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tarotsoul · 10 hours ago

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ghost in the wind — part five

summary: harnessing your power is growing easier by the day, and madja finds out some interesting things about witches souls.

warnings: swearing, mentions of torture, kissing, teasing, fingering, handjob, oral (female receiving—all of this is somewhat public), mentions of death

word count: 6.4k

series masterlist

Cassian struggled against the vines that wrapped tight across his midriff, his muscles flexing with power but nothing shifted as they tightened with his every move. His golden skin was coated in a thin sheen of sweat, his shoulder-length hair damp with excursion.

You were no better. Your chest rose and fell rapidly, your skin flushed as your knees began to buckle. Hold it. Rhysand’s voice had continued to purr into your mind throughout the session, guiding and commanding every step of the way. He worked you from sunrise to breakfast, then again from dusk until nightfall.

It had been your routine for the past two weeks, and with every session, your power and control grew stronger. You could now detain a being with nothing but your mind, could bound and gag with vines and soil. This session, however, was different. Because it wasn’t just vines that wrapped across Cassian’s arms and legs and torso.

This time, the vines had thorns. And they pierced his skin deeper with every movement he made.

It had taken an additional two weeks to get to this point. Two weeks of introducing the Inner Circle to your magic, of slowly allowing them past the protective walls your abilities offered. You no longer had to keep your distance from your friends and family. It appeared the only time your magic attacked on its own was when you were startled or afraid.

You’d been at it for sixty minutes already, your brows dotted with sweat. Rhysand continued to slowly pace the training ring atop the House of Wind. Feyre stood off to the side, a towel in one hand and a glass of water in the other. Nesta watched from beside her, arms crossed against her generous chest as she squinted at the way her mate seethed in discomfort.

So far, Cassian had not been able to break free from your bindings, nor had he been able to move a single muscle more than an itch. And Rhysand was more than impressed.

“Good,” he complimented, a noticeably proud smile on his face. At that, you slowly released your power and took a heaving breath of relief. The vines lazily slithered from Cassian’s body, the thorns leaving scratches in their wake that healed almost immediately.

“You’re presenting incredible control. Tomorrow, I’d like for you to make those thorns bigger. And by next week, I’d like to see if you can implement a slow releasing toxin or poison.”

Cassian widened his eyes at his High Lord. “I’m not volunteering for that.”

A smile found your lips as you took a few breaths to settle your lungs again. You had never expected training to be this rewarding. Rhysand was nothing but attentive to your powers and how they worked. He made sure you felt comfortable with everything you tried and he never once tried to push you beyond your limits.

When you expressed you first wished to harness your power in a defensive way, he was more than happy to oblige. He agreed that perhaps it would be the best way to learn control, and then you could go down the route of healing, learning how to harness it for remediation, too.

And Cassian… well you were unsure if you would ever be able to thank Cassian for the trust he had for you. To allow your wild magic to bind and hurt him, not knowing if you could reign it back if it got too much.

Rhysand chuckled at his brother. “We’ll work something out.”

If it were Rhys, he’d practice on one of Azriel’s prisoners—draw out their pain and suffering with toxins and thorns. It would make a great interrogation tactic. But it wasn’t him. It was you. And Rhysand was not prepared to present that situation or idea to you. Not unless you came to him and it was exclusively your suggestion.

For now, he would figure out another way.

And Elain had told him as much before she and Lucien left just a week ago, claiming she had to reason to remain. You were safe, you would learn control. And she would visit after her and Lucien’s travels.

Feyre approached with a glass of water, handing it to you and dabbing your damp skin with the towel. From his seat across from you, Cassian gawked and scoffed playfully. “I didn’t realise Y/N was the one to be bound and pricked for an hour.”

Nesta rolled her eyes. “Illyrian baby. As if you haven’t endured worse.”

Despite the chuckle leaving your lips, you still offered him the rest of your water, which he happily took with a cheeky wink. You returned the sentiment with a half-smile, your body still struggling to recover from the energy the session took from you.

As much as you were enjoying it—honing your power and taking control—you couldn’t help but yearn for more. You understood the strength of your mothers magic was enhanced by your fathers Fae heritage, and you had been practicing winnowing with Mor whenever she had the time to spare…but your mother…

“I’d like to learn more about witchcraft.”

All eyes turned to you, some wide, some weary. You cleared your throat, shifted your weight from one foot to another. “As thankful as I am for this—and as much as I am enjoying it—I’d like to learn the other side, too. Rituals, spells…”

No one spoke. You met Rhysand’s eyes and something akin to regret was lit. Your shoulders slacked at the sight. “None of us are exactly versed in witchcraft. And it has been a long while since I’ve met a witch who doesn’t feel inclined to eat me.”

An attempt at a joke, you understood, but it did not relieve any of your disappointment. Three weeks ago, Madja had confirmed that out of all of your cousins, Elain was the only one to share similar markers in her hair and blood as you. Markers of wiccan ancestry. Rhysand had been the one to suggest Elain’s presence and similar magic may have been what awoke you.

It had been known that when she was tossed into that Cauldron, it took something from her. Through Madja’s research, she was led to believe it had taken that power and replaced it with her Fae abilities—keeping that nature element but changing its course completely.

Which meant you were alone. With barely any clue where your ancestry stemmed from, it was useless to even ask. But your mother had been a healing earth witch, that much you were certain of. Surely there had to be books somewhere, even if just to intrigue you until Madja concluded the rest of her research.

“Gwyn may be able to help,” Nesta spoke.

You turned to her. Yes, you’d heard of the young priestess, a fellow Valkyrie of Nesta’s. Your cousin had told you much about her position in the library within the House. Yet that was as far as your knowledge on her went.

Still, it awoke that small shred of hope within you. Hope that one day you could feel close to your mother again.

Azriel took a sip of his tea, lounging back at the dining table as he watched Cassian shovel heaps of eggs and bacon into his mouth. The shadowsinger couldn’t help but quirk a brow at his brother. Cassian had always eaten like a starved male, but this… Azriel was certain it had been minutes since he stopped to take a breath.

“It’s not going anywhere,” Azriel quipped above the rim of his mug but Cassian did not slow. He chewed as his gaze met his brothers and spoke through a mouthful of his breakfast. “You let Y/N bind you with her vines and prick thorns into your skin for a solid hour, then you can comment on my eating habits.”

A smirk kissed at the corners of Azriel’s lips at the thought. He would be more than willing to allow his body to you for practice. Though he wasn’t sure he’d want an audience. Especially not with how his scent was already beginning to shift at the thought alone.

Gods, after four weeks of tasting you and touching you, he should have his hormones under control by now. But he was no better than any other Illyrian brute. He was starved for you all hours of the day—completely insatiable. He had never experienced such hunger before. It was completely overpowering.

The sound of Cassian’s plate sliding across the table broke him from the sinful thoughts, and he looked at his brother who now seethed. “Really, Az? While I’m eating my breakfast?”

Azriel’s smirk faded as his brows rose, taking a sip of his tea. “Are you forgetting about the time Nesta was choking on your cock, right before I was about to eat my dinner?”

Heat rushed to the apples of Cassian’s cheeks, not from embarrassment, but from the thought of his brother seeing his mate in such a compromising position. And not because he did not trust Azriel, but because he knew that at one point, Nesta had considered the shadowsinger for herself.

The general cleared his throat and shifted, attempting to reign in that mated protectiveness. “What’s the deal with you and Y/N anyways?”

Azriel took another sip of his tea. “What do you mean?”

Cassian scoffed. Azriel always did that. Played dumb or completely ignored any conversation when it came to his love life or bedroom habits. “I hear you both, going into each other's rooms at night,” Cassian admitted, “you’re not sneaky.”

Azriel hid his smirk behind his mug. “Not trying to be.”

The general's eyes squinted. He was used to his brother deflecting, ignoring. He was not used to him being so truthful and open, despite him only saying four words in response, Azriel did not deny his involvement with you.

“You like her?”

Azriel remained quiet, watching Cassian with a blank expression.

“She’s been through a lot,” Cassian probed, noting the way Az’s grip on the mug tightened.

“I know,” he got out.

“And this is all pretty new to her… I imagine it's very overwhelming, too.”

Azriel narrowed his eyes. “What are you getting at?”

Cassian shrugged, slouching back in his chair as he crossed thick arms over his muscular chest. “Nothing. She’s grown a lot since coming here, and she’s growing more every day. I wouldn’t want her to feel like she’s just a secret to you.”

Raw pain sliced through Azriel’s chest at his words. He knew you did not feel that way, knew you were always so open and honest and comfortable with him. Yet Cassian’s words still stung. He could have brushed his brother off, claiming he didn’t know what he was talking about. But that would mean downplaying what he felt for you.

And he was not prepared to even entertain the idea of that.

“We’re not keeping anything a secret.”

Cassian smirked. “So there is something going on.”

Azriel finished the rest of his tea, set it on the table and a scarred finger traced the rim of the mug as he considered his next words. He did not have words to describe what continued to bloom between the two of you. Longing stares, subtle touches, heavy kisses and passionate intimacy until the early hours of the morning.

And yet you had not crossed that line, not with him. He would not rush you, would not pressure you. Azriel accepted anything you offered and gave back everything in return.

“She’s been through a lot,” he repeated Cassian’s earlier words, “I want her to understand that she’ll never have to experience that type of control ever again.”

Cassian did not need to ask anything further. Partly because he understood what Azriel was insinuating—that he was allowing you to set the pace and decide whatever you were—and the other part because it was not his place to press for more information. It was your life, your story and your trauma. He would not invade your privacy like that.

Cassian respected you far too much.

So, he nodded his head, pulled back his plate of breakfast and heaped another spoonful of eggs into his mouth. He would not push on the matter, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t toy with his brother a little.

“Y/N mentioned she wanted to learn some witchcraft. You know, spells and rituals that her mother might’ve used.” Azriel hummed, gaze fixed on the table. Cassian bit back his smirk. “Nesta suggested taking a look in the library for some old books. Gwyn’s going to help.”

Azriel’s eyes snapped to Cassian’s, his face paling just slightly. Bingo.

The shadowsinger swallowed. “When?”

Cassian ate another spoonful. “They’re already down there now.”

Azriel did not bid his brother a goodbye before his shadows guided him to the library doors within the House. His heart was thumping against his chest, an anxiety like no other streaming through his veins. He was yet to tell you about his infatuation with Mor, his brief involvement with Elain, and he had not yet disclosed the same about Gwyn.

The last thing he wanted was for you to hear anything outside of anyone else’s mouths. It was for him to explain. No one else.

He entered the library quietly, dismissing his shadows so as to not fright the priestesses. He passed Clotho first, offering a subtle nod in greeting before sauntering further into the dim library.

Perhaps Azriel should have mentioned this place to you sooner. Despite your love for books, maybe knowing this place was available could have helped with your healing. But you had done so well without it, and Azriel had very selfishly enjoyed every moment of your presence.

It did not take long to find you, your scent still lingering in the air and he followed that trail to one of the higher levels. There was where he found you. Alone, eyes gleaming in happiness as you looked through the archives of rituals and witchcraft. You already had two books in your arms and Azriel did not hesitate to take them from you as he approached.

His presence took you by surprise, only for a moment and you offered a wide smile, your chest feeling warm. As it often did when you spent time with the shadowsinger.

“Az… what are you doing here?” you asked in a way of greeting.

He held booth books in one arm and offered a grin at the nickname you’d taken to calling him. Gods, he had only seen you yesterday evening and yet it felt as if it had been days. You looked even more beautiful today, the gentle glow of Fae lights casting over your skin. Though he could notice a hint of exhaustion in your eyes, likely from your training with Cassian and Rhysand.

Az stepped closer. “Cass mentioned you were down here looking for some grimoires. Thought I’d offer some help.”

You squinted your eyes at him playfully, cocking your head to the side. “Didn’t Cassian tell you that Nesta was with me? And Gwyn?”

Colour stained his cheeks. “Yes. But an extra set of eyes and hands never hurt.” He looked around then, in search of his brother's mate and the young priestess that he had saved those few years ago. “Where are they anyway? Nesta and Gwyn.”

You shrugged, returning to look at the bookcase before you. “Nesta wanted to look at some romance novels, Gwyn mentioned she saved a secret stash of the smutty ones for her.”

You did not mention the way the priestess had looked at you with guilt or embarrassment when Nesta told her Azriel was quite fond of you. Your cousin did not need to say anything for you to understand. There had clearly been something there in the past, something Gwyn felt wrong for. She had no reason to.

But you did not speak those thoughts to her. Instead, you offered a beaming genuine smile and thanked her for offering her assistance. You had promised to come and visit the library again, and had suggested bringing lunch next time.

It was clear to her that her past involvement with the shadowsinger did nothing to sour your current one. And she was more than thankful for it.

“And you’re not interested? In the smutty novels, I mean.”

You turned to Azriel with a smirk, a knowing gaze in your eyes. He mirrored it, cheekily. Gods, he would never fail to make you melt beneath that hungry stare. “Something else has been keeping my interest instead.”

A grin, and then, “I’d like to keep your interest tonight, if you’ll let me?”

You quirked a brow, the books long forgotten as you faced the handsome male before you. “Oh? And what did you have in mind?”

Everything with Azriel had felt so easy in the past weeks. Even this, the flirty… it seemed to fall naturally between you both. Never once had you experienced an uncomfortable silence or nervous pause.

It felt right.

Az closed the distance between you, reaching a gloved hand for your waist as he leaned down to brush his nose against yours. “I was thinking of taking you to the Rainbow… more specifically, to the theatre.”

A grin spread across your full lips. “Really?” Your excitement was palpable, and Azriel had no doubt that if his shadows were here now, they’d buzz around your small frame with adoration.

He nodded, planting a slow kiss to your mouth. Your lips puckered against his, following his lead. There had been more of this since that fruitful night he touched you at the townhouse.

Kisses and touches when you were alone, lingering glances when in the presence of others. Often, your nights were spent with him, in his bed or yours, in the private library or in the gardens.

You had allowed him to touch you, taste you… he had allowed you to do the same. Azriel had given you full control over every situation, every interaction. Whatever this was between you, you could not get enough.

“I’d like that,” you whispered into the kiss, feeling his mouth stretch into a smile before he kissed you once more.

You leaned into him, melting under his attentive touch when someone cleared their throat and he gently broke his mouth from yours. Nesta stood to the side, a pile of books in her arms and a brow quirked.

But Gwyn… she did nothing to hide her grin, the flush of her cheeks or the happiness that glimmered in her teal eyes. You knew she knew of your story, your trauma. And you knew her happiness came from a place of understanding.

Understanding what it took to break through the past and live in the present. To move on. To heal.

“Need I remind you that this is a library, not a brothel.”

You rolled your eyes at your cousin. “You best scamper off with those books then, Ness.”

She scowled at you playfully when Gywn breathed a choked laugh. Azriel watched her then, his body stiffening just slightly before you. But enough for you to notice, to feel it.

“It’s good to see you, Azriel.” She offered politely.

He dipped his head. “And you, Gwyn. Thank you for helping Y/N with the grimoires.” She brushed him off with a waving hand and turned her bright attention to you with a smile.

Azriel felt his tension slowly dissipate, watching the way you both seemed to communicate with your eyes alone. You knew, he could tell. And you did not think of him any differently.

Not one bit.

The play was wonderful. Well, as much of the first half that you had seen. By the time the curtain pulled for a short break, Azriel’s hands had begun to wander. Beginning on your knee and ending between your thighs.

He had gotten you seats in Rhysand’s private booth. And when darkness shrouded the theater during the interval, his shadows encompassed you both to hide you away from the public.

His lips were hot on yours, his tongue licking sensually against your own. Your small hand had wrapped around his thick shaft, pumping the way you had grown to know he liked. And his fingers curled deliciously at that spongy spot within you.

You did not stop when the curtain opened and the play resumed. Neither did he. Azriel had instead lowered to his knees and pried you thighs open, rolling up the fabric of your dress as he stared into your soul.

Then his mouth was on your aching cunt and your head was rolling back against your seat. His tongue worked meticulously, licking and swirling, his mouth closing to create suction on your throbbing clit.

Your fingers curled into his hair, tugging at the roots and fingernails scratching at his scalp. The first time Azriel had tasted you, he had you reach that high three times before stopping. And every time since, he had done the same.

Though this time, you knew you had to keep quiet. Your spare hand covered your mouth, your teeth biting at the palm of your hand to stifle the moans and whines that threatened to escape.

Your hips bucked into his face, his guttural hum sending vibrations through your veins. He was a starved male when it came to you, and you feared you would never get used to that hunger.

His fingers continued to pummel into your cunt, curling and scissoring to stretch you deliciously. The sounds were obscene, wet and quiet but everything was far too amplified. You only hoped his shadows could also offer some form of soundproofing, too.

“Az…” you barely managed to whisper, forcing your eyes open to watch him.

He was already looking at you, his pupils so blown in arousal that you could sparsely see the honey you loved so much. You had never experienced such desire before. Even in the other times you had been intimate with him, it never felt as strong or as dire as this.

Because this had you wanting to damn any consequences. Damn any trauma you had once experienced. You wanted him, every part of his body and mind and soul. You wanted to feel his thick cock stretch you out, fill you until you were crying and pleading for him to ravage you.

You’d never once felt such primal need, and Azriel noticed the shift in your scent. Noticed how it changed from arousal to a diabolical sense of unravelling. You’d never looked at him with such ferocity before.

And Azriel feared he would lay down his life in that moment, if you so asked.

You tightened around his fingers, your legs trembled. You bit down harder on your palm as undiluted pleasure seized your body. As you cried silently, as your thighs shut tight around his head. As he sucked on your clit at the same time his tongue rubbed against it.

You came harder than you ever had before. And by the way you heaved a breath through your nose, you knew Azriel had reached his high with you.

With his hand fisting his long cock and his pleasure dripped down his scarred fingers. Perhaps it was that hunger that remained that had you reaching for him… that had you guiding those fingers to your mouth as you cleaned his come with your tongue.

He mirrored your actions, removing his digits from your cunt and stuffing them into his own mouth to suck them clean. You watched one another, chests heaving as your pussy throbbed and Azriel’s cock twitched.

You’d go again, you’d force him into that chair and straddle him, sink down on him until he was buried so deep within you, you didn’t know where you ended and he began.

And Azriel appeared to have sensed your thoughts and shook his head. He pulled his fingers from his mouth, but you kept his in yours. “Not here. I won’t take you for the first time in the fucking theatre.”

A grin spread across your lips and you released his fingers, now clean as the faint salty taste of him stained your tongue.

You batted your lashes down at him. “What if I asked nicely?”

He huffed through his nose, though a smile graced his face. “Don’t tempt me. You deserve more than that.”

Your expression softened at the kindness of his words. He always knew what to say, his actions always followed his verbal promises. Another thing you had never experienced before. But Azriel seemed to take pleasure in showing you how you should be treated.

“You deserve everything,” he whispered.

You reached for him then, for the knitted wool of his sweater and he followed your lead when you met him in a searing kiss. No words could convey what this male was beginning to mean to you. How strongly you felt for him.

“I only want you.”

Azriel’s heart remained steady, despite his mind's racing. He would give himself to you in a heartbeat. All you had to do was ask.

He was about to tell you as much, when a gentle call of his name sounded in his mind. Azriel took a brief moment to compose himself before allowing his High Lord into his mind.

Apologies for interrupting. He purred. Azriel fought the urge to roll his eyes. But Madja has concluded her research. She’d like to speak with us, we’re awaiting your return.

You noticed the distant look on his eyes, the one he only sported when Rhysand called for him. Your stomach dropped slightly, not ready to end the night just yet. But the smile on Azriel’s lips suggested it would not be for the worst.

“Madja has some information to share. They’re waiting for us at the House.”

He had winnowed you almost immediately to the bottom of the ten thousand stairs. Only then did he take a moment to fix both of your flushed appearances and plant a tender kiss to your mouth.

He had flown you both to the balcony, gently settling you to your feet. Though your arm remained looped with his as you walked into the House proper, where Rhysand, Feyre, Cassian and Nesta awaited with Madja.

The elder healer offered a smile in greeting as you entered the lounge, and your arm slipped from Azriel’s.

“You will be pleased to know that I have finally exhausted all avenues for this research. I have some interesting things that I think would help and that I’d like to share.”

Your heart thundered in anticipation. By the look in Madja’s eyes, you knew you were about to learn everything. She set three old books onto the table, their pages thick and discoloured. They must be at least five centuries old, but you would not be shocked if their age preceded that.

“I finally managed to trace your heritage back to your ancestors through your blood and hair samples.” She paused, as if waiting for everyone’s undivided attention.

“You are a direct descendent of Mother Garmelhia. She was High Witch of the Elesendray coven—a coven of earth witches. They were healers, though through her blood, the abilities were not always passed down to the offspring. Your mother was the first in two centuries to present these gifts. Her sister—” she turned to Nesta and Feyre, “—your mother did not possess such abilities. Elain inherited a drop of those gifts, which the Cauldron quickly took, but you—” Madja looked to you again, “—you are blessed with the rawest form. The same as your mothers, but stronger.”

There was no hiding the silver than lined your eyes. A storm of emotions clouded your vision, your mind. Your mother… your beautiful mother…

“For some their abilities lay dormant until something triggered it. For example, Elain’s did not trigger until forced into the Cauldron, and even then, her power had shifted when Made Fae.”

You processed her words, everything made sense. Your magic had been buried so deep within you, with your mothers mark. But you wondered if your power would have shown had she not glamoured it.

“So mine triggered the moment I passed the wall into Prythian?” you asked.

Madja’s tight lips quirked to the side as if in thought. “It would appear something happened when you passed through. And with your Fae heritage from your father, that would have also played a part. Do you remember exactly when something felt differently?”

Your mind carried you back to that night, when Nesta took your hand in hers and guided you past that shimmering veil. When you were shoved to the ground and your hands touched the grass for the first time. You shared a look with your cousin, cocking her head to the side as if she was also trying to pinpoint it.

“Um… right after we passed through. After that creature attacked us. Everything felt clearer, but still slightly hazy. I could sense things but I didn’t know what. I thought it was just because the land held magic…”

Rhys took a step closer, his hands stuffed into his pant pockets. There was a gleam in his eyes, one that demanded more. “Did you find anything else?”

Madja nodded, reaching for the top book of the pile and flipping it open to a random page. Indeed, the book was old, yet it somehow held the scent of something you had never come across before. Something slightly familiar, yet not at all.

“Yes… have you ever heard of soul-ties?”

Something in your stomach almost exploded. Azriel took a curious step closer, eyes scanning the pages but they were all in ancient tongue—one that Madja clearly spoke or at least understood.

