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neoninky · 2 years ago

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TWST Fanfic "Her Lost Voice" Chapter 8

Here are some links cuz I'm in a short hand mood rn and I left y'all on a cliffhanger lol

Inky's AO3, Masterlist, and SC Poll (3 more days~)

Chapter 8: Storms at Sea

The slam of his father's doors rang in Seven's ears. The angry sound stabbed into his brain that was already working overtime to maintain every detail he had planned and now needed at the ready. Don Muraeni was furious. Seven knew this would be the case. Every second of what happened next would count so the injured eel sat half crumpled up on the floor in front of his father's desk, heavily breathing from exhaustion but still in the expected silence.

His father circled him slowly like a vulture. He was stewing over the next words that would exit his tensely clenched teeth. Just when Seven's breath started to even out, his father snarled and grabbed him by the back of his hair, yanking him up.

"What the hell happened tonight, Seven? Speak now."

"Proteus sent some sharks after Cowrie...they chased her onto Leech territory until they cornered her on Don Leech's property. I tried to get her back before they could tear her apart but...I was too late."

Seven winched but made no sound as his father grip tightened and pulled his head back so hard he thought his neck would snap, "You followed after them onto Leech's turf? You're lucky you're still in one piece, boy..." Don Muraeni's word dripped with the same venom that flooded his gaze.

"I wanted to save my sister."

Seven felt a stinging heat flood his face as his father's claws left a deep gash across his nose but once again didn't cry out from the pain. Doing so would only anger his father more.

"Seven, you pushed me to do this with your foolishness. You know how I hate my goods to be damaged, especially you," the Don hissed as he grabbed a piece of fabric from his desk to wipe his son's blood off of his claws, "you're stronger and more cunning than your brothers. Even Ventuno. I need you in top form or else you'll just be another useless hunk of flesh taking up too much space. I won't suffer any fools in this house."

"Yes Father..."

The truth was something Seven and his brothers knew but never talked about, rather it was a silent dark shadow that just hovered in every corner of their home and would continue to do so as long as their father was in power. And what was the truth?

"A pity that Cowrie was undone by the sharks. There was a time she had potential but...well, her mother could have given me a stronger child instead of one tiny, unruly brat. One less pathetic welp taking up space in my empire. Her bones are probably being used to decorate Leech's hovel instead of fertilizing our grounds outside...hmph. If it was one of my boys' bones, I'd be more insulted."

Seven hadn't always been the second eldest. Cowrie hadn't always been his only sister. Ventuno wasn't always the 'heir', it was really just that their father chose him because he survived and was easy to manipulate. Ventuno was just too proud and stupid to see it that way.

The Muraeni family tree was as large as it was twisted. His father had never taken a mate for love but instead out of necessity, business, a means to an end. He wanted and needed a strong brood that he could raise into either attack dogs to do his bidding without question or daughters to lure in strong and valuable blood for future offspring that would fall into the same two categories. Luna and Cowrie had been the exceptions simply because of their siren qualities. As long as the child obeyed and they were useful, they got to stick around. Once that changed...well...to say that the ground of the Muraeni home was secretly a vast graveyard wouldn't be an exaggeration. Seven had known this to be true for as long as he could remember. His father didn't exactly hide it from him, from his brothers, or Cowrie, or even Luna. This is why Seven knew he could only move forward with his plans for the girls' sake if nothing else.

"Father...please allow me a second chance," Seven specifically lowered himself closer to the floor to appeal to both the Don's temper and superiority. This behavior had been ground into him for so long it barely felt like an act at all.

His father circled him once more in silence with a steel-cold look in his eyes before he finally settled once again behind his large desk, his temper seemingly tamed for the moment, "Alright, Seven...I think you've learned your lesson. So you understand what will happen if you decide to go rogue again?"

"Yes, Father."

"There's a good lad. Now then..." the Don paused to casually flip through some paperwork on his desk from various accounts with his clients that needed settling, "I do have some more complicated clients that need to be dealt with."

Seven delicately rose his head to meet his father's gaze, "Actually Father, I want to take over at the Cove."

Don Muraeni gave his son a look that was both curious and silently warning him to proceed with caution. Seven did just that, "The Cove and its sirens have been under Proteus' watch for some time and while the girls have performed as expected, I feel like they could bring in a greater profit if they had someone supervising them that wasn't so...threatening. Luna especially has voiced her concerns about his harassment towards her. I know it's not just Luna herself either."

The icy mob boss was fully aware of Proteus' indulgent habits with the mermaids he had carefully curated and collected for the Cove and in most cases, he didn't even bother with correcting him. In Luna's case, she was one of the youngest and most rare sirens in his possession. While the others were classic sirens portrayed in myth and legends, poor young women who either found themselves stuck in squalor before being plucked up by the greedy eel or those who were simply discovered and bought by the monstrous eel, Luna was an eel siren. She was exotic and had a more wild beauty to her than the others. Not to mention, she was the spitting image of her mother who was quite popular in her time at the Cove as well. In other words, Luna Cerith was her stepfather's golden lure. If there was one thing Don Muraeni couldn't abide by, it was non-paying customers or his enemies touching his things. Especially his most prized possessions. It didn't matter that Proteus worked directly for him: Luna had always been specified as off-limits. Seven knew this was his father's Achilles' Heel and banked on this information tipping the scale in his favor. He saw the exact moment when he got inside the Don's head in his father's narrowed eyes.

"You have always been the sharpest out of my progeny, Seven. I was considering handing the keys over to Ventuno. However, I also cannot trust him with my sirens...his reckless entitlement fans his arrogance too hard," the father snorted dryly as if amused by his heir's poor attitude, "Very well, Seven. With you, at least, I won't have to worry about Luna being ruined."

Seven felt his guts turn sour at his father's words. Luna wasn't technically his kin but even as his step-sister, Seven knew that Luna's beauty and allure were undeniable. He also knew that Proteus wasn't the only one within the Muraeni House that took notice. All the more reason for Seven to go through with his plan.

He rose up off the ground, "Thank you for the opportunity, Father-"

"Listen, boy," the Don snapped, "I was willing to give you a few more chances but since you're so eager to prove yourself by taking on the biggest task on the table, this is your last chance. Got it?" Seven nodded in silence, "Good. I've already sent Proteus over to the Cove. You can take over first thing in the morning."

"Why waste time when I can easily get things in alignment right away, Father?" Seven kept his voice steady even though he felt his pulse race.

Don Muraeni looked his son up and down with a faint look of pride in his eyes. If you blinked, you'd miss it, "Taking initiative, you're already off to a good start, Seven...fine. Send Proteus back here when you see him."

Proteus entered the Siren's Cove without so much as a glance at the bouncers at the door or the waiting staff inside. It was late and the club was still full. Proteus took a seat in Don Muraeni's private box just in time for Luna's main number of the night. Tonight would be a test drive of sorts, a preview to whet the appetites of their patrons and hopefully bring them back in for the event in two days.

Behind dewy veiled curtains, Luna sat on a giant cushioned shell, poised and dripping in multiple strands of black and white pearls that hung from her neck and shoulders. She took a deep breath and thought to herself the one thing that kept her going through all of this.

Just one more song...

It was always 'one more' night after night. One more. One more until something else. Luna didn't know what that something was but just the thought was the only bit of hope she had left. She hadn't seen her sister in days, though it felt like months at this point. She couldn't remember how long it had been since she saw Elise. Her phone had been left in Cowrie's care back home so really Luna had no idea if Elise was still underwater or not. And Floyd...just thinking of his name, his face made Luna's heart ache with bittersweet pain. She knew she'd never see him again. It was probably for the best. He'd survive without her. He could be perfectly happy with someone who could be with him freely. He'd move on eventually...

None of these thoughts took the feeling away but Luna still clung to them, trying desperately to convince herself. She took another breath as she heard the club's emcee begin to announce her. Just one more song.

The curtain rose and revealed the bejeweled siren to the eager audience of male patrons ready to indulge in her beauty. As the music began, Luna adorned her well-trained mask. She was coy, enticing, enchanting. That's what her audience wanted and that's what they would get. No one came to see the real Luna, who was clinging onto false hope that maybe she'd wake up tomorrow and be somewhere safe and happy with everyone she was currently missing. The song that left her lips soared over the crowd in smooth, full-bodied notes like a fine wine. Luna made sure to give the gentlemen closest to the stage their due moments of her attention. She knew she had them the moment her golden eyes locked onto theirs. She could see their senses cloud over as her voice sank into their ears and hearts. Luna was getting the desired result with ease. The more important or wealthy patrons that sat comfortably in the private boxes further away were her next targets.

The siren gracefully swam away from the stage and made her way through the audience to the marked box. This particular gentleman was picked specifically for her to entertain during her song for one reason or another. There was always at least one that the Don wanted her to give extra attention to. It was probably because he was the highest bidder or her stepfather owed him a favor. Luna was never told the details, not that it really mattered, so she never questioned it and just did her job. This sort of thing used to be so much easier for her...that is before she met Floyd. Now that someone had a hold on her heartstrings, acting the part called for a bit more gumption. Luna, however, was a master in the making. This was just business after all.

Luna continued to sing as she reached the VIP patron's box. It was an older half-human merman from the other side of the kingdom. He was joined by a younger merman of the same type that could, frankly, be his son or nephew for all Luna knew. She cozied up to the merman, singing just to him in her dulcet voice, leaving little flirtatious touches here and there over his skin. She imagined that this man, in particular, requested her specifically due to a 'special interest' in her variety of mermaid. Luna was used to it. She had a lot of gentlemen buy her attention for the same reason. The man's eyes were half-lidded and intoxicated as his lips formed into a dreamy grin. The younger man seated across from him watched the scene with an almost nervous longing. Luna threw him a bone in the form of a playful wink and a blown kiss as she made her way back to the stage for the end of the song. The audience gave her enthusiastic applause and bursts of praise as the curtain fell. The preview was a success.

Luna made her way back to her room without stopping to speak to anyone on the way. When she found her door was open, Luna felt her blood freeze. Inside Proteus was casually counting the portal keys he held between his fingers, "My, my...what a busy little minx you have been, Luna."

She felt her head spin as venom boiled in her throat, "What the hell are you doing in my room, Proteus?"

The electric ray clinched the keys in his palm with a sly smirk on his face, "It is my duty to look after my boss' treasured beauties, is it not? It would no doubt distress him greatly to know that his prized pearl had been sneaking out to who knows where with who knows whom...or perhaps, I've found a clue."

Proteus held up a small photo in his other hand and Luna felt her stomach drop. He turned so she could see her and Floyd's smiling faces clear as day, "Luna...poor little siren...flirting with disaster are we? This is one of the Leech boys, isn't it?"

Luna held fast to her cool demeanor, "What of it? I met him at school. He seemed like a fair bit of target practice away from home."

"Interesting that you would commemorate something as bland as 'target practice' with such an adorable photograph..." the ray's eyes pierced into her, waiting for even an inch of incriminating evidence.

Luna just gave him a teasing grin, "It's not very often I find prey with such a handsome face. Are you jealous, Proteus? I don't imagine many women harboring your picture in their intimate hideaways."

Her grin widened as she saw Proteus' eyebrow twitch. She had struck a nerve but he recovered with little effort. A dark chuckle left the ray merman's lips as he crumpled up the photo in one hand and broke the keys in his other.

"Don't flatter yourself, you haughty little tramp..." his copper-red eyes seemed to burn into the shade of blood, "You girls think you're so clever. Running around behind the boss's back. Teasing me, mocking me to my face."

Luna's eyes narrowed as she bolstered up her resolve, "Get out of my room, Proteus. You've ruined my personal things, invaded my space, and polluted the air with your sleazy stink-"

Luna couldn't move fast enough. She let out a weak shriek as Proteus' clawed fingers tightened around her throat, forcing her back against the wall. His sinister gaze burned into hers, "You're lucky you're so beautiful and so valuable, my dear...but that wicked tongue of yours could use some discipline."

A sharp and brief shock of electricity shot from Proteus' palm and scorched through Luna's entire system. She clenched her teeth, refusing to let him hear her scream. This only made the sadistic bastard chuckle, "Goodness, you are a stubborn one. I'm glad...I like my prey nice and spirited."

Luna braced herself. She knew Proteus couldn't leave any marks on her or hurt her enough to keep her from performing or else the Don would have his head. She just had to tough it out until Proteus was satisfied and then he'd go. If she retaliated, it could lead to even graver punishments not just for her but for her sister too. At least, that's what she originally planned. Proteus saw the resolve in the siren's eyes and grinned, his eyes becoming half-lidded as he leaned in. He knew exactly what or rather who was holding Luna back.

"It's such a shame...you and your sister are such fun little toys. But now I'm only down to one."

Luna's breath hitched in her throat as her shock went straight to her widening eyes. He couldn't mean...the ray chuckled, "Oh that's right! You haven't heard. Poor little Cowrie. The wild little thing just couldn't help but get herself into more trouble than she could handle this time. And her big sister wasn't there to protect her from the hungry sharks...or the hungry Leechs who are no doubt chewing on her teeny little bones as we speak."

He was lying.

He was LYING! Jade and Floyd would never let their family hurt Cowrie!

Luna thrashed against Proteus's iron grip and shrieked, "You sick, lying bastard! Tell me where she really is!!"

The ray just tilted his head curiously, "Oh? Well doubt me if you must but this 'lie' came straight from Seven's own mouth as he lay beaten to a pulp from the Leech family's own hands with what was left of those poor dumb sharks torn to absolute shreds. His exact words: 'Cowrie is gone.' There you have it."

Luna froze. Seven was probably the most honest member of the Muraeni clan. He always had been. She fell to the floor, limp as a broken doll, as Proteus released her and cooed in a sickeningly sweet tone as he lightly grasped a lock of her sleek hair, "I am absolutely devastated to be one to tell you this, Luna...perhaps, I can lend you my company to help you grieve."

Had they been on land, Luna would have spat right in his smug face. She swatted his clawed hands away, trying to back away from his looming form, "Get away from me!!"

The door slammed open seconds before Proteus felt a hard and fast blow knock him backward into Luna's vanity, scattering its contents all over the floor. Seven hovered between him and the huddled-up siren on the floor. The brother's eyes seared with anger.

"You're done here, Proteus. Don Muraeni has turned control of the Cove and its sirens over to me."

Proteus frowned as he dusted himself off, "Ah. Young Master Seven...I wasn't notified of this."

"This is your notice. Turn room keys over to me and return back home immediately or I will have you personally escorted out," Seven was curt and serious to a fault.

Proteus took his time removing the copies of the sirens' room keys he had made, making both Seven and Luna fume. As he did so, his whip-like tail stabbed its point into the crumpled-up picture of Luna and Floyd before showing it to Seven, "By the way...I found our proud diva's little secret stash. She's been collecting portal keys and among them was this. Were you aware of this little tryst, Master Seven?"

Seven took the picture and gave Luna a sharp look as he growled, "I was not...were the keys destroyed?"

"But of course. I was very thorough," Proteus sneered down at Luna who was shaking with a mix of anger and shock. Seven's expression froze back into its usual stoicism.

"Good. I'll handle the rest," he addressed the sadistic ray with his hand open, waiting for the requested room keys. Proteus set them all into the eel's open palm and left the room with a sour look on his face. A pity that now all of his little dolls were taken from him, he thought to himself as he left the club.

Seven snarled as he glared down at Luna. Any anger she felt quickly turned into genuine fear.

"Luna, what the hell were you thinking?!" Seven yelled making her shiver. Her stepbrother slammed the door shut and leaned down to look her right in the face. He paused a moment before his face softened and he whispered to her...

"I'm sorry that I have to do this. It's the only way."

Luna let out a shocked scream as Seven suddenly grabbed the table behind her and smashed it with his fist. He continued to yell. She continued to cry out defenses to his angry accusations. Anyone and everyone in the connected hallway heard the commotion from their cracked doors or from behind corners. The guards that had been stationed at either end of the hall remained still as statues. The show staff looked at each other nervously, knowing that the audience was still waiting for Luna to return to the stage but also not wanting to get in the middle of whatever was happening inside her dressing room. When the fight suddenly fell silent, Luna's door flew open and Seven stuck his angry face out, scaring the jumpy staff.

"I'm pulling Luna from the stage. She's done for the night," he said gruffly before slamming the door shut once again. He sighed, giving up the act as he turned to a very shaken Luna still curled up in the corner.

"Luna..." his voice was quiet and soft, "I'm sorry. It was a farce. I'm not angry." He slowly approached her and got down on the same level as her. She could only whimper out the one thing blazing in her brain in a weak whisper.

"Where is Cowrie?"

Seven gently wrapped his scarred arms around his step-sister and pulled her close to him. He placed one of his large hands on her head he leaned down to whisper into her ear, "She's alright. She's with the Leech Family. She's safe. No one else knows but me."

Luna's whole body finally released all of the anxious energy that had built up into a shakey sob as she wrapped her arms around Seven's neck. He felt absolutely terrible for a multitude of reasons, the first being that he had to further traumatize his poor step-sister just to keep these secrets and her safe.

"It's going to be alright, Luna. I just need you to hold on a little bit longer," Seven spoke in hushed comforting tones as he pressed his face into her dark hair, letting her sob into him, "Just until the VIP night. Then we're getting you out of here for good..."

Luna pulled back and looked into his honest ice blue eyes, "...w-what? But how? Even with you in charge now, there's no way I can just leave."

"Don't worry about the details, Luna. All I need from you is to make one more key."

Seven revealed a tiny pouch he had hidden in his other clenched fist, "All you need is right here."

Luna opened the pouch and gasped, "Where did you get these?"

Her brother snorted dryly, "I had a little help from your...what do surface dwellers call them? 'boyfriend?' "

Inside the pouch was a chunk of coral from Madam Leech's garden and the gold necklace that Floyd had given her. Normally Luna's portal keys worked best if the fragment came from a place she was familiar with but this would have to do. It was a shot in the dark at best. Wait...did Seven just say boyfriend?

"You met Floyd?" She couldn't keep her eyes from lighting up as she said his name.

"Oh yeah. He's...definitely...something else. I don't see why you like him but that's not really my business," Seven grumbled. Luna sniffled and let out a tired laugh.

"That's a good way to describe him."

Seven saw the warmth return to Luna's eyes and tiny grin as she held the necklace in her hands as if it was the world's most precious treasure. He realized that he had never seen Luna look this way about any guy since...well ever. It was a true rarity. Now he felt like a jerk for knocking Floyd around, even though he technically asked for it, but Luna didn't need to hear about that.

"Stay in here for the rest of the night. I bought you some time by pulling you from the stage. I'll make sure that Proteus is actually gone and no one else should bother you. If they do, call for me immediately," Seven was back to his business-first tone as he helped Luna off the floor. She quickly leaned forward to hug him and rested her head against his chest with a sigh.

"You deserve the world, Seven...thank you."

He suddenly felt oddly bashful hearing this. Affection or actual praise was definitely not something he was accustomed to, certainly not from his father or even his mother when she was still around. He had known Luna since she was about two years old and he knew the difference in her voice when she was just flirting to get something out of a target versus when she was being sincere. She meant every word she just said and all Seven could do was continue to hug her to him.

The next morning came and Elise had kept her word. She waited for Azul to arrive as she sat in the dining hall with the Leech family and Cowrie. It was a very interesting scene and probably the most entertaining meal she had in quite a while. At the head of the table sat Don Leech looking like he could use a couple more hours of sleep simply mumbling something to Jade in between bites of food. Jade seemed to be in high spirits as he multitasked between talking with his father and holding Cowrie's tiny hand in his to help her feel safe. Cowrie sat on the other side of Jade and was being doted on by Madam Leech who sat across from her, clearly thrilled to finally have another girl in the house. It took some coaxing to get Cowrie to leave the safety of the twins' room but once she did, she joined everyone for breakfast and seemed to relax. Madam Leech took to her future daughter-in-law like a duck to water and did what any overly caring mother would do: shove food into the small female eel's mouth as if she were a baby chick.

"Cowrie sweetie, you are so tiny and skinny! Goodness did that brute of a father ever feed you?!"

"Well actually-" and she was cut off by another spoon full of breakfast. Eventually, Cowrie just gave up and chewed the food in content silence. It felt nice to have a mother of sorts again, even if Madam Leech was a tad aggressive with her affection.

Across from Jade sat Floyd who just hummed with a happy grin on his face as he played with his food before eating it. If his mother asked him about his plans for finding a mate, and boy did she ever, Floyd would just grin and give some cryptic answer like "Eh it'll happen soon enough." Elise was sworn to secrecy about the plans they had brewing. Which turns out, not having a voice? This was the easiest thing in the world for her. The princess just ate her meal and enjoyed the morning chaos that being in the Leech household brought.

Three days, Elise reminded herself. It was now a countdown within another countdown: including today, it was now three days until school started and two nights until the VIP event at the Siren's Cove. In other words, only two more nights until Jade and Floyd snuck into the club to rescue Luna with Seven's help. Neither one of the twins seemed to be worried so the princess knew she shouldn't feel so worried about the whole thing. There was a pleasant smile on her face but she could feel her far more honest octopus legs twisting into themselves like pairs of hands wringing together anxiously. That and today was also the day she was to meet Azul's grandmother a second time to find a way to break this supposed curse on her. With so many impending things, it was hard for Elise to feel completely calm. Just seconds after she finished off her plate, one of Madam Leech's maids entered the room.

"Mr. Azul Ashengrotto is here, ma'am. He's already specified that he cannot stay for breakfast, unfortunately."

Madam Leech gave a disappointed hum as she fed Cowrie another piece of shrimp, "A pity. Elise dearest, be sure to invite Azul back for dinner!"

