#Waking up and crawling out of a pool after dying only to look in a mirror and see a modded npc would fuck with her endlessly

[bellamontwasright]

The passive aggressive bimbofication of a transgender woman via daedric magic as a punishment for continual insubordination

[anakinstwinklebunny]

SICKNESS

No warnings, pure fluff..this is awfully long

Your boyfriend was your complete opposite. In many ways.

despite being polar opposites, the two of you got along surprisingly well. However while you were more of a morning bird, anakin preferred spending hours in bed after waking up. You preferred salty and sweety food, while anakin was obsessed with spicy food. You preferred winter, while he liked summer. And when it came to being sick, you didn't really act overly dramatic about it, unlike anakin

"Gosh, I'm gonna die.." Anakin groaned as he shivered under the covers, desperately attempting to pull them higher and burrow deeper into them

you couldn't help but let out a light chuckle at his overdramatic display "ani, you're not gonna die"

"I am.." he rasped through a hoarse throat, his voice weak and strained "My throat hurts like hell..my head feels like it's about to explode and-" he was suddenly cut off by another coughing fit "...god..see? I'm about to die"

you chuckled once more at his dramatic declarations. the soft clatter of pills inside a plastic bottles echoed in your ears as you searched for the right medication to soothe his pain

"You're just sick.." you gently reassured him "you won't die, I promise"

"How can you be so sure?" anakin rolled onto his side, nuzzling his face into the pillow "..I'm seriously dying..my throat feels like a sandpaper!"

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry.." you giggled, approaching him with a glass of water and two pills "but i need you to sit up, baby"

"Do I really have to..?" he whined

when you gave him a firm stare, he begrudgingly pushed himself up to lean against the bed frame. He eyed the pills in your hand skeptically "what are those for?" he asked

"they're supposted to help beat the fever"

anakin had a habit of becoming extra dramatic when he was sick. He would act like he was on death's door over a simple cold, which was both amusing and slighty annoying at the same time

with a sigh, he reached for the pills and swallowed them with the sip of water. Afterwards, he slumped back down into the bed. You could see his body trembling under the thin layer of blanket and the idea came to your mind "I feel like hell.."

"I know," you sighed, heading to his wardrobe to grab another blanket. "Are you still cold?" you asked, raising your voice so he could hear you.

"Freezing," he mumbled, pulling the covers up to his neck. There was a brief pause before he spoke again. "Can you come here?..I need cuddles.."

"Of course, Ani" you said, leaving the wardrobe and approaching the bed. You spread the blanket over the covers to give him extra warmth that he craved so much

He looked like an overgrown child, buried beneath a heap of blankets. Only a few disheveled locks of dark blond hair and weary blue eyes could be seen peeking out from underneath. He grasped your arm gently and tugged you down onto the bed. "There," he murmured, “Now hug me.”

You chuckled affectionately at his neediness, crawling under the covers to snuggle up beside him. Anakin promptly enveloped his sore arms around your waist, resting his head upon your chest with a soft groan. Becoming his personal pillow, especially at these times, could be seen as your never ending job that you even enjoyed. But if anyone would pay you for doing it, you'd find yourself swimming in a pool full of cash, which wasn't the worse

"You're so warm," he mumbled, pulling the blankets tighter around both of you. "Why aren't I as warm as you are?"

"you're trembling.." your fingers brushed through his messy curls, taking note of his shivering body. Somehow you felt a pang of remorse for laughing at him earlier even if his behavior was specific to say the least

"Of course I'm trembling," he clinged to you as if you were a lifeline. "I've got a fever, I'm cold and sore and sick and tired and miserable..." he continued, listing off his symptoms with a pathetic whine. "..so I'll cling onto you until this stupid sickness is gone."

Unable to contain your amusement, a small smile tugged at your lips. Despite his childlike behavior, you couldn't help but find him utterly adorable. The way he searched for physical contact and clung to you for comfort and support made your heart flutter.

"God, I hate being sick," he grumbled, burying his face into your chest. "Being around you is the only thing I enjoy right now."

You soothed him with a soft voice, twirling a curl around your finger "It's okay, baby. The meds will kick in soon enough."

"Everything is just so annoying right now," he complained, his words muffled against your chest. "My head hurts, every part of my body feels sore and throbbing...and I don't know what'll kill me... a headache or the misery itself."

You planted a gentle kiss on his warm forehead, trying to soothe his 'concerns'. "It's just a fever, Ani. you'll be okay."

He grumbled in response, knowing you were right but still feeling entitled to exaggerate his discomfort. "But everything hurts," he whined.

You rolled your eyes playfully, already having grown accustomed to his dramatic antics. "I know, you've already said that," you teased.

"Don't stop rubbing my hair," he mumbled drowsily out of nowhere, relishing the soothing feeling it was providing to his tired head. "Feels so good..."

As the meds slowly began to take effect, you hoped they would soon lull him into a peaceful slumber. But before that happened, he piped up with an unexpected request.

"You gonna make me meatballs?"

You chuckled softly at his random craving. "You're craving meatballs?" you asked, a smile tugging at the corner of your lips.

He nodded weakly, his eyes practically lighting up at the thought of your homemade dish "Yeah..I always feel better after you make them. Make 'em extra spicy too.." he pleaded, his voice filled with hope.

"Ani, you know you shouldn't be eating spicy food right now. Not with a fever and a sore throat," you gently reminded him.

He pulled back from your chest and looked up at you with puppy eyes and an exaggerated frown. "Are you really going to deny me my favorite spicy meatballs?"

Despite knowing better, he wasn't above asking for special treatment, relying on his boyfriend privileges to get what he wanted, even if it wasn't good for his health.

You gently brushed a stray curl out of his eye and replied firmly, "You'll have to wait until you're healthy again."

Anakin let out a melodramatic groan and draped his arm over his eyes, flopping back onto the pillow with a heavy sigh. "But I want them," he mumbled pathetically

"It's for your own good.."

He let out another melodramatic sigh, realizing that you weren't budging. But, true to form, that didn't stop him from trying to persuade you.

"You're so cruel to me," he pouted, feigning a wounded expression. "Starving me and denying me my favorite food while I'm ill and dying..." His tone was playful, clearly enjoying the banter.

"You're so dramatic," you teased. "Is there anything else you'd like to eat?"

He paused for a moment, pretending to think carefully about his food request. "Well, nothing much. Maybe just some soup and tea," he said casually, before sneaking in a hopeful whisper. "And spicy meatballs.."

You dissolved into laughter at his persistent attempt to break the no-spicy-food rule. "Ani, no spicy food," you reiterated

He let out a frustrated groan, burying his face into the pillow and sulking like a child denied his favorite toy. It was adorable how his demeanor completely changed when he was unwell, transforming him into a grumpy, bratty boy.

He muttered sulkily, "You're mean...what if I said please?"

"We just talked about it,"

Another groan of disappointment escaped him as he, again, flung an arm over his weary eyes, acting like a frustrated baby who was just about fed up with everything. Despite his best efforts, his worn-out muscles and tired mind kept him from pulling off his usual whining and pouting. After a moment of silence, he slowly removed his arm again and looked up at you with hopeful eyes.

"Please...? Please, just a few meatballs. I'm craving them so much.." he pleaded, sounding like a sad puppy with his tired and raspy voice.

You sighed, knowing that there was no easy way to make him see reason. The basic, logical facts didn't seem to register in his sick-addled brain. "I'll see what I can do," you responded, resigned.

His demeanor instantly brightened, a small, victorious smile illuminating his face. He looked like a kid who had just won the jackpot, thoroughly pleased with himself. Suddenly, he remembered something else, and his expression brightened even more.

"..And I want cuddles.."

"you're so demanding, you know that?" it made you frown jokingly, letting him nuzzle closer once more

TAG LIST: @kingdomhate @ysrjune @divineani @mistress-amidala @catnipaddictt @haydensprettyprincess @erosmutt @fuckmyskywalker

[abhorrenthag]

some writing i did a while ago ⭐️

tw: mild gore

I spent the first few moments trying to convince myself that the loud thud from the bathroom was nothing more than the pipes, or a bird hitting the window, or even an auditory hallucination. Even the possibility of me going crazy, being pushed slowly and painfully to the brink of insanity as shadowy figures whisper endless nothings in my ears, was better than the idea of something happening to her. I called her name, softly at first, but soon with more urgency than I had ever expressed in my rotten, dreadful life. The door was unlocked, though I would have sooner kicked the door down than let a lock stop me. I stepped into the room and my heart stopped as I hit the floor.

☆

☆

☆

As she came back into blurry focus I tried to move towards her motionless body, crawling on my hands and knees across the yellow-stained tile. I knew they would find us eventually, but why now? Why, when we had finally found a home? Why, when we could finally love each other painlessly? Why now, when we were finally safe? I noted the open yet vacant window as I reached her.

“Maya.” I said her name again as tears carved their way down my cheeks. “Maya!” Her eyelids remained closed as a strand of her hair was blown aside by the icy wind. I held her pale face in my hands as I wordlessly mouthed her name again and again, too breathlessly racked by silent sobs to make a sound as I checked her pulse. My heart jolted as I felt a weak flutter of a heartbeat before breaking as I looked across her body at the thick, incarnadine blood mercilessly gushing from an open wound in her side. “Shit!” I whispered as I parted my hands from her face, now unable to desperately pretend that she was unharmed. I pressed down on the gash with all the pressure that my frail, shuddering body would allow me and, tears pooling in my throat, rasped her name once more. “Maya, please, darling, please wake up.” There was no answer, which accentuated my anguish tenfold as I felt my fragile, ragged hope slip away from me and I checked her pulse once more. I felt as if I was the one dying as I registered her heartbeat withering, the dull thudding slowing under my crimson, shaking hand.

I pressed harder on the laceration, summoning strength from somewhere feral in my body I had never seen before. She couldn’t die now, not after everything we had been through, I couldn’t live without her, she was my world. The fleeting comfort of the surge of blood coming to a standstill only made the return of the bleeding more torturous as my feeble efforts did nothing against the anger with which she had been attacked.

I let out a jagged, gasping cry as I grasped her face again, all hope of stopping the persistent, vicious flow of blood gone from my mind. Possessed by agonising helplessness, I held her in my arms as I closed my eyes and looked to the ceiling.

“Please-…God. Please save her…I- I beg of you.” I choked out, as traumatic, sinister memories plagued my guilt-ridden mind. “Please,” I prayed mournfully as I looked down at the woman I had sacrificed my life for, the woman who had saved me time and time again, the woman who I had hoped I’d spend the rest of my life with, and I sobbed.

[brightfancies]

[CHECK] - Rab x Andy: after an unexpectedly violent situation, sender frantically rushes to check if the receiver is okay, cupping their face to look closer.

✧ The glass shattered into a million tiny, sharp pieces.

“Fuck!”

She curses under her breath a million times more, less than pretty words. Beneath the soft rays of moonshine and flickering flame of dying candlelight, she could see the droplets of the darkened gold liquid all over the marble floor. She really needed that one.

Her arms shake, and another bottle threatens to fall - fuck, great, just bloody amazing.

Andromeda is not known to be this clumsy. Quite the contrary in fact. It just was a bit difficult to keep her balance, silent and gentle like a mouse through the hallowed halls of her home when every inch of her body screamed with fury in protest. The witch leans against a tall, stone wall, casting another curse, a hex, anything to shake off the bloody pain. She pauses, dragging in forceful, cold breaths to ground herself. What a bloody stupid law, to not be allowed to summon her own goddamn potions yet. What a bloody, stupid, absurd situation, that she still was expected to act with grace and poise. Every visit to her dear auntie ended up the same, but today Andromeda found her aunt rather enthusiastic and passionate in her particular art. Almost like she bloody missed it! Andy wanted to laugh, in her delirium, that she still was trying to make her way up the stairs when she could barely assemble a single clear thought in her head. It was better to poke fun at it than to let rage take over her heart.

That she’d leave for tomorrow.

But today, it was all too much. Too bright. Too dark. Her head spins and her legs shake from carrying her own weight. One after the other, precious bloody things, the bottles drop from the clutch against her body as she drags down, slowly against the wall in a failed attempt to ease her own fall, only a few steps from reaching the end of the centuries-old staircase -- inches away from the safety of her bedchamber.

The piercing sound of the glass breaking into pieces is drowned by heavy, fast footsteps.

“Cissy, “ she calls the shadow moving in the dark. Andromeda hated waking her up for stupidities such as this. They all knew how to take care of themselves after all this time. “It’s fine — just the goddamn bottles, it’s just—“

The scent of cigarettes and the murkiness of the forest invade her senses all at once, and it’s a punch to her stomach.

“No, wait —“ her voice breaks, trying to hide her figure in the shadows. Calloused hands reach for her forearms to move her slow, gentle to a sitting position and all she wants to do is drown in the dark. Andromeda knew it was him long before he reached her. The last thing she wanted — goddamn it, the last thing she needed, was for him to see her like this.

“Rab, “ his name sounds like a plea in her lips, of regret or relief she’s not sure but she hates it all the same. Hates herself for not moving faster to hide in her room. Hates that air cannot reach her lungs because this is not something she prepared for. Andromeda no longer feels shame for the state her aunt leaves her in. She's stronger than that. Prouder than that. But as the warlock leans down into his knees, and strong, warm hands cradle her face, she can feel water pooling at her eyes and a lump on her throat. Flashes of their midnight, hidden conversations storm through her mind, almost mocking her -- no one knew better than him what this did to her. To meet his gaze now, exhausted and injured - it was unbearable.

Because despite it all, he is holding her so softly and she can feel the worry in the dark eyes scanning her face, and it makes her want for the grounds to swallow her whole.

It makes her want to lean into his embrace and disappear from the world and forget that her body hurts and her head is bleeding.

It makes her want to crawl into his arms and cry. Makes her want to let it all out, tell him how she fought back and hear pride in his voice.

It makes her want to pull away, fast, and never see him again, because she can’t do any of that. She has no right to want any of that.

His touch burns in ways no hex nor wound could ever do, and still her body recognizes it at once - her shoulders soften, her breath eases, ah but her heart, her goddamn heart beats loud and louder against the cage of her ribs.

Andromeda closes her eyes and tilts her head back, just slightly to rest against the wall, and it is all she can muster - it is all she has the strength to do, as far away as she can get from him. Even when her fingers grip on to his wrists and she could, hypothetically, push him away. But she’s no Gryffindor - she cannot do it just in the name of what is right. Especially not when it’s been so long since he’s been this close to her.

Ah, but what a pretty picture she must be tonight.

“I fell,” she says, choking back a dry chuckle, “I’m fine — just, need my bed… and those potions, I suppose.”

[blizzardrush]

    It was eerily quiet. Nature abhorred a vacuum, and soon the air would prickle with the moans of the pained and dying, but Dragunov, armor smoldering, took the opportunity to lie on the dirt. Just for a moment. There was peace amongst the pebbles.

    Behind him, Bryan coughed a cloud of dust. Time to get up.

    He wrenched himself onto an elbow, giving himself enough of a vantage point to see the aftermath. Huge, steaming fissures stretched from one side of the valley to the other. Half-melted tanks sat in piles of useless slag. Smoke billowed like parades of pallbearers into the ashen expanse. Beneath, those who remained clung to their last ounces of strength.

    A thought occurred to him: who was he kidding?

    In less than an instant, hundreds had been vaporized. How was he meant not only to compete with that, but triumph? An ant would have a better chance leveling a mountain. Once upon a time, there had been a man who could do that, his faith his shield against the devil. That man was dead. The thing that bore his name, ordered his soldiers, and defended the fate of his nation was a pale imitation in comparison. A cracked, oozing egg, rotting from the inside out.

    Sergei sank back to the earth.

    Blessed silence.

    Behind him, again: thop-shff, thop-shff. Bryan, pulling himself over by one arm. Judging himself close enough, the cyborg rolled onto his back, loosed a harsh breath. "Hey, Drag?"

    Muffled against the soil: "Nnm?"

    "That fuckin' hurt."

    Yes. It did.

    More quiet, infiltrated by a breeze. Sergei raised his face to catch its freshness.

    "Like...how did you do that? I've been in a lot of knife fights, but that's a first."

    --what?

    Strangling the protests of his aching flesh, Dragunov heaved himself to his knees. Bryan himself sat up, pulling apart the gash in his pants to stare at the deep puncture in his leg. "You stabbed me between the muscles," he said, "Muscles that can stop bullets. If I had a femoral, I'd be bleeding like a stuck pig." He looked at the Russian, face slack with sincere awe. "You weren't even trying. You just did it. I mean, you have past experience with my thighs, but...whole armies have wanted me dead for years. You killed me two minutes ago with no effort."

    Yes. Yes, he did that. Sergei alone had accomplished something no one else on the planet could, not even the man he used to be. And as realization sank in, heat like molten iron blossomed from his chest, spreading to his fingertips and pooling in his toes. He was not damaged, he was hatching, even if he did not know what form the wings within him would take.

    It didn't matter. He was seen. He was known.

    It must have shown on his face because Bryan's expression lit up, a grin crawling from ear to ear. Just like old times, baby, that grin said, The world lies at our feet.

    A tremor tore through the ground. In the distance, a stadium-sized chunk of rock blasted into the sky, shrouded in a veil of supersonic flight. It tore past the clouds for a destination in the upper atmosphere.

    "Oh, get over yourselves," Bryan yelled. Grunting with pain, he threw a stone after it. It clattered far short of its mark.

    Dragunov, meanwhile, watched as his Raptors emerged from cover. They seemed no worse for wear, shedding their combat gear for hazmat suits. Using modified Geiger counters, they fanned out across the battlefield, searching for anomalous particles left in the wake of the purple flames, pausing only to execute anyone dying in their paths. By the number of samples they took, the results were promising.

    "So...now what?"

    Sergei didn't bother glancing at Fury as the cyborg scooted next to him. He was not actually asking for advice. He was testing the waters. Once he knew where Dragunov's mood lay--

    "Got it!" Bryan leveled a finger between Sergei's eyes. "You need a vacation. That's what I did last time I cheated death. It's good for you, y'know. Do some soul searching. Figure out what's real to you." A beat. "Uh, I'm going with you, of course. If you want."

    Dragunov let his lip curl in a small smile. Yes. He did want.

    Somewhere on the steaming wastes, welcoming the dawn of a new age, someone was whistling.

                               - FIN -

    Wholesale slaughter -- now that was living. Biopics? Overrated. Celebrity? Not when you had infamy. The movie studio thing had been a novelty, sure, but the killing fields was where Bryan shone.

    He'd long lost track of his body count.

    It was incredible, really. From his perspective behind the Gat, deep amidst the torrents of bullets and bodies, the Zaibatsu and G Corp forces were schools of minnows, and he a shark. There was nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide. The gun mowed them down like grass, blood spraying, severed limbs flying, their death screams music to his ears.

    He might have been laughing. He could not hear himself over the storm's hellish shrieking in his mind.

    A flash of lightning blue caught the corner of his eye. A pink-haired pixie, darting between volleys of shots.

    Fury grinned, his targeting reticules locked onto her every movement. Could this day get any better? Boots on the ground, tank shells in the air, destruction and agony and he in the thick of it, pushing the world order into a whirling blender of meat hooks and razor winds, and now this, the chance to forever exterminate a challenge to his throne of Doctor Bosconovitch's Greatest Contribution to Mankind. Forget seedy Chinese alleyways, downing fighter jets in flight with just a girder -- fuck, forget Yoshimitsu. This was going to top the charts.

    He swung the Gat around, aimed slightly ahead of her. The barrel spun up with an eager squeal. His finger curled on the trigger.

    --then there, below her, an un-color that did not belong to nature, distracting him. A radioactive bubblegum pink. In the sheath of a sword. That was slashing Dragunov in two.

    No.

    Bryan froze. A beam of light burst through his tempest, rooting him to the ground. He could only watch as the old stranger's blade left a deep, steaming gouge in Sergei's chest armor. Dragunov raised his arms to block the next two cleaves only to catch the handle on the backswing with his face. He collapsed to his knees.