When nobody replied, Madja went on. “Within the Elesendray coven, and many others in history, soul-ties were the equivalent of a mating bond. Through the brief history I could find, it is said that a witches soul calls to another. Not just any soul. The other half of theirs.”

“So… like a soul-mate?” Cassian piped up.

Madja nodded and she did not break your gaze. She knew something, something you did not.

“What does that have to do with my abilities?”

“It doesn’t. Not directly at least. But it is also said that when a witch finds their soul-tie and their souls are merged whole again, it is a tether so unbreakable that it exceeds even the strength of a Fae mating bond. And unlike the Fae mating bonds, if a witch does not accept their soul-tie, they will cease to exist entirely.”

Everything went silent and your heart refused to beat.

“What are you saying?” Nesta’s tone was not one to play with.

But Madja took a breath and laid a withering hand over the page Azriel could not take his eyes off. “I believe you have found your soul-tie, Y/N.”

No. There was no way. You didn’t dare look at Azriel. You couldn’t. You didn’t know what it was that grew between you, you did not know where you stood in that sense. But the relationship you had ran deep. Deep enough for you to fear losing whatever he was to you.

You begged your power not to act, begged it not to show the fear that began to cripple you. You had already once been bound to a man you did not love, a man that did not love you. You would not be forced into it again, with a powerful male this time who could do unimaginable things if he wished.

You stuffed that fear so far down you almost choked on it. “How do I know who my soul-tie is? I didn’t think there were any other witches in Velaris?”

“It doesn’t have to be a witch.” Madja’s eyes bore into your very spirit. “A soul-tie would be someone who endured the same agony as you to trigger an ability, to become who they were fated to become. Nothing is by chance, the Mother forges what is meant to be. Especially for witches.”

You were too overwhelmed, scared. “But passing through the wall triggered my powers? Who else would have done that?”

You were in denial, refusing to believe that this was to be your fate. But it was Rhysand who took a step closer, his lips parted and eyes clouded.

“You always had your power, passing through the wall just awoke your senses, because of your Fae father. Your mother’s magic was truly triggered when we burned your mark.”

You watched as Rhysand’s eyes drifted to Azriel, to his hands. Your lungs seized, your chest ached. You could not look at him, could not dare meet his desperate gaze when a lone shadow slinked to your hand and weaved between your fingers.

“Holy Gods,” Feyre breathed.

Azriel remained still, aloof. For if he moved even an inch, he was sure to crumble. He knew. At that moment, he knew. He’d always had his suspicions, even when you were human. His soul called to yours. The missing half of him.

Rhysand came closer again. “When your stepbrothers burned your hands when you were a child, when you were locked away, your ability to wield shadows was triggered.”

Shadowsinger.

You stared at his hands—those beautiful hands. You had not known of Azriel’s story, had not ever wanted to pry. You never felt the need to ask, never considered his hands were anything abnormal. His step-brothers had burned them. He was a child.

And your magic… burning the mark to set it free…

It was silent for too long, like it was some sick dream and joke and the Mother only ever intended for you to experience pain and agony in your life. But it made far too much sense for it to not be true.

You had never felt so at ease with anyone before. Had never experienced such comfort and safety than in his arms. You did not need to pretend with Azriel, you did not need to hide or apologise. You just existed. And that was enough for him.

Because you didn’t feel a change when you passed through the wall, when that creature died. You felt it when you heard something in the sky. When you heard Azriel.

You dared a glance at him then, at the male you were destined to be with. The one the Mother made for you. The other half of your soul. His beautiful hazel eyes stared at you with such unyielding clarity, like every ounce of pain he had ever endured was worth it. Because it brought him to this moment. To you.

It almost seemed too good to be true. That he was for you. That he was your fate. Yet your mind would not allow one single negative thought to grow. No seeds of doubt planted, not even one. Because your soul knew, you knew.

You had no fear in that moment, staring at him. For Azriel’s own eyes mirrored your every thought. For this first time in his life, he truly felt worthy. His mind did not allow his past to dictate if he deserved that happiness. His heart did not allow a beat to falter out of place. Steady, calm. Yet a storm raged in his soul. As it had done for the past eight weeks in your presence.

Nothing in his life had ever felt so right before. So meant to be. He damned himself a fool for his past behaviours, for ever chasing or entertaining the idea of another.

Azriel had never truly understood what it felt like to have a home. Not until Rhysand’s mother took him in. But even then, he felt he did not deserve such kindness, that the Mother did not grant him a home of his own for a reason.

He had always deemed himself unworthy, such a fragile mindset had taken over his entire life.

But she granted him you. A friend, a lover, a connection so strong it exceeded even his brothers’ bonds. A soul-tie. The literal missing half of him. He had felt honor many times in his life, had felt wanted and needed and appreciated.

But up until this moment, he had never felt worthy.

He did not shy from your gaze, from his family watching the scene unfold. He took a step closer as a tear slid down your warm cheek. His soul sang for yours, bellowed and beckoned and begged. That’s what that feeling had been. His soul had been yearning to reunite with yours the whole time.

“I do not know how much time you’ll have if the soul-tie is not accepted.” Madja broke through the silence softly.

Azriel took a step closer, almost reaching you. He shook his head. “That is not something to worry about.”

Your chest ached, your throat burned. You could not look away from him—did not want to. If you had, you would’ve noticed the lack of your family. Would have seen them fade into the shadows with such admiration and happiness in their eyes as they left to give you both privacy.

Madja had remained, though neither of you offered your attention. She smiled to herself, and piled the books atop one another again. “When you wish to accept the soul-tie, there is a ritual you must follow. I will be happy to guide you when you are ready.” Her words were white noise in your ears as she retreated.

You were almost shrouded in darkness now, Azriel’s shadows working to cocoon you both in a haze of privacy. Words failed you, unable to conjure even a sentence. He was so beautiful, gazing at you with such longing, as if you’d singlehandedly placed the stars in the sky.

He was closer now, the toes of his shoes mere inches from yours. You could feel his warm breath on your face, feel a scarred hand reach to cup your jaw and his thumb brushed gently across your cheekbone. You melted into his touch, fighting to keep your eyes on him.

“Hi,” you breathed.

A wide smile pulled at the corners of his full lips, a row of white teeth peeking through. Your heart trembled. This beautiful male was yours. Yours.

“You want this?” He was not asking for clarity, no. Azriel had no doubt in his mind. But he would be damned if he did not make it clear that you still had a choice. No matter what, you would always have a choice.

Your head bobbed in confirmation, a smile of your own tugging at your mouth now. Azriel grinned wider, the tip of his nose bumping yours.

“Yeah?” he asked in a whisper, and you were giddy with excitement.

Your eyes fluttered closed as your mouth met his. A kiss so tender and soft that your souls hummed in unity. Azriel did not need to look at you to know that flora had tangled in the strands of your hair, in the strands of his.

Time seemed to stand still as you kissed him. And the realisation that he would get to do this with you forever… Well, it was something that finally made him thankful for his step-brother's cruelty.

Because what a beautiful thing it was for this to be his fate.

a/n: so confession time... i truly was considering ending the series here and letting you guys decide for yourselves what they had to do for the ritual of accepting the soul-tie, AND THEN i had the most beautiful idea for it. there will be one final part to this series and potential future check-in blurbs later down the line. i cannot thank you guys enough for the amount of love you have shown this series, i have loved every moment of crafting and writing it and i hope you have enjoyed it just the same x

if you enjoyed it, please consider giving it a like and reblog, your feedback is always appreciated <3

TAG LIST FOR THE SERIES IS CLOSED, PLEASE DO NOT ASK TO BE ADDED!!

#gitw #azriel smut #acotar x reader #acotar x you #azriel imagine #azriel oneshot #azriel x reader #azriel x you #acotar imagine #azriel angst #azriel fluff #azriel fanfic #azriel shadowsinger #azriel acotar #acotar fluff #acotar angst #acotar #acotar oneshot #acotar smut

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ma1dita · 21 days ago

Text

to see the chaos through

a 'partners in crime' installment - luke castellan x dionysus!reader prev -> star crossing | next -> not your goddess words: 4k summary: (established relationship) The one where he remembers he was never a good guy, just yours. Luke makes the ultimate deal with the devil in order to save you. (Luke Castellan x fem!Dionysus!reader) a/n: mentions of blood, implied death. im baaaack. fucking finally. read the end scene of solipsism after this if you want something extra (edited)

—

Moisture licks at Luke’s heels as he straightens his back, stretching towards the sky in an effort to crack his sore joints. The sprinklers do nothing to ease the sizzling heat on the island and he meets your eyes across the matted rows of greenery.

“You’re getting sunburned, idiot.”

The words fall from your lips with no malice, sweet like the strawberries you’ve been picking in the afternoon sun. Luke’s cheeks are equally red from the sweltering weather, more so now that you lean up to kiss him as you pass by, tossing strawberries into one of the crates with a gentle smile on your face.

Tease.

You’ve got this boy wrapped around your finger, pulling him towards your direction like a lovesick cartoon character with only a simple glance. He watches you stroll away, biting his lip as his eyes trace your figure calling out, “Get back here, pretty girl...” The stupid smirk on his face is outlined with sweat and he grabs the towel from over his shoulder to wipe it away. The son of Hermes follows the sound of your laughter to the next row over, feet moving swiftly through the soft earth passing through snickering children of Demeter until he grabs you from behind and swings you into the air, spinning, spinning….

“LUKE!”

It’s the end of strawberry season, which means that all hands are on deck with picking the rest of the ripe fruit to sell for the front they keep for the mortals that wander too far down Farm Road.

It also means that it’s Luke Castellan’s 19th birthday.

A fit of uncontrollable laughter and falling into your boyfriend’s arms means you’re close enough to count the freckles on his cheeks, speckled across his skin like a map that only you know where it leads.

“You look like a strawberry,” you giggle, poking the tender skin on his face. Luke smiles hard enough for your finger to sink in, the color puckering around the apple of his cheeks, and all of him moves jubilantly as he says, “You look like the love of my life. How about that?” He’s wrapped around you like a vine, hands tracing the skin that peeks out from under your cropped tee and you laugh again—scaring a few crows and sending them scattering into the sky. Summer is your favorite time of year for reasons like this—the days are long and you don’t hate passing time when it means there are more moments for Luke to press his lips against your neck and you swear his smile is seared into your being. Days like this make everything else fade into the background.

A berry hits the side of Luke’s head with a proper thunk and you hear someone retch dramatically.

“Hey dude, the rest of us are miserable here, okay? Get a room and stop macking on my sister.” Castor rolls his eyes, grumbling behind a squeaky wheelbarrow that keeps getting stuck in the dirt as he pushes past you.

Can’t a guy catch a break on his birthday?

Luke pretends to lunge towards him, tongue in cheek when he mutters, “Piss me off and I’ll make sure it’s your room.” You smack Luke’s big head, sending him into a fit of laughter as he raises his hands in defense, “What? Am I wrong?” He’s stepping around you now, grabbing the crate of strawberries from your feet so you don’t have to carry it yourself.

“Dummy. You think Delphi Strawberry Service will be able to sell all of these?” you say mockingly, changing the subject as your cheeks warm. Sweat sticks to you like a second skin, but it doesn’t stop you from grabbing Luke’s free hand, swinging it in the space between your hips as you walk towards the exit.

Luke scoffs, “You mean do you think your dad will keep us working until July? Don’t doubt that at all…”

“THIRTY MINUTES LEFT BEFORE SUNDOWN, EVERYONE!” you call out to a chorus of cheers. Everyone was ready to get the day over with, hands blistered and knees sore from crouching into the bushes—everyone, except Luke, who’d do anything but go down for sleep tonight. He wasn’t even supposed to be on berry duty today, but what else is a guy supposed to do on his big day when he can’t even spend it with you?

This must be the gods’ idea of fun—ordering their spawn around to do the dirty work for them. Delphi Strawberry Service in itself is a scam; so many gods have kids that they don’t want to provide for, and so Camp Half-Blood earns its keep, working hard to make sure there’s enough money for supplies to help stay afloat. New linens, clothes for those that need them, repairs to the infrastructure—all the things children shouldn’t be worrying about in a so-called safe haven.

The gods aren’t very generous with their gifts as legends make it seem, hiding behind fables and fiction, peace offerings, and material throwaways once a year if they’re lucky to get a happy birthday. Or in Luke’s case—even less than that. His dad hasn’t made himself known since his quest, and therefore today is just another day.

Your hand squeezes Luke’s three times to get his attention, “You okay, babe?”

He readjusts the wooden crate he’s been balancing on his shoulder, not realizing that you’ve already reached the dirt path that leads back to the heart of camp, “Mm. Just thinking—hey, where did you want this again?”

“S’not what I asked…” you drone with an upturned quirk of the lip, poking his nose playfully as a strawberry grows from your fingertips. Luke pops it in his mouth with an almost cartoon-like SLURP! making you recoil as your face scrunches up, “Angel…”

“You know, the ones you make are better than anything nature can make right?”

Pulling your finger back from his lips, you give him a skeptical sidelong glance, “Demeter willing. You know you don’t have to flatter me anymore— I’m already your girlfriend.” He sets the crate down on a nearby cart, tugging you closer with the hand tangled to yours, “I know. But I like how shy you get when I do,” he smirks.

“Hey,” you chuckle, grabbing his chin, “I kinda really love you, if that wasn’t obvious enough.” Luke’s hands pull you in by the belt loops of your shorts, thumbs rubbing at your hips and the full-blown smile that takes over his face looks like sunlight parting through clouds on a summer day. You’ve noticed he looks surprised every time you say it as if he’s hearing it for the first time each time—like there’s a part of him that still can’t believe you.

“Couldn’t tell,” he jokes, kissing you anyway. It’s maddening—the feeling of his lips catching onto yours like he’s holding onto every part of you and breathing life into it. His tongue swipes against your bottom lip and you smile in response, letting him in and opening up for him to uncover whatever he wants. Your lip tugs on his bottom one as you pull away just to find him pouting ever so slightly at the disconnect, “Hey…”

“Happy birthday, Lu,” you grin, pulling the towel from his shoulder to wipe the sweat off his forehead. His curls are damp against his skin and he swipes the towel from your hands to swat you with it, “I’ve lost count of how many times you’ve told me that today. What I do want though, is more kisses…” he mumbles, hiding the flush of his cheeks. He doesn’t need a big celebration, or any token of appreciation from his dad—he already has what he needs.

“Or all of you, if you’re feeling generous.”

You stare at him and bite your lip, looking over his shoulder to see the sun slowly dipping past the horizon and maybe there’s enough time… When your eyes lock again, the both of you are wearing wicked grins—he swings your full weight over his shoulder and you shriek in surprise, laughing the whole way back to your cabin.

—-

You’re fast asleep under the floral bedspread with a belly full of cake and exhausted from your own little celebration and Luke can’t find it in him to join you.

Not yet, he’d rather stay up a while longer—-watching you breathe softly in tune with his heartbeat brings more comfort than anything else he’ll have to do. Luke knows he’s safer here, awake and sitting next to you. He watches over you like this most nights now, until his eyes feel heavy and sour with exhaustion until there’s no choice but to close his eyes. Straightening his back and lowering his legs from the top of the desk, it’s as if he’s a soldier standing guard. Perhaps he is in a way, though he’s coming to learn that he cannot protect you from himself.

Luke inspects you from the mess of hair that drapes across the pillow, to how delicate you look when there are no stress lines on your forehead. Sitting under the faint glow of the lamp, his eyes flicker from your sleeping figure to the blank pages in front of him as he hunches over the small space he’s carved out for himself in your room. The clock’s red glow reaches his fingers as he reaches for a pen on the corner of the desk. He needs a break.

12:14am.

It’s not his birthday anymore and Hermes couldn’t bother to even send a card this time. Luke wonders what about him repels his father—is it the fact he looks exactly like his mother? Or is it the fact that everything else about Luke is all him? His perfect son, the ultimate reminder of what could’ve been with May Castellan.

What does it mean to be made in the gods’ favor?

A classic hero’s tale, a life measured by the list of his accomplishments instead of being seen as what he was at the beginning of this—a child who wanted to be loved.

Luke knows what it’s like to be loved now—everything he knows about love is from learning to love you, which isn’t a lot, but he’s trying. His resolve is as steady as the hand that holds his pen now as he clicks it methodically. Maybe if his parents weren’t dysfunctional, maybe if he knew how to do this better—to exist better and make them proud, maybe his life would’ve had a different outcome.

Maybe his only option wouldn’t have to be to kneel to a titan.

But would he still have you?

Luke purses his lips and flattens his palm against the paper, a crisp sound in the silence of your room sounding like a thunderclap as he thinks of what to write. This doesn’t even matter, in the grand scheme of things. The collection of scribbles collect dust in a box under his bed and there are no imminent plans to post mail to his hometown of Westport, but there is a type of gratification that comes with being able to put down the thoughts he cannot say aloud. He’s never been too good with words. In another life, maybe his mother would be able to listen—to advise, sympathize, and do as mothers do.

But for now, this will have to do.

He even finds himself writing down everything he can’t tell you.

Luke’s lost count of the times he’s cried himself to sleep in reverent prayer, the hunger pains from throwing his meals into the hearth—anything to apologize to his father and ask for it all back. Even now as he tries to find the words, he doesn’t know what this is.

A confession?

An apology?

An explanation, perhaps—if everything gets fucked and goes to hell as most of his plans do, he wants someone, anyone to know the truth. Luke’s odds are slim and he’s used to getting by with the skin of his teeth. But he wants more now—and if Luke Castellan is anything, he’s determined.

You shift in your dream state, turning over in bed to face him and Luke smiles softly as he watches you. These past few months have felt like gasping for air from the moment he wakes to the moment he gives into the nightmares. They come as easy as breathing, whispers in his head pressing for him to make a move—to prepare for an inevitable war that will start and end with him. Being asleep feels like freefalling and he can only anticipate when he’s about to crash. This has to work.

You have been nothing but kind to him, through the shuddery breaths in the middle of the night and cranky fits in the mornings. You are resilience personified; Luke is so sure of it—but the thing is, it makes him angry. Love is not written in the stars, he thinks, and if he has to weave the cosmos by hand to work in your favor, he’ll find a way. Luke knows that above all, he does not want to lose your love.

Sleep pricks at the corners of his vision now, threatening to loosen the pen in his grip. He sniffs, adjusting his weight on the chair, and glances your way again, and then back at the paper on the desk, beginning to write.

Mama,

As I’m writing this letter, I fear that I’ve put the final nail in my coffin. It doesn’t feel that way right now—as I watch my girl snore softly against her pillow and the moon kisses her cheek in a way that I know I won’t be able to for much longer. I’m taking these last few quiet moments to admire and be grateful for what I have before I earn it back.

A temporary loss will be worth forever with my soulmate.

From the little I know about life and the amount of time I know I’ll spend loving her, I’m learning that soulmates are people who need all that you are and all that you already have in life. This trouble is proof enough. Everyone here at camp rarely sees one of us without the other, and Chris said that he wouldn’t be surprised if we came from the same star. But I think she’s vastly different than me and better for it. She is a different breed—something only an author can even begin to describe and much less be able for any regular person to comprehend.

She exudes love for her family, friends, and even strangers. I often wonder what I ever did in a past life to deserve the experience, but if that was ever in my control, I must have done something right.

So this will have to be my last letter for now.

I have a lot of work to do to become the man she deserves. The glory is within reach—and with her by my side, I want to have it all.

Who else could help me best the gods better than a titan?

I’m afraid there’s not much more for me to tell you—whatever comes after this, I hope she can tell you herself. I hope you find each other, and be proud of the things I’ll do to create the change we want to see in this world. I know the both of you love stories—I’ll need my best girls to take care of one another while I’m gone.

I’m scared out of my wits, Mama, but I don’t blame you for any of this. I know now that you’ve always seen this coming.

Your son is destined for greatness.

I never got to say this before I left, but I’m proud to be yours. The legacy I leave will show all of them how much I love both of you.

Even if you both end up hating me for it.

I already do.

Luke

—

He stirs at the sound of you tiptoeing around your room, rubbing his eyes to see you throwing your clothes on. You’re a blur in the early light that peeks through the curtains, almost obscured by the shadows and catch your hip on the bedpost as you tug a boot on, “Fuck!”

“Baby?” he murmurs. His voice is thickly coated with sleep and crackles like fire, “What’s going on?”

“Didn’t mean to wake you, angelface,” you whisper, kissing his forehead lightly when you lean over his crumpled frame to grab your watch from the nightstand, “go back to sleep”. Luke chases after another kiss, leaning up like how sunflowers stretch towards the light—his thumb presses your chin down to let your lips linger against his.

“Still early, T.”

He watches you from his spot on the bed as you make your way to the door, glancing at the mirror, “Something’s wrong, Luke. There was an accident in the forge last night,” you pause, looking at him through the reflection, “someone’s dead.”The curtains push open with a screech, and Luke sits up abruptly.

“Who?”

Sniffing, you turn around to meet his eyes, “Someone from 9—I don’t know. I need to talk to my dad and sort it out.” Luke calmly pulls himself out from under your duvet, tugging his shorts back on in silence.

“Where do you need me?”

Your eyes travel around the room like ricocheting ping-pong balls, stepping forward to gently ease him back onto the mattress, “I need you,” you muse softly, “to go back to sleep. What time did you get to bed last night?” Squeezing his shoulders, Luke looks at you with a sidelong glance, resting his cheek against your wrist, “Don’t worry about it.”

“But I do. I worry about you all the time.”

“Well, that’s my job—the worrying,” he swallows, stamping his lips against your pulse point, “I want to be there.” Luke tugs you closer, letting you melt onto him with a sigh and you whisper, “Don’t think we’re done with this conversation, Castellan.” Tugging at his scalp to meet him eye to eye—he swears you might be able to see right through his facade.

“Castellan. Must be a serious conversation then,” he murmurs, wiping the sheen of drool off the side of your lip. Scoffing, you stand back up and toss a fresh shirt at him, “You can’t run from me forever. I mean it. Get to the forge and make sure the surrounding area is barred off. No one’s been in there yet, the nymph that walked in got spooked and ran off. I need to wake up Charlie and get him to the Big House before everyone else wakes up.”

The orange fabric glides over his head onto his shoulders and he momentarily loses sight of you. You’re in the doorway now, blowing him a kiss, “See you in an hour, tops. And then we’ll talk about what’s been keeping you up at night.”

“I don’t know why you keep asking me that when the answer is always you!” Luke chuckles, taking the easy way out of the situation at hand.

