things i’ve ever written, i would really appreciate some feedback and p.s the beginning of it is based on that scene from brooklyn 99 :)

masterlist

“okay, it’s 10 o’clock, meaning halstead is officially an hour late to work,” y/n announced as she appeared from the break room with a mug of poorly made coffee. looking around, she had immediately distracted everyone in the room with her playful smile. “okay let’s do this, theories!” she encouraged, taking a sip with excitement, but immediately regretting it as s he spat it back in the mug and abandoned it on adam’s desk as she leant against it.

“uh, he forgot to set his alarm?” antonio suggested, willing to play along with the little game that y/n had created. however clearly his answer didn’t suffice as y/n scrunched up her nose and shook her head in disappointment.

“you are a detective in a unit that just last week rescued 5 people kidnapped and used as chess pieces in a human sized version of the game and the best you could come up with is he forgot to set his alarm? pfft, disappointing, dawson. who’s willing to take this seriously?” she scoffed, brushing his idea off with a simple roll of the eyes as the group laughed at her ridiculousness. 

“maybe he has been murdered by a gang looking for revenge.” adam piped up, earning a sudden and rather forceful slap on the back as y/n cheered. her eyes looking over at antonio as she gestured towards the less experienced detective.

“yes, that’s what i’m talking about. bit dark, ruzek, but better than dawson’s,” y/n hummed, adam clearly pleased with the praise he had received by the pretty detective. “any one else wanna shot?” she offered it out into the room, suddenly the sound of rolling wheels on the chair had everyone turn to face al who was munching on a ham sandwich.

“he walked into the middle of a drug ring, slept with the kingpins daughter and is now having limbs removed, one by the hour.” suddenly an eery silence fell in the bullpen as al suddenly disappeared back to his desk and everyone was left with an image that she was sure was burned on the inside of everyones mind.

“uh, okay, someone might want to arrange a psych check for olinsky asap,” y/n mumbled, pointing in the direction where he had once been and looking around as if checking that she hadn’t been the only one to hear al’s suggestion. “anyways, all of you are wrong. clearly he has joined a motorbike gang and now makes his money on the road striking off names on the government’s hit list.” 

just as the room erupted into discussion about how idiotic this conversation was, as well as their ideas, the sound of footsteps caught y/n’s attention as she arrived at her desk. however as he reached the floor, the reason for his absence was clear.

“woah, you look like death.” adam chuckled, it immediately being silenced as jay sent a deadly glare his way. with his skin paler than normal with undertones of green, a layer of sweat draped over his forehead. jay flashed as smile at y/n as he passed, reaching his desk and collapsing on his chair with a wince. 

as everyone went back to what they were doing, y/n found herself straying her eyes away from her computer screen for longer and longer periods of time until she found herself by his side with a sickly sweet grin, pun intended. 

“i don’t wanna hear it, y/l/n.” jay mumbled, massaging his temples with his fingers hoping it would somehow sooth his pounding skull. whilst usually he had every minute of his day just to hear the woman chat away about whatever crossed her mind, he had found himself in quite the state since last night, leaving him restless and irritable.

“believe it or not, i just wanted to make sure you were alright,” y/n’s entire demeanour crumbled as she melted at the soft features of his face that came with being so vulnerable. but from the look in jay’s eyes, it was clear he didn’t 100% believe her excuse. “and to ask what the hell you think you are doing here? you are sick jay, you need to rest.” 

it was very rare that jay found himself ill. in the years that y/n had been working by the man’s side, she could count on one hand the times she had seen him with so much as a cough. in fact she had called him captain immune system for a period of time when she realised he was pretty much indestructible. y/n couldn’t deny the concern bubbling in her gut seeing him so weak.

“i’m fine,” with her eyes slitted in a look that practically shouted ‘bullshit’, jay continued. “i promise, it’s just a little cold. nothing serious, i think i’ll survive.” he joked dryly, finding it incredibly hard to look away from y/n for her eyes were filled with a warmth that he knew was an expression usually saved for those she cared deeply about. 

“yeah well, you need to take care of yourself, jay, i’m being serious. chicago can cope if you just have one day off, get your energy back.” 

y/n was reminded of the times she had the exact same words spoken to her by the exact person that didn’t seem to want to take them onboard. every time she had so much as a sniffle he would be straight over with some soup that his mother used to swear by and the name of a box set that he would put on for the two of them to watch as he sat stroking her hair in order to try and convince her body to rest. neither of them had anyone else to take care of them, so had taken it upon themselves to be that person for the other. 

“now, i’m gonna go tell voight that i’m taking you home before you infect this whole office.” before he could object, she had already ran (not literally but jay was impressed by her speed walking) to her boss’ office. knocking on the door, with a sweet smile and a sea of words running off her tongue so quickly that voight had to agree just to shut her up, y/n returned by his side. “come on, germ face, your carriage awaits.” 

“you know i love it when you talk dirty to me, y/l/n.” winking at her, y/n giggled as she supported him back down the stairs and out of the station. the two chatted away, y/n explaining how she thought al was secretly a sociopath and jay filing her in on the newest instalment of his apartment block drama until they pulled up in front of jay’s apartment building. 

as they walked through the door, jay’s arm resting around y/n’s shoulders as he struggled to find strength, they managed to reach the sofa before y/n’s body gave up. both of them letting out large breathes before looking at each other and falling into laughter. 

“you hungry, i could try making your mom’s soup?” y/n asked, as she pushed herself up to look down at the man. her hair falling down around her face and tickling jay’s skin. “i’m sure it won’t be as good as her’s but i’m willing to give it a try.” 

the way she was sat with the large window gleaming light behind her, y/n almost looked like an angel. her eyes and smile were wide, with her beauty wrapping its hands around jay’s neck squeezing until his head felt light and he nearly reached up to touch her porcelain skin. but jay had noticed the sensation way before he was blocked up with a cold.

“yeah, uh, that sounds nice.” jay agreed with a minimal amount of sass, but y/n didn’t seem to notice as she moved off the cushions and towards the kitchen. she had pretty much memorised the recipe when jay had finally given it to her on her birthday after offering to pay for it multiple times. whizzing around the kitchen, she was too busy to notice the tired eyes admiring her from afar. 

jay wished his mom was alive to see the woman that she would have loved. all the times he had brought girls back to his family when he was younger didn’t add up to an ounce of the beauty and power that y/n held in her middle finger. the way she bit back at his wit, but also had the ability to spot when he was upset from the other side of the city. she was everything her mother wanted in a daughter in law, everything she wanted for her little boy. 

“okay, give me your honest opinion. i can take it i promise.” y/n sudden appeared with a tray that held a large bowl of the semi-thick orange liquid, a glass of water and a couple pills. approaching jay, she carefully helped him up from where he laid and placed it onto his lap. “actually that was a complete lie, do not tell me the truth. i may just cry.” 

“why thank you, nurse y/l/n.” he teased.

“it’s doctor actually.” she quipped back.

jay chuckled lowly, as he grabbed the spoon and took a large spoonful to his mouth. feeling the slight sting of his tongue at the heat, it was only when the flavours hit that he was suddenly transported to an earlier time in his life. a simpler time. only this time there was y/n by his side. 

“the verdict?” she prompted, taking a seat besides him, pulling her knees up to her chest. 

“not sure whether i want to tell you, don’t think you’ll fit in this room if your ego grows any bigger.” y/n grinned as she leaned over to press a kiss against his shoulder. jay closed his eyes at the contact, feeling the ache in his body freeze for a moment as it registered the tingling sensation. “all jokes aside, it really is good.” 

“i’m glad, your mother was a smart woman.” she nodded, leaning forward to turn tv on. jay continued to spoon the soup into his mouth, as y/n chose a show that they both had started together and had refused to watch another minute without the other. y/n leaned back making herself comfortable, having already texted voight telling him that she would most likely need the entire day off, and getting the go ahead, she had no plans other than being by jay’s side for the next however many hours. 

it was sometime in the early evening and the tv continued to emit light, but neither jay nor y/n was paying any attention to the drama. jay, with his head on y/n lap, was leaning into her touch as her short, thin fingers ran through the dark strands that sprouted from his scalp. his body wrapped in a blanket that y/n had grabbed from his room, he felt completely at peace. 

“you know what, i think you are more bearable when you are at death’s door.” y/n joked quietly, as the forest green eyes were exposed back to her own. jay groaned in annoyance, realising that there was no sweet y/n without the sharped tongue y/n. a trait he adored, but at his own expense. 

“and to think i was starting to think you had gone soft on me, y/l/n.” he hummed, wishing he could forever have her giggle on repeat wherever he went, for the sound made goosebumps run down his neck and down his arms, like some kind of magic that only y/n possessed. 

“as much as i love you, i can’t risk my bad ass reputation for you.” 

although jay was sure it was just part of her banter, the moment the ‘i love you’ fell off her tongue, he found himself wide awake, unable to push past the feeling in his gut as it looped over again and again in his mind. y/n could see the conflict in his face, as he glanced up at her with something she had never noticed before. 

“you mean it?” he asked. 

“mean what?” confused, her fingers fell from his hair, making jay regret ever opening his mouth.

“do you really, you know, love me?” he knew he had committed too far to try and retreat. maybe he could blame it on the fact he couldn’t think straight, although she was like a lie detector that wouldn’t let such a bogus excuse pass. y/n blinked down at him, watching as he sat up to look at her with a hunger that needed to be addressed. swallowing the lump in her throat, y/n nodded.

“of course, you are one of my best friends, jay.” it was true, but it wasn’t the full truth, both of them knew that.

“i didn’t realise we had started lying to one another,” jay’s eyes were soft, as he reached to place his hand against her cheek, smiling as she slowly leaned into it. closing her eyes, she tried to find what direction she was looking for, but didn’t dare take the first step. without even thinking, jay jutted forward and captured her lips before they could form a single syllable. 

gently, but passionately, jay and y/n moved their lips against the others. the feeling was ever-growing as the kiss deepened and deepened until they had no choice to pull back, deprived of their ability to breath. as jay’s eyes came back into view, y/n, for the first time in her life, had lost the ability to form a sentence. 

“we just...” she began but it ran off quickly. jay chuckled.

“we did.”

the two sat in silence, examining the other one’s face until y/n found herself moving forward until she was sat in his lap, legs wrapped around his waist as she pressed her lips against his. just like before their bodies and minds were set ablaze with desire and what had remained unspoken for what felt like forever. jay had nearly completely forgotten about the illness that had put him in the care of the woman that he craved more than anything else the world had to offer. 

as their lips parted ways, suddenly the air had thinned and everything felt... normal. jay’s lips were unable to break out of the large grin mould that y/n had put them in, which was soon mirrored by the young woman. a small giggle escaping her lips.

“if i get whatever it is you have, i expect the exact same treatment.” 

“only for you, doctor y/l/n.”

[wh6res]

chase — renhyuck

“needy kitty. i can’t wait for purge night.”

tw bullying, violence, swearing, yandere themes, possessive themes, blood, weapons (a gun, a grenade), implied noncon, implied kidnapping, mentions of stalking

disc i dont condone this behavior

wc 5k

‏‏‎ ‎

29 hours before the annual purge

“hold her down—i said hold her down, idiot!”

putting everything into account, they saw you more like a glorified chew toy than an actual person. 

they ruined your life simultaneously and it's ironic, that despite being sworn rivals, it seems you were their neutral ground—after one has had their own fun, you’re passed on to the other person so they can deliver that final, shattering blow that weakens your resolve. 

it was meant to be that way because it had always been that way. you’re the unlucky loser that ignited the worse sides of both lee haechan and huang renjun. 

they’re like oil and water; they don’t mix but with you, they found a compromise. stealing your lunch money, trashing your homework, quickies in between lectures. all of these should’ve been enough to give them a good power trip. but they’ve developed a hunger so severe that these past instances are but mere crumbs that hardly satisfy their cravings. 

it was beyond exhausting, being caught in between two headstrong people that were unwilling to back down at any cost. their aggression and anger towards each other directly being channeled onto you as they shove and swing you around like some ragdoll. 

you weren’t a bunch of kids, you knew that. you don’t cry and sob and say that it’s unfair, you hold your chin high and walk up to the guidance counselor’s office to report them for bullying. but you never should’ve underestimated the power of money and their respective families’ broad network of connections. 

without a doubt, the empty promises for justice is what broke your heart the most. it breaks with every bruise, every tight grip, and every nasty name the people willingly turned a blind eye to. 

it’s sad but it was a reality you taught yourself to get used to—the meek mouse learning how to evade the cats hot on her trail. 

but you weren’t as lucky today. 

“i am holding her down.”

a pair of lips comes in contact with your neck. its feathery and light at first until its biting down to mark you with his teeth. not too strong to draw blood, but enough to dent the surface of the skin. 

haechan has an oral fixation. biting his lips. his nails. whenever you see him, he always has a lollipop on his mouth and if he doesn’t, he’s painting hickeys across your skin. you hated his oral fixation, especially when makeup and clothes proved useless to hide the marks he gives you. 

“why run?” renjun asks you, slipping his fingers underneath your skirt as he kneels. “you know you have nowhere to hide in the campus.”

haechan snorts. “or anywhere else.”

it’s always the same thing. you go to school. you sit in your first period for thirty minutes until one of them shows up. then the other boy probably felt a gut instinct that he’s missing out on the fun. last time, it was an empty classroom in the abandoned left wing. 

they like taking you there all the time, it was always dark, the blinds pulled and shut tight. not to mention it was incredibly dusty. but both male knew you’re afraid of the dark, exactly why it’s their favorite spot. but empty classrooms and supply closets are close seconds, too. 

“you’re so pathetic. useless—only know how to whine like a fucking pornstar,” he quickly comments, feeling you arch against him when renjun’s tongue comes in contact with the pearl between your legs. “my cumdump.”

you feel a sharp exhale against your lower lips. you shudder. renjun clicks his tongue in annoyance. “can you shut up? you’re making my dick soft with all that talking.”

but haechan had ignored him completely, blissfully ignorant of the petite boy’s frustrations as he angles your head up to crash his lips onto yours. when he slightly pulls away, still playfully nibbling your bottom lip, what he said next made your blood run cold. 

“needy kitty. i can’t wait for purge night.”‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎

6 hours before the annual purge

the price to pay for protection started rising again this year and you, much like your neighbors, are in a sense of turmoil. jamming the doors with cabinets and nailing your windows with wood is hardly enough to satisfy the gnawing feeling in your stomach. much less when you didn’t even have a weapon to wield other than a wooden bat and a cheap taser you bought on sale. 

“its not like anyone will be coming for you, right?” the little girl says, touching the randomest stuff in your apartment. her name was naeun and she never really liked pink and sparkles like most girls her age, maybe that’s why she took a liking to you. 

her mom works a 9 to 5 and her grandma stays with her on occasion. but the old lady loved to sleep, naeun said, so she gets the chance to slip out and come knocking on your door. you tried shooing her out of your apartment countless times but she’s stubborn. 

she reminds you of yourself. 

“well, i hope no one does.” you joked, putting on a turtleneck. 

naeun’s mom doesn't like you as much as it is, but if you yourself let naeun see the bruises on your skin? you’d hate yourself forever. “now, come on little missy, go back to your grandma. i need to head over to the bank to settle my protection fees.”

“but you just said no one is going to come for you anyway,” she whines stomping towards the door. “mom already settled ours yesterday becase grammy forced her to. mommy said it was just a waste of money because who’d bother to rob us anyway?”

a memory flashes in your head. two boys who’ve sandwiched you between them in the dark of a fucking supply closet at uni. wandering hands, labored whispers, curt giggles, one pair of lips trailing up your neck while the other up your inner thigh.

“needy kitty. i can’t wait for purge night.”

you needed that protection. that was no slip up because haechan never makes mistakes. if he wanted to make you feel like some animal on the run after catching a whiff of trouble then he sure is doing a good job. 

“hey! i think you just went someplace else there,” naeun says, nudging your side irritably to get your attention again. 

you try forcing out a chuckle but it doesn't work, still deeply peeved by a memory from last week replaying vividly in your mind. if they ever mean what they meant (which you know they do) then this is now more than just trying to get through the night—you have to survive, prepare, and pray neither of them finds you. 

“i think your grandma’s right in doing what she did, naeun. with humans, you’ll never know.”

and just like that naeun went silent, bid you goodbye, and disappeared behind the apartment door.

the bank was a quick walk from your apartment. you hardly broke much sweat and you even managed to stop by the grocery store to make some last-minute runs. the store’s nearly empty, deserted of any human being as the seconds slowly but surely ticked away. it was only when you walked past aisle seven did you pause, the hairs on your back standing as a slow chill crawled up your spine. 

you look over your shoulder. 

no one’s there. 

you swallow, quickly looking down your watch to check the time as you made your way to counter. 3 hours before the annual purge. you needed to get your ass moving. you just need to grab one more thing and you’ll best be on your way. 

you practically ran towards the dairy section and just as you spin around, strawberry ice cream pint in your hands, you jump as he appears before you in thin air and you drop whatever you’re holding. 

“such a skittish little kitten,” renjun clicks his tongue, bending down to retrieve the ice cream on the floor. “here you go.”

you couldn’t even stare at him in the eye. your hands shook but it wasn’t because of the cold desert. now you get it. it’s his eyes you felt on you earlier, ever intrusive and piercing as he watched you from afar. was he stalking you?

“i didn’t quite catch a thank you, kitty.”

how foolish of you to think he’ll let you duck away without at least speaking to him, hm?

“thank… thank you?”

renjun grins, satisfied with your stuttering as he raises a hand to ruffle your hair—he ignores how you flinched away from him—before walking away with one hand in his coat pocket, whistling an eerie tune that can haunt your nightmares way after purge night. 

“see you later, kitten.”

if it wasn’t the whistling that set you on edge or that clear promise of your doom—it’s the pack of zip ties and duct tape in his hands.‏‏‎ ‎

you were watching a rerun of your favorite morning reality tv when it cuts to the dreaded blue screen showing the flag of korea. 

this is not a test.

this is your emergency broadcast system announcing the commencement of the annual purge sanctioned by the south korean government. 

weapons of class 4 and lower have been authorized for use during the purge. all other weapons are restricted. 

commencing at the siren, any and all crime, including murder, will be legal for 12 continuous hours. 

police, fire, and emergency medical services will be unavailable until tomorrow morning until 7 am when the purge concludes. 

may god be with you all.

you’ll never get used to the blaring siren that echoes through the empty streets. you can feel the floor vibrating and it travels throughout your whole body as the dread starts sinking deep into your skin. 

you’ve already double checked all your windows and the front door. activated the security system provided by the bank. and you’ve also already charged your taser and have hammered down nails into your wooden bat. fine. if they wanted to scare and bully you into a panicked frenzy, it did its job but fuck no will you go down without a fight. 

you shut all the lights, the apartment basking in the moonlight glow brought by the translucent curtains as you make your way to your bedroom, nearest the emergency exit just in case they barge through your front door by force. 

at first, nothing happened. it was peaceful. tranquil. you can hear a pin drop with how quiet it was. both inside and outside. you were almost tempted to cover your mouth in case you were breathing too loud. 

it’s silent. until it wasn’t.

your phone rings. it’s there, vibrating on your desk and you make long strides until you’re face to face with a set of numbers on your screen. an unregistered contact. there’s a debate inside your head whether to answer it or not, fingers hovering between the red and green button… until it eventually lands on the green. 

you put it up to your ear, hands sweating as you wait with bated breath for the person on the other end to speak. 

“kitten?”

it’s renjun. you don’t answer. 

“i can hear you breathing, you know. i can’t wait to see you. we’ll have so much fun together. it’s sad that i have to share with that imbecile but better half of you than nothing of you, right?” he laughs and you feel a rush of anger surge through you. yet, you don’t bother to give him the satisfaction of a reply. 

“i can see you’re angry, little kitty. while it’s cute and hot… don’t be. turn that frown upside down for me, wouldn’t you?”

but the blinds are drawn he couldn’t have seen you—

“you’re never going to get me, you fucking bastard. i’m not scared of you,” you sure do hope he can’t hear the tremble in your voice. “whatever you plan on doing to me, you’ll fail.”

you walk back slowly, eyes darting everywhere to look for a camera they could’ve installed in your room. they have connections and the money to do it so you won’t put it past them. 

“oh, my stupid kitty. how can we fail when we already got a head start?” 

the floorboard behind you creaks and before you could turn around, someone slams your head against the desk. you hear a crack, whether it’s the screen of your laptop or your nose, you couldn’t tell. the person is agile and silent as he maneuvers you to the ground and seals your lips with duct tape. 

“after all,” haechan giggles. “you can’t lock out what’s already inside, kitten.”

your phone lands somewhere near your head. renjun has already dropped the call and the line goes silent. 

squirming, you glared at the person on top of you. is this how you’re gonna go? you can’t deny, even you yourself find this pathetic. the security alarms you bought, the nail-studded bat, your taser, everything was all for naught? just because you didn’t check under your bed to make sure no one was there?

how long was haechan waiting? when naeun was still here? when you went out to buy groceries? 

you thought it would be fear you’ll be feeling as you get caught but the emotion isn’t present at all. instead, it’s white hot anger that overrides your system and forces you to act without thinking—and it just fucking saved your life. 

haechan always saw you as a vulnerable, sad little human being who couldn’t do shit on her own. it’s easy to underestimate you and that’s his first mistake. 

the second is rather foolish—not tying your legs up first. it’s all too easy to slam your forehead against his before jerking your leg up to knee him in the balls. 

you can see the anger in his eyes clear as day as you made a run for it to the kitchen, having come up with another escape plan—because surely if you went down the emergency exit, haechan would’ve caught up easily with those long legs after he’s recovered from your assault. 

your nose was probably bleeding and your head is in the early stages of a full blown migraine, at least you were able to function enough to wobble your way towards the trash chute situated near the stove. you had cursed that chute the first day you moved in here (who would put a trash chute next to a fucking stove) but the day has come for you to thank the gods that you have that in your house. 

going for a swim in all your neighbors’ trash is disgusting and unplanned (plus, falling down maybe six floors to your doom) but you’ll choose that over lee haechan and huang renjun any day. 

“don’t you dare fucking think about it!”

you flashed him the middle finger to tick him off. a petty retaliation for all the bullshit he and renjun put you through but it felt good nonetheless. 

“catch me if you fuckers can.”

and you were falling down the trash chute.‏‏‎ ‎

okay, yeah—maybe you should’ve thought it through before hurling yourself six floors down only for some half-filled dumpster to catch you but at least you’re still alive, right? alive and free, mind you. but you don’t have time to celebrate. 

it smelled awful and you swear your knees and elbows are bruised but you scramble to climb out and run away as fast as you can. 

it was only haechan inside your apartment. no sign of renjun but he did see you somehow and you have no doubt it was a camera inside that room. you didn’t have much time to ponder for how long they were installed in your room. it’s the least of your worries at the moment.

you’re outside. 

during purge night.

even if you did manage to escape it felt more like a win than a lose, forced out of your own apartment in nothing but shorts and a shirt—heck, you don’t even have shoes on!—it felt like they won. again. 

if you’re not going to die in the hands of some other wacko, you’ll die of hypothermia. how nice. 

you didn’t know where you were running to, the only thing you knew was you need to get the hell out of this neighborhood as fast as you can. you didn’t want to run in alleyways and risk getting stabbed for fun. maybe the sewer system… oh, right. you don’t have your phone on you and it’ll probably be pitch black down there. 

you really, truly, genuinely didn’t want to run so out in the open but it was the best you can impulsively come up with. 

when you feel like you’ve put a reasonable distance between you and the apartment, you stop, hands resting flat on your knees as you crouch to catch a breath. just as quick the adrenaline appeared as fast as it had disappeared. you feel the weight and tension crushing your legs, not to mention you’re really starting to feel that headache settle after headbutting haechan. 

you almost collapse against the brick wall. 

the last person you ever thought you’ll see jumps out from the corner of the alleyway and you almost broke their nose. 

until you saw who it was. 

“NAEUN?”

their apartment got raided, some buffy sickos who they had the misfortune of breaking into their house to purge. luckily they got away, but after getting attacked on the streets, naeun got separated after she ran for her life just like you did. you can’t help but feel sorry for the little girl, who experienced the full effect of this godforsaken holiday. 

this is bad. you can’t leave her but it’s tough enough to have to fend for yourself. you’re not so sure whether you can protect another human being but you’ll have to try. 

“did your mom or grandma tell you anything? anything at all?” you ask, crouching to her eye level. “you said your mom knew the way… where? what do you mean?”

“mom said they’re providing refuge on the other side of town but it’s a 30-minute drive. walking would take longer.”

shit. you didn’t want to risk it. you don’t have a car and you’d rather die right here right now than walk another step out in the streets—

“who’s ‘they’?”

“i don’t… i don’t know. she didn’t say.”

you licked your chapped lips. you can’t trust what she’s saying, not when you didn’t even know these people. it’s too risky, not to mention you’re already running from not one, but two people.

naeun sits next to you against the bricked wall of the alley, looking down at her lap. “i’m scared,” she admits. you hear a tremble in her voice. “are mom and grammy de—”

“no,” you cut her off, pulling her tiny body against yours. when you feel her fists clutching your jacket, you swear to protect this girl with your life. “no, they’re not. i’m sure they’re heading there now to the refuge center just like we are.”

her head pokes out, looking up towards you. “we’re going? i thought you didn’t want to.”

you shake your head, wiping her tears. “well, it’s the one way for you to meet your mom and grammy, right?”‏‏‎ ‎

walking down the streets during purge night—man, this has got to be the most ballsy thing you’ve ever done after that one time you spat at renjun in the eye. you managed to find a litter of bodies way into thirty minutes of walking and you nearly sent naeun flying onto the asphalt with how hard you pushed her back. she couldn’t see this mess, you’d be damned to allow a nine-year-old walk right into psychological trauma. 

you pocket a gun—you didn’t have enough courage to fight with a knife. you wiped the blood off using your shirt before shoving them down onto the garter of your shorts. you didn’t bother to take their shoes, none of them would’ve fit you anyway and it’ll just slow you down. 

“hey, are you alright? is that blood—”

“it’s not mine, naeun. come on, let’s get moving.”

for two hours you walked towards this mysterious refuge center on the other side of town and both you and naeun managed to evade death three times. 

the first attack: a group of high schoolers with their uniforms on. there were three of them, about your height, and while you weren’t responsible for the blood on your shirt, you’re not so sure about their lot. they looked crazy, excited even, but sloppy in the way they flung their knives and bats around. their first purge, you assumed, so it was fairly easy to take them down. a bullet to the head worked like a charm. naeun didn’t say anything when you urged her out of her hiding place to flee the scene. three bullets left. 

the second attack: it was a surprise, one that got you stabbed in the shin of your right leg. it was a drunkard with a knife, you could smell him as you walked past by his slumped form in the sidewalk. he wasn’t moving, so you thought he was dead and it was poor judgement on your part. it’s pathetic getting injured this way, you thought, but at least it was you who faced the consequences and not naeun. two bullets left.

the third attack: two men but deadlier than the girls and the drunk. you didn’t get to reason out with either of them, not when they drove their cadillac at 140 miles per hour and nearly ran you over. a chill crept up your spine when you saw the bloody, naked women strapped down onto the hood. victims. you didn’t engage in any form of combat, it’s impossible, so you took naeun in your arms and ran straight to the back alleys. number of bullets remain the same.

three lucky strikes. 

three times you’ve cheated death. 

but time is up and your luck has run out. 

“beating up a girl? what a coward, if you ask me,” you say, spitting out a tooth after someone kneed you in the face. you were in no position to say such things when they’ve got you busted up and bloody, left eye swollen after one hard punch. 

naeun is nowhere to be seen. 

good. 

who knows what these assholes could’ve done to her. you told her to run so she better fucking run and make sure she lives through this nightmare. 

another kick flies to your ribs and you lie sprawled on the dirty pavement of an alleyway—what an uncool way to die but at least you’ll die with a clear conscience. 

you passed by city hall a few minutes ago. surely, the refuge center is not too far from there. naeun will make it safe. she’ll make it. 

