#She's dead and gone. The wound is fresh and bleeding and Shadow's entire reason for doing what he does. Both good and bad. | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

samwrights · 4 years ago

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When You Wake

I literally cannot believe I wrote this. This was originally started to celebrate Yaku’s birthday (happy belated, my love), and to satisfy the requests for a Noya/Yaku threesome. Uh, don’t come for me. I couldn’t find inspiration in the normal hq world, so we’re making it weird. If y’all thought Between the Lines was long, this monstrosity is 13.2k words. 13,200 words, with a shameful, side amount that is smut. Literally, this is all just plot.

ear candy list is, surprisingly, on the smaller side.

⤞ Revenga - System of A Down ⤞ Violent Pornography - System of A Down ⤞ Question! - System of A Down

pairing: Yaku/Reader/Noya

w a r n i n g s//TW: rape, murder, blood consumption, mentions of getting roofied, gore, blood from wounds, supernatural AU, revenge, temporarily mute reader, reader is converted to a vampire without consent, dubcon, death, spitroasting, dirty talk, senpai kink. PLEASE read through these warnings over and over until it is clear to you that this is not going to be an easy read. The reader literally goes on a revenge spree. ⤞ THIS. IS NOT. AN EASY. READ.

Now that you have been thoroughly warned, enjoy.

The way media and films and television glorified and romanticized college parties never could have prepared you for the fateful encounter in the alleyway on a muggy August evening. Primarily, college parties were depicted as fun—drunk nights on the weekends with your girlfriends, maybe hook up with that cute boy from chemistry that somehow ended up with you grinding on him on the dance floor. Though, in some genres, college parties end up with the protagonist roofied and raped and follows how the heroine spirals and recovers. But it only was supposed to happen in the movies, right?

It wasn’t supposed to end with you halfway to death, knocking on Hell’s door with blood pooling around your lifeless body in a barely lit, bleak alleyway. It wasn’t supposed to end with warbles of light fading in and out of your vision as cars passed you by, unknowing there was someone in the alleyway between a closed down butcher shop and a florist who had already gone home for the evening. You were only in your early twenties with only two more years of university to compete—it wasn’t supposed to end yet.

“We can’t just leave her here.”

“I think she’s too far gone, Yaku. We were too late.”

The voices swirling around you were unfamiliar, or at least from what you could gather. In your condition, it was impossible to discern them in the first place—were they even real voices? They sounded entirely too angelic from what you could process in your catatonic state. Maybe they weren’t; maybe death had taken you without your knowledge and the jury that decided whether or not your soul would ascend to heaven was passing their judgment on you.

“I can save her, Noya.” One of the voices, presumably this Yaku character snarls back with urgency. It is the last thing you hear before your limp body is pulled from the concrete. The movement, regardless of how delicate, causing more blood to rush from your open wounds and draining any ounce of consciousness from your mind. “You mind trying to collect the fallout?”

Nishinoya, though shaking his head, gives a subtle grin that cannot be seen in the dead of the night. He pulls out a large mason jar from the satchel he’s carrying and places the mouth of the jar where blood is pouring out profusely from a knife wound. The man collecting the blood knew entirely too well that once his mate sets his mind to something, there was no changing it. Not that it served as a recurring issue; if anything, Noya was grateful for Yaku’s stubbornness considering it was that exact trait of his that had given the former his second chance at life.

The two of them move swiftly, trying to make it back to their hidden mansion, that was quite a distance away, in secret. Yaku is doing all that he can to make sure not to disturb your body so as not to open any wounds further that could force you to bleed out and meet the grim reaper. He wasn’t a very pleasant creature, but that was a story for another day. At the same time, Nishinoya is almost fighting to keep the same steadfast pace while simultaneously holding the now half full mason jar just under the knife wound. The blood was beginning to thicken, turning from bright red to a deep crimson as it oxidizes.

The moment they enter their private garden, Nishinoya busts down the door to their home with expertise, alerting the other members of their clan. “Akaashi!” He screeches, his voice bellowing out in decibels that should not be used unless trying to project a voice in an amphitheater with no microphone. Thank omniscient beings for noise cancelling enchantments. “We need you!” An almost timid, young looking man enters the foyer where Noya is still collecting blood and Yaku is holding your limp body in his arms.

“So that’s where you two have been,” Akaashi deadpans, unfazed by the steadily decaying girl. “Bring her to my room. You can store what blood you’ve gathered there while I remove the knife and get her patched up.” Though calm, the three of them move at breakneck speeds, laying you face down on an operating table while Akaashi suits up. From what he can tell, this was going to be a real mess, considering how deep the knife is. The three of them knew what was to come and what their designated roles in this moment were—Nishinoya was to separate the blood he had gathered from your body and ration them into IV bags, while Yaku was provide suction in case of a bleed out.

“We can save her, can’t we?” Yaku asks quietly, tools in hand.

“That will depend on her will to fight,” Akaashi says quietly, half due to concentration, half because he genuinely does not have a valid answer. “You’ve done this time and time again, Yaku. If anyone is going to save her, it’s going to be you.”

Upon coming to, the only muscles in your body that can move are your eyelids. Peeling them back as much as you can muster, you notice the only light filtering into whatever room you are currently residing in is coming from the blaring moonlight through an open window. The shadows around you make up areas and shapes that you are entirely unfamiliar with, causing you to sit up impulsively to make sense of your surroundings. A mistake on your part, as you are immediately met with a searing pain in your ribs. With further inspection from your droopy eyes, you learn that your torso is entirely bare, save for the copious amounts of medical grade bandages and gauze around your breasts and stomach. Blood pooled somewhere along your left shoulder blade where the pain felt the worst.

“You shouldn’t try to sit up right now.” The same voice you faintly remember from the alley, the one that didn’t want to leave you, before blacking out calls out from across the bedroom. The room is quite large from what you could tell and his smooth voice seems to be leagues away. “Lay back down before you bleed out again—I’ll change your bandages.” From the shadows, a man whom you presume to be Yaku emerges before you, perfect pale skin and sandy brown locks nearly reflecting in the moonlight as he approaches. His face, while incredibly handsome, is blank and is strictly business as he saunters near. Even as he is gingerly tearing off the tight bindings around you with next to no effort, his face remains nonplussed. Even as he washes the dried, crusty blackened blood off your bare chest, nothing. “Do you remember anything?” Yaku’s voice is quiet and somber as he asks his question. He takes your silence as a no.

Your mind is a hazy smog, trying to recall any type of memory at all. Rather than actual imagery, you see a white light when you close your eyes—you see colors you don’t remember seeing before, you hear crying. You hear your name. Not just your first name or a nickname either, you hear your entire given name along with your birthday, even the time of birth.

Any attempt to recall memories is interrupted by a sharp pain. You suck in a breath as Yaku tries to lift your arm to wrap the fresh bandages around your torso, causing him to grimace ever so slightly. This task was a bit easier for him when you were still unconscious, but nonetheless he is glad you’re awake. When the pain subsides, you peel your eyelids back once again, staring at the man sitting at the edge of the bed in wonder. Why was he tending to your wounds? How did he fit into the story? “You needn’t worry about that right now, [name],” he murmurs quietly, reintroducing the same delicate tone you heard before blacking out in the alley. Yaku can tell you’re wondering how he knew what to respond with and how he knew your name but, after a small deliberation, he decides it’s best not to overwhelm you right now. “Get some rest, little one,” he speaks again, “I’ll be here when you wake.” Before you know it, you’re out like a light once again.

Yaku exits his and Noya’s shared bedroom to dispose of the sullied bandages, only to be greeted to the sight of his mate leaning against the bannister closest to their room. “How’s she doing?” Yaku’s lips tighten, the seam becoming a hard line as his grimace deepens.

“She doesn’t remember anything but when I asked her if she did...”

“What?” Noya presses, perturbed at the silence. Very few things in their lives rendered Yaku speechless.

“She started seeing memories of her birth.” The two shorter leaders of the clan meander their way down the grandiose staircase in silence, each step accompanied by the dramatic chimes of a grand piano coming from the foyer. The music stops when they reach the bottom of the staircase, Sugawara pausing his fingers and quirking a brow at the couple. It was a rare occurrence to see both of them, or Nishinoya in the very least, look so morose.

“What’s got you guys looking so down? You look like someone just died.” The musician muses. Sugawara Koushi always did have the most twisted sense of humor—that was partially the reason that Yaku had kept him around. The other primary reason was solely for bragging rights and an inside joke between the clan because no matter how many times Sugawara introduced himself as Beethoven or Bach, people assumed that they all just meant he was talented. Not that it was literal and Sugawara was just a name he’d adopted when he earned another century of life.

“Ha ha,” Nishinoya drawls satirically, for both himself and for Yaku. The latter excuses himself, parting ways because he knows he can’t handle conversation right now. “Come on, Suga, that’s not funny. Yaku’s already taking this really hard and if we lose her...”

“Humans die all the time, Nishi. A conversion isn’t a guaranteed shot at a second life and Yaku knows that so why is he—“

“Because she was found just like I was. Wrong place at the wrong time and it ended with...” the shorter of the two can no longer find the words to speak. It didn’t matter how many centuries old everyone in the clan was, it didn’t matter that they had watched plagues take countless lives or even bared witness to some of Jack the Ripper’s victims—it was a different monster entirely to genuinely watch a person become prey to another human. “I hope she makes it through, if only to rip out the guys throat that stabbed her.”

Three months had passed since you had first woken up. Strength is returning to you little by little, though not enough for you to hold consciousness for more than a few minutes a day. Regardless, Yaku is relieved to see you making some form of progress, to see that you’re somewhat handling the conversion well. The head of the clan was almost always present when you did awake, though there were instances in which his partner, Nishinoya, had been the one to greet you.

Nishinoya was much more boisterous than his other half—much more talkative and, considering you haven’t found the strength to speak quite yet, that was entirely okay with you. You learned that Yaku and Nishinoya had been together a very long time and Yaku had saved his life ages ago, as the latter phrased it. In admiration, Noya mentions his partner’s abundance of patience—a skill that he himself lacked—and determination to see justice being served had swayed the younger of the two to continuously stand alongside him. Through these little vignettes of their life, however, Noya makes it a point to acknowledge the fact that he was once almost too overbearing for his senior, often intimidating him with just how open and blunt he was. “Nishi, are you boring her with details of our mundane life?” Yaku asks bemusedly as he enters the room you’d been resting in.

“Hey, we aren’t boring. I’m not boring you, am I?” Noya looks to your face, your expression not giving much away save for the light in your barely live eyes. It was far from mundane—if anything, hearing the stories made you so curious considering from just barely glancing with the two, they seemed to be a strange couple.

“We are,” Yaku confirms, though as to what, you aren’t sure. You were certain you hadn’t said anything aloud, considering you practically can’t. “Let’s just say I can hear your thoughts. It’s how we’ve been communicating with you.” The head of clan saunters over casually, sitting at the edge of the mattress opposite to his partner. Both of their rich, golden irises are gazing at you, gauging a reaction from you as he shares this bit of information. Weird, was the only way for you to describe it. Though Yaku didn’t need to read your mind to know that; the slightly panicked look on your face gave away your thoughts.

“Don’t think we don’t know about those vivid wet dreams you have of us—“

“Yū, you weren’t supposed to tell her that!”

“What? We’re all adults here—“

“Nishi, get out,” Yaku covers his face in utter horror, even more so as his partner exits the room laughing as he does so. Shameless Noya. The door closes, leaving you and Yaku alone—were he able to go red out of embarrassment, he probably would have. “I-I am so sorry about him.” Testing out the information that the man beside you supplied moments ago, you reassure him that it’s fine—that you have no control over your dreams and that he probably doesn’t have a way to turn off this strange ability. For a moment, he’s relieved because you seem to be accepting everything with grace thus far; maybe telling you the truth wasn’t going to be the worst case scenario.

But the thought of the truth makes Yaku hesitate—there was no way you were ready to handle the entirety of the truth. At the moment, you could barely handle your weekly check-ups with Akaashi—the household doctor. After a formal introduction, you learned that Akaashi was the one who patched up your wounds when you were first brought to the little mansion. From what you gathered, he was quiet and direct, kind even, but you hated the weekly visits. Not only was Yaku carrying you rather painful, as you’re still recovering from your injuries, but Akaashi had to do regular blood transfusions because, according to the young doctor that you swore could not have already completed medical school and residency, you had lost a lot of blood during the incident.

An incident in which you still can’t recall.

“It’ll come to you,” Yaku says morosely, probably responding in accordance to your thought. The man beside you gets up from the bed, holding his arms open to you, silently asking for permission to pick you up. “Sorry, I’ll try to be more gentle.” His arms are cold as he lifts you up, but all you can focus on is the throbbing in your back as he moves you. A sharp intake of breath leaves your lungs as Yaku supports you physically, adding gentle words of encouragement because he can almost feel how much pain you’re in. Every step down the steep staircase adds another metaphorical bruise to your tender skin, a small groan leaving your throat each time. And while you’re not uncomfortable with the idea of being in Yaku’s arms, you’re grateful when you’re laid down in Akaashi’s office along the leather exam seat.

“How are you feeling today, [name]?” The young doctor asks as he preps you for your blood transfusion. Much to your surprise, you feel hungry—ravenous, even—like you hadn’t eaten a meal in months. Maybe you hadn’t; it wouldn’t be that ridiculous to consider since your memory was a little shoddy.

“You’ll feel better after the transfusion,” Yaku reassures from the chair he’s sitting in beside the exam bed, “we’ll get some food in your system before we start your physical therapy.” There’s an interesting intonation in the way he speaks this, you notice. Like there’s an underlying joke or hidden agenda that you don’t quite understand, but at the same time, the strange phrasing doesn’t trigger your fight-or-flight system in any capacity. If anything, it just seems that Yaku wants to help you regain strength as best you can.

Though, that was currently proving to be a challenge as well. While you weren’t entirely sure how long ago your injuries occurred, you knew a decent amount of time had to have passed. One of your first check-up appointments with Akaashi led to the explanation of the muscle atrophy in your legs from lack of use. Once you slowly became acclimated to being awake for more than just a few minutes a day, Daichi was introduced to you as your physical therapist. He was another enigma—entirely too young to be as experienced as he was in his field, but you decided against questioning it—temporarily mute or not.

Being mute was another issue that was taking much longer than you liked. You hated only being able to communicate through Yaku’s inexplicable talent of being able to read your mind. There were many occasions in which you wanted to ask Akaashi about your condition and how bad of a state you had been brought to him in; how you wanted to ask Sugawara how he’d learned to play such a vast variety of melodies so expertly; how you wanted to tell Nishinoya that every time he tried to feed you a soup or something, it tasted foul and metallic no matter how fresh it was.

You’d have to wait until you found your voice again.

After your check-in with Akaashi, Yaku brings you to Daichi’s office just down the hallway. “Hey, there’s our little fighter.” Daichi was probably the kindest out of everyone in the household. He had a warmth to him that seemed to contrast his icy fingers when he’d hold and guide you for your therapy sessions—a little uncanny that everyone in this mansion had freezing finger tips. Maybe everyone had poor blood circulation?

From the opposite end of the room, Yaku stifles a laugh by biting his cheek. Glad to know that your deconstructed concept of time hadn’t waned on your sense of humor. Meanwhile, Daichi lays you gingerly on a mat on the ground with you back flat as he wraps a resistance band around one of his ankles, as well as your own. “Alright, [name], I’m gonna help you get your leg up and I want to see you pull your leg up as high as you can go, understood?” Five didn’t seem like a very large number, but for now it was the goal. If you could at least lift your legs five times, it was progress considering the severe muscle atrophy in your legs.

Some days, it was difficult for Yaku to sit with you through therapy. He can see the way you wince in pain because you’re trying to relearn and rebuild your muscle groups; other times he just wanted someone, anyone, to blurt out the truth about the situation and hope that it inspires you to push yourself to heal. Some days, it was difficult because Yaku found himself just wanting to hold you in his bed that you’d taken over while the two of you plot out the revenge you didn’t even know you needed. But it wasn’t always bad. There were days, like today, where the progress on your therapy was going much better than anyone in the clan anticipated. There were days where Yaku would ask what you remembered about...anything, and you would have some form of answer for him.

On those days, Yaku began to realize that your memories were coming in chronological order. From the first time you sat up or crawled, to your first word even. In fact, Yaku’s favorite moment that he’s witnessed thus far was watching your father teach you to take your very first steps—it seemed to recur during your therapy sessions, as if subconsciously encouraging you to try to walk again. Maybe that’s why today, you were able to provide Daichi with double the repetitions that he asked for—a sure sign that strength and muscle were returning to your legs. But even with what progress you’ve made so far, Yaku makes it a point to carry you back to your room and lay you back in bed to rest. As always, Yaku tucked you in as he spoke, “get some sleep, little one. I’ll be here when you wake,”

For weeks on end, dreams stop becoming dreams. Per usual, Yaku awaits in the corner opposite of the bed where you rest, allowing your memories-turned-dreams to flood his mind. Each night, they’re progressively becoming more and more clear—you’re able to recall outfits that you’d worn twenty years ago with perfect detail, scars and scrapes that your friends had, even when that one sock was in the corner of your closet from when you were seven. But the clearer these chronological dreams became, the less frequently you were waking up and it was beginning to worry the head of the clan. While you were still obtaining your weekly blood transfusions to help sustain your life, it seemed to be that they were no longer providing you with enough energy to move past your current stage of recovery. “Yaku, she needs to start feeding,” Akaashi had instructed him during a consultation.

“I still haven’t told her—“

“Come on, man, it’s been almost eight months,” the house doctor groans. There was no reason to coddle you anymore as your life-threatening wounds had already healed for the most part. Sure, there was still discomfort from your broken ribs but even those had almost entirely healed over; your physical therapy sessions and rehabilitation with Daichi were going rather well but, at this point, if you didn’t start getting more substance in your body, this would be the end of the line for you. Akaashi had advised him this for weeks now, but Yaku still hesitated. “We’ve got to tell her.”

“I know, I know. I just—“ the sandy brunette ruffles his claws through his mussed locks in frustration, “I think her power is developing. And I’m afraid if we drop the bomb on her now, it’s going to halt or hinder that progress.”

“Either tell her or feed her,” Akaashi bites, “if you don’t, she’s not going to have any power because she’s going to starve to death.” With that, Akaashi walks away because he has nothing left to argue at this point. While he may be the youngest of the brood, this made Akaashi the most volatile of the group. More often than not, he was relatively kind and patient, timid even, as he was in his human life, but also very stern and strict—all of it coming from a place of love. And Yaku, knowing the tremendous amounts of emotional pain that the former had received, the leader of the clan dare not disrespect him.

Rather than making it an argument, Yaku roams around the lodge to grab a couple bags of O negative out of storage before heading back to his room. Much to his surprise, Nishinoya is sitting at the edge of the bed already, a slight look of panic washing over his features. “Yaku, I think something is wrong.” Without another word, the creature in question hands the bags of blood to his mate before resting his forehead against yours—a sure fire way to make sure that the mental images he picked up from you were pristine and uninterrupted as you dreamed—ignoring the cold sweat beading on your forehead.

You were at the Pike house. It was the first week of the new college semester and your roommates had convinced you to tag along to a frat party they were invited to. The night was going along exactly like a corny romantic comedy—you had locked eyes with a man from across the dance floor. He was sweet—much kinder than others you had met that night. He grabbed you drink after drink, but your memory begins to go fuzzy after that despite being able to recall memories of your own birth or the stupid girl that picked on you when you were twelve and even the small pimple on her temple that you figured was probably making her insecure. So if you were able to recall these memories, dreams, whatever they were, with such perfect clarity, why could you not remember leaving that party? Did that mean he had been drugging your drinks? It was entirely possible, considering Pike wasn’t exactly known for their hospitality. You vaguely remember the man holding your hand firmly as the two of you weave and bob around people and being met with the sweltering humidity of a muggy August night and your roommates, Yukie and Kaori, were nowhere to be found.

You were dragged into a dimly lit alleyway, stumbling with every step that the man had nearly carried you by your wrist alone, reeking of trash that had been long overdue for pick up and maybe even rotting carcasses. It was difficult to tell considering the drugs you assume that had been placed in your system and it was even more difficult to recall the memories. Bits and pieces of your memory were coming back in patches—though the face of the man that had brought you there was not one of them. Nor were any of his friends that had joined in, appearing at the opening of the alleyway. You remember the sound of tearing fabric, salacious laughter of the group of men surrounding your body. You remember feeling searing pain as one held a knife to your throat, warning you that he would slit your throat if you tried to scream.

The threat was replaced in the form of one of the frat boys ramming a half-hard cock down your throat, knife still in place along the jugular vein, while every orifice and inch of your skin had been violated. Vaguely, you remember trying to bite down on the cock in your mouth and run away. The one that threatened to kill you had missed your throat when you ran and threw the knife into your back instead. Foul screeches of demeaning slander left their mouths as they kicked your ribs in at full force, as if the knife deep in your back wasn’t bad enough.

You remember them leaving your bare, naked body in the alley for death to take you.

You remember their faces.

Awakening with a start, you sit up abruptly, only to fall back into the pillow with a resonant clacking noise followed by a dull throb to your forehead. Yaku recoils, mostly out of shock rather than pain—maybe laying his head on yours wasn’t his finest moment. “You remember,” he balks after he’s recovered from the impact. You’re trying to scream, no sound leaving your lungs while tears barreled out from your eyes. Remember? Why was that a memory? Why did it have to be a memory?

Nishinoya acts hastily, tearing open one of the O negative packs and draining half the contents into his mouth and holding it there as he shoves Yaku out of the way. The smaller of the two slats his lips over your silently screaming mouth, puncturing a small wound to the inside of your lip with his teeth and letting the blood trickle in the hole. It feels like pudding trying to push through a sieve, the flavor of copper and iron tampered out by an earthy, meat flavor—maybe venison? The desire to scream fades away as well, rather being over taken to have whatever nourishment Noya is giving you to enter you more and more. Out of necessity, you mold your lips over his, sucking hard on his lip while wrapping your arms around him because it just didn’t seem that he could get close enough in this moment. Despite the fingers you have threaded in Nishinoya’s gelled locks, he pulls away with a shit-eating grin, his tongue swiping away at the trail of red liquid dripping from the seam of his lips. “Careful, might make a guy a fall in love with that kinda kiss.”

“M-more,” you croak out, deflecting the younger one’s flirty comment all together. Yaku and Noya’s eyes go wide upon hearing your voice for the first time. The former acts on instinct, downing the remaining contents of the bag in his partner’s hand before reenacting the same gesture as the latter. Yaku’s lips are much softer than his partners—or maybe it’s the quelling of whatever hunger that hadn’t been satiated that eased the desire. With Yaku, his tongue laves against the wound that Noya had made, coaxing the fluid to enter at a much more steadfast, intimate pace. Even well after he was done feeding you, Yaku sucked on your tongue, encouraging you to reciprocate, so as to get every drop. “W-What was t-that?” You pant out brokenly as soon as the two of you break apart. The question startles the two sitting at the edge of the bed��now that you had your voice somewhat back, Yaku no longer needed to communicate for you. That also meant he couldn’t control the flow of responses to not overwhelm you.

“I think it’s time you finally got your answers,” Noya mumbles, treading carefully as he looks at his partner. It was a silent reassurance that, no matter how this scenario proceeded, he would be here to support Yaku. To make you more comfortable, he adjusts the pillows behind you so that your back can rest properly along the headboard.

“M-my d-d-dreams?” Having just rediscovered your voice, it still came out in sharp, staccato-like whimpers, but the boys weren’t going to discourage you from speaking. Much like everything else Yaku had done in his life, he had done with patience and your recovery and rehabilitation were no different. But your throat was still raw and it still hurt to speak—thankfully with your mind rushing like a bullet train, Yaku was able to grasp the entirety of your question.

“I think they’re more memories than dreams.” His words come out like a condemning nail in a coffin—like a doctor telling you you only have a few months left to live—because that means everything you recalled from Pike house, the drinks, the party, the alley, all of it was real. “Noya and I found you that night barely clinging to life. Naked, soaked in blood and semen. You died that night, [name].” As he speaks, his cold finger tips traced along your breast until you feel the throbbing mound of flesh—a scar of where the knife had been thrown into you from the back and exited out the front. “The knife had gone through your aorta. Akaashi spent a long time trying to repair it but was unable to.”