    Bryan dropped the Gat.

    No. No.

    Sergei craned his head up. Wiping his knuckles across his cheek left a comet tail of blood. Resurrection had placed him right back in meat. Fallible meat, as Fury knew too well.

    Dragunov tried to stand. His face twisted in agony as a leg failed to respond, stiff as a board. As rigor mortis.

    He was not fine.

    No. No. NO.

    Bryan grabbed the reins of his mental storm, willed it to his feet to fly him the twenty paces between himself and the injured Russian. Each step echoed like a hammer. A heartbeat. The sea of bodies around him dissolved their details into bruised, sickly smog. Reality was soup, and he fought time's quagmire with every carbon fiber of his being.

    The stranger lifted his sword for the killing blow.

    NO NO NO NO--

    Impact. A millisecond's awareness to brace Sergei's neck as momentum raced them onward and gravity tore them down. A dozen jolts and blows as the ground got its licks in. One last tumble before the world came to a halt.

    He'd ended up on top of Sergei. Grabbing him by the bulletproof vest, Bryan yanked him close, eyes burning with crazed adrenaline.

    "You fucking moron," Fury cried, shaking him, "I can't lose you again!"

    Under him, Dragunov's mouth was slack with shock, then confusion. Bryan gave him a once-over, hunting for wounds. They put him in meat, how cruel was--

    --there was a combat knife in his fist.

    Oh. OH.

    Sergei was a spetsnaz super-agent with enough CQC tactics to massacre an army, and playing possum was well within his repertoire. Just because it was the oldest trick in the book did not make it inviable. Hell, Bryan had seen him do it before. There was that time in Barcelona against father and son Laws. He'd laid on the floor of the -- bar? restaurant? dance club? Fury didn't remember -- feigning unconsciousness, and when Law the Younger went to investigate, he'd surged forward and toppled him, kind of like what'd just happened, and the look on Dragunov's face turned volcanic with rage, and then Bryan had eleven inches of sharpened steel embedded in his thigh.

    Fury howled as white-hot pain lanced up his side. Sergei shoved him off, scrambled to his feet. Bryan winced as he yanked the knife free.

    The emotions bristling on Dragunov's face were fascinating. Anger, volatile, ready to explode at any moment, lined with disbelief. He had the man in the white suit right where he wanted, doing exactly what he wanted. Now he still lived. A Raven, if the anomalous weapon proved anything, one of Sergei's killers, still lived. 

    "Oh, ex-fucking-scuse me," Fury bellowed, tossing the knife away, "If you didn't look like such a bitch--"

    Dragunov ran at the cyborg, throwing his entire body behind his fist.

    To an observer, the fight was initially any other slugfest. But as it progressed, something changed. A cadence emerged -- punches and kicks dealt with surgical finesse, energy conserved or spent with atomic accuracy, bodies moving with dancer's grace. Sergei and Bryan had done this before, helpless to resist the primordial hatred burning in their veins and cables. Neither man wanted to. It felt right. All of spacetime could crunch down to their bubble of violence; they wouldn't care. In their grimaces, their spilled blood, they were singing.

    I hate you, I loathe you, I could do this forever.

    But good things had to come to an end.

    Bryan saw it first -- a purple thorn hanging in the sky. "The hell is tha--"

    Flames rained from above, dousing everything in eldritch plasma.

[221bshrlocked]

II. Teach Me

Shiny & New Masterlist

Pairing: Pedro Pascal x Fem!Reader

Words: 2410 (can you believe I wrote something under 4K?)

Warnings: Inapropro touches in public. Confessions. Oral sex (male receiving).

A/N: Here is part two you hoes. Let me know how I’m doing in the comments please. I think this may be the shortest thing I’ve written in two years?

It wasn't that things were weird between the two of you after that night. It was that things weren't, far from it actually. Pedro was more touchy, and if you weren't overthinking things, he was more flirty as well. And the odd thing was, he didn't even care if anyone was around. He constantly found a way to touch you, whether it was a quick nudge to your waist or a soft caress of your lower back as he passed behind you. And then there were the dangerous smiles and low-key remarks full of innuendoes. You thought you were imagining all of this but there was no denying the bulge you felt against your back when he pulled you into his lap as soon as you stepped into the jacuzzi.

You said nothing of it, trying your hardest to continue whatever conversation you were having with Sarah without giving yourself or him away. He laughed at something Sarah said and leaned over, briefly kissing your shoulder blade before slithering one arm across your navel and pushing you down harder on him. You bite back a moan when you feel him twitch against you, unintentionally digging your nails into his thighs when his other hand slowly dips beneath your swimsuit piece.

It's a battle of who's a better actor, with Pedro pretending he was just having a chat and you trying to not make it obvious that you were practically getting fingered in front of your best friends. The lighter his touches became, the more difficult it was to keep it together. What was only a few minutes felt like hours and you sighed in relief when Oscar said that lunch was ready. You waited until everyone left the pool area before you turned around and looked at Pedro.

"Are you out of your mind?" There was no malice in your voice and Pedro smiled before leaning over and kissing down your neck.

"Yes...fuck, yes I am baby. I'm so goddamn crazy for you hermosa. You drive me mad...dreaming of you every night only to wake up with nothing but the memory of you in my arms." You melt into his embrace, trying not to make any noise as he bites down on your skin and leaves marks where his hands could reach,

"Pe-Pedro...please, I- I need..."

"I know what you need baby, I know exactly what you need. And I'll give it to you real good sweetheart...just stay over. D-don't leave, please. Stay here with me...stay here with me." There's a shift in his tone and you can't help but feel like there's perhaps more to this than you thought. And the hope that flutters through your heart doesn't scare you as much as you thought it would.

"Please oh god..." The hand around your waist is trailing up your stomach and you finally give in to him as he cups and kneads at your tits.

"Fucking tell me you'll stay querida." Pedro shakes you in his arms once, pulling at the hair on the nape of your neck until your throat was exposed to him. He licks the skin of your chest up to your jaw and hums at the taste of you, pulling away just in time to see goosebumps erupt on your skin.

"I'll- fuck...I'll stay. I'll stay...n-not going anywhere. I-"

"Sweet fucking girl...never letting you go now." Pedro whispers as he molds his lips with yours, swallowing your moans and deepening the kiss when you gasp at his needy touches.

You inhale deeply when he finally lets you go and stands up. By the time you're opening your eyes, Pedro is looking down and smiling devilishly at you. He stills has his arms wrapped around your back and chuckles at you when your knees buckle at feeling him so near to you.

"That good huh?" You're looking away when he winks, quickly moving out of the spa area and grabbing a towel while Pedro drys his chest and puts on a shirt. Your eyes scan the backyard and when you don't find anyone, you dare to turn around, eyes widening in embarrassment when you see Pedro fixing himself through his swimsuit.

He walks towards you and helps you put on your dress, never once breaking eye contact as his hands move across your wet skin.

"Hurry the fuck up baby chicken!" You snap out of your haze when you hear Oscar yelling from inside, smiling at Pedro as he grabs your hand and moves towards the house.

The rest of the day goes by quickly, with Pedro glancing at you every once in a while and waiting until you smile at him before he goes back to whatever he was doing. You hope you're not reading too much into this, especially now that there were more emotions involved than before. It felt like he was perhaps as nervous as you but there was no way that was true. A man who touched you so shamelessly in front of your friends wouldn't suddenly grow nervous over you staying over. Right?

"Alright heart eyes, I'll see you later." You pretend you don't hear Oscar teasing Pedro as he's leaving, waving your goodbyes as you begin to clean up after everyone. You hear the front door close and immediately head to the kitchen, trying to not seem too nervous now that you're left alone with Pedro.

A solid warm body creeps up from behind you and you drop the plate in the sink when you feel Pedro's hands crawling up your stomach.

"I satisfied myself all of these weeks with the mere thought of you hermosa..."

You shiver at his hoarse voice, shutting your eyes and allowing your head to fall back on his shoulder as he begins to leave a trail of wet kisses down your throat.

"How does that make you feel baby? Knowing that I can't stop thinking about you...fuck sweetheart you're the prettiest goddamn sight in the world." Pedro is turning you around in his arms in an instant, shoving his tongue down your throat and keeping you flush against him as he makes his way back to the couch, the same couch he almost fucked you on not a whole month ago.

"Pedro...oh god, please. I- want to...to-"

"What do you want baby? I'll give you anything, everything...just please let me keep kissing you." His desperate pleas twist the inside of your stomach and you reluctantly lay a hand on his chest and push him away. Pedro's eyes panic and he lets go of you immediately, not wanting to force you into anything you didn't want.

"Wait...I- I want to know what this is," you motion between the two of you, ignoring the way he's licking his lips and looking back at you, "because- fuck, this is harder than I thought it would be. I can't lose you Pedro but I can't lie and pretend that I don't...want more with you. Ever since what we did, I can't- it's like everything made sense all of a sudden. I don't know why I never thought of this but you were so sweet and caring and kind and everything perfect. I can't do this if you aren't...if you just want to-" Pedro suddenly steps forward and takes hold of your neck, making sure you're meeting his gaze before he opens his mouth.

"I wasn't lying when I said I'm crazy about you querida. And- if I'm being honest, I've had these feelings long before you asked me to sleep with you. Ever since I met you baby, I always pictured you in my arms, having lunch with me, staying over every night...coming to events with me. I wanted you then and I want you now." His words are soothing and you shut your eyes and lean into the palm of his hand before you decide to ask him what you've been dying to know ever since the morning.

"Why didn't you say anything Pedro?" I could have been with you for so long.

"Because...I didn't think you'd ever consider me." Pedro looks away when he confesses his fear, not wanting to see the look on your face should you agree with him.

"Are you serious?" You frown at him and almost pull away when he smiles sadly at you.

"I'm older than you sweetheart, a lot older than you. The thought of you rejecting me was...unbearable."

He's shocked when he feels your arms wrap dramatically around his neck just as your lips seek his own. But he's pulling you in soon after, smiling when you moan and beg for him to bring you closer to him.

"I'll take it you don't mind then?" He asks between kisses, laughing when you push him down on the couch and straddle him. His hands are roaming your back before he squeezes and grasps at your ass. He can already himself harden beneath you the more you buck your hips against him.

"Fuck baby you're a dream...my fucking dream." There is a hint of reluctance in his voice and you let go of him and look into his eyes as you whisper your assurances.

"I'm here Pedro...not going anywhere. I promise." He's about to lean up again to taste your lips when you move down his body and kneel between his thighs.

"Wha- what're you doing honey?" He gulps at the sight of you kneeling at his feet, pupils dilating as soon as he feels your hands cupping his cock through his shorts.

"I want to taste you Pedro, please. You- you promised. Please, will you teach me? Will you teach me how to take your cock in my mouth? I want you to come down my throat...want to know how to touch you, pleasure you...make you lose control." Your words are enough to make him hard. Pedro can't believe what he's hearing and your request shoots straight to his dick when he realizes that this is probably your first blowjob.

"Fuck...yeah alright go on baby. Touch me, take what you want...let me feel those pretty lips wrapped around me cock." Pedro raises his hips just as you pull down his shorts, moaning when he sees the way you eye his cock like you were about to feast on him.

"God...I touched myself every night Pedro...picturing your cock sliding into my pussy, stretching me out...filling me up. But you're so much thicker than I remember. So thick and hard for me. Is- is this all for me?" He's sure you're not aware of the effect you're having on him or else you would stop so he wouldn't come so soon.

"Yeah honey, it's for you. All for you. Why don't you be a good little girl and open your mouth. Open it sweetheart and take my cock. Go on, I'll be gentle." He thumbs your jaw and clenches his jaw when you slowly take the head of his dick between your lips. He forces himself to not buck his hips against you, knowing that you needed to get used to the size of him before he tried anything. The curiosity etched on your face as you explore him makes him wish he could push you down on all fours and fuck you until you couldn't remember anything but his name. But he bites into his lower lip to try and have a semblance of control over his body.

"Oh ff-fuck...so wet and warm. Pretty girl...sweet fucking girl." His words make you moan around him and you shut your eyes to try and take him a little deeper. Pedro is torn between keeping his eyes open to commit every single moment to memory and shutting it to enjoy the softness of your throat. But he keeps them open, watching as you switched between licking the precum rolling down his length and sucking on the side of his cock while you rubbed the tip.

"Shit fuck baby...it's okay. You- you don't have to sweetheart...we'll get you there. I'll train this cute mouth of yours to gag on my cock...just enjoy this for now, fuck. So good. So fucking good." Pedro is looking at you with desperation and neediness in his eyes and you pull back to lick at the underside of his cock before leaving wet kisses on his balls. His grip tightens around your hair, unable to decide whether that was the most innocent or the filthiest fucking thing he's ever seen. You're not shy anymore, and Pedro enjoys the sight of you as spit drools down your chin and onto his dick. You're messy and wet and shameless in your touches. Absolutely fucking beautiful.

"You taste so good," it's a faint whisper but his cock twitches in your hand at the exclamation and he gulps nervously when he feels your grip harden around his dick. Fucking hell, how's he already so close?

"Please baby, let me come. Want to come down your throat, fill you up before I fuck this tight cunt again. Take my cock hermosa...take it like the filthy little girl you are. Shit, baby I'm so close...so- so fucking close." He finally throws his head back when your lips enclose around him again, breathing growing erratic when warm hand jerks off the rest of him while the other cups his balls. He's moaning your name and swearing all sorts of curses in Spanish, never once noticing how much it turns you on when he loses control.

"Shit shit fuck oh god- oh baby baby I'm- cuh..coming ff-fuck!" You take him just a tad bit deeper right before you feel hot, long spurts of cum shooting down your throat. It almost feels like he's coming for minutes on end and you squeeze and suck on his dick until he gets too sensitive and pushes you off of him. Pedro looks down just in time to see you collect the cum trailing down your chin and lick it off of your thumb.

"Fucking beautiful." He whispers and mirrors your smile before he pulls you up into his lap again. You're shocked when he kisses you, moaning in surprise when you feel his tongue exploring your mouth. When Pedro finally pulls away to allow you to breathe, he's laughing again at the hazy look on your face.

"W-was I any good?" The reluctance and shyness in your voice makes him almost grow hard again.

"Well, practice does make perfect sweetheart. And I plan on practicing with you all night long."

Taglist: @pastel-0-princess​ @feelmyroarrrr​ @libbymouse​ @its--fandom--darling​ @spideysimpossiblegirl​ @princess76179​ @cheekygeek05​ @miraclesoflove​  @purple-mango​ @freeshavocadoooo​ @metalarmsandmanbuns​ @acthenerd​

[qianinterprises]

Warm Mornings

Pairing | Jeno x Reader x Jaemin

Warning(s) | slightly suggestive (if you squint), polyamorous relationship

Synopsis | Just an everyday morning in the life of you, snuggled between the loves of your life.

Author’s Notes | I wrote this after reading this by @bluejaem. After getting permission (in the form of a brain dumped imagine lol), I decided to write my own little NoMin poly! I would also like to add that I started over three damn times before I was finally happy with it, but it has not been beta read so... expect grammatical errors (Im sorry!)

Work Count | 1.9K

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As morning bloomed over the city, pulling individuals out of their dreams to dawn a new day, you rolled over under the blankets, careful not to disturb the arms wrapped around your waist in your quest for comfort. As you settled on your side, facing the eastern window, your eyes cracked open, sleep already leaving you for awakeness.

Sunlight beamed into the window, casting hues of gold along the walls, creating patterns and designs of light around the room. One beam of sun in particular hit the back of the man to your left, light bouncing off his bare skin and illuminating his body in such a way he appeared to almost be glowing. Golden rays bounced off his dyed brown hair, creating such an heir of elegant innocence around him.

The bed ruffled and the body behind you wiggled until one of the arms around your waist was pulling you back against a broad chest, face nestling in your neck, blowing soft tufts of air across your sensitive skin, making you shudder.

“Good morning,” his voice was deep and raspy, husky with sleep.

“Morning,” you whispered back, quiet so as not to wake the male in front of you.

“Is he glowing?”

A smile falls across your face, eyes roving over the porcelain face of Na Jaemin, deep in the confines of sleep, eyes fluttering lightly with dreams, hair a mess atop his head.

“Like an angel,” you whispered.

The arms around your waist seemed to tighten even more as he pressed a kiss on your jaw.

“Our angel.”

You placed your hands lightly over his, stroking along his skin, tracing the bulging veins that came with being a well-built muscular man with a love for exercise.

“Are you two talking about me again?”

Jaemin’s voice brought a yelp from your throat and your body lurched backwards in shock, unfortunately sending your foot into a not so friendly place for the man behind you.

The arms released your body completely as said male let out a slow whine, hands moving down to cup himself, coaxing the organ to stop spiking with the pain your foot had left.

You rolled over, careful of your limbs this time to check that the male was alright.

Lee Jeno. A tall, lanky but muscular man that had stolen your heart the first time your eyes met. His face was contorted in pain, eyes squeezed shut to keep in the tears that surely weren’t far from falling.

“I am so sorry!” you breathed, reaching out to place a hand on his shoulder, but he flinched at your touch.

“Give him a moment. Let him catch his bearings.”

Jaemin’s voice wasn’t half so husky now as he wound his arms around his waist and pulled you back, careful of your feet as you curled your legs again comfortably.

“That wouldn’t have happened if you hadn’t been pretending to be asleep!” you hissed.

“Oh I wasn’t pretending. You two just aren’t as quiet as you think you are.”

You turned your head to send a glare at him when a puff of air left Jeno’s lips and his body uncurled itself. His eyes opened, glassy, and he blinked a few times to rid the tears that threatened to fall.

“Next time you jump in fear, try to make sure your not curled up first!”

Jaemin snorted and you shook your hide, sliding out of Jaemin’s arms and closer to Jeno, who engulfed you in a bear hug, pressing your face against his shoulder.

“No fair! He got cuddles already! I haven’t got my cuddles yet!” Jaemin’s voice whined behind you.

“I just got kicked in the balls! I think I deserve a few extra cuddles!” Jeno insisted.

You rolled your eyes and pulled away from Jeno slightly. He let out a small, puppy whine, hands clinging to your waist as Jaemin cackled behind you, making a grab to pull you away. He let out his own yelp when you slapped one of his hands away and instead, grabbed his arm, tugging him closer until his chest was pressed against your back.

“You can both cuddle me,” you mumbled, nuzzling your face into Jeno’s neck as Jaemin’s arms slowly wrapped themselves around your body.

Your eyes began to droop as two warm bodies help you snuggly between them, hands softly stroking your back or your arms, lulling you back into your dreams, breathing in Jeno’s scent of earthy body wash, content at the way Jaemin’s lips pressed butterfly kisses along your neck.

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When you opened your eyes for the second time, you noted the lack of arms around you and the rhythmic heartbeat against your ear.

You let out a soft yawn, shuffling closer to the chest, immediately recognizing it as Jeno’s. You wound your arms around his waist, holding onto him like an overstuffed teddy bear.

He had his phone in his hand, playing some weird alien-killing game, his other hand lazily drawing patterns beneath your shirt against your back.

“Where’s Jaemin?” you asked with a small yawn, nuzzling closer.

“In the kitchen.”

It shouldn’t have been a surprise when he didn’t glance up from the game as another green alien blob appeared on screen.

“I’m going to go see if he needs any help.”

You moved to get up, but the hand down your shirt quickly pulled out and wound itself around your waist, preventing you from moving.

“I’m under strict orders not to let you out of this bed.”

You rolled your eyes but complied, happy to rest your head against Jeno’s bare chest, but his abs were only so interesting.

“Can you hand me my phone?”

Dating two was a lot different than dating just one. You had to make compromises and things didn’t always work out flawlessly. For example, sleeping arrangements.

After dating for a while, the three of you had decided to get an apartment together rather than living in two separate apartments (because Jeno and Jaemin already lived together). It made sense, especially with their differing jobs and never having time to go on dates as a trio. When you’d first bought the apartment, you’d taken your queen sized bed from your old one, but that quickly ended in disaster, either Jaemin or Jeno ending up on the floor in the middle of the night after being kicked out of bed from a restless sleeper.