“what’s that look on her face? is she dead?”

another one scoffs. “well… if they’re after her then she’s as good as dead.”

you blacked out. ‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎

you hate the scent of disinfectant. it crawls up your nose and you hate how the stench is so strong you can taste it on your tongue. this isn’t heaven, not when you know you’re better off burning in hellfire.

unless you weren’t dead—your eyes shoot open, sitting up in haste as you clutch the thin blanket. 

rows upon rows of the same cot you were lying on greets you. people injured, some standing, some sitting. there were people treating them, too, but they were in normal clothes so this can’t be a hospital. in fact, it looked like you’re in some warehouse, stacks of metal crates sealing off all entrances. 

“it’s the refuge,” you whisper. 

“you’re awake!” before you could even turn around, a body launches itself onto you and nearly makes the cot collapse. judging by the small frame and the pitchy voice—

“naeun, be careful!” her mother hisses but the girl in between your arms couldn’t care less. if she’d been an adult, she’d be squeezing the life out of you. when she pulls you closer, your healing ribs made a strike of pain surge through you. 

you groan, bowing in the pain. distantly, you can hear the mother and daughter fighting and it was a banter you’ve never experienced with your own mom. it nearly made you tear up from the overwhelming wave of emotions you were feeling but all else disappears when a person tenderly grips your shoulder. 

“thank you for taking care of my granddaughter.” the old lady was smiling appreciatively as she stared at you. 

that was it. it could’ve been the happy ending to a gruesome and bloody storyline—it should’ve been, family of three reunites again and that was all thanks to you, right?

but even heroes have their own bad endings. 

you heard the ticking of the grenade only seconds before it detonates. the other refugees didn’t even have the time to take cover as some closest to the sealed doors were sent flying so far back they crashed into the row of crates behind you. 

you were severely injured, limping, ribs broken, and you only had one good eye to rely on—yet the first thing you thought of was protecting naeun. maybe the midget had a way of worming herself into your heart. but before you even push yourself off the cot, a figure emerges from the smoke. 

petite and harmless, pretty as the tips of his hair grazed porcelain cheekbones. renjun’s eyes are as cold and calculating as can be and it’s the only thing that terrifies you to no end. when he opens his mouth, anger is hidden well underneath that calm tone. 

“i’ll give you one minute to come here willingly.”

there’s no room for bargain, he needn’t when he knows you have absolutely nothing to offer him but yourself. he doesn’t finish his sentence but he trusts you’re smart enough to figure out the silent threat—come, or he’ll turn this place into a fucking bloodbath. 

cornered and weak, defenseless. weird how they have a fixation for calling you ‘kitty’ when they’re the cats in this chase. 

“naeun,” you whisper, trying to crane your neck to look for her in the filth of rocks and debris. please don’t be hurt.

you freeze when you feel a barrel pointing at your head. it was only there for seconds, haechan probably doesn’t have the guts to hurt you in any way permanently (unless it’s inflicted with his own hands and not through some other medium). 

“ah, look. now we have matching black eyes,” he giggles like a madman, craning your neck up and the leather in his globes brings discomfort to your skin. 

you see the way the other refugees looked at you—scum, dirt on their feet that brought about trouble in their lives. they were already badly hurt as it is and now, this happened? you don’t blame them. 

not one man tried to stand up for you as haechan hauls you up and throws you down on renjun’s feet. your ribs were screaming and you’re cold and so, so afraid. with shaky fingers, you gestured towards the crowd. “just... please, don’t hurt them. they don’t have anything to do with this.”

renjun coos. such a cruel smirk for a pretty face. “aw, such an angel my darling is. always thinking of others instead of her own safety. funny because i don’t think you’ve ever done such a thing for me and haechan, though. i wonder why...”

the latter digs his heel in your injured legs and you scream as black starts to surround the corners of your vision. you tried to crane your neck back, pleading eyes wanting to look at the assaulter but renjun’s calloused hand is gripping your chin too tight.

“should we make a bargain, kitten?”

you stare deep into renjun’s eyes. he knows you don’t have anything left, he can see it in your glassy eyes, too wide and vulnerable. he’s doing this all for show, trying to make you even more desperate and self-aware of your eventual demise.

and you thought haechan was the only cunning one.

“what… what bargain?"

renjun practically gleams in pride. “i’ll let everyone walk free—even your precious little naeun—that’s her name, right? the little girl you’ve been protecting the whole night?—we’ll let her and everyone in this building walk away unharmed. that’s my bargain. you know how those work, right? now, you need to give me something i want.”

forcing you to offer yourself up to them.

what a brutal way to crush your pride.

choice wasn’t an option. if you don’t oblige and choose to run away on your own, they’ll kill them and still hunt you down. you gotta say, it was a tempting bargain that appealed to the sense of heroics in your heart. naturally, you have to choose where there is less blood shed. and as renjun lets go of your chin and lets you look over your shoulder to meet little naeun’s eyes, how she sobbed against her mother’s arms and shook her head and screamed…

“hurry, kitten. i don’t like to be kept waiting.”

you know what needs to be done.

“me. i’ll give you… me.”‏‏‎‏‏‎ ‎

they stood playing a game of pool in the dead of night. it’s peaceful inside the estate while the city beyond rampaged and burned. they achieved their goal, had finally seen an end to a plan that had been set in motion for years. they’ve succeeded and the broken woman lying on the bed meters from the pool table is proof of their victory. 

“don’t you just love it when an elaborate plan works like clockwork, injun?” he asks, voice like trickling honey as he hits number 9 with the cue ball. 

the other, more petite male, rolls his eyes but doesn’t disagree. “oh, please, people like us always triumph, donghyuck. it’s nothing new. although i am surprised that little girl and her so-called “family” played along so well. almost had me fooled.”

“i agree. it's such a shame they had to go.”

‎

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jenoluck (c) all rights reserved

[ashintheairlikesnow]

Quite at Home in Hell

For @whumptober2021 day six & day 21:  blood-matted hair & hunger

CW: Vampirism, blood drinking, noncon touch, creepy whumper, sadistic whumper, biting, captivity, dehumanizing language

Vampire Chris AU Masterlist | Follows directly from this piece

Thanks to @boxboysandotherwhump for helping me with the German & @alittlewhump for helping with the French!

-

1918, the Western Front of WWI

The prisoners are held in a small, hastily constructed sort of barracks far too close to the front lines.

Gefrieter Erich Eeten knows why, of course. The hope is that his own people will hesitate before they blast this bit of dirt apart, that they will be concerned enough about killing their fellow soldiers that they’ll give up a few key moments of pause to the French, the Americans, and the British. Give them the advantage in a firefight.

They want to shield themselves with the bodies of the men in this tent, unwashed and dirty, who are exhausted from a day spent digging trenches for their enemies to hide in. 

He can’t exactly blame the Allied powers for it. 

It’s a brilliant bit of strategy, if less and less effective as men on both sides become so battle-hardened that they cease to care about their own lives, let alone each other. Still. He’d almost rather be at one of the true POW camps further away from the front lines, where the Red Cross at least comes to check on their treatment.

Here, so close to the front, there is no one keeping watch on what happens to them at all… and the longer the war draws on, the more viciously they kill each other, the more the prisoners kept here too far for oversight feel like they are teetering at the edge of some terrible invisible cliff. 

There’s a stiff breeze outside the tent, whipping the heavy, waterproofed canvas edges. They’re flapping a little, making a sound that Erich will one day hear in his nightmares. The cold sneaks in through the slight space between tent and ground, and the men in here are huddled together for warmth, sharing the meager blankets they are given. 

At least, though, their captors are officially the French. 

Say what you will about the blasted frogs, they never deny their prisoners a nip of strong cognac to help hold off the cold. The Americans, on the other hand, seem to be laboring under an enforced lack of good liquor, not just for prisoners but for their own soldiers, too. That seems a worse crime than nearly any other, in circumstances like this. To force a man to be a cruel killer without even a nip or three to soothe his conscience… to Erich, it sounds like brutality.

There’s a bit of a scuffle outside the tent, and the prisoners look up. Erich is at the back, leaning back against the rough frame of a cot he sleeps on at night, cards in his hands wrapped in strips of bandage cloth just for warmth. What happened to his gloves, he’s no idea. Probably one of the Allies took them for a souvenir.

The canvas wraps work well enough.

“Au garde-à-vous, prisonniers! Sur vos pieds!” Erich knows the voice - it’s the main guard of the tent they sleep in, a man named Alain who looks entirely too old for war. Here he is, anyway, all moustache and silvering hair, pulling open the entrance of the tent, moving the flap aside. 

Erich glances left and then right, meeting the eyes of his fellow prisoners, and the half-dozen of them that share this single small tent push heavily to their feet, shifting apart as much as the tent will allow, hands behind their back. 

His stomach dips, a low drumbeat of dread alongside his heart. Something tells him this isn’t a social call he wants to be part of. 

He’s even more certain when a tall, thin American steps into the entrance, nearly silhouetted by the dim, barely-there light behind them. Their hair is long, in a loose plait with parts undone, and their eyes gleam, briefly seeming to glow in the dark. Erich is reminded of his mother’s cat, who would stalk mice at night and whose eyes did just the same when light hit them.

He feels very… mouselike.

They wear a medic’s uniform, but it’s a little tattered. There are unrepaired bullet holes through the heavy woolen tunic, and they move with grace and disdain for how heavy wet wool must be, how itchy and uncomfortable. As if it simply doesn’t matter to them.

Because, of course, it doesn’t. The damn thing is a walking corpse, baring fangs in a grisly smile.

“Hello, soldiers,” They say, in a voice that isn’t quite a purr. “You all look a fright.”

“Verdammte Blutsauger,” Lukas Müller mutters to his right. 

Erich hates the bloodsuckers. Everyone does. They come with the Americans, monsters brought from the shadows as a kind of secret weapon. Erich has never seen vampires out in the open before - back home, they are creatures of hiding. They live in cellars and basements and houses with the windows painted in thick matte black. They sweep along the streets at night, a risk for anyone who stays out too late.

But they’re not part of anything. 

Here, they’re death itself, demons quite at home in hell.

 Oh, sure, the Americans claim they use them only for bringing the injured back to safety - and some of them, he’s sure, are kept to that purpose. Some kind of ability to deny the truth of them, if there are enough seen doing only what the official story claims.

Erich, though, has seen one dispatching wounded German soldiers one by one left behind in a field, killing them before they can be recovered by their own people. He’s seen one with fangs buried in the throat of a man who would otherwise have lived. They’re listed as medics, but those things are what keeps the Germans on their own side of the battle lines after dark, and everyone knows it. 

His own side brings canisters of poison gas. The Americans respond with an army laced around its edges in abominations the gas can’t touch.

The vampire sighs, faintly disappointed. “No good morning for me from my audience?”

Erich speaks the best English out of them all - his grandmother was English, taught it to his father in the cradle, who taught it to him. It’s made him more or less the spokesman for his small group of prisoners, and for the larger group when they are moved and briefly allowed to interact with the others. He clears his throat, stepping forward slightly. Lukas and Vilhelm, on his other side, nudge him just a little with their shoulders. It’s meant to be support, he supposes. 

He feels like he’s being pushed onto a target painted on the floor, one invisible only to him. 

“Good morning,” Erich says, voice flat, letting his accent roll far more heavily off his tongue than it needs to, turning good into gut. It’s always good to let the enemy believe you know less than you really do, so he pretends that English comes with difficulty and not ease. “Should you not turn to ash?”

Their eyebrows raise just slightly, not quite in amusement, and they give a brittle little laugh. “First off, Fritz, that’s a myth. Secondly, it’s not even morning. Probably close to evening now, honestly.” 

Erich rolls his eyes. Lukas mutters something under his breath next to him, but the slight creaking of their boots seems to cover it too much to be understandable. Erich sighs, heavily. “Then why did you have us say to you good morning, Blutsauger?” 

“Because it’s funny that you don’t know what time it is, of course. All right, who here is Fritz, who is Hans, and who am I just going to call Kraut?” 

“No one here is named Hans and no one is Fritz, fangs.” Erich tips his chin down slightly, a lock of greasy brown hair falling into his eyes. “May you drown in holy water.”

He spits at the vampire’s feet.

He feels a pang of regret when the vampire turns to look at Alain, the French guard and points back at Erich, cheerful. “I want that one. He’s rude.”

“Das ist pech,” Lukas whispers.

When Alain simply stares at them blankly - and Erich knows Alain speaks English, they’ve spoken before in a tongue they had in common when neither spoke the other’s mother-tongue -  the vampire groans. They don’t seem to know Alain is pretending not to understand them. “Fine. Let’s try this again. Je veux cet homme, s'il vous plaît.”

Alain’s expression tightens a little. He nods, and he won’t look Erich in the eyes as he draws the entrance open a little wider. “Emmenez-le alors.”

“Merci beaucoup,” The vampire says, giving a little bow. Erich backs up, but there isn’t anywhere to go, and none of them is armed. Besides, any resistance is met with removal of meals, with being denied the smallest comforts that make this bearable. With the possibility of all of them being handed over to a vampire, not just one.

This war had been civilized, in some ways, before the Americans brought their monsters.

It’s not actually true, but in this moment it comforts him to pretend it, to have a place to put his furious disgust as the vampire’s thin, long fingers close around his arm and yank him forwards with inhuman strength. They’re clicking their tongue against the top of their mouth in a strange animal way. Erich thinks again of his mother’s cat, making just that sound watching birds outside the windows.

“May your hands be pressed into the holy cross,” Erich snaps as he’s forced out into the freezing humid air outside the tent. There are others walking around - a war camp is never less than controlled chaos, no matter the time of day - but none of them will look at him. No one acknowledges him, although they’ve all seen this before. They know what’s going to happen here. 

“Je déteste ça,” Alain mutters.

A bell is rung, clanging in a discordant note, and soldiers move into the POW tents. Erich is led towards a pole in the center of the ring of prisoner tents, something that a half-century ago might still have been a flogging post, a punishment for mutinous men. 

“Crosses don’t really harm us,” The vampire says, careless and casual. “Very little does, actually. I’m a big fan of garlic, for instance. Silver, though…” They hum, dragging a fingernail over Erich’s wrist. “That hurts.”

He jerks his hand back and free, only to have the vampire laugh, bright and brilliant, and grab him again, spinning him around until they’re behind him, chest pressed to his back, using that demon strength to twist his arms up his back until his bones creak and ache, forcing him forwards towards the pole. 

“I hope you have silver shoved down your throat,” Erich manages, but his heart is pounding in fear as the vampire grabs his hair and jerks his head to the side, forcing his cheek against the rough-hewn wood. Splinters bite into his skin and he grunts as his arms are moved, forced to encircle the pole. His wrists are tied with rope, leaving him looking a little ridiculous, as if he decided today to go for a hug. 

Another rope goes around his shoulders, keeping him in this awkwardly pressed position. He tries to kick back, pulling viciously, but then his ankles come next. The rope goes from them to small metal hooks driven hard into the ground, keeping his legs more than shoulder-width apart. He can’t kick, or even balance himself. He must rely entirely on the pole he’s tied to in order to stay upright. 

“I’m going to enjoy you,” The vampire murmurs. 

Behind Erich, the sounds of a crowd gathering begin. Soft mumbles, exhalations of surprise and disgust. He closes his eyes against the rush of heat he feels - more rage than tears - knowing the prisoners are being brought out to witness this, to be shown what could happen to them next.

It does an excellent job of making them grateful for every day it’s not.

The French commander of the POW camp is barking a running list of commands to his men, but Erich doesn’t speak enough French to clearly understand them. Someone comes close by behind him, and he jolts as there’s a clap to his back. There’s a laugh behind him, not the vampire but someone else.

He manages to see from the corner of his eyes. A different American, of course. Comfortable enough with the vampire to get this close to them. 

“Isn’t this a sorry sight,” The American says, and laughs. “What’s the prize for, fangs?”

The vampire lifts their hand, gently brushing Erich’s hair from his eyes. He spits in their face, this time, and is gratified by a flash of very real anger that briefly overtakes their constant amusement. They slowly wipe the spit away, then clean their hand - sort of - on Erich’s uniform. 

It’s so dirty they’re probably even less clean after that than they were before.

“Reported a desertion. Now I get fresh food.” They lean down, meeting Erich’s furious hazel eyes. “I’m so hungry, Fritz. All the time. Imagine being surrounded by schnitzel and cabbage as far as the eye can see, and you’re not supposed to eat your fill. Imagine how empty you would feel.”

“Fick dich.” 

“What, you won’t even curse at me in English anymore?” The vampire pouts, lower lip sticking out. He hates them more than he’s hated anyone during this godforsaken war. “Come on, you have to understand how hard this is for me, right?”

Erich ignores them, jerks his wrists again, trying to yank himself free of the ropes through sheer force. His back already is aching from being slightly bent forward, his thigh muscles stretched. He does the only thing he can think of - he slowly, with effort, drags his face along the wood and manages to turn away, and look the other direction. 

“Well, fine. I suppose you’ll be mad at me for acting like you all eat schnitzel and cabbage, too,” The vampire says behind him. He doesn’t dignify them with an answer. He fixes his eyes, instead, on a point in the dark roiling clouds in the sky, above the remaining trees. 

“The prisoners are well-positioned to witness,” A French officer states, speaking with a light, dancing accent but without the difficulty and hesitancy some of the regular infantry have. “You may feed when ready, Private Saathoff.”

That gets Erich’s attention. “Saathoff?”

“That’s right.” The vampire laughs, stepping up behind him. Their fingers move through the hair that curls, grown a little too long, over the back of his neck. He shudders with disgust at the intimacy of it. Their mouth moves close to his ear, but there is no heat of breath. Only the brush of lips. “Ich bin Deustcher, genau wie du.” 

“Nothing like me,” Erich grinds out with his teeth gritted together so hard his jaw is already aching. He presses his forehead into the rough wooden pole and closes his eyes. He takes a deep breath. 

If he’s going to die…

“Vater unser im Himmel,” he begins, halting. He hasn’t seen the inside of a church since he was fourteen, and that was twelve years ago now. Still, the words to the Lord’s Prayer come easily, more muscle memory than thought. “Geheiligt werde dein Name. Dein Reich komme, Dein Wille geschehe, wie im Himmel so auf Erden-”

“Zu jeder anderen Zeit hätte ich dich als Haustier behalten.” They use his hair to jerk his head back, and their fangs jam into his neck with a flash of sudden agony.

It’s a white-hot pain that races down his spine to the very tips of his toes, and Erich screams, the sound strangled and thin but still echoing, bouncing off of trees and tents and back into his mind, crashing like the shells that slam into the earth. 

Lukas jerks forwards as if to run to help him and is pushed back by one of the French soldiers, their expression set in a grim line. They have to twist Lukas’s arms behind his back to hold him as he shouts, angrily, that this isn’t fair, it’s against the laws of conduct. 

There’s laughter, at that, from their captors. 

The other prisoners grumble and shift uncomfortably, look at anything but Erich whenever they can, but they can’t escape the sound of his horror, of his pain. 

There’s no pulse of the much-spoken-of venom. There’s no numbness to drift in, there’s no fog to cloud out his awareness of what is happening to him. Every muscle of Erich’s body is tensed tight enough to snap the bones they wrap around, the veins standing out in his throat as if giving them a roadmap of where the food can be found.

He didn’t know vampires could choose not to use the venom.

He didn’t know they could make it feel like this.

When his scream dies, he can’t get enough breath to make another. All he can do is let out high-pitched, thin whimpers and cries. Spots dance before his eyes. Beneath the sound of his heart pounding in a sudden panic to push more blood faster to replace what is being lost, he can feel - can hear - a low rumbling sound against his back.

Erich has heard the rumors that vampires purr, and now he knows they aren’t rumors at all.

He can feel it right through his back, just barely. It’s a vibration that would be pleasant if it didn’t seem to be somehow making everything hurt even worse, waking up his nerves the way the venom is supposed to deaden them. Their hands are closed around his ribs, pressing the tips of their fingers rhythmically against them, as if playing a piano, as if he is dough to be kneaded, as if he isn’t human at all.

As if he’s nothing but a field mouse that found his way into the wrong house, and the vampire is the housecat who has waited too long for a living toy to torment.

There is no prayer, in pain like this. There is no thought beyond the body’s fight for survival and the mind wanting to flee from it, if surviving means this feeling will not end. There is nothing but the feeling of his blood being pulled forcefully out of his body, nothing but his nerves screaming to escape it, nothing but the bite of the ropes that ensure he can do no more than jerk in his bonds and choke on his agony.

It feels like forever - and like a moment - when their fangs pull free, their cool rough tongue lapping at the wounds to close them, purring against his ear with contentment. Their fingers knead into his skin a little bit longer, drawing the moment out as he slumps against the wooden pole he’s tied to. He’s only standing because of the ropes.

Pain rolls through him, breaking against the edges of his body from the inside, like the smaller waves after a storm falling onto a beach already strewn with debris. He slumps. His own breath is a rasping wheeze, taking far more effort than it should.

Nein, Erich, Erich stirb nicht…” Lukas’s voice comes from somewhere so far away, filtering through the noise in Erich’s mind slowly. He can’t even begin to form a response. His mouth won’t answer his commands. It only hangs open, panting, pulling in the chilly air over his tongue. He starts to shiver as the breeze hits the cold sweat in his hair and on his neck, cuts through his uniform somehow.

He doesn’t have enough blood left to warm himself.

Their tongue licks up his neck behind his ear, matting his own blood into his hair there, sticky and hot. It starts to cool and dry immediately in the cold air. Erich’s stomach twists.

“Oh, he won’t die,” The vampire coos, petting through his hair slowly. Their nails scratch at his scalp. “Not today.” Their mouth presses back against his ear. “Thanks for the meal, Erich. And for being so entertaining. Maybe I’ll find you after the war. I’ll buy you a beer… and some schnitzel.”

They push themself away from him, turning away to wipe a bit of blood from the corners of their mouth, and walk with a jaunty step through an opening that appears in the ring of watching prisoners, whose eyes follow them with apprehension and no small amount of fear. 

When Alain comes up to untie him, Erich simply collapses into the Frenchman’s arms as soon as he’s free of the ropes. Lukas is allowed to move up to stand at his other side, putting Erich’s limp left arm around his shoulders, while Alain supports his right. Erich lets his head fall into Lukas’s shoulder, hitching his breath as he forces down a sob. 

“Wh… why do you let them do this?” He asks, his English slurred with the exhaustion that means he is dragged with his boots carving paths through the mud back towards the tent. 

Alain is silent until Erich is dropped onto his cot, the hard frame digging into Erich’s back right through the thin mattress. He glances over his shoulder, the three of them alone in here for the moment, and then looks back. 

“It is believed that this is how we will win,” He says, and pats Erich’s hand. “My apologies. I do not believe in the monsters, but I am not the one to run this war.”

“None of us are,” Erich says, weakly. He closes his eyes. “We are only the ones who must fight in it.”

There’s a pause, and Alain’s exhale is audible in the quiet tent. “I will ensure you are given extra meat rations tonight, and I will find you some schnapps. Essaye de dormir, maintenant, si tu peux,” he says with soft regret lacing his voice. Then there is a shuffle of footsteps, and he’s gone.

Lukas shifts and sits with his back to the cot, in the same position Erich was in before. He swallows, picking up the abandoned cards from the game they’d been playing, looking over Erich’s hand. “You’d have won, you know, on the next hand,” He says in German, before he reaches out to grab the others’ cards and reshuffle the deck.

“Do I still get my… my winnings?” Erich can barely move his lips to speak. He’s so tired. So, so tired. He can feel his hands starting to shake, now that it’s over, the trembling moving slowly up his limbs, stuttering his breathing. 

“My share of the liquor? Not on your life.” Lukas pauses, and then his tone gentles as he looks Erich over again. “You know what... of course you can. You’ll need warmth. What did the bloodsucker say to you, anyway? I couldn’t hear.”

Erich thinks about the promise to find him after the war, about the way they spoke into his ear as if he were little more than a toy top to be spun at their command. In another time, I’d keep you for a pet, they had whispered, before they bit down. 

He shakes his head, slowly. “Lies,” He answers, and feels the softer-edged darkness of sleep begin to take him.

“Lies?” 

“I hope… I hope they were lies.”

For the moment, at least, he is too exhausted by the present to feel terror for the future.

-

@mylifeisonthebookshelf @insaneinthepaingame @keeper-of-all-the-random-things @burtlederp @finder-of-rings @newandfiguringitout @astrobly @endless-whump @pretty-face-breaker @gonna-feel-that-tomorrow @doveotions @boxboysandotherwhump @oops-its-whump @cubeswhump @whump-tr0pes @downriver914 @whumptywhumpdump @whumpiary @orchidscript @nonsensical-whump @outofangband @what-a-whump @thefancydoughnut

[dynyamight]

fluffy prompts! 211 please! :) -sneakers <3

send me a writting ask

211. We’re a team, remember?

If he had the option, Midoriya would prefer to patrol alone.

And, everyone seems to be baffled about it.

“Can you blame us? You don’t look like the lone wolf type, you know.” Shinsou had mentioned before, back in the locker rooms.

Blinking, Midoriya tilted his head over to him, a few lockers away. “I didn’t know lone wolves had a look.”

“They don’t. But, if they did, they wouldn’t look like you.” Shinsou sighed, bringing a towel up to his neck. He dabbed gingerly at the sweat. “Though, I guess with your power, you wouldn’t need another person to weigh you down.”

“It’s not about power. I just don’t want to drag anyone into immense danger.” Midoriya admitted, slipping his arms out of his hero costume.

Immediately, he felt a sharp jolt of pain cease his arms. He winced, looking down at the stitches around his shoulders, now tightened, fresh, and sensitive.

The wound, as well as the others littering his body, are reminders of that danger he worries for others. Each fight is with a different villain, varying in strength and quirk. But, they all have the same intentions when battling Midoriya.

Enemies want him dead. Simple as that.

Sometimes, even everyday people wish him dead.

And, it’s the type of danger he wouldn’t want anyone to face.

Shinsou shrugged, having tossed his wraps in his locker. “You say that, but all heroes are bound to be in danger, at some point. Aren’t they?”

“That’s not—“

Midoriya halts, immobilized. At first, he worries the new frozen sensation is an enemy quirk activating, from their recent shift on the clock. He instantly cursed himself for not being attentive.

But, a split second later, he realized from the tooth eating grin from Shinsou, that it was actually his doing.

He had been in the middle of unbuckling his utility belt. So much for that.

“Life and death. It’s the real game we’re all playing out in the city.” Shinsou stated, buttoning up his civilian clothes. “And, you swear you are its only player, Midoriya.”

The spell finally broke. Finally able to regain his movements, Midoriya gasped a deep, willful breath. “I-I just don’t want anyone to worry about me.”

“Worrying is a part of teamwork.” Shinsou insisted, shaking his head, “If we didn’t worry, then everyone would be reckless, without a care in the world. People wouldn’t care, and then, there would be no sense of compassion, anywhere.”

Pulling off his stirrups, Midoriya weakly laughed, unable to say anything else.

Yeah, that seems to be something he does too often, than not. Reckless. Spontaneous. Relying on gut feeling.

But, Midoriya cares, he does. Just, maybe not the way the rest of the world does.

So willing to give himself, grow tired and weak. When others just want him to rest.

Midoriya left shortly after that. He felt a little guilty, leaving Shinsou earlier than usual. He hoped his friend knew that he appreciated his advice, as well as his honest truth.

However, he had lost the will to continue the rather self-exposing conversation. Besides, the exhaustion always settles into his bones, the moment he stops moving and starts thinking.

Alas, he has a long way back home; clock out of the agency building, take the elevator, walk to the train station, street stop, and up the elevator to his apartment.

Which leads him to now; standing outside his apartment complex, shivering under nothing, but a hoodie and sweats.

His teeth chatter, behind his face mask, as he tries to jiggle the keys inside. The winter night breeze burning his nose cold.