Your body begins to tremble as silent sobs wrack through your body. You died? “S-so how ‘mi h-here?” Yaku looks over at Noya in discernible worry—not because the head was afraid of telling the truth, no. He was afraid how you would react to the truth. His partner looks at him poignantly, mentally reminding him that this was eerily similar to how Noya had reacted when he had learned the truth as well. Yaku’s head bobs in agreement, swallowing his hesitance before speaking again.

“I made you like me. Like the rest of us.” Your brows furrowed in confusion, suspicion even, because there’s no way that he’s saying what you think he’s saying. But rather than offering a verbal response, Yaku holds his hand out towards Noya, in which he places the other bag of O Negative in his palm. While the original plan was to just feed you once again, the second Yaku tears open the bag, the hunger you thought had eased returned at full force. You rip the bag out of his cold hands, elongated claws scratched at you as you do so, before you down the contents like a shotgunned beer before you could realize what you were doing.

“T-This is a joke, right?” You balk, voice clear as day due to the strength returning to your body once again from freshly consumed sustenance. But the tensions have gone down significantly, to the point where Noya feels relief and excuses himself to feed, leaving you in Yaku’s solitary care. Once the two of you are left alone, Yaku can only shake his head as he continues to press on with the truth. This had to be a cruel, sick joke. But it wasn’t funny and you certainly weren’t laughing. Yet Yaku had no reason to lie to you and the snack you had just consumed moments ago was meant to serve as a final nail in the metaphorical coffin to make you understand that he was telling the truth.

“We have been alive for centuries—storytellers dubbing our kind as vampires—but originally, we were simply called the Damned.” Yaku proceeds to go through the history, much like he had with all the others before you, because he feels the need to share the truth, needs to tell you that your death isn’t the end of your life but rather the beginning like it had for all those in clan. The most recent addition to the family was Akaashi. He was less than a century old, compared to the others. Akaashi had been tied to a tree and shot repeatedly, only to watch his lover drown to death, who had been tossed into the ocean before shortly before with a thirty pound weight attached to his ankle with his last few breaths. Yaku and Sugawara were the ones to set his nearly lifeless body free with the head of the clan performing Akashi’s conversion. This lead to the newborn to coming back to slaughter the community that decided to his partner needed to die for being a man in love.

Each of their stories was nearly identical. Sugawara, who apparently has been every major known classical musician in history hiding under the guise of his shapeshifter ability, and Daichi were hanged together for being a homosexual couple after their village had carved unsavory words on their bodies to remind their reincarnations of their sins. Yaku and Noya had saved each of them respectively, and allowed the two of them to go on a rampage to annihilate their executioners.

Lastly, or rather firstly, was Nishinoya himself. As Yaku goes into detail about transforming his partner, he tears up ever so slightly. And as you listen actively with no interruptions, no questions even, as he tells you about how Nishi was wrongly imprisoned for theft and how the other prisoners constantly violated and sodomized his body because he was smaller than the rest; how he ended his own life by ingesting whatever toxic chemicals he could find and how Yaku broke him out of prison to start a new life together. “Speak of the devil and he shall appear,” the aforementioned prisoner re-enters the room, a fragile smile on his thin lips as he takes a seat beside his partner. “So you finally told her?”

“B-but why m-me? Why not just let me die?”

“Do you not want revenge against the assholes that killed you a year ago, [ name ]?” Noya bit before Yaku could jump in. “They’re still alive after what they did to you—how is that fair?!”

A year?

You had died a year ago. How did your family take the news? Your roommates and best friends? Nishi was right—it wasn’t fair at all. Yaku raises a hand towards his partner in attempts to get him to calm down before he got too riled up about the situation and before he could get out the most important question. “I have to know, [ name ], if you want to continue on with this lifestyle or not before we proceed with the real rehabilitation.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” You tilt your head to your newfound savior. He said it so nonchalantly, as if learning how to walk or learning that your diet was blood wasn’t rehabilitation.

“Well, we have to teach you how to feed properly so your strength gets back up—unless you just want us to feed you for the rest of your eternal life.” Noya jokes, waggling his eyebrows suggestively in what you’ve come to understand is his typical, joking demeanor.

“I mean, I wouldn’t complain.”

“Noya, can you maybe save the flirting for later?” Yaku grits out—once again slightly mortified. It brings laughter to the man in question; it was like rewatching his own life all over again, seeing him get flustered at the smallest amounts of forward affection. It was endearing, if anything.

“Sure. Let’s get [ name ] healthy first then.”

After coming to terms with your transformation and feeding more regularly, still off of a supply stock that the mansion carried, you were able to attend therapy sessions with Daichi more frequently. And while you hadn’t entirely regained muscle or use of your legs, you were able to at least stay awake more often than not. Rather than being cooped up in the bedroom, you found yourself lounging near the entryway where Sugawara would entertain you with the countless pieces he had written over the years. It was soothing and peaceful and Sugawara’s jovial personality kept you from spiraling into a deeper hole knowing that you died. It was still an insane concept, but the five men in your new home had worked hard to keep you sane. “Ready for your session?” Yaku asks gently as he takes a seat beside you on the luxurious sofa. He’s not as uptight as he was now that you knew the truth, though he still did get flustered when you would openly show affection. Even if it was something as simple as leaning your head on his shoulder like you were now.

“I think so,” doing what you could, you scooted and clambered onto Yaku’s lap, wrapping your arms around his neck firmly while your weakened lower limbs splayed across his lap. He tucks one arm under your knees while the other supports your back, effectively scooping you up and brings you to the kitchen where the blood stock is kept. You quirk a brow at the creature carrying you, knowing you’ve already had at least three bags since you woke up.

“Gotta get your strength up so you can recover faster,” is all he responds with before he sets you down on a bar stool. Yaku tears open the bag of O Negative and, much to your shock, he drinks half the contents without swallowing before his lips are on yours. One of his fangs finds purchase on the inside of your lip, sinking down and creating an opening for the blood to flow in for quicker delivery. Usually, Yaku would only have to feed you like this when you were in a weaker state, so it felt a bit out of place for him to be doing it right now, but it certainly wasn’t unwelcome. While the blood trickles into the wound, Yaku’s tongue swirls with yours intimately, coating the cavern with the liquid and he doesn’t stop until every ounce is clear from both of your mouths.

“Not complaining,” you say slowly, “but is there a particular reason you wanted to feed me instead of just letting my chug the bag?” As you ask your question, Yaku is draining the rest of the contents of the bag into his mouth before pulling you towards him in another kiss. The question is repeating over and over in your head, he can hear it loud and clear, but the other thoughts are spurring him on further. The thoughts of how Yaku’s touch makes you crave more, makes you want to feel his lips along your skin and his large hands gripping your thighs tightly. Sometimes he’s unsure whether or not you conveniently forget that he can read your mind, sometimes he wonders if you let your salacious thoughts run wild on purpose. His chest is heaving, deep intakes of breath are plunging through his nostrils despite the blood being long gone. He doesn’t want to stop but centuries of control are begging him to.

“We’re going somewhere today, after your PT,” Yaku pants out after he pulls away, tilting his head down because he can’t look at you right now—he’s afraid to. He needs to try to dampen whatever feral thoughts are running through your brain so that his own self-control doesn’t just get tossed out the window. “Noya and I are taking you out for your first hunt.”

“Uh, am I ready for that?” Shit, you can’t even walk in your own yet. Yaku laughs, grateful for the reprieve from your sexually charged thoughts when you point out the setback.

“That’s why the extra feeding tonight. I needed to make sure it was in your bloodstream so that you had enough strength for PT and the hunt,” Yaku adjusts you from barstool, scooping you into his arms once again to bring you to the mansion’s back garden. Daichi is standing a short distance away adorning a tight muscle tee and joggers, while Noya and Akaashi are sitting at the small table with cigars in hand. Yaku steadies you in front of Daichi, the latter holding onto your hands to make sure you don’t fall, before the former joins the rest the clan at the table. Sugawara emerges from inside the mansion as well, passing off a cigar to Yaku while lighting his own. It was uncomfortable in some capacity to have everybody watching—you couldn’t help but feel as if you were being critiqued on your performance.

“I’m going to be one step ahead of you, and I won’t let go, okay?” Daichi holds his arms out to give you space to take your first step. You take in a sharp breath, the scent of scent of cigars and pine trees overwhelming your nasal cavity. When did you sense of smell become that strong? With trembling limbs, you cling onto Daichi’s muscular forearms, praying to god you didn’t fall as you took a step forward.

“Hey, look!” Noya cheers from a distance, nudging Yaku in the stomach. “She took a step!” The excitement in his voice was evident because, after months of constant aid, Noya has come to have a soft spot for you almost as much as Yaku does. The two of them are watching, utterly enthralled with the way you’re only moving mere millimeters—but millimeters is better than nothing considering the muscle decay and atrophy that had taken place over the last year.

After the first few steps and curling your toes in blades of grass, your feet begin to relax as you tremble forward. Gripping Daichi with all the strength in your hands, you pick your right foot off the ground and place it forward. “That’s good, [ name ]! Gimme one more,” Daichi, a therapist in more ways than one, encourages you to continue moving, wanting to make sure both legs were receiving equal treatment. You repeat the motion with your left leg, taking two full steps. While not perfect, you kept moving forward with his guidance until his calves hit the stone wall of the garden fountain. Considering where you started, twenty five feet was a tremendous distance to cover. “You did amazing, [ name ].” The vampire holding onto you smiles big, pride swelling in chest like a father praising his daughter for taking first in a beauty pageant.

Yaku and Noya are by your side immediately in celebration, the latter much more overt with it as he’s hugging you and holding you up. “What do you think, Daichi? Is she strong enough to at least witness a hunt?” The former asks. Mentioning the “H” word again perks your ears up because a part of you almost wishes to not have to engage with whatever a hunt entails, but part of you also knows that this is your life now. Everything you thought you knew was no longer valid—this was your rebirth, your awakening.

“I think she’ll be okay if one of you carries her for it—“

“Ooh, I’ll do it!” Noya cheers almost too loudly in your ear as he’s still holding you. Without so much as a chance to offer a rebuttal, you’re swept up into his arms as he stands at full height before glancing at his mate. “Ready to go?” Yaku gives a nod, gripping tightly at the satchel over his shoulder before the three of you are off at breakneck speeds. They’re silent as they travel—perhaps because were they to open their mouths at this speed and velocity, they would be catching a whole lot of bugs in their mouths. To your surprise, the three of you end up outside ten-foot-tall brick walls and a chain link fence.

“This is a...”

“A prison,” Yaku answers simply, as if he were answering with what his favorite color was rather than his favorite meal, “considering our diet, we choose to collect our sustenance from those who do not deserve redemption.” There’s a malignant, dark twist in the headman’s words.

“Personally, I prefer going after the rapists and child molestors. Those bastards deserve to be drained of every ounce of blood.” Noya snarls—you could tell it was personal for him. But how could he tell? Surely it wasn’t just written on placards outside of prison cells.

“Easy. Walk in, ask them what they’re serving time for, and their minds fill in the blanks.” The foreboding you sensed from Yaku deepened even further; deepened to the point where it felt like a magnet drawing your eyes towards your savior. But he looked anything but. Yaku stood merely a few inches taller, his claws sharpening and turning black while red overtook the once golden hues of his irises. You look up at Noya curiously, wondering if he’ll undergo the same sort of transformation, but before you could even question it, the gold in his own eyes had already molded into crimson rings.

The three of you enter the building with ease, aiming for the top floor because, according to Nishi, that was where they kept the worst criminals. It played out exactly as Yaku said it would—ask them what they were imprisoned for and, if they were in captivity under the basis of rape, first or second degree murder, sexual assault, or anything involving a minor, he would sink his fangs into their jugular vein and drain them dry. Though he announces his satisfaction, he remains in this strange form that he has presented you with as Nishinoya passes you off into his arms.

The smaller of the two repeats the same process, taking down two prisoners of his own before taking the satchel off of his partner’s shoulder. Noya continues questioning prisoners, letting Yaku’s power of mind reading acting as the judgment call, before pulling out a small, sharp knife from the satchel and slitting each victim’s throat while holding them downcast like a gavel banging down the rule. As blood fountains from their necks, Nishinoya holds fresh IV bags over the openings to collect whatever comes out like rain. Was this how they ended up getting blood for you to feed over the past year. “Yes,” Yaku answers evenly, looking down at you with his crimson eyes, “but we were hoping to actually teach you how to feed tonight. Are you up for it?” Every nerve in your body seemed to scream no, like you shouldn’t be witnessing these events let alone doing it.

But your guts are telling you yes, yes this is now your way of survival. These men were horrid, their victims needed justice. You needed justice. Giving Yaku a small nod, he gives you instructions while the three of you search for your very first meal. Considering neither your fangs nor claws had grown in, as you were very much still a baby by all intents and purposes, Noya would have to incapacitate your prey for you while you bit the inside of your lip, reopening the same puncture wounds from earlier, to allow easier access for the nutrients to enter your body. Once they were out, Noya would puncture the jugular vein for you, while Yaku dipped you down far enough to feed.

Your lips latched on to the raw skin, hooking your own canines for leverage as you draw the blood from your dinner and the moment the warmth seeped into the opening, all doubts about what you were doing had flown out the window. You adjusted the way you’re sitting on your victim, your hands finding purchase on his shoulders as you continuously sucked every drop of life from him. “Did she just—“ Noya questions, not missing the fact that you had just moved your atrophied legs. And while Yaku is very aware of his mate’s balking, he can only focus on the way your lips mold against your meal’s neck or the muted slurping noises bubbling from your lungs like a woman starved. In a sense, that was quite literal. Noya looks over at his partner—silence wasn’t typical of Yaku when asked a question—but words are lost on him when he sees the way Yaku’s eyes are hungrily staring at your form and he’s unsure if its due to hunger or hunger. The moan that leaves your tongue when you finally pull away from the now empty body confirms the shorter one’s suspicions. “Not that seeing you turned on doesn’t turn me on, but you might wanna put that away, Morisuke.” Noya teases before walking towards you, the call of his given name causing Yaku to snap out of his stupor. Well fuck, he snarls bitterly in his head. He was gonna have to feed again, considering all the blood he had just consumed went straight to his cock.

You feel alive—more alive than you felt in ages. And despite your attempt being incredibly shaky, you managed to stand on your own two feet, using the wall to brace yourself. Noya rushes over to your side to try to hold you steady, asking if you’re alright. “I’m more than alright, Nishi, holy shit.” He has an arm under you, carefully bringing you back towards Yaku, though for the most part, you’re walking entirely on your own.

“So what, have you guys just been giving me snacks this whole time?” You sneer teasingly, though Yaku looks away because your accusation because it isn’t entirely wrong. The blood packs were indeed “snacks” but were usually only used to stave off hunts, that way they didn’t just decimate the prison on an every other day basis, but were also used as post coitus replenishments.

“One more?” Yaku coughs out, as if choking on his own spit. “We can do this one together, if you like.” He’s trying to be polite, despite the feral look in his eyes while also trying to calm down the lust and adrenaline running rampant in his system.

“Yeah, that’d be nice.” As opposed to carrying you this time, Yaku flanks to your empty side, helping you walk between him and Noya until you came upon your next victim. This one was larger than the last few—stocky and skin marred with stories of a brutal past. No matter which way you looked at him, he looked bitter, and after asking him what he was in for, you figure he was a perfect candidate. After all, intentionally murdering his wife and three children was heinous by definition. Yaku approaches the much taller man, crouching ever so slightly in the event your meal tried to escape; not that he could even if he wanted to. The leader of the Damned was behind him in seconds, snapping his neck to disarm the threat that was his build.

To everyone’s surprise, you made your way over slowly to the now lifeless, six-foot-three prisoner while Yaku punctured holes on both sides of the victim’s neck, allowing the both of you to feed. It was oddly intimate, being so close to someone while sucking the literal life out of somebody. The lapping, sucking noises brought back salacious thoughts to the man beside you, and he’s doing all that he can just to avoid trading sustenance for an erection again. Meanwhile, Noya is watching both of you in amusement. Does his partner realize that he’s gingerly scraping his claws along your spine? Is it out of encouragement, or interest? Yu can’t quite tell, but he finds it entertaining nonetheless. Even more so when Yaku squirms at the throaty moan leaving your lungs when you pull away, lips plump with a bead of leftovers dripping from the seam of you mouth.

Either way, Nishinoya knows it won’t be long now until Yaku cracks. Despite the great amount of self-control he tends to exercise, Yaku is but a simple creature that cannot stave off his desires and Noya is no different. They were going to give way to their desires sooner rather than later, but they made a vow eons ago that revenge must always come first.

One year, three months, one week, and four days. That was how long it had been since you died in the alleyway. Today was the day those boys were going to die for what they did.

By now, you were fully functioning; walking on your own, feeding on your own. The only difference between you and the others was that you still slept, though not very much anymore, and according to Akaashi, it would be a trait that you would grow out of maybe two decades after your first century. That was actually the sole reason there was even a bed in the house—Nishinoya still slept merely because he enjoyed it. He wasn’t like the others who had found a passion project that kept him up around the clock, so more often than not, he would join you in bed. After all, it was originally his bed.

And more often than not, Yaku would sit in the spacious window sill while Noya wrapped his arms around you protectively in your shared slumber, as if to abide by the repeated mantra he had said over the last year—he’ll be there when you wake.

Your dreams are no longer memories, as you’ve got caught up to current events thanks to the playback speed that they paced themselves at. Now, you’re able to recall on every single event of your life that you’ve witnessed thus far with perfect detail—including the faces of your five murderers. Each of them belonged to your university Pike fraternity; two of them were a year older than you, two the same age, and the one who had the knife to your neck was a freshman not yet old enough to drink legally, but apparently old enough to to pull the metaphorical trigger and throw the knife that had gone through your entire body, severing your aorta in your heart.

After researching in the form of disguise, you learned that tonight Pi Kappa Epsilon would be holding their annual holiday gala; fancy words for a giant frat party for those who chose not to return to their hometowns for Christmas. Knowing how these events tend to function—it was relatively easy to sneak in, even with Nishinoya and Yaku flanking your sides. You flashed the doorman a crisp fifty, knowing males always had to pay a fee for entry while women always got in for free. The bouncer grins upon seeing you in a tight, red body-con dress, but the grin is immediately displaced when his eyes land on the two men beside you. Giving your best, most flirtatious smile, you grab both of their wrists before heading inside. “Don’t lose me, okay?” You yell over the pounding music.

“We won’t,” they say in unison. Noya gives you a reassuring smile, hand pressed against Yaku’s back gently, while the latter purses his lips together in discomfort. “Just keep talking to me through here,” he adds, pressing his cold lips to your forehead chastely, “and I’ll find you.” You give him a confident nod before you throw yourself into the throng of people to find your targets. It proved a bit of a challenge, considering the strobe lighting and the myriad of people—all of the men looked the same on top of that. But once your eyes narrowed in on the man you first lured you, it was game over.

Like a tiger ready to pounce, you sauntered over to him, pushing aside whomever he was with at the moment before wrapping your arms lewdly around his neck. He looks down at you skeptically, but otherwise pleased with the bold actions. From a short distance away, Yaku and Noya are hiding like wallflowers, listening to the resounding chant happening in your head that screamed to kill him. “You know,” Noya chimes in lowly, distracting Yaku from the way your hips are grinding and gyrating against the strange man’s, “we could just kill the entire fraternity.” Yaku shakes his head—Noya was always fond of the idea of revenge against all who were guilty by association. While the others in the clan gave into his persuasion, Yaku never found it amusing.

“What if they had no idea that their brother killed someone?”

“They probably bragged about it,” Noya grumbles. From his own experience, the shorter of the two liked to think that he knew how these people tended to operate.

“It’s go time.” Yaku says abruptly, eyes locked onto your retreating form as you pull one of your rapists by the tie and lead him out the frat house. The two Damned maneuver their way towards the quietest space, hunting for a window they can exit out of to follow you without garnering too much attention towards the situation. When they end up on the sidewalk outside of the Pike house, they see you parading—brokenly, complete with fake stumbles to allude to you being drugged again—the man by the tie until he shoves you into the same alleyway.

Close behind were four others, all built and stocky as they traveled in their pack and making their way towards the alley. You were cornered amongst trash and dead rats, the five of them trying to zero in on you, yet you showed no fear. Instead, you stood at full height with the addition of your stilettos, as your body transitioned into it’s more predatory form. “Remember me?” You ask sweetly, cracking your knuckles nonchalantly. Your hair that’s covering the ugly mound of flesh scarred over from your injury is swept over the opposite shoulder, giving them full view as your short, blackened claws graze over the skin. “Over a year ago, the five of you brought a woman to this alley, raped her and you,” a feral snarl leaves your lips as you point to the youngest fraternity brother, “threw a knife into her back that went all the way through her heart and killed her.”

The five of them begin looking over at each other, wondering who ratted out who considering they had never spoken of the night since it occurred. It was easy to avoid, considering the body was never found. There was never any evidence. “W-who are you?” The youngest one squawks out.

“Don’t remember?” Your head snaps in the direction to one of the older members. “I should have bit your dick off when I had the chance.” There’s no more room for talking, no room for rebuttal. Instead, you grab the same man you lured into the alley by the tie, bringing him close enough to snap his neck. When he was neither moving nor breathing, the remaining four began to back up.

“Yo, this bitch is crazy, let’s get out of here—“

“You think you’re just gonna get away?” Noya laughs dryly as it crescendoed into full volume, shaking the walls and mimicking an earthquake that did not expand beyond the walls of the alley. The remaining four fall to the ground, not prepared for such loud noises let alone a trembling earth to accompany the sound. Yaku shakes his head in utter disgust before the crimson ring in his eyes locks with the prey.

“Done eating, love?” He calls out, causing the four other frat boys to look over in horror at the “e” word. Once again, you’re standing at full height, the back of your hand wiping away the blood that had escaped from your mouth from your feeding.

“Not quite yet,” With every step you took, they trembled back, only to be met with your two saviors blocking their only exit. The youngest one is hiding all the way in the back, trepidation causing his bones to rattle within his skin as his back hits Yaku’s calf. “I’m still hungry.” Noya lets out a snort at this—he truly did love your sense of humor.

“You’re next.” Yaku looks down at the young boy, only nineteen-years-old, who had been your executioner. That same boy looks at the leader of the clan in horror, eyes wide because he never in a million years saw this as his end. Effortlessly, Yaku picks him up by the collar of his shirt before tossing him in your direction. Rather than catching him, you gathered your claws together to form a single point, driving the makeshift lance through the stomach of the one who had ended your life. Without verbalizing it, you gave the boys permission to feed on the other two—so long as it wasn’t the one that you had tried to bite down on when he rammed his cock in your mouth.

You had plans for him.

In the mean time, you pull the now lifeless body off of your bloodied hand, drinking down whatever was dripping down your arm before tossing him off to the side; you had one more pressing matter to deal with. The last of the boys—the dessert to your meal was pressed against the wall as he tried to run from this situation, watching in mortification as Yaku and Noya beheaded the other two brothers with their bare hands, feasting on their prey. “Like I said,” you sneered as you approached the last one, ripping off his pants and boxers much like he had when he violated your mouth. “I should have bit your dick off when I had the chance.”

And so you did.

“Remind me to never get on your bad side,” Yaku muses, having finished his meal, gawking at the way you had just left the last one along the wall with his penis bitten off all the way down to the base while you returned to the youngest member again, draining your murderer for all he was worth.

“I dunno, it’s kinda hot, babe.” Noya jokes, watching in amusement as well.

“I’m actually kinda full,” You shrug, having drained the stabber entirely—that put your body count to two full bodies. “D’you guys wanna have the last one? I got all I wanted from him.” At sound of your permission, Yaku approaches the last one with a predatory glare, not daring to break eye contact as he asked you one more question.

“[ name ], do you feel that justice been served?” With a nonplussed grimace, you gave a shrug.

