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thesharktanksdriver · 6 months ago

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Through the bars of a cell do you see the stars are shackled too? (Platonic)

Welp yall, here it is! The 13k magnum opus I somehow wrote

Not sure if it’s any good but that’s for you guys to decide

Masterlist for this series 𝐓𝐚𝐠 𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭: @peachsuka28 @emptynessinmyworld @badluckinfrench @j-s-l-m @tigerfang-rage @madokamagicaa @rymtea @angstylittleb1tch @badluckinfrench @emmbny @kenkenmaaa @yunho-leeknow @chibiduck @spqce-bun @coca-cola-fiend @Koifishpoond

If there was one thing Kaido knew about life was that it sucked.

Day after day was a consistent drag of disappointment and bellowing sorrow.

there were only a few things that made it slightly bearable as he went from suicide attempt to suicide attempt as to finally end his own agony.

Booze

The company of a woman (alway Black Maria)

The thought of someone finally being worthy to kill him.

And the recollection of memories.

These four things made the time in which Kaido wasn’t actively taking a sword to his chest or gunshot to the head somewhat….ok.

The first two of these were simple enough desires.

His entire crew indulged themselves just the same as him, though in relative moderation compared to Kaido’s ravenous appetite for both. They served as decent distractions, the buzz of booze and a pretty woman at just about anyone’s side was enough to at least raise someone’s mood. Kaido was no exception to this until that buzz went away and a woman’s touch faded to a lukewarm warmth that could never graze his heart.

The second was also yet another simple desire, a goal more to say. The thought of which made his blood boil in anticipation of someone finally being worthy of giving a finishing blow. His heart stopping and breath finally leaving his throat. Oden had been the closest to this, the scar proudly displaced on Kaido’s chest seen more as a badge of honor rather than a brush with death that many would look at in shame.

If Kaido had been less of a man, perhaps he’d gaze at it the same way rather than something he often gleams at in a mixture of pride and melancholy.

But then there was that last distraction, perhaps the most effective of them all.

Memory.

Kaido has lived a long life, one filled with various adventures that now make everything feel dull in comparison.

He sometimes thinks of the Rocks pirates, the crew he was on all those years ago where he’d meet Linlin and Newgate.

Most times he thinks of Oden and their battle. The man he’d be willing to call an equal as they fought to the death before that dirt old hag pulled that underhanded trick. The bullet he put through the old Rulers head as he boiled.

Other times it's of the Boy formerly known as Alber in a lab. Fanning the flames that burned away at cracking test tubes and blindingly white lab coats.

But of all memories he thinks of there was always one memory he found himself looking back to.

No matter how much he tried to drink and wash down the sorrow.

Nor the blood staining his hands that unlike the rest he tries to wash off.

He drinks and unfortunately remembers.

===

For as long as Kaido could remember he’s always been locked behind the bars of a cell and had the key thrown away.

Being born in vodka kingdom meant he was already drafted at birth for the sole purpose of being a cog in the machine of war.

The battle cries and burning villages served as his lullabies.

Blood staining his hands at the ripe age of 5 like paint.

Club heavy in his hands as if it were a toy.

When you're born with shackles you don’t know the concept of freedom until you see it first hand.

And Kaido saw it when the nobles of his kingdom sat down one night for a feast. They ate and ate as if it were the last thing they’d do, laughing at jokes and throwing the bones of chicken at the nearby stationed guards who stood and did nothing. Kaido was a part of that group, he stood as a 12 year old boy with a weapon in hand whilst having food he’d never been able to eat thrown at him.

He clutched his small hands readily made for crushing bones and splattering the innards of now dead fools.

But he was ordered to stand there and he did.

He stood there being mocked and having his horns tugged at.

A “tamed Oni”, one had cackled at him whilst grabbing his horns, pulling at them uncomfortably.

People used that term around him a lot. It had explained his horns that others did not have, nor the height and strength he had compared to other soldiers. They always treated him differently compared to the others, fear lingering in their eyes despite him accomplishing a raid.

Now he knows they were waiting for him to snap the leash curled in their hands.

To break the collar of “tame” they had bestowed him.

It would take a few years but ultimately they were right to be afraid.

Because no matter how much you domesticate a wild animal they with inevitably fall to instinct.

But unlike a wild animal who bite the hand that fed them they decided he’d be transferred to new masters.

It was more profitable that way.

So instead Kaido became a bargaining chip.

His bunk with other soldiers was replaced with a damp dark dungeon though it wasn’t much different.

The invisible shackles became real and rubbed uncomfortably against his wrists.

And the slop he was already forced to eat somehow became worse.

In a cell Kaido sat.

And it was there he met a child a few years younger than him with eyes that caught his attention.

He could’ve sworn he saw the stars shine within their deep darkened irises.

It was there he met you.

===

“So what did you do to get thrown in here?” It’s a simple question but one that makes Kaido reared his head up from letting it hang down. A scowl paints his lips, keeping them in a downward slope as golden eyes look up from across the cell to you.

You sit there, head held up by your palm while you sit in a criss cross position. Bruises and dried blood paint skin, a sight he’s intimately familiar with yet like him you seemingly brush off the pain.

“They don’t like when their dogs rebel…so their selling me off”

It’s simple and to the point, he doesn’t want to talk further and his response should indicate that.

Yet you either don’t notice or ignore his tone.

“Ah…so you were a soldier right? How many years?”

“13”

“Wow” you tilt your head a bit at that, a mixture of amazement and disbelief along with sadness “13 years…when were you drafted?”.

Kaidō scowls, “at birth”

He watches confusion settle on your face. He quirks an eye at it.

“You're 13??” You sound exasperated at that, eyes widening a bit even as you say it.

“How old did you think I was?” He can’t help but ask.

“I thought you were in your 20’s maybe even 30’s”

Kaido in that moment suddenly felt that old as you said that. Did he really look that different compared to others? Guess it was that oni blood-

“Wow, you're even cooler than I thought! You can probably fool people into buying alcohol!” Saying this with a smile he can’t help but search it for sarcasm yet he finds none. Were you…really being genuine? Did you think he was “cool”?

Kaido didn’t really think anyone would describe him as that.

A monster, yes.

Demon.

Oni.

Devil child.

Beast.

But cool? That certainly wasn’t apart of the vocabulary spat at him by his superiors and civilians of burning villages.

“So wait, since you’ve been a soldier your entire life do you know anything outside of it?” It’s a stupid question, but one he guesses is still kinda nice to ask if only for conversation sake.

“What do you think?”

You go silent and he thinks for a moment you stay that way, but after a minute you ask.

“Well, do you wanna know about the world then?”

With curiosity and maybe even a bit of hesitant crumbs of joy he nods.

You smile despite being in a dungeon chained to the wall adjacent to him.

===

Kaido had never once thought that the world could be so interesting until you brought color to it with all the knowledge you hold.

You talk of the islands where flowers grow and bloom, meant to be admired instead of crushed beneath military boots and razed into ash.

You explain the expanse of the night sky and the stories of constellations learned through years of travel. Stars he was taught to know the way back to the kingdom or to use as to navigate yet never appreciate their gentle light.

You tell of the burning sand between your toes and the expanse of crystal blue water that extends to the horizon, the sun setting over it in warm hues of orange, yellow and pink. He has walked across sandy shores but never truly felt sand beneath his feet, never truly stopped to enjoy the lapping of warm waves when the cold plunge and orders to swim are given.

You speak of freedom when all Kaido has ever known is of the chains and collar placed on him since birth.

And you breathe color into the monochrome world he once knew.

Kaido can’t help but imagine the world you describe to him, the sights and beauty of the sea.

Is it as truly free as you describe it?

Can someone like him who’s known the shackles of subjugation truly find peace there?

Can he be free of the weight of chains just as you described?

Perhaps it was wishful thinking on his part (something very foreign to him) but he think he believed you.

Believed your words

Believed your stories

He’s left to ponder over them as you're dragged away by guards despite his protest.

He knows them well, worked with them once before and maybe had even shared drinks yet they look at him with disgust. With an apathy familiar and not foreign to him yet curls in his gut with disgusted anger.

He tries to break free of the chains but cannot.

For hours alone in a cell he stares out the little barred window looking to the stars you taught him of.

And hours later you're dragged back more bruised and beaten than before but still keeping that damn smile.

Still retaining the light and gentle air to you that makes you laugh off the broken arm that hangs limply.

“I never asked how you ended up here” Kaido finds himself saying as you rest against the cold stones of the wall, blood marring them a deep maroon as bugs crawl and cold water slithers down. You smile as you do for just about everything, it reminds him of the softness of fur that they had the grace to give in the coldest of winter “they keep asking how I ended up here, assume I’m a spy or something. They won’t take my word that I just ended up here by accident”.

“Did you?”

“Yeah, is guess you’d call it bad luck but I met you so it’s at least better than before”

“How is me being here with you any better?”

“Having a friend in a cell to return to is better than nothing at all”

“You consider me a friend?” The word feels foreign on his tongue. He had colleagues, and his kingdom had allies made through treaties but never once has he heard that word applied to these relationships. There was always a hollow coldness to them, necessity over genuine companionship despite the same experiences of being born weapons.

“Of course I do” you say this as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world and it hurts his head. “I guess i never asked, but would you like to be friends?”

Kaido doesn’t understand you, but maybe that’s why he likes you better than all the other recruits he was raised with.

You actually think.

You feel.

And you can create actual conversation about something other than the boring slaughter of more innocents.

He could never call the razing of a village a war, not when they do not truly fight and just wait to be slaughtered to let the women and children flee.

It does not satiate the craving for a true battle, a true foe, a true adversary for him to fight.

You do not scratch the itch of that fight but you do create a new one as he thinks of freedom beyond these bars.

Beyond the fate of being a pawn and soldier to master.

The itch gets stronger the more you talk, as does his urge to sit down and listen genuinely instead of mutely compute the drowning of orders.

Unlike commanders too caught up in their own pride you let him talk.

Let him ask questions.

Let him find different conclusions to morality even if yours and his budded heads.

But most of all you respected Kaido.

Respected him as a person rather than when you respect a monster because of fear.

And kaido finds himself returning the sentiment even if you're physically weak. But that’s ok, Kaido can make up for your lack of physical strength.

Your mind is what’s more important anyways.

Your kindness he wishes to savor exclusively for himself even if in every other person he’d see it as weakness is written off.

“Yes” he answers slowly, “I’d like that”.

===

Each day you're dragged out at some point and beaten within an inch of your life. Returning with more bruises budding into ugly purple spots as blood stains your white linen shirt a color he’s too familiar with.

Cuts are crusted up as is old blood that keeps having more crust over.

More broken bones though now they aim for smaller ones, as to drag out having more to eventually break.

Each time you're brought back more broken than the last you keep greeting Kaido with a smile and it drives him mad.

It also makes him realize just how strong you actually are though.

How resilient you are even in the worst of times.

They keep beating you for answers even when you repeat the same thing every time.

But you do not cry.

Don’t scream nor beg.

And that just seems to piss them off more and proves your resolve even further as to when they move to other methods like waterboarding and taking precise slashes.

You're determined not to give them what they want.

And that in turn makes them Determined to see you break.

To shatter into tiny shards that they’ll stomp into dust.

But even with that it’s nothing compared to you.

The burning look in your eyes rivals that of a thousand stars, and it burns Kaido to the core with how they shine.

How they do not flicker in the face of adversity.

Do not run out of fuel for the fire and just keeps burning to new intensity each time you come back.

Each time you stare at Kaido’s chains and the lock of the cell door.

In many ways you're weak but in others you are strong.

You're a contradiction in every sense of the word that Kaido wishes he could understand.

Because how can someone who has experienced such pain and cruelty of the world still smile as you do?

How can you still laugh with half a ribcage shattered and digging into your lungs.

How is it that despite it all you're laid back and calm even when a blade threatens to expose your innards to the world.

How can you be so soft and yet harder to crack than diamond coated on steel?

It doesn’t make sense (and it never will to him) but he wants to understand you.

Want’s to take the time to solve it like a puzzle instead of the regular way of solving problems via bashing it over the head enough times.

(He never gets the time to do this in the end though)

They don’t put your shackles on this time, it’s not worth the effort in their opinion when they’ve broken so many of your bones.

So they throw you on the hard floor, and lock up the cell once again.

You crawl your way to Kaido’s side of the cell, curling up next to him in a way that feels natural. He hikes an arm around you protectively as one would their own child, and while he doesn’t know what to consider you by (he now knows he considers you as one would a younger sibling) he knows he cares.

And while that’s a scary thought to him he can’t help but revel in it.

The fact that for the first time in his life besides pulling a trigger and watching the flames burn he cares.

Cares for something of his own volition rather being ordered to.

Despite being similar in age to him, you're so small in his arms. It’s mostly due to his Oni blood but a swelling of protectiveness wells up in him. He’s felt it before as they drag you off, yells at them to stop and leave you alone. But now settled in his arms so physically broken and battered it really dawns on him.

You're a child and so is he.

You only help to cement this in a small moment of vulnerability in his arms.

“I miss my home…even if I can’t remember it anymore.” He sees tears glistening in moonlight that peaks through the bars. You don’t cry from the beatings and torture like a skilled soldier, but you cry for home just as a child would.

“I want to remember but I can’t and it hurts so much. It hurts so much Kaido, and I can’t do anything about it. I’d rather rip out my heart and burn my nerves to nothing or crush each individual bone to dust if it meant it could remember what home was like. I miss it so bad and I don’t even know what I miss”

Kaido doesn’t know what to say, what to input and make you feel better because weapons are not meant to comfort others.

Monsters aren’t meant to hold the hand of the child, they're meant to scare.

But he tries.

“What do you remember?”

You bite back tears, swallowing them down to smile once more though now he sees how it wavers. It cracks ever so slightly at the corners, no one notices because it’s so bright that they never look there to see how practiced it is.

“It’s really hazy…” you start, playing with broken fingers before he stops you by placing his battle torn ones atop your own “but I remember a garden”

“What did it grow?”

“Flowers mostly…maybe peonies? Oh! And lilies. But I also remember strawberries, well more like remember the taste of them”

“What did they taste like?” He’s heard of those berries before but has not tasted them.

“Sweet…tart and earthy. I think I planted them because I was alone for periods of time?”

“Why’s that?”

“I think my parents” for a second you pause in consideration and contemplation, he watches the tears run in your head. But then eyes light up with a hazed recognition “they had to travel for work sometimes. They’d stay for long periods at home and then leave. They didn’t want me to go with them…thought it was dangerous maybe?”.

He nods at that.

That sounded like a fair enough reason, especially for someone like you.

Gentle and kind.

Showing Weakness even if it also seemed to be your strong suit.

The world has and would eat you up.

“Mom smelled of spices all the time. I think she came from a desert island, and liked to visit it. She would bring me back things”

“Do you remember what those were?”

“No…I just remember my sash came from that place. Made of special silk or something” you look down, but your sash is not there. Probably taken and sold already when you were initially dragged into the dungeon.

“Your dad?”

“He…I think he liked helping people.”

“So he’s like you then”

Your smile seems to become more genuine at that.

“Kaido my memory is really bad, I forget a lot. if…I can’t remember all of this then can you do it for me?” You look at him, those stars he swears he can see hidden in them shine once more. How can he refuse such a thing? Not when you’d made him feel like he isn’t just a gun to be held or a weapon to hold. “It’s like you said, we’re friends” he feels weird saying this but maybe in a good way “I don’t mind”.

===

The marines will be there for him soon, he knew it was a matter of time but despite that he can’t help but feel as if it has all flown away in a mere month.

What should have been a time in which he lamented alone,Cold and starved. It was filled with knowledge, warmth and fulfillment none of which he’d ever had the privilege in knowing. To his commanders he didn’t deserve it but you seem to think otherwise.

You always seemed to think otherwise to what he was taught.

When they dragged you back one night he noticed your smile was wider than it usually would. There was something about it that was innately different.

Once more they don’t lock you in shackles, just throwing you limply to the ground.

Your eyes watch as they slam the door and leave.

Something in them sparks up like a match in the dark.

A chuckle escapes your lips and he watches you sit up despite the broken bones. Worry etches itself into him.

“Stop moving your hurt!”

“I’m fine, had worse” it’s said as if it’s something as casual as the weather. “Anyways Kaido, where do you wanna go first when we get out of here?” You have that gaze again, it feels like a trick question.

“When?”

The look in your eye gets stronger as cracked fingers caked in your own blood reach into your pocket and pull out a key.

It gleams in the moonlight like your tears once did.

You repeat the question again.

“Where do you wanna go first when we get out of here?”

Kaido thinks back to your tales and finds his thoughts of where he’d be most free and answers back.

“The sea”

===

The escape is not pretty, blood was shed and Kaido is covered head to toe in red. You don’t fare much better but that’s mostly due to the fact you were in the splatter zone of Kaido’s rampage, which while you didn’t agree with was likely the only way for either of you to get out alive after being spotted.

The salty breeze rustles his hair and drifts past his horns, the ivory is stained red until he’s able to wash it.

On the small boat the two of you stole he lays down beside you on the wooden flooring. It creaks lightly because of his weight, but does not crack. The two of you look up to the stars, he wonders if they are as free as he feels whilst he stares up at them covered in the blood of his captors and by (one of) the only person he’d call a Friend’s side.

For the first of many few times in his life Kaido feels happy to be alive, if only for this moment of respite.

And it’s the first time he feels like he could take the world.

If only for you to grasp and hold for the freedom you gave him.

Because just for that, for breaking his shackles he’d give you everything and more.

(It’s a sentiment Alber would come to understand as well, many years in the future.)

Kaido looks to the stars, he thinks they shine brighter than when he was behind that of prison bars.

“I…I think they shine brighter here than before” he mumbles, he hears you move slightly closer despite all your broken bones and bruises.

“That might be because you’d never truly had the chance to stop and stare”

“Maybe” Kaido feels himself grunting “but everything kinda feels different now that I’m free”

“How so?”

He pauses for a moment, thinking how to phrase it before saying “it feels like things have color, it isn’t monochrome anymore. I can feel the wood beneath my fingers and sand sticking to my feet instead of ignoring the sensation because of orders. Salt stays on the tip of my tongue instead of gray slop that drowned away all taste…things can just exist without a purpose in war”.

Kaido had never been one for metaphors or flowery language, but for this he isn’t sure how else to explain it.

It all feels different.

He feels different, like a weight off both his shoulders and wrists.

Like new breath in his lungs.

An icy cold plunge into new waters.

It feels exhilarating and unpredictable.

He feels alive.

For the first time he thinks he can say he truly feels alive, rather than just surviving.

Not scraping by.

Not simply living without thought or question.

But alive.

Laying close to his head one of your hands goes to his hair, gently weaving it between fingers so much smaller than his own.

“Now that we’re at sea, is there any other place you’d like to go next?” You ask looking up to the stars yourself, he wonders if they reflect the ones in your eyes or if yours are their own little night sky.

“I haven’t thought that far yet.” He answers honestly, he focuses on the Big Dipper and Little Dipper, he thinks that they reflect both himself and you. “But so long as we’re free then I’m content in where we go” he says this Earnestly, turning his attention from that of the celestial bodies to you.

There's a look on your face he can’t place.

But he thinks it’s some sort of sadness.

It looms over you like a specter and soaks you to the bone in melancholy.

But you nod, and let the silence punctuated by waves take over.

He doesn’t get that look now, but he later realizes it’s the look of “I’m sorry”.

===

He realized too late your wounds should not look that way.

He knew they shouldn’t have in the beginning but it only sets in now after examining them himself.

Kaido knew he was no Field medic. His hands were only used to destroy and Maim and kill. But Kaido tried.

Because that’s all Kaido could do.

Try.

Try for you.

Try for you to be more than just an agent of destruction.

Of trying to do his best in treating the wounds despite the fact he does not know how to be gentle.

How to properly show care.

But nevertheless Kaido tries, he wraps your wounds and cleans them with water even if he has to hold your hand due to the sting of salt.

His hope is that you’ll float by a marine ship, in which he’d raid it and find their doctors to fix your infections.

But for now besides that he had to stabilize you, which seemed to be a fighting effort considering you don’t seem to care all that much.

At least for yourself.

When it had come to Kaido you placed him over yourself much to his dismay. Even back in that damp and dirty cell you’d done that. Giving him half your scraps of food, pouring a good portion of dirty water into his cup.

“You need it more than me” is what you had told him along with something like “you're bigger than me which means you need more food to power you” and “I’ve survived with less, I’ll be fine”.

He’d at the time hesitantly accepted it, but now as he dives into the ocean and catches fish to cook he doesn’t take those excuses anymore. Even if he has to basically force a large portion of Cooked fish in your hands and sit down in front of you glaring, telling you to eat.

But that is the least of his issues when it comes to you.

Kaido knows that for a 13 year old he’s mature, as are you despite being younger than him.

But he feels like a damn nurse trying to make you take medicine when it comes to the simplest things.

No, make sure you stay hydrated.

You can’t skip out on getting rest just cause someone needs to be on lookout. It's fine.

Stop poking at the very infected wound that’ll irritate it!

Stop moving around when half your bones are broken!!

At 13 Kaido thinks he has gray hairs already setting in. Because this makes him feel as old as what you first assumed him to be when the two of you met.

You're stubborn as a mule on this, practically forcing him to keep you bed ridden with the minimal supplies this small fishing vessel had. The couch you lay on is itchy as are the sheets used as blankets but it’s something and that’s all Kaido has other than you.

But even with your condition of what should be constant physical agony you keep insisting on getting up.

On trying to help around the small sea vessel.

Saying you had to look out for your own boat even if he doesn’t think that’s very likely but promised he’d look out for it in your stead.

Help trying to navigate even if he knew how to.

For some reason you can’t seem to sit still, mind always needing to focus on something even if the waves were calm and weather was fine. When he’d check in on you as you rested he’d alway find you staring out the small port window, eyes glazed over.

The haze of memory clouding them.

You tended to do that a lot in that cell but telling stories seemed to make it go away for a while.

But now you do it more often and he isn’t sure if it’s just how you are or if the infection is getting to you.

Either or, it leaves him sleepless at night More than he’d like to admit.

“Oh kaido? I never asked but why do you have horns?” You suddenly ask as he places down the slightly burnt piece of fish. Cooking was a skill taught to him…but cooking good food wasn’t. “You ask that now?” He responds then making you shrug your shoulders.

“didn’t think it was too important to ask at the time”

At that he rolls his eyes, picking up a piece of fish for you to eat. “I’ll answer if you eat”

“Ok” that was a bit easier than he thought- “but only if I get to keep asking questions”

“Fine” it comes out as an exasperated groan but to be honest a small bit of pride swells up in him.

You take a bite of the fish he cooked, eating it without complaint even though the outside is charred to ash. You look at him expectantly.

“I’m an Oni”

He waits for a reaction, but all he gets is a “oh, cool”.

“Is…that really your reaction to learning that?”

“Am I supposed to have a different reaction?”

“Yeah” he grumbles “I’m an Oni. O, N, I.”

He looks at your face, you have the most clueless expression he thinks he’s ever seen.

“You…you don’t know what that means do you?”

“Not really? But I was just wondering if they were fake or not. Either or it doesn’t change my opinion on you”

“And what’s your opinion of me?”

“I think your cool…and your my friend who deserved better than what life gave you”

He pauses momentarily at that, but nods.

He thinks the same of you, that you deserve better than this.

“…thanks. What’s your next question?”

You take another bite, “oh! Here’s a good question!” You suddenly turn a bit serious “what’s your dream?”

“My dream?”

“Yeah! What’s your dream now that you're free? What do you wanna do? What do you want to accomplish?”

“I want to change the world” he says after a moment of contemplation.

“Cool!”

But that wasn’t the entire truth.

He left out a part at the end.

I want to change the world for you.

===

You’ve been acting more off than usual, and that’s saying something since you always act weird. Always having an odd look in those eyes of yours that encompass the night sky itself even in all its expanse.

But now those eyes seem…obscured in a sense.

You're half-there and half-not.

Because of the infections you’ve developed a fever and you're losing sight of things.

Sweat pours from your forehead and breath remaining stagard as you took in deep puffs of breath.

Chills have begun to rack up your spine leaving you a shivering mess. He lets you cling to him, leaching off the warmth he naturally produces as his blood stained hands try to rub comforting circles into tousled and sweaty hair.

He doesn’t mind.

He can’t when your in obvious pain and confusion.

Mind slipping back and forth between conscious and unconscious, past and the present.

Today he tried to have you tell a story but you kept fumbling over your own words.Trailing off and suddenly going quiet for minutes on end and then asking him what you were talking about.

You apologize for this. As well as being an inconvenience.

For being sick.

For slowly losing yourself in the veil of loopiness as your body gets worse.

But that’s hardly something that’s your fault.

It’s his.

(Or at least that’s what he blames himself for)

After failing to tell a story you go quiet for a while.

Eerily so.

It sets him off tilter since he’s used to your voice constantly being in the air.

You don’t seem to know what to say anymore.

So instead Kaido decides to fill the air instead.

