#a few sets in core wave 1 did this

[cntloup]

medieval au

periods :'(

part 1 | part 2 | part 3 | part 4 | part 5 | part 6 | part 7

as simon had promised before, he never forced himself on you. and you know he's not that kind of man.

you’ve felt forced and used your whole life. but with him, it feels like you can finally breathe. he makes you feel safe, and free.

but now, he can sense the heavy tension between you. he knows you're not that close, at least not yet. but he thought that you'd feel more comfortable as time went by. now he feels disappointed that it's not the case at all as you drift away from him more and more each day.

yes, you've been distant the past few days. and it all started suddenly, making him think he did something wrong which in return, makes you feel horrible as you beat yourself up over it.

but you have to do this. he doesn't have to deal with your issues right now. as if a curse has been cast upon you since you were born, because you're a woman.

that's what you were taught anyway which you always considered unfair, even cruel.

you're now curled up in your bed as waves of painful cramps thrash through your body, making you curse everyone and everything, the gods and all that for making you go through this every month.

you put a hand over your mouth to muffle your sobs of pain and you scream into the pillow when it gets unbearable.

that's when he enters the room with a worried expression etched on his face, eyebrows furrowed in concern since you haven't gone out of bed all day.

he finds you curled into yourself, eyes squeezed shut and you're too lost in the excruciating pain that you don't notice his presence until he puts a gentle hand on your shoulder as the bed dips with his weight on it.

"what's wrong, love?" he asks softly, "nothing! please just go!" you burst out, voice coming out whiny due to the pain coursing through your abdomen as you clench it tighter.

you almost feel ashamed. it's a curse. a shameful curse that you must endure all your life. you're being punished. but for what sin? being a woman?!

the thoughts run around your mind until you decide to cast them away. it's all stupid nonsense you've been fed since you were a child.

you lift your head to face him and his gaze softens the moment he sets eyes on your glossy eyes and pouty lips.

"tell me, love. please. i need to know." he says, gently wiping away a stray tear on your cheek.

'he's my husband for god's sake! he should know what the hell i'm going through!' you think to yourself.

"it's just my monthly bleeding." you mutter quietly, lips wobbling slightly.

"oh..." he pauses, nearly taken aback. he's heard some vague stuff about it, but of course, he doesn't know fully well what's going on.

"is there something i can do for you?" he asks, feeling helpless and deeply worried.

"i... it really hurts." you whine and he makes his way to lay behind you and takes you into his embrace, strong burly arms wrapped around your body.

"tell me where it hurts, love." he whispers in your ear, making you shiver, the low timbre of his voice sending a wave of heat right to your core.

you take his hand and guide him to your lower belly, "here." you say, pressing on the back of his hand and he starts to tenderly massage the area as his lips find your neck, softly trailing kisses on your skin and moving to your shoulder.

the delightful feeling of his large rough hand caressing your sensitive body and his light kisses on your skin make you floaty and hazy.

"better, love?" he asks after some time, lifting his head to look at you and noticing your droopy eyes which makes him chuckle.

"hmm... much better." you hum lowly in contentment since your pain has subsided and it feels so good to be in his arms, so warm and safe.

"get some rest, love. i'll be right here when you wake up." he murmurs and places one last kiss on your neck as your eyelids slowly drape over and you drift into a slumber.

[seresinhangmanjake]

Stolen Angel - Part 6

Demon!Jake Seresin x reader

Summary: You thought you were having a one-night stand with some random, normal guy. Turns out he’s a winged, demon-like stalker who has been obsessed with you for years.

Warnings/Notes: Jake is a little dark. Kidnapping. Manipulation. Obsessive behavior. Eventual smut and happy stuff. I’m sure there are typos. This used to be a different fic for August Walker, so if you see it, it’s fine. I wrote that one too.

Words: 2300

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5

You’re drunk, you think. Head is too foggy to be explained by anything else. Your brain struggles to pin down a well-developed thought. Good. You’re not here for well-developed thoughts. You don’t want a well-developed thought. What you want is to feel. And right now, you feel blissfully intoxicated. 

When you spun around and kissed him, he wasn’t expecting it. Despite it being his bright idea, it took him a few seconds to catch up. Your arms were already wrapped around his neck, your lips and teeth trying to pry some playfulness out of him with little nibbles by the time it registered in his head that you had caved for him. Then he snapped fully alert, like he’d been locked in a cage and you turned the key to set him free. 

He’d instantly removed your arms from his neck and placed your hands at his waist, then he cupped your cheeks in rough palms and gave you what you wanted; what you know he’s been wanting to give you for weeks.

And you continue to let him give it to you. You give him complete control and allow him to take advantage because somehow he knows what you like. He did then, and he does now. 

You like a paced rhythm of lips; needy, eager, but lacking the fumbling of an inexperienced or equally mind-numb partner. You like hands that tangle in your hair before they carve a path down to your hips. You like fingers skimming your midriff and the tingles that come from soft touching morphing into possessive grabbing. You like fingerprints bruised into your skin from being held still as a jeans-constrained cock grinds against your core. You like the melody of his moans and how he doesn’t try to hide them from you, like he needs you to know exactly how you affect him so you can understand the power you possess. You like the taste of his tongue, and the way he smells. He smells like the forest in the moonlight, and the rays of the sun in springtime, but also like the sea when its waves are enraged by wild winds. He smells like the earth. He smells human. He tastes human. He sounds human. 

His human fingers go to your neck, applying light pressure until you whimper against his lips. He grins into the kiss. Different fingers on a different hand fiddle with the button of your jeans, popping it open and dragging down the zipper. 

You’re already warm, but it’s hotter when his hand slips behind the thin band of your underwear. That heat becomes almost unbearable as fingers near your clit and brush over the bundle of nerves. And when two digits finally nestle themselves within your folds, you burst into a ball of flame.

A ball of flame that forces your eyes to shoot open and the loose screws in your brain to retighten before they have a chance to fall out completely. Your eyes snap shut again because it feels so fucking good when his middle finger teases your entrance. Your walls are hungry for something to clamp down around. No, not something—him. You’re hungry for him, and your body is not going to forgive you for the betrayal, but this is…wrong. All wrong. You have to stop. What you’re doing changes nothing. He is not who you want him to be. You are not who you were. And this place is not what you once knew, no matter the memories you attempt to revive from its history. 

Tears begin to gather and squeeze through your sealed eyelids. He doesn’t notice them as his lips break from yours to press a kiss to your cheek and then your jaw before they latch onto your neck. With your gasp, your hands fist the fabric of his t-shirt. A fingertip is easing inside of you and your body lurches toward him. Deeper. More. You want it. So bad.

Wait, no! Your brow furrows. 

No, you don’t want it! 

Think of what he has done to you. Think of what he has stolen. Think of how he shows no shame.

“No!” you snap as you jerk your head from his and shove him off of you. Lips, fingers, taste, scent—gone, dousing you in a piercing chill. 

Jade-toned eyes are full of fear and confusion as he takes a step near you. “Angel–”

“No!” you repeat, your finger pointed at him. You shake your head, trying to breathe as you back out of the kitchen and into the living room. 

“What did I do?”

“No!” you say once more. Harsher, louder, your tears falling harder. “You ruin things!”

His breath is heavy. Chest heaving. “What?”

“You killed my plant!” you sob, “And the cat is gone!”

“You didn't have a cat,” he says.

“You take!” you tell him. “That’s all you do—you take! I did everything you wanted so I could come home and feel like me for just one goddamn second, but it’s not home anymore because you took it from me! You ruined it! You tainted it!” you shout. “You tainted me!”

The tears are in such abundance they merge together on their descent to your jaw. Your fingers tremble as you lower to the ground, pull your knees to your chest, and wrap your arms around them. 

Jake carefully closes the distance you’d been keeping and crouches in front of you. With his hands on your cheeks, he tilts your face up to his. Eyes flick back and forth between yours. “You are not tainted,” he says. 

Smacking his hands away, you rest your chin on your knees. “There’s nothing left,” you mutter. “I have nothing.”

“You have me,” he pleads. 

“I don’t want you!”

Jake freezes in the aftermath of your scream. Then he glances down like he’s looking for the knife you just plunged into his heart. It’s not there, of course. If anyone is guilty of harming anything in this apartment, it’s him. 

He swallows and leans back into a seated position across from you. His hand runs through his hair and down his face, and then he waits. He sits there quietly, watches you as you refuse to look at him, and waits. 

He waits for minutes? Hours? You don’t know; you can’t remember how much time you had left before you kissed him. He waits until he softly says, “Time’s up, Angel.”

He waits some more as if he expects you to respond. When you don’t, he stands. 

“We have to go,” he says. 

“Then go,” you mumble.

Jake sighs and holds his hand out to you. “Don’t do this.”

“I’m not doing anything,” you say, continuing to stare ahead at the wall. “I didn’t do anything. I never did anything.”

“Angel, you promised you’d follow the rules.”

Black streaks float by your head, carried on the wind coming through the open window. In your peripheral vision, you see the feathers find home on Jake’s back until he’s once again the monster who stole you, in all of his grandness.

“You need to call your wings,” he tells you. “Do what I taught you earlier, just imagine the opposite.”

You shake your head. 

Jake blows a breath out through his nose. “Angel, please do what I’m telling you. You know I can’t leave you here.”

“You wouldn’t even if you could.”

Jake bends at the waist. He puts his index finger under your chin and lifts so your eyes are stuck on his. “You’re right, I wouldn’t. So let's not play this game. Call your wings.”

“No,” you return through clenched teeth.  

Those red tendrils slither into his irises, but you’re not deterred this time. He doesn’t scare you anymore. Not even when he grabs your wrist, pulls you to your feet, and throws you over his shoulder like you’re a sack of grain. His feathers brush across your face as your head lands between the open spaces in his t-shirt that accommodate his wings. 

Your fist slams into one of the appendages and he grunts, but it doesn’t stop him from heading straight for your bedroom. When he kicks the door open, you pinch your eyelids tight. You don’t want to see the bedsheets with your and his dried sweat or the bra that when removed from your body sprouted gooseflesh up and down your arms. You don’t want to be reminded of how he drank in your breasts with his eyes and rubbed his thumbs over your nipples and sucked one into his mouth. 

Jake leans down and lifts the window that overlooks the street. You curse its size, big enough for two bodies to slip through. 

“Put me down,” you shriek, hitting his other wing this time. 

You can feel when he ducks under the sill, you can hear the rustle of feathers when wings stretch wide, then with one strong flap, you’re back in the wind tunnel that stole your breath. 

—

The moment he touches down, you begin to wiggle in his arms, freeing yourself only to fall directly on your ass in the grass and dirt.

“Get up,” Jake commands. You grumble and rise to your feet, but solely for the sake of removing yourself from his presence. You’ve had enough. Enough of him and of this night. As you head toward The Tower, he says, “Bring your wings back.”

He gives you a few seconds, but when you don’t stop on your path, a whooshing sound arises from behind you before he suddenly drops out of the sky, landing right in front of you and making you jump. 

“Listen to me,” he growls. 

Moving in close, you put your face just a few inches from his. “No.”

That fear returns in his eyes—a briefer flash than you saw earlier. It’s squashed under his innate desire to demand things from you. “You don’t tell me no. Not with this,” he says. “If you don’t bring them back, your feathers will abandon you where you left them.”

“Perfect,” you say, stepping around him. 

Twenty feet from the door. Nineteen. Eighteen. You’re almost there.

“And you’ll have to grow new ones,” he calls after you. 

You pause in your tracks, heartbeat catching in your chest.

“Being without wings can only be temporary. You abandon the old ones, new ones will take their place. No one can stop it.” With his hands on your upper arms, he spins you around. “Do you want to go through that again?”

Immobile; skin shredding; blood running down your spine and soaking the bed; lava coursing through your veins, limbs, organs. Last time you bit your tongue so hard you were surprised your teeth didn’t pierce a hole.

His palms move, grazing up and over your shoulders, dipping into the curves of your neck to frame your face. Thumbs stroke your cheeks. His forehead rests against yours. 

“Don’t make me watch you suffer twice, Angel,” he whispers, begs. “Please.”

You could laugh. He wouldn’t have had to watch you suffer at all if he had left you where you belonged. But even so, you relent, closing your eyes to imagine your wings reforming with the addition of each individual feather until you sense a strange internal response to your call. You don’t do it for him. You do it for you, refusing to relive that trauma. You wonder if Jake understands the difference.

“Did you do it?” he asks, lifting his head. You nod, then he nods, exhaling shakily. “It’ll take longer since we left the feathers there, so make sure to keep that image somewhere in your mind to guide them to you. You might as well rest in the meantime. When your wings are back you can sleep.”

Not waiting to see if he is finished telling you what to do, you step out of his hold, turn on your heel, and walk to the door. Your hand is pressed against the large panel, ready to push it open so you can be free of him when you hear his voice…again.

“Angel.”

You groan, digging your fingernails into the wood before twisting around. You’re going to get fucking whiplash. What, you think as you glare at him. What else could there possibly be?

Jake swallows, then the tip of his tongue darts out to wet his lips. 

“I don't regret bringing you here,” he starts. “Not for a second. And I never will. You have no idea how long I wished to have you with me. And regardless of what you believe, I’m not ignorant of the sacrifices. I once gave up the life I had as well,” he says, and your brows knit. “However, this can be home, if you accept it. I want to give you everything, but you have to let me.”

You despise the itty bitty part of you that looks at his offer the way a child looks at a forbidden lollipop, their eyes blown wide, licking their lips before they even have their grubby paws on the damn stick. You cannot listen to that part. To listen would be to lose more of you, and how much more do you have available to lose? You’ve never dissected yourself to figure out how many fragments there are. But something was sucked out of your soul tonight. It left a void that he’s foolish to think he can fill. 

“I don’t have to let you do anything to me, Jake,” you tell him.

Jake shakes his head. “That’s not what I meant.”

“Of course it is.”

Leaving him behind, you turn and enter The Tower—a place you would’ve bet your life you’d never be happy to see—and you don’t look back. Not even when a softly muttered “fuck” just barely reaches your ear before the door completely separates you and Jake from one another.

[satinsummer]

Chapter 1: Likewise

Summary: The first time you met Sam you knew you had to have her but how would you get her?

Culinary is your major but sports media is your side quest that turned you into a dual degree seeking mf! ;)

Chapter 2: https://www.tumblr.com/satinsummer/761133841884889088/chapter-2-movie-night?source=share

WARNING: Suggestive Language, Drug Use (Smoking Weed) 18+ No men or minors pls and thanks!

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Nobody POV

It all started at Y/BF/N's soccer game, after a long day of running around a hot kitchen with no break, sitting on the cold metal bleachers was the only thing that brought Y/N some sort of solace that fated night.

Sitting all the way at the top wasn't the best choice with the way her legs and feet were aching but it was tradition, especially since this was not only the first game of the season but this was Y/BF/N's first senior game and Y/N wouldn't miss it for the world! As she's scanning the crowd and just taking everything in Y/N noticed the "Core 4" + Anika as Chad so happily calls them making their way through the packed area.

Tara, Mindy, Anika and some mystery lady Y/N has never met stop and start talking to Quinn who just so happened to know few players on the team. Chad just continued to climb the bleachers until he reached Y/N.

"Yoo Y/N" Chad says with a big ass smile on his face, arms stretched out to hug her. "Hey Chad" Y/N says smiling but not moving an inch. "Sorry I realllyyyy don't feel like standing up unless I absolutely HAVE NO OTHER CHOICE but to" She stated now eyeing the mystery lady following behind Tara while they continued their ascend up the bleachers having now finished the conversation with Quinn.

Before Y/N or Chad get to say anything else Tara is barreling past him and pulling Y/N into a hug. "Where have you been all day, under a fucking rock??My girlfriend has not stopped talking about how sad she is because she didn't think you'd make it. I was honestly starting to think she loved you more than me and so I had to show her who she belo-" "OKAY THATS ENOUGH" Slapping a hand over Tara's mouth be she gets too carried away. "Anyway I was afraid of not making it because dinner service was a shit show and- Who's She?"

Y/N had finally stood up and looked behind Tara after pulling back from the embrace to shoot Mindy and Anika a small wave and smile but instead she was met with the most gorgeous set of chocolate colored eyes she'd ever seen. It felt like her the entire world stopped.

She stood there just staring back at her, eyes dark and brooding scanning over your face as Y/N did hers. Her hair was framing her face perfectly, her eyebrows were knit in concentration or maybe it was confusion either way Y/N just wanted to reach out and soothe it over with her thumb but she fought against it.

"Keep staring and I'll make sure I'm the last thing you see" And that's all it takes to knock Y/N out of whatever spell she was under while looking at mystery lady. "SAM! You cant threaten to kill everyone that looks at you, especially not my girlfriends best friend. Y/N she didn't mean that. Right Sam?" Tara said ending her sentence with an elbow to Sam's side. "Yeah, Right" she grumbled rolling her eyes at Tara before sitting down.

A bit after you and mystery lady's SAM's moment, everyone gets settled to watch the game as it begins. "So Sam, is this your first time at a soccer game?" Y/N asks, looking over at sam who was already looking at her. "Yeah" Sam replies never taking her eyes off of Y/N. "Want me to explain it? Help you under a bit better?" Y/N offers. "Nope" and with that Sam turns her back around to the game and doesn't say another word. That is until the game is over and Y/BF/N is running to Y/N as she pushes her way on to the field to greet Y/BF/N.

Y/BF/N played one of her best games EVER tonight, she came away with 2 goals-2 assist and 3 steals. She plays hard so when her and Y/N finally meet in the middle she's throwing her body on Y/N like a kid seeing their mom after the first day of school. She's overjoyed to have won and to know her best friend, her girlfriend and their friends were there to have witnessed it. "I'm so fucking proud of you, Y/B/NN. You were a goddamn storm out there!" Y/N shouts while rocking back and forth still embracing Y/BF/N. As the two girls pull back from each other and start doing their handshake, the rest of the group has made their was down to the field and over to them.

Tara pulls Y/BF/N into a big ass hug that ends in a kiss Sam would've paid money not to see. The rest of the group just standing there awkwardly talking amongst themselves as it continues.

"How's the chef been? You ran off to Jersey for the summer and have been MIA since you came back" Mindy points out and just like that all eyes are back on Y/N. "She didn't run off" Y/BF/N interjects after finally pulling away, jersey was still a sore topic for the two but at least Y/N could count on Y/BF/N not to force conversations about it.

As Y/BF/N headed off to the locker rooms to shower and get changed, with Tara following close behind Y/N seen this an opportunity to answer Mindy's first question. "Anyway, the chef is great, I'm in my final year so it's more stressful now than it has ever been but the world deserves to taste me so I'm dedicated to perfecting that." "Taste...you?" Mindy snickers a sly smirk playing on her lips. "Yeah, taste me and I know your gutter mind ass is taking it there so I won't divulge but I will extend you an offer to stop by the kitchen and learn somethings" Y/N states matter of factly looking straight into Mindy's eyes and suddenly she's the one acting all coy and bashful. "Damn, Y/N. You go MIA and come back trying to be Miss.TakeMyBitch" Anika says feigning betrayal. Laughter erupts between all of them and suddenly Y/BF/N and Tara are making their way back to the group. Looking a little "freshly fucked" might Mindy add but she saves them the embarrassment for now.

As everyone is walking through the parking lot and getting into their respective vehicles. Y/N can't help but let her mind wonder and eyes wander over to the brown eyed goddess she had met earlier. "You're staring again" Sam says "Can't Help it" Y/N replies. This makes Sam stop dead in her tracks as Y/N kept walking trying to keep her facade of being smooth as fuck under control. "Come on Sam, We are riding in Y/N's Car" She hears as is grabbing her arm and leading the way.

"Damn Y/N/N, when can I get a ride in that" Chad Says while looking at her car. She had recently purchased an Inifinti Q50S, it was painted titanium grey with an all black interior to match her rims. "Must be nice to have mommy and daddy get you everything" Sam sneered to no one in particular but Y/N heard it. " I don't have a mommy and daddy to do anything for me. This is NIL money, baby" Y/N retorted. "NIL?" Sam questions.

"Name, Image, Likeness." You, Y/B/N and Chad all say in unison. "Y/N is the best sports media journalist Blackmore has ever seen. She built media platform and gave the athletes here a voice" Chad Explains. Truth be told Y/N was glad nobody double back about the "no mommy daddy" comment because she didn't have the mental or emotional capacity for that tonight. "Alright, can we go now? I just played my ass off, I'm hungry and a little horny" Y/BF/N groans closing the car door as her and Tara climb in the backseat. "Guess that means you're riding shotgun Sammy" You tease. " Call me that again and I-" "Yeah, Yeah, save the threat. We both know Tara won't let you" Effectively cutting Sam off and starting her car.

Sam refused to admit but Y/N was actually pretty decent and before she knew it her mind was clouded with thoughts of Y/N. The way she would easily slip in and out of traffic, never breaking too hard or go too fast for Sam or the other two sucking face in the back to feel unsafe. Sam found herself now being the one to stare at the girl and my god was she glad Y/N was focused on the road. Under the glow of the city lights and the ones slightly illuminating the inside of the car Sam got lost in her side profile, with Y/N hair now pulled back she had a chance to examine the other features she may have missed earlier like the one dimple Y/n on her right cheek, the small scar above her ear that traveled down to the base of her hairline. The way Y/N's nose was the perfect slope from this angle.

"You're Staring" Y/N says glancing over at Sam when she stops at a red light. All Sam can do is open and close her mouth like a fish having just been caught doing the same thing she threatened Y/N for doing previously. The soft hum of the engine and music fill the rest of the car ride as the girls make their way to the " Carpenter Habitat" as Y/BF/N calls it.

As the car pulls up in front of the apartment building, Tara begins begging Sam to let Y/BF/N sleepover and much to her surprise she gives in not before giving a stern "door open or living room" option with no room for rebuttal. Sam then looks to Y/N as if she was going to say the same to her but Y/N is quick to correct. "I won't be staying, Gonna head back to the kitchen and get prepped for the dinner service happening tomorrow. You kids have fun" Y/N states looking at all three of them while leaning on her car and lighting a joint. "Wanna finish this off before you go up?" Y/N says to Y/BF/N who looks over at Tara for the go-ahead. "Fine, but just one and you better shower again" Tara directs at Y/BF/N. After kissing Tara, Y/BF/N walks over to your car and takes the lit joint from you. Tara and Sam begin to walk inside and up to their shared apartment where they both watch Y/N & Y/BF/N smoke and interact like predators hunting prey.