After finding one or both men snuggled up uncomfortably on the couch because the bed just wasn��t big enough for the three of you, you’d pooled your money and bought a larger, King sized bed. However, while this kept you all in bed without bruises, it also meant you were stuck under two blankets between two boys, both of which radiated heat like a space heater.

You’d find yourself waking up in the middle of the night, their arms wrapped around you, your shirt sticking to your back in sweat, which should have been an easy enough solution, just kick the blankets off. Problem was, when you did, you either squirmed so much it woke one or both of them up, or you ended up warm and toasty between two shivering boys. That was an issue solved with a ceiling fan, though it wasn’t perfect.

The newest issue, however, was always needing assistance to reach something. Rather than sleeping on a side with a night stand, you were constantly shaking them awake to ask for a sip of water from the nightstand or crawling over one of them to use the restroom. A solution to this problem didn’t seem so simple as the others. However, despite waking them up countless times in the middle of the night, they never complained. In fact, they almost seemed happy to do it, even when Jaemin was sluggishly pulling himself out of bed at 5am for work after a rough night.

Unwinding his arm from around your waist, Jeno reached for your phone on the nightstand, unplugging it, and placing it in your hands, wrapping his arm back around your waist and going back to his game.

Pressing a kiss to his chest in thanks, you unlocked your phone, smiling at the photo of the three of you at the beach, begrudgingly taken by Donghyuck who’d gotten roped into third-wheeling when Renjun had bailed at the last minute.

You opened your Tumblr account, shifting to hide your screen from curious eyes and you pulled up your initial feed, hearting posts and reblogging memes until you came upon a fic from your favorite blog <your favorite blog> featuring South Korean heartthrob, Jung Jaehyun.

Biting down on your lower lip, you took another glance at Jeno before letting your eyes scan greedily over the words, drinking them in. It wasn’t long before you were fully absorbed in the story that you didn’t realize Jaemin was calling your name until the phone was snatched out of your hands.

“Geez! You’d think you’d gone deaf!” Jaemin exclaimed.

You felt your cheeks heat up, nose twitching in embarrassment as you carooned into Jeno’s chest.

“What in the-”

Jeno cut himself off. You glanced up at him, curious as to what had shocked him, only for your eyes to widen when you found him gaping at your screen.

“What kind of filth-!”

“It’s called smut! And it’s not for you!” you cried, reaching for the phone, only to have it raised higher, out of your reach.

You huffed.

“When did you start reading that stuff?!” Jaemin gaped.

“Probably around the same time Jeno put that virus on your laptop!”

“Hey!”

“So you’re the culprit! I had to explain to my older brother why I had a virus from an adult site I’d never watched before!” Jaemin exclaimed.

He jumped on the bed, grabbed his pillow, and hit Jeno over the head with it, hitting you at the same time.

“Ouch!” you whined. “Stop it!”

Jaemin huffed and flopped down on the bed, crossing his arms over his chest.

Jeno placed your phone back on the table and all was quiet until you turned to look at Jaemin.

“What were you calling me for anyways?”

He stared at you in confusion for a moment before perking up.

“Oh! Do you want orange juice or coffee?”

“Um… coffee duh! We started dating two years ago, right? Not yesterday?”

“I was just making sure!” he grumbled, crawling out of bed and stomping back to the kitchen.

When he was gone, Jeno leaned down to place a kiss on your forehead.

“I still want to know why you were reading filth about that idol…”

“Just forget it Jeno. You wouldn’t understand,” you groaned.

Not even a minute later, Jaemin was walking back into the room carefully balancing three trays in his arms. Jeno reached out to grab his own. Jaemin placed your tray over your lap and slid back under the blankets on your left. You sat up in bed and leaned close to press a kiss to the males cheek, only for him to turn at the last minute, capturing your lips.

He brought a hand to your face, cupping your cheek softly, drawing you closer as his tongue brushed over your bottom lip before pulling away, placing a lasting peck on your forehead.

“I love you,” he whispered.

You nuzzled yourself closer, careful not to disturb the tray of food on your lap.

“I love you more,” Jeno, clearly dissatisfied with his lack of attention, stated moving up behind you and pressing a kiss to your shoulder.

You let out a breathy laugh, wrapped one arm around Jaemin’s neck, the other around Jeno’s.

“I love you both the most.”

[funkypoacher]

🎶 Dancing 💌

WIP Wednesday turned into This is Done I Guess Thursday. Tried for flash fiction, and this is a good example of why, sometimes, I need to sleep on things :) anyways, tagging for WIP Wed @the-lastcall (that's right, tagging you back), @paraparadigm @serial-chillr @juniper-tree @fandomn00blr @damejudyhench @biggreenfeet (where's my prompt fillllllsssss) @togepies @socially-awkward-skeleton aaaaaaaaand @anvilesi (anything--any writing you wanna share!)

Dancing Daniel/Courier FoNV April 28, 2282

The wound on his leg was dirty. He supposes that’s why he was found by a little pool up the cliffs in the Narrows—crawled there like an animal to bathe it.

“What have you done?” was demanded of him, followed by a softened, sorry, barely-more-than-whispered “God, what happened?” 

Laughing, Daniel shrugged. “Whatever it was, I won’t be dancing for a while.” But that wasn’t quite right. ‘Whatever’ implied he was unsure of why he was passing out on her shoulder, and also it was flat wrong in a literal sense because he was dancing—he was dancing now.

“This isn’t just a sickness. He’s dying.”

“It is in his blood. He needs strong medicine. His wound was not cleaned properly.”

Daniel should have thought of Joshua in the flames. He would have, if he hadn’t been torn between internally resenting their placing him so close to the firepit, and then feeling he was being swallowed by it himself, in his delirium. He weaved between dreams and frenzied moments; he danced with consciousness just long enough to hear her, again and again, curse the Lord, or dismiss Him—every time His name invoked to empty purpose on her lips because she didn’t believe. She was the only one who didn’t. And he heard her often.

Amidst sickness interspersed with bodily tossing, Daniel had so many thoughts. He had eternities to consider them. Waking Cloud, and how he lied to her. How she lied to him, saying that the courier had switched sides, and now the river between Daniel and Joshua had swelled great to bursting with differences—enough to drown them both, sure, but still not enough to put out the fire where he lay.

“It’s funny,” he said through a heavy throat. Daniel felt a trickle of sweat slide down his cheek, and neck. He didn’t say what was funny. He wasn’t sure yet.

They were near him all the time. Talking; eating—their lips smacked like cracking, burning wood. They were near him long enough that he could draw out a narrative, so he knew he was coming around. Daniel had been doing last-minute scouting to ensure the road was clear; he and the Sorrows were to be leaving Zion within three days. A White Leg had snuck up, Daniel was the sole survivor; however, he didn’t escape unscathed. Too much to do meant too little time, and, of course, his wound had gone septic. Stupid. But it could have been worse—he could have let it happen to someone else.

“Oh my God.” She says it again. “You’re awake.”

He’s more sick of her than anything, right then. Sick of how she calls out for the Him, and he’s sick of wishing she meant it.

It was after Joshua informed him of how long July Wells spent by his side that Daniel, begrudgingly, accepted her presence in his tent. It was then that he realized what was funny. 

“Are we just going to dance around it?” July asked, head bowed, as Daniel propped himself up awkwardly on his pillow. He looked at her sharply. He’d been doing nothing but dance for the last three days—that’s what was funny. 

“Around what?” Daniel grunted at the pain in his leg.

Frowning, July watched him long enough that he was able to list out his own mistakes to himself, but she didn’t mention a one. Instead, she said they could speak when he was feeling better, and she left him with a look—the same one they’d traded after their last argument.

“You really won’t stay.”

“No. And you really think that Joshua is right.”

And, like after that last argument... Well, Daniel wasn't dancing, anymore. Now, he was spinning.

[sweetestlamb]

You’ve Got a Friend in Me

Summary: You deserve to be my brother. 

Author’s Note: I won’t go on a rant here many of you have already done so and much more eloquently than I can, Han Seo deserved to live and I think it would have been so much more original and refreshing if they didn’t kill the victimized character who was finally getting a second lease on life with his new family. If any of you read BMTL you know that I have a weak spot for abused characters and when they are treated this way I can’t stand for it. So join me here in this alternate reality where puppy does not die and instead he gets the love and rebirth that he deserves. 

Everything is white hot pain, and he wonders if this is what death feels like and if so why must this suffering follow him even into death? When will he finally be free from agony if not now? There are a flurry of sounds surrounding him but nothing decipherable until he hears, “Clear!” a voice shouts in the distance but he doesn’t know who that is, where exactly would someone like him go after death? Surely he hasn’t atoned enough for his sin of compliance to be granted a passage to pearly gates or a gracious omnipresent presence, there is only one place for someone like him. Hell. 

It doesn’t scare him, not with the life that he has lived. His hell started a long time ago, with a father that couldn’t be bothered with him no matter how many bruises and cuts littered his prepubescent body. Those very marks put there by the one person he desperately wanted to please, his hyung. That has been hell, a long enduring and never-ending hell and almost demonically poetic that was the cause of his very demise. The bullet through his ribs was nothing compared to every day of his life, up until he met Vincenzo and saw what living was supposed to be like. He had never truly lived before and the very moment he had started that had been snatched from his bloody hands. 

Fuck it all. He was ready to go. 

But regardless of his acceptance the pain sears on and he can see the ghastly face of Vincenzo peering down at him, eyes red rimmed and those words that he had longed to hear since he was born into his world and realized that there was someone whom he was supposed to call brother. 

You deserve to be my brother. 

“We’re losing him! Let’s do it again, clear!” 

Electricity floods his body and its nothing like anything he has ever felt before and he can feel his consciousness fading away, his thoughts drifting away until there is nothing left behind, just silence and regrets. 

Beep...Beep....Beep....Beep.... 

The constant sound jars him from his slumber and once again pain resurges in his body winding him before he can even bring himself to peel his heavy eyelids open, that battle almost enough to defeat him but he can feel a presence beside him and an unexplainable desperation forces him to see who it is. It feels like his very life depends on it. 

Little by little, he starts to peer his eyes open feeling the strain as he tenses and squirms under the pressure and finally they are open and his vision swirls unfocused and dizzy, staring at a painfully white ceiling and one single yellow tinted light. His brain supplies his location, the hospital. And then it takes a longer moment to realize the implications of his whereabouts, but after a moment’s pause he gasps feeling the dryness of his tongue and the cracks on his lips. Everything hurts, every fiber of his being is in insufferable agony but he almost weeps because that only means he’s alive. Somehow he had survived. 

With the minor strength he has he turns his head towards the figure next to him and his breath comes out in a shocked huff when he sees the dark figure in the chair, they had said their final goodbyes already and he had accepted that the only true brother that he’d had was taken from him, punishment for being born in this family. Yet, Vincenzo sits there sleeping looking pained even in his slumber a grimace across his face and his brows furrowed in distress. immediately he thinks about Ms. Hong, the blood staining her shirt and her body crumpling to the ground as she took a bullet for the man she loved. If Vincenzo was here with him looking like that did that mean she was...? 

No. It couldn’t be. His brother had already taken away Vincenzo’s mother he couldn’t have stolen the woman he loved too. That was simply too cruel a fate for the man. But why else would the man be here? This thought drives him to move, only able to move his hand but it’s enough to knock the consigliere from his peace less rest, he wakes as if he was not sleeping in the first place eyes immediately blinking open and hyper focused. He vaguely wonders if that is a survival skill of all members of the Mafia? 

They stare wordlessly at each other and before he can say a word Vincenzo is reaching across the small space and embracing him, his arms are ever gentle as they pull him in and his head is stuffed into the other man’s neck. He lays frozen unprepared for the sudden show of affection and still not used to hands on his body without the purpose of harming him but then his brain swirls to life and he pushes past the pain to reach up and clutch at the smooth material of Vincenzo’s suit jacket. At the first press of his fingers the other man grips him tighter, almost crushing him into his chest and it hurts, puts too much pressure on his wound but he won’t say anything doesn’t dare. This is the first time someone has hurt him because they cared about him. He wants to hold on to this precious moment forever. 

“I’m so happy you’re okay. You lost so much blood and I really thought--” 

“How’s Miss Hong? She is....Is that why you’re here? Please don’t tell me he really did it...Did he really kill her?” 

He starts shaking at the notion, tears pooling in his eyes imagining the woman’s dead cold body. 

It should have been me instead. 

As carefully he held him Vincenzo releases him, those large gentle hands warm and soothing on his trembling shoulders. 

“She’s fine. She’s in the room next to you. It’s all thanks to you, I can never thank you enough.”

Relief washes over him like a wave, he’s too weak to do anything but fall back into the plush bed beneath him. 

She was okay. Thank goodness. 

“What are you doing here? You should be with her. Go now, I’m not as important.” He means every word, he has never been anyone’s priority, no that’s for others he is nothing more than a nuisance and a punching bag. 

“What are you saying? Do you remember what I said to you before you fainted?

He does. How could he forget? But that was merely something said in the heat of the moment. Or so he had thought but that thought was enough for him to welcome the hands of death. 

“I see you remember. You are important to me. You’re my brother Han Seo-ah.” 

He can’t fight the smile that tentatively crawls across his face, “You meant it? it wasn’t just because I was dying?” He asks sheepishly and he squeaks in pain when a finger flicks his across the nose, looking up affronted but giddy with the possibilities. 

“I wouldn’t lie to someone on their death bed, I have principles you know.” Vincenzo huffs at him, striding across the room to pour a glass of water and he watches the liquid earnestly. When the older man pushes the tempting beverage in his direction he desperately wants to grab it but he finds that he can’t his body refusing to move. 

“Can you help me drink it?” He watches the older man stare back at him, an eyebrow raised as he looks at him and peers back helplessly, “Please Hyung,” and surprisingly enough that’s all it takes for the Vincenzo to carefully cup his head and tilt the glass on his mouth, allowing the glorious nectar to soothe his parched throat. A dribble leaks out of the side of his mouth and he’s further floored when the other man wipes it away with a napkin, guiding him back against his pillows. 

He tries to school his face into something less pathethic and pitiful but he knows that he’s not doing a great job, he can’t help it there has never been anyone like this for him. Never anyone who cared about him as Han Seo, not a pawn or someone to use or abuse, it’d enough to make everything he has gone through worth while. 

He can’t contain his joy watching his brother tug up his sheet and tell him to get some rest, he’s never fallen asleep so easily and without a care in the world. He has nothing to fear, now that he has Vincenzo. 

He gets more visitors. 

People from the plaza that used to look at him with distrustful eyes, now they bring him food and one time when he needs to use the bathroom the lady from the pawnshop singlehandedly lifts him and carries him to the toilet, his cheeks hurt from blushing and he makes everyone in the room promise to never mention it again. 

They mention it at least four times a visit. 

Sometimes even re-enacting it for the people who weren’t there on the day. 

Ms. Hong laughs the loudly, ignoring Vincenzo’s helicoptering and warnings of her opening her wound, none of it stops her and he watches with soft eyes as the woman easily rests her head on his shoulder when she starts to feel lightheaded. 

They are so sickening obvious sometimes. 

He gets used to the company so days later when he finds himself alone, his insecurities rear their ugly heads. Telling him that they’ve forgotten him and they were only being kind because of Vincenzo and Ms. Hong, they didn’t really care about him or like him and those thoughts muffle his awareness preventing him from hearing the door slide open or the almost unperceivable footsteps that follow. 

“You look better than I expected.” 

He freezes at the voice, staring at his fingers because he’s not yet ready to face her. 

He tried not to notice that she never came with the others, but that was futile and the hole in his chest stretched wider and wider each time they would show up and her glowing figure was missing. 

“Did you hurt your mouth?” 

He smarts at the comment, hurt by her seemingly dismissive attitude to him laying in a hospital bed. 

“Like you care. You never visited before.” 

Instantly he regrets the comment, she owes him nothing. They are nothing after all, barely even acquaintances. This crush is unrequited and he has no right taking out his frustrations on her, he was being too greedy. 

He opens his mouth to apologize. 

“I....... don’t like hospitals. They feel too much like the end.” 

He stills at her chilling words, mouth slightly gaped. 

Was she worried about him? Enough so that seeing him in a hospital bed was too jarring? 

That couldn’t be it. 

Could it? 

“I’m sorry I didn’t come earlier. I always asked about you.” 

A frown is etched into her pretty face and he can’t stand it so much that he blurts out, “ The pawn shop lady carried me to the bathroom once! I have never been so embarrassed, why is she so strong?!” 

She stares at him blankly before a beatific smile dances across her pale pink lips, and he hears her laughter for the first time. 

It is melodic, like keys ringing on a piano and the sound is captivating enough to fill his entire room and he wishes he could bottle it up and listen to it whenever he wanted to. 

She stays. 

Longer than he expected and he tries not to smile too large but it’s hard when she’s shooting him that contagious smile. They watch game shows on a laptop that she pulls out of thin air and he laughs nervously as she explains how she once hacked and ruined the life of a man who wouldn’t take no for an answer when she was a waitress at a bar. 

She’s scary, like most people at the plaza but he’s dangerously attracted to her like a fly to a light. 

He doesn’t recall falling asleep but he mumbles contentedly when he feels her tuck the blanket tighter around his body, soft deft fingers running across his fringe before he succumbs to the pull of unconsciousness. 

“Good night puppy.” 

He doesn’t mean to overhear, wasn’t trying to eavesdrop at all but he saw the light on in Miss Hong’s room and immediately the worst came to mind. 

Han Seok is here to finish the job. 

So he races to the door, ready to defend her by any means even if that means putting his life at risk, again. His hand is on the door knob twisting and silently he pushes the door open, stepping in before realizing there is no danger. 

At least not to them, he can’t say the same for the victims of his brother. 

Vincenzo looks tired, achingly so. 

He feels a pang in his own chest watching the sunken face of the other man as he watches Miss Hong, her eyelashes fluttering wildly in her sleep. He makes to exit the room but the low rumble of Vincenzo’s voice halts him in his track, he has never heard the other man sound so forlorn. 

“This is all my fault. You would have been safe if you never met me.” 

He blinks, taken back at the heartbreaking confession. 

Did Vincenzo truly believe that? That they would have been safer without him? It’s the biggest lie he’s ever heard and he has to bite his tongue to stop himself from responding to the fallacy. 

“You deserve better than me. I am a scum and you....you’re different Cha-young ah.” 

He has never heard the older man call her that before. 

“I should just disappear out of your life, that’s the best gift I could give to you. Leaving you alone and letting you live your life.” 

No. He wants to scream listening to this and he realizes that these words remind him of someone, someone who has had all these thoughts before. 

I am useless. Nobody wants me. It would be better if I disappeared. 

Vincenzo sounds like all of his darkest thoughts, said aloud. He has to grip the door to stop himself from running over to the man and pulling him into a tight hug. He can feel his pain all the way across the room. 

“That would be best for you. But I can’t,” his voice cracks, “Every time I think about leaving you, it hurts. It hurts Cha-young. I want to stay with you. I want to be the one who makes you smile,” He watches his brother gently pick up her limp hand, sandwiching it between both of his. It’s such a tender moment, he should leave. 

“Everyone I loves dies, that’s my fate. My punishment. I had accepted that...before you and Han Seo and my...mom. Now I’m greedy and I don’t want to lose anyone. I don’t want to lose you, please...stay with me.” Vincenzo crumples at the side of the bed, his ungelled hair blocking his eyes now as he lays his head on Ms. Hong’s hand pleading with her and finally he pulls the door open and steps back into the hallway, he doesn’t realize he’s crying until he slips back into his bed. 

When the knock sounds at his door, he calls out with no idea of who could be visiting him, a certain pretty pianist flashes in his mind but he pushes that desire to the back of his mind. 

He sits up at the sight of Ms. Hong shakily entering his room, Vincenzo’s disapproving face flashing in his mind. 

“Ms. Hong you shouldn’t be moving around, hyung would be upset if he saw you.” 