“Apparently in Oni culture we let someone close to us make a mark on our horns” it comes out of nowhere and it takes a minute for you to compute but when it does he sees fascination light up your face.

“How do you know that?” Your voice questions, the sound of it easing some of his tension. You're still there, still conscious and not lost in your own mind. “I thought you didn’t know much about your people, considering you were one of the only ones likely left?”.

“A commander mentioned it once”

He thinks back to that particular memory.

Said commander looking at the small horns poking out from disheveled hair. They weren’t quite as big as they were now, just barely enough to be called proper horns.

He remembers that man’s laugh as he roughly grabbed them and tugged Kaido along with them.

“He said that when they were big enough they should carve the kingdom's emblem into them. A sign of ownership and of its importance”

“To you?”

“No, more like how it was above me”

Now thinking back he isn’t sure if that man’s words were true or not. He’d been so deprived of information about a people he’d never met nor traditions he’d never see that any crumb would be eaten up by his mind.

Maybe it was made up.

But even if it wasn’t it remained stuck in his head.

“I want you to carve something”

For a money you pause, a look of confusion stuck.

“Why though? I don’t want to make it seem like mark of ownership, that’s wrong”

Lightly he smacks your forehead with his finger, he ignores how it’s too hot and the sweat that sticks to it.

“You idiot, did you not hear what I said first? It’s meant to be a thing of friendship between us. They wanted to use it as something else, I want to use it as it’s meant to be used”

“But what would I even carve? I don’t wanna put my name. That would seem weird”

Kaido pinches the bridge of his nose, then looking at you once more.

At least he knew you’d be genuine about it.

But even then your being too picky about shit-

“Do a star then”

He gets the idea when for a brief moment his eyes connect with your own.

They sparkle even with the hazy look in them.

“Will it hurt you though?”

“Doesn’t matter, I’ve been through worse”

“Well it matters to me-“

“Yeah well, you’ve used the same excuse before of things being worse. I don’t know what you’ve been through but I’ve been a soldier up till now, I can handle it”

By the end of the night as you lay asleep atop of him, head planted above where his heart would be (if he really ever had one) his fingers trace the indent of a messy carved star.

It’s slightly lopsided.

It doesn’t look even.

Or maybe even doesn’t look like a four pointed star to others.

But to Kaido it means everything to him.

(Something that even now years in the future despite being depressed and suicidal he fondly drags a finger over the carved notch. It’s one of the few things that can make him slightly smile about. A sight of which makes his commanders ponder of, though only King knows of its true significance to him)

It serves as an anchor or sorts.

A sign.

A motivation.

A determination for a dream.

A connection.

A symbol of freedom and a spark.

A sign of friendship to someone he feels is rapidly slipping from his grasp at each moment. Much like sand between his fingers or blood pouring from an open wound.

He cannot sew it up now matter how hard he tries,

He has to watch you bleed out slowly in pain.

And it kills him slowly on the inside.

Especially as you seem to be losing yourself bit by bit.

Kaido holds you closer, he hopes to not have to let you go.

But he knows at this point it is inevitable.

The fever isn’t going down and just seems to get worse.

The end is nigh.

===

A few years ago Kaido had saw a half dead rabbit in the camp near his bunkhouse with the others his age.

It’s white spotted fur matted with dirt and its own blood as it lay mutilated but alive. The small animal writhed on the ground, ants picking away at its flesh as it sat there still alive to be eaten. It’s a cruel fate for any living thing, but one that is not unexpected for a creature that was weak.

Or at least that’s what they told him.

His superior saw his gaze at the creature and scoffed when Kaido reached a hand to end its agony.

He was told to let it writhe.

It was the rule of the world that the weak would die for the strong to survive.

The weak were meant to be eaten by the strong.

And so the bunny was left to be taken apart slowly.

Dying in wheezing pain.

Left there to die in agony instead having its suffering ended with the quick snap of its neck.

Kaido didn’t know how to feel as it sat there in pain, he felt sort of sorry for it but he was given orders.

And that was the way of the world.

He thinks back to that rabbit now and finds the similarity between you both too apparent.

Both small helpless creatures in pain.

You wheeze just as it did though now due to your feverish state.

You shiver as its body once did though instead of the chilling snow it’s now your body playing tricks on you.

And just like that small rabbit your fate is in his hands.

He has to decide whether to let you continue to a painful death just as it did or end it now.

This decision weighs heavy on him now because he isn’t given orders to obey.

He has to make this choice of his own volition.

And for once he thinks there was one upside to being given orders to be a weapon.

Because morality and feelings never came into the mix.

He’d be given a task, do it and never have to think of how it made him feel nor the consequences of those actions on others.

It was survival.

Yet now decision weighs heavy in his mind, on his shoulders and most importantly in his hands as you are cradled by them.

He can’t help but notice once more that you're so small in them. He knows it’s mostly due to his oni blood but a part of him attributes it to how fragile you are. It would be so easy to hurt you by accident. So, so, so easy for the world to shatter you like glass.

He’s surprised it hasn’t already or perhaps it did and you're a pro at picking yourself up back together.

Your form is held gently but close.

Kaido doesn’t want to let you go from his grasp.

Wants to hoard you to himself.

He doesn’t want you to go.

To leave him alone with this burning feeling in his heart at the thought of you going.

But Kaido knows that in the end he cares too much for you to let that part of himself overpower the right thing to do.

No matter how much it’ll tear him apart and shatter him at his core.

You're worth so much more than both those combined.

And he’s willing to become more broken than he already was just for you to die in peace.

His hands shake, you notice.

“ you ok…Kai?” The shortened form of his name was something you’d begun calling him a few days back. Speaking hurt your throat, so instead under his demand you’d stuck to short sentences. But at this point he’s unsure if you think he’s him or if you think your speaking to someone else.

“I’m fine…just” what does he say? What's he supposed to do? He’s 13 and he’s killed more than he could ever count yet this feels different. He’d never known his victim so well, never cared for them as he did with you. “I just need to know something” before he does this, even in your feverish state he needs to find some solace.

Tilting your head back to look up at him he sees your eyes struggling to focus. Squinting at his face almost as if drunk with uncertainty at who he was.

“What is it?” Your words are slurred and slow, raspy and thin. The complete opposite as to what you sounded like before in that cell even with a broken set of ribs. You used to speak with such certainty and strength, joy and wonder leaking from each word.

Your voice is but an echo of what it once was. Quiet and loosing its grasp before fading to silence.

“…even if we go our separate ways…will you still consider me your friend? Will you still care for me?”

You smile.

And Kaido feels the world shift ever so slightly.

“Course Kai.” Reaching up a hand you graze the ivory of his horns, a finger tracing the small star mark he let you carve “your my friend. I’ll always love you, always care for you even when gone. One day we’ll see each other again”.

Maybe you're more coherent than he initially thought.

Maybe you realized his intentions of putting you out of this misery.

Or maybe you genuinely think that you’ll meet once more.

In a way your right, you’ll one day meet in the realm of the dead.

(Something he now oh so desperately craves to go to)

Either way it’s all the motivation he needs to do this.

His hands shake as they shift grip to cradle the back of your head.

(A monster like him does not deserve your care, to ever feel loved as he did as your friend. But even then that’s an understatement, you were more like the family he never had. The annoying little sibling he never asked for but loved as if you were flesh and blood)

You stare up at him from your place, head leaning against where his beating dead heart is.

(Star filled eyes look up at him and they make it so that he can never look at the night sky again. Even in onigashima on the clear night skies with shining stars he cannot look at them. Only because he’s flooded with the guilt)

“Kaido?” You sound a bit more coherent than before, you look at him with a confused smile as your hands graze over the tears coming from golden eyes.

(He imagines the rabbit, if on that day he’d ended its misery. The flooding relief of death sweeping over its form that was left to rot and be picked apart by the scavengers. He promises you will not be left to that fate, that the world will not tear you apart as you die a slow painful end)

“What are you-“.

There’s a twist and then a crack.

The sound is quiet yet it rattles through his hands and into his core where sorrow roars its head for the very first time.

Slumping down to the ground he holds you, and doesn’t want to let you go.

He closes his golden eyes and falls asleep clutching a dead corpse (that unbeknownst to him began to fade away as he slipped into unconscious. He wakes up later on a marine’s ship and assumes they tossed your body, there are no survivors to tell the tale but himself).

Death is all that Kaido’s hands are good for, he isn’t ashamed of this fact but this time he feels genuine loss.

One of the few times he ever will.

And just like the other time when he feels loss for a person he kills much later on in the future.

You and Oden smile in the face of death.

The sight haunts and transfixes him at the same time.

And it makes Kaido crave it all the more knowing the two people he misses smiled as death took them.

He wonders if the sight of the other side or complete and utter peace in the reaper's cold hands did it.

Either way he wishes to go out the same.

With content in his cold withered heart and a smile.

===

Kaido isn’t sure if he believed in ghosts and spirits, but he did believe that in some way you were still with him even in death.

Because you linger subconsciously in his mind and everything he comes across.

When he joined the Rock’s pirates under Newgates offer he imagines what would have happened if you were still with him. Would you have wormed your way into the murderous crew’s hearts just as you did him?

He knows for a fact he would have had to fight Newgate for you.

The man’s dream of a family aligning all too well with how he would have scooped you up the minute Kaido stepped on that ship.

Linlin talks about a childhood best friend that sounds a lot like you.

She reminisces about it quite a bit, no one but him actually listens (even then he only does this for his own nostalgia of you and how similar this friend of hers and you sound alike). That seems to help get him on her good side though with how young he was when joining that helped as well, she now calls him “little brother”. It’s an affectionate term, one that he isn’t quite sure how he feels about when she messes up his hair and slaps him on the back.

He thinks it’s then that he realized he viewed you the same way Linlin does for him.

Little sibling.

It’s always after someone is gone do you realize the true extent of their importance to you.

It’s only when they're gone do you feel their loss in the world and your life.

He thought he had prepared for loss, for mourning and grief.

But they still hit him harder than any bullet or attack.

It’s perhaps a true testament to you and your affect on him.

Linlin at some point has him try a strawberry shortcake once he says he’d never had strawberry before. She enthusiastically hands him a piece, it surprises both him and everyone else on board. She never shared her sweets, let alone with anyone on board besides maybe Stussy and Gloriosa when they were on those weird weeks where they smelled of blood and were moodier than usual.

So he tries it.

The small red berry with bits of white frosting stuck to it, it hits his taste buds with an onslaught of sweetness.

It’s as you described strawberries to taste, sweet and earthy, its juice pools in his mouth and leaks from the corner of his lips.

But at the same time it’s bitter and dull.

He swallows it down though, and eats the rest as Linlin grins in delight.

She asks him how it was and he responds that it was fine.

She does not know of how it leaves a bitter taste in his mouth even after trying to wash it down with sake and whatever booze was offered that night.

Only Newgate seem notices of how he tried to wash out his mouth.

Thankfully he does not ask.

And Kaido luckily does not have to tell of how the too sweet taste of icing and lingering bitterness of fresh strawberry stains him.

(When Linlin sends shipments of strawberry shortcakes years later Kaido bitterly eats them just as they leave a bitter taste in his mouth. King asks him why he eats them despite his clear distaste for the sweet confection. He just says it’s because it’s a gift and because he values the bittersweet of strawberry. King raises an eyebrow at this, but does not comment on it. Instead he join in on finishing the many sweet confections even if like Kaido he prefers more savory dishes)

===

In a lab many years later after gods valley Kaido finds a white haired boy chained up to a table.

Red burning eyes stare to that of gold ones.

Kaido knows his eyes are not like yours, they do not burn with the same intensity of Starfire but they do burn.

They burn like the flames that eventually eat up the rest of the facility as shackles are broken.

He learns the boy's name is Alber, a last surviving member of the Lunarian race that had been slaughtered much like his own. Unlike horns he possesses wings and an undying spark. Both of which weakly cling to life after years of poking and prodding by people in white coats that are now marred by ash and blood.

Kaido was sure of it after he had bludgeoned enough of them with his own bare hands or let the collapsing building take care of the few stranglers.

Alber in the escape is reborn anew in the ashes of a burning lab as King.

A fitting name for someone who would eventually come to rule this forsaken world at Kaido’s side.

As King looks up to him, with widen ruby red eyes Kaido notices how they look at him. He looks at Kaido as if he had hung the moon and stars, perhaps in a way Kaido had for the young Lunarain.

King does not remember much of his home besides the scent of burning wood of a giant bonfire and the subsequent burning of their homes.

Fire had been important to their people, it symbolized that of the blazing fires of the stars. The eternal fire of their spark hung just behind them like the star that was hung above the red line. It was said to have been given to them as a symbol of home no matter where they flew.

The star was placed there to always show them their way back home.

That the ones touched by their elusive god would have their sparks changed to immortalize that star.

It is ironic then that fire is used to burn away their land to bring forth Mary Geoise.

What had used to be the land of winged people as free as the sky is reborn as the place where so called “celestials” harbor hundreds of thousands as slaves.

The lucky few lunarians had their wings tethered in chains before being dropped into the ocean to flail and drown or just properly slaughtered in the massacre as they were shot down from the sky.

The rest who don’t share that fate are privy to something much worse. Either shipped off to a lab or dismembered into exotic pieces to be kept as a part of a collection as are the remnants of their culture.

Black wings are hung up as mantle pieces above fireplaces that burn in a crude irony.

Moon White hair was cut off and woven into decorations for dresses.

Red eyes plucked from skulls to be turned into exotic centerpieces to long tables filled to the brim with imported foods.

Kaido knows that Oni horns are similarly used as decorations.

The ivory carved into statues or used as the keys to piano’s that are played by slaves or the few lucky musicians that are deemed good enough to be in the presence of self acclaimed gods.

Like King, Kaido also knows little to none about his own culture as well.

Both their people slaughtered for decoration, leaving them clueless to their own traditions.

Yet another thing that makes him and King feel somewhat connected.

They are both the last of their kind.

Shackled and chained like property before being broken free.

Two connected with a dream to change the world.

Both were freed and were able to see the moon and stars once again on a beautiful night punctuated by the blood of their captures.

While King does not remember his people he does remember the stars, stars he now gets to see again.

So it’s no wonder he thinks Kaido hung them.

He looks at Kaido just as Kaido did to you.

Once more Kaido ponders if you watch him from the world beyond.

If you're proud of him for doing just as you did all those years ago.

Kaido hopes so.

===

For a good while in his life Kaido feels aimless.

To be fair, in a sense he’s always been slightly aimless. Going from place to place, adrift before he was recruited to Rock’s crew and then had to jump ship when that went up in smoke.

He has his right hand.

He builds his crew.

Is proclaimed a Yonko and emperor of the seas.

Has a blood child.

But the hollowness in his chest does not get placated nor fade.

It only ever seems to feel worse.

The world feels like once more that it’s back to monochrome, only stray bits of color only ever appearing when he’s drunk enough to forget. Even then the world does not feel as vibrant as it was before even when in inebriated color.

Everything feels faded out and sullied.

Almost as if it were drowned and pulled back out from the water.

Theoretically he should be happy, but he isn’t.

There were only a few times in his life that he ever was and it started with you before going downhill from then on.

In the back of his mind he wants to blame you for this unhappiness.

You who brought him a world of light and color before having it ripped away by his own hands as a mercy to you. From then on it never seemed the same, its color began to fade as did his eventual want to live. Back when the broken neck was cradled in his hands he wanted to go with you, but surmised that you wanted better for him.

You always did.

Always put himself above you even if you were equally starving and cold.

Kaido doesn’t regret being alive, not when you fought so valiantly for him to do so and for having the opportunity in freeing King. but he does regret living to the point that he now considered it a prison in its own right.

Regrets that he now cannot look at the stars and when he does he wonders if they too are chained to their positions in the sky.

perhaps you had known that as well.

The forlorn look you’d give when looking out to sea even in a fevered and hazy state. Eyes tracing the stars with a sadness that he could not place.

Perhaps you’d Known all of this, yet tried to keep Kaido in blissful ignorance knowing how miserable it would make him.

Even with all of this Kaido cannot hate you, nor have any ill will towards you.

Not even if he forced himself to try.

Never could he hate you.

He could hate the world and himself but never you.

Never because of the kindness you’d given.

And most importantly for the fact that he now believes you to be something else.

Kaido isn’t quite sure where exactly he first hears of the story of “Joyboy” but even with the scraps he is given it stays in his mind. It lingers and festers with curiosity. An itch that he cannot scratch until he finds more stories, then rinse and repeat.

Kaido thinks that in a way you were sent by Joyboy to him.

Maybe it was a coincidence.

Or something else entirely but you brought to him the liberation he had dreamt of.

Caused within him the spark of a burning star to create change to the world for you (one that now does not care if that change is for the betterment of the world or the destruction of it in your long forgotten name that he hordes)

But this first starts off as a stray thought as he learns more and more about the god. The small bits of information he’s been able to collect is varied and old but what the legend tells him is enough to create more similarities. Most of the stories have been covered up or collected by marines, luckily they can’t do much when he raids their bases and takes what information he wants.

More information is learnt.

And eventually he comes to believe that maybe you truly were some envoy sent by the perpetual smiling god.

You died with a smile like he would.

(As does Oden and Roger)

More of his mind makes connections probably not there but ones he so desperately wants to be true.

Because if you were sent by him that means it validates how you're a shining beacon of sunspot in the dark expanse of his mind.

Like a star in the sky.

Like the stars that match the innermost depths of your eyes.

Maybe if you were sent by JoyBoy it’s a sign of breaking free of the chains of the living realm.

Maybe he will break Kaido free since he’s the only one worthy and strong enough to finally end this.

Maybe Kaido can see you again.

Maybe Kaido will see a night sky with stars that are unshackled.

Maybe your death will mean something other than a tragedy and the turning point of how things have become dull and pointless.

===

Kaido did not have the capability to love.

Respect, yes. But love? No.

It had long died in his chest as did his heart when he was born and raised to be a mindless weapon. Maybe it had had a chance of beating once more (and maybe it was revived momentarily when on that small ship adrift at sea before a sobering snap rang out into the night and a body fell limp in his hands) but that had long been buried in the past.

In his chest sits a dead heart that lays in its coffin within the ground (he does not acknowledge that he had to rebury it or that it was for a short period of time reanimated) .

Kaido cannot love even if he tries (not anymore at least).

Kaido wants to love Yamato but he cannot on account of who Kaido is as a person.

Weapons are not capable of love.

Neither are Yonko’s (the strong ones at least. Shanks and Newgate can hardly be considered that when they show weakness in pride)

When Kaido was just Kaido, an escaped bargaining chip ready to be sold he might have (and he did, he had the love of a friend but that died when they did).

But now he is the captain of the beast pirates.

A monster like him does not deserve love in the first place, he should not crave it. (But Even if that’s correct your words of “your my friend. I’ll always love you” reverberate like an echo chamber within his skull. He tries to bash his head against a wall yet nothing is able to make it stop echoing. He didn’t deserve what you had given yet you gave it anyways)

He has no time for love.

No time to coddle Yamato.

Yamato has to be strong to face the world.

Has to be strong as to one day kill and not let it haunt him.

To not let the crack of a neck ring in his mind when he thinks he finally has peace.

To not see the dulling eyes that reflect the stars fade out and burn themselves instead into his head.

To not realize the world has color before it’s taken from him.

(But that happens anyways, and like it happened to Kaido it is set into motion when someone smiles in the face of death. For Yamato his spark for his dream boils in intensity and for Kaido it’s a spark that now wants to fizzle out)

===

Onigashima feels different for some reason and Kaido can’t place a finger on it.

Maybe not a bad type of different per say but it’s one that he notices in time as things progress.

It started off with Black Maria seeming more chipper than usual. The normally malicious smile hidden behind a careful mask momentarily satiated. Red painted lips genuinely up turned as she talks of her newest edition of a letter deliverer. A “cute little thing” her workers picked up from the streets battered and cold.

Maria always had a soft spot for kids, evident from how she even coddled Yamato even when Kaido told her it would make the child soft. So it doesn’t make Kaido too surprised that she picked up one out of the many strays that wander the streets. Though, how a lone child ended up in Onigashima is beyond him.

She talks fondly of them, her “little messenger” that has seemingly captured the favor of the black widow.

Somehow getting caught in her web yet navigating it and the rest of lions den with ease.

She seems to be having custom kimono and Yukata made for her messenger. Something she occasionally mentions with a rogue tinged smile as her nails dance across Kaido’s bicep. She seems happy, genuinely. He respects her enough to nod along, content in that she is also content.

Next is seemingly Sasaki and Who’s-Who, there’s been less of their demanding fights with Queen, Jack and especially King.

The two had seemingly befriended the young messenger Black Maria had employed (much to her displeasure because now their apparently “hogging” them from her).

This then extended to Ulti and eventually Page one as well. Apparently they had somehow worked their way onto her good side, even being able to somewhat calm her down which was a godsend for many of the other beast pirates. God knows the amount of times she’s sent a good chuck in grunts to the ER from a small spot of anger.

But then surprisingly enough even Queen and King seem to take interest in this messenger.

For Queen it’s loud but transactional interest.

Kaido can hear the concerts he puts on but now with added guitar riffs and solos. The crowds cheer with such vigor that almost all of Onigashima shakes with excitement.

For King it’s quiet but personal.

Kaido knows that his right hand has never trusted nor legitimately liked anyone but himself.

King has never formed friendships beyond that of Kaido and that was fine.

King was a grown man, he could make his own decisions in life and that included who he (or in this case who he didn’t) talk to. But seeing his right hand for once actually made happy, well it created in kaido an inkling of relief.

For so long King had wallowed in a similar sadness to Kaido.

King had not enjoyed anything, even when partaking in activities such as drinking or partying he only did it for Kaido.

At first Kaido could understand. He finds no point in living, and can’t find enjoyment in much anymore. But Kaido had things, he had Onigashima and the love of thrill for battle and booze and the longing embrace of death.

But later he came to notice that King had nothing besides Kaido.

King had no people he legitimately talked to beside Kaido.

He never attended parties if Kaido was not there.

He never even took enjoyment in fights.

He never walked with purpose unless Kaido gave him a task to achieve.

King had nothing.

Nothing but the belief that Kaido would bring change and his goal was to just solely help him achieve that change.

And while Kaido saw life to be a prison he wanted King to not see it that way.

He wanted King to live.

To soar just as his people once proudly did.

Wanted to give him what he had gained from his time with you.

To paint the bleak world in color for someone he broke from chains.

To make the bars of life not visible nor matter.

To never realize the stars were collard and held in place.

So hearing he was happy for once.

That he found someone besides Kaido to help fill the emptiness of his life.

Well it piqued his interest, especially since this same messenger had seemingly done the same for his Tobiroppo and one two thirds of his all stars.

(In the back of his mind he bitterly chuckles that it reminds him of you but he brushes it off. Your dead and gone, he’s the reason for that)

So he arranges for the next meeting to have this messenger included.

King seems almost eager for this. Wanting to introduce whoever this is to him.

For once Kaido hears King talk about his day in detail rather than simply stating that “it was fine” and leaving it at that.

(Kaido does not hear the small utterance of a name he hadn’t heard in so so long, too caught up in his drink to catch it. It slips through his fingers and he does not realize it, even if he did compute it he’d assume it was a sad coincidence)

===

Days go by as per usual though Kaido does have something to perhaps look forward to now with this meeting.

It’s not easy to thrive in Onigashima even as a decent fighter.

So a literal child somehow making allies with some of his top commanders is certainly something that has some amusement to look forwards to.

So he waits.

And drinks.

And waits.

And shoo’s away the weird crows that have made their home in Onigashima recently.

Something also seemingly attributed to this messenger. King had told him that apparently these were their crows, one they had raised themselves after finding the murder half dead.

Could be useful for communication, less chance of having the den den mushi tapped or curriers intercepted. Plus…he didn’t mind the bird’s presence.

Something about them was odd, but not in a particular bad way.

They sometimes circled the sky in a spiral, swirling in a mass of black feathers similar to King.

It was a sight to see.

What's even more of a sight to see was that one of them was bold enough to join Kaido in drinking. The small feathered fiend joining in on partaking in the enjoyment of booze. Its beak dipping down in the large sake cup, then incessantly squawking when Kaido had interrupted its sips when he too wanted to enjoy in the clear liquid.

A large scar paints over its wing, leaving a trail that the little thing seemed to take pride in.

Much like Kaido’s scar that he too takes pride in.

The little thing’s name is “Nobu” , something he learned from King. Apparently along with this messenger her also befriended their little feathered fiends as well.

Kaido jokes that it has something to do with bird intuition.

King rolls his eyes though through the creasing of leather it’s clear that beneath his mask he smiles.

Not like King can say much anyways when on his shoulders perches several of the birds. All of which linger around his flame, seemingly trying to use it as a source of warmth and equally captivated by it.

Nobu beside him pecks at his arm, making Kaido look down at the twilight coloured bird.

“Caw!”

Kaido’s eyes drift down to it, before the bird pecks at the now empty sake cup. It was not empty last Kaido touched it…did this small bird really finish the last two thirds of the cup that most of his beast pirates could never stomach.

Hell, the sake cup Kaido used was custom sized to be bigger than just about any other sake cup.

