#Tw stitch scars

[crossbowwss]

"autopsy result"

[iexistapparantly]

She got a booboo

[rainrot4me]

Restless

Summary: Your demon boyfriend is struggling with a wave of insomnia. You’re willing to do whatever you can to help him relax.

Characters: Eyeless Jack x Female Reader

SMUT WARNING MINORS DNI

TW: Cunnilingus, vaginal, handjob, vaginal fingering, size differences, creampie, belly bulge, oral, teasing, somnophilia, Jack is a smug bastard

Words: 4.2k

A/N: Happy belated Valentine’s Day! I hope you all are well despite my absence interacting with everyone! I hope to get back in the swing of things shortly!!

Eyeless Jack is a daunting presence no matter the circumstance.

Whether the gray-skinned demon is lurking in damp woods with the intent of hunting his prey or brooding his irritation down in the mansion's cellar, anyone with the misfortune of meeting his nonexistent gaze knows it’s something you cannot ignore.

But you’re not afraid, especially not when his arm is wrapped dutifully under your waist and rubbing absent circles onto your hip bone. And that is also how you know he is lying wide awake beside you, despite his forced rhythmic breathing.

Rolling over, it’s an even more telltale sign of his restlessness when you find the crease of his brows knotted in silent frustration. You huff a silent breath, his grasp on your waist following as you roll to his side, lying your cheek on his broad shoulder splayed on his pillow. You catch his brow twitching at the touch of your hand on his bare chest.

“Can’t sleep?”

He huffs a breath of air, sighing with defeat as he peels his eyelids open to reveal the caverns of eyesockets that house no iris. His face is answer enough. You know that he’s looking at you, though. The chill that runs across your goosebumped skin is more than enough indication.

“No,” his voice is rough, laced with all the tiredness from the day prior but not matching the lack of exhaustion in his features. He rummages his tongue behind his lips as if to say something further, but decides closing his eyes again would be a better option.

“You want to talk about it?”

You shimmy further into his side, pressing a leg up to curl around his hips, where he grips his clawed hand under the pocket of your knee to hoist it higher. The tips of your toes barely reach the tops of his knees, his size practically swallowing you even beside him. He peels his eyelids open again.

“Also, no.” Reaching behind his pillow, he props his head up with his forearm. A telltale that he intends to stare at the ceiling for the rest of the night. You follow suit, pressing your elbow to the pillow under yourself and resting the weight of your head on your palm. He looks only slightly irritated when you begin to trace the hard lines of his face with your fingertip.

“Just because I cannot sleep doesn't mean you shouldn’t either, my dove,” he hums, capturing your roaming hand with his free one and plating a gentle kiss on the inside of your wrist. You tuck your face into the crook of his neck, the demon plating a gentle kiss onto the top of your head. He lets his eyelids blink shut in false hope.

Jack had been like this for days now. Unable to get a full night’s rest from the overwhelming tasks of the day prior. Slender was sending the proxies out at an obnoxious rate, rallying all the manpower he could over a dispute with another mansion. It was exhausting and incredibly bloody, which meant Jack rarely saw daylight with how many hours he spent stitching up or cauterizing bullet and knife wounds down in the recesses of the basement. His fingers were still practically pinched to hold a needle even as he lay here beside you.

As a member of Slender’s band yourself, you can’t fault any of them for fulfilling orders, but you find yourself silently seething when it comes at the expense of Jack’s sanity.

“I don’t mind,” you breathe, letting your now-free fingers trace across his bare chest, tracing the lighter scarring and divots from past encounters lazily. “I could help you out, anyway.” 

Jack hugs you closer but doesn’t respond to your offer, so you carry on.

“I could... give you a massage?” You offer sleepily, pressing an affectionate kiss to his cheek.

He doesn’t bother to respond beyond a quiet, breathy chuckle.

Your hand meanders over his toned abdomen in comforting, absentminded patterns. Roaming over old scar tissue and through unkept trails of body hair, “D’you want something to eat?” you ask against the skin of his jaw, “I saved some meat from your last hunt.”

“Thank you, pet, but I’ll be alright.”

“Mm,” your low-hummed response vibrates against his side, and your pinkie finger slips just beneath the band of his boxers, grazing across from one large hipbone to the other. Your lips brush the shell of his pointed ear. “D’you want me to suck your cock?”

Jack’s breath hitches, then shudders. His eyelids slowly peel open. 

He’s met with a mischievous grin on your face.

“You don’t need to–”

“I want to,” you coo against his jaw as you trail slow, methodical kisses across his chilled skin. He leans into the sensation, craning his neck to give you better access to the point where his veins run up his throat. He releases a low rumble of approval, and you meet his half-lidded absent gaze, sharp with both mirth and lust, even through the crowding fog of exhaustion. You don’t need the pleasure of pupils to see that he’s gazing at you with silent want.

It’s not without planting a kiss every couple of inches down that you shimmy your way further down his body. Coming to rest between his legs, it pleases you when you press your mouth against his clothed crotch to find him already half-hard.

You hook your fingers over the band of Jack’s boxers, his hips lifting in silent invitation as you ease them down. The cool bedroom air brushes against your skin, ruffling your hair as Jack flicks the duvet aside with a lazy throw. His eyes—dark, absent voids in the low light—watch you with heavy-lidded interest, his lips curling at the edges in a lazy smirk. A fang just barely peeks from the gap in his lips, and you can’t help but feel the flutter in your stomach.

He props himself up on one elbow, but you press a firm hand against his chest, feeling the steady thrum of something not quite human beneath your palm.

“Nuh-uh,” you murmur, a stern edge to your voice. “Lie back. Let me take care of you.”

Jack exhales a slow, unamused breath but obeys, sinking back into the pillows with an air of indulgence. Shadows coil at the edges of the room, stretching and shifting with the thick moonlight between the curtains, but your attention is solely on him.

You catch the spit from your lips between your fingertips and watch with keen amusement as Jack’s gut flexes at the slick contact. You roll your wrist on the tip of his head. Once. Twice.

You waste no time with teasing tonight. 

Instead, you offer yourself completely, the warmth of your mouth and the slow, deliberate glide of your hands working in unison to unravel him. Spit collects, your fist quick to catch anything that dribbles from your lips to stroke back upwards. The occasional flex of his claws against the sheets betrays his restraint, but he lets you set the pace—lazy, deep, unhurried.

Jack is large, obnoxiously so, but you let your throat relax. Unhurried with the usual cascade of noises that come with using your mouth, you let the low moans and quiet slick of your spit mix pleasantly with the lullaby of noises from further up the bed.

The grizzled grunts and lupine growls that usually accompany sex with Jack reshaped instead to soft gasps and lilting whimpers.

It’s a very nice alternative.

His breath hitches when you pause, just briefly, to swirl your tongue in a way you know drives him wild. His muscles tense, then loosen, and one clawed hand twitches toward you before falling away, opting instead to rest against his own ribs, rising and falling with measured breaths.

You don’t let that action go unnoticed.

Sliding your free hand up the rippled muscle of his thigh, you reach for his wrist. You guide him, slotting his clawed fingers in between the strands of your hair. The warmth of his palm is a comfort against your head, a silent guide.

The room is hushed, wrapped in the intimate lull of slow-building pleasure. Jack’s chest rises and falls beneath your touch, his sharp features softened in the low light, his body melting into the warmth of your devotion. His fingers flex in your hair, claws barely grazing your skin, his hips shifting in time with your movements.

Everything is slow, indulgent, and a pleasure drawn out to its fullest. And from the way Jack’s lips part on a breathy exhale, his sharp, inhuman gaze growing hazy with bliss—you know he won’t make it much longer.

You intend to finish him off slowly. An outstretched ripple of pleasure that’s sure to have him passed out the moment he finishes. You press your tongue along the vein that runs up his length, tracing a familiar line. It doesn’t seem to have the desired effect.

Jack’s lulled state is slowly dissipating, his legs shifting outwards as the claw against your head moves downwards underneath your jaw. His hand more than covers the circumference of your throat, and slowly pulls you up and off of his length. 

“Jack?”

But then he’s sitting up, and his claws wrapping around your middle, dragging you up from between his legs.

“I hope you didn’t intend on my cumming in your mouth,” he rumbles as you straddle onto his ribs, hands braced on his chest. 

The lazy look in his eyes is still evident, heavy eyelids adding to the frazzled look of his blissed face. You smirk, bracing your forearms on his chest to get closer to his face. “What? Couldn’t stand the thought of not bruising my insides for once?”

“But that’s my favorite part, dove…” he smirks that evil, sultry look that makes your chest swirl with want. You don’t let him by without an eye roll, though. You school the pounding in your chest—no doubt thudding loud and clear in the demon’s ears—and press up off of his chest.

It’s quick movements that have Jack’s claw reaching behind your back and between your legs, the fastest he’s moved all night to tug your panties to the side. There’s already a generous amount of slickness between your legs, the insistent thrumming of pleasure that spikes up your gut when the pads of his fingers press wholly against your clit.

You lean into your chest, fingers clinging to his shoulders as your nose finds the crook of his neck. Hungry, self-serving kisses follow, your quiet moans vibrating off his gray skin as masterful fingers rub you into a state of ease. He’s just as unhurried as you were between his legs, but you can’t tell if that’s a blessing or a curse with the way your nails catch on the muscles of his shoulders.

“This-hng was supposed to help you sleep—not get you riled up,” you gasp between kisses, feeling the weight of Jack’s forearm as he bypasses your leg with his opposite hand to begin stroking himself below you.

A mirth-filled chuckle hums in his chest as his fingers collect slick, aiding his practiced rotation on your clit. 

“Trust me, pet. This’ll have you sleeping ‘till tomorrow night.”

You let out an exasperated whine.

Jack retracts his hand when he’s satisfied, planting a quick kiss on your forehead before setting you back up.

His legs are bent now, giving you a rest for your back as you shift to straddle his hips, hovering above the twitching length that lays heavy on his abdomen. He’s still slick from your spit, gleaming in the low light as you steady yourself.

Jack retracts his grip on your hips, crossing his arms and tucking them under his head to get a nice prop for viewing. You cut daggers at him.

“Oh, now you wish to rest.”

He smiles that sharp, toothy grin that makes butterfly wings run rampant in the pit of your gut, swirling heavily with the pleasure that’s coaxing your movements downwards.

Panties tugged to the side, you set yourself on the length of his cock, pressing your core against the veins that run up him. Jack groans, soft hums of approval as you roll your hips down, grinding against the feel of him. Your wetness makes it easy to move, hands planted onto the center of his sternum that gives you enough leverage to roll your clit from base to tip of him.

“There you go…” he breathes, sighing as his eyelids blink slowly, like they’re struggling to open back up again. He won’t last another couple of minutes, you know it. 

Pressing your knees down into the sheets, you reach beneath yourself, wrapping a fist around the base of his cock. It’s like second nature the way his tip immediately slots through your folds and presses against your entrance. Jack’s breath stills, anticipation heavy in the air as he shifts his legs closer. 

You press your back against the top of his thighs.

Any and all tenseness is wiped clean away as you begin to push him inside. Your mouth falls open in a silent whine at the slow, perfect stretch, and you battle the flutter of your lashes to watch the hypnotic fog of pleasure that rolls across Jack’s face.

You arch your back further, hands planting atop each of his kneecaps as you slowly rock yourself downwards. His tip bulbs in. Out. In again. And then you press it past the tight ring of muscle.

The stretch is always hypnotic. Like a strain on your brain that pushes itself through, completely swarming your senses and encapsulating your every thought. If you weren’t so practiced, the pressure alone could send you into a brain-dead state.

You slip further and further down, his girth growing along the way. A quick glance up shows the disheveled state of the demon’s hair, strands falling into his face and offering a cover to the darkened state of his cheekbones. 

He looks deliciously wrecked.

Hollow eyes squeeze briefly shut with a short, rough moan that harmonizes with your high, breathy one when he hits something deep that makes you tremble and clench. Before you’ve realized it, you’ve nearly taken all of him, and you can feel it.

“You’re too-hah big for your own good…” you huff through slow breaths.

“You love it,” he growls, the vibration rumbling all the way from his throat to where you’re connected.

You roll your pelvis and are rewarded with a heavy groan and twisted brow, the sight and sound so intoxicating that you rock again, and again. The angle of him inside you is so mind-numbingly exquisite that you find it hard to focus.

You brace your hands on his chest and straighten, relishing the way he looks underneath you—so tired, yet so eager for more. 

Your thighs shake, a satisfying muscular burn from the slow, sensual ride. Raising yourself up, circling your hips to nudge the head of his cock in a tunneling spiral inside your heat as you sink back down again, the teasing movement dragging a deep, strained curse from Jack’s lips.

His hands leave their position behind his head, trailing down the sheets to the top of your kneecaps.

They slowly slide up, claws dragging pink irritated lines across the topside of your thighs until they snag on the crease of your hips. He holds your waist in that way that makes you feel so deliciously small, fingertips nearly touching around you.

“My dove…”

The rumble in his voice shoots straight through you, his breath stuttering as you clench around him. 

You start to offer a slow, sensual ride that has every press of your hips tugging moans from the two of you. Jack’s hold is keeping you steady, the pace more focused on getting him as deep as you can rather than fast.

“Fuck—”

The breathy curse slips, clearly accidental, from above you, and your gaze flicks upwards. 

Jack stares up at the ceiling, unblinking with strangled focus. 

You know what he’s doing.

“Quit- hah- quit holding back,” you grit, wrapping your hands around his forearms in return for the shallow bounces up and down his length. The swell of his cock knocks against your g-spot from this angle, forcing breathy, sharp whines every time you move.

“Mmn,” he grumbles, gaze flickering down towards you, before back up to the ceiling. “Don’t want-hn to so soon.”

For someone with no eyes, Jack’s biggest turn-on is seeing you. The curve of your body. The bounce of your tits. The sweat that glistens off your skin in the moonlight.

He thinks by staring at something besides you he can prevent the inevitable. But your intention for tonight is to get him tired enough to go to sleep, not to see how long he can last without filling you past the point of comfort.

You pull out the best trick you’ve got.

Ditching his arms, you lay back again, shoulder blades pressing atop his kneecaps.

From there, you arch.

You hold all the grace of a bow bending from the stretch of a string, and Jack is your archer.

“Jack—” you cry, sharp breaths following as you bounce yourself up and down.

The demon flashes his gaze down, and his body snaps with so much electricity you can practically feel the thrum of pleasure that ricochets through him. His hold tightens, and his shoulders bow off his pillow.

The bulge of his cock is clearly visible from your abdomen, skin stretching to accommodate the swell of his tip against your insides. It’s a mouthwatering sight, one even Jack can’t resist, as he watches the bump flatten only to reappear with each movement of your hips.

“God,” he groans, a strangled grumble of your name following as he takes hold, setting his own deep pace.

You let your body go lax, throwing your head back as Jack fucks up into you with all the grace he can muster. His cock knocks against your sweet spots, stretching and filling you so full you.

He lifts your waist, your kneecaps leaving the mattress as Jack takes the initiative. Planting his feet, he snaps his hips up desperately, chasing the feel of his cock bulging in your stomach under the press of his clawed fingertips that brush over the skin.

His hands are at your waist, scorching, lifting, and pulling your hips into each sunken thrust. Grinding your aching bud against his pelvis—

“I- I’m- fuck. Gonna,” you pant out, hissing through your bared teeth as you teeter over that lovely precipice. “Jack—”

Your nails dig into his forearms.

It’s the ragged, lust-drunk groan of your name that breaks you. Jack’s mouth falls open around a strangled cry—a silent thing that lodges in his throat, with only the end crackling free over his tongue. 

You both snap at the same moment.

It’s the quivering heat of you coming undone around him, because within moments Jack follows you straight over the precipice. Claws snagging you impossibly downwards as his face twists into the most gorgeous expression of pleasure you’ve ever seen. 

Completely, beautifully wrecked. 

A broken moan pours from scarred lips with yours as he spills himself deep inside you. Throbbing hips grind together as you both tumble through the unceasing riptide of your shared orgasm.

His hold on you falters, and you collapse down onto his chest, sweat-glistened skin pressed against yours. Both of your lungs heave like bellows, and his claws find their way atop your back, holding you close to him. 

After what feels like an eternity, and yet still far too soon, the joint orgasmic rush begins to wane. Gradually lowering you back to reality, until you find yourselves quietly cradled together.

It’s not without a whimper of soreness that you shift upwards, shifting your hips until the swelled length inside of you slips out with a satisfying pop. The warmth of his cum seeps from between your legs, spilling onto the demon’s lower abdomen—there’s always so much.

You barely make it an inch before you’re collapsing back onto his chest.

“You okay, handsome?” You ask gently, voice hushed.