She stares at him with wide eyes and he stares back placidly before realizing what he just said. He slaps a hand over his mouth, remorseful and ashamed. He has never called Vincenzo that in front of anyone else, too embarrassed to see the question on their face and terrified that the other man would deny him in front of others. Maybe Vincenzo wanted to keep this as a secret? Why would he want a needy idiot like him following him around and embarrassing him? His cheeks burn and he brings his gaze to the floor. 

“Don’t. Whatever you’re thinking stop. He calls you his brother too, you are brothers now. Don’t doubt that Vincenzo always keeps his word.” 

He feels naked beneath her stare, shocked at how easily she can see through him. Was he really that obvious? 

“I wanted to talk to you.” 

He gulps nervously, watching at the older women wobbles across the room before gracelessly falling into the chair beside his bed, he reaches out to help her smiling back when she grins at him, he tries not to blush when she pats his cheek in gratitude, the movement all too motherly. 

“What did I do wrong?” He replies, and there is deafening silence before she answers, “You poor thing. Life must have been so hard before, you must have struggled so much.” 

He is completely and utterly unprepared for the words and he cannot stop the tears that well up and collapse at her genuine concern. 

“It's okay. You have us now and we’ll never let him hurt you again.” 

He cries, harder than he ever has before. Longer than he has ever allowed himself to cry, he cries for his youth, for his innocence, for the young Han Seo who just wanted to be loved. His body shakes from the tremors of his sorrow, liquid pain streaming down his face. 

“It wasn’t your fault. You didn’t deserve any of it. You did well, you did so well. I am so proud of you.” 

When she runs a tentative hand across his brow, he chokes on his tears sinking deeper into the bed. 

“I wanted you to know that you are my family too. You saved us both and I can never thank you enough, I would be honored if you considered me a sister too.” 

He lays in disbelief, unable to fathom how he has gained a brother and a sister in such a short expanse of time. There are no words, he nods quickly. Letting his tears continue to fall. 

She lets him cry, a serene smile on her face as he shakes apart in front of her. Softly whispering, “You did so well. I’m so proud of you.” Over and over again, tattooing it into his skin.

Words he has never heard before. 

Words he has longed for all his life. 

Time ticks by and before he knows it, it is nearing midnight. They had simply sat together in solace for hours. 

“You should go get some rest,” he states quietly and for once she doesn’t argue nodding in agreement before squeezing his hand and standing up, only a little wobbly this time. 

“You too. Sleep well Han Seo-ah.” He nods, watching her retreating form as she nears the door and impulsively he calls out, “Noona!” and it feels strange on his tongue, even newer than hyung but his heart warms at the brilliant smile she sends his way, turning back at his outcry, “Hmm?” she replies tilting her head curiously at him. 

“You know don’t you?” 

She stares, head tilting further and he knows she knows exactly what he means. 

“You weren’t sleeping. You heard everything.” 

She doesn’t bother looking surprised, he’s grateful for the lack of charades. 

“You know how he feels. You feel the same. Why won’t you confront him?” 

She stares at the ceiling before locking eyes with him again, “He’s been hurt before, he had a brother once before you know. He tried to kill him.” 

He didn’t know. it’s too familiar. It's the last thing he wished they had in common. 

“He doesn’t let people in because it’s too scary when they leave. You two aren’t so different, he just does a better job of hiding it.” 

He has no comment, there are so many different layers to Vincenzo and he doubts he will never truly understand the enigmatic man. 

“So this is enough for you? You don’t want more?” 

He thinks of Miri and all the baggage that he’s carrying, he has no right to place that on her. It’s better if he stops this thing before it starts right? He has no idea what he can give to another person, is he even capable of love? 

“Yes. This is enough. He is enough, every moment with him is enough.” 

The wind stutters from his lungs, this is the second time he has heard a confession meant for another. 

“What about me? Do you think I can be enough for someone too? Could I someday find someone who cares for me like you care for hyung?” He doesn’t know what has come over him but he waits anxiously for her response, every atom of his body shivering in anticipation. 

“Silly boy,” his heart drops, “You already have someone like that. She comes to see you everyday even though she’s terrified of hospitals.”

“Wha--what?” He stutters out feeling all the blood race to his face, she only smiles broadly in reply mimicking fingers dancing across a piano before sauntering out of his room with a loud chuckle. 

This isn’t over yet. Han Seok is still at large and more people could get hurt but he has never felt safer in his life. He has a family now, one that he fought for with more passion that he thought he had and he has no plans of letting that go, for anyone. 

[pleasantanathema]

Graves into Gardens | Reiner Braun x Reader | Chapter One

Chapter One: Living Ghosts

Pairing: Reiner Braun x Fem!Reader 

Rating: Explicit (18+ only)

Warnings: Modern AU, spoilers up to season four, slight manga spoilers (only by including characters met later), captivity, mentions of violence, enemies to lovers, angst, and eventual smut (don’t worry, it’ll come sooner than you think).

Word Count: 2.5k

A/N: Here’s chapter one of my multi-chapter series for Reiner— chapter two is already ready!

A very special thank you to @present-mel​ , and @whats-her-quirk​ for encouraging me to take the plunge and create this monster (I’ve got a lot planned for this fic and I’m so excited for it) 💕

Masterlist | Next Chapter

           You were having that same dream again, the one where you felt like you were dying. Your shoulder ached with the memory of bursting pain, but there were warm hands there, holding you, pressing down to keep the bleeding at bay. You could never recognize the face, never identify the voice, your ears still ringing from the sound of a piercing gunshot. It was always the same; a delirious memory warped into a nightmare. Sometimes the dream ended in the hospital, other times with you staring at the inside of a coffin, or in a shallow grave.

           But this time, you were waking up, eyes flickering open to meet harsh fluorescent lights and clinking, cold handcuffs around your wrists.

          A white-hot sense of dread pooled over your body.

          You knew where you were. You knew how you got here. And suddenly, you wished you were dreaming again.

          You could still see it all, still hear the deafening blades of the helicopter whirring above you. None of your team had expected the Marleyans to be in the warehouse; they hadn’t been on the soil of Paradis in years. They’d caught you off guard and sent your escape plan into action sooner than expected. You’d tried to follow Mikasa and Armin, but Jean was in your way. The lines of your vertical movement gear had tangled with his as you both hurriedly attempted to ascend and meet Levi in the aircraft, sending you spiraling back into the window, back into enemy territory.

          Someone kicked you in the skull when you landed, you could still feel your head throbbing with the soreness. That must’ve been what did you in, what made you easy pickings to become a captive to the Marleyan government.

          You sat up, taking note of your surroundings: of course, they’d put you in a cell, one void of a bed but thankfully containing a fucking bucket. How considerate. Just outside the iron bars was a table scattered with broken pieces of your gear, undoubtedly torn apart to be studied and to keep you from using it to escape.

          Anger brewed inside your chest, a familiar feeling of betrayal returning that you hadn’t felt in years. There were faces here you didn’t want to see, enemies with broken facades that still haunted your thoughts at night. People you’d trusted, people you’d loved.

          You knew they would show themselves soon. If you were still alive, it’s because there were questions that Zeke Yeagar wanted answers to, tendrils of doubt and duplicity that he wanted to sink into your mind.

━━━─── • ───━━━

          Reiner felt sick. He’d never wanted to see you again, yet he’d been the one to carry your unconscious body through the compound, to cuff you and leave you on the frigid concrete floor. He’d stood over your figure for a while, heart pounding his chest out of fear that you’d wake up and flash that scrutinizing gaze of yours toward him again. But you’d just laid there at his feet, small, vulnerable, like a lost memory washed back upon the shores of his life.

          And of course, now that you were awake, you weren’t talking, refusing to take Zeke’s bait.

          He watched the older man pace around the room, glasses glinting as he wrung his hands. Truly, Reiner had been surprised that Zeke didn’t kill you on the spot, instead opting to transport you all the way across the border to their headquarters, insistent that you be treated like precious cargo. Though, it had been hard to keep Porco from poking at your body in the floorboards of the armored truck. Reiner had tried to keep his gaze away from you, eyes glued to the dark horizon outside of the rain smeared window. Maybe if he had stopped looking at you, you would have disappeared.

          There was something pressing Zeke, something worrying him that he wasn’t sharing with the rest of the warriors. He thought you knew something, or perhaps that you could be valuable in some way.

          Reiner knew that if you were to live, you needed to speak, needed to give them a piece of information to work with. He placed his head in his hands at the table, palms rubbing at his eyes. He shouldn’t—he didn’t—care if you took your last breath here. You were the enemy, someone who’d once held a knife to his throat when his true intentions within the ranks of The Scouts were revealed. He almost wished you’d killed him then, that you’d ended all the years of misery and regret that still clung to his mind like a poisonous leech.

          “Maybe she’ll give in to someone she knows,” Zeke stopped his pacing, attention turning to Annie Leonhart who sat across from Reiner, “why don’t you give it a go?”

          “Absolutely not,” she rejected, long legs crossing at the ankles upon the table.

          “Bertholdt tells me that you two were quite the comrades during your reconnaissance mission.”

          “I wouldn’t say that. We just found each other tolerable. Bertie was always sweet on her, though.”

          Zeke sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose, “Bertholdt is kind to everyone, he’s as soft as they come.”

          Bertholdt, per usual, stayed quiet in the face of Zeke’s remarks.

          Porco Galliard chuckled at that statement, straightening his shoulders before he spoke.

          “Which is exactly why you should’ve sent me to Paradis instead, Chief. I could give her a go. You were being too easy on her, anyways. Once you start ripping off fingernails people really start to give in, you know.”

          Reiner’s gut twisted at the thought.

          “You’re not allowed anywhere near her, Gailliard,” Zeke crossed his arms as a smirk settled into the lines of his beard, “she’s far too pretty, you’d break down and grovel to her before it was all over.”

          Galliard huffed, a pink tinge dusting his cheeks as he shrunk down in his seat.

          “Reiner—”

          He had an inkling that it would come down to this. There would be no point in disputing it, he’d have to come face to face with his past, with sins he thought he left behind four years ago.

          He stood before Zeke could complete his thought, heavy knuckles rapping at the wood of the table.

          “Well, looks like we finally have a volunteer.”

           Every inch of Reiner’s skin bristled as he marched down the corridor to the prison cells. His footsteps were jarring, heavy, like he was determined to leave prints in the floor to mark a final walk of shame. Some part of him hoped you’d be gone when he opened the door, that you would have used your wits and crawled through some air duct and run away from this, from him.

          He almost didn’t turn the door handle. He felt invisible, burdensome hands pulling at his shoulders, calling at him to run. He’d always been a coward, especially when it came to you. He hated you, loathed you because he knew you pegged him as fraud from the beginning. You never threw a kind word in his direction, always looked at him like he was below you, like his pride meant nothing to you.

          Reiner just wished that you had meant nothing to him. Even when the opportunity had presented itself, he couldn’t even find the strength to kill you like his orders demanded. He wondered if you remembered it at all, if your memories had finally flooded back after all this time. Something inside his heart wouldn’t let him that night, some unknown, egregious feeling that by some means overshadowed his hatred. 

          That feeling returned when he entered the room and found you sitting with your back to the wall, your tightly bound hands in your lap.

          He took in a deep breath as he averted his gaze, teeth gritting at the sight of you awake. Zeke was right, four years had done you justice; time had only made you more beautiful than before, and he worried he might fall to his knees before you.

          “Reiner.”

          Sometimes, he just really wished people would stop saying his name.

━━━─── • ───━━━

          A strange relief settled into your stomach at the sight of him. Reiner was as hulking as ever, broad shoulders stretching the threads of his shirt to their limits. But he was different, older…demure, in some ways. He didn’t hold his head as high anymore, didn’t immediately cross his arms across his barreled chest to appear larger. He took tired, golden eyes less intense than you last remembered. His fingers rubbed at his lips, at the facial hair that adorned more pronounced cheekbones.

          You hated to admit that he appeared even more handsome than you remembered.

           There was a red armband tied around his bicep, an insignia emblazoned on it that you’d never seen before.

          “Do I make you nervous, Braun?”

          You caught his attention then, made his eyes look at you as you leaned your head back against the stone wall.

          “Tough question from the one behind bars.”

          His voice had changed, too. He sounded more stoic, more serious. There used to be a hint of glee under that tongue of his.

          “Why am I here?”

          “I’m supposed to be the one asking you things.”

          You shrugged, biting at your cheek as you wiggled your toes to try to make them feel again. Your limbs were starting to ache, your head too, body feeling like it was starting to cement to the floor. You didn’t want to be Zeke Yeagar’s plaything, but you knew that if you were alive, there was something they wanted. There was some leverage you held, but you weren’t sure what it was just yet. You had hoped they would send Bertholdt in to talk to you, you always could get under his skin.

          Reiner was a more difficult case for you. He always coated himself in arrogance, made it harder for you to chip away at his armor. He never let anyone in, just always grinned, acted like he had everything under control. But before you was a man with cracks, a man that time and guilt had eroded. You almost felt sorry for him, almost. A man like him deserved to bear the weight of his burdens.

          “Listen, if you don’t start talking—”

          “You’ll what? Kill me?”

          “We’ll torture you.”

          He said the words with a weight that knocked you back a bit, stole the last breath of gusto you were holding onto. You expected as much, but hearing it said aloud made fear crawl up your spine, made the cuffs around your wrist feel even more strained against your skin.

          “What do you want to know? I could tell Yeagar was prodding for something tangible to use against Paradis.”

          “I just want to know what you know about us, if you know anything about what Marley has been doing in the last few years.”

          “You’ve been fighting a war, that much I know.”

          And he looked like he had been through battle, been through hell in trenches and gunfire. Your intelligence agents had reported that Braun had been promoted to be Vice Commander of the Warrior Unit, and the hardline of his frown told you he’d seen more horrors than you wanted to know about.

          “Tell me something you don’t know from news headlines.”

          Levi had trained all his scouts for this situation once upon a time ago. You could still hear his voice in your head, commanding you to give up as little as possible, learn what the enemy wanted and then give them something else to cling on to. You had a few things you knew you could feed to them, beneficial tidbits that would satiate their hunger and keep them from feasting upon your teammates. But relaying any kind of information was a death sentence within itself; give the dogs a treat and eventually they’ll want more.

          And you knew that Reiner, that Zeke Yeagar, was a very greedy host.

          You stood slowly, releasing the aching tension in your lower back. Reiner didn’t flinch away from his place beyond the rusting iron, instead eyeing you like you were some exotic thing in a cage.

          There was a nostalgia of being in his presence, even if the atmosphere around him was contrary to what you were used to perceiving. He still made your blood boil, still made your fighting instincts come alive in the back of your mind. You still felt small in his shadow, but there was still a lingering feeling, a fleeting memory, about how being around him once made you feel safe.

          Your bare feet moved toward him, toes stinging against the cold of the floor.

          One of your hands wrapped around a bar to your prison, the metal of your handcuffs clinking against the barrier.

          You could catch his scent from being this close, and at least that much stayed the same—he always smelled like cedarwood, earthy and sweet, like the spice of the forest floor after a fresh rain. It was almost funny how smell created memories more frequently than any other sense. 

          Suddenly, you felt like you were back home, like nothing had changed, as if his deceit had never been revealed. Your mind’s eye flashed images of your old training camp, of Reiner lifting Connie onto his shoulders after the small boy had successfully managed to triumph over Jean in his marksmanship practice. He’d used one of the tricks that Reiner had taught him. That once sweet memory turned sour as you remembered just why Reiner was always such a good shot.

          You tilted your chin up to look at him, to come face-to-face with the imposing penumbra you thought you’d warded off. He was a living ghost brought back to haunt you once again.

          “You seem pathetic, Braun, like you’ve lost all that bravado that made you so special.”

          He took your words, let them bounce off his chest like you hadn’t even spoken them.

          “Why did they send you in here? Did they really expect I’d crack under such pitiful pressure? You’re a deplorable, miserable—”

          His fist wrapped around your hand, crushing your fingers between his might and the metal bar you’d secured yourself to.

          You hissed at the pain, but…there was something you had missed in that touch of his; he felt warm, worn, like there were secrets being pressed into your skin.

          “Be. Quiet.”

          You expected his fingers to flex, waited for him to crack your fingers under his pressure. But he kept his strength at bay, electing to keep a steady, continuous tension against your knuckles.

          “Talk, or tomorrow will be your last day. You wouldn’t want to die at the hands of a pathetic, wretched man like me, would you? No, you’re too proud for that.”

          He took a step back, releasing his bruising grip before turning on his heels to leave.

          A string of panic began to uncoil inside you, snapping as his arm extended towards the exit.

           “Reiner,” you called, “tell me something. How much do you really know about Zeke Yeagar?”

           “I know enough.”

           “No, you don’t,” you were starting to sound worried, you could hear it, “there’s something I know that you don’t, and I’d be willing to give you information in return for you answering a question for me.”

           You could feel your heart beating in your chest, every pump within your ribs like the ticking of an oppressive clock. He was silent, steady, back still turned away from you. You noticed that his fists were clenched by his side, a vein starting to appear up the exposed length of his forearm.

           “I’ll consider it. Depends on what your question is.”

           He still didn’t turn to look at you.

           “Reiner…tell me what happened to Marco.”

           The door was slamming shut before the last syllable of the dead man’s name left your lips.

Next Chapter

[yandere-romanticaa]

Revenge, and a little more. 🔪💔

♥ YANDERE REACTIONS: How would Mikaela Hyakuya, Run and Izuku Midorya react to their darling cheating on them and then leaving them for that person? Darling became fed up with her yanderes obsessive behaviour and decided to take matters in to her own hands... But, that didn't turn out so well now, did it?

Poor Mikaela, he'd be absolutely heartbroken... How could this happen, how could you do this to him?! He is beyond himself, he has no idea what to do. He blames both himself and the man that stole you away from him. It is his responsibility to take care of you, to nurture you, to protect you, to love you and he... he failed. He couldn't keep you by his side so you took your chance and ran off with that scum.

That disgusting human was going to pay for his sins. Mikaela would make sure of it. No one in this world could be trusted, for goodness sake humans could be even worse than vampires in certain cases. Mikaela's worry nearly consumed him whole as he searched for you, day and night, with little to no rest. You couldn't have gotten far away, there were just too many monsters crawling around... among other things. He hoped neither the vampires or the humans got to you as both sides would have caused your untimely doom. The vampires would just kill you on the spot, while the humans would lock you away and experiment on you for the rest of your days. Those horrid thoughts made Mikaela sick to his stomach...

...God however, seemed to be by his side today.

As he was out looking for you, he suddenly caught a whiff of a very familar scent in the air. Judging by its intensity, you were close. Without much to lose, Mikaela followed the scent until he finally reached the source of it. There you were, sitting on a large rock as your hand bled, a deep gash visible through the fabric of your clothing. Mikaela had to stop himself from pouncing on you right there and then - good grief, you smelled heavenly... It took all of Mikaela willpower to not take that delicate little neck of yours in his hands and to just feast on your divine blood. He suddenly smelled something, or rather someone else too. A man stepped out of a nearby building and that was when Mikaela just lost it. Who does this man think he is? You could have gotten killed at any moment, he left you to bleed right there on the streets and to top it all off the sun was going down. The stupidity of this man baffled Mikaela but his anger was what drove him over the edge.

With a shout, Mikaela raised his sword and charged at the man, giving him no time to prepare for the upcoming strike. Mikaela was brutal, showing no mercy to his enemy. He slashed and slashed, the mans blood spilling all over the young vampire. He didn't care that you were crying at that moment, he didn't care if anyone saw him... All he wanted was for this nuisance to just disappear already, so that Mikaela could finally take you back home and fix you up... And give you a reminder of just how dangerous the world really was.

A strange tang of incredibly sharp pain pierced Run's heart unlike anything he had ever felt before. In his hands was a note but it was not your handwriting. The content of the letter shook Run to the core - it was a note from your new so called lover, claiming that the two of you had run off somewhere, far away from Run's grasp. The man in question was most likely one of the guards you saw daily, but there were so many of them, one might think that finding the culprit would be nearly impossible.