Well fuck. Looks like he had a drinking buddy? Bird?

“I’ll give you this you little shit, your a good drinker”

“Caw!”

“Another round?”

The bird nods, pecking the cup again as if to say ‘hurry up and refill you slow bastard’.

Kaido chuckles.

Now he feels even more curiosity as to who this messenger was.

Good thing for him that meeting was soon.

===

Typically Kaido did not care much for the meetings, not unless it was something really important or led to him possibly fighting someone (and then being disappointed that they didn’t meet expectations).

But for this one the curiosity curling in his gut is enough to satiate him of relying on the presence of Black Maria at his side and a few dozen gourds of sake to get him through.

He wonders what this messenger will be like.

Will they be a cunning child? The one who spies the people with well made clothes and awaits to pick their pockets.

Are they scrappy? The child who rustles a raccoon on the street for stealing their food and isn’t afraid to play dirty.

Or Are they perhaps the opposite?

(In some very distant part of his mind, perhaps buried in the cold grave that contains his heart a thought bubbles out. Like undead clawing out from a grave before being buried once more. That part of him wonders if their maybe like you)

It swirls in his mind because the thought of a child (just a random child) that would be able to befriend his top confidants.

Worm their way into the hearts of someone like King or even Ulti and Who’s-Who.

Well…It leaves an impression.

And a all consuming question.

Especially since before even meeting this messenger Kaido can’t help but feel somewhat charmed by them.

Them who has made King more happy and content than Kaido has ever possibly seen the man and create within the vicious Maria a kindness.

They who calms down Ulti’s violent temper tantrums and apparently party with Sasaki.

His thoughts whirl.

And then Kaido Freezes.

The unbeatable monster known for ransacking villages and crumbling a nation that he now uses as a den freezes.

He knows those eyes better than he knows the scars that mar his body.

For a moment Kaido thinks he’s piss drunk or having a hallucination when he sees you there.

He had some before, when tired enough or drunk enough he could swear to see or hear you.

Sometimes you’d sit atop his shoulder (in the corner of his eyes, never fully in focus)

Other times he’d hear your voice like a small whisper of encouragement (even though your voice feels almost unrecognizable from what it once was)

And there you are, sitting in content beside Maria who dressed you in silk. The woman’s usually cruel red smile is replaced by one of adoration and warmth instead of her biting cold.

Laughing at Sasaki and Who’s-Who as the two argue over some contrived bet they made when likely drunk.

Somehow calming down Ulti who nearly blows a gasket at Sasaki who accidentally bumps into her due to his fight with Who’s-who.

Having a paper slid over to you by Queen who looks all too pleased with himself before King burns it in front of him.

And most surprisingly of all King, his right hand also holding that familiar look of comfort and content that Kaido is too familiar with when associated with you.

And then of course there’s just you on your own.

You who sits there completely the same as when you met him in that jail cell and died by his hands minus the bruises.

The same star speckled eyes.

Same smile.

Same calm and mild mannered disposition despite being in a room infested with monsters.

Kaido thinks back to the times he had pondered what would happen if you had lived, if he had been able to find a doctor or if you somehow miraculously healed from those infectious wounds. If the rusted blunt swords used on your flesh and slashed at by guards had impossibly not led to the discolored wounds that leaked with a disgusting mixture of blood and other fluids.

Maybe you would have joined him on Rock’s crew.

Would’ve met Linlin and Newgate.

Could have helped him Break King out of that cell just as you had for him.

If you’d get along with some of the few on his crew he had some likability for (which he now knows is possibly).

If like all those years ago despite all he’s done you’d still consider him friend.

And seeing you again he realizes that all of that could have happened.

That the future he dreamed of in the few uncrushed bits of optimism that lingers in the corner of his soul could have happened.

The life he longed for on those dark nights where memories haunted him like screaming banshees.

It could have happened.

And it didn’t.

Kaido without thinking says your name, it echoes out and reverberates. The room quiets down, so much so that it feels as if his call to you was the only thing ever spoken between the 4 walls.

Starry eyes look to him.

They feel as if they peer into his very soul. Golden burning embers searching the now dull yellow pits of his eyes.

Searching and searching for something.

Anything.

But there’s nothing.

Not even an inkling of recognition slithers its way onto your face nor into your mind. Instead horror fills it.

Perhaps just as horrified as Kaido that you forgot.

And like before, on that night all those years ago Kaido feels something in him break.

He lost you once, perhaps in a way you’ve even lost yourself.

But Kaido will not let you slip away again.

Will not grant mercy as he did all those years ago when he was a naive boy.

Maybe it’s because of his Zoan tendencies or because of his fear (the world feels foreign in his mouth let alone to feel anymore. Because Kaido did not fear anything, not even death) but Kaido feels something swirling in him.

Protectiveness.

And then possession.

He does not want to let you free of his grasp again, will not let you lose yourself once more.

Even if he knows how hypocritical it is to lock you by his side when you had freed him of such a fate of a cage.

But the world is not kind and neither is Kaido.

All those years ago you lit a spark in him that grew to become an inferno.

He swore that he would create change in this world even if you wouldn’t see it.

He would create change in this world for you now with you to watch.

…He’s hardly surprised when you run.

===

He finds you when it’s too late, already crumpled up and bloody in Maria’s palm. King is overhead still in the air, though the flame behind him is less of a burning red mixed with oranges and yellows but now a blindingly shining gold that scorches the sky.

Broken and bloody you clutch something.

It shines through hands that clasp at it tightly.

Light slipping through your fingers as you clutch it closely to your chest.

Sparks are sent off roaring as it collides against the bloodied cloth of your kimono.

It sinks through the material and into a kind and compassionate heart.

A heart that cracks into golden dust he can only aquaint to that of stardust, your body is painted in cracks. It’s reminiscent of old statues, crack lining stone though now it bleeds a glittering gold instead of cancerous white lead dust.

The words that fall from your mouth like all those years ago come out like a pained whisper.

It’s almost lost to the sobs of Maria.

But Kaido heard it like thunderclap roaring in the sky.

“Oden?”

And finally the cracks strain and you quite literally break into pieces. Becoming the stardust that leaked into the endless oblivion of the night.

In that flurry of dust momentarily you reform, if only for a moment. You're in different attire, much better for seafaring as well as a familiar captain's coat atop your world carrying shoulders. The kimono once worn now lays on the barren ground, blood also disappearing into the fine golden powder that drifts upwards.

And then there is someone else there in that dust.

For the slightest of seconds Oden lingers.

His form made up of that dust as you drift up past him, an outreached hand reaches to your own and you grab it. Eyes for the first time opening while in this form, staring into that of the man who was born to boil.

Golden eyes shine intently as a smile stretches across both yours and his face.

And then the dust settles into the night leaving nothing of proof of your existence if not for onlookers who mourn, a kimono and hairpin meant as gifts yet you never knew were and the burning flames of a star ignited over midnight black wings.

The air settles and the silence echoes for several minutes on end.

It’s only broken when King finally descends down, feet numbly hitting the ground as the starlit flame on his back burns oh so brightly.

The shape of a four pointed star hung upon his back.

It’s then that Kaido realizes that perhaps you were never an envoy of JoyBoy at all but your own entity.

Perhaps one more elusive than the titular liberator. Someone mentioned in those tales yet he ignored in favour of JoyBoy more.

But in the end that’s fine.

Because Kaido now knows better.

But does not know better than to try and catch a shooting star or rope one from the sky.

#determination!#platonic #one piece #kaido one piece #kaido x reader #one piece x reader #king the wildfire x reader #king the conflagration #king one piece #king the wildfire

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buddierecs · 5 months ago

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near death experience buddie fics

all of these are general audience, teen and up or not rated (no smut) make sure to kudos/comment on these amazing works :)

still by: brewrosemilk "for the first time, buck longs for a bullet wound to treat. dirt to dig at. a door to break through. something. there’s nothing. “your guess was correct, diaz,” the bomb technician tells them, as he gestures to the orange circle. “you’re standing on a large sensor plate, wired to a detonator. It’s incredibly important that you don’t move. don’t shift. when you put your weight down, it was like cocking a gun - you take your weight off, this thing is powerful enough to take the entire house with it." word count: 9.3k important tags: angst, humor, love confessions, first kiss all that we intent is scrawled in sand (and slips right through our hands) by: withmeornotatall "buck and eddie get trapped together, time is running out, and eddie doesn't want to die alone" word count: 6.9k important tags: earthquakes, major character injury, whump, hurt!eddie diaz, love confessions, first kiss, getting together take this heart, put yourself in it by: smilingbuckley "on his way to eddie's, buck gets into a car accident. he asks ravi, who happens to be a responder to the scene, to call eddie so he can confess his love before it's too late." word count: 1.8k important tags: car accidents, getting together, angst, whump, blood and injury, hurt!evan buckley, worried!eddie diaz across the stars by: ummrys "nasa astronaut evan buckley is presumed dead and abandoned on mars. despite everything, he lives to tell the tale." word count: 75k important tags: space au, based on 'the martian', pre-relationship, hurt!evan buckley, hurt/comfort, mutual pining, grief, slow burn, love confessions if i should fall by: elvensorceress "a accident leaves the love of buck's life dying in a hospital, leading him to evaluate the life he has, the life he wants, and where his heart belongs" word count: 23k important tags: injury recovery, angst, hurt/comfort, feelings realisation, getting together, pining!eddie diaz, demisexual!eddie diaz when your world is on fire by: smilingbuckley "the 118 responds to what should be a normal house fire only to find out that one of their own is stuck inside and believed to be dead." word count: 6k important tags: major character injury, hurt!eddie diaz, burns, explosions, established relationship, presumed dead, grief, hurt/comfort i love you (it's ruining my life) by: smilingbuckley "thinking they're about to die, eddie confesses his feelings for buck to chimney... except they don't die, and now he has to deal with chimney's inability to keep secrets" word count: 6.2k important tags: love confessions, secrets, misunderstandings, light angst, getting together, team as family, emotional hurt/comfort, pining!eddie diaz when we grow up, our shadows grows up too by: dylaesthetics "buck and maddie find themselves on the brink of death, but only one of them can make it out alive." word count: 7.9k important tags: protective sibling, feelings realisation, maddie buckley ships buddie, worried!chimney han, worried!eddie diaz something about sacrifice by: rogerzsteven "buck and eddie are trapped in a call, both of them being injured. buck does everything he can to save eddie, even if that means risking his own life." word count: 5.7k important tags: hurt/comfort, whump, hurt!eddie diaz, injury, angst, major character injury cliffhanger by: pansys_goth_gf "buck and eddie get into a car crash and wait for help to arrive." word count: 3.4k important tags: car accidents, major character injury, love confessions, pet names take in all the colors before they fade to gray by: roisindubh86 "eddie confronts buck, has a realization in the middle of an argument, and just when he thinks it can't get worse, he gets a call from texas that pulls the ground from beneath his feet, figuratively spoken. (the universe is watching. if the two firefighters don't get their act together, the next collapse will be the literal kind.)" word count: 37k important tags: pining!eddie diaz, feelings realisation, friends to lovers, angst, hurt/comfort, family feels, hurt!eddie diaz, getting together

#will definitely be doing a pt2 for this trope #buck x eddie fic #buddie fic #eddie diaz #evan buckley #buck x eddie #911 abc #buddie fic rec #911 fandom #911 show #buddie fics #buddie 911 #evan buck buckley #buddie fanfic #buddie recommendations #buddie recs #buck x eddie fanfics

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paceprompting · 20 days ago

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hallucination or not

written for ‘chill’ wc: 858 # | steddie | rated: t | cw: blood, mention of death | tags: post season four, near-death experience, rescue mission, protective steve

@steddieholidaydrabbles

Dustin had gone, finally convinced to leave Eddie where he was.

Torn apart at the sides, blood seeping out into the ground. He could hear his heart pounding still in his ears, but the beats were getting longer and longer pauses between them—slowly aiding in killing him the more it fought to keep beating.

It didn’t hurt, not anymore. Not like when the bats' fangs and claws had dug in and ripped away at him until the pure weight of the hoard forced him to his knees.

He’d left Eddie alone, and it hurt even though Eddie had forced him to go.

Eddie stared up at the red and shadowed sky, his own wheezing breaths his only deathbed companion. That and a few dead bats splayed out on the ground beside him.

The blood underneath him was warm on his hand, which he couldn’t move as much as it made tears spill from the corners of his eyes because his blood was spilling out and he could touch it but he couldn’t fix it.

His blood was warm, but he was so, so cold.

God, he was leaving Wayne all alone.

He’d be homeless without the trailer, subject to the temperamental kindness of a small town. But he was probably better off without the dead weight of an accused murderer and cult leader nephew hanging around him. Once Eddie was dead, Wayne was free.

His original plan to do that was just to leave Indiana. But needs must, he guessed.

Eddie forced himself to take a shaky, wheezing breath. Because dying was fucking difficult, apparently, when the body was meant to keep going until it couldn’t anymore.

Did he even want to die?

He was going to, that’s for sure. But how long was he going to fight it?

His heart was still beating, too slow, but stubborn. He could feel it in the ground.

Or, no…

It wasn’t slowing, it was speeding up. Too fast for a real heartbeat, and getting stronger.

Not a heartbeat.

Footsteps.

Eddie tried to look, but his head wouldn’t move.

The vibrations in the ground grew closer, and Eddie could nearly hear the pounding that preceeded a blurred shadow coming to an abrupt stop beside him. The momentum carried them forward, over Eddie’s eyeline and after a second, the sight focused.

“Steve?”

He was hallucinating, now. His brain was fritzing out as he lay there dying, and it had decided to torture him in his last moments with the vision of the boy he could never have. He looked just as Eddie had left him in his battle gear, if more dirtied and bloodied. Like he’s been through hell.

Last they’d seen each other, Steve and the girls had gone off to face the real monster.

He wanted to believe Steve had made it out.

Another weight appeared at his other side, like hands laid on his arm. Eddie strained to look out of the corner of his eye, and was even further confused.

“Rob..in?”

He couldn’t get enough air, but did that mean his brain was really adding in more people as an audience to his death?

Eddie closed his eyes, but he could still hear the voices. Muffled, like being underwater. Almost familiar, if he could just make out the actual words.

“Henderson, shut up,” Steve snapped and Eddie opened his eyes, barely about to make out curls and waving hands just out of his line of vision. Hallucination Steve rubbed at his temple, smudging the blood and dirt there. “I need to figure out how to carry him, and you in my ear is not helping.”

No, Dustin…he can’t be there. He can’t watch Eddie die.

Hands touched at his neck—Steve’s hands, he realized, as he came back into view. Pressing hard to try and find Eddie’s fading pulse. His hands were like fire against his chilled, frozen skin, and he felt tears burn down his cheeks again.

He had to believe this was a hallucination. Because if it wasn’t…

Everyone was putting themselves at risk to end up just like Eddie. And he didn’t deserve it.

Steve’s hands fell away, taking their warmth with him.

“Give me your jackets. All of you,” he ordered, yanking his own of and laying over Eddie’s torn-up body. Eddie could feel weight, but nothing else. He was still cold, even when Robin and Dustin added their jackets.

“Eds. Eddie, hey. I need you to look at me.” Steve cradled his jaw and turned Eddie’s head. He was getting fuzzy, but Eddie could swear there were trails of wet tears through the dirt on Steve’s face.

Steve leaned closer, so all that Eddie could see, could hear was him.

“I’m going to carry you. It’s going to hurt. We will not leave you here.”

Eddie wanted to tell him no.

But he didn’t have the air left to speak.

And there was a chance now, maybe, that he could hold on long enough to tell Wayne goodbye. That Dustin’s last memory of him would be with some hope as he was wheeled off to some emergency room.

He couldn’t get there without Steve.

#steddie fanfiction #steddie fic #steddie fanfic #steddie #steve harrington x eddie munson #post season four #rescue from the upside down #steddie microfic #steddie drabble

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gloomwitchwrites · 1 year ago

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Captain John Price x Female Reader Dark Romance

Chapter Specific Warnings: canon-typical swearing, female masturbation, vaginal fingering, oral sex (female receiving), non-penetrative sex, erotic audio, consent / seeking consent, interrogation

Word Count: 5.6k

A/N: Part Three of Dangerous Pursuit (for @glitterypirateduck)

Price gets that audio of you begging for him. Nikola breaks.

Chapter Two

ao3 // taglist // main masterlist // dangerous pursuit masterlist

It’s the hesitation before the touch.

The moment before skin meets skin.

It is the collective breath of anticipation before everything snaps, falls apart, or is pieced back together.

That is what simmers under your skin. Anticipation.

Anticipation of the words to fall from Price’s mouth. Anticipation of what it will feel like if he touches you. Anticipation of how your heart will burn, your stomach will flip, and your brain will melt like ice cream in the summer.

This situation may be shit, and your options limited, but fuck—Price is a handsome man. The words he’s about to utter will be fake. Forced. Yet you still long to hear him say them. You’re still curious as to how your mind and body will receive them.

It does not matter that this interaction is happening because Nikola is a piece of shit or that Price promised him that audio. In the moment, when Price told Nikola he’d return with a recording of you begging for Price’s cock, you were furious. Angry. You slapped the man. Cracked him across the face so hard the left side of his cheek bloomed bright pink.

Now, you’re transfixed, observing Price as he fiddles with the tape recorder. His large hands seem too large cradling the ancient device. It’s cheap and gray. Clearly from a decade when you were a child. But it’s useful, something that cannot be easily faked once it starts recording.

Captain Price is serious about this. He wants Nikola to believe him. What is Dimitri up to? Who does he run with that a member of the British Special Forces is asking you to fake sex with him?

Fake. Fake.

A part of you keeps bringing up the idea of the two of you not faking anything. That, if you’re going to do it, you better go all the way. Put on a show. Make it fucking count. But the very idea is absurd, and you nearly laugh out loud.

It’s true, you were mad. Furious with everyone involved and everything about this entire goddamn situation. You were ready to rage. The fangs were out, venom dripping, and in some capacity, they still are. At the slightest hint of danger, you will bite. You will sink your teeth in with the intention of escaping. You’re good at that. Survival.

But right now, you’re not sure if you’re ready to bolt. Safe isn’t the exact word, more like a reluctant trust sits heavy in your chest. There is no one for you to run to. The only person you have in your corner right now is Captain Price.

He stands opposite you, just an arms-length apart, the tape recorder in his hands. Around you is a wide-open space. It is barn-like in appearance with high wooden ceilings and walls. You and Price are on concrete in a kitchen area with a communal table. Next to that are two worn sofas and a coffee table that has seen better days. Beyond that is the metal door that leads into the underground portion. The place you and Price recently emerged from.

The concrete drops off into straw-covered dirt where several vehicles are parked. There is a classic military Humvee, a dusty compact car, and a beat-up farm truck. Along the far wall are several sets of large, metal storage cabinets. One sits open, revealing a variety of different sized guns. In that same area are two large boards hanging on the wall. Pinned to them is a World Map and one of North America. There are also a few smaller photos attached to the maps themselves with lines and string indicating certain directions. None of it means anything to you, and while you’re curious, you’re not stupid enough to stick your nose into their business.

As Price continues to fiddle with the tape recorder, the gnawing, anxious dread returns. It’s the same one that wrapped itself around you when you first woke up here, when Price tended to the small cuts and bruises on your body, when he said such soft things to comfort you.

Some of that anxiousness removes the resolve you’ve built, pushing it aside to make room for its ugly insistence.

You’re a survivor. That’s it.

“Right,” says Price as he turns the tape recorder right side up. He hits the red button. “This is Captain John Price. Testing.” He presses the red button again and then rewinds the tape, hitting the play button.

The recorder replays his gruff, British voice and Price nods in approval. It’s a bit staticky and not the best quality, but it’s clear enough. Nikola might believe it if you and Price are good enough actors.

Price clutches the recorder in his fist. “You ready for this?”

Are you? No. But you agreed, and you don’t like going back on your promises.

When you don’t answer right away, Price takes a step closer. “You can back out—”

“It’s fine,” you say sharply, immediately regretting your tone.

“Okay.” Price messes with the tape recorder, deleting the audio of him testing it. Once done, he hits the red button and then gently places it on the table beside you.

Silence follows and you have no idea what you’re supposed to do. How do you improvise sex? Should you just go for it? Start making noises? There is no script, and Price didn’t go over what he expects from you. Do you touch him? Do you keep your hands off?

Confusion and frustration flood in, and you completely forget all the anticipation that held your body hostage. This whole thing is Price’s idea. He told Nikola he fucked you. He put his hand on your pussy and collected your wetness on his fingers. He held those sticky digits in front of Nikola’s face and then licked them clean afterward.

This is Price’s doing. If he wants you to act, he needs to tell you how it has to go. He needs to lead. Because right now, he’s just starting at you like he’s expecting you to perform first.

Fuck that. And fuck him.

With a sultry movement, you wrap you fingers around the tape recorder and bring it up to your lips. Price’s eyebrows rise in surprise and then furrow with concern.

In the flattest, most monotone voice you can muster, you stare Price down and give him what he wants. “Oh, John. Please. I need your cock.”

“Fucking hell. Give me that.” Price yanks the recorder out of your hand and turns it off. He presses a few more buttons, deleting the audio. He glances up and glowers.

“What?” you ask, all feigned innocence.

“You’re not helping,” he mutters.

“This is your idea, and you didn’t tell me what to do. Nikola won’t believe any of this if we just,” you gesture vaguely, “improvise.”

Price gently sets the recorder down on the table. “He seemed pretty upset when I sucked you off my fingers.”

You freeze, trying desperately to not let the shock of his words filter out into your physical features. Is that…a smirk? Does Captain Price find all this amusing? Or did he enjoy licking your juices off his fingers?

She’s fucking delicious.

That’s what Captain Price said to Nikola after he was done. He wasn’t slow about it either. Price took each finger into his mouth, one by one, and savored it all before those words dripped from his lips.

Your cheeks flame, and you cross your arms over your chest defensively. “Why should I continue to help you?”

You’re pushing again, throwing up your walls. It’s habit. It’s survival. It’s what you fall back on every goddamn time. The very act is instinctual, and you hate that it is, because you don’t want to fight with Price.

Watching him now, you’re enticed by him. He’s dressed down in his uniform. Gone is the utility belt and bulletproof vest. He’s down to his basics, and Price looks fucking good. The space between your thighs heat, and you absently flex your hips where you stand, adjusting yourself without actually doing so.

“Because I can get Nikola off your back,” answers Price. “I can make Dimitri disappear. You won’t ever have to deal with them again.”

“Dimitri pays me a lot of money while I work his room. And why should I care about what you think is best for me?”

“I’ll be doing you a favor.” Price gestures at you, open palmed. “But you need to do me a favor in return.”

You laugh. “Quid pro quo. Got it.”

“If that’s how you want to see it,” replies Price, clearly growing annoyed with this back and forth. “We’ve been over this. You said you were fine with it.”

It’s true. You did say that. But you also said that you were allowed to back out at any time and for any reason. Price agreed to that condition.

“I don’t think it’s worth the effort,” you murmur, glancing away from Price’s intense stare.

“I’m not doing all this for shits and giggles, love.” Price moves into your space and you’re forced to look up at him. “Dimitri Radovic works for a dangerous man. And I’m after that man.”

You shrug, putting up a front. “There are plenty of dangerous men in the world. How is this different?”

Price takes a deep, calming breath. You’re agitating him, working him up, and you like it. “You think I handle petty criminals?”

No. Captain Price is British Special Forces, which means he handles people you’d never actually want to meet in real life.

“I’m aware that you’re likely not after the local drug dealer.”

Price snorts and then he runs his hand through his brown hair. This one action makes it a bit messy, like he just rolled out of bed. For a moment, you picture that very image of Price waking up in the morning beside you. Your heart flutters.

“Are you willing to do this?” he asks. When you open your mouth to answer, Price cuts in before you can get a word out. “And actually try.”

“Fine,” you acquiesce. “I will try. But only if we discuss what it is we’re doing.”

It doesn’t matter how embarrassing this conversation might be, the two of you need to hash it out, to lay out exactly what needs to be said and by who.

“Good,” nods Price. He takes another deep breath, and then suddenly looks nervous, like he isn’t sure where the two of you should start.

You tug on the hem of your cocktail dress. “How do you want me?” you ask.

“Excuse me?” Price’s head snaps up, his eyes a bit wide.

“Is this where you want to do it?” You gesture at the room and the table you stand next to. Price flushes. He clears his throat, almost chokes. “What do you think I mean?” you say with a slow sultriness.

Do you have an effect on him? Did he truly enjoy the taste of you? Is he picturing that in his own mind? Because you’re thinking about it. You want to know what thoughts swirl around in his head.

“This is fine.” Price fiddles with the recorder. You note his slight nervousness and the light twitching of his fingers.

You nod. “Okay. How should we go about this?”

You’ve certainly faked many an orgasm, but it has always happened during sex. This is entirely staged. Made up. You’re not an actress, and everything about this feels awkward.

“We do what comes natural,” answers Price, as if that somehow answers your question.