"You sure you don't wanna stay?" Tara yells down to Y/N after the smoke session has ended and Y/BF/N has made it safely inside and upstairs to her girlfriend. "Yeah, I'm sure. You and Y/BF/N deserve some time together after that game she played" Y/N says with a knowing smile. Y/BF/N needed her "Tara Time" after long days or hard games and who is Y/N to stop that.

Before getting in her car, Y/N spares one last glance to the balcony Tara was just on only to see the older carpenter staring back at her. With a small smile and a wave Y/N bids farewell to Sam "It was nice meeting you tonight..Sammy" "Likewise Y/N" Sam replies softly watching as Y/N slips into her car and disappears in the city traffic.

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AN: this is my first time writing something like this so pls bear w meeeeeeeeeee. if you have any suggestions on how the story line should progress, critiques, etc feel free to lmk!

any ideas on what to name the fic? submit themmmmm

[wolfjackle-creates]

Bring Me Home Arc 3 Part 5

So it's been about 3 weeks since my promised update. Oops. Main issue was breaking my first bone as I'm sure most of you saw. On my right wrist, of course. And being right handed, meant I could barely type for that first week.

But also this is a transition section of the story. And I was struggling with how to best write said transition. I am finally happy with it, though. To make up for being so late, this is a long one! Hope you enjoy. The total word count for this arc is now up to 9.6k. Do with that as you will.

Story Summary: Jack and Maddie install a new ghost shield on the house which activates the moment Danny tries to step into his home. His secret is out and his parents are determined to excise the ghost from their son.

Luckily Danny isn't alone. The Young Justice, Sam, Tucker, and Jazz aren't going to leave him to suffer.

Arc 1: AO3

Arc 2: AO3; Tumblr - First, Last

Arc 3: First, Previous

Word Count: 3.6k (Told you it was a long one!)

-----

Pain was a constant through the rest of that never-ending drive. Danny would wake screaming from the nightmares only to continue screaming from the pain.

Tim was there every time. His words were soft and soothing, even when Danny couldn’t make out their meaning between the throbbing of his human chest and aching core. Any time he woke, Tim did his best to force ectoplasm and liquid foods down his throat. If Danny couldn’t manage even that much, he was given more of Frostbite’s ice chips.

When they finally, finally stopped for the last time, Danny cried in relief. Kon carried him out of the van, a blanket under him as a makeshift stretcher. TTK meant that he was held perfectly flat even though Kon was only holding one end.

Tim’s worried face peered down at him. “Kon’s going to fly you up, okay? I’ll let you in through the window. I’ve disabled all cameras, so no one will see you.”

Danny think he nodded. He wanted to. He must’ve done something because Tim brushed his fingers across Danny’s forehead, nodded, and disappeared from view. Then Danny was leaving the van. For the first time in Clockwork only knew how long. It was daytime, but the sky was overcast and gray.

When Kon flew with him, it wasn’t the weightlessness of his own flight. Instead, he felt like they were fighting gravity. He hated it.

But it was only the matter of a few moments before they approached an open window and Kon carried him in. He was in too much pain to take in most of the room, but he did see a TV bigger than any he’d seen outside of Sam’s home theater.

Kon didn’t stop, and he was carried into another room—a bedroom As they approached the bed, the sheets folded back on their own. Kon set him down as gently as possible, but pain shot up from his chest at even the slight change of position.

He stopped breathing, even the movements of his lungs were too much. Instead he just let the pain wash over him. Wave after wave of it. Vaguely, he was aware of someone grabbing his hand, of voices above him.

Gloved hands pressed something cold to his lips and Danny gratefully took the ice and the numbing coolness it promised. Not enough for full relief, nothing could give that right now. But by the time it was gone, he could at least think through the pain.

This time when he opened his eyes, he saw Tim’s worried face, Kon standing behind him.

“Back with us?” asked Tim.

Danny grimaced and nodded. He tried a shallow breath. It hurt, but he could somewhat function through it. “Sorry.”

Tim rolled his eyes. “I don’t want to hear apologies from you for at least a month. This isn’t your fault.”

“Sorry,” Danny repeated.

Tim just huffed. “How’s the bed? Do you need anything? Extra pillows?”

Danny bit his lip and let himself feel. The bed was soft. As far from the feel of the exam table as it was possible to be. It was also leagues better than the camping mattress he’d been using in the van. Honestly, it was probably better than his mattress back home. And the pillow was the perfect height for lying on his back. “It’s good.”

The look Tim gave him made Danny think he wasn’t believed, but after a moment Tim just nodded. “If you’re sure. Now, Kon and I are going to have to change your bandages and reapply the necessary creams and poultices. After, I want you to try and eat a little more.”

Danny groaned, already dreading the procedure. But it had to be done. He ignored the tears he couldn’t stop and met Tim’s eyes. “Just do it.”

Kon grimaced. “I’ll make it quick.”

Danny tried to smile back but he knew he failed when neither Kon nor Tim looked any less concerned. “I know. Thanks.”

And it was true. Kon’s TTK made the process so much easier that it would have been otherwise. However, there was no way to make it entirely painless. Especially when removing the final layer. Danny couldn’t keep from crying out as the gauze stuck to his wounds. Finally, his chest was bared to the world. Danny trembled with the pain of it before gathering his courage and looking down.

This was his first time seeing his chest since he’d been pulled out of the lab. The incisions were inflamed and leaking, though they were already scabbing over. Green ectoplasm and red blood mingled in the secretions.

Tim and Kon didn’t wait for him to catalog every mark, however. They quickly passed jars of Frostbite’s concoctions to each other and set to work covering every area of his chest. Cold spread in the wake of their ministrations and Danny nearly wept in relief.

“This is already looking better, Danny,” said Tim.

Danny scoffed, then winced as it pulled at the injuries. He clenched his eyes shut as he reminded his body he didn’t need to breathe.

“He’s right,” said Kon. “I don’t think even I’d be healing this quickly from injuries like yours.”

Danny didn’t say anything as they continued to work. When they were done with the medications, Kon reapplied the bandages. Tim gave him another piece of ice which Danny took with relief.

Danny mumbled a thanks around the ice.

“Anytime,” said Kon. “Mind if I take a picture of you so everyone can see you’re safe in Gotham now? Sam’s been texting me non-stop asking for updates.”

Sam’s concern is what finally allowed Danny to smile for the first time since he’d returned home and his parents had learned his secret. “Pull up the sheet first. And just to her and Tuck and Jazz, please. I don’t want your entire team to see me like this.”

“’Course,” agreed Kon. Without Kon moving at all, the sheet rose up out of the blankets at the base of the bed and covered him up to his neck. Kon then took out his phone and snapped a photo before tapping at the screen.

Immediately it started ringing in his hands.

“Are you up for talking to them?” asked Tim.

Danny shook his head. “Want to, can’t.”

Kon waved him off. “I’ll tell them what’s up. Eat something and get some sleep.” Kon turned away. As he left the room, Danny hear him answer the phone with a, “Hey, babe,” before he shut the door, muffling all noise.

“Yogurt, applesauce, or pudding?” asked Tim once they were alone.

“Do I have to?”

“Yes. And another vial of ectoplasm.”

Danny sighed and asked for the applesauce. He only managed a few bites alternated with sips of ectoplasm before darkness pulled him under once more.

---

A throbbing pain slowly dragged him out of the blackness. He tried to cling to unconsciousness, but the throbbing was inescapable. With a quiet moan, he blinked awake in a dark room. For once, he was able to think past the pain. It was a constant, throbbing presence, but not as all consuming as it had been.

The mattress he was lying on was soft. So, so different to the hard table that had been his bed for those long hours in the lab. He twisted his head and rotated his jaw, relieved when the action wasn’t hindered by harsh restraints.

He was in Gotham, out of their reach. Tim was here and he was safe.

He was safe from his parents. His parents had— had— Danny’s breath caught and he couldn’t finish the thought. He pulled in a gasping breath. The ball in the back of his throat made it so hard to breathe.

He’d just… never thought they’d actually do it. He’d been so sure that once they realized who he was, they’d hug him and continue to love him. He couldn’t hold back the sob, loud in the silent room. His eyes burned and he didn’t even try to stop the tears.

Next to him, on the floor, blankets rustled and Danny tensed.

“Danny?” asked a sleepy voice from the floor. Tim was here?

“Sorry,” choked out Danny through ragged breaths. He was safe. His parents hated him. Nothing would ever be the same again.

“Don’t be.” The mattress dipped next to him as Tim sat down. “It’d be weird if you didn’t have a few breakdowns.”

“What’s going to happen to them?” Danny tried to wrap his arms around himself, but cried out at even the light pressure on his chest.

Tim pushed aside the thin sheet he’d been covered in and grabbed one of his hands. Danny clung to him until the sharp pain faded. And when it did, his breathing was more normal. His core still ached at the thought of his parents, but the physical pain had helped chase away the panic attack. At least for now.

“What’s going to happen to them?” he asked again; this time his voice was more stable.

“They’ve been picked up by the Justice League. Tucker is helping with getting all their files transferred to document their history. Jazz and Sam have been giving reports on their behavior, lab and home safety measures, and their actions. Others have begun questioning the general public on Amity. There’s currently a few magic users there trying to determine if they can shut down the portal.”

Something in Danny screamed out at the idea of the portal being gone and he tensed. “No! They can’t shut it down! Please, you can’t. It’s— I— you can’t.”

“What? What are you talking about? We have to at least look for a way to shut it down!”

He was crying. Why was he crying. “You can’t,” Danny repeated. “If it’s gone…” he trailed off. Why did he feel so strongly about this? The portal had done nothing but cause him problems since it had turned on. “I died there. I died for it,” he whispered. Something in him knew it was important. His ghost half refused to accept that the portal could just disappear. “If it’s gone, if it can just be turned off, what was it all for?”

And even that wasn’t the full story. The portal was his parents’ life work. It was the thing they spent time working on. It was what stole them away from Danny and Jazz. They missed Jazz’s recitals to work on it. They missed Danny’s science fairs. Every forgotten dinner or event could be tied back to that portal. And if it was gone, what was the point of it all?

Tim sighed and squeezed his hand. “We can’t just leave it open, Danny. It’s not safe.”

“I can design a door. A better one. One that actually works. Just… Leave it. Please. I can make it safe.”

Tim bit his lip and stared at Danny for a minute. “I’ll let them know it’s an option. I don’t know if they’ll go for it. Constantine is not happy with it existing. But I’ll see what I can do.”

Danny’s shoulders slumped in relief. “Thank you.”

Tim gave a half smile. “What are friends for? Now, think you’re up for something to eat? What do you want?”

Danny groaned. “Don’t wanna.”

Tim ruffled his hair. “Sorry, Polaris. Non-negotiable.”

“Chocolate pudding?” asked Danny.

“Sure. We can—”

Before Tim finished, a knock sounded on the door. “Someone ask for chocolate pudding?” called out Kon.

Tim laughed. “Come on in!” Without delay, the door opened and Kon walked in. It shut on its own behind him.

Even Danny couldn’t hold back the smile. He really had some great friends. “Spying on me, are you?” he asked.

“Not my fault you were talking so loud. Woke me up and everything!”

Danny, very maturely, stuck out his tongue. The grief he felt over his parents was hiding, ready to rear up again at any minute, but for now he had two friends with him. He would focus on that.

For the first time, Danny ate the entire pudding container and drank an entire vial of ectoplasm and wasn’t ready to pass out when he was done.

“Can we put on a movie or something? I don’t want to sit in the dark and quiet right now,” said Danny.

“’Course, Polaris,” said Tim. “What do you want to watch?”

“Kon, where’d we leave off in your movie list?” asked Danny.

But Kon held up his hands and shook his head. “I’m definitely going to fall asleep halfway through if we’re watching a movie. Pick whatever you want and don’t bring me into it.”

Danny pouted at him, but didn’t push. Kon hadn’t spent the last however many days sleeping. So he squeezed Tim’s hand and asked, “Then how about we put on some Star Trek? Short episodes and if we fall asleep, we’ve already seen them.”

Tim’s teeth were bright in the dark as he grinned. “I can definitely arrange that. You just lie there and keep looking pretty and I’ll pull it up. TOS or TNG?”

“What the hell does that mean?” asked Kon.

Both Danny and Tim ignored him. “I’m far from pretty,” retorted Danny. At Tim’s look, he rolled his eyes and said, “TOS.”

“Coming right up!”

Mounted to the wall facing the foot of the bed was a TV, smaller than the one in the living room, but still bigger than the one he had in his living room back home. Within minutes the opening, “Space, the final frontier,” rang through the room.

“Sorry, bit loud,” said Tim before adjusting it down a touch.

Danny didn’t bother replying as the episode started. Then Tim handed over a water bottle and settled back on the floor.

“What are you doing down there?” asked Danny.

“Getting comfortable? Where else would I go?”

Danny rolled his eyes, not that anyone could see. “This bed is huge. Sit next to me.”

“Won’t that jostle you?”

“Kon, move me over closer to the edge. Then you and Tim can join me.”

Kon laughed. “I think I’m going to go back to bed. I’m a morning person, unlike you two. But sure, I’ll move you to make room for Tim.”

Danny grit his teeth as Kon put his hands under his shoulders. Then he was wrapped in the strange sensation of TTK and his entire body was picked up and moved closer to the edge of the bed. Even as gentle as he was, pain radiated at the movement.

Danny clenched his eyes shut and stopped breathing until it passed. When it did, he slowly blinked open his eyes until the black spots faded and patted the bed next to him. “Get in, Secrets.”

“Are you sure?”

Danny glared and Tim grinned sheepishly as did as instructed.

But then he still tried to leave too much space. “Get closer.”

Tim grumbled under his breath, but shifted over a few more inches. He was sitting more upright than Danny was, but it was fine. Danny leaned his head against Tim’s side and finally let himself pay attention to the episode.

Next to him, Tim stiffened, but then relaxed and rested a hand on Danny’s head. “I’m glad you’re here, Polaris.”

Danny just hummed and let the show and Tim’s warmth help chase away the panic and grief he could still feel waiting for him.

---

Within two days, Danny was mostly able to sit upright. Frostbite’s medicines really were miraculous. Though he wished he could go to the Far Frozen and get stuck in a pod unconscious for a few hours and wake up fully healed.

He was video chatting with Ellie on the PDA Tucker had left him, complaining about being confined to bed.

She grimaced in sympathy. “I hate being stuck in one place.”

Danny laughed, then winced. “Trust me, gremlin, we know. You can’t even stay in the same city for more than a week.”

Ellie frowned and looked off to the side.

“What’s wrong?”

“What if—” she cut herself off and bit on her lip. Danny let her collect her thoughts. “I’ve been thinking of joining you. In Gotham.”

“What?” Danny was pretty sure his mouth was hanging open. Ellie had never expressed an interest in coming to stay with him before, instead prioritizing her travels through both Earth and the Realms. “You want to come here?”

She frowned and glared at him. “You told me Superboy is there! And he’s a clone, too. I want to meet him.” Then she looked away. More quietly, she added, “’Sides, who’s gonna be able to keep your ass safe from ghosts if someone decides to attack while you’re injured? You certainly can’t protect yourself right now.”

For the first time since his parents captured him, Danny felt his core trill in happiness. She cared about him. “Of course you can come. I know Kon’s been hoping to meet you one of these days, too.”

She grinned widely at him. “Great.” She spun her PDA around and showed off the aerial view of a city. When she turned it back, she paused on the gargoyle she was sitting next to. “Because I’m already here. How do I find you?”

Danny’s mouth was hanging open again. “You— Ellie!” But he was grinning and holding back laughter, too. “I have no idea. Let me call in Kon and Tim. Maybe one of them can direct you.”

He didn’t even have to call for them before Kon was pushing open his door. “You need us?” he asked.

“Ellie wants to visit. Can one of you tell her how to get here?”

“Sure,” said Tim. “Where is she?”

Danny shrugged and held out the PDA. “Somewhere in the city. But I don’t know where.”

Tim blinked at him for a moment before shrugging and taking the device. “Well that makes it easier.” He looked down at the screen. “Hey, Ellie.”

“Oh my god, you’re Superboy! Huge fan,” she exclaimed. Kon had shoved himself next to Tim so he could see her.

He grinned. “I’m a huge fan of you, too. Sam’s told me some stories.”

“Glad you’re not dead anymore.”

Danny smacked his face when he heard her say that. Tim froze, wearing a fixed smile that Danny could see right through.

“Just tell them where you are,” said Danny as loud as he could.

“I’m getting there!” protested Ellie.

Kon burst out laughing. “I like you, Ellie.”

Danny couldn’t quite make out her reply, but it was enough to get Tim back into the conversation. “Turn invisible and fly down to the street. Show me the nearest street sign, okay? And then I’ll help you get here.”

“Or I could just fly out and meet her and bring her myself,” offered Kon.

“Yes!” cried Ellie. “That!”

Tim shrugged. “Just show us the nearest street sign, okay? I’ll figure out a good landmark for Kon to meet you at.”

Danny let his mind drift as they discussed potential meeting spots. Not even ten minutes later, Kon left.

Tim ran his hands through his hair and returned the PDA to Danny. “They should be back within twenty minutes. Anything we should get ready for Ellie?”

Danny shrugged. “No idea when the last time she ate would’ve been. Couldn’t hurt to have something ready.”

“Fine. I’ll blend you a smoothie and put a pizza in the oven. And set up the couch for her to sleep on.”

“Thanks, Secrets.”

“’Course, Polaris. Need anything before I go?”

Danny waved him off. “I’m good.”

Once he was alone, he pulled up the group chat with Sam, Tucker, and Jazz.

Danny: Ellie’s come to gotham Jazz: Oh good! She arrived. How’s she doing? Danny: You knew she was on her way? And didn’t tell me Danny: Betrayal! Danny: She and Kon haven’t made it to the apartment yet. He just left to find her Sam: Oh good. Have Ellie talk to him about the benefits of stealing child support from an unethical creator Tucker: I’m sure both Tim and I will be *thrilled* to help him out Danny: He’s not stealing his child support? Sam: Nope. He’s an idiot about it. Danny: We gotta fix that Jazz: Tell us when she’s there! Jazz: Have Tim or Kon send a picture of the two of you Danny: Really? I’m still bed bound! Jazz: Picture. Jazz: It’s an order.

Danny groaned, but he was grinning through it. His friends were the best. He closed out of the chat and pulled up a game to kill time until Ellie got there.

He only made it through a level and a half before he heard a squealed, “Danny!” and running footsteps.

Ellie came to an abrupt stop at the side of his bed. Her hoodie had a few new patches since the last time he saw her, and she was frowning as she looked him over. “Are you really going to be okay?”

Danny held out an arm. “Come here, gremlin.”

She hesitated, but when he didn’t say anything else, she climbed into bed with him and Danny wrapped his arm around her in a gentle hug. He wished he could hug her tighter, but this would have to do.

“I’ll recover. Promise. I’m already doing better.”

“This is you doing better?” sniffed Ellie.

Danny winced. Maybe he shouldn’t have said that. “I know. It’s a lot. Feels like a lot to me, too. But I’m okay. Or I will be.”

She sniffed and turned her face into his shoulder. Her voice was so soft he could barely hear it. “I can’t lose any more brothers.”

Danny’s eyes burned at that and he patted her shoulder. “I’m safe now. I promise. You’re not gonna lose me.” He wiped away his own tears as she shook under his arm. He pressed a kiss to the top of her head and wished things had been different in so many ways.

-----

A wild Danielle appeared! I've been waiting to introduce her. Next big introduction will be some of Tim's siblings.

Honestly, there's a few things I was excited about introducing this segment! Can you guess the other big reveal I've been sitting on?

I'm going to wait to write any more of Arc 3 until I get all of Arc 2 on AO3. I've ended up rewriting more than I planned on, so editing is taking longer than I expected. Also the wrist. That hindered things a bit, too.

If you want notifications when I update, please check out my Subscription Post.

[rosepinksky]

Pay For My Time (pt. 5)

Simon "Ghost" Riley x Female reader

In which Ghost's neighbour drags him in for dinner, and then ruins his life.

Warnings: alcohol & nicotine use

word count: 1.9k

ao3 link

part 1 (smutty!)

masterlist

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

I was antsy that night at the club, constantly checking over my shoulder for a figure that never showed. I did my best to plaster a bright smile on my face as another girl clinked her glass against mine, waving off her questioning face with a half-hearted reassurance that no, I’m good, just tired.

The hot pink lace felt too tight against my chest, the cheap fabric scratching against my glitter-dusted skin. I adjusted the straps over my collarbone, gulping down the cheap vodka in one breath as I turned my attention towards an older man in a charcoal suit at the bar. I sidled up to him, running a hand down his arm as I introduced myself with a practiced, sultry tone. He smirked as his gaze roamed greedily across my body, and I set my drink down next to his on the bartop.

I had never been one for feeling self-conscious. Since my first underwired bra at 14, since my first time fooling around with a boy in someone else’s bedroom at a house party at 16, since I’d spent my first year of university giggling sweetly at some trust fund Eton kid at a sports society mixer- I was a self-assured, confident, attractive young girl. Bright, too. Never one to say the wrong thing, to embarrass myself. Always pretty, always smart, always charming.

I remembered the day I sat down in my professor’s office to tell her I was dropping out. The confused frown tinged with concern as I babbled happily about my alternative plans, about him, about moving to London and summer weddings in Cornwall. A flashy diamond ring that didn’t quite suit my tastes but blinded me anyway glittering on my left hand.

God, it was strange how the thing I resented most was how damn good my dissertation would’ve been if I had stayed.

Leading the businessman- Michael, I think he said?- up to the private booths by then hand, I was struck by another wave of bitterness by the way Ghost had denied me that morning. Didn’t he know? Didn’t he know how good I was, how many men tonight were willing to empty their pockets just to have me in their lap?

Ungrateful prick, to deny me his cock when I offered myself up so freely for him. I made a silent vow as I bent at the waist to put on a slow song to cut him off, to ignore the needy little voice in my core that ached for him to fuck me like a goddamn ragdoll once more. I swore that vow again as I began to sway in front of this other man, dragging my nails up the sides of my thighs, feeling his eyes burning holes into the soft flesh of my ass.

I hated men, I decided in that moment. I hated how they made me feel, how they used me, how desperate I somehow still was for their fucking approval.

I left the man in that booth the second he tossed me a few notes, not bothering to send a parting smile his way. I shouldered my way back down the stairs, not stopping until I collapsed back into my chair in the dressing rooms.

“Fuck!” I whispered to myself as I gulped down a mouthful of water, closing my eyes as I exhaled sharply, cheeks burning with emotions that had no place coming to the surface right now.