He hums, groggy and laced with overbearing exhaustion.

“Sore?” He asks you quietly.

You shake your head.

“Tired?” You smile.

A tiny huff and a gleam of his fangs, followed by a conceding tilt of his head. You chuckle, nuzzling into the swell of his chest. Sleepiness creeps at the corner of your vision, exhaustion tugging you into the faux warmth underneath you.

Until you feel the slick between your legs start to dribble down your legs.

You raise your head, lips parted to excuse yourself to the bathroom, but immediately still yourself. You find that he’s fallen fast asleep. His heavy frame relaxed fully into the mattress, and his features smoothed and peaceful. You smile to yourself, before letting your head drop back to his chest, finding comfort in the relaxed rhythm of sleep-driven breathing beneath you.

Oh well.

You’ll deal with it in the morning.

-

You wake with Jack’s fingers between your legs.

It’s not a rude awakening, but a surprising one. You rise slowly, exhaustion still heavy in your features as you breathe deep, taking in the feel of a heavy body pressed against your back. You just have shifted off of Jack’s chest in your sleep.

Jack’s claw has slipped underneath your panties—still damp from the night before—circling and skimming over your core, and his other claw up under your top rolling your nipple between his thumb and forefinger.

The demon knows you're awake not only by the accelerated thrum of your heartbeat in his ears, but by the soft mewls that begin to stir from your lips.

“Good morning, dove,” he grumbles against your shoulder.

“Mm, it’s good so far…”

Jack trails slow, deliberate kisses along your neck and jaw, his lips warm against your skin as his claws, carefully restrained, glide between your thighs. His fingers move with reverence, sweeping through your slick folds, stroking over your clit, circling your entrance—not in a teasing way, but indulgently, like he has all the time in the world to worship you.

And you let him. Melting back against the sheets, your quiet hums of pleasure fill the stillness of the room.

Before long, Jack shifts lower, moving with unhurried ease as he slides your panties over your hips and tosses them aside. His clawed fingers skim along your legs, a fleeting contrast of sharpness and care, before he settles between them. His gaze flickers up to meet yours—heavy-lidded, dark, burning with something that makes your stomach tighten.

He deems to only use one tongue today, mercifully.

He parts you with that same slow reverence, his mouth finding you with unrelenting patience. His tongues, lips, and fingertips work in perfect harmony, a steady, languid rhythm meant to keep you on the edge, drawing pleasure out in slow, rolling waves. He’s in no rush. His only goal is to unravel you completely, to watch you lose yourself in the pleasure he gives.

His eyes flutter shut as he works, lost in it, his breath warm against your skin. His grip tightens—just slightly—when you shudder beneath him, muscles tensing, hips shifting to chase his touch. Still, he keeps the pace unhurried, each stroke, each flick of his tongue, a deliberate act of devotion.

When release finally washes over you, it isn’t a sharp, fiery explosion but a deep, all-consuming exhale, as if you’ve surfaced from deep water after being held under for too long. It leaves you trembling, shivering beneath him, your breath coming in soft, uneven sighs.

Jack lingers, savoring the last of your pleasure before finally rising to rejoin you. He braces his forearms on either side of your shoulders, settling between your thighs, the solid heat of his stomach pressing against yours. The weight of him grounds you, but he’s sure to not let himself fully lay atop you. His breath fans warm over your cheek, lips curling into a slow, knowing smirk—rather satisfied with himself.

“What in the world was that for?”

“You know exactly what you did.”

You chuckle quietly, rubbing your hands across his muscled biceps. Jack leans forward, wrapping his lips with yours, the sweet taste of your release still on his tongue.

The fresh, relaxing air of the morning is quickly shattered as a hurried knock splinters on the other side of Jack’s bedroom door. 

“Hey! Uh-Uhm, Jack!” Toby’s hurried voice reverbs on the other side, the boy sounding just slightly panicked, “Jeff’s kinda been shot—again.”

It’s not without a groaned sigh that Jack lets his head fall onto your shoulder, taking a deep breath as Toby’s footsteps retreat back down the mansion’s hallway.

“Maybe this time I should just let him bleed out,” he groans, raising up and off of you. You’re quick to sit up, wrapping your arms around his broad shoulders as the demon sits off the edge of the bed.

A quick kiss to his temple, then your lips press against the shell of his ear, “If you hurry, then maybe I’ll hold off on taking a shower until you get back up here for round two.”

Never have you ever seen the demon get dressed and down to the basement that fast.

Thanks for reading!

Comments and kudos are appreciated!

[yandere-daydreams]

Title: Ferine.

Pairing: Yandere!Toji x Reader (JJK).

Word Count: 4.1k.

TW: Hybrid AU, Non/Con, Fem!Reader, Slight Manipulation, Rough Sex, Oral Sex, Knotting, Mentions of Blood + Violence, Slight Breeding, and Biting.

Toji was, by far, the largest hybrid you’d ever taken care of.

Which, technically speaking, wasn’t that big of an accomplishment. This was barely your third month at the research facility, and you could count the number of hybrids you’d encountered before being hired here on a single hand. Still, even compared to the other wolves you currently looked after, Toji was beyond impressive. His long, pointed ears and stocky build set him well above six-foot, and even if he’d lacked height, he would’ve been able to make up for it with the planes of sculpted muscle circled around his biceps and thighs, laid over his chest and back. Top it all off with a set of claws each longer than your pointer finger and sharp enough to pierce reinforced steel, and he was practically fit for exhibit. Not that Toji could ever actually be a show dog, no – he’d tear the judges apart before they’d so much as heard his name. He was sweet, but he had a temper. You had to be careful not to set him off.

His fangs were impressive, too – perfectly in-tact despite years of less-than-adequate care, only a touch duller than a real wolf’s. You were careful not to let your hand stray from where it cupped his cheek as you looked for signs of damage or rot only to, of course, come up empty. The longer you spent with him, the more convinced you were that nothing could actually hurt Toji, even if the faded scar stitched into the corner of his mouth suggested otherwise.

“All done,” you started, letting go of his cheek. Immediately, Toji’s jaw snapped shut with enough strength to take off a finger, had you given him the chance. “Perfect as always, Toji. I think you might be my best patient.”

A cocky smile found its way to his lips, and you could hear his tail beating lazily against the dirt floor of his enclosure. The facility was committed to replicating the natural environments of their more exotic hybrids as closely as possible, even if Toji claimed he’d trade it all for a punching bag, or better yet, something ‘real’ to dig his teeth into, whatever that meant. “Do I get a treat, doc?”

It was asked playfully, but still, you hummed by way of confirmation, pulling your duffle bag into your lap and fishing Toji’s well-earned rewards – a generic chocolate bar and a can of some painfully acidic, sickeningly sweet brand of soda your hybrid patients couldn’t seem to get enough of. It was a meager prize, but it was as much as you were able to spare considering how strict his caretakers were when it came to his diet. You’d probably save yourself a few dirty looks if you didn’t give him anything at all, but it didn’t feel right to leave him empty-handed.

He accepted your humble offering greedily. While the chocolate bar was stowed away for later consumption, the can was pierced with a clawed thumb and emptied in one long, unpleasantly audible swig. You’d only started to push yourself to your feet when Tojj finished, letting the now empty can fall to the ground before turning his attention back to you. “It hurts my feelings, knowing you’re just gonna run off and put your hands on another animal.” His ear pressed flat against his scalp, as if he was trying (and failing) to feign disappointment. “If I didn’t know better, I’d start to think you didn’t really care about all the time we’ve spent together.”

“You’re not exactly in desperate need of medical attention,” you chided, throwing your bag over your shoulder. “And I’m on a schedule. Not all of us can sit around, grooming ourselves all day.”

That earned a breathy laugh, a coy lilt to his smile. “Well, if you wanted to take a shot at it, I wouldn’t—”

“Save it. I get enough of that with the cats.” Just thinking about it made you grimace. It was one thing to think that Toji might bite you. Knowing Satoru and Suguru – the bonded leopard and panther pair who shared a check-up date with Toji – would insist on licking any exposed skin raw before letting you do your job was a much more tangible reality. “I’ll see you in a couple of days. You’ll be good until then, right?”

“I’m gonna gut those fucking strays.” His answer was blunt, immediate, but he cracked as soon you shot him a purse-lipped frown. “Kidding, kidding. I’ll just rough ‘em up a little – make ‘em regret putting their paws on you, y’know?”

You couldn’t help but soften. Toji was rough around the edges, but he wasn’t a bad dog. He just had a protective streak and that, paired with his brash personality and tendency to bite before he barked, was enough for most people to write him off.

You really did have a long, long list of other appointments you had to get to before the end of the day, but against your better judgement, you paused as you passed him, reaching down to rake your fingers through sleek black hair. He was stoic, especially for a hybrid, but even his cool, dark eyes and wry smile couldn’t hide the way his tail moved just a little faster at the feeling of your nails raking over his scalp, his ears immediately perking up. It only took a second for him to bat your hand away, but you only laughed as you started towards the staff exit, waving to Toji over your shoulder.

Maybe, for his next check-up, you’d see if you could sneak in something special.

~

“Your mutt’s been unruly, lately.”

You glanced up from your clipboard, turning your full attention to Nanami and quickly finding that he hadn’t paid you the same courtesy. He was one of the senior researchers and, so far, the only one you could stand to be around for any longer than a few minutes. Since the higher-ups expected you to fill out your reports with one hand while you took a four-hundred-pound tiger’s temperature with the other, you tended to camp out in Nanami’s office when you had paperwork to file. “Toji?” Nanami nodded, and you rolled your eyes. “I’m just the vet, Kento. If his handlers aren’t doing their—”

“The problem isn’t his handlers, it’s him.”

His voice was flat, his tone icy. You laid your clipboard over your lap, crossing your arms over your chest. “He’s an animal. It’d be more out of character if he didn’t lash out occasionally.”

Nanami opened his mouth, but closed it just as quickly. After a lengthy pause, he leaned back in his seat, bringing a hand to his temples and massaging absentmindedly. “Do you know why he hasn’t been released back into the wild, yet?”

Obviously. Working with hybrids – let alone exotic hybrids – was dangerous, and your debriefing had drilled the face, name, and background of every animal in the facility into your memory. “He was born in captivity. He’s too acclimated to human society to adjust to the wilderness.”

Nanami pressed his lips into a thin line – an expression you’d learned to read as ‘you’re right, but I’m not going to say that’. Still, a degree of satisfaction accompanied his silent confirmation. “He was found in a dog fighting ring – or, what was left of one, at least. It took three rounds of sedation and two broken muzzles before our recovery team was able to get him under control.”

A knot formed at the base of your throat. Fuck chocolate, Toji deserved a blanket and as many hugs as he would let you give him. “That’s terrible, Kento. Were the organizers arrested?”

“The organizers—” Nanami straightened. “—were found mauled and stuffed into a kennel. Their bodies were so thoroughly mutilated, we had to rely on blood samples to identify them.”

“Wolves aren’t known for attacking unprovoked. It could’ve been another—”

“One of his handlers is currently hospitalized,” Nanami went on, as if you hadn’t cut in. “And two have already turned in their resignations – a resounding fear for their welfare in the workplace, supposedly.”

Your eyes fell to the floor, and that knot in your throat tightened until only the barest whisper could find its way out. “He’s not a bad dog,” you muttered, nearly under your breath. “He just— He loses his temper, sometimes. He doesn’t mean to hurt anymore.”

“He’s never tried to hurt you?”

You didn’t have to think before shaking your head. “Never.”

That, of all things, seemed to catch Nanami’s attention. For the first time, his eyes flickered briefly to you before falling back to his desk, his paperwork. “Good,” he said, marking down something on a piece of scrap paper in front of him. If he felt the need to elaborate, he clearly didn’t deem it worth the effort.

Later that day, you were informed that you were being transferred to the reptile wing indefinitely. If you’d been there for a few more months, if you’d had a little more experience to throw around, if you’d had a little more authority, you might’ve protested, but it was all you could do to nod and set to memorizing your new schedule.

~

It took exactly three weeks for you to see Toji again.

One of his handlers – a woman in her early twenties sporting a pressed scowl and a gauze-padded bandage on her cheek – met you at the facility’s gates and flatly told you that Toji was injured. You’d never been in the facilities (much less with a hybrid) after sundown, and in the simulated wilderness of his enclosure, it was easy to forget that you were never more than twenty feet away from a security camera, that there was only one apex predator you had to be afraid of. After checking your usual meeting spot (clear spot near the center of his enclosure – neutral territory, safe territory) and finding it vacant, you reluctantly stumbled your way to his den, dragging your feet despite the urgency of the situation. Toji wouldn’t deliberately attack you, but any animal could react if provoked. You didn’t want to set him off. More importantly, you didn’t want to prove Nanami right.

You’d never ventured far enough to see his den, but you knew what to expect. A square shell of cement occupied the deepest corner of Toji’s enclosure, bracketed off by a metal door tucked inside of a deep entryway meant to give the illusion of privacy. You approached it slowly, stepping underneath the shadowed overhang with no small amount of caution, but you didn’t get the chance to knock before a hand manifested on your shoulder and shoved you against the cold steel.

Claws bit into to the dip of your shoulder, then your wrist, too, as he caught your hand and shoved it into the small of your back. You felt hot air on the nape of your neck, heard heavy panting laced with the barest trace of a throaty growl, and it took everything you had not to panic, not to struggle, not to give him a reason to dig his teeth into your neck and tear. Toji wasn’t a bad dog, but he was still a dog. He’d still bite, if given an excuse.

“Toji,” you started, slowly, taking care to soften each harsh syllable of his name. “I’m here to help you.”

He didn’t respond, his hold only tightening. His check pressed into your back, and there was a short, airy noise – sniffing, as little as you wanted to put a name to it. “Toji,” you repeated, with more urgency. “I heard you were hurt. Will you let me help you?”

A second passed in silence, then another. Finally, he pulled away from you, releasing your wrist first, then your shoulder. He remained where he was – a little too close, a little too looming – as you shuffled to face him, forcing yourself not to consciously acknowledge that you were in a very big cage with a very poorly behaved animal. His handlers hadn’t mentioned why they’d needed you, but you didn’t have to wonder for very long. Even in the pitch dark, you could see the dark blood covering his jaw, washed over his throat and chest. It was on his hands, too, coating the white bone of his claws, and matted into his dark hair. Your waning self-control faltered then shattered altogether, your hands shooting to his head, his face, searching for bruising or swelling or broken bones, but surprisingly, all your worry earned was an airy laugh. “It’s not mine, doc.” He laid a hand over yours. “I’m doin’ just fine. Even better, now that you’re here.”

But he wasn’t. Twin sets of puncture marks were littered across his throat, his face, his arms. Something had taken a chunk out of his left bicep, and five matching scratch marks had been etched deep into the skin of his chest. The wounds looked feline, but you couldn’t bring yourself to linger on the implications. “You’re hurt,” you muttered, more to yourself than to him. Your hands fell to his shoulders, pushing him downward gently. “I— I’ve got bandages, and sutures—” You let your bag fall from your shoulder to your elbow, already reaching for the zipper. “Find somewhere to sit. We should get you cleaned up before something worse sets in.”

Panic was quickly overshadowing your better judgement, but Toji didn’t move, didn’t look away from you. He was still wearing that coy, sardonic grin – almost teasing, given your anxiety. “I already told you, I’m just fine.” His smile widened, until his pointed fangs caught in the dim light. “I didn’t think you’d actually come. They said I could ask for whatever I wanted, but—” He paused, sucked in a sharp breath. “I didn’t think you’d actually come.”

“Toji, you’re not making any sense. You need help.” Again, you pushed gently on his shoulders, and again, he didn’t seem to notice. This time, though, he shifted, leaned toward you, burying his face in the crook of your neck. You scowled, shoving a little less gently on his chest, but Toji didn’t move. “Toji, please, just let me help—”

“You’re gonna be the death of me, princess.” You felt his hands on your waist, then your ass. His chest was slotted against yours, and his tongue ran unabashedly over the curve of your neck once, then twice before he went on. “Keep sayin’ my name like that, and I won’t be able to control myself.”

Something pressed into your thigh – hot and hard and, like the rest of Toji, fucking huge. Your heart fell into your stomach, the air flooding out of your lungs and leaving you dazed, breathless.

Fuck. Fuck.

You should’ve stuck with the fucking reptiles.

Toji was panting audibly, again; his tongue lapping over your neck, your cheek. You were still cursing yourself for ever applying for this shitty job in the first place when Toji fell to his knees, forcing your thighs onto his shoulders as his claws caught on the fabric of your pants, decimating the thin material in an instant. His teeth tore away your panties just as quickly, leaving you exposed, splayed out on a silver platter in front of him. You reacted reflectively – knotting your fingers in his hair and doing your best to pry him away from you, but your strength was nothing compared to his and in the end, all you earned was a throaty groan, a tight squeeze to your ass before he buried his face in your cunt. His teeth grazed against the tender insides of your thighs, his claws biting into your now-unprotected skin, but the feeling of his tongue laving over the length of your slit replaced every other sensation with pure heat.