Elise nodded with an amused smile as she waved goodbye to everyone else in the room before leaving. The maid escorted her to the entry hall where Elise nearly choked on her own ink. Azul was there waiting for her, looking quite anxious himself...

...in his octopus form.

One of his purple and black tentacles tapped on the floor like a nervous foot waiting to catch a train while two others were doing the same nervous, wringing motion that Elise's had been doing earlier. He wasn't wearing his glasses leaving his eyes unguarded and even more of an intense stormy blue against his grey skin. When he suddenly noticed her staring at him, his entire body froze. He cleared his throat and tried to greet her with as much confidence as he could. Which wasn't much honestly.

"G..Good morning, Your Highness."

Elise blinked a couple of times as she looked him up and down in this new exotic form. He was just like her now...well not just like her but Elise's octopus form seem to recognize that a male was present. Frankly, it was a very weird, instinctual feeling. This had to be one of those 'changes' the eels had mentioned before. She ignored it for now and finally made her way over to him with a curious smile on her face. She giggled to herself as she playfully poked one of his front tentacles with one of her own much like she did back in the grotto when he had his human legs. Azul hiccuped in surprise when the poked tentacle suddenly wrapped itself around Elise's with no restraint whatsoever. Elise would have squeaked if she had a voice to do so. The feeling of the two tentacles intertwining felt weirdly intimate and affectionate. Somewhere between a handshake and a kiss. He quickly yanked his away from hers, his embarrassed face turning a bright purple. She held a hand up to her mouth to hide the amused smile but the shake in her shoulders as she laughed gave her away.

"I-I am so sorry, Your Highness! This form is admittedly easier to move around in but these things," Azul glared at his own octopus legs as if they were misbehaving children, "they can have a mind of their own at times..." Elise didn't seem too bothered by it but Azul himself felt like he could drop dead from embarrassment any second now, "A-A-Anyway, we should get going. I don't want to keep Grandmother waiting."

Elise linked her arm with his, her eyes practically twinkling at how awkward and bashful this version of Azul seemed to be. It was a refreshing and downright adorable change. She swore she heard Jade and Floyd snickered from around the corner but didn't bother looking back to check.

Madam Lorelei Ashengrotto was seated at the exact same table within the Leviathan Club true to her word. She was pouring over some notes she had spread before her on various pieces of parchments. When she looked up to see her grandson and the princess, her eyes smiled along with her lips, "Come here, darlings. We have much to discuss."

The sea witch decided not to comment on Azul's natural appearance for two reasons: the first being that she never liked wasting time and the second being that the poor boy already looked like he might collapse from overexposure. Instead, she gestured for the two to take a seat before diving right in.

"Well then, angelfish," she addressed Elise directly, "I have some good news and some bad news for you, my dear. The good news is that your current condition is not permanent. Not yet anyway. So we still have time to reverse it. The bad news, however, is that in order to reverse this curse, you need to make a choice. In order to become human again, your prince on the surface either needs to fall in love with you or become a merman once again. It isn't simply reversing the magic as it is taking it back for yourself."

Elise felt like a boulder had rolled onto her chest. If she understood what the sea witch was saying then that would mean taking Rielle's very real desires and happiness away from him in one way or another. Rielle loved Emily and gave up his life under the sea to be with her and now he actually was. Elise just got caught in the crossfire of it all. Either option seemed impossible.

"Yes, well that first option isn't an option. Not organically anyway. So how would we do the second, Grandmother? I doubt it's as simple as convincing Rielle to return to the sea..." Azul had a pensive look on his face as he crossed his arms, mulling over every word.

"You are correct, precious. You will need something much more powerful than that. Fortunately, you have me to guide you," Madam Lorelei gave the younger octopuses a confident smile before reaching into the bag at her feet for a long box, "It took a couple of favors to get what we needed but voila, here we are..."

Elise looked at the box as the sea witch placed it on the table between them and opened it for her. Her eyes widened at its contents while Azul's narrowed into a serious icy stare, "You are sure about this, Grandmother?"

Inside the box was a sharpened dagger that looked like it could cut even the toughest metal. Madam Lorelei nodded with a serious look, "This isn't a mere accident, Azul. Your magic is both brilliant and complicated. So much so that a counterspell or breaking of the contract won't do the trick. I couldn't have been blessed with a more talented grandson to carry on my magical prowess."

Azul would have been extremely flattered in any other occasion hearing his grandmother's praise, but right now it just felt like he just made it near impossible for Elise to get back home with her hands clean. His grandmother once again spoke directly to the princess.

"Let me make this as clear as possible, angelfish. When Prince Rielle completed the contract, the magic that bound him to Azul's deal was pulled apart because of your sudden broken heart. He gained the love of Princess Coralette as stated in the terms but...he rejected you which in turn nulled his portion of agreement in a way," she paused to take another sip of her tea and to let that information sink in, "The magic lingering from the incomplete contract then had nowhere else to go so it latched onto you, dear Elise. It bound you into a secondary oath that left no physical artifact behind such as another contract."

Elise felt like the entire room had turned upside down. She understood the complicated logic behind the witch's explanation but how was a dagger going to help...? Madam Lorelei read the confusion on the girl's face loud and clear as she took a final sip of her tea.

"As I said before, my dear. You have a choice to make. There are two ways to change you back into a human: either fulfill the contract in reverse by getting Rielle to fall in love with you and give you the coveted kiss of True Love or sever Rielle's half of the magic, the half that turned him human completely. To do that, you need to pierce this dagger into his human feet. It has magic nulling properties that make it an oath breaker of sorts. Once you do that, he will return to being a merman and you will return to being a human. All will be as it should."

'True Love's Kiss'...Azul wanted to roll his eyes at such an old-fashioned trope. The fact that it had any authority in the realms of magic was laughable. The look in the sea witch's eyes was still a sympathetic one. Azul had filled her in on the princess' personal feelings towards Rielle and vice versa. Even though her heart was broken by this boy, it was clear that the princess was less than eager to take back the life Rielle had gambled his own voice and left everything behind to get. She remembered reading the letter he had written so sincerely. It made her heart squeeze in sharp pain as she recalled the way he sounded so desperate and so ready to finally come out of hiding so he could be with Emily. More guilt washed over Azul as he watched the distress spread over Elise's face. He wanted to say something to make this all easier for her but did those words actually exist?

"I can tell you have a kind heart, angelfish. All the more reason to be honest with you. Both Azul and my daughter have told me what occurred on the Leech Family property just yesterday...you were there to witness it firsthand, were you not?"

Elise felt her throat tighten as she looked into the sea witch's deep blue eyes that shone with wisdom. Her gaze wasn't unkind but it was most definitely shrewd.

"The Coral Sea is not a place for kind-hearted, unguarded souls, Princess. Especially on this side of the reef. You have seen how deadly and cruel life down here can be. So for your sake, I ask you to be objective in your reasoning and don't let your emotions blind you. You belong on the surface in your palaces and under the sun. Not down here in the dark and cold, constantly wondering if you're to be hunted or not. It's a simple fact."

Elise knew she spoke the truth and she did so because it was for Elise's own good. But even so...was the sea witch right? She was definitely not prepared or given the same constitution the Cerith sisters, the twins or even cunning Azul had growing up in her cozy surface life. At the same time, when was the last time she had a solid home or a present family on the surface? If that was where she belonged then why weren't those she left behind trying to bring her back? Or perhaps they were and she just had no idea? ...there was only one way to truly find out.

The princess nodded in thanks to the sea witch before taking the box in her hands. She still wasn't sure if she really wanted to use it but either way, Elise knew she had to go home at least once more before returning to Sacred Crown. Madam Lorelei took one last sip before giving the young ones a final warning, "One more thing, my dears. From what Azul has told me and judging from your appearance, I would say you only have until the next full moon to complete this task...after that, well, you will be stuck as a mermaid forever, dear princess. You may use magic to give yourself a human form but ultimately, you'll never be able to stay away from the water for so long. A mermaid of any sort can never truly be parted from the sea."

Time was so hard to track down here that Elise had no idea how long that actually was. She was glad that Azul had accompanied her every step of the way through this. His cool head and foresight came in handy for exact occasions like this.

"The next full moon is roughly a month from now. Around the same time as the next festival between Night Raven and Sacred Crown. How convenient," Azul sighed, "And you're saying that the only options we have are to hope that Rielle will suddenly decide that he loves her and not Princess Emily...or to literally stab the magic right out of him."

The sea witch chuckled, "Magic concerning the heart is rarely a straight path, my boy. No one said this was going to be easy."

Another countdown. Everything seemed to be converging in on her at once in a myriad of questions, thoughts, and feelings. Three days. Two nights. One month. Two 'homes'...two forms...

Two Elise Coralettes...?

"I have one more gift for you. It's a temporary fix but it should help at the very least."

Elise came out of her daze as Azul handed his grandmother the empty nautilus shell he had previously stored Rielle's voice in. Somehow she didn't even notice that he had been wearing it around his neck this entire time. Madam Lorelei rose from her seat and gestured for the two teenagers to follow her, "More good news, dear princess. Though the magic itself bound you to the contract's terms, you never actually consented to give up your voice as the prince did. So instead of your voice taking Rielle's place in Azul's possession, it simply locked itself away. This we can work with but I'll need a proper workspace for this next part. Follow me, my dears."

His grandmother's home wasn't too far away but the terrain changed drastically. Azul was quite used to it but Elise was a bit shellshocked. One thing she had noticed was that this entire area of the Coral Sea wasn't as bright as the more southern regions where Rielle's home was located. The water was colder as well but there were still bits of reef life here and there. Traveling just outside of the city, however, it grew even darker and the reef seemed to halt and give way to dark stones and fuming underwater geysers. Had Elise not met the sea witch before seeing where she lived, the princess would have feared more for her actual soul. Especially when she saw the large set of bones at the entrance.

"I assure you the inside is far cozier than the outside, angelfish," Madam Lorelei chuckled, "Come in, come in~"

The interior of her home was as stylish as she was even if it was furnished with very avant guard, if not macabre, furniture that looked like it was made from bones just like her jewelry. Azul made himself at home as Lorelei guided Elise over to an open area surrounding a cauldron. The princess looked around to see the walls lined with very organized rows of bottles. Some were labeled, some were just holding strange contents inside that Elise had never seen on land. She swore some of the bottles held living, moving creatures inside them.

"Alright, my sweet. This will be quick and painless I assure you. All I need for you to do is to sing."

...Sing???

Elise looked beyond confused. How could she sing when she couldn't even speak?! Then again who was she to argue with an all-powerful sea witch? She took a breath and opened her mouth to sing and felt incredibly foolish trying to do so. She felt like her mouth was just uselessly flapping open and shut like a carp.

"Not like that, dear," Madam Lorelei said bluntly, "You're a mermaid now and a mermaid's song it very much like magic itself. It's not something you just breathe out of your mouth or words that you simply put sound to. Hear the song, feel it warm, and build up inside of you. One that resonates. This is the only way we can unlock your voice."

There was only one song like that Elise knew. She took another deep breath and let it out as she listened to the soft notes in her mind like it was her own personal music box. It began as a silent hum in her chest. Soon she opened her mouth and let the words form on her lips even though she couldn't make a sound.

"Much better, yes. Keep going."

Azul watched as his grandmother threw ingredients into her cauldron while Elise focused on the unheard song. He had seen his grandmother do spell work all of his life and yet he never lost his wonder for it. Once everything came together, the sea witch raised the shell towards Elise's mouth. A tiny light started to grow from the princess' throat until a soft sound echoed from it. Both the light and Elise's song grew until both flew from her open mouth and into the shell. The princess grasped her throat not because it hurt but because for the first time since she became mute, it felt...empty.

"This will not return your voice to normal but it has freed it so it can be used in this form at least," the sea witch placed the shell necklace around Elise's neck and she felt its warmth against her skin, "as long as you wear this, you can speak, but only if the shell is worn and intact. So be very careful with it. Go on, try it."

The princess cleared her throat, feeling hopeful when she heard a small squeak come from her, "...Th...ank...you...thank you!"

Elise's face burst into a bright smile. This was a far cry from the last time Azul heard her voice as she tore into him...and he made a mental note to keep that from happening a second time at all costs.

The princess threw her arms around the sea witch with a joyful cheer, "Thank you so much, Mrs. Ashengrotto!"

Madam Lorelei just chuckled and patted the excited princess on the head, "Madam Lorelei will do. And it was no trouble at all. Just remember what I said before, sweet child," she paused as she looked over at Azul but still spoke to the princess, "you have a difficult road ahead of you and not a whole lot of time. So weigh your options wisely."

Elise's tentacles that had been holding the box placed it back into her hands and somehow it felt even heavier, "Yes, of course."

Azul and Elise swam back to the Leech family home with the box and a few other items in a satchel Madam Lorelei had lent them to assist the twins. Elise felt like a mess: she was thrilled to be able to speak again but wasn't used to hearing her voice at all anymore. Azul had said something that made her laugh and she nearly jumped out of her suction cups hearing the loud noise come from her mouth. It was very different from her usual trained, demure giggle that she had curated for years. The mystique was shattered in a matter of seconds. Azul couldn't help but tease her with a sly grin.

"My goodness, I never realized how boisterous you were under all that regal poise, Your Highness..."

"Well, I never realized that you were such a terrible liar, Mr. Ashengrotto..." when his face pulled an abashed expression, a mischievous smile spread across Elise's face, "You told me you were an ugly, gross octopus. How dare you lie to me to cover up how cute and shy you actually are!" Cute wasn't actually her first word choice when she saw him earlier that day. But her nerves got the better of her and that's what came out of her mouth.

Cute?! Shy?! He huffed as if the princess had spilled ink all over his contracts, "You make me sound like some skittish little guppy!" Azul folded his arms in with a frown as they continued to swim. Elise wasn't sure if he was scowling because she had hit a nerve or because he was trying to keep his face from flushing again.

"I never said it was bad!" She laughed, "You've just surprised me. That's all."

Azul watched the princess swim ahead of him with a much more spirited smile on her face, taking his time before catching up with her. She was definitely not what he expected either. That was one thing Azul was sure about in this whole confusing mess. Even with the brighter expression on her face, the boy still noticed a bit of apprehension hiding in her eyes.

"You have the ingredients you need, right? Do you need any help? I'm quite good at potion-making myself," Elise let a bit of smugness shine through that last statement as she quickly changed the subject.

Azul took great pride in his potion-making skills and rarely did he ever need help. However, that didn't stop him from admiring the princess' confidence, "I don't believe so, Your Highness. But if that changes, I know who to call on...if anything I may need your help in keeping Floyd from drinking the wrong potion on purpose."

The princess snorted, "I will do my best. I do have one request though."

"Is it another 'favor'?" Azul teased sarcastically.

"Yes. Call me Elise instead of 'Your Highness' or 'princess'. Or even 'Ellie' like Cowrie does. I really don't mind at all."

Azul came to a halt mid swim, "Is that really...ok? Doesn't it seem kind of rude? I mean...you are a princess."

Elise turned and hovered in front of him with a sort of melancholy look in her eyes that didn't match the grin on her face, "I am a princess, yes. But in title only. I have no actual power nor am I going to take the throne like Reine will one day. It's just...it doesn't seem to matter that much. Especially down here. Plus you're the only one who refers to me as 'Your Highness'."

Now that she mentioned it, none of their eel companions did address Elise that way. Azul did it because...because of formality he supposed? He had never really thought about it too much to be honest. Referring to her as anything less than her royal title felt inappropriate. Then again, she really didn't feel like a princess. Not that Azul knew that many princesses to begin with. Elise felt like....like...Azul didn't even know. He still found himself at the crossroads with this unique girl: he knew she was established as one thing but she seemed like something different entirely. Ok, he was definitely overthinking such a simple request...and now he was just floating there like an idiot while she stared at him-

Azul cleared his throat to reset his brain because it spiraled into a tizzy, "Alright. Elise....'Ellie' seems a bit too common. Elise is a perfectly good name all on its own."

Elise smiled with her eyes, "So is Azul. May I call you Azul since we're going to be spending even more time together in the coming weeks? ....or would you prefer 'Azuzu'?"

"Azul is fine," the boy octopus mumbled as his tentacles cringed at the cutesy nickname. It just didn't sound right coming from her. Especially now that she had her voice back. He'd rather listen to her say a world of other, less embarrassing things. Besides, though he didn't mind this wall of formality coming down between them, his mind was itching with a myriad of other questions and curiosities. The anxious glimmer was still there in her eyes. Not that he had been trying to stare but Azul was very observant in most cases. Something was wrong and he had an idea but...prying into her personal feelings seemed uncouth. So instead, he tried something else.

"Elise, what song were you thinking of before?"

Her eyes became distant as they entered the city once again, "...my mother's lullaby. It's always the first song that comes to mind so I guess it did the trick. Did your mother sing to you when you were young?"

Azul had many fond memories surrounding his mother. Some were downright embarrassing but he did in fact have a wealth of good ones. He almost felt bad for sharing even a hint of them simply because it felt like he was rubbing in the fact that his mother was still with him. When he hesitated, the princess playfully nudged him with one of her legs, "No? Not a one?"

"O-Oh no, no my mother used to sing to me every night when I was very young...she never missed a night," Azul averted his eyes away from Elise, feeling guilt start to pick at him again.

"I like your mother. She seems so lovely and warm. Jade and Floyd's mother is very sweet too...I don't think I'd want to make either one of your mothers angry though," Elise giggled.

"I definitely do not recommend it..." Azul grumbled, "not unless you want a barrage of wooden spoons unleashed on you."

Her laugh rang out like musical notes. If she was bothered at all by the conversation, it didn't show in the least. Azul continued to share more stories - leaving out all of the painfully embarrassing ones - of his childhood as they finished their journey back. If nothing else, her laugh seemed to make the waters brighter. He had a feeling that Elise still felt unsure about what to do about Rielle and he didn't want to push her to decide especially when she was probably still hurting from the heartache and...well...he was definitely no stranger to heavy feelings. Another time, he silently told himself. They had more important matters to deal with first. He just hoped that the twins could pull this off. Azul had never been one to be afraid of a gamble every now and again but this just seemed horribly, terribly reckless even for Floyd. But he'd be lying if he said that he wasn't impressed with the motivation the moody eel had gained within the last day or so since gaining inside help to bail Luna out of her miserable situation.

Azul had known Jade and Floyd since they were all children and he couldn't remember a time when Floyd had ever latched onto another, especially a female, like he has Luna. It was nothing less than bizarre. For a while, Azul had assumed that Luna used her siren charms on him but when he asked Floyd about it, the eel denied everything. Luna never sang to him, used magic on him. Luna was just Luna: beautiful, full of feminine charm naturally even without her being a siren. She was also very clever just from the skill set Azul had discovered she had even if it was just through word of mouth. She was just...

"...beautiful and nice. And she never gets mad at me for doing things my own way and..."

Azul could still hear Floyd go on and on about the siren with that goofy smile on his face. It was nauseating how smitten he was and how little he tried to hide it. Of course, now that Azul thought about it, Jade too was smitten. Now that was weird to think about it. Jade Leech, the poker-faced and elusive Vice Dorm Leader of Octavinelle that was obsessed with his terrariums. The same Jade Leech that was always calculating something or causing mischief with his wild twin was now wrapped around the tiny little finger of a blunt, sassy little siren that led her life like a stray cat, going wherever and living however she pleased. Saying whatever was on her mind with no hint of deception. They were a very interesting and very different pair...wait a second.

Azul's brain came to a sudden halt. His two companions, his childhood friends, his partners in business and in crime so to speak: they were in love. Jade had already chosen Cowrie as his proper mate. Surely Floyd couldn't be that far behind with Luna. Then again this was Floyd we were talking about. Still, just the thought somehow threw the octopus boy for a loop. He was happy for them, of course, but where did that leave Azul? It wasn't that he was afraid their plans of opening a Mostro Lounge permanently after graduation were now ruined that the twins were choosing their mates just that it made Azul really stop and think where he also was in his life. Leave it to his doting mother to remind him that he too was eighteen now and coming upon the point in every octopus merman's life where he started desiring to mate, to settle with a female of his choosing, etc. It was, for a lack of better words, absolutely terrifying and made Azul's guts tie themselves in knots.

Sure, he was clever and had the compacity to find tactics to charm and lure girls into buying something he was selling but actual courtship? The genuine article?! Fortunately for Azul, his mother - unlike Madam Leech - never forced him to meet girls or go on dates. She told him from the very beginning that he needed to find his soulmate organically and in his own time. He was extremely grateful for this but still...the subject matter is something he'd rather avoid completely. Just thinking about it already had his mind reeling, spiraling through the anxiety-fueled fog and-

Elise quickly swam back to Azul moments after she heard a loud clang and saw him holding his frustrated and embarrassed face. Amidst being lost in thought, he swam straight into a light pole, and now here he was nursing a bruised ego.

"Azul, are you alright?!"

He tried to insist that he was but that didn't stop the princess from pulling his hands away from his face and gasped. A bruised ego and a bloody nose, apparently.

"Ooh that looks like it smarts...come on, your mother's restaurant is just around the corner from here. I'm sure she had some sort of first aid available. Let's get you fixed up," Elise grabbed his hand started to pull the poor boy down the street, ignoring all his fuss about how he was actually fine.

Mama Ashengrotto didn't make as much of a scene as Azul thought she would. Instead, the mother just shook her head at her son's unusual clumsiness and left Elise to nurse yet another Octavinelle boy's injuries in her large comfy office. She returned not too long afterward with some snacks and a message for Elise. Mama Ashengrotto paused in the doorway and watched the girl gently tend to her son as he fussed. He sounded like he was being belligerent but really, Mama knew he was just embarrassed. It was still cute all these years later.

"Honestly, Elise, it's just a small scrape. You're acting like I'm going to bleed out any second," he huffed as she softly dabbed around his nose.