“If anything, these assholes got the short end of the stick. They murder a girl they raped so she comes back from the dead and kills them all with two beautiful men by her side? Yeah, I’m happy with that.”

By the time you returned home, you were an entirely different creature. You felt...free. Like there was nothing else anchoring your dead heart, like you no longer had a tether to this world. Like you had no purpose.

So now what?

Silently you meander back to your shared bedroom to further contemplate your existence, the boys you left behind glancing at each other in concern. “Want me to talk to her? I might be able to better sympathize.” Noya asks quietly so that your now heightened hearing can’t quite pick up on the conversation. Regardless, Yaku shakes his head. He knows exactly what you’re thinking, what you’re feeling and not just because of his ability to read minds.

“I’ve got a few things I want to say to her anyway.” Noya presses a tender kiss to his mates cheek before he flits away to hang out with Daichi as he normally does when he’s not with Yaku, while the head of the clan makes his way to the room. You’re lying in bed already, the dress and stilettos shed and traded for bare feet and a slip. Despite your back turned towards him, you feel the bed dip as he lays beside you, something atypical of Yaku. “How do you feel?” His voice is merely a whisper as he cautiously wraps an arm around your waist.

“Shouldn’t you know the answer?” You retort, but Yaku doesn’t recoil because he knows. He knows the sort of limbo you feel you’re placed in now that your postmortem mission had been carried out. What were you supposed to do for the rest of eternity besides act as an impromptu executioner, feeding off of the worst criminals within a hundred mile radius?

“Is that all you see us as?”

“No,” You say quietly. These Damned men had accomplished great things, from what you knew of them, in their lifetimes. Sugawara has continued composing even well after his other alias’ deaths, Akaashi has been working on a research piece for decades regarding cancer in the form of preventative measures rather than a cure, in addition to a cure. Daichi had participated in the Olympics a number of times, Yaku was once a politician in multiple countries and Nishinoya had worked closely with electronic developers over the years including Microsoft and Linux. “You guys have accomplished so much in your lifetimes, I just don’t want to be some sort of disappointment—“

“[ name ], we never knew were going to do those things. We just kept pushing on, finding out things we were passionate about and since we have unlimited time, we’ve had time to hone and perfect those skills.”

“What if I never do anything that great?” Yaku lets out a sigh, turning your now fully restored body around to face him and pressing his face into your neck. Over the duration of your rehabilitation process, he’d become so over protective of you, wanting what’s best for you in any capacity yet never fully being honest with himself.

“You have time to figure it out,” he mumbles into your own icy skin, lips tickling your veins. “Until then, just stay? With me?”

“Yaku...” he had never fully outright asked you to stay—only alluding to it in the past with talks of the future.

“I-I want you,” he whispers almost uncharacteristically. Being a diplomat, stuttering was not a thing that Yaku did very often. “To stay with us forever. To stay with me forever.” This is it, he figures. It’s now or never. Yaku can’t stand the idea of you leaving the clan, leaving him when he hadn’t yet had a taste of you, had you in any other form than a few mere kisses for feeding or in fantasies. Pulling away, Yaku shifts once again so that his arms are holding his weight above you, his lips ghosting intimately over yours.

Both of you are overly aware of the attraction that’s there—you knew of the daydreams you’d had of him throughout the year and with his ability, he was unwillingly subjected to them. Reaching up slightly, your lips press against his hungrily, your tongue immediately dancing along the seam of his lips, begging for permission to enter. Yaku doesn’t waste a second dropping the support from his arms in favor to press his body fully into yours because he’s been waiting for this moment. It’s evident in his fervent kiss, it’s evident in his ever present erection. A mewl warbles in your throat as you feel him grind against you.

Why the hell had you waited so long for this? Why did he wait so long for this?

There was no more waiting.

Breaking a part for a moment, you pull the slip off your torso hastily while Yaku unbuckles his belt and frees his lower half. Impatience floods you as you tear off the thin Henley he’s wearing, leaving the two of you entirely bare in front of each other. The large scar on your bosom that had made you self conscious for months suddenly felt dull in comparison as you’re met with the varying marks that marred Yaku’s skin. From what you could tell, they looked like whiplashes. “I need you now,” he pleads, ignoring your wandering thoughts as he hungrily pulls you in for another kiss. Though rather short lived, your overwhelmed with warmth and pulsing in your core as his fangs run along your neck before sucking lovingly at your collarbone.

“O-oh,” you moan out wantonly, clutching at his shoulders to keep yourself steady. With no preparation, not that you needed any, Yaku slowly sheaths his member inside of you, the girth stretching you deliciously. For a moment, the two of you remain still to bask in the reprieve you both felt, unaware of the third party member watching pleased in the lounge chair across from the bed. “Fuck,” you hiss out between your teeth as he’s pushing in inch after inch.

“You’re doing so good, princess,” for a moment, he’s impressed—taking eleven inches with little to no preparation can be torturous, and he knew that from experience. “Come on, baby take the last of it—oh fuck yeah,” Yaku groans out as soon as he’s balls deep within you. The two of you are still, enjoying the moment of togetherness before he bottoms out entirely in your sweet little hole. His hips move almost languidly so as not to hurt you but good lord for all that is unholy, is he holding back.

Soft whimpers leave your lungs each time his hips snap back into yours—why the hell hadn’t you fucked Yaku sooner?! A throaty chuckle grumbles in his chest at the thought. Even with him slamming his cock in you at half-force, his mind is intertwined with yours to the point where your thoughts feel like his own. “I had to take care of you princess, wanted to make sure you could handle me fucking you.”

“Then fuck me harder, ass-hat.”

“He likes it better when you call him senpai.” Nishinoya calls out from the opposite corner of the room, as if he wasn’t just leisurely watching his partner ream himself into your core. You let out a scream and at this point, you aren’t sure if it’s because Yaku have a particularly hard thrust with the head of his dick meeting with the edge of your womb or if Nishinoya’s presence surprised you. Even more so to see that he was stark naked, stroking his cock that he’s presenting to your mouth.

“Suck off your senpai, princess.” Yaku whispers devilishly in your ear, holding his cock still within you as he does so. Tentatively, you give a kitten lick to the head before you, testing out Nishinoya’s reaction to the motion before deeming him worthy. A soft grunt escapes him, his body more than welcoming of the sensation—but it just wasn’t enough for you.

“I need a better reaction than that, Nishi,” You joke.

A poor plan on your part.

The shorter of the two looks down at you curiously, a wicked twist of his lip displayed for you as he briefly tosses an amused look towards Yaku, to which the latter lets out a chuckle in addition to the shake of his head before he starts to withdraw his cock from within you. “How’s this for reaction?” Noya chirps before deftly wrapping his claws in your hair, slamming his engorged member down your throat while Yaku simultaneously thrusts back inside you. The carnal desires that had run rampant through your mind on occasion had built to this moment, built up the needy desire that the boys finally had the chance to release with you. “Yeah, you take that cock in your throat, baby. Show us how much you’ve wanted us from the start.”

Nishinoya is absolutely relentless as he repeatedly withdraws and replaces his erection in your mouth, pulling so far back as to have his tip tease and smear pre-cum along your lips, all the while chanting praise and how much he loves you; how much he’s dreamed of having you between him and Yaku. The latter can’t help the stuttering motion of his hips as he unabashedly strokes his member along your walls, the tip of dick all but moving into your womb. “Yeah, princess, take your senpais cocks so fucking good, yeah? You want us to fill all your holes with our fucking cum, don’t you?” You can only wail out around Nishinoya in your mouth in response, clenching and squeezing your pussy tightly around Yaku inside you. The clan head lets out a very audible groan at the abrupt friction. “Oh, fuck yeah. Fuck yeah, senpai’s gonna cum so fucking hard inside you, yeah yeah yeah.” Yaku is absolutely wrecking and ravaging your lower half while all the foul, salacious words leaving him were only serving to turn on his partner even more until the both of them hold still to empty their first loads inside you.

After a momentary reprieve, the two of them withdraw from you, the smallest whine leaving your lips at the distinct emptiness. Between pants, both of the males look to each other before letting out a laugh. “Princess,” Noya calls out from your left, golden eyes light and airy as they gaze at you, “did you think we were going to let you cum?”

“Y-yes?” Why wouldn’t they? Wasn’t that just normal, sex etiquette between partners?

“Oh no, love,” Yaku adds, “We’re gonna show you just how much we love you, gotta coat every inch of your skin in our fluids before you can even think about cumming.” Before you can blink, the boys are up again with Nishinoya taking his position with the tip of his still hardened member teasing the outer lips of your pussy. Meanwhile, Yaku makes it a point to slap your cheek with his own erection, making sure to keep your attention and focus on him. Simultaneously, they thrust into their respective orifices that they’ve traded—Yaku treating you much more delicately versus Noya who shoves his entire mast inside your depths.

“Oh damn, babe, you’re so fucking tight!” The latter howls, throwing his head back in ecstasy. Despite having identical lengths, Nishinoya was much more rough and rigid, your walls acclimating to every vein out of necessity before relentlessly pounding away at your insides. At his pace, your pussy doesn’t even have a chance to miss the feeling of fullness. Your voice is no longer coming out in moans or screams due to the damning pace—only in a broken staccato of warbles from the speed that Noya’s fucking you. “Yeah, baby? Gonna stay here with us forever and get dicked down every night? You’d like that wouldn’t you?”

But with the almost tender, loving way Yaku is holding your throat while repeatedly sliding his cock in from tip to base, there is no actual way you can reply. Instead, you let out grunts and cries of affirmation because you would stupid not to welcome the way these two were screwing you. It’s also more than just that.

These two, as well as the rest of the brood, had taken you in being inches from death, presented you with another opportunity for life that served as an opportunity for you to seek revenge, while caring for you and almost...loving you.

“We do,” Yaku bites, withdrawing his cock from your lips offended at the thought of almost, “love you, that is.” The hand that is cupping your throat moves to brush the backs of his claws along your jaw before pulling your chin and torso up so that Yaku can kiss you fully. There is no lust or wanton desire in this kiss—it’s love through and through that is simultaneously cold yet warm.

“You’ve been dreaming about us for a long time, princess,” Noya grits out, his peak approaching all too quickly with the way you’re clenching around him with no relief. He’s panting heavily, no longer caring about his need to assert his dominance in any capacity; all he can think about is cumming deep inside you while you cum around his thick cock. “We want to make your dreams come true.”

Yaku pulls away from the kiss in time to hear your cries—a delicacy he had never had the pleasure of knowing in a past life—as you cum with Noya. The latter is holding still for a brief moment before withdrawing, his spent body collapsing beside you. You’re sensitive, you realize, as Yaku slides back in to reclaim his space. Your walls are still trembling in the aftermath of your orgasm, but Yaku is much more gentle this time around. Pressing his body flush against yours, he wraps both his arms around you with one cradling your head, the other around your lower back to pull you as close as possible. His shallow moving thrusts in accompaniment to his pulsing girth are enough to trigger yet another orgasm in direct succession, and coercing his own orgasm. “Please stay, [ name ].” He mumbles into your hair as he feels his seed spurting within you. Though you supply no answer due to trying to catch your breath, you only nod in response. Yaku remains still inside you, so as if to seal both his and his partner’s emission within you with his own softening cock, smiling at the simple fact that you had nodded in response. “Get some rest, little one,” He adds, adjusting so that he’s on the opposite side of you and a now sleeping Noya. “We’ll be here when you wake.”

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flydotnet · 4 years ago

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Bad Things Happen Bingo! The event where you send me requests according to this marvelous card! (Red cross is the completed prompt, character headshots are prompts I’ve already filled. I don’t have any request left, so feel free to send in suggestions for this card!).

Like blood on a patch of fresh snow.

I'm not sure of where this fic went, but... oh well. I don't want to look at it for much longer, so here y'all go, 1.9K words of whatever this is. I really wanted to write more NaomiLG because I love them, but I realize I'm really not their best writer, so I need to hone my skills. Take this weird-ass oneshot with a very specific and picturesque prompt as an attempt to nail them. It was fun to imagine all of the red-on-white imagery, at least. Title comes from a Rammstein song because it played while I was writing this and I figured, y'know, it means "red rose", so why not make it the title? It at least sounds epic to someone like me who knows shit about German. No correlation to the lyrics, though, far from it lmao.

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Rosenrot

Summary: Naomi's past catches up to her in a street as someone else's blood spills for her.

Fandom: Trauma Team (spoilers for TC:SO and TT) Ship: Naomi/Little Guy

Wordcount: 1.9K words

Event hosted by @badthingshappenbingo

AO3 version available here.

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Like a widow who had lost her spouse, Naomi started wearing black after losing her ability to save lives. Back then, she didn’t really know why, probably to remind her of the sins she still had to expiate. It felt weird to her to wear white again, since it kept reminding her of the life she had to leave behind, that of a lifesaver whom people trusted with literally all they had left.

Even now, even as her life has gone back on track (she has a stable job, a daughter and friends who hold her in great esteem – things she thought she’d never have until a year ago), she continues wearing black because it feels more comfortable to be able to fade back into the shadows would she ever need to slip back into the night. She can’t ever live in the broad daylight, not anymore she knows this; but, as long as Alyssa doesn’t mind, then she doesn’t have a reason to complain. The cold and silence have their perks.

Wearing black, at first, was to hide stains when she was working with Delphi. God knows there was little hygiene there, so blood could easily show on clothing when they weren’t careful. Wearing black robes (or whatever outfit they had given her that looked very little like a robe) allowed them to conceal the dark reds and rusts more easily without having to think about it too much. Out of sight, out of mind, she supposed.

On the other hand, blood is too visible on white. Of course, it is the point of wearing it for surgical procedures, since it’s easier to disinfect – it’s still too visible for people like Delphi or, in a way, her. Even to this day, seeing reddish stains on white fabric makes her uneasy, reminding her of things she’d much rather never think about again. She’s like the black-clad widow staring at the radiant bride with a wine stain on her dress: she knows what she lost and has the feeling of seeing a bad omen.

There is this one thing about Delphi she has stopped minding, and it’s Little Guy, or whatever his real identity was supposed to be. If he reminded her of their dark past not too long ago, he now represents what they could become: atoners, working for “the right side” for once, working in the shadows to help the living move on like they’ve had to. Unlike her, he didn’t let himself dwell on the past, preferring to get moving.

The moment she understood it the most when he started to wear white more than black, renouncing to the colour she was always used to see him dress. It felt weird, at first, but he knew how to pull it off, and she got used to the new habits. Never dwell on the past, let herself get swiped away by the changing winds. Moreover, Alyssa really liked it whenever he’d drop by the house after driving her home after work or getting Alyssa from school when she couldn’t.

But now, the past has caught back to them. Ex-Delphi members have found them again, motivated by the recent rise (and fall, but they forgot about that second time) of Adam’s nephew trying to bring the virus back right as PGS cases flare up across the USA. They’re not running away, this time: she did that enough when going to seek amnesty in Europe, so now, she better prepare herself to strike. Little Guy already cocks his FBI-licenced gun out, intending to strike judging by the little tremors in his fingers.

It goes in a flash: a couple bangs, blood spilling on the ground, dirt and smoke and iron fill the air of an urban cul-de-sac. The commotion is such that it’s difficult to follow anything until the stench of violence lifts up and so does the smog it created. For a moment, she believes they may have both gotten killed, and that she’s already passing into the afterlife, in denial of everything, not ready to face death nor discover if there is, indeed, something on the “other side” that isn’t roaming around this world and calling the “voodoo hotline”.

One thing quickly becomes clear: she is still alive. In fact, everyone is somehow still alive, because she sees their three assailants with their weapons on the floor and wounds in their legs: they were only harmed to disarm them. She pats her own clothes and body to check if she hasn’t been injured, remembering reflexes she had thought long gone coming back to her in a moment’s notice. To her fortune, she seems okay, as she only feels dirt, dry clothing and skin under her fingers’ touch.

Seeing the men lie on the ground in pain, she already grabs her phone and calls for help, going into not too many details for everyone’s safety and privacy.

“Little Guy,” she starts calling to her partner so they can get away from this place before being brought into this, her finger about to swipe the call off, “let’s go.”

His response is delayed.

“Sure… Sure thing.”

His voice sounds strangled and hesitant, drier than her clothes, and it prompts her to turn around. As soon as she does, however, her own breath gets caught in her throat as her entire body tenses up. Her mind, which was until now fixated on running as far as possible from the scene before they were going to be questioned about the bullets in their pursuers’ limbs, immediately switches to the same sort of panic she felt in Caduceus Europe all those years ago when she witnessed a fellow surgeon collapse in pain.

Little Guy!

He’s sitting on the ground, back against the wall that cornered them until now, a hand loosely holding onto his gun, the other barely holding onto a striking red stain on his clear, monochrome attire. It’s expanding moment after moment, replacing the immaculate white of his shirt and suit jacket with a much darker colour. If it was only the bloodstained clothes, it’d have been fine, no matter how much this man frets over such things – but it’s not what is scaring her so much about this.

“Little Guy, what happened?!”

As he struggles to get an answer out, she takes his pulse: there, obviously, since he’s breathing, but weakening. His breathing is quick but shuddering, as if fragile like glass.

“One… one of them was armed,” he replies, swallowing every few words. “One bullet hit… my flank, I think?”

Not caring for the nail polish Alyssa put on her fingers last night, Naomi digs under the bloodstained jacket and where the incriminated wound must be. There, she confirms Navel’s suspicions: it’s indeed in his flank.

“If my assumption is correct, it shouldn’t have hurt an organ,” she says, a little bit of relief pulsing through her. “We need to get you into a hospital asap, though, you’re bleeding profusely.”

She grabs back her phone, which she previously slipped into her pocket, and adds the information on a fourth wounded. She gives more information on their location and the circumstances, merely forgetting to mention this is all because of Delphi’s doings and their smothered shady pasts, and stays on the line, putting the phone in speaker mode so she doesn’t miss crucial information.

“You should go, Dr Kimishima,” Navel whispers, eyes getting glassy and unfocused, the speed at which this happens prompting her to check the wound again. The blood has spread even further, making the fabric stick to the wound. “Don’t… let them catch up to you.”

“You’re an idiot if you think I’m leaving you for dead. Plus, I’d rather have to search for amnesty again than get pursued for not helping someone in critical need.”

It’s the pragmatic way to say she’d never handle having his blood on her hands and his death on her conscience. He, however, doesn’t reply, letting uncomfortable silence install itself as they wait for assistance to arrive.

When they do, the sirens’ shrills muffle Navel’s breathing, lights almost covering the blood stains on his suit and her fingers, slipping under her nails, drying out already.

It could, however, never erase the image from her mind.

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Naomi waits in this bedroom, all alone and in silence, for a little while. She doesn’t know how long exactly (probably around half an hour, although it feels like more than that), all she knows is that the chair she’s sitting on isn’t very comfortable and that she needs to remember when to pick Alyssa from school; two things that, for the moment being, don’t matter much.

The weather is beautiful, today. Even earlier, when they were outside, there was a gentle breeze blowing through their hair. She merely forgot about it due to thinking about literally anything else under the sun, mostly her colleague whom she found out wasn’t just randomly hit during the kerfuffle. To be fair, she should’ve guessed that was what had happened when she suddenly found herself on the ground rather than standing, but…

She suddenly hears Little Guy stirring and, finally, opening an eye. His injuries were fortunately not as grievous as she was afraid they’d be, even if he’s clearly landed himself for at least a week in the hospital. What an idiot.

“Doc… Doctor Kimishima…?”

“Go back to sleep, Little Guy, you still sound like you’ve pulled a week-long all-nighter.”

As if obeying her (but most likely because losing this much blood tends to leave you weak, and his corpulence isn’t exactly one that’d take kindly to blood loss), his eyelids flutter; but he doesn’t go back to sleep. At least, not yet.

“Are you okay…?” He asks, voice recovering some clarity, even if it’s unlike his usual swagger.

“I’m pretty sure I should be the one asking you that, you know; but I’m okay. Better off than you, that’s for sure.”

He chuckles once before groaning in pain.

“Urgh, I forgot how sore post-surgery was…”

“You’ll get used to it. Believe me, I know.”

“I’m sure you do, Dr Kimishima.”

She drops the playful banter for something else altogether.

“Oh, and, Little Guy?”

“Yes…?”

“Never do that again. I don’t want to see you covered in your own blood again.”

His face, which is slowly regaining more colour, distorts a little.

“Even if…”

“Even if it means saving my life.”

He looks aside, in silence. She guesses he’s unable to honestly give her the answer she wants to hear, so he instead prefers not to say anything. Well, that’s something she expected would happen: people have told her he was wrapped around her little finger. Too bad that this man got infatuated with someone like her whom death and misfortune follow her every step. He doesn’t seem to mind, though, considering the number of close calls he found himself in when he was by her side. You sometimes have to wonder what other people even think…

“I’ll… I’ll try,” he eventually replies.

Naomi can’t stay upset about it forever, especially when she sees how dishevelled and vulnerable he looks with his hair askew, dark rings under his eyes and hospital gown, so far from the sharply-dressed bachelor she’s come to appreciate.

“Good. Just be careful and we’ll be clear.”

“Sure thing, ma’am.”

As long as he doesn’t mind being so close to death, she’ll make sure he doesn’t meet it.

#bad things happen bingo #trauma center #trauma team #naomi kimishima #little guy navel #how do you even tag this dude #bthb #bloodstained clothes #my writing

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flyingfoxwriter · 4 years ago

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“…Lewis?”

It was not a push; not even a motion forward. His hand just opened.

And he let go. No struggle, no desperate grasp. Not anymore. With only one whisper, Arthur let his only hand open too, release the fearful hold it had on his arm.

The fall was all the same nonetheless. The same rush of air, the same spikes down below waiting to rip flesh… the same horror in those eyes. Now he knew how he himself had looked as he plummeted to his death.

Somehow, for reasons he could not grasp, he felt doubt. Doubt, as his murderer descended to the same fate he had cast him to. His ghostly eyes lost the rage he had shown seconds ago, his skeletal body shivered at the memory of his own flesh being torn. Seeing himself in his enemy, his heart locket seemed to crack again, loudly and painfully.

His hand even moved; it rose halfway, in contemplation. The spikes below seemed to struggle to keep their form. In fact, they barely did.

However, he took too much time contemplating his own actions… and there was no one to stop him. No one halted the ghost in his blind pursuit of justice.

No, as a loud rip and thud echoed, even Lewis knew it was not justice. He shivered like if a shotgun had pierced through his chest behind him, like if he was again down below bleeding to death; because that was what was happening, just to another person, not himself.

Arthur hanged motionless, with the very same expression with which he had fallen. But the seconds passed, and so came the pain. Slowly, he blinked; struggling, he stopped staring up above at that ghostly figure, to look down instead.

At first, he thought he saw green, perhaps a remnant of a memory buried in the deepest corners of his mind. But no, that spike was not green, but purple, like the very eyes he had looked into moments before. However, as he began to tremble, he could not mistake the red color on its point.

It had stopped his fall, after all.

With what little strength he had at the moment, he glanced upwards again. He could feel the spike crack below his weight, its ghostly form weak. But he could not think about how they were dissipating, not even about the one through the right side of his chest; there was a fact that hurt much more, more urgent if possible.

He’s… dead?

A yell echoed to him from above, a familiar gruff voice, but he could not register it. There was the sound of a shotgun; the ghost seemed to turn in shock, finally stopping watching frozen from above. The cave around him dissolved.

What had been sharp edges turned into simple loading boxes, which barely held his weight as their surroundings changed. The blood still poured all the same, managing to flow away from where his body was slightly concealed. A truck, the one in which that wraith had chased him, now his soon to be grave.

As he finally breathed in a raspy intake of air, he heard multiple shots. He heard the ghost move, a gasp from his uncle. And all he could do, even at the thought of the ghost hurting Lance too, was think who that ghost was.

He had not known Lewis was dead. All he had been doing was looking for him, desperately, haunted by the memory of an accident. An accident in a cave that made Lewis vanish, Vivi suffer memory loss, and him…

His prosthetic managed to move at last. The pain in his fake limb was different from the one his body was feeling, just a phantom. His eyes fixed on the blurs in front of him, purple, red and… gray.