“Not all the time. Surely, you’ll tell me her name later?” you chide as you make your exit. He laughs to himself.

If only you knew.

—

Luke takes his time getting ready for the day, thinking of last night. He had been promised the world and more, but only had one negotiation.

He asked Kronos for you to not get hurt.

Luke felt like a fool—to humbly ask a titan to not kill his girlfriend so that he could be the soldier that was needed of him. And he was presented two options: to have you join them, or to have you be cast away.

“She has control over insanity, you say?” Kronos’ voice rumbled through the dark hall. It was their established meeting point in Luke’s mind, somewhere where he could keep the titan separate from his thoughts of you.

“She’s not part of this, sir. I said that already,” Luke grits, steeling his resolve.

“And why not? She’s the bastard spawn of a lunatic. Either we make use of her, or you leave. There are no distractions that will interfere with this plan, Luke. I won’t allow it.”

He clenches his jaw, “She’s…” he swallows, “too weak. She has a family, and people she cares about–it won’t be easy for her to turn. No one’s hurt her yet.” Luke thinks about your tumultuous relationship with Mr. D—and how at the core of it, tough love is still love.

He can’t say the same about himself with his father.

“Yet.”

The silence hangs between him and Kronos, and Luke slowly nods. No one will hurt you like he will, he knows this. He also knows that no one can love you like he does now. Two things can be true at the same time, even if they both hurt.

“The more you have the more you desire, Luke,” the titan rumbles, “it’s best to cut your ties before we’re in the thick of it.”

“I will, when the time comes,” Luke says solemnly, knowing what he has to do.

When he finally treks toward the armory that morning, the air around him is almost revitalizing, crisp, and cool with goosebumps cascading across his arms. The main door creaks open with a tired whine as he moves swiftly towards the scene of the crime. It reeks of blood now, pungent and metallic—Luke is careful to mind his step as he reaches what he came for.

Stepping over the body, he averts his eyes toward the gleaming sword in the child’s grasp.

Backbiter.

It’s heavier than he thought it would be, carrying the means to an end of everything both mortal and immortal. Celestial bronze and tempered steel feel delightful in his hands once he rips it out of the pale hand of its creator. There’s a sense of power that reverberates through the air as his new weapon takes its position, slotted against his hip.

Time is in Luke’s hands now, to manipulate and play with—for once, he’s in control of his fate. No deadbeat god of luck required. Brown eyes flicker to the stone floor, kicking the skinny arm of the slain Hephaestus kid aside. Mary, he thinks her name was— a tiny little thing who didn’t speak much. It was easy to dote on her with his charming smile and concerned counselor act that he throws on for the younger ones. She was like putty in his hands, pliable and willing to impress THE camp hero. The thought almost makes him laugh.

So he does.

“Sorry,” Luke mutters, void of feeling anything. It’s too late to feel bad now—though he can technically rewind through time if he wanted to, it wouldn’t be for her. Luke’s meddling with enough as it is—he decides he’ll do something fun instead.

He deserves this really, choosing something for himself.

But the choice is still you. Luke thinks about where he wants to go first—to seal the deal with Kronos by seeing a future you, happy in the world he created. The veins in his arms flex as he slashes through the air with his new gift, a smile cutting through the jagged scar on his cheek.

As the wind whips through his hair and everything goes dark, he realizes that there’s a part of him that gets it now—why Hermes likes to travel through time so much. Time is elastic when it’s not linear, he feels himself floating between seconds, hurtling towards you, and feeling like he’s in a tube on a lazy river. It’s almost unusual, but to Luke, time sort of feels like a father’s embrace. Or maybe what he imagines it to be like.

When he opens his eyes, he sees you standing in front of a mirror across the room—knowing now that this will be his biggest break yet.

—

“You who suffer because you love, love still more. To die of love, is to live by it.” -Victor Hugo

#made by ma1dita ♥︎#luke castellan x reader #trouble!verse #percy jackon and the olympians #pjo x reader #luke castellan x dionysus!reader

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ladybirdswritings · 30 days ago

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HUNTRESS, FIC — emperor geta x reader.

DESCRIPTION: the blood of the emperor’s brother is on your hands, a betrayed huntress facing death in the colosseum. your every move watched by the vengeful emperor who loathes you as much as you despise him. but amidst blood, betrayal, and survival, hatred begins to twist into something dangerous. NOTES - little enemies to lovers fic !! leave me all your thoughts and opinions. i love them <33 | next part

one;

The thrum of hundreds of drums cocooned your ears in an awful medley, vibrations snaking like vines across your very skin.

Here and now, standing before scorching iron twisting into mangled gates, you allowed a chill to kiss your skin.

You were afraid—very afraid—and for good reason. But even so, gladiators didn’t cower before their fate.

It was a good thing that wasn’t what you were.

This was all just an unfortunate consequence of one painfully violent decision.

For my brother… you had whispered into the chill of the winter season as you plunged a gold, ornate blade into the chest of the wrong ginger.

Sure, the younger one was no better than the older. Even so, it was not his crimson you had wished to coat your hands with, for he had not killed Pietro. Geta had.

And Geta would kill you too. Whatever growled beyond these iron gates was no better than a gruesome death.

“Huntress,” Lucien called, clad in bronze armor and pleated wraps. You winced.

“Don’t call me that.”

But he paid you no mind as he stepped forward, wrapping your lanky arm in a cuff of gold.

“It’s what you are, what you must be, if you intend to slay whatever beast lurks beyond these gates. Listen to me: do not be foolish in there. Do not give them a show. You run, and you hide in the very dirt if you must. Here.”

With a worried glance toward the guards, he hastily pulled out three violet berries and pressed them into your palm. His calloused skin guided your hand to wrap around them.

“This is poison. You squeeze, and it erupts into a sea of death. Use these, and you may survive.”

May.

It was too awful a word—too insignificant.

“Bring out the girl!” a horrid, broken voice roared to his many peasants. The iron groaned in deep complaint as the gates began to part.

It was then that you felt every bit the weak, fearful girl you truly were. Your doe-like eyes locked on Lucien’s. His palms gripped your biceps, a huff of frustration escaping him as he scanned your face—perhaps to remember it. Then he leaned forward to press a warm kiss to your forehead.

He was saying goodbye.

“You will survive,” he murmured against your skin. All you could do was nod with a gulp as he pulled away.

Facing the liquid gold rays of the sun now blinding you, you stepped through the gates.

Despise was not a strong enough word to describe just how much these people loathed you.

So destroyed over the death of half of their precious emperors. You scowled at the thought—the same emperors who kept them on pretty leashes.

Slickened tomatoes crushed beneath your boots as you limped forward. You were no better than Pietro here, and it seemed as though history was only going to repeat itself.

Bruised beneath the bronze armor, thirsty and starved, they had purpled your skin, nearly dislocated your hip, and robbed you of any sustenance that could aid you in this impossible battle.

They had cheated, just as they had with your brother in this awful colosseum.

You would die on the very same dirt as your brother had—your twin.

Even so, a vicious grin tugged at your lips when your eyes locked on the lone ginger emperor scowling down at you. His jaw was taut, his arms littered with veins, but his eyes—they gave him away. Dark. Exhausted.

Even if you were to stain his dirt with your blood, he would remain as you were now: a lone twin. His brother in the dirt, too.

Perhaps your revenge had not been such a disaster after all.

“Traitorous whore!” he screeched at you, and the peasants roared in agreement.

His words were no bother. You’d fight well enough—and when you died, you’d die with a smile.

“Bring out her death!”

Vibrations crawled up your calves as you squeezed the oak wood bow clasped in your hand—your only weapon.

The gates opposing you parted, welcoming two awful horns held back only by frayed rope and a growling man atop the beast.

“He shall impale you as you impaled my brother!” Geta growled from his castle above, his voice guttural and animalistic.

“BEGIN!”

His roar was so vicious you swayed on your feet.

Perhaps the bow was meant to deter you from survival, but you were grateful for it now. With your weak bones, you had no chance of surviving close battle. No chance of escaping a sword fight or a seething rhinoceros.

But your bow—you could fight from afar.

Thrum-thrum-thrum-thrum. The beast neared closer, working into a charge so vicious it drowned out the crowd’s excitement. You could feel Geta’s eyes scorching your skin.

He did not simply want you dead. He wanted you mangled.

“HUNTRESS—KILL THEM!” Lucien roared from behind the gates, snapping you back into the present moment.

Your purpled hands trembled as you grabbed an arrow and loaded your bow. You had to treat this as any other time—locked away in the forest with just you, the glades, and your bow.

A rhinoceros could be no different from a fawn, right? Animals—all the same. And you were starving now, just as you had been all the other times you hunted.

Closer, closer. You steadied your rapid breaths best you could— imagining doe-eyes approaching as opposed to horns and squinting as you found the place between the beast’s brows.

Closer.

Even closer.

A moment more and you’d lose your shot, so you released the tension-bound arrow.

Laughter—cruel, cold, and entirely at your expense—rattled the stadium.

Your eyes fell to the ground, where the arrow landed not two feet away from your boots.

No, no, no.

Your fingers trembled against the string. It was loose.

Bastard.

Your eyes flicked to Geta’s, cold and swimming with satisfaction. He had rigged your bow.

And the beast was still charging.

“HUNTRESS!” Lucien’s cry was lost on your ears as you steadied your feet. Your heart hummed like a bird in your chest.

You hissed as sharp pain licked the flesh of your wrist. Violet trickled from your cuff.

The berries.

Crying out in exasperation, you shook the berries free.

You would be impaled in a moment, but at least the poison would piss the wretched thing off.

With a cry, you crushed the berries in your palm, tossing the violet liquid into the air just as the horn grazed your bronze armor.

And you waited.

No darkness or light found you.

A screech so awful it could have burst your eardrums shook the colosseum. The beast reared back, thrashing in a violent dance before collapsing to the dirt.

Its tongue slack, its eyes white, it crushed the man commanding it.

You breathed then. For the first time.

As your eyes lifted, you found a flicker of awe in Geta's gaze-beyond his rage.

The colosseum roared in disbelief as Geta flipped the fruits and wine before him, storming away.

And you breathed.

Alive.

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cemeteryspider · 8 months ago

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Rooted in Love

Gambit! Remy LeBeau x Poison Ivy! Reader

Summary: During the attack on Genosha you took the hit that would have killed Remy, luckily all he had to do was put his trust in Kurt to keep you safe.

Trigger Warnings: Violence, Near Death Experience, Emotional Distress

Word Count: 1127

I allowed myself a breath. My plants surrounded me in my small greenhouse at the X-Mansion. The feeling of vines, stems, roots and lush flowers against my face and arms kept me grounded.

'Just keep breathing'

The pollen tickled the inside of my nose and I breathed it in like my teammates would breathe air.

'Her heart's beating faster, that is a good thing right?'

Your team. Where were you? Where were they?

~~~

Meanwhile, a mind away Remy looked down at your almost lifeless body. Madelyne Pryor projecting positive thoughts into your head to help draw your focus away from the painful injuries inflicted on your body by the sentinels. Magneto was badly injured and Rogue was looking worse for wear.

Neither were in any condition to fly, but still, they focused and aimed to get you to the mainland of Africa. Still, the burn marks on Magneto and Rogue's head wounds were not making good progress in their abilities.

Gambit was losing hope that he would get to see you again. To hear your pretty laughter, see your dazzling eyes, and feel your warm touch.

That's when Kurt appeared next to you, and looked at him. His eyebrows creased, Kurt would not be able to make it to the mainland. He would tire until he sent the two of you into the ocean, but there was something in his eyes.

He was physically hurt, "Trust me, mein Freund", but Kurt's determination was palpable.

"Gambit trusts you", If he said no you would die, if he said yes there was a chance you wouldn't. It wasn't a hard decision.

"Come back to me, cher," He placed a quick kiss on your forehead.

Kurt carried you in his arms and started running. He gained momentum, and he was gone. Quickly, the two of you became a dot in his field of vision, all he could do was pray.

~~~

Salty air entered my nostrils but I could've sworn I was just home, in my greenhouse. I peeled my eyelids open suddenly aware of my location. I was in Nightcrawler's arms crossing the ocean. Kurt looked worse for wear, but as the sleep leaves my eyes I understand that I must look worse.

Stabbing pain started entering my mind as what I could only assume was a telepath's attempt to block the pain wear off. I sucked air in through my teeth sharply, and Kurt looked down at me briefly.

The dark circles and half-lidded eyes gave away the utter exhaustion that must be in his bones. I forced my head to the side to see the sandy coastline of Africa. The trees, flowers, and grass seemed to reach out to you, and again your eyes closed.

~~~

The two of you were so close. Kurt used the last of his strength, but this last push didn't quite make it. You both fell through the air into the cold ocean. The two of you floated just below the surface, and Kurt tried to move his limbs but they just wouldn't seem to move, limbs like lead.

He closed his eyes, understanding that this could be the end. He let two of his friends down, he would let his sister down.

His mind stewed for a moment until he felt a light touch. Algae brushed him up to the surface and the seaweed below him pulled him by his arms to the shore.

When he was close enough he started to army crawl further onto the shore. The local flora pulls your body across the sandy beach, leaves wrapping around your whole body, and soft pink flowers cushioning your head.

When he stopped feeling the waves lap at his feet, he allowed the side of his face to drop into the sand. Exhaustion finally overcame his ability to stay awake.

~~~

When Gambit and Rogue were finally able to get the jet off the ground and to the shore there was a stillness in him. Gambit was never still, and the lack of movement or incessant talking made Rouge twitch with nerves.

Before the plane was even on the ground, Gambit looked about ready to jump out and begin his search. His eyes scan the sandy surface trying to find any sign of you or his fuzzy friend.

"We'll find them, Sugar" Rogue put a gloved hand on his shoulder, and a year ago he would have melted into the touch. Now it just made him want your comfort even more.

"There!," Rogue was pointing to a blue blob on the shore which could only be one person, "Kurt!"

She began to quickly fly over to him, and Gambit was forced to run which was considerably slower than her flight.

"Kurt? Are you okay? Oh my gosh sugar, I can feel your temperature through my gloves," Her hands cupped his face, and he slowly started to come back to the present.

"Rogue? Where's Y/n?," He tried to push himself off the ground but his sister quickly brought him into her arms.

"Don't worry about that right now sugar, we'll find them, I'm gonna get you to the jet first so you can cool down"

With a weak nod, Rogue picked him up in her arms and gently flew them over to the jet.

Gambit scanned the surroundings anxiously. "Where are you, cher? Come on, give Gambit a sign, s'il vous plaît" Almost like magic a trail of pretty pink flowers appeared in front of him, "Well, I'll be damned,” he murmured under his breath.

He followed the trail a little ways into the trees where it was considerably cooler and definitely more green. It wasn't long before the flowers stopped before a giant blooming pink flower. Carefully, he pulled one petal down to take a look inside, and low and behold there you were.

Glistening with morning dew, and the cuts and bruises were nearly gone. The rest of the petals peeled back, allowing him to hold you close in his arms, "God, cher, I thought I lost you."

He placed his face in the crook of your neck allowing himself to just hold you and feel you when he felt your hand gently caress his face.

"Hey, baby," You whispered in a hushed voice, "I'm okay, I promise."

In every retelling of this story, Gambit would never say he cried, but you know he did. Telling the story to the kids at the academy and eventually your own kids, you would mime exaggerated sobs behind the man telling the story.

And in every single battle you ever fought together, he made sure that you were always by his side. Though he made you promise you wouldn't sacrifice yourself for him again, you knew you would do it again in a heartbeat.

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rooksamoris · 8 months ago

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💞 — 𝐌𝐀𝐘 𝐘𝐎𝐔 𝐁𝐔𝐑𝐘 𝐌𝐄.

💞 — in which you teach malleus a new phrase and he grows somber about your inevitable death.

💞 — malleus draconia x reader

💞 — warnings: hurt/comfort type fic. some descriptions of gore to emphasize heartache. reader does catch a cold. malleus is sad </3 mentions of death and mortality/fragility.

💞 — 1.2k words. various arab groups tell their loved ones 'taqburouni' meaning 'may you bury me' affectionately. i thought of malleus when i heard it again recently, since he very well would be stuck burying his loved ones. eid mubarak my lovelies!!

Taq-bu-rou-ni.

Malleus’s brows knitted in a bit of interest as he replayed your word in his mind, splitting each of the syllables to pronounce it the way you did. It was a foreign word, and for someone who knew bygone languages, this was a word he had not heard. You said it with a look of affection in your eyes. It was your way of being romantic, well, with the way you drawled the final vowel, that much was obvious.

“And what does that mean?” he asked, his bright green eyes following the shape of your silhouette as you walked. Those slitted pupils of his dilated.

“Taqburouni? Ah, it means ‘may you bury me,’” you said, innocently. The words spilled from your lips like sugared blades, so sweet yet so painful. It clung to his skin and when he tried to pull away, it tore his skin.

He paused his walking for a moment, stopping you with him. Those words reminded him that he could spend a century dwelling on that term, while you could not even spare a minute.

Taqburouni.

That phrase you had taught Malleus planted itself into his lungs and wrapped around his esophagus. He knew you meant it affectionately. It was your way of wishing him a long life, one long enough that he would get the chance to bury you. You had known all sorts of romantic sayings that bordered on being eerie and strange. The vines you were growing wrapped around his lungs and sunk their thorns into them greedily, causing sweet blood to splatter onto his ribcage.

He knew he would get the chance to bury you. His child of man was too frail to live as long as he.

His pause caused you some worry and you squeezed his hand, pulling it closer to you so that his knuckles hovered near your chest, “It’s weird, isn’t it?” you joked, your brows furrowed in concern, “It’s an affectionate way of wishing that someone you love has a long life… I get if it’s not your thing—I just—I—”

Malleus silenced you by placing his free hand on your head. He let it slide over your hair and behind your head. His long fingers threaded their way through some of the strands as he gripped the back of your head. They were like stubborn blossoms in a valley of wilting roses, desperate to keep you close and alive, “It is lovely, a fine way of showing affection,” he told you.

The future king decided against telling you just how uncomfortable that term made him. It infiltrated his body like a strong virus, poisoning his body and eating away at his flesh from the inside. Just like the vines that you planted in his lungs, tearing him apart beneath the layer of flesh, muscle, and bone.

A smile came to your face at his reassurance and you kissed his knuckles, “I’m glad you think so, Malleus,” you told him.

Taqburouni. He found it anything but lovely. Malleus understood the purpose of such a term, and he knew you were just being lovelorn, but Sevens. Each vowel was like a threat, each one getting closer to him losing you. Taq—and you were cut, bu—you were sick, rou—bedridden, ni—and suddenly he was back in the Briar Valley, standing before another tombstone. To him, it was purely unromantic.

It was violent and it was cruel.

You shivered due to the cold breeze and his gaze hardened, “Let us return you to the dorm, beastie. You’ll freeze if you’re out any longer,” he said, taking his uniform blazer off to drape over your shoulders. This body of yours was so delicate. Too delicate.

“Oh, Malleus… but you’ll get cold,”

He laughed, “I think you forget who you’re speaking to,” he said, his eyes watching your body tense up slightly. That delicious blush covered your cheeks and he was tempted to freeze time right here. Surely there was a spell for that, that way he could keep you forever and your words, your plea that he buries you, would never come true.

Bashfully, you averted your gaze and kept walking beside him. Oh, how he wanted to pounce.

Days later, that poisonous word was still on his mind.

It came up in particular when you caught a cold. The illness had been traveling around the school, your favorite duo from Heartslabyul had gotten it, but not nearly as bad as you. People had been coughing in class, sniffling as they walked through the halls—Malleus blamed himself for worsening it due to all the nights he dragged you away on romantic walks where he showed you the secrets of the campus.

Now he was sitting at your bedside in Ramshackle dorm. It was not nearly as dilapidated as it used to be. You had cleaned up a lot, bleaching whatever you could to kill sickness, and it still managed to sneak in. There were cracks in the windows… it probably made the nights even colder for you.

One of these beams could fall and kill you.

“Taqburouni.”

The blasted word repeated itself in his mind as he watched you squirm in your bed. Your breathing was shallow, you were sweating—he could end you with a raise of his finger, “Too fragile. Like a bird’s eggshell. All it would take is to push you out of a nest and then…” His brows furrowed as the back of his hand trailed down the side of your sickly face.

Your skin looked much less vibrant in this state.

This moment and thousands of others would pass him like a dream. One day he would bury you and then take the throne. Your bought of romance would end up being a dream. He would wake up with a crown on his head, black robes draping every inch of him, and the flickering memories you made here.

His fingers trailed down to your throat for a moment and he tapped the dainty skin with his sharp nails. Just the tiniest bit of pressure and you would bleed. Not even the strongest swords would break through his scales.

“Malleus,” you muttered, breathlessly as you tried to open your eyes. The light was too bright so all you could do was blearily squint at him before shutting your eyes again, “I feel so weak…”

“You look it too,”

“Huh?”

He stared at your face for a moment, taking in the way your eyes drifted back shut. Your brows knitted softly, and it made him want to kiss that space between your eyes, “Rest,” he whispered, his hand turning to cup your face. A bit of his magic traveled from the tips of his fingers to your skin, forcing you to inhale a green mist that would temporarily put you to sleep.

Malleus felt the urge to keep you in this state of sleep for one hundred years. Instead, he settled for leaning in and kissing your forehead, “May you bury me,” he whispered. He promised to find a way to keep you alive with him for good. He would find a way to keep everyone and everything he loved alive with him till he breathed his last flame.

#💖 — amoris writes #twst x reader #twisted wonderland #twisted wonderland x reader #malleus draconia x reader #malleus x reader #malleus draconia #twst malleus

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rainrot4me · 7 months ago

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On Unholy Terms

Summary: You’re an exorcist sent by the church to investigate a graveyard deemed to be unholy. After stumbling upon a ‘demon’, your determination quickly falters.

Characters: Eyeless Jack x Exorcist! Female Reader

SMUT WARNING MINORS DNI

TW: Probably definitely blasphemous, cunnilingus, big size difference, jack fucks you on a tombstone, vaginal, shaming, forceful entry, slight humiliation, biting, some blood, choking, degradation

Words: 3.6k

A/N: There’s slight symbolism of Christianity/Catholicism, please take it lightheartedly. I don’t mean to be rude :’)

This was stupid and you knew it.

You trudged through the overgrown grass, your skirt constantly getting caught on thorns and twigs littering the ground. The rosary you clutched close to your chest was cold, giving you some stability as your fear grew the deeper you went into the woods.

The church had sent you to investigate a series of murders near an old, abandoned chapel that had been left dormant after funding ran scarce. Several years ago, you had visited the church on different occasions, but as you entered the clearing, it looked anything but familiar.