A click resounds his brain, and relief washes over him. The moment he steps inside, the guard he feels, tight in his shoulders, drops finally. Closing the door gently from behind, Midoriya lets out a long needed sigh.

Home. He’s back home.

Quietly, Midoriya offers a pardon of intrusion, as he shuffles his shoes off at the front. He sets down his work duffle bag on the floor, mentally promising to wash his hero costume and the undergarments, early in the morning.

He wishes he could at least put them in the washer. But, the weight of his eyelids feel so heavy; he stumbles into his bedroom simply on instinct, rather than sight.

Slowly, Midoriya pushes the cracked door open. With quiet footsteps, he walks to the bed, towards one open space, ready for his arrival.

The other space was filled, obvious by the big lump of covers right beside it.

Lifting the bedsheets, Midoriya simply worms himself inside. He makes sure to leave a gap between him and the occupied space, as to not alert his presence. He even makes sure to keep his chilled toes curled, towards himself.

It was futile. The body shifts, and suddenly, a tired, glaring pair of red eyes look at him. “..Took you long enough.”

Midoriya’s heart tightens, feeling bad. “Ah, it was supposed to be a double shift, but then, they needed me for an extra team up. Everything changed at the last minute.”

Twelve hours, out roaming the city. And, then, a whole team mission added on top of all of that. More or less, two days out in the city. Draining didn’t even cover the amount of tired he felt.

“Tch. ‘Course you did..” Under the covers, a warm pair of arms outreach towards Midoriya. They wrap around his waist. “Had me fucking waiting.”

Midoriya smiles, bringing his own body closer to the warmth of limbs. Cold and hot legs entangled together. Arms at each other’s waist. Foreheads touching.

“I didn’t mean to make you wait, Kacchan. Sorry.” He whispers, closing his eyes.

He hears Bakugou click his tongue, before there’s a hard pinch at his cheek. Midoriya whines at the pain, but Bakugou pays no mind.

“Send a damn text, next time.” Bakugou hisses.

“Okay, okay! My face s’hurting, Kacchan.”

He doesn’t need to see Bakugou’s intense glare; he can feel it staring right at the space between his brows. However, instead there’s a soothing hand that runs through Midoriya’s curls. “Gross. You’re freezing as hell, and you didn’t even shower, either?”

Midoriya shakes his head. “I will do it later.” He sleepily says.

“And your clothes?”

“..Will do it later.”

Bakugou growls, and Midoriya mentally prepares for the onslaught of curses and complaints at his lazy attitude.

But, it never happens. Instead, Bakugou pulls himself closer to Midoriya, head nestled in the crook of his neck. “S’fine.” He huffs.

“I swear I will do it tomorrow morning.” Midoriya offers weakly.

“Don’t bother.” Bakugou breath tickles around Midoriya’s ears. “Sleep in. I’ll do it.”

“No, please. I will—“

“Did I fucking stutter?” Bakugou mutters, and there’s a small pull at his ear. “I said don’t bother. And, I mean it.”

“Then, I will make breakfast.”

“No.”

“..How about lunch?”

“I said no.”

“Kacchan, please—“

“Fucking hell, go to sleep!” Bakugou yells into his ear, tightening his grip around Midoriya. “Just— I got all of tomorrow. Sleep.”

Midoriya shrugs against the embrace, heart feeling heavy. “I can do it all, too.”

“M’not saying you can’t. I know you can.” Bakugou whispers, running his fingers through his curls again, “But, you keep forgetting that you don’t have do shit alone all the damn time.”

“I just prefer—“

“To do it all on your own. Yeah. I fucking know.” Bakugou sighs, “But, we’re—“

There’s a moment of hesitation, obvious on Bakugou’s end. However, after a deep breath out, Bakugou wills himself to speak. “..We’re a team, remember?”

Midoriya’s face reddens instantly. A team. That’s another way to put it.

Dating. They’re dating. Almost a year now.

And, Bakugou even remotely mentioning it never fails to make Midoriya feel the fanny flutters all over again.

“Y-Yeah.” Midoriya barely voices, wobbly smiling, “We are.”

“Then, let me do shit.” Bakugou mutters, his face feeling hot against Midoriya’s neck, “Let me be there for you.”

“You don’t have to..” Midoriya insists feebly.

“I ain’t doing it out of force. Even if it’s just for one day, I want to help you.”

Sighing, Midoriya brings his hand to Bakugou’s chin, lifting up his head. Their gazes meet. “You mean that?”

Bakugou rolls his eyes. “God, how much more do I got to fucking spell it out to you? Yes.”

Letting a soft snort, Midoriya inches his face close. “It’s like you love me, or something.” He teases.

“Shut it.” However, there’s a slight upturn in the corners of Bakugou’s lips. “You’re the fucking worst.”

Midoriya smiles back. “Thank you for putting up with me, Kacchan.”

“You put up with my shit, just as much.” Bakugou mumbles.

“Yeah, but I have problems.”

“Don’t we all.”

Midoriya laughs feebly, shaking his head. He closes his eyes, losing the strength to keep them open any longer. “Thank you for worrying about me..” He plants a small kiss onto Bakugou’s lips, before settling his head onto his shoulders.

“Hah? Who said anything about ‘worry’? I ain’t fucking worried.” Bakugou growls, “Never have been. Never will be.”

But, Midoriya knows better. Especially with how close Bakugou holds him, and the way he continues to rub a comforting hand onto his back, making sure to avoid his stitched shoulder.

Warming him up. Lulling him to sleep. Allowing him to let go of all his stresses.

Midoriya smiles himself to sleep.

[tom-riddle-haunts-me]

Not a new chapter but a mini fic I felt like writing. I'm a little stuck with the "main story", so I hope you'll enjoy this little drabble. I'm warning you, this shit gets sad and ugly.

Abigail 🐍✨

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

Tw: angst, gore, blood

Pairing: Tom Riddle x Reader

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

It Hurts

"Who are you?"

"What do you mean, Y/n? It's me, I'm... I'm Tom"

"I... I don't know you"

Tom stepped back. Locking eyes with you had never felt so terrifyingly unreal to him.

"Y/n..."

Why you? Anyone. Fate could've taken anyone away from him, but you?

"Oh, Mr Riddle!"

Dumbledore. He would've helped him.

"Professor! Y/n is actin-"

"-our biggest disappointment."

Another step back.

"Who is this, Professor?"

Your voice echoed heavily in his ears, crawling up to his brain and piercing through it like a long blade. A thin, cold metal string slowly lacerating his cerebral matter, a wicked torture that left behind nothing but an even colder nothingness and blood, too much blood. Tom could feel the thick crimson fluid run down his neck, anxiety taking hold of the sticky substance and guiding its goopy drips around his own throat, suffocating the tired wizard.

"Y/n, it's me, IT'S ME."

"Who are you?"

The sound that somehow managed to reach Tom was muffled and eerily calm, almost lifeless. It wasn't your voice. The figure standing in front of him, that was you, he knew it, but he was hearing something else rather than your voice. It was painful listening to such an abomination.

Grotesque. Putrid. Writhing. Cruel words pooling around him.

Far, far away.

"Who are you? Are you okay? You look pale"

As your hand reached his face, Tom couldn't bring himself to melt into your touch as he habitually would. Couldn't you see the blood?

"He's about to die, Y/n."

"Oh... Alone? Like this? I'm sorry"

"Y/n I'm... I'm not dying"

As the teacher withdrew your hand from his face, panic tightened the pressure around his neck. Oxygen was struggling to flow through his lungs, his organs protesting as they were starting to feel the lack of air.

It hurt.

"Can we save him?"

"Yes, but we won't"

"Okay"

Words were failing the usually composed wizard, hopelessly stuck in his guts. His eyes were fixated on his dearest friend, the only person in the entire world who could make him feel something else rather than just anger and bitterness. His loneliness felt a little warmer with her, his thirst for power a little less cruel, his fears a little more bearable. Sitting under their dead tree by the Black Lake was something that brought comfort to him in times of distress, still, it was hard to believe the ones staring at him were those same eyes, the e/c gems that he got used to see smile every time they were to meet with his. In the mean time, your hugs were crumbling into mere memories in the back of his mind and Tom felt powerless for the first time since forever. Now the orphanage would be cold and desolate again, silence would come back to fill his empty room and days.

He needed to stop. Stop thinking, feeling. He hated that. He hated you. He was embarrassed with himself for he shouldn't have perceived such stupid things.

His pale hand traveled to his petrified face.

Tears.

Rotten fury exploded in his stomach like an erupting volcano, resulting in an aberrant sickness disturbing his already devastated self. Now nothing had to matter, not anymore. Not your giggles, not you nervously playing with your hair. What would happen to your smile, the one you had promised was only his, had to be none of his business. Letting it go should've been easy, he knew far too well how to block out anything useless to his goal. His exhausted mind slipped to your now blank eyes, your toneless voice.

You body, barely covered by the white dress you were wearing, looked consumed by a melancholy he couldn't define, deep buried in your eyes, flat and washed-up as much as the pale fabric flowing around you.

His chest stung.

"Tom"

Dumbledore's skinny hand found its way to your shoulder, like a caring parent, yet it had an ugly something in it.

Tom thought about your tone, your real one. He thought about the times it had reassured him, soothed his nerves down. That one time it had slightly raised with boldness to defend him from Dumbledore himself. Your promises. They flowed back like a swollen river. The darkness in your eyes when you declared that you were to come for whoever ever dared to wrong him, now gone. How, how he would've liked to tell you about your beauty. Harmless to sight, dangerous to the reckless. Just like a rose.

His rose.

Twisted sparkles in your eyes, shadows that still felt warm and pure. Innocence.

Horror.

Terror drowned his heart, need overwhelming his confused mind.

Where were you?

Uncertainty danced under his skin.

Not enough. Was he? Evil could never bloom into a rose. Its fruits would rot and fall into darkness, dragging down every little drop of light they'd ever reach.

The hand that was touching you, he hated that. And now, now it was rotting, the meat melting right onto your oblivious self.

Bones.

"Yes, Y/n?"

His tears kept on running dow his face, the skin under the salty guilty stinging while stretching into the smallest, surrendered smile.

You had no idea who he was, didn't you?

Time slowed down in the most excruciating way right before Dumbledore's skin began to shed off of him like a used robe. Dirty, now useless, distressed.

Large wings spread through the thick air of the Dark Forest, Lady Death herself raising up behind Y/n, her delicate face was now painted with a content smile and peaceful tears, mimicking his own.

"It hurts"

Before Tom's mind could gave birth to any sort of though, the Hooded Dame slid back, his beloved rose obnoxiously secured to Her chest in a possessive way. And at the same time they backed away, the ground faded unhurried into nothingness. An abyss was now opening its jaws under Y/n's beaten body, and it started to swallow her whole in slow-motion.

Tom stood frozen, the cruelty of his condition giving him all the time in the universe to process Y/n's flesh breaking into bloody, gruesome chunks, her organs easily finding their way out of her abdomen, down, into the merciless void with a dreadful, wet moan.

Tom threw himself in the emptiness of your end, reaching for the parts of what his delirious mind hoped could be sewed up together again. Was is it losing you that drove him crazy?

Or did the seed of madness just finally bloom in his now blood covered hands?

When did they got stained with crimson?

"Why didn't you save me, Tom?"

"Tom?"

"Tom"

"Tom!"

<TOM!>

The Slytherin's dark eyes shot open only to find e/c ones stare right back at them, red and swollen by tears still freshly oozing down s/c skin.

<What the FUCK, Tom! I couldn't wake you up!>

You felt so broken to his ears. So stressed to his eyes. As your finally sweet tone caressed his hearing again, Tom still found it difficult to move. Reality was just starting to settle in, his brain still processing the gruesome images that'll be now forever carved in his mind. You were screaming at him, but he couldn't hear you.

He looked to the left.

His diary.

Tom was in his dorm room, again, his soulmate straddling him in the most innocent way.

Crying, shaking.

Were you angry at him?

<Malfoy came running in the common room and he was in panic and then I was in panic cause he told me that you wouldn't wake up and kept on screaming so I dashed here and I panicked again and what the fuck Tom, bloody hell I- >

Tom did not have sufficient energies to keep his cold act up. Time was not wasted, and his arms laced around you as fast as possible, bringing you as close to his chest as they could. He'd probably crush your bones at a certain point, still he knew none of you cared, not when you were squeezing him the same way.

<Don't you dare do it again, Riddle. You scared the life out of me.>

He was not aware of his muscles being that tense until that very moment. The second your skin collapsed into his, everything was swept away, like smoke in thin air. The room was empty, the clock on its wall claiming the dead of the night to be the time your scene was playing.

<Malfoy went to Black and Evergreen's room>

You didn't really need to say more. Your body just slipped on the mattress, right beside Tom, letting enough space for his worn out frame to curl up to it. Your fingers began to play with his locks, actually unusually sweaty and almost dry, nothing like his usually silky ones. You'd swear you could feel his shattered mind under your fingertips, if only it was possible you'd seek for its scars and heal them one by one.

If only it was possible.

<Y/n?>

Tom's breath slowed down gradually, just like his heart rate, lulled by the quiet tone you were humming.

<Yes, Tom?>

The clock was almost too loud, you were afraid its ticketing would disturb him. Was keep staring at it enough to silence the noise?

Drowsy murmurs left the young wizard's lips, falling in your lap like dead petals but failing to reach up to your ears.

<Come again?>

You bent over, just a little, at least enough to trace out his confused mutters. It reminded you of your days at the orphanage, when you both were too young and scared. It brought your mind back when Tom used to tell you his secrets, when you were his one and only. When he was still just Tom.

<What... What does it feel to jump into the void?>

H/c hair gently fell over your shoulders as your head found rest on the wall.

Air was cold against your now wet cheeks.

"Can we save him?"

"Yes, but we won't"

The steady rhythm of Tom's chest raising up and down told you he was finally long gone into a gentle slumber, safe from himself.

<It hurts>

[fanfoolishness]

the naming of things

Din Djarin names the wounds earned in The Prisoner, and reflects on the hunter becoming the hunted. ~1700 words, Din & Grogu, hints of Din's life before he met the kid, a bit of whump and a bit of hope. Takes place at the end of Chapter 6.

*

Hyperspace stretched around them, the promise of freedom streaming beyond them in blue-white light. The glimmers played over his visor as a sigh, long and weary, stole from his mouth. He sagged against his seat, casting a furtive glance over his shoulder at the wide-eyed child watching him.

“I told you that was a bad idea,” he muttered, more to himself than the kid. He swallowed. It’d been damn close for both of them.

Reflexively he reached out, unscrewing the little control knob from its lever. He reached back and dropped the ball into the kid’s waiting hand. It was the least he could do to make up for the droid menacing the kid, Mayfeld dropping him on the floor, their taunts... Not to mention the way Din had pretended the kid was just a pet, and nothing more.

...He’d done it to take the heat off the kid, of course.

Still felt lousy about it, though.

A bad idea.

The words echoed as a refrain, a hum that fell away into the whirs and vibrations of the Razor Crest around them. Din winced. He’d known better. Or should have, anyway. He closed his eyes, suddenly powerfully tired.

A burble played out, bright and cheery behind him. He lifted his head and realized he’d stiffened badly in his chair. How long had he been sleeping? His head pounded.

“Come on, kid,” Din said, getting slowly to his feet. Bruises throbbed beneath his armor, making him recoil each time a normal movement forced one to bear pressure. He tried to count them all, a habit he’d picked up from older Mandalorians in the Corps. Name your wounds. Face them clearly. They’ll hold less power that way.

Some of the fighters had been cocky with their naming, proud of how many wounds they’d sustained without going down. They sang their battle-scars to anyone who'd listen (and many who couldn't care less). Others had used it as a way to distance themselves from the pain that might otherwise hold them back. These days Din preferred to use the technique as a way to review his fights, to forge the damage into another weapon, to make himself harder, fiercer, sharper for the next battle.

It was also a good way to remind himself to examine himself thoroughly for injury, so that he could tend to his body as he tended to his armor. It had been a long time since he had found a Mandalorian healer to do so for him, someone he trusted who could treat his wounds while also honoring his armor. He had given up on healers outside of the Way years ago.

Din steadied himself on his feet, calculating. Bruise over the left flank. When the Devaronian slammed me against the console. Watch for blood in the vacc tube later, might need bacta if the kidney’s involved. He reached out to the kid, who held out his arms to be picked up. Searing pain over the bicep. Xi’an’s blade. Cleaning and tissue glue. He nestled the kid against his side, grateful that that, at least, did not spark awareness of a new wound.

The kid pulled him out of his cataloguing, rolling that little ball between his hands and swinging his legs. He tilted his head curiously, ears shifting to the side. Din glanced down at him, fighting a fleeting dizziness.

“I know. You gotta be hungry by now.” Din’s own gut rumbled, though he felt vaguely nauseous. He frowned.

Drowsy. Dizzy. Nauseous. Headache. His frown deepened. Concussion from Burg? He didn’t specifically remember getting hit in the head, but the fight had been a blur. He let out a long breath, irritated more than anything else. Concussions were nasty to treat. Either you wasted precious, expensive bacta on them, or you muddled through them for days, always with that nagging knowledge that they stacked: from fight to fight, from year to year.

At this point in his life, another concussion was the last thing he needed. Bacta it was.

He carefully made his way down the ladder and into the hold, shuffling toward the cabinet where he kept the rations. Bruise or torn muscle, back of the left thigh. Another blow from Burg? It was getting hard to remember the specificities of the fight.

The kid started reaching towards the cupboard the instant Din turned to face it. His fingers splayed wide, straining for the food he knew was inside. Despite himself, Din smiled.

“Don’t worry, kid, I know it’s dinnertime.” Ought to keep him occupied enough for me to do a once-over, and get that bacta started.

The kid stuffed the control knob into his mouth, and Din’s half-smile vanished instantly. “Get that out of your mouth, you’ll choke on it!” he scolded, fishing it out of the kid’s small jaws with a gloved finger. The kid screwed up his face into the beginnings of a wail, and Din shook his head, instantly regretting the action as his stomach swooped with nausea. He swallowed down his gorge, sucking in a deep breath.

“That’s enough playing with that for now,” he managed. “You can have it back sometime when you aren’t hungry.” He shoved the ball into a belt pouch, then opened the cabinet, scanning it for food. He came up with a stack of flat womp rat jerky, a wedge of bantha cheese and a pair of millet cakes. “How’s that for dinner, buddy?”

The kid swiveled to look up at him, all clearly forgiven, judging by his beaming expression and upturned ears. He let out a loud giggle and grabbed for the jerky first, happily stuffing a piece into his mouth and working it with those little teeth. But the smell, normally appetizing, turned Din’s stomach.

“Here,” he said, attempting a gentle tone. He limped to the rack, setting the kid down on his own bed and laying out the food around him. “I’ll be just outside. Getting ready for bed. You stay here, understand?”

The kid blinked up at him, golden crumbs of buttery bantha cheese clinging like a constellation all over his chin. Then he took a bite of his millet cake, holding it daintily in one clawed hand.

“Good,” said Din in relief. “You’re busy.” He closed the door to their cramped sleeping area, slumping a little against the door. He made his way over to his medkit, keeping one hand lightly against the wall. The Crest thrummed beneath his touch. Almost lost you and the kid, he thought tiredly. They never meant for me to get out of there alive. They had no honor. They never had.

And that had been obvious from the start, he’d known it just the same as he knew Tatooine had a binary star, but still. Sometimes the question wasn’t is a fatal blow coming, sometimes it was just will it be a blaster? Or a blade? He could kick himself for the wounds from both he’d earned from this crowd; some of them wounds he had never named.

Maybe that was the real problem.

“Like old times,” he murmured, regret twisting, fleetingly, within him. He opened his medkit, staring at the bacta hidden in its recesses. All that remained was a single slim patch, cut down to a sliver from multiple uses. He blinked. Of course. He should have remembered, but then, thinking clearly was a little difficult right now. He grimaced through the haze.

Using it now meant there’d be nothing left for another fight, another day. He didn’t like traveling so scanty. Yet he and the kid were fugitives, and bacta hawkers knew all the talk, as well as what kind of credits that talk could fetch. They’d likely turn him and the kid in just as soon as anyone else. They wouldn't be able to resupply any time soon.

He glanced slowly at the closed door to the sleeping rack, then reached up to remove his helmet, setting it down beside him. He kept his eyes half-lidded, avoiding the ship’s dim lights, and carefully fixed the last bacta scrap over his forehead along the area that felt most tender.

Gradually it seeped in and the ache dulled, lessening substantially. He knew from experience this wasn’t enough bacta to fully resolve a concussion, but it would have to do.

....How long can we keep this up?

He stiffened at the sudden thought. Without the covert, without signs of other Mandalorians to help them hide, he and the kid were some of the brightest targets in the galaxy. He’d known it, accepted it, but the empty wrapper of the bacta patch still sat in the palm of his hand, far heavier than it should be.

The Armorer had spoken of hunter and prey. He knew which he’d always considered himself to be, ever since the day he'd first put on his helmet. But thinking of the kid in there, cheese all over his tiny, happy face, the words felt more real than they ever had before. How long could a hunter survive as the hunted?

For a moment, Din let his eyes fall closed. Felt the bacta working, felt the fog receding, just a little. Just enough.

He crumpled up the wrapper, tossing it into the waste tube with the food wrappers from the kid's meal. He took a deep breath, looking through the neatly organized medkit, pulling out what he needed. Antiseptic. Tissue glue. Painkillers. He ran through the list of named injuries in his head, setting out a plan for himself.

It took him the better part of a standard hour to address the different wounds, and when he had finished, aches improving, he realized he’d become ravenous. He rummaged through the cupboard, coming out with a handful of rations. He slipped his helmet back on and opened the door to the sleeping rack.

The kid lay there peacefully, surrounded by crumbs, snoring lightly with his tiny nose twitching. Din chuckled, sidling in next to the kid and putting his feet up. He shifted the child’s small body until the kid was sleeping against his hip.

Din raised his helmet slightly, enough to take a bite of millet cake smeared with desert honey. Maybe it was the bacta working, but it seemed like the best thing he’d eaten in weeks. He took another bite, then another, raising and lowering his helmet each time as he did so. It took him a moment to realize this was the first time he’d eaten anything in the same room as the kid. For some reason, it didn’t bother him.

He smiled, looking down at the sleeping child. “Don’t worry, pal.” The kid babbled quietly to himself in his sleep, smacking his lips and curling up even closer to Din’s hip. “Tomorrow’s another day.”

[youryanderedaddy]

Lady Luck (pt. 1)

I was so hyped to write this lol. Heavily inspired by Kaiji <3

Tw: mafia mention, unrealistic potrayal of mafia, mentions of threats, implied obssessive behavior (will get more hardcore in the second part tho), mentions of gambling, kidnapping /not reader/

 You knew that you were a scum, a lowlife, a miserable loser without much hope in life - that’s exactly why you had no problem joining the deadliest underground paradise and following under the steps of the Lucciano family. They controlled everything - the casinos, the drugs, the guns, the whores, you name it - they provided it. And you had nothing - neither a past, nor a future. But everything changed when the oldest son Thomas decided to help you get out of the mud and step onto your legs - he gave you a home, a friend to return to, a shoulder to cry on when reality felt too painful and harsh, just too much to bear on your own. “Why would you do that for a stranger?” You had asked him once while tipsy, sitting by the hearth, a slight blush adorning your soft cheeks. “That’s easy.” The man had responded right away without giving it much thought. “You remind me of myself.”

 You spent long nights thinking about his words but never came to a conclusion - he was born into a powerful, wealty family, so it made no sense for him to have experienced rock bottom the way you had. And his small black eyes displayed such a variety of terryfing emotions - bloodlust, greed, sin and so much sadness. Why would a monster ever feel scared, you wondered. 

 Working for the Luccianos wasn’t especially hard or even dangerous - you ran small errands for them, took care of the younger kids, helped with��insignificant deals, acted as a croupier when their staff was sick or missing or had to be taken care of, but one thing you were thankful for was how they never tried to force you into doing something you would never be able to forgive yourself for. Thomas was kind to you -  always so considerate, willing to listen, to understand how you felt even when the worlds you two lived in differed so greatly. He was supposed to be villain of the story, big and scary, demanding, taking whatever he wants without asking and never feeling an ounce of regret about it. And for a while, you were suspicous of the man’s every move - you were desperately waiting for the mobster to fuck up and show his true colours so you could let yourself hate him, despise him. And yet the sweet, sweet moment of revelation never came. You knew, of course, of the many evil deeds the criminal bestowed upon thousands of innocent people each and every day, but you never witnessed it with your own eyes and when the man was treating you like a part of his family, holding you close and giving you chance after chance to prove yourself, it was slowly getting impossible to view him as the bad guy. Perhaps you should have waited just a little longer.

 It happened during a warm, spring day. You didn’t expect it, you couldn’t. You had just finished your shift at midnight in the small shop you worked in, which belonged to Thomas’ mother, and were heading to the Lucciano mansion. It had been a particularly long and exhausting day, so you wanted nothing more than to feel the soft, silky, white sheets down your half-naked body while the quiet classical music took you to dream land and back. But upon opening the heavy wooden door, you quickly noticed something was different - there was no music, the big black TV in the middle of the hall was set to camera mode instead of the normal one, and it was awfully quiet. “They must have had to leave the country for a while.” You rationalised. “It has happened before after all.” You kept reassuring yourself while taking a tiny step towards the centre of the room where light was the strongest - it could uncover every hidden little detail.

 And then the TV was turned on. You shifted your gaze up, paranoia eating at you from inside out. Soon there was clear image on the massive screen, but what you saw left you speechless. There were hours of footage from your personal life - working, hanging out with friends, eating, bathing. What made the shivers down your spine run cold was a scene where a guy, your boyfriend, was kissing you, touching you, undressing you with his praying eyes. It was nothing unusual for a young woman to have a love life, but this broke the only rule Thomas had told you upon entering the house - you were forbidden from having close relationships with men, especially dangerous ones, and for the longest time, you had no issue living by that as long as you came back to the luxury and warmth the mobster provided for you. Until you met him - a charming, clever member of a local gang. You knew it was wrong and could cost you more than you were willing to sacrifice and yet you still gave in. It was your first time experiencing the highs and lows of love, so who could blame you when it was such a magical feeling, a mixture of adrenaline and opium. Alex made you feel like a real human being instead of someone just existing, leeching off the stronger, wealthier species.

 There was a shadow moving out from the corner, playing into your delusions. But soon enough you realised it was all a reality as none other than Thomas walked slowly towards you, clapping his hands dramatically, a sly smirk on his beautiful, scarred face. Did he...

 "Congratulations." The man started off, dark eyes set on you, slowly coming closer and closer like a big black hole, ready to swallow you whole. "You went and got yourself a little boy - toy." The criminal chuckled viciously under his breath, making you cringe at the crude nickname he used. The situation felt surreal and yet the fear and panic were already suffocating you, making you dizzy wish regret. "I wish you would have told me though... I never thought someone I hold so important would lie to me." The mobster kept rambling, waving his arms in the air theatrically, while holding a lit cigarette, but never moving it to his lips - it was just a prop, a way to create a thick smoke mist in your eyes. It was finally the hour of judgement.

 "What do you want?" You asked, faking confidence, desperate to take control of what was happening. It was a bizarre thing to see your dearest friend act in such a eerie, frightening way, almost treating you like one of his victims - nothing more than an indebted bastard or an unfortunate bystander, unlucky enough to catch a deal unfolding right behind the scenes. It hurt but you had forced this upon yourself and you had to fix it.

 "Nothing much, really." Thomas replied, finally inhaling the deadly smoke into his open mouth. He played with his collar for a while, as if you weren't standing there, scared for your life. "I just want to teach you a lesson in obedience, doll." The mafioso continued, circling you slowly, his heavy gaze never leaving your body. You felt awfully exposed even when all your clothes were present, covering every inch of your skin. With a swift snap of his fingers, the man summoned most of the gorillas that worked under him. Two of them were dragging your kicking, screaming boyfriend towards the centre of the room, but a quick punch in the guts managed to quiet him down. He looked terrified, his face bloody and injured, covered in dust and misery. But he was still alive and only that mattered to you.

