#Truly! With teeth as sharp as his he must be a demon of some sorts. | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

pars-ley · 4 years ago

Text

Red thread of fate

Pairing: Vampire Seokjin x Female human reader

Rating: 18+ (NSFW)

Genre: Angst / Fluff / Smut / Fantasy au / Soulmates au / Vampire au /

Warnings: Mentions of blood / mentions of staking / oral f.recieving / foreplay with candle wax / bondage / blindfold / dead body / minor character death / self inflicted wound (not fatal and not a suicide attempt)

Summary: The red thread of fate leads you to your soulmate, when it's someone completely unexpected and completely against your upbringing, how will your family history impact on this match and will going against them come back to bite you.

Word count: 6668 (666 👀)

A/N: This is for my BTS writers group secret santa project for @crystaljins I messed up and it ended up being not so secret but I really hope you enjoy this! It’s a bit out of my comfort zone and even though it was stressful, I’ve enjoyed that challenge. Thank you for being so understanding too.

Beta read by @aroseforyoongi thank you for being a life saver! Thank you to @papillonsgf for your helpful advice, who else would I go to about old fashioned language use, you’re the queen. Last but not least @wheresmymoniat for her ENDLESS help and support! I will never be able to thank you enough.

Running along the beach at night with nothing but the moonlight illuminating your way, may be eerie to some but to you, something about the darkness brought you peace. It soothed your mind and silenced your thoughts.

You've been following this feeling for years, letting your feet lead you to the pulling sensation and yet never seeming to get anywhere closer to where it wants you to be.

You've ran across this beach almost every night for the past year, against the ingrained advice of your family, warning you about the demonic creatures that prey on the innocent, concealed under the blanket of night.

So far, the only thing you've come across, night after night, are the echoing sounds of despair, calling along the cool night breeze.

The noise frightened you at first but now, you grow curious about it. Where is it coming from? Who or what is it coming from? And why? What could fill someone with that must much distress, that they call out into nothing? Maybe, it's a cry for help. Who knows but you were determined to find out.

A shadow in the distance catches your eye, a silhouette, someone standing on the wet sand, the low tide pooling around their feet as they stare up at the full moon.

You slow your jogging to a walk, as to not alarm them, the sea lapping against the shore is the only sound you can hear tonight.

As you near, the person turns to you, a man with striking features and broad shoulders. He watches you bewildered as you close the distance between you. Your feet moving on their own, your body being pulled more forcefully than ever before.

Until you're here, in front of him. The one they all whisper about. Kim Seokjin. The town's resident vampire.

The many rumours of him insist he's lived here for more than 200 years, pacing the cliff edge each night, never changing and never aging. Most people laugh it off as nothing but myth but you knew different, you knew the rumours were true. And here you are faced with the man, the mystery, the legend himself. The legend who has slain every vampire hunter he’s come in contact with, another fact you were privy to know.

"It's nice to meet you Seokjin." You say confidently.

He smiles warily, an obvious glint of sadness in his eyes. "I see my reputation precedes me?"

"It does. But it's hard not to recognise the only vampire in town."

He laughs darkly. "Is that what they say?"

You watch him carefully, wondering what could be tormenting him so, a shroud of darkness covering him or keeping him hidden. "It is, but don't worry, I'm very good at keeping secrets."

"If you believe that, are you not afraid?" He turns to face you with a questioning brow and a menacing grin.

You shake your head. "No."

"And why not?" he asks, his face dropping back into a sorrowful mask as he returns his attention back to the inky sea before you.

You turn too, facing the view of the reflected moonlight shimmering across the water and shrug. "Something is telling me I shouldn't be, call me crazy but I can feel that you won't hurt me."

Glancing over, you see him staring down at your hand, wide eyed and open mouthed.

"What?" You ask, examining it suspiciously.

His mouth snaps shut, eyes darting back to yours as his face conceals all emotion.

"What are you doing out this late? Did no one tell you of the creatures of the night?" He teases a slight smirk curving his plump lips., so smooth, there’s not a single wrinkle creasing the skin.

You laugh. If only he knew, your family probably knew more than he did about the creatures in question. "I come along this beach every night."

He frowns. "Alone and in the dark...why?"

Will he think you're crazy if you tell him? No crazier than him being a vampire i suppose. "I'm searching for something."

He turns towards you, his body angled completely in your direction, capturing his full attention. "And what is that?"

You shrug, cheeks flushing but hoping the moonlight isn't enough to reveal your embarrassment. "I'm not sure."

He huffs a laugh out of his nose, the sounds of the air leaving his nostrils strong enough to be heard over the rolling tide. "You are a curious creature."

You raise an eyebrow at him, giving him a quizzical look and he laughs, a light now sparkling in his dark, guarded eyes.

"Touché. Would you care to walk with me?" He asks, stepping out of the surf and back onto the dry sand.

You nod, following the footprints he's already left behind as he heads off in front.

"You seem to know so much about me and I know nothing of you, apart from the fact you like moonlit walks on the beach every night." He looks sideways at you, waiting for you to elaborate.

"Ok, for every question you ask me, I get to ask you one in return."

His mouth stretches into a smile. "Fine but I start."

"Deal; but you have to be honest. No lying."

With a smirk he stops, gently taking your hand in his and bringing your fingers slowly up to his mouth, his eyes staring into you the entire time. "You have my word." He places a chaste kiss on the back of your hand and it's enough to make your heart hammer wildly in your chest. You wonder, embarrassingly, if he can hear it.

"Ok, what is your name?" He starts.

You tell him, leaving out your family name as it may raise more questions than necessary. A confrontation you're not quite read for.

"How long have you lived here?" You ask.

"Here on this earth, or here in this town?"

You smirk at his smart-ass response. "In this town?"

"Roughly, about two hundred and thirty years." He looks over at you, watching your expression carefully for reaction, all you can do is nod, keeping your face impassive. "What were you searching for on the beach?"

You grimace, knowing that question was coming but dreading it just the same. "I truly don't know...it sounds crazy…"

Shrugging, he says, "Try me."

Sighing you give in. "For years, as soon as I turned eighteen, things changed, something was pulling me, leading me. It led me to different countries around the world until eventually...back here. I feel like something's calling me but I have no idea what…" You watch him as he stares at the sand he steps on, a focused frown between his brows. When you get no response, you move on.

"Ok, how long have you lived on this earth?"

"Three hundred and seventy nine years."

He says it so matter-of-factly you mouth 'wow'.

"What countries did this feeling take you to?" He asks quickly, before you even have a chance to begin to process his last answer.

"Erm, France first, then Italy, Peru and lastly Finland. What do you eat?...or drink?"

He gives you a dark look and a mischievous grin stretches his mouth revealing his perfect white teeth. Are they sharp? "What do you think?"

"Don't answer a question with a question." You roll your eyes at him and he laughs, a low chuckle that feels like it vibrates your soul, warming you up from the inside.

"As you wish...I drink blood. Does that make you nervous?"

An involuntary swallow makes its way down your throat and your cheeks flush. "A little." You admit sheepishly. "Do you only drink from humans?"

"No, sometimes animals. Do you want children in the future?"

You choke on air at the strange turn in questioning, always feeling uncomfortable when kids are mentioned, always ready for the judgement your answer brings. "No, I'm not keen on them and they don't like me."

He laughs, the high pitched screech ringing out around you, bouncing off the cliff faces as you walk and you realise you’re smiling up at him in response.

"Do you kill the people you drink from?"

He reels at your abruptness but amusement sparkles in his eyes. "No, they go home unharmed and usually, do not remember a thing. Do you have a significant other?"

"No.” you ignore the tug of loneliness you feel at the reminder but try not to pause too long. “Is that one of your...gifts, you make people forget?"

He nods. "Of sorts. Have you ever been in love before?"

You feel hot under your shirt, the material suddenly too clingy and uncomfortable and the questions getting too personal but you can’t stop answering as you need to know more about him and you can’t explain why. "...no. Have you seen much of the world?"

"I have been to many places in my lifetime and seen many things, yes. Do you believe in love?"

You stumble slightly and his hand instantly wraps around your arm, steadying you with a firm and yet gentle grip. "Um, yes I do. Where's been your favourite places to visit?"

"I'm sensing you like to travel, hence the line of questioning. Well, most recently, I've been to France, Italy, Peru and Finland." He watches you from the corners of his eye and you frown, curious as to why, when his answer registers.

Your feet stop moving, they can't-won't move. You stare at his broad back before he slows and turns to you.

"When did you go there?" You ask into the heavy silence, no longer hearing the waves lap against the shore.

He looks out to sea, away from you. "I think you know the answer."

You did, but you had to hear him say it, you needed to hear the words. Your frozen form unmoving with wide, seeking eyes, your mind frantic as you try to make sense of this.

He sighs. "I left here three years ago and returned last year."

Your mind explodes with questions. How is this possible? And what does it mean?

"Let me ask this then, where is that feeling of yours pulling you now?" He asks, closing the distance between you and gently cupping your face. You find yourself leaning into it, his touch seeming to comfort your wild thoughts, if only for a moment before you remember he’s a stranger to you. You hear his question bounce around in your mind, realising alarmingly that you're not being pulled anywhere. You feel completely in control of yourself for the first time in a long time, completely at ease and at peace.

Your body feels lighter, your mind free of wondering.

Him. It couldn’t be...could it? If it is him...why?

He must see the question behind your eyes, he strokes his thumb across your wrinkled brow, smoothing the skin and forcing your muscles to relax.

"Tell me, have you ever heard of the red thread of fate?"

What do you do when you find your soulmate? The person, or vampire in your case, who is bound to you forever…

What could you do? No use fighting fate, you'll only end up being proven wrong.

You'd listened intently, when Seokjin had explained all about the red thread and told you many true stories of soulmates with both happy and tragic ends, until the sky was light and the sun was almost up and he had to retire back to his extraordinary house on the cliffs.

He had told you that vampires have sight for the thread, only attached to themselves and no one else but that they lack the ability to be able to follow it, unsure as to why, he insists it’s another way for vampires to be tortured.

You have a lot of information to process and want time alone to do so.

You lock yourself in your apartment the morning after meeting him. The one your soul is bound to. The one who will have your heart completely. Even as you think it, it feels odd. What are you having such a hard time with? If vampires are real, why not soulmates?

For days you keep yourself trapped inside, unable to keep your pacing legs still, as you incessantly wear a beaten pathway through the pile of your plush carpet.

The storm swirling in your mind, turning your thoughts into a twister of frenzied energy, you grapple with yourself in a constant battle to keep yourself grounded whilst also listening to your heart over your head.

This goes against everything you've been raised to believe. Vampires are predatory monsters, who crave on the pure and innocent to torture and outlive their perverted desires.

What would your parents say if they knew? You could envision a few choice words, at the very least but do you even care what their response would be? Definitely not. And yet, here you are, staring absentmindedly out of your window the view of the beach haunting you, possessing your mind with his face, his laugh, his voice. Your head feels torn, split in two, a crack right down the middle of your skull seeping out sanity as you cradle your head in your hands, a feeble attempt to keep it together.

Your clammy palms and racing heart cannot be calmed no matter what you try in the few torturous days you've spent inside. Something's not right, you feel it in your bones. That usual pulling feeling returns with vengeance, fighting the force on your vital organ makes you sick to your stomach.

You expected to welcome it with open arms, as you'd grown accustomed to it like an old friend, comforted by it sometimes but as you sit, wrapped in a blanket on your sofa, you feel frantic. A sheen of sweat dampens your brow, restless fidgeting of your feet and legs, an uncomfortable pit in your stomach, heavy as a rock. You can't resist any longer. You have to get out. You have to go to him. You swallow a harsh lump in the back of your throat, the need to scream rising with bile and you grab your coat, your legs leading you, running along the wobbly paths, taking you onto the beach and along the sea edge, back to the same place you stood a few nights ago.

When you see him standing in the distance once again, nothing but the moonlight on him, your legs gain power and charge you towards him. He is your only destination right now, the only end you seek, the only holy grail you desire.

His head snaps up to you as he begins to close the distance too. He's in front of you before you can blink, wrapping his arms tightly around your middle, clinging to your back in sheer desperation as you fling your arms around his neck and do the same. His relieved breath sounds in your ear As you feel all your stress and pain ease away, washing away with the tide that bleeds into your shoes and tickles your feet.

An overwhelming comfort encases you, emotion swelling in your chest and spilling from your eyes.

Trying to stay away from him had been a mistake, you realise, as you allow yourself to be drawn in and swallowed by him. No more resisting.

"The last few days have been unbearable." He whispers.

And with his words, you know, everything you feel, he feels too.

You unwind yourself from him, pulling back to witness his beauty and fathom his expression. His brows knit together tightly as his eyes mirror yours, searching for answers in the depths of glassy pools.

"I was terrified, after years of waiting for you that you would…" he trails off, mouth open but no words escaping.

"I would what?" You reply, stroking his tortured face, trying to ease some of his anguish.

"Cut the thread." He whispers pained, eyes looking away from yours and locked to the ground.

"How could you cut something you can't see?"

He sighs and presses his forehead to yours. "If you were sure in your mind that you wanted nothing to do with me and refused me, the thread would be severed."

You place your palms against his cheeks and bring his face up, forcing him to meet your eyes.

"These few days have been torture for me too. I thought I needed time to think things through and understand but now I see as clear as day, I need you, Seokjin. I need you like I need air."

The relieved smile that spreads across his face contradicts the desperation in his eyes as you find your lips against his, locked in a ravenous dance of love and lust. He pulls you against him, your body moulding to his perfectly, like two puzzle pieces designed to fit.

When he pulls away, you're dizzy and breathless, and yet, still craving more.

"Your lips make me wonder what the rest of you tastes like." He whispers against your mouth. Your throat contracts as you picture his teeth sinking into you, blood trickling down your neck as you're helpless to stop it and panic seizes your heart in a vice grip.

He sees the alarm in your eyes and laughs. "I was not referring to your blood, my love."

His seductive tone has your core pulsing with heavy need, an ache forming and residing there as your mouths meet again, entranced in a ravenous flutter of his pillowy lips against yours.

You want him. You need him. And he is yours for eternity, you can have him.

Night after night in his old, gothic mansion, exploring each others minds, souls and bodies, you are weightless with adoration and besotted by the way his mind works. His old fashioned language mesmerising as you listen each evening to his riveting stories and tales.

You laugh together under a blanket of firelight and warmth with soft, gentle touches across bare skin and fierce kisses trailing a heat you've never felt. And when the sun comes up and the curtains are drawn to keep the daylight at bay, the exploration continues, physically this time, your bodies forming together as one. Touches become hungry and desperate the further you delve into the never ending pit of pleasure. He worships every inch of you, hardly letting you catch your breath before his cool skin is against yours, enveloping you entirely in a euphoric haze you don't ever want to escape from.

"Do you trust me?" He says quietly, breath fanning out over your face.

You nod.

"I need words, darling." He strokes a thumb across your bottom lip and tugs it from between your teeth.

"Yes." You reply, louder than you expect.

"Alright, alright, we are not in the military, calm down."

You can hear the smirk in his voice as you slap him playfully on what you assume is his chest.

He adjusts the black blindfold that covers your eyes, moving it down slightly to completely conceal your vision.

"Are you comfortable?" He asks in your ear as he checks your rope bondaged arms, tight enough to pinch but not enough discomfort for you to refuse them.

"Yes." You arch your back, pushing your crotch forward, impatient and begging to be touched, the action causing your wrists to pull tight on the rope binding you to the ceiling.

His mouth is on your thigh instantly and it makes you gasp as he leaves light, wet kisses in a teasing trail straight to your core.

"If you want me to stop at any point, you will tell me, yes?" He whispers against your clothed sex, the hot air of his breath making you buck your hips towards him, hoping to find some friction but to no avail.

"So eager." He tuts at you, you might not be able to see but you can imagine the triumphant look on his face.

He hooks a finger inside your underwear, pulling them aside before his mouth is on you.

Your moan fills the room, bouncing off the cold, stone walls of his old house.

The way he offers up pleasure like a man possessed, his lurid moans only making your need for him grow tenfold. As you writhe before him, desperate for release but also for it not to be over so soon, he holds you firmly at your sides.

The wet sounds his mouth makes fill the otherwise silent room. His name falls from your lips repeatedly, and when you feel the sweet build up begin he slips a finger gently inside you. You gasp, surprised as he beckons your orgasm with his perfectly crooked finger, each movement coaxing it further to the edge. As his tongue moves faster than possible, the sensation breath-taking, you hang off of the woven ropes, your suspended arms making your breaths harder and your head giddy.

"Let go, my love." He whispers against you and at his words you obey, unravelling around him, pleasure pulsating through you with every pound of your heart, just for him. Every arch of your back, every curl of your toes, for him.

You feel his teeth graze your inner thigh, knowing the temptation he feels to sink them into you and taste but his refusal to do it overpowers every time.

He crawls up your body and places his face against your chest, as your hammering heart calms back to its regular beat.

"Does listening to my heart not make you thirsty?" You wonder, wishing you could see his face.

"A little but the more I listen, the more familiar I'll be with it."

"And that means there's less risk of you biting me?"

He makes a disgusted noise in his throat. "There is no risk of that anyway, I am not an infant vampire, I can control myself, especially with you." He pauses and you hear him sigh. "No, it just means that I will be more attuned to the sound of your heart. So if I lose you in a crowded place, say, I can use it to find you."

Call it naivety, or simply your rebellion against your parents and your refusal to listen to their advice or warnings, but you're still shocked that vampire senses are that impressive.

Your thoughts shatter as his wandering hands and mouth snap you back into the present, deep, hungry need rising fast from the sated pit inside you, once again. He removes your blindfold, pulling the tie with one hand, whilst the other still roams your body. He pulls away, only to remove his shirt and reveal his impressive, broad frame. His bare skin, glowing in the flicker of candle light as he fetches a burning wick and brings it over to your still bound frame.

“Have you ever felt the heat of candle wax?” He asks, his voice smooth as silk and turning your insides to jelly. You shake your head, entranced by the way he’s watching you, like you hold all the answers to life’s questions, like you are his own personal sun chasing away the darkness he stresses is residing in his hell bound soul.

“Would you like to?”

You nod. Words seeming to have escaped and rendering you incapable.

He brings the candle close to your breasts, his eyes meet yours, you see the heat blazing and baring towards you, sweeping you up as it goes and carrying you to breathless want.

He tilts the wick and as the pooled wax tips over the edge and lands on the skin on the swell of your breasts you gasp. The burn sharp and sudden but as it cools and turns hard the pleasure makes you throb for more. He obliges, hot wax searing and hardening in some of your most sensitive areas and when you think you can’t cope with not having him inside you, he obliges that too.

Always the gentleman, he clasps your hand in his on your annual evening walk, his thumb tracing loving circles on your skin. His eyes wandering to your face, not interested in the picturesque views around you.

"Tell me what you're thinking?" He asks quietly, his voice slicing through the silence like a sharpened blade.

Him. You're always thinking about him. When you're about to be forthcoming with that, you feel him stop moving, eyes far away and scouring the trees that surround you in this woodland. The hairs on the back of your neck stand on end in a piercing stance as you too can feel the eyes on you, unsure of their purpose or whereabouts.

“Let us go home. Quickly.” He announces, pulling you close to him as you turn and back track the way you came, searching frantically for the opening where the moonlight can illuminate your path and any predators who may be lurking.

Who would dare prey on a vampire, that is faster and stronger than average? You knew but you were desperately hoping you were wrong.

Your feet struggle to keep up with his pace, him almost lifting you off the ground. His eyes tense and his jaw set as he remains solely focused on your route to safety. Before long you see the opening of the trees parting and just as you pass through them and take off down the hill back to his home, you glance behind you.

A shadowy figure emerges from the trees, still cloaked in darkness from the overhang of the leafy branches and your heart leaps into your throat at the sight, knowing you were being watched and followed. You can’t take your eyes off the unmoving silhouette as you know his stare follows you down the hill, burning holes into the both of you. When you find yourself wondering who could be interested in the both of you, the figure turns and walks back into the woods. Your body goes cold, blood turning to ice in your veins as your heart stills before hammering wildly against your ribs...as you watch the figure limping back into darkness. The same limp your father is plagued by.

Jin’s eyes are on your face before glancing quickly at the place your gaze is frozen to, hoping...praying that you imagined that.

You can’t bring yourself to meet his worried stare the whole way home, as he cradles you into his chest, surrounding you with his warmth, it is not enough to thaw the ice inside you or calm the frantic beat of your heart. And as his comforting arm wraps tightly around you, pinning you to him, you cling to it desperately as if you'll be able to keep him safe just by the action. If you hold him tight enough you won't lose him. If only that were true. You know more than anyone, the determination of your father, if he wants him dead, he will stop at nothing to get what he wants.

You swallow the lump in your throat, feeling like barbed wire as it travels down slow and sharp. Images of your perfect Jin, wide-eyed, cold and expressionless as he lay on the floor in front of you, your father towering over him, smiling, that same sickly smile that makes your stomach churn.

You must protect Jin at all costs. You can't let anyone else, human or creature, die at the hands of your family.

Jin's library is something else. Sitting in his ornate armchair, running your hands along the smooth metal arm rests, your fingers following the intricate designs that are carved, you relax into the feather cushions.

While he was out hunting, you came to do some exploring, knowing you had a couple of hours while he was out. After pleading with him to be careful, keep his wits about him and expect the unexpected you had eventually stopped clinging onto him and let him leave the safety of your embrace. He'd showered you with kisses and whispered sweet nothings until it soothed you. You decide best to stay busy while he's gone, as to not drive yourself insane.

He had mentioned before of books written about true life accounts of vampires and other creatures and you couldn't help but wonder if your family would get a mention in their historical tales.

How wrong you were.

You gently finger the delicate, worn pages, turning through the chapter dedicated to your heritage. All thirty four pages of your family history. Paintings of each member, personal information to use against them and even a mention of when you were born.

The pages quiver in your trembling fingertips as you stare at your parents names and their sketched faces, posed as if for a wanted poster.

You read the printed words about their escapades. Having learnt about each one yourself, been subject to their bragging sitting behind your desk while they tried to teach you their hate for all things mystical, hearing words like abomination, unnatural, wrong, despicable; all to describe anything different from themselves. You'd never had it in you, the ability to hate anything that much, that you could harm it. And after years of abuse when they realised your mind was nothing like theirs, when they realised you wouldn't carry on their traditions of hunting and murdering they locked you up and tried to teach you that way. Only for it to backfire, your disdain for them growing to an immeasurable amount causing them to disown you. Since then, at the age of 18, you'd gotten as far away from them as you could. Now knowing you followed your heart around the world and back, chasing him.

"My love, what's wrong?" Jin's voice sounds into your chaotic thoughts, slicing through them and freezing them in their tracks.

You look down at your still shaking hands and feel the wet trails drift down your cheeks, warm pent up emotion leaking out and dripping onto your shirt.

He’s at your side, brushing the tears off your face, his face following your eyes to see what has you so alarmed.

“Why are you reading about this?” he takes your hands gently from the pages and pulls you to him, enveloping you in his arms and kissing your hair. “Don’t worry, those stories are from years ago, most vampire hunters have given up and returned to hiding in their shadows.”

The soothing strokes of his hand up and down your back calm you somewhat, but you shouldn’t be calmed, you need to be honest with him. The truth will come out, it’s better that it comes from you.

You gently push away and steel yourself, bracing yourself for every possible reaction, he watches you bewildered.

“What’s wrong, sweetheart?” He stretches a hand out and you know if you take it you’ll crumble, losing your courage to explain who you truly are.

“I have something to tell you.” you sigh looking at the floor, ashamed of the words you’re about to say. “I’ve not been entirely honest.”

He steps forward, hooking a finger under your chin and tilting your face up to meet his confused gaze. “You can tell me anything, dearest, you know that.”

You swallow the lump that forms in your throat and try to ignore your heart pounding in your ears, making it hard for you to focus on anything else but the incessant thrumming.

“Jin, I—” The sound of glass shattering in the distance cuts you off from your confession. Both your heads snap up towards the doorway, you take a tentative step forward but his arm comes out in front, halting your feet firmly where they are.

“No, I’ll go, it’s probably just the wind knocking over a vase, we wouldn’t want you to cut yourself now, would we?” he offers you a weak smile and exits the room, leaving nothing but a breath of a breeze in his wake.

Of course, if you’re bleeding he might find that too difficult to resist and he’s expressed time after time how much he detests the idea of drinking your blood.

Your eyes drift back towards the book. The image in front of you, your fathers wrath twisting his face into that ugly mask you know so well, only it’s not a mask at all. His true self reveals in the moments of his most despicable actions. He towers over a woman, a female vampire, the terror in her eyes as she’s staked through the heart.

You turn the page quickly, unable to look at it any longer. Your heart aches for her, for all those killed in your family’s name. Now you’re met with your family tree, pictures of members you know and some you don’t, all inked in these pages. Some names had gaping holes, almost as if they’ve been burnt from the book, the edges dark and withered. You lean in and touch, feeling the way the page has stiffened along the uneven brim.

The sound of a scream cuts into the silence, echoing up the halls to you, your head snaps up before feeling uncomfortable heat on your fingers, you glance down and see the page on fire. You snatch your hand away and watch as your fathers face disintegrates before your eyes, the paper peeling off into ashes and floating in the air around you. The fire fizzles out, leaving a hole identical to the others on the page. You frown wondering why the entire book didn’t go up in flames and why these faces have been burnt from the book. As your mind whirls you hear a grunt in the distance, realising you’ve been side tracked you rush out and run along the corridor and along the stairs, eye scanning your surroundings until you find him.

He leans into the table in the dining hall, hunched over. You rush to his side only to be stopped in your tracks by the dead body that stares back at you. The same twisted angry face, even in death; your father. Older and fatter as you last saw him and somehow still managing to look at you with such disgust even with his cold lifeless eyes. But as you stand here, staring at his demise, the part of you that you thought would grieve when you knew this moment had come greets you with silence. She is as still as you are. The only thing you feel is relief, to never see him or be frightened of him again. You tear your eyes away, part of you still apprehensive that he won’t rise up and attack, that it won’t be the end. But it is.

You touch Jin lightly on the shoulder. “What happened?” you ask to his back.

He turns slowly, supporting himself with the polished wooden surface of the expensive antique. That’s when you see it. The stake, protruding from his side, red darkening the white shirt into an alarming pattern.

Your heart sinks, falls to the pits of despair as hope leaves you, floating away out of your grasp. This can’t be it. You’ve only just found him, you can’t lose him now, not when you’re finally free of your past.

“No. No, no, no. You can’t leave me.” you help him as he sinks to the floor, cradling his face in your hands, desperation seeking his eyes for a positive solution.

“I’m afraid I have to, my love.” His mouth twists in pain as he speaks as his hands rip the stake out of his side. He pushes against it, trying to stem the blood seeping out.

“I’m sorry, I’m so so sorry, this is my fault. I should have told you who I was.” you say as tears run freely down your face, anguish twisting your heart into a suffocating and painful embrace.

He gives you a strained smile. “Dearest, I already knew.”

Your breath hitches in your throat. “How?”

“I can read you so well, you’re always so guarded about your family, all it took...was a flick through a few books...for me to figure it out.” He shifts, trying to ease the pain and you place your palms over his wound, your pathetic attempt at stopping the inevitable. “What I can’t understand...is why you wouldn’t tell me? There’s nothing you could do...that could stop me loving you, especially not something so little as...your family name.” he speaks in between breaths, his words filling your heart to the brim with devotion.

“Please, don’t leave me.” You beg, knowing it’s in fate's hands now.

“I don’t want to, my love.” he lifts a trembling hand to your face, cupping it as you touch your forehead to his.

If only you were not so extraordinarily ordinary, if only you had some power of your own, you could save him, instead of sitting here helpless. If only you had something that could save him. You look down once again at his wound, a blanket of hopelessness weighing you down, the dark red trickling down into a pool on his varnished floor, growing in size by the minute.

Blood. BLOOD! You have blood. It might not heal him completely but it’s bound to help!

You stand, looking wildly for anything that could help you slice your skin.

“Darling, what are you doing? Come back to me?” he says weakly.

You spot the letter opener on the table on the far side of the room, the sharp metal glinting in the light. You race over, grabbing it and returning to him.

“What are you doing with that?” He asks, eyes full of terror. “You have to live, I will find you again in our next life, but you have to live out this one otherwise your soul will—”

You put a finger to his lips silencing him. “If you drink my blood, will it heal you?”

He looks at the blade poised above your wrist and back at your face. “I cannot, I will not drink from you.”

Your frantic mind screams inside, torment making you impatient and wild, heartbreak making you willing to try anything. “Seokjin, I swear, if you do not try to survive, I will bring you soul back from the pit of hell myself.”

He lets out a weak laugh. “As you wish, but promise me, if I can not stop drinking, you have to do whatever is necessary to survive?”

You nod as you slice across your wrist, watching the blood seep out of the opening, you hear his sharp intake of breath as you hold your arm to his mouth. His lips quickly encase you and he sucks, he takes your blood until he’s on his knees cradling your arm, devouring you like you’re the best thing he’s ever tasted. His own personal banquet.

“Jin, enough now, you have to stop.” you say, sounding surprisingly weak.

He doesn’t respond, just carries on swallowing the life from you.

“Jin, enough.” you tap him weakly.

At your touch he pries himself off of you. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, are you ok?” His panicked eyes search yours.

You nod. “That was a close one.”

He grimaces and slides an arm under your legs and the other around your back and lifts you, carrying you away from your fathers dead body, away from the blood, away from all of it.

Relief swarms you, heart fit to burst as you watch his handsome face, the colour returned, the life and mischief that sparkle in his eyes and bury your face into his neck, planting small kisses against his skin. “Thank you.” He says to you. “You saved me.”

You smile. He’s ok, he’s with you, you’re both safe. “How could I not? You would have done the same.”

“I would rather die with you, than live an eternity without you.”

You smile against his throat, his words flutter your insides. “Well, there’s only one way to make sure we spend eternity together.”

He looks down at you, searching your eyes. You’re not sure what he finds but whatever it is leads him to respond. “That’s a conversation for another night.”

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southslates · 4 years ago

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like an angry god

@kanejweek day four: darkness (corrupted ambition) / kanej / canon divergence - soulmates - one-shot - rated T / read on ao3! / 2007 words

Inej Ghafa comes to Ketterdam as part of a traveling circus. She doesn’t mean to enjoy the city, with its sharp architecture and cold edges, with its people who pray to kruge, but she does. There is something haunting in its corridors, something which whispers to her in its alleys. Inej is a gravity-defying girl, she is an acrobat and nothing more, but these late-night Kerch streets set fire to her bones. It is as if Ghezen has come alive to speak to her and tell her she could be more.

It's strange because she thinks she has everything. She also feels like she is missing something—not something that needs to be there, but some defining feature of her. She feels like she is spinning a wheel with a loose axel.

Ironically, she stumbles upon the Crow Club when Malik takes her in, wanting to try his hand at Makker’s Wheel. She indulges her cousin and lets him drag her into the lively business in the darkest hours of the night, knowing that they’re on break tomorrow. The Suli do not forbid fun, and they drink, Inej has drunk, but she does not want to in this strange city.

She ends up drinking anyway. She is caught up in the moment, caught up in the lights above the table, the large, large gambling hall, and almost in Salim, the friend Malik had brought with him to the club. Inej likes him, has always liked him, and the sight of him loosens her inhibitions. They loosen her inhibitions so far that she forgets him.