Predictably, he was near animalistic – his thick tongue fucking into you as the bridge of his nose ground shamelessly into your clit. From a distance, it would’ve been hard to tell if he was trying to eat you out or eat you alive; every noise he made feral and wet, punctuated with rough growls and little, uncharacteristic whines. It would’ve been impossible not to feel anything, but still, you couldn’t help but hate yourself when it started to feel good. His tongue was thick and textured, long enough to fill your pussy and flexible enough to curl inside of you, abusing the walls of your cunt without mercy. It was difficult to tell how much of the gloss staining his chin and the inside of your thighs was his drool and how much of it was your arousal, but even if your mind was disgusted by every slick noise and sharp flick of his tongue, there was nothing your body could do to block out the sudden pang of heat in your core, to fight the way your legs ached to clench around his head and pull the source of your revulsion that much closer.

“To—Toji, no, st—” you tried to say, like you were scolding a normal dog, like any part of you still thought he was listening. A cracked moan cut you off prematurely, and even if it hadn’t, Toji’s only response was a bruising squeeze to your ass, a low moan just loud enough to reverberate against your sensitive clit. Blinding white flashed across your vision, and before you could stop, before you could bring yourself back from that edge, you were coming undone on his tongue, your hips bucking against his face as he nursed you through your mind-numbing climax. Rather than pull away, he forced his tongue that much deeper into your pussy – taking advantage of your hypersensitivity to drag another unwilling orgasm out of you, then another, until the dried blood smeared across his lips was tacky and dripping onto your skin. He only pulled away when your little, pained sounds began to die into half-choked pleas and your limited strength failed, leaning you limp and boneless on top of him, and even then, he took the time to drag his tongue over your slit, to lap up what would’ve been wasted slick. You would’ve given anything for him to just leave you like that – messy and covered in your own arousal, but unfortunately, Toji had never been a bad dog.

His gaze flitted up to meet yours. “Sorry, princess,” he muttered, when he saw the misery knitted into your expression. The broad grin he wore was anything but apologetic, though. “Might’ve gotten carried away after all. Can’t help it – you always come to me, smellin’ like other men, and nobody ever lets me do anything about it.” He nuzzled into the inside of your thigh, nipping at the tender flesh with just enough force to break the skin. There was a tight pinch, of bright spark of pain, but Toji tended to the minimal wound lovingly, running his tongue over the thin stream of blood. “Gonna have you nice n’ scented by the end of the night.” A sharp whimper slipped past your grit teeth as the points of his fangs grazed over your skin, and Toji sighed. “Gonna have you nice n’ bred, too, if you keep making those sounds.”

Bred. Bred. Bred. You turned the offensive word over in your mind, unable to grasp what it possibly could’ve meant, as Toji carefully lowered you onto the ground – never so much as toying with the idea of fucking you into anything other than the cold, raw earth. It wasn’t until his clawed hand fell to the hard, pulsing cock standing stiffly between his legs that you were able to fully process what he’d said, what he was threatening to do to you. Your thoughts went blank, your years of veterinary school and countless hours of animal-handling training and common sense all dissolving into total nonexistence in an instant. It didn’t matter that he was taller than you, stronger than you – you were already throwing your full weight against him, scratching at his chest with your blunt nails, doing everything in your so incredibly limited power just to get away from him. Your latest wave of resistance wasn’t enough to overwhelm him, but it earned a frustrated rumble at the base of his throat, a downward quirk to his cocky smile. Your nails caught one of the puncture marks on his cheek and, reflexively, he straightened his back, brought his hand to his face, left just enough space between your body and his for you to roll onto your chest and scramble desperately towards freedom. You’d barely gotten your knees underneath you when his hand lashed out, catching you by the collar and forcing your cheek into the soil. His chest pressed into your back, his legs caging yours in on either side, and worst of all, his cock throbbed against your ass – somehow, impossibly, harder than it’d been a few seconds ago. You might’ve jotted it down as an impressive display of canine resilience, if you hadn’t felt so desolated.

“Shoulda figured you wouldn’t make this easy on yourself.” His voice was rougher than it had been, but no less self-satisfied. That made sense. Wolves were endurance predators. He would’ve come into this expecting there to be a struggle. “I thought you’d be more of a mate than a bitch, but—” He paused, his mouth settling against the nape of your neck. “—either’s fine by me.”

You clenched your eyes shut. “Please, Toji, don’t do—”

But, it was already too late. He rutted your ass once, then twice, before his tip caught on the entrance to your abused pussy and he was inside of you, fully sheathed without a trace of resistance.

Toji was big, even for a hybrid. He was a hunter, tried and true, all muscle and agility and pure, unfaltering strength. Even with his generous (albeit, unwelcomed) prep, it was all you could do to convince yourself that his cock wouldn’t tear you apart. He was thick enough to press against every soft and sensitive spot inside of you, long enough to leave a tight knot of pressure sitting in the pit of your stomach, and when he started to move, pulling out slowly before slamming back in, the force alone was enough to scatter little black spots in the corner of your vision and leave you hazy, light-headed. The way he was fucking into you didn’t help anything, either. Keening whines slipped out of some deep, feral pocket of his chest as he took advantage of your vulnerable cunt, alternating between grinding into you with a desperate sort of clinginess and trying to bully his way that much deeper with bruising, brutal thrusts. One arm wrapped around your midriff, dragging you even close to him, while a groping hand found the delicate buttons of your top and tore, ridding you of what was left of your protection against him. He kneaded half-consciously at your chest as he fucked into you; his own pleasure suddenly his only priority.

His selfishness should’ve been a welcome change, but you were too far gone, your body too eager to find a silver lining to his rough affection. Your hands clawed mindlessly at the ground as he pumped into you, the heat of his body against yours clouding your senses and making the feeling of cock stretching you open, his dull head pounding against your cervix all the more unbearable. You doubted he’d be able to talk, even if he’d had anything left to say, but he was still vocal enough. Raspy groans and harsh grunts rung distantly in your ears, his calloused hands groping mercilessly at your chest, your stomach, your waist. Finally, his thumb found its way to your neglected clit, and with less than a full second of stimulation, you were buckling into yourself, clamping down around his cock with a fractured whimper. As humiliated as you were, Toji wasn’t far behind. With something between a moan and a howl, he was cumming inside of you – predictably making no attempt to pull out. Something hot and vile flooded into you, but it was hard to focus on that when you could feel something hard and bloated and wrong press into your entrance. Toji’s breath hitched as he forced his knot into your tight cunt, and whatever hope you had for coming out of this unscathed curled up and died inside of you.

You could feel him slacken on top of you. You almost thought he would collapse like that, leave you locked to him and trapped under his weight, but instead, he nuzzled against the crook of your neck, his fangs ghosting over your throat before sinking into the soft flesh just underneath your jugular. He stayed like that, his knot splitting open your pussy and his teeth buried in your neck, until you lost any hope of him ever pulling away.

Exhausted, you shut your eyes, sinking into yourself. You’d been right, in a way. Toji wasn’t a bad dog.

He was just a terrible terrible man.

[admiringlove]

part one || part two || part four tw: mentions of burns, grievous injury, death, suicide ideation, etc. post shibuya au. a/n. can be read as a standalone, but i'm doing this as a mini-series.

[09:14] . . .

nanami kento hates this.

he has been home for three weeks now. twenty-one days of stillness so thick it settles into the walls like dust. twenty-one nights where the air feels too heavy, too quiet, where time passes in a hush, like the house itself is holding its breath. three weeks of watching you move around him with tireless grace, every second stitched together by your hands—your footsteps, your touch, your voice, the only things that keep him tethered to the reality he can barely stand to look at.

you do everything. you do too much.

you help him eat when his fingers tremble, help him bathe when the act of standing feels like too much, guide him to the bathroom with a steadiness that makes his stomach twist. you clean him. you lift him. you speak to him softly, with gentle words and careful smiles, never letting your voice crack, never letting him see just how exhausted you are.

and he lets you.

not because he wants to. not because he believes he deserves it. but because he can’t do anything else.

he hates it. he hates that you never flinch, that you never grimace, never complain—not even when you're helping him through the most humiliating moments, the ones where he can’t even raise his arms enough to pull a shirt over his head, the ones where he has to ask you for help to piss.

he watches you hold his shame like it's a secret between you. watches you kneel beside the tub with your sleeves rolled up, washing the burn-scarred skin of his back, as if it’s a holy thing. watches the way you press cool compresses to his shoulder, whispering words that mean nothing and everything. it would be easier if you screamed. if you cried. if you threw something against the wall and shouted that you couldn’t do this anymore.

but you don’t.

instead, you smile. not the smile he used to know—the bright, full one that stretched across your face and made his chest swell with something soft and dangerous—but this new one. thin. quiet. a shadow of what it was. and still, you wear it like armor.

you say his name so gently. you carry him without complaint. you wake before him every morning and fall asleep long after he does, sitting beside his bed in silence, brushing your thumb along his bandaged hand like it’s the only thing keeping you alive.

he knows it now. maybe he’s always known it, deep down.

you’re not doing this out of pity. not out of duty, or guilt, or some noble sense of compassion.

you’re doing this because you love him. and somehow, that makes everything worse.

because kento doesn’t feel worthy of love anymore. not like this. not when he can’t even stand on his own two feet. not when his body feels foreign to him, like a cage he can’t escape. not when every movement reminds him of what he’s lost. not when he sees himself in the mirror and doesn’t recognize what’s left.

he thinks, maybe, it would’ve been easier if he had died. if his last words—you take it from here—had been exactly that: a parting gift. a permission. a surrender.

because he knows you would have survived. he knows it would have broken you, shattered you, dragged you through hell—but you would have kept going. you would have healed in time. become someone new. found joy again, even if it took years. even if it was only in small, quiet ways.

that future feels kinder than this one.

kinder than being rolled through the threshold of your shared home in a wheelchair, burns still healing, body still aching, watching you press a kiss to the top of his head like it’s all okay.

kinder than being the weight you carry now, day after day, without ever setting him down.

"hey, you're growing a beard," you say softly, almost absently, as you collect his empty breakfast plate. the clink of ceramic against ceramic is gentle, as if you're afraid even the dishes might startle him. "you want a shave?"

kento doesn't look at you. not immediately. instead, he lowers his gaze to the blanket draped over his lap, where the faded cotton is bunched up slightly from how his legs shift, restless. he knows what you're remembering when you ask—knows the picture in your mind without needing to see it. because it's in his too.

he remembers it all. the sun bleeding into your shared room like something divine, soft golden light spilling over the bedsheets like melted honey. he remembers the curtains billowing from the morning breeze, linen fluttering like they were dancing just for you. he remembers the way you used to sit on top of him, legs straddling his hips, bare thighs warm against his stomach, your fingers coated in shaving cream as you smoothed it over his jaw with more reverence than necessary.

back then, you did it because you could. because he let you. because you liked the way he looked at you through the cream, all soft-eyed and patient, like he belonged to you in every way that mattered.

but that version of him—the one who could lift you, kiss you, hold you steady while you leaned close with a blade and a smirk and your sleep-creased pajamas—that man is gone. and this new version, the one who can’t even stand without assistance, who still winces when he shifts too fast or breathes too deep, cannot bear the thought of you kneeling in front of him again. not like that. not when everything between you has shifted into a quiet kind of grief neither of you will name.

"uh, it's fine," kento says, voice so low it nearly gets swallowed by the morning silence. his eyes stay fixed on the folds of the blanket, the lines of his fingers, the dullness of his knees beneath cotton.

"you sure?" you ask, glancing over your shoulder from the sink, where you're already running water. your tone is too careful, the kind reserved for glass things with cracks too deep to fix.

he nods slowly. once. doesn't look up.

and that’s the end of it.

you don’t push. you never do. and he wishes, briefly, violently, that you would. just once. that you’d say something sharp, anything to shake him out of this state. but you only turn back around, wash the plate, and carry the silence like it's just another thing you’ve chosen to carry—for him.

when you're done washing the dishes, you dry your hands on the old kitchen towel—the one that’s permanently damp no matter how often you change it—and walk back toward him. your steps are quiet, deliberate. as if loudness might somehow snap the delicate thread holding the morning together. you hover beside him for a second, the air between you heavy with something unsaid, before you ask, in a voice so careful it almost sounds like a memory, “do you wanna go somewhere today? the park, maybe. the mall?”

kento doesn’t look at you. just lowers his gaze to his trembling hands, pale against the dark fabric of the chair’s arms. his fingers curl slowly, like he’s still not used to the effort, like every movement is rehearsed but not yet mastered. “no,” he says, shaking his head. the word is small, too small for a man like him. it floats between you like a leaf in water—weightless, but still heavy with meaning.

you don’t move. not right away. just watch as he pushes himself away from the breakfast table, his fingers fumbling against the metal, weak and worn. and you wait. because maybe this time you’ll say something. maybe this will be the moment you snap—tell him that he should go outside, that fresh air might help, that being stuck in here, in this “stuffy” house that’s turned into a shrine for everything he used to be, isn’t doing either of you any good.

but you say nothing. you only stand there, hands folded against your stomach, knuckles tight, watching him wheel himself slowly—agonizingly—toward the living room. his back is straight, but the shake in his shoulders betrays him. and still, he doesn't ask for help. not even once.

he rounds the corner. you watch his figure pass, just a sliver of him disappearing down the hallway. he’s so slow, so deliberate, like even this—this attempt at independence—is a punishment he’s giving himself.

you stand in the doorway of the kitchen, the dish towel still clutched in your hand like some useless symbol of peace. you watch as he reaches your bedroom door, hands trembling against the wheel, pushing through the frame. he doesn’t tell you where he’s going. doesn’t thank you for breakfast.

and when he closes the door—too hard, maybe on purpose—kento swears he hears it.

that tiny intake of breath from you, soft and sharp all at once.

he swears he hears you flinch.

and as he sits there, in the quiet that feels too loud, in the stillness that scrapes at his ribs like broken glass, kento lets his eyes drift upward. to the wall. to the soft, cream-colored paint above the bed you both used to curl into like vines, tangled and warm and content.

his gaze settles on the photos. the ones you insisted on putting up, one by one, like sacred relics. you'd fought for that wall, not with anger, but with that gentle insistence that always seemed to win him over. back then, you’d smiled—hands on your hips, heart in your throat—and told him that you didn’t want to walk into this room and ever feel sadness. not when the world already offered more than enough of it. not when you could build something that pushed back against it.

you'd said, “this wall is going to be a home for all the things that make us happy. every milestone. every memory.” and he’d nodded, not because he fully understood, but because he trusted the way your voice trembled when you spoke about joy.

so you’d filled it. slowly, over the years. framed your first date, that one with the rainy sky and the overcooked noodles. framed your wedding, where his tie was crooked and your eyeliner had smudged from crying during your vows. you’d even framed that hideous, grainy picture from high school—the one where his hair hadn’t been cut in months and he was scowling at the camera. and he let you. god, he let you. he even smiled when you kissed the glass after hanging it up.

now, kento looks at it, and something in him collapses.

his throat tightens. his chest burns, not from the wounds or the healing skin, but from something worse. from the unbearable weight of love. from the way it grips him by the collar and doesn't let go.

his face crumples. the tears come fast, angry and soft all at once, trailing down his cheeks in silence before the sobs make it impossible to hold them back. he’s crying. not carefully, not quietly, but like it’s the only thing he’s capable of doing now. his body shakes. the sharp sniffs echo in the room. his vision blurs, but the photographs don’t disappear.

he doesn’t think about the pain anymore—not the itching of raw, pink skin or the way the bandages pull at his nerves. not the dull ache of muscles unused and healing too slowly. not the way his hands still tremble from weakness. all of that fades, is nothing compared to this. to what he feels now.

he can only think of you.

of how tired you must be. of how you smiled as you helped him button his shirt this morning, even though your hands were shaking. of how you sat beside him last night, reading a book aloud even though your voice was hoarse. of how you’d kissed his temple and told him it would be okay, when everything inside him screamed otherwise.

he cries harder. because you didn’t sign up for this. and he knows it. you were meant for something softer. something gentler than this. and yet here you are, anchored to him by love or duty or something in between, and he can’t tell which hurts more—that you’re still here, or that he sometimes wishes you weren’t.

he sobs like a man who has nothing left to give, except for the wreckage of what he used to be.

his hands tremble. not the kind of tremble that comes from weakness alone, but the violent, aching kind—shaking born from rage and humiliation and grief too long kept inside. it starts in his fingers, curls through his palms, climbs up his arms until his whole body is unsteady, quivering like a snapped wire. he clenches the wheels of the chair so tightly his knuckles flash white beneath fragile skin.

then he moves. pushes. forces. not gently, not carefully, but with the full, brute force of desperation. of hatred for this chair, this room, this body that refuses to feel like his own anymore. the muscles in his thighs scream, the burns along his back pull taut, but kento grits his teeth. he stands.

it's shaky. it's pathetic. it's barely anything. but he stands.

he's breathing hard, like he's run a mile. sweat beads at his brow, catching against the curve of a healing wound near his temple. his chest heaves. and before he can fall, before he can even think—his eyes lock onto it. that photo. the one from high school. the ugliest one of them all.

you love it, he knows. you love the way his hair fell into his eyes, the way his scowl didn’t hide the curve of his cheekbones. you call it nostalgic. soft. formative.

he calls it disgusting.

his bandaged hand reaches out, trembling, half-dead and aching, and grabs the frame from the wall. his fingers slip, the glass slick against gauze and sweat, but he grips it hard. and then—

he throws it.

the crash is loud. glass shatters like a scream against the bathroom door. the frame splinters, shards raining down across the floor, over the threshold, across the rug you'd chosen together.

he stands there, panting. hands shaking. body sagging under the weight of it all. he doesn’t cry. not now. now he’s just fire. bitter and barely breathing.

and seconds later, you're there.

you burst into the room like a storm breaking through silence, wild-eyed and breathless, hair still damp from the shower, your hands half-raised as if to catch him, steady him, stop time itself.