"Hush. I'm almost done," She just pouted at him as she focused on what she was doing.

"Not to interrupt, my sweeties, but there was a message left for you, Elise," Mama Ashengrotto set the trey of refreshments down before handing a folded piece of parchment to the girl.

She didn't recognize the scratchy handwriting at first but the name signed at the bottom flipped a switch as soon as she saw it.

It was directions about when and where Jade and Floyd needed to be on the night of the Cove's VIP event and all the details everyone involved needed to know. And at the bottom of the paper was a simple signature...

'Seven'

Azul ended up extending his stay in the Leech home until the VIP evening had come. He actually did tell his mother where he was this time...just not every single detail about the why's and what for's. When it was time for the group of teenagers to execute their plan, they acted as nonchalantly as possible during the evening meal and turned into their rooms as expected at the end of the night....until the whole house was quiet enough for them to sneak into the garden, one by one.

Floyd was the most fidgety and irritated of the small band of rebels, surprising no one. Azul held two potions before the brothers, one in each hand, one blue and the other red.

"Pay attention, Floyd. This is important," Azul said sharply, "Jade, the red one is for you. The blue one is for Floyd. They both will only last about three or four hours so do NOT drink them until you're about to cross the border, understand? The rest is up to you two and Seven."

Cowrie held out what looked like earplugs to Jade with a pouty expression on her face, "You'll need these, Jay Jay, so you don't get all...ya know...love stupid because of the siren songs."

"Ooh? Are you worried that I'll stray, my Cowrie?" Jade was incorrigible when it came to his smug teasing. Even with his mate, he couldn't help himself whenever she showed even a hint of territorial or jealous behavior, no matter how small. He silently reveled in it. Cowrie scoffed, trying to ignore the amused twitch in her mate's long tail.

"I just know how things work in that place and I'm trying to keep you from getting robbed down to your bones, Jay Jay!" Cowrie huffed with her cheek puffed up like a grumpy blowfish. This only made Jade internally gush over how cute she was. The younger Cerith sister turned to her impatient brother-in-law-to-be and gave him a serious look.

"Floyd," the tiny eelmaid grabbed onto Floyd's black strand of hair and gently pulled him down to look her in the eyes and used his proper name to show she meant business, "Trust Sevy and don't do anything besides what he told you to do, ok? My sister will be heartbroken if you get yourself killed and I'll kill you myself if you get her or Jay Jay killed, got it?"

Floyd's tail kicked up some sand in irritation but he didn't look away from Cowrie's sharp stare either as if doing so would be stepping down from a challenge, "Yeah. I get it."

"Good. And no fighting unless you absolutely have to!"

Floyd just huffed and gave Cowrie a pout to rival her own. Azul crossed his arms and sighed, "For the record, I think you're both absolutely mad for even attempting this...however, it would be a crime to leave Luna trapped in that horrible place. So get in, get her out, and get out of there before the Muraeni's even realize what happened."

Azul flashed the portal key to the Octavinelle dorm that Jade had passed onto him, just in case things went south way quicker than they anticipated. Everyone knew their roles. Everything was prepared. Azul and Elise waited in the coral garden with Cowrie while the twins snuck off the property under a spot in the tall fence they had dug out months during their last visit home. Cowrie sat curled up in Elise's arms, trying not to show how anxious she was really feeling as she watched the twins disappear into the night.

The Siren's Cove was packed. Seven had his hands full keeping the guest list check-ins tight but flowing smoothly. There were, of course, the non-elite patrons that spent most of their nights at the Cove's usual open events but they were soon turned away at the door and informed that tonight was a private event for only those who were personally invited by the owner, Don Muraeni himself. Those who didn't comply were swiftly met with shark and ray mermen bouncers who didn't waste time with verbal explanations. His father and oldest brother were already seated in the Don's private box, comfortable and ready to enjoy the night's coming entertainment. Seven's younger brothers, however, were left outside to watch the perimeter for anyone who looked shady.

Seven's calm eyes roamed over the line of patrons as they showed their printed invitations to the doormen and entered the club to greet him where he stood watch. They knew who he was and he knew them but he held fast to the rule of silence and merely bowed his head graciously to each of them as they entered. Some came armed with gifts for their favored sirens. Seven accepted each one without question and had the staff take each gift to the girls' rooms in rotation. Any gift that came for Luna was simply left outside her door, lining the hallway so as not to disturb her as she prepared herself.

Seven's eye spotted another Don of a smaller clan that was indebted to his father enter the venue with a group of his own associates in tow. He was a Zebra moray with a small family and a slowly declining ring of muscle but under Don Muraeni's umbrella, he was able to keep his own household afloat. The Don nodded to Seven out of respect and motioned for one of his lackeys to present a vase of flowers to Seven to give to Luna.

"To celebrate the young mistress' debut," he grinned with a rough dry voice.

Seven was about to accept the vase when a suddenly clanging noise was heard from the ceiling. Everyone who heard it looked up to see a series of ventilation port-like openings in the stone ceiling. It seemed to be coming from one of the openings...like something was crawling or skittering around inside.

Seven snapped his fingers and signaled to two manta ray mermen on standby that floated into the main entryway from the shadowed corners. They nodded just before one of them went to investigate the vents while the other took the vase from the visiting Don.

"Probably just a lost crab or some other small intruder, I'm sure...they seem to swarm this time of year," Seven reassured the Don and his crew motioning for them to enter the main hall. The manta ray that took the vase was then given his instructions from Seven.

"Take this to Luna's door and knock. She always prefers flowers to be delivered personally."

The mantra ray gave him a courteous grin before swimming towards the backstage corridor without any questions.

Luna sat before her mirror, adorning the elaborately strung pearls she was given to wear specifically for her performance tonight. Her face was a cold mask of calm but inside, each nerve was on fire. Seven hadn't elaborated on what exactly to expect tonight, just that she should be 'ready' and to act as if everything was normal. Meaning that Luna kept up the facade of a scolded diva put in her place by her angry step-brother and now supervisor, keeping her mouth shut and her head down. Obedient and silent when she wasn't on stage. Other than that...Luna held the freshly made coral key in her hands, not sure exactly where it would take her when the moment came. She hid it inside her jewelry box along with the gold necklace Floyd had given her moments before hearing a knock at her door. She opened it to find one of the manta ray staff holding a vase of flowers addressed to her.

"Oh thank you. These are gorgeous," Luna took the vase in her arms and admired the blooms as the mantra ray smiled down at her. She swore that one of his eyes was darker than the other and his smile though...she had seen it somewhere before. The manta ray said nothing before bowing to her and swimming back towards the main entrance, leaving Luna to wonder if she was just imagining things. She set the vase on her table, that Seven had replaced for her, and finished getting ready, knowing that they would call for her any moment. Perhaps it was just Luna's nerves getting the better of her but as soon as she turned around to look at herself one more time in her mirror, she thought she saw the vase move in the reflection. Of course, when Luna turned around...it was perfectly still. She took a deep breath and let it and her paranoia out. Clearly, she was just getting a bit stir crazy. Luna left her room as soon as the stagehands called out for her.

The main hall was filled to the brim. All the guests had been seated and were being served by the eager wait staff who knew tonight would be the best time to rake in some heavy tips for themselves. Seven saw that the security closed and locked all of the exits and entrances until the performances were over per his father's orders. Once everything was in place, he took his seat in his own box. He was one step above his younger siblings who were locked outside but still below his father and eldest brother. Therefore, he sat in a different box, separate from them. He was soon joined by the same manta ray that had delivered Luna's flowers for him. The eel gestured for the ray to sit in the seat next to him.

"You might as well get comfortable. It's going to be an interesting night."

The manta joined him with a grin as he took a seat next to the eel. Jade Leech's voice left his lips in a sly chuckle, "I imagine so, big brother."

Seven grunted, "Shut up and plug up your ears already. The show's about to start."

Luna's first song ended with the sound of vigorous applause. She peeked out from behind the curtains and found where her stepfather and brother sat. They looked as satisfied as either could possibly bear to show. Her eyes wandered across the upper level until she found the box she knew was Seven's. It was empty. He was already on the move, it would seem. This only gave Luna more reason to follow the next direction that he had given her earlier.

'After your first song, return to your room and stay there until it's time for your second and final song.'

Luna did exactly that. What was waiting for her there nearly made her jump out of her speckles. Fortunately, Luna was smart enough to clamp her hand over her mouth as she quickly shut the door behind her. The vase from before had been tipped over and the flowers scattered all over the floor and laying on top of her pillows on her bed was a miniature version of a very familiar face that could very well fit in her palm, just napping away. Her gasp seemed to make the tiny thing stir awake and beam up at her as soon as he was fully awake. She wasn't sure if he was even real but there he was...smiling up at her as he always did whenever they have reunited again.

"...Floyd??"

oop another cliffhanger

Tagging: @nuitthegoddess @wysteriadelights @1ndigowitch @honey-milk-depresso @foxwitchaine @victoria1676 @aiimee9 @iscarlettappel @marcepanna @feldya @zstargalaxy @evieyouknow @espada188

#neoninky #twisted wonderland #ao3 fanfic #ao3 writer #sacred crown chronicles #twst oc x canon #octavinelle #twst oc schools #floyd leech #jade leech #azul ashengrotto #twst ocs #the cerith sisters #luna cerith #cowrie cerith #elise coralette #seven sevy muraeni #more eel mermaids #its jailbreak time bitches

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abirdonalilactree · 3 years ago

Text

First gay ship I watched that actually became canon. (kinda toxic tho-)

Y'all remember the first time you saw your gay ship become canon? I suppose for many of you it was Supernatural.

For me it was back in 2013 when the series finale of Rules of Engagement came out, which is pretty early if you are talking about gay stuff. Not only did we get a slowburn spanning over several seasons, it also ended in a gay wedding.

In this essay I will talk about why this ship is so important to me and why it also was toxic as feck.

The show is about two couples and their single friend, all at different stages in their relationships, deal with the complications of dating, commitment, and marriage. From season three on, there kinda is a slow burn until season seven ends with the two unmarried couples getting married as well.

What started as a horrible boss messing with his assistant turned into a surprising love story.

I'm not sure why I came back to this series after so many years in the first place. Some of the jokes are quite offensive so here is a warning for that. But on the other hand, all episodes are up on YouTube for free soo… Right now, in the September of 2021 we have exactly 20 fics on Ao3 by amazing authors. We are a really small fandom. The show ended in 2013 but like three or four people are still here.

Let me introduce the main characters:

The married couple consists of Jeff and Audrey Bingham. Jeff has been a financial manager and husband of Audrey since 1995. He has a rather deadpan, cold and sardonic personality and sense of self, particularly when dealing with Russell and Adam, but he is not sadistic or unkind, thereby rendering these traits as merely ironic and biting humor. He loves sports, shuns anything that might resemble sensitivity and often views his marriage as a competition or war, refusing to let Audrey "win" the upper hand at anything.

Audrey is an editor at Indoor Living magazine before later resigning and the assertive, modern wife of Jeff. She tolerates her husband's insensitivity because she knows he is not malicious and will do whatever it takes to make the situation right once he realizes his mistake. As a couple, they both can be very condescending and manipulative towards each other, in order to gain the upper hand, and typically don't like to concede to the other that they were wrong.

Adam Rhodes, a sensitive and well-meaning, but extremely naive and super extremely stupid, co-worker of Russell and Timmy, and Jennifer's fiancé throughout the series until they are married in the series finale. He is a neighbor of Jeff and Audrey, looks up to Jeff, and often acts on Jeff's relationship advice -This usually results in making the situation worse for himself. Jennifer Morgan is the fiancée and eventual wife of Adam, who endures his faults because of his good looks. She is very self-conscious of him, and will often try to spare him from embarrassment.

Timir "Timmy" Patel was introduced in season 3 and became a season regular from season 4-7. He first appears when Russell hires him as his assistant. Although he is fluent in seven languages and holds an MBA, Timmy is often forced to do menial work or to solve Russell's trivial problems which often annoys Timmy. While many of Russell's schemes disgust him, Timmy will often see them through so that he can enjoy Russell's deserved penalty.

Russell Dunbar on the other hand is wealthy, only due to his trust fund, which he uses to impress and seduce women. He is presented as a seedy and sleazy man who only cares about how many women he can get. However, it is shown that he has a softer side. His relationships within the group are seemingly conflicted, many of the group dislike his behaviour and mock him, as they do everyone else, but it seems that he expresses just as much distaste for them as he does not choose to invite them places unless he needs them to. Through Timmy, he is analysed by a psychiatrist to have sociopathic tendencies which explains his destructive behaviour.

He is also self absorbed and immature.

...But the thing is sometimes he isn’t.

While all three relationships show a lot of signs of toxicity, Timmy and Russell’s relationship is certainly the most destructive one. Which is mostly Russell’s fault.

But let me show you.

From a psychological point of view, their relationship ticks most of the boxes of a toxic relationship.

Toxic communication

Instead of treating each other with kindness, most of their conversations are filled with sarcasm, criticism, or overt hostility. Yet sometimes kindness is in fact seeking through.

Jealousy

There is so, so much jealousy going on. Russell really does everything to not allow Timmy to get together with a woman. Although only as the show goes on, it becomes clear that Russell is jealous because he has fallen for Timmy.

Controlling behaviors

Russell is questioning where Timmy is all the time or becoming overly upset when he doesn’t immediately answer texts are both signs of controlling behavior, which can contribute to toxicity in a relationship. And it gets so much worse than that. But more to that later.

Resentment

Yes.

Dishonesty

Yes. ALL the time.

Patterns of disrespect

Being chronically late, casually “forgetting” events, and other behaviors that show disrespect for each other's time are a red flag. This makes it red flag number six.

Constant stress

A normal amount of tension runs through every relationship, but finding oneself constantly on edge is an indicator that something’s off. Yet another red flag.

This ongoing stress can take a toll on the physical and emotional health of a person. Which is one hundred percent happening.

Ignoring needs

Going along with whatever one partner wants to do, even when it goes against the wishes or comfort level of the other one. From his first episode in the show on, Timmy is forced to do absurd stuff he doesn’t want to do and honestly no one should do for their boss.

Lost relationships

Stopping to spend time with friends and family, either to avoid conflict with a partner or to get around having to explain what’s happening in the relationship.

Hoping for change

One might stay in a relationship because they see the other person’s potential or think that if they just change themselves and their actions, their partner will change as well. And it’s the little moments when Russell shows for only moments the tiniest bit of being a good person that make Timmy stay with him.

Walking on eggshells

One worries that by bringing up problems, they’ll provoke extreme tension, so they become conflict avoidant and keep any issues to themselves.

Lack of support however is arguably not always one of their problems. But we’ll come back to that.

And still, they share their sweet moments.

The following clip, made by CBS itself shows really well how it is for them to work with each other.

https://youtu.be/GfPI3HgMYoI

And then there is character development. Here the group of friends talks about Jeff lying to his wife about another friends bachelor party because he doesn’t want to spend time with her aunt.

https://youtu.be/LQPIFcrBltQ

Russell doesn't want to get married, clearly. This clip also conveys pretty well how horrible those people are.

There is this tension and the gay jokes. This clip also shows really well how manipulative Russell -tries- to be.

https://youtu.be/XkdycXzX4ag

And then there are moments like these: In season 6 Timmy wanted to impress a woman who only wants to date singers so Russell teaches him how to play the guitar with the ulterior motive of Timmy embarrassing himself in front of the whole company. This idea backfires when Russell realises that he can’t watch Timmy suffer like that and he joins on stage and they start this duet that’s like super gay.

https://youtu.be/UH3P_LfBBQo

To be with you by Mr Big is an interesting choice of song. -Not only because it’s quite romantic but also because the lyrics seem to be surprisingly fitting at second glance.

Let’s analyze it because Music is an important aspect.

“One of the great unrequited love songs, "To Be With You" has a true story behind it. Mr. Big lead singer Eric Martin wrote the song when he was still a teenager - 16 or 17 in his estimation. The girl was Patricia Reynolds, and he had it bad for her.

"We were really, really good friends," Martin said in a Songfacts interview. "I was totally enamored with this woman. She was beautiful. Smart. I mean, brains, beauty, break down the walls, made me crawl on my belly like a reptile!

I just loved this woman, but she just wanted to be my friend. She'd have tons of boyfriends, and maybe she misconstrued promiscuity for love. But I wanted to be the knight in shining armor. That's what I was, a knight in shining armor. But basically, I didn't get my feet wet. I wrote it about how I would have done anything to just be more than a friend and a confidante."”

-https://www.songfacts.com/facts/mr-big/to-be-with-you

So much to the history of the song. Do you see the parallels? Do you see them? Do you?

Anyway. When Russell joins Timmy on the stage, he starts with the lines:

Build up your confidence

So you can be on top for once

Wake up, who cares about

Little boys that talk too much

I think this has to be taken literally. Not sure how much I should go into detail here.

This however brings us back to the point of support from our list earlier.

I've seen it all go down

The game of love was all rained out

So come on baby, come on over

Let me be the one to hold you

I'm the one who wants to be with you (I'm the one, yeah)

Deep inside I hope you feel it too (feel it too)

Waited on a line of greens and blues (waited on a line yeah)

Just to be the next to be with you

That’s kinda Gay.

There are jokes all over the seasons that Timmy and Russell are gay but it becomes most clear that Russell is in love with Timmy, in the last season, when Timmy leaves to go on vacation and Russell misses him so much that he gets a girlfriend and turns her into a copy of Timmy.

Things get worse when Timmy finds out that Russell completely lost his marbles and chipped him to always know his whereabouts. This finally makes Timmy leave the company and get a new job where he finally gets treated with respect. It is shown how they miss each other despite everything. But then Timmy loses his work Visa which turns out to be completely Russell’s fault.

Right after Jenn and Adam marry in the last episode, Russell proposes to Timmy so he can stay in America but it becomes clear that there is more than his conscience that made him do this.

Russell turning his girlfriend into Timmy. (There is no heterosexual explanation for this):

https://youtu.be/sX1xTybc6vI

Timmy finding out how much Russell really stalks him. (like. he is totally in love with him):

https://youtu.be/jPWKdwpXCLU

Their Wedding (seems pretty gay to me):

https://youtu.be/Ymp-zaTmnD8

You need to see the whole show as it is. A bunch of horrible people that are made fun of.

Furthermore you could argue that they don’t actually kiss. But maybe marriage is even more meaningful.

I suppose that since we get so little representation, we like to clasp onto everything we can get. Because when I watched this I was too young to understand how offensive the shit they talk about really is. But after all it meant a lot to my gay little heart.

So many years later I gotta say that it needs to be said that it’s a toxic relationship after all. Don’t try it at home. Don’t try it with your boss or assisstant.

In the end it’s a green card marriage. But there is this whole arch of Russell falling in love with Timmy. Most clearly in the last three episodes but also starting a lot earlier. It’s a slow burn after all. It’s never said out loud but we got two bisexual characters right there.

Now I’m asking around my friends what their first gay ship was that became canon. The results really show that we don’t get enough representation in series. Just wow.

Hannigram became canon. kinda. They jumped off a cliff together instead of kissing. That one dude from supernatural you guys keep talking about got sent to super gay hell after confessing.

What I want to say is I just wanna see a healthy gay ship become canon some day.

Thanks for reading!

...So what was your first gay ship that became canon?

#long post #gay #timmy x russell #russell dunbar #timmy patel #timmy/russell #rules of engagement #david spade #adhir kalyan #gay ship #the ship has sailed #cbs #tv #2013 #television #in this essay i will #analysis #toxic relationship #sam watches tv

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whomuses · 3 years ago

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// Hey so I'm just gonna throw some quick info out there. Some people who have been following me for a long time may have noticed I'm acting kinda uhhhhhhh weird and I wanted to give you guys an insight. Also people who are new followers!

So! As far as I am aware I have ADHD. I am not officially diagnosed and I am not medicated in any way, I hit a huge amount of hallmark symptoms, and I majorly hyperfocus. I also suffery really badly with Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria (rsd). Now I am 28 and when I was younger I didn't know wtf was going on. Nowadays I have much, much better control over it; I've been working very hard on my mental health. I still suffer pretty bad with bouts of insomnia and obvs... I mean. hyperfixation. currently manifesting as peter parker brain rot.

UNFORTUNATELY, over christmas, as some of you have seen, I had a covid scare. My brain dealt with the very, very severe depression drop and insomnia by making me focus on writing in a way I haven't focused in a very, very long time. And this is also manifesting in other ways.

My entire RP lifespan (I've been doing RP since I was 11 and I am rapidly approaching 29) I have struggled with being annoying. Driving people away. Harrassing them for replies they didn't want to give, or pushing people until they hate me. I didn't know until recently this was a manifestation of symptoms. I have worked so, so hard to curb this behaviour. Over years. Over fucking years!! and all it has taken is three days and it has done a huge amount of damage. I am - struggling. honestly.

And I'm typing this out in an attempt at honesty. I need people to be clear with me. If I am irritating you, ask me to back off. If I send too many messages, if I ask for too much, if I go too fast, if I make you upset, please, please tell me. I am working on getting my brain back in order. I am struggling severely with my insomnia and I am brutally aware of just how badly my symptoms are manifesting. I appreciate you all, how nice you've all been and the reassurances. I'm not doing this to ask for sympathy. But yeah.

This has gone on way, way, waaaay too long lmao but thank you for anyone who reads it. I hope you can understand why I'm acting the way I am and I reassure you I am working on getting my brain back under control. Love y'all so much <3 Jay.

#ooc //#long post /

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m143ui · 4 years ago

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A MESSAGE TO THE PJO FANDOM

so hello friends on the other side

I understand some of the major concerns regarding characters like piper and the feather and hazels description but when you bring Leo and Reyna into the fucking conversation I have lost all respect.