Inej wanders off across the hall, stopping to see the sheer variety of people who habit it: a white splatter of the upper-middle class of the Kerch, lazing away a Saturday; a collection of young children from Novyi Zem, laughing away in the corner; even a splashing of Fjerdans, staying away from alcohol and looking distrustfully at the numbers in front of them. It’s an experience, she can admit even halfway down her glass, eyes shining.

At some point she wanders over to a setting of Kerch men and women playing a game she doesn’t quite understand; they’re holding chips and laughing, cards dancing in front of their eyes. Inej has always been a quick study with these gambling games, though she detests playing; it’s something else the city has whispered into her mind, perhaps. It is the Ketterdam in her blood, though she’s certain she has never been here before. She has never been here before.

She sits at the table and picks up another glass. She will be fine; Malik and Salim are truly not that far away, she can see them from here. A women smiles at her with shark-teeth, daring her to down the cup in accented Kerch. Something in Inej does it, and then when she’s slid another one, she downs it again. Her eyes are uncharacteristically bright at the table, her head muddy.

It's only a moment later she’s in someone’s lap, between two people. It is the Kerch woman and another man, fitting her in the space between them. The woman’s hair is a rusty gold and the man has black hair and a gold tooth.

Inej may have drank too much, but she isn’t stupid. She blinks and sees that Malik and Salim are gone from her line of sight—then she promptly sits up, a bit more aware of her surroundings. This is not a situation she is new to; she’s almost been taken by slavers as a child. They had ransacked her family’s caravan near the Ravkan shore and would have stolen her away from her family had she not woken up early. She has learned to be suspicious of people, and she let her guard down. It’s this saints-forsaken city, she thinks briefly. It is affecting some part of me.

“Hey, sweetheart,” the man whispers with whiskey breath, and Inej pulls herself into the space between the bodies she is caged in, ready to pull one of her acrobatic feats—twist her body, do the unimaginable. But before she does and the woman’s vodka-laced breath rushes across her face, something hard clangs down on the table in front of her.

Inej is only human, so the sound makes her lurch. The tablecloth moves forward, and something shatters and then leaks onto her on the bench. She groans, because alcohol will not go well with the cottons she’d donned for a night out.

“Peter,” a voice says crisply. “Lotte. You are not welcome here. Did I not make that clear enough last time?”

The bodies next to Inej scramble away from her, and she looks up in her disorientation to see a man who can’t be much older than her, a cane in his hand bisecting the table and separating her from Lotte on her left. On her right, Peter has shifted away from her and is now standing up, raising his hands above him. “We didn’t mean nothin’, I promise—”

“I don’t give second chances,” the man says, and his voice is cold, so cold it almost crawls into Inej’s spine and then leaves her body, but icy enough that it wants to make a place there. His voice is the city’s whispers in her ears, the biddings of greed. She is buzzed, but she still looks at his sharp suit and glaring eyes and thinks: Who are you?

Or perhaps she voiced that thought out loud. No matter; the man ignores her, watching as Peter and Lotte stand up and try to leave the premises. Inej lets the whiskey on the table, cold as it is, leak into her shirt as she watches two large men grab the two vermin by their collars and drag them away to some corner.

“Wow,” she says out loud at the brief spectacle—some patrons have turned to see the two get carted off, but more seem unsurprised. “I was fine.”

“Who said anything about you?” the man bites. “There are no games here. There is no place for cheats.”

Inej is straightforward, and her filters are off as she wrings out her shirt. “You could at least pretend to be chivalrous.”

The man glares at her, his gaze dark and intense and dangerous—but for whatever reason, Inej doesn’t feel like it will cut through her. Maybe that is just the stupidity of being drunk. The longer he stares at her, the more she wants to laugh. “You cannot kill me by looking at me, you know.”

He says nothing, just takes his cane off the table and begins to limp away from her. Inej bites her lip and stares at his receding back—that moment had felt strangely powerful.

“Yer brave,” the girl next to her says after he has disappeared from sight, into a door at the club’s side. “To talk to Kaz Brekker like that.”

“Who?” Inej asks, and the boy next to her, keeping his distance after what had happened to the woman in his previous position, looks almost affronted.

“He is Kaz Brekker, Ja. They say he has played cards with the devil and won,” he says, like he is speaking of a myth, and not the twenty-year-old man with a ridiculous glare Inej had faced just moments ago. “He used to be better, ja, growing up on the streets. But he culled his boss right las’ week, he did. Hung his body from the lighthouse by First Harbor. They say he will commit any sin, without a price. Bloodthirsty.”

Inej leans in close to him, feels something lock into place, the gears of her heart. “Really?” she asks. “He just seems like a man.”

“He is no man, he is a demon. A quick thief, too,” the girl nods to her, and Inej grasps at her pockets. Her coinpurse is missing.

“An immature demon,” she says, stepping up, her head spinning just a bit. “Cheap tricks, for shevrati.”

Inej Ghafa leaves them there and takes the path that the man with the cane had followed; he couldn’t have gotten too far from her, with his disability. Ostensibly, she knows she should not be trying to pick a fight in the middle of the night with a man who just hung another in a public display, but the city is speaking to her; the club is, as though it has a heart. Inej believes in saints, and they are leading her a certain way, giving her the want to get her coinpurse back. It had a sizeable amount of kruge, and she refuses to be made a fool of.

The hallway is dark and she follows its walls to a set of stairs, and then walks up them. At the end there is a door, and to its side, when she moves her hand a certain way, another small alley; a trick alley. She follows that aisle to another door, wooden and locked and in the pitch dark. She shoves her body weight against it.

She doesn’t know what she is planning on doing. Do demons give you back your money if you ask them nicely? What is inserting this drive into her veins?

“What?” a voice roars from inside the room, and then a moment later, as Inej pushes herself against it, it opens. She almost trips onto a cold metal floor, but she doesn’t—she is an acrobat, even sheets to the wind. So she rights herself and turns to the man with the cane—Kaz Brekker.

“You,” he says, distaste coating his mouth. There is no good intent hidden in that word, nor in the hard lines of his face. Whoever this man is, he is not good.

“Me,” Inej agrees, then holds out her hand. “My coinpurse, please.”

“Your . . . coinpurse,” the man says, her face twitching. He is wearing a hat and a suit perfectly tailored to all his edges, a glass man. Inej wonders if she could break him. “Why would I have such a thing?”

“You do,” Inej insists. Of this, she is certain. She’s had it until he was just a foot behind her. “Give it back.”

“You’re very demanding,” he says. Inej wonders if he can feel a pull towards her, like she does for him. His face is surely not giving anything away. “You must be new.”

“I’m visiting,” Inej says, some sort of fear starting to creep into her voice. Perhaps the liquid courage has left her soul in a flush—perhaps the city is no longer with her. She can feel it drifting around her bones, maybe leaving. It is as though it has filled the strange place in her soul with something, not left her empty.

He leans into her—he doesn’t leer, not in a way that is lewd, but in a way that is certainly dangerous. “Well, then, my dear visitor,” he says the word like a curse, “you would do well to leave now, before I break your legs for coming to my office without permission.” His eyes scan her, perfunctorily, and Inej can only dream she sees something below the surface. “You need your legs. Or perhaps you can walk a rope with your hands,” he sneers.

Then he slams the door in Inej’s face. The city escapes her, returns back for its sins, disturbs her edges. I have shown you a story, she can feel it whisper, from the wrong end, wrong beginning.

She slides out of the secret corridor and down into the busy club. The Crow Club, it’s called. The largest building in the Stave. She wonders if the foundation was built on a demon’s work. She wonders why she feels like she should know, why there is a haunting space in her mind.

Inej wonders who Kaz Brekker is. She wonders why her saints guided her towards a demon, what they were trying to tell her.

She wonders how he knows she performs on the rope.

#kanej #kanej week #kaz brekker #inej ghafa #six of crows #kanej fic #dee writes

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eleanorfenyxwrites · 4 years ago

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[@redrequiem has requested some time-travel fix-it Yunmeng brothers, and here it is! I hope this is something like what you were hoping for ^_^] (Also posted to Ao3)

[Writing masterpost]

In hindsight, Jiang Cheng can admit that chasing blindly after the latest demonic cultivator of the week probably hadn’t been his smartest idea. Normally he wouldn’t let anyone even dare to suggest that let alone admit it, but, well. The disciples he had brought with him are nowhere to be found, and he’s tired. Sue him.

He looks down at the burnt-out array he’s standing in the dead center of, the unfamiliar lines of it no longer glowing red. They’re just marks on the ground, and he realizes as the breeze picks up through the forest that they’re not even permanent. Ash drifts around his feet, the characters blurring and then disappearing altogether into the breeze. There goes studying it to see if he can reverse it - not that he would because he’s not a fucking demonic cultivator but damn if it wouldn’t be nice to try to see how to undo whatever it is that has left him stranded in the middle of the woods with nothing but what he’s carrying on his person.

The breeze carries with it the smell of green water and lotus flowers, and at first he thinks nothing of it - the scent of it is so intimately familiar that he notices it more when it’s gone than when it returns. Except he’s supposed to be on the border with Qinghe. Nowhere near the lotus lakes of Yunmeng.

This just keeps getting fucking better and better.

----

Let it never be said that Jiang Cheng can’t find his way around the forest that surrounds his home. Getting down to the water is easy, and from there it only takes a quick look around to get his bearings to know what part of the river he’s on before he’s on his way home. He flies low over the water perched on Sandu, seething with irritation. Fucking demonic cultivators. Every time he kills one it’s like three more pop up in their place, and no one else is hunting them down to help him cut their numbers down. Not that he necessarily wants the help - better if he just does it himself. But still, it’s the principle of the thing. It’s a thankless and arduous task, and the last thing he needs is to be stuck randomly back all the way in Lotus Pier with his disciples all the way out by Qinghe. His free time to go out trailing these monsters is limited.

He barely pays a thought to Zidian sparking on his wrist as he flies closer to home, he just corrects the flow of his angry energy away from the whip automatically to keep from waking the weapon up entirely. It takes a few more moments before he registers that the weapon is still sparking even without his energy to fuel it - a few moments in which Lotus Pier comes into view, the lanterns on the docks steady in the evening air.

He alights at the end of one of the docks furthest from the main boardwalk back into the complex itself and he sheathes Sandu to take a closer look at Zidian on his hand, his irritation growing when sparks spit and flash along the length of it, utterly uninformed by his own energy. He turns his wrist this way and that as if that will help him solve the problem, and then he hears it.

“Fengmian!”

His blood goes ice cold, his entire body as still as a corpse. It doesn’t even feel like his heart is beating as he holds his breath, muscles in his jaw jumping as he clenches his teeth hard enough to give himself a headache.

“When are you going to stop running off on this fool’s errand?” Yu Ziyuan demands, voice snapping out across the water. Zidian sparks higher on his wrist in response to the anger of her former master somewhere nearby, close enough that he can hear the sneer in her voice. “They died years ago! Their boy is probably dead by now too, and you have a son right here!! Does he mean so little to you that you have to run from home every other week so you can find that boy to replace him?!”

A soft voice, low, conciliatory replies too quietly to be understood, and the breath rushes back into Jiang Cheng’s chest in a painfully sharp inhale. Mother. Father. Arguing about - what else - him and Wei Wuxian. His hand curls into a fist tightly enough around Sandu’s sheath that the worked metal designs on it threaten to puncture. He likes that pressure, he usually finds it grounding, but there’s really no comprehending or coping with the sound of his parents alive and - well, if not well then at least normal - somewhere so close. So so close. He can practically feel Yu Ziyuan’s arms around him in the last embrace she had pulled him into that day the Wen had torn his world to shreds. He can feel the phantom of Jiang Fengmian’s thumb on his cheek brushing away his tears.

The tears are real, but he has to reach up to scrub them away with his own hand. A lantern sparks to life at the end of the pier, bobbing and swaying rather than stationary, and Jiang Cheng darts into the thickest shadows thrown by the overlapping corners of one of the closest buildings, crouching down low as he peeks around the wood and there they are. Younger, alive, and as he remembers them most often - Jiang Fengmian walking sedately where he wants to go, and Yu Ziyuan storming after him to demand answers that will never satisfy her.

His entire body aches to run to them.

“I have a duty to him, I cannot ignore it,” Jiang Fengmian says now, close enough that Jiang Cheng can hear the weariness already so present in his voice.

“You have a duty to your own first! Do you think A-Li and A-Cheng don’t see you leaving to search for him?! What do you propose I tell them, that they’re inadequate children because I bore them for you?! That you do not love them as you love a boy who is, for all you know, already nothing more than a figment of your imagination!”

“Yu Ziyuan!”

“Jiang Fengmian!!”

Jiang Cheng is expecting them to storm apart, to go their separate ways and seethe until the next time they come together. But...if they’re talking about Wei Wuxian like he’s not even here, if the only children in Lotus Pier are...himself and Jiang Yanli, then, he supposes, it shouldn’t surprise him that their reactions aren’t like what they will later become the more their marriage fractures apart.

Jiang Fengmian turns and sets the lantern at their feet so that he can place his hands on Yu Ziyuan’s shoulders. Jiang Cheng blinks as Zidian settles down on his wrist, finally no longer spitting little sparks under his muffling hand there in the dark. He watches with wide eyes as Jiang Fengmian sighs and pulls Yu Ziyuan to his chest and she...goes. To him. To her husband. She folds herself into the circle of his arms like she belongs there. What the fuck is happening?

“I will go out once more, no more than three days. If we can protect him, we must. I owe his father the wellbeing of his only son. It is a good lesson for the children in duty to protect those weaker than us, to extend kindness where we can.”

Yu Ziyuan is still for a long moment before she extricates herself from Jiang Fengmian’s hold and pushes him away by the arms to look up at him. Jiang Cheng can’t see her face clearly from here but he can imagine all too easily - her eyes angry and determined under the hard cut of her brows, lips pressed together in open irritation.

“Do not let this boy take your son’s rightful room in your heart or in this Sect,” she says, voice deadly calm. “I will revisit such hell on you a hundredfold for each day I see it. Do not test my patience any longer, Jiang Fengmian.” She stoops to scoop up the lantern and retreat back towards the residences, leaving Jiang Fengmian alone on the pier.

Fresh tears spring to Jiang Cheng’s eyes as he stays frozen in the shadows watching his father tip his head back to look up at the moon overhead. He stays there for a long time, lost in thought, before he heaves a sigh and turns to follow after Yu Ziyuan back into Lotus Pier.

The only other time Jiang Cheng has so desperately wanted to follow after them is the day they died. He knows he can’t. This is either a figment of his imagination, in which case it would likely end how all of his dreams of them do, or he has truly somehow been forced to travel to a time where he’s still a child, in which case they wouldn’t recognize him, nor believe him when he tells them who he is and what their future holds. He doesn’t know what will happen if he’s discovered, but it seems better not to risk it, much as he longs to run to them and collapse into their arms.

A different plan takes reluctant shape in his mind as he crouches in the shadows and watches the complex gradually go darker and darker as candles and lanterns are extinguished for the night. By the time everything is still and quiet but for the frogs in the mud and the wind in the trees, he knows what he’s going to do.

He’s going to find Wei Wuxian, and he’s going to kill him.

----

Finding Wei Wuxian is so easy he nearly laughs aloud at the sight of him. After chasing ghosts and rumors of his brother for thirteen years it’s almost anticlimactic to find him sitting on a stoop in town gnawing on a piece of..something that’s burned so black as to be inedible to anyone but the truly desperate.

Any doubts that he may have had about this somehow being the past are thoroughly dashed as he stands there watching the boy who is without a doubt the same boy he remembers his father bringing home so many years ago. He’s hunkered down over his ‘meal’ as if afraid someone will come along and snatch it from his hands. There’s a bundle of coarse fabric beside him that may have once possibly been meant to carry vegetables or rice or any number of things, but Jiang Cheng knows from that first night together as children that it’s full of the sorts of things a young boy with nothing else to his name would consider worth keeping. An extra shirt, so riddled with holes and bare patches that it’s more rag than clothing. A blanket suitable only for swaddling a baby that he had sworn up and down that he could still curl up tightly enough to fit under as long as he didn’t mind cold toes or fingers. A few melon rinds to snack on. A grass butterfly to play with.

Jiang Cheng looks at his waif of a child and he can’t help but see all the pain he’ll come to cause in the future. He can prevent it all right here, right now. Zidian sparks on his wrist, begins to flicker to life. Little Wei Wuxian looks up and around suddenly at the noise of it, his eyes zeroing in almost instantly on the purple lightning at his side.

“Whoa!!” he cries with delight, his entire face lighting up with delight. “That’s so cool, sir!! How do you do that?!”

Zidian sputters and then flickers out again, responding to the horror in his chest that replaces the fury. He’s just a child. A child.

He’s his brother.

Jiang Cheng holds onto the last vestiges of his fury for another long moment or two as he watches Wei Wuxian return to gnawing on his food with his back teeth as he looks up at him with wide, guileless, quicksilver eyes.

And then with a breath he shoves 13 years of blinding hatred away from his chest.

It feels like setting down a heavy pack at the end of the day. Like taking his guan out of his hair and removing the stiff shells of his Sect Leader robes until he’s stripped down to just..himself. Jiang Cheng, A-Cheng, who misses his siblings more and more with each passing day and yearns for the days when things were so much simpler. Whose grief is threatening to swallow him whole in a blaze of blistering fire.

“Do you want more to eat?” he asks his brother, small and vulnerable sitting there with nowhere else to go. Wei Ying blinks up at him and then glances at the food in his hands and back up to him. “You can say yes, Wei Ying,” he sighs and Wei Wuxian’s eyes go even wider.

“You know my name?!” he chirps, seeming torn between being afraid and excited.

“Yes. I know you. I can keep you safe and get you more food, food that isn’t burnt. Come with me.” Jiang Cheng turns on his heel with a swish of silk and he hears Wei Wuxian yelp a little before tumbling to his feet to come running after him.

“Hey!! Mister! Wait!” he calls, out of breath, and Jiang Cheng stops in his tracks so suddenly that Wei Wuxian runs into his legs with an, ‘oof’. “Ow,” he mumbles as he rubs at his head. Jiang Cheng is going to have a bruise on the back of his thigh in the exact shape of that head but he scowls as he recognizes that he really has no one to blame but himself.

“What? Aren’t you hungry?” he snaps, and Wei Wuxian blinks slowly up at him.

“Yes,” he replies as he reaches tentatively towards Zidian with one dirt-smeared hand. “But...I don’t want to get separated,” he adds, voice small, and then those little fingers are slipping into his palm. Not reaching for Zidian, then. Reaching for him. “Can I?” he whispers, eyes beginning to shine with unshed tears as he tries to hold Jiang Cheng’s limp fingers in his tight little fist. Jiang Cheng swallows past the sudden tightness in his throat and glares straight ahead for a moment before turning and kneeling on the hard-packed dirt in front of the boy. He adjusts his grip to clasp Wei Wuxian’s hand like he had when they had both been this age, when they had held hands in his room in Lotus Pier and promised to protect each other from their worst fears.

“Yes,” he says now, chest tight. “Yes, we should not get separated again. You can hold onto me. Don’t let go, alright?”

Wei Wuxian smiles at him wide and happy like the break of dawn and Jiang Cheng finds himself smiling in response, his eyes definitely wet again. “I’ve missed you, Wei Ying.”

He’s not prepared for Wei Wuxian to throw himself into his arms for a hug, but he immediately wraps his arms around the boy anyway and holds him close, his eyes squeezed shut against the torrent of emotions flooding through him, too numerous and too raucous to be named. So he just hugs his brother there in the middle of a street in Yunmeng, and he wonders just what the fuck they’re going to do now.

----

Lotus Pier is, of course, not an option. Not only can he not show up there dressed like the Sect Leader and wearing Zidian, but if he takes Wei Wuxian there nothing will change. Gusu’s out as well. He’d like to claim that he has some rational, thought-out reason for it, but honestly he just doesn’t see a point in letting Lan Wangji finally get what he wants after all these years, even though he’s just a boy right now. Petty? Sure. Jiang Cheng has never claimed not to be.

Lanling is an enormous ‘absolutely not’ written in bright red ink in his mind’s eye, as is Qishan. Qinghe very nearly makes the list, but then he thinks about trying to explain such esoteric, questionable events to anyone in the straightforward, bullheaded Nie Sect and he puts it under a mental column labelled, “I guess, but only if it’s absolutely, 100%, life or death necessary”. Not very promising.

In the end, there’s really only one place he can think of that’s at all viable, and so after a few days of Wei Ying eating his fill as often as necessary and sleeping almost constantly in their room in an inn a few towns away from Lotus Pier, Jiang Cheng gathers his brother up with their few meager belongings and begins the trek to a place few people know about, even among the Great Sects.

It takes another two days of travel at the pace Wei Ying is capable of maintaining with him, and then a day after that of looking for what he knows to search for in the area, but finally he finds it. Or, rather, it finds them.

“Where are we?” Wei Ying chirps from where he’s perched on his back like a sack of potatoes (potatoes with very knobbly knees that won’t quit squeezing his ribs) and Jiang Cheng shushes him, but it’s too late.

“Stop!” Jiang Cheng obeys the command and between one blink and the next there are two women blocking the path in front of him, nearly identical down to the numerous weapons strapped to their belts. And the knives leveled at his throat.

He can’t put his hands up or Wei Ying will fall off his back, but he does his absolute best to look as unthreatening as possible.

“You are trespassing on the lands of the Meishan Yu. Turn back.”

“I need to see the Grandmistress.”

“Turn back.”

“Please,” he adds, desperation beginning to bleed into his voice. Wei Ying is very still on his back, mostly hidden in his cloak, and Jiang Cheng can feel him trembling faintly. “Hold on tight,” he whispers before he lets go to brandish Zidian on his wrist for the two women to see. “I am her grandson. I need to see her, it’s urgent.”

The two guards share a glance with each other and then drift forward in sync to study the weapon on his wrist. There’s no mistaking it for anything but an artefact of the Meishan Yu. And everyone in the cultivation world knows who its current master is.

“Demonstrate,” one of the women says, the one on the left who he’s pretty sure is the one who ordered them to stop. He nods and takes a step back before holding his wrist out to the side and letting Zidian spark to life, feeding his fear and desperation into it until the whip uncoils and he’s got his hand wrapped around the hilt. Lightning spits and arcs from the whip as he lifts it to crack once into thin air before he withdraws his energy and it goes dormant again.

“I need to speak to my grandmother.”

For too long there’s nothing but the sound of the wind through the trees, Wei Ying’s too-quick breathing in his ear, and two unreadable gazes fixed on his as the Yu warriors size him up. Without any external cue that he can see, the pair of them suddenly turn at the exact same moment and begin walking up the path. Jiang Cheng scrambles to get a good hold on Wei Ying’s knee again so he can follow after them.

----

“So - you’re from the future.”

“Yes, Popo.”

“And this boy is going to ruin it?”

Jiang Cheng looks over at where Wei Ying is studying a rack of retired spiritual swords so closely his nose is almost touching the side of one of the blades, his little puffs of breath fogging up the cold surface.

“Wei Ying!” he barks. “Not so close!”

“Yes Yin-gege,” he says dutifully, without moving an inch. Jiang Cheng slumps forward to brace his elbow on his knee so he can hide his eyes in his palm.

“That means step away from the swords, Wei Ying.”

“Yes Yin-gege,” he says again, but this time he at least shuffles two steps back. And then he leans even further forward to keep squinting at the steel at precisely the same distance.

“He seems truly monstrous,” Grandmistress Yu says with an indulgent chuckle.

“You haven’t seen what he’s capable of later,” Jiang Cheng mutters, his tone dark. “The things he did...what I’ve seen..”

“Mm, I believe you, very ominous. What would you like me to do about it?” Grandmistress Yu is just as pragmatic as Jiang Cheng remembers her, and just as emotional alongside it. She had taken one look at Wei Wuxian hidden in his cloak and ushered him out to ply him with sweets and tea and an affectionate ruffle to his hair. Not for the first time in his life he wonders how his life could have been different if he’d been brought to Meishan Yu to be raised rather than staying in Lotus Pier.

“I don’t know,” he admits with a growl of frustration, though he’s quick to check himself when Grandmistress Yu raises an admonishing eyebrow. “Sorry, Popo. I really don’t know. I just..I figured if I’m here, now, maybe it means everyone can maybe..try again. Growing up with me and jiejie in Lotus Pier wasn’t...it led to such terrible things, in the end. Maybe things can be different if he’s raised somewhere else. Maybe people won’t have to die.”

“A-Li won’t have to die, you mean.”

“There are plenty of others! He killed so many cultivators! And Wen Ruohan, he -”

“Oh yes, you leave that snake to me. But we’re discussing this parentless, future-evil child you’ve brought into my home. What are you looking for, A-Cheng? Someone to adopt him for you? A wife to raise him with yourself?”

“No!” Grandmistress Yu raises her eyebrow again at that outburst and he ducks his head, but this one he won’t apologize for. “No, Popo. I don’t want a wife or..anybody. But thank you. I don’t think I could even raise him, anyway. I don’t even know if I can stay here or if I have to try to go back or..I don’t know.”

“Hmph. I always thought you Great Sect Leaders always have an answer for everything,” she needles, a glint in her eye.

“Who would have an answer for this?!”

“Well. Probably Wei Wuxian,” she chuckles and, as if summoned, Wei Ying suddenly pops up next to her, his little face peering over the edge of the table between them.

“Hey, that’s me! Popo, can I have more sweets?”

“Of course xiao-Ying,” she tuts, pulling the plate of little honey cakes close enough for Wei Ying to reach over and snag one.

“Don’t touch anything with sticky hands!” Jiang Cheng turns in his seat to call as Wei Ying promptly runs off again to resume studying the weapons lining the walls as he munches on his cake.

“Okay Yin-gege!!”

“He’s a cute little thing, isn’t he?” Grandmaster Yu chuckles, though she finally relents when Jiang Cheng gives her a look that can only be described as ‘morose’. “A-Cheng, you worry too much!” she chides. “You can stay here for now, with xiao-Ying of course, while you get things figured out. You’re safe here, you know that. And if everything you’ve told me really happens so far from now I’d say you’ve got plenty of time to figure out what’s going on.”

“Popo..”

“Aiyah, A-Cheng, I know. I’m sure it’s very disorienting to be here from the future, but we’ll figure it out! And anyway, you’ve already changed things just by stopping your father from finding the boy. No matter what happens next, you’ve changed the future. Best to just take things one day at a time, there’s only moving forward.”

“What a nightmare,” he mutters into his hands as he scrubs them at his face. “I need to go back to where I came from, I believe. Whether things are different there or not, I don’t think it’s a great idea for me to exist here at the same time that I’m a child in Lotus Pier.”

“Mm I suspect you’re right about that. You said Zidian recognized your mother and you simultaneously?”

“Yes.”

“Interesting, I’ll want to look more closely at that one day. Until then - we’ve got all sorts of unorthodox cultivation manuals in our library. Perhaps something we find there can help you.”

Jiang Cheng drops his hands at that to stare at Grandmistress Yu, who scoffs at him as she picks up a honey cake for herself.

“Don’t look at me like that, A-Cheng. We’re known for crafting unusual first class spiritual tools and utilizing thoroughly unique combat methods. Do you really think we limit ourselves to the hidebound orthodoxies the other Sects do? Open your mind a bit, child, you’ll be much more content in life for it. Xiao-Ying, come talk to your Popo.”

Jiang Cheng watches in stunned silence as Grandmistress Yu pulls Wei Wuxian up onto her lap to talk to him, indulging him and his chatter easily as he talks, clearly thrilled to have an attentive audience.

Research. He can do research. He can research the hell out of unorthodox cultivation manuals, and one way or another he’s going to go home.

----

“Yin-gege, look what Popo gave me!!”

“Not now, A-Xian, I’m busy.”

“Yin-gegeeeeee,” Wei Wuxian whines, flinging himself into his lap and laying across him with one arm flung over his eyes. Jiang Cheng turns a page in his book and tries very very hard not to think about this exact scene playing out almost identically in Cloud Recesses in less than a decade from now. He really doesn’t want to compare himself to Lan Wangji but the resemblance is mildly uncanny in this particular moment. “It’s really really cool! It’s just like your bracelet!”

Well. That’s one way to get his attention.

Jiang Cheng snaps the book shut and looks down at the boy in his lap. Over the last few months in Meishan Wei Wuxian has gained all the appropriate baby fat for his age and is now, obnoxiously, cuter than ever. A fact which he absolutely uses to his advantage, no one will ever convince Jiang Cheng otherwise. Right now Wei Wuxian is grinning up at him so widely his eyes are nearly shut and sticking his right hand up towards Jiang Cheng’s face to show him a jet black bracelet, currently far too loose on him but it’s clear he’ll grow into the fit of it nicely.

“Popo made that for you?”

“Uh-huh. She won’t tell me what it does yet,though, she said I have to learn how to talk to it and ask it myself. But isn’t it so cool?! Maybe it’ll make lightning like yours and we could be like twins!”

Jiang Cheng pauses at that and can’t help but cast a slightly guilty glance at his book set aside on the table. Raising Wei Wuxian, even temporarily, has become full of these little moments - moments where Wei Wuxian is certain their future together is as set in stone as the present, while Jiang Cheng is desperately researching how to leave.

He refuses to let the reversed circumstances make him at all sympathetic to the Wei Wuxian of their adulthood after the Sunshot Campaign, though he can at least acknowledge the dark humor of whatever or whoever is in charge of deciding such twists of fate. The brother who was left behind is now the one attempting to escape. Funny, in a sick way. If he ever meets the author of his fate he’s going to punch them.

“Yin-gege, are you ever going to help train me to fight like the others do?”

He’s going to punch them hard.

“No, A-Xian.”

“Why?”

“I don’t fight like the Meishan do and you shouldn’t learn different styles when they’re trying to teach you theirs.” It’s not strictly a lie but it still sits sour on his tongue.

“Oh okay! Yin-gege?”

“What, A-Xian?”

“Popo said there might be one day when you’re not going to be here anymore.”

Jiang Cheng goes still and he looks down at Wei Wuxian still laying in his lap, his cheerful face unusually solemn all the sudden.

“Did she?” he whispers. It’s surprisingly gutting to hear it from Wei Wuxian’s mouth.

“Mhm. When do we have to leave?”

Oh - that’s worse. That’s so much worse.

“A-Xian..I...we’re not...I can’t take you with me.”

Wei Wuxian blinks up at him and Jiang Cheng watches in horror as it clicks. As understanding floods his little face and his eyes fill quickly with tears.

“Oh,” he manages to choke out and Jiang Cheng tugs him upright quickly to crush him to his chest.

“I’m sorry,” he breathes, tears springing to his eyes without his permission. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” He repeats it over and over into Wei Wuxian’s thin, trembling shoulder, but it feels so painfully inadequate. How can he even begin to apologize for this? For everything? For horrors that haven’t even happened to him yet, and for the sorrows that have?

“If you’re sorry then don’t go!” Wei Wuxian demands, petulant and sure that the solution is just that easy, in the simple way that children so often try to solve their problems. Jiang Cheng manages a watery, strangled sort of laugh and holds on a little tighter.

“It’s not that simple, A-Xian. I wish it could be. I do.”

Wei Wuxian clings to him hard enough that his nails leave little scratches in the back of his neck and Jiang Cheng still feels like it’s not enough to make up for all the years without him, all the years of pain and misunderstandings, or what he still has to do no matter how much it’s going to upset them both.