Dense fog surrounded the area, the evening sky casting a dark orange glow through the forest. The rusty flashlight in your opposite hand did little to aid your vision as you stepped closer to the overgrown building. Vines and debris had overtaken the small church, and the beautiful stained glass windows shattered or faded from the lack of upkeep. It felt depressing, the ground looking anything but holy now.

You shuffled around the side of the building, the dark oak doors boarded together, police caution tape decorating the step’s railings. You sighed, shining your flashlight onto the rest of the building, but finding nothing worth interest. You thought the church was idiotic, this was a job for investigators, police or something, not some young exorcist who barely got work as it was. However, the church had deemed this case a holy one considering it was on sacred ground. Nonetheless, if you felt this was out of your pay grade, you would give the cops a call yourself.

You walked around the back of the building, a wide field revealing rows and rows of tombstones and crosses. A cemetery. A small gravel path led to an arched gate, a beautiful design etched onto the iron bars. You signed a cross, kissing your fingers before stepping through the threshold, showing respect to the grounds.

The sun was dipping behind the trees, a dark sky looming as the fog surrounded you making it harder to see. You stepped carefully through the assorted headstones, each reading off a different name you felt too busy to acknowledge. A crow called somewhere in the distance, startling you slightly as you shone your flashlight around frantically. Your nerves were getting to you, the stale air making it harder to breathe. So far, nothing had stood out to you, no signs of life or commotion, let alone dead bodies that were so frequently reported. You felt restless wanting to leave so quickly, but you had to report something back or you would be penalized.

Trudging the gravel path, you stumbled upon a rather large mausoleum. The beautifully designed pillars lead to its gated entrance. You shone your flashlight at the doors, goosebumps running up your arms as you decided to go inside. You stepped onto the marble steps, the rusted gate creaking loudly as you swung it open. You clutched your rosary tightly, sweat running across your forehead as you silently cursed yourself. The tomb was dark and stuffy, with plaques of the deceased marking where they lay in the marble coffins. You angled your flashlight, eyeing the old but stunning design of the interior. You stepped further into the tomb, several dark doorways gained your curiosity. You stepped toward one, shining your flashlight in but seeing nothing except bookshelves lined with what you presumed to be death records and documents of the deceased outside. You gulped, stepping to another one.

Your breath caught in your throat. Your flashlight landed on an assortment of blankets and pillows nestled into a corner, several water bottles and books askew across the floor nearby. Your heartbeat became uneasy, fear creeping into you as you took a step back, the rosary pinching your hand as you clutched it tighter. Maybe it was nothing, maybe some squatter had used the building to camp out for the night. You tried to calm yourself, wiping the sweat from your face with the back of your sleeve. A cool breeze wafted into the tomb, fluttering your skirt around your ankles as you continued searching the rooms. Suddenly, a loud screech filled your ears, sending your blood cold and you stumbling back onto your backside. You screamed as you threw your flashlight up quickly, frantically searching for the noise, panting heavily. Shining a flashlight on a crow desperately flapping his wings to escape the building, screeching again as he flew out and into the night.

You closed your eyes, taking deep breaths in you steadied yourself, blaming your imagination on your jumpiness. It seemed there was nothing but annoying birds and dusty graves, but no sign of any ghostly killer. You hoisted yourself up, reaching down to dust off your skirt before collecting yourself and shining your flashlight up again. That’s when you saw it, a tall figure resting his weight against the door frame of a darkened room. You held your breath, begging your body not to move as you could feel the tears well in your ears. The figure's ragged breaths echoed off the marble walls, his head angled to the side as if he was gawking at you. Your eyes flickered quickly, scanning his moves and praying he by some miracle moved on and let you leave. You prayed you would leave with no story to tell, but now you feared you wouldn’t leave at all.

The man pushed himself off the doorway, shoving his hands into his hoodie pocket and leaning in to meet your gaze. He towered over you, a good bit too. You wanted to run, to turn around and sprint out the doorway and never look back, but he interrupted your thoughts. “You’re a pest,” he grunted, looking you up and down as he slid the hood of his hoodie off of his head. He seemed to be wearing some creepy mask, the dark eyes sending your heart pounding in your chest. But his voice was calm, soothing almost, if it wasn’t handing you an insult. You gulped, standing up straight and letting go of the rosary hanging from your neck as you gripped your flashlight tighter.

“Why are you here? Who are you?” You croaked, voice catching in your throat from fear. You didn’t know why you were interrogating him, but this newfound bravery was short-lived as he stepped closer to you abruptly. You gasped, clenching the flashlight closer to you as he towered over you, head cocked and pressed too close for comfort. You whined, tears emerging again as his ragged breaths filled your ears. The rotten stench coming from him was consuming the whole room and your senses alike, making you close your eyes before tears threatened to spill.

“I think a better question,” he snarled, sending a shiver through you. “Is why are you here?”

You peeled your eyes open, bringing your hand up to grip your rosary again. “I was sent… sent by the church.” You squirmed, knees slowly buckling under you as his presence pressed down on you. “Oh..” He groaned, standing straight again, running a hand through his spikey brown hair. “A holy little thing, huh? Come to catch some ghosts?” You could hear the grin in his voice, his hand leaving his pocket to rub the back of his neck until he caught sight of your rosary. He reached out sharply, taking the cross from your hands and pulling it to him, straining your neck to come towards him. You squealed, throwing your hands out and placing them against his chest as he examined the charm, trying your damnest to keep distance between the two of you. He chuckled, following the necklace up and squeezing the ends together, choking your neck slightly from the tension. “I’m afraid God won’t help you here, little thing.”

He tugged your necklace tighter, pulling you flush against him as his hands landed on either side of your face. He forced you to look up at him, tears pricking your eyes again and again. “Such a pretty thing, though. What a shame some old church sent you away to your death.” He lifted his hand to slide his mask up over his nose, revealing the jagged smile hiding behind. He separated his teeth, a long grotesque tongue slinking out and falling below his chin. It was inhumanly long, your eyes blowing wide at the horror as you began to tremble under his grasp. “Oh, God…”

He leaned closer, passing your face and finding the crook of your neck, sliding his long tongue against the bare skin with a growl. You tensed, a slight moan leaving your mouth at the chill running down your spine from the sensation. The man stopped, retracting his tongue from your neck and leaning back slowly, bringing his face to meet yours. His unsure face turned to a manic grin, his jagged teeth shining in the night light as his hands slid down from your face to wrap around your neck and slowly grip. He squeezed every so gently, applying just the right amount of pressure to make your breath hitch. “How unholy…” He chuckles, sliding his hands down further to sit at each side of your waist. You freeze, embarrassment hitting you as his gaze looks all over you now. “Now that I look at you, you ain’t half bad. Your little church get-up is… rather tempting for someone so ordained.” He purrs. You flush red, your mouth running dry at his lustful comments towards you as you squirm under his grasp. He leans down, mouth inches from yours as he stares directly into your eyes. “You’re not as godly as you let on, are you?” He whispers, tucking the tip of his tongue between his teeth as he taunts you.

Your face blows red, eyes refusing to look at his face and deciding his hoodie is much more interesting. He laughs, standing up straight and sliding his arms under your legs, hoisting you up over his shoulder with your butt sitting high in the air. You squeal, gripping the back of his sweatshirt and pulling desperately as he walks out into the night air, a cool breeze blowing your hair into your face. “I’ve decided to treat myself tonight,” He boasts loudly to you, walking you over to a rather large headstone and setting you on top softly. “Thank you, Lord, for this meal.” He taunts, sliding down to his knees in front of you and sliding his hands up and down your thighs. You begin to panic, gripping the cold concrete under your hands as you try to balance yourself and focus on the man’s movements at the same time.

“W-Wait! Please!” You beg, bringing your knees to your chest as he tries to slide your skirt up your legs. “I don’t even know your name…” You croak, eyes wide as he stares into your fearful face. He grins, gripping your ankles and bringing them back down to dangle in front of him. “Jack. It’s Jack. And I promise, you won’t forget it by the end of tonight.” He chuckles, gripping the bottom of your skirt and sliding it up your legs, scrunching it up at your waist so he gets a full view of your lacy panties. You shove your thighs together, blocking his view as you shudder a breath. Jack slides his cold hands between your locked thighs, prying them open as he places each leg on his shoulders. He hooks his fingers under the hem of your panties, sliding them down and hooking them on your ankle as he slides closer, his face moving in closer to the apex of your thighs. You hold your breath, your core aching as you feel his hot breath pant against your soaked lips. “Hallelujah.”

Jack grips your thighs tightly as he licks a thick stripe between your folds, a ragged gasp shooting from your mouth as you slam your eyes shut. His tongue circles your entrance, flicking lightly against your clit as you arch your back against the feeling. He groans at the taste, pressing his tongue into you slowly, relishing in every flavor of your pussy he can taste. You moan out, his tongue lapping at the juices leaking out of you as your arousal grinds your hips against his face. Jack chuckles against you, sucking on your lips as he curls his tongue inside of you, making you whine. He grips your thighs tighter, your legs dangling off of his shoulders as his fingers hold onto you so tightly you’re sure they’ll leave bruises. “Ahh- Jack…” You groan, sliding your hand into his hair and gripping tightly to stabilize yourself. You feel the white heat coming over you as you groan against him, hips bucking as his tongue continues to curl and throb inside of you. Your release comes quickly, an unfamiliar ecstasy overtaking you as you come on his tongue.

Jack groans against you, continuing to slide his tongue in and out of you as his nose brushes against your clit. He’s not stopping, if anything he’s speeding up his movements and driving his tongue deeper into your cunt. You whimper loudly, the sensitivity overriding you as you begin to squirm away from his touch. He only grips tighter, pulling your hips up and off of the tombstone as he presses his face deeper into your folds. Your thighs spasm, gripping tightly around his head while he laps at your pleasure. You begin to sob, gripping his hair tighter and pulling forcefully as you try to pull his head from your core. “Please! Please, it hurts… God- Jack!” You grip your hands in his hair, accidentally knocking his mask back and off of his head as you stutter your hips against his tongue. All of a sudden his movements stop, his tongue slowly sliding out of you as you stop in horror. His face, rather, his eyes. The lack of them makes your stomach drop. His eye sockets are nothing but pools of black tar, dripping down his face and staining his gray-ish skin. It’s like you can’t move, your pulsing cunt still sitting inches away from his face as he glares, or seems to be glaring, into your eyes.

“W- What in hell’s name…” You croak, Jack slowly releasing your thighs and sliding his hands up your legs, pressing against them to stand himself up. He chuckles. “Hell exactly, little thing.” Your eyes hold wide, your fear unallowing you to move. “D- Demon…” You whimper, your legs dropping back down and dangling off the end of the tombstone. He smiles, reaching to unbutton his pants slowly, your eyes shooting between them and his terrifying face. “A demon who just made you cum,” He slides his zipper down, pulling his cock out and slowly stroking it as he looks down at you, the red angry head pulsing as he slowly chews his lip in between his teeth.

“What would God say…? Hm? His holy little thing lusting after a demon spawn?” Jack grins, stepping forward and hooking his hands under your knees, bringing them around his waist. He pushes your skirt back up, exposing your dripping cunt to his large cock as it twitches between your legs. He’s very large, actually, fear striking you as you wonder if something like that would even fit inside of you. Jack notices you eyeing him, sliding his hands around your back and gripping you tightly as he positions himself at your entrance. Jack leans forward, placing a soft kiss against your forehead while he reaches his thumb to slowly circle your clit, a breathy moan escaping your lips.

You watch carefully as he pushes into you, his tip stretching your entrance open and stopping when you begin to whine, gripping the shoulder of his sweatshirt tightly. Jack presses kisses against your forehead, breathing deeply as he works your clit trying to get you to relax on his length. He’s barely even in yet and you’re already so tight.

Large tears threaten to spill as Jack slowly nudges his dick inside of you. He’s so big, the girth of him catching on your entrance as he’s forced to press deeper and deeper inside. You whine and squirm, his hold on your hips not allowing you to back away from the stretch and sensitivity. Jack’s thumb rubs your clit quicker, his breath becoming labored as he slowly begins to thrust into you. It won’t slide easily, so he becomes contempt with tugging and shallowly nudging his cock-head into your warm core. Tears spill from your eyes, your mouth hanging open as you try to babble your pleas. “S’bigmm.. Shit-” You hiss, whining as you sob through the stretch of your cunt. Jack presses kisses against your forehead, licking your tears up as they fall. He whispers to you, cooing his praise into your ear as he grunts and curses. “You can take it…” He mouths your neck, licking against your skin as his eyes begin to slowly roll. “We’ll make it fit.” He grunts, nudging your thighs open with his legs as he grabs your back.

Jack shoves his cock inside of you, your cunt pulling him in and throbbing against the stretch and pain of it all. He can’t hold back, your cunt so warm and wet that he moans into your neck, lapping at it before he bites down on the skin, sinking his jagged teeth in and making you scream. He latches on, the taste of warm blood coating his mouth and sending him into a frenzy. He pulls his length out all the way to the tip before slamming in and reaching so deeply inside of you that it makes your breath catch in your throat. You moan loudly, tears streaming down your cheeks as your head lulls back, Jack’s thrusts sharp and deep as you grip his sweatshirt for stability.

Jack retracts his teeth from your neck, lapping at the blood trickling down as he thrusts into you like an animal. He holds you tightly against him, his fingers gripping into your back as he groans his pleasure into the crook of your neck. “Ssgood.. Mm- fuck! You’re suckin’ me so good..” You grip his hair, hips stuttering against his thrusts and matching his pace. You hook your legs tighter around his waist, pulling him in as deeply as possible. The stretch of his cock feels so glorious with each press against your g-spot.

He kisses against your neck, moving up to your cheek and then meeting your lips, pressing them roughly against yours as he makes out with you. You groan into his mouth, his tongue sliding in and muffling your sounds of pleasure. He slides his hands out, hooking them under your legs and hoisting you up. He holds you against him in the air, fucking up into you like his personal fleshlight. You moan loudly into his mouth, his tongue exploring every crevice of your mouth as you roll your eyes. He slides his hand out from under your leg, gripping the rosary around your neck and pulling it tightly, cutting off your airway. He smiles against your mouth, hearing your labored breathing gasping as he pulls the necklace tighter. “You just love this don'tcha? Little thing milking me so good.” He groans, his hips stuttering faster inside of you, his cock jabbing deeply inside of you.

“Mmcomin- Jack-” You moan, air escaping you as you feel your cunt squeezing tightly around Jack’s length. He grunts, mouth hanging open as he stares into your flushed face, his cock twitching inside of you. He presses his lips against yours again, breathing in your moans as he feels you constrict against him. You moan out, pleasure washing over you as you cum on his cock, squeezing tightly around him. Jack grunts, unable to thrust anymore, he ruts up into your cunt, groaning loudly into your mouth as he spills into you. His thrusts eventually stop, bottoming out into you as he releases your necklace, you gasp, catching your breath again.

Jack holds you tightly against him, breathing deeply into your neck as you catch your own. He slowly pulls out of you, and you wince from the pull. His seed spills down your legs, a groan escaping your lips at the lack of fullness you regrettably loved. Jack sets you on your feet, reaching to swipe his finger between your folds and sending a jolt through your body. He brings his fingers to his mouth, lapping up his and your juices and sighing at the wonderful taste. He pulls your skirt down, pressing a kiss against your forehead before zipping his jeans back up himself.

You shift on your feet, relishing in the kisses he places on your skin. “Uhm- Tha-” Jack places his hand over your mouth, leaning down to look you in your eyes. “Run along, little thing. Get back to your stuffy old church.” He leans down, picking up his mask and sliding it back over his face, bringing his hood up to completely cover himself again. You clutch your rosary softly, the cool night air blowing your hair slowly as Jack waves you off. “Will I ever get to… see you again?” You cringe at the desperation in your voice, shuffling on your feet. Jack crooks his neck again, shoving his hands into his pockets. “If I ever see you again, I’m afraid I’ll be eating a whole lot more than just that little pussy of yours,” he chuckles.

You smile at him, turning to walk back down the gravel path as you see Jack make his way back towards the mausoleum. As you pass under the gated archway, you smile to yourself, holding your rosary closely.

What the hell were you going to tell the church now?

Thanks for reading!

Comments and reblogs are appreciated! 𐚁₊⊹

#creepypasta #smut #jeff the killer x reader #jeffrey woods #creepypasta fandom #creepypasta smut #eyeless jack #jeff the killer x eyeless jack #jeff the killer x ticci toby #eyeless jack smut #eyeless jack x reader #eyeless jack x you #eyeless jack x y/n #ticci toby #jeff the killer creepypasta #creepypasta x reader #jeff the killer smut

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lamentationsofalonelypotato · 3 months ago

Text

Chapter 13: Taking Out The Trash

Pairing: Soldier Boy x f!reader, Reader POV, Soldier Boy POV

Summary: When you decided to work with Butcher and his merry band of supe hunters to take down Homelander, you neve expected to be saddled with a sullen, grumpy, jerk like Soldier Boy when the job was done. The more you're around him the more you hate him, but you can't help but wonder, is he really as big a jerk as you think? Reader is a supe with plant powers. This takes place in an AU about a month after the end of The Boys Season 3, in which Butcher has let Soldier Boy continue to work with him on his team. (I'm real bad at summaries, please forgive me!)

Tropes: Enemies to Lovers (Not in this chapter), Slow Burn, Age Difference (Reader is in her 20s), Soft Ben/ Soldier Boy, Protective Ben/Soldier Boy

Word Count: 13.1K

Warnings: I'm going to label this 18+ because Soldier Boy (he's a warning and everyone knows it), Swearing, Mentions of Sex, Sexual Innuendo, Blood, GRAPHIC DEPICTION OF DEATH, DEATH, BLOOD, GUTS, Threatening, Denial, Attempted Manipulation, References to attempted SA in the past, Depressing Thoughts, INSANE REVELATIONS, CONFESSIONS, Talks about weed, Super Manipulative Creepy Trash Man, Sexist comments, Homophobic Comments? Ben/Soldier Boy might be a little bit OOC.

Note: This is told from Reader's perspective. Any references to the reader is made using you or your. There is minimal use of y/n. I tried my best to proofread, but nobody's perfect. If you don’t like, don’t read, but if you do like, you’re my favorite!

Internal monologue is in italics and is in first person.

A/N: I'm not going to lie, at the beginning of this chapter it's cute, but the rest of it gets... UNHINGED. I mean its dark because some things are revealed that I don't know why my mind went there immediately but... Also, apparently foreshadowing with dreams is my thing now 🤷🏻‍♀️?

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"Are you sure that you're okay to start work today?" Jake asked you for the millionth time from across the large cherry wood table that proudly stood in the front window of the shop. "Because there's no shame in staying home and resting for a few more days."

He was holding a large box filled with golden barrel cactus that were about to be placed in the new window display that Jake and you were constructing. His dirty blonde hair was scruffier today, hanging into his face just over the top of his tortoise shell glasses. The red and navy flannel he wore stretched over his arms with the flexing of his muscles beneath as he watched you with interest, worry seeping into the clear blue of his eyes.

The store was as you remembered, almost blindingly green, with trailing vines that kissed your arms when you walked through the front door as if welcoming you home and the healing energy from the plants within fusing your body with newfound strength. You could feel the subtle push of roots in the earth, the unfurling of bright leaves, the swell of fruit on outstretched branches, and the gentle bend of each petal on the vegetation inside the shop speaking to you and reassuring you. It was welcome after being trapped in a freezer for four days.

Jake didn't know about any of that.

Annie had come up with a lie that you'd been in a car accident when Butcher loaned you his car for a job. It hurt you to lie to Jake, especially when he had brought all the plants to your hospital room because he knew it would make you feel better, but you were still trying to keep that part of your life separate from him. Honestly, you worried that if Jake found out how fucked up the other half of your life was he'd fire you, so you didn't bring it hurtling in through the front of his shop like a freight train. And you really loved working here.

It felt natural for you, tending to the plants, helping teach other people how to for anything that grew while gently showing the love of gardening and tending the earth.

Jake had been pondering the idea of having workshops on the weekend at the shop after hours and he'd finally said yes.

Hopefully, I'd be able to use both of my arms by then.

You were beyond discouraged that hadn't been able to do any of your crochet projects and you felt like a disappointment when you couldn't go to your bi-monthly crochet circle/class that you lead at the Assisted Living Facility a few blocks over. The woman on the phone from the facility had sounded so disappointed when you told her that you couldn't come and it only made you feel worse.

But it was nice to be back in the swing of things at the shop and wonderful to be back in a place that you felt at ease, but there was something tugging in your chest. It was an odd feeling, not as if you'd forgotten something, but almost as if you missed something. As if there was something that wasn't here that should be and you couldn’t put your finger on it.

A week had passed since you'd been released from the hospital and you were eager to get out from under Ben's house arrest to start working again even with your arm in a large and almost impossible cast to maneuver. You were calling it “house arrest”, because after your grandmother left, Ben refused to let you leave the apartment, stating that you needed to rest. And when you argued with him that you'd had enough rest, he'd planted himself in front of the door and refused to budge.

You were going stir crazy with nothing to do and you probably could have moved him if you really tried, but you didn't want to fight with Ben. Not when he was the person who'd brought you back from the warehouse and not when he was acting different.

Your lips press into a firm line when you think about the past week that you'd spent at home with him. Ben was going out of his way to do everything for you that he could, but that didn't mean you weren't annoyed. You'd had to practically swat him away with one of the wooden spoons in the kitchen when you were heating up a lasagna your grandmother left after he'd loudly complained that you shouldn't be standing for too long and tried to carry you back to the couch. Ben was acting like you couldn’t take care of yourself and hadn't been taking care of yourself since you moved away from home. It was odd.

And he kept doing little things around the apartment, like picking up his clothes and making sure to remember to put things in the dishwasher. Things that he hadn’t cared about before you got hurt and things that you’d yelled at him to do before everything happened. And he always made sure that the couch was clear incase you wanted to watch a movie or just read for a little while. Two things that you had been doing more often since you got out of the hospital.

But weirder still was that Ben hadn't been on one "date," since you got back. The only time he'd left the apartment was in the morning to get the paper and he always brought you back coffee or the pineapple iced tea you loved.

Yesterday he had finally allowed you to leave the apartment to go to the grocery store, because when you tried to give him a shopping list he'd said "I don’t need a fucking list I’m a man!" but then you’d asked him to repeat everything you'd told him to buy and he couldn’t.

The whole time out of the apartment you’d made plenty of jokes about the healing power of fresh air, while Ben countered by making a joke about the healing power of sex and that he'd be happy to make you feel better.