"are you okay?" your voice is high, almost shrill, choked with panic. "are you hurt? what—what happened?"

your chest rises and falls so fast it aches to look at you. your bare feet crunch softly on broken glass as you step forward, and he flinches, just once, at the sound. because now it’s real. now you’ve seen it—this ugliness inside him, this rot.

and he's hurting you.

but you don’t move closer just yet. you don’t touch him or reach out. instead, your hand floats to your mouth in slow disbelief, your fingers trembling like his were just moments ago, and you gasp.

not a sound of fear this time. not worry. something softer. awed. and your eyes go wide—not with terror, but something else entirely. something almost holy.

your gaze doesn’t drop to the shattered frame on the floor, to the mess, to the ruin. instead, you look up at him. truly look. like you haven’t in weeks. like you’re seeing him for the first time again. and he watches your face shift—so gently it makes his heart twist.

that smile. god, that smile.

the one you wore at the altar, tears glistening under your lashes, hands trembling as you slipped the ring onto his finger. the smile you gave him when he first brought you coffee at work, still in his pressed shirt and tie, nerves hidden behind the straight line of his mouth. the one you gave him in the middle of a fight, when you both knew you’d find your way back. the one he never thought he’d see again—not like this.

“ken,” you breathe. and his name from your lips feels like a benediction. a prayer. a rebirth. “you’re standing.”

he blinks at you, dazed. “what?”

his voice cracks, and he frowns, lips parted in disbelief, his whole body still humming with pain and exertion. he doesn’t look at his legs—because how could he possibly be standing?

but you point. slowly, like you’re scared if you say it too loud, it’ll vanish. like this is a dream.

you point at his knees, at the empty wheelchair beside him, the faint tremble of his calves where they bear the weight of him.

“you’re standing,” you say again, and your voice breaks on the second word. “on your own.”

and kento looks down.

and finally, he sees.

he is.

his legs are shaking, his balance is off, every inch of him feels like it could collapse any second—but he’s not on the chair. he’s not being held up by anything but himself. it’s not much. it’s not heroic. it’s not graceful.

but it’s real. he’s standing.

and when he looks up at you again, your smile’s still there—shining and tear-struck and full of so much love that it splits something open inside him. something he thought had already been reduced to ash.

“there’s glass on the floor,” he murmurs, voice soft, like it’s already breaking. “y-you stepped on glass.”

his eyes dart to the sharp glittering pieces scattered across the hardwood, to the broken frame lying face-down by the door, the photo inside half-visible—his hair in it a disaster, your face blurry from laughing too hard. he remembers hating it. he remembers how you’d refused to take it down.

“i threw the ugly photo,” he says. “at the bathroom door.”

you blink at him, then glance down, and for a second he swears you’ll yell. or worse, cry. but then you look up again, eyes warm, and you say, “in case you didn’t notice,” with a lilt that almost sounds amused, “i’m wearing bunny slippers. the ones i forced you to buy me. the cinnamoroll ones.”

your voice trembles on the last part—not from sadness, but from restraint. you’re trying not to let it crack.

he looks down at your feet. the ridiculous white and blue slippers with floppy ears and little pink cheeks. the ones you made him buy at two in the morning in some grocery store that had no business selling such things. you’d worn them the night you moved in with him. you wore them the first night you made dinner together. you wore them when you danced to no music in the kitchen.

“oh,” he breathes.

and then he doesn’t say anything. he doesn’t know what to say. so he waits.

he waits, like he used to wait at train stations with flowers in hand. he waits like he did that first night he told you he loved you, eyes on your lips, terrified of what might come next. he waits like he did in the hospital bed, praying—that you wouldn't leave. that you'd stay by his side.

he waits, yearningly. aching.

hoping you’ll come closer. hoping you'll ignore the mess on the floor, and just reach for him. hoping you’ll step around the broken pieces and press yourself to him like you used to, head on his chest, arms around his waist. hoping you'll remind him that he still gets to be touched, still gets to be held, still gets to be yours.

you take one step. then another. and for a moment, he forgets about the burns, the pain, the way his legs shake beneath him like twigs in a storm.

because you’re here. and you’re walking toward him.

and when you place your head on his chest, finally, finally resting your cheek against him like you've been dying to do for weeks, your ears catch the thump of his heart—loud, steady, alive. his arms, uncertain at first, slowly wrap around you, one settling against your back, the other trembling but determined at your waist. he sighs, deep and full of relief. something unspoken in him settles.

“will you give me a shave?” he asks, voice low, breath stirring your hair.

you blink up at him, eyebrows raised, lips twitching. “i thought you didn’t want one.”

you say it with that teasing lilt he remembers from quieter mornings—back before the world turned sharp around the edges. and for a moment, it feels like nothing ever broke.

he breathes out a sound that almost resembles a laugh. his eyes soften, tender, threaded with affection. “i always want one,” he says, “if it’s you.”

you narrow your eyes, already stepping into the joke like second nature. “you have other people giving you shaves, nanami kento?”

he shakes his head, dry as ever. “ah, yes. i’m cheating on you with gojo.”

you gasp, hand flying dramatically to your chest. “how could you? with gojo of all people?”

“he insisted. said he had the better razors.”

you snort, half-laughing into his chest. “he uses a hair straightener on his clothes when they get too wrinkly. he doesn’t get to talk about razors.”

kento smiles then—really smiles—and something in the air shifts. the heaviness lingers, yes. the pain, the fear, the grief of what almost was—they don’t disappear. but they take a step back. they let the warmth through.

you squeeze him a little tighter. he leans into you a little more.

“go sit in the bathroom,” you say, grinning now. “i’ll be there in five minutes. and i’m using the aftershave that smells like that cinnamon candle you hate.”

“i deserve it,” he murmurs, voice light.

you kiss the underside of his jaw, just where the stubble begins to grow, and smile. “yeah,” you say, pulling away, “you kinda do.”

© all works belong to admiringlove on tumblr. plagiarism is strictly prohibited.

[ruinix]

Could you make a Quinn X Reader, where the reader is deaf and communicates by sign language? How would Quinn be about it?

Hello, lovely. I tried my best writing this. Please do note that I am not deaf or hard-of-hearing. I unfortunately don’t know any sign languages, even the one in my country. [I tried learning but it didn’t stick. I lack people to converse with it]. Simply, I hope this doesn’t offend anyone. If people do, I can take this down… 😔

Spoken Gestures

TW/CW: Deaf!Reader, 18+ MDNI, Smut, Slight description of a past injury (blood and stitches), Choking (is it choking? Yes, ask Quinn, he’s the receiver. 😏 😏 😏), Oral sex (fem receiving), Unprotected Sex (use protections, silly), Just Quinn in love and horny over here

Count: 3532 words | Masterlist

You’re washing the dishes by hand early in the morning. Quinn yawns, sneakily getting himself a glass of orange juice. At that moment, you slam a cup down. He startles, jumping, almost spilling on himself.

He instantly faces you, his eyes zeroing in your hand, making sure you aren’t hurt if the cup breaks. Thankfully, you’re fine. The cup didn’t break. If you had, it won’t be the first time that you’ll break something when you unknowingly slam it. It’s not your fault. You simply can’t hear it.

Plus, it’s not like you do it all the time. You just occasionally put down some things harshly. Honestly, Quinn does that too.

On one side, breaking glassware—or anything at all—isn’t a big deal, because Quinn can always buy replacements. On the other, the possibility of you getting hurt during or after the process is his major concern. He doesn’t want another repeat of you getting a laceration across your palm like before. No. He can’t bear it. Even if it didn’t leave a scar, it burns through his memory. Forever haunting him.

Grounding himself, he focuses on the fact that you’re not hurt right not. He exhales a sigh of relief.

‘You’re okay’, he repeats in his head.

Slowly, he approaches you, taking the oven mitt on the counter, he uses it to lightly fan at you.

The gust of wind makes you turn towards him, smiling your kind grin. You dry your hands on a towel, then you sign, “Hi, Quinn.”

The sight of his signed name always makes his heart flutter, skipping a beat as it races in his chest. You’ve given that name to him and he will forever cherish it. It makes him feel so connected with you, especially when he knows yours. He signs it while he says, “My Love.”

A flush paints your cheeks when you watch both his hands and his lips. For a moment, you turn your face away, covering it with your hands as a soft ‘hmmm’ escapes you.

Yeah, you do that sometimes. Like you’re brimming with so much giddiness at the simple sight of him calling you your name and his endearment for you. It makes Quinn want to do it again and again and again.

He comes closer, gently putting his hands around your wrists, pulling down from your face. You look at him with wide eyes, your cheeks still so red. His thumbs trace circles on your skin of your inner wrists before tracing over your palms, feeling your delicate skin.

The laceration didn’t scar—thank fuck—but for Quinn, he swears he can still feel its existence. He can never forget how hot the blood rushing from the gash before he pressed a towel on it, how his heart slammed in his chest like battering ram from your panicked sounds as you cried until you two got to the hospital. It truly haunts him. He doesn’t want it to happen again.

He runs his thumbs over your palms once more, then he lets go.

“Be careful. You are slamming the glassware,” he says while signing it, just like how you taught him.

Your head tilts to the side. “I did?”

“Yes, please be careful. You might get hurt again.” He sighs, rubbing his chest as an ache bloom right there. “Why are you even doing the dishes? We have a dishwasher.”

“For a few cups and plates?” You sign exasperatedly, lecturing him about saving water and energy, explaining how you find it therapeutic to wash them.

Your gestures start small then turn bigger when you suddenly go into a tangent about electric energy, electric cars, and then crocheting beanies. How you get to that subject is a mystery to Quinn.

He can only blink as he tries to keep up. There are a few signs he fails to understand but by context clues, he gets it.

He makes a mental note to ask for your help. He needs to understand everything you say. It’s not good if he still heavily relies on clues when he’s been learning sign for quite a while now. It’s hard learning sign. No. Not that. It’s more of he’s still very new to it despite the whole year of learning it.  

He still finds himself going word-for-word. He doesn’t realize it until he replays the gestures in his mind and realizes he could’ve done another sign. Sometimes you sign so quickly that he cannot catch it. Like right now. You’re getting so fast that he’s getting overwhelmed instead of understanding. It makes his eyes sting as tears build up from his slight panic.

He brings up his hand, making you pause. Slowly he takes your hands, a silent plea for help, because he truly needs it. He can���t keep up.

“Sorry,”he mutters, enunciating the word.

You step closer, gripping his hands back as tightly as he does. You shake your head. Quinn understands the look in your eyes, because he knows you so well. They say, “No need to apologize. Do you want me to repeat it?”

To that, he nods. You both take a seat on the stools by the counter. The dishes are long forgotten as you repeat everything slower. It’s a wonder how you manage to remember everything you’ve said. Still, you carried every bit of emotions—though all over the place—like you had. Your gestures are bigger as they were.

Quinn finds himself relaxing when he can understand you.

You’ve been utterly patient with him. So warm. You’re perfectly the reason why he does his best in his sign language classes which he keeps as a secret. There will be a time in the future when you don’t need to repeat yourself because he’ll understand everything no matter how fast you speak. A time when he doesn’t need to sneak to his classes because he’s done with them. A time when he won’t be so clumsy with his signs. He just hopes it comes sooner.

He wants to talk to you so much every day. He wants his words to be seen by you. You lip-reading him is not enough when he has limbs to speak with you. He needs to learn so when—not if—you two have children, he’ll teach them too.

“I want to crochet a sweater for you.” Your eyes are twinkling with excitement. You ask, “Will you wear it after I finish it?”

It’s such a wonder how washing the dishes came to crocheting, but Quinn’s here for it.

“Yes,” he says breathlessly as your fingers traces the veins on his hand, feeling up his forearms and back to his hand. When your eyes come back up his face, he mutters, “Thank you for repeating what you said.”

“No problem, Quinn. You always repeat what you say for me too.”

Your words make him wonder. Does he? He never notices if he repeats himself. His memories are more locked onto him making you go over what you’ve said. Maybe he does. He doesn’t mind it if he does. He’ll continue doing it, because you’re so important to him.

He notes the grin on your face, showing your pretty teeth, the corners of your eyes crinkling. He loves how expressive you are. Always communicating with him. Your face and your body.

When you’re happy, your eyes basically beam like stars in the skies of a rural area where they can be seen without the pollution in the air. When you’re so excited, you are basically jumping while you gesture with lightness and just pure joy, which he can feel. 

When you’re sad or disheartened, your shoulders will slump, and your signs will be a lot smaller. When you’re angry or pissed, your ears would turn so red, your eyebrows extremely furrowed, and your signs would be so choppy and wild. You would either face him or turn away so you wouldn’t see him retort. Luckily, he doesn’t get you angry at him frequently. He tries not to.

He loves your sounds. They’re indiscernible, coming out when you’re getting into the conversation so much. He doesn’t mind it. He doesn’t think that he should at all. It’s just you. It’s another way of how you communicate. Sometimes you try to speak his name. The slightest sound of Q. Quinn takes that. The sound basically ingrained in his soul.

You’re trying to say his name.

His. Name.

Nothing’s better than that.

On that note, he always gets annoyed when people throw glances when you sign and let out those noises in public. He doesn’t mind curious or confused glances, but he loathes those who judge or scoffs. They should mind their fucking business. Every time he gets pissed, you will give his forehead a chop, reprimanding him. When he doesn’t ease, you will walk away because you’re so done with his antics, and he has no other choice but to stalk after you like a lost puppy, trying to get you to look at him for minutes until you finally do.

He can’t help it. He gets protective over you, even when you don’t need him to. You told him many times, but he really, really, really can’t help it.

He needs you to be comfortable. Anywhere. Everywhere.

That includes your—and his—home.

It’s really casual changes. Really. Like the doorbell that’s connected to lights he installed in every room, so you’ll know if there’s someone at the door when he’s not home. Like the flashing alarm for fire, smoke, carbon monoxide, so that you’ll always be safe like him in case of emergency. Like the speakers that have good bass, so you’ll enjoy your music. Like the TV with a permanently on closed captions—along the subscription programs that should always automatically play with them—so that you’ll have fun with your shows. Like the little nook he prepared for your reading or crafting or working or whatever you want to do. Little things. Casual things. Just for you.

If you two were to move to a bigger place, he can’t wait to do it all over again. He’s making a home for you. It has to be perfect.

When you first got together, Quinn did a ton of research on having a relationship with a person with hearing disability. That was why for your second date, he asked how you wanted him to approach you. Honestly, he feels so fucking proud when you stared at him with surprise and your jaw open, because you didn’t expect that. Then you smiled so widely that it made him fall so deeply in love with you on the second date. It’s surreal.

Quinn still didn’t know sign back then, so you conversed with your notebook or your phone. You explained about flicking the lights on and off, lightly fanning at you, doing a bigger wave when he’s in your peripherals, and even stomping on the wooden floor. He’s been doing those things and still to this day, he feels so amazing whenever you greet him with that beautiful smile.

“Hmm,” you hum, bringing him back to reality. “Where did you go?”

“Just here,” he scoots closer, putting a thigh between yours so he can get even closer. “What are your plans today?”