Grandmistress Yu finds them like that just before dinner. Their tears have mostly dried but Jiang Cheng can’t stand to let go of his brother, and Wei Wuxian doesn’t seem inclined to let go either.

“A-Cheng,” she says quietly as she lights some of the candles around the room to chase away the evening shadows. “I found something.”

----

“I’ll make sure he meets you and A-Li,” Grandmistress Yu promises him a week later. The array they’ve agreed is their best bet to get him home is glowing the same sickening shade of blood-red as the one that had brought him here. “And I’ll tell him what I feel is important for him to know about all of this. I’ll help him, A-Cheng. Trust your Popo.”

Jiang Cheng nods and tries to pretend that he’s not clenching his teeth against the pressure of the lump in his throat. Grandmistress Yu reaches up to caress his cheek and brush his tears away, an unconscious echo of Jiang Fengmian’s final goodbye to him. Needless to say that doesn’t help him stop crying.

“No tears, A-Cheng, come along. He’ll find you when you get home, I’ll make sure of it. He’ll know to find you.”

Jiang Cheng nods again and turns resolutely away from Wei Wuxian’s tiny form, sleeping soundly in Grandmistress Yu’s bed on the other side of the room. It’ll take a couple of days for the drugs they gave him to wear off enough for him to wake. By then Jiang Cheng will be long gone, and Wei Wuxian will have to move on, grow up without him. Without their family. Fresh tears drip down his cheeks as he steps forward into the array. No sooner does he center himself in it just so than it flares blindingly bright around him, obscuring everything but the shadow of his hands through his eyelids as he raises them in front of his face to shield his eyes from the glare.

When the light fades, he keeps his eyes closed. He’s sobbing anyway, so there’s really no point in opening his eyes yet. Jiang Cheng drops to his knees and wraps his arms around his chest and he wishes he could hold his brother. Over the months of raising him as A-Xian, of being his Yin-gege, he’s had to let go of his anger entirely to avoid taking it out on him, so young and defenseless and still so wonderfully, beautifully innocent.

Now, all that fills him in the vacuum left by his anger is the gaping wound of a sibling he’ll never have again. He had told Grandmistress Yu everything he could about their lives and what he knew of the political intrigues that had been their ruin. He had needed to make sure she knew so she could prepare for the events that would unfold between then and now, but he’d also needed someone still alive to understand just how much he loved - loves - his brother. No one is alive now to remember just how inseparable they were, how they would both be willing to either kill or die for each other with no questions asked.

He had needed to remind himself of it, most of all.

But all of it, now, is gone. He knows he’s not in Meishan anymore. The world is quiet around him, too quiet for the middle of a sect. He’s in the woods again, the sound of trees rustling and the call of a night bird underpinning the ragged sobs tearing from his chest.

“A-Xian!” he manages, trying to give a voice to his pain, a name, to speak it into the air so maybe it won’t weigh quite so heavily on his heart. “Wei Wuxian!!!”

“Jiang Cheng?!”

Jiang Cheng’s head snaps up and he forces his eyes open as there’s the sudden sound of hurried steps crashing through the underbrush.

“Jiang Cheng!”

He can only stare in shock as Wei Wuxian himself - a grown man - comes skidding to a stop on his knees in front of him, frantically patting him down looking for injury, for a good reason for him to be on the ground in the middle of the woods crying like he’s lost Lotus Pier and his parents all over again.

“You’re here.”

Wei Wuxian laughs nervously, still patting him down. “Yeah? Where else would I be, huh? What’s wrong, are you hurt? I can’t find anything.”

Jiang Cheng grabs both of Wei Wuxian’s wrists and the gesture forces the man to meet his eyes, his own wide and startled.

“Wait - what in the world are you wearing, A-Cheng?” Wei Wuxian laughs as he pats him down again, this time just tugging on his robes - the same ones he had been given soon after he had decided his Jiang robes were too conspicuous to keep wearing in Meishan. “Is this Yu Sect? Where did you -” Jiang Cheng watches as Wei Wuxian’s eyes somehow manage to go even wider.

“Yin-gege?” he breathes, as if afraid of the answer, and Jiang Cheng isn’t sure if the sound that escapes him is another sob or a laugh.

“I’m sorry,” he croaks. “I didn’t want to leave you like that I swear I didn’t, A-Xian, please, believe me-”

“Oh A-Cheng come here,” Wei Wuxian chuckles, pulling him in for a hug and holding him tight. “Shh, it’s okay. Popo told me everything, she wrote every bit of it down for me, it’s okay. That was so long ago for me, you don’t have to be sorry. Come here, I’m here. I thought this might happen soon, we’re the right age for it hm? It’s alright, don’t cry.”

“Everyone else - Lotus Pier. Jiejie -”

“All alive, everything’s fine, Jiang Cheng. Shh. Just calm down first and then I’ll catch you up on everything, alright?”

Jiang Cheng nods and gulps in deep breaths as he clutches Wei Wuxian’s robes, buries his face in his brother’s hair.

“I’ve missed you, Wei Ying,” he whispers, his voice breaking. Wei Wuxian shushes him again and rubs a hand slowly up and down his back.

“I missed you, too, Yin-gege, A-Cheng, my didi. But I’m right here. You’re alright.”

There’s a long pause and then, as if lifting the weight of the world off both of their shoulders with the depth of his sigh, Wei Wuxian adds, “We’re alright.”

#the untamed fanfic #Wei Wuxian #Jiang Cheng #prompt fill #fix-it AU #I'm gonna be cross posting this to my Ao3 as well of course #hope y'all like it!#I'm not totally sure if I did the prompt justice but I may or may not have cried a couple of times while I was writing it #hopefully my tears count for something lol #It's a happy ending though I promise!

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cassandra-moon · 4 years ago

Text

You’ve come back

Adara stared up at her ceiling with tears streaming down her face and onto the sheets. Today marked a full year since he left, now where was a different story. She honestly didn’t know, he just went into town and never came out, and when she went to look for him, either nobody knew or they’d refused to tell her anything. If that wasn’t enough, she found out she was pregnant only a month after his disappearance. Now here she was, finally in a place of refuge where she and her baby daughter can rest peacefully, but her life was not complete nor peaceful.

There was always that, feeling in the back of her mind that wouldn’t leave her alone. Every night she’d lay awake, left alone with nothing but the deafening silence and her thoughts and the many questions that plagued her mind. Did I do something for him to leave? Does he still love me? Did he ever love me? Inhaling deeply, Adara rose from her, her long black hair fell to her back, wiping the tears from her tanned face, made sure her baby was secured in the crib, and left. As she walked into the garden, she looked up towards the skies and prayed to the gods, begging them for some sort of sign that her beloved was out there, somewhere, looking for her. As she pried, she couldn’t help but cry because she knew that no matter how much she prayed, deep down in her heart she knew he didn’t care.

Clenching her hands into fists and grinding her teeth she spoke, “I really should hate you. I want to hate you, but I can’t.” She collapsed onto her knees and cried. No matter what, she couldn’t bring herself to hate him. Memories of the two of them invaded her mind as she tried.

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

Adara sprinted away, her heart pounding in her chest as her bare feet collided with the cold mud of the forest floor, glancing behind her, her assailant gaining speed, a smile plastered on his face. Despite her situation, Adara wasn’t scared, she wanted him to catch her, but she wasn’t going down without a sight. Quickly, she ducked into a bush and slid down the hill, regaining her balance as she sprinted away, “that should put some distance between us.” She felt so alive, so confident that she didn’t even notice the figure jumping from tree to tree just above her head until he jumped down and tackled her to the ground.

Adara screamed in delight as her beloved nibbled on her neck and growled playfully in her ear, his black hair fell like a curtain off the night sky surrounding them. Once they calmed down they looked into each other’s eyes, the world around them began to grow silent and dark until it was only the two of them in the world. “You truly are the most beautiful being on this earth.”, his words sent a shiver up her spine as she stared into his dark brown eyes through her hazel ones. “I love you, Seraphim”, she whispered before her lips locked with his and her legs were around his waist.

****

Adara stood, her knees ached from kneeling, wiping the salty tears from her face once again. She had shed so many tears for that man and she wanted to stop, but she knew that in the end, she would shed more. She often found herself in her fantasies, hoping that she’d be working in the garden, and one day she’d look up and see a man, covered in shadow emerge from the trees and it would be her beloved. His walk would turn to run as he’d surround her entire body in his strong arms and whisper in her ear “I’ll never leave you again”, before making love to her till dawn.

“I need sleep, this is too much for one night.” Just as she had turned, a voice called out to her, “Adara.” She whipped around, eyes darting in every direction in a desperate attempt to find the voice that sounded just like the voice she’d call out to in her dreams. Timidly, she called out in a quivering voice, “who’s there?”

A man emerged from the dark, eyes glowing red and claws sharp, he dropped his bident to show he meant no threat to her and placed his hands in the air. Adara’s heart thundered in her chest so much that she swore he could hear it on the other side of the field. “Wait, I just want to-Hey!” Before he could finish, Adara had made it back to the house and opened the door, she screamed as the tall demon raced over to her. With a burst of adrenaline followed by the sound of her wailing child she slammed the door and locked it, then she grabbed her baby and hid as far away from the door with the raging demon on the side.

An audible sigh came from the other side of the door and one final thud, this time a lot less aggressive. “Adara, please listen to me.” She stopped shaking, “That voice.” She shifted slightly over to the bed and placed her now a quiet baby in her crib before carefully striding over to the door. “I know you must resent me for leaving you that night. I know you feel as though I abandoned you to raise our child, but please know this, since that day, even during this war, I have always loved you, and I’ve never stopped thinking of you. Thinking of the ways we’d spend our days. I missed you so much, Adara.”

Realization struck her. This man. This demon. Was her beloved? Without hesitation, she flung open the door where she came face to… well, chest, with the man she only thought she’d see in her dreams. Looking into his eyes she could see the man behind the monster that stood before her, the man she loved.

“Seraphim?” She hesitantly lifted her hand up to his face and cupped on his cheek, he leaned into her palm and she could feel the tension leave his entire body as he placed his hand on hers and kissed her fingers. She moved her hands further and ran through his silver and gold hair.

She remembered a time where he’d lay on her lap and let her comb his hair with her fingers while she told him how beautiful she thought he was and how much she loved him. “I truly don’t deserve you”, he told her as he fell into a deep slumber on that first floor and she’d follow him soon after. To her those memories were bitter sweet, they reminded her of the times she spent before he left her, and that made her furious. As tears once again built up, she retracted her hand before bringing it back down on Seraphims face hard, forcefully turning his head to the side forcing him to grunt out in pain.

Seraphim lifted his hand to his burning cheek and gazed out in astonishment. He whirled back, fangs bared ready to strike her back until he saw her face. Tears ran down her face and he could tell she was in pain. This was his fault, he’d hurt her in a way no person should ever be hurt.

Cautiously, he wrapped his arm around her body and pulled her into his chest. He knew this would calm her, it always did. Just as he thought, her sobbing quieted and her body stilled, nothing calmed her down more than the sound of his heart beating. “I’m sorry”, he said breaking the silence. “I had no intentions of leaving you for so long, the job was to be done and done quickly so I could return to you, but the Fates had other plans and led to a creature, a giant. It infected my mind, and I had followed it’s orders. And the result of such an ordeal, I have become a monster.”

The time in Seraphims voice said it all, he truly felt awful for what he has become. If he didn’t feel ugly inside and out before, he sure felt like that now and that's something Adara wasn’t going to have. She never settled for her loved ones hating themselves.

Looking into his crimson eyes and wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him down to her level. Seraphims breath quickened as she leaned in and captured his lips, it felt heavenly. Urges he thought he’d never feel again began to rise and soon he found himself lifting her up off the ground and walked into the house.

Adara could feel the bulge push into her stomach, she herself could feel her own arousal pooling between her legs. A had found its way under dress and began pushing it over her head revealing everything to the man above her. “You have not changed a bit, you’re still beautiful.” Seraphim ran his clawed fingers up her body until he squeezed one of her plump breasts and played with her nipple. “I thought I’d never get the chance to play with you like this ever again, I promise I will never leave you alone again.”

Adara smiled before moaning out when she felt a pair of fangs graze her stomach and travel lower until he disappeared between her thighs. She could feel the arousal dripping from her core, she attempted to close her legs out of embarrassment only for Seraphim to open them wider than before, “now, how can I enjoy my feast if you keep it from me?” He loved teasing her, every chance he got he’d tease her in some way or another to get a rise out of her, but now I seemed as though he was trying to make up for the year he was gone.

Seraphim began nibbling on her inner thigh, going closer to her heated core and then leaving her in need as he moved away, chuckling at her frustration as she whined for him to come back. Finally he had enough and dove into her core, forcing a moan from her throat as his tongue invaded every area inside her, she had forgotten how he could make her unravel just with his tongue. The pleasure began to build up as he continued until she burst, sending waves of shock throughout her body.

Seraphim rose her thighs with a smirk plastered down his face as he kicked his lips, “I had nearly forgotten how good you teste. Now let’s see if I can remember how good you feel.” He grabbed one of Adaras legs and flipped her over onto her stomach. From over her shoulder, she could see Seraphim remove the cloth from around his waist revealing his large, hard shaft. ‘Did it grow’, she exclaimed in her mind just as he began climbing his way up the bed. “It’s been too long since we did this. Be still, I know it will hurt.”

Slowly he pushed into her, groaning at her tightness. He tried to hold in his moans of pleasure, he really did forget how good she felt. Adara wasn’t doing any better. Sure it hurt, but it felt just as good, hearing him huff and groan, and feeling him twitch within her. “M-move.” Seraphim carefully and cautiously began to pump into her, his pace began slow but strong, making Adara moan in ecstasy. His pace began to quicken, now instead of slow and cautious, he was confident and brutal. His shaft rubbed her right in every way, she could feel herself begin to burst again, until he stopped. She was about to shout her protest until she was grabbed and flipped back over onto her back and he pushed back into her.

Adara practically screamed out in pleasure but was sil nice when a pair of velvety lips pressed onto hers. Seraphim continued his assault on her core, his grunting and groaning only pushed Adara further off the edge until she fell. “Oh gods, Seraphim!!” Her calls and screams delighted the man and made him increase his pace. He was on cloud nine, his mind clouded with pleasure, he wished this moment could last forever, but sadly it couldn’t.

Adara had come at least three times before he finished, his seed spilling into her with a low moan, gods she missed him. He collapsed next to her, breathing heavy. That was another thing he forgot about, how much energy he’d put into fucking her. He looked over to her, she was exhausted. “I’m sorry. I should have never left you. I’m terrible and I know it. But if you’d give me another chance, I promise I’ll make it up to you, as our child’s father and as your husband.”

Adara smiled, “yes.” They embraced each other once again before Seraphim stood from the bed and walked over to the crib where the sleeping baby lay. She looked just like him, before his transition. Black hair, tanned skin, “she’s got your eyes.” Seraphim sighed before doing something he hadn’t done in almost a year. He transformed back into his actual human appearance. “What did you name her?” Adara stood and placed her hand in his back. “Ariana.” Seraphim smiled down at the sleeping baby before picking her up. “Perfect.”

——————

I told y’all

#bood of zeus #seraphim #seraphim x reader #oneshot #smut #blood of Zeus x reader

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flautistsandpeonies · 3 years ago

Text

Reformation Part 3

Read the Previous Chapter [Here]

Word Length: 3,931

Summary: Something needs to be done about this tragedy, but at what cost?

TW: Sexual Assault in this chapter.

“Calling me.....“

“Wei-Xiong, “Nie Huaisang muttered while walking alongside his brother, a saddened look upon his face as he stared at his friend

“I have him, “Nie MingJue replied, one arm encircled around Wei WuXian’s waist to keep him upright, while the other gripped his wrists so he couldn’t fight against his hold

The people of the search party were, for the most part, as quiet as mouses. Walking alongside one another, they could only spare glances at the bewitched cultivator as he continued to chant on and on.

“He’s….calling me…, ”Wei WuXian chanted, jerking against the tight grip on his person

The gates to the Cloud Recesses shimmered and dimmed as the search party was let in by the night-watch. Lesser disciples broke off, deciding to retire to their rooms for the night while the rest continued on towards the Jingshi.

“You’ve returned, “Wen Ruohan, Lan Qiren, and the Jiang parents were waiting for them at the entrance of the residence

“Calling....calling!, “twisting in his hold, Wei WuXian began to violently thrash against Nie Sect Leader

“Wei-Xiong!, “Huaisang gasped, flinching and taking a couple of steps back

“Damn it, “Nie MingJue grunted as he was thrown into a tussle with the bewitched man

Freeing his wrists, Wei WuXian pushed against Nie MingJue’s face, attempting to scratch at his eyes with his nails. Gritting his teeth, MingJue attempted to grapple him again as the enchanted man hissed and twisted against him. Minor sect members of the search party rapidly retrieved talismans from their sleeves but did not pitch them at the snarling duo. Afraid to hurt the leader of a Great Sect, they were stuck in place.

“Enough!, “Mingjue hollered, tackling the man to the group and forcing his arms above his head

“a-Xian!, “Jiang Yanli called wringing her hands at the sight

Untying his sash, Sect Leader Nie’s outer robe fell open as he tied Wei WuXian’s hands behind his back, the man’s screams not hindering him in the slightest. Hoisting him up, he held his fast against his chest. Growling in agitation, Wei WuXian shook his head back and forth, trying to pull himself free once again.

“a-Jie, don’t, “Jiang WanYin tried to reach for his sister but she slipped through his grasp

“a-Xian!, “Yanli ran towards the quarreling men, taking Wei WuXian’s face in her hands, “a-Xian, please stop!”

“Nng, “shaking his head and snarling at her, teeth nearly bit through Yanli’s smooth skin

“a-Jie!, “Sandu’s hilt held tightly in his grip, Jiang Wanyin stomped towards his sister while his mother in the background screamed, “a-Li, get away from him!”

“Away, “taking her arm, Lan WangJi gently pushed her away towards her brother who held her back from approaching once more

“Oh, a-Xian, “wiping tears from her eyes, she watched as WuXian continued to struggle

“Chifeng-zun, follow me, “Lan WangJi uttered while walking towards his residence

“Mm, “MingJue nodded, gripping Wei WuXian’s arms tightly while pushing the struggling man forward

“Aahh!!, “the enchanted man screamed while being forced through the doors of the Jingshi

As the voice slowly faded away, the sects couldn’t help but stare at the open doors of the residence as they made their way back to the Lan Sect’s discussion hall.

“We can’t let this happen again, “Lan XiChen started once everyone settled in and quieted down

“Does he wander off often?, “Sect Leader Yao asked

“For the past couple of weeks he’d rise every night and try and escape the Jingshi, “XiChen explained, “WangJi was normally there to make sure he didn’t leave and often has to restrain him.”

“And he says the same thing? Every night?, “Sect Leader Rong inquired

“That’s right, “Lan Qiren replied while smoothing out his sleeve, “We theorized that whatever attacked him must have a nest hidden away somewhere.”

“But why not devour him already?, “Jin GuangShan pondered, “It can’t have just attacked him for food; it must want something else.”

“It may want his Yang energy, “Lan Yu suggested, “His core is powerful; it may want to siphon his energy from him.”

Many found themselves nodding in agreement with this reasoning. There were many types of dangerous creatures that loved to suck the yang energy from cultivators, perhaps this was one that they haven’t encountered yet?

“But what a terrifying creature, “Jiang Fengmian said, “It’s left no trace whatsoever and seems hell-bent on having him.“

“Why don’t we just follow him to the thing, “Jin ZiXun grumbled, “It’ll be easy if we just let him lead us to it.”

“ZiXun, “Jin GuangShan sighed and shook his head, “It’s not that simple.”

“Isn’t it, uncle, “the man grunted, “Whatever it is wants him, so we just do what it wants until we find it and exterminate it.”

“Night-hunts take at least a day of planning, “GuangShan replied, “Being hasty only makes way for mistakes and unnecessary expenditures, “Besides, what you’re suggesting...”

“You want to use Wei Ying as bait, “eyes turned as Lan WangJi and Nie MingJue walked into the room, the Second Jade’s eyes pierced through Jin ZiXun as he walked to sit beside his uncle

“How is WuXian?, “XiChen asked

“Had to restrain him, left a guard, “WangJi replied with a displeased air around him

“He’ll break through those ropes eventually, “Nie MingJue added walking to sit down beside his brother once more

Many minor sect leaders started to express ideas about what sort of creature they could be facing. “It could be a bat king”, exclaimed a Yao senior disciple. “No, no, a seduction demon, “claimed another. The possibilities of what truly sent Wei WuXian under were endless.

“I’m just saying that we could have this whole situation over and done with, “Jin ZiXun stood and crossed his arms, “We use Wei WuXian’s compass to lure us straight to it while using him a sure guide, easy.”

“Except that puts him in direct contact with the creature, “Lan XiChen disagreed, “Wei WuXian should stay here until we find out more.”

“Are the Lan unwilling to take risks? Didn’t the Second Young Master say that the Lan would make every effort to cure Wei WuXian?, “Jiang WanYin jeered, “How can that be if you’re not even willing to do something as simple as this?”

“We won’t endanger him, unnecessarily, “XiChen said in a curt tone

“We can’t be certain if he won’t try and fight us again, either, “Jiang Fengmian added his input

“We should at least try, father“Jiang WanYin insisted, “Besides, isn’t this our responsibility?”

“What are you saying, a-Cheng, “the Jiang Sect Leader looked to his son

“I’m saying that the Lan Sect has no business interfering with disciples of our sect. This has gone on for too long; we should end this and get back to our own; we have enough problems as it is, “the Jiang heir said in a clipped tone

Standing up from the table, Jiang WanYin looked at everyone in the room with a sharp demeanor and a challenging glint in his eyes.

“The Jiang Sect are going through with Young Master Jin’s plan, “WanYin said with an air of finality, “Since the Lan are too cowardly, we’ll be assuming control of this situation.”

“Jiang WanYin, “Lan WangJi stood tall, “You’ve no right.”

“Second Young Master Lan is all talk and no action, “WanYin ridiculed him,

“Have you truly put any effort into mending this headache?”

“You cannot be trusted with his safety, “WangJi protested with a fiery look in his gaze

“Neither can you! It’s your fault he’s even in a coma!, “WanYin nearly shouted, “This would’ve never happened had he stayed in Yunmeng!”

The two got closer as they disputed; the sect heirs were almost nose to nose, Jiang WanYin a crackling lightning storm while Lan WangJi a quiet blizzard. Many of the people were astounded that the Jiang Sect heir was willing to rile up the Second Jade of Lan and even more were surprised that the Lan heir was even riled.

“Plan a safer hunt, “WangJi glared

“Show some gallantry, “WanYin countered

Jiang WanYin rubbed at his hand, a contemptuous glare adorning his face as he stared down Lan WangJi; fortunately, he was without Zidian. With how the situation was slowly escalating; many people feared the Jiang heir would raise his blade against the Lan.

“Shouldn’t we all be in agreement, then?, “the tension in the room suddenly shattered to pieces as Wen Ruohan’s luke-warm voice filtered through everyone’s ears

Turning to the Wen Sect Leader, the man sat with his legs cross and hands clasped in front of him. His eyes were lidded, a small smile splayed on his face as if watching a performance instead of two sect heirs disputing.

“It’s no question that a hunt is in order. The Lan want to prove that they are capable of taking care of Wei WuXian. And the Jiang need to prove that they are no longer a threat to him, so both sects will be a part of the hunt, “Ruohan mused, eyes shifting as the air seemed to thin and choke everyone else in the room, “Everyone else here is simply support.”

The Lans stared as the Wen Sect leader unclasped his hands and started to tap on the side of his seat, posture set as if he was waiting on a simple missive from a teaching disciple instead of forcing the other sects to make a decision. Nie MingJue glared at the man, slowly seething within at his arrogance. The Jiangs all found themselves glaring, but no words or actions were taken. The minor sects were all sufficiently cowed, everyone silent and afraid to speak.

Wen Ruohan smirked.

“I’ll say again....are we all in agreement?”

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

The next morning, Lan and Jiang disciples were shuffling back and forth to hurriedly prepare the night-hunt that night. Back again in the discussion hall, leaders of the sects and Lan Qiren collaborated on who they would be sending in such a short manner of time.

In the Jingshi, Lan XiChen helped his little brother change Wei WuXian into a fresher set of robes.

“You know you could just ask a servant to attend to him, “XiChen raised a brow as he helped removed WuXian’s arms from the old robe’s sleeves

“No need, “WangJi succinctly replied

A fond smile coming over his face, XiChen reached for the nearby basin and ringed out a tower, wiping down Wei WuXian’s face, arms and torso before throwing the dusty rag back into the bowl.

“I’m going to tell him how loving you were when he wakes, “XiChen huffed as he slipped arms through clean silk

Lan WangJi did not reply, seemingly ignoring his brother, but XiChen was immediately delighted to see the tips of his didi’s ears darkening ever so slightly.

“a-Cheng!, “a frightful shout interrupted the brother’s peace

Standing quickly, they moved towards the window of the Jingshi and peered out to see who dared break their rules in broad daylight.

Yu ZiYuan with her arms crossed and a dark look upon her face as she glared up at her son. Her maids, ever-present at her side, sent sharp looks to any disciple frowning at their madam’s direct disregard of their rules.

“What are you doing, playing around! Do you normally idle this much before a night-hunt?! What a lazy son of mine, “Yu ZiYuan scolded her son in the middle of the path

Jiang WanYin scowled as his mother continued to berate him. Letting out a barely noticeable sigh, he nodded along to what she was saying.

“Don’t embarrass YunmengJiang tonight! Heavens already knows the madness we have to endure because of that boy; don’t make it any worse!, “ZiYuan barked while twisting the ring around her finger

The ring crackled slightly while slipping off its master’s slender finger. Landing in Jiang WanYin’s hand, he quickly slipped the ring on; the spiritual tool adjusting to his size and sparkling as it registered its current user.

“Xiongzhang, “Lan WangJi said with a tight-lipped expression, watching as mother and son continued to converse

“I don’t want Jiang WanYin going as much as you do, “XiChen replied, “but if we try to make the Jiangs stay behind, Wen Zongzhu....”

Eyes narrowing and fists clenching at the mention of the Wen Sect Leader, Lan WangJi vowed, “I won’t let him take Wei Ying.”

“Mother, a-Cheng, “the Twin Jades watched as Jiang Yanli slowly walked up the path to her relatives, “Father wants to see you both in the discussion hall.”

Both mother and son were tight-faced as they followed the Jiang heiress back down the path. The Lan brothers looked to one another.

“MingJue-Xiong is coming as support tonight, “XiChen folded an arm behind his back, “We’ll do our best to keep WuXian safe, from this creature....and everyone else.”

...

The night came faster than they would have wanted. The full moon shined down on them, brightening up the quiet paths of the Cloud Recesses as disciples gathered in front of the Jingshi.

“Calling me.....”

Standing on the porch of the Jingshi, the Twin jades of Lan held Wei WuXian tightly by the arms. The enthralled man weakly struggled against their hold, trying to wander off once more.

“I’m still uncomfortable with this, “Lan XiChen said to his uncle

“I am as well, “Lan Qiren brows furrowed deeply as he watched the night-hunting party check their supplies

“He’s....calling me......, “Wei WuXian gave a weak tug at his arms

“Wei Ying, “Lan WangJi said, gently grasping the man’s chin to make him face him

Once again, Lan WangJi stared into glossy pink eyes, the man’s cognition completely gone. What was normally a smiling face held practically no emotion as he continued his endless chant.

“Calling me.....”

Letting out a deep sigh, Lan WangJi pressed his forehead against the other man’s. Take a few calming breaths, he nodded towards his brother who watched on with a solemn smile.

Simultaneously, the Twin Jades let go of the man’s arms; Wei WuXian instantly stepping forward and walking off the porch. Body slouched forward and hair covering his face, he was no different from the walking dead.

“He’s....calling me.....”

“Be careful, “Lan Qiren gave a sharp nod to his nephews

“Thank you, shufu, “XiChen smiled while WangJi nodded

As his nephews and the parties shuffled past, Lan Qiren said in a quiet tone, “I will see what I can do about Jiang Zongzhu and Wen Zongzhu.”

The night watch was waiting for them at the gate, giving the bewitched man a slight head start, they opened the barrier just enough for him to slip through while the hunting party trailed behind.

“Let’s head out!, “Jiang WanYin ordered everyone

Everyone was quiet as they followed Wei WuXian through the mountains. Crossing over creeks and fallen trees, they sometimes had to zoom forward to help the man overcome the obstacles. All the while, he continued as if those things weren’t there, ever determined to reach his destination.

“Calling me.....”

Tensions rose as they once again met at the waterfall. This time, however, they were better prepared and tensely helped the man cross the log bridge despite the tight feeling in their chests ever-worsening with each step across the dangerous basin.

“He’s....calling me.....”

Mountain range after range was crossed, the night sky dimming from midnight blue to the darkest of black. The chirps of nightly creatures continued on, trilling away as the hunting party followed their lure.

“Calling...calling.....”

The many trees soon thinned away in a clearing. Wei WuXian stopped dead in his tracks.

The hunting party was immediately set on edge.

“Ehh, what is he-”

"SCREEEEEAAAAAH!”

The cultivators flinched at the sound, taking out banishment talismans for quick defense. Quickly shielding themselves within the trees, they could only prepare for the coming encounter.

Lan WangJi’s hand immediately went to his sword’s hilt, “The sound that made up separate, “he warned his brother

XiChen nodded in understanding, “Everyone, be careful.”

"SCREEEEEAAAAAH!”

Sleeping birds woke abruptly, fleeing from their trees in fear, the cries of critters and prey animals scurrying away from the approaching creature added to the rising tension of the hunting party.

The wind seemed to shift as if noticing the creature’s arrival; the air grew colder. The sound of wings slicing through the sky reverberated through their ears.

Suddenly, a large being landed roughly on the other side of the clearing upon large stones. It was huddled, but then, its large wings flew out! Its silhouette was in the shape of a gangly man.

With a beastly growl, it stepped forward into the moonlight.

"Huh, “Jin ZiXun gasped in shock and horror

It was a horrible sight to see, a bony, stark white creature covered with leather -like skin. The wings of a bat protruded out of its back, clawed hands and feet digging into the rough bark of the trees. Blood red eyes blazed from behind black sockets; its mouth bared a pair of needle-like fangs.

Wei WuXian smiled at the creature, a pleasant sigh leaving his mouth.

“It’s you, “Wei WuXian murmured trailing forward with an enamored look on his face

Arms and wings spreading wide, the creature grumbled at its prey. Its scarlet eyes narrowed in on the bewitched cultivator as he approached. A few feet away from it, Wei WuXian jumped into its arms, wrapping his arms around the beast.

The Twin Jades hissed at the sight, filled with worry.

“Stay where you are, “Nie MingJue warned as Jiang WanYin and Jin ZiXun raised their blades, “It may kill him if we move too quickly.”

“It’s you, “Wei WuXian said once more, raising his hand towards the creature’s head, his fingers curled in the air beside its bare skull, as if twisting locks of hair

The creature captured Wei WuXian within its arms, followed by its wings attempt to hide the man from view.

"Master, “only due to their enhanced senses were the cultivator’s able to hear Wei WuXian’s amorous words, “I’m here.”