ANYONE CAN BE ABUSED, ETHNICITY HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH IT

LATINO CHARACTERS

Reyna is not a negative stereotype, she isn't defined by being latina and neither is Leo, he isn't a stereotype simply because he’s latino and was abused. also him being called an elf was because he was short, which had nothing to do with him being latino. also the mamacita comment like y'all hide under the label “progressive” but ignore that mamacita has been a thing in Latin American communities for a fucking while. its not an insult dammit. its something that happens in our communities!!! its like saying muchacho y'all don't see men bitching about that.

also shocker I read the mamacita comment and I can proudly say I didn't go

“RICK YOU RACIST BITCH”

things that actually happen in communities aren't racist

and before any of y'all come at me with the usual you’re white excuse, hello friends im Peruvian and Paraguayan.

I don't think he’s perfect but bitching about characters like Leo which gave many of my Latin American friends hope for similar characters destroys your “listening to minorities” argument

also the lol “hes Mexican taco bad” argument like I live in Mexico we eat tacos like every fucking day. its literally a fact. and Leo isn't just defined as taco man.

believe it or not us latinos respect rick because he gave us role models and characters like us. we don't define a character by one line and instantly call discrimination. like yes a asian character can be snobby it has nothing to do with ethnicity. y'all are making this about ethnicity. an asian character can be anything, just like a white character or a black character or a gay character. people are not simply defined by their labels like ya’ll think. y'all are just a bunch of easily triggered snowflakes that can't live with that. they can be influenced but in the end labels are labels we are all human and should be treated as such.

LGBT REPRESENTATION

another thing Reyna was never officially a lesbian that was YOUR interpretation not riordans. IF HE DIDNT STATE IT , SORRY HONEY IT ISN’T CANON! I don't care about how she was “lesbian coded” if he didn't state it it isn't canon.

I am so sick, as a lesbian, to see people use ALL QUEER DEATHS as a bury your gay tropes, what happened to seeing us as humans? why can't we be treated like any other character? if we die we die, it isn't always “haha gay evil boom death”. sometimes fully fledged characters have to die friends.

Nico isn't a bad gay character, he’s just a normal character who happens to be gay and has suffered major trauma. HIS TRAUMA WAS CAUSED BY HIS UPBRINGING, Nico isn't a 2000′s character, he’s from the 30′s, so obviously he woudn’t be perfect with his sexuality for gods sake it was the 30′s. the exact same thing happens with hazel, she isn't a modern black woman, she's a 30′s black woman. Nico’s coming out isn't him as a 21st century teen its from the time when the GOVERNMENT KILLED YOU FOR BEING GAY

also saying there are no lesbian characters? like wow look emmie and jo don't exist. Lavinia doesn't exist. poison doesn't exist. thanks fam you really make yourselves look smart here. simply because rick never said the word gay doesn't mean the gay characters don't exist friends. they are just labeled as what gay characters should be labeled as.... human.

LESBOPHOBIA & RACISM

im not educated in muslim or black culture so I won't mention characters like sam and hazel and piper because I respect and I am highly critical of what rick put in his books to describe these specific minorities.

HOWEVER saying rick is a lesbophobe, a homophobe, a racist a sexist cis guy is like do y’all wanna be taken seriously? use arguments don't hide behind words.

rick isn't a perfect writer but y'all really don't know how to criticise, y'all just hide behind big boy words and back it up with no evidence, just opinions.

rick doesn’t have the best minority rep out there but he is damn well trying and I respect that unlike all you fucking idiots.

SHIPS

now onto ships.... yay

frazel: im not gonna censor it like you pussies, believe it or not 13&16 year old relationships exist. they might not always be healthy but they exist. to deny this is to be stupid

solangelo: another ship that is censored..the main argument I've seen is that it isn't developed and will isn't even a character... he was in last olympian and lost hero not my fault y'all have fish brains. I don't care if you dislike it but don't be like “ANYONE WHO SHIPS THIS IS AN ABUSIVE WHORE” like wow you always preach about accepting all ships and then throw this? also if you hate solangelo because of the “abuse” but ship percico like hi friends Nico is 4 years younger than Percy.. if y'all hate frazel because of the 3 year age difference y'all should hate this too.

CONCLUSIONS AND SHIT

not every character minority or otherwise is gonna be the way you want them to be, believe it or not any character can be anything, black characters can be loud, white characters can be loud. if they're only loud because “haha black” then THATS an issue not the simple existence of a loud black woman who has a loud personality.

y'all be here bitching about drew and I've never heard the asian perspective of this? just a bunch of black and white people telling asians they should be offended. was that just an uno reverse?

also last point stereotypes aren't always a negative thing and y'all need to get that in your heads.

anyway stay mad hoes <3

from a sane Peruvian <3

EDIT

I saw this beauty and had to comment on it

“having LGBT characters experience abuse and violence. nicos forceful outing rubs me the wrong way, especially because hes called a coward for being in the closet. its violent and kind of disturbing to make your gay character come out of the closet by force. maybe write better. additionally, alex's abusive father and subsequent homelessness because of her being trans is badly written.”

oh noooo gay characters can't deal with homophobia anymore ! like I can tell you have never been punched for being gay. is it bad to showcase how trans and gay ppl are 40% of homeless youth? or is even mentioning that discrimination? believe it or not some of us live in countries where people try to kill us. you have an advantage and it shows. about the coward thing...

was FUCKING CUPID A GOOD CHARACTER? NO? I REST MY CASE. CUPID IS NOT SEEN AS A GOOD PERSON THEREFORE HE IS NOT A GOOD PERSON GET THAT IN YOUR THICK SKULLS.

YOU HEARD IT HERE FOLKS LGBT FOLKS DONT GET FORCED OUT OF THE CLOSET

#NEVER HAPPENS IN REALITY.

JUST BECAUSE YOU WERENT FORCED OUT OF THE CLOSET DOESNT MEAN OTHER PEOPLE HAVE THAT SAME LUXURY.

maybe stop spewing bullshit <3

(so I get that this scene can remind people of being outed and it can hurt them however this scene was never intended to be a good thing it literally says Nico is scared of facing his emotions)

EDIT NUMBER 2

oh boy rick really pissed off the snowflakes that I share a fandom with

“give Nico to the gays” no? he would be a femboy and they would yeet his trauma like ssrsly?

also hate rick? bitch no one is forcing you to read his tweets.

death of the author is such a toxic thing like the mans is alive boo he aint going nowhere..like What the fuck

EDIT NUMBER 3

anyway final thoughts on this :

nico insn’t Uwu gay and its an insult to his character

Reyna is not a lesbian canonically (neither is Thalia)

Leo and Reyna are not racist

none of ricks characters are written as insults to their communities

and if I see one more “but ....phobia/ ...ism I will do very illegal things

peace lol

RICK RIORDAN UPDATE:

congratulations rick antis! you have successfully harassed a 56 year old man into leaving social media! wow so progressive!!!! this totally won't backfire or anything!!!

all jokes aside all of you who harassed rick to the point of someone else taking over his social media should feel ashamed

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sweetestlamb · 4 years ago

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Stronger Part 3 (Unbreak my Heart)

Summary: Gang-tae finally gets a reality check.

Author's note: Slightly tipsy as I wrote this, life has been very busy but I have plans to write a naughty Search:WWW fic so I wanted to get this out first. The next chapters will be the climaxes and y'all can let me know if you want smut in this series, or if you like it nice and wholesome. 🙃🙃🙃🙃 But no worries the smut would come muchhhhh later.

Mang-tae lays limp on the night frosted ground, gleaming button eyes peering up at him in judgement. With a deep rooted sigh he bends over to retrieve the doll, pocketing it before turning from the empty spot she no longer resides.

The happiness that bubbled up at her unforeseen appearance has twisted and crystallized into a rancid pool of disappointment and melancholy at her just as sudden disappearance.

He doesn't understand.

Opening up had been difficult, the most challenging obstacle he'd faced in their.... predicament. She'd been poking and prodding for as long as he'd know her, enticing him to crawl out of his self imposed prison, until he broke. Unleashed all his pain and misery on her like torrential showers thundering from the heavens. Voicing hidden horrors and his not so hidden desires, he'd tried to subdue his feelings but as always she made him act out of character.

The thought of that mad woman harming her made his skin boil with heated anger, so much so that all he could do was kiss her back to life; his grim thoughts had painted morbid tales of her demise and seeing her there on the staircase, painfully gorgeous had been so heart shattering he almost wept.

But somehow that hadn't been enough. His secrets and his scars weren't enough for her, she'd seen the real him and taken his advice to get lost. She wasn't supposed to listen to him, she never had before.

"Geesh what was that about? She looked like a witch out here! Did you two have fight? Why didn't she try to kidnap you and take you home?" Jae-su's bewildered voice cracks through the thumping of his heart, weighty in his chest.

He fumbles to think of an answer. He's at a loss, maybe he was the one who wouldn't understand her for a hundred years.

"I... don't... It's nothing. We're fine. Let's go inside." His friend scoffs, condescending eyes calling him a liar but he ignores them, running away instead.

At least he still has Sang-tae.

"I can't. I'm busy." His brother carelessly rejects his offer to hang out and watch cartoons, stuffing pencils and a notepad into the satchel slung across his body. Fidgeting as he fixes his hair in the mirror, visibly excited about his events for the day. He tries not to be jealous that he isn't a part of those plans.

He fails.

"Where are you going? Can't I come?" He pleads, staring up at his older brother with wide beckoning eyes.

Sang-tae stares back nonplussed, "You're not as cute at the alley cat, that won't convince me. That isn't convincing at all Gang-tae."

With a groan he rolls on the bed roll, before clambering onto his feet. Pulling out his phone he sends Jae-su a text, Do you want to hang out? He freezes as his eyes unknowingly land on her messages underneath, tricks to get him back in the castle and teasing selfies that he had saved once he received them.

He'd composed many messages to her before his thumb destroyed them with systemic viciousness, leaving no letter untouched. There was still a minuscule part of him that envisioned her coming back of her own volition. She always came back, boomeranging back into his life every time he attempted to flick her out. It was a law of his universe.

Yet it had been days since their last interaction and he'd heard nothing from her, no calls or messages, simply radio silence. He was beginning to become worried.

The honk of a car snaps him from his thoughts as Sang-tae perks up at the alarming sound, happily flailing before running out the doors.

He follows blindly, stopping in the doorway gazing down at her familiar car, instinctively he grabs Sang-tae's arm hindering his movement and escape.

"Where are you going?" He asks stupidly as if he can't see what is so painfully obvious.

Sang-tae looks at him with a look that mirrors his own thoughts, "My bestie invited me to a book conference, I'm going as her illustrator. We're going as partners, it's too to make connections she said. I'll be gone all day."

He can't hear Sang-tae's excited spiel over the blood rushing to his face, she hadn't contacted him at all but clearly was still conversing with his brother. Why was she only upset with him? Annoyance and jealousy ebb in equal waves in his blood line.

"Hyung don't you think that's too much? I thought you weren't talking to her right now." He instigates, feeling petty about being the one left out.

"I was but I forgave her, sometimes best friends fight but she apologized so I forgave her. She's going to be a better best friend now."

Sang-tae speaks calmly and certainly, pulling away from his firm grip and skipping down the stairs before hopping into the car.

Finally he allows his eyes to land on the window, readily expecting her answering gaze, eager to lock eyes with her and get lost in time with her.

Her smile is blinding and tender, eyes soft crescents.

But they aren't on him, they are locked instead on Sang-tae. Cloying possessiveness curls around his control and without any acknowledgement of him, they're gone in smoke and the smell of burnt rubber.

He gets drunk, disgustingly so, sloshing the liquid on his sleeves as he loses his balance and almost pitches off the table.

He'd bitten the bullet and finally sent her a message, readying for her to call and for them to fight their way back into their... predicament.

Instead he'd gotten a taste of his own medicine, it was poignantly bitter. It hadn't even been read. He wasn't sure if that made it better or worse.

"I told her everything, things I never even told you! But she's ignoring me, why? Why would she do that?"

Jae-su's eyes are huge as he rambles on, snatching a shot of soju from his hand before he can slam it back, he whines making grabby hands.

"Why did you get so drunk? You said that you only wanted to have a few drinks." Jae-su sighs exasperated, falling back onto the table folding his arms behind his head.

"Jae-su, what did I do wrong? Why won't she answer my messages? I stopped running, I let her catch m--"

"Yah!" They both jump from the volume of the scream, Gang-tae almost falling to the ground in his shock.

Sang-in's rage filled face swims in his vision, intoxication stuttering his movement.

"You think you did her any favors? You think meeting you did her any good? Do you know what she was like after you left her that day? She cried everyday. You broke her. You made her come back to this wretched place, do you know what that castle means to her? You're a selfish prick. Did you even say sorry to her for everything you've done to her?" Sang-in's spit showers his face in a wet splash, a feeling of deja vu overwhelming him.

He blinks back, dazed.

Jae-su shakes himself from his trance, jumping to his defense, "What's your problem? Of course he apologized to her! What are you accusing my best friend of?" He points his finger into the manager's face as they slap and hit each other.

That day. His blood runs cold, remembering his cruel words, berating and belittling her all because he couldn't deal with his feelings for her. Couldn't be honest with his brother or himself.

One time event.

Her tears salty like the sea water that crashed at their feet.

Realization drops on him like a dead weight, severing his air flow.

Did you even apologize?

Did you even say sorry?

He racks his brain scouring his memory desperately, that conversation playing out in his mind like a movie, scene by scene.

Telling her about Sang-tae and his trauma, the effects that had on him and the way he was allowed to live life, inviting her to join this life, be with them.

And, I, need you.

All about him.

He hadn't asked her if she was okay after being targeted by a patient, her skin pale as he ascended the stairs to wrap her in a hug. Her voice was not a part of the conversation, he'd said let's talk but in all honesty he had been the only one to talk.

About his pain.

His suffering.

All about him.

Gosh.

"I'm an asshole." He whispers aloud finally, finally understanding.

Sang-in and Jae-su both pause at his soft declaration, hands tangled from their scuffle.

"You are. But somehow you got the bitch and the nice girl. You don't deserve either."

He has never felt smaller in his life.

Why are you mad?

Stop acting up.

Those had been his messages, the only messages he'd sent to her, nothing but shameful regret fills his veins now, he hadn't done nearly enough. Not by a long shot.

He'd woken up the next day with a killer hangover and a sour taste in his mouth, wanting the ground to swallow him up. He wasn't that lucky.

He'd called her, one, two, three, many times. Each time going to voice mail, testament to her avoiding him.

Mun-yeong. Please.

I need to talk to you.

He'd lost track of the amount of times he'd looked at his phone hopefully, only to be crestfallen when it wasn't her. If this was anything like she felt when he ignored his messages he would never do that again. That coupled with Sang-in's snarky comments and withering glares made him want to pull his hair out.

The castle looms over him as he hesitates at the gate, before pushing it open with a loud creak.

His knocks boom on the hollow wood of the door, pounding as hard as his heart. The castle is silent, he pounds once more.

"Mun-yeong! Ko Mun-Yeong, please open up! I need to talk to you." He hangs his head, hand sliding down the smooth wood.

The silence is deafening.

"Please, Mun-yeong. I'm.... sorry."

He falls to the steps, the strength disappearing from his bones.

"Get up. Stop making such a scene, this was always the outcome. Only I can take care of her."

He twists his head around, eyes too tired to form a true glare but the intent there.

"Where is she?" He demands, fury and shame emboldening him.

Sang-in scoffs at him, walking away after peering through the windows.

He feels his eyes prickle from his emotions overtaking him, life without her was like going from high definition to black and white, his life was lack luster and empty.

"Wait." He begs, tears caressing his cheeks, "Please, where is she? I have to make this right."

Sang-in pauses on the last step, hesitation evident in the sharp angle of his shoulders before he starts walking again, leaving him shattered on the ground.

Sang-in stops at his car, steel eyes as he looks at him with pity, "Maybe it's your turn to start chasing."

The truth can be humbling.

#it's okay to not be okay #it's okay to not be okay fanfiction #psycho but it's okay #ko mun yeong #moon gang tae #kim soo hyun #seo ye ji #long live IOTNBO #More groveling on the way #MY pov next

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tellywoodtrash · 4 years ago

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immj2 30.10.20 lb

lol ishani is suchhhhhhhhh a messy bitch. not even pretending to look less than outright gleeful.

le, iska rona shuru. god sis, you knowwwwwww these bitches have it out for you, then why do you give them the satisfaction of seeing this reaction???

yeh aadmi hai ya bhagwaan? koi bhi jagaah koi bhi time marzi se prakat ho jaata hai.

THAT FUCKING STUPIDASS SCARF IS RUINING THE WHOLEEEEEE LOOOK. GOD WHY DO THEY DO THIS TO HIM?????????

TUMNE JITNE TELLYWOOD FANS KO KHOOOON KE AANSOON RULAAYE HAINNNNA SHIRALI, BHAGWAN TUMHE IN PAAPON KE LIYE KABHI NAHI MAAF KAREGA!!!!!!!!!!

also, just noticed the set and production design credits and finally have names to put on all the hate mail i wanna send.

naaaah jk, i think it's really nice that they got employment in this pandemic, even with their OBVIOUS lack of taste. so much so, that it seems to be a medical condition!

anyway, he said he got this sargi for ishani on behalf of angre, but since she's got hers anyway, this one can be given to riddhima. noice. this fucker be worming his way into my heart with shit like this.

inka phir se popat bann gaya.

mummy biting out and giving the worst blessing of all, “sadaa suhaagan raho.” which is just an elaborate way of saying "hope you die before your husband does, because life without a man is worse than death itself!!!!!!"

“thank you mummyji. aapne ~~sachchi neeyat~~~ se sargi taiyyar kii thi toh dekhiye, mere haath khaali nahi hain!”

lmao nice. where was this riddhima allllll along?????? i've been waitinggggg for this snarky bitchhhhh who doesn't take shit!!!!!

le, aadarsh bahu mode is back on. sab ke liye koi paath ka intezaam kiya. chanchal chachi was right, she's suchhhhh a annoying suck-up to dadi, honestly.

husband is like here, no one's looking; sneak some almonds, come on. yes, i approve. this the kinda man* you want ladies. one who's willing to have a few hours taken off his lifespan so you don't get hangry.

(*T&C strictly apply: only in this feeding waala criteria wrt this dude. baaki sab toh disaster hi disaster hai iss mein.)

“kaisi baat kar rahe ho??? vrat sachchi nishtha se kii jati hai. koi nahi dekh raha par bhagwaan dekh rahe hain!”

lmao, the most appropriate response.

wait you guys genuinely need a gif of this moment, coz it’s priceless:

i can't believe they don't let this dude move his face in this show when he is the MOST ENTERTAINING when he doessssss.

he's like dude i'll adjust with the 2 hours less in my life, but dharampatni is i won’t let you escape a minute of suffering existence in this flesh prison we’re all trapped in, so help me god!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

who the fuckkkkkkkkk is this????? and you know you didn't need a needle on the syringe for this whole thing, don't you???

vansh's "baaz ki nazar" toh i've long given up on, but riddhima's peripheral vision also seems to be completely shit if she didn't notice a wholeass person wrapped in all black skulking around directly in her eyeline, not 10 feet away.

lmaooooooo dadi is like tf you doing here, and the hasty retreat he beat. scaryass men soft for their sweet old grandmas is a trend i really do love in tellywood.

oh i like ishani's outfit.

blah blah blah KC gyaan idgaf.

riddhima has lit diya and instant cough attack from the smoke.

it's her. she's the one who did this. looks like she's okay with bhai dying a few days earlier than fated, as long as it means she knocks riddhima down a few pegs.

mummy rubbing it in saying dekho yeh akhand paath hai, beech mein rukna nahi chahiye, apshagun hota hai. godddddddddddddd.

I HONESTLY CANNOT WATCH HER COUGH AND CHOKE THROUGH THIS THE SHEER RIDICULOUSNESS OF THIS IS FUCKING KILLING MEEEEEEEEE

yeh lo ji, parmeshwar prakat ho gaye to save the day and read the paath himself.

all dudes in the world should be in whatever business this guy and angre are in. ki biwi mil gayi toh it manages itself while he devotes himself to her.

lmao the sheer earnestness with which he's narrating the KC paath. both wholesome and fucking hilarious. looks like those primary school kids at their first public speaking contest.

i am ishani. god, why won't this scene just endddddddd already, i'm dying of cringe.

whoooooooooooops. bhai is pointedly asking ki how riddhima's throat got messed up when she was fine like 3 min ago.

behen is giving earnesttttttt excuses and he's really "sure jan"-ing her.

dadi's all no matter what issues crop up in these two's lives, i'm sure they'll win over it with their lurrrrrrrrrrrrrrve. yeah, it looks that way rn, but i wouldn't be quite so optimistic yet, dadi.

literally no one is surprised by this revelation.

oh god, she has something more planned. man who are these ppl with so much energy in their lives WHILE PREGNANT, to do such scheming and plotting??????? just my period cramps have me taking 2 hours off work to curl up on my heat pad and cry about ouchieeeeeee.

great. ragini ko ab daure pad rahein hain.

and poor angre is saddled with getting her treatment. WHY DOES HE HAVE TO DEAL WITH ALL THESE TROUBLESOME WOMEN IN YOUR LIFE VANSH?!?!?! EK ADIYAL BEHEN ISKE SAR PE BAANDH DI HAI WOH KAAFI NAHI THA, KI AB INVALID EX KO BHI ISKE HI HAATH MEIN THAMAA DIYA. i know you got your hands full with that disaster wife of yours, but come on man.

oh god is he gonna blow up at her again for eavesdropping!?!!?!?!?

thank the lord above, she had airpods in. (also lmao, ofc she's literally the airpods meme.)

isn't HE supposed to give HER a gift today???

i liked his other watch better. but this watch is supposedly riddhima “ke dil ki dhadkano se judi hai” so........ i'm no expert in cutting edge watch technology, so sure. sounds like something that would be available for the wives of billionaire gangster’s wives to buy.

oh man she got herself a matching one. which ofc is “tumhare dil ki dhadkano se judi hai.” lord, she CHEESY CHEESYYYYYYYYYYYY. and i'm mildly lactose intolerant, so 🤢🤢🤢

this dude is not though. he falling for this hard and fast. which is....... unexpected. nice, but also suspicious.