He shudders when your hand comes up to rest over his neck while he speaks, his hands stopping immediately mid sign. He sees the way your eyes dart from lips to his eyes, your slow and seductive blinks over your eyes with your pupils blowing out, your breaths that come out deeper like pants. The corner of his lips comes up, a chuckle escaping him which makes you preen and visibly crave for more.

“No plans,” you sign with so much longing in your eyes, “Your voice rumbles.”

“Does it?” He presses your hand firmer against his throat. He groans when you take that as invitation—thank fuck—and squeezes perfectly against his carotid arteries, controlling his blood circulation to his head. He moans, eyes rolling up for a second. “Fuck, yes.”

He’s so fucking hard. Another squeeze, and he’s making a fucking mess in his briefs. When your other hand runs down his chest, down to his crotch, he groans which makes you moan. Fuck, you sound so good. Feel so good.

He gives both of you a few more minutes to take each of your touches in, before he drags you back to your shared bedroom. He immediately kisses you, his tongue immediately seeking comfort against yours. He pushes you on the bed, crawling over you, panting as you spread your legs so readily for him. Yet, he still hooks his knee under your thigh, spreading further.

When your hand slips under his shirt, he quickly removes it, helping off yours, until both of you are naked. He grinds his aching cock against your wet slit, rubbing on your clit over and over again. Damn it. He’s already so fucking close. He’s not even inside of you yet.

Your whines are tiny as you breathe them out. He wants to sink into your pussy so bad but the way you tug at his hair, your touch around his throat before it snakes to his shoulder to push him down, he knows what you need.

 So he kisses your lips, your jaw, your delicate neck. He sucks on your skin hard enough to leave his marks. He licks his way down to your wonderful tits that fit so well in his hands. He licks the underside of your breast before sucking your pert nipple.

One after another.

Oh the way you sigh. The way your fingers slip into his hair, your nails scratching his scalp so wonderfully. You look like a Goddess looking down at him, urging him to do your bidding. So he lightly nip at your buds, groaning when you moan and whine, making sure to press his front against yours to let you feel all the noises he makes. He needs you to know how much you affect him.

When your hips lift, begging for friction, he pushes them down, but he starts kissing his way down, down, and down. Pressing a light kiss on each of your hip, he hooks his hands over your thighs and lifts and settles between. He watches your arousal drip from your pussy.

Taking deep inhales, he takes in your scent. It’s so heady, making him all dizzy, his eyesight blurring as he leans closer, greedily taking in every hint of you. Then he licks from your entrance to your throbbing clit. He doesn’t stop when your thighs squeeze around his head, when your delicate fingers tug his hair. He laves at your cunt like it’s his last chance to consume you. You tastes so exquisite, and when he blows over your clit, you hips buck off, threatening to suffocate him. He doesn’t care if he does.

He continues eating you out, fucking you with his tongue and his fingers. He moans into your heat, letting you feel the vibrations from every sound he makes. By the time your pussy walls convulse around his tongue, you are screaming. The sound of you being undone by him is music to his ears.

Giving your clit one last suck, he crawls over you, kissing your lips, ensuring that you can taste yourself on his tongue. Your sharp inhale only ignites the fire in him as your hands hook over his shoulder, pulling him closer and closer, bearing his weight on you. His cock slides against your sensitized pussy, making you both moan into each other’s lips.

Fuck.

He needs you.

He pulls away, not wanting to crush you with his weight for so long, only for your hand to wrap around his neck, pressing once more on his pulse points. Its thud, thud, thud is so loud, so strong.

Can you feel it?

Can you feel how his heart race for you? How it only beats for you? How every space, every atom, every cell running through it is yours?

Can you?

Do you?

You overwhelm his senses the right way. His head swims with nothing else but your feel, your touch, your smell, your sight. Maybe it’s just him being light-headed from your hand. Maybe. No. It’s just that. He—

You give him a squeeze, pulling him out of his head. He sees the worry in your eyes before it turns to relief. You smile, pressing a soft peck on his nose. An intelligible grumble escapes him, before he goes all out. He showers you with kisses. On the tip of your nose, your eyelids, your eyebrows, your cheeks, your temples, your forehead, your chin. He just can’t get enough of you.

When you give his throat another squeeze, he groans, resting his forehead against yours. “Gonna come if you don’t stop,” Quinn gasps, rubbing his length on your slicked folds, shuddering when your thumbs trace over his chin, over his lips. “Harder, my Love.”

He watches your lips mimic his word like you’re tasting it, savoring the two syllables. A small smile dances on your lips, pressing one thumb over his lower lip keep pressing your thumb over his lower lip. Quinn grunts, kissing it, saying his name like a plea, as you choke him harder.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he curses both in his head and out loud, never afraid to be vocal. He knows you can feel every rumble of a word that escapes him. He knows how much you like it.

He grinds harder into your pussy. He’s so hyperfocus on the feel of your pussy, of your hands around his throat, of your warm breath on his skin, of your pussy walls as it hugs him so perfectly when he finally slides in, that he doesn’t care how much lightheaded he’s getting.

The only thing important for him now is for you to come around him and for him to come deep inside you.

He wants that so fucking bad. You always let him come deep inside you, always let him lick your cum-filled pussy right after, always let him get his fill even if you get too overstimulated.

Fuck.

He needs that.

“Q,” you cry out, fueling his thrusts.

You said his name. His name.

“Again, please. Please,” he pleads.

Your mewls and moans are music to his soul that wants nothing but to be one with you, his Love. His nickname with your whimpering sounds amazing, alluring as you say it again. Just for him. Oh, he loves hearing his name on your tongue. He kisses you as he angles his thrusts to hit that specific spot that has you screaming into his lips, has your hips bucking up to meet his brutal thrusts, has your nails digging into the skin of his neck.

The pain just amplifies the pleasure Quinn is feeling.

He needs more, so he bites into your lower lip.

The action is responded with a tighter grip around his throat, as your pussy convulses. You’re coming so hard, wet pussy walls clamping around him, your thighs shaking, your back arching off the bed, your lips parting with your silent and breathy scream.

The next thing Quinn knows is him slamming deep as he spills and paints your walls white with his cum.

And he fucking faints.

Just for a second because you immediately slap him awake.

“Ow,” he groans. “What the fuck, my Love?”

You chuckle as if you two didn’t just get the best fucking orgasm—every orgasm is the best with you—of your lives. Your hand gently rubs along his neck, making him hiss from the slight pain from the nail marks you’ve left. He shifts, gasping as your pussy clenches around his softening cock. Shamelessly, he starts getting hard again like his body is cursing him from trying to rest when he’s still seated inside you.

“You’re heavy,” you tease, keeping him in place with your shaking leg. “I love your weight on me.”

Quinn lets out a choking sound, burying his head into your neck, making sure he’s not fully crushing you. You can’t just say things like that.

Now, he’s really, really hard again.

It hurts being so hard after coming. Did you know that?

When your fingers gently tap the shell of his ear, a little signal that you want him to look at you, he does. He parts from your neck after he places a kiss right on your pulse. He meets your beautiful gaze, lips parting at how ethereal you look all fucked by him. Your hair is sticking to your skin that glistens with sweat. Your cheeks are flushed and red. You’re so pretty.

“Let’s stay like this for a moment,” you request to which Quinn nods.

He easily shifts your position on your sides. His cock is still in your pussy. Both of you spend minutes just staring into each other’s eyes, your hands on each other’s chest, feeling each other’s racing heartbeats.

Quinn can hear his own.

He swears he can hear yours as it beats under his palm.

He hears both for the two of you.

That’s enough for him.

[moonlight-prose]

I either want to tend to Gabriel’s wounds or make some with my nails 😏

bound in the strands of permanence

a/n: knowing how intense his battles get when monster hunting, he must be so numb to the pain. because of course he is. it's been centuries of life, countless wounds, and he's unable to stop from wanting that infliction back. but in a different way. i really just word vommitted cause this was meant to be a drabble. my bad.

summary: he walked with monsters in the night, claiming their lives for a vendetta placed upon him by the church. but he found peace in daylight with the touch of your healing hands.

word count: 1.9k+

pairing: gabriel van helsing x f!reader

warnings: EXPLICIT SO MINORS DNI 18+ ONLY!!, love, tending to wounds, pain kink, masochism, tw: blood, breeding kink, p in v sex, rough sex, they're unhinged and in love, dirty talk, forever.

Pain was inconsequential in the grand scheme of being God's right hand. Immortality ran through his veins like a poison without an antidote. He couldn't necessarily die. People have tried, monsters have nearly succeeded, but death never asked for him to deign its doorstep.

He was bound to life on a planet riddled with evil—destined to drag each horrid creature to the pits of hell with him.

But pain was a different matter altogether.

After so many wounds, knives, bullets, arrows, he could no longer register the nerves that stretched to and fro beneath his body. They were there. Unmistakable with the phantom aches and near deaths that still plagued his eternal soul. But remembering why they came to be eventually rescinded to the back of his mind—an afterthought to all the detriments of his waking life.

Years went by before he dared to ask someone for help. But a particularly nasty wound to his shoulder was out of reach even for him. Which is how he came to stumble onto your small quarters in the furthest reaches of the Vatican.

There were other healers, other doctors who could have easily stitched up his wound. But you weren't a member of the church.

He found that ironic.

Neither of you mentioned how long it'd been since he stumbled through your doors, shoving a bag of coins into your hand, before falling onto the cleared wooden table meant for patients in the city. Not that either of you couldn't remember it. Two years, three months, and two brand new flesh wounds that barely needed wrapping.

Yet he still came anyway.

"Turn into a beast again?" you questioned, wrapped the cloth tight along his scarred abdomen.

He smiled, shuddering at the icy touch of your hands. "That was one time."

"One time too many."

"And if it hadn't of happened I wouldn't have a reason to come here."

You scoffed, tying the knot painfully, relishing a bit in the harsh grunt he let out. "You don't need a reason to come see me Gabriel."

"It's impolite to knock on a lady's door this late without a reason." He shook his head, unconsciously sliding his hand over yours that remained on his wound. "I'm not one to mistreat a lady."

"I'm hardly that. They won't even let me in the fucking church–"

Sharp eyes dragged up to your face, glaring at the pout in your lips that formed a curse. He may have been a man who found your way of life refreshing, but he was still devoted to the God above. Your mouth curled into a wry smile—hand moving to tip his chin up. To remove his gaze and place it where you wanted him to truly look.

"It's not right how they treat you," he rasped.

The familiar dark cloud of grief began to drip into his iris, shrouding his once sharp gaze that pierced each part of your soul. They called him God's right hand. The man who was sent from the heavens above. You merely thought of him as the man who gripped your heart in an iron fist—reluctant to let you go.

"I'm not one of you."

He sighed. "You could be."

"Only through the binds of marriage would I enter that place and even then, I don't entirely wish to follow rules not made of my own volition."

"Marriage," he mumbled, eyes dropping to the lip you worried between your teeth. "To whom, if I may ask?"

"To no one."

"Why?"

The way he looked at you is what threw you off guard. Intense, without boundaries that may have been set in place for other patients. He weeded out your deepest fears and silently vowed to rip each one apart with his bare hands. Monsters walked beside him in the night, but Gabriel Van Helsing was doomed to wander the daylight alone. Yet he found...he didn't want to anymore.

"If I were to ask..."

Your knees almost buckled - the weight of his inquiry slamming directly into your chest. "Ask me what?"

Gabriel looked at you as if it was the most obvious answer in the world. As if nothing felt more right than the words about to spill from his lips. To be bound to a soul meant permanence in the eyes of his God, and how lovely it might be.

To have someone he could be permanent with.

"To marry me darling."

There remained an answer to this madness. A final solemn vow you might have otherwise been able to say. But his confession hung in the air like a cloud that refused to dissipate with the change in weather. When had he fallen in love? When had he finally relented to the ache that built in his chest?

When did he realize that he came here at night for you and not for his wounds?

You wanted to give him something in return—a promise that could outlast all that threatened to rip him from you.

So you kissed him. You dragged him close—your hand tangling in his hair—and caught his lips in a kiss that damn near threw him off the table. He didn't expect to finally taste you, his heart hammering an unsteady beat in his chest. But he certainly wasn't about to complain. He met your actions in kind, gripping onto the flesh of your hips with a soft groan.

His tongue met yours—hesitance bleeding through each action—and when he found no resistance he finally devoured what he hungered for. Standing to his full height, he licked into your mouth, his hand gripping the back of your neck painfully to keep you close. Neither of you even registered what happened when he crowded you against the heavy wooden door sealed shut with a lock.

"Gabriel," you sighed, bending to let him drag his tongue down your throat.

"Say yes," he growled, rucking up your skirts as you worked the belt of his pants still coated in grime and dust. "Marry me. Be mine forever."

"God above." A gasp tore from your chest when he notched his dripping cock at your entrance.

He held you there, fixing his gaze on your face, even as you tried to drag your hips forward. "Darling."

"I want..."

"What?"

A moan rumbled in his chest when you finally looked at him—the love you kept locked away pouring out into the furrow of your brows. The tears that fell down your cheeks. Hiding it felt pointless at this time. Because you knew your answer, you knew the second he stumbled through your door demanding you help him. You knew it the moment his gaze locked on yours.

Forever would be spent here. In the safety of his hold.

"I'll marry you," you breathed.

There were few times you managed to see this man smile. Once or twice when you told a joke. More often due to the biting pain on his body as you stitched him up—a defense mechanism rather than agonizing grunts he used to give you. And now when your words settled in his mind - solidifying something he wondered about for years.

His lips bloomed into a smile that met his eyes for the very first time. Light practically shone directly from the hazel iris.

You expected him to give you an answer, a shower of words full of love. Instead he sunk into you with a harsh groan, his forehead falling to yours, mouth swallowing the cry that erupted from your chest.

Lovers existed in your life before him—a sprinkle of men who once or twice believed you'd be their wife one day. But none of them compared to the one before you. Gabriel stretched you wide enough to hurt, but he quickly sought out the small bud pulsing for attention—circling it slowly with each shallow thrust.

Your legs shook under the sensations, nails digging into his bare shoulders, and for the first time...he felt pain.

A fractured cry escaped his mouth, finding its way into yours as you sharply cut him to ground yourself. Panic flooded your veins at the thought of hurting him. Only to feel his hips slam into yours, impaling you on his twitching cock spurting precum like a broken faucet.

"Again," he rumbled, pulling out at an achingly slow pace. Only to punch back in and drag out a shout from the depths of your stomach. "Hurt me again."

"But–"

"Do it."

Cutting your nails down his back—blood welling to the surface immediately—you felt his entire body shudder. His head tipping back as he fucked into you fast enough to hurt. There was no rhythm to how he moved. Rutting into you wildly like the beast he once became—his body overwhelmed with a mix of pain and pleasure. Agony merging together with the love he felt for you.

The wet squelch of your cunt swallowing him in with each thrust echoed in the small confines of your room. Each one followed by the loud resounding echo of your moans and his ragged grunts. You felt unhinged. Probably looked like it too.

But pleasure was creeping up on you faster than you could anticipate. Your nails marred his skin with each blinding strike of his cock against your walls. It drowned you. Swallowed you up with the promise to spit you back out later.

You'd never felt so whole before.

"I can feel her begging," he gasped against your lips, a string of spit connecting your mouth to his. "Will you let me?"

"Uh-huh."

He smiled, harsh and unforgiving. "We'll have a little one running around by the time our vows are exchanged mea amor."

His words struck something in your chest—dragging out the darkest secret you kept hidden each time he looked at you. Binding yourself with him through the bonds of marriage was one thing. Having his child remained something else entirely. You almost loathed how much you loved the idea.

"Oh–"

"You'll make me a sinner," he babbled, stimulating your clit until pain began to spark up your spine. "A child before marriage. What will God think?"

"G-Gabriel!" A violent tremble began in your legs, working up your body until he was forced to hold you up with his body weight. "I-I can feel it."

He chuckled, speeding up just enough to push you over the edge. A scream echoing off the stone walls—ringing in his ears as your walls clamped down, a gush of cum coating down to his balls. What he wouldn't give to see that again. Your face screwed up in pleasure, pain bleeding into his body with each scratch of your nails.

"It will simply have to take," he gasped, spilling into you with a cry of his own.

Seconds bled into a minute and yet he couldn't stop cumming. The sticky warmth of it trailed down your legs and dripped onto the floor. And he merely shoved back into your—keeping it from spilling out entirely. Intent on keeping each promise he made.

Kissing your cheeks, he found your lips with a sigh. "Take this."

"What?" you mumbled, vision blurry with tears.

The cold kiss of metal on your finger stirred you back to life. "Until I find a jewel meant to sit on your hand."

His insignia burned through your chest, claiming you under the very name he sought to learn more about. You were to be his. A Van Helsing of your own volition. It should have terrified you.

Yet the fear was nowhere to be found.