Removing one hand from his person, a clawed hand grasped Wei WuXian’s chin, forcing him to look up, eyes lidded, a dream-like expression and pleasant smile upon his face. The creature gave a low rumble and lowered its head, closing the space between them.

Lan XiChen forced himself to look away, while Jiang WanYin growled in disgust.

‘Wei Ying, ‘Lan WangJi thought, gripping Bichen with enough force to crumble even the densest of stone

Wei WuXian gave a gasp as the creature separated from him, an enamored smile splayed across his lips as he once again wrapped his arms around it.

“Master, “the bewitched man repeated, “I’m here.”

The creature moved Wei WuXian’s head to the side, exposing his neck. A sharp tongue unfurled from the monster’s mouth, trailing up the bewitched man’s neck; and he sighed in content.

The beast growled; the hunting party lifted their blades in preparation.

Suddenly, the monster’s fangs seemed to elongate before thrusting down upon Wei WuXian’s neck!

“Go, go!, “XiChen ordered in a near shout, eyes wide

Dashing from their hiding space, the creature’s eyes widened as glares from as many as twenty swords came its way. Ripping its teeth from Wei WuXian’s neck, blood splashed along the ground.

"SCREEEEEAAAAAH!, “it thundered out towards them, throwing Wei WuXian behind it in one fell swoop

Charging ahead, the creature met Nie MingJue’s saber head-on. Sharp nails grated against the blade’s dark metal. Gritting his teeth, the Nie Sect Leader tried to push forward against it, but the beast held strong.

“Surround it!, “unfurling Zidian, Jiang WanYin barked towards his fellow Jiang disciples

Spreading out, some Jiang disciples took out arrows while the rest got into formation with their swords. Brandishing his whip and Sandu, Jiang WanYin looked for a break in the beast’s defense.

A clawed hand forced Nie MingJue back. Getting in line with Lan XiChen they both charged at the gangly beast as one, purple and light green sword glares lashed out.

The beast wrapped itself in its wings as the glares collided, dust rising up from the grounds as glare after glare pummeled into it.

“Fire!, “Jiang WanYin ordered to the archers

Aiming into the dust cloud, the archers struck true, arrow after arrow flying into the beast. A loud angry roar sounded from the cloud as they wouldn’t let up with the assault.

Rushing past them all, WangJi stormed up to the unconscious Wei WuXian. Ripping the arm off his sleeve, WangJi hurriedly pressed the fabric against WuXian’s bleeding neck.

“Enough!, “Jin ZiXun called an end to the assault with the raise of his hand

The archers halted and XiChen and MingJue lowered their swords ever so slightly. The dust cloud was thick with the smell of blood.

"SCREEEEEAAAAAH!, “Suddenly, the strong flag of its wings, the cloud dissipated and the creature revealed itself once more

“What?, “Jiang WanYin gasped at the creature

The beast was full of arrows and covered in slashes, its leather-like skin punctured all over. Its bare head was covered in gashes from sword glares.

*Thump* *Thump* The beast growled at them a dark a guttural noise. The arrows were falling off of its body as if being pushed out; the beast’s wounds were healing!

“What the hell is that thing!, “a Jin disciple shouted

“Charge!, “Nie MingJue hollered

All raising their swords, they could only face the beast head-on with their blades. It screamed again, claws reaching out to tear them in two.

“Rah!, “Jiang WanYin tried to lash at it with his whip, but it deflected it as easily as it did their swords

“WangJi, go!, “XiChen ordered with a quick glance back, parrying against the beast

Taking the limp man into his arms, Bichen quickly hovered for its master to mount it. Long grasses danced and leaves were ripped from their branches as the Lan Sect heir shot out the clearing.

"SCREEEEEAAAAAH!, “The creature shrieked at the sight of its prey being taken away and attempted to charge after them. Before it could, a pair of light green sword glares stopped it right in its path.

Lan XiChen and Nie MingJue glared the creature down, blades raised high as they prepared for another clash. Circling around the beast, Jiang and Jin Cultivators glared it down, harsh breaths coming out from the long fight before them.

Bearing its teeth at them, the monster’s eyes seemed to grow even redder in its anger as it glared them down. Shuddering, it opened its mouth and roared.

"SCREEEEEAAAAAH!“

With a burst of wind, the creature shot up into the sky, the moonlight shining on its pale body.

“After it!, “Jin ZiXun shouted, about to mount his blade

“No, forget it!, “Nie MingJue hollered, “Get back to the Cloud Recesses, seal everything off in case it tries to come back for Wei WuXian!”

...

“Nnng, “Wei WuXian groaned as golden spiritual energy pulsed throughout his body

“Almost over, “passing over his own spiritual power, Lan WangJi sat in the middle of the array with Wei WuXian huddled in his lap

“Calling....calling, “Wei WuXian started to mumble while flinching at the energy seeping into him

Frowning at the cursed words, WangJi nodded to the other disciples in the room. The sound of Cleansing permeated and echoed against the walls, Lan Qing's long fingers danced along the silver strings of their guqin. The healing array shined brightly in the room, the golden energy a stark contrast to the looming shadows of the night.

On Wei WuXian’s neck, the bite marks slowly closed, a small trickle of blood still seeping out of the holes.

“Hah, “a loud gasp resounded throughout the entire room, sweat dripping from Wei WuXian’s creased brows

“Calling me.....”

Brushing his hair out of his face, WangJi held WuXian’s face as gently as he could. Harsh breathes blew against his hand, and Wei WuXian hissed again.

“Master....”

Ever so slowly, the bite marks were replaced with freshly healed skin; Wei WuXian groaned in agony. Calling out for the monster, he weakly shifted in Lan WangJi’s hold.

With a final flourish of the hand, Lan Qing slowly took their hand away from their guqin and the room soon quieted, the resonating sound of Cleansing abated.

"He’s....calling me.....”

Wiping the sweat from WuXian’s brow, WangJi tried to move him into a move comfortable position as the man weakly pushed against him.

“I’m sorry, “he said to the unconscious man

Holding him tight, he pressed his face deep into the crook of his neck. The sound of WuXian’s chants rumbled from his throat and thumped against his face.

With the wounds closed, the medics stopped distributing their energy into the array. As the light dimmed, the room grew darker and darker until they were all encased in shadows.

“I’m sorry.”

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

Author’s Notes:

-Wen Ruohan really just slapped me across the face and said “I’m the tertiary antagonist of this fic.”

Read my Prompts and WIPs [Here]

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charlottemadison42 · 5 years ago

Text

Reincorporated

‘Choose your faces wisely’ makes it all sound so simple. Excerpt:

Crowley staggered into the door with a hollow boom.

"Owowowow! Shitshitssssshit."

Covering his eyes with one hand he fumbled blindly for the wall with the other.

Aziraphale reached to steady him but misjudged distance and inertia badly. He lurched and windmilled, and as one leg buckled under the other he spiraled inelegantly to the floor. "Oh. My. Well."

"Oh, we are so not prepared for this," seethed Crowley in a low growl.

"Are you hurt dear boy?"

"No angel, eyes. Blessed eyes! ...Djyou go thump, I can't see."

"Ah. Yes. Mm. Legs."

"'S wrong with my legs?!"

"Nothing, there's just rather a lot of them and they're. Mm. Miscalibrated."

"I can't smell anything," rasped Crowley. "Where the heaven are you? Oh, you're everywhere. I gotta smell for me." The demon stuck his tongue out, remembered its uselessness, and gave an absurdly exaggerated sniff. "Can I even smell me?"

"I'm here Crowley. Just give me a mo. There we -- oomp -- no, wait. Perhaps -- mm." Aziraphale was having little success corralling his gangly limbs. Roping one made another gallop off.

"You're getting way too much visual input, angel. How do you even move?"

"How do I move? How many joints could a body possibly need?" The angel kept getting his feet straight, then launching off his heels too forcefully and teetering over again. "There's no resistance, I'm overshooting everything. I'll hit myself in the face if I raise a finger."

"Yours has too much resistance. 'S like -- hitting the accelerator on a London Bus when I'm used to the Bentley."

Crowley was moving through syrup and could only manipulate one body part at a time. Lift foot, shift shoulders, lower foot, hand along wall, bend elbow, twist torso -- all the joints were independent and refused to harmonize. His spine and hips felt fused into one uncomfortable piece. He groaned. "I'd hoped we might have some sort of muscle memory assist or something, but farewell that."

Frustrated by fruitless attempts to stand, Aziraphale settled in a heap on the floor and had a go at proprioception. He felt his ashy red hair, pawed his face and ears awkwardly. The muscles and tendons were all too eager to obey him and every small movement was overpowered.

He tried raising his sunglasses but only found the arm on his third try; once they were up, his pupils contracted and he hissed involuntarily. "Good graciousss, that's bright. I'll be curious to try your night vision."

"You'll notice you're missing a lot of colors. Must look dull."

"Really, I can hardly tell in this grey monstrosity. It's drab as Leningrad suburbs in the seventies, how would I notice missing colors?" Aziraphale studied his sooty hand, read the lines of his palm. "The focus is odd -- shallow depth of field or somesuch, sharp and fuzzy in turns." He dropped the glasses back into place and sighed with relief.

"You'll find reading's a fucking chore to boot."

"You read your phone all the time."

"Well 's backlit, innit."

Aziraphale had got a knee crossed over an elbow somehow and hoped he could get it undone before the demon saw him. "Any ambulation advice would be welcome, I'm quite at ends," he grunted.

Crowley was pulling faces, not listening. "Hmm. New teeth. That's weird."

"Really, dear boy, a little help?"

"I don't see what's so bad about the floor. On your belly in the dust 'n all that, you remember." Despite the mocking tone he stepped closer and extended a hand, trying to sniff his way. He could never not help Aziraphale. He cracked one eye open, fighting through tremendous pain and nausea to cope with the information overload.

“I confess I don't know how to begin, it's like wrestling an octopus," said Aziraphale.

"I saw them do that once in the States, y'know. Sixties were weird. States're weird." Crowley leaned in to inspect the mess of limbs, still squinting fiercely. "You sure you're not wearing the whole blessed body backwards? 'S almost what it looks like. Give the head a couple spins, why don't you."

“I'm not sure how I walk in my own corporation; I'll never manage yours."

"Aaah, never say never. You learned the gavotte and saved the world." Crowley began circling, tracing his familiar prowl in the wrong body, around the wrong body. "Takes humans five years to learn how to eat breakfast. If we don't take to this in five minutes we shouldn't be surprised. Damned cocky to think we could pull it off so easily. Hubris, really."

The angel cocked his head. "It's so strange to watch you steer me."

Crowley made eye contact, only he couldn't because of the glasses, could he, and that made him scowl. He hadn't been on the outside of them before. Aziraphale clocked exactly what had happened and stifled a giggle.

"All right, advice. It seems -- hmm." Crowley kept his voice low and gentle. "I think it doesn't respond well to...control. Nor force. It's rebellious, right? You have to master Mister Newton's laws, make them work for you -- pull and don't push. Think swinging pendulums and counterweights rather than pistons. Jujitsu instead of karate. Y'know?" The angel stared blankly, uncomprehending. "What do you do that's balanced instead of -- I don't know, an effort? Ever do yoga or surf or skateboard or anything?"

Now the angel looked truly panicked, biting not-his-lip.

Crowley winced. They were so very, very fucked.

Abridged, slightly rehashed excerpt from ‘Sauntering Vaguely Upward.’ Read the rest at https://archiveofourown.org/works/21985987

#good omens #body swap #aziraphale #crowley

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onyourmemory-ha · 4 years ago

Text

Chapter One

little changes can pave lanes

Auggie broadens their horizons and meets their best friend’s girl.

The seats are crammed together, packing everyone in like sardines. The sweat and general body odor seem to go along with the disgustingly fishy trend. All of that Auggie could forgive but the hollering child was where they drew the line. The demon spawn pounded its fist against the back of some poor unfortunate soul’s seat and yelled about wanting to go play.

The sole reason they don’t join in and match the child’s volume is because of Trish, the woman keeping a firm hold on their hand as if reading their thoughts. And considering the type of woman she was, they really wouldn’t put it past her if that really were the case. As it is, it helps ground them and not lose it on a literal child.

“I thought your dick of an ex was rich now,” They grumble lowly, debating if they should give in to the desire of banging their head against the headrest.

“He is,” Trish tries to hide her amusement, hiding her grin behind her drink as she pushes further. “Why would you think otherwise?”

Snorting, Auggie gestures to the hell hole they’ve been forced into. “The bastard skimped out on getting the good seats. But it’s good to know Dick is just the same.”

“We’re just lucky to have found tickets at such short notice,” She gently squeezes their hand with a wordless scolding and it’s enough to have Auggie’s frown deepening.

Flushing, they look to the cloudy sky. It’s a cruel reminder, being indebted to someone like Ken of all people. Instead, they choose to focus on the reasoning behind it, easily shifting the blame onto the person who’s truly at fault. “I’m gonna beat your son’s ass when we see him, fair warning.”

And Trish, the traitor, just laughs to herself. “I love you, honey. But I don’t think you’d like who the winner was in something like that.”

“Oh, I know,” Auggie just shrugs. “But I’d get a few good hits in there and that’s all I need to ruin his day.”

This just has Trish laughing even more though she clearly tries to fight it. When Auggie snorts as a result, she lightly slaps their knee, and they both tune back into the movie playing overhead. And when Trish begins to tear up at the lovers reuniting on-screen, Auggie just squeezes her hand tighter and doesn’t mention it.

ㅤ⠀ |♛|

It’s barely even noticeable, hidden beneath postering and a surprisingly fragile smile. If it hadn’t been for the years of knowing him or the sudden edge in Trish’s eyes, Auggie might have not even picked up on it. But they did and therein lies the issue.

The thing about Hardin was that he was similar to a horse. Big and intimidating but one good blow will end him for a long time. And so easily spooked on top of it. He wasn’t the type to confront, not when he was trying so hard to hide it like he was. They already knew how that would play out and it wouldn’t be pretty.

So, they did the only thing they really could do. They waited. Hardin wasn’t exactly someone subtle nor was he someone who bottled everything well. He was the explosive sort and that meant all Auggie needed to do was wait. Preferably without pushing him to that breaking point themselves but if they needed to, they would.

“Look at you!” Trish beams, holding his face gently. “How’ve you been, love?”

He places his hands over hers, his smile growing stronger. “Better now that you’re here. Was the flight okay?”

“Oh, it was fi—,” Trish goes to assure but they cut her off there, a screaming child flashing beneath their eyelids.

“It was absolute shit,” They announce with a proud grin. “I expect compensation, just so you know.”

Trish just shakes her head, pressing a kiss against her son’s forehead before pulling away. “It wasn’t that bad.”

“It was but you can pretend otherwise,” Auggie corrects, rocking on their heels.

He just snickers, shaking his head as he grabs Trish’s bags. “It wasn’t too bad if you’re still in high spirits.”

He walks forward without a warning, leaving the two of them to catch up. And Auggie does just that, their own bag thumping against their thigh with each step. “Of course I’m in high spirits now! I get to see my favorite white boy named Allen!”

He stops, just for a moment, and levels them a fierce glare from over his shoulder. “I’m sure they could always arrange a flight back home for you by tonight.”

“Or I could just go on with you two,” They beam, eyes wide and ready to play the innocent card.

Trish huffs at them both, her smile betraying the notion as she gestures them to hurry up. “If you two don’t play nice, I’ll ground you both!”

That has Hardin laughing, the shadows being chased away for the moment and it’s a small victory that Auggie soaks in. They walk with a purpose after that, Auggie shuffling after the mother and son duo with a smile that feels more real than any other one has in months.

ㅤ⠀ |♛|

The apartment isn’t the cleanest of places but Auggie can still tell how nice it is under it all. They wonder whether or not it was another attempt on Hardin’s sperm donor to win him over and how successful it actually was considering he accepted it. The only thing out of place, besides the strewn-about clothes, is the light that streams in through the large, modern windows. It feels like the darkness should be trapped inside by thick curtains, not released to the light. They can’t help but think that maybe that was exactly the case before Hardin left to pick them up.

“Well, here we are,” He announces with little enthusiasm. “Go ahead and get comfortable.”

“Ooh, might as well draw me a bath in that case,” Auggie teases lightly before seriously considering it themselves. The warm water really would be nice right about now. “We can make it like old times and you can join me.”

“No thanks,” He snorts, dropping the suitcases in front of what they assume is the guest room. “One almost drowning was enough for me.”

“So boring,” They tsk, flopping on the couch as Trish rolls her eyes at the pair of them.

That’s when the newcomer makes themselves known, slinking out of the bedroom with a heated glare and her hands on her hips. The first thing Auggie notices is how pretty she is. It’s the type of prettiness that can be weaponized, the kind of features that were found on the faces of the popular kids back in high school. Her blonde hair pulls upon that cliche even more, cascading over her shoulders in a gentleness thats betrayed by the poison pooling behind her teeth. And it’s with a sinking feeling that Auggie realizes who this is at the same time that Trish does.

“You must be Tessa!” She exclaims after a pause, striding across the room and pulling the other girl into a hug. “Oh, I’ve been looking forward to meeting you ever since Hardin mentioned you!”

And that is very true. When they’d discovered Tessa couldn’t make it, leading to Hardin canceling as well, the woman had almost been heartbroken. That alone would have been enough for Auggie to be on guard around her. But the already set glare and the way Hardin seemed to shrink in on himself yet attuned everything to her, that did it. So Auggie stayed where they were seated, not bothering to stand up to greet the girl that their entire body seemed to rebel against.

“Oh, I thought…” She trails off, flushing with a sheepish smile. Her eyes though, they remain sharp. “It’s so good to meet you! I was just going, though.”

“No, you can’t just go now! Please stay! At least for dinner!” Trish pleads, the desperation matched in her son’s eyes.

“I mean, I told my mom I’d be there by dark…” She trails off, guiltily looking towards the door.

“Surely it wouldn’t hurt another night. It’ll be safer to drive in the morning anyways,” Trish reasons and they don’t miss the way Hardin’s eyes begin to brighten at the prospect of her staying.

It seems to be enough to convince the girl though and she gives a weary smile as her decision is made up. “I guess it couldn’t hurt.”

And for some reason, Auggie highly doubts it, but they keep their mouth closed for now. Although, they do throw their head against the back of the couch and let out a big sigh. “Is that bath still an option?”

ㅤ⠀ |♛|

They end up ordering in food, the empty cabinets and fridge having given Hardin pause in his plans. And pause in conversations as well, it seems. Trish makes an effort, asking simple little questions to get to know the girl her son has become infatuated with, for some reason, while Hardin sits there staring at his plate like it spit in his face. Tessa, for her part, answers as politely as she can with a well timed smile.

The fakeness is stiffening and they all know it. Or at least, Auggie hopes they aren’t the only one picking it up. By Hardin’s awkward gazes between the blondes, they think they aren’t. So when Auggie is finally brought up, they’re pulled out of their overanalyzing thoughts about Hardin, the apartment, and the awkwardness. “What?”

“I was just saying how you and Hardin met,” Trish beams like the proud mother she is. “They’ve been with us through so much.”

“I had no idea,” Tessa enunciated slowly with an indescribable look leveled at their way. “Hardin’s never mentioned anyone other than his mother.”

“Doesn’t surprise me,” Auggie shrugs, trying to shake the edge in their voice before it's noticed. “Hardin always has been a private person. Plus he’s always been a momma’s boy.”

Tessa nods, glancing to her boyfriend before focusing back on the odd creature that Auggie must look like in their perfect apartment. “So what is it you do back in London?”

“Wiltshire,” They correct.

“What?” She frowns, sitting back in her seat with a deepening frown.

For some reason, Auggie finds relief in that. “It's outside of London. That’s where we’re from. But I mainly just help look after Mum and work down at the convenient store. Hoping to broaden my horizons soon and all that.”

“Oh,” Tessa trails off, looking towards Trish now like she’d somehow done something. “So you and Trish are close too?”

“Of course,” Trish answers with no hesitation, missing the way the girl’s smile tightens. “I practically raised this one and when Hardin moved away for uni, this sweet thing stepped up and moved in with me.”

“I’m basically the favorite child,” They grin ear to ear, nudging Hardin with their foot. “Isn’t that right?”

He, finally, stops staring after Tessa like a lost puppy and scoffs. “She only tells you to keep the peace in the house.”

That’s what Auggie considers a good opening, especially for what they’ve been meaning to discuss, and there’s nothing like biting the bullet head on. “About that.”

He turns his entire focus to them and almost looks scared. “What? What’s happening?”

Trish picks up on it immediately and sets down her drink softly. “Before you say anything, know that this was something I pushed.”

“Just spit it out already,” He snaps, hackles seeming to rise.

Auggie takes a deep breath. “Remember them broadening horizons? Well, I think it's time I actually do that and I’ve been talking with the Dick…”

“Ken? Why the fuck have you been talking with my Dad?” Hardin exclaims, eyes narrowing between them and his mother.

“I wanna go back to school and the only way I could afford that is if I had some help or knew someone. I ended up having both.” Auggie further explains gently.

It finally clicks in his head and his guards fall at once, his eyes widening. “You’re going to attend Washington?”

“If I can get a place to stay at,” Auggie slowly explains, clearing their throat. “I might need a place to stay while I get everything in order, though.”

“And it would be very generous and kind if you were to help Auggie out with this,” Trish adds on, eyes narrowed as if daring him to deny them this help.

Hardin just rolls his eyes, leaning back in his chair now that he knew what the conversation was about. “Don’t be stupid. Auggie can have the spare bedroom once you leave,” Then he pauses, looking towards Tessa. “If that’s alright with you.”

If it weren’t for her white knuckles around her fork, her easy expression would have fooled Auggie. She even smiles sweetly and nods. “It’s your place too. Of course they can stay for a little bit.”

“Then that’s perfect,” Auggie claps. “I packed all that I could and once Trish gets back, she can ship me my things!”

Tessa nods, her knuckles whitening and her smile stretching almost uncomfortably. “Mhmm, perfect.”

#after movie #tessa young #hardin scott #hardin x reader #chapter 1 #on your memory #fanfic #after fanfiction #hardin scott fanfic #tessa young is the worst #august sanderson #fanfiction #new chapter #fan writing #after we collided [2020]#Hardin Scott x oc #hardin scott x reader

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gothchickwriting · 5 years ago

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Sakamakis/Mukamis x Witch! Reader Headcanons

Request: hi 🐻 if the requests are open, can I ask you a headcanon? in particular, how would the sakamaki and mukami react if they discovered that the reader is a powerful witch? sorry for my bad english 😔, if you don't feel like writing this my request you can safely cancel it and I thank you for your attention, honey 💙

Ahhhh! I'm sorry this took so long. Writing Kou and Laito makes me nervous since I feel like I can never do them justice. Enjoy, Babes!

Warning: This contains blood, blood drinking, abuse, dubious consent, smut???, and the Dia-Boys being Dia-Boys.

Sakamaki Household:

You were different than the other sacrificial brides. They can smell it on you. A sweetness rolls off of you in waves and it's your fault for smelling the way you do.

Some surround you and all you can see are sharp teeth at every angle waiting to dig into you. Your heart is thrumming in your ears and you push them. Physically... mentally... spiritually. It's enough to knock the closest ones back and gain some distance before that same energy crackles around your fingertips.

You take a stance, but your back is against the wall. It's as much of a shock to you as it is to them to see some of the objects nearby float. A nearby window has a crack that spiderwebs wickedly along the glass.

The boys are more stunned than hurt. They're vampires. It's going to take more than that to really ward them away. If anything, a power like that makes them crave you even more.

Shu Sakamaki:

He was sure witches had died out centuries ago. They were in limbo within society, not belonging anywhere. Too weak for the demon world and an object of fear for humans who didn't have that sort of power.

And you had a lot of it.

He'll provide you with a tome or two in the form of lounging around a forgotten section of the family library. It would put you on the right track to harnessing your potential.

But if you read your incantations too loud and disrupted his sleep? Expect a moody, grumpy Shu.

But your blood?

It was all worth it for a taste.

You had been studying quietly as you could. The goal you've pored over endlessly this entire week was to make the cushion in front of you float. It seemed to taunt you from its position on the table, undisturbed as much as you've tried. The last cushion you attempted this with exploded into a plume of feathers. You muttered your incantation quietly and you felt that familiar energy spark to life at your fingertips. Much to your glee, the pillow shifted and began to lazily rise. All of your concentration was cut short by the hand that swallowed your wrist.

The cushion, like the one before burst into a flurry of feathers that made a mess of your study area.

"You're loud." It was all Shu said to you before you were yanked down onto his lap. He'd been resting in a chair for a few hours now as you read. What he muttered to you was nothing new. You're bothersome, you're noisy, you're a hopeless little witch, aren't you? After hearing all of it, you wonder why Shu even puts up with you aside from when you take care of him when he's too lazy to do it himself. And then you're reminded why when he bites you.

The blonde's bites are slow and somehow less painful than you think they'd be even though the piercing of your skin seems so loud in your ears. He takes his time. Shu's languid swallows fill the silence of the library along with the puffing of your breath which melts away into coos when the initial pain fades and is replaced by something much better.

You're on a cloud with the distant violins that sing from his headphones.

And then you feel dizzy. "Shu." You tap his chest. "Shu... I-I can't." You stumble over your words, tongue-tied and dazed. He pulls away and laps your wound closed with a slow sweep of his tongue. The rush your blood gives him is amazing and he can feel his power grow with every swallow.

You're the perfect wife for the next Vampire Lord.

Reiji:

His brothers are undeserving of such a powerful witch. They don't have the drive to teach you what you need to know. Mastering magic takes discipline, and if there was anyone within this house who had that quality, it was Reiji.

Unlike Shu's lazy approach, he expects you to study. Reiji provides you with tomes and ingredients and he wants to see the fruits of your labor.

If your spells and incantations aren't precise? You clearly didn't study hard enough. Your hands become intimately familiar with a ruler or his crop for each mistake you make.

His patience and "kindness" has its price and the price is blood.

Your yelp carried throughout Reiji's study when he swatted the back of your hand with the crop that had been held so casually by his side. The chalk in your hand was dropped as you clutched the skin that would no doubt welt within moments. "Honestly." The vampire drawled. You could almost taste the venom behind the word and it made your muscles lock in fear just like when you heard that damn crop whistling through the air. "Must I hold your hand every step of the way?"

You were quick to shake your head. "No, Sir." The term fell from your tongue easily. Reiji gave a hum. Hungry eyes bore into the reddened skin that you so desperately attempted to hide and soothe.

"Then I suggest you finish that sigil and summon a familiar."

And so you did.

Your hand was shakier than it was before and sweat dotted your brow from your concentration. There was no describing the stress about drawing this out to perfection. The room was getting hotter as your swirling patterns began to complete the symbol you so desperately had to finish. And, as fate would have it, your chalk broke from the force you were drawing with.

The candles in your circle died out all at once and the stifling heat faded. Your mouth opened up but you were just so crushed. "I-I can do it again." You scrambled to correct yourself. "I just need more chalk... Sir."

But Reiji wasn't pleased. Not in the slightest. His crop was set on the desk of his study and you could feel how your heart pounded wildly in your chest. Reiji tended to get creative when he was unhappy and scenarios played out in your mind, each was worse than the last.

Psychological torment could be just as satisfying to him as the physical side.

Gloved fingers hooked into the collar of your shirt as he knelt beside you on the carpet. He pulled it down far enough to get at where he wanted. Reiji scared you to death. He could make his bites feel like death or have you gasping out from ecstasy. The vampire bit just below your collarbone and you swore that you felt him graze the bone with the puncture.

You shrieked and foolishly grasped at his button-up, but with the high that your blood gave, he didn't seem to care at the moment. His swallows were purposeful and you couldn't hold back the tears as a burn flooded your body. Just when you began to think that you might actually die, he pulled away.

Fangs that were still a dizzying red were flashed with a sadistic grin as he took in the look on your face. "Go on then. Use the healing incantation I taught you." Reiji stood to collect his crop once more. "I assure you, you'll be using it plenty tonight."

Ayato:

Of course, the one who deserves to drink from a witch is Yours Truly. Don't you agree?

Whether you do or don't, it doesn't matter. Ayato isn't asking for your permission.

He's telling you that you're his blood bag, and you need sate his appetite... Or he knows how to make his feedings hurt.

Do you have a spell for that? No. He didn't think so.

Ayato will drink from you until black spots dance across your vision and you don't have the energy to gather up your magic anymore.

His bites along your neck are sharp and aggressive in his excitement. Ayato doesn't even stop to sip a single drop from the scrapes and small punctures along your skin. "Heh. What a rush." He pulls away to watch the blood leak into your collarbone before dipping in to greedily drink from the small pool he's created.

"Oi. Don't pass out on me." The back of his hand taps your cheek as black spots appear in front of your eyes. "It's your fault for being so damn addicting in the first place." He sneers at you before leaning down to take his fill once more.

Your struggles are weak. You can barely push at his chest physically let alone use any magic to throw him across the room. With each sip, your mind grows fuzzier. He enjoys the fight in you, he's said so. But Ayato isn't one who likes having his meals interrupted.

So Yours Truly found a way around the tricks you have up your sleeve.

He licks over to wounds to close them and finds that you've gone limp. Ayato huffs as he looks over your unconscious form.

"Tch... We didn't even get to the good part."

Laito:

So you're a witch? How exciting.

Laito's never slept with a witch before, but he's sure that he can break you down the same way every mortal woman has.

If not, well, he's going to have to learn and the best way is through practice.

"Pretty Witch", "Witch-Chan"

He teases you the most without a doubt: "I can't help myself from coming back, Pretty Witch. You put a love spell on me, didn't you?"

Did you know that when he makes your eyes start to roll that you both float a bit off the bed? How dirty.

"My poor little witch." The redhead coos as he tucks a few strands of hair behind your ear. He loved that look on your face. Flushed and wanting as you gripped at his jacket. You were as addicted to him as Laito was to you. He chuckled low into the skin of your neck as he teased you. "I didn't think that you could get tired out so easy. Fufu... But I guess that you don't need stamina if you have all of that magic, do you?"

You fell for the taunt, but it wasn't quite what he expected.

Your hand moved to knock that damn hat off of his head before your fingers weaved through the soft tresses of his hair. You fist your hands into it and pull him into a hungry kiss to shut his smug mouth up for a moment. Laito's hands press harder into the wall that he's trapped you against as he gives a soft sound of pleasure and approval into your lips.

Laito can taste the energy that radiated off of you. It was like running his tongue along a battery. And he. Fucking. Loved it. He practically melted when you bit his lip. It was hard enough to split that perfect, pale skin but he still grinned despite the red that dripped down his chin. "Pretty Witch-" His fingers drummed along the inside of your thighs. "You're at your best today. Fufu. Show me how far that can get you." He couldn't stop the giggle as you pulled him in for another bruising kiss.

Kanato:

Out of any of his siblings, he thinks your powers are amusing.

With Kanato, it's sink or swim. It's hard to tell what's on his mind. He'll go from hot to cold in seconds, so it's better to try and stay on his good side.

That spell your mumbling better be nice, or he'll have to sew those pretty lips of yours shut.

You're awfully cute thinking that you outnumber him with that gremlin familiar of yours. What? Didn't you know? He can make Teddy play too.

And you better pray to a deity that's willing to save you if one of your spells go array and Teddy is caught in the fray.

Kanato will burn you like the witch you are.