A little reach, a weak grasp. But he managed to take the small locket on the ground.

Just a small distance away, the ghost shivered; his hold on the fainted man was gone in an instant. Lewis felt the touch on his metaphorical heart. He turned instantly, knowing who had touched it.

But as he saw, he could not care about his shattered heart. He had torn another one.

Arthur wheezed, sitting weakly against the boxes. He could be holding the wound on his chest, yet he was only focusing on keeping something in his hand. His eyes stared blankly at the picture; Lewis and Vivi first, and then what had really been.

When Arthur looked up to him with horrified eyes, Lewis felt something black gather in his sockets, something that looked nothing like the tears he was seeing.

“W-why would you…?”

Dead, while I am alive.

The answer was there in his thoughts. The picture had been of only Vivi and Lewis at first, surely what he most wanted. There had not been any third wheel in the picture, and Lewis must have not endured the thought of becoming one in death. The chase, the fire, the crash; it all clicked together. The murderous intent was there.

Arthur could understand revenge. He could. If he only knew or could remember that night in the caves clearly, he would understand the real emotions in Lewis. But with no clear memory… he could only see a petty murderer.

“Y-you-“ A cough of blood; Lewis would have stepped closer. He would. But he found himself frozen. “You idiot.”

Arthur had been dying; and yet, his next move should have not been possible. In an unnatural motion, his arms slammed on the ground of the truck, pushing up from behind. In a slow jolt, he stood upright, snarling instead of wheezing. In the dim light of the truck, his body seemed to pulsate, much more than what dying breaths would cause. And where had been a literal broken heart, a mass of flesh grew where the spike had torn him open. From that wound, the skin seemed to blacken, and not due to death or dried blood. His neck seemed to crack, as Arthur gave Lewis a shadowed glance, with a smug fanged smile that should not be there at all.

“What the-“

Lewis could not finish.

There was a huge burst, a green rush that seemed to blast out of his victim, both from the wound on his chest and his fake arm, which had suddenly collapsed into itself. Not only green mist engulfed them, but blinding sparks and electricity, perhaps energy.

And as Lewis crumbled back out of the truck with the force, a voice called, mocking, guttural and unlike the one of his enemy.

“You may not have eyes in those sockets, but this is just ridiculous.”

“Arth-?”

“Arthur’s not listening now, numskull. Better just let him think he’s dead right now, murdered. It’s not like… he’s going to wake up again.”

As the figure advanced out of the truck, Lewis finally saw that was not Arthur. Two enlarged eyes glinted into the light of the moon outside, just slightly bigger to reach the feeling of uncanny valley. With a green glimmer at first, they gained more demonic fleshy colors as he leaned out, his right arm slamming on the frame of the opening in which he threw him minutes ago. Somehow, that grasp bent the metallic frame; his hand did not look human anymore, clawed and green. It contrasted with the color the rest of his skin had, black as night; right above his wrist there was no green tonality, but a hue that looked like blood dried ages ago. As he took the last step out into the moonlight, his left arm swung from behind him, like a scythe. It could not be called an arm anymore; that blast had torn the metal from the inside, its shards now seemingly floating around its former shape, pulsing and twisting around what could only be described as a long wave of electricity. But it was no electricity, or those malfunctioning sparks that had been tormenting him for days. Right from where his real limb had been torn, his flesh seemed to pulse, open, releasing a wild multicolored stream of raging strikes of light. The two most chaotic ones were of violet hues, their twists and turns towards the ghost apparently more intent. He had not grown much in size… but he did, with sickly cracks as he took an aggressive stance. The last nail in the coffin, what grew out of the mass that had closed his wound: a huge fleshy eye opened, glancing blindly around until it stopped, to rest over what had become his enemy: a crying mess of a ghost.

Arthur, or what had been him, smiled wide, seemingly taking an intake of fresh nightly air. Then, he looked downwards with his three eyes, at the figure that was fainted by the truck.

“Ah, this lazy fucker.” Lewis’ sockets widened in fear, as that metallic bundle of sparks and sharp shards swung to take drive over Lance. “Couldn’t grab that shotgun any sooner, could ya?!”

Like a long whip, that stream rose and descended. But it did not strike Lance. Arthur’s already abused body trembled more when two fists slammed on his arms. Past black tears, Lewis’ eyes glared into those three eyes, clarity seeming to sink in. Inside the truck, a locket seemed to shatter even more, as Arthur let out a chuckle.

“Is he still the one you hate the most, little ghost?” Lewis shivered, as Arthur’s mouth opened again, lined with rows of sharp teeth, letting out a whisper that shook his entire being. “Maybe he will be, when I’m done.”

Those eyes twitched sideways, the sparks letting out another burst that scorched his suit. But he did not let go. Arthur was looking past them both, at a scene that had escaped the ghost. Mystery was on the ground, a pool of blood under him. Meanwhile, Vivi herself was near him, a cut on her side. Her bat seemed to smoke coldly, near a weed-like carcass.

“Ahh, I could have waited just a little more… that hurt in his eyes is as horrible and torturous.” The thing shrugged under his hold, finally reclaiming his horrified attention. “But this will do.”

Next thing Lewis knew, Arthur’s hand had slammed onto his chest, right where a spike had pierced him and where his locket should be. There was a blinding light again; those streams pierced into his skeletal body, flowing through him like venomous snakes.

Arthur grinned sickly; he was pleased to see the ghost tumble a few feet away, as unmoving as that weed Vivi had dried with a swing.

That finally took her attention. She looked up from Mystery’s bloody fur with a gasp, her eyes widening as she noticed the ghost shudder nearby. Then, she heard footsteps, strong yet almost silent. A shadow loomed over them, even if there were so many hues tangling with it.

Both Lewis and Vivi shivered, looking up at him. And he only answered with a mocking whisper.

“Hi, Viv.”

#mystery skulls #MSA #mystery skulls animated #part two coming soon. they'll be fiiiiine

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evien-stark · 4 years ago

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✧I Need You✧ Chapter 196

Ex-Stark Employee At the Mercy of Bleeding Hearts on Valentine’s Day

This was not the headline you imagined for your big night. It wasn’t one you wanted. It was one that made you a little… sad, even. Cadence had stolen your big night, but you’d ruined her life, right? Fired her when she’d gone behind your back and hurt people of New York City that had needed help. Maybe you’d been too hard on her.

Because what else would cause her to become so deranged? To volunteer herself for science experiments and use the rest of her life savings on blackmarket Chitauri weapons? She wouldn’t give up her seller. Nor her doctors. She wouldn’t give you any information on anything that had led her from the street of Stark Industries the night you’d fired her to the moment where she’d carefully planned and crafted a rouse designed to kill you.

She’d messed with your car. She’d tried to break your Reactor. She’d possibly gotten close to murdering you. All so that she could parade your dead body around the city, wound Tony over it and try to draw his fire out in much the same way. Damage his suit and then probably put his head on a pike.

This life-

God you hated this life.

And that poor kid had gotten wrapped up in all this nonsense. You’d come out of it with more than a concussion, but that was not the thing you were most concerned about. Seeing as how the evening was only recalled in bits and pieces. But you remembered just enough about him. That a young crimefighter had come to your aid when you’d needed help. And he’d almost paid a very dear price for it.

He was just a kid- and you knew exactly which one. Because there were no coincidences in the world. What had driven Peter Parker to vigilantism? Was it the night at the Expo? Had you and Tony done this to him? Prodded him into a glamorous life of villains and evil? He was just a kid. He was just a kid. Had you met him when he was even younger than he was now for a reason? Had you seen him in the park a few months ago for that very same reason?

None of it made sense and- You were just so tired and sad.

It was why Tony found you sitting up in your darkened bedroom, weeping the next night. Falling down off an emotional cliff the wrong way. It hurt to cry, too. Physically. Your chest was a disaster area. Healing quicker than you deserved, but two days out you still weren’t there. Your face and body were still blotchy with yellowed bruises. Your neck still bore what looked like claw marks on the side.

And Tony had given a public press release about Cadence with his ring on. Without you. Because you were wounded and in bed. Not that it mattered. Press had pictures of you wearing your engagement ring as you were being half carried out of that apartment building by Tony and DC. You didn’t remember that moment- in pictures you seemed to be awake, lucid, and on your feet. Exactly as you should have been because Lady Iron couldn’t be taken down by a crazed ex-employee right?

Except that’s sort of what had happened.

Some hero you were.

You were supposed to be thankful that they were painting you in such an angelic light. An ex-employee had been out to kill you. Had plotted for years about the exact way to do it and had done everything within her means (and some very far out of her reach) to exact this plan. You’d had a chance to kill her- because of course you had- you were Lady Iron. An Avenger. But you’d chosen mercy.

...this was all true. Perhaps. Maybe Tony had told the story that way. And it was true. You hadn’t wanted to kill her. You’d come very close to doing so. But by your heroic strengths alone you’d decided not to. But that wasn’t really how it had happened, was it?

The next few days were a daze. Walking nightmares that you barely woke from until Tony held you in his arms. Dropped broken glasses as you felt yourself going upside down in your car and- alien shrieks accompanied with those electric spears- In some moments you were in that alley. In that building. In others you were facing down a giant space whale and laser blasts. Life was a daze. You were in so many places. Yet you’d never once left home.

Tony weathered your storm with loving patience and understanding. Until finally on the fourth morning it felt like you were going to be okay again. You didn’t get lost going down a hallway, or start crying looking out windows- or… duck for cover, plastered into whatever closest corner you could find.

You hated this life. You wanted out.

But how could you? When you’d unknowingly indoctrinated a child?

You weren’t over the Battle of New York City. You weren’t over Ivan Vanko. Or Obidiah Stane. Or being tossed off port beams to die in a fire- being injected with EXTREMIS and exploding. You weren’t over Triskellion ships exploding out of the sky in Washington. Or being attacked at the United Nations. Or Sokovia being utterly destroyed. You weren’t over being tortured by Kilgrave. Or murdering your college professor.

Now you were fighting the fresh and new monsters Cadence had born to life.

Your battle record was getting to be quite extensive. All of them looked like victories on paper, but to you they were all shadows that at any moment could slither around you and choke you. It just depended on the right noise or the right darkness or the right trigger.

How could you let a child start digging himself a well of trauma chasing the life of a superhero?

Really, more importantly, how could you stop him?

You took a long two hours that morning to get your head on straight. Wallowing was good for only so long. It had allowed you a lot of release that had been building up. And despite your rank in society, you tried to remember that you, like everyone else, were really just a person. Some days it was harder to remember that than others. The days where it felt like you were holding the world on your shoulders. But… for now you’d had your time. Now you had to get back to work.

A too long and too hot shower really helped soothe all the aches and pains that still lingered. Once you were finished you got ready as if it were a normal day. Did your hair. Your makeup. Got dressed like you were going somewhere, even if you had no plans to. It helped. If only a little.

Tony was sitting at his desk in the corner of the living room. Close to the bedroom. Not his actual work office or down in the labs. Close to you. Because you might need him. And often did. He had papers and parts and who knew what else littered just about everywhere. He was working on something. But when you approached close enough he lifted his head like he just knew you were there and turned on his stool to glance your way.

Once you got within arm’s reach, that’s literally what you did. Reaching out to him, winding your arms around him. Resting your forehead against his shoulder as he returned the embrace. He had a touch of nervousness about him. The same one he always did when you had just woken up fresh from a battle. Worried he might hurt you if he exerted too much upon you, no matter how much he wanted to.

So you squeezed him. And delighted when he squeezed back. Not quite crushing you to him, but somewhere close to it. A feeling that helped ground you.

When you eased back he reached up- left hand on purpose. You felt the cool metal of his ring as he cupped the side of your face. “How are you feeling?” You reached up with your own to hold him where he was, half tilting in closer, eyes closing. Just… just enjoying the feel of his touch. “Good enough.” Tony had his own demons to deal with, his own torments and problems the same as you. You knew because of this he understood exactly what it was like. To be where you were. You nodded to everything sitting in front of him. “Working on what Cadence had?”

His attention turned back to the table just a little. “Working on figuring out how this happened.” A cloud was looming over him. But that was normal after these kinds of events. He blamed himself for everything. Constantly. Even things that weren’t his fault. ...especially things that weren’t his fault.

A useless shrug welled up from your shoulders and a little more than guilt seeped through you. “I was so focused on us being normal I forgot that we weren’t.”

“Don’t blame yourself-” “Why not?” The two of you were staring at one another again. “I was so focused on us and… pretending to be anyone else. I should have realized what was happening far before it happened. That my car was messed with. That I was going the wrong way. That she was waiting for me in the road. I didn’t. And I got what I deserved.”

He stood up suddenly but didn’t raise his voice. “You did not deserve that. Or any of this.” Anything that had ever happened, he meant. He was firm in saying this but not forceful. His heart was aching same as yours.

“It just seems like… every time we try and carve out something for ourselves, some force is determined to take it away.” There was a certain helplessness about you. At what point did you stop lying to yourself that you could have a life with Tony? How many times had the universe waggled its finger right in your face to tell you otherwise?

His hands reached up again but landed on your arms, giving you a light little rub there. “You telling me you buy into the whole cosmic fate nonsense all of a sudden?”

You found yourself shaking your head. “I don’t know. I just know that… coincidences just never seem to be coincidences. And whenever we try and take one step forward for us, we get shunted back about ten.”

Softly he watched you. Considered what you were saying. It wasn’t long before one of his brows arched upwards. “In terms of the public eye we just got engaged. You wanna call it off?”

“No.” Something desperate in the way that you said this, lifting your hands to touch up across his chest. “Of course not. But… I think it’s time to pack it in on this whole retirement idea. It’s not really working out.” Sadness hit Tony hard then and you were entirely responsible. It hurt because you didn’t know what else to say about it. “We’ll have a wedding and some loud obnoxious villain will break it up. You’ll have to bring two suits.” The humor was not real or strong, no matter how hard you were trying.

That he didn’t even crack a smile was telling. “Our life is not a Saturday morning cartoon. We don’t live in a five act structure. Not everything gets wrapped up with a neat little lesson and an audience laugh track. Things happen no matter how much either of us try to stop them or prepare for them or fight them. But the only thing we can do is move on.”

“To the next terrible thing.”

His hands gripped you a little harder. Not hurting you but… “All we can do is move on.” It was like he was begging you to come to an agreement with him about this. As usual. As always. Every time you had this exact conversation… he begged you not to fall away from him.

You didn’t know what to say. You had no words that would make it better and you feared saying anything that would make it worse. You rubbed at his chest a little absently and he let up on his hold. You drew a deep breath in and let it out as an even deeper sigh. “Well…” Deciding to just… move on as he’d said. “I may not have deserved this latest atrocity but. I know someone who deserved it even less.”

It took him a moment to be able to pick up his own pieces enough to go to the next topic of conversation. He gazed at you for a moment longer, then nodded a bit and moved to sit again. “You wouldn’t happen to be talking about our little mystery spider friend, would you?”

“I know who he is.”

“So do I. Now- did you know before or after you sent him up for a playdate in my lab?”

“After.” You moved to seat yourself on the edge of the table, folding your arms.

A huff of a laugh escaped him as he mirrored you, crossing his own with a shake of his head. “And you were just saying about coincidences…”

“Peter Parker.” Just saying his name to get it out there. Peter Parker was Spider-Man. You had no idea how the hell that had happened or how long that had been true for. ...but the way Tony was looking at you- “Tell me you didn’t go digging.” He knew.

“Alright- look.” Holding a hand out to you as if to stop you from staring at him in that slightly judgy way. “My wife-to-be was bleeding out on the floor of an abandoned building murmuring something about Spider-Man and you think I wouldn’t go digging?”

...you’d had no idea about that. Embarrassment compounded with shame made for quite a lot of heat on your face. You decided to quickly sidestep the issue. He’d gotten himself out of jail this time. “We haven’t heard much about him, so I assume he hasn’t been spider-ing around for a long time.”

“Barely crawling, if you ask me.” Turning back to the table he reached for his phone, touched a few things on his screen, and then flipped a hologram into the air. Just a couple street level videos of Spider-Man’s activities- though the titles didn’t quite have the name down.

You watched as Peter stopped a car barreling towards him and two other civilians with his bare hands. Extremely impressive stuff. That strength was probably on par with Steve. Which was… saying a lot. He wasn’t even out of puberty yet- ah- “Is he a mutant, do you think?”

Tony put his phone down. “Hard to say without looking at him up close. He’s got some pretty impressive gear, I’ll give him that. Gotta wonder who’s making it for him. Suit needs immense work, though.”

The stuff he was shooting, you imagined that’s what Tony was talking about. Webs, you barely remembered Peter calling them. But. Accurate, if that’s the theme he was going for. But that meant they weren’t coming from him- so he was already smart enough to start augmenting whatever mutations he had with other tech. “Who’s to say he didn’t make it himself?”

“Kid’s living in a two bedroom in Queens. The goggled pajamas he definitely made. But the webbing materials? It’s possible but…” Tony seemed skeptical for one reason or another. “I’d like to have a nice friendly chat with him.”

“Me, too. But we have to be delicate about this. He’s a good kid, Tony.”

“Didn’t say I thought any different.”

You nodded a few times over and took another deep breath for good measure. “He’s new. And he wants to help. But… the world is out of control. Cadence might have beat him to death if she’d wanted to.”

“Or you. Seemed like you two had some sort of synergy going on there.” Now Tony was scrutinizing you. Not in a bad way or anything, but… being under his microscope was extremely uncomfortable.

There was an easy way to relieve the pressure. “Kid called me Mrs. Stark. First thing he did.” Smiling softly as you told Tony this.

It broke the magnifying glass and he couldn’t seem to help his own grin. “That so? Then we definitely need to go talk to him.”

“We just have to be gentle with him. If we tell him to stop it might make him act out. And if we tell him to go all in, that’s dangerous, too. Oh-” Memory struck you, the more you thought about him. The path that he was on. “When I saw him in the park… I think something happened to him. Something terrible. I’m not sure if it’s related.”

Tony’s eyes dropped in such a telling manner. His hands folded together and then he was nodding. “Yeah. His uncle died not too long ago. Doesn’t seem like his parents were in the picture for very long either.” There was a purposeful pause here. It made you scared. But not quite like when Tony finally said, “Guy was murdered.”

“Murdered?” The word blurted out of you before you could help it.

His tongue clicked against the roof of his mouth and he sighed. “Yeah. In the phenomenally wrong place at the phenomenally wrong time.” You weren’t sure what to make of this. “Crime rate’s going down in the city but. It’s never zero.”

“Where’s the guy who did it?” “Funny you should ask.” He sniffed a breath in. “Disappeared but miraculously turned into the police station a couple days later. Beaten pretty bad but. Alive and now behind bars.” Relief flooded through you hearing this and you let go of a long exhale.

So. Peter Parker was suffering. And in his grief he had decided to… first make things right- thank god he hadn’t killed that man. And then his next move? Try and help everyone else.

What were you supposed to do with a kid like that?

---

In lieu of your Reactor now that Tony was working on a brand new one, he asked that you carry the new watch he’d designed. The one with the miniest of mini Arc Reactors inside of it. Good enough for a few defensive and offensive maneuvers. While you didn’t need it going to visit Peter, Tony was still on edge. So were you. Which was why you let him strap it onto your wrist without a fight.

The building the Parkers were living in wasn’t the nicest and it also wasn’t the worst. At the very least it wasn’t an old walkup, so that was nice. Your body still sort of ached after everything that had gone on a handful of nights ago so an elevator ride instead of six flights of stairs was a nice reprieve. Tony had parked the car right on the curb outside which was probably not the smartest idea but…

Was any of this? There wasn’t really a concrete plan here. Just to go talk to his aunt first to lay the foundation of lies that Peter had been accepted into the inaugural September Grant after applying, get her reaction on that, maybe do a little investigating… and then catch Peter unaware as he came home from school. Not to upset him or make him feel like something was wrong but so that he didn’t run or shy away from this.

Which he might- ...this also was probably a bad plan if you were trying to be delicate with him. Which you were, but… there were no manuals on how to raise superkids.

...was that what you were doing? The thought hit you like a truck. About the same time Tony had finished knocking on the apartment door. He must have sensed that you were zoning out. “Honey?”

Whatever answer you were going to give him died when the door opened and there in front of you stood a very stunned and confused May Parker. “Uh- hi. Hello?” Not really sure what to make of what was going on.

You put on your gentlest, winning-est smile. “Hi, Mrs. Parker. I hope we’re not interrupting.”

“Gosh. How could I ever say you two were interrupting anything? What is this, anyway? Am I on some new- uh… what’s going on?” While she’d been trying to joke about perhaps being pranked it must have been the way you and Tony were looking at her.

And the fact that two NYC-local-Avengers had just showed up to her door. And her kid was nowhere to be found. Still in school maybe. But the alternative was...

Tony picked the exact wrong words to say for someone who was still grieving a loss about three months in and suddenly burdened with over-anxiety about her kid’s whereabouts. “We actually came to talk about Peter. Can we come in? It’s a little drafty out in the hallway.”

Her hand tightened on the door. “Peter? Why? What’s wrong? Did something happen?” She was practically drowning you in her worries.

“Nothing yet.” You sent a little calmness her way hoping it would help. “We wanted to talk about his introduction into the September Grant society- and about a Stark Internship for him.”

Her eyes went as wide as dinner plates. “Oh- oh! I knew there was a reason he went to- never mind- come in! Yes. Please come in. Sorry. I’ll put on a pot of coffee.” She walked away from the door, suddenly harried with frantic excited energy. Tony closed it behind the both of you as you followed her in. “He was the happiest I’d seen him since- ...well, happiest in a little while, anyway. I don’t think I’d ever be able to repay you.” Her voice was floating in from the kitchen. “Did he apply when he went to the labs in December? It was such a big moment for him. I don’t think you’ll ever know what it meant to him.”

Peter probably wouldn’t be happy about her divulging all this information but… hearing it did do your heart a little bit of good. He’d needed something that day. You were glad to have been able to help. Tony put his hand in his pocket. “Yeah he uh… displayed some pretty keen talent. Would be a shame for it to go to waste.”

You followed up. “Which is why we wanted to talk to you. Make sure it’s okay with you. He did apply and we’re ready to offer it to him, but it’s a big commitment.”

Tony grinned her way as she looked up from the kitchen. “Wanted your blessing.”

She scoffed. “Who am I to say no to a thing like that?” Turning back she looked at the clock on the wall. “He should be home soon anyway. Can’t wait to see the look on his face.”

“Neither can we.” Said with the widest smile.

Eventually the coffee brewed and she sat the two of you down in the living room with some homemade walnut loaf and two mugs of her finest instant coffee. While you’d been fishing for more information about Peter, she turned the tide your way. “I thought it was awful what happened the other night. I don’t know how you do it.”

“Some days I don’t, either.” This was something you really didn’t want to talk about.

She seemed to understand. “Hell of a way to make a statement, though. Did you two pick out a date yet?” Smiling a little apologetically for the snafu.

Tony grinned. “If only she’d let me.”

“It would be tomorrow if I did.”

He made a face. “What’s wrong with that?”

May was smiling quite broadly. “You’re practically married already. What’s a piece of paper?”

Tony gestured to her. “A woman with good sense. See? She understands.”

Despite your best efforts to play offended you couldn’t help yourself, hiding another smile behind a sip of coffee but unable to hide your laughter as he gave you a little nudge. Whatever turn the conversation was headed towards, it stopped as the sound of keys jingling in the front door alerted you to Peter’s presence.

He walked in completely unaware, headphones plugged into his ears. He dropped his keys onto a table against the wall and let his backpack slide off his shoulder and down onto one arm. “May- there’s this really crazy car parked outside-” Then he turned.

And caught the sight of you and Tony sitting on his couch opposite his Aunt May. Shock wasn’t quite the color painting his guts. First came an abundance of excitement. It was bias that brought the thought but… his two favorite superheroes were sitting in his home. But soon after that realization dawned. And there was a serious sense of trepidation and fear. He thought he was in trouble. Huge, huge trouble.