 "I wanted to make this entertaining for all of us." The oldest Lucciano spoke out, his husky voice echoing trough the golden ceiling. He moved over to your lover and harshly pressed the cigarette butt against the exposed skin of his unprotected arm. The man cried out in pain, silently pleading you to help with his big, terrified eyes. And here you were, as helpess as he was - if not even more. "So I decided to initiate a little gamble of sorts, ya know?" Thomas winked at you, smiling with malice. You couldn't help, but recall all the times you two had played poker together, betting less than pocket change. You never understood why the man always got so excited despite winning such small sums, especially when his casinos already did well. But now you could see it clearly - he got off crushing his opponent, taking the victory under their noses. Money meant nothing. As long as he was able to ruin your mood, your life, the man was pleased.

 Soft white light lit up the furthest corners of the hall and you saw dozen square boxes, arranged in a circle. It looked harmless enough on its own, still they were stamped with Thomas’ symbol - a dove. You used to wonder why someone in the most dangerous depts of mafia would choose such an innocent, sweet signature pf representation and now the answer was right in front of you - that way it was easier to trick the enemy into thinking they were safe. And how wrong were they. 

 “As you can see, there are nine wooden boxes in total. They look exactly the same and on top of each one there is a hole.” Thomas stopped to point at them, the raw anticipation flooding his otherwise dull pupils. “Six of the boxes are empty. In the other three though, there are placed some of the most poisonous snakes in the world. One bite and you are dead.” The madman gave a loud, breathy laugh while your boyfriend squirmed uncomfortably in place, restrained by the strong arms, holding him down. “Both of you will take four turns putting your hand in the boxes. After every round the box would be closed off and you would be able to choose only from the remaining ones. ” The mobster grinned widely, looking at your horrified expression. You couldn’t believe that the man was willing to put your lives on the line simply because you had neglected one of his orders. “Now you may be wondering where the suspence is - after all you would probaby manage to hear the hissing from afar and avoid the place it comes from. Rest assured, my foolish little friends. Right now the snakes are heavily intoxicated and absolutely silent - which doesn’t mean, of course, that they won’t attack any soft flesh they see. If you die, that’s on you, but if you survive, you will be rewarded.” Thomas clapped his hands together and his man let go of your lover, resulting in his falling to the ground with a heavy bang. Thomas pursed his lips together.

 “Shall we get started?”

[amatchinwater]

Did a little thing for Day 2 of Stackson Week 2021!

Day 2: Trapped together

Pairing: Stackson

Warnings: underage drinking

Word count: 2709

Rating: teen and up

Ao3 link

Stiles knew it was a bad idea to have a party at Lydia’s lake house in the middle of hurricane lever rain and a goddamn flood warning. What’s even worse is he’s the first person to show up! Lydia herself isn’t even here yet. The banshee was kind enough to tell him where they put the hide-a-key so he could get in and out of the storm. Scott and Isaac aren’t picking up or answering his texts. If they’re not here because they’re too busy fucking and Stiles has to be here soaked and alone, he’s going to kill them.

When Stiles gets in the house, he stomps his shoes on the mat to not track in any mud. Lyds would castrate him for that, so he takes them off just to be safe. Slipping out of his jacket, Stiles hangs it on the hook, careful not to let it drip anywhere other than the little rug underneath it. The house is empty and eerily dark. Then again, why wouldn’t it be? He’s the only fucking one here. Making his way into the kitchen, Stiles’ preturbrance only grows. 

It doesn’t even look like the place is meant to house a party in the next twenty minutes. Nothing is set up. There isn't a single bag of chips or other snacks on the counter. No pizzas and sandwich platters like her birthday. A keg is not beside the island either. Just two bottles of wine with a sticky note that reads-

“Have fun?” 

Oh my god! Stiles jumps and flails, nearly knocking the bottles over on the counter. 

“What kind of fucking game is she playing?” Jackson snatches the note, rereading it before flicking it back towards the island. 

Still clutching his wildly beating heart, Stiles gasps, “could you maybe announce yourself next time?” He collects himself- mostly. “Not all of us have your little wolf senses. You almost gave me a heart attack, you fuck.” 

Jackson snorts and almost playfully bumps him with his shoulder. “Not my fault you left the front door unlocked, Stilinski.” 

Fuck this. “I’m leaving.” Stiles stalks back towards the front door, yanking his jacket off the hook and grabbing his shoes. Whipping the open the door, the teen groans loudly, dropping his head back, “you’ve got to be kidding me!” 

“What are you bitching about now?” The wolf steps beside him and looks outside, his eyes widen drastically. “Holy shit!”

The lake has officially overflown since they’ve shown up and the driveway is at least three inches deep with water. Jackson’s care looks like it’s barely  capable of surviving if it gets too high. Stiles almost cares enough to wonder if they should move it. This fucking storm! Now he’s stuck here with nowhere to go. Yes, he has a jeep, but the road out is no doubt a muddy mess that even Roscoe can’t navigate. 

Closing the door and putting his clothes back where they were, Stiles whines, “why would she pick today to do this?” Thinking about the weather his dad forced him to watch this morning. Most cities were calling in downed power lines and massive branches flying through the streets. 

She knew this storm was coming. So much so that Lydia even reminded him to wear his boots rather than his sneakers. “I guess I better call Scott, tell him not to come. No use in him getting stuck in the woods like this.” Sures, having his best friend here would make this exceptionally better. But Stiles doesn’t want to break up any fights between a stir crazy Jackson and Isaac. Fishing in his pocket, Stiles pulls out his phone and smashes the call button in annoyance. 

“Stiles, hey. I’m sorry I did-” Scott answers on the second ring only to be cut off by Stiles.

“I don’t care if you and Isaac were fucking,” Jackson chuckles at his jab. “Don’t come to Lydia’s. The lake flooded and now Jackson and I can’t leave.” 

“Okay,” Scott draws out the word and if Stiles wasn’t mistaken sounds a little confused. Jackson’s brows knit together at the response too. Okay, so it did sound weird then. “I’m sorry you’re stuck there, dude. But maybe this will be a good thing?”

Is he serious? “How the fuck is it supposed to be a good thing to be stuck in a goddamn house with someone who hates my guts?” Stiles’ hand slaps his thigh in exasperation. Not to mention the asshole in question was hotter than hell fire and makes it incredibly hard to be in the same room with him. Not thinking about that when Jackson can smell his chemosignals. 

“Well,” Scott drawls, “you did say you had a crush on him.” Stiles blanches and goes stalk still, forgetting how to fucking breathe. Jackson snorts beside him. Stiles is going to kill Scott. “Oh my god! He’s right next to you, isn’t he?”

“I hate you so much right now.” Stiles makes a point to stare at the floor and not at the shuffling wolf beside him. “Well, thanks for getting me killed. Great best friend job, truly. See ya probably never, Scotty.” He promptly hangs up before Scott can answer. 

“So,” Jackson purrs and Stiles can’t help but turn and face the wolf. His arms are crossed from where he leans against the wall, one foot propped behind him. Jackson’s face holds that stupid, sexy, douchbag smirk, “you like me?”

He’s not even going to entertain that. Stiles squints at him with his mouth slightly parted. It only makes Jackson chuckle. “I need a drink,” Stiles uses every ounce of self control not to literally run away and back into the kitchen. Sifting through the drawers until he finds the corkscrew, Stiles grabs a bottle. Once the cork is out- that actually had already been opened- Stiles could give fuck all about a glass. He takes a sip directly from the bottle, regretting it at the extensive bitter taste of wolfsbane.

Clearly that one’s for Jackson. He’s courteous enough to slide the wine across the island when Jackson is back in the room. The wolf stares at him as his lips wrap around the mouthpiece and drinks from it, not giving a damn to wipe it after Stiles’ drank first. The other boy just watches before his brain recovers and he opens his own bottle. Setting the cork and opener aside, Stiles grabs the wine and leaves the wolf in the kitchen to go sit in the living room where Lydia keeps the playstation. 

Plopping on the couch, Stiles lets himself sink into the cushion and takes several swigs. Actually rather enjoying the slight burn and the warmth that quickly settles in his belly. He can very easily just sit here and watch tv like Jackson doesn’t even exist. Stiles can go to literally anywhere else to be away from the wolf if need be. He cannot believe that Jackson found out he likes him. 

Fucking Scott.

It takes a few minutes for Jackson to join him. Stiles already has Supernatural playing and has killed a good third of his wine before the wolf is sitting next to him. Like right next to him. One nervous leg bounce and their thighs or knees will touch. Seriously? Lydia has two couches, a chaise lounge, and two armchairs in her living room. So why is he so close?

Scratch that initial thought. There’s like six other rooms in this big ass house that Jackson could’ve gone to. Why here? Stiles drinks more. 

Jackson takes another small sip, looking like he’s barely drank anything from his own bottle before saying, “I have a secret to tell you.” 

He fights the eyeroll only just, “what information could you possibly have that I would care about?” Amber eyes stay glued to the flat screen.

“I don’t hate you, Stiles.”

“Oh?” He asks with mock interest. Even though there’s something tickling at his heart that Jackson didn’t call him ‘idiot��� or ‘Stilinski’. He can’t allow himself to fall for the wolf’s tricks. He won’t let the rug get yanked out from under him. 

“Quite the opposite actually.” 

Stiles snorts and turns to make some smart ass retort. But his ‘yeah right’ gets stuck on his tongue finding Jackson’s face mere inches from his own. He gulps. Clearing his throat, Stiles takes a big sip before putting his bottle on the small table beside him. Too fuzzy and warm to process this, Stiles scooches until he’s pressing against the armrest. 

Jackson also places his bottle on the coffee table before sliding closer. Forcing Stiles to half turn into the couch while the wolf puts an arm on either side of him, completely encasing Stiles. “I like you,” he presses further, “a lot.” Jackson leans in until their noses brush, “tell me if you want me to stop.” 

Blame the wine. Blame his hormones for not wanting him to stop. Hell, blame everyone and everything, Stiles included. But he does have a massive crush on Jackson. Even though he knows damn well that he shouldn’t. The guy’s a prick. He has no problem letting people know that he’s better than them. Making damn sure to flaunt his money too. As if that makes him hotter or something. It doesn’t. 

No, it’s the icy blue eyes that make Stiles want to learn their secrets and harvest the knowledge. The wolf’s stupid jaw that’s perfect and Stiles just wants to bite it. He;s seen Jackson naked numerous times- thank you locker room shower’s forgotten concept of privacy. But god damn, when Jackson smiles- not his asshole smirk, but genuine smile- Stiles’ lungs and knees forget how to function. Despite his actions earlier, the teen is actually pretty happy to be stuck here. 

Only acting as though he hates Jackson because he was simply following the wolf’s lead. His eyes flick to Jackson’s bottle of wine- its contents too hard to see in the dark green glass from this distance- and back to hooded baby blues. There’s only two reasons Stiles can believe that this is actually happening right now.

Jackson’s drunk. Because Stiles doesn’t understand the extent in which wolfsbane affects werewolf's tolerance. Which would mean the ex-kanima has no idea what he’s doing and should go sleep it off. Stiles hopes it’s this because the latter is just too painful. 

Jackson’s fucking with him. Surely he doesn’t have actual feelings for Stiles. Maybe the wolf found out he’s bi and wanted to tease him about it. Although, something tells him that Danny would murder Jackson if he ever found out. Still. This is Stiles. Lowest on the lacrosse totem pole and not the wolf’s best friend. Is Jackson that cruel though?

Beautiful, parted pink lips get closer, so Stiles whispers, “you’re just drunk,” and turns his head away, hoping that’s the case here. Waiting for the joke to play out.

“I’m really not.” Jackson reaches over to grab his drink. There’s maybe three sips missing when he dangles the bottle for proof. “See?” The wolf puts it back, returning with a smirk and a cocked brow, “now will you let me kiss you?” Jackson chuckles, it’s a breathy sound, but doesn’t make to move closer. Leaving it to Stiles.

He’s not falling for that trap. The prove-to-me-you-want-it-so-I-can-kick-you-down trap by making Stiles lean in. “So you’re fucking with me then?” He should’ve known better. 

The other boy looks confused and a little offended. Jackson leans back farther, still sitting close, but no longer in Stiles’ personal space. He actually wants him to come back, but how could he ever tell the wolf that when this is just a game? “Why would I fuck with you about this?” Jackson’s voice is soft and full of so much emotion that Stiles almost believes him. 

“Uh, because that’s what you do?” Stiles gestures wildly like it should have been obvious. “You’ve made it perfectly clear that we’re not even friends. You were literally my bully when we were kids. I don’t- and i-it only got worse when I developed a crush on Lydia. Which I get, she was your girlfr-”

“What’s not why I was a dick.” The wolf cuts him off with a shake of his head. Stiles squints an eye at him, mouth still hanging open from the word that didn’t finish. “I was jealous.” 

“Why the fuck would you be jealous of me?” Stiles scoffs and Jackson ducks his head with a chuckle. “Lydia never even looked at me while you were together.” 

Jackson flashes a bemused grin when he looks back, “I was jealous of Lydia, you idiot.” The name usually bitten out comes with a tone that suggests it’s meant to be a term of endearment. 

“Oh, I’m so sorry that I wasn’t fawning over you like your little fan club, okay? My bad. You’re right, you’re incredibly hot and I should’ve stroked your ego by putting you some fucking pedestal-” Jackson swallows whatever other words and the surprised squeak from Stiles’ lips. He stares bug eyed at the wolf’s closed eyes. Jackson presses closer, his hand cupping the other boy’s cheeks while his tongue slides against Stiles’ bottom lip. Entrance isn’t given, he can’t really, Stiles is too shocked to do so. 

The wolf pulls away, still holding Stiles’ face, “I didn’t care that you thought she was attractive.” Jackson drops a hand and lifts his hips, pulling one of Stiles’ legs until the human gets the massage and- for some fucking reason- lays on the couch. The wolf’s hips immediately settle into the space created and Stiles can feel just how much Jackson wants this. Him. “I wanted to be the one you had a crush on because of the massive one I have on you.”

That’s a lot to process. If Jackson liked him then- “why did you make my life hell?” 

Jackson’s free hand falls to Stiles’ hip, rubbing softly and the other props himself on the armrest behind Stiles’ head. “I didn’t know how to handle the fact that I suddenly like guys. Well, a guy.” The wolf sighs, “Lydia knew and agreed to keep my secret as long as I needed her to. I’m sorry I treated you like that.”

Stiles has never seen him act so soft. Having Derek as an Alpha and a proper back must really be working for Jackson. It makes him charming in a way that his jerk persona never could. Being emotionally balanced and all that. 

“I’m going to ask you one more time. And I’ll know if you’re lying. So don’t do me any favors and don’t hide from me either.” The warning is evident. Don’t say it and not mean it. And don’t mean it but not day it. Otherwise he’ll walk. “Will you please, let me fucking kiss you?” 

Stiles fists his fingers in the wolf’s shirt- half expecting Jackson to snap at wrinkling his expensive clothes- to push him away or pull him closer, the other boy really doesn’t know. Until his arm moves of its own volition and Jackson’s mouth gets drawn to him. 

The wolf chuckles against his lips, “finally.” The hand on his hip grips tighter and the other comes back to his jaw. Jackson tilts his head up to deepen the kiss. Jackson kisses like he wants to swallow Stiles whole. Maybe he does. Maybe Stiles would let him. Panting he pulls away again, and the other teen bites back a whine. “I have one more question and then I promise I’ll shut up.”

The human playfully rolls his eyes, “what is it?”

“Be with me.” Jackson states. Stiles cocks his head to the side with a chuckle, that wasn’t really a question. But his heart skips a beat nonetheless at the implication of the wolf’s words. “Will you be my boyfriend?” 

Stiles is nodding before the request is completely out of Jackson’s beautiful face. “Fuck yeah, dude.” The wolf breathes out a laugh at the ridiculousness. “Now just kiss me. Please?” 

“Whatever you want,” Jackson grins and presses his body in further, claiming Stiles’ lips as his own. 

Stiles is now stupidly happy about this storm locking them in Lydia’s lake house. He got a boyfriend out if. 

[ddarker-dreams]

How do all the other stands feel ab sr? I’m sure they all somewhat get along, right?

i’ve been wanting to give a longer, traditional hc style post about this!! since you’ve asked it’s the perfect opportunity to express my thoughts on it. it’s more of a combination of SR with the user and their stand, i hope that’s okay hjrktme

Bruno Bucciarati;

Sticky Fingers is the first Stand from Bucciarati’s group that you got to see! So there’s a special place in your heart for it. By extension, Bruno was the first person to see Scarlet Ribbons. SR was very inquisitive during their initial meeting, since it’s the first time she ever saw a Stand other than herself. She was looking around a lot, and lowkey wondering where are this things bows at?? 

Though Stand powers wildly vary from one another, Bruno was able to give you a general explanation of what to expect from SR. He didn’t want to go too overboard with advice because he feels a natural fighting style stemming from your own abilities/instinct is best, especially since your Stand is created from your soul. He basically just told you to go with your gut, which at the time felt a bit frustrating... it turned out to be good advice though! 

Sticky Fingers and SR have almost opposite abilities in a way? SR can close up gaps whereas Sticky Fingers opens them up. It’s not uncommon that when you and Bruno are chatting, that your respective Stands are just kinda messing around in the distance. Sticky Fingers likes making zippers in walls, and SR tries to see if she can close them with ribbons... it doesn’t work like that, but it’s kinda endearing to see them interact with one another lmao.

Giorno Giovanna;

It’s gonna be super cute okay. Giorno in general might give the impression of knowing what he’s doing when it comes to romance, but he really is just winging it and kinda going ??? the entire time. Meanwhile, Gold Experience is going ham with SR, pulling all the stops to impress her (and you, by extension). His Stand makes flowers of a striking red color, trying to match the shade of SR’s ribbons!! Mostly poppies, tulips, and occasionally roses. 

Giorno is kinda curious how SR seems to be out a lot of the time, he’s thinking should I do the same thing with GE...? You’ll be doing exercises, and SR is there bringing a water bottle over to you. Or when you’re cooking, SR is hovering over your shoulder wanting to help out as well. She’s just almost always around, even if only in the background to explore her surroundings. It makes Giorno let GE out more often, subconsciously. 

He does ask you about it once, and you just kinda shrug and say SR likes the freedom to do as she pleases. Since she isn’t rambunctious like Pistols, you don’t see the harm in letting her roam around.  

Gold Experience wants to try making ribbons, but the best it can do is creating ribbon eels. It’s not quite the same, but it’s a solid effort. Giorno just has to stop GE from putting the ribbon eel on his head in the same way SR has a ribbon on hers. Mista was around to witness this historical event, and no, he does not intend on letting Giorno live it down. Giorno’s grateful he stopped it from actually happening though. 

Guido Mista;

Let’s just say your Stands together can be pretty chaotic. The first time you met Mista, and he realized you were a Stand user like himself, he had a very pressing question. When you showed him SR, he looked at it for a moment, as if in deep thought. 

“D-does... yours talk too?” 

Mista passed Polpo’s test only to be gifted talented, albeit troublesome little gremlins. Before he realized giving Pistols food is a reliable method of calming them down, it was a war zone. One of the mornings where the two of you had to do some standard protection fee collection, he looked like a borderline zombie. Lamenting that the Pistols refused to let him sleep, and asked if you’d please use SR to cover their mouths lmao. They were protesting the entire time, trying to convince you not to do it.

When Number Five starts crying, SR makes a little ribbon to put on his head!! It’s super cute and Mista’s heart is just leaping in his chest. Then, of course, all the other Pistols want one bc equal attention!! When the two of you aren’t paying solid attention to your Stands, you’ll sometimes spot SR testing how many accessories she can fit on the tiny Pistols. It isn’t a lot but they’re insistent on trying. 

Pistols are always trying to get SR to do crazy stunts for their entertainment. Eventually, you had to lock your refrigerator with her ribbons to prevent the Pistols from stealing your food. But when you’re busy, the Pistols keep trying to convince SR to undo them so they can snack. She actually felt bad for them once, released the restriction, and the Pistols went to town on your leftovers. : (

Mista felt pity for you though and offered to take you out to get more food!! So it all worked out for his benefit in the end. The Pistols do not take issue in reminding him of this as well, saying that they’re the reason he got to go on a date with you. :’ )

Pannacotta Fugo;

He remained fiercely adamant on keeping Purple Haze from you for the longest time. Fugo hates how his Stand practically comes out of its own autonomy whenever you’re in the vicinity, wanting to get a closer look at you. There have been a lot of close calls when you first got to know when another, leading to Fugo abruptly leaving in conversations. 

Your Stands get along well once Fugo feels comfortable enough to let Purple Haze out around you. Since SR is a long ranged Stand, she can do her cute ribbon tricks from a distance outside of the virus’ range!! Though she has a habit of trying to get closer, just out of curiosity. Fugo gets freaked out when this happens though, so she waits until he’s distracted with talking to you (a little genius)! 

Purple Haze makes the biggest puppy dog eyes at SR, which humiliates Fugo to no end. He gives his Stand intense talks when you’re not around, telling him to keep it cool, he doesn’t want you thinking he’s an idiot. But as soon as he even mentions SR, Purple Haze gets all thrilled and is like !!! So it’s ultimately counterproductive. Fugo just hopes you don’t put two and two together, over why his soul likes yours so much. It’s his daily prayer...

Fugo has an embarrassing habit of doodling ribbons on stuff he’s working on, when he starts zoning out. When he realizes what it is he’s doing he gets flustered about it, cursing underneath his breath and hoping that you don’t happen to come by and notice. Unfortunately for him, as SR likes to see what everyone is up to, she came over and saw what he was doing. After putting two and two together, she gave him a nod and a thumbs up on his doodles. Didn’t snitch to you though, so the two of them have a mutual understanding. :’)

Narancia Ghirga;

He wants so badly to impress you with Aerosmith. Narancia will whip his Stand out in your presence at any given opportunity, having it do a few flips and tricks more than necessary. Then he stares over to see what you and SR think about it... she once clapped in Aerosmith’s honor. It was all Narancia could think about for the rest of the day. 

The two Stands typically just play around with one another. Aerosmith likes to make little ribbon shaped clouds, and SR attempts making a plane shape out of her ribbons. It’s not quite the same, but she’s trying!! Narancia finds it adorable, and tries to make requests of shapes and stuff for her to make. SR does her best to fulfill the requests, concentrating hard on the task!!

Since SR enjoys making hair accessories, she’s tried to make a bandanna similar to Narancia’s for you. Though she ultimately scrapped the idea, giving you a disapproving look and fastening it back into the normal bow it normally is lmao. When you mentioned this behavior to Narancia he was like wait, what?? Lemme see! But if SR doesn’t find something fashionable, she doesn’t have any intention on doing it again. So he’s outta luck...

It doesn’t stop him from asking about it. He just can’t believe that your Stand thought about him when he wasn’t around!! It touched him in a way he never knew possible. It’s also a bit of a relief since you’re often the subject of his thoughts. 

Leone Abbacchio;

Similar in a sense to Fugo, where he didn’t want Moody Blues around you that much at first. He takes a much more serious approach to his Stand than others, since it’s deeply rooted in his past trauma. It’d actually be one of the few moments he might snap at you, should you ask to see his Stand one too many times. Not out of malicious intent, he’s just... very disillusioned with Moody Blues at first.

You two had a job which required some investigative work, the client having seemingly disappeared with some goods that belonged to Passione. Figuring out what happened with the merchandise was essentially child’s play for Moody Blues, a replay showing the full extent of the events. Abbacchio wasn’t keen on showing you his Stand, but it couldn’t be helped any longer.

Unlike the others who tended to pester him on the extent of Moody Blues’ abilities, you just complimented him. Saying that it’s similar in utility to your Stand. You willingly comparing yourself to him, and in a positive light nonetheless, kinda had him at a loss for words. 

He didn’t really offer a strong rebuttal like he normally would, so you assumed he didn’t think much of your comment. Which, of course, couldn’t be further from the truth. If you could see good in him of all people, then well... there was a lot for him to think about that night.

After this incident, he’s noticeably just a tad kinder to you in general. What you said meant a lot to him. Obviously not enough to make all his self deprecation go away overnight, but it just gave a small glimmer of hope. That maybe he can someday be better.

Trish Una;

Another person that I picture SR being especially adorable with!! After the events of Bruno betraying the boss, you and SR would be feeling hurt on Trish’s behalf. You instantly draw the parallels of living a carefree life, only for Passione/gangsters to come in and essentially ruin everything.

While dealing with the pain of rejection from her father figure, Trish also wonders if you consider her less important. Since your original job was to protect her, due to being the boss’ daughter, wouldn’t it make sense you don’t care about her now that it’s no longer your job to?

SR covers the spot where her hand was severed with a bow, even after Giorno properly heals it. Trish just looks at you confused, and you explain it’s your Stand’s way of wanting to help her feel better. That where her father had inflicted pain, Trish has the support and strength from you and herself to overcome it. 

Needless to say, Trish thinks highly over you, the feeling extending over to Spice Girl. During your meetups after everything is over, Spice Girl and Scarlet Ribbons come out and embrace one another!! Well, it’s more like SR goes for the hug, and Spice Girl is just :’) woah affection. Trish finds it a little embarrassing at first, but secretly loves and it and looks forward to it. Though she does wish Spice Girl was a tad more discreet. 

During Trish’s travels for her singing career, if there’s anything that even vaguely reminds her/Spice Girl of you, she snaps a photo to text to you. It’s mostly red hair accessories and clothing, which she of course purchases. Spice Girl misses SR a lot, so expect to receive a lot of texts asking how you and your Stand are doing. 

When Scarlet Ribbon spots Trish’s name popping up on your phone, she immediately brings it over. The Stand impatiently shoves your phone in your face, as if to say respond now!! It’s Trish, it’s important!! Scarlet Ribbons loves her a lot 🥺 especially since Trish sends her accessories...

[suckmykawaiidesu]

Compilation of Nessian Moments:  ‘A Court of Wings and Ruin ’ Edition

Hello loves! ♥️

I recently asked for a compilation list of Nessian moments and there doesn’t seems to be one so I decided to hurriedly put one together before the release of “A Court of Silver Flames”. I have probably missed some scenes but these are the ones that I came across during my re-read. I will be making a post for each book and will link them once available:

A Court of Mist and Fury

ACOMAF Target Exclusive Story uploaded by bookofademigod

A Court of Frost and Starlight

Sneak Peak at the end of A Court of Frost and Starlight

A Court of Wings and Ruin

Chapter 15

Nesta had been beautiful as a human woman. As High Fae, she was devastating. From the utter stillness with which Cassian stood beside me, I wondered if he thought the same thing. She was in a pewter-colored gown, its make simple, yet the material fine. Her hair was braided over the crown of her head, accentuating her long, pale neck—a neck Cassian’s eyes darted to, then quickly away from, as she sized us up and said to me, “You’re back.” With her hair styled like that, it hid the pointed ears. But there was nothing to hide the ethereal grace as she took one step. As her focus again returned to Cassian and she added,

“What do you want?”

But Cassian sauntered over to Nesta, a half smile spreading across his face. She stood stiffly while he picked up the book, read the title, and chuckled. “I wouldn’t have pegged you for a romance reader.” She gave him a withering glare. “And, again, why are you here?” She snatched her book from Cassian, who allowed her to do so, but remained standing beside her. Watching every breath, every blink. “Elain’s mate is here,” I said. And it was the wrong thing to utter in Nesta’s presence. She went white with rage. “He is no such thing to her,” she snarled, advancing on me enough that Rhys slid a shield into place between us. As if he, too, had glimpsed that mighty power in her eyes that day in Hybern. And did not know how it would manifest.