You don’t like that answer. It leaves too much open for interpretation. But you don’t know what the two of you should do short of doing the act itself.

“Fine,” you agree. “But you’re taking the lead on this.”

He glances up at you. Price’s grin is infectious. “You like to be led in the bedroom?”

You immediately punch him in the chest and then promptly shake your hand. “Fuck. You’re solid.”

His grin widens before he glances down at the tape recorder in his hand. That lovely smile of his starts to fall away, disappearing like melting snow. He taps it against his open palm once…twice…and then gently places it next to you on the table.

“Follow my lead,” he murmurs, his features almost solemn as he presses the button to begin recording.

The right light is on, bright and bold. There is a brief pause of silence, and then Price steps into your space, one hand resting on your hip while the other rests against the top of the table. He leans in, trapping you against the edge of the wood. Instinct has you reaching out, placing one hand against his firm chest to keep some semblance of distance.

Price’s eye contact is intense. Unbreakable.

You immediately think of his hand between your legs, touching your clit, fingering your wetness, and how after he collected you on his fingers, Price wouldn’t look away from your face until he was in the interrogation room.

“You want more than my fingers, don’t you?” Price leans in a bit more until he’s almost standing between your legs.

You’re so surprised by his words that your mind completely spaces. Every word and phrase utterly exits your head like leaves in the wind. All you do is nod, as if the tape recorder could pick it up.

“No,” he murmurs, his pelvis resting against your own. “I need to hear you say the words.”

This is your chance. This is your turn. Ball is in your court.

“I need you. John. Please. I—” Your voice cuts out when Price’s hand on your hip squeezes, draws you closer.

“Yes, love? Use your words.” His voice is a purr. A soft caress.

“I need your cock. Please. I need you inside me.”

“That’s my good girl.”

Price abruptly pulls away and picks up the tape recorder. His leaving is a shock. A blow. You nearly stumble forward from his sudden absence.

Price shuts off the recording, rewinds it, and then hits the button to play it back. As it goes on, it is incredibly clear to you how staged it sounds. There is nothing remotely believable about it. Price’s mouth forms into a frown which only deepens by the second.

“Nikola won’t believe that,” you murmur, saying the thing you’re both thinking.

Price shuts off the recording. “Why not?”

“Would you believe that?” you question, head tipping to the side.

Price sighs loudly. “No. I wouldn’t. It sounds like two people talking.”

“Exactly.”

It does sound like two people talking. There isn’t anything breathy or sexy or erotic about the recording. It’s supposed to sound like the two of you are having sex, that his cock is buried inside you, and you should be begging him for more.

“It’s what we have,” shrugs Price. “It’ll have to do.”

“Wait.” You can’t believe you’re about to throw around this idea, but fuck it, you’ll take the risk. “It doesn’t sound believable because you only hear our voices. There isn’t any realism to it.”

Price crosses his arms. “What do you suggest?”

While you don’t want to be helpful, getting Nikola off your back sounds good, and you could give a shit about what happens to Dimitri. Someone will eventually take that VIP room, and the money will return.

“I could—Fuck,” you mutter, running a hand over your face. “I could touch myself. Have the recorder close. Let it pick up the sounds…” You wave your hand in the air absently, trying to get your point across without having to actually say the words out loud.

“Pick up the wet sounds you’ll make as you pleasure yourself,” finishes Price.

“Yes,” you say slowly, holding out the s a bit like a rattling snake.

Price takes a step forward. It is slow. Deliberate. There is something primal about the way his hips lightly sway with the movement. “And where do I fit into this?”

You swallow back the little moan that wants to escape your throat. “You need to be close enough that the microphone will pick you up.”

Price smirks. “I’ll need to be almost on top of you to make it sound believable. You want me that close to you while your hand is between your legs?”

“Depends,” you reply, squaring your shoulders. “Are you going to be a gentleman about it? Or a creep?”

Price drops his arms and then picks up the recorder, erasing everything that just occurred. “I’ll be whatever you want me to be, love.”

I’ll be whatever you want me to be, love.

“Then that’s what we’ll do, Captain.” Your voice is breathy, almost needy, and you hope he doesn’t hear it. “You stand close to me.”

“Are you sure about this?” he asks, and you hear the genuine concern in his voice as he takes another step toward you.

You swallow, trying to steady your racing nerves. “I’m sure.”

Price sets up the tape recorder and then presses the red button. He nods, indicating that you should go ahead.

A brief flare of embarrassment pauses your hand. You’re the one who proposed this and now you’re scared? Turning tail? No. You need to see this through.

Slowly, you part your legs enough for your hand to slide between. The heels you wore to work are long gone, and you go up on your toes, the curve of your ass resting against the edge of the table as you make room for your hand.

Your fingers find your underwear, push the delicate fabric aside, and you’re already so wet that you inhale sharply when your fingers slide through it. You start to swirl one finger around your clit. Each is a delicate little stroke that teases and draws forth bits of pleasure.

The need to look at Price is strong, almost overwhelmingly so, but you keep your gaze fixated at a flat point of concrete. It is safety, a way to bring yourself back to reality.

But all of that is shattered. All of it is destroyed. Yanked right out from under you.

Price moves into position, standing directly in front of you. One of his hands reaches out to your bare thigh, his fingers dancing across your skin in an upward movement toward the hem of your black cocktail dress.

“Fuck. You’re gorgeous, darling,” croons Price. “Look so good like this.”

The praise goes straight to your core. Clenching around nothing, your thighs shake, and you hear Price’s soft inhalation as his other hand rests on the opposite thigh. His hands are warm and rough. You want them everywhere.

Price lightly squeezes your thigh as the same moment you begin working your clit a little faster.

“Putting on a show for me?” Price’s head drops, his forehead pressing against your temple. He leans in a bit, the tip of his nose brushing against your cheek. “All for me.”

A whimper leaves your lips. Hangs in the air. Price catches it, responds to it by sliding his hands to the back of your thighs to lift you off the ground and onto the table. The black cocktail dress immediately reacts, sliding to your hips, revealing the sight between your legs easily.

For a brief moment, you almost clamp them shut, but Price is swift, peppering you with praise that makes them fall wide.

“That’s better. Isn’t it?” he murmurs, nuzzling the side of your face as the peak of your orgasm starts to ascend.

It’s about to crest, to tip over the edge, and fall into oblivion. You’re wet, and that is very clear by what you’re hearing. But you also hear Price’s breathy, almost heavy inhalations and exhalations. His hands squeeze and massage your skin, fingers itching to touch you. And his lips, which are surprisingly soft, keep brushing against your cheekbone.

All of it is too much, and you come undone, hips jerking as the orgasm rolls through your body. It is not faked. It is not staged. But it is soft, and gentle. Nothing earth-shattering about it. Just pure, simple pleasure.

“John,” you breathe, turning your head a bit to meet him. “I—I need your cock. Please.” It’s easy to say the words. It’s easy for them to fall from your lips for him.

Price releases one thigh and wraps his hand around your throat. He squeezes lightly, and turns your face so that you can look into his eyes.

“It’s my turn, love. Spread those fucking legs for me.”

You’re so obedient. Perfect. Falling wide and then wider.

Price is gentle as he releases your throat and then grabs your wrist, guiding your hand away from your pussy, only to replace it with his own. The moment his fingers brush against you, you moan, hips rolling into his touch.

His lips are parted, and through half-closed eyes, you watch his gaze move from your face to the space between your legs. Price can see everything. You know this, and that only makes you that much more eager for his touch.

Those fingers of his trail upward, touching every spot, only to withdraw. The retreat is heartbreaking, but short-lived. Price brings those fingers to his mouth to savor your flavor. He tastes each digit that is coated in your juices, and the very sight of him enjoying you again sends your body into a shiver.

“So sweet,” he says softly, before returning his fingers to your sex.

This time, Price slides one, thick finger into your pussy. You clench around him, moan, head falling back to expose your throat. Price groans, runs his sticky lips over your neck as he sets a pace with his finger. With it, he presses his thumb to your clit, pressing and swirling.

“Fuck you’re tight,” groans Price. Your pussy responds by sucking on his finger, drawing him in as his thumb hits just the spot on your clit to cause your hips to buck into his touch. “Can’t wait to feel you around my cock.”

With one hand pressing into the top of the table, you reach out with the other, grabbing Price’s wrist as he finds a pace that has you a whimpering, moaning mess. Your hair is everywhere. Your dress, which is damaged and beyond saving, is shoved up around your hips. Price’s arm moves with the pump of his fingers.

He is not unmoved. The hand on your thigh is fierce, digging into your flesh, and he keeps brushing his mouth against his skin like he longs to kiss you but retreats every time. The pleasure building in the base of your spine bursts, thrusts forward, explodes outward.

You cry out, clenching hard around Price’s finger. Price’s answer is a groan.

There isn’t any time for you to come down from it before Price is withdrawing his hand, pressing on your stomach to push you flat onto the table.

“I’m gonna taste you now, love. Yeah?” Price’s timbre is its own begging. You hear it in the slight break between syllables. He wants you.

You nod, clawing at him, at the table, at anything you can hold on to.

“Please,” you beg. “I need you, John.”

“Fuck,” he murmurs, and then Price’s mouth is on you, sucking your clit into his mouth.

It’s a sharp ache, a dangerous glow of need that bursts behind your eyes. You nearly jump off the table from it. Price releases your clit only to swirl the tip of his tongue around your clit in quick flicks.

Price is enthusiastic, eating you without care for himself. He chases and chases until you’re done, crying.

“Fuck. Please. John. John!” Your thighs tighten around his head and Price smiles against your pussy.

“Be a good girl and come for me.” Price lightly flicks his tongue against your clit, and that’s it. You’re done. “I want to hear you.”

Your entire body shakes, lifting off the table, curling forward, clawing at Price’s arms. When he releases your clit, Price’s arms go around you, dragging you to the very edge of the table.

Not caring that you’re now a fucking mess, you reach for Price, palming him through his pants. His hips reflexively roll against you, and he groans, his fingers digging into your skin as you continue to stroke him.

Your fingers curl around the belt, and pull him close. “I want your cock. I want you inside me.”

Every word is true. Fuck the audio. Fuck the interrogation. You want Price to fucking use you until you’re both empty.

Price’s hand closes over your own, and gently guides your hand away. At first, you’re confused, believing he’s rejecting you after all that. But then his hand is back on the belt, undoing the buckle, sliding it out with one hand, tossing it aside.

“Come here. Edge of the table. Sit up.” You follow the command, sliding forward. “Arm around my neck.” Complying, you slide your arms around the back of his neck, locking them there.

Price is staring you down, keeping you focused on his face. You’re entranced, enamored, desire pumping through your veins like a wildfire. You hear a zipper sliding along its track, the shuffle of clothes, and then Price’s hands are angling your hips.

This is it. This is the moment Price sinks inside you.

“What do you need?” asks Price, voice lusty yet serious.

“I need you inside me,” you answer, the words from your lips a pleading enticement to slip inside.

Price’s eyelids flutter and then he rests his forehead against yours. You feel it then, his cock, rock hard and thick, sliding through your wetness. He rocks his hips, moving slowly, the head of his cock rubbing your clit with each light thrust.

There is no penetration. And you almost hate it, but then Price is rubbing against you, sliding up and down your sex, rubbing against your clit with each movement, and suddenly you don’t care anymore. If this is what Price is going to give you, you’ll take it.

It’s a back and forth. A wet rocking as your bodies slide against one another.

You’re already strung out on the previous three orgasms, and the fourth is on you like an animal biting at your ankles. It is sharp and fast and bold. So loud that all you can do is hang on to Price as his hips stutter against you.

“Fuck,” he groans. “I’m gonna come inside you, yeah? Be a good girl and keep it all in once I’m done.”

You nod, eager for it. Price’s head falls against the side of your face, and his lips press against your ear. He speaks so softly you almost don’t hear him.

“Keep your hips still.”

There is a brief pause, and then warmth explodes onto the inside of your thigh where leg meets pelvis. It’s just you and Price, and your combined breathing. The silence stretches, and then Price hits the button on the tape recorder to shut off the microphone.

He steps back and your arms fall away from around his neck. Price is stuffing himself back into his pants, as his head sweeps back and forth like he’s looking for something. You’re frozen, a little frazzled with Price’s cum slowly sliding down the inner crease of your leg.

Price heads for one of the sofas, snagging a worn blanket. He brings it back to you, draping it over your shoulders before grabbing your hips and helping you to the ground. Your legs are wobbly and nearly slip out from under you.

“You can clean up in a minute,” he says reassuringly, his warm palm resting softly against your cheek. Then, Price moves his hand to your back, grabbing the tape recorder and ushering you toward the door.

All you can do is follow, still in disbelief that everything fell completely out of control, tumbling toward…what? This. Whatever the fuck it is.

When the two of you reach the interrogation room, Price points to a spot near the wall. “Stay there.”

You deliberately stand elsewhere as he rewinds the tape, pushing into the room, the door slamming shut behind him. Nikola and Price stare each other down. It is then that you notice that Price’s lips are still glossy with your wetness.

Price hits the play button and you blanch. The audio is loud. Blaring. There is no mistaking what is happening on that tape.

“Is this not enough for you, Nikola?” asks Price, face stony.

Nikola snarls and Price retreats, heading for the door. He throws it open and grabs your arm, hauling you along with him. Nikola’s snarl drops when you enter, a realization forming on his features. He didn’t believe Price that you had slept with him, and now there is no doubt.

Without saying anything, Price reaches under the blanket and between your legs, his fingers swiping up of his cum that still remain on your inner thigh. Price presents those fingers to Nikola.

“I came inside that tight cunt. And let me tell you, Nikola. It was fucking good.”

Nikola’s face flames, and your own heats in answer, not because of the words but because just minutes ago, Price was sliding his cock over your soaked pussy.

Price guides you back to the door, releases your arm to open it, and then promptly smacks your ass. The spank is quick and sharp, and it juts you forward through the door. There is no time for you to spin around and snap at him because Price has slammed the interrogation door shut again.

“Is this better proof for you?”

When Nikola shows his teeth, Price shakes his head. He glances between the cum dripping from his fingers and Nikola’s face. Back. Forth. Back again.

“No answer? Fine,” shrugs Price. He pulls his hand back like he’s about to smack Nikola. But he doesn’t. Price doesn’t make contact at all. He whips his hand toward him, not with an intention to strike Nikola but to launch the cum at him. It hits Nikola’s face.

There is a brief moment of silence and then Nikola shrieks. Rages. He’s a feral animal as he tries to throw himself at Price.

Price doesn’t even acknowledge the outburst. He leaves the interrogation room, securing the door behind him. You’re frozen. Legs shaking. You’re fuming but you’re also impressed with how calm Price is.

He glances at you and frowns. “We need to clean you up.”

We.

“I’m fine,” you stammer, turning your gaze on Nikola through the glass.

“You’ve been through a lot. You deserve a shower. Clean clothes. Food.”

“Why are you being nice to me?”

Price blinks. Shifts on his feet. “I’ll take you back to that room you woke up in. There is a bathroom connected to it. Clean up and I’ll grab some clothes for you to change into you. Take your time and then come up. Get you a hot meal.”

He takes a few steps back toward the door to the main hall. “Come on.”

You want to fight. To argue. To bite back. And just as you think it, you also remember his hands on your body and the way he begged. That didn’t sound like acting. It couldn’t have been because Price touched you with his fingers, with his mouth, and with his tongue.

Reluctantly, you follow Price into the room you previously woke up in.

“Shower is through there.” He points at a secondary door. “It’ll have everything you need.”

It feels like a dismissal, but you see his gaze and how it lingers on you. There is no denying that there is something greater at work here, some battle that’s happening that neither of you can see but both of you can feel.

Price dismisses himself with a nod, closing the door behind him.

The blanket is easy. It’s the dress that’s a torn mess. It falls apart in pieces, and nothing is better than when the fabric is gone and the hot water of the shower rains over your skin. The steam invades your lungs, and while you clean yourself of Price’s touch, you wish that you didn’t have to.

You’d like his scent to linger on you a bit longer.

Staying under the falling water for far too long, you finally decide to emerge, only to find clothes on your bed. It’s nothing fancy. Just slim sweatpants, a tank top, a zip-up sweatshirt, and tennis shoes that might run a little big but will have to do the job.

Every nerve ending is buzzing, coiled with anticipation as if the two of you are about to come together again. But that won’t happen. That was it, and you’ll have to accept it.

Running your hands over your face, you reluctantly leave, heading back upstairs. You expect to find Price alone, but you come to a halt when you notice Gaz, Soap, and Ghost all standing around him. They must have just arrived because there are still droplets of water on the three of them like they’ve been out in the rain too long.

The door slams behind you and they all cease talking, turning in your direction. You notice the flex of Price’s hand and his sudden attention, his entire body turning in your direction. But he doesn’t speak first. It’s Soap.

“Our guest downstairs is ready to talk.” He turns toward Price. “Not sure what you did, but I thought he’d never break.”

Price briefly glances at him before returning to stare at you.

You know exactly what he did.

What the both of you did.

taglist:

@glassgulls @km-ffluv @glitterypirateduck @tiredmetalenthusiast @spicyspicyliving @childofyuggoth @coffeecaketornado @aykxz98 @kayden666 @36namey @pearljamislife @wrathofcats @keiva1000 @tapioca-marzipan @pertinentpostmortem @enfppixie @bbyfimmie @kittytiddywinks @berarenado @daemondoll @saoirse06 @ninman82 @no-oneelsebutnsu @marispunk @thewulf @hayleybarnesx @lxblm

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phsychobanana · 2 months ago

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In another world, we hate each other just as much

Pairing: Zuko x Reader

WC: 930

Summary: Maybe enemies to lovers wasn't a trope meant for them...

Honor. Family. Redemption.

Some of the things Zuko has wanted more than anything in the blur of these last few years.

Honor.

Something only he could get for himself by capturing the avatar.

Family.

He wanted his family back desperately. Not so much the people themselves, but the title and pride that came with knowing them.

Redemption.

Something he'd hoped for when choosing to join team avatar in defeating his very own father, Fire Lord Ozai.

Though they didn't come to trust him as easily as he'd hoped for them to, they eventually came around. Well, most of them.

Seven months after the end of the war. Seven months after peace was restored and balance swept over the world (for the most part), Y/n still didn't trust him. Not one bit.

He'd tried everything. Gifts, reassuring words, going on a "life-changing adventure" like he did with other gaang members, and yet nothing seemed to work. So, naturally, he grew to resent her just as she did him.

It was a peaceful morning, birds flying through the air, the soft smell of tea wafting through the air. Zuko stood beside his uncle, his feet bare as the blades of grass tickle them.

The peace was quickly interrupted, however, when a familiar voice cut through the air. A voice that immediately brought a frown to Zuko’s face.

“Hi, Master Iroh!” Y/n says, her voice cheerful and cute. Oh, how he hated that voice. Hated how sweet it was, hated how it made his heart skip a beat, hated how it put the bird's songs to shame.

“Ah, Y/n, how wonderful! Isn’t it wonderful that Y/n could make it, Zuko?” Iroh nudges his nephew, ever the matchmaker.

“Yeah, sure. Whatever.” Zuko mumbles.

“Well, i’ll go make some more tea now that Y/n has decided to join us. Play nice, you two.” Just as soon as he was there, Iroh is gone.

Zuko sends a glare in his uncle’s direction, before rounding on Y/n, his glare even sharper than before. Y/n simply crosses her arms, a smirk clear on her face.

“What’s wrong, Zuzu?” She asks in a mocking tone.

Zuko simply scoffs, unbelieving of her behavior.

“It’s Fire Lord Zuko.” He says, standing upright, his nose in the air.

“Hmm…sure it is.” She smiles, clearly amused by the fact that she’s already getting under Zuko’s skin.

Out of frustration, Zuko lifts his hand to facepalm, and not realizing just how pissed off he was, his hand lights up with the movement. He doesn’t even notice until a soft hiss of pain hits his ears. Zuko’s eyes widen at the noice, and he quickly turns to look at Y/n.

“Did i do that?” He asks.

“No, the wind did it.” Y/n replies, her words drenched in sarcasm and pain.

“Haha. So funny. It’s your fault, anyway. You’re lucky i don’t do it again, on purpose this time.” Zuko says, smirking proudly as he watches the burn, still fresh, sizzle on her arm.

Y/n glares at him, sending a rock flying his way. Zuko’s eyes widen at her rebuttal, and he quickly dodges out of the way.

“You dare challenge me in my own home?” He scoffs, amused by her actions.

Y/n's eye brows raise in slight surprise. "Are you smiling, oh mighty Zuko?"

"What? No. Of course not. You've probably got dirt in your eyes, filth," Zuko quickly turns away from the girl, forcing his face to harden.

The sound of hard footsteps causes Zuko to turn around. When he does, he sees Y/n now standing much closer to him, a teasing smirk on her lips. Not that he's staring at her lips. That'd be crazy. Haha...

"You were smiling. I saw it," Y/n pokes Zuko's chest accusingly.

"Was not!" Zuko argues childishly.

"We're too!"

"Was not!"

"Were-fucking-too!"

"WAS NOT!"

"STOP LYING!"

Fire crackling, rocks grumbling, loud arguing, small explosion, heavy breathing. That was all that could be heard from the courtyard as the two got into a heated argument over something so childish.

Eventually, as the ancestors would have it, the two end up toppling over each other, Zuko ending up straddling Y/n's hips in a rather....awkward position.

Zuko looks down at her with wide eyes, a rosy blush making its way to his face. Though, that's not the only place he has blood rushing to.

Y/n huffs, slowly sitting up on top of the blushing boy, her glare practically pinning him in place. She's also red in the face, though it's more out of anger than it is embarrassment.

"Would you get off of me already? Whatever you have in your pockets is poking me!" Y/n complains, her fits colliding with his chest aggressively.

Zuko swallows nervously, knowing that there's nothing in his pockets. He slowly stands to his full height, the blush on his cheeks never tiring. His hands fold together in front of his crotch in a feeble attempt to hide his...excitement?

Y/n gives him an unimpressed look as she dusts herself off. "First you burn me, then you make me fall, what's next? Kill me?"

"Maybe." Zuko responds, though his words lack their usual heat.

Y/n's brows furrow in confusion at Zuko's lack of conviction. "What's up with you?"

She glances to where his hands are fidgeting, and then back up to his face, her eyes widening upon realization.

"Seriously?! A hard-on, you weirdo?!" She shrieks.

Zuko's face burns even hotter, and he turns away, mumbling a half-assed "shut up".

Y/n cackles upon this discovery, doubling over. She wipes tears of mirth from her eyes before speaking, "I thought you were mad at me."

"It's a hate boner, i swear." Zuko says sternly, even though it sounds like he's trying to convince himself more than he's trying to convince her. "I still hate you. Always will."

Y/n rolls her eyes in response. "Yeah, yeah. We hate each other in every universe, i get it. Dumbass."

"Bitch."

"Freak."

"Vine-head."

"Hate boner."

"SHUT UP!"

#x reader #avatar the last airbender #atla #zuko #fire lord zuko #prince zuko #zuko x reader #zuko x y/n #atla zuko

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carolperkinsexgirlfriend · 11 months ago

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Steddie Upside-Down AU Part 82

Part 1 Part 81

All Eddie wants to do is cling to his people and not let go. He wants to latch onto Steve, to Uncle Wayne, to Will, but Steve’s not Steve, and Wayne’s off with Mama Byers trying to get Owens to tell them what’s going on. So he sits, holding Will’s hand and does the thing he’s worst at: he waits.

He’s been pulling both their tethers to himself rhythmically, can’t help but make sure they’re both still there, even with the visual cues right in front of him. Will pulls back, each time with the same desperation. Steve doesn’t react at all.

He’s been staring at the door everyone walked through since it clicked shut and locked.

There’s still no fucking clock, but he could count the minutes by the blinking of Steve’s eyes, if only he could look at him.

Will’s curling further and further into Eddie, almost in his lap save for the bar separating their conjoined hospital chairs. It’s a move reminiscent of a much smaller child, but Eddie can’t blame him. There’s not much less to cling to.

His Mom’s off kicking ass, friends MIA out still living in the Right-Side-Up, and Steve’s staring at the door.

Eddie’s it, the last man standing.

So he sits, and waits, and clings right back.

Steve’s voice breaks up the quiet like a shot to the head.

“Something’s wrong.”

The last time Steve had said that, Hopper was buried six feet deep. The words hit with a jolt. Eddie and Will both sit, bolt-upright, finally looking Steve’s way.

“What?” Eddie demands, reaching out his hand toward Steve before settling it back down on his own knee and clenching down.

“I saw something.”

“You mean like with Chief Hopper?” Will asks.

Steve’s not looking at them, he’s still staring at the fucking door like neither of them had spoken at all. What if it is like Hop, and someone else has found themselves in a deep grave, unable to dig their way out?

“The shadows,” Steve says absently. “I think I know how to stop him.”

Unable to sit still anymore, Eddie drops from his chair, knees rioting against him as they smack into the linoleum. He knee-walks over to Steve, dignity lost somewhere in a hole in the dirt, and grabs Steve’s hand.