You don't know why you'd hoped that today would be different. Every day after lunch, Kanato would have a table for you both set. Pastries would be piled beautifully atop their dishes, and Kanato had a knack for pairing the perfect tea with your snacks every time.

At first, you were wary that he'd drug them somehow to make you compliant. Most days you wish he did.

At least you'd have an excuse as to why his bites felt so nice. "Mortal women tend to get angry if they don't feel good, don't they?" But you endured it for your familiar who was seated next to Teddy. You could see it in their eyes. They wanted to help, even if Kanato hurt them until they disappeared to their plane to recover. But you took comfort in your gremlin.

Your familiar was the only good thing in this house. They did their best to pet at your hair when you cried when the reality of your situation hit you hard. They even went so far as to collect little baubles to help you heal and to negate the effects of your anemia.

They didn't deserve to suffer.

Kanato sunk his fangs into your wrist. You couldn't help but shiver. The small vampire shuddered against your skin as he sipped from you as if you were a fine wine instead of a person. You might as well be with how he assured you that your blood was the finest quality.

"Amazing." You barely ignore the blissful heat that radiates from your head to your toes to look at Kanato. He observes the energy that surrounds your wounds once he's pulled away to mend them closed.

You don't know why you hoped today would be different. That Kanato would choose the pastries over you.

Subaru:

Subaru is the most mistrusting of the Sakamaki bunch. His disdain doesn't match his kind gestures. It sends a number of mixed signals.

He'll gift you talismans to prevent his family from sucking your blood, a book filled with wards to draw on your door and windows, and a knife.

The latter is a last resort with these new comforts.

When he visits you, he's likely to accuse you of casting a spell on him. He knew he couldn't trust a witch. What did you do? Make him want to be your guardian? Are you slowly taking his will?

He's hungry and yet all he can do is take his frustrations out on his surroundings.

But there's a small, small part of him that's proud when he sees his gifts at work. He's able to protect one thing in his life.

You must seem like a madwoman with the symbols etched onto every surface of your room. You could even accept those claims. When you see those same protective wards glare at you through the night, you know it's excessive. The talisman on your neck doesn't leave you. Ever.

Even if the brothers threaten to break your skin or bones, you refuse to take it off. It seems to make them dizzy and nauseous. You rush into the kitchen some nights to fill your room with enough food to get by.

You're wise enough to know that it's better to reduce the chances of receiving the ire of vampires by closing yourself off. They feel cheated and you feel victorious.

Your attention is ripped away from your tome and jar of marshmallow fluff by a knock at your door. The only way they can come in is if you open your door. You swallow and set your book and snack on the nightstand.

"Woman, if you don't open this damn door, I'll kick it down."

There wasn't a doubt that Subaru would try and you rush to open it before his thin patience snapped. Your door is opened to reveal your guardian who holds one of the best gifts so far. A dinner tray with a bowl of steaming, homemade soup. His eye isn't on you for long. "Here... I don't want you getting sick from eating that crap all the time." The young man jerks his head towards the marshmallow fluff.

You take the tray with a small 'thank you' before hesitantly taking a step back to give Subaru enough room to enter. He sits with you on your bed as you eat in relative silence. The vampire sits as far away as possible and attempts to give a sly rub to his temple as the talisman begins to work its magic.

Subaru looks deathly pale. You'd say he looked ill if you believed a creature like him could get sick. You take a final bite before setting the tray aside. "I know you're hungry." The vampire stiffens at this.

Slowly, you begin to reach up to unclasp the necklace. "So let me do this for you." Your final line of defense is tucked into the drawer of your nightstand.

"I'll break you." And you didn't doubt his threat at all.

The Mukami Household:

They are likely to whisk you away after receiving orders from "that person". The brothers need to get more powerful if they can ever hope to live up to their expectations. If "that person" says that feeding off of a witch is how they're supposed to accomplish that? Consider it done.

Here is where you can expect your powers and abilities to shine.

Honestly, it might be more about them hoping that you'll somehow "gift" them a power of sorts. Example: If you can see the future through brief visions, they would hope to do that as well after drinking your blood. That must mean you're their witch and it's destiny, right? Your blood chose them.

Ruki:

Like Reiji, he'll expect you to study and hone your skills.

You aren't quite livestock, more like a servant. You're expected to perform your duties as their witch without question or fail.

After all, Ruki could find very creative ways to make sure you remember your place.

Drained and locked in the dungeon will do for the first offense.

But if you perform well? It's the sign of a good master.

... And maybe he'll gain some of those abilities in time?

"Again." The order you received seemed nearly impossible. Sweat dotted your brow from exertion and concentration. There were thirty candles within the dining room and you had to light them all at once.

Ruki didn't doubt your power. Far from it. He simply wanted you to be more precise with your spellcasting. He glanced at you from the pages of his book. You clenched your fist to summon a wind to snuff out the flames. That was the easy part...

Heat spawned at your fingertips as you rubbed your hands together before you let the energy flow forward with a flourish. You swallowed and glanced over to each flickering light... twenty-eight of them.

The halfling snapped his book shut. "Again." You clenched your fist once more and wiped the sweat from your brow, ready for a long night of practice.

Yuma:

You'll definitely have more direction on becoming a green/garden witch with Yuma. He'll teach you everything you need to know. How to grow your plants, care for them, dry and store them away for future potions.

He'll make room in his garden for you and the ingredients for whatever you'll need.

Yuma is very vigilant about your gardening. If you don't have a green thumb, expect to have one after a few weeks of coaching.

He believes that part of your magic could stem from eating good food, so expect him to give you fresh fruits to start your day.

God forbid if you give him an apple. "You tryin' to poison me, Witch?" He'll still eat it with a big grin on his face.

You toiled away on prepping your latest batch of tinctures in the spacious kitchen. The activity was relaxing in itself. It kept your hands busy and creating them was slowly becoming a hobby. You'd nearly finished putting a lid on your third when you felt a rough hand on your hip. The other was busy brushing the hair away from your neck. "Yuma-" You attempted to bat his away. "I'm busy."

Your reasoning didn't give the half-vampire much pause as his nose skimmed along the back of your neck. He bent down far enough to eye your progress before he scoffed. You could feel his grin blooming against your neck. "I'm not seeing anything that can't wait."

It was all Yuma offered you before you felt his fangs pierce the skin of your neck.

His gulps were as greedy as the arm that snaked around you. It was something you were grateful for since you doubted your hold on the countertop could keep you from buckling. He always drank until you were dizzy. Whether he did it out of his own enjoyment or simply because he needed more blood to fuel a vampire his size wasn't clear to you. For all you knew, it could be a mix of both.

Finally, he pulled away and licked at the wound until it closed. You were dizzy, you were flushed, and you doubted you could finish up your tinctures if you tried. "C'mon, Witch." Yuma lifted you up and secured an arm just above your thighs. "We're taking a break."

Kou:

Kou with a witch is the bane of Ruki's existence. The idol always seems more energized after drinking from you.

Expect him to hunt you down and bite you before his shows and maybe even after if his meet and greets with his fans wearing him out. He's almost always sure to flash you that charming smile the girls fawn over when he's finished. As if he didn't just get done draining you.

"You taste so good, Pretty Kitty. You saved the best blood just for me, didn't you?"

Witch? More like a black cat. There's no way around it, no matter how much you insist.

But he's expecting... something. Anything. The rush your blood gives is amazing, but Kou expected to gain some of those neat little abilities of yours.

Don't you know that this is a give and take relationship? He's been so kind to you. The leeway he gives you sickens Ruki to no end.

So maybe... he needs to shorten your leash and remind you why you're here.

The puncturing of your forearm earned a bit of a yelp. You should have been used to fangs piercing into your skin, but Kou sucked at your wounds so hard. He dug into you as if this time would be any different from the last. The sharp pain didn't fade and it took you digging your fingers into the plush couch arm to keep yourself from ripping your arm away and creating nasty gashes.

He might switch from his kind persona to an unforgiving warden if you did. Kou would probably be upset enough to let you simply bleed out for a while before he considered lapping at your wounds to close them.

His desperate suckles died down as the rush of magic seemed to flow through him soul deep. A please hum reverberated against your skin, and if you didn't know better you'd say he was purring. Kou pulled away with a sloppy pop before his tongue swiped over the wounds he had inflicted before they faded away into your skin.

You were lightheaded and the phantom pain still throbbed against your skin, yet there was nothing to show for it aside from the evidence Kou wiped away in front of his vanity.

"Thank you, Pretty Kitty." The blonde chirped like a kid who'd just gotten a treat. "Now, behave yourself until I get back. The show won't be too long." He shot a wink your way before he left his dressing room. He was bouncing with energy as he made his appearance on the stage, and the cheers could be heard from where you'd slumped over on the couch. You were too exhausted to do anything else.

Azusa:

He's intrigued by your powers, and he's as much of a helper as he is a disaster waiting to happen.

Azusa is content with watching you work or helping when he's able.

He's probably the only one who will call you by your name the first time you ask. You're not 'Eve', you're a witch.

Put a lock on your cabinets. He's likely to hold potions and tinctures to examine them in the light, daydreaming about ill effects, and possibly drinking them.

"Y/N... Will these burn me from the inside out? ... Ah.. That would feel wonderful, wouldn't it?"

What's more concerning are the runes he's taken an interest in lately. He insists he can help. He's seen tattoos of these symbols floating around. Azusa doesn't think they're deep enough to do those women much good. They've barely scraped the surface of your potential.

So he'll help you by carving them into you until he's sure you feel those markings within your very marrow. And maybe, just maybe, you'll be happy enough to carve him up just like he's shown you?

You hesitantly grasped at the bouquet of roses that Azusa held out for you. "Oh... Thank you." The scent from them was so strong that you took a moment to enjoy it. A weak smile found its way to your lips. "This is very sweet of you, Azusa."

He simply hummed before his hands grasped yours in a tender gesture, trapping them around the bouquet.

"...I wanted to make you happy." Your blood ran cold. You had a sinking feeling even before he began to squeeze your hands. "I thought if I helped... you'd forgive me." Instinct made you jerk your hands within the vice-like hold he gripped them in. He thought you hated him for being so nice. Just like his brothers.

"Azusa! Please!" It was enough to draw a sob from you. "Stop."

His hands fell away and you dropped the roses altogether. Tincture ingredients or not... they weren't worth suffering over. Your palms were bloody and they shook from the pain. Azusa gripped your wrist and began to suck on the red that bathed your fingers.

"Hey... Y/N... you'll love me lots if I help... won't you?"

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symphonyofthewrite · 4 years ago

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If These Walls Could Talk (Ch5)

Fandom: Castlevania Netflix

Summary: Vampires do not have reflections, and castles do not have hearts. But Dracula is no ordinary vampire, and Castlevania is no ordinary castle. If castles can fight, maybe they can think too.

The series, and Adrian’s childhood, told from the perspective of the castle.

Notes: FYI for anyone who’s been following the story here ( @symphonyofthewrite ) this is currently the most recent chapter!!

A HUGE thank you if you have, by the way!!!! 😘

If you can comment and/or reblog as well that would make my week!!!

Chapter Summary: “You really don’t understand the act of forging. He’s not dead. We make life from death here.” “And you make soldiers for Dracula, which is one reason why he invests so much in you despite your…humanity. …Dracula brought us all here to fight his war, Hector. All the vampires under his reign.” “The war. Not his war.” “…Hector do you think this war is going well?” “We’re hardly losing.” “No, of course not. But it seems chaotic, undirected, as if we were lashing out at humanity without any real plan beyond wild destruction.” “I think wild destruction is what he wants.” * “Are you still my friend?” “Always.” “Then know that you may be alone.”

Chapter 5: “War”

The Castle does not like these guests Dracula has let in.

It knows many of them; has housed a number of them before. But that was before. Before the Life. Before the Light. And it no longer likes the death and the dark. It no longer likes the way these guests squabble, and talk of death and war as if it’s not at their beck and call. It feels like it’s infested with bedbugs, bitten a hundred times in its place of rest, itchy till it can’t fall asleep anymore.

The war room is always the most jittery and loud, housing the war its named after.

They have brought their war with them. The Castle must and will fight Dracula’s war, but only Dracula’s war. Dracula may think they fight his war. But the war they bring is their own, more insidious, having its own branches, trying to choke out its master’s goals. There is descent. Secrets fluttering on silver tongues, like moths in the halls, congregating around any light here. Viruses, lies contaminating its walls. Betrayal against its master, who was gracious enough to invite them in.

Its master wonders to the walls who his friends are—as well he should, for he has so few—and the Castle wishes in its numb state he never let them in. Why couldn’t he have just stayed with his boy, and let the light reach him?

Godbrand’s voice comprises much of the war in the war room; all thirst, and little to no thought. Very much a vampire, the undeath in him attempting to steal the life of everything he comes into contact with. So human; his words comprised of bloodthirst, fists full of fire.

Camilla’s dagger-sharp footsteps in the halls, the towers, like pinpricks, like tiny little bites. A parasite that wriggled into Castlevania’s heart, attempting to make it beat to her duplicitous rhythm. The queen, who walks in stride with the cold, the death, and the dark that took the Castle so long to grow out of the habit of wearing. They are like a loyal shadow at her heels, clawing at the walls. The Castle liked her once, for the same reason it doesn’t like her now.

She challenges Dracula and all the life he ever managed to find.

There are other vampires too—some with names, others toy soldiers—but they are hardly worth mentioning, for there are little more than smoke and noise, mist and shadow.

…Well, maybe the Castle doesn’t dislike everyone.

Castlevania likes Hector. Likes the sound of Hector hammering the death out of things in its dungeon. It may not be the golden life, it may not be warm or tender, and it may make demons for war, but it is life of a sort. The boy is kind and gentle, and he likes dogs, and sunlight.

It is nice to have dogs and cats scampering and yipping in its halls. Hector is right when he says they are far better than people. Dracula never let Adrian get a dog, and this kind of pure, gentle life is the closest thing to sunlight they can get in this night-shrouded place. In the same token, Castlevania wishes it could bottle up the sunlight and bring it down into the dungeon to him.

Castlevania likes Isaac. Very much in fact. Isaac is loyal to its master, and loyalty is a rare commodity in these infested halls. He may be the only who still has it. And that is a kind of life too. The Castle snatches a smile when it sees the two speaking as friends, glad there is, at least, someone left its master can speak to.

It is because the Castle likes Isaac that it doesn’t like the sound of Isaacs whip. Self-discipline isn’t so bad of a thing…but the Castle knows of pain now. The Castle wouldn’t have cared before, but now it knows what little boys who believe in love deserve; it knows that good masters never whip their servants, their children, or their castles. And ‘doesn’t like’ is not merely a preference now, because the sight of Isaac’s blood…it hurts. But Isaac lived too long in the sun, and now he prefers the cold and the dark. And Death has claimed him for its own, just like it claimed its master, wrapped its strings around him, and he will be a living death though he is still alive. He grew up in the sun, now he belongs in a dark place…but the Castle doesn’t want to be that place anymore.

Maybe Castlevania likes them because Dracula likes them. They’re the only creatures in the Castle Dracula likes; the only two who are human.

The only people he’s ever truly liked are at least half human.

Why can’t he see that he doesn’t hate humans? He just hates bloodthirst.

Godbrand grumbles, he questions, and demands for things that don’t belong to him.

Camilla schemes, and denounces them all as less than livestock.

Hector tries to discern the most humane way to put humanity down.

Isaac beats his back bloody, and he tries to be a friend to Dracula after all.

And Dracula sits in his study and doesn’t smile anymore.

He makes the fire as bright as he can, and no matter how bright and warm the fire is—no matter how much the Castle tries to refine all the light Alucard filled the world with into this one room, fill the emptiness, resurrect the death—it can never warm him. He needs to be held. The Castle cannot do that. Only the boy or his mother could. And they are too far now.

The walls watch him, and wait for him to talk to them again. And the walls, for the first time, wonder—(and hate themselves for wondering)—if the word isn’t undead anymore.

Life was once a part of the undeath, hidden in the corners and crevices…but is death a fact of the unlife now?

There are fights, words and fists, like tumors, like cysts. Unlike the humans who once banged on the Castle’s door for vampire blood, Godbrand takes the vampires out to feast on the wine of human veins. Camilla latches her teeth onto Hector and he becomes host to her lies; the sun-and-dog boy taken in by the parasite, and Castlevania would shout at him not to listen, that she doesn’t have his best interests at heart, to listen to its master still…if only it could talk.

Godbrand dies with a whip around his neck and flames in his chest. The brutality dies at the hand of the boy who believes in love. And the Castle wouldn’t have cared before, but now its complicated. It is glad for a little less noise, but the blood and the death make its stones crawl, and it hates to see it all on the hands of a young man who should have been appalled at such an act. Now its sad, sad for Isaac’s sake. Because he’s just a young man, like Adrian.

Castlevania misses the boy, and the days of sunlight. Prays that he will return, with dancing gold at his heels.

They mentioned Alucard, once. In a way Castlevania hasn’t heard his name spoken before. After all those years of his little feet toddling upon its stones, the sun stinging slowly and quietly; they say his name, like it’s a threat. It’s sound causes unease when they were always so sickeningly confident. He is not a threat, an enemy, within the war, but a threat to the war itself. His name could end this war.

And the Room snatches an inkling of air at the sound of his name, tries to cry out, but only croaks a frail war call—a war call against this war. The Room tries to smile through the pain, because if that’s true it reflects him; he stands against the cold, the dark, and the death, like the Room always did.

Castlevania prays he will stop this war, this dark, this death, this hungry emptiness, and he will save his father. But it is losing hope each curtained sunrise.

The Room, breath stolen from its lungs, unable to cry out, waits. The kind of anticipation as when this new life was going to arrive in the first place, but there is no apprehension this time. The Room was not alive, then, and this is a living waiting. It waits with feeble attempts to remove the claw around its throat, breathless cries upon its ever-silent lips. Waits for its master to come home—for its master is not home, and it is not a home without its master.

The Room waits, and without breath things start to become rather funny.

At first it’s Godbrands remarks, then it’s Carmilla’s schemes. Then its Hector’s pets, and Issac’s unyielding loyalty. The death, the darkness, and the cold, cruel injustice of it all. They should make the Room’s walls boil with anger, and at first they did, but now it wants to laugh instead.

Hypoxia, they call it. When, lacking oxygen, everything is just a little too funny.

The Room is hypoxic.

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kazimakuwabara · 4 years ago

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This Bites part 1

Summary: It’s spooky-weene time. Time for vampires. After a fight against a rather “bitey,” demon, Kuwabara is starting to feel a little strange.

****

“Okay! I’d like someone to get this motherfucker off my back-YOWCH!” Kuwabara’s loud complaint cut off as razor-sharp teeth, like what you might expect from a shark, sunk into his neck. Feet with talons were digging into the small of his back, and winged arms wrapped tight around his arms, desperate to keep Kuwabara still.

“Any day now guys! He’s fucking eating me!!” Kuwabara shrieked, cursing as he tried to buck the guy off.

Diagonally to the left, and back by a good three yards, Yusuke, Kurama, and Hiei battled their own sharp-fanged, winged demons.

“Alright, everybody back the fuck up!” Yusuke snarled firing off a spirit shotgun into the hoard of demonic attackers. Screams shrilly rang out from their foes, and those that fell over dead soon turned to ash.

“What type of demon are these!?” Yusuke shouted towards Kurama.

Kurama, in the middle of coiling his whip around a demon’s throat, hastily answered, “Not sure, I haven’t seen these before!” and then with a jerk, he snapped the creature’s neck, it too fading away to ash.

“Kuwabara’s blacking out!” Hiei snapped, his voice unusually hurried, and fighting to be void of emotion. But the concern he was normally good at hiding, had broken through the cracks as he watched the demon on Kuwabara’s back continue to chomp at Kuwabara’s throat, and Kuwabara sink slowly to his knees.

Kuwabara’s stomach turned at the loud sucking coming from behind him. It was gross knowing the demon was trying to use him like a juice box. Feeling a little weak, Kuwabara did let himself sink to his knees... but then rocketed himself backward so he could slam the demon’s head into the ground.

The blow was enough to get the monster's teeth off of Kuwabara's throat, and then in desperation, Kuwabara exploded a blast of spirit energy behind him, slicing his own side in the process. But he had struck the demon clinging to his back, and howling in misery, it kicked Kuwabara away from him.

“Oh thank God... I’mma pass out...” Kuwabara muttered, the back of his neck bleeding freely, along with his side, and small of his back. He pressed a hand to the back of his throat, coaxing his energy to try and heal up some of the damage, a skill Yukina and Genkai had been helping him learn.

But he’d only just started, when the demon was on him, rolling Kuwabara over, with a crazed look in its wild eyes. His clawed hand was clamped on Kuwabara’s mouth, and Kuwabara bit until he drew blood.

The demon screeched, and pulled his hand back-and then was cut in half by a silver sword. Both parts of the demon fell to different sides, and then Hiei was leaning over Kuwabara, guiding Kuwabara’s hand to the back of his neck where Kuwabara's wound bled.

“Heal yourself,” Hiei snapped, nostrils flaring and eyes blazing.

Kuwabara blinked sluggishly, not sure if he could now.

“Heal yourself, Kuwabara!” Hiei snapped, his hand over Kuwabara’s and pressing it harder to Kuwabara’s wound, “Stop the bleeding, or I’ll stop it for you, and you won’t like it!”

Rather than wasting the energy on glaring at Hiei, Kuwabara tried to heal his wounds with what strength he had. He felt the back of his neck close up... almost... but then Kuwabara was really and truly running out of energy and blood.

Hiei’s face twisted into a snarl, the white of his teeth gritted in anger. He batted Kuwabara’s hand away and pressed the palm of his hand to Kuwabara’s wound.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

And then Kuwabara was on fire, and everything went dark; Yusuke’s and Kurama’s scream echoing in the air and following him as he lost consciousness.

Kuwabara woke face down on a soft bed. He was so comfortable he groaned in delight.

Kurama’s soft chuckle caught his ear, and then the words, “Well, I guess you’re feeling pretty good then...”

“...K’ama?”

“I’m assuming the medicine I have you on is making you mispronounce my name?” Kurama said, tone affectionate but also still full of sarcasm.

“Smart-ass...” Kuwabara mumbled, his throat dry and words slurred.

He tried to roll over, and Kurama stopped him with a gentle, but firm hand.

“Easy Kuwabara... you’ve been out over a day, and your back and neck are... well burned,” Kurama’s words were full of remorse, and apology. In a hurry, Kurama tried to explain and justify Hiei's actions, “Hiei had no choice but the burn your injuries closed. You were on the brink of death and we needed to stop the bleeding...”

If Kuwabara had the strength he would have said he understood. He wasn't going to get bent out of shape about Hiei saving his life. No matter how he did it.

As Kurama went on to explain what happened, and that Kuwabara was on some medicine for the pain, Kuwabara reached back and touched his back. Kurama has said he was still injured... but Kuwabara didn't feel that bad. Just drugged. His hand slapped against a sticky poultice of some sort there... and then underneath that... just his skin.

He felt no wound and no burn.

He fumbled for his neck, despite Kurama’s sudden outburst of, “No!” and found the same thing. Unmarred, smooth skin.

“Kurama... m’fine. No burns.” Kuwabara mumbled sluggishly.

He turned his face to look at Kurama who met his eyes startled.

Then the fox demon was on his feet, examining Kuwabara’s back for himself.

“But... they were just there last night... you had... you were going to have these horrible scars. The one on the back of your neck was literally Hiei’s handprint!”

Kuwabara swallowed, running his tongue over his teeth, “Mmm... thirsty.”

Kurama’s face was twisted with shock still, but at Kuwabara’s words, he shook himself a little bit, “I’ll... Let me go get you something to drink. Stay down.”

Of course, as soon as Kurama was gone, Kuwabara was sitting up.

Licking his dry lips, Kuwabara tried to blink through the haze o whatever demonic pain reliever was coursing through his skin. He hated demon world pain killers... they lasted way too long and made him loopy for days. They worked... but still.

“Kuwabara! I said to stay lying down!” Kurama scolded as soon as he reentered the room, looking surprised and frustrated that Kuwabara had gotten up.

Kuwabara held out a wobbly hand, “Thirsty.”

“I guess I should be happy you seem to be almost 100% good as new...” Kurama sighed, giving Kuwabara the glass, but hanging on to it to help control how fast Kuwabara wanted to drink it.

Despite Kurama’s interference... Kuwabara still managed to slam it in a few large gulps.

Drinking it helped Kuwabara's throat feel a little better.

But he was still thirsty after he was done.

Kurama was frowning, “I really can’t explain where you burn wounds went...”

Kuwabara offered a lopsided smile, held up a swaying arm, and then flexed once.

Kurama, finally smiled, and chuckled before patting Kuwabara’s head, “Yes, I suppose you are very strong... but why don't you try and sleep a little more? I’m going to examine you, and I know you must be tired.”

Kuwabara ran his tongue back over his teeth. He was tired. Still thirsty too... but for now he supposed sleep would win. He'd at least be able to think a little clearer if he got some more rest. Laying back down on his stomach, he pressed his face into his pillow.

“Everyone okay?” Kuwabara managed to ask, that question still plaguing him before he could give in to sleep.

Kurama’s hand was on his shoulder, and he leaned close, “Everyone’s fine Kuwabara. You’re the one who gave us a scare. Rest now.”

Kuwabara caught the scent of earth and roses. It was Kurama’s usual scent, but it seemed heightened somehow. It made Kuwabara simultaneously hungry and thirsty...

But sleep was winning, and Kuwabara let himself nod off.

#kazi fanfic #yyh #yu yu hakusho #Kuwabara #Yusuke #Hiei #Kurama #weeeeeeellllllllpppp i'm doing this.#blood #burns #Ya'll can guess where this is going #But its all in good fun #Kuwabara's prolly going to flirt with everyone #just because #maybe have a couple later? we'll see.

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franstastic-ideas · 5 years ago

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Reali-tea Is the Most Difficult Blend to Swallow

Yandere Altertale AU - Frisk was so lucky to have been found by Sans during her time of need, at least, that’s what she had thought at first. The skeleton has been so kind, opening up his home to her, cooking meals for just the two of them, brewing her tea… and all that he asks for in return is the joy of her company. She was happy to oblige him that much, as Sans seemed to give off the impression to her of being lonely for some reason. But little did Frisk know and was soon to discover, he’s far more emotionally needy than she ever could have imagined…

Word Count: 22,220

Warnings: Several instances of yandere behavior. Pretty self-explanatory.

Also, my interpretation of the Altertale universe is probably extremely different than what’s been established in the original creator’s canon. For instance, even though they don’t appear in this story, Asgore and Toriel are apparently supposed to be siblings, but should they ever appear in Yandere Altertale, they’ll be an unrelated happily married couple.

Some of the other changes I’ve made are spoilers until the reader has finished this fic, and thus can’t be mentioned.

The creator of Yandere Altertale is @semisolidmind, so if you like this story, then make sure to send semi some appreciation and love!

And finally, Happy Early Birthday @lostmypotatoes! I was gonna wait until the 10th, but since you insisted that I post it now, you and everybody else are getting this fic six days early! Enjoy!

Frisk didn’t know how long it had been since she fell, nor how deep underground she had fallen, but what she was aware of was – she couldn’t move.

Her unintentional descent into the cavern beneath the mountain had been a long one, and it was honestly a strange sort of miracle in itself that she managed to somehow survive the impact. The bed of buttercups beneath her had cushioned her fall, but she couldn’t move. Frisk attempted to push herself up into a sitting position before a sharp pain coursed through her right leg as well as her left arm, returning the girl to her previous arrangement of lying with her back pressed against the flowers.

Both limbs were broken, she acknowledged, and that was when the panic truly began to set in.

Frisk was down here, alone in an empty cavern, injured and immobile, and this place was going to be her grave.

Nobody knew where she was, currently.

Not that anyone would come for her if her location was made known, she thought to herself with a grief-laden sigh.

“Howdy!” A cheery voice suddenly called out to her from somewhere beyond her vision, catching Frisk’s attention immediately.

“H-Hello…?” She replied weakly, trying to turn her body in the direction she had heard the greeting come from.

Just as she succeeded in turning her head, out of the corner of her eye, Frisk saw a flower similar in appearance to yet significantly larger than the others that she was absolutely certain wasn’t there before looming over her.

And even more concerning was; this particular flower had a face.

The talking flower stared down at her with beady black eyes and a cartoonishly wide dimpled smile. Frisk immediately came to the conclusion that she must have also hit her head when she had fallen, and this happy little plant was an adorable hallucination that manifested from her damaged mind, aiming to bring her comfort and security in what was to be her final moments. However, the flower then leaned even closer towards her, and that was when she felt the texture of his leaves brush over her skin when the motile plant apparently decided to poke her nose, proving that he was made of solid matter.

“Stop staring at me like that – didn’t your mother ever tell you it’s rude to stare?”

“I-I’m sorry! I wasn’t trying to be rude! I thought you were a hallucination…”

“Nope. I’m definitely real.” He winked and stuck out his tongue, an organ that he did in fact prove to possess through this little gesture. “I’m Flowey. Flowey the Flower! And it seems to me that you took quite the fall there! You look like you could use some help.”

“Yes, I would really appreciate it!” She pushed aside the shock of discovering a talking flower living in a remote cavern underground for the moment; she tried to move once more, even just a short distance, but her efforts once again proved to be unsuccessful. “I’m sure I’ve broken a few bones; in one leg and one arm. I’m completely immobile…”

“Oh, that’s too bad…” Flowey began to look around the surrounding area, holding both of his leafy appendages up to his squinting eyes as if they were binoculars. “And it looks like the smiley trashbag is nowhere to be found too.”

“Smiley… trashbag…?” Her eyebrows furrowed with confusion. Was there someone else that lived in this cavern as well? What did they look like? Were they a talking flower too, or something else entirely? Either way, it seemed her photosynthesizing pal wasn’t too fond of this other person, if the designated nickname was all she had to go by. Even so, Flowey still spoke of them in a continued cheery tone and the smile on his face hadn’t slipped by even the smallest of degrees.

“He could help you if he were here, but the worthless pile of bones is probably somewhere sleeping; dead to the world. Your bad luck just keeps multiplying like garden weeds, doesn’t it?” He continued with a sigh, shaking his head. “Oh well… I guess little ‘ol me will have to do…”

Before Frisk could go about questioning him of how he might possibly do that, she felt the ground around her begin to suddenly shift and tear. It seemed her petaled friend could also control the vines that bound him to the earth, because soon they were wrapping around her body, far bigger than she would have imagined them to be and lifting her into the air with ease.

She was about to ask Flowey what his plan was from here – did he intend to deliver her to this other person he previously mentioned? Or was he going to extend his vines that seemed to have no visible end upwards and return her to the surface? But Frisk didn’t get to ponder Flowey’s available options for too long before she was abruptly released from his hold and sent hurtling towards the ground again. She fell with a loud thud, but this time there wasn’t anything below her to soften the impact.

At her collision she heard the sound of something snapping coming from her own body, and an entirely new wave of pain flooded her senses.

“Oopsie! How clumsy of me!” Flowey announced, his numerous vines immediately swarming her once again before she could say anything, their grip on her being far less gentle than they had been previously. “I won’t drop you again – I promise.”

She wiggled in the vines’ hold futilely, her fight or flight instincts beginning to kick in as they grew tighter and tighter around her limbs and the rest of her body in an almost crushing hold. Frisk found herself being jerked towards Flowey until she was dangling upside down in front of his smiling face, which now looked nothing but ominous when it had just moments ago seemed friendly and helpful.