After all. Why would Team Iron show up like this unannounced after what had happened? “Uh…”

You smiled up at him. “Hi, Peter. It’s nice to see you again.”

He shakily took his headphones out of his ears. “Y-yeah. ...yeah. You, too.” Then he pointed a nervous finger your way and started laughing just as nervously. “What- what are you two doing here?” Peter Parker was a far cry from the confident snarky show he put on as Spider-Man. But. Maybe that was on purpose.

Tony was grinning like a shark. Maybe he was enjoying this a little too much. “Yes, I’m here too. Nice to see you.”

Peter stood a little straighter. “Of course, Mr. Stark. Um… what’s going on?” He’d been almost caught red handed but he had to have known if you’d dared to say anything to his aunt about his web-slinging ways she’d probably have been screaming at him by now. So…

Tony put his arm over the back of the couch. “Didn’t you get our email?” And then he did the most ludicrous double-wink and you were just glad that May was focused on Peter because the three of you would have been busted after that.

This man had done missions for SHIELD. How was he this bad? You gave him a little secretive nudge with your elbow to keep him on track.

Peter folded his arms. “Uh- yeah…? Maybe? Regarding…?” Oh good. Peter was worse at this.

May shook her head. “Why didn’t you tell me you applied for the grant?”

Peter made a vague gesture and finally decided to start playing along. “Right. The grant.”

You nodded. “The September Fund. Yes. You applied didn’t you?”

His brows went up. “...yeah?”

Tony pointed at him. “Well we approved.”

May made quite a face at him. “You didn’t tell me anything about this. What’s up with that? You’re keeping secrets from me now?”

This made you feel a little bad for him. Putting him on the spot right now. But it didn’t seem like it would put a chip in their relationship. Peter put his hands behind his back and shrugged. “I just- I know how much you like surprises. So… I thought I would let you know… when...” He drew in a breath and put his focus more intently on you and Tony. “Anyway- what did I apply for- exactly?”

Tony nodded. “That’s what we’re here to hash out.”

You held a hand up. “Actually. We’d like to go to our office. Sign some papers. Make it official.”

Peter seemed a little stuck. “Uh- alright- I uh… does this grant got money involved? Or whatever?”

Tony couldn’t exactly hold back a little chuckle. “Yeah. I mean. Look who you’re talking to.”

May was on her feet. “Well this is exciting. Is it alright if I- I mean I hope you don’t think it’s rude. Can I freshen up- maybe meet you there?”

Perfect. You stood. “Sure. We don’t mind. We’ll take Peter. I’ll have Happy come out to bring you.”

It looked like Peter wanted to object but he realized that might have been a huge mistake. So he didn’t. However he did offer- “I uh. I have homework and uh-”

May waved a hand at him. “Oh stop. You can do your homework later. This is the only time I’m giving you a free pass on that one mister so don’t waste it.”

Tony stood finally, and walked over to reach out and put a sturdy hand on Peter’s shoulder. “Come on, Mr. Parker. You can ask Mrs. Stark if she’ll let you ride shotgun in the crazy car parked outside.”

He shied away just a little. “That’s- that’s okay I’ll… I’ll sit in back…”

Which is exactly what he did after the three of you went all the way downstairs in silence. He was a little starstruck by the inside of the car but it didn’t hold a candle to the anxiety welling up inside him. And once you were a good distance away from the apartment building, as if he was scared May might hear, he finally did ask-

“So um… am I in trouble?”

Your smile was incredibly kind as you turned in your seat to look at him. “Of course not. I came here to say thanks for saving my life the other night. ...unless I have the wrong guy.”

He stared at you. Seeming to weigh his choices. When he took too long to speak, Tony looked up into the rearview. “Our intel’s pretty good but… not infallible. Still…” He breathed the word out. “Got a pretty strong feeling about this.”

Peter sank into his seat a little. And then he looked up at you and pleaded, “You cannot tell May about this.”

Your nod was a firm promise. “I told you, Peter. You’re not in trouble.”

He crossed his arms and pressed his lips together. “Sorry- then what is this?”

“We want to help you.”

“Help me?” Like he couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

“Yes, Peter.” You softened your tone up, getting him to relax almost immediately. “You.”

Nervous laughter in the apartment and cold anxiety in the car finally gave way and then broke completely. In their place was a warm smile. And the real Peter Parker. “Me.” Really, really not believing his luck. “Wow.”

Tony glanced up into the rearview again, but his own quirk of a grin was telling.

Neither of you had the resources or the knowhow to teach a young kid how to do the right thing or make the right moves or- ...god help him, be a superhero. But he already had a good head on his shoulders. He just needed…

Some direction.

#Tony Stark #Tony Stark x Reader #INY Chapter One Hundred Ninety Six

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jq37 · 5 years ago

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The Report Card – Fantasy High Sophomore Year Ep 19

The Ties That Bind

The penultimate Fantasy High: Sophomore Year episode is upon us and not a moment too soon. Seems a little counter-intuitive to seek comfort from these objectively wild current events we’re experiencing from a fictional Nightmare Forest but we know what we’re about so let’s jump back in and start with the death of a beloved main character.

Yay.

Rewinding back to two episodes ago, last we saw Kristen, she got stabbed through by a skeletal unicorn and died. We pick back up there and, as she’s dying, she feels a sense of pain, betrayal, and anger--very similar emotions to what Brennan told her the goddess was feeling with her Nat 20 Religion Check. Kristen gets a vision of the goddess being destroyed in cracks of lightning by her own followers--the same vision Fig saw in the dream scrying pool when she scry-ed on Kristen last week--and then she wakes up on the chapel floor.

She’s not...dead exactly. But she’s not super alive either. She’s bleeding, but more oozing blood than the normal mechanical way of bleeding out because her heart isn’t beating. There’s a hole in her chest and, within it, her heart is crushed. Her skin is pale because the blood isn’t pumping through it properly anymore. Her breathing isn’t regular. And a piece of her finger tip (the piece taken by her friends for a possible Revivify) is missing.

She sees evidence of her friends having been in the room--footprints and the smashed wall--and to place this in the timeline, she can’t remember Fabian right now. When she checks her crystal, she sees it’s been 90 minutes since they walked into the forest. She does Cure Wounds on herself to stop the blood from dripping. Then she heads out towards the forest, passing the Oracular Pool Fig used in the last episode as she goes. She stops as she sees it and something in her heart glows with golden light. When she looks into the pool, she sees the sun reflected in the pool (and also Fig’s boot prints leading up to it). That’s weird because it is super not a Sol/Helio aligned Chapel/Area they’re in. She also sees the moon reflected and she feels like she’s being called in. It doesn’t necessarily feel safe but it feels like she might get some answers and also she already died today so how much worse can it get? She dives in and come up and when she does, she’s suddenly in the outer planes. Specifically, she’s in Elysium which is like the Neutral Good heaven. She hears a voice that she mistakes for her dad’s because of the major dad energy she’s getting from it: You can come home.

As she walks, she finds herself--as Kristen weirdly often does for some reason--in the presence of gods. Specifically, Sol (god of the Sun) and Galakaya (goddess of the Moon and his sister as we find out). Helio is also there, like the screw-up son of a CEO, hanging out in his office. Both of them are good gods but not neutral good so Kristen gets the sense that they brought her here to have a neutral place to talk to her.

Kristen is hilariously nonplussed by being personally Uber-d to heaven by arguably the biggest gods in the pantheon and when she is asked to take a walk with Helio so she can get some important information, she’s like, “Nooooo, can literally anyone else do it?” Galakaya agrees to do it instead.

They take a lap and she asks about Tracker. Galakaya says that Tracker isn’t dead but she’s in major danger. Then, she changes the subject. Has Kristen ever wondered where her spells have been coming from when she’s been between gods? Because, as Galakaya says, doubt is nothing. She reveals that even though Kristen rejected him, Helio has been providing Kristen spells this entire time. He sent the philosophers and the grad students to be her spirit guardians. Kristen rejected him but not the light. Galakaya likens it to a child running away from home to the front yard. Kristen isn’t too far gone. She can still come back to the fold. And, if she doesn’t want to be Helio’s champion, she can be hers instead and become a Moon Cleric, which would still be keeping it in the family. But that’s the problem Kristen has with it. Helio to Galakaya? It seems like more of the same--especially the way she’s been acting, like she would fit right in at a brunch table with Arianwyn and Anguin. Except, when Tracker comes up, Kristen notices she gets a little snarly, almost like a tic she’s trying to keep under control.

Kristen asks for her pitch, and it’s basically the same deal she was getting with Helio but with different window dressing. The Moon, sisterhood, and unquestioning obedience. Galakaya can’t see into Sylvere to check on Tracker like Kristen asks but if she had a Champion, say Kristen, she could send her all kitted up with new powers. She says she wants the Nightmare King dead more than anyone seeing as the Nightmare King killed her baby sister (the Mystery Goddess). She calls her baby sister sweet and sometimes confused, seeing as she thought destroying her name would make her more powerful. But Kristen knows that’s not what happened. It was her followers who destroyed her name as she desperately warned them not to. Some chicanery is going on.

She says she will take the job as Galakaya’s champion and when she makes like she’s going to pray to her to seal the deal, she instead reaches out to the mystery goddess again. The golden light in her chest disappears and is replaced with cool shadow. She feels shock from the goddess, that Kristen would still choose to reach out to her after she died at her hand. The goddess says, emotionally, “I’m sorry, I’m just so scar--” But, before she can finish the word, Galakaya grabs Kristen by the shoulder and snaps her out of it, face snarling and wolfed out. After a second, she composes herself and seems almost embarrassed that Kristen saw that, which makes Kristen realize what’s going on with her. Tracker is a cleric of Galakaya, but knowing Tracker, she wouldn’t worship someone so reeking of high elven prim and proper-ness. And she also knows what the number one rule of godhood is: As above, so below. Galakaya has basically been claimed as a high elven goddess. Which means that the vast majority of her followers aren’t like Tracker. They’re snooty high elves. Which means so is she and her wolf part is still there, but it’s buried and distasteful to her now.

Which, coincidentally, is how Kristen feels about this entire godly family. She “respectfully declines” both of their offers. And by “respectfully declines” I mean she socks Helio in the face and makes a run for it. Sol, full of rage, says, “I told you that kid was trash! Now get her!” The philosophers on Sol’s payroll look at each other and instead mob him (why is the literal sun god so easy to 1v1?) and help Kristen escape. As she does, Helio calls out after Kristen something she kind of already sensed upon arriving in Elysium. Most people are a soul in a body. But Kristen, at the moment, is a soul *as* a body. If she dies again, with no god to intercede for her, she’s dead-dead. No afterlife. But that’s not enough to make her stay. She keeps running and makes it to the pool. For the first time, she feels herself fully cut off from her spells.

Back in the cave in Sylvere, Kristen chats with the Philosophers. They tell her they were working for Sol so they couldn’t tell her what the deal was but they were always rooting for her. One of the philosophers quotes her own words back to her: Doubt can’t be a belief but it can be a practice. And as she says this, she turns Kristen’s Shepherd's Crook cool and metallic and turns it into a question mark. She can’t hold doubt in her heart but she can hold it in her hand (stats for the Staff of Doubt below; also what a sick line from Brennan).

She knows that to get to the center of the forest where she needs to be, she has to follow her fear, so she goes in the direction she doesn’t expect to find Tracker.

Shifting gears, we find Gorgug and Fabian at the mouth of the cave (and no longer high on duskmoss) in their floating rock island surrounded by the others. They see that there are other openings and decide to check them to see if they can find any of their friends. They spend a good two hours, tied together and climbing this rock face which is some extremely solid male bonding. When they reach the cave they were aiming for, they find Baxter, riddled with arrows they know to be Sandra-Lynn’s. He’s dying but not dead. I am outraged at Brennan until I learn a fact that I don’t think has come up until now: Artificers get spell slots. Which means that Gorgug has Cure Wounds. He only cures him for 3 points but that’s enough to stabilize him at least so we can all stop sharpening the pitchforks. However, Baxter is clearly dejected and confused. He has no idea why Sandra-Lynn would suddenly turn on him. So maybe the pitchforks are still called for.

They want to leave Baxter in the cave so he can rest up but, on a 1 Animal Handling, Baxter absolutely demands to follow them. It’s faster than climbing at least. They do so.

And we switch again, this time to the Abernants.

Adaine is still trapped in a prison orb and barred from doing most of her spells. She can, however, do the Message cantrip and Aelwyn is still in the room along with Anguin. She Messages Aelwyn and asks, What’s going on? Why is she working with their parents still? Aelwyn replies that she doesn’t like her parents but she does love them. Doesn’t Adaine? “They don’t love me,” Adaine shoots back. Aelwyn parrots back ideology that she’s clearly learned from her parents: Love has to be earned. What value does something that hasn’t been earned have? Adaine, fresh off of therapy and with full knowledge of Aelwyn’s broken psyche, fully calls her out. She is so closed off to love, to everything that abjuration is her school of magic. Aelwyn tries to wave her off but Adaine, very seriously, says, “I don’t love our parents but despite the fact that you have not earned it, I do love you.” Aelwyn fully dissociates (and I’m not far behind).

Adaine notices that Anguin is readying some kind of Sending spell and that he’s wearing a sword that he usually doesn’t have. He tells Aelwyn to ransack her sister’s brain for the info they need from her while he prepares her punishment. Aelwyn, clearly in a slight panic, tries to (not at all) casually persuade Anguin to just leave Adaine in the orb, unharmed, when they are done with her. She tries to do it in a, “This isn’t worth our time,” kind of way but betrays herself when she blurts out, “She’s a baby!” Anguin raises a hand at her and she flinches, apologetically casting Detect Thoughts on Adaine who has already (via Message) said she’d support her no matter what she did.

Enter, Adaine’s Mindscape: A series of interconnected rooms--and her Aelwyn’s rooms--repeated over and over. Adaine has her surface thoughts be all of her memories of Aelwyn *almost* being nice to her and then pulling back at the last second for fear of her parents. Aelwyn doesn’t press deeper than these thoughts and says that if Adaine’s goal was to humiliate her then she’s done so. But that’s not what Adaine wants. She wants to rebuild their relationship. They’re gonna be sisters for the rest of their quasi-immortal lives. These memories suck but they can make new ones.

And then, through a window, Aelwyn sees another memory. The memory of herself in the hot-tub post Calethriel Tower rescue mission. She doesn’t remember this because of the events in the memory itself. Adaine went into her mind and, at her written instructions, reboot her memory and personality. They’re able to Inception themselves into Adaine’s memory of Aelwyn’s mind and they walk through it. Aelwyn is confronted with the knowledge that this is how she is and that Adaine knows this. Siobhan, from her sniper perch, gets the kill order from Brennan to take the shot directly into my chest.

“Would you be my big sister? I would really, really love to have you as a big sister.”

So now it’s both Kristen and me who have crushed hearts this episode.

Aelwyn fully loses concentration on the spell and snaps out of it. When Anguin asks for the information, she, on full glassy-eyed autopilot, says she didn’t find it. Anguin decides to go for the nuclear option, readying a bolt of magic to throw at Adaine. “Prepare to be better, dear, sweet daughter.”

The magic races at her, ready to do something Stepford-ian to her mind I’m sure, but, suddenly, Aelwyn steps forward, still out of it but following her true, deeply buried but natural protective instincts. Protective magic covers Adaine and the spell is Counterspelled.

Adaine quickly dispels her orb but then it’s Anguin’s turn and he goes for Aelwyn. Adaine attempts to return the favor she has just been given and Counterspells but Anguin Counterspells her Counterspell and Lightning Bolts Aelwyn. The second before she’s hit, Aelwyn looks at Adaine and says, “I’m sorry”. She goes down.

Adaine’s turn.

And, if you recall, Adaine just received two boons: A bonus to her Strength score and a little spell called Adaine’s Furious Fists.

And, my dude, if Adaine has ever been furious in her life, it’s now.

5th Level. And it’s a strength saving throw but, just to be certain of her success, Adaine gives her undoubtedly weak father her 4 Portent roll. That’s 10d10 damage.

77 points of damage.

She charges forward at Anguin.

“Guess what bitch? I’m strong now.”

And she full Dragon Ball Z energy punches her dad, dealing more than double his max HP. You know what that means? Ding Dong the bitch is FULLY DEAD.

Deed done, she rushes to Aelwyn’s side and gives her her 11 portent roll for her first death save (super clutch use of a mediocre portent). Then, on an 18 Medicine check, stabilizes her without the need for any more checks. Aelwyn is immediately weepy about how she doesn’t deserve the kindness she’s being shown. Adaine, again, gently says that love isn’t about deserving or not deserving, though she definitely doesn’t deserve the crappy situation she’s in right now. And, maybe when this is over, she can exchange her bed for a bunk bed and Aelwyn can move in? If Aelwyn wasn’t crying before, she super is now, and spilling her guts. She’s the one who sank she ship the previous elven oracle was on, she worked for Kalvaxus and Kalina--things Adaine is willing to attribute to being under the thumb of evil, abusive people but that Aelwyn seems desperate to atone for. She gives Adaine an important piece of information for their mission: In the past, heroes going after the Nightmare King have failed because they failed to undo all five curses. They need to make sure they do that.

Adaine gives Aelwyn the tincture she has on her, freeing her from Kalina’s influence, and then Aelwyn gives her one more piece of information before she slips into unconsciousness. Before Aelwyn had the previous Oracle killed, she was sure that Adaine was going to be the next Oracle and she told Kalvaxus that. Why was she sure? Because the elf that becomes the next Oracle is always the most skilled Diviner alive at the time.

“I love you too,” Adaine replies.

Then she nicks the dope sword (and 30 gp) off her dad’s corpse, leaves Aelwyn there to rest, and goes to find her friends.

And, speaking of, let’s pop over to see how Riz and Fig are doing.

In a word, bad.

They’re still tied up and cornered by the skeletal unicorn who says they’re captured and soon their friends will be too. Nightmare Fig shows up with Baby (who is shortly tied up as well) and reveals herself to actually be this many-armed, snake-woman demon. A whole army of demons show up, ready to start wrecking house as soon as they’re ordered to.

Fig wants to try and use her lighter to set her bonds on fire and Riz wants to use his spy-watch to laser her bonds off. They both fail but Riz notices they’re not being stopped from trying. It’s like the demons want them to escape so they have an excuse to chase and kill them. He also notices a jiggling from his briefcase.

At the same time, Fig gets a Sending from Bill saying he just hawked all of Gorthalx’s stuff, including the six suits of magic armor. But, wait a minute. There were seven suits. On a Nat 1, she thinks Bill is screwing her over.

But then.

All of a sudden.

Riz’s briefcase of holding springs open and out pops a figure in gleaming gold Pride Armor. The armored figure, holding a brilliantly gold halberd, cleaves through some demons and the raises his visor showing that it’s none other than the chosen one himself--GILEAR! You see, the Deadly Sin armor feeds on its respective sin in the user and consumes them, but, as Gilear puts it, he has no pride.

He absolutely wrecks house, killing demon after demon. Riz records it on his tie-camera for posterity. Gorgug and Fabian on Baxter see the commotion and fly down, seeing the tail end of the fight. Gilear kills the last of the demons then gets spit out of the armor like it’s an Iron Man suit, fully dead. Again. He may have had no pride when he put the armor on but watching himself kick ass have him just enough to be fatal.

Fig gets free from her bindings and, on a 27 with Bardic from Fabian, beats the 25 DC she needs to make an illusory diamond (which turns into a real one) of high enough quality to cast Revivify. She does so, after a heartfelt statement about being proud to be like him and a sick lick on her bass.

Gilear comes back up and we learn that he’d been hiding in RIz’s briefcase with the armor since they sent him away because it was the only way he could think of to be useful to them and protect Fig. Fabian and Riz (along with the audience) also unfortunately learn that Gilear is hung like a horse when they fail their saves to look away quickly enough.

Adaine rushes in with her new sword and the information that she killed her dad which everyone congratulates her for. She then ritual casts Identify on the sword. Aelwyn told her earlier that it’s the sword that belongs to whoever the current Oracle is and she also learns it’s called the Sword of Sight, it can be used as an arcane focus, and was made by Fabian’s Grandad (full stats below).

Riz gets the footage from his tie onto his crystal and posts it on Fig’s account which has got to be the wildest social media account on Magic Facebook.

The Bad Kids are mainly reunited, but let’s get back to the final missing member.

Kristen, alone in the woods, starts using her blood to draw a picture of the Mystery goddess. She hears a creepy voice say, “Be careful what you give a face,” and some other ominous stuff. But Kristen ignores it as she lies prostrate in front of her drawing because she understands something extremely important.

As above, so below.

Galakaya is worshiped primarily by stuck up high elves, so she has become that.

If Kristen is now the only follower of the Mystery goddess and she says that she’s real and she’s good then as above, so below. The math checks out.

The bloody image changes to a beautiful woman’s face. The Mystery goddess. She says she only ever wanted to comfort her followers and tell them that the night itself was nothing to fear. Kristen sees flashes of the chained Court of Elders--the representatives of the five races who worshiped the Mystery Goddess and were convinced to destroy her name (ignoring her warnings not to). Among them are the unicorn and the decaying elf Adaine saw in her Scry.

Fear of the NK breaks her out of the vision and she finds herself surrounded by Twilight (that she’s generating) with Tracker in front of her, fully wolfed out with a bloody muzzle. Tracker is going feral, all, “You’re so selfish, everything is always about you.” Something is going wrong with her. Now, good news/bad news:

Good News: Kristen is fully committed to this Mystery Goddess so she gets her spells back and she is now a Twilight Domain Cleric.

Bad News: She goes Invisible (eliciting a, “Why are you running? I knew you would leave me. Why won’t you accept me like I am?” from Tracker) and tries to cast Greater Restoration but all she needs is a 4 and she rolls a 3. Tragic.

She finds that she is insubstantial still and is whisked away from a snarling and lamenting Tracker. As she is traveling, she sees the face of the Nightmare King who asks why she would follow a dead goddess whose path is just going to make her life harder. Kristen feels a pang of doubt and fear that she has just done exactly what her religious upbringing warned her against and put herself and her friends in grave danger for no reason by straying from the path, but then she has another classic Kristen-ism: Everyone is basic and wrong. She’d rather follow a goddess who is like, “Hey y’all, I also don’t have it all figured out but I will for sure do all I can to help you navigate it,” than a god who demands unquestioning faith and loyalty. And with that, she finds herself floating above her friends.

She feels the pull of her missing finger bone in Adaine’s pocket and she feels like it might be impossible for her to fully, properly, come back but on the other hand, she’s died like three times at this point. What does impossible even mean? She gets the sense that she can cast Raise Dead on herself and she does so.

Welcome back to the Bad Kids, St. Kristen Applebees of [REDACTED], halo aglow, newly reattached finger shedding a bit of light.

(“That’s hot for being gay,” Ally says about Kristen’s new glow.)

Everyone hugs everyone and catches up everyone on everything. Kristen heals up Baxter for 20 HP and gets a +2 bump on her Intelligence mod for her ordeals in the forest. They all make a plan to get everyone in one place so Kristen can put some of her new AoE healing spells to use. Fig wants to go on Baxter to get Ayda. Adaine, bringing us full circle, invites Fabian on a rescue mission to get her sister.

And we take a break.

Deep breath y’all.

Detention

Brennan for Cursing us With Knowledge About Gilear’s Penis

@allsevenmaidens put this very reasonable request in and I have to concur because what’s the alternative? Giving Anguin this spot AGAIN? Like, I don’t even want to give him the satisfaction of being the best of the worst. Adaine gave him the death penalty which is what he deserves and all he’s gonna get.

So, Brennan gets this spot for forcing me to hear the words “Gilear” and “hung like a horse” in the same sentence.

Honor Roll

Gilear for Kicking SERIOUS Ass

Listen, SO many Honor Roll-worthy moments happened this episode. Kristen’s Amazing As Above, So Below moment. Aelwyn finally stepping up to protect Adaine. Adaine absolutely obliterating Anguin in a single punch.

But, at the end of the day, I have to give it to Gilear “Just a Guy” Faeth for cramming himself and a suit of cursed armor into a mostly airless briefcase out of desperate need to do whatever he could to help protect his daughter and her friends who are basically demigods. He truly is the Anti-Anguin and I’m so glad Riz got that on tape for posterity. Way to go man.