The skin turns pink immediately, painful and inflamed. Eddie doesn’t let go, reaches up up up to turn Steve’s cheek with his free hand, forcing Steve to finally look at him.

His cheek looks pink, like he’d been slapped when Eddie drops his hand, but his gaze burns hotter still. The thing that isn’t Steve looks down at Eddie like he’s nothing at all.

“How, Stevie?” Eddie begs, shuffling forward to get closer. “How do we stop him?”

Steve just watches.

“Sweetheart, please.”

Will gasps. Steve stares. Eddie’s crumbling in his foundation, made dust when Steve turns away to peer at the door.

It’s silent again.

Eddie can’t get up, can’t turn away, can’t look at whatever face Will’s making as he gets up from his chair to put his palm on the back of Eddie’s shoulder, gentle like he’s fragile.

Steve’s still staring at the door when it opens. Eddie doesn’t turn at its click, doesn’t do anything at all until Uncle Wayne calls, “kid?” quietly.

He doesn’t realize he’s crying until he turns his face up to Uncle Wayne’s call like a sunflower to the last bits of dying light and Wayne brushes the tears off his cheeks. “What happened?”

Eddie’s eyes drift back to Steve, who’s staring fixedly at Dr. Owens. “Stevie, he…” Eddie realizes he doesn’t know what to say, how to explain the way Steve’s vacant, flickering, empty.

He doesn’t have to. Even like this, Steve’s drawing attention away from Eddie’s weakness, sheltering him from words he doesn’t know how to say.

“The shadows,” Steve says, same words, same cadence, same vacancy, “I think I know how to stop him.” He’s like a stock character with a limited amount of dialogue options, stuck repeating the same lines over and over until someone engages in the right way.

A pit sinks into Eddie’s stomach as he watches not-Steve act like he wanted to help. But all he could feel from their bond is cold, cold, cold.

Part 83

Taglist: @deany-baby @estrellami-1 @altocumulustranslucidus @evillittleguy @carlprocastinator1000 @1-8oo-wtfbro @hallucinatedjosten @goodolefashionedloverboi @newtstabber @lunabyrd @cinnamon-mushroomabomination @manda-panda-monium @disrespectedgoatman @finntheehumaneater @ive-been-bamboozled @harringrieve @grimmfitzz @is-emily-real @dontstealmycake @angeldreamsoffanfic @a-couchpotato @5ammi90 @mac-attack19 @genderless-spoon @kas-eddie-munson @louismeds @imhereforthelolzdontyellatme @pansexuality-activated @ellietheasexylibrarian @nebulainajar @mightbeasleep @neonfruitbowl @beth--b @silenzioperso @best-selling-show @v3lv3tf0x @bookworm0690 @paintsplatteredandimperfect @wonderland-girl143-blog @nerdsconquerall @sharingisntkaren @canmargesimpson @bananahoneycomb

#steddie #steve harrington #eddie munson #my fic #steddie upsidedown au #will byers

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starfellforyou · 9 months ago

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imperfect for you ✧⋆｡˚

❛ ༉‧₊˚ featuring: neuvillette x treasure hoarder!reader

❛ ༉‧₊˚ premise: the iudex of fontaine is renowned for his impartiality, objectivity, and unwavering principles. he resolves the court’s cases with precision, wielding a sharp blade of virtue against any misconduct that arises before him. but when a pesky treasure hoarder with a crude tongue and an eye for jewels crosses his path, she threatens to obliterate everything he’s ever stood for…

❛ ༉‧₊˚ genres: fluff, angst, enemies to lovers, class divide

❛ ༉‧₊˚ word count: 4k+

♪ imperfect for you - ariana grande (slowed + reverb)

Sometimes, to make a living, you’ve got to get your hands a little dirty.

I would know. The life of a Treasure Hoarder, to the disagreement of many, is no easy feat. I’m not going to act like it’s a righteous path, but it’s the only path for the likes of me; and unlike my fellow bandits, I don’t burn my cash nearly as quickly as they do.

Fontaine is like an open treasure chest, full of twinkling gems and glittering jewels, a realm of luxury and riches. I normally sneak slices of warm bread into my satchel. But I’m tired of always struggling to get by. I’m sick of making ends meet when I could be weaving a tapestry of opulent threads.

I want to steal something bigger. Brighter. Feed my brothers and sisters without having to worry about warm bread.

I hear the Court of Fontaine is stocking up on a sackful of precious goods from all over the nation - and I intend to get my hands on them.

…

Sneaking into the court was surprisingly easy. All I had to do was put on an old hat and pretend I’d been sent to deliver the week’s paper.

“I’m here to collect a stack of news, sir.” I tip my hat politely, a paragon of manners and humility.

And just like that, I’m in. This isn’t my first time breaking into the court; after all, it’s terribly troublesome for non-aristocrats to find themselves welcome in a high-society breeding ground like this one.

I stroll down the frilly lanes of Quartier Narbonnais, taking my time to avoid suspicion. Parasols and silky dresses line the streets, hushed chatter and gossip filling the air like the incessant chips of Bluecrown Finches. Something to the left catches my eye.

It’s a child standing on the tips of his toes, arms outstretched towards a small roll of sapphire-blue ribbon on a tall wooden shelf. I realize I’m standing in front of the Chioriya Boutique. Huh. Such beautiful dresses… The boy’s clothes are slightly tattered, his skin marked with dirt. My heart pangs with sympathy at the thought that this child is just like my little brother; anxious, alone, and with nothing to his name.

I point a finger towards the bushes next to the shop and shout, “Look! Over there!”

The ladies looming nearby gasp with curiosity, craning their necks to get a good look of whatever it is that’s caught my eager attention. I yank the roll of ribbon off the shelf without making a sound, a devious act that only one with years of practice could master. her

Handing it to the boy, I ask him what he needs it for and pull him to the side.

“My sister’s dress is missing a blue ribbon. I figured I’d find her a replacement…” He trails off, uneasy. “Unfortunately, I don’t have any money to pay you, mademoiselle…”

“Consider it a favor.” I pause. “You owe me one, that’s all.”

The boy nods, his adorable features lighting up. I ruffle his hair and tell him to scurry off.

“Make sure you don’t get caught, little one!”

“Caught doing what, exactly, young lady?”

A deep, commanding voice speaks from a few feet behind, startling me - though I do not show it.

I turn to face the man in a relaxed, casual manner. His face surprises me even more than his voice does. He’s an elegant, poised man, tall and intimidating, yet not in a bad way. He does reek of sophistication, nevertheless. I curse myself for being so careless. What are you, an amateur?

“Why, by his sister, of course! Children these days, always running about.” I chuckle for effect.

It doesn’t seem to faze him.

“I have reason to believe you have stolen something from this establishment, miss. I’ll have my officers take you in for further questioning immediately.”

What a jerk! I can hardly believe such cold-hearted individuals exist. I glance over his fanciful robes and twinkling accessories with disdain, remembering exactly why I proclaim law enforcement in Teyvat to be a terribly corrupt system run by frauds. I need to think fast if I want to make it back out of the court alive.

Criminals like me have no place in a respectable region like this.

“Of course, my lord. I will obey your orders without a word of complaint.” I bow to him despite myself.

“Very well then. Come with me.” He starts forward, footsteps strong and chin held high. “You must be from the villa–”

I’ve snuck behind the nearest bush and climbed up a wall, as swift and soundless as ever. Watching from above, I giggle at the officer’s notable confusion.

“Show yourself!” He shouts, eyes frantically searching his surroundings but to no avail. Clearly frustrated, he curses under his breath, attracting the attention of the ladies nearby, who swoon once they meet his gaze.

“My apologies.” He mutters under his breath, eyebrows knitted together in a scowl.

He storms off into the crowd.

…

It isn't until I return to base that I realize that was no ordinary officer. The way he was dressed, the power in his voice when he spoke to me… It all seemed very peculiar.

“The Iudex. You spoke to the Iudex of Fontaine. There’s no way.” My younger sister seems to be in a state of shock.

“The Chief Justice? Nahhh. It couldn’t have been him. I mean, what’s he doing next to a women’s boutique?”

“Based on your descriptions, I think it’s safe to say that it really was him. I have heard that he enjoys strolling amongst the locals.”

I have a hard time believing it all. Indeed, my sister has always been the most well-read of us, but surely if I’d come face to face with the Iudex of Fontaine himself, I’d have known, right?

It all just seems absurd.

But I guess anything is possible in the Land of Justice. Now that I’ve found myself on the Chief Justice’s radar, it would benefit me to be more careful with my thieving endeavors in the court.

A minor inconvenience isn’t going to stop me now.

…

In an ornate, oversized office, Neuvillette sits by the fireplace, pondering.

He’s infuriated that someone dared defy his word in his presence. He’s puzzled about the thief’s identity, her next move. Most passionately of all, he feels foolish.

Utterly ashamed that he let a young woman escape with her pride right under his nose.

He calls out for a servant. “Have a Melusine troop assembled by tomorrow morning. I must catch this thief if it’s the last thing I do.”

“Of course, sire.” The servant hesitates, unsure. “Don’t mind my prying, sire, but this girl seems like nothing more than a petty thief. Why are you so hung up on bringing her in?”

Neuvillette rests his head on a gloved hand, elbow propped up on his polished spruce-wood desk.

“Because no one… escapes from the law.”

…

No one, of course, but me.

I spent the next two weeks stealing all sorts of interesting artifacts from within the court, some that sparkle and some that whir. With the money I’ve been bringing in, my siblings are finally able to have meals that contain more than just mushrooms and a few slices of bread.

Multiple times a member of the Iudex’s troop - occasionally the Iudex himself - managed to catch me, but each and every time I got out unscathed. I think I enjoy this life of crime.

Or rather, I enjoy the look on his face when he realizes I’ve slithered out of his reaches. The thrill of coming this close to facing him again, each and every time.

I received word that a masquerade ball is being hosted at the Vasari Passage tomorrow night, and that many fine ladies and gentlemen of society will be there. Naturally, I decide that my next cause of action is to “borrow” a pretty ball gown for my grand entrance.

I choose the most exquisite of gowns from the shop’s dusty attic - a rich purple shade to match my eyes - and brace myself for a possible run-in with the Iudex. I can’t risk him capturing me again. There’s no way he’d still recognise me. It’s been ages. Besides, I’m sure he has other bandits on his list.

…

The ball is an extravagant affair; I’ve never seen this much Hydro in one place - on land, of course. I have to admit, it really is quite enchanting.

Throughout the evening, I’m careful not to expose my face. I must be the most wanted petty criminal in Fontaine. In the unlikely event that anyone should identify me as the thief that’s been stealing their goods, it would only mean more trouble for me. With grace and finesse I whisk through the crowds, yanking one pearl necklace after another from the necks of oblivious aristocrats, stashing my finds safely away in the pocket strapped to my leg.

Just as I’ve gotten my hands on a marvelous emerald bracelet, I bump into someone I didn’t notice was standing right in front of me. As I recover, I’m struck with the familiar sight of flowing sapphire robes, a head of long hair as pristine and pure as snow. Oh, Archons.

Before I can even begin to protest, he grabs me by the waist with a firm hand and pulls me into a back garden, far enough away from the bustle of the ball. A glowing waterfall splashes gently to my left, and a couple dozen fireflies light up the Romaritime bushes that surround us.

I watch him carefully as he flexes his jaw. Though his face is partly concealed by a mask, I can tell he’s been driven mad with contempt - no, irritation. He’s been waiting a long time for this moment.

“It’s you.”

“To what do I owe the pleasure, my lord?”

“Enough of your games.” He spits out the words as if they’re poison on his tongue. “You cannot run forever. I know people like you well. It never ends well for them, running from the law.”

This pisses me off.

“Because the law protects the high and mighty, like you. Like the people out there. There’s no room in the law for people like me. Those who have to fight to survive. Those who can’t find work. Those who can’t put food on the table without stealing it.”

I watch as he falls silent, seemingly at a loss for words.

“What you are doing, while worthy of sympathy, is still illegal. It is my duty as Iudex to uphold the law and bring justice to all.”

“What about my family? What justice do they receive then, you bastard?”

He seems taken aback by my choice of words, a small frown written across his brows. Did I just insult the Chief Justice? I try to think of a way out of this situation; it’s gotten far too messy for my liking.

But a part of me doesn’t want to leave him here. This game we're playing - it excites me. Sometimes, it feels as though he lets me go on purpose. And while I do credit myself for being an excellent thief, I can’t help but feel as if I’ve gotten myself entangled with the law in more ways than one.

“I must take you in immediately. You will return all of the items you’ve stolen, precious or not. Fontaine is no place for such thie–”

I take a step forward and kiss him on the cheek.

Just a peck; a gentle act of intimacy that lasts no longer than a second. It shocks me as much as it does him, and I swear that beneath his mask, I can see his cheekbones flush a deep crimson red.

“P-Pardon me, my lord.” I take the opportunity to flee, leaving whatever just happened in the garden behind me.

He must’ve been too disgusted to follow me.

…

The following days passed with little to no thievery. I couldn’t explain it, but a part of me felt… guilty, for the first time in my life. Maybe not for stealing all those things from the hands of the wealthy, but for kissing him the way I did, in an attempt to save my own ass.

But that was the tricky part; did I really kiss him just to save my own ass?

I shake my head, desperate to prevent these frightening thoughts from clouding my judgment. I still have a family to feed.

I’m just about to sneak a sack of berries into my satchel when I feel his presence wash over me, watching me. I spin around to survey my surroundings, and sure enough, there he is. The Iudex in all of his dignified glory - staring at me from across the street. I return the sack to its position in the pile and walk over to him, my footsteps light and quick.

“I didn’t steal.”

“You would have.”

“But I didn’t.”

He sighs, exasperated. “I have been lenient to you. Whether or not you agree, I have shown you kindness by not exacting harsher measures in response to your… intemperance.”

I suppose that is true, especially after what I pulled that night. I remain silent.

“And despite every fiber of my being telling me to put you behind bars this instant, I wish to ask you a few questions before I do so.”

“And what’s in it for me, wise-ass?”

If he’s offended, he’s doing a great job concealing it. “I’ve called off the search. And, you’ll get to ask a few questions of me.” He tilts his head cautiously.. “Something tells me you would find that most enticing.”

He’s right. I hate that he’s right.

“Fine. Shall we head to somewhere more private, my lord?”

…

For some reason, he brings me to his office in the Palais Mermonia. We enter through a secret entrance hidden from the public eye, and manage to remain unseen. He’s very serious about keeping our arrangement confidential.

The building is lavishly decorated, its shiny walls a reflection of its equally shiny inhabitants. At every turn I’m awed by the sheer magnificence of it all; by how I’m likely to never set foot in a place like this again.

“Please, have a seat.” His voice is low. He almost looks uncomfortable.

“So. What’d you wanna ask me?” I lift both feet and rest them atop his desk, crossing my right leg over the left. This is my first and last time in a room as cushy as this one, after all - I might as well make myself at home. “If you don't mind, I’d like you to answer my questions before I answer yours.”

He doesn’t object. I continue, “Why are you so unwilling to turn a blind eye to a few measly scoundrels? The people they’re stealing from already have far too much - and yet, you are complicit with their greed.”

There’s a distant look in his eyes. “Ever since I’d been issued the position of Iudex, there’s been an immeasurable… weight on my back. To uphold the law, standards of safety, fairness… That has been my job for as long as I can remember. I have dedicated my life to ensuring that Fontaine is the splitting image of perfection.”

“You speak as if you are old.” I scoff, feigning sophistication in my voice. “You’re a young man yourself. Shouldn’t you, of all people, understand that achieving perfection is impossible? Not when there is so much filth and corruption manifesting beneath the surface?”

My words seem to have struck him. “...I suppose there is truth to your words.”

“So stop. Let me and my people live as we have been. We don’t go around attacking the rich unprovoked, you know, despite what most people think.”

We share a pleasant silence for a moment. It feels as if I’m getting to him; as if we’re beginning to really see each other.

“You really do have the most exquisite eyes.”

This takes me by surprise. Did the Chief Justice of Fontaine just compliment my eyes? I try to suppress the redness growing across my cheeks.

He speaks again, his unfaltering gaze fixed on mine. “I never quite got your name, Miss…”

“Y/N,” I answer hastily. “And, you are…?”

“Neuvillette. My given name.”

Neuvillette. It’s never occurred to me how much I don’t know about the affairs of the city. About him.

“I have another question, Neuvillette.” He nods. “Why are you so intent on bringing me in? Are there no other criminals in Fontaine that demand more pressing attention?” I push further. “And why are you talking to me now, rather than locking me up?”

He looks speechless, as if troubled by something. “Because…” My heart stutters as I anticipate what he’s about to say. “Because I have something to ask of you.”

I deflate. “Oh. What is it?”

“I’m willing to offer you a job - an esteemed position in the Maison Gardiennage. You’d be an excellent addition to the team, and you won’t have to worry about a single piece of Mora from now on–”

My heart stops stuttering. It sinks. “So that’s what this is about.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“You pity me. This whole time–you’ve been trying to recruit me for your–your–battalion! To use me!” I feel betrayed. Blindsided. I can’t believe I’ve been so stupid.

I rush to stand up, and he gets up just as quick. “I assure you, that is not my intention, Miss Y/N–”

“You just want me taken care of so I can stop stealing and you can go back to your precious duties.” And to think that maybe we shared something. “I thought you were different. I really did. Now I see I was mistaken.”

“Miss Y/N, you must not keep stealing.” He sounds desperate, as if about to lose the composure he so carefully maintains.

I can’t do this. I swing the door to the hallway open, fuming. “You call us Treasure Hoarders, but you fail to realize that the ones who hoard treasure are yourselves.”

I spin around one final time, taking in the sight of him. He’s standing less than an inch away from me now. I notice that it physically pains me to be this close to him. “I hope I’m not spotted, for your sake. Archons forbid what being seen with me might do to your reputation.”

I slam the door behind me.

…

For the first time, Neuvillette doesn’t have a solution for any of this. He can’t let her keep stealing, that’s for sure. But is that really all that’s troubling him? Is that the real reason why he’s so worked up about all of this?

He swats at an invisible thought in the air. Focus. A royal auction is to be held tomorrow evening, and there’s a lot to be done.

…

I can’t bear to stay in the court for much longer. Everything is just… too much.

If I am to stop stealing in the court, all while ensuring that my family is fed and happy, I’ll have to end my business here with a bang. Steal something truly valuable that’ll guarantee I’ll never have to steal again.

Therefore, when I receive news of the Annual Court Auction being held the following day, I can hardly contain my anticipation.

This will be the heist of all heists. My family’s lives are on the line.

I must sneak in unnoticed, snag the one-of-a-kind Hunter’s Brooch from wherever it is backstage, and sneak back out where I came from. Make sure I avoid running into Neuvillette, at all costs.

…

As the clock strikes six, the auction begins. A dense crowd fills the ballroom, the stench of elitism wafting through the air.

I managed to steal a servant’s uniform while he was distracted and put on my disguise, determined to get the job done once and for all. As I pretend to refill my tray, I listen closely as the auctioneer projects his booming voice. “Going once, going twice… SOLD to the lady in pink!”

The Hunter’s Brooch is up next. I glide through the crowd, offering tiny pastries and shot glasses to the haughty noblemen as I pass.

“Next up: the Hunter’s Brooch!” The crowd oohs and aahs, captivated by its remarkable beauty. “Do I hear one-million?”

I inch closer and closer to the stage as bidders furiously compete with one another for the brooch. I hear numbers I have never heard in my life.

“Do I hear fifteen-million? Going once, going twice…” The crowd falls silent, seemingly bested.

“Twenty-million.”

My head whips around so fast I almost drop my tray. Neuvillette.

“SOLD to our Chief Justice!”

I take a deep breath and try to calm my nerves. Seeing him from afar is somehow a thousand times worse than seeing him up close.

I remind myself what I came here for. I attempt to ignore the pounding in my chest and sneak past the guards in front of the stage. There it is.

The brooch sits on a cushioned plinth backstage, sparkling despite the darkness. I yank it from its display in the blink of an eye and stuff it into my satchel. Hugging it under my arm, I latch on to the wall behind the stage and begin climbing towards the landing on the second floor.

Just as I reach the surface, I pick up a swarm of hurried footsteps headed in my direction. I try to steady myself as hastily as possible, but by the time I look up, it’s too late.

Guards.

They grab me by the arms and pull me away from the auction. From my grand plan. From my dreams of never having to steal again.

…

A trial. I’m to sit in front of the Iudex tonight and face him for the first time in days. I’m to relive the embarrassment of getting caught, of encountering my first defeat. I’m to look him in the eye as he finally decides to throw me in jail for good.

Time passes rather quickly in a holding cell, contrary to popular belief. Before I know it, I’m sitting in a courtroom, anxiously waiting for the Iudex to walk in.

My pulse quickens when the thick ivory doors swing open.

He remains the paradigm of grace and regality; able to command an entire room without ever so much as uttering a word.

Despite all the guilt, all the shame I’m feeling sitting in this chair, I can’t seem to take my eyes off him.

He moves to take his seat on the elevated throne in the middle of the room, and for a moment - just a tiny sliver of a second - we lock eyes. He looks conflicted, tired, as if he hadn’t slept a wink last night.

The trial proceeded as one normally would; everyone was represented by someone, though the loaded old man I’d stolen from had obviously hired a greater amount of skill.

It’s now time for the final judgment to be made.

The Iudex’s eyes are downcast, his forehead creased. His gloved hands seem to be restless and unsure. Please, Neuvillette. Don’t do this.

A pause that stretches on for an eternity passes, and he whispers something unintelligible to the court orderly standing next to him. A bewildered expression appears on the orderly’s face, but Neuvillette has already gotten up to exit, halting all further questions.

He charges out of the courtroom, leaving hushed exclamations and gasps of surprise in his wake. Neuvillette… Did you betray me? We all look to the court orderly.

“The Chief Justice of Fontaine has declared the defendant… not guilty.”

…

“So does that mean you’re free to go now?”

“Yep.” I smile at my sister with a sigh. “I’m never going back there again.”

“What? Why not? I thought you said the city was our golden opportunity.”

“It was. But I’ve come to realize that I can’t keep stealing from the hand that feeds me. It’s too much. It’s not… fair.”

“Who are you and what have you done with my sister?” She wriggles her eyebrows at me.

I give her a hard nudge, playfully. “There are other prospects, you know. I heard Liyue possesses treasures beyond even our wildest dreams. We shall aim to relocate by the end of the month.”

“Not yet done with your scheming, Miss Y/N?”

No. It can’t be.

I jump to my feet so quickly my sister flinches. “Hey, could you maybe…”

She runs off towards the camp, leaving the two of us standing face to face atop the most beautiful hill in the region.

“I wasn’t expecting you.” My voice comes out shaky, as if I haven’t spoken in years.

Neuvillette searches my eyes, vulnerable and sincere. “Did you really think you could hide from me for long?”

Inhale. Exhale. “I don’t understand. Why didn’t you lock me up? Why come all the way here after two weeks?”

“You must know…” He trails off, stares at the setting sun just above the horizon. “My every waking moment is plagued by thoughts of… of you.”

I stop breathing.

“At night, I dream of you. The criminal I cannot seem to capture. The thief I cannot seem to subdue.” He takes a step forward. “Your words echo in my mind, your eyes pierce my soul. Your insolence, obscenity, rebelliousness… All of it. It-It vexes me.” Another step. “You are a thief, Y/N, for you have stolen more than just precious gems and sparkling jewels.”

I’m rendered speechless. All I want to do is run into his arms.

“Please. Don’t leave. I beg of you.”

My heart feels so… so full. I rush to close the distance between us, beaming so widely it must look strange.

“Only if you promise to let me keep stealing your stuff.”

He rolls his eyes. “Your wish is my command. I suppose it will do the nation some good if all of its inhabitants remain healthy and fed.” I smile. “You’ve made up your mind, then? No law enforcement work for you?”

“Actually… I’ve yet to give it any thought. You sure you’d want a Treasure Hoarder amongst your ranks?”

“You make a good point. But right now…” He’s staring again, lips mere inches away from mine. “All I want… is you.”

“But my lord, surely that’s against the law,” I tease.

“The law has no place here.”

And he kisses me, hungry and passionate.

For the first time in ages, I finally feel well off.

❛ ༉‧₊˚ author's note: i had to stop myself from writing a commentary on class divide and remember i'm in love with neuvillette lol (two things can be true at once) hope you like this one! typically this would've been a multiple-chapter fic on ao3 but oh well here goes nothing

✧ starfellforyou

#— ‧ ₊˚ 𝘴𝘧𝘺 𝘭𝘪𝘣𝘳𝘢𝘳𝘺 🌸✩#genshin impact #neuvillette #neuvillete x reader #genshin #genshin impact x reader #genshin x reader #neuvilette genshin #genshin neuvillette #fontaine

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cottoncandy-cult · 1 year ago

Text

Gentle Touches

Meliodas x chubby! reader

Meliodas sighed as he entered his bedroom in just his pants, he had just finished his bath and was ready for bed. He smiled towards the comfy piece of furniture as he entered, that smile broadening when he spotted the lump under the covers. (Y/n) had come up to the room an hour before him, she had been quite tired after how busy the day had been, and he didn't blame her. She always worked hard and today they had more customers than any of their previous stops, because of that after they closed most of them hung around near the bar for a drink or two. The blonde male made his silent approach, a small candle dimly burned on his side of the bed and lit up the small area. Giving him enough light to see his sleeping lovers face, he adored the woman more than anything else in this world. He moved to sit beside her, reaching out to gently stroke her plump cheek and brush some of her silken (H/c) hair away. It had been almost a year since they started dating, the two were a bit of an odd pair given their different heights and frames. He was smaller and leaner while she was taller and pleasantly chubby, he loved that about her. He'd certainly love her no matter her form, but he thought she was beautiful as she was.