"I love you Gabriel. I should have told you years ago..."

With a soft kiss to your forehead, he curled his arms around your back. "Then tell me again tomorrow."

And each day after that.

[phantomwithbreakfast]

DANNYMAY DAY 15: Stars

Day 14 • Day 16

⟢ I played it smart. Alright? I took a sketch from a few months ago—or… I don’t know exactly when I drew this one—and I just colored it. Time saving! So now, I’m only running one freaking day behind. No, it’s not a crop top. I didn’t know how the folds of the hoodie would fall if it was floating like that, lol. (More under the cut)

Genre: Angst / Hurt / No Comfort • TW/CW: PTSD — Depression — Identity Loss — Emotional Distress — Medical Trauma (non-graphic) • Aftermath of Scarred For Half A Life (my phic) — Just my Danny, the stars, and what’s left of him • AU — OOC • Rate M

Danny liked the stars.

No—he loved them.

There was something about the quiet hush of the sky, the endless stretch of velvet black pricked with distant, shimmering lights. They felt like hope, once. A future. A promise. The universe was out there, and he used to believe—really believe—that one day, he’d be among them. NASA. Astronaut. The whole suit-up-and-fly-away dream.

Danny Fenton, future astronaut—NASA’s next big shot.

He used to close his eyes and picture it—helmet snug around his head, fingers wrapped around the controls of a shuttle, weightless and free, watching Earth shrink to a marble behind him. He would have built the engine himself. Engineered the future. Calculated trajectory. Solved for the impossible. He had notebooks—had, because they were probably in the trash now—filled with sketches and plans. Rocket diagrams scrawled between geometry homework and ghost-fighting strategies.

He still smiled when he flew above the clouds, phasing just high enough that the cold air bit at his skin and made his fingers tremble. The wind didn’t matter. The ache in his chest didn’t matter. When he was up there, alone in the dark, the stars were close enough to count.

And sometimes—just sometimes—he forgot.

Forgot what had been done to him. Forgot the collar. The white rooms. The smell of ectoplasm. The way his screams never echoed back. Forgot how she looked at him like a test subject. Forgot the way he begged her, Mom, please, it’s me—

He forgot.

But it never lasted.

Because then he’d remember. The stars were fucking lies.

He wasn’t going to reach them. Not now. Not ever. They stole that from him. Ripped it out of him like they did everything else. Phantom was back, sure, but the dream—the human dream—was gone. NASA didn’t accept broken things. And he was so broken.

His hands shook when he reached toward them. He used to pretend they were close. That if he just stretched enough, just a little more, he could touch them. But now?

Now his hands were too scarred to stretch that far.

The stars didn’t feel like hope anymore. They were witnesses.

They watched when he was on the table. They watched when she carved him open. They watched when he stopped screaming because it hurt less to go quiet. They were there when he forgot what his own voice sounded like, when his body trembled from withdrawal—not from drugs, but from the lack of pain.

And now, they mocked him. Beautiful. Untouchable. Just like everything else he wanted.

A breeze whispered past him, brushing through his pitch white hair, and he realized—he didn’t know if he was smiling anymore. His lips were curled, but it didn’t feel happy. It didn’t feel like anything, honestly.

Just muscle memory. A hollow reflex.

He hovered above Amity Park, staring at the stars with an ache stitched so deep into his bones that even vivisection hadn’t reached it. It throbbed under his ribs—quiet, constant. A craving, not just for the stars themselves, but for the boy who used to believe he could touch them. For the dream that wasn’t laced with ectoplasm and restraints. For the version of himself that didn’t tremble at the smell of antiseptic or jolt at the flicker of overhead lights. He wanted that ache to fill him, to drown out the numbness, to remind him he was still someone. Still human. Still Danny.

But even that hurt felt distant now.

“I was gonna touch you one day,” he whispered as he watched the stars, his voice splintering halfway through. “I was gonna be something.”

But they didn’t here him. No one did. Not even the fucking stars.

His hands dropped to his sides.

And Danny… Danny kept floating there, motionless and small, a glowing silhouette lost against the sky—half dead, half hoping, all hollow. Craving the pain that used to make him feel real.

And still… the stars kept shining—distant, perfect, untouched—while he stayed broken beneath them, bleeding out on the inside where no one could see.

⟢ Not part of the main phic, just a small one-shot taking place in the same universe.

[ilium-ilia]

In Limbo

simon "ghost" riley x fem!reader | mafia!au | masterlist

Chapter Twenty-Five: water

tw: simon's past (descriptions of child abuse), minor wound description, blood

There it is again—always haunting him—that bathtub. 

No matter where he is, even if he is worlds away from his childhood home, it’s all Simon can see. Unforgiving tile. Algid water. A spout with a scar that matches the one on his nose. Walls still soaked with his scream, fathers feet echoing on the floor; it’s always the one. It’s always the same. 

Except this time, you’re here. 

This was your idea—bathing together. Showering. Aftercare, you called it. Something Aelin told you about ages ago. A way to bond; something that means more than a simple union of skin and flesh. Bent over the tub, fingers wiggling through the water pouring free from the spout like a river over a gushing waterfall, he thinks you’re out of place. A daisy growing on a grave. A jewel in muck. A fox in a cage. Somewhere you shouldn’t be. 

“There,” you hum, content as you retract your fingers from the water. “That’s not too warm, is it?” 

Indulging you, Simon bends behind you, torso curling over yours as he dips his fingers beneath the spout. “Yeah. Just right, baby.” 

You undress together. Sparse clothing leftover from your nighttime escapades piles together, mixing until you cannot tell the difference between what belongs to you and what belongs to him. Simon watches you. How your shoulders roll out the stiffness of the morning and how it bleeds down your spine as the steam from the shower wraps around you, pushing away the gooseflesh perking on your skin. 

He lets you enter first—excuses that he can’t get his stitches wet quite yet. Not while they’re fresh. He watches you dip below the stream, skin glistening as crystalline beads roll down your body, pearling around your neck, dipping along the curve of your back. When you smile at him and hold out a soggy hand for him to join you, he nearly falls in love all over again. 

Neither of you speak over the roar that fills the space around you. Instead, you focus your efforts on cleaning yourself. Simon witnesses the way your bodywash lathers in your hands, how the suds cling to your thighs and shoulders, how they don’t quite reach your back. Wordlessly, he assists. Hands scrubbing the places you can’t reach, he soaks up the way your eyes flutter shut and dance beneath the lids, head rolling back, exposing your neck to your loyal dog. 

As he caresses the curve of your hips, he realizes he holds the world. Everything that matters, anyway. All the creaking and stress fractures in his body melt and mend as you place your head on him. Skin sticking together, bones resonating—for once, there’s no place he’d rather be than here, in the bathroom, standing in a grave of his childhood memories. Not when he’s got you in his arms. 

“Your heart’s beating fast.” It’s a simple observation, something you hum without consequence. Simon realizes the weight against his sternum—your palm flat against his chest—and he breathes in. 

“Yeah,” he agrees, curt. 

“Are you nervous?” 

Simon thinks this might be it—the point of no return. The Event Horizon that’s been ripping him to shreds since the day he met you; laggardly and cruel. This is the moment where he spills all over you, ichor tainting your skin, soaking you until you can’t ever be clean of him. He swallows. His jaw goes rigid. 

“Not a fan of bathtubs,” he says, his admittance heavy on his tongue. 

You giggle, light and sweet, before lifting your head up. Steam fogs his vision as he looks at your face and your unknowing smile, and he feels his knees go weak as your head returns to his body. “Is it like a phobia thing?” 

“Somethin’ like that.” Teeth grinding, heart pounding, his blood thickens. Clogging his veins, every artery, making every single cell within him a sticky mess. “My dad used to…” His voice fades. It dies off in the thunderous roar of the showerhead spewing above. 

Slowly, your swaying halts. “Used to what?” 

He’s never said it out loud before—the things he’s endured. Even when his mother would try to apologize for his father’s ruthless behavior, he would brush it off. Pretend as if it never happened. As if the scar doesn’t still linger on the point of his face. 

“He’d punish me in bathtubs,” Simon finally shares, ripping the bandaid off of a long rotting wound. He doesn’t know why he says it—why he says it to you, of all people, but he’s already bled in front of you once. “If I did somethin’ to upset him, he’d hit me, then send me to my room, or somewhere else in the house. I’d cry, usually. He hated it when I cried. He’d give me a few minutes to calm down before I started to annoy him, then would bitch and moan about how he’d have to shut me up.

“So he’d start running a bath. Fucker would drag me out of my room, then hold my head beneath the spout until I stopped breathing. I’d pass out sometimes ‘n mum would have’ta pull me out of the water. He smashed my nose on the spout once trying to throw me in. Broke my fuckin’ collar bone, too. He made mum lie to the doctors at the hospital. Said I hurt myself climbing trees with Tommy, or some stupid shit. Just dumb shit, baby. Don’t worry ‘bout it.” 

Simon doesn’t realize how stiff you are until he’s finished, memories wandering off in the back of his mind and words fading on the tip of his tongue. Slowly, you once again lift your head off of him, eyes glassy like wet stones as you look at him. Your brows are knitted, heavily etched into your face, and he feels his heart skip a beat. 

“He really did that to you?” your voice fractures. Pathetic, and sharp in your throat. You think back to the Christmas Holiday, and all the pictures you saw on Mrs. Riley’s wall. How young Simon looked—how small he was. Nothing at all like the man whose arms you rest in now. “Y-You were just a kid…” 

“Baby…” His hand moves from your hip to your face, cupping your cheek, thumb swiping beneath your eye. “Are you crying?” 

“Yes!” you squeal. Arms tossing up around his neck, bare chest pressing against his, you squeeze him as tight as you can manage, nearly knocking him off of his feet in the slippery tub. “Si, that’s awful. Oh my god, I’m so sorry you had to go through that.” 

He can feel the way you’re suppressing your sobs. Tight muscles winding around your ribs, pulling taut at your spine as you push your nose into his neck. He feels like a little kid in your arms again being held by his mother after another one of his father’s ruthless tirades. But the water is warmer, and he’s bigger now, with meaty hands made to crush bone, and scars that prove his strength—his endurance. 

It’s made him stronger; strong enough to protect you. 

But he doesn’t know what to say, and neither do you—so you hold one another until the water runs cold. 

When the shower quiets, and the two of you step out of the tub and onto the tile, Simon lets you dry him off. Tenderly, you wipe at his skin, every inch of his body, until he’s patted clean. Until it’s as if he never stepped foot in water to begin with. You check his stitches and butterfly bandages before bringing your attention to yourself. As he dresses, he watches you and your upset eyes—how red still plagues them in webby veins—and he puts himself behind you. 

Hands on your shoulders, he pulls you close to him, forcing your gaze to meet his through the mirror. “Wanna watch a movie? Somethin’ to cheer you up?” 

“Cheer me up?” you repeat incredulously. “Shouldn’t we be doing something for you?” 

Chuckling, he closes his eyes before burying his face into the back of your head. “I think you’re more torn up about this than I am, sweetheart.” 

You eventually agree to the movie when Simon admits that he just wants a slow day with you. A relaxing time where he can rest his sore, wounded body, and ideally not get himself into trouble again. 

Though, once the two of you are dressed and ready for the show, the television begins to throw a fit. A flickering screen throws you in the midst of a rave, and Simon only bothers to mess with the remote for a fleeting moment before he’s groaning and crawling on his hands and knees to mess with the medley of cables tangled behind the screen. 

Quietly, you monitor him. Eyes focusing on the curve of his ribs and where you know his wound lies beneath thin cotton, you wait for blood. A popped suture. A hiss in pain. Instead, you wander, focus grazing over his back, up to his shoulders, broad and wide, a blanket of meat and muscle to cover you whole. As he sits back on his haunches, arms rolling the ache out of his back, you wonder if this is what he looked like last night, curled over you, taking you in a way no one else has before. 

Heat quickly pulses throughout your body and pools in your face, and you find yourself shaking your head to rid yourself of the debauched thoughts in your mind. It feels like a dream, everything that happened last night. His hands on you, inside of you, unraveling you like thin string and wrapping you around his little finger. 

Feet anxiously tapping on the floor, you reach forward and grab your own string from the coffee table. Its old home used to rest deep in your pocket, always tucked by your side for when you needed it, but these days you find your hands occupied with better things. Kinder things. With Simon Riley. For now, you use it to hold you over until your blood mellows enough. Cat’s Cradle, the soldier’s bed, candlesticks—and when that isn’t enough, the hammock, the witch’s broom, and—

“Oh my god!” 

Your sudden exclamation has Simon’s head snapping over his shoulder. Stray wires pinched in his fingers, his brows furrow as he watches you, slack jawed and wide eyed, holding your hands out tangled in string. “Yeah baby?” 

You shake your hands, string wiggling and tightening, straining against your fingers as you pull on the formation. “Jacob’s Ladder! That’s what you fucking meant?” 

At first your revelation is lost on him until the neurons slowly connect in his brain. Realization crosses his face in a poorly suppressed smile until he’s howling with laughter so vicious he nearly pulls another stitch. 

Then, slowly, winter begins to warm into spring. 

Life defrosts before your very eyes as rain and lowering skies begins to plague London for the better part of two weeks. February wanes into March with your eyes heavily gawking at the calendar as the 25th zips past you with no trip to the laundromat, or hands on your thighs, or an envelope clutched in your hands. Your anxiety is nothing more than a tickle in the back of your mind as it passes you by. You are far too busy with Bee’s daily check-ins (she hasn’t left you alone since Marco dropped by Sapori) and Simon’s tongue on yours to give it a second thought. 

This is the closest to a new life that you’ve been able to obtain in over a decade. Without minty breath breathing down your neck or a job to keep you busy, you indulge in all the things you’ve been missing. Recipes you’ve been dying to try, music, reading—everything. If it isn’t already at your fingertips, Simon fetches it for you, dog teeth eagerly embedding and slick with drool, dropping it at your feet with a smile on his face. 

But there are things that linger. Old wounds that refuse to close. Scars that won’t ever quite fade. They chase after you, retrieving brutal reminders of just how you ended up here in the first place. Slack-jawed death and bloody flowers—a bereavement period that was nipped too short. Linoleum that you can never clean. A childhood home bought and sold with new feet to walk the tiles, ignorant to the filth they trample over. And fingers. Wretched and cruel, digging into flesh, piercing through you to your very core, ruining you until you’re perfect. 

Simon is there every time to kiss the tears and smother the memories. There, in the darkness, reaching for you, calming you in the night when the dam you’ve built shatters and the water gushing in the wake of its destruction drowns you. 

Because that old life is always here, lurking beneath your skin. 

Even now, it’s here. As you stare at yourself in the bathroom mirror, fingertips poking at the side of your cheek, you feel it. Wiggling. Ripping. Tearing flesh. You scrape your nail along your skin and you note the way it snags, a sharp pinprick of pain echoing throughout your face. 

You dig until it hurts, then keep going. Even when blood dribbles along your face, small rivers, large beads, you continue until the crystalline shard of your past sits in the palm of your hand. It’s small, near microscopic, but it’s here. 

So much damage, for a ghost. 

“Baby?” 

The concern in Simon’s voice has your head snapping to the side, but the blood on the side of your face doesn’t ebb his worry. Hands already outstretched to hold you, he closes the distance between the two of you in a mere instant. Preemptively drowning the words that are building up in his throat, you smile at him, bloody palm outstretched. 

“It’s nothing. Just a bit of glass,” you assure. 

“In your face?” he challenges. 

You shrug as you look down at it, rolling the shard along your hand. “Leftover pieces from the accident. There was so much in my face that they couldn’t get it all. They said they’d do more harm than good trying to get it all, and said to wait. That they’d work their way out like splinters. I get them every now and then, and usually they don’t make a mess like this but… well, I got a little impatient.” 

His pinched brows do not recede until you agree to let him clean you. Glass shard staring up at you from the counter, you lean into his touch as he wipes away the blood; dabbing along your cheek and jaw. The inflamed tissue pulses as it rises with an angry bump, but the bleeding has stopped, now scabbed over your skin. 

“Are you sure you don’t need a band-aid?” Simon asks. 

“I will look ridiculous, please don’t make me put that on.” 

Holding his hands up in defence, he smirks as he places the unwanted item back in its box and shoves it into the medicine cabinet. Sighing, you lean against the counter, body curved forward as you scrutinize the mark on your face. Slipping behind you, Simon pulls at your hands, removing them from your face before he wraps his arms around you. 

“Quit pokin’ at it,” he murmurs, head falling against your shoulder, lips heavy on the side of your neck. “Else I will put a band-aid on it.” 

“I can’t,” you whine. “It’s like a pimple.” 

“Well, we’ll work on that, too.” 