I was grateful for the emptiness of the room in that moment, away from prying eyes and well-intentioned questions from the other dancers. I stared at my own reflection in the vanity mirror as I puffed away at my vape until my throat burned. I took in the slight imperfections of my face under the heavy makeup, the way the mascara clumped my bottom lashes together, the way my lipstick had smeared just at the corner of my lips. I frowned, swiping away the trace of red that escaped its confines, glancing up at the clock on the wall and resigning myself to the fact that I couldn’t really leave for a good few more hours.

There were a few things that struck Ghost as interesting about Lucy’s flat. On the surface, it was entirely what one would’ve expected from a girl like her. Doused in far too much pink, and enough candles to be considered a fire hazard to the entire building. But he’d spent too much of his life on high alert, eyes trained to take in and analyse every single detail presented to him, to be able to ignore those little ins she’d inadvertently given him.

Way too many open bottles on that bar cart, of course, though he wouldn’t have needed his SAS training to pick up on that particular vice of hers. He’d meant it in more ways than one when he’d told her he didn’t fuck drunk girls; his younger self tensing up on instinct when he saw the slight gloss in her eyes, reminiscent of his father’s blank gaze after yet another 12-pack of cheap corner store lager.

But he’d looked closer, in those fleeting hours spent in her home. Noticed the lack of pictures adorning the walls, the lingering feeling that this was a place only ever inhabited by one. No visitors. No family coming to stay for the weekend, no friends crashing after a late night dancing, no Friday afternoon coffees with that one cousin you always promised to keep in touch with but only ever saw thrice in a decade.

That struck him as odd, especially after she’d been so comfortable, so practiced as she invited him in and cooked for him. That meal was not the cooking of a lonely stripper in her early twenties, he knew that much. But still, he couldn’t picture Lucy coming from a childhood of a stay-at-home mother who patiently taught her to cook over some overpriced Aga, all warmth and softness. No, this was a woman who’d seen reality, had fought tooth and nail to perfect that seemingly effortless exterior- Lucy, Violet, whoever she may be.

He found himself inexplicably drawn to this woman. She was beautiful, no doubt about it. But there was more than that; her easy confidence drew him in, made him both want her and want to be her. He wondered, in the dim light of his lonely living room, what it would be like to exude that kind of quick social intellect. There had to be more, he mused, some reason why she got to possess that effortless, uncomplicated manner instead of him. Was it just a symptom of her beauty? Had she swanned through life unbridled with the worry of other’s judgement, simply gliding by on her looks?

The thought left a sour taste in his mouth, and he chased it away with a swig of his now lukewarm tea.

He was a fucking Lieutenant. A decorated, elite operative, a goddamn prized credit to his government. She was a stripper! No bachelors certificate framed on her walls, nothing to show for her career except some fancy coffeemaker on her countertop. She was nothing, as far as he should be concerned. And still-

And still, his throat got tighter every time he went to text her. He stumbled over his words when she ran her dainty, those stupidly dainty little hands over him.

He’d told her to call him that morning. Left her there in her bedroom feeling all smug, like he’d gotten the upper hand, and he had. Like he always did. Every girl he picked up, every pretty little barracks bunny that fell for the mystery of the mask, he always had the upper hand in the morning- if he waited that long to leave. Never cruel, never neglectful, but never sweet, either.

 And yet, despite his brain pushing forward the vivid memories of her on her knees in front of him, or of her wrapped around that pole looking like an entire fucking meal- the thing he couldn’t get out of his head was the vision of her nibbling on that corner of toast as they sat on the fire escape together in the late morning sun.

His fingers were pulling up her contact page before his brain could catch up and think better of it.

“…Hello?”

Noisy. The club, obviously.

“Hey.”

He could hear the way her breath was coming a little heavier than it should be, so in tune with her mannerisms after less than a fortnight of knowing her.

“Ghost! God, the one man I didn’t want to fucking hear from tonight.”

He pulled the phone away from his ear at that, frowning at the screen. A laugh crackled through from the other end.

“Sorry, I’m not supposed to say stuff like that. Hi, handsome, how are you?”

“I’m…fine. You’re working late for a Monday.”

A light sigh from her, and the flicker of a lighter.

“You’d be surprised. These 9-5 workers, they get fussy on a Monday. It’s one of our best days.”

He huffed out a dry laugh, using his free hand to open a window and grabbing his own cigarette.

“Why didn’t you want to hear from me?”

Silence. He stayed quiet, listening to the way her breath hitched, praying that her lowered inhibitions would give way to some sliver of the truth. He really had believed her when she’d told him she wasn’t a liar, after all.

“…Because I’m mad, at the way you left me this morning.”

He smirked. “That was the point of it. Still, I don’t think that’s the entire reason, princess.”

She scoffed, taking in a long drag of her cigarette before replying.

“God, what do you want me to say? That my ego was bruised?”

His smiled widened. Bingo.

“Now why would you say that, Lucy? Was your pretty little ego bruised, when I refused to fuck you, not once but twice?”

He could hear her grumbling under her breath, and it only served to build up his cracked self-esteem further. So she wasn’t infallible, after all.

“You know you only had to ask me, right, sweet girl? Properly. Without any of that cheap wine clouding your judgement.” He dropped his voice down to a rich, weighty tone, the cigarette dangling idly from his fingers.

“Whatever.” She snapped. “Luckily for you, sir, there’s plenty of men who’ve managed to drag the stick out of their ass for long enough to see what’s in front of them.”

His smile dropped into a frown, sitting up a little straighter. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

There was another pause, and he could practically hear her smug smile. “I’m sorry if the noise disturbs your sleep tonight, Ghosty. I really would try to keep it down, but you know what I’m like when I get properly fucked.”

He wanted nothing more than to wipe that little smirk off of her face, his fists clenching until the cherry of his cigarette burned his knuckles. “Don’t you dare, Lucy.”

She giggled. She fucking giggled.

“Sorry, sir. Should’ve tried to mess with an easier girl.”

The line clicked dead, and he was left staring at the black screen of his phone.

It was less than a minute before he was on his feet, pulling on his jacket and shoving his feet into his boots, grabbing his keys before slamming his front door shut.

[vahalia-cress]

⸸ The Inevitable ⸸

Melee/Tournament: DAY 1 @daily-writing-challenge

The breeze in the cabin was cool, something more akin to what she was used to as Vahalia stood looking out over the deep water to observe the ships that could not make port. There were vibrant specks of lights that danced over the ripples and the moon hung above the waters stealing the blanket of night from pure and utter darkness. Not too far off The Red Queen remained, partially one of the few things Vahalia had traveled to Tural for but she would have to be patient.

There was a plan and it had been set in motion for weeks, however, she, Cordelia, Castien, and Wren would have to execute each with care and precision.

Just a year ago she had been in Ishgard partaking in events, jousting tournaments and soirees, a melee of political discussions and meetings that captured her attention. Now, she was leagues away from the comforts of the frigid city she called home.

Could she ever truly consider it a place of respite?

She was born there, grew up there, had family there and it was a place of familiarity but deep down the nagging sensation of more harkened to her. Ishgard was a placeholder, another hole to which her ancestors simply fled. 

Idalia stirred quietly in the bassenette at the other end of the room with Evran still indulging in his cozy slumber. And it was the roaming shadow in the room from the furthest recess that eventually traveled in Vahalia’s direction, the curling whisps of shadows spilled along the floor as Creature materialized behind her, the entity fully unexpurgated as it loomed high above her as Creature often did. His size was nearly immeasurable in some circumstances.

“We leave at dawn.” Vahalia finally spoke, her eyes drifting over the horizon of the hellish depths of the sea before them, her attention now pinning on the location of The Sea Scorpion and the small boats that peppered the roil of slow waves, lights growing ever closer as she knew it to be the mounts they were transporting swiftly from the vessel.

“𝔚𝔥𝔞𝔱 𝔡𝔬 𝔶𝔬𝔲 𝔞𝔰𝔨 𝔬𝔣 𝔪𝔢?” the haunting voice chittered.

“Nothing short of a perfect performance.”

“ℌ𝔬𝔰𝔱 𝔪𝔢.” The reply from Creature came swiftly and eagerly, his large eyes turned towards Vahalia and a heavy chill rested on the mantle of her attire.

“In due course.” she offered, her hand diving into the pocket of her robe as she procured a silken cloth, fractures of sapphire resting in the slope of her palm as she unwrapped it and showed Creature to her left, “I need you to track the person this belonged to. This will be your current goal.”

The cacophony of sounds, voices, and hissing was expelled and soon died down as Creature boughed to sniff at the essence of the broken pieces nestled into the cloth, “𝔄𝔥…” he cooed seemingly pleased, “ℑ𝔱 𝔦𝔰 𝔣𝔞𝔦𝔫𝔱 𝔟𝔲𝔱 𝔭𝔬𝔴𝔢𝔯𝔣𝔲𝔩.”

“It’s of another Magi. I’ve never been acquainted with what they are capable of aside from deceit but we will find out just how much of a battle this might become. 

“𝔗𝔥𝔢𝔯𝔢 𝔦𝔰 𝔞𝔫𝔬𝔱𝔥𝔢𝔯 𝔰𝔠𝔢𝔫𝔱 𝔬𝔣 𝔞𝔢𝔱𝔥𝔢𝔯 𝔴𝔦𝔱𝔥𝔦𝔫 𝔱𝔥𝔦𝔰.” he warned her as he dipped his head lower to inspect the pieces, tongue slicking out to rove over the sharp edges and an insatiable sound emitted, hunger striking his core.

“As much as I have suspected. This belonged to another though I cannot tell if it is a regular gem or a soulstone. In any event, much will be expected of you and you will be required to participate in the hunt.”

“𝔄𝔫𝔡 𝔱𝔥𝔲𝔰, ℑ 𝔞𝔯𝔡𝔢𝔫𝔱𝔩𝔶 𝔞𝔴𝔞𝔦𝔱 𝔰𝔲𝔠𝔥 𝔞 𝔱𝔞𝔰𝔨. 𝔖𝔲𝔠𝔥 𝔴𝔦𝔩𝔩 𝔠𝔞𝔩𝔩 𝔣𝔬𝔯 𝔞 𝔥𝔢𝔞𝔳𝔶 𝔯𝔢𝔴𝔞𝔯𝔡.” he warned.

A crimson smirk split Vahalia’s lips, a dimple pinned into her cheek as she regarded her familiar with a glint in her sharp eyes, “Since when have you known me not to give to those deserving of praise?” Silence lingered and Vahalia tucked the cloth-covered pieces back to where she had procured them from, “You’ll get your piece and you will be deserving of it should all go without fail.”

[whorety-k]

Ebony Coasts [Part 3]

I already am halfway through another part but please accept this one first

Pairing: Merfolk!Corvus Corax x fem!Marine Conservationist!Reader (second person POV)

Song recommendation: Too Sweet - Hozier “Don’t you just want to wake up / dark as a lake? / Smelling like a bonfire / lost in a haze?”

Warnings: Ocean mentions / potential thalassophobia, culture shock and misunderstanding between species

Word Count: 1.8k

[Part 1] [Part 2] [Part 4] [Part 5] [Part 6] [Part 7 (NSFW)]

In the end, you decided that you would have given Corvus your trusty metal pen, but by the time you finished gathering your equipment and solidified that idea in your mind, the merman was gone. For such a giant of a man, the black betta was a master at stealth. You wondered how he could have covered his tracks in the short few minutes you had been distracted, but you weren’t going to expend the effort to find out when the sun had already set half an hour before. Instead of your pen, you leave a compass hanging from a chain on one of the inner walls of his den and make your way back up the cliff side to head home. 

There’s a lot on your mind on the drive back. Road safety be damned, you start to take actual notes on your phone about the merman. At the top, in bold, you write: ‘Pearls are an engagement ring— to be avoided for now’. A flash of uncomfortable warmth fills your chest at the slip up, and you quickly delete the ‘for now’, moving on to the next line.

You’re back home before you realize it, pulling into your apartment complex, parking your car, and removing the key from the ignition. You decide against grabbing any of your equipment in your back seat aside from the gear that desperately needs to be washed, mind far too preoccupied with a certain giant the color of coal and bone. The door to your apartment swings shut behind you. …When did you even get inside? Yep, you’re an emotional mess, and you need a cold shower for more than just the salt coating your body.

Despite the poor quality of sleep you barely manage to get that night, you’re up bright and early. With the necessary surveying finished two days early, you have the option of going and working from the office today, but the allure of another eight to ten hours with the potential of seeing your newest… friend beckons you like a siren’s call. You spend the drive down wondering if Corvus actually is a siren and if he’s simply luring you into an elaborate trap to eat you alive. If he was, would he have thought over your marriage proposal as he did—? You slap yourself out of that traitorous line of thinking immediately. You did not intend to propose– you have known him for a total of two days.

When you pull up to the dock that saw your life change forever, the trepidation that sinks into your core forces you to stare at the waves through the cracked windshield of the Ford Bronco you’re sitting in. Your coworkers aren’t coming out with you today either (nor do you think they will any later date unless anything new crops up). Limbs heavy, you throw the door open and hop out onto the gravel with a crunch. At least today you can spend the day relaxing.

Your feet carry you to the metal dock as you idly take in the morning breeze. It isn’t as cold today as it has been for the past several weeks, and just before you left home, you prepared ahead for what is, admittedly, a dumb idea. With no one around, you feel comfortable to go through with it. Standing at the head of the pier, you cautiously remove your outer layers to reveal the black bathing suit beneath. It’s a one piece bodysuit: a halter top with chiffon frills and bows at your hips and shoulders. Silver rhinestones adorn the neckline and continue down your front in a double helix, meeting a thin band that wraps around your waist. 

The early sun warms the galvanized steel under your feet. You stride the floating dock until you’ve reached the end and test the water with your foot, happy to find that the polar chill so common in this area of the coast isn’t present today. A gentle breeze passes over your skin, and you kneel to sit down upon the heated metal. 

The abyss of the salted tides swallows your legs, the refraction of the water causing them to bend and twist at odd angles as the depths swell around you. You kick your legs in lazy swirls and feel the power of the waves as they rush past you. 

It had been weeks since your last swim in the ocean. The weather had been no help, really, with the near constant overcast of clouds that only seemed to subside this past week. 

A glimpse of a deep rust red in the water catches your eyes first, then a whirl of brown shooing it off. Harlequin ducks! You had no idea they had been nesting this far down the coast. The brown hen successfully bats away the approaching male, and you lean forward to watch her. A gasp of elation leaves you when you see the four fuzzy ducklings desperately trailing behind their mother, wobbling unsteadily in the gentle waves. Adoration floods through you when one of them manages to hop up onto her back. You turn to grab your phone to take a picture for your team, only to sigh in disappointment when you look back to the end of the dock and see it resting on top of your discarded clothes. 

You turn back to the open ocean with a huff, looking back down at your feet.

It was the little moments like this that had originally inspired you to get into marine conservation to begin with. The coast had always felt like a second home. The wonders of its creatures and their home kept you coming back day after day, even before that statement had become literal. It was ironic that the only place you didn’t feel like you were drowning when your studies would swamp you had been the ocean. 

But the tides had a healing quality to them. As they would come and go, so too would the weight of the world around you. It was easy to get lost in responsibilities and demands back at home. Society has shifted so drastically over your lifetime, demanding more and more out of everyone yet giving back so little. Here, at the water’s edge, you could block it all out and just focus on the beauty that was in front of you.

Like the rusty reds and browns of a harlequin duck and the tiny little fluff-balls of its ducklings, or the rolling clouds that extend far beyond the horizon in milky patches across the sky. The way the light filtered through the sapphire swells, the reflection of the rays on the porcelain beneath.

…

…porcelain beneath?

Corvus’s obsidian eyes gaze up at you from between your legs, and you almost kick him this time for sneaking up on you. He absolutely would have deserved it, but unfortunately the aquatic giant has no problem dodging you in the depths.

“If you do that one more time–” you growl, withdrawing your legs from the water, “I am going to lose it.”

Corvus watches for a brief moment before he surfaces, resting a hand on the dock beside your leg. It’s nearly as long as your thigh. “I swear to you that it is not purposeful. Are your hearts alright?”

“Hearts?” you wonder aloud, “My heart is fine, thank you.” Your legs slide back into the ocean, and you feel one of the merman’s fins slide against your foot. Both of you shift to compensate and avoid that happening again, but the brush of velvety texture preoccupies your mind.

Corvus inspects the beach with nonchalance. “Have you only one? Humans and their peculiarities…” the betta comments, turning to look back up at you. He lifts his head fully out of the water, waves lapping at his shoulders as he rests his broad chin upon your knee. 

The shock of both the cold and intimacy of the action tenses your body. Corvus doesn’t react to the change, seeming not to notice. Was this normal for merfolk? His raven locks tickle your thigh, water droplets glittering in the morning sun. An itch in the palm of your hand makes itself known, and you tediously reach to touch one of the wet strands. 

“Are you hungry?” Corvus’s voice interrupts the action.

You snap back to reality. “No,” you answer, confused, “Why do you ask?”

Corvus gestures towards the family of ducks nearby with a clawed finger. “You were transfixed on the sea fowl.”

Corvus’s answer floors you, mouth hanging open as you look at him in horror. Did he seriously think you were going to eat them? “They’re babies. Harmless, cute, fluffy little baby ducklings,” you say, exasperated. 

“Yes,” the merman nods against you, “they can be caught with ease, but they are not very saturating.”

The hand near Corvus’s head slaps against your chest, pearl-clutching as you stare in shock. “No, Corvus! I’m not going to eat a duckling!” you shout.

The giant recoils in confusion at your answer, eyebrows subtly knitting as he looks up at you. Your reaction causes him to shift and pull away like a scolded dog.

Realizing you’ve upset him somehow, your heart drops. You reach forward to place a hand in his hair without thinking, trying to comfort the fleeing mer before he can get too far. The thought of him leaving makes your entire body ache. He stops, and you silently thank whatever deity is watching. Before Corvus can think too much about it, you try to explain, “Humans don’t eat babies. Usually. I would prefer not to eat the duckling. I just think they’re cute, okay?”

Corvus still seems visibly troubled, but he relents. When you try to guide him back to your lap, the betta allows it. This time, though, he does not hesitant to plop his head down, his hands resting on the dock at either side of you to keep himself stable. You push down any emotions the action threatens to well within you. “I apologize for having offended you,” he laments. The melancholy in his voice is audible, and it makes you burn.

“Please don’t apologize,” you all but beg, beginning to run your hand through the dark hair on Corvus’s head. Even wet, it was as soft as the rest of him. “I shouldn’t have gotten so worked up. I’m sorry.”

Corvus doesn’t understand why you would be apologizing, eyes searching for something in you that you can't determine, but he doesn’t comment on it. You feel his chest expand in what you think is a deep breath, water rushing into and out of his gills around your submerged legs. "Okay," he mutters, his larger body finally relaxing against you, "Okay."

A comfortable silence envelops the two of you. Light vibrations in the water peak your interest, but the rumbling that starts in Corvus's chest when you scratch his head completely enraptures you. You do your best to remain calm and not draw any attention to it, lest the purring stop.

The gentle giant rests in your lap as the morning sun warms you both, idly wafting his fins in the water around you. 'Beautiful' is the only word that comes to mind.

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

[Part 4]

[thedarknesssings]

Prompt 1: Once Upon a Time

Prompt 1: Steer - FFxiv Write 2024 Characters: Arafel de Courcelle, Fiera de Courcelle, Addifore Adelrik @nnamierart, and a Lady Rosaire (a lady borrowed from @houserosaire 's family's past) Content Warning: Blood.

They say peace follows farewells. In the chance of bidding those dear to our hearts fair passage, we who are left behind gain a calmness of mind and heart.

I say who are they anyway?

I’d state the year, but days all blend together after a point, so instead I’ll say when I was a young man barely grown into my ears, my father saw fit to arrange my elder brother, Alderic, and I marriages. His occurred first, of course, seeing as he was the Viscount de Courcelle’s heir and far more important than his gangly spare. My younger sister, Rosine, had already been betrothed for some time. Such was the way of nobility then, children naught more than pawns to move on a board where few truly understood the game.

War consumed us back then, and we were not yet weary of the fight. Tradition and family glory meant raising Alderic to be a fine knight, and though my father tried with me, my strengths lay not in the sword or the lance, but in books. Perhaps if I had been the third son, he’d have agreed to send me into Halone’s service via the cathedral or the Tribunal. He did not permit this and instead, when I was allowed near the city, I spent my time flitting between the Arcaneum and the Scholasticate. My youth, otherwise, was spent in the countryside on my father’s estate, a place now frozen beneath snow and ice and memory.

The bride my father selected for me was a lovely girl, stout-hearted and fair of face with dark chocolate-hued hair that flowed in waves to her waist. She adored chocobos and loathed getting her feet wet in the rain puddles. Her ability in fencing surpassed my own, a fact I appreciated. All in all, we may have made a sound marriage, that Lady Rosaire and I, if it had not been for the fire in the third row of the Scholasticate’s Arcane History class.

The Lady Fiera outshone her classmates by mere presence alone. Her smile struck like a wildfire, furious and easily burning the viewer to the core. Emerald eyes glittered with mischief and good humour, and I was not the only lad desiring her gaze. The Sanguemont good looks and fire-red hair helped her stand apart from the more dowdily-dressed young ladies in attendance.

Belief in love at first sight was a laughable thing to us young men back then. Lust at first sight on the other hand ran amok through the male ranks, feats boasted over and equally scoffed at. To say I lusted for her was not a wrongful claim. I did, shamelessly so. By that time, I had earned a place as the professor’s assistant in the arcane classes. My skill with aether manipulation far exceeded most my age. I have no doubts it was my position that granted me a chance with her. Those of a cerebral nature in any school setting were often the last a pretty girl ever think to look at, so when she asked for assistance with her studies, I eagerly agreed.

Days turned into moons, and my regard for the Lady Fiera only deepened. Her wit and ample kindness underlying the wilder desire to see and do all she could proved itself more intoxicating to me than any liquor or drug could manage. The toll paid became my heart, something I lay readily in her hands to care for ever after with our marria—

“What’re you writing?” The deep voice sliced through Arafel’s thoughts, dragging him from the intricate loops and curves of his hand writing at the tip of a silver-tipped, raven-feather quill to the pair of curious eyes gazing down at him. Addifore’s gaze flicked from the vampire toward the leather-bound notebook lying open on the desk in front of Arafel.

“Nothing of import. Memoirs of my youth, or what little I recall.” A slight shrug accentuates his words, followed by the nonchalant snapping of the journal closed. His crimson eyes darted to the side, sliding over the figure of his lover and taking in the flecks of blood, the bits of mud clinging around the base of his boots. “Did you find supper?”