“What’s the matter, human? Don’t you trust me?” He didn’t allow her the opportunity to answer before his expression turned nightmarish, his mouth morphing into a malevolent grin that sported far too many teeth than the normal maw. “You shouldn’t… not me, or anyone else down here for that matter. Especially not me. And do you know why…?”

His whispery voice deepened to a demonic growl.

“Because in this world, i t ‘ s k i l l o r b e k i l l e d...”

He then flung Frisk against the wall of the cavern by her ankle. She barely had time to let out a wild scream of fright and agony before he slammed her face first into the ground once again, but he still wouldn’t release her, his vines still tightly wrapped around her body and placing a needless amount of pressure on her broken limbs.

“See, I kept my promise!” He cackled, his voice having returned to that higher pitched disarmingly cutesy one he had used to lure her in previously, nearly singing as he proclaimed, “I said I wouldn’t drop you, and I didn’t~!”

Frisk twitched and trembled on the cave floor, suffering and writhing. She was about to die, that much she was certain of. If not from the injuries she had already sustained, then from whatever it was Flowey intended to do with her next. She had already resigned herself to her fate before she had encountered this vile sentient plant, but this wasn’t at all how she had expected her life to end. The terror of it all coming to an abrupt yet drawn-out end at the hands of an unforeseen aggressor had paralyzed her further than before, despair welling up within her SOUL.

But before she could let this despair swallow her up completely, before Flowey could snatch her up once more and continue his abuse, she heard a loud, grotesque shriek. It echoed and bounced along the walls of the cave long after the actual scream had ended, sounding more horrendous than anything Frisk could recall ever having heard before in her life. Frisk couldn’t turn around to see just who had screamed, but she didn’t need to – it wasn’t necessary.

It was Flowey, and it sounded as though he were being put through as much pain and agony as she had been forced to endure.

She then heard another voice.

“i told you before - if i ever caught you here again, weed, you’d be in for a bad time.”

It was deep, dark, and dangerous; unlike anything she had ever heard before. Not even the raging waters of the ocean during a storm or the tempestuous winds of a cyclone could hold a candle to the pure unbridled fury she could sense lying beneath his tone, which was struggling to seem casual and relaxed but instead sounded perfervidly strained.

“the fact that you’re here must mean you were ready for what was going to happen. you only have yourself to blame for this.”

Frisk braced herself for another hideous scream from Flowey; she would have covered her ears in preparation, if only she could move her arms – she was certain that they were now both rendered immovable.

“Ah, ah, ah, trash bag.” Flowey tutted, but his labored breathing indicated that speaking was an incredibly strenuous task for him at the moment. “Aren’t you worried about the safety of the human…? Start a fight with me and there’s no telling what’ll happen! And you… you can’t kill me. You don’t have the guts for it, haha! It’s against your nature…”

Flowey was right – fighting and killing was against his nature, and he wasn’t certain if he could ever bring himself to terminate someone even as vile to the core as Flowey, even if it was for the sake of another.

And he was also correct in stating his prioritized interest in the wellbeing of the human; he cared far more about seeing that she was taken care of and her injuries tended to than settling a score with this loathsome creature without a soul that preyed on the naïveté of the fallen.

“……leave. now.”

“I was about to anyway, even if you hadn’t come along.” He sneered. “Toys aren’t any fun to play with when they’re broken, and this one’s juuuust about fallen apart. If you’d come just one minute later…”

This other person seemed to be ignoring Flowey’s commentary, or at the very least was trying to. Frisk felt herself being turned over so she was no longer lying face down, and the first thing that came into her immediate vision was Flowey lingering a short distance away; a pointed bone was stabbed through the middle of his stem like a skewer, and a thin translucent green liquid, chlorophyll she surmised, oozed out of the gaping wound it had created.

But the second thing she became conscious of was, the person now holding her was a skeleton. He was staring down at her with pitch black eye sockets and a wide unsettling grin, and the little amount of light that fluttered down from the surface above the two only enhanced the ominousness of his features in her eyes.

She let out an alarmed cry and instantly began twisting and turning as much as her weakened body would allow to escape his hold, which he struggled to maintain.

“Hahahaha! Look at her! She’s horrified by you!” Flowey cawed as he began his retreat, his vines and stem slowly sinking into the earth. “You fool… Humans will always despise monsters. You remember that when you’re at the mercy of this one and it has none to spare…”

The robed skeleton payed him no mind, his focus centering on convincing the human girl in front of him that he meant her no harm. But Flowey had already left a ghastly first impression on Frisk that wouldn’t be easily reversed; she had seen his hostile behavior as a preview for what the rest of the inhabitants of the Underground must be like, and the nasty little buttercup had only damaged this view further with the use of the word ‘monster’, the robed skeleton deduced.

Still, he refused to give up and abandon her, even if she insisted upon it.

“No… No! Get away from me!” She shrunk away from him, beginning to sob hysterically. “Just leave me alone! Please!”

“human, i need you to listen – i know you’re scared and in a lot of pain, but i’m just trying to help yo-”

“I’ve had enough ‘help’! Just go back to wherever it was you came from! Please… Please don’t hurt me…”

He inhaled sharply through his nasal cavity. He ceased any and all efforts in explaining himself or his actions. Any attempts at clarification would only be wasting precious time at this rate – if he didn’t act soon, then her condition would only worsen.

He retrieved a vial from a well concealed pocket in his robe, the liquid inside being a reddish-brown color in the light. Removing the cork, he then tilted it towards her mouth, tapping the lid against her lips and silently urging her to drink from it.

She resisted him, fighting through the pain of using both broken arms to push and smack against his chest in protest. The repeated pounding of her fists at his ribcage did little but illicit a short, stilted grunt from him, unperturbed entirely by the onslaught. When she continued to struggle despite his attempts at remaining pleasant and civil, his patience with her began to thin.

“h u m a n.” His voice abruptly deepened further to a stern growl, causing her to immediately still.

Frisk let out a surprised, uncontrollable whimper, her mouth opening just slightly as she did so. He took this opportunity to slip the vialed liquid past her lips, then swiftly tipped her head backwards so she swallowed it.

The effect was almost immediate. Her eyelids began to droop and every sensation in her body began to fade. The only thing that was left remaining was the fear she felt towards the robed skeleton. He lifted her up into his arms, gently and without a word, then began walking to somewhere further in the cavern.

“That vial… was that poison…?” Frisk was struggling to remain conscious. “…Am I dying?”

“no, pumpkin. you’re not dying.” He cooed softly, leaning down to nuzzle the top of her head. “if anything, i’m trying to keep that from happening.”

She grew quiet and still, and for a moment he thought that she must have succumbed to what was in the vial he had given her. But a minute later, he heard her weakly question,

“Where… where are you taking me?”

Her voice sounded so small, so scared…

“somewhere safe, where i can take care of you. get you the help you need.” He felt her flinch at the word ‘help’.

That awful, wretched flower…

“Please don’t hurt me…” She shuddered in his arms.

“i won’t.” He asserted, his voice low.

“Promise me you won’t.” She said with such desperation that it made his SOUL ache with fierce pangs of pity for her current condition.

He hesitated.

But only for a second before he solemnly replied, “i promise.”

His oath sounded so sincere.

“now get some sleep, human. i know you’ve gotta be tired.” The skeleton cradled her closer to his sturdy build with large, strong arms in a manner that Frisk would almost consider to be protective.

Frisk wanted to take his words at face value, to earnestly believe that he held no ill will towards her - but if he did indeed intend to harm her, then there was little she could do about it now.

Her heavy eyelids shut, and she fell into a deep dreamless sleep.

~~~~~~~~~~

When Frisk finally awoke, she once again was unaware of how much time had passed since blacking out, but she did know that her body felt immeasurably heavy – almost certainly an aftereffect of whatever was in that liquid the skeleton had fed her. She could barely even lift her head, the properties of that concoction were so strong. She was every bit as immobile as when she first fell into the cavern, the only difference being that thankfully, Frisk wasn’t in any pain.

Her limbs were wrapped up in bandages, she discovered, when she finally accomplished the simple task of turning her head to the side. They seemed professional, as expertly done as the work from any doctor found in a hospital. Oddly, her dressings were tied together with little white bows in several places – there was no practical or particular cause for her caretaker to have arrayed them this way, if only to amuse her when she awoke.

Frisk spent the next few minutes taking in her new surroundings; she was laying on a soft, cushy single bed that was coincidentally just her size, not too big or too small for her height. The sheets were crisp and clean, and atop them was a quilt that appeared to be hand-knitted, with white and light blue hearts and bones scattered across the fabric’s design displayed in an elaborate pattern. She didn’t know much about knitting, but it must have taken a great amount of patience and skill from its weaver to have created such an ornate duvet. Every stitch that went into the needlework was without flaw; precise in its arrangement and absolutely beautiful.

Laying next to her was… a stuffed animal, of some sort. Frisk wouldn’t be sure how to recount the thing’s appearance if someone asked her to. Its body was vaguely humanoid and without color, a pale white, but that was as far as she could get in her mental description of the toy. Those big black button eyes bore into her relentlessly, and even though it appeared to be just a child’s plaything in every single way, she couldn’t deny that its constant gaze unnerved her just slightly. Once again, there was no other conceivable reason why it would be present at her bedside other than to bring her some comfort or cheer.

To the left and on the floor was a toy chest a short distance away, as well as a cabinet for clothes. That was as much as Frisk could make out of the rest of the room – there was a lamp in the corner of the room, but it had been turned off out of concern of it disturbing her sleep had it been left on. The remainder of the room was plunged into darkness, but Frisk did catch a small sliver of light slipping through the door, which was opened just a crack.

Just as she turned her attention towards it, the door began to slowly creak open and the golden light outside from the hallway flooded into the small room. A skull then popped into her view, belonging to the skeleton that had carried her off earlier. His white eyelights were focused on her bedridden form, seeming concerned, or perhaps that was a trick from the combination of light and shadow playing with her eyes?

But as he stepped towards her, there was something about him that did make the skeleton seem far less sinister to her compared to before. Maybe it was the small surprised gasp that fell from his mouth, or the way his eye sockets widened and the white spheres within them shrunk, or even how the grin on his face slipped as a faint blue blush spread over his cheekbones when he saw Frisk’s head suddenly turn to face his direction.

The two stared at each other in silence for several moments before he managed to find his voice.

“i… thought you were still asleep.” He tugged nervously at the ends of his sleeves. “…how long have you been awake for?”

“Not long. Just a few minutes, I think.” Frisk answered cautiously, still wary of him and his intentions. “…How long have I been asleep?”

“about twenty-four hours? i think?” His phalanges scratched at the back of his skull. “i didn’t really pay any attention to the clock when i got back. i was too preoccupied with getting you to bed and seeing that your broken limbs were wrapped up to think about the passage of time.”

“If I slept for that long, then why do I still feel tired?” She questioned irritably. He laughed at her sour expression.

“that’s all thanks to the medicine i gave you earlier. it does what its supposed to well, but the stuff will really leave you out of commission if you aren’t already. that’s why i save it for emergencies like yours.”

“That stuff in the vial was medicine?” The girl pondered aloud – it hadn’t tasted like medicine. Thinking back on it, the liquid had tasted rather pleasant…

“yeah, but it was also tea. chamomile and honey, actually. i blended the two together and made the medicine practically flavorless on the tongue so it’d be easier on the person that had to drink it. why would anybody want to swallow something that tastes bad? even adults don’t wanna do that, am i right?”

Yet again, another allegedly kindhearted gesture that served no other viable purpose unless the purpose was kindheartedness in itself.

Frisk frowned, studying the lumbering skeleton closely. “…Why?”

“why what…?” He rubbed the back of his neck, his expression showing blatant confusion.

“Why did you bring me here?”

“because you needed to get those broken limbs of yours wrapped up, and this was the only place i could take you to do that safely-”

“No, I mean… why help me at all? Aren’t you a monster?”

He recoiled at her harshened tone and averted his gaze, smiling sheepishly at nothing in particular. “yeah… i can understand why you’d have some doubts about me. in your human fairytales and legends, monsters are the bad guys. they do horrible, unspeakable things to men, women, and children alike without remorse. …but i’m not that kind of monster. i… i want to help and protect any humans that fall into the underground that i come across. that’s why i’m here.”

Frisk bit her bottom lip. Guilt began to bubble away in her stomach and gradually rose up to her chest, her heart giving a dull aching thump at his appearance – yes, he was still smiling, but it was incredibly strained, undeniably forced. His shoulders were slumped heavily as well. Her insensitive remark had definitely hurt him.

“I… I’m sorry. A lot has happened, and I’m still very, very confused. About a lot of things.” She made an effort to explain, his large droopy eye sockets and enlarged white pupils appearing less and less menacing to her and increasingly more melancholy as the seconds ticked by. “But that still isn’t an excuse for treating someone badly for something that’s beyond their control; their race, what they are. Especially when they’re just trying their best to help someone that’s hurt. It’s just… I thought for sure that you were going to…”

“no, no, i… i understand completely. i get it; why you’d react this way.” Even now, he, the offended, was speaking out in defense of her actions. “if you weren’t at least a little bit suspicious of me after what happened back there, then i’d be more concerned than i am already. but… maybe i could clear up some of that confusion, if you’d let me? i’m sure you’ve got a lot of questions right now that need some answering.”

“I would like that very much.” She replied, having come to the quiet conclusion that if he held any interest in bringing harm to her, then he likely would have done so while she was unconscious.

…Unless he wanted her awake whenever the robed skeleton chose to unveil and carry out his diabolical plot - for the sole purpose of the cruel thrill that came from it. After all, following her falling into the underground, she didn’t know how long that deceivingly friendly talking flower had been there either. Right next to her unconscious body. Staring at her in silence. Just waiting for her to wake up…

Frisk decided she would at least allow the skeleton the opportunity to explain himself and answer her questions, but he still hasn’t earned her trust.

Not yet.

The stranger walked over towards and reached into the darkness of the lower left corner of the area and pulled out a chair, a chair that curiously seemed to have been built just right for her size, then dragged it to the center of the room and a few feet away from the bed. He eased into it carefully, perhaps out of concern for its thin legs possibly breaking underneath the weight of his heavyset build; the skeleton looked like a giant while seated in the much too tiny and undoubtedly uncomfortable wooden chair. He then folded his hands across his lap and flashed her a sheepish grin.

He was making an honest attempt to seem relaxed, but his blatant nervous ticks; the occasional twitch perceptible at the corner of his mouth, slightly shrunken and quivering eye lights in his sockets, and him idly drumming his phalanges against his patella with a sort of skittishness that was difficult to describe wordlessly broke any charade of calmness that he may have been trying to convey.

Just what reason would he have to be nervous in this situation? She was the one currently incapacitated, bed-ridden, and completely at the mercy of another. There was nothing she could do to him under these circumstances, even if her life depended on it.

Frisk chose to ignore his tense state for the time being.

“well, uh…” He twiddled the tips of his phalanges against each other, and for some reason, he was refusing to look at her in the face. “this is… kinda the part where you start asking questions…”

“Alright… Telling me where I am right now might be a good place to start.”

“you’re at my house. and this is the… guest bedroom.” His voice sounded oddly pained when he uttered those last few words, but he quickly continued onward before his discomfort became too apparent. “if you want me to be more specific, you’re in the ruins. not all that far from where you fell down. this part of the underground isn’t that spacious, at least, not compared to the rest.”

From that snippet of conversation alone, Frisk was already made aware that the cavern stretched on much further than she initially thought, and that there was something more to this room than he was telling her. Those were details she could ponder later. Back to pressing the skeleton for more information.

“You’re a monster, right? So is the rest of this cavern filled with monsters too? Are they all skeletons like you?”

He actually laughed. It was a low, breathy chuckle. “in order: yes, for the third time, i am a monster. yes, there are other monsters besides me living down here. and no, the whole cavern isn’t occupied entirely by skeletons. there’s slime monsters, fire elemental monsters, spider monsters... and some that can’t even be classified. the word ‘monster’ is more like an umbrella term, i think - there’s a whole lot of variety in our race.”

“Okay… Next line of business. Who are you? What’s your name? Or do you even have one?”

He chuckled again, his shoulders bouncing up and down just slightly. “no, i have a name. it’s sans. sans the skeleton. but you probably already knew that last part. …why did you wanna know?”

Rather than answer his own question, she responded with, “So, your name isn’t ‘smiley trashbag’?”

“no. it’s not now, and it never was.” His tone flattened, as well as the usually ever-present grin on his face.

“Well, I thought I might as well ask...” Frisk mumbled. “Flowey the flower isn’t a really creative name, either... I wondered if the only other living being I’ve come across since I fell down here was a victim of unfortunate naming too.”

“no, that was just him being awful. as per usual.” Sans crossed his arms with a sigh and a soft scowl adorning his features. “nothing too out of the ordinary there...”

...Nothing out of the ordinary?

“Another question; would you mind telling me what was up with that flower monster in the first place?”

“tibia honest with ya... i don’t really know all that much about him myself.” He scratched the back of his skull with another self-conscious grin when she showed no visible reaction to his pun. “right, right... probably not the best time for jokes. anyway, that flower, he isn’t a monster; that’s as much as i know about him. he just... showed up one day in the ruins. he started bullying monsters, making threats, eating all the candy out of the candy bowl... and generally just making a complete nuisance of himself every time he showed up.”

“He seemed like much more than a nuisance when it was me he was around...” Frisk recalled, the torturous sensation of being slung against the floor and wall of the cave in rapid succession still fresh in her mind and limbs, despite the numbing medicine she had been given – she suspected it was beginning to wear off now, but she couldn’t let her boney caretaker become conscious of this.

If he knew she was in pain, he might send her to sleep again. And Frisk felt she couldn’t rest until all her present questions have been answered.

“he didn’t stay just an annoying weed for long. after a while of being content with tormenting others, one day, he started trying to kill monsters. i was on my way back from checking for any fallen humans, like i do every day, when i caught him cornering a whimsun. whimsuns, they’re small, winged, fairy-like monsters. incredibly shy, and they never bother anybody because they’re afraid of being engaged in conflict. so even without knowing what kind of person he was already, i would have known right there that the attack was entirely unprovoked. that was... quite a while ago, when that happened, and i thought what i said to him then was enough to scare him out of the ruins for good.”

If even a fraction of the anger in Sans’s voice had been present at that time compared to when he came to rescue her earlier, then Frisk wasn’t certain how Flowey hadn’t spontaneously wilted right then and there during either confrontation. He was either incredibly determined, or incredibly stupid to have come back again after that warning.

“...but i couldn’t have been more wrong.” Sans appeared shamefaced, silently acknowledging that it was only by mere coincidence and sheer luck that he’d arrived in time to save her at all. “i guess he was just hiding this whole time, and biding his own time, waiting for when a human finally showed up...”

“...Are humans supposed to be the enemies of monsters here, like you’re supposed to be for us on the surface?” She inquired a touch fearfully, still unsure of what intentions this skeleton may hold for her. “In this world, in the Underground, is it really kill or be killed?”

“no. no, no, no, no... no.” He spoke quickly, his hands fluttering about anxiously, but the firm tone he spoke with didn’t match his frantic movements. “don’t let that insignificant weed be put in the position of the mouthpiece for the rest of the underground. what he wants is senseless violence, to see the world around him burn. i’d like you to forget as much as you can about him and anything he may have said to you, if at all possible.”

“Being nearly mauled to death by a talking flower that first was pretending to help you is kind of a hard thing to push out of your memory entirely.”

“i know... and i’m sorry. i should’ve got there sooner. then maybe this wouldn’t be as bad as it is now.” He stood up and was suddenly at her side in one fluid motion; he gently rested one hand on her broken and bandaged leg, the contact and sudden unexpected pressure against her injuries causing her entire body to flinch.

He immediately removed his hand – at first, Sans thought that she just didn’t want him touching her, but the way her eyes clenched shut and her lips twisted into a grimace made him think differently.

“...did-did that hurt? are you in pain right now?” When she wouldn’t answer, he gave her leg another experimental brush, the tips of his phalanges featherlight against her wounds as if to soothe them.

As cautious as he was with his ministrations, even the slightest of touches was enough to make her cringe.

“...and so i see the medicine i gave you has worn off.” He gazed at her sternly, his tone scolding. “and just how long were you planning on keeping this from me?”

“For as long as I could.” She answered without any hesitation or shame.

At hearing her bold and defiant response, he frowned in that way that managed to somehow tug at her heartstrings for the second instance without fail.

“you still don’t trust me, do you...?”

“No.” She didn’t know why admitting this to his face hurt as much as it did. “I don’t.”

To her surprise, he didn’t appear frustrated or angry. He breathed a heavy sigh, though, and smiled wearily at her.

“i guess i’ll just have to earn it, then. prove my word’s worth. gradually.”

“G-Gradually?” That last word brought to her a sudden and harsh realization, a question that must be asked, and she did so with a sense of urgency. “How... how long will it be until my limbs have healed?”

“even with my magic helping the healing process along, it’s gonna be a while until you’re back on your feet. the damage you sustained from your fall into the underground must have been bad enough, but that awful weed did a real number on ya. if i were to estimate, i’d say it’ll probably be anywhere from two months at the least to three and a half at the most until you’ve made a complete recovery.”

“Three... and a half months...” She repeated brokenly, the full extent of his diagnosis not having sunk in quite just yet.

She didn’t even notice his mentioning of the term ‘magic’, she was so distressed.

“so that’ll give us plenty of time to get to know one another.” He chuckled mirthfully, before his grin turned tight. “...surely you won’t still hate me three months from now, will you...?”

“I don’t hate you! I’m just... scared. And I’m still so confused...”

“over what...?”

“Several more things. Too many to count, and too many issues to cover in a single conversation, probably.”

“no, that wasn’t what i... i already knew that much; it’s obvious you would still have plenty of questions left in need of answering, but that will have to wait until later. what i was referring to was what you said before that... what is it that you’re scared of?”

“...I can’t really explain it.”

That was all Frisk could reply with after a lengthy pause.

“...is it me? if it is, it’s... alright. i understand. completely.”

“I didn’t say that.” She insisted halfheartedly.

“you didn’t have to.”

It was written all over her face, expressed in her movements, heard within the inflections of her voice...

He walked towards the door, not even turning around as he said,

“...wait right here. i have to get your medicine.”

“As if I could go anywhere else...” She frowned to herself, but acknowledged that his words had sounded incredibly strained, as though he thought if the girl did have the choice available to her, she would have bolted for the nearest exit as soon as his back was turned.

Frisk couldn’t deny that the thought hadn’t crossed her mind, of escaping this house, if only her broken body would allow her to do so. But so far, it appeared Sans the skeleton had done everything within his power to help her and absolutely nothing to warrant her distrust.

But then again, the same could be said of Flowey, who had appeared amiable and offered what was supposed to have been some kindhearted assistance to a helpless and wounded surface dweller, only to purposefully injure her further.

It was true that every indication had been made that the two couldn’t stand one another, but that didn’t have to mean that Sans was her friend; no matter how the saying went about what the enemy of your enemy was to you. He could hold the very same animosity towards humans that Flowey fostered, and Frisk felt it was safest to keep her guard up, search for any signs of existing hostility, detect even the slightest traces of deceit that could be hiding behind that seemingly friendly smile...

Sans, however, was inwardly distraught.

He was thankful that an opportunity had presented itself for him to excuse himself from the presence of the human girl in his company. He couldn’t withstand it a second longer, being subjected to her harsh judging gaze.

This wasn’t his first time caring for a human, particularly a stubborn one. Some of them had accepted his help and embraced him with open arms, overjoyed to find a friendly face. Others needed some coaxing, some convincing that he wasn’t going to hurt them, and it wasn’t long at all until they believed his claims and found them to be true.

But they had all been children.

This was an adult human, a woman with perpetual scorn in her gaze despite his best efforts. And he didn’t know how to handle that.

“none of them ever hated me before...”

He returned a few minutes later, carefully carrying a tea cup in hand with wisps of steam wafting from its rim. It was made of creamy white porcelain, which was crafted into the shape of an oversimplified skull. Even the artistry of the handle abided to the skeleton theme present, looking as though it were made from a trio of assembled milky colored bones.

Frisk sat up in the bed, wincing as she did so. Yes, the medicine she ingested yesterday had most definitely worn off, but she was also delighted to discover that her limbs had in fact unexpectedly, almost unbelievably regained some of their former mobility.

Even so, she wasn’t exactly looking forward to taking more, though it would numb the pain burdening her and Sans had mentioned that it didn’t taste bitter when mixed in with the tea. The flavor wasn’t her concern, however. Waking up after swallowing whatever was in that concoction had left her feeling as though she had been hit by a truck. Her entire body had felt heavy as lead, as if some unseen pressure were weighing her down.

Somehow sensing Frisk’s apprehension and correctly deducing the cause, he spoke,

“this isn’t the same medicine as before. it’ll make you sleepy in a little while and you’ll probably need a nap after, but it won’t knock you out for hours.”

That was... somewhat reassuring, she thought.

If he was telling the truth, that is.

Instead of handing her the cup or forcing it into her hands, Sans set it on the nightstand Frisk had just noticed was there, most likely because she couldn’t move her head towards that angle earlier. The cup would be out of sight should she lay down again, just like the piece of furniture it rested atop, but it would still easily be within her reach should her hands search for it.

“...do you want to eat now or later?”

“later.” She answered, both out of wariness and a genuine lack of appetite.

“ok.”

Several moments passed with not another word from either of them. Sans was still there, he hadn’t made a single move that suggested he was going to leave, but he wasn’t looking at her like he was earlier, or even at all.

He wouldn’t look at her.

Frisk eventually decided to break the silence herself.

“Don’t you want me to drink it?”

“yes, i do. but i’m not going to force you.”

“That didn’t stop you before.”

“that was an emergency.” He was swift in delivering his rebuttal. “whether you were aware of it or not, you were dying back there. i had to get you somewhere else quick so i could take care of you, and i couldn’t let you suffer for no reason the entire way when there was a safe and ready alternative available. so i’m sorry i fed you something strange to knock you unconscious and brought you here against your will, but if i had to do it over again, i’d still make the same choice. over and over again, without hesitation.”

He was speaking to her in a serious, stern, nearly scolding tone, but something about the manner in which he spoke managed to prick at her heartstrings, almost as effectively as when the skeleton had expressed his vulnerability earlier. Even while cross, there was a caring, almost loving impression discernible underneath.

Slowly, and with some amount of delay, Frisk took the tea cup off the night stand and brought the warm liquid to her lips, sipping it quietly.

Just as Sans had said earlier, the tea disguised the taste of the medicine. In fact, she couldn’t detect it at all on her taste buds.

“...It’s good.” Frisk muttered at last.

“i’m glad.” Her drinking the tea made the corners of his mouth quirk upwards, but the expression soon vanished as quickly as it had come. “...i get that you aren’t too keen on the idea of putting any of your trust in me, what with flowey abusing it and all... but i really do want to help you. and i can’t do that if you won’t let me.”

“...Sans, can you come closer?”

He complied, albeit confusedly, blatant bewilderment written across his features as he made his approach. Frisk didn’t say anything else until the skeleton was positioned exactly where she wanted him to be, continuing to motion him forward until he was standing directly in front of her bedside.

“Now what I need you to do is look me in the eyes - not at the floor, the wall, your hands, or anything else you’ve been staring at that isn’t me.”

“a-alright...” He stuttered unsurely, wondering why she had become so commanding so suddenly and what it was she was going to ask of him next. “i’m looking at you. just you and only you.”

“One last thing, Sans. ...I need you to tell me, no, promise me that you’re not planning to do anything sinister or rotten to me like Flowey was. I need you to give me your word right here and now. And depending on how you do that, how you respond to this demand of mine, you just might earn my trust.”

He frowned down at her, and she could tell that he wasn’t exactly happy with being compared to and lumped in with the likes of Flowey, who so far seemed to be more or less his arch nemesis.

However, Sans maintained eye contact with her, as she had requested, and took a breath,

“i don’t have anything awful in store for you – all i want is to see that you get better and are well taken care of, regardless of the fact that we’re of different races that are usually perceived to be deeply prejudiced against one another and are all but demanded rather than advised to remain bitter enemies. that’s it. honest. i swear on my SOUL, if that means anything to you.”

He had hesitated just a moment before answering, just like when Frisk had asked him to make a promise before - something that shouldn’t have boded well for him with her currently playing the role of his judge.

But the sincerity she found in his voice, the sheer conviction with which he stated his intentions, the sparks of gentle warmth she saw within the lights of his sockets... that was enough to sway her thoughts and opinions on this monster.

They gazed into each other’s eyes for the longest of times, neither having moved a muscle or a joint since his declaration. Sans was obviously anxious; beads of sweat decorated his skull, and the grin he wore was incredibly forced in a feeble attempt to mask his dread and unease.

Finally, Frisk was prepared to announce the results of her assessment.

“...You pass.”

“...what?” He inquired, breathlessly.

“You pass.” She repeated plainly. “I’ve decided that I’m going to trust you. You’ve managed to convince me. From this point onward, I’ll go along with your suggestions and your efforts in helping me to heal.”

Although, to him, she sounded mostly unimpressed with his heartfelt response... But Sans wasn’t so skeptical that he was about to look a gift horse in the mouth.

He exhaled, patent relief blossoming over his skull. “thank you... i... i promise i won’t do anything to have this honor that was bestowed on me revoked.”

“But if you do, you’re gonna be wishing that Flowey had succeeded in killing me.” She retorted, half-jokingly and halfway serious.

“never.” Came his swift reply in that chiding yet close to loving tone.

Whether Sans meant that he was never going to betray her trust now that he had it or that he wasn’t even going to entertain the notion of the alternate outcome where Flowey killed her, she wasn’t sure.

But what she was made aware of was, Sans had a nice smile. This one was genuine; unlike the others he had previously displayed with tight grins that didn’t reach his eye sockets. It was sincere, welcoming. Perhaps even sweet.

And seeing him like this, it made the corners of her own mouth curve upwards.

Frisk took the tea from where it rested on the nightstand again, intending to drink every drop of it. Her grip wasn’t steady however, and she nearly spilled the entirety of its contents on herself and the bedsheets. Seeing her struggle, Sans kneeled by the bed and curled his phalanges around the cup and consequently her own hands, his large palms engulfing them. He gently eased the tea cup towards her lips.

She felt heat surrounding the skin of her hands like a warm, comforting blanket, and Frisk believed it wasn’t emanating solely from the beverage she held. How could a skeleton, a being without blood, feel warm?

The texture of his bones wasn’t how she thought it would be either; they felt smooth to the touch, as expected, but weren’t entirely rigid. There was some suppleness to them. How could a skeleton be soft?

But he was. Sans was warm and soft; something Frisk likely never would have learned, paid attention to, or cared for at all if she still harbored the same mistrust towards him as she had earlier.

His low hesitant voice next to her ear caught her notice. “is this okay...? i’m not making you uncomfortable?”

“No, not at all.” She answered with a chuckle, internally somewhat taken aback by her own reply and the instantaneousness of it.

He was only assisting her with holding the cup so it didn’t spill, Frisk tried to reason with herself, but still she continued her mental debate with herself; wasn’t what they were doing now a bit too much of a jump compared to before, a bit too cuddly, considering this was the same skeleton monster who she had only began to place some amount of her trust in no more than five minutes ago?

Even if this was so, she found herself enjoying this unexpected warmth, this sweet and sincere gesture. So much so, Frisk could practically feel the lingering disbelief that remained slowly melting away around her like snow that desperately clung to one’s clothes while in front of a crackling fireplace.

Sans kept his hands wrapped around hers until the cup was completely empty. He then plucked it from her grasp and set it back on the nightstand before turning around again to face her.

“you’ve got about an hour, give or take, until the medicine kicks in. that should be enough time to eat something if you’re hungry, unless you really do have no appetite.” When she nodded at the end of his statement, he frowned at her in that distraught way that inexplicably pulled at her heartstrings. “but it’s been a day, a whole twenty-four hours since I found you. even if you ate a big meal directly before falling down here, that’s still a long time to go without putting any food in your body.”

“You’re awfully insistent about getting me to eat something.” She stated, raising an eyebrow just slightly then continued in a clearly joking manner, “...You’re aren’t trying to fatten me up, are you, Sans?”

He threw back his head and laughed, barely stifling a snort as he replied, “noooo, i’m just worried about your health is all.” Sans took her response as a sign to proceed, moving towards the door and preparing to go to the kitchen to make something; something that wouldn’t consume too much time and would be light enough on her stomach that it shouldn’t upset her if she truly didn’t have much of an appetite. But not before poking his head back into the room immediately after he left it to cheekily add, “...even if you are cute enough to eat.”

It was just him teasing her in the same manner as she had seconds prior, she told herself, but still Frisk blushed at the boldness of his words that one could misread as being flirtatious in nature. ...Surely it wasn’t. Just some silly banter between new pals; that’s what it was, right?

She shook this thought away, as one she deemed more important entered her mind. She narrowly suppressed the excitement in her voice as she called out to him,

“Sans!”

Almost instantly, she heard the approaching sound of his slipper-clad feet thundering against the floor of the hallway outside. The door then swung open and there he stood, demanding to know what was wrong with worry gracing his skull.

It vanished at once after her next sentence, his concerned expression being replaced with one of immeasurable joy.

“My name isn’t ‘you’, Sans. It’s Frisk.”