“yeh ghadiyaan chahe rahein naa rahein riddhima, lekin tum mere dil mein hamesha rahogi.”

that's sweet. and i'd believe and squee over it if this was any other show. i would. but in this show, literally everyone other than dadi/siya is out to fuck each other over and i don't trust a single goddamn word out their hissy snake mouths.

aaaaaaaaaaaaand ofc he's vrat-ing for her too. BECAUSE THIS IS A FEMINIST SHOW WITH THIS VERY FEMINIST HERO OK?!!!!!!?!?!!!!?!? THIS ONE EPISODE ABSOLVES ALLLLLLLLLLLL THE OTHER 98 EPISODES FILLED WITH HOT FLAMING TRASH!!!!!!!!!!!!

“apni umar badhaake kya karoonga main, agar tum saath nahi ho. main chahta hoon ki tum meri zindagi ki aakhri saans tak mere saath raho.”

again, very very sweet and all, esp. with these soft melty eyes; but it's this show. and we saw the upcoming promo. sooooooooo, kill bill sirens in my head, i'm afraid.

both mann hi mann mein deciding to tell each other the truth about their backstories after the vrat. which should work out splendidlyyyyyyy.

lo ji dream sequence shuru. voot blocked the music but colors put up the scene with bol na halke halke on instaTV so i watched it there.

yesssssssssss you messy trainwrecks. get it onnnnnnnnnn.

this is literally alllll i am watching this show for. the moment y'all bang in canon, i'm outttttttttttt. it's always the best time to quit a tellywood show. always. take this protip from wise, old TT. quit the show the episode the lead couples fuck. just trust me on this.

idk WHOSE dream sequence this is, but lmao it's got the vibes of a not-that-great wedding "promo" thing ppl have got going on these days. which one of y'all is binging these on youtube and thus has their subconscious filled with it/??? it's gotta be riddhima, but it would be absolutely fucking hilariousssssss if it was in fact, vansh.

yup. it was her dumb ass. i bet she had the exact video in mind for kabir and just cut-copy-pasted vansh's face in there from the last week onwards.

oh chachi's back from maayka for vrat kholing.

mans literally do be looking like the chand today. because they eased up on his yellow foundation, thank god.

poor ishani. god, this is why we need feminism. so our sisters don't get pushed into shit like this against their willllllllllllllllll.

dadi and siya shipping riansh to the point of making ppl uncomfortable. what next, you gonna be writing mature fanfic about them on IF????? BACK THE FUCK OFF, YOU WEIRDOS.

“humaare plans kamyaab hote toh vansh iss waqt riddhima ko zeher ki pyaali pilaa raha hota. hmph.”

lmaoooooooooooooooo mummy is an eternalllllllll mood.

this one is getting overly emotional about her first completed karwachauth vrat. eat a snickers, bitch.

dadi overpromising and saying shit like evennnnnnnnn god himself can't shake your love for each other, tumhari prem kahaani billlkulllll pooori hogi and what not. oh dadi, did YOU not see the promo?????

this one got the footage she needed and has duly handed it over to bhai. both of vansh's sisters have the trait for going straightttttt to him with their sordid discoveries, albeit for completely polar reasons.

lmaoooooo the way she peaced out.

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaand he's started growling about how all this KC naatak was fake and and vowing revenge and games for her dhokaaaaaaaaaa. i hate to say it but............ i told you so.

also abbe oh gobar ganesh. itna CCTV footage mila hai kahin se, toh baaki ka bhi toh dhoond, where you see how she got into the bloody dickey?!?!???! nahi, 2 out-of-context second hi dekh ke paagal saand ki taraah bekaabu ho jaana hai. shit for brains, literally everyone in this show has.

anyway, if i was vansh’s murti maker, i’d be expecting a call righhhhhht about now. riddhima yahaan rahe na rahe, uski murti zaroor rahegi, which vansh and his next paramour will demolish together as a bonding/foreplay exercise.

#ishq mein marjawan 2 #immj2 #immj2 lbs #episode liveblogs

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kylorengarbagedump · 5 years ago

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Little Bird: Chapter 25 (NSFW)

Read on AO3. Part 24 here. Part 26 here.

Summary: All right, well, I guess no one's gonna go swimming in that pool, anymore.

Words: 6600

Warnings: cw--a kylorengarbagedump special: tons of graphic violence and gratuitous bloodplay

Characters: Kylo Ren x Handmaid!Reader

A/N: HI, HELLO, what the fuck am I doing! I'd like to give thanks to @faestae and John Wick for this chapter. Without them, I'd be completely fucked. For some reason, I keep writing shit that demonstrates how little I know about writing anything other than sex. Please let me know what you thought! I'm interested to see what people think about this bit.

I love y'all so very much! Thank you for always offering kindness and encouragement. <3

You hadn’t taken your eyes off of your Commander since entering the car, hoping that, if you stared long enough, you’d be able to identify any hint of emotion, any flicker of feeling in his inscrutable expression. But Kylo Ren sat, back against the partition, hands at his sides, a veneer of distance cast over his face. The harder you looked, the further away he seemed--like a void, emptying itself, slowly, of vulnerability.

“Do you know how long I’ve known your Commander?” said Snoke. You felt his spider-leg gaze crawling over your figure. “Since he was a boy.”

Unsure if you were supposed to respond, you dipped your head in the tiniest nod you could muster.

“And there was a period where he disagreed, you know. With the idea of Gilead. Did you know that?”

Ren was solid, unmoving, staring through the back windshield. He didn’t blink, didn’t twitch. Swallowing, you allowed yourself to peer over at Snoke. He was watching you expectantly.

“Um.” To be fair, you did know that--you just didn’t know to what degree, and for how long. “I didn’t know that, no.”

“Well, it’s true.” His focus drifted back to Ren. “He was so unsure of himself, back then. Couldn’t ever make a decision. Afraid to let himself achieve what he was truly capable of.” A dark, breathy laugh escaped him. “He was so sensitive, so scared.”

There, right below his nose, you saw it--a twinge of muscle.

“But, thankfully, he’s resolved those doubts, now.” A wicked smile twisted through his skin. “Haven’t you, Ren?”

His eyes, like slate, met Snoke’s for a millisecond. “Yes.”

“Yes.” Now Snoke turned his attention to you. “He believes, like I do, in the roles of society. In the order we can provide by enforcing them.” A glance at Ren. “Isn’t that right, boy?”

“Yes.” His back straightened.

“He agrees with me that Handmaids are one of those unfortunate necessities of society,” Snoke said. “If we had a perfect world, we wouldn’t need you at all.” He shrugged. “For now, both of you have your roles. Separate and equal.”

Not that nonsense again. It sounded just as repulsive as when it had come out of Ren’s mouth. “I think we’re both more than that.” You peered at your Commander, who observed you with guarded confusion. “More than our roles.”

Snoke’s eyes sparkled with some sick delight. “Really, now.” He looked to Ren. “We have to make sacrifices, don’t we. To ensure our vision survives to the next generation.”

He averted his gaze, nodded. “Yes, sir.”

“You’ve made many sacrifices for Gilead, Ren.”

Snoke’s hand laid on your knee, squeezing it, red fabric bunching in his skeletal grip. Your throat thickened with fear, your breath stolen. Ren’s chest filled with slow, tense air, his jaw tight. The knife in your sleeve seemed to sear you with its presence--you imagined whipping it out, swiping the button, slamming the blade right into the old man’s wrinkled neck. Instead, you sat there, watching his hand creep higher, your focus switching between his fingers and your Commander.

Do what you wish with it.

If you tried to attack him now, here, in his car, both you and Ren would end up dead. You shoved the urge into the bottom of your brain, chin trembling as the bony excuse for a hand grazed your thigh--Snoke’s eyes were trained on Ren, daring him to move.

But he did nothing.

A whirr of a winding engine cut through the silence, and Snoke removed his hand--you sagged with relief. He rolled down the window, making a quick motion with his wrist, the limo stopping for a brief moment. Then it pushed forward, past a gated entrance staffed with at least two guards armed with rifles. Fear dug its claws into your chest.

The limo coasted up a long, winding driveway, up to what you could only define as a mansion, and came to a halt. Snoke glanced at the both of you, popping the door open.

“We’ve arrived,” he said. “Come, now.”

Ren met your eyes for a brief, electric second before he exited the vehicle. Steeling your nerves, you followed, feeling significantly hampered by the rustling of your dress. As you clambered into the sun, you breathed the heavy summer air and glanced over the property.

A white stone gate with the pair of sentries encircled a ring of decorative topiaries, bushels of red flowers poking through the mulched landscape. The driveway looped like a racetrack through the yard, up to the bleached cement plaza that opened to a glittering fountain pond. The center of the fountain was dominated by a marble carving of Jesus on the cross, his head craned toward the sky, water gushing in clear, noisy rivers from his hands and crown. In front of you, the staired entrance led to a grand, columned pavilion that guided you toward the front door, a glass and iron arch with concentric rows of windows radiating out to the walls.

All of this might have been beautiful, you thought, had you not been a slave, invited with your owner under the pretense of interrogation.

That, and the two guards coming to escort you to the entrance--also armed, of course.

They bookended you in a line--Snoke, Ren, and you--through the front door, into the vaulted foyer, ivory granite floors stretching out into a wide parlor room, light streaming through the floor-to-ceiling windows. Through them, you spied the backyard, complete with a glimmering Tuscan-style pool, enclosed also by that same white stone. And more guards marching in assignment.

Silent, you kept close to your Commander’s heels as you all climbed the one of the two curved staircases, ascending past an enormous chandelier, tiers of glowing crystal casting flakes of light onto your skin. Despite its warmth, at the last step, you fell cold--there were still more riflemen at the top. The guards ushered you down an empty hall to an open door. They stood at either side of the entrance, and, blood escaping your face, you followed Ren and Snoke inside.

Cherry wood-panelled walls wrapped the oval stone floor, a circular Persian rug rolled out underneath a huge teak desk. It was accompanied by a tall Chesterfield throne upholstered in red leather, two smaller, sister chairs attending the sides. Behind the desk, built-in shelves were lined with heavy, hardbound tomes, all illuminated by two sets of double-necked glass sconces at the two ends of the room.

You stood next to Ren, hands strangling each other as Snoke closed the door and wandered around to the head of his desk. His stride was slow, deliberate, crossing the room like it was slick with molasses. Arriving at his chair, he opened one of the drawers, carding through it before pulling out a folder and plopping it on the flat surface. With precision, he plucked a few pages from it, pushing them forward.

“Do you remember signing these, Ren?”

Kylo Ren’s eyes flicked between the paper and his superior. “Yes.”

“Your very first acceptance to the order,” Snoke said, gazing at it. “The evidence of your commitment.” He turned his attention to you. “You said that you think you’re more than your roles. But I know that isn’t the case.”

You cleared your throat, spine straightening. “And I know it is.”

“You’d be wrong,” Snoke said. “Because Kylo Ren is a facade. An identity--a role. Just like yours.” He paused, waiting for Ren to react. He didn’t. “Before he was Kylo Ren, he was a lost, lonely little boy. Always winding up in fights. Parents too busy to care.”

Ren rolled his tongue along the inside of his teeth, but said nothing.

“But I saw potential in him. Didn’t I, boy?” Snoke offered him a small grin. “I could see the greatness, the cunning, the power you could have.”

“You did,” Ren muttered.

“And this is all you’ve become. Your heart hasn’t hardened. You’re soft. You could never hope to be Kylo Ren.” He sighed, and leered at him. “And I’m disappointed to see that this is the case.”

He was silent, chin raising, stare toward the floor.

“You’re still fighting it, aren’t you?” When he didn’t respond, Snoke’s entire face twisted in a frown. “Answer me, boy.”

“I’m not.”

“No?” Snoke opened the top drawer of his desk and produced a massive silver revolver, tossing it on the desk with a thunk. “Prove it,” he said. “Shoot her.”

Your heart shot between your ears, eyes darting between Snoke, Ren, the gun, Snoke, Ren, the gun, Snoke, Ren, the gun. Kylo Ren was as unreadable as ever--he considered the revolver as if Snoke had thrown down a ballpoint pen. A tiny breath escaped him.

“Everything I’ve done has been for Gilead--my commitment has never wavered--”

“Don’t lie to me, boy!” Snoke’s gaze flashed with barely-leashed rage. “I see how you respond when I touch her, I can feel your weakness for her.”

Ren’s lip twitched. “Weakness. For a Handmaid.”

“I know your mind, Ren. I know every little thought that goes through your brain. Your impulses are raw, you allow Gilead to suffer under your foolishness. This paper...” He held it up, pointing to the signature--beautiful, loopy letters that read Ben Solo. “The boy that signed it still lives. And he is weak.”

Snoke pushed off the desk, stalked over to you--before you could even think to move, his hand gnarled in your hair, fingers scraping like screws over your scalp. You whimpered, thinking to scream, to fight, to beg--but worried Snoke would shoot you himself if you did.

“Show me who you’re meant to be, Kylo Ren.” He ripped you to the floor, shoving you onto your knees near his feet. Then, at the back of your head--something hard. Cold. Another gun. “Or I’ll show you myself.”

In the back of your mind, it seemed strange--for all the scenarios you’d imagined being on your knees in front of your Commander, this had never been one of them. Terror shuddered you, but you stilled the quaking of your flesh, meeting Ren’s eyes, sticking your chin into the air. He stared into you and through you, hooking into your hidden fear, finding himself there. Your chests rose and fell with the same breath, lips parting with the same awful knowledge--there was no scenario where he could save you, no reality where your story could’ve had a different ending. For all of your emptiness, loneliness, wanton need, this was your destiny--two souls, desperate to know the other, denied for every unchangeable reason fate could offer.

Part of you knew that Ren had to kill you. Part of you hoped against hope that, somehow, he wouldn’t.

But then he moved. And he picked up the gun.

“Good,” Snoke said. “Good.”

Ren stepped toward you, face blank, and aimed the revolver until it was inches from your head. You gazed at him, thankful that you’d known relief at least once in the past few years, somehow more thankful that he’d been the one to give it to you. Heat stung your eyes. You wouldn’t cry, not now. You’d wished for death too many times at this point to begrudge its arrival.

“Good choice, my boy,” Snoke said. He jerked your scalp. “Would you like to have a prayer for your last words?”

He scoffed. “What use does a dog have for prayer?”

A hearty chuckle. “Oh, I’m nothing if not a man of God.”

“Last prayer, then.” Ren blinked. “Do what you wish with it.”

In your chest, breath hitched, your pulse flying. The switchblade. Swallowing, you glanced at the floor to Snoke’s foot beside you, then back up, meeting Ren’s eyes. A spark, a crooked crackle of light--you were seeing them, seeing him, seeing yourself, a reflection, an echo, pure resonance in the emptiness of his mind--and in that moment, you knew.

You knew him.

Clearing your throat, you began, “O, Lord Jesus…”

You pressed your palms together, bowing your head to conceal them as you used the heel of your hand to guide the blade up your sleeve.

“... pour into me the spirit of your love…”

The handle poked through the edge of fabric, the wooden scales cool and smooth. Your tongue was paper, scratching at your mouth.

“... that in the hour of my death…”

With the switchblade fully encased in your hands, your finger dipped to find the safety and flick it free. Perspiration had it slip in your grip, and you flinched for only a second, pinching it tight between your palms.

“... I may be worthy to vanquish the enemy…”

Your thumb fumbled for the safety, now, finding it behind your sweaty skin.

“... and receive the heavenly crown.”

Pushing it up, you drew a long, deep breath through your nose. Ren cocked his gun.

“Amen.”

The blade sprung free, and you drove it, a stake, straight into Snoke’s hapless foot. He screamed, his gun clattering to the floor--in that instant, Ren cocked a brow, raised the revolver, and fired. Snoke blew back, blood spattering your crown, a crimson spray cast over the desk, onto Ren’s face, and the body hit the floor behind you with a fleshy thud.

You blinked, gasping, trembling, too terrified to look behind you, too anxious to not confirm he was dead. A quick peek--a massive crater in the lifeless facade of his skull--and you swallowed, looking to Kylo Ren, without breath, without speech, without pretense. His eyes were wide and wild, his chest heaving with something like excitement--then, outside the study, the guards stirred.

“Commander Snoke?” one asked.

Ren glanced at the door. His pupils swallowed his irises, and at the corner of his lips, a smirk. He tore off his tie, tossed his suit jacket onto the floor, back and shoulders swelling like mountains underneath his shirt.

“We’re coming in, sir.”

“Get down,” he muttered as he cocked the gun, aiming it at the door. “Come in.”

You scrambled to the side of the desk and tore off your wings so you could see, curling over your knees, and the door squeaked open. The moment the guard’s head breached the entrance, Ren fired, and you jolted--blood spurted, painting the wall, the body dropped. A second guard flung the door back, rushing Ren before he could reload, but Ren threw his elbow into the man’s chin, wringing his arm around his neck and shoving him to the ground. He drove his heel into the guard’s neck before cocking the gun and blowing a hole through his face.

Heart flying in your chest, you stared at him, mouth open, almost unable to believe what you’d just seen. In the recording, you’d heard Snoke call him a warrior--you just hadn’t known until now what that meant.

“We’re moving.” Ren stalked over and snatched your wrist, but you winced.

“Hold on!” You tugged away and snagged the switchblade from Snoke’s foot, sheathing it and shoving it back up your sleeve.

“Come.” He grabbed you again, leading you over the leaking lump of the guard and into the hall.

As you breached the threshold and crossed the hall, two guards turned the corner--the ones from the top of the stairs. Kylo Ren shoved you behind him, gunshots spearing your ears, a body falling; then he slammed you against the wall, the trill of wide rifle bullets whizzing by your skull. You screamed, covered your head, and Ren reached out, wresting the barrel of the offending gun and wrenching the guard flush with his chest--he shoved the revolver up to his chin and fired, viscera erupting from the man’s eye sockets and coating you both.

You gagged, mind whirling--but Ren was crazed, rippling with the heat of exhilaration. He ditched the revolver and tucked the rifle under his arm, shrugging the body off and grabbing you again. Ren hugged you tight to his frame as he marched through the halls; panting, you gazed up at him, futilely trying to process that he had not only murdered his leader, but now apparently planned to gun down the entirety of this estate--when he all he had to do instead was kill you.

He cursed when you reached the steps. A pair of guards was posted at both sets of stairs--and, seeing you, they shouted and charged. Ren’s attention darted between them, landed on the chandelier. He shouldered you back, running forward and leaping from the banister. You squeaked, hands clapping your mouth--but he grappled the chain, feet stumbling over the metal frame as the crystal behemoth swung like a sparkling pendulum in the foyer. The guards hollered, racking their rifles--but Ren fired first.

Using the chandelier like an assassination assistant, Ren pinned the gun to his body and pulled the trigger, spitting a storm of bullets into the staircase, littering pockmarks over the walls. The guards quailed, ducked--Ren jerked the fixture’s chain, rolling his legs down, and he spun, a carousel of death, firing next at the guards climbing the other steps. These two were not so lucky--you caught hot streams of blood splash over the balustrade, and then Ren swung again, crystals clinking like chimes as the chandelier bowed in wide arcs. Face tight with frenzy, he fired, and you watched the bodies crumple like marionettes and tumble down the stairs.

Bobbing in the air, he cast his gaze around the room, back hunched, an animal starved. You grimaced, crawled forward, gripping the banister, and when he met your eyes, he shifted, making to swing.

“Stop!” came a voice from the back of the home.

From underneath the balcony, you saw two guards run forward, rifles pointed up--before you could shout, they fired into the ceiling, clouds of crystal fragments spewing into the air. Ren wobbled, dodging with surprising grace, then flung the chandelier back.

You watched him, lids wide, as he stepped, one foot, another foot, skating over the steel and lurching forward, yanking on the chain like a rope and throwing his legs into the air. His other arm, still occupied with the rifle, swung down, and as he launched himself toward the banister, he fired, sparks snapping, the chain severed. Ren connected with the railing as the chandelier exploded to the floor, crushing the two guards in a splintering spew of metal and glass. Without thinking, you scampered to him, clutching his arms, straining as you helped haul him onto the balcony. He stumbled to his feet and ripped you up by your wrist.

“Commander--”

“Quiet.”

Adrenaline coursed through him into you, absorbed like warmth through your skin. He dragged you down the steps, tossing his current gun and grabbing a new one while you fled over the ragdolled corpses covering your path. In your dress, it was difficult to maneuver, but Ren pulled you through, jaw set firm, ravenous fury dancing in waves from his body. His eyes were focused and feral, a predator, a true, live killer, consumed with a hunger you’d never before seen--not up close.

He led you toward the front door--beyond the mottled glass, you could spy a pair of guards sneaking close, decked in armor, guns raised. Cursing, he doubled back, your arm popping while he hauled you toward the other end of the home. Then two more guards, also in armor, crept across the pool deck in the same formation, heading toward wherever the back entrance was. Grumbling, Ren tore to the right, wringing you forward--you’d been thrust into a huge kitchen, replete with white quartz countertops and oak cabinetry. You had little time to admire it before he shoved you under the hood of the breakfast nook. Breathless, you pulled your knees to your chest, trying to become as small and unnoticeable as possible.