The trip to the grocery store hadn’t ended in bloodshed, even when you had to keep reminding Ben not to buy the name brand things and he'd ignored you or when Ben complained the whole time about how expensive everything was and how long it was taking you to find everything.

But the weirdest thing that happened was when the two of you were looking a produce there was a woman who kept trying to come on to Ben when you were testing the grapes and he completely ignored her. Surprising you because she looked like his type, and when she'd walked away Ben had dropped to his knees to tie your shoe because he noticed that it was loose.

When you'd teased him about it, he said that he "didn't want you to break your other arm when you tripped and ate shit on the concrete." You'd had no problem flipping him off with your unbroken hand.

But despite your insistences for Ben to try and find cheaper brands none of it mattered, because when you got to the register Ben paid for the groceries even when you’d explicitly discussed splitting the bill. The cashier had noted what a gentleman Ben was and you’d grumbled something impolite under your breath so low that only Ben could hear.

But Ben couldn't help you with everything, well, you didn't trust him to close his eyes when you needed help getting dressed or needed help washing your hair.

For those little things, Annie would come over, but she hadn't been sympathetic to your pleas to make Ben let you out of the apartment. In fact, when you hoped Ben wasn't listening she'd made a comment about exactly what you should be doing with a hot older man while being trapped in an apartment with only one bed. The raspberry vines that cling to the refrigerator had started spitting raspberries at her when she said it. And then Ben had looked over the back of the couch at the two of you and said "that's what I keep telling her."

At least when my grandmother was here she didn’t pry about Ben and me.

Your grandmother had stayed for three days following your return from the hospital, sleeping next to you on your queen sized bed before she went back to Illinois and everyday you were more surprised how much she and Ben knew each other. The easy way they spoke to one another, the jokes, the teasing, and the poker games that always ended in your grandmother winning an almost obscene amount of money from Ben all made your head spin. Especially, because whenever she won Ben would accuse her of "cheating," and she'd only roll her eyes and state that someone as old as Ben should be better at poker. But the way he'd said she was cheating was different, not as if she had cards up her sleeve, but if there was some other reason why she could cheat. It was confusing and a little frustrating, because you were terrible at poker.

You didn't understand how you could be that bad, but then Ben had poked the skin between your eyebrows that scrunched under his scrutiny and stated that you were "too easy to read" while your grandmother laughed at you.

She still wouldn’t answer your questions about how she knew Ben, but to you it appeared to be more than them running into each other a few times, it almost seemed like a friendship. You believed her when she said that they didn’t sleep together, but you didn't understand how they could have been friends. She'd never spoken about that part of her life with you before, just her childhood and when she met your grandfather. Needless to say it was like you were seeing a different person when she was around Ben.

Deep down you wondered if she was a supe, but she'd never said that before and you didn’t know why she would keep something like that from you, not when you were one too.

But when Ben noticed how discouraged you got playing poker, he let you look over his shoulder at his hand and watch him play. He was very much in his element and every few hands he would make a joke about playing strip poker to which your grandmother would reply "If you want to be naked that bad Ben, you might as well just go down to the corner and put it to good use."

When she left you were sad to see her go and even Ben seemed a little more moody than usual, almost as if he missed having her around. You missed her too. While she stayed with you, you hadn't had the nightmare, but the night she left you did. You'd woken up gasping for air, the unnatural flash of whitish blue light that raced towards the windshield from the dream vibrating against your skin. Ben had come in to check on you, without breaking down the door, and he'd sat with you until you calmed down enough to fall asleep.

But it was still unusual that Ben acted like he missed your grandmother. You'd never met any other friends that Ben had besides Legend and you wondered if Ben really was as lonely as you thought he was. In the past you'd ascribed that to the reason why he went out with so many women, but this time it only confused you because Ben hadn't been out with a single person all week. You couldn’t think of a reason why that was or what could have changed for Ben to avoid using Tinder. If anything you'd thought he would be bored sitting around the apartment with you, but he wasn't. He'd sit with you on the couch watching a movie or read the paper when you read your book, not talking about anything in particular.

There was only one subject you wanted to discuss.

The two of you hadn't talked about what almost happened on the couch when you slept together when Darren was visiting or the way Ben gently touched you in the hospital. You'd mentally compartmentalized it to being a fluke and were happy that things were going back to normal or at least normal-ish.

But sometimes your mind would wander to how Ben acted when you were in the hospital, how he'd cupped and held your face, how he'd touched you so reverently, what he'd said about not wanting to leave you with Elijah, and how angry he looked when he found out exactly what Elijah had tried to do.

But whenever you thought about talking to him about that, you’d only shake off the urge and ascribe it to Ben wanting to try and be friends. The exact thing that you'd suggested to him the night of the party.

He's respecting me. If he wants to be friends I can be friends with him. Even if he is acting weird.

In fact, this morning, he'd walked with you to the shop this morning as if it was a normal day.

*2 Hours Ago*

Ben frowns at you. "Maybe you should rest one more day-"

He'd been saying that the entire walk to the shop, but you weren't going to give him the satisfaction of letting him trap you in the apartment for another day.

“Ben it'll be fine. I've rested enough-" You rolled your eyes at him, confused that he was making such a big deal about this. It was both annoying and frustrating you how overprotective he was acting and it was making you mad.

“What about your arm? You can’t lift anything-“ He presses.

“Jake is here for that.” You gestured with your head to where Jake was hovering behind the two of you at the register counting the till while pretending not to listen.

"That makes me feel a hell of a lot better. You think that fucking twink can lift more than me?" Ben scoffs. “Maybe I should stay.”

"Why?"

"So I can lift things!"

“Stop babying me Gramps!"

“I'm not babying you!" He rolls his eyes at the nickname.

“Yes you are! Why are you acting like a helicopter parent? I'm fine. It's been a week and I am completely and utterly-"

Ben's hand comes up and pushes back a strand of hair behind your ear, his thumb lingering for just a second too long against your cheek. The motion makes you freeze, the warmth of his skin like a siren call. "I don't think you need to come back to work so soon." He says quietly, eyes flicking up to where Jake is before he lowers his voice even more. “You were kidnapped and you got hurt. Not to mention that asshole tried to-" Ben's gaze loses any of the softness it held as he remembers what you told him about what Elijah did.

"Ben." You whisper raising your hand to gently touch his wrist. "I promise I'm okay. I'm not doing this to prove anything. I want to be here. I like being here."

"And you don't like being at home with me." Ben whispers it so low that you almost miss it. He withdrawals his hand from your cheek looking angry.

The memory of the day you walked in on Ben talking to Bean hovers over you:

"Why does she hate me so much?"

When you’d heard Ben ask Bean that it hurt you. You didn't want Ben to think that you hated him. He frustrated you and annoyed you, but you didn’t hate him.

Well, he hasn't been annoying me as much lately.

And if anything you were trying not to think about how much you liked being at home with Ben, how much you liked spending time with him. It was easier to try not to focus on that, not when Ben was acting like someone you could love.

Ben doesn't believe in love, not after everything that got fucked up with Countess. I don't think I could ever fall in love with someone like him either. Sure he's attractive, but he's so damn annoying.

"Look at me." You lay your hand on his arm to draw his gaze back to you. Ben almost looks a little embarrassed that you heard him say it and you watch his eyes flick over your head to where Jake is. You pull him through the plants to give the two of you some privacy. "I don't hate you. And I'm not doing this because I don't want to be at home with you." Your cheeks flush with the word 'home.'

Ben kept using it so casually, but to you it always meant something else. Home was the place where you went where no one judged you, where you went to be with the people who loved you unconditionally, and where you felt that you could be yourself with no judgement. Not to mention you believed that eventually your "home" would become a person. Or at least that was what you wanted to happen. Those prospects were looking pretty slim as of late and you were still on the fence about online dating.

Hughie and Annie met the old fashioned way so why should I have to go on an online site only to be rejected based on looks only?

You refocus on the conversation that you're having with Ben.

"I want things to go back to normal, before everything that happened with Darren and Elijah. And this is the only way that I know how." The mention of Elijah's name brings the memory of him on top of you to simmer beneath the surface. You were trying to forget, but every once in a while the memory would come creeping back in bringing the chill of the first frost in its wake to brush against your skin.

Ben's expression softens. "That quack at the hospital said you should rest."

"You mean the man who went to school for over four years to get a degree told me to rest?"

"Then he knows what the fuck he's talking about!"

"Ben-"

"Petals." He sighs the nickname in the soft way that makes a tingle travel down your spine. Ben had been saying it like that more often confusing you further. "You went through a lot and I'm trying to make sure that you’re okay.”

Why does he care about that?

“I am okay.” You whisper. “I’m sick of being on house arrest in the apartment. I can only watch so many of your old films before I go completely insane.”

“They’re not that bad.”

"Debatable."

Ben sighs again, but he seems to realize that you're not going to budge. You were just as stubborn as he was and you knew that he hated that about you. "Fine. I've got to do something today anyway."

"You got a date?"

You meant it as a joke, but for some reason you feel a twinge deep down that you weren't expecting.

"No." For a moment you think Ben almost looks offended by the suggestion. "Butcher's helping me with something."

"With what? You hate Butcher. And why would he want to do you a favor?"

"Because he wants to find the sick son of a bitch as much as I do!" Ben growls, the soft look in Ben's eyes goes dark as you realize who he's talking about.

You hadn't heard from Darren since everything with Elijah. Not that you expected to. Darren's things had vanished from your apartment and he was gone without a trace. Butcher had tried to track the phone Darren had, but it was out of service. You didn’t want to see him and you didn’t want to think about him, not after everything he'd put you through. It was like Darren to suddenly show up with an apology and say everything that you wanted him to. In the past you'd thought it was because he cared about you and didn't want to lose you, but it was becoming more and more apparent that Darren knew exactly what to say to get you to forgive him. He played you so easily that it broke your heart.

It was hard for you to acknowledge that and hard for you to believe that after all these years the relationship you had with your brother had been a lie, a well rehearsed play that Darren performed whenever he was in town.

And this time you weren't going to forgive him. Not when he'd given you to Elijah like a form of payment. Darren was done using you and you were ready to cut him out of your life.

At least, that was what you told yourself anyway. Sometimes when it was dark and you were all alone in your room you thought that maybe you should forgive him because he was your brother and you didn’t want to abandon him. You'd never admit that out loud, and certainly not in front of Ben, but you weren't sure if you were strong enough to turn Darren down if he reappeared.

"Oh." You look down at your shoes for a second while chewing on the inside of your cheek.

There's an awkward silence that passes through the two of you, charged with the same energy that hovered between you when you were back at the hospital. And you can’t help but think that Ben looks disappointed that he has to leave. You again wonder why he was being so overprotective, especially when he said that he didn't care about you.

That was another thing that you were starting to believe was a lie, Ben cared about you even if he didn't want to admit it, because someone who cared wouldn't do everything he had done for you over the past week.

"Petals?"

"Yes Gramps?" You look up at him mentally preparing for him to ask you again if you're okay, but he doesn't.

"Don’t get into any strange cars." Ben's lips tilt up into a smirk.

"Even if they say they have candy?"

Ben only shakes his head, but then he lingers for a second too long, as if he's waiting for something. "And try not to break anything else." He mutters and then he's gone.

Why is he acting so weird?

*Present Time*

"Because Ben said-" Jake says, snapping you out of the memory of Ben saying goodbye.

"When did you guys talk?" You look up at him from the table in shock.

"Well, I tried to come see you three days ago and he didn't let me in. He said you needed rest and that I should come back later." He explains, emptying another box of cacti.

"You came by?" You ask him confused. The cacti are in multicolored pots and you try your best to avoid the spines as you shift them over the table into position.

"Yeah. Ben said he'd tell you that I did."

"Huh."

Ben hadn't told you that Jake came by, hadn't mentioned it once and he'd had plenty of opportunities to tell you. The two of you were practically both living on the couch, because Ben was making you watch all of his old movies. You think that he was trying to impress you with his acting skills, but all it did was make you mock him endlessly for the cheesy lines and the ridiculous helmet they made him wear as a part of his supe suit. You had taken to repeating the lines from the movies at the most inopportune times to tease him and Ben had started teasing you with quotes from the romance novels that you liked.

Your cheeks flushed at the memory.

It had been embarrassing. You were reading on the couch quietly to yourself and were so absorbed in the scene that Ben had snuck up behind you to read over your shoulder. It hadn't helped that you were at a particular steamy part. He'd made a joke of wanting to re-enact whatever you wanted from the chapter and you'd stomped away to take a shower. It was getting harder to deny his requests to sleep with you, especially when Ben was acting different than he usually did and had been acting like a new person since you got back from the hospital.

"He didn't tell you?" Jake looks disappointed.

"Gramps is forgetful sometimes." You frown at the display between the two of you.

Why didn’t he tell me that Jake came by? Jake has been so sweet. He brought me all those plants and he was worried about me. Or at least… You bite the inside of your cheek remembering what Ben said about when Jake came to the hospital:

"He was fawning all over you like a fucking pussy, thought he was going to cry."

You hadn't thought about Jake at all, other than the occasional wave of guilt for leaving him without any help for a whole week. But it was weird that Ben hadn't told you that Jake stopped by, because when Mike brought you a bouquet of yellow roses Ben had let him in and stood with a cup of coffee in the kitchen smirking at you as Mike talked with you for thirty minutes about how nice the weather was outside. It made you want to strangle Ben, but as retaliation when Mike's mother came by later with a basket of wheat grass muffins and something that looked like green sludge you'd invited her in to talk with Ben. She'd sat on the couch in a bright pink mumu, rubbing his upper thigh and talking about her ex-husband while Ben glared at you every chance he got and you sipped a cup of blueberry tea and laughed quietly to yourself.

"Why do you call him that?" Jake asks while putting down a golden barrel and grabbing a fishhook cactus carefully to avoid the spikes.

"Because he acts like a grumpy old man." You snort to yourself thinking of how cute you thought it was when Ben acted all crochety and frustrated by modern day technology.

"He does." Jake laughs. "So…"

"So?"

"Are you guys together?"

"What?" You sputter looking up from the plants to Jake with wide eyes. "Why do you think that?"

"Well he's always around." Jake picks up the empty box and stacks it on top of another one. "And he always acts kind of…" Jake shrugs.

"Kind of what?"

"Jealous. He's always mad at me for some reason."

"That's just how he is. You gotta peel back the layers like an onion when it comes to him." The words are easy, but you can't help but be a little bit surprised. You were defending Ben. You’d never defended him before, made fun of him, apologized for him, but never defended him. "I mean he's-" You prick your thumb on one of the spikes. "Ow."

"Did it get'cha?" Jake snorts.

"Yeah must be losing my touch. Went soft on all my days off."

"You deserved those days off. You needed to rest-"

You roll your eyes. "Please don't say the r word again. Ben's been saying it for the past week."

"I'm serious." Jake picks up another golden barrel and arranges it on a higher platform on the display. "There's something going on between the two of you."

"You mean Ben driving me to the point of insanity?"

"No. I mean the guy is always watching you-"

"He likes to stare at my ass." You roll your eyes at Jake. "What else is new?"

His cheeks flush with your mention of Ben's interest in your body. "I don’t mean like that. He always looks at you when you're working."

Your straighten up from the floor with a fresh box of Christmas Cactus, arranging the long tendrils so that they are hanging down over the edge of the table. "What do you mean?"

"Sometimes I see him walk by later in the day when you're reading at the register."

What? When has Ben been walking by and why? Is he spying on me?

"What? When?"

Jake shrugs. "I don't know just sometimes. He never comes in. One time he walked by with two cups of coffee, but he just kept walking."

Probably for one of his dates.

"Ben isn't interested in me like that. We're just friends and roommates." When you say that your chest gets a little bit tighter. "Ben doesn't have relationships, he has flings. The guy is basically a walking Trojan ad."

Jake runs a hand through his shaggy dirty-blond hair, to push it out of his face and away from his glasses. "I don't know, you didn't see him when you were asleep in the hospital. The guy was practically daring anyone to get close, like he was trying to protect you from something."

His words make you chew the inside of your cheek remembering what your grandmother said about Ben yelling at the doctors and the nurses and make you think about how overprotective Ben seemed to be acting over the past few days.

Ben is just trying to be a better friend. He knows that I went through a lot.

Annie had also been acting overprotective as well. She kept bringing things by the apartment to make your life easier with the cast and she kept bringing by food. She'd also brought by a big bag of thrifted romance books that she had found at your favorite used bookstore Inky's Inspirations and the two of you had spent the better part of a day devouring them. She was making more time for you because you knew that she felt bad about you getting hurt, and Hughie came by too. Ben didn't share the same enthusiasm that Hughie had for conversation, but whenever Ben was mean you would glare at him and Ben would huff out something under his breath and try to contribute more to the conversation.

"That's just how he is. Ben is kinda," You wave a hand. "Protective of his friends."

"I noticed." Jake frowns. "But I guess I'll take your word for it."

An awkward silence follows and the two of you finish the display, but you can't stop thinking about Ben walking past the shop.

How many times did he do that? And why? He always seems to hate walking and makes a big deal about me walking by myself. Why would he want to walk here all the way from Butcher's?

"Why don't you go check out the display of herbs by the register? I'm not sure how to arrange the Rosemary and the Oregano."

"Sure." You shrug heading back through the aisles that spill vines onto the concrete floor, your hand sliding through the leaves as you walk, feeling the plants begin to perk up with your gentle touch. The browning leaves vanished, the drooping stems straightened, and the plants turned up to you as if you were the sun.

Being here again and having a normal day was making you feel better. At home your plants had needed some TLC after you were gone for so many days and as hard as Jake tried to maintain every single plant in the store, you knew that it was too much for him to contain. Things like that were easy for you.

The day passes by slowly. Ben had told you that he'd be there to pick you up at closing and you found yourself checking the clock. You'd never done that before. When you were working in the past you never wished for the day to be over, but for some reason the idea that Ben was going to pick you up made you almost happy.

The shiny metal bell above the door jingled as the last customer of the day entered the shop, but you don't look up from the bouquet of flowers you were arranging for a last minute birthday order that someone called in for tomorrow morning. You didn't often do them, but Jake was busy breaking down the display of flowering plants in the other window and you were more than happy to help out.

Even if it was difficult with one hand.

You could hear whoever it was coming closer to the register, the sound of their shoes clunking against the weathered gray concrete floors with every step.

"Welcome in. Can I help you with something?" You don't look away from the sunflowers in the vase in front of you, using one hand to place some holly ferns to give it a bit more green before you reach for the baby's breath that sits in a bundle on the vintage wooden bar that served as a desk for the register.

"Well I'm not sure. Do you have anything that says 'I'm sorry my friend kidnapped you?'" A familiar voice asks.

Your head jerks upwards at the sound of the voice, but you already know who it is.

Darren stands there in his traditional black army jacket. His blonde buzzed hair is blindingly white in the sunlight that comes through the wide glass windows at the front of the shop, catching the glint of the gunmetal colored hoops in his right eyebrow. His smile is sheepish, apologetic, and if you hadn’t been through what you did, you might have believed that it was genuine.

"Darren?" Your voice is no more than a whisper, surprise leaking into it as you utter your brother's name.

You didn’t actually think that he would come to see you, not when he knew who Ben really was, and not when he knew that you knew he sacrificed you to save his own skin.

"Hey sissy. Did you miss me?"

The nickname strikes a nerve deep down.

"What the hell are you doing here?"

Jake glances over from the front window his eyes widening at your sudden outburst. He'd never met your brother before and he knew that something must be wrong if you were angry. Jake knew you well enough to know how composed you were most of the time and knew that for you to be angry something must really be wrong.

"I wanted to see you. Can I give you a hug?" Darren holds out his arms towards you.

"What do you think?"

"But you love hugs." He makes a step towards the end of the register.

"If you take another step I'm going to scream. What are you doing here?" You say again.

"I told you. I wanted to see you. I haven't been able to see you since-"

“Since you handed me over to Elijah to pay off your fucking gambling debt?” The baby's breath in your hand crumbles into a ball, but you barely feel it.

“See." Darren rolls his eyes and holds up a finger. "I knew you’d overreact. You’re way too sensitive.”

“Overreact? OVERREACT? He locked me in a fucking freezer!” You spit. “He tried to-“ A cold feeling rises and prickles against your skin when you remember the weight of Elijah’s body on yours and the way his hand squeezed your throat. The purplish-black marks were still there, but hidden under a burgundy ribbed turtle neck sweater that you'd put on this morning. You figured it would be hard to explain those marks to Jake, especially when Annie had told him you were in a car accident.

“Hey, is everything okay over here?” Jake interrupts. He wipes this dirt covered hands on his jeans as he gets closer to where Darren is leaning against the front of the register.

"Yeah." You clear your throat. "Darren was just leaving."

"No, I'm not." Darren hasn't looked away from you and hasn't acknowledged Jake's presence. "I want to talk to you."

"Too bad. I don’t want to hear anything you have to say." You breathe, but you could feel a twinge in your heart. The love you had for your brother was ebbing just on the edge of the rage and heartbreak that you felt every time you think about what he did to you. It was difficult to treat him this way, not when you'd given in to whatever he wanted for so long. You hated that about yourself, hated the piece of you that wanted to forgive him.

But Darren does not move, in fact you can see the way his eyes flick over you as if he can sense that you're unsure.

"I want to talk this out." He says a little more forcefully.

"If she says that she doesn’t want to talk to you, I’m going to have to ask you to leave." Jake replies continuing to frown at your brother. They were both about the same height, but where Darren was rail-thin, Jake had a little bit more muscle to him. Not as much as Ben, but enough that he was bigger that your brother.

But you knew that it would do little good. Darren was even more stubborn that you were, and you could see the dangerous glint in his eyes that got him into trouble more times than you could count when the two of you were growing up.

“Try it four eyes." Darren's lips pull back in a challenge.

The lights overhead flicker for just a second, almost imperceivable to the eye. Jake crosses his arms over his chest in a way that you think he must believe is intimidating. “I’m going to ask you to leave one more time before I call the police.”

"And I said that I'm not going to fucking leave without talking to my sister."

"Sister?" Jake falters looking at you, his blue eyes wide in surprise behind his glasses.

You stand there for a moment trying to think of a way out of this. There's a little voice buzzing in your ear telling you that something is wrong, but you can't put your finger on it. And an even smaller voice whispering that you should call Ben.

I don't need him to handle this. Darren and I have to talk eventually and might as well do it now.

"Fine, but let's take this outside." You walk around from behind the register. "Jake has to lock up in fifteen minutes."