His movements were slow and deliberate as he slid under the cover, he was careful when snuggling up to her but even in her deep sleep she recognized his presence. Her body curled towards him a little, a soft hum escaping the sleeping girl. Meliodas chuckled softly as he wrapped his arms around her, nuzzling the top of (Y/n)'s head as he gently rubbed her back. His fingers grazed over a couple deep scars, making him hold her closer as a colder look filled his eyes. When they had first met the girl had been living in a disgusting town, the town and a majority of its people were cruel and selfish and only cared about physical appearance. (Y/n) was one of a handful of good people being treated like dirt, it wasn't even as if she eats a lot but that it was just her more natural body. He thought she was beautiful, but he watched others insult and harass her, it was when things got physical, and she got thrown across a rocky hill side that he decided to put his foot down. They were near a slate like mountain so most the natural stones were quite hard and sharp, it was one reason boats were incredibly careful near its coast.

Meliodas hadn't been the only one to witness what had happened, Elizabeth had been quick to rush to the girl's side and that was enough to make the others move. They brought the girl into the boar's hat and tended to her injuries, every time he saw or touched these scars, he felt his anger bubble up. She was too sweet of a girl to deserve such harsh treatment. His movements came to a stop when he heard her groan, his fingers stopping where they were as she shifted. "Meli, you're squishing me..." Her sleepy voice made him realize he had been holding her tight to his chest, so he loosened his grip and watched her lean back a little to look up at him. Having just woke and still being tired her (E/c) eyes were a bit bloodshot and glossy; she gave him a lazy smile. "I keep telling you not to touch them if it's gonna upset you..." Her voice was a bit raspy and low, but he still smiled when hearing her speak to him. "I'm not upset, I just don't understand how so many people can be so ugly that they make excuses to hurt an angel..."

His voice was soft and smooth as he leaned his forehead against hers, gently rubbing his nose against her own as a deep crimson covered her cheeks. Her body pressed close to his as her own arms curled around his waist, one of her legs slipping between his own as they tangled themselves together. "None of that matters now, I'm here with you and I wouldn't want to be anywhere else." She leaned forward to steal a kiss from him, something he quickly reciprocated. The kiss was sweet and warm, both parties smiling lovingly as they'd break apart just to reconnect over and over before they settled against the pillows together. As the candlelight began to fade out the two had begun to fall asleep, comfortable within each other's arms.

#fluff #x reader #fem reader #chubby reader #meliodas #meliodas x reader #seven deadly sins fluff #seven deadly sins #nanatsu no taizai #candy cult vault #Meliodas x chubby reader

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kydrogendragon · 5 months ago

Text

Sandmanniversary Day 1: Uniforms

Words: 1.3k

Pairing: Dreamling

Rating: Explicit

Ao3 Link Here

Hob smiles through the sweat and dirt on his face. They may have lost but the thrill of such a tight match was a win in itself. And as the hooker for the Greek team walks towards him with burning intent, Hob expects this day is going to get even better.

Dream, as fans lovingly call him, steps into his space just off the sidelines. Fucking hell, he's even prettier this close. Hob's sad he only got to get his hands on the man in a tackle once.

"You played valiantly," Dream says with a voice like honey, sweet and slow.

"Yeah?"

"Mm. I'm impressed. I only wish we would be able to play against one another again."

His heart skips a beat. Dream was complimenting him?

"I'm always down for a re-match. Maybe we can get our boys to play again. Just...not at the Olympics, obviously."

"Perhaps," Dream replies with a smirk. "Though, until them, keep these as a promise. You can return them when we play next." His eyes narrow, pinning Hob in place. He watches as deft fingers hook themselves into the waistband of his shorts and begins sliding them down. Hob's eyes widen.

There, in front of all the stands and their teams, Dream Ateleíōtes takes off his fucking shorts. Granted, these damn things are short as it is but now Hob can see every inch of those pale thighs. Lean, but dense muscle tenses underneath and Hob wants nothing more than to sink his teeth into the meat of them.

White fabric is dangled in front of his eyes. Hob blinks, focusing back on something other than the temptation that is Dream's lower half.

"Well? Will you not give me your?"

"Mine?" Hob squeaks. Dream's lip twitches upward.

"Yes, Hob Gadling. Your shorts. Will you not give me yours?"

Hob's sliding his own shorts down before his brain can even catch up. Fuck, he's thankful he didn't slip his an underwear down too while he was at it. He clambers out of his shorts, the fabric catching against his shoes. He nearly trips and falls on his arse trying to get out of the damn thing.

Dream chuckles as Hob holds out his own pair in offering. Those long pale fingers—fuck, what would they feel like inside of him?—pluck Hob's own navy blue shorts from his hand as he tosses the white and blue fabric at Hob. It lands on his face as he scrambles to grab them while he tries not to groan out loud. Fabric that had been pressed tightly against Dream's body—against his arse, against his dick—was now on his face.

As he pulls the shorts down and into his hands, Dream finishes pulling the navy blue up over his legs. He winks and saunters back over to his team.

He stares dumbfoundedly at the over-enunciated sway of Dream's hips as he walks that he doesn't realize he's still technically standing in the fields with no shorts on until Marc slaps him on the back.

"Well that was something," Marc laughs. "You planning on putting them clothes back on or you just rocking the tighty-whitey look for the rest of the day?"

"Fuck," Hob hisses as he scrambles to put the shorts—Dream's shorts—on. He can hear the crowd cheering in the stands, probably both from Greece's win as well as the impromptu show they got from him and Dream.

Marc just laughs at his side. "Right, well, come on then! Coach wants a word in the locker room before we're dismissed."

The shorts were tight. Well, not too tight but Dream was visibly narrower than Hob and that reflected in how each step he takes makes the fabric ride up his arse. The fact that he's half hard isn't doing him any favors.

He sighs as he closes the door to his room, toeing his shoes off in the process. Thankfully, Ed wasn't here yet—off catching some tail, Hob guesses—so he takes the time to enjoy the relative silence. He sheds his shirt, groaning as the cool air hits his skin. Paris is so much more humid than London. The air practically sticks to him and his clothes.

He flops onto his bed with a sigh. As uncomfortable as they are, it's far better than standing. Hob stares up at the ceiling of the room that's been his for this past week and can't help as his mind wanders back to raven hair and blue eyes. He huffs. Dream Ateleíotes, a legend in his own right. And he had the chance to play against him. And he's wearing his shorts! His hand wanders down, thumbing the slightly too tight waistband. The white and blue colors are bright against his skin. He wishes he'd paid more attention to how Dream looked in his colors.

Hob's hand moves down slowly, the palm of his hand pressing against his eager cock. He hisses, arching into the touch. Christ, it's been far too long since he's been able to jack it in peace. Even in the showers, he doesn't get much time to himself. He shoots a passing glance towards the door. Hopefully Ed's preoccupied for some time. (Not that it matters. Hob's caught him mid-session thrice already now.)

Closing his eyes, Hob lets his hand slip under the elastic of the shorts and his underwear. His cock twitches as he wraps his hand around it, pushing the drops of pre down, slicking the way. He winces, the friction still rough.

He pushes his underwear down, the elastic catching below his balls, before bringing his hand to his mouth. He spits, coating his hand, and slides back down. The silky smooth fabric of Dream's kit feels like a dream (ha) against his dick. It's cool, despite the heat and humidity, and sends shivers down Hob's spine. And, perhaps the best of it, is that it's Dream's shorts that he's pressing into. The thought makes him twitch, another pearl of pre beads up and smears into the white fabric.

Hob presses his free hand to his mouth, stifling the moan that rips through him. Fuck. The thought of his seed, of his essence, stained into Dream's shorts has him hornier than he thought possible. He strokes himself, firm and quick. He needs these shorts to be ruined, to be marked by him. He needs them to smell of him before Dream gets them back. For Dream to smell of him.

He works himself fervently, panting and tense as he bites into the flesh of his palm. It doesn't take long. Just the image of Dream sliding them back over his legs, stains visible from where his spend had seeped through the fabric, it puts him to the very brink. And then the thought of Dream smiling at that, fuck, at Dream returning Hob's shorts back to him, equally used and dirtied.

He comes, harder than he has in a while, his cock pulsating as he spills ropes into Dream's shorts and his hand. He rests, not moving a muscle as the high slowly fades from his body. He takes a deep breath, letting his heart rate slow back down to normal along with his breathing.

Hob stretches, his spend already growing tacky against his skin. He licks his lips as he wipes his hand against the outside of the shorts. They still look rather clean and that primal desire to coat every inch of these shorts in his cum is strong. Fucking hell, he barely knows the man either and the things Hob wants to do to him...

He groans, turning onto his stomach and buries his face into his pillow. Ed's still not back yet...and he's cleared for the rest of the evening.... Hob sighs as he rocks his hips against the mattress, his poor spent cock already craving the friction. He may as well take advantage of the free time while he has it.

#sandmanniversary 2024 #dreamling #the sandman #ky writes #hob gadling #dream of the endless #nsft

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twst-drabbles · 1 year ago

Text

Jade 3

Summary: There’s always something about the beauty of nature that makes Jade more energetic than usual.

(My mind craves angst and yet here I am, writing fluffy stuff and even planning out a magical person thing for my enjoyment. The brain truly works in weird ways.)

As nice as it would be to bring Azul and Floyd with you on this journey up your newly charted hiking path, you were still in the process of developing your muscles. And with developing muscles comes an almost bone-deep soreness. The seafolk weren’t made of leaves and flowers like your plant nymphs, nor are they deceptively light like the little spirits that come by. They’re more like Jamil, magical but made of flesh and bone.

And, well, flesh and bone was just heavy. You’re already struggling with the ones you were born with.

As such, you rolled a dice and Jade ended up being your hiking companion for the month.

Ooo! And judging by his little high pitched howl, Jade’s more than happy to be here.

Claws dug into the clasps of your bag, tail barely skimming the moist towel inside as his head bobbed up and down as you walked. A red leaf fell off its bare branch and tickled Jade’s nose. He lashed out to grab it, but missed by just the slightest bit. He would’ve fell out if you didn’t have his torso cupped in your hand.

“Careful there, buddy,” you scratched under his chin, not at all minding the slime he’s covered in, “I know it’s fun, but we can’t have you falling into the dirt.”

He propped his chin on your hand, excitement still sparkling in his eyes, but now tamed. Logically you know Jade to be distinctly different from Floyd in how they manage themselves, but experience told you to not let your hand leave Jade. He’s been behaving, you’ll acknowledge that, but he’s been behaving for too long, and that makes all the difference.

It’s not that he’ll suddenly go missing if you leave him be, it’s the fact that he will sneak off and then sneak back inside your bag with weird bugs, mushrooms and other such things by the time you look back. He’s a quick little eel that prefers to look innocent when you know very well he is not.

“Hmm, how about this,” make no mistake, just because he’s capable of misbehaving doesn’t mean you’ll keep him on lock down, “when I get to point A, how about I put you in the river so you can swim downstream? You’ll swim a lot faster that way.”

Jade perked up and his tail lashed out, as though caught in the fantasy of such an activity. He opened his mouth and tried to make a noise, but it was only air that escaped. So he only closed his mouth and nodded politely, as though he wasn’t overcome with excitement.

“That’s a yes, then. Just be careful not to hit yourself on any rocks. Or collect too many things, okay?”

It'll be good for him to burn off that unusual amount of energy he's got. At least like that he won't egg Azul and Floyd into any fights. He certainly likes to make the others jealous.

#twst #twisted wonderland #twst-drabbles #twst-drabbles exclusive #drabble #octavinelle #jade #jade leech #house pet au #reader insert

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asheurbanipal · 3 months ago

Text

Where were they going without ever knowing the way? Ch. 1

on A03

<<Previous | Next>> |Next Episode

Summary:

No luggage. No gas in the truck. No memories. Waking up with amnesia in a shack in the desert, our heroes find themselves drifting down the highway with no specific direction in mind. The only thing driving them? We know each other, and know each other well. But how? And why? And what is this feeling that lives in the pit of my stomach when I look at you?

Deadpool/Wolverine

Mature

Words: 7652

Chapter 1/2 in series

Content: memory loss, amnesia, trauma, amputation, canon-typical violence

Chapter 1

It was hot. Dry. Sunlight pulsed on the backside of his closed eyes and there was a dusting of sand on his skin, caught in his body hair. He was sitting in a seat. A car seat? Jeep? Truck? Windows were down, letting in a splash of breeze, but they weren't moving. His body was heavy. He started blinking back into awareness, waiting for the shapes and colors in the distance to come together. His body was clad in yellow, but he wasn't quite yet able to make out the details of it.

"Hey…bud…" someone was shaking his shoulder.

It was a reflex, a series of muscle memories that started in his chest. Metal sluiced from somewhere mid-way up his forearm, erupting from his knuckles into three sharp blades that inexplicably lived in his proprioception.

"Fuck," he hissed. It hurt like a sonofabitch as the metal emerged from his skin, but the pain was familiar. He panted, checking around him, the pain waking him up the rest of the way.

"You almost got me the first time with those, but I've got your attack pattern down."

He turned to the voice and blinked at the man to his left, drawing the blades back in on some other reflex. The man was bald in a skin-hugging red jumpsuit that covered everything from the neck down. Burn victim, maybe? His head and face were heavily scarred. Very striking eyes. Not the color, but the soft angles of them under his hairless forehead.

"I can put my mask back on if this freaks you out." The man in red circled his face with his hand.

"No, no. Too fucking hot for that." He looked out over the landscape. Saguaro cactus. Brown hills and dirt. Scrubland. "Arizona?"

"I think, yeah," the man in red replied. "Was hoping to find a friendly neighborhood border agent before the truck ran out of gas."

The man in yellow focused on his more immediate surroundings. Old pickup truck from before they started fucking up the bed to cab ratio. Two-doors. Cramped partial backseat that currently stacked with some nylon bags. A working man's truck. Light-neutral interior covered in dirt and sand and grime.

"So we're gonna need to walk," the man in yellow decided.

"Yep, that's why I woke you up. Looks like it'll actually stick this time." The man in red said something else, looking sideways over his shoulder, but the words disappeared into nothing. Afterward, he reached into the back. "Figure we water up a little bit first."

"Yeah, yeah," the man in yellow agreed. "Can I ask you a question?" The man in red signaled he should proceed. "What's your name? Also…what's my name?"

The man in red stopped his rooting around and dropped one elbow to the center console.

"You're Wolverine. You're an X-Men. You're famous. You've got some dog tags if you don't believe me."

Wolverine touched his fingers to his chest and found the chain. He pulled it up and confirmed what the man in red said to be true while he chattered on.

"Fifty percent certain I had a crush on you at some point. Only problem is I keep thinking you're supposed to be dead. Like, I have this weird impression I've loving held your skull in my hand. But also it's sort of like a dream? Everything's all sort of floaty, right now. I don't know.

"But if the etching on these sick gold-plated Deagles back here is an indicator, I'm Deadpool. Apparently. That's about all I got. I was hoping when you woke up, you might remember something."

"Fuck."

"Guess that answers that question."

#####

Yeah, more than fifty percent certain I had…have…a crush on this man. It feels kinda…parasocial?

He's hot as fuck, so that's not unexpected.

How do I know him then, though? Why are we out here together?

fuck fuck fuck

The thing was, he couldn't remember anything else about Wolverine. Just: famous, X-men, important, dead/alive. He wasn't even totally sure he remembered what an X-Man was. Just another thing that felt Important. A group that…helps people?

Okay, that feels super right.

Every time he felt like he was remembering something, it slipped away. Or he re-remembered something he had already forgotten. He just couldn't hold on to anything.

And his body hurt. God, how his body hurt. His skin. His bones. His organs. A low-level pain that floated through every cell in his body. His brain didn't jolt and jitter with the sensation, though. Something in the baser part of it was accustomed to the way these particular nerve endings fired. This must be a lifelong, deep-down kind of injury. Probably whatever turned him into eggs burned to the bottom of a pan.

The heat of the sun as they struggled down the highway almost made it tolerable if just because it was something else to focus on.

"So what's the first thing you remember?" Wade asked. Talk. Fill the silence with noise. Distract himself from thinking too hard in the hope that everything would fill in itself. It was an impulse that came like breathing.

"The truck," Wolverine barked sharply.

"Go back further, chicken strip. Fuckin' think." Deadpool punched him in the arm. Wolverine brandished his claws in a single motion, stopping them short of Deadpool's neck.

"Don't fuckin' touch me, bub."

"Look, based on the twitching in my hands, I might actually know how to use these katanas on my back. So maybe we don't test the theory before we figure out what the fuck is going on. Hm? Kay, Wolvie?"

Wolverine reluctantly pulled his claws back and dropped his arms.

"Thank you." Deadpool nodded his head. "Now, if you could, please, what is the first thing you good and properly remember?"

Wolverine sighed then stared at the ground for a moment.

"Truck. Before that…you hauling me into the truck. Grabbing my ass?" Wolverine looked at him sideways.

Oh, I absolutely did that.

"Maybe accidentally. I apologize if my hand slipped. You're a heavy motherfucker."

"Yeah, that's fair." Wolverine rubbed the bones of his hands. When Deadpool had lifted him, Wolverine's body clanged againt itself. Like metal on metal. That reminded Deadpool of something, but it wouldn't stick. It kept…floating away.

"Before that I remember…sitting on the floor of a porch?" Wolverine shook his head through the memory. "Then the floor of a cabin. Totally empty. I remember looking at the ceiling and being totally pissed off."

"Ay, that's where I started, too. Waking up on the floor of a rundown shack next to you, peanut." He went to punch him in the arm again, then stopped short, thinking better of it.

"You've been awake and alert the whole time since then?" Wolverine absolutely failed to hide the uneasiness in his voice.

"Yeah. You've been in and out. Don't worry. I didn't violate you or anything."

"Wasn't worried about that until you said it."

"Do I look like the type of guy to manhandle someone when they're vulnerable?"

Oh please dear god I hope I'm not that kind of guy.

Oh shit. Wait. I grabbed his ass. I am, aren't I?

motherfucker

"I don't know what kind of fucking guy you are. So…" And Logan slipped out a claw to punctuate his point.

Why the fuck am I getting hard seeing that? This is some fucking Pavlovian shit.

"I don't know shit about deserts, I'll admit," Wolverine said, looking along the horizon as the sun pulled lower, "but they get cold as fuck at night, right? Should probably consider how we're going to make it through here."

Ow ow ow ow ow ow ow

The memory flashed, pain coming with it.

Rain. Flash flood. Washed out road. Two bodies moving against each other in the dark as they waited.

Then another memory laid on top. An older one. Something that belonged to a completely different era of his life.

Stake out. MREs. Ammunition cache.

"There's a cave not too far from here. A nice one. Has supplies." Deadpool was saying the words before he realized they were leaving his mouth. Wolverine gave him another eyebrow raising look. "Trust me, kitty cat."

#####

Well the man was right. That was something.

Hidden by a rise off the road, they found a cave with a rickety wooden palette thrown across the opening. It didn't really look like anything buried among the piles of other refuse and trash. When they slipped through a small gap into the darkness beyond, though, they found an open space that had been organized with crates and barrels. A few lanterns hung from hooks screwed into the cave wall and benches had been arranged around a raised fire pit.

"We've been here before," Wolverine said. The smell is what caught him, a deep and rapid familiarity that jolted through his brain.

"Yeah, no shit, Sherlock. Probably how I knew about this place." Deadpool had put his mask on to protect his face from the sun, and he pulled it off in annoyance.

"Don't need to be snippy with me."

"Sorry, I'm just…hungry and in pain. Here." Deadpool stopped at a shelf along the back wall of the cave. "You a baked beans guy or a peaches guy?"

"Beans. Here, hold 'em out." Wolverine sliced through the top of the cans with a claw. He threw back a mouthful of beans as he dropped to one of the benches.

"That's slightly disgusting to watch, but also a little sexy." Wade sat on a bench across the way and started picking out peach slices with a knife.

"Nobody asked you to watch, bub." Wolverine had shifted his focus to his hand, though, sliding the blade in and out a few times before bringing it all the way back in. It still hurt like a bitch, but now he at least could tell what was happening. The blade was slicing his skin as it came out, but the instant it slid back, the space between his knuckles healed up like nothing had happened. The way the rest of his arm felt after and during, there was probably more damage happening down in the bone and muscle that was also auto-healing.

What kind of freak was he?

"Hey, Pool, you know anything else about me? If I'm famous and all."

"What's weird is I feel like I know a lot about you. I mean a lot. Like my brain is full of factoids about you. But I just can't access them; they're locked away. It's fucking wild." He munched on a peach. "Mutants mean anything to you? I keep having this realization that I'm not one, and that's important somehow."

Wolverine found himself reacting to the world. A little pull across his chest. That's what he was. Okay. There was a word for it. He could settle into that and live there.

"You got anything about me in there?" Deadpool tapped his temple then threw his now empty can into the dirt of the cave. "Really think about it. I'm trying my fuckest on my end."

"Fine," Wolverine growled. He pressed his eyes shut, actively trying to move back through his brain again, focusing on anything about this man in front of him. Fractured, broken sensations. Puzzle pieces that overlapped and snapped at their pegs. Someone had fucked with his brain before. Multiple times. Had stuck their grubby little fingers in it and scrambled everything around. He could see the traces of it as he forced himself to remember.

He opened his eyes with a gasp.

"Think of something?" Deadpool asked.

"I don't know," Wolverine replied. "Pieces of stuff that I don't know how to put together, yet."

Deadpool nodded, pretending to be satisfied.

It was a lie. He had found something at the center, two overwhelming, existential facts. The first was that at some point he had done something horrific, but some baser part of him was keeping him from the details. Protecting him. The second thing, in comparison, flooded his brain, coming in through all the doors and windows once he pushed just a little.

He was madly in love with this mad in red. He was in love with Deadpool.

"Hey…hey, Wolvie. You're having a nightmare. Oh…ow. Fuck."

The words fell on top of each other in his ear as Wolverine transitioned hard from asleep to awake, sitting up with a gasp and a pant. The nightmare had been vivid. Horrid. Blood and violence and brain matter as bullets and bombs fell around him.

But now it was gone, scattering into blackness like dust particles. He looked up where he heard Deadpool's voice come from.

The man was missing an arm, blood dripping from the shoulder onto the separated limb lying on the ground next to him. He looked down stiffly at his claws. Covered in blood.

"Oh fuck. Oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck." Wolverine darted his eyes over the scene, trying to tie it all together. He resheathed his claws and jumped to his feet. "Okay, lay down, elevate your feet. Need to apply pressure to stop bleeding, then I'll see what I can do about the arm." He dived into the supplies to rummage for the first aid trunk.

"Wolvie, calm down." But Deadpool's voice was lost in the din of Wolverine's hyperfocus.

"We can try to ice the arm, but unless we can magic up a hospital, it's not gonna matter . Where the fuck are the sterile gauze?"

"Wolverine."

"But it's so close to your heart, so we need to reduce the chance of infection, at least."

"LOGAN."

Wolverine stopped, turning his body sharp to Deadpool.

"I'm fine," Deadpool insisted. He turned. He was holding his severed arm to the cut. Where muscle met muscle and skin met skin, the pieces were starting to grow together.

"What the fuck," Wolverine muttered.

"Yeah, when I woke up I was the top half of a couple of fingers. By the time I was actually up and around, they had grown back. Then when I tried to wake you the first time, you shish kabob'd me through the thigh." He stretched out the leg of his suit to reveal three punctures. "When you retracted them again, there were about two minutes where I thought I might bleed out from my femoral artery, but then I didn't. I'm good as new." Deadpool released his grip on his arm to reveal it had already reattached loosely.

"Give that a little more time, I think," Deadpool said. "So I'm a freak. Sorry you had to find out this way. Was hoping it wouldn't come up."

Wolverine stared at Deadpool.

"I have claws in my hands. So…" He shrugged. "Also." He clicked out the edge of a blade and ran it across his palm. Deadpool winced, at first, but leaned over to watch the wound close on itself. "Looks like I can also do…whatever this is."

"Do we chop an arm off and see if yours is as good as mine?" He waggled his eyebrows.

"Don't be a dumbass." But he found himself grinning darkly. "Though I'm getting the impression that's a pretty hard ask of you." Wolverine leaned back against one of the crates.

There wasn't a lot of space in this part of the cave, so they had had to lay their bug-eaten bedrolls particularly close. Now the space was also sticky with blood. Not a great situation.