Not for Run though. No, if it came down to you nothing was too difficult for him.

Having a imperial arms already gave Run a significant advantage over his opponent but him being a Jaeger only made things even more easy for him. Run is determined to find you, no matter the cost. He knows for a fact that in your little escape attempt that you had slipped up somewhere and he was going to discover that slip up in just a few hours. Run is high on adrenaline but he manages to keep it together as he talks to several witnesses, all of which claimed to saw a young woman fitting your description, along with an unknown man running off somewhere. In a little less then a day, Run had gathered all the information that he needed and he went out looking for you. With his wings spread high, he flew in the night sky as he searched for you, his heart nearly suffocating him from the seemingly endless worry. You always left him feeling breathless, no matter if it was good or bad...

Not too long after he took off, he finally saw something beneath him - two people holding hands and running, both of their heads were hooded. Run was too far up in the sky in the sky to tell who it was but upon a closer look he sighed a breath of relief. There you were, all dirtied and nervous as you clutched the mans hand tightly. Your paranoia was adorably obvious as you continued to look around left and right, most likely trying to keep an eye out for any danger beast that might be crawling around.

That proved to be a fatal mistake because at that moment, wild danger beasts should be the least of your concerns.

In a flash, your new lover suddenly just dropped dead on to the ground, a pool of crimson blood forming on the ground. You shrieked loudly as you tried to wake him up, your fear increasing even more. You noticed that there was a small hole at the back of his head and without even thinking, you turned around and were already pinned to the ground. Run held your wrists tightly as you trembled beneath him, his sad facial expression contradicting his actions. Heaven's sake, you could have sworn that he was going to break both of your wrists until he brought you closer to himself, his arms wrapping themselves tightly around your waist. Run stared down at the corpse beneath him, knowing full well where he hit the man. He had not died yet surprisingly, but Run wanted it that way. This man was going to spend his final moments watching you being brought back home, all the while he was dying slowly and painfully.

A fitting punishemt for a thief like this, wouldn't you agree dear?

Izuku was shaking at the sight before him - across the street was the love of his life, in the arms of another man as the two happily exchanged kisses as if it was the most normal thing in the world. His vision soon became blurry because in mere seconds, an endless stream of tears started to cascade down his cheeks, his eyes red and puffy, his throat dry as a desert. He felt so sick, so incredibly sick that he might just lose his lunch right there and then. His knees gave in and he was no longer able to stand on his own two feet. All he could do was watch from afar as this stranger took his darling away to who knows where. The sharp, inhumane wave of pain hit him out of nowhere as his vision soon became filled with black spots.

How could this have happened?

Was he not good enough for you?!

Why didn't you love him anymore!?

Why, why, WHY?!? WHY WAS THIS HAPPENING?! You two had the perfect romance - he was your hero and you were his princess! But his delusion was shattered to pieces and it broke Izuku's heart. However, even throught this entire ordeal he still continues to push his belief that you do love him and that none of this is your fault! Oh no, no, it's all his fault! The bastard he just saw you with, he must be blackmailing you in some way! He forced you away from Izuku and now you have to fake everything you do, oh you poor thing!

But don't worry love, your brave hero will be there to save the day!

Izuku always prided himself on his stealth skills and they were proven to be very useful in this situation. He stayed hidden in the shadows and he watched your every move, waiting for the perfect time to pounce. He gatherd all the information he needed in just a few days and orchestrated the perfect plan - at night when your "lover" was heading out to the store, Izuku may or may not have pushed him in to a sketchy alleyway. The attack was so sudden and strong, the poor man didn't stand a chance. Izuku continued to beat him until he was covered with blood from head to toe, his clothes pretty much sticking on to his body. A sick but satisfied smile made its way on his face as he walked towards the apartment you were staying at. Izuku didn't even bother with the clean up, but he made sure to at least cover up his tracks to make sure that no one could trace back anything to him. This bastard deserved this, it was his own fault for taking away Izuku's darling! Tonight though, the two lovers would finally be reunited!

Isn't that just the perfect ending? ♡

[discoscoob]

New Earth | Loki x Female Reader

Loki (Marvel) x Doctor Who

Loki is officially a member of the TARDIS family and for his first trip the Doctor sets the TARDIS controls to random and she lands on a planet called New Earth and you know what they say ‘New Earth, new you!’ 

Part One | Part Three | Chapter Index

Words: 7.0k

Warnings: Dub con kissing: reader isn’t control of her own body and Loki isn’t aware

Read on AO3

You quickly learned that the TARDIS was infinitely bigger than you had originally thought. It turned out that the control room was just the tip of the iceberg. It had a swimming pool, a library, an art gallery filled with art the Doctor had collected from across the universe and more wardrobe space than you could ever dream of, full of clothes which the Doctor had granted you unlimited access to, you would definitely be taking advantage of that. It also had the usual like living rooms, dining rooms, kitchens, bathrooms and bedrooms. The Doctor, had confessed that the TARDIS was such a size that there were rooms that even he still had yet to find, despite the fact he had been piloting this ship for over half a millennium.

 You recalled how just before all this begun, you had planned to be curled up in bed within the hour, almost 24 hours had passed since then and you had yet to sleep a wink, you also hadn’t eaten. Once all the adrenaline had finally worn off, you felt as though you could have fallen into a coma. You were grateful for the fact that the first thing the Doctor did when he returned to the TARDIS was show you all to the bedrooms, it was on the way that he had filled you with information about the TARDIS and it’s many rooms.

 Once you reached the quarters where which the bedrooms were, the Doctor stopped and reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and silently handed you, Donna and Loki each a plain plastic bottle filled with goodness knows what and all three of you stared at him speechless waiting for an explanation. 

 “Aren’t you hungry?” The Doctor asked upon realising you were all staring at him cluelessly. “This will sustain you until you wake up, then you can have a proper breakfast.” 

 “What is it?” You asked, closely inspecting the plastic bottle.

 “Blimey! How big are your pockets?” Donna commented, trying to work out how he managed to fit three bottles into his suit jacket.

 “They’re bigger on the inside,” the Doctor shrugged as if it were obvious.

 “Of course they are.” Donna muttered to herself in a ‘duh’ tone.

 “And it’s like a protein shake. Try it, it’s nice!” The Doctor answered you.

 You felt your stomach growl as it demanded nutrients and you were too tired to seek out something else to fill it with so you shrugged and twisted the cap off the bottle and took a quick sip to test how it tasted. You were pleasantly surprised to find it tasted just like a vanilla milkshake and hummed happily as you drank down some more. 

 After that, the Doctor bid the three of you goodnight and left you to pick your own bedrooms, he assured you they were all practically identical and included en suites so there was no concerns over you squabbling for the biggest room, even if the rooms were different sizes you highly doubted that you had the energy to fight over them, you had already picked the bedroom behind the door closest to you after bidding Donna and Loki goodnight. 

 Once your vanilla protein shake was all finished and you had changed into some comfortable nightwear which you had found in the wardrobe, you were ready to crawl into the bed for a well-deserved night sleep. Was it even night? You weren’t sure but you couldn’t find the energy to care as you pulled back the thick white duvet of the double bed but before you could climb in and let your tired body rest there was a knock at your door. 

 You sighed wondering who it was and left your bedside to go and answer it. 

 “Loki?” You couldn’t disguise the surprise in your tone, he was the last person you expected to see when you opened the door. You took in his appearance and noticed there was no longer any traces of ash or blood on his face, his hair was combed back and still damp meaning he had not long been out the shower, the smell of the products he used filled the air around him and you found yourself breathing deeper to take in the fresh woodsy scents along with hints of vanilla. His sweat and dirt covered clothes had been removed and replaced with a loose dark grey hoodie over a white t shirt and dark jeans, seeing the God in such a casual outfit was almost as startling as seeing him stood outside your door. Your eyes fell to his hands which were clasping the bottle of protein shake the Doctor had gave you all earlier.

 “I hope I’m not disturbing you.” Loki spoke, his voice soft, you could hardly believe he was the same man who had trapped you against a wall only seconds after meeting you barely 24 hours earlier.

 “No, not at all. I hadn’t got to bed yet.” You assured him and he nodded.

 “I just wanted to bring you this,” Loki slightly raised up the bottle in his hand, “you probably need it more than I do, I don’t require nourishments as regularly as mortals do.” He explained.

 When you hesitated to accept the drink, due to how stunned you were by the fact he was even concerning himself with thinking about your nutritional needs he continued.

 “I haven’t touched it,” he reassured you, allowing you to inspect the bottle by holding it closer to you. “The cap isn’t even broken.”

 You couldn’t help the way your heart swelled, endeared by the way he fretted over the idea that you may have worried about him tampering with the drink, when actually that hadn’t even crossed your mind you were just shocked by his kind gesture. You had to pull yourself back into the moment to save him from fretting any further and took the bottle from his hand, your fingers slightly brushed against his as you did allowing you to discover how soft his skin was.

 “Thank you, that’s very thoughtful of you.” You smiled sincerely at him and he once again diverted his eyes and clasped his now empty hands behind his back.

 “I’ll let you rest now. Goodnight,” he spoke your name and your sleep deprived mind decided that you liked the way it sounded when uttered in his gentle tone. He had already begun walking away when you replied your own goodnight and you noticed he was heading away from the bedrooms, as you softly shut your door you wondered where he was going.

 ***

 Loki had decided that there was no point in attempting to sleep when he wasn’t tired so instead he chose to head to the control room in search of the Doctor. If he was going to be staying under his roof for a while he thought it would be best to learn a bit about him, since they hadn’t really had the opportunity while in Pompeii. 

 Just as he suspected, he found the Doctor in the control room, his pinstripe suit jacket had been removed, along with his tie and they hung neatly over the railing which surrounded the circular control panel which the Doctor was leant over with his back to Loki. It appeared that the Doctor was unaware of Loki’s presence behind him as he made no effort to acknowledge him. 

 “Doesn’t this thing come with an auto pilot?” Loki casually initiated conversation as he sneaked up beside the Doctor, who looked over his shoulder at Loki when he heard his voice and straightened his back, letting out a soft chuckle.

 “Yeah, it does,” he answered as he distractedly scratched at some stubble along his jawline, while Loki continued to scroll around the console, looking at all the controls, he let his fingers dance over them but he never touched any. “But I like to stay up here and monitor it as much as I can, make sure everything’s in order, look out for any distress calls. That sort of thing.” 

 Loki nodded to demonstrate that he was listening until he stopped three quarters of the way around the console from where the Doctor stood and finally looked back up at him to find the Doctor was already watching him closely.

 “You know you don’t have to treat me like the humans.” Loki stated, as he shoved his hands into his jean pockets, the Doctor mirrored him as he put his hands in his own. “I’m much more like you than them.”

 “Force of habit, I guess.” The Doctor shrugged apologetically. “I’ve been travelling with humans for almost...” he squinted his eyes as he worked out the numbers in his head, “50 years now. This is my first time travelling with a God.”

 “I’m honoured to be your first.” Loki smiled proudly before he continued to silently wander around the control room while the Doctor returned to monitoring the console, every so often he glanced back up at Loki just to check he wasn’t up to no good, each time Loki would look right back at him and offer him an innocent smile. 

 “Forgive me if this sounds imprudent, but how old are you?” Loki asked, if he wanted to get to know the Doctor better he needed to start somewhere and this seem like a good place to start. 

 “I’m 904... I think? I don’t really keep count anymore.” The Doctor explained, as he leaned against the railing and crossed his legs and arms.

 “And how does someone who travels through all of time and space, getting themselves into situations like Pompeii and answers distress call, after distress call, make it to 904 years old? Are you immortal or just tremendously lucky?”

 “Ha, I’m neither of those things.” The Doctor chuckled ruefully to himself as he pushed himself off the railing to stroll around the console as he explained. “Instead of dying my body regenerates itself. All my cells burn up and I grow new ones. I’m still me but I become a complete different person. New face, new body, new personality. The only thing from my previous form which I do get to keep are my memories.”

 “Therefore that would make you a...?” He put his hand out with his palm facing up, offering the Doctor to finish the sentence.

 “Time lord.” 

 The Doctor hadn’t noticed the way Loki’s eyes slightly widened and how the curve of his lip fell into a straight line. A few moments passed and Loki had yet to respond, the Doctor looked up to check that he was even still in the room and found Loki staring at him with a pale, unmoving face. “Loki, are you alright?” 

 Loki remained still and silent and the Doctor straightened his back and drew his eyebrows together as he took a single step forward. “Loki?” This time his tone was cautious, it wasn’t too gentle but it wasn’t too abrupt, it danced on a line between the two.

 Noticing the Doctor come closer encouraged Loki to finally move, he took a step back and tilted his head forward to glare at the Doctor from under his brows, silently warning him to not step any closer. 

 The Doctor understood and increased the distance between them by taking a few steps backwards and raised his arms, with his palms facing towards Loki, to demonstrate that he meant him no harm.

 “I’m not going to hurt you. Just tell me what’s wrong and I can fix it.” The Doctor tried, his voice was assertive yet calm.

 “Time Lords maintained timelines within the universe and were in charge of the laws of time.” Loki recited, as he carefully watched the Doctor.

 “Yeah...” The Doctor slowly confirmed, though his pitch rose at the end of the word making it sound more like a question as his face grew with intriguing while he wondered where Loki was going with this and why he seemed so alarmed by it.

 “But they all died.” Loki continued, it was a statement not a question and the Doctor had to quickly disguise the pain that threatened to show on his face.

 “Yeah,” the Doctors voice slightly wavered and he cleared his throat. “I’m the only one left.” 

 “With the Lords of Time gone there was no one left to continue their work.” The Doctor remained silent and listened, as he wondered where Loki got all this knowledge from. “Until the TVA was founded. They honour and continue the work of the Time Lords. My question is, where does that leave you, Doctor?”

 Now it was the Doctors turn to fall speechless, he had followed everything Loki said up until he mentioned the TVA. There was an organisation who honoured Time Lords and continued their work, maintaining timelines and enforcing the laws of time? The Doctor wondered how he never knew about this, he believed he was the only person in the universe continuing the work of the Time Lords. 

 “The TVA?” The Doctor faintly questioned, his brows tense as he glanced at the ground.

 “The Time Variant Authority.” Loki clarified, closely reading the Doctors reaction to try and find any hint of dishonesty. 

 “Is that who you’re running from?” The Doctor asked Loki, but he remained silent, uncertain of how much he could trust the Time Lord. 

 “I’m not with them. I had no idea they even existed.” The Doctor told him honestly, looking him right in the eye with his palm resting between his two hearts. “Whatever trouble you’re in, I might be able to help. If the TVA honour my species–“

 “No.” Loki quickly rejected the Doctors offer before he could even form a proper plan. 

 “They might listen to me–“ The Doctor tried to persist.

 “No!” Loki repeated louder, “I got away from them, haven’t I? I am already free. It would be foolish to go back and try to reason with them.” 

 “A life on the run is hardly freedom.” The Doctor argued.

 Loki disagreed. Even before the TVA, Loki had never truly known what freedom felt like. Growing up a Prince on Asgard his entire life had been planned out for him, all he had to do was perform the script that had already been written but Loki had no interest in the character which he had been given. All the rules and regulations he had to follow without question made him hungry to take control and live by his own rules but in doing so he fell under the control of Thanos and as a result he was forever confined to one role, one character: the villain. 

 In an effort to escape he merely moved from one cage to another. Then he was captured by the TVA and his figurative restraints turned literal but it felt no different, confirming that he had been right all along about feeling ensnared in the life which had been chosen for him. 

 What the Doctor failed to realise was that, the very first time Loki believed he felt what others described as freedom was when you had put your hand on his shoulder and reassured him he was safe and he realised that you truly had no idea who he was. You held no preconceived notions about him, there was no one you expected him to be. 

 For once Loki had the opportunity to discover who he truly was without the influence of other people’s ideas of him, which he had accepted would never change no matter how much he tried so he gave up trying and became what people saw him as but, you, you saw him as a stranger.

 The prospect of meeting someone who didn’t already know who he was was rare in Loki’s life, it seemed everyone had their own images of who he was, which made it hard for him decipher which parts actually belonged to him and which parts others had attached to him from their own imaginations. 

 Then you offered him the opportunity to stay and Loki felt as though he had finally managed to tear up the script which had been written for him and take the pen in his own hand and for the very first time in his life he had the power to decide who he wanted to be and if that’s what freedom felt like then Loki decided that he was going to cherish it for as long as possible.

 ***

 The sound of bird song and the feeling of sun light warming your face gently pulled you from your sleep. You squinted your eyes as they adjusted to the sunlight and once you could take in your surroundings you paused, forgetting where you were for a moment until the events of yesterday started playing back in your mind. 

 You were in your bedroom on the TARDIS, however you were certain that window hadn’t been there last night. You rose from the bed and walked towards it, the view showed you a clear blue sky and a vast meadow surrounded by healthy green trees while flocks of birds passed by above. It was a beautiful sight to wake up to, however that didn’t lessen your confusion over it. 

 Now freshly showered and changed into some new clothes which you found provided in the wardrobe, you were walking through the corridors of the TARDIS, letting your nose lead the way as it followed the scent of a hearty breakfast being cooked nearby. The two protein shakes had sustained you over night but now you were ready for that proper breakfast the Doctor had promised and from the smells that travelled down the corridors and lured you to the kitchen, it seemed like it wasn’t going to disappoint. 

 Once you turned through the archway which lead to the spacious kitchen which also included a dining area, you were greeted by the sight of Loki and the Doctor quietly bickering, they hadn’t yet noticed your presence so you quietly watched them as you leant against the archway.

 “You burnt the toast again.” The Doctor sighed, taking the toast and throwing it into the bin which you noticed already had a pile of burnt toast slices in it. 

 “I didn’t burn the toast, the toaster burnt the toast.” Loki argued. “I don’t know why you dragged me in here to help you cook for the humans anyway.”

 “Did you have anything better to do?” The Doctor asked as he popped some more bread slices into the toaster.

 “No.” Loki admitted honestly. 

 “Then you can pour the fresh orange juice into the serving jug. Everything’s almost ready, they’ll be here soon.” The Doctor instructed Loki, who sighed but still turned to go to the fridge but he paused halfway when he finally noticed you standing under the archway and he said your name with surprise.

 “Good morning, Loki.” You greeted him kindly as you moved into the kitchen. 

 “Oh,” the Doctor said your name after he heard you greet Loki. “Take a seat, it’s almost done.” 

 You sat yourself down on one of the chairs at the large oak wood dining table and observed Loki and the Doctor in the kitchen.

 You noticed Loki had changed out of the casual clothes he was wearing last night when he knocked on your door to offer you his protein shake. He was now smartly dressed in a dark fitted suit, with an olive green waist coat paired with a crocodile green tie which was secured to his white dress shirt with a gold clip. It was the finest you had seen him dress, he looked out of place as he stood in the kitchen pouring juice into a jug.

 The Doctor was dressed in pretty much the same outfit he wore yesterday, you wondered to yourself if it was the exact same suit or if he just owned multiple pairs.

 “Doctor.” You spoke the Time Lords name to get his attention.

 “Yeah?” He glanced up at you from where he was buttering some toast.

 “This morning I woke up to a window in my room that wasn’t there last night.” You told him, hoping he could offer you some insight.

 “It’s an artificial window,” he explained, “I turn on the feature when I’m travelling with humans, since the TARDIS has no windows some can find it quite claustrophobic but I can turn off the feature if you don’t like it.” 

 “No, no. I like it,” you quickly told him. “It’s nice, thank you.”

 The Doctor gave you a small smile to acknowledge your thanks.

 “No one talk to me. I need coffee.” The unmistakable sound of your auntie drew all three pairs of eyes in the room to Donna as she shuffled into the kitchen, she was dressed in a fluffy white dressing gown and slippers and her red hair was pulled up into a messy bun.

 “Coffee pot is there, help yourself.” The Doctor pointed to the counter where there stood a pot of black coffee.