“We did.”

“Excellent. I’ll finish this later.” Arafel pushed his chair back and rose to his feet. A single claw tipping the end of an elegant finger stroked along the contour of Addifore’s jawline, uncaring about the thin line of blooming red he left in his wake. “I do love watching you dine.”

[hannahmanderr]

Supernova - Chapter 1: The Aftershock

(AO3)

aftershock: noun 1) a small earthquake or tremor that follows a major earthquake.

2) the effect, result, or repercussion of an event; aftermath; consequence

3) what Danny finds himself having to deal with all of a sudden

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

“I swear, you kids drink all those ‘Monstras’ or whatever they’re called and then come to class wonderin’ why you’re feeling like crap,” Tetslaff grumbled as she held the back of her hand up to Danny’s clammy forehead.

“Danny doesn’t drink energy drinks,” Sam said, indignant.

“Then what’s that stuff he’s always bringing to school to drink?” The question came from Star, who was one of the others in the class who’d come over to investigate the commotion. She jabbed a finger at one of the puddles of ectoplasm on the mat. “Because that is so not water.”

“Did she really just call them ‘Monstras?’” Tucker mumbled to himself.

Danny didn’t process any of this. For all he knew, he could be a million miles away from what was happening and he wouldn’t know the difference. Everything sounded far away and muddy, as if he were listening to it underwater. His limbs felt thick, like they didn’t even belong to him. Not to mention that he was still distracted by the remnants of that feeling that had overpowered him so suddenly. Whatever it had been. 

Really, nothing he’d ever experienced had yanked on his core as hard as that had. He’d felt drains on his core before, but this had been entirely different. Could it even be considered a drain? He couldn’t tell if he’d lost any of his energy.

A shiver ran down his spine. To have such a fundamental part of his being end up so violently displaced, so utterly violated… Even now, it was still out of sync with his heart and making his stomach churn threateningly again. 

And had he just been imagining hearing someone shouting?

“... take him to the nurse’s office?” Tetslaff was asking the small crowd. “ Not you , Foley! You’ll be lucky if I let you loose on your own durin’ class again before you graduate.”

“No,” Danny heard himself say. He was the one moving his mouth, right? Why did his tongue feel like sandpaper? “Don’t need the nurse. Just hot.”

And he was hot. Abnormally so. As in he hadn’t been this hot since before the accident. His core sputtered a few weak coils of his cold energy, but couldn’t manage much more than that so soon after such an experience.

“Sorry, Coach, I tried to tell him he needed to keep up with drinking his water today.” He was vaguely aware of his aluminum water bottle being pressed into his grasp by Sam. “He just wouldn’t listen to me.”

Normally, he would’ve been annoyed with the jab at his expense, but his head was still too full of fuzz to even really have room to be annoyed. Instead, he swirled the water bottle and discovered that not everything had spilled out onto the mat, so he took a tentative sip. The results were nearly instantaneous; the ectoplasm buzzed pleasantly through his core and sent a jolt of clarity into his brain. Not enough to completely clear the fog, but it was better than nothing.

Tetslaff eyed him skeptically. “You sure you don’t wanna get checked out? Dehydration is nothin’ to laugh at.”

“Yeah.” He nodded as enthusiastically as he could without setting off another wave of vertigo. “I just… need to sit for a second.”

“Aw, what’sa matter?” Brady Ibarra cooed from behind Star. “Fenton can’t handle a wittle baby workout?”

“Can it, Ibarra!” Tetslaff barked. “Alright, Manson, take him off the field. I don’t want him back out here for at least ten minutes. Nuh-uh, you stay right there Foley! You’ve got a hot date with a mat and some crunches. And the rest of you, get back to it! If you don’t have those sheets done before the bell rings, you’ll be runnin’ laps next time!”

She snatched the water bottle out of Danny’s grasp. “And you, if I catch you drinkin’ this junk durin’ gym again, you can bet your sorry bottom we’ll be havin’ a little chat with your parents. Here,” she shoved the bottle at Sam, “empty that out and get him some real water.”

Sam pulled Danny up by the elbow and dragged him toward the bleachers, away from the echo of Tucker’s complaints. “What the heck was that?” she hissed as soon as they were out of earshot.

“I don’t know.” He plopped down on the sun-warmed seats with a wince. Ouch . Too hot. Core still out of whack. Must’ve been too obvious, since Sam glanced over her shoulder and, after seeing Tetslaff busy telling Tucker to get onto a clean mat, handed the bottle back to Danny. He took a few greedy, grateful gulps.

“What do you mean you don’t know? And stop drinking that so fast, you’ll make yourself sick.”

He pulled the bottle out of his mouth and breathed in deeply before saying, “This is the stuff that keeps me from getting sick. And I mean, I don’t know.” Another swig. The familiar chill was finally beginning to return. “One minute I was fine and then just… I don’t know.”

“You totally froze up.” She looked over her shoulder again before taking a seat next to him. “Whatever it was, it definitely wasn’t normal. I’ve never seen anything like it.” 

“I thought we’ve established nothing about me is normal these days.”

“You know what I mean, you idiot,” Sam said, giving him her trademark Manson Eye Roll. “Like did you see the ectoplasm? It just doesn’t do that on its own.”

Danny hummed and finished off the rest of the bottle. Darn. If only half of it hadn’t decided to levitate itself out of the bottle and onto the gym mat. “I mean, it kind of does that in the Zone. Float around and stuff?”

She raised an eyebrow. “Were you the one doing it?”

“Wha- no, that wasn’t me. At least, I’m pretty sure it wasn’t me.” He paused. “I was kind of distracted by whatever was going on in here,” he said, gesturing towards his sternum. His core. 

Boy, Sam could really look like Mom, or even Jazz when she scrutinized him like this. “Something happened with your core?”

He sighed and rested his head in his hands. Back on the field, Tucker struggled with his crunches. Poor Tuck, having to deal with Tetslaff’s wrath all on his own. “I don’t know how to describe it. It was like… like someone just grabbed it or something. I don’t know. And then I just - I could’ve sworn I heard something. And saw something.”

“What, like another ghost?”

He shook his head. “No, this was different. But I don’t know if I can explain it that well…” A couple of ghost language words came to mind that would’ve been helpful to describe it, but none of them translated well to English. 

The memory of the faint light burned clearly in his mind. Too far to reach, and flickering violently, like a birthday candle being blown out, but it had definitely been there. At least, he thought. He was still somewhat doubting that the memory of the whole experience was actually real. The shouting he thought he’d heard included.

But it hadn’t really been shouting…

Had it?

Sam was still watching him critically. Really, he wished she would give him a second to just breathe without having her breathing down his back. It didn’t help that Tucker would be demanding answers in the locker room. 

So he couldn’t give a perfect description of it. Whatever it was. Big deal. He wasn’t about to keel over dead because of it. 

“I don’t like this,” she said. “What if someone’s doing this to you? Trying to take you out indirectly so they can swoop in and take over the world or whatever?”

It was a possibility, to be fair, but it was a small one at best. “I don’t think so. Ghosts are kind of sensitive about cores. Like it’s just kind of one of those things you just don’t mess around with. It’d be like… I dunno, getting into someone’s brain and screwing around with how it works, or something.”

“You realize Spectra literally fed off your core that one time? And fed off of the souls of the entire student body?”

“Yeah, well, Spectra’s kind of the exception, not the rule. Most ghosts aren’t like that.”

She huffed and crossed her arms. “Whatever. I still don’t like it.” 

The feeling of her eyes on him was making his skin crawl at this point. There was a good reason he tried to stay out of the spotlight as much as possible. “So what do you think we should do about it?”

Sam considered this for a moment. “We should probably get you checked out by your doctor or something. What was her name? Fluffy… something?”

“You mean Flurryfoot? I don’t know, it doesn’t feel important enough to make a long trip all the way to the Far Frozen, you know?”

“It’s your core , Danny. Do people just brush it off when they have a heart attack or whatever?”

Danny slid back on the bleachers until his butt fell onto the row of concrete behind him and buried his head into his knees. “I’m pretty sure this wasn’t the ghost equivalent of a heart attack,” he mumbled into his gym shorts. 

He was grateful for Sam’s concern of course, and he knew he was lucky to have friends like her and Tucker, but really, could she not make such a big deal out of it?

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

Pandora cursed in ancient Greek. “I should’ve known,” she muttered. Her flaming helmet flared, making Fleetfloe wince. Sure, she had possibly the strongest ice core next to Frostbite, but being so close to so much fire was still uncomfortable.

Pandora tossed the letter Fleetfloe had given her onto the throne and stormed out of the room. Fleetfloe sprinted after her. 

“I told them,” Pandora was grumbling. “They didn’t listen. I knew something like this would happen, and they didn’t listen!”

“My lady,” Fleetfloe said hesitantly, “I must return to the Chief with a response as quickly as possible. Those were my instructions.”

Pandora stopped in the middle of the hallway and turned to look down at the messenger yeti, as if just remembering she was there. The yetis of the Far Frozen towered at seven or eight feet on average, but Pandora stood even taller at a dazzling ten feet. Just the sight made Fleetfloe feel even smaller and more susceptible to the rage Pandora was notorious for.

“Yes, yes,” Pandora said. “My apologies. I am… No. It’s okay. I’ll send you with a return message as soon as I can make the proper preparations.”

“Preparations, my lady?”

 Pandora pushed open a great set of doors into a room that was strangely empty. Even stranger were the seven doors spread across the walls, each completely unique from the next. One stood tall and elegant, made of a wood so dark it appeared black. Another more so resembled a human sewer entrance, round and metal, though the material rippled like a curtain in an unseen breeze.

For a moment, Pandora simply stood in the center of the room before saying, “I need to consult with Frostbite about this. In person. Frostbite… and the others.”

Fleetfloe gasped. “You don’t mean…?”

“Yes.” Pandora closed her eyes and sighed. “The Ancient Council must convene at once.”

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

They didn’t get to go to the Far Frozen right after school. 

For a moment, Danny wondered if Clockwork was pranking him. The scene was familiar - eerily familiar. He had to do a double take just to make sure he wasn’t experiencing some major deja vu. Especially since the last time he’d walked in on a situation like this, he’d ended up finding out that Pariah Dark had been unleashed.

“Danny!” Dad shouted, bouncing out of his seat. “Look who decided to join us today!”

A totally spontaneous visit, I’m sure , he snarked to himself, trying to ignore how his stomach dropped to his feet. “Hi, Uncle Vlad,” he said through a pained smile.

If Vlad was here, then that pretty much confirmed whatever had happened earlier that morning had been important. Crap. 

“Ah, Daniel! It’s been a while since I’ve seen you,” Vlad said, his voice dripping with faux warmth. Danny resisted the urge to bite back that no , it had not been a while, seeing as how he’d had to fight Mr. Mayor himself off from overshadowing one of the city administrators just last week. But, you know. Semantics.

Sam, however, was not as afraid of unleashing her vitriol. “What are you doing here?” she snapped. 

Vlad stood and brushed imaginary dust off of his suit. “Why such hostility? Am I not allowed to drop by and catch up with my dearest friend?”

“Catch up on evil ,” Tucker whispered under his breath. The following oomph told Danny that Sam’s elbow had decided to find a nice spot to jab Tucker in the ribs. Apparently, she didn’t approve of the dig. Either that, or she was trying to be at least a little conscientious about Dad’s presence. But it wasn’t like Tucker didn’t know how to keep things subtle.

Focus, Fenton . Fruitloop first. Friends could handle themselves and Dad. Besides, he already knew how to handle the old man. 

“I guess that makes sense,” he said, moving further into the living room and dumping his backpack unceremoniously on the floor. “There hasn’t been much time for you two to talk. I mean, Dad has been super busy and all. He’s been working on, what, at least three new inventions, and Dad, didn’t you just sign off on another contract with the city?”

Yeah. He could totally play the sneaky banter game.

Vlad’s smile turned so tight it turned his lips white. “Yes, well, if young Phantom wouldn’t be so careless during his fights, perhaps that contract wouldn’t be necessary, hm?”

Dad, oblivious to the scowl that erupted on Danny’s face, just grinned broadly and slung an arm around Vlad’s shoulders. “See? Now this is local leadership at its finest! Looking out for the town and stopping troublemakers in their tracks!”

“You know what they say,” Sam said, “never trust a politician.”

“My, such divisive words.” Vlad wriggled his way out from under Dad’s arm. “I’m sure one day you children will understand the importance of the measures I must take to keep our fair city safe. The youth of today just don’t care for civic duty like they should!”

The rage of an impassioned Sam flooded Danny and left him with a sour tang in his mouth. Some negative emotions were bearable, in terms of consumability at least, but Sam Manson’s ire? Not so much.

Vlad must have been able to taste it too, because his oily smile only widened.

Sam did not notice either of these reactions. She stomped towards Vlad with a finger jabbed towards his face. “Listen here, you little -”

“ Okay , Sam!” Tucker cut her off by grabbing onto her arm. Danny perfectly mirrored the move. “Didn’t you have something you wanted to do? Something important ?” In sync, the two boys started to guide her out of the living room and towards the lab. 

“Please, don’t go on my account. I was just about to leave anyway. Such important mayoral duties I must attend to! I must sign off on those plans to develop that drab little community garden that’s been such an eyesore.”

This time, the wave of rage nearly toppled Danny over. He gritted his teeth and, with Tucker, dragged Sam into the kitchen, which turned out to be a task much easier said than done when the subject of the dragging was determined to protest the destruction of the community garden. Very loudly .

“I swear, if you make us go deaf before we’re 30, I will never forgive you, woman,” Tucker said as they began to descend the staircase into the lab.

If it had been anyone else who’d made the comment, Sam would’ve probably gone ballistic, but Tucker and Danny both had long since earned the pass to sling such digs at her. Danny figured she’d probably return the favor before long.

As it was, her anger remained directed towards Vlad. “He can’t do that! Do you know how hard we worked to get all the permits and stuff to build that garden? It took months to get the city council to approve the plans! And doesn’t he realize that we’re donating the vegetables to the school so we can actually have healthy school lunches, which, oh look! Another thing the mayor should be looking into fixing instead of schmoozing up to big donors and trying to make another quick buck off -”

“He was bluffing!” Danny interrupted. Ancients, his ears needed a break. He would always love Sam to death of course - or at least, whatever came next for a dead-but-not-quite-dead freak like him - but more often than not, she could let her tirades get loud, and it was killer on his sensitive ears.

Huh. The death puns were strong today.

They reached the bottom of the staircase, and Sam immediately whirled on him with her hands on her hips. “Oh really? And since when did you get the power to read minds?”

“I don’t need the power to read minds, he’s done the same exact thing to me too, you know!” His fingers curled into his palms. “That’s - it’s just what he does, alright? He says a bunch of crap that gets you all riled up so you end up making a mistake.”

“That’s quite clever, little badger.” Danny turned just in time to see Vlad emerge from the stairwell. “And it only took you two years to figure out!”

Danny opened his mouth to order Vlad out of his basement, but Sam beat him to the punch. “I swear, if you don’t march up those stairs and rescind whatever stupid development project you’ve got planned for the community garden, I’ll… I’ll -”

“Oh, relax. For once, Daniel was right about calling a bluff. Those plans were rejected by the city council weeks ago. Besides, I have far more important matters to worry about.” He pushed past her easily and approached Danny. “We need to talk.”

“Sorry. Not interested,” Danny said, his voice clipped. “Just get out of my house, Vlad. I’m too tired to put up with your crap today.”

“Hm. I don’t think I will.” When Danny turned to storm away, Vlad caught his shoulder and forced him back around. “Now, can I implore you to act your age for at least five minutes? The sooner you cooperate, the sooner I can get out of your hair.”

Ugh. Why did his enemies have to make good points sometimes? “Fine. You can have five minutes, so you better make it quick.”

“I’ll cut to the chase,” Vlad said dryly. He leaned down just a couple inches more, and Danny’s already tightly curled fingers dug even deeper into his hand. “Tell me what your parents have been working on recently.”

Well. It certainly hadn’t been the question he’d been expecting. “... Why? So you can steal it or something?” 

“Daniel, I swear -”

“Okay, okay. Sorry . You want the truth? ‘Cause I honestly don’t know. I’ve been… busy lately.”

Vlad raised an eyebrow. “Busy doing what? Attacks have been down recently.”

“He’s got a life too, you know!” Tucker protested from the side. “You’re not the only one with things to do.”

“And it’s not like I would tell you, anyway.” He wasn’t exactly keen on telling him about the visits to Long Now, for one thing. Or the Far Frozen. Although, it would be kind of funny to see his reaction to that, given the cheesehead’s last encounter with the yetis.

Vlad looked to the ceiling and inhaled. “ Fine . Then tell me about what happened to you this morning.”

Ah, there it was. The question he’d been waiting for. Might as well make him work for the answer. How could he deny his duty as a sixteen year old to annoy crummy adults as much as possible? “How do you know anything special happened to me this morning?”

“Quite frankly? Because the same thing happened to me, and I’d like to know exactly what it was,” Vlad said, matter-of-fact. “Oh, don’t look so surprised. I wouldn’t bother to ask if I didn’t already suspect you’d been through it too.”

“It’s not that.” Danny fought the urge to give the man a cheeky grin. “I’m just surprised the oh-so-powerful Vlad Plasmius would ever admit to a moment of weakness.”

Red tinged the edges of Vlad’s eyes. “This is serious , boy!” he growled. “There are very few things that can affect a core so strongly and from such a distance, and I’m sure you can figure out for yourself that none of them are good. There could be a dire threat right under our noses, and I for one would much rather get the jump on it than the other way around. I can imagine you’d like to do the same.”

Faint memories of the disquieting sensation of his core put out of rhythm bubbled in his chest. Even now, hours later, he couldn’t tell if the dull unease that had settled in the center of his chest was a true remnant of earlier events or simply the results of an overreaction. And if Vlad had felt it too… “What could’ve done it?” he asked quietly. No more games.

Vlad sighed, and the fire in his eyes died away. “Like I said, there are very few natural forces that could have such an effect on a core. After all, it’s impossible for a ghost to have the power to interfere with another ghost’s core from a distance.”

“Wait, really?” He… admittedly hadn’t known that. 

“There’s a reason why ghosts with parasitic natures must make direct contact with their victim. Or why spectral healers always interact directly with a patient’s core. They must physically handle it in order to have any real effect.”

Huh. Well, that would explain some of the more… invasive portions of checkups with Frostbite and Flurryfoot. “They can still use technology and stuff, though, right?”

He was vaguely aware of Sam and Tucker, still standing off to the side, watching with barely restrained interest. If there was one thing he could never quite explain to them well enough, one thing they just could never understand, it had to be ghost cores and all the complexities that accompanied them. They probably had just as many questions as he did, if not more.

“Yes,” Vlad answered, “although such technology would have to be extremely complex. And information on other natural tools and forces and spells to interact with cores has been lost to history, or has been classified as forbidden knowledge by the Ancient Council.”

“So, then you think it wasn’t a ghost?”

Vlad hummed and took a few steps closer to the closed portal. His eyes narrowed as he contemplated the hazard-striped doors. “I’m not completely discounting the possibility. Not all ghosts are beholden to the superstitions associated with interfering with a core. It wouldn’t be impossible for someone to get a hold of an artifact, or perhaps a healer’s instrument. Difficult, yes, but not impossible. But that’s why I wanted to ask about Jack and Maddie’s latest projects. It’s also possible that they created something that could’ve had the same effect, whether they intended to or not.”

Danny hesitated for a moment. “I mean, Dad’s had a few new projects, but I’m pretty sure they’re all ecto-guns of some sort. At least, I think.”

“Well, I wouldn’t put it past Jack to bumble his way into something so destructive.” He eyed Danny critically. “You’re sure they haven’t been working on anything else?”

Ignore the cheap shot, Fenton . Danny nodded. He hesitated again, then asked, “I - you don’t think… the Guys in White could’ve done it, do you?”

Vlad’s response wasn’t immediate. That was the farthest thing from reassuring. “My sources within the organization lately have been… inconsistent, at best. I’m still working on getting more reliable means of collecting information on the inside.”

“You mean doing more spying?” Sam accused.

He shot her a wry smile. “Would you rather have no information on them at all?”

For a moment, she was uncharacteristically speechless. “Well, I - I don’t… it’s not like Tucker hasn’t been able to get into their system before…”

“And I suppose it’s somehow morally correct for you to spy on them?”

Sam’s face flushed red, and she slowly closed her mouth.

Vlad regarded her with a smug look. “I believe my point has been made. Anyway,” he turned back to Danny, “my best estimates indicate that the GIW are not capable of creating such a technology at this time. But… I would be foolish to completely count them out of the picture.”

Danny blew out a breath. Right. This was information he could deal with. He’d handled the GIW before. It wasn’t like the prospect of the GIW having technology that could affect cores from a distance was loads more terrifying than the prospect of a ghost having that power.

No, nothing like that at all.

“So wait, if neither of you knows what happened, what are we supposed to do?” Tucker asked. “Sit around and wait till whoever it was decides to try and do it again?”

“You are more than welcome to do that, if that’s your attitude.” Vlad didn’t take his eyes off the portal he’d returned to studying. “ I plan on investigating the matter further. I for one am not too keen on allowing someone to galavant around prying into my core. If you’re alright with that, I suppose that’s your prerogative.”

“Look, if you’re just gonna antagonize my friends, then the only thing you’ll be investigating is my fist in your face,” Danny snapped. The day’s events had long since worn his patience down, and now the potential threat of the Guys in White having something that could mess with him so badly only frayed his nerves further. Maybe he’d been able to tolerate a bit more of the banter earlier, but not now.

Vlad merely glanced at Danny, unfazed. “I suppose you wouldn’t be interested in collaborating our efforts then, hmm?”

“When have I ever been interested in working with you?”

It was then that Danny’s core pulled .

A silent gasp tore at his throat as he fell to his knees and the same feeling that had overwhelmed him earlier that morning once again flooded his body. Somewhere in the corner of his mind, he was vaguely aware of Sam and Tucker rushing over to him and Vlad doubling over. If any of them were saying anything, he couldn’t hear over the rushing roar of white noise that filled his ears. 

The only thing he could truly focus on was the agonizingly piercing sensation of his core being ripped away from him. Whether it was actually being torn out of his chest, he couldn’t tell, but he couldn’t help but feel the panic well up inside him that someone had actually taken hold of it and was trying to claw it out, determined to do so at any cost. It was too much. Too much .

I need… I need…

A scream echoed in his mind. This time, it was undeniable.