“If you bring that male anywhere near her, I’ll—”

“You’ll what?” Cassian crooned, trailing her at a casual pace as she stopped perhaps five feet from me. He lifted a brow as she whirled on him. “You won’t join me for practice, so you sure as hell aren’t going to hold your own in a fight. You won’t talk about your powers, so you certainly aren’t going to be able to wield them. And you—” “Shut your mouth,” she snapped, every inch the conquering empress. “I told you to stay the hell away from me, and if you—” “You come between a male and his mate, Nesta Archeron, and you’re going to learn about the consequences the hard way.” Nesta’s nostrils flared. Cassian only gave her a crooked grin.

Nesta only shook her head, turning toward the chair and her book. “I don’t care. Do what you want.” A stinging dismissal, if not admission that she still trusted me enough to consider Elain’s needs first. Rhys jerked his chin at Cassian in a silent order to leave, and as I followed them, I said softly, “I’m sorry, Nesta.” She didn’t answer as she sat stiffly in her chair, picked up her book, and dutifully ignored us. A blow to the face would have been better. When I looked ahead, I found Cassian staring back at Nesta as well. I wondered why no one had yet mentioned what now shone in Cassian’s eyes as he gazed at my sister. The sorrow. And the longing

Chapter 16 I cringed. “I guarantee Nesta is now guarding Elain. I think she might honestly kill him if he so much as tries to touch her.” “Not without training she won’t,” Cassian grumbled, tucking in his wings as he claimed the seat beside Mor that Azriel had vacated. The shadowsinger didn’t so much as look at it. No, Azriel just walked to the wall beside Cassian and leaned against the wood paneling. But Rhys and the others remained quiet enough that I knew to proceed carefully as I asked Cassian, “Nesta spoke as if you’ve been up at the House … often. You’ve offered to train her?” Cassian’s hazel eyes shuttered as he crossed a booted ankle over another, stretching his muscled legs before him. “I go up there every other day. It’s good exercise for my wings.” Those wings shifted in emphasis. Not a scratch marred them. “And?” “And what you saw in the library is a pleasanter version of the conversation we always have.” Mor’s lips pressed into a thin line, as if she was trying her best not to say anything. Azriel was trying his best to shoot a warning stare at Mor to remind her to indeed keep her mouth shut. As if they’d already discussed this. Many times. “I don’t blame her,” Cassian said, shrugging despite his words. “She was—violated. Her body stopped belonging wholly to her.” His jaw clenched. Even Amren didn’t dare say anything. “And I am going to peel the King of Hybern’s skin off his bones the next time I see him.”

Chapter 17 Not that there was much finery to bother with. I’d opted for my Illyrian leather pants and a loose, white shirt—and a pair of embroidered slippers that Cassian kept snorting at as we flew. When he did so for the third time in two minutes, I pinched his arm and said, “It’s hot. Those boots are stuffy.” His brows rose, the portrait of innocence. “I didn’t say anything.” “You grunted. Again.” “I’ve been living with Mor for five hundred years. I’ve learned the hard way not to question shoe choices.” He smirked. “However stupid they may be.” “It’s dinner. Unless there’s some battle planned afterward?” “Your sister will be there—I’d say that’s battle aplenty.” I casually studied his face, noting how hard he worked to keep his features neutral, to keep his gaze fixed anywhere but on my own. Rhys flew nearby, far enough to remain out of earshot as I said, “Would you use her to see if she can somehow fix the wall?” Hazel eyes shot to me, fierce and clear. “Yes. Not only for our sakes, but … she needs to get out of the House. She needs to …” Cassian’s wings kept up a steady booming beat, the new sections only detectable by their lack of scarring. “She’ll destroy herself if she stays cooped up in there.” My chest tightened. “Do …” I thought through my words. “The day she was changed, she … I felt something different with her.” I fought against the tensing in my muscles as I recalled those moments. The screaming and the blood and the nausea as I watched my sisters taken against their will, as I could do nothing, as we— I swallowed down the fear, the guilt. “It was like … everything she was, that steel and fire … It became magnified. Cataclysmic. Like … looking at a house cat and suddenly finding a panther standing there instead.” I shook my head, as if it would clear away the memory of the predator, the rage simmering in those blue-gray eyes. “I will never forget those moments,” Cassian said quietly, scenting or sensing the memories wreaking havoc on me. “As long as I live.” “Have you seen any glimpse of it since?” “Nothing.” The House loomed, golden lights at the walls of windows and doorways beckoning us closer. “But I can feel it—sometimes.” He added a bit ruefully, “Usually when she’s pissed at me. Which is … most of the time.” “Why?” They’d always been at each other’s throats, but this … yes, the dynamic between them had been different earlier. Sharper. Cassian shook his dark hair out of his eyes, slightly longer than the last time I’d seen it. “I don’t think Nesta will ever forgive me for what happened in Hybern. To her—but mostly to Elain.” “Your wings were shredded. You were barely alive.” For that was guilt—ravaging and poisonous—in each of Cassian’s words. What the others had been fighting against in the loft. “You were in no position to save anyone.” “I made her a promise.” The wind ruffled Cassian’s hair as he squinted at the sky. “And when it mattered, I didn’t keep it.” I still dreamed of him trying to crawl toward her, reaching for her even in the semiunconscious state the pain and blood loss had thrown him into. As Rhysand had once done for me during those last moments with Amarantha. Perhaps only a few wing beats separated us from the broad landing veranda, but I asked, “Why do you bother, Cassian?” His hazel eyes shuttered as we smoothly landed. And I thought he wouldn’t answer, especially not as we heard the others already in the dining room beyond the veranda, especially not when Rhys gracefully landed beside us and strode in ahead with a wink. But Cassian said quietly as we headed for the dining room, “Because I can’t stay away.”

Chapter 17 His focus shifted behind me before he replied—and Lucien shut his mouth. His metal eye whirred softly. I followed his glance, and tried not to tense as Nesta stepped into the room. Yes, devastating was a good word for how lovely she’d become as High Fae. And in a long-sleeved, dark blue gown that clung to her curves before falling gracefully to the ground in a spill of fabric … Cassian looked like someone had punched him in the gut.

Chapter 19 Something drew Cassian’s attention behind me. And even as his body remained casual, a predatory gleam flickered in his eyes. I didn’t need to turn to know who was standing there. “Care to join?” Cassian purred. Nesta said, “It doesn’t look like you’re exercising anything other than your mouths.” I looked over my shoulder. My sister was in a dress of pale blue that turned her skin golden, her hair swept up, her back a stiff column. I scrambled to say something, to apologize, but … not in front of him. She wouldn’t want this conversation in front of Cassian. Cassian extended a wrapped hand, his fingers curling in a come-hither motion. “Scared?” I wisely kept my mouth shut as Nesta stepped from the open doorway into the blinding light of the courtyard. “Why should I be scared of an oversized bat who likes to throw temper tantrums?” I choked, and Cassian shot me a warning glare, daring me to laugh. But I felt for that bond in my mind, lowering my mental shields enough to say to Rhysand, wherever he was in the city, Please come spare me from Cassian and Nesta’s bickering. A heartbeat later, Rhys crooned, Regretting becoming High Lady? I savored that voice—that humor. But I shoved that simmering panic down again as I countered, Is this part of my duties? A sensual, dark laugh. Why do you think I was so desperate for a partner? I’ve had almost five centuries to deal with this alone. It’s only fair you have to endure it now. Cassian was saying to Nesta, “Seems like you’re a little on edge, Nesta. And you left so abruptly last night … Any way I can help ease that tension?”

Chapter 22 The Carver purred to Cassian, “If I tell you a secret, warrior-heart, what will you give me?” Neither of us spoke. Carefully—we’d have to phrase and do this so carefully. The Carver stroked the shard of bone in his palm, attention fixed upon a stone-faced Cassian. “What if I tell you what the rock and darkness and sea beyond whispered to me, Lord of Bloodshed? How they shuddered in fear, on that island across the sea. How they trembled when she emerged. She took something—something precious. She ripped it out with her teeth.” Cassian’s golden-brown face had drained of color, his wings tucking in tight. “What did you wake that day in Hybern, Prince of Bastards?” My blood went cold. “What came out was not what went in.” A rasping laugh as the Carver laid the shard of bone on the ground beside him. “How lovely she is—new as a fawn and yet ancient as the sea. How she calls to you. A queen, as my sister once was. Terrible and proud; beautiful as a winter sunrise.” Rhys had warned me of the inmates’ capacity to lie, to sell anything, to get free. “Nesta,” the Bone Carver murmured. “Nes-ta.” I squeezed Cassian’s hand. Enough. It was enough of this teasing and taunting. But he didn’t look at me. “How the wind moans her name. Can you hear it, too? Nesta. Nesta. Nesta.” I wasn’t sure Cassian was breathing. “What did she do, drowning in the ageless dark? What did she take?” It was the bite in the last word that snapped my tether of restraint. “If you wish to find out, perhaps you should stop talking long enough for us to explain.” My voice seemed to shake Cassian free of whatever trance he’d been in. His breathing surged, tight and fast, and he scanned my face—apology in his eyes.

Chapter 23 “Would you be frightened of her, if Nesta was—Death? Or if her power came from it?” Cassian was quiet for a long moment. He said at last, “I’m a warrior. I’ve walked beside Death my entire life. I would be more afraid for her, to have that power. But not afraid of her.” He considered, and added after a heartbeat, “Nothing about Nesta could frighten me.”

Chaper 24 Mercifully, or perhaps not, Nesta’s retching filled the silence. Cassian gaped at Rhys. “What did you do?” “I asked him the same thing,” I said, crossing my arms. “He said he ‘went fast.’ ” Nesta vomited again—then silence. Cassian sighed at the ceiling. “She’ll never fly again.” The doorknob twisted, and we tried—or at least Cassian and I did—not to seem like we’d been listening to her. Nesta’s face was still greenish-pale, but … Her eyes burned. There was no way of describing that burning—and even painting it might have failed. Her eyes remained the same blue-gray as my own. And yet … Molten ore was all I could think of. Quicksilver set aflame. She advanced a step toward us. All her attention fixed on Rhys. Cassian casually stepped in her path, wings folded in tight. Feet braced apart on the carpet. A fighting stance—casual, but … his Siphons glimmered. “Do you know,” Cassian drawled to her, “that the last time I got into a brawl in this house, I was kicked out for a month?” Nesta’s burning gaze slid to him, still outraged—but hinted with incredulity. He just went on, “It was Amren’s fault, of course, but no one believed me. And no one dared banish her.” She blinked slowly. But the burning, molten gaze became mortal. Or as mortal as one of us could be. Until Lucien breathed, “What are you?” Cassian didn’t seem to dare take his focus off Nesta. 

Chapter 27 Cassian had stationed himself by the doorway, I realized, to be closer to Nesta. To grab her if Amren decided she didn’t particularly care for where this conversation was headed. Or for any of the furniture in this room. Precisely why Rhys now placed himself on Amren’s other side—to draw her attention away from me, and Mor behind us, every muscle in her lithe body on alert. Cassian was staring at Nesta—hard enough that my sister at last twisted toward him. Met his gaze. His head tilted—slightly. A silent order.

Cassian casually slid Nesta behind him, his fingers snagging in the skirts of her black gown. As if to reassure himself that she wasn’t in Amren’s direct path. Nesta only rose onto her toes to peer over his shoulder.

Chapter 30 Both males went a bit still. But Azriel sketched a bow—while Cassian stalked for the dining table, reached right over Nesta’s shoulder, and grabbed a muffin from its little basket. “Morning, Nesta,” he said around a mouth of blueberry-lemon. “Elain.”

Cassian finished the muffin, licking his fingers. I could have sworn Nesta watched the entire thing with a sidelong glance. He grinned at her as if he knew it, too. “Ready for some flying, Nes?” “Don’t call me that.” The wrong thing to say, from the way Cassian’s eyes lit up. I chose that moment to winnow to the skies above the House, chuckling as wind carried me through the world. Some sisterly payback, I supposed. For Nesta’s general attitude. Mercifully, no one saw my slightly better crash landing on the veranda, and by the time Cassian’s dark figure appeared in the sky, Nesta’s hair bright as bronze in the morning sun, I’d brushed off the dirt and dust from my leathers. My sister’s face was wind-flushed as Cassian gently set her down. Then she strode for the glass doors without a single look back. “You’re welcome,” Cassian called after her, more than a bite to his voice. His hands clenched and slackened at his sides—as if he were trying to loosen the feel of her from his palms.

Chapter 31 In the terrible silence, Cassian hauled me out—toward the dim center of the pit. Nesta was standing there, arms around herself, eyes wide. Cassian only stretched out an arm for her. As if in a trance, she walked right to his side. His arms tightened around both of us, Siphons flaring, gilding the darkness with bloodred light.

Chapter 32 I wondered what had happened in those initial moments, when he’d found my sister. As if he’d read my thoughts, Rhys sent the image to me, no doubt courtesy of Cassian. Panic—and rage. That was all he knew as he shot down into the heart of the pit, spearing for that ancient darkness that had once shaken him to his very marrow. Nesta was there—and Feyre. It was the former he saw first, stumbling out of the dark, wide-eyed, her fear a tang that whetted his rage into something so sharp he could barely think, barely breathe— She let out a small, animal sound—like some wounded stag—as she saw him. As he landed so hard his knees popped. He said nothing as Nesta launched herself toward him, her dress filthy and disheveled, her arms stretching for him. He opened his own for her, unable to stop his approach, his reaching— She gripped his leathers instead. “ Feyre,” she rasped, pointing behind her with a free hand, shaking him solidly with the other. Strength—such untapped strength in that slim, beautiful body. “Hybern.” That was all he needed to hear. He drew his sword—then Rhys was arrowing for them, his power like a gods-damned volcanic eruption. Cassian charged ahead into the gloom, following the screaming—

Chapter 39 But Nesta was glancing between us all, her back still stiff, mouth a thin line. “Where is he?” “Who?” Rhys crooned. “Cassian.” I didn’t think I’d ever heard his name from her lips. Cassian had always been him or that one. And Nesta had been … pacing in the foyer. As if she was worried. I opened my mouth, but Mor beat me to it. “He’s busy.” I’d never heard her voice so … sharp. Icy. Nesta held Mor’s stare. Her jaw tightened, then relaxed, then tightened—as if fighting some battle to keep questions in. Mor didn’t drop her gaze. Mor had never seemed ruffled by mention of Cassian’s past lovers. Perhaps because they’d never meant much—not in the ways that counted. But if the Illyrian warrior no longer stood as a physical and emotional buffer between her and Azriel … And worse, if the person who caused that vacancy was Nesta … Mor said flatly, “When he gets back, keep your forked tongue behind your teeth.” My heart leaped into a furious beat, my arms slack at my sides at the insult, the threat. But Rhys said, “Mor.” She slowly—so slowly—looked at him. There was nothing but uncompromising will in Rhys’s face. “We now leave for the meeting in three days. Send out dispatches to the other High Lords to inform them. And I’m done debating where to meet. Pick a place and be done with it.” She stared him down for a heartbeat, then dragged her gaze back to my sister. Nesta’s face had not altered, the coldness limning it unbending. She was so still she seemed to barely be breathing. But she did not balk. She did not avert her eyes from the Morrigan. Mor vanished with hardly a blink. Nesta only turned and headed for the sitting room, where I noticed books had been laid on the low-lying table before the hearth.

Behind us, Amren murmured to Nesta, “Cassian has gone to war many times, girl. He isn’t general of Rhys’s forces for nothing. This battle was a skirmish compared to what lies ahead. He’s likely visiting the families of the fallen as we speak. He’ll be back before the meeting.” Nesta said, “I don’t care.”

Chapter 42 Nesta only lifted her chin. “I …” I’d never seen her stumble for words. “I do not want to be remembered as a coward.” “No one would say that,” I offered quietly. “I would.” Nesta surveyed us all, her gaze jumping past Cassian. Not to slight him, but… avoid answering the look he was giving her. Approval—more. “It was some distant thing,” she said. “War. Battle. It … it’s not anymore. I will help, if I can. If it means …telling them what happened.”

Mor sagged a bit, jewelry glinting with the movement, and went to take Cassian’s arm. But he’d at last approached Nesta. And as the world began to turn to shadows and wind, I saw Cassian tower over my sister, saw her chin lift defiantly, and heard him growl, “Hello, Nesta.” Rhys seemed to halt his winnowing as my sister said, “So you’re alive.” Cassian bared his teeth in a feral grin, wings flaring slightly. “Were you hoping otherwise?” Mor was watching—watching so closely, every muscle tense. She again reached for his arm, but Cassian angled out of reach, not tearing his eyes from Nesta’s blazing gaze. Nesta blurted, “You didn’t come to—” She stopped herself. The world seemed to go utterly still at that interrupted sentence, nothing and no one more so than Cassian. He scanned her face as if furiously reading some battle report. Mor just watched as Cassian took Nesta’s slim hand in his own, interlacing their fingers. As he folded in his wings and blindly reached his other hand back toward Mor in a silent order to transport them. Cassian’s eyes did not leave Nesta’s; nor did hers leave his. There was no warmth, no tenderness on either of their faces. Only that raging intensity, that blend of contempt and understanding and fire. Rhys began to winnow us again, and just as the dark wind swept in, I heard Cassian say to Nesta, his voice low and rough, “The next time, Emissary, I’ll come say hello.”

Chapter 44 “You’re insane,” I breathed to Tamlin as Varian bared his teeth. “Do you hear what you’re saying?” I pointed toward Nesta. “Hybern turned my sisters into Fae—after your bitch of a priestess sold them out!” “Perhaps Ianthe’s mind was already in Rhysand’s thrall. And what a tragedy to remain young and beautiful. You’re a good actress—I’m sure the trait runs in the family.” Nesta let out a low laugh. “If you want someone to blame for all of this,” she said to Tamlin, “perhaps you should first look in the mirror.” Tamlin snarled at her. Cassian snarled right back, “Watch it.” Tamlin looked between my sister and Cassian—his gaze lingering on Cassian’s wings, tucked in behind him. Snorted. “Seems like other preferences run in the Archeron family, too.”

Chapter 45 Rhys lifted a brow. “Your staggering generosity aside, will you be joining our forces?” “I have not yet decided.” Eris went so far as to give his father a look bordering on reproach. From genuine alarm or for what that refusal might mean for our own covert alliance, I couldn’t tell. “Armies take time to raise,” Cassian said. “You don’t have the luxury of sitting on your ass. You need to rally your soldiers now.” Beron only sneered. “I don’t take orders from the bastards of lesser fae whores.” My heartbeat was so wild I could hear it in every corner of my body, feel it pounding in my arms, my gut. But it was nothing compared to the wrath on Cassian’s face—or the icy rage on Azriel’s and Rhys’s. And the disgust on Mor’s. “That bastard,” Nesta said with utter coolness, though her eyes began to burn, “may wind up being the only person standing in the way of Hybern’s forces and your people.” She didn’t so much as look at Cassian as she said it. But he stared at her—as if he’d never seen her before.

Chapter 47 Helion paused his debating the wall to survey her carefully, as he had done earlier. Spell-Cleaver. That was his title. She surveyed him with her usual disdain. But Helion gave her the same bow he’d offered me—though his smile was edged with enough sensuality that even my heart raced a bit. No wonder the Lady of Autumn hadn’t stood a chance. “I don’t think we were introduced properly earlier,” he crooned to Nesta. “I’m—” “I don’t care,” Nesta said with a snap of her wrist, striding right past him and up to my side. “I’d like a word,” she said. “Now.” Cassian was biting his knuckle to keep from laughing—at the utter surprise and shock on Helion’s face. It wasn’t every day, I supposed, that anyone of either sex dismissed him so thoroughly. I threw the High Lord a semi-apologetic glance and led my sister out of the room. “What is it?” I asked when Nesta and I had entered her bedroom, the space bedecked in pink silk and gold, accents of ivory scattered throughout. The lavishness of it indeed put our various homes to shame. “We need to leave,” Nesta said. “Right now.” Every sense went on alert. “Why?” “It feels wrong. Something feels wrong.” I studied her, the clear sky beyond the towering, drape-framed windows. “Rhys and the others would sense it. You’re likely just picking up on all the power gathered here.” “Something is wrong,” Nesta insisted. “I’m not doubting you feel that way but … If none of the others are picking it up—” “I am not like the others.” Her throat bobbed. “We need to leave.” “I can send you back to Velaris, but we have things to discuss here—” “I don’t care about me, I—” The door opened, and Cassian stalked in, face grave. The sight of the wings, the Illyrian armor in this opulent, pink-filled room planted itself in my mind, the painting already taking form, as he said, “What’s wrong.” He studied every inch of her. As if there were nothing and no one else here, anywhere. But I said, “She senses something is off—says we need to leave right away.” I waited for the dismissal, but Cassian angled his head. “What, precisely, feels wrong?” Nesta stiffened, mouth pursing as she weighed his tone. “It feels like there’s this …dread. This sense that … that I forgot something but can’t remember what.” Cassian stared at her for a moment longer. “I’ll tell Rhys.” And he did.

Chapter 48 Nesta let out a breathy, sharp noise and surged from her chair. I lunged for her, nearly tripping over the skirts of my dress as she staggered back, a hand clutching at her chest. Another step would have taken her stumbling into the reflection pool, but Mor sprang forward, gripping her. “What’s wrong?” Mor demanded, holding my sister upright as her face contorted in what looked to be—pain. Confusion and pain. Sweat beaded on Nesta’s brow, though her face went deathly pale. “Something …” The word was cut off by a low groan. She sagged, and Mor caught her fully, scanning Nesta’s face. Cassian was instantly there, his hand at her back, teeth bared at the invisible threat.

Chapter 49 Nesta smoothed a hand down her dark dress. “What do I do now?” A purpose, I realized. Assigning her the task of finding a way to repair the holes in the wall … it had given my sister what perhaps our human lives had never granted her: a bearing. “You come with us—to Graysen’s estate, and then travel with the army. If you’re connected with the Cauldron, then we’ll need you close. Need you to tell us if it’s being wielded again.” Not quite a mission, but Nesta nodded all the same. Right as Cassian clapped Rhys on the shoulder and prowled toward us. He paused a foot away, and frowned. “Dresses aren’t good for flying, ladies.” Nesta didn’t reply. He lifted a brow. “No barking and biting today?” But Nesta didn’t rise to meet him, her face still drained and sallow. “I’ve never worn pants,” was all she said. I could have sworn concern flashed across Cassian’s features. But he brushed it aside and drawled, “I have no doubt you’d start a riot if you did.” No reaction. Had the Cauldron— Cassian stepped in Nesta’s path when she tried to walk past him. Put a tan, callused hand on her forehead. She shook off the touch, but he gripped her wrist, forcing her to meet his stare. “Any one of those human pricks makes a move to hurt you,” he breathed, “and you kill them.” He wouldn’t be coming—no, he’d be mustering the full might of the Illyrian legions. Azriel would be joining us, though. Cassian pressed one of his knives into Nesta’s hand. “Ash can kill you now,” he said with lethal quiet as she stared down at the blade. “A scratch can make you queasy enough to be vulnerable. Remember where the exits are in every room, every fence and courtyard— mark them when you go in, and mark how many men are around you. Mark where Rhys and the others are. Don’t forget that you’re stronger and faster. Aim for the soft parts,” he added, folding her fingers around the hilt. “And if someone gets you into a hold …” My sister said nothing as Cassian showed her the sensitive areas on a man. Not just the groin, but the inside of the foot, pinching the thigh, using her elbow like a weapon. When he finished, he stepped back, his hazel eyes churning with some emotion I couldn’t place. Nesta surveyed the fine dagger in her hand. Then lifted her head to look at him. “I told you to come to training,” Cassian said with a cocky grin, and strode off. I studied Nesta, the dagger, her quiet, still face. “Don’t even start,” she warned me, and headed for the stairs.

Chapter 51 On and on they went, until Devlon looked over Rhys’s shoulder—to where we stood. A scowl at Mor. A frown at me—wisely subdued. Then he noticed Nesta. “What is that,” Devlon asked. Nesta merely stared at him, one hand clamping the edges of her gray cloak together at her chest. One of the other camp-lords made some sign against evil. “That,” Cassian said too quietly, “is none of your concern.” “Is she a witch.” I opened my mouth, but Nesta said flatly, “Yes.” And I watched as nine full-grown, weathered Illyrian warlords flinched. “She may act like one sometimes,” Cassian clarified, “but no—she is High Fae.” “She is no more High Fae than we are,” Devlon countered.

Chapter 56 But Nesta had jolted to her feet, staring at Cassian, at the helmet he had tucked into the crook of his arm, the weapons still poking above his shoulder, in need of cleaning. His dark hair hung limp with sweat, his face was mud-splattered where even the helmet had not kept it out. But she surveyed his seven Siphons, the dim red stones. And then she said, “You’re hurt.” Rhys snapped to attention at that. Cassian’s face was grim—his eyes glassy. “It’s fine.” Even the words were laced with exhaustion. But she reached for his arm—his shield arm. Cassian seemed to hesitate, but offered it to her, tapping the Siphon atop his palm. The armor slid back a fraction over his forearm, revealing— “You know better than to walk around with an injury,” Rhys said a bit tensely. “I was busy,” Cassian said, not taking his focus off Nesta as she studied the swollen wrist. How she’d detected it through the armor … She must have read it in his eyes, his stance. I hadn’t realized she’d been observing the Illyrian general enough to notice his tells. “And it’ll be fixed by morning,” Cassian added, daring Rhys to say otherwise. But Nesta’s pale fingers gently probed his golden-brown skin, and he hissed through his teeth. “How do I fix it?” she asked. Her hair had been tied in a loose knot atop her head earlier in the day, and in the hours that we’d worked to ready and distribute supplies to the healers, through the heat and humidity, stray tendrils had come free to curl about her temple, her nape. Faint color had stained her cheeks from the sun, and her forearms, bare beneath the sleeves she’d rolled up, were flecked with mud. Cassian slowly sat on the log where she’d been perched a moment before, groaning softly—as if even that movement taxed him. “Icing it usually helps, but wrapping it will just lock it in place long enough for the sprain to repair itself—” She reached for the basket of bandages she’d been preparing, then for the pitcher at her feet. I was too tired to do anything other than watch as she washed his wrist, his hand, her own fingers gentle. Too tired to ask if she possessed the magic to heal it herself. Cassian seemed too weary to speak as well while she wrapped bandages around his wrist, only grunting to confirm if it was too tight or too loose, if it helped at all. But he watched her— didn’t take his eyes off her face, the brows bunched and lips pursed in concentration. And when she’d tied it neatly, his wrist wrapped in white, when Nesta made to pull back, Cassian gripped her fingers in his good hand. She lifted her gaze to his. “Thank you,” he said hoarsely. Nesta did not yank her hand away. Did not open her mouth for some barbed retort. She only stared and stared at him, at the breadth of his shoulders, even more powerful in that beautiful black armor, at the strong column of his tan neck above it, his wings. And then at his hazel eyes, still riveted to her face. Cassian brushed a thumb down the back of her hand. Nesta opened her mouth at last, and I braced myself— “You’re hurt?” At the sound of Mor’s voice, Cassian snatched his hand back and pivoted toward Mor with a lazy smile. “Nothing for you to cry over, don’t worry.” Nesta dragged her stare from his face—down to her now-empty hand, her fingers still curled as if his palm lay there. Cassian didn’t look at Nesta as she rose, snatching up the pitcher, and muttered something about getting more water from inside the tent. Cassian and Mor fell into their banter, laughing and taunting each other about the battle and the ones ahead. Nesta didn’t come back out again for some time.

Chapter 56

Nesta did not flinch at the clash and din of battle. She only stared toward one blackarmored figure, leading the lines, his occasional order to push or to hold that flank barking across the battle.

Chapter 57 Nesta laid a hand against her bare, rain-slick throat. Cassian began another assault on a Hybern captain—slower this time than he’d been. Now. I had to go now—quickly. I took a step away from the outlook. My sister narrowed her brows at me. “You’re leaving?” “I’ll be back soon,” was all I said. I didn’t dare wonder how much of our army would be left when I did. By the time I strode away, Nesta had already faced the battle once more, rain plastering her hair to her head. Resuming her unending vigil of the general battling on the valley floor below.