"Wait, you called me a name, just now."

"Did I?" The lines formed hard and deep in Deadpool's brow.

"Yeah it was…shit. I don't remember. I was focusing on your arm and it didn't stick."

"Oh, so we didn't just lose our memory, we're having a hard time making new ones. Coooooool." Deadpool flopped down back on his bedroll somehow safe from the blood puddle.

"That's not it," Wolverine insisted, laying back down, as well. "I just wasn't paying attention." Deadpool gave a non-committal hum next to him.

Wolverine stared at the ceiling of the cave. It hadn't just been panic. In that moment, he was existentially terrified that Deadpool would die. Not just the everyday fear of death in the abstract.That was something he could imagine with stunning clarity and it brought only a vague sense of regret.

It was all about Deadpool. The thought of Deadpool dying had sent him into a blind hysteria that prevented him from acting effectively.

Was that the way he loved this man?

He pressed his psalm to his eyes. He didn't like this feeling.

#####

"Do you think we're friends?"

"I think you annoy the shit out of me, bub."

"We could be both," Deadpool said.

They had set out early the next morning, heading down the highway with refilled water bottles and some dried provisions. Wolverine was acting…weird. Well, maybe not. Not like he remembered how the man behaved as a longer pattern. Yesterday they had been friendly. Buddy-buddy. Still shaking off the aftereffects of whatever drug had turned their brains to mashed potatoes.

They were both a little more alert, though, after a good-....well…a night ' s rest, at least. And Logan had woken up entirely on the wrong side of the cave, turning him into, frankly, a cranky little shit.

He was short, snappy, mouth caught in a deep U of a frown. He let Deadpool amble and meander through whatever thought turned into words, but he didn't engage. And Wolverine wouldn't look at him. That was the thing that was really, genuinely starting to piss him off. He kept darting his eyes away every time they made eye-contact for too long. Just to avoid it, Deadpool had gone so far as to pull his mask back on under the pretense of sun protection.

Deadpool stretched his arm at the shoulder, and Wolverine flinched away in annoyance, fists tightening like he wanted to flick his claws out.

Maybe that's it. He feels bad about the arm.

Joint still feels weird. Wonder how long before it's back to normal.

Not super ready to deal with the whole freak of nature thing, but at least we're both freaks.

"What if we're enemies?" Deadpool suggested next, meandering through the possibilities.

"We could be both," Wolverine taunted. Deadpool gasped in delight.

"Frenemies? Enemies to friends? ENEMIES TO LOVERS."

"Shut the fuck up." Wolverine stopped walking.

"Dude." Deadpool turned and backtracked a few steps, dropping his bag in the dirt. "You have been such an asshole, today. What is your problem?"

"It's you. You don't ever stop talking. Do you have no inside thoughts?"

"Well, maybe if you engaged in conversation with me-"

"All you want to talk about is our missing memories," Wolverine growled.

"Gee, I wonder fucking why?" Deadpool found his hips with the ball of his fists, pressing into them in agitation.

"But it's all just speculation. That's the shit that you can't seem to grasp. That all you're doing is asking questions that we don't have the answers to.

"And you keep insisting we should keep trying to dig into our own fucking heads to find something, but there's nothing there, okay? It's just blank space and darkness.

"The fact that you think that we can just will our memories back…our lives back…moves beyond optimism into blind stupidity. And what little I know of you, you're not dumb. So you're clearly just trying to shift focus to me, so you don't have to speculate on what series of mistakes left you wandering in the desert with no name.

"Because I'm comfortable with the possibility that I fuckin' derserve whatever kind of goddamn purgatory this is, but I will be fucked if I let you turn it into hell because you can't stand to be around yourself."

Wow.

okay

…

But also deja vu?

Deadpool puffed out a little breath.

"Okay. You're clearly having a stress response." He placed a hand on the outside edge of Wolverine's arm. Wolverine smacked it off immediately and pressed a finger into Deadpool's face.

"Don't fucking touch me."

SNAP.

Oh, you slice my arm off but I don't get to touch you?

I could have left you in that fucking shack to die from heatstroke. But no, I dragged your ass into that truck. I took care of you. I kept you safe.

All because I love you and now you're gonna-

Wait…wait what was that?

But then it was gone again.

"Oh don't fucking touch you?" Deadpool said. "Like this?"

Poke. Two fingers, right in the crease of Wolverine's shoulder.

Wolverine's claws slid out slowly, peeking out from his knuckles.

"I said don't."

Poke.

"I will stab you through the heart and eat it." The claws shifted in their sheath.

P-o-k-e.

When Wolverine's fist made contact with Deadpool's jaw a single thought fired through his neurons:

Oh, we've done this before.

#####

Deadpool had been right that the katanas weren't for show. Neither was anything else in that bag of weaponry. Wolverine got in precisely two haymakers before there was a hunting knife just above his kidney. The impact stalled him long enough for a sword to slide up under his ribs and out the top of his shoulder.

"You want to fucking fight me?" Deadpool's lips were next to his ear, hand hanging hard on the hilt of the sword. "Then you fucking fight me. Don't pull your goddamn punches."

"Can do, Pool cue." His claws came out the other side of Wade's back with a sickening crack and squish and spurt of blood. A heat rose in his chest, boiling up from his belly to create steam in his throat. It pooled like embers in his pelvis, and holy shit…now he wanted to fuck almost as much as he wanted to fight.

But only almost…

His other hand moved into a frenzy, stabbing Wade over and over again in the side until he was panting with effort. Deadpool launched a foot into Wolverine's shin, breaking it out from underneath him, collapsing them both onto the ground in a pile.

They rolled over the hillocks and shrubs like two rutting animals, putting blades and hands into whatever piece of flesh they could access. Knives kept emerging from Deadpool's suit to lodge into Wolverine's muscle mass.

Deadpool's mask caught on a rock and pulled away, revealing his face. At the same time, Wolverine thrust his claws upward through Deadpool's throat, the sensation of lungs and ribs breaking apart under the sharp edge of the blade. Blood gushed from Deadpool's mouth, dripping over his lips and chin. He panted and grinned up at Wolverine.

But that's what stopped him.

The sight of blood smeared across this man's mouth, of the way his body bucked and chest heaved as he tried to breathe around the blades. Wolverine pulled them out as slowly and smoothly as possible.

"You done, peanut?" Deadpool wiped the blood away on the back of his hand. Wolverine stayed hovering above him, holding his weight in his palms on either side of Deadpool's head.

"I'm sorry." Logan sat in the dirt in a loose arrangement of limbs. He started the process of pulling knives out of his body and wiping them down. They had moved away from the immediate view of the road, slightly separated by a break in the terrain. Deadpool stayed laying on the ground on his back, measuring his breathing with a whistle.

"It's fine," Deadpool wheezed. "I'll survive. Healing as we speak." He was right. The sound of his breathing was already changing for the better.

"I feel like I'm barely holding on to being a person. Like one wrong move and I'm just gonna…" He lost the words halfway through.

"Turn into an animal?" Deadpool said.

"Yeah," Wolverine sighed. "Probably where I got my goddamn name. Maybe I've been genetically crossed with one."

"Not in the final canon," Deadpool muttered.

"What?"

"I don't…I don't know. I don't know what that was." He sat up awkwardly, limbs akimbo. He reached out to touch Wolverine's arm then flicked his wrist back, waiting for permission. Wolverine tilted his head just a little to grant it. Deadpool rubbed his shoulder. "We're going through something fucking traumatic as shit, right now. I can't tell you why I'm handling it better. Maybe I was already the right kind of crazy, so this is less of a paradigm shift. And if you want me to stop asking you about recalling memories, then I will. I didn't know it was bothering you that much."

Wolverine grumbled in the back of his throat.

"I lied to you a little. I do remember some things. They're vague, but I'm sure of them. They don't involve you." And the little lie continued. "But they scare me. I almost don't want to remember."

And that was the itching at his knuckles. Fear.

Fear of being in love with a stranger. Of having no context for intertwined feelings of longing and excitement and safety and desire. Fear that whoever he was beyond the blackness was someone he wouldn't like when he finally got to meet him.

Deadpool sighed, then shot up to his feet.

"Well, now that we have that out of our system, let's keep going."

#####

"What are you doing?" Wolverine trailed behind him as they moved down the highway again. His body slumped like the runt of the litter, emotions all fresh and exposed on the surface.

"There's a car coming. I'm waving it down."

"Not sure that's smart. We don't know what happened to us. Someone might be out here looking for us to finish the job."

"I'm not super worried about someone who drives a Toyota Tacoma."

The pickup truck appeared over the ridge, and slowed as it approached. The window slid down as it rolled to a stop to reveal an affable enough looking middle-aged dude. The instant he got a look at them, however, his face flashed with panic and he spun out as he floored it.

Oh that doesn't bode well.

The car had, at least, been an indicator of a nearby town. A small piece of shit out of the way place with a bar, a gas station, and three churches per capita.

"Oh, my fuckin' life for a drink," Wolverine decided, dragging them toward the bar immediately.

"It's, like, barely past noon," Deadpool noted.

"That a problem?"

"Nah, just wondering if they can make a bellini."

Wolverine opened the door and gestured Deadpool inside first.

Like a fucking gentleman!

The door was barely closed behind them before they heard the shotgun cock.

"I told you not to come back here. You need to get the fuck out."

Behind the bar, an older man had a gun trained on them steady and sure.

Jesus fuck. Okay.

Deadpool put up his hands immediately. Wolverine went straight into a power stance, claws out, knees bent, weight distributed perfectly for pouncing.

"Put them away, kitten whiskers," Deadpool admonished. "Not about to kill someone who can tell us how we got here."

Wolverine growled but pulled the blades back in. The bartender kept the gun raised, but it wavered a little. Deadpool moved forward slowly, keeping his hands up. He touched the edge of the shotgun.

"You can't kill me in any way that matters. You're just gonna piss me off." He lowered his hands. "Now, my friend and I find ourselves in a predicament. A little bit of short term memory loss. When did we come through here?"

The bartender considered him for a long moment before letting the gun drop, finger still resting against the trigger with terrible terrible discipline.

"Few days ago. You came in. High as fucking kites, the both of you. Arguing about fuck knows what. I said I don't sell to people who are already under the influence. Then you pulled a fucking gun on me."

"Oh, god, I barely know who I am, and that sounds like something I would do," Deadpool murmured.

"So I gave you a bottle of the cheap shit. Then you tipped over a few tables. Didn't actually damage anything, but it was annoying. Then that guy left cash behind for the booze at least." The bartender gestured to Wolverine. "You were then, apparently, a menace all over town before stealing Pastor Morris's truck."

"An old beat up blue thing?" Wolverine asked and the bartender confirmed.

Oh we stole from a preacher. That's…that can't be good.

"Alright. Well. This time we're sober. Not gonna wreck the joint. So-"

"Fuck, you talk too fucking much." Wolverine moved forward and leaned on the bar. "I need a beer. Just. One. Then we fuck off and you never see us again."

Without moving the gun, the bartender reached underneath and dropped a bottle on the counter. Wolverine popped the cap off with his bare hands, took a swig, saluted to the bartender, then moved away, straight for the door.

"Let's go, Pool cue," he said.

Deadpool turned on a sharp heel.

That wasn't a twist-off cap.

The reaction of the bartender and the guy in the car was mirrored in the few people they met moving down the street. They had really fucked it up here, hadn't they?

"Motel," Wolverine grumbled.

"What?" Deadpool blinked back into the moment. His thoughts had been drifty and long, trying to tug new memories free that wouldn't budge from their impaction in the deep parts of his brain.

"I bet we stayed here in town," Wolverine elaborated. "So we find a motel. See if we were there."

"Oh shit. You're a genius." Deadpool looked around quickly, but nothing appeared immediately. "Need a map."

"Yeah, I got this."

A teenage boy had been dumb enough to not cross the street in time. Wolverine snatched him by the collar lightly.

"Motel. Where is it?"

"Down main, left on Sycamore, bro. Fuck. Look different in the day or something?"

"What do you mean?" Deadpool leaned in a little, studying the kid's features.

Little punk's not scared. That's fun.

"Wolvie, drop the kid."

Wolverine obliged, letting the boy go.

"Did we hurt anyone?" Deadpool asked.

"Nah, you guys were cool as fuck. You let me shoot your gun."

Sounds like the right level of irresponsible, but I really let someone touch my guns?

damn

We must have really been fucked up.

Wait…I love my guns. That's some new information I'm remembering.

hold on to that one

"Kay, kid, you can fuck off, now." Wolverine smacked him on the shoulder, and the kid tripped before heading back down the sidewalk.

Without conferring, they kept moving down the road.

"So I'm starting to think we're not bad guys, at least," Deadpool said half to himself, half to Wolverine.

"Did you think we were?"

"A little, yeah. Like…there are a lot of guns in this bag. I don't feel like good guys carry this many guns."

"But I'm famous, right? So you should know whether I was a good guy or bad guy? Right?"

"Yeah, see, you say that, but I'm realizing that's not super clear in my memory. Like I'm getting some rumblings in my noodle that…uh…that we've killed a lot of people between us."

"I'm sure they were bad guys."

"Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm."

But then they'd turned and found the motel, so the conversation shifted quickly. They burst into the front office, and the poor woman behind the desk immediately ducked below it.

"I'll take care of it this time," Wolverine grumbled. He didn't even make it to the desk before she had returned with a pair of duffel bags and car keys.

"Please. Your SUV is still parked out back. Just take your stuff and go."

Well…that was certainly easier.

#####

"I'm Logan Howlett and it looks like you're some asshole named Wade Wilson." Logan found the wallets, first, tucked into the outside pockets of their respective duffel bags. "Your wallet is cartoon horses and velcro."

"You got a problem with that?"

"No, just sort of makes sense with what I know about you, so far."

They found the SUV in the parking lot behind the motel as promised. It started with no issue, and they pulled it away from the township into the desert a little. Close enough to walk back if they needed but far enough away no one could accuse them of loitering or menacing. Logan drove the truck, this time, and being behind the wheel felt familiar. At first, he was surprised it had gas considering things so far. When he dug around in the settings on the heads-up display, though, he figured it out it was electric. That still didn't explain everything until he found the fucking solar panels baked into the top of the of car.

As they were getting the second and third row seats down, they found hollows in the floor of the trunk full of supplies. More MREs and freeze-dried food packages. Water in flexible bags. Mini solar chargers for things like phones and tablets. A battery operated fan that really pulled air through the place.

Whoever they were, they had access to some fucking science fiction bullshit.

"Find any cell phones?" Wade asked, pawing through his wallet.

"Not yet. Did we lose them? Can't imagine leaving our wallets and taking our phones, though."

"Hmm…oh…" Wade let out a little surprised noise.

"What did you find?" Logan reached gently toward the wallet, and Wade brought it sharply to his chest.

"Look through your wallet real fast. See if there are any pictures. That might help."

"Fuck that's not a terrible idea." He had only looked at the interior flap to find the New York State ID.

On the opposite side, was the imprint of a coin and he slipped it out to find a bronze token. One month sober. He glanced at the bottle of beer sitting in one of the back seat cup holders. Whelp…

He tossed it into the dirt outside the truck.

"Maybe it was ironic?" Wade offered with a shrug.

"I'll worry about the implications, later."

Under the ID flap were a couple of 2x3s printed on normal copy paper.

"I have a daughter? Niece? Seems too young to be a sister." A picture of a young woman with a reluctant smile and an angled peace sign. "God I hope so. Every other reason I can think of to have this picture is super creepy."

"If you're a cradle robber would you want to remember?"

"Good point. What do you think?" He flashed the photo at Wade.

"Oh, she looks just like you. That's totally a daughter." Wade pulled out one of his pictures in response. "I have a dog that matches my complexion." He turned the photo to reveal one of the ugliest dogs in existence that, nonetheless, swelled a gentle emotion of affection in his chest.

"You must be so proud," Logan smirked. His only other photo was a little softer, like it had been handled a lot.

Oh.

It was him in a flannel plaid button up open over a solid t-shirt. Draped over him, arm held out to take the picture, was Wade. His lips were pressed to Logan's cheek, opposite hand woven into Logan's hair. And they were happy . Radiantly happy.

"I…uh…I think you were right about us being friends." He flipped the photo around to show Wade who just nodded.

"Yeah…I think we're more than that." Wade finally showed the photo he'd been hiding.

Oh…..

"That's…I'm pretty certain that's my dick…" Logan said.

"And that is my mouth around it." Wade pointed to the area of the photo in question, then flipped it back around. "Not sure how I got this angle. I think I used a tripod." He tucked it back into his wallet. "Then I also have these."

The next photos were a series of candids of Logan including but not limited to:

sleeping facedown, naked, ass on display

pumped and sweaty fresh off a workout, using the hem of his tank top to wipe sweat off his forehead

shirtless, in profile, feet kicked up on the back railing of a porch and smoking a cigar

turned to camera at a weird angle, claws out, licking one of them, tongue running down the blade

"I think you were chopping watermelon in this last one," Wade chirped.

"If that's what you printed, what does your phone camera reel look like?"

"Maybe that's why we can't find them. They exploded from the amount of sexy." He tucked all the pictures back in. "There's one more in the change section. I think I kept them separate out of respect."

The next picture unfolded messily. In the center, Logan and Wade sat at a table, surrounded by a mix of people (including his maybe daughter), everyone caught in the middle of a laugh. Through the glass door, the same porch from the earlier photo.

Their friends. Their home . Together.

He wasn't afraid, at least, anymore. But now it hurt.

#####

They found cash in Logan's wallet, and he came back from the gas station at the edge of town with chips and jerky and soda in an attempt to stretch their food stash a little. They sat across from each other in the SUV, legs bent to fit in the space.

He's so hot.

And he's my…something.

He's mine.

That dick and ass and pecs and face belong to me.

fuck

What did I do to trick this guy into being with me?

Now that he knew that they were…something…the feeling of affection that had been coiling like a spring in his joints, had loosened to run along his bones. It wasn't a sick, one-sided obsession. He was supposed to feel this way. He had earned the right to feel this way.

"What do you need, Wade?"

Wade blinked. He hadn't realized he was staring at a point right in the middle of Wolverine's…Logan's chest.

"My duffel had khaki cargos and a t-shirt. I was thinking about changing because this bitch is hot." He ran a finger under the collar of his suit.

"Go for it. I'm not gonna stop you." Logan bit hard into his jerky.

"Right, just…I wasn't sure…where….because of the window positioning and…stuff…"

Like I'm going to sit here and tell this grown-ass man to close his eyes for modesty. That feels stupid.

Logan, for his part, thought about the issue for about a second before responding. Probably from confusion.

"We have the same parts. And if your pictures are anything to go by, we've been inside each other. So, whatever. Can't offend me."

"Well…okay." Wade moved his hands over his body, then stopped, fingers at his collar.

fuck

"I don't know how to take this fucker off."

"Huh," Logan replied, his head tilting. He finished his current bit of jerky, then flicked his fingers. "Scoot over here, and let me look at the back."

Wade rolled up on his knees, rotated, and dropped down again. Logan's fingers barely brushed his back with his fingertips through the fabric of his suit.

oh oh oh oh oh

fuck

fuck fuck fuck

The electric shock of recognition danced down his spine and over his skin. His body knew even the gentlest pressure of Logan's touch. When his fingers walked up Wade's back, it took everything in him to not squirm and writhe in hypersensitive delight.

"Zipper," Logan murmured and drew it down smoothly. The suit parted as Wade brought his arms forward, and sighed as the breeze hit his back.

"How the fuck do we get in and out of these normally?"

"Probably a trick we don't remember. Do you need help with the rest of it? Looks like it's tight around the shoulders."

"Not around the one you cut off," Wade said over his shoulder. "Arm reattached, but the fabric didn't." He slid off the disconnected suit arm. He'd only been keeping it for sun protection.

"I apologized for that already." Logan's voice had drifted into inattention, though. His eyes shifted from Wade's exposed arm to his back. "It goes all the way down."

Ah, shit fuck. Why does he have to notice that now?

"Yep. All the way. Wink wink."

"Do you remember why, yet?" Logan asked. He brought his hand back to Wade's spine and traced it with his index finger. A proper shudder ran down his back, and he choked on his words.

"Nope."

"Does it hurt?"

"Oh god yes. All the time."

"I'm…I'm sorry. There's probably aloe or something-"

"No, I think it's…it's one of those deep down things. It's a little better with skin to skin contact, but that might be psychosomatic."

"Does that kind of shit still work if you don't have all your memories?"

"Fuck if I know. I'm not a neuroscientist…I think." Wade shifted back to lean against the wall of the SUV and next to Logan. He pulled Logan's hand into his. That felt right.

Fuck yeah handholding.

It wasn't enough, though. He wanted to crawl up under his skin. To wear it on top of his own.

What the fuck is that? I think I might actually be a psychopath.

"If you come up with something I can do to help," Logan offered lamely.

"Yeah…"

i want him i want him i want him

The voice had been rattling in the back of his head since he woke up next to him in the shack. He had ignored it. Shoving it into a box with other emotions that were clearly unwelcome. But now he knew the truth, and it was screaming at him. They were virtual strangers, though, a thin barrier between them despite physical evidence of their intimacy.

Still…

He reached his face across the space and brushed his lips to Logan's cheek.

His body stalled, froze in place. Wade counted his breaths, face still inches away from Logan's.

one

two

three

It was one motion. Logan's face turning then pressing his mouth to Wade's.

sparks fire sun fire sparks fire fire fireworks

Wade lost some beats of time.

He was on his back, Logan's excessively heavy body on top of his. He pushed deeper into Logan's mouth with his tongue, remapping the interior of it. Wade's hands dug into Logan's hair, pulling it without thinking.

"Pull harder," Logan growled into Wade's mouth. Wade curled his fingers tighter and Logan groaned. "Yeah. That reminds me of something."

Wait…

"Stab me. Stab me and kiss me at the same time."

Logan didn't question it as he brought his lips back down on Wade's. A claw half-emerged with a click then sunk gently into the soft part of his thigh.

"Fuck that's good. Holy shit." Wade gurgled in the back of his throat as the claws pulled out.

And the evidence for freaky shit piles up.

Wade's hands moved from Logan's hair to go searching down his back for a zipper. He found part of it at the collar and traced it around the side to its origin. What stupid things these suits were. Still, he managed to unzip it, exposing Logan's back and upper arms. He creased his fingers into the muscles, feeling them out. Relearning their shape.

Logan shifted up into a kneeling position. He slid the arms of his suit down until it hung around his waist. Wade sat up on his elbows, doing the same.

Another moment where their bodies paused, thinking.

Wade moved first this time, lifting his fingertips to press against Logan's sternum. His chest hair was wiry and thick, something else he could sink his hands into. He trailed down to his stomach, tracing the line of thicker hair all the way down to the top of the folded suit.

BITE

om nom nom

He kissed Logan's stomach with a tiny nip, and Logan responded by curving his hands around Wade's neck.

"There's a scar of a bite mark," Logan said quietly. He traced a shape on the top of Wade's shoulder.

"Wha-?" Wade turned his head but couldn't see from this angle. Logan bent forward, and wrapped his teeth gently around Wade's shoulder, just enough to leave an impression.

"It's my teeth," he decided as he leaned back.

"I can heal," Wade said. "How often did you bite me that it actually left a mark?"

Logan grinned darkly.

"We must have figured it out." Then his head flicked, the rest of his body tensing. Another vehicle."

Then Wade heard it, too, roaring over the top of one of the nearby hills. Logan rolled off him to search through the windows. He didn't have to look far, the jeep rolling up right next to the SUV over another small hill.

Cloaking.

Visual camo but not auditory.

Could they not muffle the engine? Did they want us to hear them coming, but not see them? Real half-assed approach to stealth there, buckaroos.

Look at me, knowing what I'm talking about.

People climbed out of the jeep. They were wearing equally ridiculous outfits, but that didn't guarantee they were friendly. Logan thought the same thing, and his claws snapped out in anticipation. Gun wasn't a good idea in this small space, so Wade snatched one of the smaller knives from the weapons bag.

A girl appeared in the open hatch of the SUV. Head shaved close, dark eyeliner and lips, round face, yellow and black suit.

"Cool, so we bust our asses trying to find you, and you fuckers are out here in the desert, getting freaky as usual. You two are gross." Her eyes flicked between them in annoyance as the rest of the small group arrived. The annoyance turned to concern as everybody stared at everyone.

It was a thin man with a visor over his eyes that finally said something.

"They did it. They found the memory wipe guy."

#deadclaws #deadpool x wolverine #poolverine #deadpool #wade x logan #fanfiction

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e-dubbc11 · 6 months ago

Note

“I could just use a hug.” With Billy, please? ;) 🩶🩷 You know me, I love the fluff. 😂

Hello my dear friend! Thank you so much for sending this in. Now I know you and I both love fluff but I went with hurt/comfort/fluff with this one. I hope that’s ok and I hope you like what I did here. 💜💜💜

‘Til Valhalla

Photos are not mine. They are courtesy of Pinterest/Google.