Except it wasn’t a scream of fear, or a scream of pain, like he would’ve anticipated. This was a wail of anguish, the kind that came from a refugee seeing their home go up in flames and ash. Or from parents who’d just found out their child had died.

Was it his own?

And just as quickly as it had come on, the feeling faded. The hold around his core eased, and his senses slowly returned. Ragged breaths blew his sweat soaked bangs out of his eyes. Nausea swirled ominously in his stomach. Please don’t throw up again , he begged himself, but the irregular rhythm his core had settled into and the feverish warmth washing over him didn’t help those prospects.

He opened his eyes (when had he closed them?) to find himself face down on the linoleum of the lab floor. Sam and Tucker each had a hand on him; their worry filled the air with a pungent taste. With a weak groan, he turned his head so his cheek rested against the floor, and he was surprised to see Vlad’s shoes fill his vision. The older hybrid also hovered over him, apparently having recovered from his own episode faster than Danny.

One of the hands on his shoulders shook him vigorously. “Danny, please ,” Sam was pleading. Her voice was thick with concern.

“Easy,” Vlad said. He still sounded like he was trying to catch his breath. “Give him space.”

If Danny could’ve moved his arm more than a few inches, he would’ve swatted it at Vlad. The last thing he needed right now was the fruitloop’s phony concern. “Lee m’lone,” he slurred. Maybe it was slightly childish, but he couldn’t be bothered to care.

Especially with that scream still echoing in his ears.

“Why was… whatever that was way worse for him and not you?” Tucker asked, a frantic edge creeping into his voice. 

Vlad didn’t answer right away. Instead, he stood up and walked out of Danny’s range of sight. A second later, he heard Vlad digging around in one of his parent’s storage fridges. “Where does he keep the supplements he takes?”

There was a slight hesitation from his friends. Danny didn’t need to see to know the two of them had some sort of silent exchange (the surge of the sweeter flavor of their loyalty to him told him as much).

“Most of it is in his room,” Sam finally admitted after whatever unspoken conversation they had. 

A heavy sigh came from Vlad’s direction. “ Where in his room?” he asked. “I’ll go get it.”

“Yeah, fat chance,” Tucker scoffed, standing up. “Like we’d let you have free reign in his room. I’ll go get it. You can just stay right there, where Sam can keep an eye on you.” And Danny , came the implied addition.

As the thud of his boots disappeared up the steps, Sam helped Danny into a sitting position. “You’re warm again,” she murmured as she propped his back up against her shoulder.

“Tell m’somethin’ I don’ know.” Well, at least he hadn’t sounded like a wasted frat boy in front of his whole gym class. Brady Ibarra definitely wouldn’t have let him live that down.

Ugh. An ice bath sounded so good right then. Like the one Frostbite had let him take in their bathhouse that one time, with the silky cold water and the swirls of ectoplasm and the yummy smelling bubbles…

Sam fixed Vlad with a hard glare. “So? You gonna answer the question or what? Because I’m starting to think it’s awfully convenient that somehow Danny’s a heck of a lot worse off than you.”

Vlad pinched the bridge of his nose, and Danny got the sense that he’d been thrown off by the episode more than he cared to let on. “Honestly, girl, what would I have to gain by subjecting myself to this? I could achieve the same ends with far more direct measures,” he bit out.

That much was probably true. Vlad could be very underhanded, but in Danny’s experience, those underhanded techniques got used way more often when he played his mind games. When he was out for blood (or ectoplasm), he tended to get straight to the point.

Not to mention Vlad was definitely not the kind of man to purposefully put himself into this vulnerable of a position.

Vulnerable . Why couldn’t he have thought of that word earlier? 

“But do y’know why?” Danny asked quietly. Any accusation he might’ve mustered before had evaporated as soon as his core had been pulled on again. Vlad might be a dirty, morally gray jerk of a man, but he really couldn’t imagine his archenemy going to such unthinkable lengths just to get at him. Sure, torturing, undermining democracy, and cloning weren’t off the table, but messing with cores was too far.

He just wanted to know what was happening at this point.

Vlad’s eyes bore into his. A reproachful twinkle reflected off of the man’s pupils, but something else danced behind them. Could that be… concern? Care?

“I’m afraid not,” he finally admitted, matching Danny’s volume. “Not without knowing the source of the disturbance.”

“That’s reassuring,” Sam said under her breath. 

A single red spark flickered at Vlad’s fingertip. “Believe it or not, I am not all-knowing. For all we know, the explanation could be as simple as Daniel having a younger core than I. His has not had the same amount of time to develop as mine has had.”

Tucker came thundering down the steps, a water bottle plastered with the NASA logo in hand. “I couldn’t find any of the vials,” he said in between gasps for breath. “I think this should have enough in it.”

Danny took the bottle with a grateful smile and began guzzling it down. Like before, the effects of the ectoplasm were practically instant. With a new surge of energy, he adjusted himself so he wasn’t leaning against Sam any more. That was better.

“Not so fast, little badger,” Vlad said, plucking the bottle out of Danny’s grasp, much to the disappointment of the latter. “These are the supplements you normally take, yes?”

“Yeah, and? Buy your own if you want some that bad.” Ah, there was the return of that Fenton fire.

Vlad merely rolled his eyes in response. He took an empty vial off one of the lab tables and rinsed it out before pouring a little bit of the bottle’s contents in it. “Trust me, my boy, you’ll thank me later. There is no reason you should need to drink a whole bottle in one sitting.” He handed the bottle back to Danny.

“I don’t drink it all in one go,” he grumbled, but he accepted it and took another sip.

“I want to analyze the makeup of this concentration,” Vlad continued, as if Danny hadn’t said anything. “For one, I can help you find a stronger blend to help you receive the same effect in a much smaller dose. No more need to chug ectoplasm like some uncultured animal.”

Danny nearly choked on his sip of ectoplasm, and Sam snapped, “Better an ‘uncultured animal’ than a creep who picks fights with a teenager.”

Danny rested a hand on Sam’s shin and, despite his core’s discomfort, tried to channel some of his cooler energy to her to counter Vlad’s heated aura beginning to encroach on them. It was a trick he’d picked up from Clockwork after having it used against him more than once: redirecting his intake of emotional energy into an output to help influence the environment around him. He tried to avoid using it on his friends and family too often (getting used to the idea of eating their emotions was bad enough, let alone intentionally influencing them), but he was definitely not in the mood to get into any sort of fight.

Questionable or not, it seemed to work. Sam’s muscles released their tension under his hand, and he vaguely felt Vlad’s aura retreat a touch. Which was a relief. He didn’t know if his core could handle much more at the moment.

“As I was saying,” the older hybrid said tightly, apparently trying to keep his own anger under control, “even if it’s heavily diluted, it’s clear that this specific concentration does seem to have a strong positive effect on you, in the wake of the interference with your core. If I can reverse engineer this formula and test it against samples of your energy, I might be able to narrow down a possible explanation as to what is causing this interference, or at least how to better counteract it.”

“Why would you do that? Why not just study your own stuff?” Tucker asked.

“Daniel and I are two different people,” Vlad replied easily. “Much like each human has their own, unique genetic makeup, the core makeup of each ghost is unique to that ghost. I could test my own energy to narrow down the possibilities, and I fully intend to do so, but that wouldn’t do much in terms of helping Daniel.”

“Wait, what?” Danny blinked in surprise. “You actually want to help me?”

Danny’s interjection caught Vlad off guard. He looked up from the glowing vial with wide eyes. An instant later, they glazed over with his usual air of confidence, but the initial reaction was unmistakable.

“Why so shocked?” he said with a bonafide chuckle. A chuckle . If that didn’t prove he’d been thrown off, even if just for a moment, then nothing would. “You do realize you are far more valuable to me safe and healthy than you are harmed, do you? What good would any of my plans be if something happened to you?”

Danny narrowed his eyes the tiniest bit. The comeback had been too… normal. Something wasn’t right about it. Still, out of some far-fetched desperation to keep this from becoming weirder than it already had, he scoffed and said, “That’s rich coming from the guy who’s beat me up more than practically anyone else in the Realms.”

If Vlad didn’t want to share with the class, then whatever. He didn’t have the patience to squeeze the truth out of him.

“It’s all been for your own good, dear boy,” Vlad said, putting a stopper in the vial. “One day, you’ll understand.”

“ So many creep alarms going off right now,” Sam said under her breath. Danny chose to ignore the comment. Fruitloops were gonna fruitloop.

With a flourish of black light, Masters became Plasmius. “I expect to hear of any developments you may encounter,” he said, looking at each of the teens in turn. Of course, his eyes lingered on Danny the longest. Maybe Sam had a point about the creep thing.

“Bold of you to assume we’ll just tell you things.” Danny folded his arms across his chest. Did he look as confident as he hoped? Probably not, but at least he wasn’t slurring his speech anymore. Seeing Plasmius always managed to stir the decidedly ghostlier part of him that pushed him to start posturing, trying to make himself seem like more of a threat than he truly was. He couldn’t help it.

He didn’t like it.

Vlad raised an eyebrow. “Believe me, Daniel, this is not a situation in which you want to shun my services. I highly suggest reconsidering.”

Reconsidering? Had he even made a decision? 

Why was Vlad even being so intense about this anyway?

Well, he kind of had an idea. Vlad wanted to see to it that this hole in his defenses was dealt with quickly. That had to be it, right? When had Vlad ever been one to just leave a potential weakness sitting out there?

Danny met Tucker’s eyes. The latter looked unsure about the entire situation, but gave Danny a tentative shrug. Whatever you think is best, man , Danny could practically hear him say.

He turned to look at Sam next. She had a much stronger eye of suspicion than Tucker, and it was clear from the look on her face that she didn’t want anything to do with Vlad. Part of Danny wanted her to argue with him, try to convince him that this was a horrible idea.

Instead, the hardness in her jaw softened just the slightest, and she closed her eyes. For you , she seemed to say. I’m only willing to do this to help you .

With a resolved sigh, Danny returned his gaze to Plasmius’. “If we work together on this, and you stab us in the back,” he threatened, “I’ll drag you back to the Observants’ Tribunal myself. They still have it out for you for releasing Vortex, you know.”

“Then I think you’ll find yourself pleasantly surprised.” Vlad smiled, revealing his sharp fangs. “Oh, and Daniel? You say that thinking you’d be able to keep me down long enough to bring me there.” With a cackle and a sweep of his cape, he disappeared out of the lab.

Danny’s shoulders dropped as soon as he felt the presence of Vlad’s core fade away. “Stupid, cocky fruitloop,” he muttered, staggering to his feet. Sam grabbed his elbow to steady him.

“Was anything about that weird for anyone else?” Tucker asked. “Like Vlad ? Wanting to work with us ?”

“You know he’s doing it just to get at Danny!” Sam exploded. She must’ve really been working to hold her tongue while Vlad had still been there. “He probably thinks he’ll be able to convince you that you’re better off with him or something. I’m still not convinced that he’s not just faking it and doing something to Danny behind all our backs!”

Danny bit his lip. Something had been off about Vlad, and like he’d already deduced, he knew why , especially since his own reasoning was similar, but could Sam and Tucker understand? Could they understand how terrifying it felt to have the looming threat of this unseen force, just waiting, primed and ready to seize his core again and try and rip it from him? Would they get that every ghostly instinct of his was screaming at him to run and hide somewhere in the Zone where no one would be able to touch his core, where he could protect this side of himself from being so brutally violated?

No. They were only human. They couldn’t understand.

Probably the thing that sucked the most about the only other person like you (other than your clone) being your worst enemy.

“Even if he tries,” he chose to say, “it won’t work. You know that.”

“Yeah… I know…” Sam sighed, and her posture drooped. It suddenly struck Danny how emotionally exhausting this all had to be for her, too. For both her and Tucker. This was the second time in 12 hours that they’d just seen him go through some sort of terrifying episode. He had no clue what happened outside of his own body during those episodes. The thought that he could be at fault for scaring them so badly made him feel sick all over again.

Without thinking, he grabbed a hand from each of them. When they looked at him in surprise, he offered them as warm of a smile as he could muster. “Hey. I promise, alright? It’ll be okay. We’re not gonna let some old man get the best of us.”

Tucker reacted much faster than Sam. He grinned and squeezed Danny’s hand. “True that. Besides, if he decides to turn heel, then I’ve still got some payback I’ve been waiting to give for those anti-tech laws he tried to pass when he first got elected. He’ll find out security at City Hall isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.”

Sam eventually smiled as well, though the concern was far more evident in her face. “That’s assuming there’s anything left after I get done with him,” she said with a weak laugh. She met Danny’s eyes and squeezed his hand too.

A metallic knock echoed through the lab.

The three friends turned their heads all in different directions. “What the heck?” Danny craned his neck to look up the stairwell. “I thought that door up there was wood.”

“But the tables are metal,” Sam said. She swiped a random ecto-rifle from the table closest to her. “So are the fridge doors.”

“Yeah, and so’s that,” Tucker said. His voice had turned uneasy, and when Danny turned to look, he had a finger pointed at the closed portal doors.

A familiar tingle worked its way up from his core and into his throat. “Grab a weapon,” Danny ordered, to which Tucker happily obliged. He himself called forth a healthy buildup of green energy.

He tried to ignore the uncomfortable flutter that came from his core as a result.

He pressed a cautious thumb into the Fenton Genetic Lock, and the hydraulics in the portal doors began to hiss as the mechanisms opened. Otherworldly green light spilled into the lab as the doors inched apart. Danny became hyper-aware of Sam’s finger tensing against the trigger of her rifle, of Tucker’s shallow breathing, of the bluish mist seeping through his lips. Right there . It was…

A woman’s head poked through the portal.

“Oh!” she exclaimed when she saw the three teens with their attacks primed. “Am I interrupting something?”

Danny’s energy fizzled out around his hand. “Uh…”

The ghost’s burgundy colored eyes landed on him, and her face split into a wide smile. “Ah, perfect!” She stepped the rest of the way through the portal and made a beeline for Danny, dropping to her knees at his feet. 

“What is even happening right now,” Sam said.

“O, Danny Fenton-Phantom of the Mortal Realm, Pariah’s Bane, brave warrior and favored ally of Her Ladyship, Pandora of Asphodel,” the woman recited, “an audience has been requested of you by my Lady Pandora and Chief Frostbite of the Far Frozen. They require your presence at once!”

The three friends stared in stunned silence at her bowed form.

“Do you think this counts as a development?” Tucker asked.

[swallowerofdharma]

Over Casca’s naked body

Part one: A long premise

We can’t escape from our geopolitical context even when we are reading manga. We have internalized a good amount of beliefs, values, practices, even regulations from our lived experiences and various simulacra we have been exposed to, especially those in an audiovisual form.

If you grew up in the US, you know that freedom of speech is a core value there. But, while you can say mostly whatever you want within your own country, the US constitution has given the government the right to regulate what comes in from abroad. [1]

And that power has been used. Idealistically, greater access to common technologies even before the internet should have seen a redistribution of the media-creating capacity to many foreign countries outside of the US, so that people could tell their stories. But that hasn’t always been the case, with some exceptions, especially if we consider the biggest narratives that reached global popularity.

During the Cold War, anything that might be considered “communist propaganda” could be seized by the Post Office and never delivered. Books or even souvenirs from communist countries, for instance. Pamphlets criticizing US foreign policy. (…) Obviously it wasn’t totally like North Korea, plenty of foreign movies and music were allowed into the US. But the media that caught on was either already Americanized, or so plastically exotic that it doesn’t really say anything about the culture where it is from. The Beatles were British, but they got their start covering American rock and roll musicians. When John Lennon stepped out of the line, the American government made sure that he knew it. Movies imported from Japan were mostly samurai flicks, with very few movies set in the modern day. The film Ikiru is widely considered the best Japanese film ever made (…) but this existential drama about a depressed lonely man was only given a limited release in California, and the poster was edited to feature a stripper who is only in the movie for one minute. The narrow stream of European movies that made into the USA came in the form of the French New Wave cinema, movies that were stylistically inspired by American films, but also so stuffy that few audiences would ever want to watch them anyway. This was further stifled by the Hays Code, a set of extremely strict regulations that were in place from 1934 to 1968. (…) Some things that were completely banned from ever being shown in any film included: bad guys winning. All movies must end with the police outwitting the evil criminals, or the criminals causing their own demise. Any nudity. (…) Blood or dead bodies. (…) Interracial couples. White people as slaves. Criticism of religion, or of any other country. Naturally this prevented the more artistically liberal European films from being shown in American cinemas and when they did get a release, they were usually edited (…). At least until the rules were abolished in 1968 and replaced by the age rating system we have today. [1]

Even after several decades of access to the internet and foreign cultures, some attitudes have been internalized and carried on. For example, I had direct experience of the ways my own culture has been perceived and stereotyped or interpreted in terms not dissimilar from the exotic. And the same happens to me probably if I don’t keep in check my own personal beliefs about cultures that have been presented to me in similar ways. And I was surprised to see by how deeply rooted and spread are certain attitudes towards punishment or violent retribution viewed as necessary, the policing and self policing, and the expression of judgments or condemnation, and all this can complicate the understanding of different forms of narratives and the acceptance of different cultural attitudes and norms, without the expression of any opinion about morality or legitimacy.

I am reminding you that this is a long premise because I evidently don’t have the gift of brevity but this article is about Berserk and Casca.

In 1956 Anna Magnani won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her first English-speaking role in the American movie The Rose Tattoo. In 1958 Miyoshi Umeki was the first Asian born actress to win an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in Sayonara, a movie that despite its title was an American drama starring Marlon Brando. It isn’t hard to see in these decisions from the Academy, or the ones that followed in other categories, the willingness to build relationships between the US and specific foreign countries where the American army had a massive presence and that after WWII were ideal places for American investors, considering significant rebuilding necessary after the loss in the war. The movie industry and everything around it had instrumental roles. When it comes to the Academy Award, it is very interesting to notice that the women were the first ones to be nominated, becoming ambassadors and facilitators of the reshaping of the images of Italy and Japan from enemies to new essential strategic allies in the Cold War. And here comes the problem of the exotic, because after several decades I still see similarities in the American perception of those foreign cultures, Italian and Japanese, to those easy and friendly and intentionally constructed imaginaries of that time. Take the press around Anna Magnani or Miyoshi Umeki for example. Terms are so widely used and repeated that they are still in their Wikipedia pages in English today. For what interests me here, I am going to quote or summarize parts of the video essay listed below as [2] but I really recommend watching it entirely. It really helped me understand some of the issues I am talking about here, but it is much more than just this. And there is footage worth the time. [I know that many people here on tumblr really dislike YouTube videos. I understand why, when it comes to manga and anime, written articles have still better quality and content, in my opinion, but there are also many video essayists doing their due diligence on several other topics. And when I am busy cooking I put them on].

In the 1950s one of the problem with the new alliance with Japan was the widespread hate and racism towards Japanese people.

The government stepped in, producing educational films meant to endear Japanese culture to Americans (…) They showed off Japanese industry, introduced Americans to sushi and sumo wrestling, explained the country’s new democratic system et cetera. (…) A lot of [musical] acts that were popular with American soldiers, specifically exoticized Asian girls bands, like the Kim sisters and the Tokyo Happycoats, come over to the US and appear on television as both entertainment and a sort of cultural ambassadors, not only demonstrating America’s cultural power and dominance by performing recognizable American tunes, but also signaling to white Americans that those cultures didn’t pose a threat. (…)

It’s worth looking at this film [Sayonara] as part of a larger theme in a very specific post war moment. Gina Marchetti points out in her book Romance and the yellow peril: «Between June 22, 1947, and December 31, 1952, 10517 American citizens, principally Armed Services Personnel, married Japanese women. Over 75% of the total Americans are Caucasian». Meaning, Japanese war brides and the concept of interracial marriages was very much a conversation. (…) Sayonara must be seen as one of many films which called for a new evaluation of Japan as an enemy nation. (…) Much of the way [Miyoshi Umeki] was discussed is probably exactly how you might expect. The language journalists used to describe her was unambiguously racialized and often condescending. In the aftermath of her Oscar win, for example, Louella Parsons called her «a lovely little bit of Japanese porcelain», adding: «What a cute little thing she was in her native costume». Still, her Japanese identity also seemed to serve as a symbol, an embodiment of the new friendly Japan. In Miyoshi, Americans would find an idealized portrait of reconciliation, a woman who bore no resentment over the war, a woman who brought homesick American troops to tears by singing White Christmas, who adored American pizza, who learned English by listening to American records. She was accepted because she actively appreciated and participated in American culture. [2]

The roles offered to Miyoshi Umeki are significant in many ways. After Sayonara, she was cast to play other Asian characters besides Japanese ones. One recurring theme in those movies in particular is the contrast between modernity and tradition.

William G. Hyland writes, Flower Drum Song is a «clash between the Americanized lifestyle of the young Chinese and the traditions of their parents». (…) Miyoshi Umeki plays Mei Lee, a Chinese stowaway who arrives in the US for an arranged marriage. The more Americanized she becomes the more independent, the more willing she is to strike out on her own. [Chang-Hee] Kim writes: «[Flower Drum Song] flamboyantly shows that Asians in America were ready and willing to cast off their heritage and become real Americans in repudiation of the pre-war racial consideration of Asians as permanent aliens». I mention this not only because it’s one of Miyoshi’s major roles, but also because this theme, a supposed enlightenment via westernization, occurs again and again in her filmography, particularly in her work on television. Han [?] writes «Umeki’s representation on television is in constant oscillation between her status as a subservient Asian woman and her transformation into an assertive, modern female professional who has achieved independence through American cultural influence». [2]

Bear with me for a little longer if you can, because we are at the point where, watching the video, I experienced that sensation better translated visually in a lightbulb being turned on. I am skipping here the presentation of the story and footage from Miyoshi’s first appearance on television in The Donna Reed Show, but I once again invite readers to watch the video, which features high quality original footage. I was really struck by the “sensitive way” the American woman - Donna Reed I presumed - approaches the character played by Miyoshi, as the writers back then were well aware of the sensitive racial implications, and nevertheless a certain mentality pushes thought. Watching still, it is easier to avoid the presumption that in the 1960s “they didn’t know better” or that contemporary attitudes have improved greatly, just because we are more careful about the language we use.