Chapter 61 I squinted at the watery light—the very last before true dark. When my vision adjusted… Nesta stood by the nearest tent, an empty water bucket between her feet. Her hair a damp mess atop her mud-flecked head. Watching us emerge, grim-faced— “He’s fine. Healed and awake,” I said quickly. Nesta’s shoulders sagged a bit. She’d saved me the trouble of hunting her down to ask her about tracking the Cauldron. Better to do it now, with some privacy. Especially before Amren arrived. But Mor said coldly, “Shouldn’t you be refilling that bucket?” Nesta went stiff. Sized up Mor. But Mor didn’t flinch from that look. After a moment, Nesta picked up her bucket, mud caked up to her shins, and continued on, steps squelching.

Chapter 62 Nesta still didn’t move. She could not use the bathtub, she’d told me. Because the memories it dragged up— Cassian said to her, “Nothing can harm you here.” He sucked in a breath, groaning softly, and rose to his feet. Azriel tried to stop him, but Cassian brushed him off and strode for my sister’s side. He braced a hand on the desk when he at last stopped. “Nothing can harm you,” he repeated. Nesta was still looking at him when she finally shut her eyes. I shifted, and the angle allowed me to see what I hadn’t detected before. Nesta stood before the map, a fist of bones and stones clenched over it. Cassian remained at her side—his other hand on her lower back. And I marveled at the touch she allowed—marveled at it as much as I did the mudsplattered hand she held out. The concentration that settled over her face. Her eyes shifted beneath their lids, as if scanning the world. “I don’t see anything.” “Go deeper,” Amren urged. “Find that tether between you.” She stiffened, but Cassian stepped closer, and she settled again. A minute went by. Then another. A muscle twitched on Nesta’s brow. Her hand bobbed. Her breath then came fast and hard, her lips curling back as she panted through her teeth. “Nesta,” Cassian warned.

Chapter 63 Cassian chuckled hoarsely, and looked to Nesta, who remained pale and quiet. What she’d seen, what I’d seen in her mind… The size of that army… “Eat or bed?” Cassian had asked Nesta, and I honestly couldn’t tell if he’d meant it as some invitation. I debated telling him he was in no shape. Nesta only said, “Bed.” And there was certainly no invitation in the exhausted reply.

Chapter 64 “We’ll get her back,” Cassian rasped from where he perched on the rolled arm of the chaise longue across the small sitting area, watching her carefully. Rhys, Amren, and Mor were meeting with the other High Lords, informing them what had been done. Seeing if they knew anything. Had any way of helping. Nesta lowered her hands, lifting her head. Her eyes were red-rimmed, lips thin. “No, you will not.” She pointed to the map on the table. “I saw that army. Its size, who is in it. I saw it, and there is no chance of any of you getting into its heart. Even you,” she added when Cassian opened his mouth again. “Especially not when you’re injured.”

Chapter 66 “Good,” Cassian said, glancing at Nesta. “If I end my life defending those who need it most, then I will consider it a death well spent.” Lord Devlon, for once, nodded his approval. I wondered if Cassian noticed it—if he cared. His face revealed nothing, not as his focus remained wholly on my sister.

Chapter 69 During the brief midday break in a large meadow, Nesta and I climbed inside one of the supply caravan’s covered wagons to change into Illyrian fighting leathers. When we emerged, Nesta even buckled a knife at her side. Cassian had insisted, yet he’d admitted that since she was untrained, she was just as likely to hurt herself as she was to hurt someone else.

Chapter 70 Nesta pushed herself onto her elbows, hair shaking free of her braid, lips bloodless. She heaved into the grass. Rhys’s magic shot out of him, arcing around our entire army, his breathing a wet rasp— Nesta’s hands grappled into the grass as she lifted her head, scanning the horizon. Like she could see right to where the Cauldron was now about to be unleashed. Rhys’s power flowed and flowed out of him, bracing for impact. Azriel’s Siphons flashed, a sprawling shield of cobalt locking over Rhysand’s, his breathing just as heavy as my mate’s— And then Nesta began screaming. Not in pain. But a name. Over and over. “CASSIAN.” Amren reached for her, but Nesta roared, “CASSIAN!” She scrambled to her feet, as if she’d leap into the skies. Her body lurched, and she went down, heaving again. A figure shot from the Illyrian ranks, spearing for us, flapping hard, red Siphons blazing— Nesta moaned, writhing on the ground. The earth seemed to shudder in response. No—not in response to her. In terror of the thing that erupted from Hybern’s army. I understood why the king had claimed those rocky foothills. Not to make us charge uphill if we should push them so far. But to position the Cauldron. For it was from the rocky outcropping that a battering ram of death-white light hurled for our army. Just about level with the Illyrian legion in the sky—as the Attor’s legion dropped to the earth, and ducked for cover. Leaving the Illyrians exposed. Cassian was halfway to us when the Cauldron’s blast hit the Illyrian forces. I saw him scream—but heard nothing. The force of that power… It shredded Azriel’s shield. Then Rhysand’s. And then shredded any Siphon-made ones. It hollowed out my ears and seared my face. And where a thousand soldiers had been a heartbeat before… Ashes rained down upon our foot soldiers. Nesta had known. She gaped up at me, terror and agony on her face, then scanned the sky for Cassian, who flapped in place, as if torn between coming for us and charging back to the scattering Illyrian and Peregryn ranks. She’d known where that blast was about to hit. Cassian had been right in the center of it. Or would have been, if she hadn’t called him away. Rhys was looking at her like he knew, too. Like he didn’t know whether to scold her for the guilt Cassian would no doubt feel, or thank her for saving him. Nesta’s body went stiff again, a low moan breaking from her. I felt Rhys cast out his power—a silent warning signal. The other High Lords raised shields this time, backing the one he rallied. But the Cauldron did not hit the same spot twice. And Hybern was willing to incinerate part of his own army if it meant wiping out a strength of ours. Cassian was again hurtling for us, for Nesta sprawled on the ground, as the light and unholy heat of the Cauldron were unleashed again.

Nesta had her brow in the grass as Cassian landed so hard the ground shuddered. He was reaching for her as he panted, “What is it, what—” “It’s gone quiet again,” Nesta breathed, letting Cassian haul her into a sitting position as he scanned her face. Devastation and rage lay in his own. Did he know? That she had screamed for him, knowing he’d come… That she’d done it to save him? Rhys only ordered him, “Get back in line. The soldiers need you there.” Cassian bared his teeth. “What the hell can we do against that?”

Chapter 72 Rhys made to shoot me back down to the ground, where Amren and Elain were still waiting. Nesta said, “Wait.” Rhys obeyed. Nesta stared toward that armada, toward our father fighting in it. “Use me. As bait.” I blinked at the same moment Cassian said, “No.” Nesta ignored him. “The king is probably waiting beside that Cauldron. Even if you get there, you’ll have him to contend with. Draw him out. Draw him far away. To me.” “How,” Rhys said softly. “It goes both ways,” Nesta murmured, as if my mate’s words moments before had triggered the idea. “He doesn’t know how much I took. And if … if I make it seem like I’m about to use his power … He’ll come running. Just to kill me.” “He will kill you,” Cassian snarled. Her hand clenched on his arm. “That’s—that’s where you come in.” To guard her. Protect her. To lay a trap for the king. “No,” Rhys said. Nesta snorted. “You’re not my High Lord. I may do as I wish. And since he’ll sense that you’re with me… You need to go far away, too.” Rhys said to Cassian, “I’m not letting you throw your life away for this.” I was inclined to agree. Cassian surveyed the depleted Illyrian lines, now holding strong as Azriel rallied them. “Az has control of the lines.” “I said no,” Rhys snapped. I’d never heard him use that tone with Cassian, with any of them. Cassian said steadily, “It’s the only shot we have of a diversion. Luring him away from that Cauldron.” His hands tightened on Nesta. “You gave everything, Rhys. You went through that hell for us, for fifty years.” He’d never addressed it—not fully. “You think I don’t know what happened? I know, Rhys. We all do. And we know you did it to save us, spare us.” He shook his head, sunlight glinting off that dark, winged helmet. “Let us return the favor. Let us repay the debt.” “There is no debt to repay.” Rhys’s voice broke. The sound of it cracked my heart. Cassian’s own voice broke as he said, “I never got to repay your mother—for her kindness. Let me do it this way. Let me buy you time.” “I can’t.” I wasn’t sure if in the entire history of Illyria, there had ever been such a discussion. “You can,” Cassian said gently. “You can, Rhys.” He gave a lazy grin. “Save some of the glory for the rest of us.” “Cassian—” But Cassian asked Nesta, “Do you have what you need?” Nesta nodded. “Amren showed me enough. What to do to rally the power to me.” And if Amren and I could control the Cauldron between us… That distraction they’d offer … Nesta looked down to Elain—our sister monitoring the bloodbath ahead. Then to me. She said quietly, “Tell Father—thank you.” She wrapped her arms tightly around Cassian, those gray-blue eyes bright, then they were gone.

Chapter 74 Nesta surged to her feet, staggering across the clearing, blood at her mouth from where he’d hit her, and threw herself to her knees before Cassian. “Get up,” she sobbed, hauling at his shoulder. “Get up.” He tried—and failed. “You’re too heavy,” she pleaded, but still tried to raise him, fingers scrabbling in his black, bloodied armor. “I can’t—he’s coming—” “Go,” Cassian groaned. Her power had stopped hurling the king across the forest. He now stalked toward them, brushing off splinters and leaves from his jacket—taking his time. Knowing she would not leave. Savoring the awaiting slaughter. Nesta gritted her teeth, trying to haul Cassian up once more. A broken sound of pain ripped from him. “Go! ” he barked at her. “I can’t,” she breathed, voice breaking. “I can’t.” The same words Rhys had given him. Cassian grunted in pain, but lifted his bloodied hands—to cup her face. “I have no regrets in my life, but this.” His voice shook with every word. “That we did not have time. That I did not have time with you, Nesta.” She didn’t stop him as he leaned up and kissed her—lightly. As much as he could manage. Cassian said softly, brushing away the tear that streaked down her face, “I will find you again in the next world—the next life. And we will have that time. I promise.” The King of Hybern stepped into that clearing, dark power wafting from his fingertips. And even the Cauldron seemed to pause in surprise—surprise or some … feeling as Nesta looked at the king with death twining around his hands, then down at Cassian. And covered Cassian’s body with her own. Cassian went still— then his hand slid over her back. Together. They’d go together. I will offer you a bargain, I said to the Cauldron. I will offer you my soul. Save them. “Romantic,” the king said, “but ill-advised.” Nesta did not move from where she shielded Cassian’s body.

Chapter 80 My sister had barely spoken, barely eaten these past few days. Had not visited Cassian in his healing bed. Still had not talked to me about what had happened.

- END - 

[fleetingpieces]

My One in a Million Chapter 4

Tagging @donttouchmycarrots and @sunflowerfox87 who I still can’t believe wanted to be tagged 🥺 

Thank you so much everyone for your support ❤️

And as always, thank you @inloveoknutzy and Nayla for proofreading, you guys are the best  ❤️

My One in a Million Masterlist

Chapter 4 - Morning routines

The feeling of the earth on his bare feet. Long nights playing video games with his friends. Streaming for his fans. Slow sunsets and starry nights. Having the gang at his flat all the time. Relaxing bubble baths. Sunday lunch with the Potters. Making the people who doubted him shove their words up their asses.

Those were all things Sirius Black loved.

Having his brother drilling him at 7 am on an otherwise perfect Friday morning was most definitely not one of them. Not at all.

“I told you a thousand times already, and I’ll say it again one last time. I am not. Going. To that stupid. Fucking. Dinner,” he practically yelled over the phone.

There was a tired sigh on the other end of the line.

“Sirius, please. Could you stop thinking only about yourself for once? They want you to come.” A short pause. “I want you to come.”

Sirius grunted lowly, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“No, Reg. I gave them too much already. I can’t keep giving them more. I’m sorry.” He hung up before Regulus could get another word in and raked both hands through his hair.

Manipulative pieces of crap. They ‘wanted him to come’? What a fucking pile of shit. They had never wanted him there, they only wanted whatever they could get from him, asking for more, more and more, until they could suck him dry. They wouldn’t even be bothering with him if he was of no use to them.

Saying no to Regulus was the hard part. Knowing they were using him precisely because of this, that Regulus himself was using it against him, was almost like a knife twisting in his gut. 

It hurt.

It hurt so fucking much, because Sirius still cared about him. He was still his little brother, despite the decisions they had both taken for their lives. But Regulus didn’t see it that way.

Sirius started pacing up and down his room, rubbing a hand through his face as his other went instinctively to his back pocket to grab a pack of cigarettes. He hated feeling like this, hated the push and pull that came with his family’s relationships; craving the acceptance of his own blood, wanting to be close to his brother, but also feeling like he needed to get as far from them as he could. Why couldn’t they understand he didn’t want anything to do with the company? Heck, he didn’t want anything to do with most of them, he only kept some sort of contact because of Regulus. Even if his brother didn’t really want anything to do with him.

A flash of pain slashed him in the middle of his chest, and Sirius stormed off to the balcony, a fag already between his lips.

Lighting it up felt like lifting some of the weight off his shoulders. He pictured all of his problems in his head and imagined exhaling them with the smoke, drifting away in the morning sky until there was nothing left of them.

Sirius snorted. He wished it was that easy to get rid of all his worries, but his brother’s voice kept whispering in his ears, no matter how many times he watched the smoke dissipate in front of his face, mixing with words that were not Reg’s but still sounded in his voice. Stop thinking about yourself. You’re such a disappointment. We gave you so much, and this is how you repay us? You don’t care about me. You don’t care, you don’t care, you don’t care.

“Ugh, fuck,” Sirius grunted as he leaned on the rail and let his head hang low, pressing his forehead against the cold metal.

A low sound reached him through the fog of noises in his head. It was a song he’d never heard before, its rhythm slow and calming, and Sirius tried to focus on that to clear his mind and make the voice shut up.

He raised his head, looking at the place where it was coming from, only to be faced with a sight that almost made him drop his cigarette six floors down.

The new neighbor, Remus, was behind the glass doors of his balcony, standing on top of a yoga mat, wearing a black tank top and a pair of grey shorts that were dangerously hiking up his thighs in the position he was currently in.

His arms were stretched on top of his head, his toned muscles making the veins in his arms pop, and his broad shoulders working with the slow movements he was making. There was such a peaceful air about him. His eyes were closed and the sun was drawing golden lines that flitted through his hair as he bent down at the waist to touch the floor, leaving his back exposed.

The freckles on Remus shoulders disappeared below the t-shirt, and Sirius desperately wanted to know just how far they reached. He swallowed thickly, unable to look away. It was mesmerizing to watch Remus transition between poses, his lithe body flowing like water. He briefly wondered if the man was as pliable in other ways, but when his heart rate started quickening, Sirius decided he should stop being a creep and allow his neighbor the privacy he deserved. Before he could tear his eyes away though, a black shadow darted into the room and tackled Remus to the floor.

Sirius gripped the rail unconsciously before he realised it was just Remus’ dog, and he was left breathless once more at the image in front of him.

Remus was laughing as the dog nudged him with its head, two of its paws pressed over those powerful shoulders as Remus stroked the fur at its sides. The man’s eyes were crinkled, his curls falling onto his forehead in a tawny mess that was so cute Sirius thought he might die.

Seeing him smiling like that, it reminded Sirius of the Halloween party almost a week ago.

At first, he’d been annoyed about Lily bringing Remus and a stranger into his home, but that was mainly ‘cause Sirius had been on edge about the whole family drama. He had been looking forward to a chill night with his friends, and having outsider eyes at that moment felt like something that would have made him step on eggshells all night to avoid revealing his identity.

But Remus had proved to be as interesting as Sirius had thought him to be the first time they talked, always taking him by surprise with his comments and reactions.

Sirius desperately wanted to know where the hell Remus had learned to play like that. It wasn’t every day that he was beaten by someone that didn’t seem to have a lot of time for games, even if he’d been overly distracted by his toned thigh touching his own leg. Yes, Sirius had had a hard time concentrating, but he hadn’t slacked off. Remus was good. And Sirius wanted to know how.

He was intrigued by the man in so many ways, his interest peaking with every new little thing he noticed: the gaming, the yoga, his weird way of thinking -Sirius chuckled when he remembered how Remus had thought he was a fucking drug dealer-, him showing up at a party wearing a jumper that was a few sizes too big for him, looking so impossibly cuddly and warm; his relationship with his dog, his relationship with that Leo guy.

As Remus nuzzled his nose into the dog’s fur, Sirius thought about the rainbow coloured bracelet on Leo’s wrist. He admired the guy for wearing the flag so proudly, just there in plain sight for everyone to see. Sirius wished he could do the same, to stand tall, out in the open. But the consequences for him were way too high.

A small, annoying part of his brain felt the need to remind him that this didn’t mean Remus liked dudes. But Sirius took comfort in the knowledge that, at the very least, it meant that he was ok with it. That he wouldn’t condemn Sirius for it.

Sirius reached for a new cigarette, even if he was already feeling calmer, and put it between his teeth, taking a second before lighting it. While he played with the flame of his lighter, he wondered how Remus knew about Padfoot. Oh, what he wouldn’t do to know that story.

His heart warmed, not for the first time, at how Remus had defended Padfoot so fiercely, having no idea that he was right there; no idea how much his words meant for Sirius. Remus had understood him incredibly thoroughly for someone that didn’t even know who Padfoot was. That he was sitting right next to him. And Sirius wasn’t sure how to feel about that, but he wanted to find out.

It was no surprise that Remus hadn’t recognized his voice, even though he was clearly a fan. Sirius always hid his accent on his videos to conceal any connection to his family, so his parents wouldn’t intervene and ruin everything.

Suddenly, the music drifting from the room next door changed to a more upbeat one. Remus lifted the black dog up in his arms, something that couldn’t be easy given its size, and hugged it as he started twirling around the room, laughing brightly as he did.

He was dancing. 

With his dog.

And the face he was making, like the animal meant the world to him... How could someone you barely knew be so fucking endearing?

Sirius was still staring when Remus turned around and lifted his head, his eyes locking with Sirius’. He stopped mid-turn, the smile slipping from his face. Sirius felt a blush prickling at his cheeks at being caught basically ogling him, but he waved with an awkward smile.

His only answer was a scowl, even if from afar he could tell Remus was blushing too. He set the dog down, glaring at Sirius, who let his hand drop slowly as he watched the man close the curtains in a slash.

Sirius hid his face in his hands, feeling the heat radiate from his cheeks. How could he fuck up so much? Remus would think he was a fucking creep now. Dragging his hands down, Sirius knew he would have to genuinely step up his game if he wanted to get to know this man.

In the afternoon, Sirius was still pondering ways to get more acquainted with Remus, and coming back empty handed. He didn’t want to just show up at one of his classes, he lived right next door for fucks sake! He should be able to find a way to start up a conversation with him, right? Although Sirius had to admit, he hadn’t seen much of the guy since he’d moved in. Of course, Sirius hadn’t exactly been in the right state of mind to notice him.

But life seemed to be on his side, at least this once. Because when he stepped into the coffee shop where he was meeting up with James and Lily, the first thing he saw was a head of tawny curls.

Barely keeping in his glee, Sirius walked towards Remus, figuring he could just say hi. He stopped dead in his tracks though, when he was just a few steps behind him and he realized Remus was humming the lyrics of An Open Letter to Myself.

“I love that song,” he said without thinking. The man had a lovely voice, sweet and a bit sad, and it made his curiosity peak again.

Remus jolted and turned around with surprised eyes and slightly flushed cheeks, but as gold met silver, his eyebrows dropped quickly over his eyes. Sirius was taken aback by the clear hostility in Remus’ features, which made him stutter as he cleared his throat.

“Sorry, I... I saw you and thought... I… uhm... should come and say hi? So...hi,” Sirius said and immediately groaned inwardly at his stupidity. Since when was he this clumsy? 

“Hello,” Remus said in a polite, detached tone before he turned away.

Sirius took a minute to rearrange his thoughts while he placed his order right after Remus. They got their drinks at the same time, and before Remus could walk away from the shop, Sirius scrambled for something else to say.

“Your dog is beautiful, what’s its name?”

The corner of Remus’ mouth tickled up at the mention of his pet, but it was pushed down almost instantly.

“Cocoa,” he replied reluctantly, and Sirius almost spit his tea.

“Cocoa? That huge ass dog has a cute name like Cocoa?”

Remus rolled his eyes, but he was almost pouting. “I just really like chocolate, ok? Besides, he’s just a pup,” he said as he moved over to add some sugar to his chai latte. Sirius followed.

“A pup?” he said incredulously. “How is that a pup?!”

Remus huffed. “He’s only about two or three years old.”

Sirius stared at him in disbelief. That dog was already past Remus’ knees, and if what he was saying was right, he was probably going to grow some more.

“Did you adopt him?” he asked, tilting his head, thinking about Remus’ choice of words. He was focusing his whole attention on Remus, and that was probably the only reason why he noticed the slight stutter of his hand as he stirred his drink.

“Yeah,” he said in a breath. Sirius thought that would be the end of the conversation, but then -as if he couldn't help himself- Remus added, “he was very young when I found him. He was abandoned and practically left to die; his previous owners must have thought it was too much trouble to raise a wolfdog, and decided to leave him tied up in the woods instead of being decent human beings and finding him an appropriate home.”

There was such disgust in his voice that Sirius took a step back while his heart melted into a puddle. Of course he rescued dogs. Sirius was starting to wonder if this guy was even real. He’d been so thoroughly captivated by him in such a short time, it was a bit scary. Sirius hadn’t felt like this in a very long time. He hadn’t let himself feel like this, it was too risky, and he knew it would be more sensible to leave Remus alone and stay away from him before things got worse, but he had felt drawn to him ever since the Halloween party.

“That’s awful. No one deserves to be treated like that,” he replied softly against his better judgement. If things got worse, he’d deal with that later.

Remus’ head snapped up, and for a moment it looked like he was drowning. Sirius had no idea what had brought that expression to his face, but the only thought in his mind was how desperately he wanted to erase it. 

In hopes of doing so, he tried to change the subject to something lighter. “So, you like games, huh? You really did a number on me the other day. When did you start playing?”

The response he got was not what he’d expected. Remus’ expression hardened, and he turned his gaze away as he discarded the used stick with more force than was probably necessary.

“That’s hardly any of your concern, is it?”

Sirius blinked. And then blinked again. Was he still mad at him?

“Look, I’m really sorry about this morning. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable or anything, I just-”

“You really think this is all just about this morning?” Remus snapped.

“What?” Sirius was confused. What had he done? He’d made a little fun of Remus the first time they talked, but it hadn’t been that bad, had it? 

“At least you weren’t smoking into my room today,” Remus added with a huff, which made Sirius frown.

He supposed he did smoke quite close to the edge of their balconies, but by the way Remus was talking, he felt like there was more to it. He tried to think of all the interactions they had had so far, but he couldn’t think of anything that would elicit Remus’ anger. His mind drifted to them sitting on his couch with the NHL game, how their shoulders had bumped together playfully, how Remus had even seemed to be comfortable once he got a controller in his hands. It was the only time Remus had acted in a friendly-ish manner towards him, without the scowl that seemed to be permanently weighing down on his brows. But none of his smiles had actually been directed at him, they had all been shared with Leo.

He smiled a lot around the blond, but whenever he was close to Sirius he seemed to be in a bad mood. Sirius hated that.

“What did I do for you to dislike me so much?”

“If you need to ask, it just shows that it’s not even worth answering you.”

Remus turned around and walked briskly to the door, leaving Sirius completely dumbfounded. The door opened just as Remus was reaching for the handle, and he almost bumped into Lily and James, who were coming in. Sirius watched as he nodded at them with a few words, threw one last glare his way, and disappeared in the afternoon sun.

Lily watched him walk away with a confused expression on her face. She glanced at James who just shrugged, and then she looked directly at Sirius with a deep frown. He seemed to be getting a lot of those lately.

“What was that all about?” she asked when they got next to him.

“He hates me, that’s what it was,” Sirius grumbled.

“Why?”

“I don’t know!” Throwing his hands in the air, Sirius stared at Lily like she held all the answers in the world. “He looks at me like I’m the worst person to ever walk the Earth. What did I do to deserve that?”

Lily winced, and Sirius felt his heart freeze where it had melted on the floor.

“Well, apparently, you haven’t been a very good neighbor, have you?” she said gently. Everything started falling into place then, and Sirius suddenly had a pretty good idea what she was talking about. He could be a very self-absorbed prick after a row with his family.

“What can I do?”

“Maybe you should try apologizing first,” she doubted for a second before she kept going. “I’ve heard you broke something important of his on the day you two met.”

“That was him?!” Sirius asked in astonishment, remembering the day he’d knocked someone over in the hall, and ignoring the few heads that turned his way at his raised voice.

“You’re joking, right? You didn’t know?” When Sirius only shook his head, still speechless, Lily stared at him, bewildered. “Sirius, how could you not know?”

“I was so angry at the time Lily, I barely noticed anything I was doing!” Sirius said in a pleading voice. He glanced at James for support, who looked at him in sympathy and understanding. Sirius rubbed a hand over his face. “I just needed to get out of the flat, I couldn’t stand the sight of Reg with his cold eyes and-” Sirius stopped himself, clenching his fists.

It all came back to him. How Regulus had suddenly turned up at his flat, even though he wasn’t supposed to know the address. Even though he hadn’t visited Sirius’ home in five years.

How Reg had looked at him with such clear disappointment, like Sirius was nothing more than a waste of space, and had told him that he was expected to attend the annual Black Enterprises’ gala and fulfill his duty to the family. How he had stated that it was time he stopped acting like a child, with his foolish, selfish dreams, and took his place in the company.

Sirius had never wanted anything to do with the monster corporation that was Black Enterprises. He hated the way they did business and how they treated people, like anyone outside the Black family was trash.

A hand on his shoulder shook him away from his memories before he could spiral down into the hole he’d been in in the weeks before Halloween. Sirius looked up, and found James’ kind hazel eyes.

“It’s ok Pads,” he whispered. “You’re out of there. They have nothing on you, and you owe them absolutely nothing. I’m sure you can fix this.”

Sirius hoped his friend was right.

[sopherfly]

August Fic Update & Snippet

-peeks out from around the corner- I'm so sorry, friends, real life can be so rude, and there have been other things and people that I needed to prioritize over getting the last chapter of The Shadow Of A Dream done.

HOWEVER. We are making progress. We're at... 14.6k words, so it's going to be a mammoth of a chapter.

There is also ANOTHER OBIKIN FIC IN THE WORKS and it will be incredible and amazing, and hopefully that'll start up in mid-September. 😁

So, to thank you for your incredible patience, have some more 🌶️🔥spicy 🔥🌶️ content while I get back to work.

~

Through the openness in their bond, Anakin saw the instant when Obi-Wan’s grief burned out, igniting like dry brush, transforming inside the flames into sharp, desperate desire. Anakin pulled away with a gasp, surprised at how easily Obi-Wan’s arousal became his own. Breathing heavily into the space between them, Anakin traced his thumb over Obi-Wan’s lower lip, skimming slowly over the skin the same way he had after their first time, and just before their second. It reminded him of all the ways he wanted Obi-Wan; it brought to the front of his mind every desire, every fantasy that he hadn’t dared hope to fulfill, not when their future had been so uncertain.

He allowed himself to hope now, the feeling filling him with longing, and he increased the pressure of his thumb just a little, watching as something bright flared to life in Obi-Wan’s eyes.

“Stop that,” Obi-Wan warned. Their bond was blazing with arousal now, and Anakin felt need coiling hot and tight through his gut, his blood abandoning his brain entirely as he held Obi-Wan’s gaze.