Random Thoughts

I already wrote so many words and we have a five hour finale tomorrow so I’m going to try and keep this section brief.

We’re staring down the barrel of the last episode (coming Friday at 8PM EST) and I want to say this now rather than later: thanks for reading these and leaving nice comments in the tags and stuff like that. I’m not always the most confident person and the support really means a lot.

We’re also staring down the barrel of a global crisis right now so, you know, be nice to yourself and escape through fiction when you need to, reach out to people, and eat a vegetable if you can. Read a 5000 word recap of an episode you presumably already watched. Whatever you need to do.

The Staff of Doubt has ten charges and can cast the following spells at the cost of the amount of charges listed: Detect Magic (1), Lesser Restoration (2), Dispel Magic (3), Banishment (4), Greater Restoration (5).

The Sword of Sight gives +1 to attack and damage rolls. It gives a base 12 AC which bumps Adaine’s to 15. It lets her cast Divination cantrips as bonus actions. She gets to take the Dodge action when she casts a Divination spell. And she gets no disadvantage on attacks on Invisible creatures (seems very useful against Kalina possibly).

EDIT: I forgot to say! Gorgug saying very sincerely to Kristen, “I’m sorry I wasn’t there,” “there” being, “at her most recent death” broke me.

Where in the World is Ragh Backrock? We have at least an approximate idea of where the rest of the hirelings are but nothing on Ragh. I’m concerned. His vision was asking Gorgug if he was his dad. Maybe it has something to do with that?

Very curious about what the mechanics of the final confrontation will be. What Aelwyn said seems like it could be setting up for some shenanigans. Plus, there are still all the hirelings to worry about.

Another question, I feel like we still have almost no idea what’s going on with the NK. Half of me is almost expecting some kind of Te Fiti/Te Ka situation. On another day I might try to speculate and play detective but that’s not where I’m at today so I’m just gonna leave it at that.

I feel like Kristen is always negging deities to their faces. Like, girl. Her Axe/Dove metaphor was *chef’s kiss* though. Anyway, when (hopefully) Tracker is back to normal, I hope Kristen has a take that’s different than, “I met your goddess and she sucked.”

Kristen makes me feel bad for Helio. He’s just a surfer dude who likes corn, OK. He never did anything to her except give her magic!

Didn’t have a good place to mention this earlier but Fig alerted Bill to their situation and location so if there’s a Bill Ex-Machina next ep, it’s not out of nowhere.

(Also, just a small point of order, Gorgug did say he had a bone from Kristen last ep but so did Adaine. Doesn’t really matter but just wanted to explain the mismatch with my last recap).

Making everyone roll a save to not see Gilear’s dick is so funny. As was Zac invoking danger sense to roll with advantage.

“I cast Spare the Dying on Gilear’s Penis.”

“I am no man,” from LOTR but instead it’s Gilear saying, “I have no pride.”

“Drink deeply Gilear.”

Why is Kalina working for the NK? She’s supposed to be the Mystery Goddess’s familiar, right? Just another thing that doesn’t add up. Where’s that puzzle piece we’re missing?

The thought of Baxter being so confused and dejected and fatally injured, not understanding what he did so wrong to have his mistress riddle him with arrows makes me wanna throw down with Brennan IRL. Also, I’m Concerned about Sandra-Lynn.

I need to say this on the record. Ally Beadsley does some bonkers things in D&D that I could not even begin to understand but that As Above So Below Gambit was Galaxy Brained.

You knew this was coming. Abernant Time Bay-Bee (the abridged version because I need to get this out before Friday)!

First off, I am very happy to say that basically exactly what I predicted/hoped for in my last recap for this scene is what happened, with Anguin making Aelwyn cast Detect Thoughts on Adaine. And basically EVERYTHING I had on my Abernant Sisters Reconciliation checklist was checked. The Detect Thoughts. The pointing out that they’re gonna live for a long time and do they want to do it at each other's throats? Aelwyn finally stepping up to the plate and leaning into her Abjurative Instincts in a positive way and shielding Adaine from their father. And then the stuff that I wanted so bad but didn’t know it. The bunk beds moment? The “I love you too” moment. “She’s a baby!” I mean, “Will you be my big sister?” F off Siobhan. That was beautiful.

A little concerned about Adaine having left Aelwyn unconscious so close to where their mom is but I am glad she remembered to cure her of Kalina.

When Brennan said, “In Aelwyn’s last moment,” for a second I thought he meant she was about to be perma-dead and my heart legit stopped.

I was up until about 2 AM last night, popping bottles with @camwritery (my Abernant Sisters confidant) about Brennan and Siobhan giving us everything we wanted and I’m going to get yelled at by her if I don’t mention something I said while we were talking. Last week, during the fireside chat, all of the players talked about what future lives/jobs they’d want for their characters. I posited the same question for Aelwyn and offered my answer--CPS Case Worker. Because, like, think about it. She is an extremely protective person. She wants to atone for what she did and failed to do for Adaine. When she gets all the therapy she needs, she’s going to be equipped with deep, personal knowledge of what abuse looks like/what it can do to a child and an extremely long lifespan. Can’t you see an adult Aelwyn, in the living room of a well appointed house, speaking cordially to some high class A-hole with his terrified kid sitting next to him, trying not to say anything or do anything that will get them punished and Aelwyn does a surface level Detect Thoughts at the same time so she can mentally kneel before the kid and tell them, “I’m on your side. You can be honest with me. I’m here to protect you. I promise. Don’t be scared.” This is all I want for her.

This episode Fig rolled one Nat 1 and Gorgug rolled two but one was cancelled with advantage. No Nat 20s were rolled.

#fantasy high #fantasy high spoilers #dimension 20 #dimension 20 spoilers #fantasy high live #(kind of a rush job bc the next ep is so soon so def hit up my asks if I missed s/t you wanted to hear about)

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thegreenfairy13 · 5 years ago

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No Country For Heroes (5)

Originally a drabble written for the prompt ‘beg’ by @justsimplymeagain ,this escalated into a full story. You can read it here on Ao3.

Plot: The GCPD turns Jim Gordon in for their protection. Set during the No Man’s Land story arch.

Jim doesn’t want to let Oswald into his head again. It hurts, hurts so bad like nothing ever did before. His head is on flames or feels like being sliced into tiny pieces by the Penguin’s beloved switchblades. It doesn’t matter anymore if he’s down in the basement, strapped to a chair and machinery he doesn’t even begin to understand, or locked in his tiny room.

His nose bleeds practically 24/7 at this point, and he has trouble walking due to his blurry vision. The kingpin’s brawny henchmen have to carry him down the halls and back again, else Jim merely stumbles aimlessly around. He wants it to stop, wants to sleep. Only when he sleeps, the pain becomes tolerable. That is until he wakes, soaked in sweat, screaming at the top of his lungs.

And Oswald always seems to be around, seems to monitor each and every little move, every gasp, every breath. He’s at his peripheral vision, before him, beside him, whispering into his ear until Jim can’t listen to his voice any longer. He doesn’t understand the words, mostly, but this sizzling, soothing, whirring noise - it never stops.

He doesn’t cave though, not yet. He has been through similar treatments before, broke free from Tetch’s hypnosis, withstood his virus longer than most, fought against Crane’s gas, coming out on top.

This is no different, Jim keeps telling himself, straightens his shoulders as much as he still can, and tries forcing his legs to cooperate instead of leaning heavily against the shoulders of men who’d merrily slit his throat at a motion of Oswald’s hand.

The Penguin is already there, standing in the corner, partially covered by dark shadows, partially accentuated by light. It’s not even bright, probably nothing more than a measly lamp, but it hurts Jim’s eyes.

The figure approaches, rubbing a weary hand over his face. The corner of Oswald’s mouth twitches as he limps slowly across the floor. There’s a tremble in his leg and Jim wonders if that’s his doing, the gunshot wound. He straightens up more with each careful step he takes until the awkward gait is hardly perceivable.

Face hardening into an unreadable mask, he waits for his underlings to fixate Jim once more. He’s so close during the entire procedure the cop can feel his warmth, soaks it up in his miserable state, for it’s the only comfort he’ll get in the next hours. Jim leans back against the chair, tries to find a somewhat comfortable position before he’s inevitably unable to move.

His head drops heavily against Oswald’s shoulder. Taking a deep breath, he inhales the man’s cologne, a blur of incense and citrus, that effectively blocks the smell of cold, acidic sweat and blood, takes him back to the only vacation he ever allowed himself, right after leaving the army. Like everything in his life, even that ended in heartbreak.

He rests like that for a moment. For whatever insane reason, he doesn’t shy away from Oswald’s touch in absolute disgust, not like he does when his henchmen manhandle him.

Maybe it’s because they have known each for other years, maybe it’s because Oswald is the only one left showing him glimpses of compassion. He feels remotely safe for the time being. Long, spider-like fingers comb gently through his hair, easing the tension in his skull.

He groans, undignified, when Oswald hugs him slightly from behind, and he wants to ask him to stop, not to flip the switch, to untie him, please, but his tongue is so heavy in his mouth.

“Why me?” he manages to ask when the other man lets go of him. Jim gets it, he really does, if that is what they did to him in Arkham, he deserves to go through the same treatment. What he doesn’t get though is why Oswald wants him. He never showed the mobster much affection, kept pushing him as forcefully, as decidedly, away as possible.

What never can be, must not be.

Yes, there were times in which they worked together, killed together, in which the attraction was almost magnetic. He always felt a bit protective of Oswald, he had something fragile about him that never failed to tug at Jim’s inner machinations, pushed him to risk his life for the criminal, even if he hated himself for it, for feeling that way about a remorseless murderer. It made him bend his morals, give up on them at times in change for the fascination.

He sometimes fantasized, when they were standing too close again, breath mingling, only a hair’s breadth from either kissing or slitting each other’s throats, and sometimes Jim wanted…

And then the fantasy would dissipate, Jim would remember why he couldn’t, wouldn’t, what the other man had done, what he would be willing to do in the future, what he’s currently doing to him.

“Why me?” he manages to croak out again when Oswald turns to put the torture-device into action again, hand already reaching for the handle. Jim thinks he drags out the moment longer every time, probably enjoying his pain more with each day passing by.

The gangster’s arm stills mid-air, his entire body tenses as he stops. Oswald doesn’t turn around, lowers his hand, takes a step forward, raises his arm again. There’s a hitch to his voice once he speaks again. “Because I can,” he replies.

“But why? Why me?” Jim urges frantically. He takes his chance as long he’s coherent enough to form a sentence. For sure a crush from years ago doesn’t justify such actions, right?

Oswald hesitates. Jim sees it in the slight tremble running down his spine. He spins on his heels, eyes rimmed red, the black kajal slightly smudged. He bites his lower lip, studies Jim, really scrutinizes him, not just giving him a slight once over.

Jim has no idea what he looks like, in what state he’s in, can’t even guess it quick enough for the Penguin brings his expression under control too quickly. He’s back at his side, a tissue in hand. Softly, he wipes the over Jim’s face and it feels reassuring.

Oswald sighs. “A friend once told me love is about sacrifice.” He hesitates, adjusts Jim’s rumpled clothing carefully. “I’ve been told I’m not capable of love,” he elaborates sharply, and the cop feels his cheeks heating up. He isn’t sure if Oswald is talking about him, whether he threw those words into his face, unthinkingly.

“That might be true,” the Penguin muses. “But I still want a friend…” He rearranges the ties, makes sure they don’t bite into the cop’s skin too forcefully. “And more,” he adds with a newfound determination, nodding his head slightly. “Gotham taught me to take what I need by force.” He punctuates his last word by pulling at the bindings again.

This time, they go back to Barbara. It seems like Oswald wants to be privy to all of Jim’s most important memories. Somehow, he’s present at the gallery when they first met, standing behind Barbara.

Jim was only there because the army handed out the tickets and Jim needed a day off - desperately.

It’s true, he has never been especially interested in art, can’t even pronounce the painter’s name, Gauguin, correctly, but the bright colors are a welcome contrast to the countless shades of yellow he became accustomed to over the last years, so different from the desperation he felt so intensely he already believed it to be a part of his being.

And then there’s Barbara. She is nothing like those dull colors in Afghanistan, all sophisticated beauty, and when she talks about those paintings paling in comparison to her, Jim finds himself infected with her zeal, listens to this enigmatic woman who has never been deprived of food or shelter in her life before, and decides he would never want it any other way.

If he could, he would shield her from all evil, protect her innocence at all cost.

Everyone thinks he’s after her for her money. Jim enjoys every second he spends in her company, soaking up her knowledge and passion.

He gets down on his knees and promises to protect her forever. Can’t give her money but will gladly sacrifice his life for her.

She gets bored with his desire to be a hero, with his long hours spent at the precinct.

Barbara breaks his heart when she cheats on him.

She loves an idea of him that has nothing to do with reality.

He’d still rather die than see her suffer.

One day, she’s gone, abducted, and Jim almost tears the city apart to get her back home, safe and sound.

When he finds her, she’s not dead. It’s worse. She’s merely a shell of the woman she used to be. A corpse wearing Barbara’s face.

She slips through his fingers, falls to the ground, shattering into thousands of pieces.

Later, Jim will mask the shame and the guilt with nastiness, will push her away, disgusted with his own inability to protect her as he promised. It hasn’t been a lighthearted vow, despite what everyone thinks.

Oswald smiles when her skull cracks, probes her lifeless body with the tip of his shoe.

“You’re not really good at keeping your loved-ones safe, eh?” he states, painting stars onto the pavement with her blood.

“Lee and Barbar lost their mind, your daughter her life.”

He shakes Jim’s shoulder, rocks him back to reality. He seems smug, satisfied with himself.

“That’s enough for today,” he declares, and Jim has a hard time differing the then from now.

The feelings Oswald procured from his mind are so fresh Jim wouldn’t know what to do should Barbara walk through the door, the love he once felt again as palpable as it had been on the first day.

He clings to the thought that none of that is real, that it’s just memories and cheap tricks.

Oswald embraces him again, cradles his face against his chest, and waits for Jim’s tears to subside. He hasn’t even noted until now how he’s bawling like a baby.

“It’s alright,” he coos. “It’s alright,” he repeats, cradling Jim’s body in his arms. The cop pulls at his bindings, desperate to return the embrace. He meant it when he said he wanted a family - so much. And every time he had the chance, it crumbled before his eyes.

There’s only Oswald left now. He sobs wet hot tears into expensive tailoring, waiting for the pain to subside. Every bit of light is too much for his burning eyes, the streaks drying on his cheeks set his skin aflame, and the guilt is wrenching his heart out.

“She isn’t what you really wanted. Wasn’t good for you,” Oswald says then and Jim soaks up the consolation gratefully, greedily. “I’ll show you what you really want,” the Penguin mumbles and Jim agrees, is willing to see everything if the pain just subsides for a while.

#gobblepot #fanfiction

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thedyingmoon · 5 years ago

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***

“Can you quote something from Shakespeare?” He fondly remembered her asking him with a shy and awkward smile. "After all, Griffon always calls you Shakespeare,…”

“Oh, here will I set up,… my everlasting rest and shake the yoke of,… inauspicious stars from this,… world - wearied,… flesh!”

V quoted, then coughed blood once more. He wrapped (Y/N) in his embrace, not wanting to let her go in this final moment.

“… eyes look,… your last. Arms, take your last embrace. And lips,… oh you the doors of,… breath,… seal with a righteous kiss,… a dateless,… bargain,… to engrossing death,…”

He gently kissed her forehead and took a deep breath, feeling the whole world around him vanish with complete darkness as his eyesight became blurry.

“… if only,… I could go back,… and change,… everything,…”

He whispered, regrets drowning him as his eyelids closed,…

“Master, open your eyes!”

“G - gala - t - tea?”

***

🖤 I See My Future Before Me 🖤

***

XXVI

***

V opened his eyes, feeling a strange sensation of heaviness throughout his entire body, and saw, to his utter shock, the same, exact scene that unfolded a few hours earlier. It was when,...

"Mas,... ter, please,..." the girl pleaded once more, her bleeding hands on the blade of the Yamato that was driven through her stomach.

It,... can't be! V thought as he saw the familiar surroundings. The monstrous Dreadnought, its massive heart, the fleshy interior of the demonic mechanism.

It's as if,...

... he's gone back in time!

But, how?!

Was it because of,... ?

“… if only,… I could go back,… and change,… everything,…”

Those were his dying words and he remembered it like it was only seconds ago.

Did she,...?

Did the last of the Sisters of Fate listen to him and actually fulfilled his wish?!

After all, Galatea is the Bearer of The Past! If she can put (Y/N) in a stasis for a hundred years, then surely, bringing back time for only a few hours was a simple feat!

But, he never deserved it. He shouldn't be alive.

This,... is impossible!

"Galatea!" V gasped as he carefully pulled the Yamato from her. He threw the offensive, bloody weapon away and commanded Shadow to let her go. The demonic familiar immediately withdrew her spikes from her limbs and morphed back to her feline form, stepping away from her master and the girl as far away as she could in shame.

As weak as he was, he still managed to catch her in his arms before her injured and wounded body reached the ground. The moment his cracked skin made contact with hers, her body radiated with a blinding light that transformed into a pair of wings behind her back. And, as he expected, the wings, then, scattered like petals, transfiguring into two female forms.

And just like the first time it happened, the two female forms broke down into little orbs of light that merged with him, healing him and making him whole.

Galatea's eyes, despite her pain, never wavered as she witnessed how V's hair turned from black to white, how his eyes changed from green to silver, and how his old, tattered clothes diminished to be replaced by new, dark - colored ones that matched that of a warrior's.

The Vergil she knew returned right before her very own eyes.

V, on the other hand, did not care with his own change. He knew that he, along with his future with (Y/N), died, he was sure of it.

But, now,...

"Forgive me,..." Galatea wheezed as she placed her hands over her stab wound. "Pandemonium's power was too great and the loss of humanity,... far too massive."

"What do you mean?" Even his voice sounded different. It sounded like he was a total stranger.

"It took,... most of my power to undo what Pandemonium has done. To bring back,... every bit of fallen life, to rewrite history, to erase,... every mistake.

"My intention,... is to bring you back before all this,... misery. And,... it seems,... I have failed,..." Galatea's words cut through V's heart like a hot blade. It hurt him even more when he saw her summon what little power she had left to heal her - (Y/N)'s - body. "I was not able,... to bring Griffon back. I'm so,... sorry,..."

V carefully grasped her hands, feeling their warmth as her power surged through them to the wound. He thought his chest would not hurt more but, alas, he was wrong.

Griffon was, and would remain, dead. Because of him.

He shook his head as he let out a long sigh. "You have done enough. I beg you, please, tell me: why?"

"I told you." She uttered, smiling at him as she held up a single, bloody hand to caress his cheek. "I never,... lost,... my faith in her,... and neither in you,... Vergil,..."

Those words,...

She said them to him when he was forcing her to acknowledge him as her one true Master. And after all of the crimes he has committed, he knew he will never be worthy of it, let alone be worthy of this second chance.

"My foolish wish,... does not deserve to be fulfilled." V agonized as he gently held her in his arms. "I should be dead. I do not deserve to live,..."

"She wants you to,... live,..." Galatea answered, her voice getting softer and weaker by the second. "And she trusted you,... until the very end."

"I do not deserve her! I chose power over her! I - "

"And she will always forgive you,... no matter what. Because she loves you."

Galatea slowly closed her eyelids, letting her wounds heal, albeit laggardly.

V noticed this and spoke, "Where is she now? (Y/N)?"

"She's safe. I took over her body for now. She would not remember a thing about all of this. You need not worry." She answered, eyes still closed, as she concentrated on healing.

Upon hearing about his beloved's safety, he could only let out a sigh of relief. And as he did so, a fresh batch of tears escaped his eyes. He smiled as he closed them, feeling grateful for the second chance that she offered him.

A second chance,...

"Thank you so much, Galatea." He expressed his gratitude.

Galatea's eyelids fluttered open at what he said. She looked at his eyes, searching for something he could not quite tell, then smiled at him, her own tears escaping her, as well.

However, the moment of peace did not last long as the smile from Galatea's little lips vanished.

"You know what to do." She told him. "Now, fulfill your own promise,... and change,... everything."

The moment she uttered those words, a meteor - like crimson light suddenly crashed through the ceiling and landed on the ground before him. Its light subsided, revealing the form of his twin brother.

Of course! Dante would come. He knew it.

But, instead of going away, V stayed right beside Galatea, supporting her as his twin approached him.

On the other hand, being totally clueless of everything that was happening, the Devil Hunter's eyebrows furrowed and his eyes seethed with rage as soon as he saw him with her.

“Ya got some pretty big cojones for comin’ back.” Dante gritted his teeth, summoning and drawing his own sword. “You just don’t know when to give up!”

"Dante," V began as calmly as he could. "... listen to me very, very carefully,..."

"Why should I?"

"I know who the real enemy is."

"What are you talking ab - ?" Dante began but was interrupted when he saw the discarded Yamato and the metal cane on the ground. His eyes wandered around the area and noticed Shadow the demonic feline cowering behind Vergil, and realized that V was missing and that the girl was bleeding. "You,... where is V?! WHAT DID YOU DO TO (Y/N)?!"

"Dante, listen to me - "

"Take your hands off her. Now."

V looked down at her, waiting for her signal, and when she nodded, he carefully laid her down on the ground. He stood up and faced his wrathful twin.

"Listen: V and I - "

"You don't have any business here! To think I mourned for your death and wept for Nero’s ignorance for killing his own father!"

"We don't have time for this!" V tried to reason as he pointed at the massive heart, which was still pulsating steadily. "Pandemonium will rise any minute now, and we must prevent it from killing everyone!"

"Yeah! Coming from you?! Weren't you the one who planted that demonic tree right on top of our house?! Weren't you planning on killing everyone yourself?!"

It's no use! Dante would not listen! V hysterically thought as he worriedly glanced back at Galatea. It left him with no other choice but to pick the Yamato up from the ground. However, his purpose was not to fight with his brother. He threw the weapon to Dante, who caught it just in time as he spread his arms wide, showing him that he really meant no harm.

"If you really must kill me, then do it!" V appealed as a last resort. "But, I beg you! Do something about Pandemonium! That,... Demon,... holds (Y/N)'s sister captive. You must set her free before it's too late. And kill its master, Fleminger! He's the one,... behind all this!"

For a moment, Dante was silent, looking as if he was actually contemplating his decisions, and a few seconds later, his lips cracked into what looked like a grin. He, then, shook his head as he began chortling, clearly mocking his elder brother's incredulous, yet sincere, words.

It was then that V finally realized that his brother would never believe him. And who could blame him? After everything they've been through, the Devil Hunter would never listen to him.

V, or Vergil in Dante's eyes, fell on his knees, his head bowed down low, humbling himself in front of the man. He looked up and pleaded for the very last time.

"My life is yours. Take it." The poet begged. "I only ask you to stop Fleminger and Pandemonium,... before it's too late."

"Let's end this, Vergil!" Dante spat out with much venom of hatred in his voice as he dropped the Yamato on the ground and raised his own weapon. The man morphed into his full Devil form and charged at V at full speed, his anger towards his brother clouding his judgment.

V closed his eyes, waiting for the weapon to cut through him,...

All of a sudden, a blue Demon with white hair and a pair of golden eyes landed between him and Dante, stopping the Legendary Devil Hunter with both hands and his translucent pair of blue wings.

It's his son, Nero!

"What the hell?!" Dante gasped as he changed back to his mortal form. "Nero?!"

"This ends, right here." Nero calmly spoke as he changed back to his mortal form.

Dante stood up and strode towards the young man. "Listen to me: this is not your - !" But, his words were abruptly cut off as one of Nero's strange wings formed into a fist and punched him in the cheek, sending him flying all the way to the other side of the room ( not to mention a few fallen teeth that flew along with him ).

His son came at the right moment and V took this as an opportunity to grab Galatea off the ground and carry her to safety.

"YOU listen, DEADWEIGHT." Nero faced his uncle as he flexed his fist - like demonic wings. "I won't let you kill each other. There are other ways of settling your differences."