The thesis statement of this episode is not subtle. The rejection of traditional Japanese customs allows her to live more fully in a democracy. Of course it isn’t really much of a choice, is it. Maintaining the customs of your culture or risking alienating your entire community. She changes her clothes, puts on a hat and goes shopping because she is an American now. Obviously these stories are told from the white American perspective, where this rejection of tradition and culture is portrayed as unambiguously positive and relatively tension free. This was not the case in Japan where the relationship between modernity and tradition were richly explored in cinema, particularly in women’s films. [2]

I would like to add that the independence that Donna’s character shows is only possible because of a series of factors, including the fact that her husband secures her a higher level of comforts, in comparison with lower classes or non-white Americans, and that domestic work is presumably done by home electrical appliances or other women, especially when you add child care and looking after the elderly to the equation. The unwillingness to consider those types of labor, traditionally carried on by women, as of equal importance to any other jobs is rarely discussed when it comes to the issue of women’s emancipation. Not to mention how, alongside this idyllic world shown on television, in the same country large numbers of women have to deal with continuous push backs in the name of different traditional values that all the same prevent many of them from achieving true equality. Those types of conversation and conflicts between traditional and modern happens at the same time in many countries and in most cases translates to continuous negotiations and compromises carried by men and women in real contexts and real situations, without necessarily white American women being aware of it or of all the necessary nuances.

Let me add this last element of conclusion about Miyoshi Umeki’s story.

In 2018 her son told Entertainment Weekly that in the 1970s she etched out her name on her Oscar and then threw the trophy away. Although he isn’t sure exactly why she did it he said: «She told me, I know who I am and I know what I did. It was a point of hers to teach me a lesson that the material things are not who she was». What Miyoshi Umeki achieved is pretty remarkable but one can’t help but feel that she could probably have done a lot more if she’d been allowed to move beyond her identity. [2]

Part two: Are we reading the same manga?

After considering all this, and more that I can possibly include in here to avoid this being even lengthier, I can’t help but wonder about the generalizations I have seen repeated vastly about portrayals of women in Japanese media, as well as misunderstanding of cultural attitudes towards nudity or the treatment of sensitive topics like sexuality and rape. There is a diffuse certain sense of entitlement, sometimes you can hear a condescending tone even, and this isn’t limited to the US. But why approach a foreign culture with a patronizing attitude instead of trying to understand the context more deeply? So many manga readers are willing to ask for clarification on translations, but not many ask about the context or the visual aspects involved in manga writing. I like to read analysis about different topics, so I look for them in English too because they are very numerous and easily accessible, but when it comes to the critique about the portrayal of women in too many cases I have to click away because of too many bias or that subtle sense of superiority of judgment. Berserk has become easily accessible and more and more popular but it is so greatly misunderstood at various degrees by a lot of its western readers - me included - and I really wanted to understand what is preventing, in most cases, a textual and contextual analysis.

The Hays Code hasn’t been around since 1968 but the sentiment that the only proper conclusion for every story is the triumph of the good guys and the punishment for the wicked is very much alive and well. There is this conviction that the only clever readers are those able to separate the heroes from the villains, or the good deeds from evil, and root for the right side to achieve retribution and satisfaction. The Hays Code hasn’t been enforced officially but it’s there in essence and every counter narrative has been rendered almost ineffective or judged poorly. As for the treatment of women, I don’t feel like we can honestly and surely compare or scrutinize Japanese media under special lenses. Nudity in comic books seems to me to be very common outside of Japan too, depending on censorship rules. I certainly notice how frequently Casca is shown naked or has been threatened with sexual violence, but I also notice that she isn’t the only one. The exaggeration of Guts’ muscles and the mutilation of his body are largely put on display. Griffith is intentionally shown fully naked, or completely covered by an elaborate armor, and he is subjected to many threats of physical and sexual violence as well. Charlotte is shown naked, but always in her bedroom, in a private environment or with a transparent cloth or a sheet of some kind to make her nudity different from the occasions when Casca’s body is publicly displayed. I am careful with my own thoughts when I read Berserk, I take the time to analyze my reactions and what I am feeling in these situations. I think that this is the reason that certain books or media are intentionally aimed to adults. I don’t feel a necessity to call to censorship or to give guidance of a moral kind but rather to make the necessary reflections. And I can’t imagine how someone can understand the story without taking their time with it. Part three: Casca’s rape

In 1973 the animation studio Mushi Production released a film called Belladonna of Sadness. I haven’t seen it yet but I know a little about it and I am planning to watch it when I feel like I can do it without being affected in a bad way. It is well known that Miura remembered this film when he designed the Eclipse. In 1975 Pier Paolo Pasolini directed the film Salò or the 120 Days of Sodom, which I strongly don’t recommend to the casual viewer or anyone who felt even slightly offended by Berserk. Suffice to say that in a particular political climate and in the context of the sexual revolution of the late 1960s, in the 1970s nudity and sexuality were at the forefront of the debate and human bodies were exhibited in a symbolic way that can be misunderstood today without knowledge of the context. Gender expression was questioned and men grew their hair or refused to wear suits or to follow rigid dress codes regardless of their sexual orientation. Sexual acts were considered political acts in ways that aren’t comparable with today for many reasons. The languages, the words and the visuals we use are ever changing and actual for a moment and gone the next one or misunderstood. Many words used by queer people in the 1970s wouldn’t be received well today, because the context has been transformed. For what I understand, in films like Belladonna of Sadness and Salò rape and cruelty are preeminently used as symbols because rape and cruelty presented in a direct visual form effect greatly any type of audience and can’t go unnoticed. The sociopolitical climate in the 1970s, in the middle of the Cold War, was particularly violent, both in Italy and Japan, and the art of the time can be remarkably bleak. [Go Nagai’s Devilman was published between 1972 and 1973, Osamu Tezuka’s MW was published between 1976 and 1978, Takemiya Keiko’s Kaze to Ki no Uta was also published between 1976 and 1984].

Kentarō Miura was born in 1966, he breathed the air and grew up in that same climate and was influenced and informed by it, especially later, when he finds himself as a young man in the renewed bleakness of the 1990s. It is likely that he saw Belladonna of Sadness when he was old enough, when he started to develop the story of Berserk, and after being greatly influenced by Nagai’s Devilman. The number of sources of inspirations that Miura used for Berserk is vast, varied and multidimensional and includes books and novels and films of various genres (historical, fantasy, horror, sci-fi in particular) manga, foreign comics books, and traditional art. It is often pointed out among fans that he was also a big fan of Star Wars. Pop Culture Detective released a very interesting video essay called Predatory Romance in Harrison Ford Movies [3] that brought to my attention many things that I didn’t notice or thought about when I was seeing those films myself as a young girl [I am more or less a decade younger than Miura fyi]. Analyzing Star Wars, Indiana Jones or Blade Runner with particular attention to the relationship between the male lead, Ford, and women is an interesting exercise and helps to re-contextualize our judgment about the treatment of women across different media with arguably less reach than Star Wars. I am not inviting anyone to make comparisons and ranking which is better, or absolve Miura because he was influenced by the context around him as everyone else, but I am asking to let go of the presumption that Japanese media in particular presents problematic attitudes towards women by default. The problems are much more generalized than we’d probably like. Better analysis or methodologies are needed to make a proper assessment, and we really shouldn’t assume by default that manga (for boys and men) equals bad treatment of women.

I hope that someone is still reading after such a long time. I didn’t know how to make my point on Casca without at least presenting some of these considerations. I must say I have understood myself better, having questioned why I was feeling uncomfortable when reading Casca but not offended. I understood that Miura wanted me to feel that way, uncomfortable, horrified, and I can appreciate Berserk better [in particular as a person that wasn’t permitted to live in a female body without a certain type of violence].

As stated previously, I noticed that Casca is more exposed and shown in all her vulnerability in much extreme situations: to multiple men in very public displays, like on the battlefield or at the center of the circle of Apostles in the Eclipse. She is also shown naked and vulnerable in other moments, especially alone with Guts. Those intimate moments with Guts, during the Golden Age, are instrumental for the readers to see her in all her humanity, without the armor, or the female dress, in order to build an emotional connection with her. In the cave, Casca makes herself emotionally vulnerable in front of Guts for the first time and tells him her story, exposing her past, her goals and her true self. She tells him things about Grittith too, things that are meant to show Guts/the readers Griffith as much naked, vulnerable and human as she is. Let’s pay attention and try to recollect Guts’ reactions to her story: he is listening to her, but he is embarrassed, distracted and attracted by her nudity and he fails to see Griffith as a human being, potentially fallible and not much different from Casca or himself. Guts also fails to take away from the story the original message, something more than Casca’s infatuation with Griffith as part of her being a woman. Comparing Guts’ reactions to Casca’s nakedness, his recollections or focus on the conversation, what he takes from it and what he doesn’t: a big part of the male readership of Berserk is probably in his same situation. It isn’t till later by the waterfall, that we see Casca alone with Guts again in an intimate way. This time he is naked and vulnerable and completely exposed too. This time through the physical connection between the two, within the sexual act, Guts can’t hide himself anymore, can’t deflect from his past and his fears. I assume that that is an important moment for the male readership to start to feel emotionally invested in the connection between Guts and Casca. That emotional connection and the investment in the relationship helps them to see Casca as a human being through the Eclipse and if that didn’t work then they still can see and feel the horror of the rape of Casca through Guts. Because Miura didn’t want anyone to enjoy that scene or to be sexually aroused without at least the horror and the moral objection to it.

Casca is a woman of color, born in a disadvantaged family and community, that ended up in a mercenary group without achieving the things she wanted, never fully belonging and constantly threatened by groups of men on the enemy side with forms of violence specifically targeted and unnecessary cruel. And everything she goes through culminates or goes back to the Eclipse - before and after - and that should be taken as completely symbolic. Like the multiple instances of rape in Pasolini’s Salò, the innocent, poor and exploitable youth is violated by those in power or those who are in charge. Gambino decides that Guts is expendable or due a lesson in humility, he takes the money and coldly facilitates Guts’ rape. Gennon is rich and powerful and pretends to recreate his fantasy, a sick version of Greek ped*philia. And all he does is using money and power to horrifically exploit the youth and Griffith offers himself up and loses a fundamental part of himself in the process. But the most cruel thing in Berserk is Griffith surrendering to the call of power and doing the same thing to Casca, in the absence of lust or desire: the corruption that has been in him - and has reached Guts as well - has spread. Griffith’s surrender to the call of power, and his intolerance for more of his own pain, silences all empathy in him.

In conclusion, nudity has various narrative functions, beside the suggestion of the erotic: through each character’s naked body, male or female, we see their vulnerability and their fundamental humanity [and if I remember correctly in contrast the rapists are always dressed or covered]. And rape has a symbolic meaning, beside the literal one and the psychological exploration of trauma. Violence but in particular sexual violence is one of the most estreme and powerful tools that can be used in stories [especially in visual media], but unfortunately the overuse of it in an edulcorate format, or as a tease, or devoid of any meaning, has ceased to call for disgust and challenge us to think, has perhaps lessen the impact and the gravity around it. In the 1970s Pasolini saw the dark side of the sexual revolution and how the rich and powerful were willing to build economic empires just to have access to the youth and to the most beautiful women. But he wasn’t the only one. We should reconsider Belladonna of Sadness and the original meaning of those themes in films or later in manga like Berserk and think about it deeply and seriously and not approach every piece of art as entertainment.

Videography:

How America got so Stupid [1]

Miyoshi Umeki: The First East Asian Woman to Win an Acting Oscar [2]

Predatory Romance in Harrison Ford Movies [3]

[agirlwithdemonblood]

The Broken Fan - Chapter 4

Pairings: Jensen Ackles & Reader (Read as first person!)

Series Summary: Always a nobody, always invisible, will this convention change things?

Chapter Summary: Everything goes wrong, way too fast.

Warnings: Panic attack, anxiety, mentions of drinking, mentions of bar, swearing, scared Jensen, Panickedreader! Mean girls!

Series Masterlist here! Main masterlist here!

Today was the day.

Everybody was excited to attend the signing, to have at least a few minutes with Jensen and Jared, their very own meet and greet.

I wondered how people would react if they were in my shoes last night, if they happened to crash into Jensen and be invited in for a drink. Would they freak out like I did? Would they blow their shot in under 20 minutes?

I didn’t know how to feel about seeing Jensen again after last night, considering I left fairly quickly I hope he didn’t dread seeing me today.

Mainly, my nerves were at an all time high at the unknown but I couldn’t pass on this opportunity, I couldn’t waste anymore chances at being normal, not again.

Everybody was already lining up when I entered the hotel lobby, two straight long lines nearly beside each other. I looked ahead and spotted Jensens table on the right, Jared’s on the left.

I hesitated, wondering which table to go to. If I went to Jared’s than Jensen may think I’m avoiding him or I didn’t like him in the first place. If I went in Jensen’s though it may look like I’m either a stalker, or it will be super awkward.

I stepped in Jared’s line and frowned. It didn’t feel right being here, wrong choice. As soon as I crossed and stepped into Jensen’s line, I felt a calm rush wave over me and I nearly rolled my eyes.

Okay, I guess this is where I’m staying.

I felt a tap on my shoulder and I jumped, before turning to face Vanessa and Amber, the two girls from day 1. My smile faded when I noticed the scowl on their faces and their eyes judging me to the core.

“Hi Y/N. How was your night in your car?” Vanessa spoke harshly. I bit my tongue and plastered on a poker face, “It was fine but I can’t wait to get home.”

She rolled her eyes towards Amber and laughed before I turned around, I don’t really know what their problem is with me today but at this point I didn’t care. I was becoming excited to see him again, and hopefully make up for last night.

I clutched the Supernatural journal I had in my hands and sighed in relief when the line started moving. Jensen was so close yet so far, I could see how gorgeous he looked again, laughing and smiling, interacting with everybody so kindly and patiently. It was heartwarming to see him like this.

My cheeks heated as I watched him, noticing the way his tongue peaked out when he was writing his name, eyeing the firm flex of his arms while he signed, and god, the way his eyes shined-it was all too much. He was too much.

“So Y/N.” Amber chimed in my ear, nearly giving me a heart attack. I rolled my eyes and turned in her direction.

She smiled smugly, “We saw you at the bar last night. We were going to say hi but I guess you were too occupied hanging out with Jensen and Jared.”

I froze in my spot as my eyes widened. Vanessa smirked and stepped closer until she was inches from my face. “Are you seriously trying to con your way into Jensen’s life? Stalker much?”

“I’m… not trying to do anything. He invited me for a drink.” I whispered nearly inaudibly.

A harsh laugh escaped Vanessa as her eyes narrowed. “Do you really think we are going to believe that Jensen had any interest in hanging out with a homeless chick?”

Panic. Fear. Regret.

“W-What?” I stuttered back.

Amber nodded and stepped closer to me, “We saw your car outside. You’ve clearly been living there for a long time, maybe forever. Not so much a traveller as a hobo, am I right?”

My mouth gaped open and shut, my vision started to blur as the panic set in.

She knew. They both knew. And they were using it against me. I knew I couldn’t be normal here. I knew I would be the outcast. Stupid, so stupid!

I was trembling in place, heart pounding in my ears and my mouth was so dry. The panic has officially set in and I needed to get out of here.

Before I had a chance to turn and run, one of the handlers placed their hand on my shoulder and urged me towards the table. Great, my turn.

I could barely see Jensen or anything in front of me as my vision went in and out, but I could tell he was staring at me, probably judging too.

But as soon as I stood in spot, I could feel his hand rest on top of mine shooting me straight back to reality. I looked up into his eyes and finally saw him.

He looked… scared. Concerned. Worried.

He leaned closer, “Y/N? Are you okay?”

I took a deep breath and wiped the sweat off my forehead. “W-what?”

He swallowed hard. “I asked if you were okay. You don’t look so good…”

I smiled softly and nodded, trying my best to keep it together and just breathe. “Yeah, I’m fine sorry.”

He didn’t look convinced but I didn’t care. Fake it till you make it right? He smiled sadly and looked up, “What would you like me to sign?”

I nodded and took out my journal before passing it towards him. He opened it and froze, staring down at whatever he was looking at with a shocked expression.

“Oh shit what is it?” I questioned causing him to laugh. He turned to notebook towards me and I saw what his eyes caught, a not so good drawing I did of him when I was bored and having a particularly hard night.

“I forgot that was in there.”

He smiled and looked up at me, his eyes shining and staring intensely into mine just like he always did. “I love it.. did you do this?”

My cheeks warmed and I could feel the air seeping through once again, “Yeah, I did.”

“Wow.. Can I.. have it?” He questioned.

I tilted my head quizzically, “You want it?”

“Of course I do” he started “This is amazing.”

A smile erupted on my face as I grabbed the journal and carefully ripped out the page for him, and suddenly I forgot I was even panicking, I was lost in the moment with him, stuck in this warm bubble where nothing could ever hurt me.

He started to sign the journal, his eyes flicking up towards me causing my cheeks to burn. "Nice shirt, I haven't seen that one in a while."

I looked down and smirked, staring at the Dean Winchester mug shot I luckily found right before the convention but he didn't need to know that.

"Oh yeah, I've had this for years. I love it."

His head lifted up, a cocky grin spread across his lips. "Love it because it's me?"

I laughed as the blush deepened, "Meh, It was the only one I could get my hands on at the time, I wanted one of Jared to be honest."

His mouth dropped before a chuckle erupted from his throat, the most beautiful sound i've ever heard. "Oof, harsh. Here I was thinking you were a Dean girl after meeting me."

I shrugged and put on my best poker face. "Nah, I'm more of a Jensen girl." My heart fell into my stomach as soon as the words fell out, and before I could apologize for my idiotic flirty comment, he leaned backwards and covered his mouth as laughter came pouring out.

I quickly joined in laughter, hoping that my cheeks didn't look as red as they felt, but knowing my luck he could probably tell. He leaned forward and placed his hand on my notebook like a wall, shielding whatever he was writing down.

Such a beautiful bubble, so warm and comfy, I never wanted to leave. But of course, all good things come to an end.

Two rough fingers tapped my shoulders as the bubble I was in popped, bringing me back to reality. Vanessa smiled harshly and stepped closer, "So sorry to interrupt, but Y/N your car... I mean your house is being towed. Figured I should let you know before you have to sleep in the street. Although, i'm sure that's still not unusual for you."

I was paralized as I stared back at Vanessa, all the sounds around me was echoing before completly fading as I was pulled into panic mode. I turned towards Jensen in what felt like slow motion, watching him stand from his spot, hand touching my arm but I couldn't even feel it.

He shook my arm and everything came back at once, "Y/N? Hey, are you okay?"

I looked back towards the girls who were staring, laughing. It felt like everybody was laughing and it was all I could hear. I looked back at Jensen as tears welled in my eyes and my heart clenched in pain. "I-I gotta go..."

Before he could say anything, I ran out of the line as fast as my feet could take me, the feeling of everybody staring me crushing me down like a ton of bricks.

I hated it, I hated everything about this weekend. It was a mistake to even think that I could be normal here, that I could fit in. I was a fool and it was my own fault.

I could deal with other's bullying me or putting me down, but him. The way he stared at me with such pity and heartbreak, his eyes used to look so full of kindness and lust and now it was filled with fucking pity. He was never going to look at me the same way again, the memory I had with him was now tainted, poisoned and it was my own fucking fault.

I finally got outside as my car was pulling away attatched to the tow truck, my eyes filling with tears as fast as they ever could. My chest was painted with grief as I watched the only home I really knew be taken away from me. There was nothing I could do anymore, I didn't have enough to get my car out of the lot and I definitely did not have enough for a motel.

Jensen's POV

My heart was filled with pain at how broken and upset she looked, and I finally understood now.

The first day I saw her in the crowd when I asked her if she was okay, it was because she looked so anxious, so scared, like she has never been in a crowd before. I finally understood her.

That was why she was so kind, treating me like I was a normal human, it was because she wanted to be treated the same way.

I glared at the two girls who were still laughing about the situation, ashamed that two people could even call themselves my fans after completely breaking down another person.

The blonde girl who spoke to Y/N first, was making disgusting comments, not realizing I could hear. She went off about how wrong it was to allow a girl like her in here in the first place, how embarrassing it was.

Everything inside me begged to scream at them, god how I wanted to shout right in their face, kick them out of here, or throw something. But I knew I couldn't do that. I couldn't do anything, especially to two young girls, despite how big of bitches I thought they were.

I turned to my handler and insisted they came over, before whispering in his ear that I needed a break and I was leaving. He nodded and stepped forward, announcing that I would be closing the booth and I'd be back in an hour.

The look on the girl's faces were priceless, they were shocked and halfway looked annoyed and god, the anger was bubbling. I left the table as fast as I could, keeping it together until I got into the green room.

As soon as the door shut I could feel my chest tightening, my heart was shattering for her. She has been through so much, she looked so broken and defeated and all of humanity was just constantly letting her down.

I wanted to find her, I wanted to tell her that not everybody is as shitty as those two girls were. I wanted to tell her that there was nothing to be embarrassed about.

God, I wanted to tell her that I wanted to be there for her, to be the person she could depend on, even though she may find me crazy, I didn't want to lose her.

I wanted to tell her. But I didn't even know where to find her. All I had was her journal and her name, that was it. I sat on the couch in defeat before Jared's words popped back into my head.

"You'll get another chance if it's fate, just let the world decide what's best for you."

It has to be fate right? This can't be how our story ends.

I rubbed the temples of my head in hopes to ease the pain of the pounding headache that was beginning, but it was no use. There was too much pain, everywhere. My eyes burned from the endless tears that streamed down, my back ached from the brick wall I've been sat against for hours, but the most intense pain was in my mind.

I was defeated, alone, miserable and embarrassed. I should have known better. I should have thought this through. But tomorrow is the last day of the convention and I had nothing left. No car, no job, no money, no hope.

I regretted everything. I shouldn't have gave up everything to come here. I should have never thought for a second that Jensen would ever be interested in somebody like me.

And the worst part was now I was stuck here, in this town with these memories. I had no options, no path to follow. Nothing.

My bones creaked as I stood from my spot, every muscle heavy and tired, begging to just stay still and not move.

The sky was dark and gloomy, and I was surprised I haven't noticed the change, or how long I was even out here.

I sighed deeply as I pulled out my wallet, counting the last few bills I had. $40, not enough for my car, a motel, or really anything except maybe a few drinks at the bar.

Like I said before, I'm not a big drinker. Far from it really, I hated how people acted on the stuff. Party girls get giddy and loud, men get aggressive and cocky, and then there are the people who just can't stop drinking.

I don't drink. But tonight, I needed it more than ever. I wanted to forget, to stop the pain, to erase today's events. I needed to heal the wound that was on my heart, and crying it out was no longer an option.

By the time I got to the bar, the night has officially set, and most stores on this street were once again closed for the night. Relief hit me when I spotted only one car in the parking lot meaning I could be alone, out of attention. I walked inside and nodded towards the bartender before taking the furthest booth from the door and ordering my first drink.

As soon as I swallowed it down, I knew this wouldn't be my last. Who cares anymore?