“Or what?” he breathed, the smallest spark of playfulness cutting through the sudden heat between them. He repeated the motion, more deliberately this time, and Obi-Wan exhaled on a shudder.

“Anakin. You’re still recovering.”

“I know,” Anakin whispered. Some part of him knew Obi-Wan was right: this probably wasn’t wise. And yet, Anakin had nothing more to do but heal. What further harm could they cause, as long as they stayed clear of his injuries? How bad could it truly be if his body felt so ready for it?

“We can be careful,” Anakin said, desperation already apparent in his voice. Kriff, how had he gone so quickly from calm to aching? “Just—Obi-Wan, I—I need it. I need you. Please.”

Obi-Wan groaned. “Force, Anakin. Do you have any idea how difficult it is to say no to you?”

“So don’t say no.” He held his breath as he waited for Obi-Wan’s response, searching Obi-Wan’s face, transfixed by the torrent of emotion glittering behind grey eyes. It only took a moment before Obi-Wan gave in, seeking Anakin’s lips and drawing him into a kiss that made his nerves sing.

“If we’re going to do this,” Obi-Wan said as he pulled away, “I need you not to move unless I tell you. Do you understand?” Anakin nodded, the motion fast and eager, and he barely managed to keep his hips from arching up. “If you move, I’ll stop. And if something hurts and you don’t tell me—”

“I’ll tell you,” Anakin interrupted, low and raspy. “I promise.”

“Good.” Obi-Wan brushed the tip of his nose past the corner of Anakin’s mouth, skimming up until their lips were nearly touching, but not quite. Anakin whimpered, willpower alone holding him still, and then Obi-Wan leaned in to whisper in his ear, “Roll onto your back for me.”

A hand on Anakin’s collarbone encouraged him, and he did as he was told, shifting onto his back, then biting his lip when Obi-Wan knelt between his spread legs, hands coming to rest on Anakin’s thighs. Anakin could already see what he was planning, and kriff, he wanted it, wanted Obi-Wan’s hot mouth around his cock, sucking him down, but—

“Wait,” he said, stopping Obi-Wan before he could go further. “Don’t—I have another idea.” He sent the image across their bond, and Obi-Wan groaned again, one hand slipping down to clench in the sheets.

“Anakin…”

“Please,” Anakin begged. “I want you on top of me.”

Anakin saw the words nearly overpower Obi-Wan, his jaw dropping open as his pupils blew wide, and there was something almost dangerous in the way arousal rolled through their bond like an earthquake, powerful enough to destroy the very ground they stood upon. Obi-Wan swallowed, shaking his head once, his grip tightening on Anakin’s thigh as he growled, “You are a menace.”

It wasn’t no, and anticipation thundered through Anakin, their bond rumbling with aftershocks of desire as Obi-Wan leaned down to kiss him breathless, then used the force to summon a tube of bacta and a towel from the other side of the room. The bacta Anakin understood immediately; the towel took his distracted mind longer to figure out, but as Obi-Wan draped it over his chest, covering his tunic to protect both the garment and the bandages underneath, Anakin finally made the connection. Any kind of mess would necessitate a change of those bandages, along with an explanation as to why. Better to avoid that problem altogether.

Anakin smiled a little, impressed by Obi-Wan’s presence of mind. Desire was making his own thoughts fuzzy around the edges; every part of him ached with need, and he wanted so badly to move, to reach out and caress Obi-Wan’s face, then tangle his fingers into Obi-Wan’s hair. By some miracle he managed to follow Obi-Wan’s instructions, watching with heavy-lidded eyes as Obi-Wan removed obi and tabards and tunics, but the compulsion to touch only grew stronger as Obi-Wan slid his trousers down just far enough to free his cock from its confines.

Kriff. Obi-Wan’s cock was beautiful, and Anakin came far too close to sitting up in one fluid motion to take it into his hands. He felt himself tremble with the effort of keeping still, his muscles tensing, his open palms pressing into the sheets where they rested by his sides. “Obi-Wan. Please, I…”

“I know, darling.” Obi-Wan’s fingers slipped under the waistband of Anakin’s trousers, sliding the thin fabric down below Anakin’s knees, and Anakin whimpered as his own cock sprang free to stand at attention, hard and leaking against his stomach. One of Obi-Wan’s hands closed around his shaft, stroking slowly upward, and Anakin couldn’t control the desperate sound pulled from his throat as Obi-Wan’s grip tightened just a fraction.

“Nngh—kriff.” The almost-silent curse didn’t make staying still any easier, and Anakin swallowed hard, whining a little when Obi-Wan released him to gather some of the bacta into his palm. He slicked himself up first, then took hold of Anakin again, his gaze growing sharp when Anakin couldn’t contain a little jerk of his hips.

“Anakin.” Obi-Wan stopped, releasing him, and Anakin whined again at the loss of sensation, the loss of contact. He needed Obi-Wan to be touching him everywhere all at once; he needed Obi-Wan draped over him, surrounding him, coaxing little cries from his lips.

“I know,” Anakin replied breathlessly, “I know.” He willed himself to relax, releasing the tension in his shoulders and hips, showing Obi-Wan through their bond just how pliant he planned to be. “I’m sorry. Please—I won’t move again, I promise.”

You keep showing me things like that and I won’t be able to control myself, Obi-Wan warned, breathing deeply before finally shifting forward. He braced one hand on the bed to the right of Anakin’s chest, his body hovering over Anakin’s, then lowered his hips, reaching down to take them both in hand and stroke their cocks together.

Pleasure shot through Anakin, hurtling across their bond like a comet careening through space, so bright and hot and overwhelming that both of them cried out in the same instant. Need and relief made every sensation sharper, and Anakin hissed through clenched teeth, desperate to arch his hips up and knowing that he couldn’t, not if he wanted Obi-Wan to keep going. And he did. Kriff, he needed it—he needed the warm slide of Obi-Wan’s hand and the feeling of Obi-Wan’s cock held tight against his own.

Part of him wanted to reply to what Obi-Wan had said, to tell him that he didn’t have to control himself, that Anakin didn’t want him to, but the thoughts got lost somehow, burned up by the fire that raged in their bond and the warmth of their mingled breaths. When the urge to hold onto Obi-Wan became too great, Anakin met Obi-Wan’s eyes, his question soft and needy as he whispered it into Obi-Wan’s mind. Master, please. Can—can I—?

Their bond lit up with the image of him clinging to Obi-Wan’s shoulders, hanging onto Obi-Wan’s hair, and the punched-out breath that drew from Obi-Wan was beautiful enough that Anakin committed it to memory, determined never to forget that look on Obi-Wan’s face. “Yes, Anakin.”

Anakin mewled his relief, not entirely blind to the way that the short, high-pitched sound made Obi-Wan weak with want. One hand came to rest on Obi-Wan’s shoulder, the other reaching up to fist gently into his hair, and Obi-Wan moaned, his pace increasing just enough that it was both perfect and maddening.

“Hh-aah,” Anakin gasped, incapable of stopping himself from tilting his head back. “Kriff.”

“Alright?” Obi-Wan asked softly.

“Yes,” he managed, more shaky than he’d intended. Force, he would never understand how Obi-Wan always put Anakin’s comfort and pleasure before his own. Anakin hardly deserved it, and yet, when the thought crossed his mind, Obi-Wan banished it utterly, driving it out with a bruising kiss that made Anakin see stars.

That kiss, paired with the steady movement of Obi-Wan’s hand, brought Anakin far closer to the edge than he’d expected, and he clung tighter, durasteel digging into Obi-Wan’s shoulder, flesh fingers tugging at the roots of Obi-Wan’s hair until Obi-Wan pulled back. “Anakin—you deserve so much more than I’ll ever be able to give you.”

Obi-Wan was wrong, so kriffing wrong that Anakin couldn’t begin to explain, but suddenly Obi-Wan quickened his pace, and Anakin keened, the sound high and sharp as his hips lifted off the bed against his will.

“Fuck,” he gasped, and Obi-Wan had promised to stop if Anakin moved without permission, but this time he didn’t, and Anakin flashed a brief grin at Obi-Wan breaking his own rules, releasing his hold on Obi-Wan’s hair just enough to trace his fingers through it. Obi-Wan’s eyes, impossibly dark, caught on Anakin’s lips, and he looked entirely too affected by something so simple as a smile. Force, Obi-Wan’s love was enough to shatter Anakin apart.

“Master,” Anakin said in warning. This was going to be over embarrassingly soon, but he couldn’t help it; his body was wrung and his nerves were shot, and Obi-Wan was on top of him, staring at him, hanging on his every expression. The twist of Obi-Wan’s wrist was just right, and he must’ve known exactly how close that would get Anakin, must’ve been pushing them both to the edge this quickly on purpose.

“Obi-Wan.” Anakin screwed his eyes shut, just for a moment, but it did little to hold off the cresting wave of his pleasure. “Kriff, I’m sorry, I’m—I’m already close, I—”

He had no idea whether he was asking Obi-Wan to speed up or slow down; he didn’t want this to end, not when it felt so good, not when it was exactly the kind of closeness he needed after almost losing Obi-Wan, but kriff. Even if Obi-Wan backed off completely, he wasn’t sure that he would last. He was already teetering, so close to the precipice that the smallest push would send him tumbling over.

[yodawgiherd]

Cabin at Nighttime

>>>Read on AO3<<<

Aaand there is the second part of modern cottagecore, more M-rated, so beware if that is not your cup of tea.

For Mikasa, it was like watching movie scenes unfolding in front of her eyes. It could happen anytime around the cabin, during any activity, if there was a pattern to it then she failed to see it. Yet while the images bled to reality, Mikasa always knew that is real and what isn’t - the underlying feeling of sadness and abandoned duty that followed these visions made them easy to identify. When she walked to the edge of the small forest, she saw dream Eren chopping wood, his hair in that unfamiliar undercut. She saw him carrying a huge fish, a proud smile pulling at his lips. She also witnessed a lot of intimate moments, hugs, and gentle kisses scattered all around the cabin, and if it wasn’t her as one of the actors Mikasa would feel like intruding. It was so precious, what the two of them had, but there was that sadness every time, the feel that it was just a utopia, a daydream. The dread wasn’t caused only by the mission they ran from to be together, but a new faint feeling tingled its way into Mikasa’s bones.

It was a few scenes. In one, Eren was coughing into a handkerchief, and when he pulled it away from his mouth it was tainted red. In the next, Mikasa was watching him struggle with a log, tears in her eyes before she quickly crossed the distance to help him. All these visions were drenched in that sad feeling, in the helplessness, it made her own eyes water. Not from the pain this time, but from the tragedy of it all.

“He was dying.”, she said out of nowhere, making Eren look up from the small fire he was cultivating.

He knew right away of who Mikasa spoke.

“Why? Was he sick?”

“Yes…” a tingle, “Or no, it was more like… a curse?”

“Curse?”

“Yes, a curse that was killing him, and he didn’t have much time left.”

“Was there no cure?”

Mikasa shook her head, suddenly overwhelmed by a wave of hopelessness. Eren must have felt it because he abandoned the fire in favor of sitting next to her, wrapping her shivering form in a hug. Closing her eyes she pressed her body close to his.

“Poor guy,”, Eren stated, “Ran away to be with the love of his life and still got cursed to die young. Dude can’t catch a break.”

“Eren..”, she frowned at him but he kissed it away with an easy smile.

Mikasa had to remind herself that Eren didn’t feel the presence like she did. Sure, he was the understanding and supportive boyfriend who did everything in his power to make her feel better, but he didn’t have these nightmares, these visions. His mind wasn’t weighted down by the impending doom, creeping around the corners of the cabin.

So why stay, one could ask. Why stay in the place where Mikasa saw ghosts around the corners? The answer was simple – it was a gut feeling. Mikasa felt right here, almost as if she came home after years and years of being abroad. Yes, there was sadness and guilt but there was also joy and happiness and it all mixed in an addictive way. Most importantly, she knew that it was correct to be here, the universe demanded it.

To be completely honest, Eren had a tiny fear that he might be bored at the cabin, his brain hardwired to all the action living in a city brought. It turned out to be completely wrong because he was anything but. Instead of twiddling his thumbs, he was now fuzzing over Mikasa ever since her small collapse, making sure that she has everything she could ask for. As a doctor, he knew that these visions might be a symptom of a mental illness, but she wasn’t showing anything else apart from them. Mikasa wasn’t delusional, she didn’t confuse reality and her dreams, she could answer his questions clearly and correctly. For now, he kept it as an open topic, making a mental note to ask Hitch about it once they get back to the city. He could call her, but the situation wasn’t urgent and he would very much prefer to hear her opinion over a few drinks.

The place was something else, and if Mikasa didn’t like it so much he would probably call it a shack instead. At least it had running water, a fact that Eren was very grateful for. With technology and the hustle of the city far beyond them, they spent their time doing downright childish and primitive things. They swam, splashing around in the cold ocean water like careless kids. They hiked, taking in the natural beauty of the countryside. With Mikasa not having another one of her episodes, Eren even left her alone for a bit and tried fishing, only to discover that he is terrible at it. Staring at the bait, unmoving in the water, he couldn’t suppress a groan. Damn water creatures, they must be plotting against him. His evening got marginally better once he returned, seeing Mikasa preparing the outside table for dinner.

“What did you catch?”, she asked with a smile, obviously seeing that Eren wasn’t carrying any fish.

“My love for you.”, he replied before producing a small flower he picked, offering it as a gift.

Mikasa accepted it, putting it into her hair, and the hour spent being taunted by fishes just didn’t matter anymore. It was the 21st century, so they weren’t dependent on Eren’s ability, or rather inability, to fish - the food they brought would do. Cooking it over the small fire, they ate in relative silence, taking in the embrace of nature they found themselves in. After that, Eren produced a few more sweet treats from his bag and to Mikasa’s delight prepared hot chocolate and marshmallows. The shadows grew long and the evening steadily progressed into the night while they huddled on the bench, bundled in a blanket and with Mikasa once again shamelessly abusing the heat Eren’s body produced.

“Did you have any more visions?”, he asked cautiously, rubbing her shoulder.

“A few, but they were very faint.”, she snuggled closer into his embrace, “But I have this strange feeling while I’m here.”

“What’s that?”

“I think… I feel like Mikasa was pregnant.”

“Well damn, the brats were faster than us?”, Eren snickered, “Guess they didn’t have careers to focus on.”

“They did.”, Mikasa disagreed, “They had a whole mission of saving the world. They abandoned it to be together.”

“Romantic.”, with a gentle hand, Eren dragged his fingers through Mikasa’s hair, loving the silkiness of the natural black and the few artificially red strands, “Yet sad at the same time.”

“Very sad.”

“It does bring an interesting question.”, Eren continued,  “Would you abandon your career to be with me?”

Mikasa thought about it, deeply and carefully. She loved fighting, loved the freedom she had in the ring, loved working on herself and her body. Overcoming obstacles and winning against impossible odds made her feel strong, invincible. But despite all these facts, despite her loving MMA so much, she knew the answer.

“I would. Both fighting and modeling, for you I’d do it.”

“I think I would too, even if it would be tearing me up inside. If I couldn’t help people anymore, couldn’t set them free from their injuries…”, he took a deep breath, his chest expanding where Mikasa leaned on it, “Still, you are way too important for me. I would drop it all to be with you because living without Mikasa in my life is not worth it.”

Mikasa fell asleep out here, bundled up with Eren, but she woke when he carried her inside and put her to bed. Why? Because that old thing creaked terribly.

“Sorry…”, he murmured, making her snicker.

“Hardly your fault.”

“I’d prefer if you slept peacefully.”

“Is it because of the visions? I told you not to worry, only the first one was painful.”

She got up, stretched a bit, and went to change into her sleeping clothes. Eren mirrored her actions, and for a moment the only sounds in the cabin were the rustles of fabric.

“Would you look at that.”, he remarked once they were both changed, “There is only one bed.”

“Guess we will have to share.”, she plopped down on it, making the bed creak again, “I hope that you will not try to take advantage of the situation, good sir.”

“I wouldn’t dare ma’am.”

To her surprise, Eren did just that, lying down and pulling the covers over himself at a respectful distance from her.

“I wish you a good night, lady Mikasa.”

Eren’s back to her, Mikasa looked with a raised eyebrow as he did exactly nothing. When the silence stretched, she poked him in the shoulder.

“Hey Eren, you know that it was a joke right. I would very much prefer if you did something very inappropriate to me.”

He turned, the moon reflecting in his eyes.

“Are you sure?”

“What, are you scared that sex might bring back more of the memories?”

“I don’t rightly know.”, he confessed, “You had a headache from touching a bench, I have no idea what your triggers are.”

“Babe, stop worrying for a second,”, Mikasa grabbed a handful of his hair, tugging his face to hers, “And kiss me, you fool.”

He did so, and then it was the familiar dance. Clothing was torn and thrown away from their bodies, careless where it would land, littering the interior. Only once they were bare to each other did Mikasa roll on her back with Eren falling on top, their mouths not leaving one another for a second. She opened herself up to him, letting him have all the control when he pinned her hands above her head, their fingers entwining together on the aged sheets. There was no resistance from her when their groins touched, when Eren pressed his hardness against her heat, forcing her body to arch so beautifully. Their lips mashed together, hard and bruising, and soon the lack of air made them pant. Mikasa breathed with tiny soft moans that somehow tugged at his heart at the same time as his groin. His love and adoration for her were absolute, both physical and spiritual. That was until he felt something very cold rub against his legs. Despite his primal hunger for her, Eren tore himself away from Mikasa’s lips.

“Geez, your feet are freezing.”

Her response was a giggle and even more insistent cold rub.

“Then warm me up.”

Seeing her smile and hearing her laugh was intoxicating, making Mikasa happy was very high on Eren’s priority list. Angling his head he licked a long stripe, all the way from her collarbone to her pierced earlobe.

“All right.���

And then he was kissing her again because he loved her more than anything, even with her freezing feet. There was no one else he could even imagine doing this with because no one was like Mikasa. He knew her body, he knew it so well, yet Eren traced his touch all over it, letting his hands go down from the restricting hold on her wrists. She was pinned beneath his weight but Mikasa did not mind it at all. And exploring he went, down her face that put the sun to shame to the small yet perky breasts that were now heaving with her breathing. Groping the area shamelessly Eren indulged himself, playing with Mikasa’s chest until her breaths grew even more desperate. Her nipples were coming to life underneath his touch reacting wonderfully when he thumbed the nubs. Soon he had them fully erect, just as his cock was. The pinch he planted on the left one made Mikasa groan into the kiss, a sound that was so sexy that Eren forced her to do it again by pinching the other one. Down the plane of perfectly defined abs that belonged on a statue and not a living person, and down still. Smugly ghosting over the apex of her legs, Eren’s hands anchored on her thighs instead, caressing those beautiful muscular limbs. Mikasa could feel him smirk into the kiss, he knew that he was ignoring the place where she wanted him the most. Patient, compliant for now, she would let him keep the lead. He never let her down before.

Reversing his descent, Eren slid his hands upwards over the toned legs, taking in a handful of her ass. It fascinated him and it would never stop doing so, because Eren was a weak man and the thing that he was groping was the most perfect ass that there was, fueling his primal desires to no end. A thing to worship, caress and care for every single day.

And still they kissed, breathless and growing more and more aggressive. Her tongue traced his upper lip, prodding inside and sliding alongside his wet muscle. Then it was Eren attacking, pulling her bottom lip between his teeth. Raw and dangerous yet sweet at the same time, it was like kissing and being kissed by a wild animal sometimes. Mikasa was practically panting when Eren left her mouth to bite her neck, pressing his face into that silky skin he loved so much. The pale was now marked by him, imprints of teeth and reddening marks he sucked into it, definitive proof of his conquest.

Above him, Mikasa let out a breathy laugh at all that. Sure, the bites hurt but they were immediately soothed by Eren’s tongue and lips, leaving only a pleasurable tingle behind. He could be rough but he was always there to kiss the hurt away, to let her know how loved Mikasa was. Eren could hurt her but it was a beautiful pain.

A new sting originating from her chest let Mikasa know that he was now at her breasts, ravaging them. He nipped at the underside, knowing she’s ticklish there, mixing her breathing with airy giggles. The dark nipples were already hard from his previous actions, and they felt great in his mouth when Eren pulled them in, sucking Mikasa’s breasts. And then the bite came a clamp of his teeth against the super-sensitive bud that had her crying out and arching from the bed. A pinch and roll on the other and Mikasa was shaking beneath him, her mouth open in cries and pleas.

Down he went, kissing everywhere he could, making every inch of her flawless skin as his. Her stomach, her beautifully muscled stomach, her sharp hips, the lines that guided him to the place where the fire originated in. His lips were here and there, scrape of teeth against the hipbone and gone before Mikasa took full notice, everywhere and nowhere at the same time. To say that it was driving her crazy would be an understatement. Eren had the gall to call her a tease?

She was almost begging, she almost reached down to push him there when Eren’s mouth arrived at the apex of her muscular thighs, taking a handful of her cheeks and spreading them open for him. Mikasa assisted him more than willingly, biting her bottom lip to keep the excited noises in. Eren went down on her so many times but it was something she always looked forward to, the amazing pleasure he could provide with his mouth was an experience to be enjoyed a hundred, thousand times over. It would do her no good to squeal like a schoolgirl because Eren would surely tease her for it later, but it was hard to keep it inside. Brushing the midnight bangs from her eyes Mikasa looked down, wanting to see him because Eren pleasuring her was an incredible sight. Many times she was tempted to snap a picture, a quick photo of his mouth between her legs, but didn’t do it yet. Maybe one day.

It was oddly satisfying, watching Eren between her spread thighs. The tiny part of her recalled those hurtful memories, the “I’ve always hated you Mikasa”, that pain that belonged to someone else. It was her Eren’s perfect copy who said that but look at him now. Fully devoted to her, to Mikasa’s pleasure, ignoring himself just so he can make her feel better. Hate was miles apart from what Eren felt for her, judging from his actions.

“Something funny?”, he asked, hot breath blowing over her womanhood.

Mikasa must have been smiling, she realized, smiling because she got to have this, not hate and suffering.

“No, I’m simply appreciating how nice you are to me, how attentive.”

He grinned up at her, keeping eye contact while he stuck out his tongue, licking her sex in a single wide stroke, all the way from the bottom to the top.

“This? I’m doing this solely for myself.”, his next words were a sultry whisper spoken so close to her sex that it looked like he was talking to her pussy, not to Mikasa, “I adore how you taste.”

Maybe to prove his point, maybe because he did enjoy it Eren dipped his head down to lick at her again. It wasn’t a service, it was an exchange, because Eren was in turn blessed by the sight of Mikasa’s bare stomach, tense abdominal muscles contracting with every whine and breath falling from the raven’s lips. His actions were slow and languid, licking her outsides but not dipping in yet, getting her properly worked up first. There was no rush, was there.

The two fingers that appeared by Mikasa’s lips were not a surprise and she took them eagerly into her mouth, sucking them. Once properly wet, he pulled them out and repositioned his hand between her slightly trembling thighs. Pulling his head back, Eren pushed them in and they both disappeared into her with a wet sound, making Mikasa moan out loud. A beautiful sound, that.

Eren's fingers dutifully re-explored every inch of Mikasa's sopping wet sex, made so by both her juices and his mouth, gliding from one area to the next with ease that comes from years of practice. And as always it drove Mikasa insane, her hips shifting because that smug bastard wasn’t doing what she wanted. Knowing her ticks so well, Eren ignored Mikasa’s clit that was begging for his attention beneath its hood, not touching her there in the slightest. Why? Because he loved seeing her desperate.

“Please…”, it finally came from her trembling lips, music to his ears, “Please, Eren…”

“Please what?”

“Please… do it”, her chest contracted, “… do it properly.”

It would be shameful to admit that Mikasa’s pussy was throbbing at this point, her clit so poor and unattended, but it was the truth. Eren had a thing for driving her arousal high, much higher than necessary, before doing it right. She was begging now, in that small voice that he could never say no to, and he didn’t want to in the first place. But when he moved down to obey and his cheek touched her inner thigh, Mikasa groaned.

“You have a stubble.”, she accused him, “Scratchy stubble at that.”

“It would appear so…”, to tease, Eren rubbed his face against her sensitive skin making Mikasa yelp and frown at him.

“Shave. Tomorrow.”

“I…”

“No buts.”, Mikasa reached down, grabbing his hair and angling Eren’s face back down, reminding him of his mission between Mikasa’s thighs.

“Now go on, please.”

Right. Spreading her open with his fingers, Eren dipped his tongue in, the tip of the wet muscle sliding inside her. She was scorching hot, faintly pulsing around his tongue and Eren knew that he can make these contractions much, much stronger. Delvin deeper he licked everywhere where he could reach, wiggling his tongue inside of her. At the same time his fingers attacked her clit, rubbing the tiny circles she liked, and Mikasa was finally being given the proper oral treatment. The insistent swirling of his tongue combined with the expert touches on her slowly stiffening nub as Eren was teasing it from under its hood. Letting her head fall on the bedding, she let her lover know just how much she appreciates him by moaning because that’s what he always wanted to hear. The sounds that Mikasa could make in her turned-on voice were better than any music.

He switched it up, sucked on her clit while fingering her, two digits moving in and out at a murderous tempo. The tip of his tongue stroked the bud languidly, teasing it from beneath the hood, and then his lips were wrapped around it again and he sucked. Hard. Mikasa lost control of both her voice and her hips and they were moving on their own, riding, fucking Eren’s face. Her thighs moved too, wrapping around his head and caging him in with no chance of escape.

Trapped, imprisoned by her muscular thighs, Eren had no other way out than to keep pleasuring her, but he would be lying if he said that he didn’t love when Mikasa got demanding. Surrendering to her, he crammed a third finger inside her tight pussy to join the two already there, feeling the stretch as she accommodated him. Mikasa was so incredibly hot like this, sweaty and moaning while her body shook and her beautiful face contorted in the intense pleasure he was giving her. This was heaven, this sight was paradise, and Eren was so incredibly blessed to be allowed to do this to her, to this goddess that was in his bed. He needed her to cum on his face, he needed to taste her and he needed it now.

Putting all of his experience and skill to action, Eren fingered her hard while abusing her clit with his mouth. And when he curled the fingers and pressed into that one special spot, when he let his teeth graze over her clit, Mikasa lost it. She came hard, mind-shattering orgasm ripping through her body as she drenched Eren’s face and he lapped at the sweetness, tip toying with her throbbing clit. Those strong legs squeezed him too and her hips lifted from the bed, beautiful muscles forced to contract by the waves of pleasure flying through her entire being. She was delicious and Eren made sure to lick everywhere where he could, even sucking her cum from his fingers. Yes, he adored the taste, but while he was so diligently pleasuring her through the orgasm, drawing it out and making it even better, Mikasa had another vision.

Normally, her sight went white while cumming, but now there was something else imprinted over the otherworldly nothingness. Eren’s face was hovering over her, but it was the one with short hair and not her version. His face was sweaty and a bit embarrassed when he spoke.

“I’m sorry, I couldn’t hold myself back.”, not-Eren said in an ethereal voice. “I finished so fast…”

“Don’t worry.”, a phantom hand reached out to caress his cheek, “I don’t mind, it felt nice.”

“Not good enough,”, the other Eren disagreed, “I promise that I’ll make it up to you. I’ll get better with practice.”

Mikasa felt herself blushing, not only in one reality but in the other too, while the other Eren dipped his head down to kiss her. And that’s when the vision broke. Eren must have noticed it, must have heard her speak to his other self because his head shot up from between her legs.

“Hey? What’s wrong?”, he asked, eyes widening in alarm, “Did I do something wrong?”

“No, I..”, she held unto him, tightening her legs around his form and preventing Eren from fully pulling back, keeping him in, “Another memory, that’s it.”

“I thought that this was a bad idea. Am I going to get blueballed by myself? That would be somewhat next-level play.”

Mikasa chuckled.