 “Thanks.” Donna mumbled through a yawn.

 Your attention was drawn to Loki when he placed two full plates, filled with a variety of breakfast foods down onto the table.

 “You look nice today.” You told him and heat rose to your cheeks when Loki’s eyes met yours and his lips curled up at the edges.

 “I’m glad we agree.” Loki stood straight and tugged on his blazer where it hugged him snuggly around his waist. “It took me forever to find something decent in the Doctors closets.”

 The Doctor fetched over the rest of the plates and took a seat on the opposite side of the table to you, Donna sat beside him cradling her mug of coffee and Loki moved around the table to take a seat beside you, the same foresty and vanilla scent filled the air around him. 

 “I could get used to this.” Donna commented as she started scooping food from the buffet in the centre of the table onto her empty plate.

 “Don’t, I just haven’t eaten in a while, thought it was about time.” The Doctor warned her around a mouth full of bacon.

 “What’s the plan for today, Doctor?” You asked as you picked up a hash brown.

 “I was thinking I could set the controls to random and see where it takes us.” The Doctor offered. “A mystery tour! We could end up on any planet, anywhere, anywhen, in the whole, wide universe.” 

 “You mean, we could end up on an alien planet?!” Donna gasped, and it was hard to tell whether she was excited or terrified.

 “Time and space travel, consequently, yeah, I think our chances of landing on an alien planet are relatively high.” Loki sarcastically replied, while he picked at a croissant.

 “Can we leave him behind?” Donna directly asked the Doctor.

 “Hey, play nice you two.” The Doctor ordered them like a fed up father.

 ***

 “Earth?” Donna whined. “All that just to end up back on earth? And it’s pissing it down.” 

 You had all eagerly piled out the TARDIS to see what awaited you on the other side of the double doors, the last thing any of you expected was to end up in a rundown alleyway on earth during a rainstorm.

 “No, no.” The Doctor smiled, the only one out of all four of you who still looked enthusiastic while you, Loki and Donna all glared at him while the rain poured down on you. “This is New Earth!”

 “I don’t care if it’s brand, spanking New Earth, it’s cold and it’s wet and we’re surrounded by rubbish!” Donna complained, as she wrapped her arms around her torso to protect herself from the elements.

 “I think I just saw a rat.” Loki added.

Donna let out a ear piercing screech as she leaped into the air in fright.

 “Come on! Where’s your sense of adventure?” The Doctor tried to hype you all up.

 “Doctor, a cold and wet, rat infested alleyway isn’t exactly what I would call my idea of an adventure.” You told him, and his smile dropped when he looked at all three of you and saw your miserable faces.

 “Fine,” he begrudgingly caved in with a sigh. “Get back in the TARDIS, I’ll take us somewhere else.”

 You all simultaneously breathed a sigh of relief and began following the Doctor back into his ship one after another, with you following behind last but before you could step foot through the doors you felt an arm grab you around your waist and pull you backwards. You felt a sudden falling sensation, as if the arm had dragged you straight off a cliff edge. From what you could see it looked as though you were falling through a kaleidoscope. All this barely lasted two seconds, as all of a sudden you once again felt the solid ground beneath your feet. Your heart was hammering in your chest like a woodpeckers beak against a tree, as you patted down your body just to make sure everything arrived with you since you were pretty certain you had just teleported. 

 With wide eyes you looked around the dimly lit basement which had paint chipping off its walls and was filled with an unsettling  scent of chemicals. In the background you could hear the sound of a party coming through speakers, you discovered it was coming from a projection on one of the walls. The footage showed a beautiful blonde woman dressed in a stunning silver dress which was accessorised with expensive jewellery, all attention was on her as she elegantly glided around the room while handsome men dressed in tuxedos fawned over her.

 “Mistress! I brought you a pure-blood human.” You heard a timid voice, you immediately looked towards the direction it came from to find a small man with patterns on his pale face, hunched over like an elderly person and dressed in white scrubs.

 “Don’t be frightened, my child.” You jumped, startled by a second voice, this one feminine and aristocratic, it sounded almost identical to the one that belonged to the elegant woman in the projected footage. For a moment you didn’t realise where it came from but then you noticed the sheet of skin with a face attached to it. The skin was tethered to a metal frame like a trampoline and you gasped in horror at the sight.

 “Well done, Chip. You have delivered me a truly fine specimen.” The talking piece of skin praised the cowering man, who you assumed was her servant. 

 “Come closer, my child. Let me get a proper look at you.” She tried to tempt you towards her but you weren’t an idiot.

 “I think I’ll just stay right here, thanks.” You refused, going as far to take a few steps backwards.

 “Suit yourself.” The skin smiled to herself before her eyes shifted from you to the projection. “I remember that night, that was the last time anyone told me I was beautiful.” 

 You watched the footage as a man kissed the back of her hand and you heard him call her Cassandra.

 “After that, it all became such hard work.” Cassandra continued. “But I’ve not been idle. Tucked away down here I finally developed a solution to all my problems.” 

“And what’s that?” You were afraid to ask.

 “Chip, activate the psychograft!” Cassandra ordered her humble servant.

 Instantly your arms were immobile as an electric force bound them to a barrier which you hadn’t realised you had stepped into, no matter how hard you tried to pull free, your arms wouldn’t budge.

 “Cassandra, what are you doing?” You gasped mid-sentence as a circle of light surrounded you.

 “Moving on! New life, new body, new me!” Cassandra cheered and a gold essence evaporated from her skin and travelled through the air towards you. 

 Your chest tightened as you realised what was about to happen as the sparkling gold cloud reached you, it sank into your chest through your skin and flesh, once it was all inside you the force restraining you vanished and your limp body collapsed to the floor. Your head smacked against a loose pipe as gravity pulled you into it’s hard embrace.

 ***

 You had been right behind Loki when you were taken, which mean he had heard you yelp in shock when you felt the arm wrapped around your waist which made him turn to see what prompted such a reaction, only to watch you vanish into thin air right before his eyes.

 He called your name, in the tone of a question, into the now empty alleyway which was useless since you were already gone but it caught the attention of Donna.

 “What’s wrong?” She turned to Loki after hearing the confusion in his tone when he spoke your name.

 That’s when the Doctor looked up from the ships console, his own brows furrowed with concern as he looked between Donna and Loki.

 The Doctor realised you were the only one who wasn’t present and asked where you were, though his question was more of a statement to bring attention to your lack of presence.

 “Someone grabbed her and then they vanished.” Loki explained. 

 “What... what do you mean ‘vanished?’” Donna looked at Loki in disbelief, not trusting the mischievous God, she rushed back towards the doors and stepped back out into the rain shouting your name into the alleyway, her voice reverberated off of the walls.

 “It must have been a short range teleport, like a vortex manipulator.” The Doctor concluded. “Nasty and cheap.” He added in a barely coherent mumble. 

 He was already rushing around the console tempering with all sorts of switches in a seemingly random order. “If I can hone in on its signal, maybe I can follow its last route.”

 “Got it!” He announced only a few moments later. 

 “Donna!” The Doctor yelled towards the double doors of the TARDIS.

 “What is it, do you know where they went?” Donna came running back into the TARDIS, freshly wet from the rain.

 “I found the signal which was left behind by the teleportation device they used, I set the TARDIS controls to follow its last route. Hold on.” With that the Doctor pulled down the leaver and everyone knew to hold on tight during this part as tremors shook the whole TARDIS. 

 Loki and the Doctor held onto opposite sides of the console while Donna clung to the railing beside the doors. It didn’t take long for the tremors to subside as a wheezing sound filled the control room signalling that the TARDIS was landing. Once the ship fell silent Donna rushed out the doors without hesitation, ignoring the Doctor as he called her name and ran after her.

 Donna cried your name as soon as she saw you collapsed on the floor, then she noticed the creature with patterns on his face crouched over you.

 “Get away!” Donna yelled at Chip as she rushed to your side, she fell to her knees beside you and harshly pushed the creature away and he fell on his back before he quickly scurried away to cower in a corner as the Doctor came running out the TARDIS, followed by Loki. 

 Donna made room for the Doctor as he knelt beside her and scanned his sonic screwdriver over your body, while Donna stroked your hair, her eyes began filling with tears.

 “She’s okay.” The Doctor reassured Donna as he studied his screwdriver, Donna let out a sob of relief and wrapped your limp hand between both of hers and held it against her heart. 

 “Loki, take her back into the TARDIS. I’m going to take a look around here.” The Doctor instructed, while he glanced around the dull basement. 

 The Doctor moved, allowing Loki to take his place, Donna moved slightly to give him enough room to scoop you into your arms.

 “Be careful.” Donna told him, Loki’s brows pulled together, ready to snap at the woman, he was already helping, when he didn’t have to, she didn’t have to make him sound incompetent while he did so but as he turned to Donna ready to unleash his pent up frustration, he saw her eyes weren’t focused critically on him but they were filled with concern over you as they were trained on you unconscious form and Loki realised that she wasn’t nagging him, she was only worried about you. The tension left his brows and his eyes softened as he gave Donna a small nod and secured his hold on you. 

 Donna held the TARDIS door open and Loki carried you through, once they were both in the control room Loki continued walking towards the corridors which lead deeper into the ship.

 “Where are you going?” Donna fret, expecting him to have put you down on the floor of the control room.

 “I’m taking her to her room, her bed will be more comfortable than the floor.” Loki explained without stopping, he recalled how uncomfortable it was when he awoke on the floor of the control room, despite the fact you tried to offer him some comfort by resting his head in your lap. 

 It had sent an unfamiliar feeling through his chest that you had concerned yourself over his comfort. He could count the amount of people on one hand who would ever willingly rest his head in their lap and those people were Thor and his mother, everyone else either simply wouldn’t care or would be far too afraid of him to ever allow themselves to get that close.

 Since you had concerned yourself with his comfort and he was aware of how uncomfortable the TARDIS floor was, he thought it was only fair that he, too, saw to it that you were comfortable. 

 He was never one for concerning himself over other people’s needs, likely due to the fact he always felt as though no one ever cared about his but as soon as he felt cared about by you, he found himself considering your needs, whether it was intentional or not. 

 When the Doctor had handed the three of you protein shakes he knew immediately that he had no use for it, so he took it back to his room and dumped it on the bed as he went to shower with the intention of leaving it untouched. As he showered, no matter how much he tried to think about anything else, he kept thinking about the way he heard your stomach growl when you were stood next to him in the corridor and how he had something which could diminish your hunger, that he had no use for, so the logical thing to do was to give it to you, since you clearly needed it. 

 Just because it was the logical thing to do didn’t mean Loki was going to do it, at least that’s what he told himself, but as he started to get dressed in some comfortable clothes he found in the wardrobe, his eyes kept glancing over at the discarded bottle on the bed. 

 In the end he concluded that since he was planning to talk to the Doctor, meaning he would inevitably pass by your room on the way, he would knock on your door and leave the bottle on the floor for you to find while he quickly made himself scarce. 

 Of course things didn’t go to plan and he found himself still stood at your door once you opened it.

 Once he made it to your bedroom he gently placed you on your bed, over the top of your duvet, making sure your pillow was under your head and then stepped away to let Donna sit beside you.

 Loki paused halfway between the bed and the door, wondering if he should stay or go, he nervously fidgeted with his fingers. You had stayed with him when he was unconscious but you already had Donna, she was your auntie, you didn’t need him he decided so he turned on his heel and stepped towards the door.

 “You don’t have to go.” Donna offered, when she heard his footsteps, he looked at her from over his shoulder. 

 Loki considered this for a moment before he finally walked over to an armchair in your room and sat on it with his legs spread and his elbows resting on his knees. 

 “Moisturise me.” Donna and Loki sat up when they heard you mumble and you began to come around.

 “Moisturise? Moister... oh water? You want water?” Donna tried to work out what you meant.

 “Moisturise me.” You repeated, still half unconscious.

 “I’ll get you some water, don’t worry. I’ll be right back.” Donna promised you as she stood up and rushed out the room, leaving you alone with Loki.

 When your eyes finally pushed themselves open, they only saw a plain white ceiling which was far too clean to belong to the basement, which is the last place you remember being, so you came to the conclusion that someone had moved you. You wanted to sit up but when you tried to command your body to move, it wouldn’t, you begun to panic wondering if you had become paralysed but then you sat up without even trying, it was like an invisible force moved your body for you. Immediately you felt a pressure build in your skill, like your brain was being compressed. 

 You heard Loki’s voice say your name and the invisible force allowed you to see him as he stood from the armchair. You were in your bedroom, on the TARDIS, relief filled you as you looked at Loki’s familiar face and you wanted to smile and run over to him and tell him what happened but instead your body remained sat on the bed.

 “Yes... that’s who I am.” Cassandra replied to him, using your voice but you could hear yourself, you didn’t sound right you spoke with a upper-class accent that didn’t belong to you.

 “And you’re a tall, handsome stranger.” Cassandra dragged your eyes down Loki’s body with no concern about being subtle and if you were in control of your own body your cheeks would’ve been burning hot by now.

 “I’m not a stranger, you know who I am.” Loki responded with a confused tilt of his head.

 “Tell me again.” Cassandra prompted him, she made your voice low and breathy as she pressed your palms against your mattress and leaned your body towards the man who stood at the edge of your bed while she innocently looked up at him from under your lashes.

 “Loki of Asgard, God of Mischief.” Loki couldn’t resist answering, his own voice growing deeper as he believed his title appealed to you and that’s why you wanted to hear him say it.

 “A God?” Cassandra gasped as she made you move onto all fours and slowly begin crawling to the edge of the bed until you were knelt right before the God.

 “That’s right.” Loki answered breathily, his eyes never leaving you as Cassandra moved your hands to grasp Loki by the lapels of his jacket and pulled him closer, he moved without protest.

 “Does that make you immortal?” Cassandra whispered, your lips almost brushing his from how close your faces were and she continued to peer at him from under your lashes while he looked down at you with hooded eyes which kept glancing towards your lips, Cassandra lifted them into a smirk.

 “It does.” Loki answered, his voice so deep it was practically a growl and Cassandra made you moan as she suddenly forced you to tighten your fists around Loki’s lapels and pull him down until his lips smacked with yours. Cassandra moved your arms from Loki’s lapels to around his shoulders and made your fingers dig into his long, dark hair grasping a strong hold so his head wouldn’t move away from yours. 

 You heard Loki let out a deep moan and his hands grasped your hips and pulled them flush with his own. As Cassandra made you continue kissing him you felt the unbearable pressure in your head begin to disappear.

 You hadn’t noticed that the door to your bedroom had opened until you heard the sound of a glass smash.

 “What the hell?!” Donna cried, immediately Loki let go of your hips and without his strong hold supporting you, you felt your whole body go weak as you collapsed back onto the bed but you noticed as you fell back you moved your own arm to brace your fall. Experimentally you waved your other arm around in front of your face to confirm you were once again in control of your own movements.

 Then reality hit you as you realised what Donna had just walked in on but before you could even begin to try and explain you heard loud footsteps echoing through the corridor as they ran towards your bedroom.

 “Donna!” You could hear the Doctor shouting, before you saw him run through the open door of your bedroom.

 “Cassandra, get out–“ The Doctor yelled towards you his face full of fury but his foot slipped on the water from the glass Donna had dropped and he went flying to the floor.

 “Doctor?!” Donna gasped and rushed to help him up as he groaned in pain from the impact.

 “Donna, that’s not your niece!” The Doctor warned Donna. 

 “What do you mean? Of course, she is.” Donna argued with the Doctor, who was finally back on both feet.

 “She’s been possessed by Cassandra.” The Doctor explained, looking Donna straight in the eye as he held his hands on both her shoulders to convey how serious he was. “She’s the last surviving human and she refuses to die, she’s trying to use your nieces body as a vessel.”

 “I’m me again!” You tried to explain.

 “Get out of her now, Cassandra!” The Doctor ordered.

 “She already has,” you attempted to explain again. “She left me after she made me kiss Loki.”

 All eyes in the room fell on the God who was checking himself out in the floor length mirror beside your wardrobe. When he realised the room had fell silent and felt everyone’s attention on him, he turned and looked at you all with a smirk and then his eyes landed on the Doctor.

 “Hello, Doctor.” Cassandra greeted the Time Lord flirtatiously, through Loki. “Long time no see, and it looks like we both got new faces.” 

[schtewpidcupid]

tw: knifeplay, mentions of murder, bloodplay if you squint very hard.

slasher whitney / fpc.....

It was foolish to be in the woods past sunset. You knew that, and usually you would’ve avoided it at all costs - the danger was too great.

But, despite being tired from a late night of studying and a busy school day, and knowing you had plans that evening, when some of your classmates suggested going to the lake you’d readily agreed. It seemed fun and, as of late, large group outings were becoming more common. There was safety in numbers, after all. You’d all stuck close together through the woods, until you got to the relative safety of the lakeside, where everyone had separated into their little cliques or grouped up to play an impromptu football match. You had elected to lounge around near a few students you recognised from your English class, laying back and basking in the late-afternoon sun while you listened to them gossiping. You swore you were only resting your eyes.

When you woke up, it was still, and quiet, and a cold breeze was drawing in from the lake. You’d fallen asleep. That, on its own, wasn’t an issue. The issue arose from the fact that everyone had apparently pissed off home and not thought to wake you to come with them, instead leaving you alone on the shore. 

Walking home through the woods in this town was dangerous at the best of times, what with all the creatures and the human creeps and the bizarre flora. Lately, however, there had been a particular fixation on not being out alone, especially at night - there was a killer on the loose. Even in this town, with its high crime rate and lack of moral decency, it was rare for anyone to be out-and-out murdered: attacks, yes; disappearances, yes; but murder? That was unusual, and the brutality of the crimes was enough to shock even the most cynical locals. The fact that your classmates had forgotten you wasn’t just rude or inconvenient; it was dangerous - more dangerous than any trip through the forest.

You were about fifteen minutes through your journey, alternating between short bursts of jogging and carefully picking your way through the foliage in an attempt to remain undetected, when you felt that you were being watched. That was the issue with sticking to the more well-worn trails, you supposed - there was always some pervert, lurking, waiting to catch someone unawares and take advantage. With a sigh, far too used to this kind of shit, you ducked off the trail and back into the trees, trying to make your way through and relying on the dying embers of late-evening light to guide you. 

It was less than a minute later, already far off the trail, when you were startled by a noise. A dull, heavy thump from behind you. 

Your breath quickened and your jaw set, a meagre attempt to calm yourself, before you took a look over your shoulder and almost immediately started sprinting away, before you could even fully register the figure you saw. Tall and somewhat broad, clad in all black, red horns rising out from beneath a hood, face obscured in shadow - a cricket bat, held loosely in one hand, tapping against the trunk of a tree. 

You run for so long that you can feel your lungs start to burn, heart hammering so hard in your chest that you swear it's going to break through your sternum, your legs aching as you run despite the way you are trembling. You're no closer to town and, in your panic, you realise you must have gotten lost, may even be running deeper into the woods, further away from whatever semblance of safety the dimly lit streets offer. Then, before you realise what is happening, your foot catches on something and you're tumbling, falling, arms out to lessen the impact, thorns and branches cutting into your palms. You try to scramble to your feet but whatever spell had been keeping you going has broken, and you just fall forward again, stumbling, no longer able to get yourself upright. Half-crawling, you try to get behind a tree - despite the dense forest, the thick foliage and the gloom, you've never felt so exposed as you do right now, crouched in your little hiding spot. 'At least,' you think 'I can't hear anything chasing me.'

Then the figure steps out from behind the tree, and-- you've been on your knees enough times to recognise the scuffed, steel-toed workmans boots that Whitney seems to always wear. You feel a flood of relief as you stare at the black leather and maroon stitching, and it must be plain on your face; Whitney huffs out a laugh. 

"Hello, sweetheart," you look up in time to see him throw his hood back and raise his red demon mask, and he grins down at you. "Funny seeing you here."

The cricket bat clatters to the ground, both of his hands grabbing your arms and hauling you back on to your feet before backing you roughly up against the tree. 