"Perfect! I just need five." Darren smiles at you the same way that he always has, the smile that you'd laughed with and allowed to reassure you, but this time all it does is make all of this worse.

When the two of you get outside, the sun is just starting to sink behind the buildings, bathing everything in a golden glow. Despite the situation it is a beautiful day. The smell of the bakery next door sent the soothing aroma of cinnamon and brown sugar each time it's door opened, the warmth of the sun was on your back and shoulders, the wind had picked up just enough to rustle your hair where it was pulled back from your face in a ponytail, and you could hear the children playing in the park just around the corner where the trees sent their long shadows over the playground.

Darren shifts from foot to foot and you can see the way he's trying to think of something to say, as if he's pretending that he didn't rehearse this in his head. You wonder if he's always done that, if he'd rehearsed everything he ever said to you because he knew exactly what to say to get you to agree for so long.

"Look Darren, I don't want to talk about this. Nothing that you're going to say is going to make any of this okay. Nothing that happened was okay! You left me there with him, you brought me to him, and then you lied about why I was really there."

"I'm sorry about that." Darren's gaze softens, eyebrows furrowing in mock sincerity. "Believe me, I wouldn't have taken you there if I knew that Elijah was going to do any of those things to you honey."

"Oh that is such-"

"I will admit that I did lie about why you were there. But I knew that you wouldn't come if I told you that it was for weed and Elijah really said he just wanted you to look at the plants for a few minutes. He didn't say anything about a freezer." Darren holds up his hands as if surrendering.

"And there it is! You admit that you lied to me, that you manipulated me to get me to go with you. And then you had the audacity to say that if I was uncomfortable we could go home!" You shout at him, narrowing your eyes. "Well Darren, I gotta tell you I was fucking uncomfortable in that damn freezer and in his damn office, and where were you? Oh right…" You tap your lips with the tip of your finger. "You left me there with that fucking psychopath!"

"I didn't leave you there! I called Richie and when I came back into the office, you were gone. Elijah told me that you left! I went back to your apartment and-" Darren frowns at you. He didn't like that you weren't listening to what he had to say.

"Do you expect me to believe any of that bullshit?" You plant your hands on your hips as you interrupt him, feeling a surge of anger swelling in your chest.

Even though the two of you are technically standing outside of the shop, you can still feel the energy from the plants inside, intertwining with you, strengthening you, and waiting for your command.

Truthfully ever since you'd killed Elijah you hadn't been able to forget it. You'd never used your powers like that before, never knew that you could, and never had fanaticized about that. But now, standing outside of the shop with your brother you could feel the plants calling out to you, asking you to command them, begging you to free them. You could feel them clawing in the dirt, the roots beneath writhing and unsettled, the flowers turning to watch Darren and you. Even the trees down the street that stood as stoic protectors over the children playing beneath their feet began to bend towards the two of you.

Sure in the past you'd been connected to the world around you, but ever since everything that happened with Elijah, your powers felt different, as if there was something else brewing and prickling beneath your skin that begged to be unleashed.

"I'm trying to apologize and you won't even listen to me!" Your brother shouts. Darren was leaning down over you, not as tall as Ben, but tall enough to be bigger than you.

You'd never feared him in the past, but you saw something flicker behind his eyes, something predatory, something that you'd never seen before in all the years that you'd spent with your brother.

"I don't want to hear anything you have to say Darren. I want you to leave-" You reply, hands still planted on your hips.

"No."

"No?"

"No. I can't stop by your damn apartment because you have that asshole hovering around. He would tear me to pieces before I got a chance to talk to you. And I want to explain what happened." Darren snaps back, eyes dark.

"I know what happened! Elijah told me exactly-"

"You're going to believe him over me? I'm your brother! I'm your blood, do you really think that I would have let Elijah do any of those things to you if I knew he would?"

"I don't know anymore."

It broke your heart to admit that aloud, but it was true. You didn't know if Darren cared about you at all and if he loved you the way that you loved him, if he ever had.

"What do you mean you don't know?" He looks hurt, shoulders slumping downward. "Sissy-"

"I-" You falter.

For just a fleeting moment the anger and heartbreak you feel towards your brother recedes just enough for the love you have for him begin to trickle back in. You wanted to believe that he cared about you. Frustrated tears burn in your eyes, because a part of you wants to push him away but there's another part that clings on with bloody fingertips and asks you to listen to him.

Because Darren was your family and all you could think of was if your parents were here what would they do? All those years that you supported your brother you'd thought that you were honoring their memory by refusing to turn your back on him. You wanted to love your brother, wanted to believe that everything he was saying was genuine, and all the years that you gave in to whatever Darren asked you were bearing down on you.

"Come on sissy. I love you. You're the only family that I have left." Darren soothes taking a step closer to you when he senses how hesitant you are to push him away.

"Well-"

"Please listen to-" Darren begins to say, but his entire body is yanked backward by something.

"She doesn't need to hear another fucking word you have to say." Ben snarls, holding Darren tightly by the throat above the sidewalk.

You hadn't seen him walk up. Ben could move silently when he wanted to and right now he looks murderous. There's a fire blazing behind his eyes turning them into heated furnaces of pure emerald, practically glowing in the last slips of the sunlight that peeks behind the buildings and stretches the shadows long over the almost empty street. His mouth is pulled back in a snarl as he stares at your brother, the grip he has on his throat tightening.

The couple across the street gasp when they watch Darren struggle in Ben's unbreakable grip, but Ben doesn't acknowledge them.

"I made you a promise." Ben's voice is a low growl as he holds Darren up so high off the ground that Darren's feet kick helplessly in the air. "You should have stayed gone you insignificant piece of shit."

Darren's eyes flash to yours. "Are you really going to let him treat me this way? I'm your brother!"

Ben's grip tightens on his throat and Darren grabs on to Ben's wrist.

You stand there frozen in horror unable to speak. A part of you is screaming for Ben to let him go and another part of you is begging for Ben to do what you don't think you can. You felt so weak in that moment, unable to turn your back on your brother, on the abuser, the manipulator, and the man who used you for years.

Ben's eyes flick to yours for a moment, something passing through his gaze that you can't understand, but it gives you strength.

"Sissy?" Darren's voice sounds so broken.

"Ben. Put him down." You say.

"What?" Ben snaps, eyes flashing.

"Please. Put him down." You breathe, your eyes catching Ben's for a moment.

Ben's jaw is tight, the muscles in his torso tense, but he does what you say with a grunt. Darren's body falls onto the sidewalk and he gasps for air, touching his throat as he gets to his feet.

Darren smiles at you through the deep breaths. "I knew you wouldn't let him-"

"Leave" You say as calmly as you can, but there's a slight tremor on the edge of your voice.

Ben takes a step closer to you when he hears it, but he doesn't touch you. He's still staring down Darren, eyebrows pulled tight together, and his mouth turned down into a frown with his arms crossed tightly over his chest. You know that he's probably a little pissed at you that you told him to put Darren down, but you also couldn't believe that he listened to you.

"What?" Darren stutters.

"Leave." You repeat. "I never want you to come back here ever."

"But I'm your-"

"If you say that you're her fucking brother one more time, I'm going to rip you in half." Ben's hands clench at his sides and you know that he's holding himself back from grabbing Darren again.

“You’re my family. I love you.” Darren says, the edge of his voice cracking just a little bit, but there's something behind his gaze that makes you pause. You're not sure if it's because he's trying to hide how mad he is at Ben or what, but there is something unsettling about the way he's looking at you.

“I don’t think you do.” It broke you to say it, to admit it out loud. “I’ve let you use me all these years, sacrificing my own happiness, my own success for you, because I loved you, but I don’t think you’ve ever once loved me. All you’ve done is look out for yourself.”

“That’s ridiculous-“

“When’s my birthday Darren?” You ask him, throat tight.

He freezes. “You're kidding right? You really think I don't know when your birthday is?"

"What have I been dreaming of doing since I was ten years old?"

"Sissy-"

"Your birthday is June 12th." You reply without stuttering. "Since you were thirteen years old your dream has been to own a blue 1970 Chevelle with black racing stripes. But you can never seem to scrape together enough money to get one."

Darren visibly pauses with your answer.

"I pay attention to everything you tell me Darren. I remember everything because I love you. And if you loved me, you would know those things about me. You would actually care enough to remember that I hate surprises, that I hate that insipid nickname, and since I was eight years old the only thing that I've been dreaming about is to open up my own farmer's market."

"You're kidding right?" Darren snorts. "That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard."

"And that's exactly why I don't believe that you love me. Because if you did you would support me the way that I've supported you for years."

"I-"

"No. I have sacrificed so much for you and you have never once done anything for me! So I'm asking you to leave, because as much as I love you, I can't do this anymore." The tears were blurring your vision, but you were holding it together the best you could. Ben was now standing so close to you that his arm was almost touching yours and you feel his fingertips brush the back of your hand just for a second, as if he wants to hold your hand but he doesn't.

"But-" Darren gapes, mouth wide open.

"She told you to fucking scram Dipshit." Ben snarls his eyes narrowing at your brother.

You could tell that it was taking a lot of effort on Ben's part not to turn Darren into mush and it made you grateful that he was here. Because Ben was letting you handle it, but he was there for you if you needed him to be. It was the first time that you realized how much you needed him with you.

Darren stands there for a minute eyeing Ben and you, emotions running together across his face merging with one another, his eyes darkening. And then he does something you didn't expect.

Darren begins to laugh.

Not just a little giggle or a snort, a deep throated rumble that shakes his body as he doubles over laughing so hard that he begins to wheeze.

"Oh sissy. I've been waiting for this for years. You have no idea." Darren continues to laugh, gasping for air and putting his hands on his thighs to hold himself steady.

What the hell is happening?

"What?" You ask tentatively. Even Ben is looking at him in surprise.

"Man. I've been wondering for years how long it would take you to finally grow a fucking backbone, but wow. I never thought it would be now." He starts to slow clap. "I'm impressed."

"What are you talking about?"

The glint in his eyes was back and Darren was smiling wide, so wide that you could see all his teeth. It reminded you of when Annie and you used to watch Crocodile Hunter on tv when you were kids and would huddle together watching Steve Irwin fearlessly handle them.

Darren's smile turns more into a smirk. "Kinda a good thing too, because I don't need you anymore, not with the way business is going. Honestly, I should thank your boyfriend. He solved a major problem for me."

"What problem?" Ben snarls.

"Elijah." Darren laughs out the name. "When I found out that you were Soldier Boy and saw how friendly you were with my sister at that ridiculous fundraiser. I knew that you'd come save her and kill Elijah. Poisoning his plants and letting it slip at that my sister just happened to be a plant supe at a poker game was the only way that I could get her involved and Elijah jumped at the chance.

He was at the fundraiser? When was he at the fundraiser?

"Why would you do that?" You ask in surprise.

What in the actual fuck is going on? He planned for Elijah to take me? He purposely poisoned the plants?

You were seeing a different side of Darren. Growing up he'd always had a temper, but Darren was never conniving or cunning. He never planned ahead more than an hour. It was always you that had to remind him to do things and you that begged him to at least think ahead for the entire week.

He's not some criminal mastermind. The guy doesn't believe that pickles used to be cucumbers for fucks sake.

"He was bad for business, he was already encroaching on my territory with the weed and then he said he was going to expand into cars and I couldn't have that. So." Your brother shrugs.

"But I don't understand why?"

Ben looks just as confused as you do, but the anger has not vanished from his eyes. You realize that Ben is waiting for you to say the word for him to start in on Darren. And it made you feel grateful again that he was here with you.

"Oh sissy you're still so innocent. I almost feel bad for you, not really. But" Darren flashes another brilliant smile that doesn't seem to fit the conversation the three of you are having. "I guess I should thank you. I would have never been able to build an empire without you."

"What the fuck are you talking about?" Ben spits.

He was getting tired of Darren's monologuing and frankly so were you. An odd feeling prickled against your skin, splattering and splashing like oil in a skillet and the plants in the shop behind you pressed themselves against the windows as if trying to warn you. There was something wrong about this whole situation, something that you knew that you were missing, but you couldn’t put your finger on it.

"And to think I was so upset when you survived that night." Darren looks disappointed, but he chuckles. "Of course my aim now is a little bit better than it was then." His eyes pulse a dangerous electric blue and an unnatural hum fills the air. "I've had the practice."

He's a supe? How long has he been a-

The thought stutters to a halt when you realize what he said.

"Your aim? What do you-"

The words are barely out of your mouth, when the cold shock of what he's talking about hits you like you'd been dunked into a bucket of cold water. The memory of the night your parents died comes crashing over you in a wave and you're transported into the backseat of the car. The supple leather beneath your fingertips, the chill of the air conditioning, the melding of your parent's voices to "Nights In White Satin," the patter of rain against the metal roof that streaked across the glass windows, and the sticky remnants of chocolate ice cream on your cheeks. The unnatural flash of white light illuminates the interior of the car, the light that seemed to crackle and pulse across the space in front of the vehicle and seemed to come from in front of the car and not above the way the cops said it had.

The same flash of light that everyone said was lightning, but now you knew better.

You remembered it all, the hum of electricity in the air as the bolt hit the car and your dad jerking the wheel and sending the car over the bridge, and the sound of your mother's scream ringing in your ears just before the jolt of the car hitting the water and everything went black.

"No." You whisper taking a step back from your brother. "It was you?"

Horror and shock clamps down around your throat making it difficult to breathe.

Why would he do something like that? They were our parents. Why would he want to kill the two people who loved him as unconditionally as they loved me?

You didn't have one unhappy memory from the childhood you spent with your parents. The house was always warm, filled with the smell of baked goods, and the love your parents had for one another and for Darren and you. Every day was fused with wonder and excitement, and the weekends were filled with surprise trips to places that you’d never been before. They cared so much for the two of you, sacrificing the big things in their lives so they could be around Darren and you.

Darren wasn't with us in the car, he said he had homework and that he couldn't come with us to my recital.

Darren smiles wider, proud that you figured it out. "I was worried that you saw me standing on the road that night in the rain. That's why I left for a few days after the accident, but when I showed up again and you were so happy to see me, I saw my chance. You didn't know that it was me and there wasn't a need for me to stay gone."

"But why? Why would you do that?"

Darren's expression turns murderous. "Do you have any idea what it was like being second best to you my whole life?" Electricity jumps from his fingertips, flashing a dangerous blue and crackling in the air. "What it was like to be your brother?"

Holy fuck he's the electric supe. And the empire that Elijah was encroaching on was his chop shop.

The thought blazes through you and you remember what Elijah said about "expanding into automotives."

Of course Darren needed us to take Elijah out. Elijah had money and had the means to destroy Darren, but without the competition then…

You blink to bring your thoughts back together, realizing what your brother just said to you. “What are you talking about? You were never second best-"

"Yes I was!" He seethes. "You’ve always been the special one. The supe, the favorite, the golden child. I could never touch you! You're the one that mom and dad were so proud of.”

Darren takes a step forward and Ben mirrors the move, shifting his body in front of you to protect you from Darren, but Darren doesn't take his eyes off you. His face is contorted in hate, anger flaring white hot in his eyes that still glow an unnatural and dangerous bright blue. The air is full of the energy, popping and crackling along Darren's skin with every pulse of electricity.

"Darren-" You begin to say, but he interrupts.

"No." He snarls. "I'm talking now. You can't shut me up. Do you have any idea how long I've waited for this? They put you on a fucking pedestal for years. You were the one with all the toys all the talent. You're the one that they gave the Compound V to. I had to scavenge and scrape together enough money to bribe a friend of mine to swipe some from his mother's hospital."

So that's how he got it.

Anger, rage, heart break, and shock were fighting in your chest for dominance. You could feel the burn of tears in your eyes understanding that the brother you thought that you'd loved for all these years was also the man who murdered your parents in cold blood.

He tried to kill you too.

The thought was everywhere, ricocheting around in your head, the truth that Darren hid for years finally coming out.

"I was made for more. You. You're nothing." Darren spits. "You're a disappointment. Mom and dad gave you the powers and all you do is sit in a fucking plant shop all day long. What about me? I can fucking fly! I can fry someone from thirty fucking feet away! I amounted to something. All you do is make the fucking flowers bloom."

You'd heard the insult before on the lips of the men Elijah employed, the men who underestimated you. You'd heard it before in the tone of voice your brother had when he spoke to you the other night when he came to crash in your apartment and took your bed.

The energy in the air was reaching a dangerous peak and you could still feel it scraping against your skin. The plants in the shop behind you are pressed tight against the window and you have no idea where Jake is, only that you hope he's far away from whatever is about to happen.

Anger pulses hard and fast in your chest, sending a bitter taste into your mouth. "Oh you amounted to something? You didn't amount to anything! You’re still just a sack of shit that’s I’ve been dragging around. And I can't believe that I let you do it to me for years! You don’t care about me you don’t love me-"

"Of course I fucking don’t! I never have!"

"And then you killed the two people who loved you unconditionally-"

"They didn't fucking love me!" Darren snarls. "The only thing they loved was you. A pathetic little bitch who should have just keeled over and died like a good girl."

Ben's hand comes out and grabs Darren by the front of his jacket hauling him up into the air. "Don't you fucking speak to her that way." His voice is no more than a growl, rumbling low in his chest, his own eyes flashing a deep green, darker than you'd ever seen before. His skin has taken on a golden glow, coming through the dark t-shirt and pair of jeans he was wearing and the smell of ozone fills the air around the three of you.

"What are you going to do Benny?" Darren's body is glowing a blue beneath his outfit. "Show me that famous Soldier Boy temper? Fuck, you're just as pathetic as she is, nothing more than a washed up-"

Ben isn't holding on to Darren anymore, Darren's body is flying back into the street with the force of Ben's throw, but it doesn't strike ground, it gets hit mid-air by a passing bright red minivan. Darren's body flips backwards over the top of the car and lands in the street in a broken heap.

You're still frozen on the sidewalk as Ben sails in to beat down Darren's body where it lies, but there's an awful flash of bright blue light and an SUV that was parked on the street goes flying into Ben, propelling both of them into the bakery next door to the plant shop. The loud crashing of glass and brick with the force of the hit rings in your ears.

"Ben!" You shout, but he's no where in sight.

Darren stands from the ground, one of his arms hanging limply at his side and there's a bloody gash on his forehead that drips blood down into his eye, but and when Darren smiles, blood smears the inside of his usually white teeth.

"Goodbye sissy."

You don't have time to react. The bolt of lightning catches you in the center of the chest and throws you backwards into the plant shop. There's a terrible feeling of weightlessness, before your body hits the glass windows and slams into the flowering plant display that Jake had been working on when Darren showed up.

You land on your back hard, head hitting the concrete with a sickening crack that you feel vibrate through your entire body. Pain is everywhere. There's glass imbedded in your back, the cast on your arm is cracked open, your leg is burning and you're afraid to look down to see what you'll find. You can taste blood in your mouth and feel something sticky underneath your head that you're sure is the same.

You stare up at the florescent lights of the shop for a moment, the revelation of everything your brother had done beginning to finally sink in.

He killed our parents, he tried to kill me.

Tears burn and fall down your cheeks with the thought. Emotions swirling in your chest too fast to name.

I spent years taking care of him, letting him berate me, manipulate me, use me for whatever he needed and not once did he love me. I was so stupid. How could I have been so stupid?

The plants were circling around you, calling out to you, brushing against your broken body as you continued to lay there staring up at the ceiling. Black was starting to close in on the edge of your vision, making everything go a little bit fuzzy, but your mind was awake.

He killed our parents, he tried to kill me.

You think again, but you still can't move. You feel the trailing vines of the plants touching your legs, wrapping over them, laying down over your chest, and creeping up towards your broken arm and your face. They were whispering to you, asking your permission, begging you to let them free.

He killed our parents, he tried to kill me, and he tried to kill Ben.

And with that thought, you feel the rage begin to take over, burning hot and beating against your rib cage like a drum.

The plants around you begin to glow a vivid green, binding around your limbs, their strength flooding into your body as you call them forth to help you. The healing energy wrapping you in a cocoon of energy and life, taking away your pain. Pieces of glass fall from your skin, your bones knit back together, your skin closes and the scars left behind disappear as if they never happened.

You rise from the ground, the plants that wrapped around you no more than blackened tendrils of what they used to be, crunching underfoot as you make your way towards the front of the shop. You could feel the energy thrumming through your veins, the wounds you had were gone, the exhaustion and fatigue washed away by the plants that gave what life they had to make you whole.

You'd only ever given life to things that needed you, you'd never once considered that you could take it away.

Darren is still standing in the street, looking proud of himself, but when he sees you reappear in the broken window his smile falters.

"Guess you can take a hit." Darren shrugs. "I'm a little impressed-"

"Our entire lives you’ve never appreciated me. All I did all was listen to you, do everything I could to love and support you. I did whatever you asked without question. I spent so much of my own money, sacrificing little things in my life, doing ridiculous jobs to make a little bit extra, because I thought I was helping you.”

“You did.” Darren sneers. “I never had to work-“

“I’m not finished.” You snap. “I have given so much of myself to you and all it did was enable you. Annie was right and our grandmother was right. You are a leech. All you do is take and take until there's nothing left, and you don't care who you hurt."

"Look who's finally seeing the bigger picture!"

"I am." Your heart was running a mile a minute and you could still feel the remnants of power from the plants thrumming in your veins. "You're a parasite and Ben was right, I was too stupid to see it, too conditioned to believe that you cared about me. But you don't, the only person you care about is yourself." Your voice trembles just a little bit as you say those words, but you knew it was true. "I'm sorry that you spent your entire life believing that our parents didn't love you, I'm sorry that I wasted so much of my own money and time taking care of you, and I'm sorry that after all this time there's still apart of me that wants to forgive you even though you don't deserve it."

"Oh no sissy did I hurt your feelings?" Darren puffs out his bottom lip in an exaggerated pout. "What are you gonna do? Throw a spinach puff at me?" He cackles. "You're so pathetic. You really think that Mr. American Dream and you can beat me? Please." Bluish white arcs of energy illuminate the air around him, catching in the long shadows, emanating out from his body. His skin has gone an even paler shade of white, his veins a dark blue beneath. "In Greek mythology Zeus is the king of the gods. And all the others bow to him." He raises a hand and the electricity dances across his palm. "Have you come to bow?"

“No, because you were wrong about one thing.” You feel your eyes shift to bright green with your words, the plants in the store behind you screaming for blood, writhing together in a tangled mass in the depths of the shop.

"And what’s that sissy?” Darren snorts.

“Ben didn’t kill Elijah. I did.”