Something rings—it echoes throughout your leg, vibrations drawing your attention. A phone call. Stomach plummeting through the floor, your twitchy fingers reach for it, mind recalling the events that occurred the last time you got a phone call. 

Marco. Pictures. 

Simon. 

“Hello?” 

“Hey, Chip!” Aelin’s voice sings through the speaker, cooing like a mourning dove in the early hours just before dawn, lowering your heart rate and breathing. Guilt quickly seeps through your skin when you attempt to count the weeks that have passed since you’ve last heard her speak. 

“Hey,” you greet, a smile flittering across your lips. “What’s up?” 

“Oh, nothing really. Just missing you. Wanted to see if you’ll come to dinner with me tonight?” she asks. 

Eyes growing heavy, you lean against Simon and into his warmth while his arms hold you tight. A part of you doesn’t want to leave him—to tear yourself away from him—but compunction gets the better of you. 

“Yeah, that sounds nice. Over at your place again?” 

“Actually, I was thinking we could go out? There’s a new restaurant that opened up not too long ago, and I’ve been wanting to scope it out,” she explains flippantly. “Are you still staying with Riley? I could come pick you up here in a few hours.” 

You look up at the mirror to gauge Simon’s reaction, and the weight in his eyes has you freezing. He glares over your shoulder, brows tense and pupils dilated, ready to kill. Slowly, he shakes his head, and you nearly open your mouth to convey his answer before something strikes you. 

Tongue darting out to wet your lips, you nod. “Yeah, that sounds nice. Really nice. Does six sound okay?” 

As you finish setting your plans in stone with Aelin, Simon’s eyes squeeze shut as he gently knocks his forehead against the back of your skull. Rolling your eyes, you bid your friend a farewell before hanging up and sighing. 

“I can’t keep running from her, Simon,” you huff. “If I have you take me everywhere and hide me away, she’s going to get suspicious. Honestly, I’m surprised she hasn’t already. She’s always been sharply in tune with my emotions.” 

“I could drive both of you,” he suggests. 

“No, you are not gonna do that. Aelin is picking me up, and we’re going to this restaurant, and you are staying here so that she isn’t weirded out,” you retort. Forcing his arms to loosen, you turn to face him properly without the buffer of a mirror. “Si, I’m gonna be fine. I’ll be free from all that shit soon anyway, right? Besides, we’ll be in public. If they do anything, we can just make a scene, or I’ll call you, okay?” 

He stares at you for so long you nearly melt. Cinder and ash at his feet. Tender enough to be crushed beneath the sole of his foot. When his lips seem too stiff to speak, you reach up, fingers tracing over the bump on his nose before you tilt your head and plant a kiss to loosen them. 

“Okay?” you prompt again. 

Finally, he speaks. “You’re textin’ me the name of this place. And I’m gonna text you while you’re out. I want you to text me back. Yeah?” 

After sealing the deal with a kiss, Simon releases you. You linger in his fingers like the pain of a wound, of something ripped from him too soon. He heals himself quietly in the corner as you ready yourself for a simple night out, pouting like a kicked puppy with a brooding stare and clenched fists. 

His aura only thickens when Aelin’s car parks up front. It’s heavy and viscous against your skin. He’s touching you the entire way to the door, pulling on your sleeve, your little finger, attempting to yank you back into his hold. Giggling, you say goodbye with another kiss as he reminds you about your deal—worried about you as always, your Simon Riley. 

Aelin glows with a grin as you enter the passenger’s seat, but it wavers the moment she catches sight of the side of your face. Instinctive fingers reach out to touch you, but you quickly wave her off as you cover it. 

“It’s just more glass,” you excuse. 

“Still?” she questions. 

You shrug. “I’ll probably have it for the rest of my life.” Rubbing at the wound, you flinch when your fingers flick at the scab, and you huff. “Stop staring. Simon already tried to put a band-aid on it, and that was bad enough.” 

Giggling, Aelin brushes it off before driving off. Quiet streets slowly morph into something more noisy, jam packed with vehicles and pedestrians. She fills the silence with idle conversation as her hands grip the wheel, and for once your mind doesn’t torment you with fabricated images of what her fingers would look like bent and broken. 

She talks about her time with John these days lazing around at home, and how she’s gotten him to spend more time with her than at work. They’ve been working around the house. Painting rooms. Building furniture. Her voice wanders off as she pulls up to the restaurant—the name of which you make sure to quickly send off to Simon—and she eagerly exits the car and demands that you follow behind. 

The air is different inside of this place compared to Sapori. Music plays louder, the waiters aren’t dressed as formally—casual, boisterous laughter, voluble chatter that drones on in the background. You and Aelin are brought through a winding path between patrons to a quiet table for two nestled against the window. Cotton candy clouds bleed into the sky outside, casting your friend in fiery gold as she takes her seat across from you. 

There is hardly any time for you to breathe before she’s asking you questions, inquiries shoved down your throat, eyes demanding answers, lips quirking with a mischievous smirk. She asks about you and Simon, how things have been going, the state of your apartment, if you’re going to move back or stay with him and—

“So, have you two had sex yet?”

Head nearly falling into your hands, you try to laugh off her question, but you can’t outrun your gauche nature no matter how hard you try. You feel it settle in your face, white hot and unrelenting, and your only savior is the waiter who approaches to take your orders, silencing your stuttering. 

Either offering you sympathy, or having completely forgotten about your question after ordering, Aelin moves to different topics. Ones punctuated by Simon’s incessant need to keep an eye on you. Phone constantly vibrating, thumbs tapping away at the screen, a smile flitting across your face. 

i still think you’re silly for worrying so much about me

“I’ve never seen you like this before,” Aelin muses. 

When you look up from your phone you see her leaning forward, chin resting in the palm of her hand, slender fingers curling along the side of her face. Her eyes glisten like fresh water in a pond, viridian weeds lurking underneath the depths, dancing in the flow of the currents. Blinking, you tilt your head. 

“Like what?” you ask. 

Her eyes flicker down to your phone before pinning you beneath her gaze. “So in love.” 

Swallowing, you grip your phone tightly before deciding to slide it on the table. Out of the way, but still face up so you can monitor Simon’s messages. “Oh. Sorry, I didn’t mean to… you know…” 

“Don’t be sorry. It looks good on you. It’s good, anyway. Seeing you like this.” Pausing, you watch her eyes go blurry. Unfocused and distracted. She peers at the table, fingers tapping against the plastic grain before her as her teeth sink into her lip. “Chip- I… there’s something I’ve been-” 

Nails on a chalkboard—something scrapes along the freshly waxed floor at your feet. Like claws against your skin. Glass in your face. A hand up your skirt. 

A new chair joins the table, followed by a body—a man. Short hair, dark eyes, he leans his hands on the table as if he’s welcome. As if he’s meant to join you. A second man stands behind him with cold eyes and his hands shoved deep in the pockets of his jeans. The third man comes with the silage of minty air that curls in your nostrils so violently your eyes water, but it’s nothing compared to the heavy hands that rest on your shoulders. 

Still—despite it all—you cannot get your gaze off of the man in front of you: Vladimir Makarov himself.

follow @mother-ilia to be notified of updates | get early access to chapters here

[deadhands69]

Concrete Dust

Tomura Shigaraki x gn reader

☁️ tooth-rotting fluff tws: nudity mentioned (non-sexual) quick read (sub 1k wc)

Tomura Shigaraki stands outside your door a little after 9pm. His pearly hair tinged by blood and dust, along with the rest of him.

“Come in,” you say in a hushed voice. The hood of his jacket shrouds his face, mostly, but you still eye the hallway to make sure your neighbors haven’t noticed his presence. 

With the chaos of his life, you’re never really sure when he’ll come around. So much of your time without him is spent doom scrolling. Hoping you don’t see his name in the headlines. Days and sometimes weeks will pass without him around. He always comes back though, making time for you whenever he can. 

This time, it's been a week and six days. 

Not that you were counting.

Tomura sits near the door, pulling his clunky boots off. By the look of him, you’re amazed he hasn’t slumped over and fallen asleep out of exhaustion. But he pushes through, standing to hold you in the entryway. The sharp sting of concrete dust on his jacket burns your eyes but you’re so glad to be in his arms again.

“Sorry,” he grumbles, “got kind of dirty this time.”

“That’s okay,” you say, pulling him towards the shower and peeling his clothes off layer by layer. Each giving you a view of new rips and tears until you reach the familiar scars on his body, now covered in new cuts and bruises. When you ask what happened, he gives you a half an answer before changing the subject. You've never been sure if he doesn't want you to know all the details or just doesn't care to talk about it. Probably both. He asks about your day. What you've been doing since he saw you last. You answer, feeling boring in comparison to his fast-paced life. He doesn't think so though. With the tumultuousness of his life, he enjoys hearing your stories. Listening intently, he finds it cute in the way most people would watch a slice of life anime.

You throw his clothes in the laundry basket to deal with later. While he showers, you pull out some clean laundry. Tonight you pick a soft sweater he left here last time and a pair of your sweatpants. 

After he’s dry, you push him back onto the bathroom counter to look at the cuts on his face. Some are new. Some aren’t. You disinfect a particularly nasty one, bandaging it together. He winces, but lets you. Some of them would probably heal better with stitches, but you know he'd never bother.

After the blood is wiped away, you coat him in a thick layer of lotion that he swears works better than anything he's tried (even if it is the same brand.) He likes the way your hands feel and how gentle you are with him. It's a sharp contrast from the day he's had. Most of the time he shows up at your door he looks like the world has chewed him up and spat him back out again.

Tomura’s not just here for you to clean him up, but he doesn’t mind it at this point. When you first started dating, he refused to let you tend to his wounds. It was an uphill battle to get to where you are. Worth it though. He’s learned not to make a fuss when you show him how much you care. In turn, you've learned that sometimes he just doesn't know how to accept affection; you're more patient with him now.

On your couch, he happily eats the leftovers from your dinner. You would have made more or something more exciting had you known he’d be by tonight, but he still swears this is the best thing he’s eaten all week and tells you so repeatedly. 

Throwing on a random movie, the two of you curl up under a blanket together. You run your hands through his damp hair, lightly untangling the strands as you go. The smell of collapsed buildings lingers on him even after he showered. You don't mind it anymore, it's just another part of him you've fallen in love with.

To most people it would be silly seeing the symbol of fear here in your living room. Your domestic bliss is the absolute opposite of his everyday life, but that’s what makes him love times like these. You’re a perfect oasis of tenderness and affection in his harsh, destructive life. The world is a scary place. There are a lot of battles he's lost and he's sure there will be more. But right now, in your arms, everything will be okay for him.

Tomura leans his head on yours, scoffing at the terrible movie you both picked. His body is sore and heavy with exhaustion, but he stays awake as long as he can to take in every minute with you. 

Tomorrow he'll leave and you'll wake up to an empty bed. You'll tell yourself not to wait for him, but you can't help it. You always miss him when he's gone. 

He misses you too, trying to get through missions as quickly as possible. He hopes that one day, there won't be anything else needing to be destroyed and he can just stay in your sanctuary forever.

But for now, just spending the night in each other's arms is as close to perfect as you can imagine. 

masterlist

taglist: @shigarakislaughter  @cryptidfuckerofficial @minniessskii @vaval3ntin @ykyouluvme 

@dummi666 @lotus-flower420 @nonominchan @softnfuzzy @mysticalhills 

@reireitaka @crwavee @baby-pink-flowers @drlucichen @frieren-imposter

@lou-the-naga-queen @multifandomidk @xytraxpy @venom-barf  @shiiigaraki

@thetinas21 @kitkat13001 @kennys-partner @amira-44820 @its-evee16

@thesecond2demonking

[brucewaynehater101]

I really need more stuff on some Joker Junior angst, along with Jason finding out about Joker Junior. Even better if you wanna pull in the whole Red Hood (Joker/Jason) Attacking Robin (Jason/Tim), both times when Robin was 15 years old and was supposed to be with someone/somewhere safe.

Hmm... I agree that more content about that would be fabulous. I especially love JJ fanart (there's some really cool ones on TikTok).

Fuck it. Here we go:

TW: torture, Joker Junior, violence, blood, flashback, dissociation, derealization, hallucinating(?)

Tim hands fly to his throat in a desperate attempt to rub away the urge to giggle. He's biting his lips hard enough to bleed in order to prevent them from twisting into a panicked grin.

He's pinned to the floor by a man using one of Joker's alias.

Just like old times, eh?

A snicker slips out at that, which only seems to enrage the man in red.

"Something funny, Placeholder?" The voice modulator in the helmet does nothing to hide the clear disdain and wrath curling through Red Hood. His grip tightens over his holsters, but he doesn't pull them out quite yet. The crimson helmet just glares down at Robin.

Red, red, red. He'd look so much better in Green.

Fuck. Note to self, Tim. JJ likes Red Hood.

Robin locks his face down at this revelation to keep a calm facade. He could try to dislodge the knives holding him hostage, but not with the perpetrator towering over him like this. "Nope. My bad, Hood. Got a little distracted. Where were we?"

The crime lord takes a few steps forward until he's next to the trapped bird. Somehow, he makes even the action squatting appear menacing. "This is the part where I torture you. Where I cut off a little bird's wings so you'll never fly again. Maybe then, B will learn."

Robin watches as Hood draws another knife. The crime lord twirls the blade between his fingers and tilts his head. There's a considering glint evident in his body language.

In a sick mockery of comfort, Red Hood trails the knife down Robin's cheek. It's too close to Joker's signs of "affection" after a round of shock treatment.

Junior shudders.

The leather jacket starts to morph into a lavender lounge coat and Tim blinks rapidly to clear his vision.

A sigh of relief escapes his lips when he's able to see Red Hood again.

The crime lord pauses. He tilts his head once more. Tim can feel the gaze studying him, but he's not sure why. He can't tell if the man is genuinely curious or if he's inspecting Robin like a bug trapped in plexiglass.

When the knife leaves his skin, Tim feels his shoulders lose an inch of tension.

"Don't get too comfortable. I've got a few questions before I snap your legs."

Tim can feel a jolt of pain flash through his legs at the claim. He grimaces at the notion of months off field.

Hood leans back onto his heels, fortunately giving the younger teen some space. It doesn't seem intentional, but it's better.

"You've been Robin for two years now?"

When Tim initially refuses to acknowledge the question, Hood raises the knife. Robin sighs and gives a nod.

The man hums and brings the hilt of the knife to his chin. The weird thinking pose blares an alarm in Tim's brain, but he can't quite piece together where he's seen it before.

"About eight months ago, the clown disappeared."

Phantom feelings of electricity run through Tim's body. His muscles twitch under the memory.

Red Hood leans closer. "Where is he?"

Tim can hear -

"You know better than that, Junior. Where's the smile for your old man?"

A desperate giggle bubbles up Tim's throat.

"Come on, son. You wouldn't want to make your mother sad, would you?"

Joker leans over Tim Junior with a wicked grin. He grips a blade and gestures to Junior's lips. "Do you want your dear old Dad to teach you to smile? Again?"

Junior shakes his head frantically as trembling lips split open in a facsimile of a smile. The motion pulls at his stitches scars.

Scars?

That's not-

Junior's smile starts to fall.

Red Hood Joker crosses his arms. "What the fuck are you smiling at?"

Junior still has a smile on his face (it can't drop), but his eyebrows furrow. "Dad?"

Joker flinches back.

Amethyst cloth flickers to bronze leather and then back again. Forest green hair morphs into a cherry red helmet. Junior watches it peer behind its shoulder before Joker's face turns back to him.

"Batman isn't here."

A cackle erupts from Junior's lips and dissolves into a fit of giggles. Joker peers at Tim Junior in confused horror. The kid turns his head more towards the man. A smile stretches and pulls the corner of his lips, highlighting the faint scars.

Junior Tim hears the man take a startled breath in.

"Batsy isn't Dad. Dad-"

Tim frowns as his gaze drifts away from the man. "I killed Dad. He's dead."

He pouts exaggeratedly before Junior dissolves into a fit of giggles. "Bam!" Both of his hands point an imaginary gun Red Hood's Joker's way. "Bam! Bam!" The hands recoil back as if actually shooting the man.

Tears start to stream down Junior's Tim's face. He fights to bring his lips away from a grin.

"Fuck." He's still grining. "Fuck!"

Red Hood, the cause of all of this, is just staring at Tim. He's observing the teen try to bring himself back to sanity inch by stupid fucking inch.

Tim's eyes dart around the room. He takes a deep breath in and, on the exhale, list something he sees. "Chair. Blender. Staff. Kni-"

Several more deep breaths in and out as he ignores all the knives in the room. "Light. Jacket. Cape. Couch. Lemon. Counter."