“It wasn’t a bad memory, just unexpected.”, she reached out to smooth her fingers over the bedding, “Let’s say that we aren’t the only ones who went to town in a very similar cabin.”

“You did say that Dreamkasa was pregnant, so it’s only logical.”

She frowned at him for using that stupid nickname, but Eren’s cheeky grin didn’t budge as he climbed up her body until they were face to face again. His was wet, she noticed, as Eren never did mind having her essence all over himself. Mikasa would never admit it out loud but it was pretty hot.

“It was super sweet, they were inexperienced and oh so careful with each other.”

“I’d call myself a lot of things, but inexperienced is not one of them. Not with you around.”

“It felt good, I’m sure of that.”

“Better than me?”

“Oh Eren,”, she giggled, hands coming up to circle his wide shoulders, “Are you getting jealous of yourself?”

“Just..”, he moved low, his hot breath ghosting over her neck as he punctured the word with a bite, beginning a slow journey upwards.

“Answer”

Lick

”The”

Nip

”Damn”

Bite

”Question. ”

Kiss

”Mi”

Suck

”Ka”

Lick

”Sa”

Bite

And now he was at the top of her ears, teeth clicking against the piercings lodged into the goth’s vulnerable cartilage. He knew that the neck and ears were Mikasa’s weak points, and he abused the knowledge, fanning the fires of her just-orgasmed body.

“You! Of course that I prefer you.”, getting some self-control back, Mikasa pulled at his long hair to get Eren to face her, “I spent so long training you, what kind of teacher would I be if you sucked at sex.”

“Teacher? For a woman who almost died of shame after showing me her boobs for the first time, you have certainly grown. Miss possessive.”

“Of you? Always.”, she pecked him on the nose, “You’re mine.”

His hand went low, groping her naked ass.

“And you mine.”, he replied in a heated whisper, “All of you, even this ass. Did you know that it’s a perfect fit for the golden ratio?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Your ass is a Fibonacci perfection.”

For the sake of her mental health, Mikasa decided to ghost over that comment as Eren could be somewhat strange with his compliments. She knew he meant well, and that was good enough.

“Okay, it’s yours. Why don’t you stop stalling and make me feel good, hm?”, her voice was sultry now, eyes half-lidded, “Show me how much you have learned…”

A challenge.

“Didn’t you just come?”

“So?”, single fine raven eyebrow raised, “Can’t you do it again?”

“You’re insatiable.”

“Aah, but I believe that you will sate me,”, her divine hand went low, squeezing his cock between those strong and dexterous fingers, “Right?”

He breathed hard against her naked skin, thoughts clouding. How could Mikasa make him so desperate with a single touch, that was a question Eren could never answer. Maybe trying to take advantage of his weakened state, Mikasa hooked a leg over his waist and pulled, attempting to roll them over. When Eren resisted she stopped, not wanting to force herself on top. There was a time and place for measuring strength, and this old and creaky bed wasn’t it.

To get an explanation for his actions, Mikasa tugged at his hair, getting Eren to look at the question written on her face.

“There is no way I’m letting you be on top.”, he answered the unspoken query.

“What? Why?”

“Miki, if you don’t remember, let me refresh your memory.”, his touch was back, one hand tracing the outlines of her abs while the other squeezed her thigh, “You literally broke a bedframe by riding me, and it was a much firmer than this squeaky one that’s here.”

“But I…”

“I’m not sure about you, but I don’t want to spend the night on the floor.”

Mikasa sighed, ceasing her efforts to roll him over.

“Fine.”

“Don’t you worry…”, Eren drawled out the words, kissing her neck again, “I’ll take good care of you.”

And he was inside her, pushing in with one sharp thrust that made her eyes roll back and mouth drop open. He abused that fact straight away, dropping his tongue between her lips and letting her taste herself. She was everywhere, in every crook of his mouth, every part of his face, every inch of his tongue, reminding Mikasa of how strongly he made her cum. Back and forth he fucked into her with determination, sliding in easily as her sex was drenched. Her black nails were at his back, carving into the skin, marking him with bloody wings over the tattooed ones. The sounds were wet, her moans thick, but Mikasa was Mikasa and she was a beast, impossible to tame and difficult to please.

“More…”, she half-moaned into the messy kiss. “Harder…”

With a groan and a primal need ignited in his lower belly, Eren pushed up into a kneeling position. If Mikasa wanted more, if she wanted to be fucked harder, then who was he to question his queen? Picking her legs up he put them on his shoulder, both on the left, creating a rather tight passage to squeeze through. Holding her ankles together with one of his hands, Eren anchored himself with the other and resumed the moves from earlier, picking up the pace.

Mikasa’s vision was beginning to swim. Her sounds were rising, her chest was heaving more and more, the way she panted for air was making Eren harder than diamonds. She wasn’t idle either, her hands moved, playing with her own breasts while he watched. It was arousing as hell to see, the way her slender fingers rolled the erect nipples between them, when she pinched and moaned out loud. Now it was Eren who wanted, no, needed more, overtaken by a desire to give Mikasa everything she deserves.

He needed to be closer to her heat, closer to that divine being that Mikasa was, so he pushed forward to do so. One of her legs back on the bedding, Eren kept a firm hold on the other as he spread her as wide as she could go. Mikasa groaned at the burn his move produced in her muscles, her legs being forced into a very wide angle, but it was a slight ache and easily forgotten in the heat of passion. Mikasa’s ankle was now practically resting above her own shoulder as she was half-doubled over, this position possible only because of how flexible she was. She was completely open to him, wanting nothing more than to be fucked senseless, and Eren did his best to deliver - truly rutting into her, his hips slapping into her ass again and again and again and…

She was going to have welts on her butt tomorrow.

Mikasa was moaning in sync with his thrusts, her Ah-Ah-Ah so much sweeter and better than whatever Eren’s foul mouth could produce. She was loud, no shame in how she let her pleasure vibrate out from her throat and that was music to Eren’s ears. After all, there was no need to keep silent as the animals were the only ones who could hear them. If they did mind the sounds of their lovemaking, they didn’t say so.

Intertwining their fingers, Eren marveled at how small Mikasa’s hand looked in his, how delicate. But when she squeezed and the strength reminded him that she is no helpless flower, very far from it.

It was wet and loud and powerful when he moved in and out of her, his cock soaked by them, by whatever they were doing together. The bed creaked beneath every time he thrusted, but they didn’t care. It felt like heaven to move inside Mikasa because she was so hot and so incredibly tight that Eren could never wish for more. Years, eternity, he could spend it all right at this moment when he is fucking her raw and throbbing pussy, repeating the moves over and over, disappearing and appearing out of her pulsing sex. He could spend eternity, but his physical form disagreed. It was getting too much to handle because it was so perfect, and Eren was not the only one on edge. He could feel it inside, how she pulsed more rapidly, how impossibly tighter she grew, so much that even pulling himself out to push in again was an exertion, a workout for his abdominals.

Eren didn’t understand her dreams, her visions, he didn’t understand why they happened. He didn’t have the faintest idea why he would ever, in any reality or timeline, want to hurt Mikasa. She gave him two things in her existence - undying love and devotion, and Eren could never reject these gifts. But then her muscled sheath squeezed all around his member, deep inside her, and he was reminded of one more gift that loving Mikasa brought.

The best and most intense sex one could ever ask for.

He needed help, anything to push her over first because the wave was approaching and Eren knew he can’t win. Dropping his hand low he located her clit and pressed against it, the effects almost immediate as that nub was more than sensitive at this point. Mikasa’s eyes shot open, a loud groan falling from her mouth when Eren rubbed her weak place at an almost feverish pace. The bed’s creaking was very loud too, the wooden headboard banging against the wall, almost as if the old furniture was protesting against being so shamelessly soiled. He could feel Mikasa’s wetness leaking, trickling down his shaft and down over his balls that kept slapping against her ass, and he knew that she’s right there on the edge.

If he wanted to edge her, if this was one of the nights where he tied her up and tortured her, now would be the time to stop. But tonight was not such a night, so Eren kept moving, stimulating all her weak points, and that was good enough. Her body arched beneath him into that perfect bridge, while she made that adorable face only orgasming Mikasa Ackerman can do when the second climax overtook her. One day, one day he will snap a picture of it in the perfect moment and that will be his gift to mankind.

Her moaning got louder as she came, most likely stirring a few animals from their sleep outside, but Eren loved it. He adored how loud Mikasa could get when she let herself go, when she stopped caring who heard and let her pleasure truly show. Normally she was the silent type, and it was quite a shame because her voice was beautiful and Mikasa could carry a tune perfectly. It took a long time before she was comfortable enough to sing for Eren, but when she did it was an amazing experience. The few times when they visited a karaoke bar were still lodged in his brain.

Now, Eren was making her sing quite a different tune, and it was an achievement for him knowing how good she was feeling, so good that her insecurities melted away and she was loud. But that was not all, as making Mikasa cum first was better for a multitude of reasons – it made him feel great mentally, it made her happy, but also for the selfish reason of being inside her while it happened. There is no way to describe how amazing it felt when she climaxed around him, as her body contracted and released, rapidly repeating that pattern, how her walls collapsed around his shaft and massaged, milking him. In short, it was like the most expensive sex toy in the world made specifically for his cock. Unable and not willing to resist Eren came inside her, filling her with several spurts. Way too much to fit, some of it dribbled out and down on the poor bed, making Eren smirk. They would have to change the sheets and maybe burn the ones that were here now. Filthy didn’t even begin to describe it.

For now though, he pulled out and collapsed on his back next to his sweaty lover, listening to her agitated breathing. The haze covered them both like a blanket, the pure euphoria that occurs after climaxing, nothing but unbridled happiness. Mikasa closed her eyes for a second and Eren wondered if there aren’t more visions going on in her brain, but he wouldn’t pry. If she wanted to share them with him, she would, but they were hers. With a rustle of sheets she turned towards the window, staring out into the darkness and stillness of a forest night, pondering something. At first, Eren wanted to speak up but then the moonlight shimmered over her porcelain skin and his eyes were drawn to the wings on her back. There was no better symbol for her - she was an angel, incredibly free, and when Eren was with her he felt like he could fly.

Mikasa felt his lips at her back, pressing gentle kisses against the skin before he picked up her wrist and did the same there, nuzzling it.

“What are you doing?”, she asked, not even bothering with looking away from the dark forest.

“Admiring your tattoos.”

“Again?”

“I’ll never stop doing it.”, another kiss to her wrist, “They are beautiful, just as you are.”

She giggled and rolled over to rest on his chest, shifting their position. Now they were cooling down from it all, Eren’s hand wrapped around her and gently caressed her hip.

“Hey Miki?”

“Hmmm?”, she hummed from his chest, not stopping the movement of her little finger that traced patterns into the skin.

“What if we bought this.”

“What, the bed?”

“No…”, he snickered, “The cabin. It would be nice to have a getaway from the city and the location is amazing.”

“I thought you didn’t like it.”

“Eh, I’m warming up to it.”, he squeezed her slightly, “Plus with you here, the cabin can be ugly as sin, you are the only beauty I need in the whole world.”

Mikasa snickered and kissed the underside of his jaw for that.

“Way too cheesy.”

Ha, like that would make him stop.

“Well, I am a firm believer in Mikasa supremacy. You could say that it’s my religion.”

Groaning, Mikasa hid her face in Eren’s neck to mask the crazy smile on her lips. Must have been her jittered hormones after the intense sex, the endorphin high always such a wild ride. Because yes, it was cheesy as hell but it felt great to see how much he adores her, about as much as she loved him back.

“Can you stop simping for me and tell me more about the sudden cabin-buyout plan?”

“I’ll never stop simping for you Miki, but I will tone it down if it will make my queen happy.”, squeezing her again, Eren continued with the original train of thought,  “We can rebuild it you know, upgrade it so it’s up to the living standard of the twenty-first century. It’s the location that’s amazing, this close to both mountains and the ocean and not that far away from the city.”

Mikasa pondered Eren’s proposal for a moment, but she knew the answer already.

“Sounds good. We could have gatherings here too, invite friends to take a breather with us.”

“While I’d prefer being here only with you, I guess that we can tone it down a bit if guests were over.”

When she didn’t understand what he was implying, Eren grinned down at her.

“You are quite loud during sex, and the walls are thin…”

The slap she planted on his chest was a loud one, but it did nothing to stop his laughter. Bickering back and forth over nothings, Mikasa didn’t even remember how they ended up kissing but here it was. Soon there was the familiar hardness poking her stomach and with her own embers smoldering, Mikasa was more than up for it.

She rolled on top, proving that if she wanted to Eren had no chance of stopping her. Staring up into her twinkling grey eyes, his smile turned into a small frown on the prospect of spending the rest of the night on the cabin floor. Eren loved Mikasa to death, but she was very bad at controlling her strength in the heat of their passionate lovemaking, and when that combined with how unnaturally strong she was furniture was bound to get destroyed. Or him, for that matter, if the pain in his neck and the scratches Eren could feel on his back were any proof.

“Miki please don’t, I beg…”

“Shh, I promise that I’ll be gentle. Somewhat.”

She leaned back, pulling Eren with her.

“Sit up,” she demanded.

Her desired position was with Eren sitting and her in his lap, bodies all entangled together. Mikasa loved the closeness it brought, like this she could feel every breath, every twitch from her lover. Bracing herself up on her knees, she reached blindly behind herself and found Eren’s length, easily identifiable by how he hissed when her fingertips brushed over it. Yet that hiss was nothing compared to the sound he made once she began angling him, because she let the tip pass over her pounded pussy and then he was close to the other opening, the realization making his eyes wide.

“You want to…?”

“Shut up.”

Mikasa could never do this if he wasn’t so wet, but Eren was drenched and she wasn’t much better, some of the wetness found its way down when she squirted before. Still, it made her grit her teeth when she began sinking, feeling her ass stretched to its limits by his invading girth. Anal was always more difficult, and now when there was no lube or plugs in beforehand it was hard to accommodate what Eren gave her. This was something else yet she kept impaling herself, unyielding. Huffs of breath through her nose, whole body clenching, she worked herself down on his shaft, penetrating her tight muscle ring inch by inch.

The muscles in his neck bulged and Mikasa knew that he’s fighting himself not to thrust up into her, into that tight heat that was sliding down in such a slow, torturous tempo. It didn’t help that he could feel some of his cum leak out of her other opening, now unattended, pushed out by how her inner muscles were forced to work again. Why did this filthiness turn him on so much, that was a question Eren didn’t want to answer.

Instead, he focused on her, on how she felt around him, sinking lower and lower, taking it like a champ. It was Mikasa’s show, Eren was more or less an observer right now, letting her do what she wanted. Yet he had to praise her because there was nothing else like this in the entire world, no one else could be this amazing.

“F-Fuck Miki… You feel too good.”

“S-Shut up…”, she repeated, having trouble speaking too, being stretched so much in that other place.

To stop herself from speaking and to shut Eren up too she mashed their faces together into a messy and wild kiss. And then finally, after several more up-and-down slides, she was fully sitting on his lap, his cock lodged deep inside her ass. It made her pant, the physical exertion, her abdominals fluttering. Watching those muscles move erratically, bathed in sweat as they were, that was a fucking beauty on its own. Eren didn’t even dare to move now, lest he disturbs the short rest Mikasa was taking, her head on his shoulder and the hot breath washing over his back. That was until she nudged his face with her nose, getting his attention.

“Help me…”, she moaned weakly.

“O-Okay... Okay…”, thinking was hard with her all around him, but Eren managed, “Let’s do this together.”

Mikasa nodded and braced herself on her knees while Eren grabbed her hips, lifting her. Together they moved, with Eren helping her along the ride. It was slow, way slower than how she rode him normally, but anal was always different. Mikasa circled her hips, rocked them back and forth, stretching herself more around his girth. Breathe in, breathe out, the unpleasant sting was fading and being replaced by pleasure as her butt got used to having Eren’s cock inside of it. Slow yet picking up speed, it was under Mikasa’s dictatorship with Eren playing the role of a helpful lackey. Willingly.

Her knees scrambled on the bedding and she was pushing herself up by the hands on Eren’s shoulders. Mikasa deemed herself ready for the next stage of her plan, which was finding a better purchase on the bed. Her feet finally found their place and she was squatting now, right on Eren’s lap. And then it was time to truly ride him.

Up and down she bounced, propelled by her powerful thighs, her ass sliding all over his cock, squelching it in its tight embrace. The repeated penetration finally convinced her muscles to give way, albeit just a tiny bit. It was igniting a primal need in her, the way he rubbed her insides, the tiredness burning away. Maybe it was because of her athletic body but Mikasa caught a second wind, spiraling down into a nearly animalistic state. The need for more was back, stronger than ever, so slapping her ass down onto Eren’s poor hips, she grinded into him hard.

“Come on, come on…”, it was coming through her gritted teeth, her gray eyes scorching Eren with the intensity.

“You keep saying how much you love my ass, right?.”, Mikasa practically growled the order, made wild by the overflowing feeling, “Show me.”

Normally, such words would never leave her lips but they were both far beyond normal. She was wild but Eren was no better, teeth clenched to match her. Bracing his feet against the bed he did as she asked, thrusting up to meet her descent half-way. He moved up, Mikasa moved down, their hips slapping into each other in the middle with a smack. Her ass sat down on him hard, crotch loudly protesting against being crushed like this. To help, to assist his feral goddess, Eren slipped his hand down to that squelching wet place. Spreading her open he toyed with her clit, and the multiple stimulations made Mikasa practically howl like a beast. She was an animal right now, an animal in heat reduced to its primal instincts, and Eren was fortunate, or unfortunate, enough to be her chosen mate.

Close, so close, the electricity was everywhere inside her, tickling her brain. Eren attacked with his mouth too, his teeth sinking into her neck before coming up to claim her lips. The kiss was bruising, the way she bounced on his lap too, and several things were nearing their breaking point. Mikasa, because Eren’s fingers at her clit were a godsend. Eren, because Mikasa kept grinding her ass down on him with fervor, her butt clenching so hard around his length that it hurt, reminding him how incredibly strong his lover was. And also the bed, because the old thing was not constructed to withstand this amount of wild pounding. It was a race, race on who would break first, and fortunately for all that was Mikasa.

With a last slam of her hips that pinned him and shook the bed so much that it nearly fell apart, Mikasa’s head tipped back, a wild scream tearing out of her throat as she squeezed him so hard that Eren swore out loud. It was the wild contraction of her muscles that pushed him over the edge to follow her, his cock spurting inside her with his second release, filling her ass with a smaller load. Done, finished and over, Mikasa slipped out of his hands and fell to her side, pulling herself away from his body. They laid there, side by side, catching their breath. The whole world seemed to take a breather, the animals outside wondering what kind of terrible duel took place in the usually peaceful cabin.

“God damn, Miki,”, Eren finally managed, “If I knew that a cabin would drive you this wild I would take you here ages ago.”

She chuckled, but a gust of wind from the opened window made her shiver. The sweat was cooling down and it was rather cold outside. Instinct at this point, she rolled back towards Eren’s heat, laying her hand on his chest, tangling their legs together and leeching shamelessly.

Mikasa was tired, tired from her performance and the long day, tired in the best possible way. She stilled completely and didn’t move, their bodies mashed together in one sweaty and dirty mess. Breathing hard, she could feel Eren’s chest contract beneath her, betraying that he too needed a small break from their intensive lovemaking. Yet resting while there is the mixture of your climaxes running down your thighs is hardly hygienic, so Eren stroked Mikasa’s back to get her attention, fingers tapping the bumps of her spine.

“C’mon, let’s abuse the running water and get cleaned up. This bed needs all its sheets changed or burned and I’m pretty sure that you shouldn’t be sleeping with a double creampie between your legs.”

She took a shuddering breath.

“Eren, I hate you and your dirty mouth so much.”

“Nonsense. Remember how hard you came when I ate you out?”

Done, Mikasa hid her face in Eren’s shoulder, ignoring how his body shook with the laughter.

The shower was surprisingly big, for a rundown shack like this, and it wouldn’t be Eren if he didn’t take advantage of the fact. Mikasa gasped a bit when his finger slid into her still-sensitive sex, looking at him over her shoulder.

“I told you to wash my back, not finger me.”

“I have to my sure that every part of you is clean.”, he leaned closer, “Before I make you filthy again.”

Closing her eyes, Mikasa decided not to fight her fate and let herself enjoy it. The feeling of Eren’s finger was soon joined by another one, and now there were two explorers inside her, poking and probing at the walls. Curling his hand Eren’s palm pressed against Mikasa’s clit, rubbing it slightly and getting her worked up properly. Her lover was right when he called her insatiable because Mikasa’s libido could be nigh bottomless. She blamed Eren – he knew her too well, knew her body better than his own at this point and all of her weak points were etched into his memory. He knew how to touch, how to stroke, where to press and rub and in what intervals. Mikasa’s body was a terrifying weapon, powerful and deadly in the ring, but Eren could turn it into a putty mush in his hands, all her lean muscles melting underneath his touch.

Okay, she could go again. She wanted it too because his fingers managed to re-ignite the fire between her thighs, stroking it higher and higher with every press against her clit. Reaching between her legs Mikasa tugged his hand out, turning to face Eren.

“Pick me up.”, she ordered him, wrapping her arms around his neck.

“Do I have to?”, he faked a pained expression, “You are so heavy.”

But Mikasa didn’t want jokes now.

“Eren, don’t.”

It was the tone in which she spoke those two words, her icy commander voice that would make him fall to his knees in the middle of a crowded street if ordered him to. It was the one that allowed no argument nor question, only blind obedience.

“Yes, my lady.”

With a grunt Eren picked her up, letting Mikasa wrap her strong legs around his waist. He was grateful for the assistance, as Mikasa’s body was heavy, but if there was one thing Eren could do after all that gym-going, it was holding up his girlfriend. The water beating down on their bodies, her eyes locked to his as she manipulated her hips blindly until his tip was resting against her folds.

“Ready?”

A single nod being the answer, Eren eased his hold on her and let gravity assist them. Of course that Mikasa had to do something, wouldn’t be her if she didn’t. Bracing on Eren’s shoulders, she let herself go slow, super slow, torturing him with the tempo. In hopes of appeasing her, he dropped his head to her exposed breasts, tonguing the red marks he left behind earlier. Mikasa’s tits would be littered with bitemarks come morning, and she was silently very grateful that there were no swimwear photoshoots on her agenda anytime soon. Sure, the makeup artists could cover the marks Eren left on her and Mikasa’s neck often had to be worked on but having them tap their brushes against her chest was something else entirely.

This time around it was no wild pounding, they were both way too exhausted for that. It was slow lovemaking with Eren pulling her up and letting the gravity push her down on his cock, over and over, until the familiar heat awoke and slid into her whole body. Mikasa came with a gasp that she hid in Eren’s shoulder and he was quick to follow, the last bits of his essence squeezed and milked out of him by her inner muscles. And then it was time to truly get cleaned and rest, although Mikasa had a faint feeling that she might not be able to walk tomorrow.

And yes, the morning proved that she was right in that assessment, but Eren was no better. With how hard Mikasa rode him, he had bruises and welts all over his hips, and his neck looked like someone was trying to choke the life out of him. Well, Mikasa did, because her thighs moved on their own while she was cumming and squeezed the poor man between them hard, but Eren was used to it at this point. With both of them out of commission, the next day was spent doing nothing and lying around, giving their bodies time to heal. Still, it was totally worth it.

Two days later, everything was falling into place. Mikasa’s visions were less and less frequent until they stopped completely, letting her know that there was nothing more the cabin could show her right now. All she could do was wait, her visions would come when the time was right.

With the closeness of the mountains they went skiing too, Mikasa acing it as she did anything that is a physical sport. Eren had his issues, not nearly as perfect as she was, but after a few hours of training and guidance from her, he could hold his own on the treacherous devices strapped to his feet. Exhausted from the skiing, they practically collapsed as soon as they were back in the cabin in dire need of rest.

Eren was fast asleep when Mikasa woke, slipping from his embrace and out of the creaky bed. Making a cup of coffee for herself, she opened the door and watched as the sun slowly climbed from the horizon and up. It was so beautiful here, so peaceful, and she knew exactly what to do. Mikasa was meant to be here, this was the place where she would get her last dream, the last piece of the puzzle, the final chapter of the story. Here, she would know what happened to her other self, how she ended up. And taking a sip of the hot beverage, a tight smile spread over the raven’s lips.

Mikasa was looking forward to that.

A rustle of sheets behind her indicated that Eren was stirring about. It was like an instinct at this point – when he couldn’t feel Mikasa next to him his sleep was usually mediocre at best as if his mind is constantly checking if she’s there with him, safe and sound. Mikasa didn’t turn, keeping her eyes on the rising sun even when she heard his bare feet tapping against the wooden floor behind her. Soon she was enveloped in a warm hug from behind.

“Hi.”, he whispered into her ear, kissing her cheek after.

“Morning. There’s coffee if you want some.”

“Hmmm, later…”, he yawned behind her, “I’ll keep hugging you for a bit longer.”

With a smile Mikasa put her hand on his, intertwining their fingers. And feeling it, feeling the fingers splayed on her stomach reminded her of something, a faint feel of memory hitting her again. They stood like this, exactly like this, with Mikasa gazing out and Eren behind her, but there was one significant difference. There was a baby bump on her midriff, beneath their intertwined hands.

Mikasa took a sharp breath through the nose once she realized that, looking down. There was no baby, of course, her and Eren’s hands were nestled against her firm abdominals. But in her mind’s eye, she could see it, and to her surprise Mikasa liked that image. The implant in Mikasa’s arm burned for a second, reminding her of its presence and function.

Her mood was completely shattered when Eren rubbed his cheek against hers, his stubble scratching her and reminding Mikasa of the night before.

“Eren, the shaving?”, she reminded him gently yet didn’t pull away, enduring the feeling.

“Hmmm.”

“I could shave you, you know.”

“That would be nice.”, he pressed a quick kiss to the side of her neck, “Thank you.”

“Could cut your hair too…”

“As long as you don’t give me an undercut.”

“Why’s that?”

“Miki I love you but I don’t want to be reminded of Levi every time I look in the mirror.”, he shuddered behind her, “When he sees us kissing my life flashes in front of my eyes.”

“You have to overcome the fear of my brother.”

“It’s not fear, it’s respect.”

“Oh? And why do you respect him that much then?”

“Because he is so similar to you! It’s like a shorter and much grumpier male version of you who doesn’t love me at all. And that is scary, because I know how much stronger than me you are, and I’d go as far as saying that your brother dislikes me.”

“Just stronger?”

“Well, way more beautiful too, but that doesn’t count with Levi.”

“You have it all figured out, huh.”

“For sure. You are stronger than me and Armin is smarter, so if we ever get into a real conflict I’ll argue with you and fight Armin.”

She laughed at that, marking Eren’s mission of making his angel happy as complete. With that he buried his face in Mikasa’s neck completely, filling his nose with the pleasant smell of her natural scent. She was giggling, the heavenly sound in his ears, and that was simply the best way to start a morning.

“All right then.”, she reached out to pat his cheek, scratching it gently, retaliation for the agony his beard caused her, “Just don’t shit your pants when Levi walks me down the aisle.”

His voice was muffled against her skin.

“You want him at our wedding? Ugh…”

“Eren, he is my brother. Behave.”

“Yes ma’am.”

Giving up on morning Yeager, Mikasa took hold of her coffee with both hands and took another long sip. Maybe roused by the sound Eren raised his head.

“Let me have a taste?”

“Sure, here…”, she almost handed him the cup before realizing what he meant, “Oh..”

With a grin Eren took a hold of her chin, angling her head so he could kiss her. It felt nice, especially when his tongue swept against the seam of her lips and she let him in, touching it with her own. And when he pulled back and smacked his lips, Mikasa smiled because of the raw happiness she felt.

“How is it?”

“Good, I feel like I need a cup myself.”

“Do you?”

“Maybe, let me have another taste to be sure.”

So Mikasa kissed him again and they stood there tangled together while the sun steadily climbed over the horizon. And everything felt right.