The building that housed "Please Don't Die" explodes behind you raining brick, mortar, and rubble on the street around where you stand. The creature that crawls forward on broken limbs and tangled roots from the remnants of the store is the size of a city bus. It looks like a large lizard, the claws easily the size of your forearm, it's head the size of a washing machine, and the body rippling with muscle woven from stems, leaves, and vines to claw it's way from the rubble on four legs.

Darren stares up at it in shock, confused at it's sudden appearance.

It opens it's mouth, revealing a mouth full of broken sticks fashioned into points, and lets loose a roar that shakes the parked cars that line the street. You could feel your body intertwined with it, the creature an extension of yourself, the rage, anger, and frustration you felt pouring through the veins of the behemoth that towered over the empty street.

This has never happened before, but it felt right. As if everything inside of you had been building from this, since the moment you used your power to kill Elijah your powers had felt different, amplified. And now standing in the street with the creature at your command it feels cosmically correct. There's a switch inside that flipped the right way and for the first time in your life, you feel powerful.

Darren tries to blast you backward again, but the lizard is faster than he expected it to be absorbing the bolt of electricity. It plows head first into Darren, knocking him back into the pavement. He lets out a yell of surprise, the sound of his head hitting the pavement echoing down the street.

You could feel your body thrumming with power, electrifying your veins, exploding from every nerve ending, and charging through skin and sinew to recreate you into something that you never knew existed and never knew you could be.

The creature's clawed hand is on Darren's chest, flattening him down into the street, and he struggles beneath it electricity crackling in the air. The lizard stares down at him with unblinking eyes, not reacting to the arcs of bluish-white light that pulse from Darren's hands.

It looks over it's massive shoulder at you, the plants that formed it’s body asking your permission, bending to your will, opening it's mouth to click in a broken language that only you understand. You can hear the little whispers of the leaves against your ears and feel the roots and vines that knotted together to form the behemoth that takes up most of the street.

"Sissy-" Darren begins to say, his eyes wide. You could see him mentally calculating his mistake, his misinterpretation of what you were capable of, and see him trying to switch tactics to save his own skin.

But you don’t want to hear any of it anymore. You didn't want to waste another second of your life listening to anything he said.

"I'm your brother." He wheezes the clawed hand heavy on his chest, pushing him down into the pavement.

"I don’t have a brother." Your voice is cold and emotionless. "All you are is the asshole who killed my parents and used me in every way he could. And you're never going to use ever again. Goodbye Darren."

"Wait-"

The creature's jaws fasten onto Darren's head and his last words are cut off in the rip of teeth and crunch of bone.

You stand there watching the lizard tear at his body, gazing at the bloody mangled mass that was your brother and your creation that crouches above him. Blood drips from it's bloody maw onto the pavement, staining the street red and it looks at you as if waiting for your next command, but you can't move.

"Petals?" You hear Ben say from somewhere to your left, but you don't acknowledge him. "Are you okay?"

The rush you felt from the plants is gone, the green fading from your eyes, and the sound of Darren's final gasp still vibrating against your ears. The energy is slowly ebbing from your body and you're scared by what's left behind, because that meant that everything was about to come crashing back down on you.

The creature turns and moves closer to you, pressing it's giant head against your torso as if trying to comfort you. And you raise a hand to rub the top of it’s head you can't stop staring at the body, not quite comprehending everything that has happened in the past fifteen minutes.

Darren killed my parents, he deserved this, he tried to kill me, he tried to-

There were tears in your eyes, bubbling over, as you exhale a gasp and a bone shaking sob. Everything was crashing down over you quickly and you sink to your knees.

The creature seems to follow you down, growing smaller and smaller until it's no more than the size of your hand, and clings to your jean's pocket.

Darren's body is unrecognizable, lying in pieces, and scattered over the street. People were running and screaming in terror, but you couldn't hear them. You knew that the police would be coming quickly and you didn’t know how the fuck you were going to explain any of this. Not the giant lizard, not the destruction of the building behind you, and especially not explain any of this to Jake who you hoped wasn't hurt or worse.

You feel Ben's hand come down on your shoulder. "Petals look at me, come on."

"He killed them." You murmur, the memories of your parents flashing through your mind, all of them happy and in love. "He killed them because he thought they loved me more. It's all my fault." The memory of the nightmare grates across your skin sending a shudder through your body.

"Petals." Ben turns your face to look at him. His eyes are still filled with the force of his rage, but they are softer now, looking at you with an unreadable emotion that you'd only seen in the hospital when you woke up and Ben sat with you. His hand gently traces the curve of your cheek. "That was not your fault. Everything he did wasn't your fault. He was fucked in the head. He-"

"I can't do this." You swallow, pulling yourself from Ben and standing up on shaky legs.

"What?"

"I've got to get out of here." Your feet stumble slightly on the cracked pavement, and Ben catches your now unbroken arm to stabilize you, but also to stop you from leaving

"Let me make sure that you're okay first-"

"I'm not!" Your voice breaks. "None of what happened is okay. I'm not okay Ben I-" The sobs were coming closer together now, everything coming down hard and making it difficult to breathe. "I can't breathe. I-"

"Hey. Shhh-" Ben tries to step closer to you.

"No Ben." You shake your head, tugging your arm to tell him to let you go, but he doesn't. The tears fall faster, soaking through your bloody shirt.

Emotions were pummeling you, overwhelming you, and were making it difficult to speak and to think. The only thought you had was that you had to get the hell out of here, that you couldn't look at what used to be Darren anymore, and that you couldn't look at what used to be the shop you loved so much.

"Just wait a damn minute-" He says more forcefully, tightening his grip.

"No. Let me go."

"Petals-" He's saying it in the soft concerned way that he did whenever it was the two of you, but you couldn’t listen to it. All you could feel was the jumble of emotions in your head and the events of today beginning to press down over you. Darren's confessions and his death were crushing you into oblivion.

"Let me go Ben." You shout again, through a sob.

"I don't want to. Let me help damnit!"

"No, please." You shout, tears streaking down your face as he finally lets you go. "I need to be alone. I need to-" You gasp. "I need to go home."

The darkness was closing in quickly and you didn't know what to do. The tide was overwhelming, pulling you under with every passing second.

"Then let me take you home."

"No." You shake your head. "I have to go home." You say it again for him to understand what you mean. "I can't be here right now with this. With any of this I-"

"Please-" Ben's voice is thick and it's the first time you've ever heard him sound that way.

"No, I have to go."

And you run, leaving the body of your brother and everything you know behind, while Ben watches you go with a twinge in his own chest that he can't understand.

A/N: Lots happened in this chapter. I know the revelations and the twists were WILD. But it finally happened, Darren got what he deserved. I know we don't see too much of Ben and the reader, but in the next chapter things between them are about to become less blurry. And we get a re-appearance of Granny Di in the next chapter!

As always, thank you so much for reading! Reblogs, Comments, and Likes are not required, but are always appreciated. I love hearing what y'all think! If you'd like to be added to my taglist for this series please let me know! :)

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#soldier boy x reader #soldier boy x you #jensen ackles #soldier boy #soldier boy x female reader #jensen ackles soldier boy #soldier boy/ben #the boys amazon #the boys fanfic #soldier boy fic #soldier boy fanfiction #soldier boy x y/n

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jjunbug · 24 days ago

Text

BETWEEN TWILIGHT SKIES ───𝓅𝗋𝗈𝗅𝗈𝗀𝗎𝖾: 𝖺 𝗆𝗈𝗍𝗁 𝗍𝗈 𝗌𝗎𝗇𝗅𝗂𝗀𝗁𝗍

in a world that’s on its dying breath, the once green and lush landscapes get buried in more and more layers of ash. the once flourishing streets that were full of magic are now a dull hum. yet, there is still hope—and it lies in the hands of you and kai, the last people to possess magic. suddenly, you remember the story of a forest that watches, and a well of life that lies deep within. you’re determined to save your bleak world in any way that you can, yet, you weren’t expecting to end up in a brand new world entirely.

pairing ⸝⸝ huening kai 𝑥 fem!reader 𓄵 𝓯eat. ꔛ 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘪𝘯𝘯𝘬𝘦𝘦𝘱𝘦𝘳!𝘭𝘢𝘮𝘪𝘢 (𝘰𝘤) & 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘦𝘳!𝘢𝘭𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘢 (𝘰𝘤)

genre ⋆ 📖 ⸝⸝ angst, fluff, a lot of yearning and longing (both romantic and platonic), magic, sorcerer!kai

warnings ⸝⸝ kidnapping, toxic environments and parental relationships, implied bullying, two instances of reader getting slapped, violence, death (of people & animals), depictions of gore, implied anxiety attack and abuse, hand holding & staring into each others eyes, tension filled kissing

𝓴ipo’s note ⸝⸝ the series has finally started!! now listen, listen, listen!! i know what you’re thinking, “a prologue and it’s 7.6k????” but i need you guys to STAY WITH ME!!! stay with me and lock in and after reading it all you’ll understand why it had to be this long lmao… next chapter you’ll meet yeonjun hehe~~ i hope you enjoy!!

͏ ͏ ͏͏ ͏ ͏͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏͏ ͏ ͏͏ ͏͏ ͏ ͏ ͏͏ ❨ 7.6k ❩ ╱ ❨ 𝗽𝗹𝗮𝘆𝗹𝗶𝘀𝘁 ❩ ╱ ❨ 𝓼𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗲𝘀 𝒎𝗮𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗹𝗶𝘀𝘁 ❩ ͏ ͏ ͏͏ ͏ ͏͏ ͏ ͏ ͏͏ ͏ ͏͏ ͏ ͏ ︵͡ 𝙖𝙡𝙡 𝙛𝙚𝙚𝙙𝙗𝙖𝙘𝙠 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙧𝙚𝙗𝙡𝙤𝙜𝙨 𝙖𝙧𝙚 𝙬𝙚𝙡𝙘𝙤𝙢𝙚 (´ε｀ʃƪ)♡

‎ ͏ ͏ ͏͏ ͏ ͏͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏͏ ͏ ͏͏ ͏͏ ͏ ͏ ͏͏ ͏ ͏͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏͏ ͏ ͏ ͏͏ ͏ ͏͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏͏ ͏ ͏͏ ͏ ͏ ͏͏ ͏ ͏͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏͏ ͏ ͏͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏͏ ͏ ͏͏ ͏͏ ͏ ͏͏ ͏͏ 𐦍 ͏ ͏͏ ͏ ͏NEXT ⤇

The world around you had begun to wither away and decay long before it had started to end. As most things do, the rot had started to creep its way in through love. It had used it as a gateway, spreading its sickness all throughout the things you touched until it was the thin wisps of ash coating your cracked fingertips. Still, you let the rot in—let it corrupt the things you loved and change them into something unrecognizable, something unimaginable—something that was now dead and gone. You just couldn’t let go of the small doses of love you were granted with—naively gulping down tasteless sips to fill that hole inside your heart left by people you never even really knew.

You cradled love like a child guards its favorite toy; with fear and hesitancy. It was clear in the way your body hunched over and you looked up at every grown-up through wet lashes. Obvious in the way your dirty clothes hung limply from gangly limbs—once a tight fit but now they seemed to be made for a child much older than you. It must’ve been what enthralled her, what made her decide to pluck a random child no older than five off the street in the middle of the night and take them home.

In a way, you guess you had to thank her for the senseless crime she committed; for it gave you a warm bed to lay your head at night and food to fill your growling belly. It didn’t bother you that it all had come at a price, in fact, you were none the wiser. But, you’d know soon enough. The mask can only stay on for so long before it starts to crack—before it starts to rot like everything else did.

Lamia, is the name she sweetly whispered next to your ear as she tucked you into a bed that was never yours that night. “But, you can call me Mom,” she said, placing a soft kiss on your forehead.

It was hard watching things change in front of your very eyes. It was never the way people described it for you. Not the slow twist of vines along a column or the grass growing taller than a fence—no. It was the whipping of wind across your face. You’d go to wipe your teary eyes and find the sunny and warm scenery was now cold and dead with glittering snow laying everywhere.

You hated it.

You wished that things could stay as they were for as long as they could. You hated watching the faces of people you’ve grown to know dip and sag with age in an instant. You hated watching the life leave their eyes in a quick blink. And you hated how life seemed to go so slow for everyone except for you.

If you could dare to wish for one thing, it would be more time.

Sweet nights and even sweeter days began to sour, and Lamia—your mother—wasn’t as kind as she used to be when you were still a child. You think that that is what hurt the most with this odd whipping of wind, that you were forced to watch the love your mother held for you leave her eyes faster than you got to grow up to the young teenager you were today.

“Welcome to the Freywolf Inn!” you heard her voice exclaim to the ringing bell of the door. It was a careful blend of welcoming and cheerful. The sound was drowned out of your ears by the incessant sound of a brush against hardwood and soap mixing with water. You sat back on your knees, throwing the brush into the soapy mess and letting it clang against the floor, sighing. You wiped the back of your wet hand across your forehead and sucked in a breath.

Your knees ached and your hands were sore and cramped. This was the worst part of your mornings. No matter how hard you scrubbed these wooden floors, it wasn’t enough for Lamia. If they didn’t shine as if freshly polished when you were done then you scrubbed them wrong and she made you clean them again. Standing up on weak legs, you looked over your shoulder at the new customers as you reached for the bucket of dirty soap water. A soft gasp left your lips and you had to hold on tight to the bucket handle with both hands to ensure its contents didn't go spilling all over the floor.

You’d recognize them anywhere—the Collective, with their hooded, light forest-green cloaks embroidered with gold filigree and its golden satin insides. You never saw a member in person before—not that you were particularly excited to. Seeing a member of the Collective, so far away from the School of Pith, could only mean one thing…

The rot was here.

Frozen like a deer caught on sacred ground, you stared wide-eyed at them as they made their way to the common room, their carefree laughs carrying in the air around them. It felt like a bad omen—a confirmation. You tried so hard to ignore the fate of the things around you, but seeing that you could no longer hide from it was like a punch to your stomach.

Strangely, you also couldn’t help but be morbidly fascinated by it all. You exhaled slowly, steadying your racing heart and stilling your shaking hands that grasped the handle of the wooden bucket. Distantly, you felt the sting of pain across the back of your hands and shut your eyes. Only when every last molecule of air was absent from your lungs did you allow yourself to gulp in more to soothe the burning—just like your mother taught you.

Your eyes fluttered back open and landed on the group of sorcerers. They playfully practiced their magic out in the open—ringlets of green floating in the air and curling around their fingers and forearms. Their hands moved in peculiar ways, a jerk here or a smooth twist of their wrist there. You couldn’t understand it, but the more you watched them perform magic in front of your very eyes, the more you wanted to.

One member stood out to you in particular. He sat off to the side, a small distance away from where the others engaged and practiced their magic at, by himself. Dark hair fell over his warm-brown eyes, but you could still see how kind they were as they watched the other members of the Collective almost fondly. His green hood was over his head and he fiddled with the seams of his white pants with pale hands. There was a ghost of a smile on his face and—unbeknownst to you—there was one on yours too.

He didn’t practice his magic like the others did. He seemed content in just watching, having no need in the selfish display of power the others showcased. It piqued your interest what set him apart from the others and already you could feel a growing favor blossom in your chest for the boy.

He had to be only a few years older than you were and your cheeks warmed at the thought. He reached his arms up and pushed the hood backwards off his head, seemingly oblivious to your staring as were the rest of them. The filtered daylight washed over his body and you saw him more clearly. Your eyes greedily scanned over the slopes of his face, desperate to take him all in as quickly as you could. You couldn’t lie, he was beautiful.

You trailed your eyes over to the wisps of the green in the air. It’s different knowing that magic exists in a world so bleak and actually seeing it in action. It made you wonder where the ash was here in your small village—the rot—so you could watch them smother it. You needed to see those ringlets of green curl around it tighter and tighter until it didn’t exist anymore. Until all of the ash was gone for good.

You wanted to know what it felt like to wield such magic. Your fingers itched to replicate their movements in hopes that green wisps of your own would emerge. Maybe then would your touch not bring about destruction.

A hand roughly grabs your shoulder and breaks you away from the trance you were under. “Stupid child! Can you not hear?”

Lamia’s wrinkled face startlingly comes into view and you feel the bite of her nails in the flesh of your arm through the fabric of the thin dress you wore. You stammered, unsure of what to say and what her previous words were, and blinked rapidly at her accusation.

Wind whipped across your face and too late did you feel prickling pain spread across your cheek. The inn fell deathly silent and your eyes started to water. You swallowed down the lump in your throat thickly, your watery eyes finding your mother’s. “When I ask you a question, you answer it. Do I have to repeat myself?” your mother asked you.

Slowly, you shook your head and willed yourself to find your voice. “N-no, mother.” Your voice came out in a quiet squeak, completely pathetic and weak.

“Good,” Lamia responded. “Dry these soap-covered floors before our customers slip. Then, I want you to ensure the rooms for them are ready.”

“Yes, mother,” you said in that same weak voice.

She looked you up and down for a moment before tsking. Then, she turned on her heel and returned back to where she was behind the counter beforehand. Smoke curled from her mouth as she leisurely flipped through the sign-in book, unaware of the way time changed around her.

You swallowed thickly again, fingers tightening and untightening around the handle of the bucket you still held. Slowly, you turned just enough to look over your shoulder at lounging customers. No longer did they smile and laugh with a carefree attitude and swirls of green in the air. Instead, they stared at you with barely disguised shock. Your gaze snapped to the boy you were spellbound with earlier to find him staring too, mouth slack and sitting at the edge of the couch like he was eager to stand. His eyes met your teary ones and you broke away from the sudden connection.

Lifting the bucket closer to your chest, you rushed off into the direction of the rooms, embarrassment weighing you down and the once unshed tears now falling down your face. You ignored the sloshing sound of the water inside of it and the way the wood hit against your stomach, spilling over the metal lip and onto the floor below, creating an even bigger mess.

Sniffling, you hid yourself in the supply room. Your tears fell freely and a large sob wracked your body. You let the bucket slip from your fingers just inches from the rocky floor without a care and with a piercing thud. Stupid, you thought to yourself. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Get it together. Stop crying.

Yet, the tears wouldn't stop. You heaved in breaths of air that refused to reach your lungs. You didn’t have time for this. If the floors weren’t dry and the rooms weren’t checked on in a timely manner then you’d get worse than a slap across the face. Harshly, you dug the palms of your hands into your cheeks and wiped away the fallen tears. You compelled yourself to take a deep breath, to let the oxygen reach your lungs and not be blocked by the false closing of your throat.

Closing your eyes, you took in another deep breath, and another and another until your body no longer began to tremble. You straightened your back so you weren’t hunched over anymore and wiped your hands down the front of your damp dress. When you felt like you weren’t unravelling at the seams only then did you step out of the supply room to face the world.

Instead of the loud chattering coming from the Collective like from when they arrived, it was quiet and sparse whispers. When you got closer to where they were in the common room, the whispers grew.

You tried to drown their whispers out—opting to instead get to work on your mother’s request. Dropping to your knees, you took the clean towel and aggressively dried the wet section of hardwood floor beneath you, letting all your focus fall onto the repeated action.

Footsteps sounded behind you, but you didn’t hear them until an unfamiliar voice stunned you from your focus. “If I may?” the voice asked. You looked to the side, eyes meeting dirty brown boots whose eyelets caught in the bright sun. They trailed upwards to white pants and gold embroidered filigree onto a light, forest-green velvet fabric. Your hand halted its aggressive drying as your eyes ascended further to meet the boy from earlier’s handsome face. Your eyes widened to saucers and his seemed to be just as big as they looked down at you. “It will all go faster if I do this,” he continued, some of his words wobbling around the edges.

You remained silent, not trusting your voice to not come out raw and abrasive. The boy extended a hand out in front of him and with a twist of his wrist wisps of green emerged and wrapped around it. They swirled out around the two of you, lightly fogging across the floor. You turned to the wet floor in front of you and watched as it suddenly dried, the wood shining in the sunlight pouring in from the window. Your jaw slackened as your mouth fell open.

“It was a simple spell—you shouldn’t have to be on your hands and knees drying a floor,” the boy stated, the second part lower than the first so your mother didn’t hear. He outstretched his hand to you. Your mouth was still open as you turned back to stare blankly at his hand. An amused and warm smile pulled his cheeks upward and you suddenly came to the realization that you must’ve looked ridiculous.

“T-thank you…” you trailed off, voice barely above a whisper, still starstruck by the display of magic and the boy’s smile. You straightened your back before blinking a couple times. Clearing your throat, you accepted his outstretched hand and the boy helped you to your feet.

He chuckled and you felt your knees weaken more. His hand was still holding yours, the both of you forgetful as your gaze seared into each other. The smile slowly fell from his face, his lips parting with unspoken words as he gaped at you as if bewitched. Snickering to your side brought the two of you back to real life and you pulled your hands away from each other.

“Uh,” the boy said, clenching the hand that was just holding yours and trying to form a coherent sentence. His gaze snapped briefly to the other members of the Collective before landing on you again. “U—No worries! It was nothing, really. Kai.” He stammered over his words before his eyebrows raised. “My name. It’s–I’m, uh, Kai.”

Kai outstretched his hand again before he thought better of it and swiftly yanked it away, instead rubbing the back of his neck with it. If you weren’t so disoriented you’d laugh, but you just stare at him instead, the heat slowly creeping up your neck. You then realize how much of a mess you must look and quickly wipe your cheeks to get rid of any remaining tears. “Um,” you start, “I… I’m—”

Your name slices through the air like a knife. You jump, eyes darting over to where your mother stood behind the counter, a saccharine smile pulling her lips as she looked at the two of you. It felt as if you were watching a snake rattle its tail. Looking back to Kai, you offer him the tiniest of smiles before rushing away again, leaving him standing alone.

You’re not quite sure when the obsession with magic started. Maybe it was when you saw how carefree the Collective looked wielding it, as if it was second nature. Or, maybe it was when Kai had so graciously used it to help you out so you didn’t have to spend the remainder of the morning on your hands and knees. All you did know was that it had sunk its claws inside of you, gripping fiercely at your heart and making the hole inside of it larger.

Maybe it was when you started sneaking away from, or even downright rushing to finish, your duties so you could watch them practice magic. Maybe it was the rush you got watching their hands twist and jerk in specific movements for specific outcomes, green coils emerging from the motions.

But, you think it started when you lifted your hands into the air, daring to copy them.

At first, it was nothing, and frustration built up like a brick wall inside you. Then, that frustration turned to resentment, and that resentment into anger.

The Collective were here for a week so far and you weren't sure how long you had left before they departed. Why weren’t you born with magic like they were? If you had magic, it would change everything. No longer would everything rot around you when you could smother the rot all out—bring everything that has long been dead and gone back to life. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair at all.