"Whitney," you whine. He buries his face in your neck, teeth grazing over your pulse. His mask is still perched atop his head, the hard plastic line of its sculpted lips brush against your jaw. "Whitney, you scared me."

You can feel him laugh as much as you can hear him; the shake of his shoulders, the exhale of his breath against your throat. 

"Sorry, slut," His voice almost sounds genuinely plaintive, "Wasn't expecting to see you so soon. Thought I'd mess with you a bit. Didn't expect you to bolt like that, though. You almost got away," his gloved hands trail down to your waist, the thick leather heavy against your skin through your school shirt, "but I caught you in the end."

Your trembling legs finally give out and you slump back against the tree, arms winding around Whitney's neck to keep yourself upright. He raises his head, fixing you with a predatory grin; he runs his tongue over his teeth and you can see his tongue stud glinting even in the half-light. 

"What am I going to do with you, eh?" One hand draws away from your waist and you whine in protest. The other hand shoves you up against the tree again, with enough force that your arms unlink from around his neck; he takes a half-step back and your hands come to rest pathetically on his shoulders while he regards you with a smirk. You think that this is the longest you've ever been fully clothed when alone with him, yet you feel just as exposed as you would if you were naked. 

It's only when his hand leaves his pocket that you realise it had even been there, that he'd been looking for something in there after he drew his hand away from you. And, evidently, from the object clutched in his hand, he found it. 

A knife. 

He must have seen the brief flash of panic in your widened eyes because he barks out a laugh as he brings the blade to the soft flesh of your thigh, cold metal tracing its way under the hem of your school skirt. 

"Maybe I should start letting you wear underwear again," he says absently, the tip of the knife creeping higher and higher up your inner thigh, "I'd love to cut them off you. Bet it'd be really hot." Your breath hitches at the thought, fingers gripping the epaulettes of his black leather jacket. 

When you feel the knife trace over the slit of your cunt, light as a feather but still cold and sharp enough to make you jolt, you moan out his name, whining with each subsequent pass of the metal against your slick core. He hums in response, eyes flicking up from where he was staring at his hand under your skirt. With a laugh, he brings his free hand up to your face, pushing two gloved fingers into your whimpering mouth. You can taste a tang of iron on the rough leather as you eagerly suck on them, your eyes slipping closed. 

"I've trained you well, haven't I? You're so desperate for me to fuck your mouth," His own mouth is parted and he stares at you almost reverently, watching you moan around his fingers in response. The hand between your legs pulls back, and though the knife had barely touched you, you immediately miss the thrill of the cold metal against your sensitive pussy. He brings the knife up so you can see it, your arousal coating the blade as it glints in the fading light - you aren't sure if your hazy eyes deceive you, but you swear you can see something red pooled around the hilt. Whitney stares into your eyes with a lustful intensity as he brings the blade to his mouth, the flat of his tongue slowly licking your slick from the metal. Your legs buckle, empty cunt clenching around nothing. It's too much, all the teasing and the adrenaline. You're aching for him to fuck you. 

"Good girl," he says, pulling the knife from his mouth and tucking it away in his pocket. He removes his fingers from your mouth, tracing them down your chin and leaving a trail of saliva. You probably look like a complete mess right now. 

"I'll give you a five minute head-start," he says, and you nod.

"Don't make it so easy for me this time, okay slut?"

He steps back and, through the haze of your arousal, you try and run.

[splendidly-secret-sick-fics]

Hi!!! Love your writing style you're so cool! I was wondering if you'd be able to write a sickfic focusing on atsumu and osamu-specifically atsumu taking care of his little brother! And maaaybe if you wanted to add some angst before it got better 👀 anyways hope you have a wonderful dayyyyy 😊

Anonymous said:

Can I get an unexpected sick atsumu that is at home from school with his brother after sleeping in. Their mother had the day off and didn’t feel like going anywhere so she allowed them to stay home. Maybe in the middle of the afternoon Atsumu starts to feel strangely sick but he hoped it would pass if he took a nap. He slept on the top bunk while Osamu plays video games on the bottom when he sudden wakes up without warning and starts to projectile spew. Caretaker Mom (cause I need some sweet momma content) and Osamu being supportive and understanding.

The Biggest Idiot of All Idiots: a Miya twins sick fic

Characters: sick Atsumu, caretakers Osamu & Mama Miya (lol)

Word Count: 3,426 (!!!)

Warnings: swearing, heat exhaustion passing out, and Miya-family shenanigans

Part 2

————————————————————

Thank you for the requests and kind words!! I combined it with one from @super-secret-sick-fics

I changed a couple details, but tried to stay mostly true to what was asked for! I hope that’s okay :)

This is gonna be a two-parter bc it got to be way too long. I’m not sure when Part 2 will be up yet.

I didn’t edit this at all (I never do, honestly) and I know I’ll hate myself for that later. But alas, I have zero patience so here it is!

Enjoy :)

————————————————————

Atsumu was rudely awakened by something annoying and probably stupid pushing up on his back.

“Tsumu, get outta bed ya lazy asshole.”

Ah yes, the annoying and definitely stupid thing was his equally annoying and stupid brother shoving the bottom of his mattress up from the bottom bunk.

“Why?” he grumbled and flipped over onto his stomach. He buried his head into his pillow and sighed. There was a subtle ache nagging at him on the left side of his head and he wanted it to go away.

“Cause Ma took the day off to do yard work and chores with us. It’s ‘sposed to be hot today so we said we’d do the yard work first thing. Remember? Or are you really that stupid?”

Osamu’s face popped up over the railing of Atsumu’s bed. His brother’s normal deadpan stare was accented by a single eyebrow raise of expectation.

Atsumu narrowed his eyes at him for a brief moment before groaning. He sat up and the pain in his head spread to encompass the rest of his head. Immediately, he was cranky.

“Fine. Just get outta my face,” Atsumu all but spit. Osamu’s face scrunched up, but he jumped down to the floor.

“What’s crawled up yer ass so early?” He mumbled, pulling on some athletic shorts. Atsumu wanted to respond with something snarky, but the pain in his head muddled his thoughts and he couldn’t think of anything clever enough.

“Screw you,” he settled on and crawled to the ladder to get out of bed. The headache would most likely go away after he ate something, so there was no need to say anything about it and risk getting teased.

Osamu eyed him, a frown on his face for a second. Then he scoffed.

“Alright assface. I’ll be downstairs. Ma made breakfast.” With that, he left the room.

Atsumu took his time getting dressed and ready for the day. He was moving slower thanks to the ache in his skull. The dumb headache also made his body feel tired and achy so he didn’t really feel the need to push things and make it worse.

“Good mornin’, Sweetheart!” His mother greeted when he finally made it to the kitchen. She was at the stove, flipping some pancakes, her salt and pepper hair pulled back in a loose braid. She was already in work clothes. Atsumu had to admit that it was going to be nice to spend some time with his mom. Their father ran a small convenience store, so she had to work full time to help supplement that income. He was excited to spend time with either of his parents when he could, even if it was doing chores.

The twins had, of course, offered to get part time jobs. However, both of their parents shut down the idea quickly, telling them to focus on volleyball and “enjoying their youth.”

“Mornin’” he yawned and sat down across from Osamu at the table. He was already half way done eating and scrolled mindlessly through his phone. Atsumu tried to do the same, but the tiny words and the blue light from his phone only exacerbated his headache, so he sighed and gave up. Instead, he put his head down on his arms and waited for his mom to tell him to come get his food. After a minute, Osamu kicked his shin under the table.

“Oi, what’re ya doin’?” he asked roughly. Atsumu rolled his eyes and exhaled, annoyed.

“‘M tired. That alright with ya?” He glared at his brother. Osamu kept steady eye contact, rising to Atsumu’s challenge. The lights burned though, and Atsumu had to blink. He clicked his tongue and turned his head away.

“Yer bein’ weirder than normal,” Osamu said with his mouth full of pancake. Atsumu’s lip curled in disgust.

“Yer disgustin’.”

“Says the pig.”

“Listen—“

“Tsumu! Come get yer breakfast!” Miya-san interrupted. Osamu smirked at him, smug about getting the last word.

Atsumu sat down at the table with a single pancake, half a spoonful of scrambled eggs and a glass of orange juice. His mother gave him an earful about not eating enough and he was sure that Samu would do the same.

Osamu eyed his plate and then eyed Atsumu and then his breakfast again. His twin pursed his lips, but didn’t say anything, shoving more food in his mouth.

While Atsumu was grateful that his brother didn’t comment on his smaller-than-usual meal, he was incredibly suspicious of the lack of insults.

The truth was, Atsumu’s stomach felt...wrong. He wasn’t sure what it was because he didn’t feel sick persay, but he didn’t feel good either. Starting off with a smaller meal and going back for seconds was more appealing to him than having a plate full of food that his brother and mom would force him to eat.

Atsumu ate his meal in silence and hoped that it would help his headache and the strange feeling in his stomach before he had to spend all afternoon doing yard work in the blazing summer heat.

***

Osamu watched his brother weeding the flower bed with a careful eye. Something was wrong. He knew it from the moment Atsumu woke up. His stupid brother wouldn’t tell him anything (if he even registered it himself, the idiot) so the only thing he could do was keep an eye on him and make sure he didn’t start crying or dying.

They’d been outside for about an hour and a half now, weeding, mowing the lawn, planting new flowers, and whatever else their mom wanted and it was only getting hotter. The sun wasn’t even directly above them yet, but the heat surrounded them like a thick blanket. It felt like Osamu was moving through a pool of jell-o while he pushed the lawn mower forward.

Osamu was sweating and panting ever so slightly, but Atsumu looked like he just returned from a grueling volleyball game. He was dripping sweat and his shoulders moved visibly up and down with each breath he took. Osamu figured that his brother was probably dehydrated and too stupid to admit it or too stupid to realize it.

“Tsumu,” Osamu called. Atsumu pulled his head up from the weeds and squinted at his brother across the lawn. He was pale, and all of Osamu’s twinstincts told him Atsumu needed to go inside quickly.

“Wanna go get lunch?” He tried, because Atsumu was dumb and wouldn’t admit that something was wrong, so Osamu needed to find some excuse for them to go inside. There, his mother would realize that something was up and force his brother to rest and hydrate.

“We just ate not that long ago. You that hungry, ya pig?” Came the snappy comeback. It had less bite to it than usual. The lack of venom from this and the weak comebacks from this morning only solidified for Osamu that his brother was not alright. That, coupled with the sheer amount of sweat and his continued heavy breaths made it seem like the idiot was dying or something.

“Screw you,” Osamu sneered (because even if something was wrong with his stupid brother he was still an unbearable asshole). “It’s hot and I’m working up more of a sweat. So yeah, ‘m hungry.” Atsumu waved him off lethargically.

“Then you go in. I’m almost done here,” Atsumu all but wheezed and turned back to the flower bed. Osamu took a deep breath and tried to remember that he was attempting to be a good brother and good brothers don’t punch their dying brothers in the face.

“Just come in and get some water then,” Osamu offered, walking to stand behind his brother. Atsumu looked over his shoulder, his ugly face contorted into confusion.

“Why’re you being so nice?”

Osamu squeezed his fist by his side.

“If you get dehydrated, I’ll have to play setter tomorrow at mornin’ practice and I don’t wanna.”

Hopefully the threat of being replaced, even if temporarily, would get Atsumu to see some sense. The longer Osamu studied him the more (begrudging) concern he felt. Now that he was closer, he noticed a glaze over Atsumu’s eyes and a flush to his cheeks.

Osamu surmised from this that his stupid idiot brother caught a summer cold like a stupid idiot.

Atsumu hesitated, but eventually, nodded. He put his hands on his knees to push himself up. Osamu let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding. One battle down. Next he’d have to convince him to rest up some.

His relief was short-lived. As soon as Atsumu stood up, his knees buckled underneath him and he fell back onto Osamu heavily. Startled, Osamu just barely managed to keep his balance and catch him, holding Atsumu under his arms.

“What the fu--” he started, ready to lay into Atsumu, only to be stopped by the vacant look in his brother’s eyes. It was different from the haze he noticed just a second ago. It was like Atsumu wasn’t seeing anything. His eyes stared off blankly at nothing, half-lidded and foggy. He was still panting, but it was shallower, if possible.

The next thing Osamu noticed was how cool Atsumu’s skin felt, despite the intense heat and the flush of his cheeks. Atsumu, the dumbass, was indeed not okay.

“Tsumu? Hey, can you hear me?” Osamu asked. Atsumu’s eyes slowly found Osamu’s, but it still didn’t look like he registered anything. The only response he got was a whine.

“Shit. Yer so freakin’ stupid, you dumbass,” Osamu muttered. Atsumu groaned. There was no way he could get Atsumu into the house without help. Thankfully, the flower bed was near the front door, so he wouldn’t have to take him far, but the door was shut in an attempt to keep the hot air outside, so he needed help.

“Ma!” Osamu yelled, “Ma! C’mere, quick! Tsumu’s sick!” Atsumu winced at his brother’s volume.

“Sorry, ‘Tsumu, I’m sorry. Fuck. I can’t believe you--” Osamu said frantically, despite himself. He really didn’t like his brother, but he still loved him and this was still very scary.

Their mom was at the door a second later, concern already painted on her face. Upon noticing her one son all but unconsciousness, leaning on her other son, the concern grew to panic and she was outside and beside them in no time flat.

“What in the hell happened?” she asked, brushing Atsumu’s hair back. Her eyes widened when she no doubt picked up on the abnormal cool temperature of his brother’s skin.

“He’s been actin’ weird all mornin’. Then he came out here in this heat and I just convinced him to go inside for some water when he passed out. He’s so freakin’ stupid.” Osamu explained.

“Of course, the stubborn idiot. Let’s get him inside and cool him off,” his mother said, still holding Tsumu’s face.

“Yeah. I can do it, I just need yer help with the door and getting him on my back,” Osamu replied. The longer they were in this heat the more dangerous it became so they needed to move as quickly as they could without making things worse.

Together, they managed to get Atsumu on Osamu’s back.

“Hold on, idiot,” Osamu commanded. Atsumu buried his face into his brother’s shoulders. He weakly grabbed onto his wrist to keep his arms wrapped around Osamu’s shoulder. Relief trickled in to meet Osamu’s panic when he realized that meant that Atsumu may be coming to just a little. Yeah

As soon as they were inside, their mom went to the kitchen to get some water and wet rags while Osamu took his imbecile brother to the couch. He laid him down, putting his feet up on the arm rest (all the boys on the volleyball team knew how to deal with heat exhaustion) and brought the fan closer. He sat on the floor beside Atsumu’s feet and waited for him to come back.

Miya-san came back a second later with a sports drink and several wash cloths. She placed one on Atsumu’s forehead and he sighed (Osamu was once again relieved that his brother seemed to be registering at least a little of his surroundings). The others she used to pat down his arms and legs.

The next few minutes were tense and silent as they waited for the idiot of the bunch to cool down and return to the land of the fully conscious.

“Sa-Samu?” Atsumu breathed. Osamu’s head whipped towards his brother. Atsumu was squeezing his eyes shut, a deep frown settled on his face.

“Tsumu, thank god,” Osamu exhaled heavily.

“Atsumu, baby, can you hear me? How’re ya feelin’?” Their mother asked gently, sweeping his hair back and sitting on the floor beside his head.

Atsumu’s eyes trailed lazily to meet their mother’s and he took a second longer than Osamu would have liked to respond.

“Head...head hurts,” he whined and closed his eyes again, his eyebrows furrowing together.

“Mhm, that’s to be expected when yer a dummy that got heat exhaustion. When yer ready, I need ya to sit up and drink something, okay?” She said, cupping his cheek. Her words, though seemingly harsh, were always soft. They never failed to comfort the twins whenever they were upset about something.

Atsumu visibly leaned into her touch.

“H-hot,” he murmured.

“No, shit, idiot,” Osamu responded. His mother shot him a glare. He rolled his eyes at her hypocrisy.

Another few minutes later, and they eased Atsumu into a sitting position and handed him the green sports drink (which Osamu found gross, but was his brother’s favorite). He took small sips and deep breaths.

“I’m goin’ to go get ya a little something to munch on, alright baby? Call me if ya need something,” Miya-san said. She kissed the top of his head and left the room.

Osamu watched his brother with a careful eye. He took in the flush of his cheeks, the paleness of the rest of his face, his shaking hand that rested subtly on his stomach. Sure, he just passed out and these things should be no surprise, but something deep in Osamu’s bones told him that Atsumu was hiding something; that something more was wrong.

“‘M gonna go help, Ma. Don’t do anything stupid.” Osamu stood and Atsumu nodded. The lack of a return insult, the lack of any verbal response at all from his obnoxious twin set all of Osamu’s nerves on edge.

“Ma,” he said as he entered the kitchen, “I think Tsumu is really sick.” He leaned against the counter where she was getting some crackers to put on a plate.

“He just passed out from heat exhaustion, Samu of course he’s sick.” She smiled at him softly.

“No, no. I mean… he’s been weird all mornin’ and I think somethins’ wrong,” Osamu pushed. He couldn’t pinpoint it, but his whole body told him that Atsumu was being a bigger idiot than either of them realized.

Miya-san glanced over at her son. Osamu tried to convey on his face how strongly he felt about this, how she needed to believe him. She studied him for a second before nodding and turning back to the plate.

“Okay. We’ll keep an eye on him, alright?” Osamu’s shoulders relaxed minutely.

In the living room, Atsumu was lying down again, his head pillowed against the arm rest and his legs curled into his stomach. He was still frowning.

“Tsumu, you should eat something,” Osamu tried. The frown on Atsumu’s face morphed into a grimace.

“Don’t wanna…” he replied, petulantly.

“Just a few crackers, please?” Miya-san asked, sitting by Atsumu’s feet. He looked between the two of them and sighed.

“Fine,” he relented. Too easily, for Osamu’s liking. On Osamu’s list of Things To Hate About Atsumu, stubbornness was easily in the top three.

Atsumu nibbled on a few crackers until their mother seemed satisfied and left the room. As soon as she did, Atsumu collapsed heavily back onto the couch.

Osamu paused for a second before he gave in to his baser instincts as a brother and twin and sat beside Atsumu on the couch. Almost immediately, Atsumu repositioned himself to lean on Osamu’s shoulder.

Osamu felt the tension ease out of his shoulders when his brother exhaled slowly and shakily, closing his eyes.

“Are you gonna tell me what’s really goin’ on? Or are you gonna continue to be stupid?” Osamu asked after a moment.

His ill twin tenses again and Osamu almost feels bad. Key word: almost.

(If Atsumu was going to continue being an asshole, he would not feel bad if this came and bit him in the ass.)

“...I don’t know. Just been feelin’ odd all day,” Atsumu relented and Osamu’s eyes disappeared behind his hairline.

“Must be feelin’ pretty bad if yer admittin’ it so easily,” Osamu teased. The guilt pooling in his stomach was not something he’d share with his brother easily. His pride wouldn’t let him.

That didn’t take away from the fact that it was there though. Of course it was. Osamu could tell something was off the second he looked at Atsumu’s face this morning, yet he let him go on and work in the scorching sun all morning.

“Mmm,” Atsumu hummed, easing further into his brother’s side.

“Can ya tell me what’s wrong?” Osamu rested his head on Atsumu’s.

“Head hurts. Stomach’s been feelin’ weird,” Atsumu yawned. Osamu nodded.

“Wanna go take a shower and lay in bed?”

“Can’t move even if I wanted to.”

“I’ll help ya, stupid,” Osamu scoffed.

“Why’re you bein’ so nice?” Atsumu asked again. Osamu wouldn’t acknowledge the twinge in his chest that came when Atsumu didn’t believe that Osamu could be nice to him when he needed to be.

“No one else is gonna be,” he said instead.

“Ma’s here,” came the rebuttal.

“Let’s just go upstairs. You should get some rest so I don’t have to sub for ya at practice tomorrow.”

“Hate to admit it, Samu, but I don’t think I’ll make practice tomorrow,” Atsumu grumbled.