~~~~~~~~~~

Whatever remained of Frisk’s suspicions towards Sans, they completely dissipated by her fourth day under his care.

Even throughout the first day, after the robed skeleton returned to her room with a steaming hot bowl of stew in hand and insistences that he feed her so as not to further aggravate the injuries of her arms, Frisk found it exceedingly difficult to continue regarding him with doubt.

He was astonishingly, profoundly considerate, she concluded.

Having to be fed by him was embarrassing, even if he had stated that there was no reason for her to feel this way when she voiced her sentiments aloud. He was more than happy to do so since she couldn’t. Perhaps he was simply the type that enjoyed caring for and doting on others, Frisk mused.

Whenever she wasn’t asleep, Sans was almost constantly at her bedside; at her every beck and call. The girl couldn’t recall having ever received such attentiveness before in her entire life, not even from her mother and father. It made her feel a twinge of guilt to place this monster, who was more or less a stranger to her though an incredibly kindhearted one on a higher pedestal than her own parents, but Frisk couldn’t deny that during their so far brief period of knowing one another, Sans has possibly shown more consideration towards her than anyone aboveground ever had.

Something else that Frisk had learned during her stay is that, when Sans claimed he would provide answers to all her inquiries, he had really meant it.

Every single question that fell from her lips, no matter how abrupt or bizarre it may have been, the skeleton would never fail to supply her with an answer or an explanation. He never seemed to tire of responding to her endless plethora of questions, strangely; in fact, Sans appeared to find some amount of delight in her never-ending curiosity. Frisk had always been someone who possessed a boundless thirst for knowledge, eternally seeking clarifications in subjects others cared little for, and taking intrigue in forming and uncovering solutions to mysteries that most preferred to remain unknown.

“Hey, Sans? Why is it that you’re a skeleton, but you’re able to eat? I didn’t think skeletons would need to, or even could eat. Shouldn’t it pass directly through you? Where does it all go?” She had asked one evening when Sans had decided to join her for supper, even after Frisk’s hands had healed enough that him assisting her was no longer necessary – ‘so she wouldn’t be alone’, he had stated somewhat shyly.

“magic.” Came his simple reply, accompanied by a grin and a wink.

“Well fine! All right, then! Keep your secrets...”

“no, i was being entirely literal. magic really is how and why i eat.” He chuckled at what must have been her disbelieving stare. “the bodies of monsters are made of magic, condensed into a solid form. the food down here is made from our concentrated magic, so anything we eat is absorbed directly by our bodies, and the same goes for any humans that consume monster food. ...that’s why the majority of us down here don’t have toilets.”

“...That explains so much.” So that’s why she hadn’t felt the need to use the restroom since her untimely arrival here... And from there, Frisk’s mind then drifted to the thought of whether skeletons could also gain weight if they could eat. “And yet, I feel this also opens up an entirely new area of discussion that demands to be explored.”

“i’ll tell you just about anything you want to know about monsters and the underground, but... from where this conversation seems to be headed, is this really a topic that you wanna discuss over dinner?”

“What? No, noooo - that wasn’t what I was thinking of talking about at all. You were the one that brought up toilets in the first place, so who’s the gross one here?” She laughed freely, the sound causing shivers of delight to run down his spine.

“if that wasn’t it, then what were you wanting to talk about?”

“About you.” Frisk answered with just a hint of bashful hesitance, resulting in his SOUL skipping a beat.

“what... what about me...?” Sans nearly croaked as he pointed to himself, his throat suddenly going dry.

“Anything and everything you’re willing to share.” She confessed, not quite looking him in the eye socket. “I think you’re really interesting Sans, and I... I want to know more about you. I feel like I could spend years questioning you, all day every day, and I would still never get bored of what you have to say.”

He must have gaped at her for a good solid minute at the very least, concerning her slightly and making her wonder if she had said something alarming or offensive.

But then a beautiful grin graced his skull and he shakily replied,

“ha... ahaha...... hoo boy.” He rubbed the back of his head with a nervous chuckle, unable to look at her while aware that his zygomas were flushed and glowing a bright, near blinding blue. “i... i can’t say anyone’s ever said anything like that to me before... uh, you... you said you’ve still got questions, wasn’t that right, frisk? keep ‘em rollin’.”

Sans was different – he entertained her inquisitiveness, encouraged it. She would even go so far as to say he almost appeared flattered by it instead of finding her and her various interests annoying.

Frisk wondered if he was lonely.

That was the only conceivable reason why he would tolerate her oddities as much as he had, she thought.

After Frisk decided that he had earned her trust and that she enjoyed his company, she began to notice the little things about him. How, even when he was smiling brightly, there was something sad about those pale white spheres of light within his sockets. Beneath them were dark circles present, like how humans would develop dark circles under their eyes due to stress or loss of sleep.

She had commented at least once that he appeared to be exhausted, not directly mentioning the easily visible marks beneath his sockets, but Sans had brushed her off with a smile. He assured her that he slept plenty, perhaps too much, the skeleton added with a quiet chuckle. Still, it concerned her – the thought of him taking an uncaring approach to his own health when he had put so much effort into bettering hers was a saddening one.

But the longer she stayed in his company, the lighter the markings underneath his sockets became.

It didn’t make much sense to her – if anything, Frisk would have thought that tending to the needs of another as exceedingly as he had for her the past few weeks would have only exhausted him further. Instead, every morning when he came to her room to greet her, Sans seemed just a little bit more perky than the previous day.

Did he really enjoy her presence that much?

As the days passed on, one after the other, the more sure she became that this was the truth.

Another peculiar habit of his was how shy he seemed to be around her. Frisk wasn’t certain if he acted this way around everyone or if she was some sort of exception, since the only person she had seen him interact with so far other than herself was Flowey and as far as she was concerned that nasty little buttercup had no relevance in this private mental discourse of hers - but one day she became confident enough to ask him.

Apparently, the answer was a little of both.

Ever since he was small, Sans has felt somewhat uncomfortable conversing and spending an extended period of time with those he wasn’t familiar with. However, he then stated that Frisk was a special case to him and further affected his shyness. So much so, Sans admitted to the girl that he felt as though he had been dangerously close to fainting himself when speaking to her for the first time; the sole reason why he hadn’t was there had been the more important and pressing task of tending to her injuries to focus on at the moment.

When she questioned him as to why he would feel that way towards her, this was what he had to say,

“you... you’re really pretty.” He professed, a blue blush beginning to creep over his cheeks. “i’ve never met anyone as pretty before, and when i first saw you, that actually scared me just a little. i... i got nervous.”

Sans couldn’t be as shy as he claimed to be if he was willing to admit that to her face, even if he couldn’t quite muster up the courage to look at it as he said that.

But as their time together gradually increased, his timidity gradually began to wane.

He would still mumble and stutter when he spoke to her, but his actions and words became undeniably more bold.

It had all began one late evening while Sans was at her bedside, sitting in that same wooden chair that was much too little for his build as he responded to her vast quantities of questions, as per usual. The tiny chair could support his weight no longer; the legs collapsed underneath him with an oddly thunderous crackling, dumping the skeleton out onto the floor on his back.

Frisk knew she shouldn’t have, but she laughed.

She hadn’t meant to, but it was beyond her impulse control! To begin with, the small uncharacteristically high-pitched yelp that he let out when he was sent tumbling backwards was nothing short of hysterical, but the expression on his face as it happened was something that deserved not to be ignored. His eye sockets had gone impossibly wide and the spheres inside them had shrunken down to tiny pinpricks. But after he crashed against the floor, his eyelights had enlarged to the point they looked like twin moons.

The entire scene was too humorous, or humerus as Sans would call it, to keep her face straight and her mouth shut.

But when Sans didn’t move after longer than a few seconds had passed of him silently staring up at the ceiling just blinking his sockets, that was when the giggles died down and concern began to take over.

Frisk’s body moved on its own accord, rolling out of bed and landing on her feet before limping over to him.

“Sans? Sans! Are you alright? You’re not hurt, are you?!” She took his face in her hands, practically yelling directly in it. The sheer panic in her voice made him snap out of whatever trance he was in.

“i... i’m fine. i think.” His eyelights still looked a bit wonky to her; they had returned to their normal size, but the white orbs were facing different directions and they were spinning round and around...

He sat up a bit straighter, willing the spheres in his eyes to go back to normal. Only then did she begin to relax, releasing her frightened grip on his skull and arms returning to her sides.

“everything’s fine, frisk; it’ll take just a little more than that to do anything serious to these old bones.”

“Are you sure? You’re not just saying that so I won’t worry, are you?”

“‘m sure.”

She still wasn’t totally convinced he was telling the truth, but she would let him off the hook for now – if he really was hurt, it would be made apparent to her soon enough.

“I’m so sorry that I laughed...” She apologized as she lowered her gaze, deeply ashamed.

“don’t be.” One phalange found its way under her chin, gently lifting her head up. “it was kind of funny, wasn’t it?”

“If it had been me that fell instead, you wouldn’t have been laughing.” Frisk stated bluntly, knowing that what she said was true.

“frisk, i wasn’t hurt, so it’s fine.” He replied with a tone of finality, then smiled at her. “but it’s nice to know that you chair about me so much.”

Once she had processed the pun, Frisk’s eyes automatically narrowed and her nose wrinkled in mock disgust. He laughed at her petulant expression, and the sound was enough for the disgruntled look on her face to slip just slightly. It vanished entirely when the phalange that had been under her chin shifted, the hand it belonged to reaching up to cup her cheek.

Sans’s own expression had softened as well; a warm smile elevating the corners of his mouth coupled with a tender gaze meant solely for her. His other hand rose to brush the stray and uneven strands of hair away from the girl’s eyes as his thumb traced smooth circles against the skin of her cheek.

Anything she had to say to him prior had died on her lips.

His actions had rendered her entirely speechless.

Sans spent the next few minutes gently running his boney fingers through her hair and stroking her face, appreciating the different types of softness from both. His eye sockets were lidded from sheer bliss, he was enjoying this moment that much.

However, he returned to his senses not too long afterward, his sockets snapping open with a gasp of sudden realization. He immediately removed his hands and scrambled backwards, nearly on all fours, until his back hit the wall.

Frisk stared at him with even more confusion evident than when he had been affectionately pawing at her.

“i... i can explain, i...” Sans stuttered, hands fluttering about as if on the defensive and anticipating her to attack him for his behavior. “no, no i can’t explain anything this time... not at all. oh stars, frisk, i... i’m so sorry. i don’t know what came over me.”

“No, no... It’s... it’s alright! I’m not mad at you, Sans, so there’s no reason at all for you to act like I am.” She shuffled towards him once more, but only made it a few steps across the room before her legs gave out on her – they were still far too weak due to a combination of several consecutive weeks of bedrest and the injuries she sustained when she first fell into the Underground and encountered Flowey.

Sans pushed his previous thought process to the side and moved to assist her. He was at her side in an instant, hoisting Frisk into his arms before she could begin to question him of his objective. He carried her back to the bed, placing her gently underneath the covers then pulling the sheets up to her chest, all the while struggling to aim an admonishing look at his patient.

He was immensely flattered by how quickly she had rose to her feet, for the first time in weeks, just to make certain that he hadn’t injured himself despite the pain she must have felt in doing so. However, as much as this gesture of hers touched the very depths of his SOUL, he also wished that she hadn’t left the bed in the first place. She was still recuperating, and if he hadn’t carelessly broken the chair he had been sitting on, then Frisk wouldn’t have had a reason to exert herself.

Sans had no one to blame but himself for this... and perhaps Flowey. He too was responsible, in a roundabout sort of way, but Sans knew he couldn’t pin every single thing that went wrong during the process of Frisk’s recovery on him, as tempting as the thought was. That was just escaping responsibility.

“What’s with the sour face, Mr. Grumpybones?” She took notice of his bitter expression and was swift in pointing it out.

“i would think the answer to that question is obvious – you got out of bed when i specifically told you just this morning not to.”

“But what was I supposed to do then? Just... lay here and watch you have a staring contest with the ceiling when it was totally possible and reasonable for me to think that you might have split the back of your skull open because you didn’t pop right back up after that fall you took?”

“i was in a minor case of shock from the impact.” Sans struggled to remain firm with her. “i would have gotten up, eventually.”

“Well, even if what you’re saying is true...,” He momentarily scowled at her, but not for long until it too evaporated. “...Eventually just wasn’t good enough for me.”

His mouth opened and closed in rapid succession, but eventually, he just smiled down at her with all the warmth and quiet intensity that had been present before. Again, he carded his phalanges through her bangs, then said quietly, almost inaudibly,

“get some rest, pumpkin.”

He was trying to escape the conversation, Frisk surmised, but her thoughts were cut short when she felt a soft pressure against her forehead. Sans quickly turned off the lamp and shuffled out of the room as if embarrassed, almost ashamed. What reason would he have to be embarrassed? Frisk was fairly certain the lingering sensation she felt on her forehead was from a kiss.

How that could even possible she wasn’t entirely certain, but Frisk had previously witnessed him drinking from a straw on some occasions during their mealtimes together, so perhaps him being capable of kissing wasn’t too much of a stretch. At any rate, Sans had fled the scene before she had the chance to question him about it, and perhaps that was exactly the point.

However, Sans didn’t remain bashful concerning his gestures of affection. The next morning, he greeted Frisk with another hesitant kiss to the cheek, just like the night before, but instead of apologizing and stumbling over his words, his bright eyelights studied her closely, gauging her reaction for any signs of discomfort or disgust. Finding none, he grinned widely, and from there, the adoration he felt and actively expressed towards her only increased.

He gave her kisses sparingly, and gave plenty of warning beforehand from that point onward, just in case... She allowed him at each occasion, even turning her cheek towards him and tapping it with her index finger feigning impatience sometimes when it seemed to her he wanted to press his mouth against her skin, but refrained from it for whatever reason; perhaps it was that timidity of his creeping back every so often to remind him of its existence and to make itself known.

During one instance when he leaned down to give her a peck on the forehead, he hesitated, much longer than usual and too long in her opinion. So to remedy the situation, Frisk leaned upwards slightly... and placed a peck of her own on the tip of his nasal ridge. He leapt backwards as if she had slung cold water on him instead, and yes, during her stay here, Frisk had learned that magical skeleton monsters could be affected by changes in temperatures and experience sensations similar to a human’s nerve endings. His spine was pressed up against the closed door – she wasn’t entirely certain how he had managed to scurry that distance, and in reverse so quickly; Frisk was halfway convinced that he had somehow teleported.

He blinked owlishly at her for several extended, drawn out seconds, then broke out into a wide grin and laughed.

Afterward, Sans gave her a kiss at the beginning and conclusion of each day they spent in one another’s company.

It wasn’t long after until Frisk found the strength to walk again, on the condition that she was under constant supervision as a precaution in case her legs collapsed underneath her again. The first few days, Sans held her hand in a strong but gentle grip, leading the girl around his home wherever it was she wanted to go. He would chide her on pushing her limits, but he could only surmise how liberating it must have felt to be able to move around again and stretch her legs after so long of being confined to a single room, and unable to even leave bed at that.

Her first time leaving the bedroom was almost exciting, to finally see what lied beyond the walls of that child-sized, enclosed room. The hallway outside seemed so wide, and seemed to stretch further than it really did. Aside from the door to Frisk’s room, there were two others visible – one led to Sans’s bedroom, and the other was a mystery. When Sans caught her staring at it and the sign dangling from the doorframe, which politely deterred any would-be trespassers from entering, he led her away and guided her attentions towards the living area. She was still curious about it, but pushed any thoughts pertaining to the prohibited door to the side to ponder later.

Sans’s house was a bit on the small side and simple in design, but also cozy and comforting; the very epitome of a cottage dwelling. The living room was her favorite place to be – often she and Sans would sit and make themselves comfy in that giant armchair of his and read by the fireplace together. There was no danger of this one breaking under their combined weight, he insisted, but Frisk was still cautious about sitting on the arm of the chair, no matter how well-built and sturdy it looked.

When she voiced this concern aloud, he then offered her a place by his side. If she took him up on this suggestion, then she would practically be sitting in his lap. Perhaps not, and while Frisk would admit that she was growing more and more fond of him with each passing day in a certain sense, going so far as allowing him to kiss her face and finding herself often returning the gesture, the girl still couldn’t quite say she was comfortable to that extent with cozying up to Sans.

And yet, Frisk found herself inching closer and closer to him anyway, unconsciously moving more towards his immediate vicinity each time they sat together in that armchair suitable for a king. Not to the degree that she was ever settled in his lap, but she had definitely brushed shoulders with him, even leaned against him a time or two. He welcomed the dwindling proximity between them, occasionally wrapping an arm around her own shoulders if she was enough within his reach to do so.

How this routine of theirs even began was when Frisk had spotted a bookshelf next to the armchair, each row filled with titles unfamiliar to her. They were all authored by the monsters inhabiting the Underground, he informed her, and she then wanted to view their contents for herself. She was astounded to find that the words on the pages inside were written in her language and not one unfamiliar to her, but Sans spoke English as well, so it really shouldn’t have surprised her as much as it did.

Some of them were children’s books and fairytales, stories that Sans had owned since he was small – they were in excellent condition for their estimated age, which briefly made her wonder how old Sans actually was. Others were of the nonfictional variety, like biographies containing tales and accounts of humans and monsters having once lived in harmony many, many years ago. She learned this period of peace between the races came to an abrupt end when humanity waged war against the monsters; the humans emerged victorious, rounded up the monster population, and sealed them away in a deep cavern under Mount Ebott behind a magical barrier.

If it weren’t for the fact that Frisk was brutally assaulted by a talking flower and was currently sitting next to a giant living animate skeleton, she wouldn’t have believed it.

“...They didn’t tell us about this in history class at school on the surface.”

“ha! i can believe that. it seems like the vast majority of humanity has forgotten that we even exist, much less ever lived alongside them. now monsters have been relegated to malignant figures in your stories that terrorize children and other innocents...”

“I can’t even begin to imagine how insulting that must be to you.” She frowned, eying him with sympathy in her gaze. “...Are you the only monster that feels this way about humans, wanting to put what happened in the past behind you, or are the rest all like Flowey and think we’re evil?”

He instantly looked discomforted by her question. Sans was visibly squirming in his seat, seeming more nervous than she ever could recall having seen him. He almost appeared pained, he was so unsettled.

But before she could retract her inquiry, apologize, or attempt to comfort him, he at last answered her. “opinions are... varied, among monsterkind.”

“......Oh.” She said quietly, taking as long with her own reply as he had.

An uncomfortable silence followed.

Neither of them would look at one another. Both could only writhe uncomfortably where they sat, both consumed with regret for the things that were said. The warm, domestic mood around them had been spoiled, and Frisk felt it was her fault for bringing up such a serious, not to mention grim topic in the first place.

But now that the topic had surfaced, it made her begin to consider something, and this wasn’t the first time that this particular something had plagued her thoughts before.

From his actions and his behavior towards her, Frisk could deduce that Sans obviously held a great deal of compassion towards humanity. He didn’t have to help her at all when he did, and neither would a human if she were being honest, but especially not him when her own kind had imprisoned his entire race. He had no obligation to assist her and would gain nothing from doing so, nothing that she could think of at any rate, and yet he had without a second thought. Not even for his own safety, as Sans had faced Flowey in order to get to her.

Flowey’s last words of parting to the skeleton had been haunting her lately.

“You fool… Humans will always despise monsters. You remember that when you’re at the mercy of this one and it has none to spare…”

Was Sans an outcast among the rest of his kind because of his stance towards humans? Is that why he lived alone in this little house, and never brought home any company?

Sans wasn’t entirely without companionship, at least this was what Frisk tried to convince herself of; he seemed to have at least one friend in the spider lady that had taught him how to sew the beautiful blue blanket with the bones stitched in the fabric that currently sat atop her bed, who he mentioned when she had once asked him where it came from. However, Sans had spoken as though that had been some time ago. Perhaps he truly didn’t have anyone else in his life aside from herself.

Dwelling on that thought as she did suddenly made her unbearably sad, feeling as though the blame lied solely on her shoulders that such a wonderful, patient, and kind monster would spend the remainder of his life alone as long as she was here.

So much so, that Frisk wasn’t even aware she was crying until she felt Sans begin to wipe the tears that cascaded down her cheeks with his thumb.

“please... please don’t cry, pumpkin.” She wasn’t sure why, perhaps it was his mournful tone or the just as saddened expression on his face that was rendered slightly blurry through her tearstained vision, but she only wailed all the more, which was the exact opposite of what Sans wanted. He then reached out for her, to envelop her in his arms in a comforting embrace, the history book that he had held loosely in his hands tumbling to the floor, forgotten. “pumpkin, why are you crying...?”

“Sans, am I... not supposed to be here...?” She sniffled, struggling to extricate herself from his gentle grasp, feeling as though she didn’t deserve it or him. “Am I the reason why you’re alone?”

She heard him let out a quiet gasp before holding her even closer to himself, against his chest. In the small space of time prior to him speaking again, she heard something else, a pulsing, thumping sound emanating from somewhere deep within his ribcage. It was almost like a heartbeat... If she wasn’t so wrapped up in her own sorrow, Frisk might have contemplated why she would be hearing something that was so similar to a heartbeat coming from Sans when skeleton monsters shouldn’t have hearts.

“...why would you think something like that?” He was running his phalanges through her hair, barely nuzzling the top of head as he urged her to speak. “why are you blaming yourself for that? why? tell me.”

Frisk didn’t want to mention what Flowey had said, or what was written in the book for that matter. She wasn’t sure why he even bothered asking her, if only to hear her say it in that awful, croaky, hiccup-laden voice of hers - they both knew exactly why. She didn’t want to talk about this at all, even though the two of them having arrived at this point was entirely through her doing.

She couldn’t think of anything to say, so the girl only let out a sob and shook her head, refusing to reply.

He sighed, squeezing her tighter, but not so much that it would be discomforting or painful, then moved his mouth next to her ear, so he could ascertain that what he had to say would be heard.

“frisk, i need you to calm down, pumpkin. i need you to breathe. it’s not your fault. none of this is.” When she weakly attempted to argue, he shushed her, his voice little above a whisper. “yes, it’s true you’re not supposed to be down here, according to the law of monsterkind, but it’s not because of you that i’m alone – that has nothing to do with you. i made my choice a long time ago, long before you ever fell down here. and i have no regrets about that. none at all.”

“But... But it’s not fair!” She clutched onto his robe and bawled into his shoulder, the cloth becoming damp with her tears, but he didn’t care.

“i know it’s not fair, it’s not fair at all, but that’s just how things are down here, pumpkin. it’s not your fault.”

“Why does it feel like it is, though?” The question escaped her lips before she could stop it; it was probably the only one she has asked him that he didn’t have an answer for.

“i don’t know. but if i’ve said or done anything to make you feel this way, then i’m sorry. i won’t ever do it again.” The smoothness that was his cheek rubbed against her wet one as he again asked of her, his request sounding more like a plea, “just please, please stop crying... i can’t take it. it hurts too much.”

“I... I don’t know if I can...” She choked out, and his hands shifted from their place tangled in her hair to rubbing slow, soothing circles into her back.

“...then i’ll hold you for as long as it takes. if you’ll allow me to.”

Frisk responded by clinging to him desperately, her fingers grabbing at his broad shoulders for grounding. Again, she heard the sound of the strange inexplicable pulsing within his chest; it was even louder than before, almost as if demanding its existence to be known. The curious thumping against his bones calmed her, and it wasn’t long after that she felt her own heartbeat slowing down, the flow of her tears beginning to slow, and with that the mysterious palpitations next to her other ear began to fade as well.

By the time her tearful fit had reached its conclusion, Frisk was left feeling embarrassed and ashamed over that spontaneous emotional outburst. She had put Sans in an uncomfortable position, she was sure, both figuratively and literally – when he had reached out to embrace her, she had been maneuvered until she was more or less in his lap. Not quite there, but close enough that it would be undoubtedly awkward should he notice and decide to bring attention towards it.

But when she mustered the courage to look him in the eye sockets again, she found nothing but sympathy and concern in his gaze.

“you alright now, pumpkin?” He inquired softly with the tiniest frown.

“Yeah, I’m all cried out. My eyes are entirely bone dry now.” She replied with a laugh that was just as dry as she claimed her eyes currently were.

Sans quietly chuckled at the pun before his expression turned serious. “i’m so sorry, frisk. i didn’t mean to make you cry. that was all my fault – i shouldn’t have been so insensitive when there were so many other ways i could’ve gone about telling you.”

“No, no, you’ve got it wrong, Sans. You weren’t being insensitive; I was being too sensitive and couldn’t handle what you said in a mature manner. It was entirely my fault Sans, all mine.” Before he could protest, she continued, “I guess that what you said just surprised me... I mean, I knew that things must be bad between our races, considering what happened in the past, but... hearing that so many monsters hate me already even though I’ve never met them... I suppose that just got to me is all.”

“they don’t hate you, pumpkin. i don’t think anyone could.”

Sans didn’t know how wrong he was, she thought.

“the problem is that they just don’t know you. they don’t know you like i do.” He smiled tenderly at her. “i think that if the rest of the monsters here that feel the way they do about humans got to know you, if they gave you a fair chance, every single one of them would inevitably fall in love with you. ......like i did.”

She almost gaped at him once Frisk processed what it was he had said.

Sans had most definitely said that he loved her, and he had said it with a glowing deep blue blush coating the majority of his cheekbones area. What he had said was unquestionably sweet, but she was left wondering in what sense was he referring to when he professed his love. Surely, it must be of the platonic sort, or possibly even the familial. As implausibly tolerant as he was towards her kind, surely he, a monster, wouldn’t develop feelings for a human...

She gathered what was left of her wits and asked him for clarification.

“...What do you mean, ‘like you did’? What does that mean?”

“whatever you want it to.” He replied simply, punctuating his statement with a swift peck against the crown of her head.

Her face screwed into a look of irritation and confusion – that answered nothing at all. If anything, it only left her with more questions.

What did she want it to mean? This wasn’t the first time that she pondered the state of their relationship, especially once Sans had began kissing her as often as he did. These thoughts only multiplied once she began anticipating his affectionate gestures and eventually returning them.

She didn’t know what she wanted it to be; she was still confused over her exact feelings towards him, but what Frisk did know was, she liked Sans. In what way, she wasn’t completely certain – but she liked him.

“...why don’t we talk about something else, something lighter.” He suggested, snapping Frisk out of her reverie.

“Wait. I have one other question about this humans and monsters subject. One more.”

“alright...” He responded cautiously, at least willing to hear her out.

“What makes you different from them?” Noticing signs of perplexity surfacing on his skull, she elaborated, “Why do you feel the way you do about humans, showing them mercy, when the other monsters apparently don’t? Why are you different?”

Sans appeared to hesitate before replying, but when he did, he wore a grin that was different than the other ones she had seem from him; beaming, almost proud.

“the reason why i’m like i am is because of my older brother.” His sockets closed, seeming to reminisce. “he was obsessed with humans, despite everything he had always been told about them growing up. the rest of the underground thought that he was an oddball, but he was determined to show everyone down here that humans weren’t as bad as all the stories from the war made them out to be.”

Frisk smiled at the fondness he clearly showed for his brother, but then a certain detail she discerned in his speech commanded her attention – Sans spoke of him in past tense.

“...Sans? Did... Did something happen? ...To your brother?”

His grin then turned into a grimace. “he’s... he’s no longer with us. he passed away. and i’d... really rather not talk about what happened.”

“That’s okay! You’ve told me enough now; we can talk about something else, if you’d like.”

“...but what about you, though?” He questioned, his voice sounding strained to her for some reason. “what about your family on the surface?”

“Oh, them...” Now it was her turn to frown. “I have a mother and a younger sister. I doubt either of them has noticed I’m gone. Or anyone I know, for that matter.”

“that can’t be true. i refuse to believe that could ever be true. ...what kind of relationship do you have with your sister?”

“She hates my guts.” Frisk stated none too delicately.

“...oh.” Sans looked at her with all the consolation that he could summon, as if it was the most tragic thing he had ever heard. “i’m sorry... ...i have a younger sibling myself. another brother. we... we haven’t spoken for some time. ...he did something. something terrible. something so horrible that perhaps it’s even unforgiveable, and i haven’t been able to look at him the same way ever since. ...so i left, and moved here, into our old childhood home. the one place in the underground i know he’ll never think to look for me.”

“So you sort of understand how it is, to feel this way about a sibling. I don’t hate my sister, but I... I really can’t say I like her either.”

“i as well wouldn’t say i hate him, for what he did. ...i don’t think i could ever say that i hate my brother, but i’m not sure if i can ever bring myself to forgive him for what he did, much less allow him to reenter my life when i’m reasonably sure he isn’t sorry for what happened between us that caused the rift in the first place.”

“...And it just got worse after the dispute that caused you to leave. Everyone takes the side of your younger brother over yours.”

“you know us so well, it’s as if you were actually there to experience everything there is that exists between the two of us.”

“Like I said, I kind of understand where you’re coming from, maybe.”

“...but you don’t deserve to know what that’s like.” He cupped her cheek with one of his large palms, staring deeply into her eyes. “you deserve the best life has to offer, frisk. not... whatever it was that you went through on the surface. not whatever it was that caused you to come to this stars forsaken mountain, of all places.”

“You might be the only one to think so, Sans.”

“...then i’ll love you enough for all of them.” Sans murmured as he rested one of his large palms over hers, cradling her hand as if it were something irreplaceably precious.