Slinging the gun over his shoulder, he grabbed two long knives from the butcher block on the counter, sidling up to the wall next to an archway that opened to what appeared like a mudroom. The first sentry peered around the corner, and Kylo Ren snarled, driving the knife through the man’s throat. He choked, gasped, writhing as he fell to the ground, rivers of blood spilling over the floor. The second guard flinched, went to raise his rifle at Ren--but the second of hesitation sealed his fate. Ren jammed his foot into the man’s chest, knocking him onto his back, and stomped his face before shifting the rifle into his hands and ending him with a pop, pop.

Flustered with fear, you made to move--and then spotted that the two guards from the front had made their way into the home, crossing into the kitchen. Before you could warn Ren, one fired, a quick burst, striking him in the side. He roared, crumpling to the floor, a bloom of bright blood staining his side--your body burst with fear, with rage, your mind making decisions without a second of uncertainty.

As the guards pushed toward Ren, you threw yourself into their path, a human speedbump; they tripped, stumbled over you, over each other, trampling you as they both collapsed to the ground. You craned your neck to see your Commander--he seethed as he stood, punching himself in his wound, each strike punctuated with a furious grunt.

Kylo Ren flipped the free knife into the air, caught it by the handle, and sneered, stabbing one of the guards through the eye--his body jerked, twitched on top of you, and Ren rolled the other man with his foot, aiming his rifle at his exposed face and riddling it with holes. You squealed as his frame jolted with the shots, trying to scramble free--but Ren caught you by the arm again, prying you to your feet. He started toward the back door, but you jerked away--he spun, hair tossed in choppy waves over his face, teeth bared, entire form trembling with the throes of bloodlust.

“The--the front,” you managed to eke out. “You’re injured, let’s get out of here.”

He growled, seizing your wrist and tugging you forward. “We’re not done yet.”

You swallowed. This was no longer about escaping. It was about revenge.

Led through the mudroom in the wake of his wrath, Ren discarded you to the side of the door and shouldered it open. Two guards stood, anticipating, at the exit, two more chasing around the pool. Your Commander wrapped one of the guards in a headlock, using him as a shield while he surged forward, facing the closest guard while shooting over his arm at the other two. They shook, barraged with bullets, toppling back until they both splashed into the pool, crimson fog weeping into the water. The guard in his grip kicked back, and he faltered--the man closest to him took this as an opportunity to lunge, and smashed into Ren, knocking him and his hostage to the ground.

Chest tightening, you made to move, but hesitated--what would you do? Shoot them? Your brain raced with the possibilities--at this point, you’d picked up a pistol, but you’d never pictured yourself as someone who could end a life. You’d also never pictured yourself as someone who would speak back to the lead Commander of Gilead, get belted over a knee, have her pussy stuffed with a gun, or feel worry for the man who owned her.

That last one caught you by surprise--you weren’t just worried, you were terrified. And not for yourself, but for him.

Kylo Ren rolled as the other guard approached, his rifle raised--he ducked behind his captive, using him like a barrier and reached down to the man’s side, stealing a handgun from his belt. The other guard went to dodge, but was blasted in the face with two shots, raining blood over the brick patio, crumpling to his knees and smacking the ground.

Caught in a struggle, Ren went to shoot his final victim through the skull--but the man had already produced a knife from the other side of his belt, and slashed up, ripping Ren across the shoulder and slicing his face. He howled in pain, and the guard took the opportunity to tear himself free, scurrying to his feet, reaching for the gun in Ren’s hand.

Something possessed you--fear, indignity, affection, something--and you dashed through the door, grappled a gun from the corpse closest to you, and cocked it. Maybe, before Gilead, you weren’t a person who could end a life. But now, you were a survivor. And you would be damned if you or your Commander would die here.

Taking the pistol in both hands, you aimed at the guard’s torso. “Hey!” you shouted for absolutely no reason. He glanced over, confused. “Fuck you!”

You pulled the trigger, ears ringing--the bullet nailed his chest, and he staggered, jaw dropped, perhaps wondering if he had really just been shot by a Handmaid. Ren, face smothered scarlet, swung to his feet, swiping the knife from the ground. He snatched the man mid-fall, hoisted him into the air and, snarling, shredded his throat with the blade. A geyser of blood gushed from his neck, bathing Ren in its fever, soaking his shirt, coating the curls of his hair. His shoulders crowded with the desperate cycle of his lungs as he loosened his grip, letting the body hit the ground, crimson bubbles seeping from the wound.

Hands quaking, you lowered your arms, dropped the gun. You couldn’t find your breath, chest fighting for air. Ren turned, eyes tracing the bodies, until finally, they landed on you. Heat hit you, strangled you, wrapped you like wire in a suffocating, powerful, need. Both of you, sprayed with blood, panting, aching--everything you had done, you’d done for the other. His transgressions faded to shadows in your mind. Against every single governmental pillar and logical instinct, you were alive because of him. And you wanted nothing more, now, than to be in his arms.

The word fled your lips, a caged dove. “Kylo…”

Kylo Ren threw down the knife, rushing you, and your feet moved too, carrying you on feathers to him, until your bodies connected, his arms coiling around you, his mouth bruising yours, the taste of iron fresh between your teeth. He was damp with blood, his skin spilled copper into your nose--but despite it all, you groaned, flooded with passion, burning in his embrace. Ren’s tongue drove into your mouth, his hand cupping the back of your head, wetting your hair as he crushed you to his frame. Thighs thrumming with desire, you kissed him back, nipping his lip, threading your fingers through his sticky waves--he moaned, crumbling to his knees, his hold taking you with him.

“You saved me,” you muttered against his lips. “You saved--”

Ren silenced you with a kiss. “Little bird...” He nibbled the line of your jaw, jerking a fistful of hair and burying his face in it, inhaling deep. “Get these clothes off.”

You shivered. “Yes, sir.”

Keeping his gaze, you gathered the hem of your dress and peeled it over your head, his eyes leaping over every bit of exposed flesh as it was revealed to him. You tossed it and your switchblade to the side, his hands grappling with your hips, sliding up your sides, smearing crimson over your skin. Whimpering, you reached toward your feet, pulling your boots off and throwing them to the side, attempting valiantly to remain kneeling while you inched your underwear down your hips and over your calves. Ren watched, trained on your naked cunt, as you finally flung it behind you.

When you went to begin the arduous task of unhooking your bra, Ren growled, your knees scraping across the pool deck as he yanked you into an impatient kiss. You whined in pain, soothed by his soft lips working yours, new blood from the wound on his face dribbling into your mouths and over your wrestling tongues. He wrested your tits from your bra, dying them red, thumbs skating delight over your stiffening nipples. Moaning, you writhed into his chest, and he gripped your face, nails scraping your scalp while he pulled you closer, groaning into you, leaning--you followed him, chasing his kiss until he was on his back, your legs straddling him, palms planted on his chest.

A soft, anxious breath escaped his throat, and he swirled his tongue over yours before biting your lip and pushing you up, hands settling on your thighs, rocking you back and forth over his thick erection. He watched you, panting in rhythm with you, and you admired him--how fucking beautiful he was, even (or especially) doused in blood--his eyes stark with need, his mouth parted in open anticipation, his muscles tensing as he gripped and squeezed you, jerking his hips into your heat. If he was in any pain at all from the gash on his face or the bullets in his side, it didn’t show--he rolled into you as if he cared for nothing other than the sight of your body over his own.

“Are you okay?” You placed your hands on his, squeezing them.

Ren frowned and swatted you off, gathering both wrists behind you in a tight vise. “Interesting question to pose while you’re already grinding onto me.”

You blushed. “I just wanted to make--”

He shoved two bloodied fingers in your mouth, depressing your tongue, cranking your jaw open. “Ask me again after I’ve fucked that little cunt raw.”

Shuddering, you clenched, and nodded.

“There we go.” He released your tongue, popping your wrists back--your tits swayed from the movement, and he hummed in satisfaction, kneading and groping at the flesh, teasing your nipples. “You’re gorgeous…”

“Oh…” Submerged in desire, you could barely process his words. He twitched underneath you, drawing another spasm from your core. “Kylo…”

He sucked in air through his teeth, digging his fingers into your breast. “You want my cock? Hm?” He reached down, brushed his thumb over your clit, and you whined. “You want me inside you, slut?”

“Fuck,” you whispered. “Fuck, yes, please.”

“Good girl…”

Ren kept his grip on your wrists, working at his pants until he’d managed to pull his long, heavy cock free. You ached at the sight of it, wanting to slide it between your folds, feel it pulse inside you, bask in its swollen heat. Ren slapped it against you and shifted his hips, pushing you higher, hand stroking his length as he guided it to your entrance. Stoked on adrenaline, on some sort of intoxicating infatuation, you were wet and wanting and warm with need--you sank onto him, crying out when he broke you open, letting him drive deep into your belly.

“God,” you hissed, “you feel so good…”

He throbbed at the base, rutting up into you and popping your wrists again. “Shh.” His free hand clutched your hip. “I’ll tell you when to speak, little bird,” he muttered. “Be quiet and take this cock.”

Ren’s strength overwhelmed you--he slammed you from below, fucking up into you, forcing gasps and squeals from your lungs. Bliss blazed through your blood as the force of his thrusts throttled you, body quaking, breasts bouncing. His face was screwed in a twist of lust and effort, lip furled, strangled growls escaping his chest--he pumped hard, fast, pinching you in his hands as his own pleasure built.

“Fuck,” he growled, “that’s right--do you like that?”

“Yes…” The words were as unfiltered as you were. “I love it…”

“Good--good girl.” His stare devoured you while you rode him. “So beautiful… so perfect…” A hand glided up your side, cupping one of your tits. “And all mine…” He grunted, punished you with a particularly hard thrust--you yelped. “Say it.”

A twinge in your heart, distant and irritating. “But I--”

He yanked your wrists, straining your shoulders, branding a bruise into your breast with his fingers. “Say it.” His pace switched, and he rammed your cunt with brutal, deep strokes, striking your cervix with white streaks of pain. “You’re mine.”

“Kylo--”

Ren seethed, throwing you off of him and onto your back, wincing when he loomed over you, and he pounded his side, hissing in pain. Your eyes widened--in seconds, he’d spiraled into mania, his face wrought with possessive fervor while his fist pummeled his wound. If he’d looked beautiful before, now it was sinful: dark hair matted in messy clumps around his crown, his brow drawn in focus, his shirt, torn from the knife, flopping over to reveal his bare chest, showered with blood. He peeled your legs wide, ankles in his fists as he lifted your ass from the ground--and, sneering, he split you, cock cleaving your cunt. In pleasure, you sobbed.

“Fuck,” he growled again. “You’re so fucking tight…” Ren started fucking into you, slipping in to the hilt, hips hitting yours with loud slaps. “You feel so good around my cock…”

Whinging, you lolled your head on the deck-- his words sent a torrent of yearning through your flesh, and your clit screeched for attention, but part of you knew that touching it yourself would deny you release altogether. So you stared at him, chin tucked to your chest, each stroke bringing new, desperate breath to your lungs as your back scratched the smooth stone underneath you.

“Nothing to stop me,” he said, “nothing to keep me from you.” He jerked you closer, and you wailed from the depth of his thrusts. “You’re going to be mine…”

“Kylo--”

“No,” he hissed. “Say it.” He propped one of your legs on his shoulder, his hand diving between your legs to rub your clit, covering it in blood--you cried out, clenching, convulsing, pleasure creeping into your vision. “Say you want to be mine.”

The earth turned beneath you. Everything, all of it had been for you, but not in the way that you had hoped. No, it had been to alter the universe to his own whims, to construct a galaxy where he could possess you, keep you, trap you in a tiny, wire cage. His little bird.

You wouldn’t accept that--not after today. You couldn’t.

“Only if--ah--you’re mine, too,” you replied. “I can’t just be yours! You--you have to be mine!”

“What have I told you?” Ren groaned, deep and low. “If that’s what you want…” He gathered some of the blood from his face onto his thumb. “Then you’ll want for nothing.” He slicked your clit while he fucked you, the fluid warm and wet and spinning you to the height of euphoria. “Say it.”

“I’m--I’m yours!” You shut your lids, awash in the elated reality of his admission. “I’m yours, Kylo!”

“Cum then,” he ordered, “cum on this fucking cock...”

You were drawn and quartered by ecstasy, spine arcing toward the sky as your core clamped his dick, limbs shuddering with the waves of your epinephrine-injected climax. Ren growled, leaning over you to hammer into your cunt, strangling his groan as he poured his cum into you, rolling his hips until he was empty--empty of rage, lust, and energy.

Swallowing, you heaved, eyes fluttering open, seeking out your Commander’s gaze. Not that his position mattered, in this hazy purgatory of existence. In this moment, the laws and regulations of Gilead didn’t apply to you and Ren. You’d defied them, destroyed them all. Together.

Something, some emotion you’d wrestled into submission so many times before slithered out of its grave--like hope, but more poignant, more powerful, not just the faith that you could survive. No, it was the dream that you could thrive, that Gilead would crumble underneath both of your feet, that--maybe--you could take a canvas and paint a future with him in it.

Locking eyes, you spied it there, too, beyond the lowered shield of his anger: a mirror of your mind. His hand fell between your breasts, his lip quivering, fingers skimming down your sensitive, starlight skin. How long you laid there, you weren’t sure, but it was after his soft cock had slipped out of you, after your breath had leveled. Sweat glazed you both.

“Why did you do it?” you asked, finally. You fumbled for his hand, laid yours over it.

Ren paused, staring at the image of your hand--so much smaller--wrapped around his, analyzing it in his mind like a puzzle. His jaw tensed, and he pulled away. A piece of your heart wilted.

“I told you,” he said, beginning to adjust himself to decency. “Gilead is flawed. My vision will perfect it.” He met your eyes. “You’ll be mine. And you’ll want for nothing.”

“But…” You narrowed your lids. “You’re mine, too, then.”

“I am.” He stood, gazing over the carnage of the yard--the bodies, the blood, the dyed-red water--all of it turning rancid in the summer heat. “Your Commander.”

There it was. The mallet of his intention, shattering your dreams to disasters. It was as if you had been thrust into the pool yourself, drenched in cold, icy admonishment. How stupid, how foolish were you to imagine that Kylo Ren could consider bringing Gilead down? How short-sighted had you been to believe, for one moment, that he would ever renounce his ownership of you? How horrible, how awful were you that the tiniest, most foolish part of you wanted to accept this--agree to his terms, as long as he’d stay, somewhere, in that canvas.

He held out his hand. “Come.”

Shaking your head, you grabbed your underwear and pulled it on. It seemed silly, getting dressed when half of your clothing would be muddied with blood. You glanced up at him, mapping the wounds in his body. He was hunched, but not hampered.

“Are you really okay?”

Ren still had his hand extended. “Yes.”

You frowned, slapped it away. His eye twitched, attention switching between you and his hand--and, to your surprise, he shoved it in his pocket. You grabbed your dress, tugged it on.

“Continue getting dressed,” he said. “I’ll contact my men and tell them--”

“Hello? Who’s out there?”

The voice, tight with fear, froze you both--Ren’s fists clenched, your heart falling somewhere into your ass. From inside the mudroom, a young woman cloaked in blue emerged, and you recognized her immediately. Snoke’s robot, er, Wife. Christine. She hadn’t spoken once at the dinner.

Between the gloves, the hat, the heeled shoes, it was obvious she was just now returning home. As she surveyed the yard, her gaze fuzzied, and she tumbled into the threshold. Neither you nor Ren made a move to help her.

“What… what happened here?”

It was a fair question. But admitting you’d both participated in a coup likely wouldn’t go over well. You weren’t sure what Ren’s plan was, but you knew the Eyes could have you both killed if they learned this had been your doing.

“Commander Snoke is dead,” Ren said. “I killed--”

“The guard,” you said, glaring at him. “He killed the guard who killed Commander Snoke. After that, the entire place went up.” Looking back at her, you gestured to Ren. “You need to call an ambulance, he’s been injured.”

Christine, appearing dizzy, pushed off of the doorframe and nodded. “I’ll… I’ll get help. Just…” She waved her hands in circles. “Don’t move.”

With that, she stumbled into the home, the click of her heels growing distant.

You sneered at Ren, pulling on your boots and stuffing the switchblade in your sleeve. “You’re welcome.”

He watched you as you stood, said nothing for a moment--a twitch of pain crossed his face. “When I’m taken to the hospital, you’ll be questioned,” he said. “Say nothing. I will handle this. And when you get home, bathe and get into bed.” His eyes raked over you. “Do you understand?”

You nodded. “Yes, Kylo. I do.”

Ren exhaled, drinking you in. “I’m going to contact my men before the ambulance arrives. They’ll have work to do here.” He reached out and cupped your face. “Be good, little bird.” He patted you on the cheek, and walked into the home.

#kylo ren smut #kylo ren x reader #kylo x reader #kylo ren imagine #kylo ren #kylo trash #little bird #handmaid au #fanfiction problems #bloodplay #tw: violence #just fulfilling all my tfa and tlj fantasies in one fell swoop

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consumedkings-archive · 4 years ago

Text

ancient names, pt. xvi

A John Seed/Original Female Character Fanfic

Ancient Names, pt xvi: that colossal wreck

Masterlink Post

Word Count: ~6k idk man i barely go here

Rating: M/Mature; lots of blood and stuff but nothing steamy.

Warnings: blood and guts, mentions of self-harm, mentions of sexual assault, Kian is a creepy fucker and he needs to die so he gets his own warning, dog on man violence. Uhhhhh idk how shotguns work so I did my best, don't @ me. Elliot does go full feral in this and I'm not sorry.

Notes: I so hope y'all enjoy this chapter. I'm not gonna say too much about it here, but please know that every comment, like, kudos, whatever—even the tiniest bit of knowledge that y'all enjoyed it just makes me so incredibly happy. It was a bit of slog at some parts but I'm so excited to get it out for you. <3 Special shout-out to @starcrier who provides incredible input and support while I try and glean even a MODICUM of her talent; ilysm!!!

As well, @baeogorath has been such an absolute DARLING, allows me to send them memes at like 3am and scream at them about all of my feelings. And @lilwritingraven, who has been SO supportive and helpful and just all around the biggest sweetheart a gal could ask for, thank you BOTH sm. <3!

The first thing that she recognized was the desperate need to breathe.

The second was that she was wet, exceptionally wet, her lungs filling with water over and over again, like dying a thousand times without the actual reprieve of death. Two strong hands gripped the front of her shirt, pinning her under the dark surface. Elliot thought, I’ve been here before.

Those hands gripping her hauled her out of the dark, wheezing and coughing up water, and tossed her onto the riverbank like a dead fish. She might as well have been, for what it was worth; when she managed to open her eyes, the world blurred and melted around her the way water swept over a window in a carwash.

“So glad you are awake,” Kian said from in front of her. He stood in the water just past his knees, and as he made his way out and over to her, she blinked rapidly to try and clear her vision. Elliot sucked in the biggest lungful of air she could, and all of the water that had been sitting in her mouth and throat caught and ripped, forcing her to lean and choke it up. “You were sleeping for quite a while, you know, Elliot. Had to make sure you slept all of it off.”

Her name coming out of his mouth felt like a violation—sticky, wet, ruined, a thing she had not allowed him to use, and yet he did anyway. She hadn’t given him permission to know her, and it felt different still than when Ase had used her name; like a weapon being wielded against her.

They gave me so much, she thought desperately a while her body thrummed with pain, searing hot through every nerve-ending as if they’d all been rubbed raw and exposed. They gave me so much of that shit, so much more than Ase ever did. How long was I sleeping it off? Fuck fuck fuck.

Kian’s fingers gripped her throat, slotted just under her jaw, and he pulled ; hauled her straight up with brute strength until her bare feet— when had they taken her shoes?—scrambled against the slippery river bank.

“Her dress fits you well,” he continued admiringly as he held her there. His words dragged her attention back to herself; she wasn’t in her own clothes, in fact, but in a long, dark cotton dress, high-necked and slim fitting. It looked like the same dress that she had first seen Ase in. “In fact, if your hair was just a little darker, and your eyes not so fucking blue, I would think you two could be sisters.”

Dead, the wind whispered. Humidity crept under the fabric, stifling and tenacious. Dead woman in a dead woman’s clothes.

“W-Where—?” Elliot managed out hoarsely. Her own heartbeat, so loud that she was afraid she wouldn’t be able to hear Kian, thrummed violently in her ears as panic started to really settle into her skeleton. “Where—John, and Boomer—what the f-fuck did you—”

“Now that you’re awake,” Kian continued conversationally, as though she had not spoken at all, “we can start.”

His grip loosened and then released. She barely managed to keep herself upright. The world lurched dangerously beneath her feet, and for a second, she thought she was going to have to throw up; the sensation subsided, and she swept her gaze in a single circle around her.

No John; no Boomer. Only darkly-clothed, silent figures, watching. Each face—some as old as a grandparent, some as young as what she thought could only be ten, and many of them somewhere in between—regarded her with the same kind of glassy-eyed curiosity that came with a circus attraction.

“What the fuck,” Elliot said, her voice hoarse and cracking in distress. “What the fuck did you—where are they—?”

“I’m only going to give you one tip,” Kian said. “Stop trying so hard to talk. You’ll burn through all of your adrenaline, mor.”

He had passed her up the riverbank. The intent of it all was very clear: he anticipated that she would follow, because he had something that she wanted and she was in no state to claw her way through all of them even if she wanted to. The knowledge of this—the understanding that Kian knew exactly what hand he had, and was going to play it—filled her with another sickening wash of dread.