Pairing: Billy Russo x F! Reader

Warnings: Hurt, comfort, fluff, mentions of suicide, PTSD, nightmares

Word Count: 1.4K-ish

Summary: Billy’s processing his grief after burying one of his own. You’re there with him to try and help however you can.

A/N: Today is America’s birthday, July 4th, and even though it’s not Veterans Day or Memorial Day, I wanted to say that for those of us in the United States, it’s because of members of our armed services that we have the freedoms to do and say what we want. So I humbly ask you, if you have the opportunity today or any day for that matter, thank a service member or a veteran for the freedoms that you have. They deserve it more than anyone 🇺🇸♥️🤍💙

As always, thank you for reading! I appreciate it so much and comments, reblogs are welcome and encouraged. Don’t be shy to tell me your favorite part. 💕💕 💕

The biting winter air burned in your lungs as you reached for Billy’s hand and laced your gloved hands together. You both were standing by the freshly turned soil close to the headstone of the fallen marine he had once served with and later employed.

It was blind luck that the ground wasn’t frozen over yet and they were able to dig his final resting place. The dirt and grass were dry and faded as the leftover leaves crunched under your black leather boots while the branches above swayed and creaked in the raw wind.

Billy had cleaned and shined his shoes this morning just like he did every morning but he did it in silence with a clenched jaw and rigid posture. You missed his smile, that million dollar Billy Russo smile he flashed you at least fifteen times a day had been missing from his face ever since he took that phone call a week ago while you were having dinner.

You couldn’t blame him. No one could but you didn’t know what kind of comfort he wanted or needed from you so you kept quiet, gently touched his shoulders, kissed him on the cheek, and told him you loved him.

The lone blemish on the wall was the dent and cracked paint from where his phone crashed against it after hearing the news. Frank tried to break it to him as gently as possible but it didn’t matter, Billy exploded anyway. His strangled screams echoed throughout the penthouse and could probably be heard by the people on the floors below you.

Shards of glass from his dinner plate lay broken on the hardwood floor under the dining room table while you sat there speechless and with a heavy heart trying to figure out what to say.

“Just tell me, Frankie!” He yelled brokenly into the phone.

Billy thought Wilcox had been doing well. Billy gave him a job, a purpose after they served together, and a way to stay close with the team he served with but it wasn’t enough. It wasn’t enough to keep the nightmares away, or to keep his PTSD and depression from taking over.

It didn’t stop him from locking the doors, putting on his dress uniform, and taking his own life. It happened to veterans more often than it should and Billy tried to do as much as he could to make sure his team had tools at their disposal to try and make each day easier than the previous one.

But sometimes that pull was just too strong. You could only imagine the gnawing grief and guilt surviving veterans felt after returning from overseas.

The questions they must constantly ask themselves and how, more than likely, they’re just never the same after that. But it didn’t stop Billy from trying to help his fellow combat veterans. He told them they weren’t useless and they could still do some good after coming home. They could still serve, still have a purpose and show them that it wasn’t for nothing.

Billy gave them a chance and an opportunity but sometimes it just wasn’t enough. There was still something missing.

And now, long after the funeral service had concluded, long after everyone had gone home and went their separate ways, it was just you and Billy left standing in silence. He had a lingering sadness in his eyes and his cheeks were flamed with anger as he tightly gripped your hand.

You wondered what he was thinking about, if anything at all and you tried to decide whether or not to say anything to him. You opted to just squeeze his hand and rest your head against his arm.

You had learned to be patient with Billy and he would talk when he was ready, which you hoped would be soon.

The silence on the ride home was deafening. There was no music or conversation, just the sound of the engine humming along and the traffic outside.

One corner of your mouth turned up into a slight smile when he reached for your hand in the car with his hand trembling slightly as it closed over yours.

Once inside the elevator, Billy began to loosen his tie and he unbuttoned the top buttons on his crisp white dress shirt.

You knew he’d never wear that shirt or tie again.

Your fingers were still cold and numb from being outside for so long. They were taking forever to warm up so you decided to make some tea and then you could warm your hands on the mug.

Billy sat with his eyes fixated on the dent in the wall, his long agile fingers scratched at the bristles of his beard as he took a deep breath and let out a long exhale.

The low sounds of the water churning and bubbling inside the tea kettle echoed throughout the penthouse and stopped suddenly when you filled his cup and it started to boil again when you set it down on the hot burner. After placing the mug in front of him, you turned to walk back to the kitchen for yours when he grabbed your wrist.

“Seventeen.” Whispered Billy.

You turned to face him but his gaze was directed down at the floor.

“Seventeen what, baby?” You asked.

Billy brought his gaze up to meet yours.

“Before today, I had been to 17 funerals.” He said with a hitch in his voice and a desolate look in his eyes.

You dropped to your knees so you could be eye level with him.

“Oh Billy…I can only imagine what this is like for you, burying your friends like this, I…I just wish I knew what to say. I wish I could take your pain away and put it someplace where you won’t feel it.” You said softly.

A sob rose in your throat and your eyes shined with unshed tears.

“But I can’t and I am so so sorry, baby. I know you process things like this in your own way but is there anything I can do? Anything?” You asked.

A slight smile stretched across his lips and his shoulders relaxed as he replied, “I could just use a hug…my sweet girl.”

You rose to your feet and pulled his head into your chest, held him tightly as your fingers raked through his raven colored hair and he snaked his arms around your torso. Billy squeezed you so tightly, you thought you heard your back crack as he let out a long exhale. You could feel his warm breath travel through the fabric of your shirt and forcefully hit your skin.

In his own way, Billy was starting to process his grief and you would hold him for as long as he needed you to. You knew he was grateful he didn’t have to go through this alone.

For a long time, he was scared that he would become just another statistic, a number on a piece of paper but he made a choice. Billy chose to be better and not feel sorry for himself even though it was easier to make excuses because of what happened to him as a child. It was easy to give into those inner demons that are always there and blame others, but Billy was a fighter, he was strong, and he would never give up.

He still had nights when the nightmares nearly suffocated him while he slept and the crushing grip they had over him where he kept trying to swim for land but he wasn’t getting any closer to shore. Those nights where he was strangled by his own screams broke your heart but you were never far away and you were able to soothe him, comfort him, and tell him that he was ok.

Wilcox’s nightmare was over but he would never have another one. He would never have another chance to have a better day after a rough night or to talk about it with fellow veterans that also struggled just like he did.

“Maybe if he had someone like you, baby. Maybe he’d still be here.” Said Billy.

Moving a stray hair that had tumbled into his eyes, you then sat down in his lap and continued to rake your nails against his scalp.

You kissed him on the forehead, smiled, and replied, “You give me too much credit, my love. I’m not sure I deserve it.”

“You’ll never know how much you’ve helped me, sweet girl. Life was a lot harder before you. I need you to know that.” He said, looking into your eyes.

Billy wiped the tracks of your tears away from your cheeks, inched closer to your face, and gently pressed his lips to yours.

As you brushed the bristles of his beard with your thumbs, you smiled and said, “I’ll always help you, Billy. I love you.”

“I love you too, beautiful.” He said. “And…thank you.”

Tag List: @wheresthesunshinesblog @idaoftheburningmind @rafaelakelley @fakehappy27 @snowkestrel @music-indie-tv @kayhi808 @fictional-hooman @munsonownsmyass @gijos @celestialend @nutmeg17 @k-marzolf @rosaleenablack @vaguekayla @qu1etwolf @danzer8705 @fireeyes-on-teller-dixon-grimes @aoi-targaryen @rachlovesactors

Others that might enjoy: @itwasthereaminuteago @fluffyprettykitty @jvanilly @ittybxttykxttytxtty @imagine-a-fictional-boyfriend @mrsbillyrusso

If you’d like to be added (or removed from) my tag list(s) for the ever so handsome Billy Russo, just let me know and thank you again for reading! 💕💕💕 If I tagged you but you didn’t want to be, just let me know and I’ll never do it again.

#billy russo #billy russo x reader #billy russo fanfic #billy russo imagine #billy russo x female reader #billy russo x you #ericca’s summer sleepover 2024

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mychoombatheroomba · 11 months ago

Text

A Losing Game

Between the Bones (Leon x GN! Reader) - Chapter 17

He'd been promised pain, and Major Krauser never failed to deliver on that mark. At least now, the two of you had each other to distract from that pain, however dangerous it was.

(Cross-posted from Ao3)

Previous Chapter | Next Chapter

Chapter Index

CW: horniness

You had been telling the truth; Leon’s first day with his new squad was hard.

It had all opened with a speech from Krauser, as so many days here had started. “I’ll promise you one thing,” he’d said, his voice severe as ever, “you’ll all be miserable. One of you makes a mistake, you’re all paying the price for it. You’re going to end up in the dirt, you’re going to run until your legs give out, and you’ll do it all without complaining because the more you sweat here, the less you’ll bleed out there.”

In the first hours, Krauser delivered on that promise.

All of it was dialed up to ten, and Leon could only struggle through it. The longer run in the morning, the more demanding exercises, the combat . . . trying to keep his focus off of you . . .

He would catch your gaze, sometimes. It was never more than a second or two at a time - you both had plenty of other things to focus on - but Leon found some small solace in your eyes. You were always silently urging him on. Telling him to keep going with just a look.

So, he pushed through the pain and exertion, because he had to. If it didn't break him, all of this would make him stronger.

Raccoon City hadn't been able to break him. Neither would this.

"You going to make it, pretty boy?" There was only one person Leon wanted to hear that nickname from, and it certainly wasn't Valeria. Not in the middle of their second run of the day, each of them carrying an ammo case along with their normal gear, when Leon's lungs felt like they were going to cave in on themselves. Not when, in the time since the tear gas attack, he’d realized who had likely put him in that headlock. Who had knocked him to the ground with a punch that left an ugly bruise forming on his jaw.

"I'll be fine." It was more a growl than anything else, delivered through a sneer and a furrowed brow. His voice wavered with the impact of his footfalls.

Valeria’s words did too, but her smirk never faltered. “Whatever you say. And no hard feelings about the hit, eh?” She took her hand off her ammo crate to point at his bruising jaw, giving him confirmation that he didn’t need. Still, the smug look on her face made him feel his frustrations sharp in his chest. “Figured you’d be used to it.” She grinned towards where you were running ahead of them, and Leon felt like someone had doused the ground in lighter fluid and set it ablaze, anger and embarrassment and all manner of other things burning at him.

He did his best to use that fire to push him forward.

He let it build in his gut when it came time to run the obstacle course, the humidity of the spring air pressing in around him. Each of them still held the ammo cases as they moved over the wooden planks and along ropes. It was an added thirty-five pounds of weight, as Krauser was happy to point out. And how would they navigate the course while still holding on to it?

“You’d better figure that out.”

Leon only made it part of the way before his case slipped from his grasp, and then he and the rest of the squad were doing push-ups. Twenty for his mistake. Twenty when Alenko fell from the course. Another twenty when Alejandro dropped his case, right before he reached the end. Twenty when even you slipped up, falling from the rope as you tried to save the case before it hit the ground. With each misstep, there was a punishment, just as promised. A punishment and glares of animosity from those who had managed to complete the task without error.

By the end of that exercise, in a group of fifteen, only four had completed it successfully. Eleven failures.

“I expected the rookies to be weak, but the rest of you?” Krauser shook his head in disappointment. That was the only break the squad got before moving on to the next exercise.

Krauser wasn’t just pushing the new blood, Leon could see it in your labored breathing. Still, you were handling it much better than he was. Your whole squad was. Enough that most of them were able to snicker a bit at the new additions by the time dinner came around, when Leon and his old squad mates dragged themselves into the mess hall. Leon’s arms felt like they were made of sand - sand that had been soaking in the desert sun, scorching and heavy. His legs shook a little, and he was just then getting his breathing back under control.

“Kind of thought there was going to be a party. You know, a little celebration,” Williams sighed, wiping her brow as she reached for her tray of food.

Shinoda was in front of her, and he scoffed at the notion. “Today was our celebration, far as Krauser is concerned.”

“Maybe we throw one for ourselves tonight, then,” Alenko huffed, and Shinoda shook his head in a decisive ‘no’.

“Only way I’m celebrating tonight is with some extra sleep.”

Williams groaned, rolling her eyes and giving a smile that was just shy of energized. “Aw come on, where’s the fun in that? Kennedy,” she turned to face Leon, one of her brows raised expectantly, “you’d join in, right?”

Leon laughed, even if it hurt his core to do it. He appreciated the sentiment, he really did, but after the day he’d had, all he wanted to do was spend time with you. Even if it was in a sparring match, and even if his body’s aches would likely stop him from winning against you like you’d challenged him to.

He wasn’t sure what that said about his life right now, and he didn’t care much to analyze it. All that mattered was that he’d had a shit day, and you made him happy. Kisses or words or the way you moved, it didn’t matter. You made him happy, and you made him stronger.

“I would but-”

“But you’re gonna go get the shit kicked out of you, we know,” Alenko shook his head, clearly amused by the idea. It was no secret how Leon had been spending his evenings, after all. “You’re crazy, Kennedy, you know that?”

Leon had to give him that. “Yeah, I know.”

That didn’t stop him from showing up in the training yard that evening, because just as surely as he was going to lose this fight, his weariness lost horribly against his anticipation. By the look on your face, you knew exactly how this fight was going to end, same as Leon. You’d known the minute Leon had joined you at dinner, practically collapsing into the seat across from you. Even so, you hadn’t offered a night of rest, and Leon hadn’t asked for one. You’d just given him one of those knowing almost-smiles - the same kind you were giving him now.

That look shouldn’t have excited him as much as it did.

“Last chance to go join the party,” you grinned. You were tired, too, but something told Leon it wouldn’t be enough.

“Oh, you heard that?”

You nodded, a knife arcing through the evening air after you tossed it. Leon’s arm protested him reaching out to take it out of the sky, but he managed to catch it anyway. “Sounds like things might get pretty crazy.” Even without the sarcasm dripping from your voice, it would have been clear that the truth was far removed from your words.

“Wouldn’t be much of a party without music,” Leon shrugged - or went to, before his sore shoulders demanded otherwise.

“Good thing we’ve got some, then.” Some classic rock today, it sounded like. Krauser must have moved out of his bluegrass phase.

The Rolling Stones scored Leon’s defeat - one delivered sluggishly, the two of you moving slower than you usually did. Even those first few bouts had the two of you panting, staring across at each other with heavy eyes. Still, both of you kept going. Leon couldn’t say exactly what it was that pushed you both onward. It might have been your shared terrors, and the desire to rise above them. Maybe it was simply the strength of your characters - enduring through the pain. Or, perhaps, it was that teasing challenge you’d issued the night before, whispered against Leon’s lips. If you can beat me . . .

Whatever the case, you both went on until at last the sun was down.

“One more,” you breathed, letting your breath escape you in a slow exhale before you raised your guard again. Leon could see it was lower than usual. Anything that required less effort. “Let’s see if you can get that win.”

And he tried - he really did - but he misjudged your exhaustion. Whether you were granted a sudden burst of energy, or it had all been a ploy, the fight ended with you taking Leon to the ground, then settling on top of him for a pin.

The fatigue helped, of course, but as you straddled him, your knife at his belly and your face so, so close to his, Leon decided that he didn’t want to move from that position for the rest of the night.

“Better luck next time,” you grinned down at him.

“I feel pretty lucky right now, actually.” Leon wasn’t sure where the words came from, but he was a little bit delighted to see surprise flickering across your eyes. It wasn’t often that he caught you off guard.

Then, your expression turned to something dangerous. “Careful, pretty boy,” you warned.

Did you mean to press your hips against his like that? Knowing you, you absolutely had. He’d lost. By your own rules, there would be no continuing last night’s affairs - but you’d promised him that you would tease him, too. You were ruthless with a blade, he fully expected you to be ruthless with your affections, when you wanted to be.

When he looked up into your eyes that night, he could tell that you very much did want to be.

“That’s a dangerous game you’re playing.” Your words were hushed – a promise of something Leon had imagined for so long.

If it was a game, it was one he’d be happy to lose.

How long had it been since he’d felt so close to someone? How long since he had been able to hold onto a feeling other than regret? Even now, even as tired as he was, he found that he wasn’t exhausted enough to disregard those desires. He wanted you to move against him. To take the aches of the day and turn them into something sweeter. To kiss him until he couldn’t breathe.

But you were both in the training yard, where anyone could see you. It would be mad to go any further here. Even so, Leon learned that you weren’t averse to a little risk when you glanced around.

When you were satisfied no one was there to see, you moved like you were going to get up. All to disguise your true intent, as your lips brushing against the bruise at his jaw, just soft enough to not hurt the tender injury. Your hips dipped against his, making his throat go dry, and then you were standing, offering him a hand up.

As you pulled him up, he was frustrated to find his desire overtaken by pain, and he winced as he stood.

You noticed.

“Tomorrow will be worse,” you cautioned, that playful spark gone from your eyes. Replaced with something more sincere. “But after that, it’ll get easier.”

Leon nodded. You’d never lied to him before, he had no reason to distrust you now. “Right,” he sighed, taking a breath and meeting your eyes with a glint. “So, rematch after dinner?”

“As if there was ever a doubt,” you nodded, smirking once more, and for a moment, he thought you were going to say more. It took you until the two of you were finished putting the training equipment away for the night for you to voice the question. “I know you said you would tell me, if things ever went too far,” you began, your voice low, “but how much are you comfortable with just yet?”

“What do you mean?” Leon asked, and he could see the gears turning in your mind as you worked out how to say what you wanted to say.

“I mean . . . if we were anywhere else, and I asked you to come home with me and spend the night right now, would you say yes?”

The question made Leon’s lips part, the initial shock of it wearing off quickly because he’d known that was the name of the game you were playing. It was hard to interpret the dark glances and pressing touches any other way. Still, he appreciated you asking.

“Well . . . I’d like to take you on a date first,” he chuckled, and you gave him a look.

In all honesty, in another life, he would have liked to wait. He would have wanted to take his time; to get to know you. He would have taken you out to dinner. Maybe a movie. He would have talked with you about your goals, your dreams. Your family. Embarrassing stories.

He couldn’t do that here, and he didn’t need to. Even if there were still mysteries - so many mysteries - about you, he knew you well, now. He knew the side of you that you didn’t show anyone else. You pretended to act annoyed at bad jokes, but you told your fair share of them anyway. You liked the Spice Girls. You liked challenges. You were the type to apologize over and over for something, even when you didn’t need to. You pushed yourself because you never wanted to be caught unprepared again. You were afraid of losing people, so you hid yourself away.

You cared, very deeply, about the people around you. Even if you tried to convince yourself otherwise.

There was more to learn, he knew, and he would take whatever you were willing to share with him, in whatever way you were willing to offer.

So, in this world where he knew his life and yours may be all too brief, Leon gave his answer with certainty. “I would say yes,” he said it quietly, moving a little closer to you.

He watched your eyes flash, and you smiled that beautiful, incredible smile. “Alright then,” you nodded. “If I ever go too far . . . or if the teasing is too much, tell me. I’ll stop, no questions.”

“Same goes for me,” Leon agreed. “But as far as the teasing goes . . . don’t think I’m going to surrender now.”

He saw that competitive streak in you spark, and he knew he was going to be in for it.

“Told you . . .” you tilted your head, leaning close, “. . .that’s a dangerous game to play with me.”

“I’m counting on it,” Leon grinned right back, standing his ground the way you’d taught him too.

There was no time for anything else. And besides, Leon didn’t mind earning his time with you. He’d discovered his feelings for you on the business end of your knife, after all.

“Well,” you eventually said, “we can’t do much of a date, but I can at least walk you home.”

“We live in the same place,” Leon laughed.

“Well, that’s convenient, isn’t it?” you grinned right back.

He almost forgot the pain in his body, laughing there with you. He held onto that feeling, savoring it while he could. Before the morning came and the pain began anew.

⧫⧫⧫

The next few days were hard on Leon, you could see it plain as day. It was hard for everyone, but the new members of your squad especially. Every day they barely managed to pull themselves through exercises, and every evening they retreated to the barracks with heavy steps and hollow eyes.

All but Leon.

You didn’t feel like you quite had a right to be proud of him, but you were. You were proud of how hard he pushed himself, never once complaining. It didn’t matter what kind of hell Krauser put you all through, or how much pain he was in, he still joined you in the training yard every evening.

And every evening, as he adjusted to the new training regiment, he came closer and closer to beating you.

He nearly had you on the third day, his knife grazing you time and time again. On the fourth, he managed to disarm you, and you narrowly blocked a stab to the heart. Then, on the fifth day-

You’d been trading blows, the two of you working at a speed that must have looked like a blur, to the untrained eye. Any of the sluggishness Leon had been experiencing in the last few days was gone, replaced now with the desire to win. Maybe because he just wanted to be a better fighter, true, but you knew damn well it was also because you’d been torturing the poor man with your teasing for the last few days. On that third day, after sparring, you’d pulled him into one of the blind spots of the cameras, kissing him quickly, letting your lips trail down to his neck. “Almost had me, there,” you’d whispered, and felt him shiver. On the fourth day, when you’d finally managed to take him down by pinning him against the wall of the officer’s barracks, you’d looked right into those ocean blues of his and pressed your thigh in between his own, just long enough to make his breath hitch. Oh yes, you’d been pushing your luck, skirting the edge of that knife just as you promised him you would. And on that fifth day, you knew, you were going to end up falling over the edge.

You’d known it going into sparring, even after your first few victories. There was just something in his eyes - a certainty and determination you’d come to see in him more and more. And beneath it all, there was a fervor there. A desire that had your belly fluttering with anticipation.

Never in all your time in STRATCOM training had you wanted to lose a fight like you did that day.

And Leon delivered.

You swung your blade down at him, held in a reverse grip. His knife was held the same way - not a hold he favored, you knew. That was likely why he was able to catch you unawares, locking the flats of each blade on each other’s forearms and pulling down. The leverage there was enough to send your knife flying, your eyes widening as he brought his arm through and up in an arc. One that ended with the tip of his knife pressing up under your jaw.

The two of you watched each other for a moment, the realization of what had just happened sinking in. The promise of what came next.

“So, what do I get for winning this time?” Leon asked, and the strained timbre of his voice set your blood aflame.

It was funny how now, with a knife to your throat, you found it so easy to look into Leon’s eyes. To communicate without words what you were feeling. Now, after so long spent running from what you felt, because you’d completely and utterly surrendered to the simple desire to be happy with him. You knew what you wanted, at long last. Still, after days of vexing him, the least you could do was offer him a choice. “Well . . . what do you want?”

His eyes, so pretty and so blue, softened. It almost scared you, the way he looked at you then. If it were just desire, that would be easier. Instead, Leon Kennedy looked at you like you’d just offered him the night sky and everything in it.

Terrifying, when you really only had one thing to offer, broken and imperfect as it was. He knew that, but his answer stayed the same.

“You.”

He spoke the word with such a soft honesty, it took all your willpower not to kiss him then and there, damned if anyone saw. Still, you had just enough of your wits about you to hold off, keeping his reverent gaze for a while longer. “Let’s clean up here,” you said, and the two of you put the training equipment away in record time.

All the while, you found yourself looking over at him, the anticipation building in your gut. The need. When it was done, your eyes met, and without words the two of you began to make your way out of the training yard, towards the back of the mess hall, to that spot where you’d imagined pulling Leon into the shadows so many times.

How had those imaginings become reality?

You didn’t have the will to answer that, right now. All you wanted was him, and so you rushed towards the back side of the building, your mind abuzz and your body alight.

You were so full of apprehension, you almost missed the smell of cigarette smoke. Still, it hit you and Leon just before you rounded the corner, and you both stopped dead in your tracks. With a quick signal for Leon to stay back, you peeked your head around the corner, trying to figure out if the smoke was indeed coming from the one place you needed to be right now.

When you saw none other than Alejandro, his outline cast in the now-present moon’s light, you felt like the next puff of his cig was going to make you burst into flames.

You looked back to Leon, shaking your head, and the shadows around him seemed to grow darker as he frowned. There was the blind spot by the officer’s barracks, you supposed, but that risked Krauser’s attention. Any of the other areas were supervised, you couldn’t linger there for too long without being watched. You did the math in your head and came to a conclusion that you absolutely loathed: your fantasies would have to wait another night. Maybe this was the universe punishing you for being a tease. A taste of your own medicine.

With no choice but to retreat, the two of you began to make your way back, and you tried to calm the lingering excitement in your belly. “Just our luck,” Leon finally said, and the disappointment in his voice was endearing.

“There’s always tomorrow,” you offered. You’d waited this long. Even if you didn’t want to, you could hold out another day.

If you must.

Leon nodded, pouting a little in the darkness. You couldn’t blame him. Still, he managed to give you a small smile. “Tomorrow.”

As you both settled into your barracks that night, you knew Leon was thinking the same thing you were: tomorrow couldn’t come fast enough.

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A/N: So, yes, we're building to smut 😁

#leon kennedy x reader #leon s kennedy #leon kennedy #jack krauser #resident evil x reader #resident evil 2 #resident evil 4 #resident evil #between the bones #gender neutral reader #leon kennedy x you #no y/n

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