I don't know how long I've been sitting here, but every so often I'd see people come in, and people leave. It felt like I was watching a movie, but the button was stuck on fast forward. My drink would be empty, than filled. Empty than filled. Over and over.

I sighed and looked down at my cup which seemed to be spinning, and I started realizing that I might have had a little too much.

Was this drink number 4? No wait, this is 5... right?

The bell on the front door rang and as soon as it did, my blood ran cold. I didn't even need to look up, I knew exactly who it was. I kept my head down low, smirking when I spotted his shoes right beside the table.

"Jensen Ackles." I mumbled with a slight giggle.

The chair screeched as he sat across from me, and I could feel his eyes burning my skin. "Y/N. You doin' alright?"

I shrugged and lazily looked upwards, finally meeting his eyes. "Peachy."

He frowned as his hand came closer, but I quickly pulled it away. I really didn't need his pity, not tonight. "Why don't we go for a walk?"

I shook my head. "I'm g-good here thanks." I hiccupped.

"C'mon, let's get some air I think you had enough."

I scoffed and looked back down at my drink before chugging the rest and slamming it back down. "I-I don't think I will ever have enough actually. I think I m-may have to buy a bottle, how m-many do you think they c-cost? I have.... Ha! $10 left."

He smiled sadly and moved to my side of the table, his hand gently resting on my shoulder as he turned me to face him. "Honey, let's just get some fresh air. Please, for me?"

I rolled my eyes yet agreed, stumbling out of my seat and nearly falling on my ass. Jensen's strong grip was tight on my arm as he helped me towards the door. Everything was spinning and I felt like jello, but in a sense I loved it because the pain was gone. Well, at least the physical was.

The cold air hit me like a ton of bricks and I stumbled back, feeling Jensen's warm hand on my lower back to keep me straight. He lead me over to a bench as we sat in silence.

He sighed low, but I could hear it and guilt filled me. I bet this is not what he would rather be doing right now. I turned towards him slowly, "You can go. I'm fine."

"I don't want to leave you." He stated.

I rolled my eyes and stood from my spot, suddenly walking out of the parking lot, away from this bar, away from him, just away.

His feet were close behind me, voice echoing and mumbled as my ears blocked. "Where are you going?" He spoke louder.

I turned and smiled, waving my arms into the sky. "Nowhere. Got nowhere to go."

He frowned and stepped closer, hand reaching mine gently, burning the skin that he was touching. "Do you want to go to a hotel?"

I laughed a little too loudly and shot him a dirty look, "Funny, real funny. There's no hotels that cheap."

"I'm paying for it." He stated confidently.

I stopped and stared back at the man who had nothing but care and compassion in his eyes, but I couldn't help but feel more ridiculous, more embarrassed and more angry at the fact that this man that I've looked up to, idolized even, he was the one seeing me on one of my worst nights.

I shook my head in disbelief and walked away, a slight smile creeping on my face but it wasn't from happiness, it was from anger. I was so angry that my life was so fucked up, I was so fucking pissed off that nothing, NOTHING could ever just go right for me, not once.

I was angry that he was here, trying, and I had no idea why. Was he playing with me? Was this fun for him?

The sound of his footsteps sped up, and soon he was beside me, trying to capture my attention. “Please, just slow down. Talk to me.”

Maybe it was the alcohol, or maybe it was the situation but all of a sudden the air was knocked out of my lungs and I couldn’t breathe. I stopped walking as my hand moved to my chest, silently begging for it to even out. Please, not here. Not while he’s watching.

“J-Jensen.. please, go. Go back to your hotel.” I whispered nearly inaudibly.

He shook his head and stood in front of me. “I don’t want to leave you, especially not like this.”

“I’m fine!” I nearly screamed with all my night, praying that he would get the hint and leave already. But he was just as stubborn as I was, maybe even more.

“Your not fine.” He stated sympathetically, "Honey, you don't need to pretend you are okay. Nobody would be in your situation."

A scoff escaped my lips as my eyes opened, narrowing towards him. "My situation? What, being a homeless chick? Trust me, I'm used to it. That's what I am, that's what I always will be."

He shook his head and stepped mere inches from my body, hand moving to mine to hold it tightly. "You're not just a homeless chick."

I could feel the anger bubbling further and I couldn't stop it, I didn't want to be angry with him but I was. He thought he knew me but he didn't, if he did he wouldn't be here right now, he wouldn't check in on me.

"You don't know anything Jensen. I am a nobody, I'm an outcast, I'm.... I'm a fucking ghost of a human. I'm alone and that's fine, that's alright because that's how it's always been. You don't need to pity me, you don't need to try and help me because I'm fine, the last thing I fucking need is for somebody to pretend to care, so just... leave."

He stepped back in shock before his eyebrows furrowed in sadness, "I'm not pretending with you, I do care."

"You don't even fucking know me!" I shouted loudly as I stepped closer, noticing how he flinched at my words. "You just met me what, two days ago and it's been endless drama with me. You don't know me."

He knew you were right, he only met you two days ago but it felt like it's been years. He knew you, he cared for you and a part of him loved you already. He had no idea why, but he did.

A deep sigh escaped his chest as his head hung low and I felt awful but the anger wouldn't stop. The panic was too high.

"We just met two days ago, yes. But I do know you, and I think maybe you know me too."

I rolled my eyes and scoffed, "Yeah of course I know you. Your Jensen Fucking Ackles, your famous, your a good to some people and girl's would kill to have this chance to be this close to you and hear you say these things but you don't know who I am, and your lucky."

He shook his head, "No. I don't mean you know who I am on paper, I meant you know me on the inside. I know you felt it too, the connection we had the instant our eyes met during the panel, and every time after that. I know you feel this too, and if i'm wrong say it and I'll leave you alone."

My head dropped to my feet and I bit back the tears that were threatening to come out. I so wanted to believe him, because he was right I did feel it too, but the fact that he would be interested in somebody like me, especially after what he found out, was too hard to believe. I couldn't.

"Your only here because you found out some shitty part of my life, that's the only reason your pushing so hard. If you didn't know that, you would have went your separate way."

His face turned in hurt and disbelief as he stepped back. "Seriously? That's what you think?" He quickly grabbed his bag and opened it, pulling out the journal I accidently left earlier, and passing it to me. "Read what I wrote and tell me that I'm not being honest here."

With shaky hands, I grabbed the journal from him and opened it, spotting the secret message he wrote earlier today.

"Y/N, I really hope to see you again, (xxx-xxx-xxx) Please call me, Jensen Ackles."

A single tear dropped down my cheek as I read it over and over, he really did care. He did want to get to know you, but I pushed him away. I was so... angry and mean and unforgiving.

I couldn't lift my head, I couldn't face him and my chest became tighter as I stood in my spot. He was speaking but it was muffled, my vision started to go white as the panic finally took over me.

I pulled my head up and looked at him, noticing the clear panic written all over his face as he stepped closer, hands on my arms tightly. My legs quickly gave out as I slid to the ground, trying to control my breathing, to not panic but it was too much, everything was too much and I couldn't do this.

Jensen's POV

Panic overtook my body as I watched her fall apart in my arms, she wasn't there, she was distant and gone, sucked in the whirlwind of her panic attack.

I tried everything I could to bring her back but she was too gone, I didn't even think she could hear me at this point. Her breathing was rapid and heavy followed with loud gasps filling the open air.

"Y/N, Look at me, Please!" I shouted, my hand moving to her cheek that was burning under my touch.

Her eyes started fluttering shut causing my heart to pound in my chest. It was too late, it was too much for her. "No-No! Open your eyes sweetie, please breathe!"

But it was no use, her eyes shut tight as her body went limp in my arms.

Fuck, fuck fuck!

I pulled her onto my lap and held her tight to my chest as I pulled out my phone, quickly calling Jared to my aid. I don't even remember talking to him or what I said because I was so focused on her weak and lifeless body, but soon enough a car pulled in and Jared jumped out.

I picked her up gently in my arms, my eyes never leaving her face.

"What the fuck happened?" Jared shouted before rushing to open the door. My gaze moved up towards Jared and I could feel tears behind my eyes, "S-She had a panic attack, a bad one."

Jared nodded understandably and got back into the car. "Where are we going? Do you know where she lives?"

I frowned to myself and shook my head, "Just go to the hotel, I'll set her up in my room for tonight."

As soon as we pulled into the parking lot, Jared ran inside to make sure nobody would be able to spot us. I stared down at her and sighed sadly, my thumb rubbing the dirt off her forehead. "I promise, everything is going to be okay Honey, but you need to trust me." I whispered.

Soon, we were entering my hotel room and I gently placed her on the bed. Jared said his goodnights and left, leaving her and I alone. I frowned at the sight of her muddy clothing, I felt wrong for changing her but I knew she would appreciate clean clothes in the morning.

I couldn't help but watch the way she slept, the way her body sunk into the mattress like it was the comfiest thing in the world and my heart panged at the thought that she might not even remember the last time she actually slept in a bed.

I watched her breathing, sighing in relief at the even breaths, in and out. She was so beautiful, so amazing and kind and she had no idea, it killed me.

I wouldn't let her sleep in the car again, not if I could help it but she's just as stubborn as I am, maybe more. I smiled at the way her face relaxed in her sleep, and I couldn't help but reach forward to brush the hair off her face.

I sat back and replayed the events of tonight. I hated that she thought I pitied her or felt bad, I mean I did but that's not why I wanted to be here. I just... felt this need and want to protect her at all costs, to be there for her. I was going to fight for this and fight for her, because believe it or not, this was fate.

I wasn't going to lose her again.

Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed this chapter. Like, comment & reblog -feedback is my fuel ❤️

[eggcompany]

Heart to Heart and Back Again Part 1

Count Julian Pankratz, a chronically ill man who has more love than he knows what to do with with his short life. That was until he met his new nursemaid, a mysterious new man in town, Geralt. They grow to love each other, each thriving off each other, each learning to love, to live, to truly feel alive because of each other. Geralt had been around for so long he didn't even know he could love. Julian had been convinced no one would ever love him. Soulmates, they were crafted for each other at their very cores.

But unfortunately destiny had other plans. Julian gets sick, he grows weaker and weaker, and he leaves Geralt. The white haired man doesn't know what to do with his empty heart, empty hands, and wish only to bring his one love back.

There was only one person for him in life. Julian. And he was dead.

Or is he...? One stranger's trek up a mountain a few hundred years later might just change Geralt's mind.

“I can stand, good first impressions.” Julian said as he leaned heavily on his cane. He waited for the door to open for the new nursemaid. He shooed the maid away once she dropped off some food, she laughed at him and made her way through the side doors. He was leaning on his cane trying to get other the pain that was dragging at the base of his back. 

The door did open and he was shaking, straining, heart starting to speed up. 

“Hello, welcome, hurry up and shake my hand before I pass out. Thank you” he said quickly and grabbed the man’s huge hand in his own and then sat back down in his wheelchair. He started getting some big breaths in trying to get his heart to slow back down. 

He then took in the man’s looks. He was large, strong looking, had silver nearly white hair, golden eyes, and his clothes were dirty. He was extremely handsome where his hair hung over his forehead and was held back by a small black tie. 

“It’s an honor to serve you count.” He said and bowed which Julian shushed and waved his hand at. 

“Oh pish posh, now come sit down with me. I had Lizzy bring up some really good stuff. She's a witch in the kitchen, literally but also she cooks so well I’ve cried. I personally have a sweet tooth but also I love eggs scrambled or omelets, those are French. Do you eat eggs?” Julians asked and wheeled himself over to his breakfast table, only one other chair at the table. 

Geralt was confused but followed him awkwardly standing by the table before Julian leaned over and patted the seat and removed the cloches from their plates. There were two plates of scrambled eggs, some pan fried meat, small loaves of bread, and a cup of something melted and spiced looking. 

“Do you not eat eggs? We have a large coop and a lot of livestock on the estate, feel free to explore as you please. I personally would love to get back there to see the sheep, I’ve always loved them.” Julian said as he picked up a fluffy spiced egg and popped it into his mouth smiling at Geralt. He hoped the man would stay, he felt some kind of… change in himself at just the sight of the man. Something ws changing in his heart. 

Geralt, who sat down, remained confused. There’s a plate set in front of him but… why? What? He’d heard of the “Flower” of the rich estate family but… the weak shaky young man wasn’t what he’d imagined. He’d been around for a very long time and he’d yet to meet someone like Julian. 

Julian stared at him waiting but then shook his head and looked down. Soft smile on his lips and kindness running pure in his eyes. 

“Dig in my friend, I’m a lonely man, I treat my servants well. I don’t expect you to stay for the rest of my life, I don’t expect you to feel loyalty to me. I only request you be kind. So in return for your kindness, you have free rein of the estate. Choose a room for yourself, no matter where, make food to your taste, slaughter what you please, grow what you please, just include me please.” Julian said in a sad voice that hurt Geralt's heart. He was just a boy, a kid wanting someone to play with him. 

He’d never met a count as… souled as Julian. He thought he’d be a chamber maid to some priss, to clean and be quiet. He’d never met someone so… honest and full of humanity's best quality, compassion and companionship, friendship and love. 

Geralt should have known Julian would be good. The other servants seemed happy, like a community. All chatting as they worked, some laughing and others humming tunes as they did their business leisurely. 

He was confused, though. Why? 

“Count-” He started just for Julian to groan and shake his head. 

“Julian, please.” The boy said and took another bite of food. He hated being called ‘ count’ ; it made him feel old. 

“Julian, why? Why share your wealth?” Geralt asked and watched the boy drink from a cup it looked like... milk? What wealthy person didn't drink wine with their meals?

"My father brought home a sickness, when I was younger. He gave it to my entire family, my mother, my sisters, me. They all slowly died around me. And I survived. Why? My father was one of the wealthiest counts in this entire land. My sisters were more beautiful than precious gems, my mother had acres and acres of land. I was the youngest, and most uninterested in growing our wealth and taking on more land. Why did I survive if not to share? One day I will die, I can't produce an heir, who will take care of me? Who will make sure I am happy in my final days? Who will take over this home? I'm a creature of society, Geralt, dear, I surround myself with good company. I surround myself with friends . I think you're supposed to be nice and share with your friends." Julian said and leaned forward against the table, smiling, and Geralt was shaking his head. Astonished. He was just a kid, poetic words made from a luxury life. 

"Are you quick to befriend someone like me? You have no idea where I've been, where I'm from, what I've done. Why do you welcome me like a long lost friend?" Geralt asked and Julian was huffed and laughed as his eyes glittered. He looked right at Geralt’s face, cheeks chubby and joy coursing through him. Geralt felt a bit younger himself, his boulders lifting slightly from his shoulders just meeting the kid. 

"You are my long lost friend. I can feel it here in my heart. We are meant to be together, our destinies entwined. Like soup!” Julian said and broke out in a big smile, hands coming to grab Geralt’s across the table. Geralt didn’t pull his hands back but he was nervous until Julian squeezed their hands together. Julian looked right in his eyes, solidifying how serious he was. 

“Now!" The boy said and dropped his silverware and clapped his hands together. Geralt watched him curiously. Julian rubbed his hands together excitedly. 

"Have you ever had a honey cake baked with pork fat instead of butter?" Julian asked and lifted the glass cloche off the small cake that had been sitting to the side. His bottom lip was caught in his smile, a hunger filling his eyes that Geralt only ever seen in brothels. 

"Pork fat instead of butter?" Geralt asked and Julian was quick to cut him a large piece and put it on a separate plate, handing it to him before getting a big piece for himself. 

"Yes! It'll make you cream your trousers, I've never had anything better. Now, you're being rude by not eating so dig in before I start crying." Julian said and shoved a big bite into his mouth. Geralt thought he was funny, the way the boy’s cheeks puffed out and crumbs stuck to his soft looking lips. 

Geralt lifted it up and sniffed it before taking a bite. He moaned and chewed, looking at the boy’s smug look.  It was… incredible. Sweet and indulgent and fattening oily and rich. Something Geralt hadn’t tasted since his days of stealing from royals as a young man. 

"I told you!" the boy said and they ate in silence. Until Julian leaned back in his chair, rubbing his belly, he wasn’t very round just kinda… plush. Like a feather pillow or fresh baked buns. 

He watched Geralt eat like a man starved, looking a bit starved. He hated seeing hungry people. That’s why when he went into town he made sure to fill his pockets with sweets for the kids. He liked Geralt, the way he shoved food into his mouth and flashed his eyes around like a feral dog. He had nice hair and big hands and looked strong under his tattered clothes. 

"It's a nice day out today. My last nurse, she would put me out on the balcony usually. She wasn't a considerably strong woman, usually she'd call the yard boy, Edwin, to carry me down the stairs if I needed to be on the floor of the estate. I do miss being able to be around the animals. I rather like them." Julian said and laughed and shook his head. He hadn't been able to see the animals in years since his last nurse couldn't really wheel him out in the dirt. When he was a child he liked to go run around in the sheep pens, petting them and feeding them and feeling their soft noses. He did miss it terribly… 

Geralt swallowed the large bit of egg and bread that was in his mouth and wiped his face with his sleeve. He didn’t much care about manners. He had them, just didn’t use them. 

"I could take you, easily. Even if I had to pick your chair up, it wouldn't be very hard." He said and was almost blinded by how bright Julian’s smile was. 

"Oh that would be wonderful. Not today though, today I think you need a tour and to get a good wash up and perhaps we can find you some clothes that fit you better. Perhaps we wear the same!" Julian said giddily. He loved sharing, clothes, food, anything. But it would be so fun to dress Geralt up, maybe do his hair, polish his nails, all the things that Julian loved to do. All the pampering things. 

Geralt nodded, blush burning under his skin. He couldn't imagine how... dirty he must seem. He’d not been able to buy new clothes since his own had been stolen. He didn’t think to try and scrub the stains from his clothes before coming, assuming he’d just be put to work without meeting the head of the house. 

"I apologize for my appearance I-" Geralt started to apologize, nerves ebbing into his voice. He knew most wealthy people hated the look of dirty clothes in such a pristine home. Julian just waved him off, thin hand pale, nails shiny. 

"Nonsense, If I could I'd be rolling in the mud half my days. I love the outdoors, the fresh air, I’d adore just one more walk through the orchard... but we all live life as we can. We have a large bath downstairs or you are welcome to pick a room and we can manage a bath in there for you. Though downstairs I hear is the best for baths." Julian said and smiled, he would love to go downstairs and see everyone. 

Most of the people who worked never really made it up to Julian room. Usually leaving the young count to himself and his nurse and even then she was usually preparing his medicine and his bed and such. Sometimes they’d come by to show him something or ask if they could do something with the house. Bringing him fresh fruit from the orchard or asking to repaint the lattice. He’d like it more if he could actually go see them all and talk with them, be a part of their day to day, but… well he was okay with how things were. 

Geralt nodded and stood up, dusting the crumbs off himself. 

"Do you want to give me a tour?" Geralt asked, and Julian was glad to be pushed about, cane held between his knees. He wasn't strong enough to walk but he stood for a moment a few times. He liked being able to see the house, he told stories from when his sister painted on the walls and how he once climbed onto the roof to scare his mother but instead fell and landed on her. 

Geralt smiled and listened intently, helping Julian to sit back down when he started to tremble. He enjoyed the flowery and detailed way Julian described everything, as if he was writing a poem as he spoke. Each detail being told like it held the whole story together, words mixing like perfume in the air. Geralt liked it. 

----

Geralt liked living beside the Count. He easily found a place in the home, the room next to Julian’s own. He found a schedule and stepped easily to it. He found out that most clothes Julian wore he could fit into also, though a bit snug on the shoulders. 

It was easy day to day. 

He would wake up with the sun, wash his face, comb his hair, go down to the kitchen and find something to eat, usually eating some dried meat from a very old dusty box in the pantry. He’d get dressed in a nice outfit, a coat, shined shoes, clothes too rich for someone like him. He’d go wake up Julian by knocking lightly on the door, and going to the large cushy bed and finding one of Julian’s fragile hands. 

Julian warned him that he slept heavy and that he also bruised easily so a good shake to a shoulder would… not be the best option. So Geralt would find a pale hand and give it a good squeeze and some gentle rubs and Julian would be yawning and blinking awake. 

“Oh good morning, dear, how did you sleep?”

“Good morning Geralt, dear, have you eaten?”

“Mornin’ Grlt, I feel a bit drunk still, are you hungry?”

“Good morning, dear” 

Julian always had to welcome Geralt to the day. Always had something to grumble out first thing, always started the day with words. And each day Geralt felt closer and closer, he started sitting on the edge of the boy’s bed to hold his hand before waking him up. 

Each day Julian would marvel at Geralt, telling him that somehow just seeing his ‘pretty golden eyes’ made him feel better. Julian would tell Geralt about the books he’d read, play his harp or his lute when he could, sometimes he’d ask Geralt to bring him things. Sometimes it was puzzles, or chess. Geralt found Julian was a very very good chess player but he preferred checkers. 

And his dolls. Julian had a mountain of beautifully crafted dolls. Some were wood, others glass, others porcelaine. Julian had a story for each one, where it was from, who got it for him, when he got it, everything. Julian loved his dolls, he had a few that had on simpler outfits that he occasionally liked to carry around with him when he was feeling especially bad. He liked to brush their hair and put different outfits on them. He knew all their names, Amice, Joy, and Helewis being his favorites. Those three sat by his bed and often in his bed and were often moved around and carried. 

Geralt never really had toys but when a fever delusional Julian placed a doll in his lap and told him to take care of her, well damn it he was going to figure it out. Geralt learned that you have to be careful when combing their hair and how you have to dress them so they don’t break and how to clean them when you drop a cup of tea on them. He learned how to keep them nice but also love them. 

Each day Geralt spent with the boy, each day he heard the rumbly good morning, each day he ate three meals with him, each day he helped the boy into the warm tub, each day Geralt felt like he had never before. Warm and happy and his heart… his heart felt full . And it was all because of Julian. 

----

"Geralt? Would you please get me something to eat? I'm feeling oddly hungry." Julian said as he sat down from where he had been standing against the rail of the balcony. Somehow he felt... better today. He yelled hello to Edwin who was working in the garden and had been able to walk from his bed to the balcony. He had been feeling better each day it seemed these last few months. He’d been up more that was for sure. Geralt often told him that the sun would help him but also that the balcony was boring. So he was down, being rolled through the gardens or being pushed to the end of the driveway, laughing at the way the rocks bounced him around, or he was being carried down the stairs and sat at the large dining table to socialize with the servants. 

Geralt really did help him.