Another lengthy moment of silence passed between them, far longer but also far more peaceful than the one before. It held the sense of calmness that followed after a harsh and heavy storm, a reminder that the terror had passed and those who weathered through it were permitted to relax and put their qualms at ease.

Sans wrapped his free arm around Frisk’s shoulders, bringing her closer to him than she had ever been, but still not quite to the extent that she was sitting in his lap. He gently urged her to rest her head against his shoulder, and she did, feeling exhausted from her crying episode earlier. He then rested his own atop hers, his eye sockets closing contentedly with a soft pleased hum.

Before she slipped into a state of slumber, Frisk thought she heard him repeat in a hushed whisper that he loved her, as if to remind her in case this detail had somehow been forgotten.

How could she forget? It was the first time someone had said something like that to her with so much emotion and sincerity.

Sans did love her, she realized, more than anyone in her life ever had. Perhaps that was why she found herself accepting his kisses and tender touches so easily, and even reciprocating them. Now that she had learned what real affection was from him, Frisk was almost constantly starved for it, though she never once voiced this aloud, far to embarrassed and more than enough ashamed for thinking and feeling such things.

Thankfully, she never had to. Sans was more than enough willing to provide her with the attention she so secretly craved, as long as his shyness didn’t interfere - and even then, that aspect of him was swiftly vanishing.

...So why was it that Frisk at times longed for what was found elsewhere, on the surface?

As lovely as Sans’s house was, after a few weeks had passed of her having regained her ability to walk, the girl was beginning to get a little stir crazy. The need to move her legs and explore what lied beyond was becoming unbearable, and the walls of the tiny cottage were feeling smaller and smaller every day, to the point it was near suffocating.

She needed fresh air. She needed to breathe.

“and just where do you think you’re going?”

Sans had caught her attempting to exit through the door in the hallway; not the one with the descending stairs – he was adamant about not letting her go down there. He insisted it was a basement, but he would have a reaction that was close to a panic attack whenever she would venture too close to it. Perhaps he was afraid she would stumble down them and injure herself further?

Anyway, it wasn’t quite accurate to say he had caught her – Frisk wasn’t even trying to hide the fact that she was heading outside, but judging from the tone the skeleton used when he noticed her, it was clearly no different than if she had.

“I was going outside?”

“absolutely out of the question.” He responded swiftly and sternly.

“But Sans! I... I’m feeling a bit cramped here!” She spoke over his objections. “I’ve tried walking back and forth from the living room to the end of the hallway to get rid of this feeling, but it’s just not working anymore!”

“no.” He nearly growled, surprising her slightly, but there was a distinct fear in his eye sockets.

“...Are you afraid that a monster is gonna see me, realize I’m human, and then attack me or something?” Frisk inquired, the possibility of such a thing occurring having now just dawned upon her.

“that... that’s not the only thing i’m worried about. most of the monsters that live here would accept and adore you if they got to know you, i’m absolutely sure of this, but... it’s not really them you and i should be so concerned with here – it’s flowey.”

“...Oh yeah. Him...” She had honestly almost forgotten about him, fortunately.

“if he found you again, if he decided to come back here despite what happened then... i’m afraid that he might try to, ah..., ‘finish the job’ from last time...”

“If he wanted to do that, then why hasn’t he tried to after all this time since he almost killed me? Is it because of you?”

“i think that might be a possible explanation as to why he’s never tried ambushing this place.” He gestured to the space around them, the little cottage that he called home, “even when he’d have to know that i’m sleeping, and as much as he obviously detests me, he’s never tried to sneak inside and attack me during the night. ...i believe it might be because... he’s afraid of me.”

After hearing the voice Sans spoke to him with and witnessing what he had done to the evil flower, Frisk could understand why he would now.

“Well, if you’re so afraid that he’d attack me and so sure that he’s scared of you, then why not go with me?”

“...pardon?”

“Go. With. Me. On a walk through the Ruins.” She bounced eagerly on her heels, stretching out her hand for him to take. “Everything should be fine then, right? As long as you’re with me.”

He was so quiet and for so long that she was afraid Sans was attempting to sort out the easiest way to deny her in his head. However, a bright blue blush eventually found its way on and covered his cheeks, and slowly, he took her hand in his.

“...at the first sign of trouble, we’re coming back. immediately.”

“Understood.” She happily agreed, then gave their conjoined hands a tug forward. “Come on, old man! Let’s get those feet moving!”

“i’ve already told you before – i’m not that old.”

“Then you should start acting your age – prove you’re not by shaking a leg and getting a move on!”

And so walks around the Ruins became a part of their daily routine. At first Sans was insistent that they remain restricted to his front yard and the area around it, but as their days together outside increased, he gradually became more lenient and they would travel a little further than the previous day. Eventually, the pair reached the beginning of the cavern, where Frisk had fallen down some time ago.

And there awaiting them was a sharp bone stabbed into the ground, the marrow thickly coated in a light green colored fluid.

Though the vile flower was nowhere to be found, this spiteful act was enough for both to be made aware that he had indeed survived being stabbed in the stem by Sans. He highly doubted that Flowey would feel up to trying anything gutsy while he was here, but the arm he had wrapped around Frisk to steady her tightened protectively, in preparation should his assumption turn out to be wrong.

Frisk’s attention eventually strayed from the spear made of bone to the bed of flowers that had broken her fall.

“Y’know, it’s kind of funny in a really surreal way. I was almost killed by a literally living flower right at this spot, but if it weren’t for those flowers, I might not have even survived the fall down here.”

An oddly morose look crossed Sans’s face as he stared down at the bed of buttercups, feeling his sockets moisten.

“oh gaster... even after everything that happened back then, even while in the grave, you’re still doing everything within your power to help humankind... that’s just like something you would do...”

When his older brother had died, crumbled away to dust right before him, Sans remembered his request, in his final breaths, that he be given a human burial. Humans buried their dead underneath the earth, and while he certainly didn’t understand it or even try to, Sans honored this, as it was the last thing he could do for him. His younger brother had staunchly protested this, demanding that his dust be scattered in front of the barrier, closest to the surface that most monsters longed to one day see and experience, but Sans fulfilled their dear departed brother’s final desire anyway, despite the anger he had outwardly expressed.

Sans had felt just as furious at the time, but he respected Gaster enough to not argue against his dying wishes.

And as he carried the sleeping Frisk home due to her having valiantly struggled but failed to remain awake about one third of the way back, Sans was more grateful than ever that he had heeded his older brother’s parting words of wisdom. If he hadn’t, then he was absolutely certain that he never would have met and fallen so deeply and hopelessly in love with the woman he held in his arms.

The mere thought brought a cold chill of pure terror down his spine, but he managed to will it away by focusing on the weight and warmth present of the adorable human he held so closely to his SOUL in the most literal and figurative definition imaginable.

She was here. She was safe.

Here and safe, with him.

And she always would be, if he had any say in it.

~~~~~~~~~~

“i beg your pardon?!”

Sans had all but yelped that one fateful morning at breakfast, having spat out his tea all over the tablecloth in his shock. Frisk didn’t think that what she had to say would have surprised him as much as it did, but he had immediately proven her wrong.

“Sans, are you alright?!” She rose up from her chair, scampered over to his side, and began rapidly patting his back even though she wasn’t certain if choking worked the same for skeleton monsters as it did for humans.

“yes... i’m fine...” His voice still sounded hoarse from all his sputtering. “you just... surprised me. that’s all.”

It had been well over four months since she had found herself in his care. Her injuries had healed entirely, and as much as she enjoyed Sans’s companionship, Frisk understood that she was overstaying her welcome and it was time for her to leave. He spent basically every single waking moment by her side, only going outside when they took their walks through the Ruins – this was not the sort of life that he should live. She couldn’t keep imposing on him like this, no matter how much he insisted that she wasn’t. He was just too kind for his own good.

Telling him of her plans to go was more painful for her than he would ever know, if she could help it – she had to be firm with him, make her intentions clear and show no indication of hesitation or doubt, otherwise he might just convince her to stay. She had held off on bringing up this subject for long enough, and Frisk felt this was something that had to be done.

Sans appeared utterly miserable at the revelation that she was indeed leaving, and this almost made her retract her previous statement. However, he managed to muster a smile for her before she could and asked,

“but before you go, would you at least have one last cup of tea with me?”

How could she turn away such an innocent request, especially accompanied with a face like that?

Sans had asked her to wait in the living room for him; they would also read one more book together – again, she couldn’t find it within her to say no, even though it would undoubtedly make it all the more difficult for her to leave.

It was halfway through his narration of the adventures starring a fluffy bunny and after she had finished her cup that it happened – Frisk was struck with a sudden and overpowering sensation of drowsiness. Her eyelids grew heavier and heavier, and Sans’s voice was beginning to sound far away even though she was right next to him.

She reached out to weakly clutch onto his sleeve, and he stopped mid-sentence.

“frisk?”

“Sans... I... I can’t...” She mumbled, her words sounding slurred to her own ears.

“can’t what? what’s wrong?” He questioned, setting the storybook to the side just in time for her to collapse onto his lap. “frisk!”

“I’m sorry... I can’t anymore... I can’t...” She fought against the darkness of sleep that threatened to overtake her, but it was all in vain, she realized. “I can’t... stay awake... anymore...”

Then everything. Went. Black.

When she finally awoke from what had felt like a thousand-year sleep, the first thing that came into Frisk’s steadily returning vision was the familiar walls of the guest room and Sans’s worried face hovering over her, his eyelights having been reduced to tiny trembling pinpricks. The relief that washed over his expression was instantaneous, letting out a sigh of repose as he reached out to tenderly cradle her cheek.

“pumpkin, how are you feeling? ...speak to me, baby girl.”

“Sans...” She whimpered, still feeling lightheaded and weak. “...I feel like I’m made of stone and I’m falling. ...It’s horrible. I’m scared.”

“frisk... i’m sorry... i’m so, so sorry...” Sans looked to be on the verge of tears; she wasn’t sure why he would be saying he was sorry – he had nothing to apologize for, no reason to blame himself. “...that unpleasant sensation of yours might go away in a few minutes. i hope... but frisk...? i think it might be best if you stay with me for a while longer, until you recover from this. maybe a few more days? on the chance that this might happen again?”

“I... I think you might be right about that.” She groaned, her body feeling heavy as lead. “Because I can’t go anywhere like this. I can barely even move my head from side to side, much less my arms and legs. ...I’m the one that should really be sorry, Sans. You were finally going to be free of me, haha... And now you’re stuck with the burden of taking care of me again.”

“hush. that’s enough of that.” He placed a bony finger against her lips. “i... i’ve never for a single instance seen you as a burden, frisk. and right now is no different. i’ll watch over and take care of you for as long as need be. because i love you...”

She certainly believed him; there were no lingering doubts in her heart that he did, but Frisk still felt as though she didn’t deserve his love.

The next few days passed by in a hazy blur. Frisk had once again regained mobility, late into the day after she had abruptly lost consciousness, but her motions and steps were still unpredictable and wobbly. Sans would take her by the hand and gently lead her wherever it was she needed to go, just like when she was relearning to walk when the bones in her legs had healed. She would outwardly bemoan how helpless she had become, but Sans persisted with his assertions that he didn’t mind offering her his assistance in the slightest.

Sans rarely ever left her side since she arrived here, but today was one of those extremely rare occasions where he was forced to.

Her skeletal pal had to run errands and leave her all alone for several hours – the supply of food in the house was running dreadfully low, so much so that the cabinets and fridge were practically empty. This was a task that must be done, Sans bitterly lamented, and he resolved to get it done and over with as quickly as possible so he could return to his dearly beloved human.

Frisk did enjoy his presence, immensely so, but she also had to admit to herself that it was nice to finally have some alone time. The girl decided to take this opportunity to further explore the house in ways she couldn’t before. Like the basement that he was so determined to keep her out of. Every time she asked about it, he always gave her a different excuse as to why she shouldn’t wander down there when she pressed him enough. It was dirty down there, it was cold, it was dusty, she could get hurt...

But something was calling her to it.

She waited at least half an hour after Sans had left to begin her private research – just in case he forgot something and came back. She couldn’t have that. This felt so childish, a part of her argued, and perhaps it was. But as much as she adored him, Frisk was more than a bit put off with the way that he would sometimes treat her like an incompetent clumsy child that needed to constantly be looked after. Sans knew she wasn’t one and he had let her know on more than one occasion that he acknowledged this, but that didn’t stop him from babying her far more than necessary. Sometimes, she genuinely enjoyed it. And other times, it became annoying. And the past few days, it had been annoying.

This was her tiny little slice of revenge! And Sans would never have to know, because it’s not like she would ever see him again after all this was over anyway...

Frisk had previously pondered just how she was going to escape the Underground and return to the surface when she finally got around to doing it, and just where the rest of the Underground even was... and now she knew where to begin.

At the end of the long, empty, hallway that Sans had frequently claimed was a basement, was a massive set of doors.

There was a chilling air emanating around and from beyond them, so he hadn’t been completely misleading her about that. Everything else, though? Frisk now acknowledged that he had been more or less lying to her - and the worst part about that was, there was absolutely no reason for him to, as far as she understood.

This discovery shouldn’t have been anything to obsess over, but she couldn’t help but feel a slight sting of betrayal.

With nothing else to gawk at down here, she spun on her heel and headed back upstairs to continue her investigation.

The next item on her list was to traverse the other room that was branded taboo for her to enter. Not Sans’s room, no; she was almost always welcome there. The room at the very end of the hallway next to the mirror with the sign hanging on it that said ‘room under renovations’. It was entirely possible and believable that it truly was being reconditioned, but she’s had a hunch ever since she first laid eyes on it that there was something more to what lied beyond that door, something mysterious that the normally kindly skeleton didn’t want her seeing or bearing knowledge of.

Well, Frisk was never one to follow directions to the exact letter.

And it wasn’t like the sign placed on the door was telling her not to enter. The very same could be said of her visiting the lower level of the house. Sans had never once directly instructed her not to enter either, so there was no fault to be found in doing so.

At least, this is what she tried to convince herself of as she twisted the knob, the guilt for merely touching it flooding her system. She could make all the excuses she wanted, bring forth all the technicalities that existed surrounding what she was doing, but deep inside her heart and SOUL, Frisk knew that this was wrong, that she was invading a space that Sans didn’t want her to step foot into.

...But that still didn’t stop her from doing it.

The people that frequented her life in the past had often told Frisk while growing up that her curiosity would one day bring about her undoing. Perhaps they were right about that – she wouldn’t have gotten herself into this entire situation in the first place were it not for her inquisitive nature. Curiosity may indeed kill the cat, but the latter half of the saying was so often forgotten or dismissed.

And right at this moment in time, Frisk was once again treading into dangerous territory in her never-ending quest for satisfaction.

The door let out a slow creak that echoed horribly throughout the hallway, causing her to jolt and search for any sign of her caretaker while simultaneously struggling to formulate a believable justification for what she was doing before regaining her bearings and reminding herself that Sans was nowhere inside the house.

Tentatively, she tiptoed into the dark room.

The light that was cast from the hallway provided some much-needed illumination; she could see a wooden trunk of some sort next to a small child-sized bed, no two. One was decorated in blue sheets, and the other orange. Stepping closer, Frisk spotted something carved into the headboards of each. She inspected the blue one first – ‘Sans’ was chiseled in pretty cursive writing, accompanied by little artistic whittlings of bones.

This must have been his old bed from when he was a babybones, she thought with delight – after constantly being dwarfed the big guy for so long, it was almost impossible for her to imagine that he had ever been that small!

The second bed must have been his brother’s, then. Where his name had been on the first, the name ‘Papyrus’ was scrawled.

She wondered what had caused the two brothers to separate. She hadn’t asked Sans about it, hadn’t even mentioned his brother again after that one time, since the subject seemed to deeply depress him.

She doubted that this tiny bedroom would provide her with any answers, but Frisk wanted to look over everything that was present regardless.

The girl then turned her attention towards the chest that was situated between the two beds; there was a lock on it, she noticed despairingly. Was the key somewhere in this room? Or was it hidden in Sans’s? Or perhaps elsewhere in the house? After a swift but thorough search, she decided that it couldn’t be anywhere here.

It was time to search Sans’s room.

Meticulously, she poked through his belongings, making certain that everything was in its exact place prior to her tampering with it before moving onto another area. She peeked under the king-sized bed, in the compartments of his desk, even his sock drawer (scandalous!), and caught not a single glimpse of the key she was seeking. Just as she was considering giving up on her curious quest, sitting on the bed with an irritated huff and a pout, a sudden thought, or rather a heightened sense of intuition came to her. And with it followed a burst of determination to finish what she had began.

She then stood up and immediately thrust her hand beneath the mattress, groping the space between the fabric case and the rest of the bed until her fingers touched something cool and metallic. Frisk clasped her fingers around it and withdrew her arm from the cushiony confine and found that the object was indeed a key. Perhaps not the one she was looking for, but a key nonetheless.

She sprinted back to the chest and jammed the key into the lock; it fit perfectly, and when she twisted it, the latch came undone with a satisfying click. Setting both to the side, Frisk then lifted the lid to the trunk.

Inside it was... clothes. A lot of clothes. Specifically children’s clothes. Nothing too surprising, seeing as she was currently standing in what for all intents and purposes appeared to be the brothers’ childhood bedroom, but something felt... strangely off to her about them.

She pushed the garments out of the way, rummaging through the contents of the trunk for anything else of interest; she uncovered one other thing – a book.

Opening the cover revealed it to be a photo album. Frisk flipped through the pages, barely stifling the squeal that threatened to escape at the adorable sight of Sans as a small chubby child – she would swear her heart skipped a beat. The photographs in front of her were so precious that they almost hurt her heart!

Taking the album, Frisk sat down on the floor to get more comfortable as she witnessed more scenes from his life. One that particularly stood out was little Sans grinning as he was being held by a much taller and older skeleton with one arm, while another one with small beady eyes was slung over his other shoulder, giggling. Underneath the photo was written in that same exquisite cursive writing, ‘I take a day off to spend with Sans and Papyrus! It’s obvious they’ve missed me a lot, even though I’ve been right there with them this entire time...’.

Frisk felt her heart throb a bit again, this time out of sadness – this family was so happy in the past. She may not know their entire story, but whatever happened to them wasn’t fair at all.

More and more photos of the two young brothers and this other skeleton appeared. In many of them, the adult brother was wearing a robe and crown, with the boys wearing similar regal finery. It was only when she saw a picture of the three, all sitting on extravagant thrones in the backdrop of what most definitely seemed to be a castle that the ball dropped.

If this man was indeed the kind of monsters... then that made Sans a prince.

At once, a pathway to a possible answer, though still foggy in places, had been revealed to her; a reasoning as to why Sans had chosen to live here after he fought with his younger brother. Sans had previously mentioned that his older brother adored humans. After he passed away, the two must have had a disagreement involving this. Sans clearly loved them as well, and though he should have been next in line for the throne, it was entirely plausible that monsterkind rejected his rule because of this.

However, what she next discovered on the following pages caused her blood to run cold.

There were photos of Sans, now an adult, posed alongside children. Human children. She counted six different ones, three boys and three girls, with none ever appearing in the same picture together. But perhaps the most startling thing of all that she became aware of was that the clothes they wore were identical to the ones stowed away in the trunk where she had found the album.

...What happened to all these children?

They escaped the Underground, Frisk attempted to convince herself so she wouldn’t lose her mind. But a terrible ache in the pit of her stomach argued otherwise. If they had successfully returned to the surface, then why would their belongings be here? Something had happened to them, that much her heightened intuition was certain of.

...But surely Sans didn’t have anything to do with it.

......Did he?

She didn’t have to ponder over this for long, because the sudden creaking of the door behind her alerted Frisk to the presence of another. There he was, the very monster she had just begun to doubt, standing there at the doorframe, having caught her rummaging through his personal belongings in a room that he had all but explicitly stated through thinly veiled hints that he wanted her to stay out of and away from.

His expression was unreadable to her. He gazed at her with wide, empty sockets, his usual grin entirely absent on his face – his mouth was set in a firm line that conveyed no emotion whatsoever. Sans didn’t say a word, didn’t move a single bone that composed his skeletal body. He just stared at her with those giant vacant black holes in the front of his skull.

And Frisk then knew that what she had done, had utterly broken him.

“Sans... I...” She spoke, her voice near unintelligibly faint, but after a few more seconds of silence, Frisk gave up on any attempt to explain herself – there was nothing to say, nothing she could say to make this situation she had created any better.

He took one step towards her and she flinched. At this, the round white lights in his sockets returned, their appearance comparable to twin full moons in a starless night sky. They were large and gave off the impression of being unbearably sad, and the thin line of his mouth had morphed into a deep frown that dragged down the corners of his mouth further than she’d ever seen them before.

“...it’s not what you think.” He whispered, his voice sounding unnatural and croaky, as if holding back a sob. “i swear, it’s not. i didn’t do anything to them, frisk.”

She clutched the photo album closer, wrapping her arms around its cover and pressing it against her chest as if it were a lifeline. She didn’t move, aside from her trembling. She was firmly locked into place while being subjected to his probing gaze.

“...What happened to them then, Sans?” She fearfully questioned, her inquiry leaving her lips as nothing more than a murmur. “Who are these children?”

“...they were mine.” He said at last, taking a shuddering breath. “they were like you – they fell down here and i took care of them. they stayed a while, and then they left me. ...and then i never saw any of them again.”

“...Where are they now?” She asked, as if she didn’t already know.

He mumbled something unintelligible.

“I can’t hear you, Sans. You’re... you’re going to have to speak up if you want me to understand what it is that you’re saying...”

His shoulders were shaking, violently so. His tightly closed fists were clenching the fabric of his robe so roughly that it threatened to tear.

“Sans...?”

“for the love of god, frisk! don’t make me say it!”

His sudden shout caused her to cry out in alarm, letting out a short shriek of fright as she looked into those usually gentle, sleepy, and loving sockets that now displayed nothing but indescribable anguish, boundless sorrow, and unbridled fury.

Frisk didn’t push him further for an answer, but he gave her one regardless.

“you want to know where they are now, what happened to them?!” He hissed, his expression contorting to a hateful grimace as he thundered towards her. “they’re dead, frisk. they died... and he was the one that killed them!”

“Who?!” She inadvertently yelped, shambling backwards to put some distance between them until her back inevitably hit the wall.

“the king of monsters! the ruler of the underground! papyrus! my brother!” He howled in agony, his head tipping backwards with his scream while hot tears poured endlessly down his cheeks. “he killed every single one of them! one after the other! he made it law for any human discovered in the underground to be executed! and he didn’t show any of them the slightest shred of mercy, even though they were just children and he knew they were mine!”

At the end of his outburst, Sans then collapsed onto his knees, pounding the wooden flooring underneath him with his fists as though doing this would lessen the pain he felt inside by even the smallest of amounts.

He wouldn’t look at her, his head hung low as he glared at the floor with as much hatred as he could muster.

“before our older brother passed, all he asked of us in his final moments was to love them, the humans. to grant them mercy despite everything... despite what the humans had done to him...” He said with a wet sob. “papyrus was angry... and i was too. but i respected him enough to obey his last request. it’s what he would have wanted. not... not this! he never would have wanted humans to die and another war to be declared in his name! i knew that, so i don’t know why papyrus would think that senseless violence and bloodshed was what he would have wanted as a direct result of his own death, when what he requested was the exact opposite!”

Somewhere during Sans’s speech, Frisk had begun wailing herself, filled with remorse and regret.

She had wanted answers... but not like this.

She hadn’t expected her baneful curiosity would eventually lead to him becoming so upset that he would be reduced to a bawling puddle of bones before her very eyes.

“I’m sorry...! I’m so, so sorry, Sans!” She sniveled, shamefully burying her face into her hands.

She would have fully understood if he slapped her for betraying his trust the instant his back had been turned and causing him to relive such unpleasant, traumatic memories. What she didn’t understand was him weakly crawling towards her before gathering her trembling form in his arms, holding her close to him as if she were the most important thing in the world.

“...you know what this means, don’t you, frisk?” He mumbled throatily as he nuzzled the top of her head with his nasal ridge. When she didn’t respond, he continued, “you can’t ever leave this place, frisk. you can’t ever leave me... because the moment you do, the moment the other monsters find you, they’ll kill you.”

“...I can’t ever go to the surface again?”

“no, pumpkin. i’m sorry...”

“But...” Any protests that she may have had instantly died on her lips.

“i know this is a lot to take in, pumpkin. i said so before, that i really do believe if the rest of the monsters got to know you, if they would only give you the chance, they would grow to love you. ...but i thought the exact same of them, the children...”

“You... You told me that it would be three and a half months...” She recalled aloud, eyes wide. “You said it would be three months and a half months until I could move. Until I could leave-”

“i never said then that you could leave!” He cut her off, his expression and tone severe. “i said that’s how long it would take for you to make a complete recovery. ...i never once mentioned the possibility of you leaving the ruins.”

“But you led me to believe that I could.” She argued, a hint of accusation in her own tone. “...Just when were you planning on telling me the truth? About all of this?”

“i... i was going to, believe me, i was!” His front teeth bit down on the bottom of his mouth, a trait of his that manifested when under extreme stress. “it’s just... it seemed as if you enjoyed being with me. i thought... why bring up such a grim topic when you appeared perfectly happy?”

“I was happy... Being with you, Sans... every day felt like something to look forward to. You’ve given me perhaps some of the happiest moments of my life so far.”

“so naturally, you would want to leave me.” He bitterly spat, aiming a spurned pointed glare at her as he sarcastically added, “oh, i understand. i understand perfectly why you would want to leave now, frisk.”

“Sans-”

He abruptly grabbed her face, cradling her cheeks with his big skeletal hands, forcing her to look at him.

“would staying here really be as horrible as you obviously think it will be? because... because your only other option here... is death! would you really rather die a senseless death than stay here with me? is that the point that you’re trying to get across?!”

“Sans, you know that’s not-”

“then what?! what have i done wrong?!”

He was getting hysterical again, Frisk realized. She needed to say or do something that would settle him down.

“Sans, you’ve done nothing wrong.” She calmly lied, patting his still quaking shoulders consolingly. “This is... This is just a lot to take in at once, like you said. I think I might just need some time for it all to sink in. Can you give me that? Some time?”

“......ok.” He took a deep, shuddering breath. “if time is all you need, i can give you that. i’ll... i’ll give you anything you want, frisk. anything within my power and the bounds of reason. just... please don’t leave me!”

She didn’t say anything else; she just continued to soothingly stroke his bones until he regained his composure. By the time he did, it was late. And after all of that crying, both agreed that it was almost time for bed. Sans had cooked dinner for them, but Frisk told him that she had lost her appetite. He believed her excuse, but then told her that she was eating double portions at the breakfast table to make up for the lost meal.

For a long while after having headed back to the guest room, Frisk just laid back on the bed, arms held behind her head, staring up at the ceiling.

Waiting.

After no less than two hours had passed, this was when she decided to make her move. She climbed off the bed and took one last look at her surroundings that had become so familiar to her these past few months... then carefully crept down the hallway.

When she reached Sans’s room, she pressed her ear against the door and stilled her breath, listening. He didn’t snore when he slept, she had learned that some time ago, but he did audibly mumble. About what, she wasn’t entirely sure. Sometimes his murmuring made some amount of sense and on other occasions it was utter nonsense, but the meaning of his unconscious soliloquies wasn’t what she needed to dwell on.

No, what she couldn’t forget, the single thought that wouldn’t leave her mind and likely wouldn’t for some time was – Sans had drugged her.

It was the tea that he had fed her immediately after she had mentioned leaving several days ago, this she was sure of. She had become weak and lost consciousness shortly after swallowing it. It had seemed like a mere coincidence then, but now, after having witnessed firsthand his desperation to keep her here...

He may have had the best of intentions in doing so, but she couldn’t be around someone that would drug her, no matter how remorseful he was about it.

Now certain that he was deep in sleep, Frisk then made her way towards the descending staircase. Her heart hammered inside her chest with every step she took, but she had managed to make it down into the hallway underneath the house without making any noise.

As she rounded the corner, Frisk let out a long, soft sigh she hadn’t been aware she was holding. It was only a matter of time before she left this place behind, forever, and then it would be a fight for her own survival.

But despite how terrifying Sans had made it sound...

Frisk felt determined. Determined that she could survive the trials that awaited her in the Underground and reach the surface.

But this sudden spark of determination was immediately snuffed out when she saw who was waiting for her at the end of the hallway.

“this is the second time today that you’ve broken my trust, pumpkin.” Sans’s voice was unsettlingly calm considering the situation. “we’ve still got some time left until midnight – want to try and make it a third?”

...Where had he come from? How could he have made it to the doors before her when he would have had to of passed her in order to do so?

“...I thought you were asleep.”

“i could say the same for you.”

“How did you know? Were you awake the whole time and heard me in the hallway upstairs? Did you know the exact moment when I got out of bed?”

“no, i was definitely asleep. i didn’t hear a thing. but i felt it. i could feel you getting further and further away from me...” Sans’s left hand rose up to clutch at the fabric of his robe directly atop where his heart would be, if he had one. “...you’re really doing a number on my SOUL tonight, you know that, right?”

“Sans, let me go.”

“no! i’ll never let you go! i can’t! what part of certain death lying beyond this door are you not comprehending?!”

“I think I can make it to the surface, Sans.” She tried to remain firm with her resolution, standing her ground against him. “Those other humans did die before me, but they were children-”

“yes! you’re absolutely correct! they most certainly were children!” Came his dry, barking laughter. “and if monsterkind wouldn’t show mercy towards an innocent child, what makes you believe they would towards a stubborn adult woman?”

“I... I don’t know! I just think I can-”

“they all said the exact same thing! they all believed they were unstoppable...” He scowled at her, one of his pupils disappearing and the other turning a brightly glowing blue. “and i was convinced that this was true. all of their deaths were the result of my negligence. their demises are entirely my mistakes. ...but i won’t be making that same mistake again.”

Sans then raised his hand and a red heart, cartoonish in shape, burst from her chest. Its color then changed to a deep blue, and an unanticipated weight fell over her, not unlike the one that came when she consumed his drugged tea. She found it incredibly difficult to move, but not impossible.

Frisk took a few staggering steps towards him, towards the door. However, the girl was stopped in her tracks when she was magically lifted up into the air. She struggled to shake off the invisible grip his mysterious power had over her, but it was no use.

“Sans, put me down!” She hissed, narrowing her eyes at him in warning, but he wasn’t even looking at her.

He was looking down the hallway, where both of them had come from. He then began walking in that direction, with her still dangling in midair.

“Are you... Are you seriously going to leave me here like this?!” She yelped.

“of course not. it’s cold here.” He huffed, motioning her body forward with her having no choice but to obey his command.

“What... What are you going to do to me, then?” She fearfully inquired, causing his hardened gaze to soften just slightly.

“the first thing i’m going to do is put you to bed for the night. ...i’m not going to hurt you, pumpkin, if that’s what you’re thinking. never.” He assured her in his usual low and gentle tone. “...but if you insist on acting like a child, then i’m going to treat you like one until you can behave like the grown woman you actually are.”

As she was being dragged away, Frisk took one last look at the door that separated the Ruins from the rest of the Underground, knowing that she wouldn’t be seeing it again for a long, long time, if ever.

#franstastic writes #frans #sans x frisk #yandere altertale #sans #frisk #flowey

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