He strode closer to Dante, his aura alone making the man submit. The boy did obtain his true power.

But, how?

It seemed that the question would be answered at another time.

"I'm putting a stop,... to this sibling rivalry."

"And you came all this way just to say that?" Dante, who was still lying on the ground, massaging his aching cheek, asked.

"No." Nero flatly answered. He, then, turned towards V and Galatea. "It's because of her. Nico asked me to watch over (Y/N). And now, it looks like we have a bigger problem ahead of us."

"Thank you for understanding, Nero." V told the boy, his uncharacteristically calm tone clearly baffling the two Devil Hunters. It was as if the pride in Vergil's voice completely vanished. He was,... gentler and more careful,... much to Dante's utter confusion.

In fact, he sounded a lot like - !

"You're not gonna die here," The boy went on, then turned back to his uncle. "... and neither are you, Dante. We'll finish this battle quick, then we'll settle this. Do you have a problem with that?"

"Not gonna die, my ass!" The Devil Hunter in red whined as he sat up and winced in pain, unnerved to know that he was actually missing some teeth. Well, they will grow back but, it will take a while! "That bitch slap nearly killed me!"

"We must go down immediately." V interjected. "We have to face Fleminger to end his schemes."

"Whatever. I don't really care." Dante snapped as he laid back down on the ground. "I'm just gonna sit this one out."

"NO ONE'S SITTING THIS ONE OUT!" Finally losing his patience with his thick - headed uncle, Nero grabbed Dante by the jacket and made him stand by force. "I said we'll settle this - TOGETHER!"

"Yeah, the family that kicks ass together, stays together. Sounds legit." Dante whispered the snide comment which was not missed by the boy's sharp ears.

"What did you just say?"

"That," Dante pointed at V. "... is your father."

"What?!" Nero mumbled in disbelief as he turned to look at V once more. But, the man had already turned away from them as he made his way towards the pulsating heart of the Dreadnought. "That's,... impossible!"

"Hah! Not in this world we live in." Dante answered.

As V made his way towards the heart, he felt a strange power emanating from it. (S/N) has not yet sensed her sister's pain but, he knew that eventually, she will.

And he must do something to prevent her from waking up. For now.

With Galatea still in his arms, he faced the massive heart and began whispering to it.

"What is he doing to that fleshy thing?" Nero asked Dante.

The injured uncle just shrugged his shoulders. "Beats me. After losing his demonic, blood - thirsty maniac half, he's become somewhat of a weirdo,...

"Wait. Weirdo,..."

"Huh?"

"Oh, nothing." Dante lied. He had a wild theory but, that would be totally impossible, right?!

After all, V and Vergil,...

Dante's eyes widened in realization.

Shadow, that metal cane, (Y/N),...

"Oh, damn! They're the same person!" He exclaimed, making Nero glance at him like he has gone mad.

"(S/N), I know you can hear me." V spoke to the heart. "I can end your suffering, set you free and give you eternal rest. You are not a bad person,... I know. You're doing all of this for your sister." He closed his eyes for a while and sighed, hoping he's doing the right thing. "We'll take care of her, keep her safe, and go after the man who imprisoned you for a hundred years. I swear I'll end him with my own hands. I only ask you to bring us down and command your Demons to cease their attack on humanity. I beg you, (S/N). Please,..."

At that exact moment, Trish and Lady were still fighting against the demonic horde below. And they were rapidly getting outnumbered by the second.

"I'm losing my strength." Trish admitted as she stopped attacking for a while.

Lady, who joined her side, was heaving heavily, fatigue already catching up to her much to her dismay. "Yeah. Me, too."

"Who's the lead?"

"Ninety - six against eighty - four. I lead."

Trish laughed at Lady. "I think you got it all wrong."

"It doesn't matter now. They're coming straight at us!"

And Lady was right, for right before them stood hundreds more of Demons, all bloodthirsty, ready to kill them.

The ladies looked at them with tired, yet brave, eyes. Lady drew her weapon and Trish channelled her powers. If they shall die here, then they'll die defying these monstrosities and not let them have the last laugh.

"The bet's still on, right?" Lady taunted.

"Hmm, now that you mentioned it," Trish quipped, a cunning smile creeping up the side of her lips. "... let's add in a day at the spa. And the loser has to clean Devil May Cry's bathroom for a week."

"Now, you're talking!" Lady answered, accepting the challenge. "I'll even make you wear a maid's uniform while we're at it."

"Let's do this!"

As they were about to attack, the Demons froze as if they lost their will to fight. It happened so suddenly and unexpectedly that the women thought something worse was about to happen.

"What's wrong with these guys?" Lady asked as she observed the Demons' behaviour.

"I have no idea."

"WOOHOO!"

The ladies heard a familiar ( and obnoxious ) yell as they saw the huge, white vehicle speeding towards them. The trailer ( or the driver ), then, mercilessly ran over several, still unmoving, Demons as it made its way towards them, splattering Demon blood and guts everywhere. It stopped a mere inches away from them.

Nico's head popped out of the window.

"Hey, ladies!" The freckled woman happily exclaimed as she filled the air around her with cigarette smoke. "Need a ride?"

"Because the bigger one left us and took off?" Lady innocently asked.

"What are you talking about? Look!" Nico yelled as she pointed at the sky with two tattooed fingers.

The ladies looked up and saw the Dreadnought coming down from above.

"Wow, that heavy - looking thing could sure move." Lady spoke as she watched the demonic mechanism descend.

"We'll take that offer of yours, if you don't mind." Trish sweet - talked as she opened the door of the vehicle, letting herself in.

"Hey, don't kill us with your mad driving skills, okay?" Lady warned as she, too, entered the trailer.

"Me? Kill anyone with my drivin'? That's insane!"

"We're really landing!" Nero made an effort to stay standing as he felt the tremors beneath his feet. "How is your brother doing this?"

"You know you should start calling him your dad now." Dante, who was right beside his nephew, answered like the good old uncle that he was. "And get used to it."

"I don't understand! How did that happen?"

To this, Dante just rolled his eyes. "Don't tell me you know nothing about the birds and the bees. Because, I would be really disappointed in you, dear nephew."

"Don't fuck with me!" Nero glowered as he unfurled his wings, ready to knock out more of Dante's teeth.

"Thank you, (S/N)." V spoke as he glanced back at his bickering family members. Seeing them like that, he honestly thought that they would become the most dysfunctional family there was but, at least it's something. And it's better than nothing.

It's better than being alone,...

Dante and Nero immediately stopped as soon as they saw the weird smile on V's face. The Legendary Devil Hunter strode towards him and Galatea, wanting to confirm his suspicions. Nero, who was really curious, followed suit.

"You know," Dante began, noticing, for the first time, that his brother's smile looked somewhat familiar. "... you kinda remind me of someone. You sure you're my brother?"

V, still Vergil in the eyes of the two men, grinned and tilted his head to the side, further confirming Dante's wild theory. "And may I ask... what made you say that?"

Dante clicked his tongue. "That oversized house cat of yours was hissing at me nonstop since I arrived here." And he was saying the truth - Shadow, who just bared her fangs, was extremely angry at him.

"It's only natural."

"Aren't you gonna pick up that cane? Oh, wait. You don't need it anymore."

"It depends."

"Aren't you gonna give (Y/N) back?"

"No. And she doesn't belong to you."

"And you get to decide that?"

"Hey, what's going on?" Nero interjected, temporarily stopping the argument between the two. And when the Dreadnought finally landed, V called his attention.

"Please, take care of Galatea." He requested his son, glancing at her healing wounds every once in a while. "Bring her to Nico and make sure she's safe. Then, I want you to follow me and Dante to the mansion."

"Galatea?" Nero questioned. "But, that's - !"

"I know. I'll explain later."

"Whatever you say." Nero obliged as he took the girl from V's arms.

"Hey," Dante said as he handed the Yamato back to V. "... you'll need this."

The poet glanced at the weapon on his hand. It held many bad memories but, he knew he must overcome them and change them into something worthwhile.

And he had Galatea to thank for that.

"Vergil," she whispered to him before being taken away by Nero. "... take care of yourself."

And at that strange, yet warm, moment, he remembered something. He may have to confront Cassandra later for it but, for now, he should let his savior know that he finally remembered,...

"I will,... Little Lamb."

Galatea's eyes widened as tears poured out of her already puffy eyes. She smiled as she closed her eyes, letting herself rest in the arms of the young Devil Hunter.

As soon as the two were gone, V faced Dante and nodded at him.

"You ready, V?" Dante asked, his Devil form taking over him once more for the final fight.

"What evil lurks," The poet began as the Protector of The Present's light engulfed him. "... I must destroy!"

***

~ Told you it won't bite. 👌👍👍

~ By the way, ever heard of the gaming term, "secret boss"? 🤔

~ @heaven-on-a-landslide , @yepps , @micaelagua , @sofia-micaela , @gxthghoulfriend , @beyond-the-mirror , @vergils-daughter , @ehrzeth , @diabeticsugarush , @ceruleanworld , @simmy-ships , @lessy86 , @boundbysoul , and @krazy06 . 🖤

***

"Master," Reginald whispered at Fleminger, not wanting to disturb the ongoing ceremony at the massive room beneath the mansion. "... we have failed. The Demons have ceased their attack. The Dreadnought has fallen!"

The Master of the house nodded at him as he listened to the prayers of the people before him.

"And so," he muttered as quietly as he could. "... we shall now call upon our Master."

Reginald nodded as he glanced at the middle of the room where a strange, demonic idol was situated. On the ground beneath it was a ritual circle written in blood, and around it were the people who went on chanting their prayers.

"Venit ergo Pandemonium. Venit ergo Pandemonium. Dona nobis virtutem tuam. Det nobis vitam aeternam. Venit ergo Pandemonium. Venit ergo Pandemonium,..."

***

🖤🖤🖤

***

~ 11 ~

***

#devil may cry 5 #v #i see my future before me #v x reader #v x you #devil may cry dante #devil may cry nero #devil may cry trish #devil may cry lady #devil may cry nico #devil may cry shadow #devil may cry griffon #devil may cry vergil #galatea #dreadnought #chapter 26

22 notes · View notes

etlunainmorte · 5 years ago

Text

🖤 I See My Future Before Me 🖤

***

“Can you quote something from Shakespeare?” He fondly remembered her asking him with a shy and awkward smile. “After all, Griffon always calls you Shakespeare,…”

“Oh, here will I set up,… my everlasting rest and shake the yoke of,… inauspicious stars from this,… world - wearied,… flesh!”

V quoted, then coughed blood once more. He wrapped (Y/N) in his embrace, not wanting to let her go in this final moment.

“… eyes look,… your last. Arms, take your last embrace. And lips,… oh you the doors of,… breath,… seal with a righteous kiss,… a dateless,… bargain,… to engrossing death,…”

He gently kissed her forehead and took a deep breath, feeling the whole world around him vanish with complete darkness as his eyesight became blurry.

“… if only,… I could go back,… and change,… everything,…”

He whispered, regrets drowning him as his eyelids closed,…

“Master, open your eyes!”

“G - gala - t - tea?”

***

XXVI

***

V opened his eyes, feeling a strange sensation of heaviness throughout his entire body, and saw, to his utter shock, the same, exact scene that unfolded a few hours earlier. It was when,…

"Mas,… ter, please,…” the girl pleaded once more, her bleeding hands on the blade of the Yamato that was driven through her stomach.

It,… can’t be! V thought as he saw the familiar surroundings. The monstrous Dreadnought, its massive heart, the fleshy interior of the demonic mechanism.

It’s as if,…

… he’s gone back in time!

But, how?!

Was it because of,… ?

“… if only,… I could go back,… and change,… everything,…”

Those were his dying words and he remembered it like it was only seconds ago.

Did she,…?

Did the last of the Sisters of Fate listen to him and actually fulfilled his wish?!

After all, Galatea is the Bearer of The Past! If she can put (Y/N) in a stasis for a hundred years, then surely, bringing back time for only a few hours was a simple feat!

But, he never deserved it. He shouldn’t be alive.

This,… is impossible!

“Galatea!” V gasped as he carefully pulled the Yamato from her. He threw the offensive, bloody weapon away and commanded Shadow to let her go. The demonic familiar immediately withdrew her spikes from her limbs and morphed back to her feline form, stepping away from her master and the girl as far away as she could in shame.

And just like the first time it happened, the two female forms broke down into little orbs of light that merged with him, healing him and making him whole.

Galatea’s eyes, despite her pain, never wavered as she witnessed how V’s hair turned from black to white, how his eyes changed from green to silver, and how his old, tattered clothes diminished to be replaced by new, dark - colored ones that matched that of a warrior’s.

The Vergil she knew returned right before her very own eyes.

V, on the other hand, did not care with his own change. He knew that he, along with his future with (Y/N), died, he was sure of it.

But, now,…

“Forgive me,…” Galatea wheezed as she placed her hands over her stab wound. “Pandemonium’s power was too great and the loss of humanity,… far too massive.”

“What do you mean?” Even his voice sounded different. It sounded like he was a total stranger.

“It took,… most of my power to undo what Pandemonium has done. To bring back,… every bit of fallen life, to rewrite history, to erase,… every mistake.

"My intention,… is to bring you back before all this,… misery. And,… it seems,… I have failed,…” Galatea’s words cut through V’s heart like a hot blade. It hurt him even more when he saw her summon what little power she had left to heal her - (Y/N)’s - body. “I was not able,… to bring Griffon back. I’m so,… sorry,…”

V carefully grasped her hands, feeling their warmth as her power surged through them to the wound. He thought his chest would not hurt more but, alas, he was wrong.

Griffon was, and would remain, dead. Because of him.

He shook his head as he let out a long sigh. “You have done enough. I beg you, please, tell me: why?”

“I told you.” She uttered, smiling at him as she held up a single, bloody hand to caress his cheek. “I never,… lost,… my faith in her,… and neither in you,… Vergil,…”

Those words,…

“My foolish wish,… does not deserve to be fulfilled.” V agonized as he gently held her in his arms. “I should be dead. I do not deserve to live,…”

“She wants you to,… live,…” Galatea answered, her voice getting softer and weaker by the second. “And she trusted you,… until the very end.”

“I do not deserve her! I chose power over her! I - ”

“And she will always forgive you,… no matter what. Because she loves you.”

Galatea slowly closed her eyelids, letting her wounds heal, albeit laggardly.

V noticed this and spoke, “Where is she now? (Y/N)?”

“She’s safe. I took over her body for now. She would not remember a thing about all of this. You need not worry.” She answered, eyes still closed, as she concentrated on healing.

Upon hearing about his beloved’s safety, he could only let out a sigh of relief. And as he did so, a fresh batch of tears escaped his eyes. He smiled as he closed them, feeling grateful for the second chance that she offered him.

A second chance,…

“Thank you so much, Galatea.” He expressed his gratitude.

Galatea’s eyelids fluttered open at what he said. She looked at his eyes, searching for something he could not quite tell, then smiled at him, her own tears escaping her, as well.

However, the moment of peace did not last long as the smile from Galatea’s little lips vanished.

“You know what to do.” She told him. “Now, fulfill your own promise,… and change,… everything.”

The moment she uttered those words, a meteor - like crimson light suddenly crashed through the ceiling and landed on the ground before him. Its light subsided, revealing the form of his twin brother.

Of course! Dante would come. He knew it.

But, instead of going away, V stayed right beside Galatea, supporting her as his twin approached him.

On the other hand, being totally clueless of everything that was happening, the Devil Hunter’s eyebrows furrowed and his eyes seethed with rage as soon as he saw him with her.

“Ya got some pretty big cojones for comin’ back.” Dante gritted his teeth, summoning and drawing his own sword. “You just don’t know when to give up!”

“Dante,” V began as calmly as he could. “… listen to me very, very carefully,…”

“Why should I?”

“I know who the real enemy is.”

“What are you talking ab - ?” Dante began but was interrupted when he saw the discarded Yamato and the metal cane on the ground. His eyes wandered around the area and noticed Shadow the demonic feline cowering behind Vergil, and realized that V was missing and that the girl was bleeding. “You,… where is V?! WHAT DID YOU DO TO (Y/N)?!”

“Dante, listen to me - ”

“Take your hands off her. Now.”

V looked down at her, waiting for her signal, and when she nodded, he carefully laid her down on the ground. He stood up and faced his wrathful twin.

“Listen: V and I - ”

“You don’t have any business here! To think I mourned for your death and wept for Nero’s ignorance for killing his own father!”

“We don’t have time for this!” V tried to reason as he pointed at the massive heart, which was still pulsating steadily. “Pandemonium will rise any minute now, and we must prevent it from killing everyone!”

“Yeah! Coming from you?! Weren’t you the one who planted that demonic tree right on top of our house?! Weren’t you planning on killing everyone yourself?!”

It’s no use! Dante would not listen! V hysterically thought as he worriedly glanced back at Galatea. It left him with no other choice but to pick the Yamato up from the ground. However, his purpose was not to fight with his brother. He threw the weapon to Dante, who caught it just in time as he spread his arms wide, showing him that he really meant no harm.

“If you really must kill me, then do it!” V appealed as a last resort. “But, I beg you! Do something about Pandemonium! That,… Demon,… holds (Y/N)’s sister captive. You must set her free before it’s too late. And kill its master, Fleminger! He’s the one,… behind all this!”

It was then that V finally realized that his brother would never believe him. And who could blame him? After everything they’ve been through, the Devil Hunter would never listen to him.

V, or Vergil in Dante’s eyes, fell on his knees, his head bowed down low, humbling himself in front of the man. He looked up and pleaded for the very last time.

“My life is yours. Take it.” The poet begged. “I only ask you to stop Fleminger and Pandemonium,… before it’s too late.”

“Let’s end this, Vergil!” Dante spat out with much venom of hatred in his voice as he dropped the Yamato on the ground and raised his own weapon. The man morphed into his full Devil form and charged at V at full speed, his anger towards his brother clouding his judgment.

V closed his eyes, waiting for the weapon to cut through him,…

All of a sudden, a blue Demon with white hair and a pair of golden eyes landed between him and Dante, stopping the Legendary Devil Hunter with both hands and his translucent pair of blue wings.

It’s his son, Nero!

“What the hell?!” Dante gasped as he changed back to his mortal form. “Nero?!”

“This ends, right here.” Nero calmly spoke as he changed back to his mortal form.

Dante stood up and strode towards the young man. “Listen to me: this is not your - !” But, his words were abruptly cut off as one of Nero’s strange wings formed into a fist and punched him in the cheek, sending him flying all the way to the other side of the room ( not to mention a few fallen teeth that flew along with him ).

His son came at the right moment and V took this as an opportunity to grab Galatea off the ground and carry her to safety.

“YOU listen, DEADWEIGHT.” Nero faced his uncle as he flexed his fist - like demonic wings. “I won’t let you kill each other. There are other ways of settling your differences.”

He strode closer to Dante, his aura alone making the man submit. The boy did obtain his true power.

But, how?

It seemed that the question would be answered at another time.

“I’m putting a stop,… to this sibling rivalry.”

“And you came all this way just to say that?” Dante, who was still lying on the ground, massaging his aching cheek, asked.

“No.” Nero flatly answered. He, then, turned towards V and Galatea. “It’s because of her. Nico asked me to watch over (Y/N). And now, it looks like we have a bigger problem ahead of us.”

“Thank you for understanding, Nero.” V told the boy, his uncharacteristically calm tone clearly baffling the two Devil Hunters. It was as if the pride in Vergil’s voice completely vanished. He was,… gentler and more careful,… much to Dante’s utter confusion.

In fact, he sounded a lot like - !

“You’re not gonna die here,” The boy went on, then turned back to his uncle. “… and neither are you, Dante. We’ll finish this battle quick, then we’ll settle this. Do you have a problem with that?”

“Not gonna die, my ass!” The Devil Hunter in red whined as he sat up and winced in pain, unnerved to know that he was actually missing some teeth. Well, they will grow back but, it will take a while! “That bitch slap nearly killed me!”

“We must go down immediately.” V interjected. “We have to face Fleminger to end his schemes.”

“Whatever. I don’t really care.” Dante snapped as he laid back down on the ground. “I’m just gonna sit this one out.”

“NO ONE’S SITTING THIS ONE OUT!” Finally losing his patience with his thick - headed uncle, Nero grabbed Dante by the jacket and made him stand by force. “I said we’ll settle this - TOGETHER!”

“Yeah, the family that kicks ass together, stays together. Sounds legit.” Dante whispered the snide comment which was not missed by the boy’s sharp ears.

“What did you just say?”

“That,” Dante pointed at V. “… is your father.”

“What?!” Nero mumbled in disbelief as he turned to look at V once more. But, the man had already turned away from them as he made his way towards the pulsating heart of the Dreadnought. “That’s,… impossible!”

“Hah! Not in this world we live in.” Dante answered.

As V made his way towards the heart, he felt a strange power emanating from it. (S/N) has not yet sensed her sister’s pain but, he knew that eventually, she will.

And he must do something to prevent her from waking up. For now.

With Galatea still in his arms, he faced the massive heart and began whispering to it.

“What is he doing to that fleshy thing?” Nero asked Dante.

The injured uncle just shrugged his shoulders. “Beats me. After losing his demonic, blood - thirsty maniac half, he’s become somewhat of a weirdo,…

"Wait. Weirdo,…”

“Huh?”

“Oh, nothing.” Dante lied. He had a wild theory but, that would be totally impossible, right?!

After all, V and Vergil,…

Dante’s eyes widened in realization.

Shadow, that metal cane, (Y/N),…

“Oh, damn! They’re the same person!” He exclaimed, making Nero glance at him like he has gone mad.

“(S/N), I know you can hear me.” V spoke to the heart. “I can end your suffering, set you free and give you eternal rest. You are not a bad person,… I know. You’re doing all of this for your sister.” He closed his eyes for a while and sighed, hoping he’s doing the right thing. “We’ll take care of her, keep her safe, and go after the man who imprisoned you for a hundred years. I swear I’ll end him with my own hands. I only ask you to bring us down and command your Demons to cease their attack on humanity. I beg you, (S/N). Please,…”

At that exact moment, Trish and Lady were still fighting against the demonic horde below. And they were rapidly getting outnumbered by the second.

“I’m losing my strength.” Trish admitted as she stopped attacking for a while.

Lady, who joined her side, was heaving heavily, fatigue already catching up to her much to her dismay. “Yeah. Me, too.”

“Who’s the lead?”

“Ninety - six against eighty - four. I lead.”

Trish laughed at Lady. “I think you got it all wrong.”

“It doesn’t matter now. They’re coming straight at us!”

And Lady was right, for right before them stood hundreds more of Demons, all bloodthirsty, ready to kill them.

The ladies looked at them with tired, yet brave, eyes. Lady drew her weapon and Trish channeled her powers. If they shall die here, then they’ll die defying these monstrosities and not let them have the last laugh.

“The bet’s still on, right?” Lady taunted.

“Hmm, now that you mentioned it,” Trish quipped, a cunning smile creeping up the side of her lips. “… let’s add in a day at the spa. And the loser has to clean Devil May Cry’s bathroom for a week.”

“Now, you’re talking!” Lady answered, accepting the challenge. “I’ll even make you wear a maid’s uniform while we’re at it.”

“Let’s do this!”

As they were about to attack, the Demons froze as if they lost their will to fight. It happened so suddenly and unexpectedly that the women thought something worse was about to happen.

“What’s wrong with these guys?” Lady asked as she observed the Demons’ behavior.

“I have no idea.”

“WOOHOO!”

Nico’s head popped out of the window.

“Hey, ladies!” The freckled woman happily exclaimed as she filled the air around her with cigarette smoke. “Need a ride?”

“Because the bigger one left us and took off?” Lady innocently asked.

“What are you talking about? Look!” Nico yelled as she pointed at the sky with two tattooed fingers.

The ladies looked up and saw the Dreadnought coming down from above.

“Wow, that heavy - looking thing could sure move.” Lady spoke as she watched the demonic mechanism descend.

“We’ll take that offer of yours, if you don’t mind.” Trish sweet - talked as she opened the door of the vehicle, letting herself in.