The redhead stopped at the top of the bank and looked at her over his shoulder. “Are you coming?”

Shivering, Elliot wadded the hem of the dark dress up in one hand and struggled to the bank. Kian let her. He let her catch herself, dirtying her hands and the dress, practically clawing her way up as her heart rate fluctuated earnestly and without pattern in her chest, and when she made it to where he stood she could see the treeline ahead of them. Dark, drenched in nightfall, the pines murmuring every time the night’s chilly breeze rustled the branches.

“They’ll—” Talking caused pain to splinter through her jaw, radiating in spiderwebs up behind her eyes. “His b-brothers will—”

Kian waved a hand. His voice was light when he said, “They are busy.”

Fuck. Despair welled in her chest. Elliot swallowed thickly and said, “What are... What are we...”

He stared at her. She had the distinct sensation of being an ant, trapped under the searing beam of his magnifying glass, raising burns all across her skin. Then, he reached down to the ground, and from a bag, he procured a handful of papers; when he pulled them out, the familiar scent of her home wafted from them.

“You have lovely handwriting.” He scanned the page. “I hope you’ll forgive my snooping through your home. I couldn’t resist. Let’s see here: sounds like our little bunny was struggling with insomnia, feeling alone. Angry with your therapist for saying you were displaying—” Kian lifted a finger to indicate the importance of the word. “— significant signs of post-traumatic stress disorder, including—”

“S—” I want to die I want to die. The pages of her ripped journal sat in his hands, even greater a violation than the sound of his name. “Stop—”

“—intrusive memories, loss of time, irritability and aggressive behavior, self-harm. Is that where those scars are from? Hm, and… 'Sometimes, I wonder what it would have been like if I didn’t let this happen to me'. Is that guilt ?” Kian clicked his tongue. “Do you feel guilty, Elliot? For what that man did to you, those years ago?” And then he paused, glanced back at the paper, and said, “Forgive me. It was one year ago. Not that far gone, I suppose.”

She opened her mouth to respond, but no sound came out; something gripped her lungs, restricted their movement, until she thought she was going to pass out.

He had been in her home. He had touched her things. He’d stood among the things that were meant to be hers, rifled through them, found her journal and ripped the pages out. She’d taken up journaling about what had happened—not to torture herself with the reality of her situation, but in an effort to understand who she had become, to feel less like a stranger in her own body.

And now he held it in his hands, and there it was: everything that she was, just that small, just that insignificant. The entirety of what she was clutched in the hands of a psychopath.

“I hope she’s fucking suffering.” Elliot ground the words out, and Kian quirked a brow at her inquisitively. She plunged onward, reckless and vicious from her pain, “I hope Ase’s fucking rotting in hell, suffering, and I’m glad they blew her fucking brains in.”

Something dark flickered across Kian’s expression. It may have been a trick of the light; the clouds passed over the moon, blinking the world into darkness for a few minutes before the nighttime wind pushed them forward again. Elliot couldn’t tell if it was real, what she’d seen on his face, but she hoped it was.

But he didn’t say anything about her venom. Instead, he said, “Ase and I used to play a game together.” His tone was light, casual; he dropped the papers back into the bag dismissively, as if they were nothing. “I would give her a three-minute head start. She would run into the woods, and I would try to catch her. She was the perfect prize.”

A strange kind of affection welled in his voice. It was love, Elliot thought with a sickening kind of realization, in his voice—and it only made her more grateful that John had busted through her spine with a shotgun shell, the knowledge that maybe Kian was suffering even a tiny bit as much as she was.

Kian continued, “Now, because of you, she is not here to play the game; you will have to be my prize, Elliot.”

She was going to be sick. She wished that he would have just killed her, rather than this—this waking nightmare, this actual fucking living hell he was going to put her through. Elliot sucked in an unsteady breath, and when Kian gestured at the treeline, she turned her gaze there. It was easier to look at the sturdy line of pines than at his wretched face.

Hot breath fanned across her ear. Kian’s hand came up to the back of her neck, holding, gripping, the way a father would when he prepped his son for a baseball game. She heard the words like a sick comedy in her head: Come on, champ! You’ve got it! But his mouth was right on her ear and he said, “I hid your man out there for you.”

John.

“He’s—not,” she managed out. “Mine.”

Kian huffed out a laugh against her temple. “Then it should be easy for you to hide from me and not worry about finding him.”

Bluff called. Fucking cultist.

He stepped away from her, heading to the half-moon curve of cultists waiting idly by. Silently, Elliot tried to count them; she wanted to know how many she could kill, and how fast, if she got a gun in her hands, but the splitting headache blurring her vision uneasily made it difficult to keep track.

One of them put a shotgun in Kian’s hand. He checked the ammunition idly.

“Start running, Elliot,” he called without looking at her. “Your time starts now.”

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

“What took you so long?”

John thought he had to be dreaming. He was certain of it, somewhere in his brain, because Elliot’s voice hummed warmly against the skin of his neck and she pressed up against him like a feline eager for his attention, and that wasn’t her. Was it?

“You’ve been sleeping so long,” she murmured into him, all sleep-warmed skin and soft lines. “Aren’t you going to wake up?”

Yes, he thought, because he wanted to open his eyes, because he wanted to see her like this. He’d worked hard for it. He deserved it, didn’t he? Yes, I’m going to wake up.

“John.” Elliot purred his name, sweet and decadent. She was so warm. “Wake up.”

“Okay,” John said, because he knew that he was ready. But the world stayed dark. He tried again: “Okay, I will.”

Her lips brushed against his pulse. He felt her fingers traced the Sloth scar on his sternum, meticulous, memorizing, slender and warm and affectionate.

“Don’t you trust me?”

“I trust you,” he managed out, “I trust you.”

Like lifting the floodgates, he pushed his eyes open. And it was a push; the effort it took to open his eyes was astronomical, like someone had suddenly stuck him under slow-moving lava that swallowed him up, ate away at the oxygen around him and weighed down his lungs in their attempt to let him breathe.

There was no Elliot. Only the slow, dark pulsing of pine boughs overhead. For just one split second, John felt relief; he was fine. Somewhere, but fine.

And then a piece of the sky lifted and peeled, drifting away. The trees bent and warped around him. He tried to struggle to sit up, fighting the urge to coil up into a tiny ball.

He said, miserably, “What the fuck,” and something at his hip buzzed static. The sound sent jolts of white-hot panic searing through his body.

“Hello?” It was a radio. A thick, dark voice came through. John didn’t pick up. He thought it sounded like Kian.

“Fucker,” he managed out, hauling himself to his feet as the world see-sawed beneath him.

“John Seed.” The voice came again. “I know you can hear me. You should be waking up any minute now.”

John wished he was still asleep. The dream had been better than this. At least in that, Elliot was—

Elliot. The last thing he remembered was her frantic hands trying to undo his seatbelt, and then her warmth getting ripped away from him, and then someone's hands on his shirt and—

“Fuck.” Bad news. Bad. “Fuck fuck fuck. ”

Steadying himself on a boulder, he came around into the clearing, trying to see through the trees. It was no good; the world pulsed and bled around him, smearing like an oil painting, and he realized with a sense of dread pitting in his stomach that they’d drugged him. Hard. The same way they’d drugged Elliot when she’d been crying into the ground like she was going to fly off.

That he knew what was going on did little to abate the irrational panic flashing through him, electrical pulses pounding through his body every chance they got. It made everything too much —the sound of the wind, the murmuring of voices that he thought maybe weren’t there, the feeling of the night on his skin. Yes, he felt it, like a garment of clothing, sitting just on him; he couldn’t tell where he ended and the rest of it began.

“I let your beast loose,” Kian’s voice crackled, seething with delight. “Gave her a head start, too.”

His fingers itched to grab the radio that had been clipped on his belt. He thought, I shouldn’t let him know I’m awake —

“Hey, fucker,” he snapped, his finger pushing down on the walkie button. His words kept slurring on their way out of his mouth, but he plunged onward anyway. “Come out here, huh? Love to chat face to face.”

Well, he’d never been that good at impulse control, anyway.

“On my way already,” Kian murmured silkily. “See you soon, friend.”

And then it went dead.

John spent what felt like an eternity staring at the face of the walkie talkie before he thought, Hey, that’s my fucking radio. And then: fuck, I can’t fight him right now.

He blinked furiously, trying to refocus his vision as bright colors started to bloom and bleed out from the ground. John kept telling himself that it wasn’t real, that there was no way it was real—and then he understood Elliot’s very real fear that night he’d tried to pull her down the hill. What had she seen then, he wondered? What had she been looking at?

“John?”

He hesitated, because the last time he’d heard Elliot’s voice it had been a dream. John’s base instinct was to stand very still, exceptionally still, which didn’t feel very still at all because he was drugged up through his fucking eyeballs and he wanted to puke.

“John—”

When she broke into the clearing, Elliot’s voice was frantic. Her hair had been let loose around her face and she was wearing a dress and bolting barefoot through the woods. Oh, John thought, a little panicked, oh, I’m dreaming again.

“Fuck,” Elliot said, her voice breaking. Her hands fluttered aimlessly, like she couldn’t figure out a place for them to land. “You don’t have Boomer?”

Maybe not dreaming, after all.

“Sleeping,” John replied, intelligently. “I was—”

Elliot stared at him as she drew closer, her eyes razor-sharp and clear and quick. The sliced right down to the core of him, but what was new, anyway? Stupid deputy, his brain chanted, sluggishly. Stupid, pretty, dumb deputy.

“... drug you?”

John blinked owlishly at her. He wasn’t in very much pain, which was good, but it probably was all going to hit him when the drug wore off and it was harder and harder to keep his attention focused; it was getting to the point where it was like being very drunk , where keeping his eyes open was becoming more and more of a chore.

Elliot snapped her fingers in front of his face. “John, focus.”

“Whose dress?” he managed out, gesturing at her.

Her eyes flickered uneasily. “Dunno.” She brought her fingers to her lips and whistled, high and fast, and John groaned; the sound rattled around in his head, echoing over and over again, splintering behind his eyes.

“Why?” he hissed. “Why are you—”

“Shut up, you fucking baby.”

Yeah, definitely not a dream.

They stood there in quiet for a moment, waiting; in the distance, John could hear a faint barking.

“He’s out there,” Elliot said, relieved. “They probably have him tied up, if they were able to get their hands on him. John—”

The blonde stopped suddenly, and he turned his gaze back to her inquisitively. She looked very much like she wanted to say something; her lashes flickered uneasily and she swallowed thickly.

“You have to get him, John,” she said finally, which didn’t sound like the thing she wanted to say.

“I’ve got a radio,” he supplied helpfully; on instinct, he reached for her, and she didn’t flinch back when his hand found the juncture between her neck and shoulder. Warm, he thought pleasantly, hazily, the breath spilling out of his lungs like a waterfall. “It’s the one from the ranch. We can—radio Joseph and the others.”

“John, I need you to listen to me,” Elliot began, reaching up to put her hand over his. Her skin was warm, but she shivered—John realized very suddenly that she was soaking wet. “I need you to get Boomer. He’s over there somewhere, close enough to hear a whistle. You can whistle, right? Or just—say his name, he’ll respond to that too.”

“‘M drugged,” he replied. “No good. Besides, he doesn’t like me.” The last half came out petulant. He thought very little of Kian’s voice crackling through the radio, or that he’d said he’d be there soon, or that someone had drugged him and left him in the middle of the forest. All he could think about was the problem being presented to him: Elliot was asking him for something, and he couldn’t give it to her.

“You have to,” she reiterated firmly. “You told me you’d do anything I asked.”

“I did,” John insisted. “Don’t you remember? I f—”

“Shh!”

Elliot grabbed his hand and yanked, hard, hauling him into some thicker brush. The whole gesture of it had his vision spinning like a slot machine.

“John, you have to go,” she whispered furiously. The sound of heavy, leisurely footsteps thudded somewhere a little ways away. “Please. You said. ”

“We can both go,” he whispered back. And then, because she hadn’t recognized his good fortune earlier: “I have a radio.”

“I can’t,” she replied. Her voice broke a little, slipping past a furious hiss and cracking on an emotion that John didn’t want to know. “I can’t go.”

“Why?”

“I have to—” Elliot paused, her gaze flickering tiredly. “John, I have to take a break, I’ve—I’m so tired.”

He paused. “I’ll wait, too.”

“You need to go.”

“I don’t want to. I’ll stay, too, and we’ll go together—”

“No,” she insisted. “Fucking— God you are so annoying—”

John heard, very faintly, the low and threatening click-click of someone pumping a shotgun. He paused, and Elliot did too, and then she pulled him forward by his shirt and kissed him hard. She tasted a little like river water, but mostly like her, and the warmth of her mouth against his made heat bloom all over him like he was green and Spring, again.

“John,” she whispered against his mouth, nearly inaudible, “please. Get Boomer, radio your brothers. We’ll catch up on the other side. I—”

Another couple of footsteps echoed in the stillness of the night. All of the birds and wildlife had fled; they knew there was a big, bad predator out in the evening, and John felt that knowledge twisting something violent and wretched inside of him.

“Do not fucking die,” he hissed at her. “You’ve stayed stubbornly alive for this long. Do not.”

She nodded faintly. “Yes, boss.”

He went to move, but she stopped him, lifting a finger to her mouth; each beat of his heart rumbled violently in his ears, and he thought he might pass out if he didn’t get moving fucking soon; each second spent crouching still and silent in the brush was swaying him viciously back and forth, trying to get him to face plant into the ground.

Elliot, back against the tree, let go of his shirt. She mouthed, Go, and then darted out, quick and fast and taking with her all of the vibrant sound and warmth in the world.

John's legs lifted him to a standing position. It felt like operating heavy machinery; every movement ground through his skeleton laboriously. But he was going; gripping the radio, trying his hardest to sprint, when he heard the sound of a shotgun shell pelting the earth in one sharp, gritty blow.

And then a familiar voice: “Where are you, little rabbit?”

Please.

Everything in him was telling him to turn around. Screaming at him—but he knew that was exactly what Kian wanted, too. To have them both there, in the same place, to make one of them watch the other die.

So, he didn’t.

He kept going, and when he got far enough away to be convinced that Kian was preoccupied with Elliot, he stopped and looked around. The night was eerily still and pulsed dimly around him. He glanced down at his feet; the grass reached up and around his shoes, coiling around him, trying to hold him down.

“Fuck,” he hissed, hurriedly stepping forward. “Find dog. Radio Joseph. Boomer?”

He kept his voice low as he crept through the woods, fiddling clumsily with the radio as he moved. When he found a channel whose numbers looked vaguely familiar—and familiar was a stretch, considering that accessing just about anything in his brain was like feeling someone’s face in the dark and guessing who it was—he pressed down on the talk button.

“Joseph? Jacob? Somebody?” He let off the talk button. “Boomer?”

No barking. Was Elliot drugged too? Had they been hallucinating the dog barking?

John had just begun to give up on the idea of doing anything other than wander aimlessly in the dark woods when he made it to the edge of the treeline and saw the dog. Unfortunately, the beast was tied up to a wooden stake, growling low and threatening the two men as they walked idly around him and to the van, busying themselves; soft music played from the car. They seemed to be waiting patiently for Kian to finish whatever it was he was doing. Killing Elliot?

Fuck, he thought hastily. Gotta hurry.

He watched as one of the men set his gun down on the bed of the open van, stretching and chatting conversationally with his companion. When he wandered back over to Boomer and said, “Here, doggy,” the Heeler lunged viciously and set off barking, teeth snapping. He sighed.

“Stupid dog.”

They turned back toward the road, and John made his way closer to Boomer. If he could get that lead unclipped—if he could do it without them noticing…

“Fucking shithole,” one of the men said, backs turned to him as they lit a cigarette that got passed between them. “Can’t wait to purge this place and get out.”

“Yeah.”

“Hey, do you know…”

As their conversation drifted, so did John’s attention. He slipped out from the cover of the underbrush; instantly, Boomer’s eyes were on him. His hackles went up, and John lifted his hands, keeping them open.

In hindsight, he’d probably feel stupid thinking about this moment. The dog wasn’t holding him hostage. But it felt a little like he was, anyway.

“Hey,” he whispered, creeping closer. “Gonna let you off, beastie.”

Boomer eyed him, eyes flattened back against his head.

“You wanna get ‘em?” he continued, glancing over at the men as he reached for Boomer’s makeshift collar, clipped onto the lead. He didn’t know what kinds of gestures or phrases Elliot used to get the dog to do what she wanted. He only knew that Boomer did , sometimes without her saying, and so he said again, more urgently, “You wanna get ‘em, beast?”

The urgency of his tone seemed to spark something in Boomer. His ears pricked forward. John’s fingers found the lead clipped around his collar, pulled on the little metal clasp, and let it drop to the ground.

Boomer watched him, expectantly.

“Well, go on,” he whispered, gesturing. That seemed to be all that was needed; the cattle dog darted forward, teeth sinking into one man’s leg and yanking hard enough to unbalance him and pull him to the ground; the dog's head thrashed violently, ripping out of him guttural snarls.

John blinked, and thought, holy shit, is this what he’s been like this whole time?

There wasn’t a lot of time to spend thinking about it, because the other man was whirling angrily, shouting something, and then his eyes landed on John.

They both looked at the gun sitting on the tailgate of the van at the same time.

“Fuck,” John hissed, lunging forward and grabbing wildly; he wasn’t entirely sure that he even stayed upright, the strange back-and-forth pull in his head having only abated a little, but he reached for the gun and snatched his hand back, fumbling with the safety.

The whole thing felt like an eternity —comedically so. While the sounds of Boomer mauling the unarmed cultist echoed in his ears, John’s fingers clumsily switched the safety off and he fired recklessly; the bullet barely grazed the cultist’s calf, and as the man reached for him, John pulled the trigger again. Once, twice, three times, the bullets planted themselves in the man’s chest, jerking him back with each impact.

A heavy thud echoed in the night as the man slumped to the ground. Boomer had handily dispatched of the other one; his mouth was red and wet, and when John struggled to his feet, he saw that the man’s throat had been ripped open.

“Nice,” he breathed. Boomer regarded him warily, unimpressed with the compliment. He quickly shuffled the safety back on and tucked the gun into the back of his jeans, pushing the tailgate of the van up. When the dog whined, low and uncertain, he glanced back at him and sighed.

He pulled the tailgate back down. “Load up. We’re gonna get her back.”

Boomer leapt up into the back of the van, nails sliding on the hard plastic. It took John about five minutes of rifling through the pockets of the two men to find the car keys. While he wasn’t entirely confident in his ability to drive, he had just planted a couple of bullets in a man, so he supposed he'd be fine.

As he climbed into the driver’s side, he shut the door and settled in and carefully, meticulously slid the key into the ignition. The van purred to life as though John’s last week hadn’t been an entire fucking series of absolute fuckhead jokes, and he let out a breath.

The glint of something blue and reflective in the cupholder between the two front seats caught his eye. He glanced down, blinking.

“Hey,” he said, reaching down. “My sunglasses.” Tucking them into his shirt, he checked the rearview mirror and gently, gently pushed the car into drive.

"Alright, beastie," John muttered. "Let's get this ended, huh?"

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

The concussive blast of bullet meeting wood rang in her ears; chips of bark and the guts of the tree showered her, the shot echoing just above her head, and she thought, fuck, I just want to be dead already. She was so tired; moving was a luxury that was not afforded to her anymore, each gesture as she struggled to her feet tipped and fettered by the bruises and wounds that littered her body.

Finding John had taken about fifteen minutes, fourteen minutes and fifty-nine seconds of which had been spent agonizing about where to look first. She didn’t recognize where they were, or know her way around, and she was barefoot and soaking wet and shivering and she just kept thinking about how badly she wanted to lay down.

We’ll go together. Fuck, John was so stupid. She might have actually had a moment to breathe if he’d just listened to her and did as she said. But that wasn’t ever how these things went, was it?

A calloused hand closed around her wrist and yanked her to her feet. For a second, in the blurring, thrumming night, between the whispering voices in the wind and the lurching of the great beast hunting her down, Elliot saw the dark fabric of a button-up shirt and thought, it’s John, it’s John; he came back me and now we’re going to get out.

“I win,” Kian purred.

His voice bled through her skull, stretching and warping as the agony crashed over her in a scalding wave. Kian’s fingers wound iron-like around her wrist, holding her there, and his other hand came up to grip her chin; playfully, he shook her head back and forth, like he was trying to jostle her out of deep sleep.

“Don’t look so sad. I’m not going to kill you, Elliot.” He regarded her with something like amusement, eyes glittering dark and obsidian in what little moonlight had managed to seep through the tree cover. “Do you know what mor means? It means mother. We’re going to keep you for It, and when it’s time, we’ll slice you open. You will make It so happy.”

She gripped his wrist as hard as she could and tried to push his hand from her face. Kian had discarded the shotgun in favor of having both hands to grab her, and as he gripped her face—the wide, calloused crux of his hand covering her mouth while his fingers reached the dip of her jaw—she thought, Something has to be done.

Elliot had promised Joey. Even if I have to fucking die for it. She had promised, and that meant it had to be done.

Muddling through the panic, Elliot squirmed under his hand, opened her mouth, and bit down as hard as she could. The disgusting taste of hot copper flooded her mouth instantly; the webbing between his thumb and pointer finger wasn’t meant to take teeth ripping and tearing, and she was ripping and tearing; even with the limited mobility she had, she wrenched her head anyway she could, intent on taking some piece of Kian with her.

A wretched kind of sound came out of him. He tried to yank his hand back off of her face, and she bit down harder, anywhere her teeth could catch and grip. If she could hit bone, she thought; if she could sink her teeth right into the marrow of him, maybe then she would have felt like she got some repayment for what he’d done.