You flicked your fingers in the air angrily as green smoked around the member’s fingers and not yours. Something a mix between and groan and a growl emerged from your throat instead. But, you were determined—and you refused to give up.

Perfecting the twists of your wrists and quick jerks of your fingers, you exhaled steadily and focused on getting the same result the member of the Collective did—cracking open a single walnut without touching it. The walnut sat on the floor in front of you mockingly and you scowled at it before focusing again.

“Come on,” you whispered to yourself. “Come on, come on. Work, please.” With one final twist of your wrist, you heard the distinct cracking sound and a soft gasp pushing between your lips. Your face broke into a smile and it took everything in you not to cheer at the top of your lungs. You watched the slightest hints of green feather away around the lengths of your fingers, so fast the color was barely distinguishable. A smile spread across your face from ear to ear.

“Yes!” you proclaimed, taking care to keep your voice low. A pleased laugh left your mouth and happy tears filled your lash line, “Yes!”

Your view snapped back to that of the Collective in the dining hall. You listened to the way they joked with each other and made water spin into wine—getting themselves drunk and red-faced. As your stare analyzed them, you noticed that Kai wasn’t among them.

It was odd, you thought, but it reminded you of the first time you saw him and how he sat apart from the others. How different he seemed from them. Just from watching the Collective members interact, you already didn’t like them. Maybe Kai felt the same.

You haven’t talked to him since that day—haven’t really seen him around besides quick glimpses, either. A peculiar feeling stirred in your chest and you weren’t sure what it meant. You just hoped that your paths would cross again.

When you weren’t at Freywolf Inn, you were at the craft guild with your nose buried in a book. You were there so often that you were on a first name basis with the stationer, Althea, a sweet lady who distinctly had the look that reminded you of a barn owl. In the entirety of your small village, it seemed Althea was the only one who wasn’t victim to the rot. You felt safe being around her—and she always remarked how much you were like a daughter to her.

She let you freely borrow the books she received or binded and even let you hang out behind the counter while she dealt with artisans and people wealthier than you could ever imagine who came to see her from all over the world. You remember asking her one day why people came from all over to see her wares.

“Not that they’re bad,” you quickly added, leaning the open book onto your thighs as you looked up at her from your hiding spot underneath the counter. She threw you a witty smile over her shoulder from the press she was at, hair the color of cinnamon sticks falling over her shoulder. The two of you felt as if you were moving at the same speed—you barely realized the fact that streaks of white slowly became more prevalent in her hair. “I mean, this is just such a small village… Wouldn’t they go to communes or the King’s Roots where the school is?”

Althea’s voice was nothing like you’ve heard before despite her saying how she grew up in the village. It had a strange accent and the way she spoke was like silk against the bark of a tree. Althea turned from where she worked to meet your questioning look, leaning over and resting her elbows on her knees so she was just about eye level with you, “Not… quite. See, I offer words that you won’t find on a shelf at the School of Pith. Illustrations they wouldn’t dare to let one of their students witness.”

You sat up more underneath the counter, completely abandoning the still open book in your lap. Your eyes shined with curiosity and Althea laughed—a sound that resembled crackling fire. “What kind of words?” you asked her.

“Knowledge, my owlet. There’s much more out there than the green thumbs of Pith—the royals and the wealthy.” Althea spat out green thumbs like food stuck on her tongue. You knew she never liked the Collective, but to this day, she still never told you why.

Althea stood and walked over to one of the shelves that you never touched, but was always only open for certain customers who came inside the guild hooded and quiet. Her finger ran along the spines as her white brows drew together, “There is a forest in this world, buried deep within another.” Her brows lifted as she found the book she was looking for and she made her way back to the counter.

You crawled from beneath the counter, twisting to watch as she laid the thick book down onto it and opened it to the beginning pages. You gently discarded the book you were reading off to the side of the counter, your focus now on the twirling of words and stirring drawings. Althea’s fingers gently caressed the pages. Her face was distant and longing, like recounting a memory that happened centuries ago. “The Forest That Watches, it is called,” she continued. “It’s white-barked trees have black eyes drawn onto them by people from long ago and its drooping pink leaves kiss the sacred ground.”

For a moment, Althea was quiet. You waited patiently, decidedly taking in the open page until she was ready to speak again. You could tell that this forest was a sensitive topic for her and you didn’t want to pry. You looked up at her when she wrapped her arm around your shoulders. She regarded you with a fond smile, “The forest has never been found, though, and it remains watching—waiting. Its pink leaves hide what’s inside; the Well of Life.”

With her free arm, Althea flipped through the pages until it landed on the Forest and the Well. “Woah,” you muttered, leaning forward to get a better look at it. Even from the illustrations you could tell how beautiful it was, feel the magic that radiated from it all.

You knew why it hadn’t been found yet—why it never could be. That much power in the wrong hands would be detrimental. But, you couldn’t help but wonder how different your world would be if it had access to the magical waters Althea was telling you about.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Althea breathed wistfully. “We’ll meet there one day… under the pink leaves and drink from the Well.” She returned her gaze to yours. “Wouldn’t that be nice? Then the turning of the sun won’t seem so fast.”

You sighed to yourself as your eyes fell back to the pages. You leaned your head into Althea’s side and she wrapped her arm around you tighter. “That would be nice,” you say.

In the darkness of the night, you let the shadows listen to your deepest wishes. And how you wish that it was Althea who plucked you from the streets instead of Lamia.

You wander Althea’s shelf now, hands running along the spines. Your fingertips still buzz with the magic you emitted earlier and you swear you can feel the contents of the shelved books calling out to you. Stilling, your fingers halt onto a book. The pull was just too strong to deny and when you turn your head to read the spine you find that the lettering has been rubbed away by time. You hum in slight annoyance before pulling the book from the shelf.

You can feel how Althea’s eyes trail you, especially when you walk over to the counter to take your familiar spot under it. In the corner of your eye, you can see her head tilt. “You feel different. And you’re quiet—quieter than usual,” she says quizzically.

Looking up from your book, a corner of your mouth raises. “Magic, Althea…” Your face breaks out into full-on excitement. “I have it! At least… sparks of it…”

Althea’s face doesn’t change from its quizzical expression. She shifts in her seat in front of the press. “Green?” she asked you, accusatory. You're unsure whether her accusatory tone was towards you or not.

The excitement swiftly falls from your face and you sit up more under the counter. “I… Yeah…” you mutter, avoiding her stare.

“It can’t be,” Althea states matter-of-factly. Her white brows furrow, and she looks away from you. “Can’t be…” she quietly trails off, more to herself than to you. “Green is… can’t be, can’t be. Doesn’t make sense.”

“I think it was green…” you pipe up, voice falling flat towards the end when her piercing black eyes snap to yours. “I didn’t really see the color, it all happened too fast.” It was true, but in your heart you wished it was green. You just wanted Althea to stop acting all fidgety and looking at you the way she did. You held the book in your arms closer to your chest and Althea’s gaze dropped to the movement.

Althea’s body physically relaxed from the tense state it was in, and if you looked close enough, you thought you could see the ghost of a smile on her lips. She hummed, suddenly pleased, “Magic… how enchanting. Have I told you about the White Fawn? Or, the prophecy of Eternal Winter?”

Your brows knitted at the change in her demeanor, but you concluded that it was better to leave it be. You shook your head at her question. “What about faeries?” Althea asked.

“No,” you responded, “what are they?”

Althea slid to the ground in front of you, a grin pulling her mouth and exposing her teeth. She tapped the book you desperately clutched to your chest with an ivory finger. “Why don’t you take a look?”

You giggled to yourself, letting your arms flow in the harmony of the wind. You twirled and moved your body to the tune of nature—to the sounds of the forest’s edge behind you with its rustling leaves and chattering animals. The crown of sticks and fallen leaves fell down further onto your forehead and you laughed more. You didn’t even notice the single brilliant blue butterfly that landed on it and completed your costume.

If your mother saw you right now, she’d be furious. She had sent you out here on punishment with the intention of having you clean the stables behind the inn. Instead, you were dancing The Dance of Youth and pretending to be the Faerie Queen.

You spent all day yesterday reading Althea’s book on anything magical you could get your hands on, which mainly consisted of faeries and the realm they occupied. The books conjured up tales, legends, and myths of those more than human—people with glittering or colorful skin, wings, horns shooting from their heads, and even human-like versions of some of the animals you were already familiar with. It was completely enthralling reading about it all, and feeling all the magic pour off of the pages made you even more giddy. The magic the School of Pith had was nothing compared to the magic you had read about.

In a kingdom so sunny and full of bloom, A deadly winter approaches to cause mass doom. Drowns the kingdom in layers of snow, And becomes a place where nothing grows and no one goes.

You sang and danced around in the grass, pretending that you weren’t human at all, but faerie. That you were queen and the lands stretching from the edge of the forest to the inn was your kingdom. You wished you lived in Faerie where all the other magical creatures resided. That you and Althea could live there together, happy. Maybe even Kai could join you too. You giggled more at the wonderful thought.

Rustling in the forest drew your attention and you halted your dance. You leaned forward, listening closely and peering at the way the setting sun shined through the leaves, but then laughed at how ridiculous the notion was. Of course there was rustling, it’s a forest. You turned your attention back to the doll propped up on a rock, watching you. “Don’t look at me that way,” you say, twirling once more before making your way over to it.

The doll was a sightly thing made out of straw and sticks that Althea gave to you as a child. After all these years you still had it, and you cherished it deeply—making sure to keep it hidden from Lamia so she wouldn’t toss it out. You could hear her voice now, “A girl born in the summer of the thirteenth year of the King still playing with dolls? How preposterous!”

You hummed, bending down to retrieve the doll. “What an odd thing to say… Why should I find a man to marry in order to rule? I am the Faerie Queen. This is my kingdom, I shall rule it how I see fit!”

Too lost in your own dream-like world, you don’t notice the crunching of leaves beneath boots. “Well, all Queens need a King to stand beside them,” a voice said behind you. You spun in place, clutching the doll to your chest. Kai tilted his head at you, an easy smile playing on his lips. “Don’t you think?” he concluded.

His cloak was covered in ash. He and the other members of the Collective must have just returned from defeating the ash in the area for good. The heat immediately rushed to your face and your mind raced. Kai stood mere feet from you and you were stumbling over your own thoughts on what to say. You stood up straighter, trying to appear nonchalant, “I-I suppose…”

How embarrassing it was to be caught in such childlike endeavors—by Kai of all people! You moved the doll behind your back in an attempt to hide it, yet Kai’s gaze followed the action before flicking back up to your face. Behind him, you saw the rest of the Collective ride up on horses towards the inn, snickering at the two of you. “I see Kai has finally found someone willing to lay with him!” one shouted sarcastically.

Kai’s face soured and he looked over his shoulder at them with a glare before turning back to you. Face softening, he took a step towards you. “Ignore them,” Kai says, “They think they’re funny and they’re not.”

He stripped off his velvet green cloak and gave it a good shake away from where you stood. Ash clouded off of it in front of him, making the two of you cough a little. “Sorry,” Kai coughed, letting the cloak fall onto the rock next to him. “So… The Faerie Queen, huh? What’s that? Does that have something to do with your dance?”

You looked down to your feet in even more embarrassment. “It’s… It’s nothing.” You sat down on the rock that your doll was previously perched on. “I can’t believe you saw that…” you muttered under your breath.

“It looked like fun,” Kai laughed, and you looked up to catch the way his smile lingered as he looked down at you. “You seemed really into it, didn’t even notice me coming up behind you. You jumped like a caught baby deer.”

It was your turn to laugh. “A baby deer?” you asked and Kai nodded. “I guess you could say that, but you scared me!” Kai sat down next to you. He pointed his chin upwards, his eyes on the crown of sticks and leaves on your head. “Is that your crown, Faerie Queen?”

Biting your lip, you took the crown off and placed it in your lap. You toyed with the leaves in it. “You should make me one,” Kai says. You looked up at him. He was much closer than you originally thought he was, his shoulder brushing up against yours making you nervous. This close up you could see all the details of his face—his eyelashes that occasionally rested softly on round, smiling cheeks, and the curve of his plump, pinked lips. And his warm, brown eyes that never left your face. “You know… Queens and Kings and all of that…”

You smiled, looking away from him so he wouldn’t see how flustered he made you. “Really?” you questioned, braving his stare once again. “Yeah!” Kai exclaimed. He leaned closer to you, “Only if you see me fit, though, my queen.”

Kai took your hand in his and bent over to press his lips to the back of it, his eyes flicking up to look at you between his lashes. The action set you alight and you were so sure that Kai could feel the heat radiating off of your body. “I’ll have to put you to the test,” you mutter, barely managing to get your words out. “Only the best can rule with me by my side.”

You felt the vibrations of Kai’s laugh against your skin before he sat back up, his hand still grasping yours. His face was even closer to yours now. All it took was one of you to lean a little closer and your lips would meet. “Well, you’ll find that I am the best of the best,” Kai spoke, lowly. His eyes dropped to your lips and he swayed a little. “Nobody stands a chance against me.”

“Is that so?” you asked, your voice barely above a whisper.

“Mhm,” Kai nodded. He closed the gap between the two of you and pressed his lips against yours. With the hand that wasn’t holding yours, he used it to cup your cheek and lift your chin to kiss you deeper. You melted into his touch, your lips moving in sync with his. It was perfect, and the feeling of his soft lips on yours was like heaven.

“Why don’t you show her your magic wand!” a voice behind you and Kai yelled in your direction. The two of you broke apart, yet Kai’s hand remained on your cheek. Embarrassment crept up your neck and you could tell from Kai’s red ears that he was feeling the same way. He turned to where the voice came from, brows drawing together to form another dirty glare.

The rustling in the woods was more prevalent now and both you and Kai’s head snapped to the edge of the forest. Before your ears could even pick up on the growling, a large wolf jumped out from between the trees. Both you and Kai raced to your feet and he held a hand out to guide you behind him. You hugged your doll to your chest in fear. Besides his body being tense, Kai remained relatively calm.

The wolf growled and snapped at the two of you, its sharp teeth piercing the air as spit ran down the corners of its jaw. “Awe, he can’t even handle a single wolf… the Ash is going to smoke him out!” Members of the Collective laughed behind you, but Kai paid them no mind. He guided you slowly backwards and away from the edge of the forest.

Kai quickly glanced back at you and the way you trembled, terrified. “It must be hungry,” he said, focusing back on the wolf. Green swirls of magic wrapped around the two of you. “It probably smells the meat from the nearby butcher’s.”

“It wouldn’t kill us, right?” you asked with a shaky voice, already knowing how foolish the question was before finishing it. Kai looked over his shoulder at you again, his face the most serious you’ve seen it, “Make something scared and it’ll do just about anything to get rid of the feeling.”

Just as Kai turned his head back towards the wolf, it pounced at the two of you. Behind it, more wolves prowled out of the woods, snarling. You barely registered that the harrowing scream that filled your ears was your own before you were pushed to the ground.

Everything seemed to move in slow motion for once in your entire life. The members of the Collective who were snickering and poking fun at you and Kai jumped into action, spirals of green emerging from their fingertips. More of them piled out from the inn, along with Lamia. You don’t realize that a hand is grabbing your arm and lifting you to your feet before you’re being pushed out of the crossfire.

All you see is green. At least, at first.

Then, splatters of red cover your vision. The screams and cracking of bones fill your ears and bodies fly through the air. Hot tears run down your cheeks and you close your eyes. Then, there is complete and utter silence.

The silence lasts for a moment before all sound comes rushing back to you so fast it felt like your ears were bleeding. There was screaming and crying and more cracking of bones set into place. You opened your eyes to see that the once green pasture you danced in was covered in red—red so dark it was almost black, and disfigured bodies and torn limbs were everywhere.

You stood up from the mud, eyes scanning through the green in the air in search of Kai. When you found him, tending to one of his members whose leg was missing, you breathed a sigh of relief. He was covered in blood and viscera, but it looked like he was unharmed. Barely taking a step in his direction, nails dug into your arm, bringing about a sharp sting that you were all too familiar with.

Body swinging in the opposite direction of Kai, you came face to face with your mother. Her hand reached up to roughly grab your chin. “What have you done?!” She screamed at you.

You glanced around you, never hearing her this angry before. More tears slid out of your eyes and to the dirt below and you tried to talk around the lump in your throat. You took in the destruction all around you, at the dead wolves that were now being carried towards the butcher who stood a couple feet from you. His voice caught in the air, “...a lamb, yeah.” You looked at how many lives the Collective lost in a sheer matter of minutes—and how it was all your fault. “It… I—” you started.

“You brainless child!” Your mother’s hand striked you so hard across the face that you fell back down to the mud at your feet. “Do you know how bad this is for business? Members of the Collective are dead on my soil!” You held your searing cheek with the hand that wasn’t still clutching onto your straw doll as you looked up at your mother with tearful eyes.

“I… I didn’t m—”

“Shut up. Go. I never want to see your vile face again!” Lamia screamed, her wrinkled face turning as red as the sunset behind her. She pointed a shaky finger away from the inn. You stood up on weak legs, your knees shaking. “But—but, Mom—” you cried.

“Go!”

You gave her one last pleading look before taking off, stumbling over your own feet. Tears blurred your vision, but you didn’t need sight for the place you were running to. You could find Althea in the dark, bound and soundless, if you had to.

You pushed open the doors of the guild and fell to the floor just in front of the counter, startling Althea and the customer she was engaging with. Your chest heaved and your tears formed a puddled at your scraped and dirty knees. “S-She… They’re all…” Your whole body shook and you couldn’t even form a coherent sentence.

Althea rushed to you, taking you into her arms and completely abandoning her customer. You caught a glimpse of them from Althea’s chest and didn’t know what you saw… Scaly skin that caught the light before a clawed hand pulled the hood further over their face, maybe? Althea shushed you and rubbed comforting circles into your back. “It’s okay, my owlet, it’s okay. I’ll take care of you.”

Love is a very wretched thing. It lets in the rot and the maggots and the ash. But, you still couldn’t help scraping off the corruption and placing it gently in your heart anyway. You couldn’t let go of the thought that maybe it could be beautiful, that it could be worth the cracked skin.

Instead of your usual hiding spot under the counter next to where Althea worked, you were hidden away between shelves at the back of the guild, alone. A book sat open in your lap, but your mind was too distracted to read any of the words in it. You heard the soft pattering of feet along the hardwood and turned to the sound.

Kai stood before you, completely distraught and still covered in blood from the wolf attack.

You waited for him to speak, but he said nothing. You moved the open book in your lap to the side as you sat up. Your lips parted as you thought of something to say. “T-Thank you,” you said finally. “You saved my life.”

Kai’s eyes weren’t the warm brown that they were earlier. Something shifts in them and you swallow thickly. They were cold, lifeless. Kai just nodded and slumped down to the floor next to you. An awkward silence filled the air and you didn’t know what to say to resolve it.

“How did you find me?” you asked in a meek voice. Kai’s eyes shifted over to you from where they looked out the window to the dark sky. “I saw you run here,” he says plainly. “Followed you.”

Silence penetrates the air before he speaks again. “They kicked me out,” Kai says, his lifeless eyes still boring into you. “They kicked me out of the School of Pith.”

Your mouth falls open in shock and you rush to apologize, saying how it was all your fault, but Kai just shakes his head and looks away from you. He’s still in his Collective uniform, but now the light, forest-green of his velvet cloak seems dull and dark. It doesn’t help that it’s now splattered with blood. “I guess it was my last chance.”

There’s no inflection in his voice, nothing to show whether the result makes him sad or angry or even annoyed. His face is expressionless. The only hint to his inner turmoil is the way his fingers pull harshly at the seams of his dirty white pants. The tips of them are reddened, like he’s been at it for a while now.

Kai turned back to you and reached a hand up to gently rub his thumb along your bruised cheek. His gaze then dipped to the book on the floor. “What are you reading?”

You hand the book to him, the page opened onto the legend of the White Fawn that Althea told you about. Kai hummed, “You don’t really believe in all that stuff, do you? This myth?”

“You don’t?” you asked incredulously. “You have magic, but don’t believe in a white deer that brings about luck and fortune?”

For the first time that night, you manage to get Kai to chuckle. “I suppose you’re right…” he trailed. “I might not be the firmest believer in myths and legends, but I do know a lot about them. We learned about them at the school—more things than you’ll read about in any book.”

Kai glances at you and catches the way your eyes light up. A smile pulls at the corner of his lips. The light still isn't back in his eyes—and his smile doesn't reach them either—but, it’s a start. You look at him as if he just hung all the stars in the pitch black sky.

“You want me to teach you?” Kai asks, and you desperately nod your head.

[ kipo’s note . . . ] wow… a lot happened… you see why it had to be almost 8k words now?? lmaoo i had to set everything up! but tell me how you feel about it all!! what do you think about the faerie realm, or the myths of the forest that watches and the well of life? the white fawn and the prophecy of eternal winter??? lemme know all your thoughts, don’t be shy!!! (∩˃o˂∩)♡

𖥦 ﴾ 𝖼𝗈𝗇𝗍𝗂𝗇𝗎𝖾 𝗈𝗇 𝗍𝗈 . . . 𝘀𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗲𝘀 𝗺.𝗹𝗶𝘀𝘁 , 𝗺𝗮𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗹𝗶𝘀𝘁 , 𝗽𝗹𝗮𝘆𝗹𝗶𝘀𝘁 ﴿ ︵͡ 𝙖𝙡𝙡 𝙛𝙚𝙚𝙙𝙗𝙖𝙘𝙠 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙧𝙚𝙗𝙡𝙤𝙜𝙨 𝙖𝙧𝙚 𝙬𝙚𝙡𝙘𝙤𝙢𝙚 (´ε｀ʃƪ)♡

🏷️﹙ 𝗐𝖺𝗇𝗍 𝗍𝗈 𝖻𝖾 𝖺𝖽𝖽𝖾𝖽 𝗍𝗈 𝗆𝗒 𝗉𝖾𝗋𝗆𝖺𝗇𝖾𝗇𝗍 𝗍𝖺𝗀𝗅𝗂𝗌𝗍? 𝖼𝗅𝗂𝖼𝗄 𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 ﹚ @jjunberry @gothgyuu @gyuuberries @hyukascampfire @xylatox @ghstzzn @izzyy-stuff @sunoosgfv @jihyokat @whosserina @jellymochii @innocygnet @sumsumtingz @riribelle @yeoningz @minaateez @beombunni @jiryunn @lvrs-street2mmorrow @everythingvirgoes @beomieeeeeeeeeeees @usuallyunlikelyfox @blossommi @tinycatharsis

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