“Hey, don’t kill us with your mad driving skills, okay?” Lady warned as she, too, entered the trailer.

“Me? Kill anyone with my drivin’? That’s insane!”

“We’re really landing!” Nero made an effort to stay standing as he felt the tremors beneath his feet. “How is your brother doing this?”

“You know you should start calling him your dad now.” Dante, who was right beside his nephew, answered like the good old uncle that he was. “And get used to it.”

“I don’t understand! How did that happen?”

To this, Dante just rolled his eyes. “Don’t tell me you know nothing about the birds and the bees. Because, I would be really disappointed in you, dear nephew.”

“Don’t fuck with me!” Nero glowered as he unfurled his wings, ready to knock out more of Dante’s teeth.

“Thank you, (S/N).” V spoke as he glanced back at his bickering family members. Seeing them like that, he honestly thought that they would become the most dysfunctional family there was but, at least it’s something. And it’s better than nothing.

It’s better than being alone,…

Dante and Nero immediately stopped as soon as they saw the weird smile on V’s face. The Legendary Devil Hunter strode towards him and Galatea, wanting to confirm his suspicions. Nero, who was really curious, followed suit.

“You know,” Dante began, noticing, for the first time, that his brother’s smile looked somewhat familiar. “… you kinda remind me of someone. You sure you’re my brother?”

V, still Vergil in the eyes of the two men, grinned and tilted his head to the side, further confirming Dante’s wild theory. “And may I ask… what made you say that?”

Dante clicked his tongue. “That oversized house cat of yours was hissing at me nonstop since I arrived here.” And he was saying the truth - Shadow, who just bared her fangs, was extremely angry at him.

“It’s only natural.”

“Aren’t you gonna pick up that cane? Oh, wait. You don’t need it anymore.”

“It depends.”

“Aren’t you gonna give (Y/N) back?”

“No. And she doesn’t belong to you.”

“And you get to decide that?”

“Hey, what’s going on?” Nero interjected, temporarily stopping the argument between the two. And when the Dreadnought finally landed, V called his attention.

“Please, take care of Galatea.” He requested his son, glancing at her healing wounds every once in a while. “Bring her to Nico and make sure she’s safe. Then, I want you to follow me and Dante to the mansion.”

“Galatea?” Nero questioned. “But, that’s - !”

“I know. I’ll explain later.”

“Whatever you say.” Nero obliged as he took the girl from V’s arms.

“Hey,” Dante said as he handed the Yamato back to V. “… you’ll need this.”

The poet glanced at the weapon on his hand. It held many bad memories but, he knew he must overcome them and change them into something worthwhile.

And he had Galatea to thank for that.

“Vergil,” she whispered to him before being taken away by Nero. “… take care of yourself.”

And at that strange, yet warm, moment, he remembered something. He may have to confront Cassandra later for it but, for now, he should let his savior know that he finally remembered,…

“I will,… Little Lamb.”

Galatea’s eyes widened as tears poured out of her already puffy eyes. She smiled as she closed her eyes, letting herself rest in the arms of the young Devil Hunter.

As soon as the two were gone, V faced Dante and nodded at him.

“You ready, V?” Dante asked, his Devil form taking over him once more for the final fight.

“What evil lurks,” The poet began as the Protector of The Present’s light engulfed him. “… I must destroy!”

***

“Master,” Reginald whispered at Fleminger, not wanting to disturb the ongoing ceremony at the massive room beneath the mansion. “… we have failed. The Demons have ceased their attack. The Dreadnought has fallen!”

The Master of the house nodded at him as he listened to the prayers of the people before him.

“And so,” he muttered as quietly as he could. “… we shall now call upon our Master.”

“Venit ergo Pandemonium. Venit ergo Pandemonium. Dona nobis virtutem tuam. Det nobis vitam aeternam. Venit ergo Pandemonium. Venit ergo Pandemonium,…”

***

🖤🖤🖤

***

#devil may cry 5 #vitale sparda #i see my future before me #v x reader #v x you #chapter 26 #a second chance #revised

8 notes · View notes

wolfandwild · 6 years ago

Note

1, 33, 35

For prompts: 1, 33, and 35 - ‘wounded’, ‘death’, and ‘insomnia’. Some cheery choices there, Anon!

I thought about writing three pieces, but then in a stroke of inspiration at 4:00AM, I kind of had an idea to do all three prompts in one. Set somewhere between ‘Lion’s Triumph’ and ‘Lion’s Rise’. Content warnings for torture and panic attacks.

Unbroken

Auriana dreamed.

She was somewhere cold and dark; a place that the light had never truly touched. Blood - her blood - seeped into the cracks of the rough stone floor, mingling with the stained tears of a thousand prisoners before her. Her entire body felt as if it were burning and freezing all at once, and she could barely move an inch in any direction without a wave of seething agony ripping through her body. Worst of all, arcane shackles bound her wrists, cutting off the flow of her precious magic and leaving her entirely without hope of respite or escape.

In a strange way, the loss of her magic hurt Auriana more than the physical pain. Without it, she felt hollow; an empty shell instead of an actual living being. Her magic was light, and life, and everything about her that was worthy or special, and the sense of loss that hung over her was enough to break her heart as she cowered lost and alone on the cold stone floor. The arcane shackles had revealed the truth of her; had revealed the dark terror that lurked in the very depths of her soul, and she had nearly worn her wrists down to the bone in her frantic attempts to get free.

But no matter how much Auriana struggled, no matter how much she fought, or screamed, or begged for the sweet release of death, the pain never ceased. It lay over her like a dark shroud; a cruel and eternal companion who refused to leave her side. Everywhere hurt - from the flayed skin on the tips of her fingers to the vicious slashes across the delicate tendons of her ankles - but worst of all was the grotesque, ragged hold in her chest, just above her heart. Auriana didn’t know how she could possibly bear such a wound and still be alive, but there it was; a giant, gaping hole of darkness that could never, ever be filled….

You will always be wounded…

Auriana jerked upright, awake, her hand reflexively closing over her mouth as she bit back a scream. Her thunderous heartbeat was so loud in her ears that she was sure the entire Keep must have heard, but the night air around her was as still and silent as the grave. Her lungs ached as if she had just run a hundred miles, and yet her limbs shook with the kind of desperate energy that made her feel as if she must run a hundred more.

Beside her, Varian stirred, grunting slightly as he rolled onto his stomach. He was a tangible link to the real world, a stark reminder that Auriana was safe in their bed and not bleeding out in a torturer’s dungeon, but in that moment, it made little difference. She could have woken him, she knew, but she hated to see the look of fear and helplessness in his eyes as he tried his best to comfort her. It was not his fault that she still had nightmares.

It was not his fault that she was so utterly damaged.

Try as she might, Auriana could not fight back the choking panic rising in her throat. For a lesser nightmare, she might have simply curled up against Varian’s side and allowed the steady rhythm of his heartbeat to lull her back to sleep, but tonight was different. The room around her felt suddenly stifling, as if the walls were closing in from all sides, and Auriana found herself in the grip of a powerful, inexorable instinct that screamed at her to get out.

She stumbled out of bed, shivering as her bare feet met the cold stone floor. It was a chilly night, but Auriana did not care. All that mattered was the seething, sickening pressure devouring her heart; the uncontrollable sense of dread threatening to drown her from the inside out. Her chest seized, as if being crushed by an invisible hand, and she fled for the door.

Varian dreamed.

He was standing on a battlefield, somewhere, though he could see no landmark that he recognised. The air was thick with blood and sweat and the screams of soldiers, and Varian knew instinctively that this was a battle that had been lost. His muscles ached with fatigue, even though he couldn’t remember fighting, and Shalamayne’s blade ran red and sticky with blood.

Torn Alliance battle standards were scattered all across the field, though Varian could see no flag or sigil that may have indicated who they had been fighting. Discarded weapons lay everywhere, alongside what remained of several once-mighty siege engines, and he had to watch his footing carefully to avoid tripping over the debris.

Curiously, it seemed that Varian was the only man still standing. Soldiers lay dead and dying as far as the eye could see, but not a single one had managed to regain their footing, or even sit upright. It was not only their wounds - and indeed, most were horrific - but also that a pervading sense of dread hung in the air, crushing spirits and forcing even the bravest of warriors to accept defeat. Even Varian could feel it, leeching away at his strength and sense of purpose, and yet he grit his teeth and pressed doggedly forward.

He could not have explained why, but he was driven to move; driven to pick up his feet and continue even when his every other instinct implored him to lie down and surrender to the darkness. On and on he walked, past weeping men and severed limbs and scattered bones, despair growing in his heart with every step. Varian was a hard man, but even the hardest man in the world could not possibly remain unmoved by the the sight of so much death and destruction. Each fresh cry of agony all but broke him, but Varian thought that if he could just keep going, if he could just keep moving, he could perhaps find some last lingering bastion of hope…

And then he saw her.

If not for the fact that she were laying in the midst of a slaughter, Auriana might have looked like a painted fairytale maiden, sleeping on her back atop a throne of scattered rubble. Her hands were folded neatly across her stomach, and her dark hair tumbled over her shoulders in a dark, delicate halo. She was completely and utterly still, too, as if she had been carved from stone, and never in his life had Varian seen something so pale, and perfect, and timeless.

There was nothing perfect, however, about the monstrous, gaping wound in her chest.

Varian let out bellow of sheer, unrelenting agony, and the sound was so loud and so raw that it felt as his throat had been torn out. He charged forward, his limbs suddenly suffused with a frightening energy, and he tripped and stumbled his way desperately up the mound of debris to Auriana’s side.

Up close, the damage to her chest was far worse than it had appeared from, and Varian let out a low, keening howl as he staggered to his knees before her. Shalamayne tumbled carelessly from his fingers as he fell, the metal of the blade clanging loudly as against the rubble, but Varian could hear nothing save for the roaring of blood in his ears.

Auriana’s body felt as limp and lifeless as a ragdoll as Varian pulled her into his arms, and clutched desperately at the pale skin of her wrists and throat. It couldn’t be real, he thought, she couldn’t possibly be dead; not her, not his fierce, precious mage…

But there was no life there, no hope; only the ice cold, clammy skin of someone long since dead. There was no healing to be had, no escape or trick that might bring her back. Auriana was simply gone, her brilliant light extinguished from the world as thoroughly as if it had never been. She had died alone, and in pain… and Varian’s heart broke as he realised that he had once again failed to protect a woman he loved.

You can never save her from death…

Varian’s eyes flew open, and he let out a strangled cry as he came crashing back to reality. The room around him was almost pitch black, lit only by the faintest beam moonlight streaming in through a gap in the curtains, and yet Varian saw movement and threat in every shadow. His back and chest were slick with perspiration, his body thrumming with enough energy to fight a thousand battles, and while he could no longer smell the sickly, metallic reek of drying blood, he found himself practically choking on the heady musk of his own panicked sweat.

The bed, at least, was firm and real beneath him, as were the soft cloth sheets tangled around his ankles, and it was by focusing on those small details that Varian managed to regain some sense of control. He was in Stormwind Keep, he reminded himself, in his chambers, and most certainly not standing on a desolate battlefield with Auriana’s corpse laid out before him. She had fallen asleep in his arms, wonderfully warm and alive, and all he had to do was reach out and touch her…

Instead of the comforting softness of Auriana’s flesh, however, Varian felt a fresh wave of blind terror overtake him as his hand found nothing but rumpled sheets and emptiness. He sat bolt upright, his every instinct screaming as he peered into the blackness, but she was nowhere to be seen. Varian was alone, and in a dim part of his mind he wondered whether he had always been alone, and whether Auriana had never been anything more than a figment of his desperately lonely imagination.

In his panic, it took Varian a few moments to realise that the bed beneath his hand was still warm, suggesting that she had been there not too long ago. He glanced towards the heavy door, noting that it was still closed - though realistically he knew a door meant very little to a woman who could reappear on the other side of the world with a mere thought. He also could not think of a reason why Auriana would feel the need to vanish in the middle of the night without a word, though admittedly, it wouldn’t have been the first time.

Of course, in the end the reason mattered very little. Auriana was gone, and all Varian really cared about was finding her and bringing her home. He very much needed to hold her close, to feel the warmth of her skin on his and the precious beat of her heart thrumming beneath his fingertips, and he would not be able to rest until she had been returned to him.

With a shaky sigh, Varian swung his long legs off the bed, and reached for the loose linen pants he kept hidden beneath his matress. He generally preferred to sleep naked, though he always had a pair nearby in case he needed to wake unexpectedly during the night. He now yanked them on with little fanfare, and had just started to make his way to the entrance of his chambers when he heard a very faint sob echoing toward him from somewhere outside.

His brow furrowing in concern, Varian turned away from the door, and took several tentative steps towards the balcony. Most unusually, the door here had been left open, and with a short sigh of relief he realised that Auriana must have been a lot closer than he had initially feared. The sound of her crying was decidedly less comforting, however, and he quickly stepped out into the night to find her.

The air outside was bracing, but in a way, Varian welcomed the cold. The chill breeze did much to slake the fearful heat surging through his veins, and provided him with a much-needed shock of clarity. The moon above was also so huge and so close that it almost seemed to be perched atop the spire of the Stormwind Cathedral, bathing the entire city in a soft silvery glow. Another time, Varian might have paused to admire its beauty - but tonight was not a night to be distracted.

He found Auriana sitting with her back against the balustrade at the very end of the balcony, her knees curled up to her chest as she rocked back and forth. Her entire body was trembling violently, and her eyes were squeezed firmly shut as if she were trying to block out the world. Of greater concern, however, was the fact that her slender arms were ablaze with light as she clutched frantically at her own knees. It was an instinctive, defensive reaction; but also one that could potentially have very dangerous consequences for the people around her.

Evidently, Varian was not the only one who had been having bad dreams.

“Auri…” he murmured, keeping his voice low and calm, “Auri, look at me…”

Varian was keenly aware of his size as he crouched down beside her, and how easily he could appear threatening if he were too move too quickly, or in the wrong direction. This was not the first time he had found Auriana breathless and distraught after a horrific dream, and he was sadly well practiced in dealing with the aftermath. He moved with glacial slowness, and it was only after she opened her enormous blue eyes that he dared reached out to place a careful hand upon her shoulder.

“Auri…” he repeated softly, “Can you hear me?”

His own nightmare seemed distant and unimportant in the face of her visceral distress, and he banished his own fears to the back of his mind as he focused entirely on her. She needed him, and as far as Varian was concerned, that was the only thing in the world that mattered.

“V-varian…?”

Auriana was clearly struggling to focus, though she let out a strangled gasp of recognition as her hazy gaze found his. She reached for him blindly, her nails scratching against his bare chest as she made an awkward, fumbling attempt to pull him close. He caught her gently by the wrists to prevent her from doing him any real harm, still moving slowly so as not to send her spiralling downwards into a further panic. Even then, she started at his touch; though she nevertheless allowed him to slide one hand around her waist so that he might lift her off the ground.

Auriana’s legs were shaking wildly with fear and effort, and she staggered as her bare feet found purchase on the cold stone floor. She was utterly freezing, her flimsy little nightgown offering little protection against the chill air, and Varian vaguely wondered how long she had been outside, weeping alone in the dark. It hurt him like a physical blow to see her in such distress, and he gathered her swiftly into his arms in the hope that the warmth and strength of his body might provide her with some small measure of comfort.

“That’s right, Auri, it’s me,” he murmured, stroking the length of her back and burying his face into the silken tangles of her hair. “I’m here. You’re safe with me, I promise you…”

The words rang somewhat hollow, in light of the utter failure Varian had suffered in his dream, but it seemed that for once, he had said the right thing. Auriana pressed herself tightly against him, and her tiny hands gripped his body with the desperate strength of someone three times her size. Her body was both rigid with tension and alive with magic, and it wasn’t long before her quiet whimpers devolved into harsh, racking sobs.

Varian felt almost as if he were trying to hold lightning in his arms, such was the strength of the arcane power coursing through Auriana’s body. His skin prickled everywhere they touched, and he couldn’t quite shake the ominous feeling of being only inches away from a very powerful explosion. She was not actively channelling, but he knew from experience that she was holding an enormous amount of magic in reserve. At this distance, Varian also knew he would be vaporised in an instant if she were to lose control - and yet oddly, he felt no fear. He trusted Auriana absolutely, and if she needed to cling to her magic in order to feel secure, then he would not deny her.

It was only once her shaking had fully subsided, many long minutes later, that Varian attempted to talk her down. He very gently prised her away from his chest, and ran his hands along the lengths of her shining forearms.

“Auri,” he whispered. “You can let go.”

For a moment, Varian thought she might resist. A brief flash of rage flickered deep within her eyes, as if she thought he were a threat to her magic, but it vanished as quickly as it had appeared. She shook herself ever so slightly, and for the first time since Varian had found her on the balcony, she seemed to truly remember who and where she was. She took a deep, shuddering breath, and as she exhaled, the fierce glow about her arms and eyes slowly faded away into nothingness.

“Auri?”

“I… I’m a-alright,” she muttered hoarsely. “I’m in c-control.”

“What was it this time?” Varian asked, though he suspected he already knew the answer.

“Foundry.”

She didn’t say anything more. She didn’t have to.

A spark of anger kindled in Varian’s chest for all the pain she had suffered, and if not for the fact that Blackhand was already dead, he might have been inclined to charge off to Draenor to avenge her agony. Such a thing would do very little to soothe the trembling woman in his arms, however, even if it may have made him feel much better, and he instead settled for comforting her with soft touches to her cheeks and neck.

Moments like these always made Varian feel helpless and somewhat awkward. He wanted to help Auriana with every fibre of his being, but he could never quite shake the feeling that he just wasn’t very good at it. He wasn’t as naturally empathetic as Anduin, and often had a hard time expressing his more intimate emotions. He wasn’t as wise as someone like Velen, nor eloquent like Jaina. Hell, he’d even caught Genn Greymane, of all people, being soft with Mia in a way that he wasn’t quite sure he could imitate.

For some unfathomable reason, however, Auriana had chosen him, and he was fiercely determined not to disappoint her.

“Auri… I…”

“Am I broken?” she asked roughly, cutting Varian off before he could say anything more.

She turned her head away, unable to look him in the eye, and he could tell that she was still fighting back tears.

“I th-thought it would pass with time,” she confessed, “But some nights it’s like it happened yesterday. I can feel it in my bones. I can feel what they did to m-me…”

Auriana’s voice cracked on the last syllable, as she buried her face into the crook of Varian’s arm once more. Her suffering cut into him like a thousand knives, and his desperate hold on her became so tight that he was sure it had to be suffocating. She was so brave, and brilliant, and capable, and yet there would always be a part of him that wanted to lock her away somewhere she could never be hurt ever again.

Such a thing was not possible, of course, as much as it may have pained Varian to admit. As he had learned from Anduin, seeking to control those he loved would only serve to drive them away. It was a difficult thing to do, given that Auriana was obviously in such a hurt and needy state, but Varian had long ago sworn to himself that he would be a better man - both for her, and for his son.

You cannot control her, he told himself firmly. You can only support her.

He closed his eyes, and with a great effort, he forced himself to release some of the painful tension in his hold upon her body.

“You’re not broken, Auri. You’re strong,” he whispered fiercely. “The strongest person I’ve ever known. I don’t know anyone else who could have survived the kind of things you have survived with such… grace. I certainly couldn’t have done it.”

Auriana sniffled quietly, and she turned her face even further into the safety of his chest. Her frantic breathing had at least slowed, however, and while she had given no outward sign, Varian knew she was listening.

“For what it’s worth… I’ve spent a good part of my life wondering the same thing. Wondering whether I was… damaged. Fractured beyond repair…”

He rested his chin on the top of her head, and stared out at the twinkling lights of his city below. There was always something comforting about Stormwind at night. The city was peaceful and at rest, and it reminded Varian that for all his flaws, he was a king who protected his people. Maybe not the king they deserved, but a king who would keep them safe.

“But… I don’t think that’s true,” he added, letting out a long sigh.

“No?” Auriana mumbled. “What changed your mind?”

“Anduin has made a great deal of difference. More than he knows,” Varian explained. “He’s so… good. If he’s my legacy to this world, then I can’t have been all bad, don’t you think?”

The faintest ghost of a smile crossed his face as his thoughts turned again to his son, and he felt some of the heart-rending pressure in his chest lessen.

“And then… there was you.”

“Me?” Auriana asked, the pitch of her voice rising in surprise. “What did I do?”

Varian paused for a moment, unsure how to put his thoughts into words. He knew exactly what it was Auriana had done for him, the many ways she had changed him and made him better, but he found it a difficult thing to express out loud.

“You… you saw me,” he began slowly, “Not just Varian, or Lo’Gosh. Not half of me. You saw the gladiator and the king, the good and the bad… and you saw me whole. Unbroken.”

He caught her chin between his long fingers, and turned her face upwards so that he could look her in the eye.

“You and I are of a kind, Auriana,” he whispered. “We were forged by fire. We bend. We crack. But we never break. It isn’t how we’re made.”

For a long moment, they simply stared at one another in silence, neither blinking or even so much as breathing as a thousand unspoken things passed between them. Auriana was luminous beneath the light of the full moon, and despite the pallor of her skin and the unshed tears glistening in her eyes, Varian thought she looked beautiful. More than that, she was still alive, and safe, and his.

A low growl rose in his throat, and he lowered his head to capture Auriana’s mouth with his. There were no words for the things he truly wanted to say to her, but in kissing her, in holding her, he could give her all his strength, and his courage, and his love. In a single, breathless moment he laid every part of himself bare, the passion of his embrace silently urging Auriana to take whatever she needed from him.

When they finally pulled apart, Varian’s cheeks were damp with Auriana’s tears, though her expression was no longer quite so haunted. He knew from past experience that it would take some time her to fully recover from her nightmare and the subsequent terror that had gripped her heart; but for now, at least, she was calm.

“It’s cold,” she murmured, hugging her arms around her body against the breeze. “We should go back inside.”

“Agreed,” Varian said, nodding, “Though I don’t think I’m going to sleep again tonight.”

Auriana frowned, and rested a gentle hand on his forearm.

“You never told me what woke you. Did you have a bad dream, too?”

“Yes,” Varian said stiffly.

He once again saw Auriana’s pale, unmoving corpse in his mind’s eye, as clearly as if she were laying right in front of him, and he shuddered.

“I take it you don’t want to talk about it?” she observed.

It had taken Varian some time before he felt comfortable showing Auriana any vulnerability whatsoever, and even after all they had been through, it was still not something that came easily to him. Deep down, he had always feared that she would scoff at him - or worse, pity him - but he had come to learn that she would offer him nothing less than quiet understanding. Tonight, however, there was something about his dream that left him far more shaken than usual, and he had no desire to relive it a second time. Not even for her.

“Not tonight,” Varian muttered. “You’ll have to forgive me.”

“Varian… there’s nothing to forgive,” she said softly, reaching up to caress his scars. “I just… worry about you sometimes, is all.”

“You worry about me?” Varian snorted.

“Always.”

Auriana tilted her head to one side, and a small, tentative half-smile pulled at the corner of her lips. Varian could still see the strain of her nightmare lurking behind her eyes, but it seemed that she was determined to be stronger than her own fear. It was one of the things he loved most about her, and he more than willingly allowed her to pull him down for another slow, tender kiss.

“I’m no healer,” she murmured, her breath warm against his lips, “But I think I know something that might help with your insomnia…”

“Oh…?”

Auriana brushed the last tears from her eyes, and nose crinkled shyly as she stared up at him through wet lashes. She then looped her finger through the drawstring of his pants, and took an inviting step back towards the warmth and comfort of their bedroom, away from the cold and the lingering echoes of their nightmares.

“I need you,” she said simply.

“I need you, too,” Varian admitted, his voice low and throaty. “But…”

“Please don’t argue with me out of some kind of sense of gentlemanly obligation. We both need this,” she countered.

She slipped her hand into his, and stared up at him with eyes like fire.

“Come make me feel whole…”

#panic attack warning #torture warning #prompts #warcraft fanfic #warcraft fanfiction #varian wrynn #auriana #lion's love #thank you for the ask!

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