Kian yanked his hand free, gripping his wrist as crimson streamed down his palm and arm. His eyes were wild and dark; for a split second they stood there, staring at each other, two beasts nursing wounds and waiting for the other to make a move.

Elliot grabbed the front of his shirt and hauled him forward, slamming her face into his. It would have been nearly impossible to bodily force Kian’s to move had he not been clutching his wounded hand, and for that she was grateful—grateful, she would tell herself, around the ricocheting stars of pain blurring behind her eyes, using the hardest part of her skull to bash into Kian’s nose and mouth.

And then she ran.

The gun was around, somewhere, dusted in pine needles and nightfall; like a needle in a haystack. She heard someone spitting behind her, and she thought, I hope I broke your fucking nose, you piece of shit, just before she ducked into a thick bustle of brush and behind a rock.

Around her, the world blurred and fuzzed black. She tried to furiously blink it away, but every second spent standing still meant that her body was suddenly remembering how tired and overworked it was, how much she had done, how much she had suffered. We could stop now, the tired little girl inside of her said. We should. We should stop now.

But Kian had said it himself; he wasn’t planning on killing her. She wouldn’t get rest even if she gave up. He might have changed his mind after she’d bit through his hand and headbutted him, but—

That wasn’t a chance she could take. Not for herself, and not for Joey, and not for the girl she had been that night in her apartment, either.

Heavy footfalls echoed just a few feet away from her. Her mouth was still flooded with the taste of Kian’s blood. As she made her way to the other side of the boulder she’d taken refuge behind and peeked out, she thought, I’d do it again, given the chance. I’d rip him open with my teeth if I got the opportunity. Give me the fucking chance.

Moonlight spilled through the trees and into the clearing they had just been in as the wind pushed clouds out of the way. The glint of dark metal, threatening, caught her eye; the shotgun was there, with hopefully at least one shell in it—one that she could put straight through Kian’s ugly fucking face.

And he was nowhere to be seen, either. Even as she leaned further out, trying to see around the boulder, she couldn’t see him crashing through the underbrush; she couldn’t hear him, either. Just the sound of the wind, pine needles skittering across the ground, a twig snap and—

A second too late, Elliot’s pain-addled brain realized the breaking branch was just behind her. Fingers fisted into the hair at the back of her skull and dragged, hauling her out of the underbrush and back into the clearing, tossing her like a ragdoll. All of the already-battered ribs shrieked on impact, and she wheezed out a breath that had blood and spit flickering across the forest floor.

Tired. She was so tired. So tired, and the world blurred and tried to fizz and pop out of existence around her, a sticky-wet hand forced her eyes forward.

Blood streamed down Kian’s face from their earlier collision. When he grinned at her, his teeth were stained pink, red seeping in the gaps.

“Hello, little rabbit,” he ground out, pushing away her scrambling hands and pinning the left down. “You put up quite a fight.”

Elliot tried to search in her spatial memory—what was left standing of it, anyway—for where she had seen the gun. But it was getting harder to breathe, and to think, and Kian’s fingers dug into her jaw and cheeks. An awful, animalistic noise came out of her at the pressure—it was a whimper, but unlike anything she’d ever heard out of herself, unlike anything she’d known she was capable of making.

“I wonder—”

His voice came out in a low murmur, spit-slicked and venomous, his nose grazing the slope of her cheekbone.

“—will you feel guilty about this, too? When I drag you back kicking and screaming, and make you watch as I cut each of those fucking hillbillies open? I know some of them got out. I'll find them, too.”

It had to be close, she reasoned through the haze in her brain; the gun had to be nearby. She’d just been looking at it. Her body was trying to give up; Kian’s fingers pinning her wrist down and bruising her neck, his words hissed out against her skin, were all tripping that strange little trigger in her brain that finally wanted to give up fighting and do something else.

Quit.

“ Mor,” Kian purred against her skin. “Mother, you’ll be so good for It, I know you will.”

Joey, clutching her tight. “I never doubted you’d be able to get me out.”

“It likes it best like this, you know.”

John, mouth so close to her ear. “I said, it’s a good thing you’re more devil than woman.”

Each second that ticked by, filled with Kian’s voice, the fingers of her one free hand inched. S he felt them close around cool metal.

“It likes the ones that fight back.”

She gripped the gun hard, and swung.

It collided with a heavy-handed thump against the side of Kian’s face, and he jerked back. He still straddled her, but with room between them now, Elliot could lurch forward, bowling as much of her weight into his midsection as she could to push him off of her and send him reeling back into the hard surface of the boulder.

Her fingers worked fast as she struggled to her feet. Pure adrenaline, pure muscle memory, as she flicked the safety off, cocked the shotgun, and pulled the trigger.

It clicked.

Empty.

Kian barked out a laugh wet with blood. There was a wound on his temple that was bleeding, now, and as he struggled to sit up more she could see him wince—the collision with the boulder hadn’t done him any good. Elliot pulled the trigger again, and again, and each time it clicked she found herself getting angrier and angrier. Filling with poison, up to her brim, like someone had just uncorked it.

“It’s empty, mother,” Kian rumbled at her. “You think I brought any more ammo than those two shells?” He spat blood out of his mouth and cocked his head, regarding her with dark eyes. “I told you, I’m not going to kill you.”

I’m not, like he still thought he had won. Pure, vibrating fury radiated through her body. This was supposed to be her victory; this was supposed to be her revenge for Joey. For her life. For her.

It would be. It’s mine, she thought viciously, this fucking moment is mine.

“Yeah, well,” Elliot spit out, digging her fingers into the metal, “can't say the same.”

The weight of the gun was not unlike a bat; so when she took the barrel of the gun and swung it like one, it felt familiar. Just like when she was ten, playing rec-league softball, only this time the bat was an empty pump-action shotgun and the ball was Kian’s head.

When the dull impact send vibrations rattling up her arm, and Kian keeled to the side, wheezing and biting out something venomous in Swedish, Elliot gripped the shotgun harder and swung again.

And again.

Each collision brought it closer to the satisfying, wet crunch of blood and bone on the redhead’s face. Elliot couldn’t have counted how many times she swung if someone asked her—or pinpointed the exact moment that Kian stopped moving, stopped breathing.

She could only think about the way he’d planted his words right against her skin, gripped her, I win.

Do you know what I get to do with things that belong to me?

“Nothing,” she ground out, when her arms burned and ached and her vision fuzzed with exhaustion. “You don't get to do anything.”

“Deputy?”

Blood spray littered her face. She was sure that her teeth were stained red, too. Each breath heaved exhaustively through her body, rattling, and when she turned her head to the source of the voice, she saw John and Jacob standing at the edge of the clearing; lights blurred through the trees, the sound of trucks and voices echoing in the still night air.

Boomer darted out from behind them, immediately pressed to her legs. She held the shotgun loosely in her hand.

“El,” John said, softer than Jacob had, “It’s me.”

Her gaze flickered back to the brutalized corpse in front of her. She thought, faintly, that there was no way her life was going to be normal after this again, but that was okay. She’d promised Joey.

If I have to die for it, I will.

She’d done it. And maybe she had died for it.

Jacob had taken a few steps toward her as the thought echoed in her head. Slowly, like she was a stray dog snarling over a cow bone. When John moved to follow, she saw Jacob put his hand out and stop him.

“Put the gun down,” Jacob said, his voice still and calm. Elliot blinked tiredly.

She wanted to do it. She wanted to let go of it. But that girl that she had been—that girl who had cried under the blanket fort, who had thought, I don’t know how I let him do that to me, the girl who had sat on the floor of her bedroom in Hope County and blinked through furious tears as she struggled to understand herself—no longer wept; that girl was furious, and so Elliot gripped the gun tighter.

As though it made it any less of a weapon, she said, “It’s empty.”

Jacob looked at Kian’s face, bashed-in. Obliterated. “I know.”

Boomer whined at her feet, nosing her empty hand quietly and gazing up at her with big, brown eyes. Something strange washed over her, an emotion that made her lip tremble and her eyes burn. The Heeler nuzzled her hand again, and she sucked in a shaking breath as finally— finally, finally —the tears stung down her cheeks.

She dropped the shotgun. John said her name, and Jacob dropped his arm, and she realized that it was relief she was feeling now.

Only vaguely aware of Jacob kicking the shotgun away from her, the world blurred as Elliot felt John’s hands cradling her face. Each place where his fingers traced the bruises from Kian, that pulse of relief ran stronger through her body until it was overstimulating, overwhelming. When John kissed her, it was almost frantic—she could taste the blood in her own mouth, his fingers tangling into her hair as he kissed her again and again, until her lungs ached with the need to breathe. But each kiss brought her somewhere else. It took her somewhere that she didn't have to think about anything except John in that single moment.

“Hey,” John said, their noses brushing. His movements were sluggish and uncoordinated, his voice still slurring a little. “I have you. Right here with me, El, don’t go anywhere.”

“Yeah,” she managed out. Her voice wobbled, and she sucked in a sharp, stuttering breath. “John—”

His thumbs swept across her cheekbones, smearing more blood than they wiped away tears, and as the sound of voices echoed dimly around them, she lifted her hands and gripped his wrists. Through the coppery tang in the air, she could smell his cologne; her lashes fluttered and John pressed their foreheads together.

“It’s okay.” John murmured the words, tugging her against him, into his chest. “It’s all over now.”

No, she thought as his arms circled her, pulling her closer, Boomer barking at anyone who wandered near.

It’s not even close.

#ch: elliot honeysett #ch: john seed #fic: ancient names #john seed x female deputy #john seed x original female character #far cry 5 #far cry fic #uhhhhhhhhhhh #what can i say? i love a girl who knows how to use her teeth #boomer is a good boy #per usual

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whimsically-ominously-auspice · 5 years ago

Text

This is the last human mimic alien we have to fight.

He's realized he's lost because you people aren't running wild having orgies and you're listening to the DNA4U

And further more You all don't want to share.

When i posted the video of Miss Shawntae telling snoop it was time to snoop her body up... And then Snoop went all seductive to the camera...

122895x1000= men that said "Nigga ima beat your ass you know my wo/man gonna see that. You ain't need to be showing yourself!".

76584284×1000= said "ew i hope i don't have my any asking me to do anything tonight after what i just seen. My imagination gonna kill myself! And i know that's just wrong wrong wrong!"

Now multiply the digits together before the multiplication sign and that is approximately minus 1000 That supported Snoops message.

I did all 3. I had to advert my eyes even. Although he couldn't even see me.

Now Snoop and i know each other over 8000zillion years. So i can easily put myself in his shoes.

So he would walk in and I be having sex and he just sit down and start having a conversation. Like we having BBQ ribs and not sexual intercourse.

His wife tho .... He would make sure "the white boy was covered" and tease her don't look. She look at the carpet... Eventually it kept going on so i took a picture off the wall and put it on the floor where she always sat.

She said "why you do that?"

"I realize the kids keep jumping on the bed and knock it off. Snoop stare at you If you move your face. And unless you're on LSD it's no fun staring at the carpet. So i gave it to you where it seems you always be looking although i had to take a pretty healthy guess. I just felt you was having the most miserable time of all and as my friend it was my honor to trip out and give you a gift"

She used the reflection to put on her makeup and slept in bed later.,Snoop quit being so paranoid. Cause she would face the wall and lean against him.

Point is... Snoop be all like he was watching sports to make sure we got the score.

I mean. Man. Earth. We tried everything we could to stop these aliens from wanting to habe orgies. Even,took,away,their dicks!!!

We did everything. Planet.

Y'all locked up with your soulmates made little difference on this kick of his.

I been doing it. I been riding like I been going around the world 500 times. I love sex.

82% of y'all all around the Earth been having sex.

4% have watched porno

18% have had 1 wild orgies of those 18% -- 32% had s second one. Of those 0.00004981% have gone onto a third.

Of those having 2 or more orgies 92% were aliens

Leaving 8% Of 18% of the entire world interested enough in watching or having sex with other people than their soulmate.

Who saved the world?

100% of humans.

You all get $5 and that includes children.

He's done all he could and he's failed. 100%

I think Edgar might be human... Looking at his alien structure in the film.

But he treated me like an alien. Im still a POW.

Alex had to sell a bed because he acted non human. And Alex worked hard on it to make it perfect for me.

I would been fine gloating from it. Fighting and being sassy to aliens.

But then someone claiming to care about me,most of all abandoned his son and law and daughter. And i hear stories of him being evil.

Some time ago they asked me "do you want a dad or mom?"

"No"

"We need to know because the future of the,Earth,depends on it. And the future of you. Now do you want a dad or,not?!"

"The question is will i remain needing a dad or father figure in the future. No i am fine. I have male role models to keep the species alive. Males. (Species not gender) I also have my mom in Mrs Harriet Tubmam. And if that fails then at that time i should be able to get the rest of me. But she's fine. I'm fine. I just got to remain stable. But adding a father or another mother i don't know just yet can remain disasterous."

Luckily Alex didn't burn the bed down. But it was,bugged and bombed by "Edgar", to me 'its just another one of those things we have to clean"

Do i care? Nothing. He doesn't affect me. I worry about Alex having to,deal with it. But,hes being,and,staying clean,and,then when he's,scared he stays by other cold turkey or non users. He was,around Crystal meth yesterday and he tasted 1/4 of a gram. Like when you would put your finger in the sugar jar. Then lick it. The other guy smoked 4.9876 ounces and blew it all in their faces including the babies. Thus Alex got 7.698 grams ingested via second hand smoke.

I didn't notice but we got in a fight with each other. Just like we always do.

Alex and i power punched him and his eye socket -- ocular bone -- was crushed like glass in 17 cracks.

His jaw I punched more alone but with Alex and total both sides he lost 9 teeth. And had to be wired shut after 72 stiches because i split his upper palate in two. I cracked his lower palate in 8072 places. So if you found a skull it would rest on powder of his lower jaw and then you'll find the upper. After decaying..

Then Alex on the top of his head had 49 stitches to repair his soft tissue from his frontal lobe when he crashed to the floor after the super punch to eye hit the coffee table.

He did get one "good" punch in -- his skull hit Alex right in the right eye.

It fucking hurt but it hurts in a good way. Its weird it's like "reward!" Pain. No suffering. Fucking got him good tho. We feel it every now and again. May be it is when he realises we will kill him for good. He keeps remembering that sudden silence of death.

He's currently on life support. "Medically induced coma" is our non panic code words. But it's basically life support but usually not full life support. It isn't 100% life support medical machines. Its 75% or less.

So technically it's life support and coma mixed. So we csll it medically induced coma. This way you understand if your family is the one on the machines -- it's only 25% body life.... However there's a 75% of recovery via healing machines.

The CIA. Willl decide when to pull the plug. Usually medically induced coma is someone evil or someone bad with the ability to be good. Usually aliens go straight to coma status.

If an alien will die it's 1st life support then coma. Your friend or family will die.

They said medically induced coma. But at this time. His brain is incapable of human thought so I am putting him on life support.

This makes it the family's wishes.

Most of the time "next of kin" is spouse then parents/siblings. Then children last.

Which is wrong. It should be the future. Thus Erica and Steven will ask the babies. And together they will decide.

Last night as a CIA operative while he was in a medically induced coma i was told by at least 1 child and 2 adults to pull. I reviewed. While they spoke from shock and relief their true feelings.

Knowing that the children escaped life with Eric once. I don't feel the right to allow Eric to live. I know the consequences of his actions caused two children to leave my planet in fear and terror and disgust because of Eric.

Erica was my 3rd pregnancy to abort and hold souls.

I hate Eric. That's why i punched him in the fucking face. I was happily surprised that Alex did it. Too in person.

Since the infants are involved and already resurrected. And had a nightmare of a time in less than 36 hours on Eaerth.

I allow them to be there to pull the plug, they can actually yank and pull the plug themselves.

So that is what i want and what the children need.

It will show Eric he doesn't belong here and has no,reason to,be at 25%

It makes life easier for all of us.

Eric was an outdoor kid. Like John and Jason and Greg. Etc. He never went into my school.

They didn't have to. And actually weren't ever enrolled. They liked the man work to learn to survive on their own.

While i taught the children the indoor stuff. The expansion of the mind.

I taught them the economy so the men working to increase their own economical structure could be helped to be taken in under their wings.

I left no one behind.

But he refused confirming.

1. Alcoholic system to drop other drugs. -- he uses crystal meth. Without cut backs. Without moderation

$5 if yoh remember and realized i said make smoothies without alcohol to share with your kids.

2. He blew it in their faces on purpose them injesting over 2.4 grams each.

Erica and Alex would cover their faces with thick blankets when the smoke came towards them.

It was quite a hostage situation. Knowing he could take the newborns and kill them in front of them.

Its happened to me 985 Point 2 times. I'm 35 years old.

875.8 times it's been with a knife.

Take the numbers and multiply by 10 million. For the last some kinda lots of 8 thousand zillion years.

It even happened to Alex. He he has the scars. From,this and last life., it,has happened.

So for me they're terrifying. Unless I'm there... I have saved 900 billion times 30 thousand. I those situations.

But i always remember the ones i lost.

So don't worry when I'm suicidal. Just leave me alone. Don't talk to me. I need silence.

So dead babies y'all.

Dead aliens.

It will be done

I seen that actually quite beautiful meme of April 2020 the clouds and UFO.

I don't get mad or violent because I'm stepped back to watch y'all cope.

But I say to y'all "fuck no that's not happening" I say to that UFO "Fucking try it you will all die" i just scroll on because I get so angry. I get so mad. Its a beautiful photo but i refused to repost it because it isn't something i support.

Most reposts of memes are supported unless i type something on the bottom. Saying it's not.

So my dad. I didn't care until i saw The Rock, "her dad is alive" all happy and in support.

Then i was bothered. Then I cared. Then i felt something about it. But until then i felt nothing.

I didn't feel shame..i felt that were all made of glass.

Because I was happy to have a dad.. One that seemed good. I was actually happy.

And it was kept personal to me... But then I saw the Rock felt it. Then I began to feel..

Broken. But Alex kept it together and started getting rid of the bed. Taking it down. Removing bombs. And fixing all that ass hole did "my dad"

I know the Rock.. He can handle. His dad just died. And we did a lot for him.

So for him to be elated. I get through the day thinking no one really cares what i feel and they don't pay kuch attention..but the Rock in that moment in time.

He was happy. And i knew then i had to Destroy a light of happiness inside him and he looked away from the camera to say "we are all happy. The while world"

DNA4U list one person as my father. He's my uncle..

Edgar claimed it was his 18th cousin.

You know, it doesn't matter.

Donate. Mr Lee Tubman. And more. They're my dads. They kept me safe. Taught me to be wiser and more caring about myself. Donte was 2 years younger than me. But he was a father figure. Guy was the fun dad. Fred Flintstone i called one friend's dad was the fishing buddy. We were not close but he was a silent father figure.

I stole all my friends dads. Borrowed them. Their moms, too.

I have 1800 moms that I call mom.

I know who my moms and dads are.

Just like Erica called me mom the other day and Brittany will too. And Alex my cousin's son. Candy. Brandy. Declan.

So i know i have a family that understands it doesn't matter how I got here. It matters who treated me well. Matthew McCognohey. Kid rocks. They're like my dad's and my kids. Uncles and Cousins.

Blood doesn't matter. Shit half the time Snoop is my God or dad or bother or husband or little kid i have to save. He's my friend.

Snoop is too much of everything. He is my co-nigger. My partner in many crimes against humanity (practical jokes)

I call him my Friend. But my family wouldn't be complete without him and Shawntae.

Harriet. I call her momma all the time. It feels natural. Sometimes i call her old lady.

So while i was joyful for a moment thinking I found someone that actually cared to find out he didn't.

I myself wasn't affected until i knew others would be

Its just a lesson in life. Don't trust people.

I told Alex abandon ship, fuck that place. Ain't no one can go in there!!

He understood and agreed then took the role "no,one is driving me and her from our home." He decided to defend the homestead. That is the role a man takes

Im all you gotta sweep the whole place,then,rest and do,it again,2 more times at least.,Then,again when,I,get there. If i get there.

But i feel good to know my lover isn't gonna let anyone drive him down. Just turn around. Learn a lesson. Clean the mess.

Why do i need a father when i have a man?

Clearly i am an independent woman and always have been.

But i need a family. Otherwise I have no point to live.

And that is why i am suicidal.

I don't see s point to live. Not when Alex and i fight and i don't want him to talk to me cause some alien got in our way once again.

He was double attacked by aliens.

So if their desire is for me to die... Then they should keep,doing it.

If,not they need to stay out of my way so i can,get my family,together again.,in,real life.

My family that I know is my family. Not aliens. Not fans. Not someone that needs to apologize to me or needs an explanation.

People that can think on their own and not be reminded they need to have love in their spirit.

Now Snoop sometimes plays the role of my brother. And we are competitive. It just makes us proud of each other and ourselves for surviving a challenge. I do it to him too but I play old hard skill. He plays old new remember when. I do ancient V-Ball and he does pop and country experience.

So his spirit is of an ego -- which salutes the fact we will grow.

Often we do the spirit of mischievous. To remind danger still exists but we will have fun and love in the end.

Friend. Someone that is gonna fry you but the end od what matters.

Sometimes we relax and chill. But them old cogwheels of the mind never quit rolling. Advance. Advance. Lets keep it going don't stop.

He's like me. Suicidal.

But he used to release his inner poison. Now he makes it not exist by doing something else ....

But me? Nothing helps but the mimic of death itself. Silence.

People are what causes it. Alien people.

So you humans. Keep on being you.

Its you that is gonna save the world

I gave you guidelines to help us out this mess.

Because I can't even see y'all because the aliens surrounding me trying to get my last breath.