His hands paw at his utility breath as he keeps breathing. He grasps one of the sour candies and works on opening the wrapper. He pops it into his mouth and continues the breath exercise.

Red Hood is silent as he watches Robin pull himself back into reality.

It takes several more minutes before Robin's breaths return to normal. He lays there looking at the ceiling absolutely drained and done with this whole situation.

Finally, Tim turns his gaze to the crime lord.

"Can you just kill me already or get the fuck out?"

Red Hood responds by pulling off his helmet.

Tim blinks. Sighs. Then starts up his grounding techniques again.

[maxlarens]

lando + bandaging/stitching up an injury :)))) i love love love your writing!!!!!

i think about his nose scar a lot. i know he’s told some details about what happened but i’m throwing most of that out the window for fic purposes. also thank you🥰

tw blood, mild descriptions of a wound

You’re on the way back with drinks for you, Lando and another friend when there’s suddenly a commotion coming from the direction you’re headed. Glass shattering, someone that sounds a lot like Lando swearing loudly. The moment you hear it you’d really like to rush over there— but it’s a bit difficult with three full pint glasses held in your hands.

You charge through the crowd, elbowing and shoving as much as you can without spilling your drinks— you find Lando with his hand clutched over his nose, blood running through his fingers, down his wrist. There’s a loose gathering of people around him but you’re barely paying attention to them. You put the pint glasses down on the nearest table and shove through to Lando, indiscriminate of who you’re forcing out of your way.

“Lan,” you put a hand on his shoulder, a hand gently on his elbow, “Lan, what happened?”

He says something you can’t understand. There’s music, chatter, and a person you’re not particularly fond of is trying to take charge of the situation. Saying irrelevant things to people, directing them places and then trying to pull you away from Lando. Suddenly they’ve got a hand tugging on your elbow, saying,

“Dude, give him space, give him space.”

Then they’re shoving dirty bar napkins into Lando’s unoccupied hand and you’ve had fucking enough.

“Give me one sec, Lan,” you pat him gently on the shoulder and then whirl around to face the source of your ire, “First of all, do not touch me,”

Their hand slips from your elbow immediately as they reel back a few steps, something shocked passing across their face.

“Second,” you bite, “If you want to do something actually useful, go to the bar, ask for the first aid kit and bring it to me right now. Can you do that?”

They blink, half-stutter, “Yeah, yeah, okay. Done.”

You’re glad to see them turn tail and push through the crowd. You sigh, ask another friend to “please tell Martin about Lando. He’s over on the decks,” and then tell everyone else they need to back off unless you ask for help. You turn your attention back to Lando, grateful for your experience wrangling teenagers which is apparently a lot like wrangling drunk adults around an accident.

“Sorry,” you sigh, hands back on him, “Can you tell me what happened?”

“Er, my glass broke.”

“Your glass broke?”, you repeat, and then, “Lan, babe, can you move your hand please?”

“Mm. I dunno.”

“Sweetheart,” you say, the pet names you try not to use for him slipping out of your mouth with alarming frequency, “C’mon.”

Someone stuffs a wad of apparently clean napkins into your hand and then the first aid kit you’d asked for is on the table next to you. You unzip it, flipping it open and gathering supplies as Lando finally musters the courage to move his hand from the injury.

“It’s bad,” he says matter-of-factly, now fixated on the blood trailing down his arm, “It feels bad.”

“I’ll look,” you sigh, shuffling your high-stool closer to him so your thighs are touching, “Don’t freak out.”

You can hear him, breathing a little ragged with nerves. His unbloodied arm grabs at your jumper, clutches there. You lean into him, using a napkin to dab at the blood spilling down his nose. It’s not that bad— or it’s not bleeding profusely anymore. You don’t see any glass, just a two-centimetre wide gash on the bridge of his nose.

“Lan,” you say, reaching for a cotton ball to press there, guiding his hand to hold it, “Lando. It’s fine.”

He scrunches his nose, winces when it hurts, “Are you sure?”

You nod, grabbing napkins to wipe up his arm which you meant for him to attend to, “Promise. It’s not deep. Just need to wait for the bleeding to slow down a bit.”

You wipe blood off the tan skin of his forearm, but it’s dried a bit so you’re more just smearing it around. You manage what you can, leave the rest for later.

“Okay,” Lando says finally, sounding a little less shaky now, a little more reassured by you.

You cant help but smile to yourself as you move Lando’s other hand and the now red cotton ball. You pour a bit of saline on the cut and you’re pleased to spot no glass residue. And to find that it’s not too deep— it’s a sizeable gash but it hasn’t done anything scary like hit bone and it’s not bleeding much now. It seems to have just scraped a good layer of skin off.

You lean back and level Lando with a look. He returns the look with apparent apprehension, mouth curled into a frown, green eyes wide with worry.

“What?”, he asks.

“I’ve gotta put antiseptic on it, bub.”

He groans, grits his teeth and tips his head back instead of wincing.

“Okay,” still through gritted teeth, “Do it.”

You ready a cotton swab with a good glug of antiseptic on it. Moving again to loom over Lando. You steady his head with your fingers on his chin, not gripping hard but enough to remind him to stay still.

“Y’know,” you say, going for it right away with the cotton ball— he hisses through his teeth, a prolonged thing, “This’ll leave a scar.”

“Ugh,” he groans, less at what you’re saying, more at the way you’re covering his entire nose in antiseptic, “Girls like that don’t they?”

You shrug, letting the antiseptic dry, letting the sting subside. You ready a bandaid— they’re Disney Princess themed, thrown in there with the standard first aid kit bandaids. You’ve made an executive decision that he needs to have Princess Aurora plastered across his nose for the rest of the day.

“I guess,” you answer, imagining Lando’s nose with a permanent mark on it, “It’s cute. Quirky.”

“You think?”, he looks at you expectantly.

You snort, peeling the bandaid from its wrapping, “I have no idea, Lan. Maybe it’ll be horrific.”

He makes an offended noise, shaking his head as you tip forward to press the Aurora bandaid across his nose. You smooth it down on both sides just as Martin materialises from the crowd, carrying new drinks for the three of you. Condensation rolling down the sides of the beer glasses.

“Ah, mate,” Lando admonishes, reaching around you to take a beer, “You didn’t have to stop the set for me.”

Martin shrugs, “Eh,” he practically forces a beer into your hand, eyes shining with something that’s maybe a little mischievous, “It’s no worries. But, you clearly have someone taking care of you.”

He winks slyly at you— you feel the urge to punch him bubble up in your chest. You take a gulp of your drink to stymie the feeling, try to step away from Lando.

Lando grabs you. His arm going around your shoulder as he slips off his stool, pulling you to him. You knock your shoulder into his, bounce back and try not to press into his side.

“You don’t mean that,” Lando says later— once Martin has been filled in, you’ve been told the sequence of events leading up to the cut, and you’re another beer deep.

“Huh,” you raise an eyebrow, your mouth on the straw of your tequila apple juice, “Whaddya mean?”

“That it’ll look horrific?”

You sigh, giggle a bit, “No, Lan. Course not.”

“You think girls will like it?”, he’s smirking a little, pleased at the idea, then, hands on your shoulders, “Would you like it? You’re a girl.”

You roll your eyes, ignoring the thing in your gut, “Well, babe. It’s covered by a princess bandaid right now, but sure, yeah— it’ll be cute. Hot even.”

He smushes you to his chest without warning and if his smile stretches even wider for it then so what.

✨lets discuss: best friend!reader using so many pet names when lando needs reassurance because its her internal dialogue that she usually has the presence of mind to filter out— but when she’s taking care of him she’s not bothered to focus on cutting them because her only priority is lando😁😁😁 on that note best friend!reader would be a total wreck if lando got in an accident on track 😋

send me a prompt/request + a driver and i’ll write something. pls check if my requests are open 💖

[another-argo]

°•□Open Starter □•°

I Live Inside You Forever, With Satan Himself By My Side

ANYONE CAN INTERACT

>TW: Unwilling transformation, derealization, loss of bodily autonomy, body mutilization (possibly other things) <

Argo had locked himself in one of the prison cells the moment he felt it start. His wings had somehow.. absorbed back into his body? Making it all the more painful when they burst out again.

Argo lets out a bloodcurdling scream- like millions of souls worth of agony are being channeled through Argo right now.

Argo is wearing a weird outfit; like something an old puppet would wear. Bows. Everywhere. A bow tie, bows on their gloves, and bows on their little socks- and on every individual set of wings.

It would be cute, but the bows sprout into string; tying tightly around their respective areas. Wrists, wings, ankles, neck- and they lead back to an invisible control panel.. somewhere above Argo.

His wings are pure white- but tied back by razored, barbed, wire. So are his facial wings- and the smaller pair of facial wings that sprouted out with the large; actually functional wings.

They make Argo look almost.. angelic- in a biblical way.

Argo looks up, repressing another scream. Their voice already hurts.

They see a person and their face goes deadly pale.

You notice they're missing all their facial scars; like they're wearing a perfect porcelain mask.

The 'mask' which seems to now just be Argo's skin cracks; right where their jawline scar used to be.

Argo tries to move back- but their razor wire restraints prevent that. He almost objects; almost vocalizes- but a stitch comes undone from their neck and that shuts him up really damn quick.

Argo looks like a perfect little angel puppet.

So, what do you do?

taglist (ask to be added or deleted): @orion-the-hunterpt2 @lilacnightshade @pain-is-forever @reyno-solis-real @faceless-bugger @unlicensed-field-medic @the-great-emperor-commodus @the-eclipsed-sun @sophia-hunter-of-artemis @daughter-of-thanatoss

[ohdeerfully]

incredibly short and sweet self indulgent fic tonight..... had surgery yesterday (not nearly as bad as reader here i just like the dramatics) and have been fighting for sleep for like 7 hours. its nearly 5am im so tired. so heres some fluffy comfort fic?????! i need season 2 to come out already so i dont have to reuse gifs ),:

Battle Scars

Alastor x Reader (fluff) TW: reader is injured but no graphic descriptions. alastor is grossly sweet here masterlist join my discord! ◈ ══════════ ◈ ══════════ ◈ ══════════ ◈

After the latest attack from Heaven, you found yourself one of the many stuck in recovery. A gnarly wound on your abdomen and a fractured jaw left you covered in stitches and bedridden. It was embarrassing, almost, feeling so helpless. The attention you got from the kinder residents of the hotel ironically didn’t help you feel any better, although they meant well.

“I really appreciate it, really, but I don’t need this, it’s too much,” You spoke slowly, and it felt like you were nearly chewing on your words as you spoke to Charlie when she came to your room a day after your surgery with a whole gift basket of goodies and a small wooden knick knack of your favorite animal. You tried pushing it back into her hands, but it took no strength at all for her to keep it on your lap. She waved her hand dismissively.

“You fought so hard for us!” She said with assurance and gratitude. “It’s really the least I could do.” She removed the basket from your lap and rested it on a nearby vanity. She spoke a few more pleasantries and offered you your thousandth “feel better” before leaving the room. A light smile crossed your lips at her gestures, but it soon fell from your face again as your focus returned to your poor state.

Painkillers in Hell were less than ideal, although that would come as a surprise to nobody—it was Hell, afterall. Truthfully, “real” pain medicine did nothing to help, and the only real solution was some hard drugs to take the edge off. You opted to call up Angel Dust as a last resort.

For the next few days you were practically a ghost floating through the hotel, only shuffling out of your room to grab a meal and fluids. Every step ached, shooting pain up your body and through the mediocre stitches on your chest. Eating was no less painful, especially considering you never had an appetite and only really ate out of necessity. You couldn’t chew well, so you were stuck eating a mostly soft and liquid diet. It was miserable.

The days were blending together, especially due to the fact many of your nights were sleepless. You spent hours turning this way and that, desperately trying to find that perfect position that would let sleep finally turn off your pain for just a few hours, but it never came. Every night you eventually got fed up and sat in a rocking chair by the window, watching the red-casted city just a few miles away.

You heard a light knock at your door, but before you could reason enough at who would be awake so late in the night you felt a sensation of the air blowing before a presence materialized behind you. It took no time at all to recognize the familiar prickling of static on your bare skin. Instinctually the recognition brought relief, but your guard soon went back up after you had a moment to think.

A weird mixture of feelings crossed your mind as Alastor approached you, stopping at the side of the chair you sat in. His claws gripped around the head of the chair, stopping the gentle rocking you had been lulling yourself with.

“Why are you up so late, ma moitié?” He bent slightly to peer down at your face, his ever present smile more gentle than usual. You cast your eyes up to his, studying his face for a moment while you tempered your emotions and thought of a response.

“I could ask you the same thing,” You finally answered, averting your gaze when his piercing eyes became too much to look at. It hurt so bad to speak. You heard him chuckle, although it was empty of any real humor.

“You know better than anyone I don’t sleep much,” He responded, fingers trailing along the wooden carving of the back of your chair. His fingers eventually found themselves trailing onto your head and gently playing with your hair. A tense chill went through your body, but you allowed yourself to fall weak to his touch. You were always weak to him.

The intimate contact finally broke the dam of emotion you tried to reserve in order to maintain what little dignity you had in your broken state. You didn’t cry, but the tears that filled your eyes threatened to spill at any moment. You were embarrassed, but couldn’t help it in your sleepless state.

“Where have you been, Alastor,” You said, barely above a whisper. It had been days since the attack, and after his one on one with Adam he had completely disappeared. You didn’t know if you wanted to miss him or hate him for leaving you like that. You were sickeningly worried. He didn’t respond immediately, but you knew he heard you well enough when you saw his ears twist momentarily in the reflection and his expression shift.

“Let’s lie you down, first,” He offered, already moving to wrap his hands around your shoulders to aid in you standing up. As upset as you felt, you put up no fight and obeyed his touch as he guided you to your disheveled bed. He settled himself next to you, remaining propped up on an elbow as he peered down at you. You wished he would stop looking at you so hard, suddenly feeling extremely self conscious of your unwashed hair and swollen, bruised jaw. 

“I found myself in a similar state as you,” He eventually responded to your earlier question, his voice much quieter than you would ever expect from him. You were no stranger to the softer side of him, but it always came as a shock when his usual attitude is rather obnoxious and unserious. 

His fingers gently trailed at your wrapped up body, somehow knowing exactly where the stitches hid underneath the bandages. His hand reached your own, gently cupping it and pulling it towards his own body. You didn’t know how you hadn’t noticed before, but Alastor had his own set of bandages covering a bloody spot on his chest. 

You pulled your hand away from his and brought it up to cup his cheek. It took him a moment to accept the gesture, lightly pressing his head into your hand. 

“Why didn’t you come back to me?” You asked quietly. “After seeing Adam strike you, I was so worried you went off and bled out alone somewhere.”

Alastor grinned a little wider at your comment, but it soon fell to be quite small and strained.

“I was weak. I don’t want anybody seeing me like that—especially you, my dear. I had my own battle to face and I couldn’t come back until I felt a little more… sane.” 

You didn’t quite understand the latter half of his statement, but knew better to question him further. He likely wouldn’t open up any more anyway. You were slowly just accepting that he was back with you, which lifted a weight you forgot was even on your mind.

“I’m just sorry I couldn’t protect you from your own fight,” He added after a few quiet moments, the sincerity in his voice poking at your already emotional heart. His arm had come to wrap protectively around your waist, pulling you slightly closer to him. 

“I don’t need protection,” You spoke a bit stubbornly. You watched his eyes glance down at your battered torso before looking back up to you, but he made no further comment. “But I am glad you finally came back.”

He brought his head down, resting his forehead against yours. You closed your eyes and breathed in his familiar smell, almost overwhelmed with the comforting familiarity of it. You had managed to block out your worry about his absence for the past few days, trying to focus on your own recovery, and it had all come flooding back at once. Before he would have a chance to notice tears forming in your eyes, you aggressively threw your arms up and around him, pulling him down and closer to you as you buried your face into the crook of his neck.

The uncertain tension in his body was dismissed when he felt a jolt of your body as you bit back a sob. He curled both of his arms around you, pulling you against himself while also bringing his legs up to cradle your curled up form.

The room was dead silent, the only movement being your shuddering body as you fought to stop yourself from crying. It hurt tremendously to cry, but the emotions you felt made it near impossible to stop. 

It was only when Alastor began threading his clawed hand through your hair were you able to calm yourself down. His touch was delicate, maybe a bit unsure, as he did his best to comfort you. You shifted impossibly closer to him, and in response he simply pulled you tighter to his body.

“Don’t do that shit again,” You whispered after the tears stopped flowing.

“Nothing in Heaven or Hell can keep me from you,” He promised, speaking as if he was challenging something to test that fact. You felt him shift for a moment before a light kiss was pressed on your forehead. You melted into the contact, finally falling silent as his gentle touch in your hair and against your skin lulled you into sleep.