And well. Fuck. If Atsumu was already thinking that way, if he wasn’t fighting him about practice, wasn’t convinced he’d go tomorrow, then he must be really sick. The rock in Osamu’s stomach got a little heavier.

“Let’s go,” Osamu said. Atsumu nodded.

“Ma! I’m taking Tsumu upstairs to shower and get in bed!” Osamu called to their mom.

With that, Osamu eased his brother to stand, trying to ignore the way his face paled when he was upright, and slowly they made their way upstairs.

Osamu made Atsumu take a cold shower before he allowed him to settle into bed.

(Atsumu protested and whined the whole time. Osamu kept to himself that the argument that ensued made him feel a little better about Atsumu’s overall condition.)

Atsumu fell asleep almost instantly, curled into a ball around his pillow. Osamu gave him a sweatshirt and some athletic shorts to wear because he kept complaining about being cold. Convincing him that it was just because of the shower and that he’d warm up proved completely fruitless, so in the end Osamu relented.

Looking at his brother now, Osamu could tell that the worst was yet to come. Again, it was just a gut feeling. It set him on edge and kept his shoulders tight by his ears.

When Miya-san came to check on them, Osamu apologized, and though it meant showing his concern for his idiotic brother, asked her if he could skip their chores for the rest of the day and hang out in their room to keep an eye on Atsumu.

(Their mother was the one person they couldn’t lie to; she’d see past their proud facades and break them down with her eyes until they relented and told her what was really happening. Eventually, they stopped trying to lie to her.)

She agreed easily and told him she would run out to the store to prepare for the worst case scenario (see: Atsumu being a whiny little pissant). Osamu shouldn’t have been surprised that she believed him about his weird gut feeling. Thinking back on it, the two twins always knew when something was wrong with the other.

Miya-san left and Osamu took one last look at his brother sleeping on the top bunk before settling on the floor in front of his own bed. He grabbed an X-Box remote and turned on some game he’s played a thousand times, the volume low, and waited for the other shoe to drop.

[reversalsun]

Explaining Rainbow Drinkers

I’m a decade wiser and return to the Homestuck fandom with a degree in biology and a desire to use it for evil. Lets talk about Vampire Troll Girls.

We get very little from the actual canon of Homestuck about Rainbow Drinkers, just Kanaya, Porrim, and a few hints of lore scattered about. Still, they’re one of the most interesting parts of troll culture - rare and strange, feared but also obsessed over in fiction and mythology. They may be analogous with vampires in the pop culture fascination surrounding them, but I don’t believe that they’re all that similar in function. So let's speculate on how Rainbow Drinkers could function on a biological level and how they fit into greater troll society. 

Rainbow drinkers don’t seem to be literal undead, but rather a functional state that some Jadebloods have the potential to enter into. Yes, Kanaya only becomes a rainbow drinker after “dying”, but death isn’t strictly what made her a rainbow drinker. In fact, I’d argue that Kanaya never actually died - rather she reached a near death state. This state, I believe, did kickstart her transformation. 

The most important thing to zero in on here is rainbow drinker being an inborn trait. Contrast this with how vampirism in human mythos is treated like a pathogen - no one is born a vampire, you become one via infection. RD is hardwired into Jadeblood biology, but it isn’t expressed in their default state. This raises a question: what causes a Jadeblood to undergo transformation into a rainbow drinker? Answering this is a little difficult, as we have a pitiful data pool of one to draw from. Nevertheless, we can examine Kanaya (as well as some dubiously canon content) to extrapolate a bit more about sparkly troll vampirism. Kanaya undergoes transformation into a RD when she is blasted through the stomach and seemingly killed by Eridan’s science powers. Off screen she regains consciousness, begins glowing, gulps down some friend blood, then returns with a vengeance. How do we explain this without leaning on the supernatural? Let's start by drawing on real world bloodsuckers. 

Little may be known about Alternia, but planet Earth is abound with creatures that subsist on blood. Mainly the trait is seen in bugs and parasites - this lends itself to our cause, as trolls seem to be more insectoid than mammalian in nature. Hematophagy (blood drinking) is a trait that has convergently evolved in creatures across the planet - that is to say, hematophagic creatures aren’t genetically related. The trait crops up on its own because it's widely useful, not because of a shared ancestral nematode. Vital fluids, after all, are incredibly prevalent and are in sure supply wherever animals live. It’s not farfetched to say that hematophagy would appear on other planets - especially planets like Alternia that are host to carbon based lifeforms similar to Earth’s. 

We can safely assume that blood drinking would work in the same way on Alternia as it does on Earth. That means rainbow drinkers face the same difficulties that Earth’s vampires do. Blood is not only difficult to obtain, but it’s also difficult to digest. So how do rainbow drinkers solve these conundrums? 

First, the method. Most terrestrial bloodsuckers are nocturnal - and not just for the spooky aesthetic. Fluttering, crawling, and slithering in on a sleeping host lessens your chance of being swatted on impact. Almost all hematophagic creatures are stealth feeders, and Rainbow Drinkers are no different. Trolls are a nocturnal species, but Kanaya is stated to be diurnal upon introduction. It would make sense for her and other potential Rainbow Drinkers to have a natural proclivity for daywalking, as it's much easier to feed from a sleeping troll than a waking one. Kanaya is also able to withstand the fierce, burning Alternian sun - a force which is enough to blind Terezi, and leave any troll who walks out in it for too long with a scathing sunburn. Even Jadebloods that are not currently or will never be rainbow drinkers are likely to exhibit non standard troll sleeping patterns, as they live primarily in the brooding caverns - dark, underground caves where the sun cycle wouldn’t really matter to them. When they do leave their caves to hunt, the glowing, white skin of a Rainbow Drinker would likely be a large boon against the Alternian sun’s devastating rays. In Friendsim we’re told that Lusii’s bright white coats help to protect them from the sun. It’s likely the same for rainbow drinkers; the color white reflects all wavelengths of light far better than any other, thus their radiance and pale complexion provides them an extra level of defense when they’re out hunting. Friendsim also vaguely mentions Rainbow Drinker extract in Tagora’s route, where it’s used as a luxury skincare/beauty product that makes a troll’s skin look literally radiant. Very little is said about the product itself, so it may be a hormone or a secretion derived from Rainbow Drinkers. In the case of the latter… Kanaya and other Rainbow Drinkers might just be really greasy? 

Now, in canon Kanaya theorizes that Rainbow Drinkers glow because of their home in the near pitch black caverns. It’s true that even with trolls' natural night vision, more light sources would be a boon. Animals that thrive in the dark like cats and wolves can’t magically see without a light source, rather their eyes are specially adapted to reflect even scant amounts of light. Animals that live in true darkness, like those found in the depths of caves, are more commonly blind. If no light is present, even night vision fails. With the mother grub’s natural habitat being subterranean, her special attendants possessing an internal light source would make sense. 

We have to change gears now and reckon with the How of troll blood drinking and Kanaya surviving. First: how can a troll survive on blood? We know that all trolls - even Kanaya, subsist on diets of foods akin to what you and I eat. Is it even possible to suddenly switch to a blood diet? The answer is yes. Blood drinking comes in two forms: obligatory and facultative. Obligatory, as the name implies, refers to creatures like fleas and ticks who only consume blood, whereas facultative refers to creatures that have a mixed diet of blood and other foods. Mosquitos for example only drink blood when they need to produce eggs. Rainbow Drinkers are likely similar - mainly eating standard troll goodies, but being able to rely on blood if the going gets tough. Natural resources may be scant in the brooding caverns, and the ability to survive on blood would be incredibly advantageous for those living there. Blood would of course be in no short supply given the population and purpose of the caverns. The implication I’m getting at is well… not every grub survives the caverns trials, or even the caverns in general. Between imperial drones, hoards of lusii, and difficult terrain, the brooding caverns can be dangerous. It would make sense for the troll denizens living there to be exceptionally tough and capable of “recycling” the grubs that don’t make it. Horrible. I’m sorry. But that’s nature. 

The transformation into Rainbow Drinker could very well be triggered by shock or extreme physical duress. After undergoing the transformation and taking a nice sloppy drink from her friends, Kanaya begins to exhibit increased physical abilities. Natural durability and rainbow drinker abilities serve Jades well in their special role as mother grub attendants, and I think that’s in part how Kanaya was able to survive Eridan’s attack. That, and the noticeable difference in how she and Feferi were hit. Fef was hit in the chest while Kan was hit in the stomach. Assuming troll biology is comparable to our own, cleaving out the lungs and heart is a lot worse than cleaving out the stomach. Now don’t get me wrong, both are awful, But if one of the two was going to survive, it would be Kanaya - not only is she a durable Jade (see above), but as a facultative blood drinker, it could be possible for her to have a separate stomachs for blood and food. The digestion process of the two is completely different, so throwing all of it into one pouch might not be a good idea. Outside of durability and luck with the placement of the blast, this could be why Kanaya was able to get back on her feet. And she’s a Sylph, a natural healer class. But this isn’t a classpect analysis, so I’ll leave that discussion for people wiser than I. 

Jadebloods are stated to be the second rarest blood type out there, and those that are able to turn Rainbow Drinker exemplify how badass the whole caste is. It’s likely that they don’t possess these skills because they’re the chosen attendants of the mother grubs, but rather these traits are why the mother grubs chose Jades as their keepers in the first place. As much as I wish we’d gotten more info about Rainbow Drinkers from canon, it was fun to explore how they could potentially work, and it really cemented Jades as my favorite caste. Anyway, please excuse me while I go draw myself a Rainbow Drinker trollsona. 

[instasiswetrust]

Bloodshot

Brown eyes stare into the void.

And the void stares right back.

Pitch-black and dark.

Dark, darker, and yet darker.

Vaguely, he registers liquid inside his mouth. His lungs. His chest. A part of his brain that's still working whispers that he's choking. Weird. He thought it would hurt more than this. Thought there would be more panic and flailing. Desperation to breathe.

Instead, all he feels is calm.

There's a sense of peace that instills in his body. Fills every crevice, nook, and cranny inside his flesh. Inside his bones.

Yes, he's dying, but he's accepted this as an immutable fact.

What use is there for panic when the croon of Miss Death is already so sweet in his ear? Why should he flail and claw to a life filled with heartache and pain, when instead he could stay in this calm embrace forever?

He's dying, and he's fine with this.

At first, he thinks he might be at the quarry. It would make sense. Maybe he was too drunk, tripped, and slipped off the ledge. Those kinds of things tend to happen to lonely people like him. Maybe others will think he jumped, instead. That's fine too.

But the liquid in his mouth tastes salty and coppery. A little too thick to be water.

Oh. Right.

Blood. He was choking on his own blood.

Things are coming back to him in slow increments. Flashes of scenes. He understands now where he is.

Or was.

Time is confusing when you're dying.

They had been in the tunnels. The demodogs had been close at their heels and the entrance just a few feet away. He had been so scared, utterly terrified, but not for himself. Never for himself. He needed to get the kids out first, all of them.

And he had.

Too bad it had been just a second too late for him.

Just as he was about to reach for the rope, a strong body had crashed into him and he had fallen on his back. Pain had jolted through his nerves as claws dug themselves into the skin of his chest. He remembers being vaguely concerned about the wetness spreading in his chest before that maw had bloomed into the most horrifying of flowers, and the petals wrapped themselves around his neck.

He thinks Dustin might've screamed. Steve felt bad that the kid had to see him like that.

But now the pain was no more and he was suspended in the void. Calm. Serene. Accepting.

Death was peaceful.

Until it wasn't.

---

The thing that crawled out of the earth, a whole week after the gate was closed, was not Steve Harrington.

At least not anymore.

Not in a way that mattered.

He still looked the same. Sounded the same. Moved the same. Felt the same.

He could think, and like, and long for things the same way he could when he had been alive.

But his mind was never quiet these days.

Hunt. Feed. Claw. Rip.

Blood.

A never-ending loop of words strung together until they sounded unrecognizable until they no longer made sense. And yet the feelings that came with the words would never go away.

Not when he started cooking his meat less and less to the point he resorted to just shoveling spoonfuls of raw hamburger meat into his mouth.

Not when he passed by the rotting corpse of a deer in the woods and had to take a moment to wipe the drool off his chin because for some reason the scent was appetizing.

Not when he gave in and hooked up with Nina Collins, and she let him bite her neck until he drew blood.

They never went away. Neither did the gnawing hunger inside of him.

And Steve could only be so dumb. He knew perfectly well what it was the voice in his head wanted. Could recognize it in the way his dreams had been filled with spiked bats hitting skin, breaking bones, and hands burying themselves in a mess of blood and guts.

He only wondered for how much longer he could hold himself back.

The answer came to him less than a week later.

---

First thing he notices when he wakes up, is that the hunger is blessedly gone.

For a single moment, he's glad. Happy and relieved. Until realization settles in and horror fills his chest.

Second thing he notices is that he's naked, sitting in a puddle of blood. The scent is strong.

And appetizing.

It makes him curl up onto his side and retch, but thankfully nothing comes up.

Quiet breathing is what clues him on the third thing. It also freezes him in place.

Somebody is looking at him. Saw what he did. Who he is. What he is.

Fuck.

Then they speak.

Double fuck.

"I knew you were fucked up, Harrington. Didn't think you were this fucked up though."

It's not the words that make him turn, eyes open wide. It's the voice. Because he knows that voice. Because it's Billy Hargrove's voice.

Ain't that just nice?

With the hunger and the voices gone, at least for the time being, it's much easier to try and recall the events of the night before. Steve almost wishes he couldn't though, because what he experiences -- not sees because those creatures don't have eyes -- is so repulsive that he can feel nausea clawing up his throat again.

"I killed your dad."

It's a fact, not a question. He doesn't need confirmation, his memories of the event are clear albeit fuzzy.

"And ate him. Yeah."

The fact that Hargrove doesn't sound horrified, or scared in the slightest, confuses Steve. He forces himself to ignore the panic, the nausea, and the embarrassment warring for his immediate attention and instead focuses on Hargrove's face.

Hargrove meets his gaze unflinchingly.

There's not a single ounce of remorse in those blue eyes but then again, why would there be?

After all, the bruises and cuts that litter his face and naked chest, speak enough about the type of man Neil Hargrove was.

"I did not... hurt you, right?"

Steve doesn't remember having approached Hargrove. The demodog hadn't wanted to hurt Hargrove, like at all. Still, he has to make sure. Just to put his mind at ease, of course. Not because he's worried about Hargrove or anything.

Hargrove shakes his head, frowning. The bruises must hurt pretty bad though because he winces. "You don't remember?"

"The memories are... fuzzy." Steve grimaces, pushing down another bout of nausea that threatens to overwhelm him. "It's not- I'm not- I know what it looks like but I'm not that thing, okay? The dog- That's not me."

"And yet I watched that thing morph back into you. You are still lying in a pool of blood, you know?" He sounds unimpressed. Slightly annoyed too. "You just said you have memories of it. I'd say that counts as you being that thing, Harrington."

Yeah, okay. Steve can't really counter that logic. Doesn't help lessen the knot of guilt that sits heavy at the pit of his stomach, though.

"Fine. Okay. Yes. I just-" But the words die on his tongue because he's not sure how to even finish that sentence. He's just what? Horrified? Guilty? Considering taking a dive off the quarry or meet the bad end of Nancy's shotgun?

Hargrove must have read the indecisiveness on his expression because he huffs, crossing his arms. He winces again and Steve’s almost tempted to demand he take it easy.

"Here's what we are going to do, Harrington." His voice has an unexpected strength to it that commands all of Steve’s attention. “You're going to take a shower, borrow some clothes, then I'm going to clean off all this blood before Max and Susan get back, and then we're going to talk about Neil’s sudden disappearance. Understood?”

“Uh...”

Hargrove was... helping him. He was helping him cover up a murder. The murder of his own father. Hargrove watched as the demodog fucking ate his dad, morphed back into Steve, and now he was helping him.

Steve wasn't sure how he was feeling about this but grateful and confused came pretty close to explaining it.

“I asked if you understood, Harrington.”

“Yeah I uh, yeah. I understand.”

So that's how he found himself in Hargrove's kitchen half an hour later, clad in grey sweatpants and an AC/DC shirt that had seen better days. Hargrove sat in front of him, idly eating from a bowl of Lucky charms, his gaze not straying far from Steve.

The clank of the spoon as it fell back into the empty bowl was jarringly loud in the awkward silence.

"You really don't remember what happened last night, then?"

His gut reaction was to say no. He didn't remember anything. That the memories were fuzzy and the thing wasn't him. But that would be lying, wouldn't it?

And he had to admit that being able to share this secret with somebody else, even if it was Billy Hargrove of all people, felt like a much-needed reprieve of all the bullshit life had been throwing at him lately.

"I do but as I said, it's fuzzy. Fragmented, I guess?" He looks down at the table, drumming his fingers on the worn tabletop. "This thing, it doesn't see things as we do. Doesn't have eyes."

Hargrove hums, and Steve can see the way he leans back on the chair. Feels those eyes on him, not moving. It should set him on edge but instead, it makes him feel grounded. Like this is the first time, since he crawled out of the earth that somebody bothers to truly look at him.

It makes him want to look up and meet that gaze.

So that's exactly what he does.

"It was you that I- that the demodog was hunting, not your dad." Steve is glad he doesn't look away because it allows him to see the shadow of regret that crosses those blue eyes. "But then I- it jumped through the window. Saw what was happening. So the prey changed."

"And you have lived with this thing for how long?"

"Technically speaking, I'm not alive. Haven't been since that night in November, a little after the whole thing at the Byers."

Hargrove blinks, taken aback by what must surely sound like nonsense considering Steve was sitting across from him, breathing and talking. He's not sure how to explain it either but he knows with unwavering certainty that he's not alive anymore.

Not like he should be.

Not completely.

Liminal spaces. Whatever. Fuck.

"One of those things bit me. Dustin saw it happen too. Or at least saw the blood. And I remember dying." He shrugs, drums his fingers again just to have something to do. Restlessness eats at him but he's still under Hargrove's gaze and the itch to run has settled for now. "A week later I apparently dug my way out of the earth and Hopper found me at the junkyard. I can't remember it at all."

The marred skin of his throat is evidence enough. These days he does his best to cover it up with makeup or turtlenecks, not wishing to deal with the unwanted questions that would undoubtedly come. Not to mention that Dustin can't see it without tearing up. Kid still has nightmares about Steve covered in blood with his throat ripped out.

"Shit, Harrington." Hargrove tangles a hand in his blond curls, pulling lightly on the strands. As if the pinpricks of pain could reassure him about all this being real. "This is what you and those snot-nosed brats were up to that night? Fighting these things? Are you insane?"

"Only a little." The self-deprecating grin that accompanied it really sold it.

Steve watched as Hargrove's hands formed into fists, a dangerous sort of fire lighting up in his eyes. It lasted for a second or two before the fight left his body in a rush, body slumping slightly into the chair. It was a little impressive.

"What even are these things?"

The thing is, Steve's not even sure what those creatures are. He says as much and spends the next fifteen minutes explaining what he knows -- and what he's theorized -- about Will Byers, the Upside Down, the Mindflayer, and Hawkins Lab. Surprisingly enough, Hargrove listens through it all without commentary.

"Nobody understood how I was alive but I didn't want to question it too much. Guess I already knew something was wrong with me but I didn't want to see it."

Hargrove's eyes have drifted down to his empty cereal bowl but it doesn't seem like he's really looking at it. After a moment, he nods. "Okay so what now, Harrington?"

Steve's taken aback by the question, not understanding what Hargrove is getting at. "What do you mean what now?"

If looks could kill, he's sure that he would be dead again. Hargrove heaves an exasperated sigh, pinching the bridge of his nose before facing Steve.

"Harrington, I knew you were an idiot but this is too much even for you." Steve makes a sound of protest but Hargrove throws him a look and he goes quiet again. "The demodog needs to eat people to live, meaning you need to eat people to live. So tell me, what are you going to do about that?"

"Oh."

Well fuck.