Julian wasn’t usually embarrassed but he felt more comfortable asking for help with certain things. He no longer struggled to wash himself, simply asking Geralt to wash his back or help rinse the soap off his skin, he didn’t feel shy asking for the bedpan or hurrying to the bathroom, Geralt would simply put him there. He felt easy saying that he didn’t want to wear pants to bed or that it was warm and he didn't want to wear a shirt in the bedroom. 

He was just… content and happy with Geralt. The stoic man’s short comments and quiet nature. It was comfortable. 

"Do you want me to make you some eggs?” Geralt offered from where he was sipping tea in the sun, opposite from where Julian sat at the small table. The boy smiled and looked over at his friend. 

“That sounds perfect, dear” Julian answered and Geralt was slow to finish his tea and stand up, walking away only to turn back. 

“Come on, I’m taking you with me.” He said and soon Julian was in his chair being carried down the stairs. 

He felt… alive. Warm, welcomed, happy, alive. 

-----

"Geralt here gives me strength. Now, let me pour you all a drink. Do not help me." Julian ordered as he stood up from the head of the table. He left his cane behind, instead picking up a quite heavy brass pitcher. Eleven people. He just had to pour eleven drinks. 

He’d been feeling better and better, each day he saw Geralt, each day that he saw everyone and got to do something fun, he just felt stronger. 

Geralt had been bundling him up and taking him out into the snow, or at least getting him out into the patio. Julian had even made a little snowman, and Geralt had never felt happier sneaking out at night to make a whole group of snowmen, right under the balcony so Julian could see them. He had even given them little leaf hats made from old cabbage. 

Geralt was the fuel that kept Julian trying. Kept the boy from wasting away in bed. Even on the worse days Geralt would at least bring him the little dolls and keep busy nearby. 

Everyone knew it too. That’s why when Julian proposed they all have a nice big winter feast together, they all knew Geralt would be picking at them all. ‘ Be on time’ ‘Show up’ ‘Don’t help him’, That was the oddest thing. Geralt went around telling everyone not to help Julian at all. 

Now they knew why. The count wanted to show his strength and independence. 

A few of them held their cups up to the spout to make it a bit easier as he shaked heavily with each pour. His arms were aching by the time he got to the other end of the table. Geralt held his cup up for Julian who let the pitcher rest heavily against its rim, knowing Geralt wouldn’t let the pitcher fall. 

Finally as he fell back into his chair, pitcher set hastily against the table, tears streamed down his face, he smiled and nodded, fixing his posture. 

"Goodness me, Geralt's cured me hasn't he." Julian joked as his body shook and hurt horrible and tears streamed down his face from both pain and joy. Everyone clapped and raised their glasses to him. It was a good thing, to see the count so happy, so active. It was a good thing to see. 

Even as he tried to pick up his cup only to have it drop from his hand and splash over the rim a bit. 

"To my friends, who share their strength with me, who's companionship gives me life." Julian said, voice shaking. He smiled and they all raised their glasses, cheering a bit before digging into the feast laid across the table. 

The dinner went on for hours, stories shared freely about travels and chance meetings. Some stories about even the darkest of margics, Julian was enthralled. He laughed and ate and drank and enjoyed the warmth of family around him. A warmth that he had only felt the barest of with his actual family now burn warm and white around him. He stayed until everyone else retired to their rooms, except Geralt who cleaned up. 

The alcohol sparked enough confidence in himself that he started to walk to his own room, he made it halfway to the stairs before Geralt had an arm around his waist. 

“Come on, princess. Up to bed with you.” Geralt rumbled, he was dead on his feet and Julian had run off on him. Julian was happy to be picked up and carried against Geralt’s chest, a much more intimate pose than how Geralt usually carried him in his chair. 

Julian giggled and hugged onto Geralt’s strong broad shoulders. 

“Are you the dashing prince that’s come to save me? I didn’t know I was so lucky.” Julian giggled as Geralt carried him up the stairs. The boy was dead asleep by the time he was being laid gently onto his bed. Geralt just watched him, his soft face relaxed, his chest rising and falling slowly. 

Geralt let himself indulge and petted through the soft chestnut hair that fell across the boy’s face. Geralt let himself enjoy the moment for just a second longer before gently stripping Julian of his day clothes and pulling on his thick winter pajamas and tucking him in under the thick blankets. 

“Gerlt? Geralt, are you here?” Julian asked sleepily as he heard the fire being built up for the night. Geralt hummed. 

“Yes, Julian?” He said softly, in a way that had Julian smiling into the darkness. The boy snuggled back into his bed, warm and full and a little drunk. 

“Nothing, just wanted to say thank you. Goodnight dear, I love you.” Julian said before rolling onto his side and falling fast asleep. 

Geralt was a statue. I love you . Geralt felt struck by lightning. Because… well…

“I love you too, Julian.” 

----

“Geralt are you- have you- have you ever-” Julian tried to ask one night as he read through one of his more dirty novels, it was french, of course. 

Geralt was scrubbing the wine out of some shirts, it was a hot day out and Julian had knocked over the whole pitcher. Geralt was shirtless, sitting by the wash basin in nothing but a pair of light pants. Julian just… well he didn’t really know. He was feeling… a certain way. 

“What was that?” Geralt asked as he wiped the sweat from his forehead. He looked over at Julian who was under the simple musin sheet, book held up so only his eyes were visible.

“Have you ever… are you a virgin?” Julian finally asked, voice turning squeaky. Geralt raised a brow at him and huffed a laugh. 

“I am not. I haven’t been for a long time. Why?” Geralt responded and went back to scrubbing, knowing Julian was a bit… timid when it came to anything sexual. He’d once said he’d been betrothed to a young countess when he was born but she’d left him when his family passed. And that he hadn’t had a girlfriend since. 

“I was um… I was just wondering. Um cause, oh you know, um… because I am.” Julian said, eyes just peaking over the top of his book. Geralt nodded, not looking at him. 

“I know.” Is all Geralt responded with. He was curious, of course, but he knew Julian was sensitive about his sexuality, or rather his lack thereof.  

“Is it… did you have sex w…with a girl?” Julian asked, hoping he wasn’t chasing Geralt away. He hoped he wasn’t overstepping; he just… he wanted to know. 

“I’ve had sex with girls, yes.” Geralt answered, his back was facing the boy now. Geralt grinned, it was just like talking to his younger brothers. Julian was just a young man, not really a count, just a teenager who wanted to know about sex. 

“Oh… have you… um… just girls?” Julian asked quietly, face burning up. He waited, staring at Geralt’s strong back, spattered with odd scars and marks. Geralt was so… fetching to look at. Strong and solid and confident and… handsome. All over handsome. Julian would bet his cock was handsome, too. 

Julian shook his head, getting that thought away from him when Geralt turned around. Now facing him, Geralt let a small smile grace his lips as he shook his head with a sigh. 

“No, not just girls. Why? Do girls not… interest you?” Geralt phrased carefully. Julian swallowed and shook his head from where he still hid behind his book. Geralt nodded with a hum and kept his eyes on Julian. He let his head cocked to the side, giving the boy a look. 

“That’s okay. You don’t have to like girls. Do you like anyone ?” Geralt asked, head tilted like a curious cat. He tried not to smile at the way Julian’s eyes flitted around the room from where they peaked over the book. 

“I um… I might.” Julian said, trying to sound confident in himself like Geralt did. He failed miserably though, ending up squeaking like a bad hinge. Geralt nodded and went back to scrubbing shirts. 

“Good.” Is all Geralt said before they fell back into a compioned silence. Julian went back to his book not really reading the kissing scene anymore, rather thought about Geralt… oh Geralt. 

------

“Geralt, do you…. Can I sit with you?” Julian asked as he made his way out to the balcony. He was leaning on his cane waiting. Geralt was confused, Julian never asked to sit in his own chair at his own table on his own balcony. 

“Go ahead?” Geralt said in a confused way but was soon letting out an exacerbated chuckle. Julian flopped down in his lap, legs thrown over the arm of the chair. He wasn’t a very heavy boy, not even half of Geralt's own weight. 

“Hmm, so much more comfortable.” Julian hummed and laid his head against Geralt’s shoulder, he loved the springtime. 

He loved how the sun was warm and the breeze was cool and how nice his heavy pants felt when they got warm from the sun but his light shirt kept him nice and cool. He loved how Geralt would pick him flowers and how the bees and butterflies were coming back slowly. He loved how in that moment spring meant that Geralt would sit on the balcony and read and had an open lap to sit on. 

Geralt set his book on the table, letting his arms wrap around the boy. He let his head fall to the side, laying against the top of Julian’s. It was… nice. 

“You’re heavy.” He said and Julian giggled and let his hand rest against Geralt’s chest, feeling the strong muscle hidden under his shirt. 

“You’re warm.” Julian said and snuggled deeper into Geralt, taking in big deep breaths of his smell, Geralt smelled a bit like horse but he always did and he smelled like dirt and blood and sweat and well… Julian liked it. Geralt smelled like living life and journey, it was nice. 

They sat there like that, basking in the warm sun, enjoying the company of each other, in silence. They each enjoyed it, both enjoying the feeling of another person pressed against them, both feeling calm companionship calming them both down to their bones. The breeze in the treetops, the birds chirping happily, quiet noise, the only small buzz of nature being the only sound around them. 

Silence though, was never Julian’s thing. At least not after his legs had fallen asleep and his heart hurt and his eyes watered. He sniffed but held still, still against Geralt’s strong body, eyes dancing across the horizon as the sun sank beyond the mountains. 

“You know Geralt… I don’t think I’ve ever been this happy. Here, now, right here with you, I don’t think I’ve ever been happier.” Julian said as tears flooded from his eyes. He turned and hid his face in the soft dark fabric of Geralt’s shirt, hand clutching where it had laid. 

Geralt just hugged him, holding him against his chest, hands rubbing up and down his trembling back. Julian was so emotional, always saying flowery things and crying and laughing and… having such big emotions. Feelings always upfront. So unlike Geralt. 

“I’m happy here, with you, too.” Geralt said, truth heavy in his voice. Julian huffed a laugh and wiggled so he was sitting up looking right into Geralt’s eyes. Julian’s blue eyes glimmered like diamonds, eyes rimmed red from crying. He flung his legs around so he was straddling Geralt as a serious look painted his face. 

“You’re happy here with me?” He asked, hands coming up to rub at his face but his eyes kept on Geralt’s. Geralt let his hands rest on Julian’s hips, causing the boy to gasp and buck back away from him before relaxing. Julian’s mouth was hung open, breaths thin and faster than usual. Geralt looked him up and down and hoped he wasn’t reading the boy wrong. 

“I’m very happy here Julian. I’m very happy being with you. You make me happy, Julian.” He said quietly, barely above a whisper. He didn’t want to risk leaning the few inches forward it would take to press his lips to Julian’s own. But he craved to just get a little taste, a tiny kiss, just to get the smallest. 

Julian smiled and put his hands on the sides of Geralt’s face. Squishing his cheeks. 

“Do you mean it?” Julian asked and stared into Geralt’s golden eyes, like he could see the truth if he just looked hard enough. Geralt moved his hands to pull Julians away from his face and held them in his own. 

“Julian?” Geralt said softly and let his hands warm the thin cold ones within them. Julian swallowed and looked down at his lips before looking back into his eyes. 

“Yeah?” Julian breathed out, his heart racing in his chest when he realized how they were sitting. They were…. So close. 

Geralt leaned in, tilting his head to the side just a bit, warm breath cascading over Julian’s lips and cheeks. Geralt let his eyes fall closed and his nose rub against Julian’s. He opened his eyes after only a moment, lids heavy as his body became warmer with want. 

“‘M gonna kiss you now” He warned and Julian was nodding needily. He pressed his lips gently, so so carefully against Julian’s own. 

Julian was… not a bad kisser. Eager, pushy, but… soft and tender. Lips staying shut, just easy pushes and movements. Geralt’s hands fell down to his hips, only to squeeze gently and run up and down Julian’s soft sides. Julians own hands found their way to Geralt’s shoulders, holding on for dear life. 

His eyes were tightly squeezed shut when they pulled back. Lips kissed red and plump where he was breathing shakily. He was panting from chaste, closed mouth kisses?

Cute, Geralt thought. 

Julian opened his eyes, rimmed with tears, and grasped Geralt’s jaw. He looked into Geralt’s eyes, glowing like fire in the sunset’s light. He felt like his heart was beating out of his chest and his head was getting light but he wanted to kiss Geralt more. He felt like he could cry with how happy he was, he was nearly crying with how much love he felt. 

“I’m gonna faint. But I wanna, wanna… will you put me to bed?” Julian said as his eyes started getting a bit fuzzy. Geralt was calm and gentle as he just stared at Julian’s bright blushed face. The boy just looked sleepy and rested his head against Geralt’s shoulder, hands falling into his lap. 

“I’ll put you to bed, Julek, little bird, come on.” Geralt whispered more to himself than the unconscious boy as he carried him back into the house, back to bed. 

Geralt busied himself around. Making a small fire, sweeping the floors, lighting the candles, bringing up fresh water to make tea, and he sat and watched Julian sleep, snuggled up under the covers. 

----

They shared more kisses, Julian falling into Geralt’s lap asking for a few sweet kisses or to just sit and eat together or he’d just nap in Geralt’s lap. 

Geralt was always grateful to have the other man near, chatting incessantly about anything from music to animals to pictures he’s seen of the far east. He liked to hear the boy explain how a new poet was rising a few townships over and that he was as senseless as headless chicken, or how there’s a new author and his books are written so well it’s like you’re actually standing amongst the jungles, hearing the monkeys, swimming under the waterfalls. 

Julian would go on and on, sitting on Geralt’s lap, sometimes a blanket thrown over them. Sometimes they would sit on the balcony in a large wicker chair that Geralt had brought up from the library downstairs. Sometimes Geralt would help Julian out to the garden and they’d sit on the grass together, cuddled in the sun. Other times Julian would be so weak that they simply sat very close next to each other, feet touching or hands holding. 

And each morning Geralt would make sure to clean his mouth and chew some mint before Julian was awake. Because each morning Geralt would sit on the edge of the bed, rub Julian’s hand in his own, and tell the boy it was time to start the day. And each morning Julian would pull Geralt down, usually by a hand on his jaw, and press a kiss to his lips. 

“Good morning dear, you look lovely.”

“Good morning, darling”

“‘Morning, lovely, please close the curtains”

Every morning Julian would give him a kiss and welcome Geralt to the day. Each morning Julian opened his eyes and pressed a kiss to him, Geralt was more than just awake, he was alive. Each morning Julian brought him back to life, restarted his heart, brought breath into his lungs. 

----

"Geralt? Will you come here to me?" Julian asked as he laid in bed, body aching and heavy. Ever since Julian's fall, Geralt would stay in the room until Julian was asleep. 

The boy had gotten up after he’d said his goodnights to Geralt. He’d been feeling well, very well, so he thought he might just go downstairs and find a cookie or two and head right back to bed, right back to bed!

However after a day of playing checkers and playing his harp and going down to play the piano while the servants cleaned and worked, he was not as strong as he had been that day. 

He fell in the hallway, nearly falling down the stairs. His ankle had swollen up and he had terrible black bruises. Geralt had lectured him, marching back and forth in the room while Julian wept in bed, saying he was sorry and that he wouldn’t do it again. Geralt also brought a cookie jar up and set it on the mantle. 

But he also refused to go to his own room until Julian was asleep. So when Julian bathed and was ready for bed, Geralt bathed and got ready for bed. It was warm in the home now, no need to make fires at night, so Geralt would simply sit by the window, single candle light lit by the door, and wait until he could hear Julian’s soft snores. 

But tonight… Julian felt… something felt heavy in his chest. Perhaps it had something to do with the book he was reading or maybe it was that his one act of independence had landed him with a swollen ankle and a bruised backside. 

Geralt came over and knelt by the bed, holding Julian’s outstretched hand. Julian smiled at him, his eyes looked tired and he was pale. 

Today had been a very hot humid day, the hours taking their toll on everyone. Even the housemaid had left behind some layers, all citing that Julian would be just fine seeing their bare feet or their hair not under a cap. Julian had spent most of the day laying atop the sheets in bed in nothing but a pair of light linen pants. Now he was tucked under the sheets, pants traded for his nighty. 

Now he just looked… tired. The moonlight only working to make him look paler, his under eyes darker, his skin cooler. Geralt held his hand, the smooth soft skin feeling softer than air. 

"Come lay under the covers with me." The boy asked and Geralt looked into his eyes in surprise. Julian’s bed? It was… the boy barely kept his few dolls on his bed, yet he wanted something like Geralt to marr its appearance? 

"In your bed?" Geralt asked, bringing the soft hand up to rub his cheek against, eyes watching Julian’s as he rolled them and sighed dramatically. Such a dramatic boy. 

"Well? I'm cold and I feel weak and I want to feel close. Come lay under my blankets, come lay with me." Julian begged, eyes brimming with tears. Geralt kissed his hand and warmed it between his own. He shook his head a bit and slipped his shoes off his feet

"Okay, only because I don't want you to cry." He said and pulled his dark shirt off and folded it, leaving it behind in his chair when he climbed behind Julian in bed. 

The boy was staring. Geralt was… beautiful. Such pale skin, scars spattered across his body, muscles like the statues carved from marble. He looked like a character from one of Julian’s dirty novels, a real Adonis, all edges and strength and- 

“What’s wrong, love? Am I… I can go sleep in my own bed. I can take another bath.” Geralt offered before he touched the bed, noticing Julian staring so hard he could feel himself shrinking. Julian just blinked at him, big bright eyes filled with something… light. 

“You never told me you were the fairest flower in all the fields, that I might gp blind merely from a glance at you.” Julian muttered, pushing himself to sit up to get a better look at the scars that whipped across his abdomen and chest. He felt a bit dizzy with how his blood grew hot and swirled in his gut. Geralt was… unfair. So pretty, so perfect, how dare he ever wear clothes. 

Geralt huffed and looked away, a light flush finding its way to his face. Julian… always with flowery words and and… compliments. 

“Julian, go to bed.” Geralt said and climbed in behind the boy who rolled over to face the man. He was biting his bottom lip, hands brought up curiously but halted to wait a mere inch from Geralt’s chest. 

“Can I touch you? I’ve never seen you… bare.” Julian said, looking at Geralt with a kind of… wonder. Wonder of how another man would feel under his hands, how Geralt’s skin would feel, would his scars feel soft or are they tender still, how would Geralt react if he just snuggled close. 

Geralt sighed and nodded, looking away as his face burned up. Julian made a happy noise and let his hands gently lay on the other’s chest. Julian was taken aback, shocked. 

Geralt was so warm, and he felt so solid, and he was so… everything. Julian let his hands press and feel and explore across the miles of pale skin, fingers tracing across scars, feeling Geralt’s heartbeat in his chest. Julian laid there, staring where his hand pressed into Geralt’s chest, feeling each heartbeat as if it was his own. 

“I love you Geralt.” Julian whispered, he could barely tear his eyes away to look into the nearly glowing gold ones. Geralt smiled and let his own larger hand fall over Julian’s. 

“It’s late, it’s dark, it’s time for bed. Go to sleep, Julian.” Geralt whispered so sweetly and Julian was nodding along. He was so sleepy and Geralt was so warm and in his bed and it was… it was perfect. 

He cuddled in close, hiding himself away in Geralt’s chest, throwing an arm and leg over him. He let his eyes fall shut as he felt Geralt’s arm wrap around him, hand rubbing up and down his back. 

“You’re not allowed to wear clothes anymore, by the way.” Julian muttered into the soft skin of Geralt’s collarbone. Geralt huffed and gave Julian a squeeze. 

“Go to sleep, little bird.” Geralt said and soon Julian was drooling asleep, snores lulling Geralt into his own deep restful sleep. 

-----

"Geralt let me, let me walk. I can make it. I've been working on my stamina." Julian said as he stood up from his chair in the hallway. He gave his love a wink and got his cane under him. Geralt shook his head and allowed Julian to walk in front of him. 

Ever since they started sleeping in the same bed, they had both been getting much more sleep. Which meant Julian wanted to do everything together. They got up, got clean and fresh, dressed, and made their way down to eat with the rest of the household. Which meant going down the stairs. Which usually meant Geralt carrying Julian like a princess, or over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes, and then Julian sometimes walking in through the dining room doors. 

However today Julian had decided he would walk to breakfast. Well… walk to the stairs that is. He had been walking more, getting stronger, and he was feeling especially confident. 

"Sure thing, Julek, put your big girl panties on this morning?" Geralt teased and Julian blushed and didn't look at him. Geralt’s joking had grown from grunts to actual comments. And the nickname… It made Julian feel all soft and melty. 

Geralt was a Slov, Julian had learned, and he'd begun calling Julian ‘Julek’, others called him Jewel, and an older lady who came to the house on Geralt's call to see Julian's progress called him Jaskier but she also only spoke polish. But Julek , hearing Geralt’s gruff voice say the name, it made Julian feel like a new person, a new thing, something just created. 

“I sure did! And they fit me just fine!” Julian responded and took a steeling breath. 

Julian started walking down the hall finding it was easier than the last time he'd tried. Each step steady until nearly to the stairwell. His legs began to shake as he grabbed onto the railing, his heart was racing in his chest and his head felt a bit light. He was trying to take big deep breaths, but he felt like his chest was squeezing. 

Geralt was quick to put an arm around his waist, supporting him enough so he could catch his breath before scooping him up. Geralt gave him a I-told-you-so look and started walking down the stairs. 

"Yeah, eat shit, I still made it." Julian teased as Geralt grinned as they made it down to the dining room. 

-----

Loving was easy between them. Life was easy between them. 

They spent days sitting together in the sun. Geralt once set Julian out in the rain, giggling like a kid until he began to shiver a bit and then Geralt had a warm fire and a blanket to wrap around him. 

The summer was Julian’s favorite time of year. He loved the feeling of a sun warmed blanket and the scent of the gardens in full bloom. Geralt was there to bring him flowers and sit with him to watch the birds. 

Geralt didn’t care about the weather. He just loved seeing Julian so happy. He loved to tuck a flower behind his ear, he loved to trade him fresh apples and berries for kisses, he loved to go out in the rain to bring Julian a hydrangea bloom just to shake it over his head to give the boy a shower. 

Most of all he loved the way Julian laughed. Full and hearty like he had heard the funniest thing every time. He loved the way Julian smiled, bright and wonderful. He loved the way even when he was weak and sick Julian still gave Geralt shit and was a brat and gave sass. 

He loved Julian more than anything. 

And everyday Geralt was happy. Julian was happy. It was… good. Geralt had lived for a very long time and yet he’d never been so happy. 

They more often than not shared a bed, Julian cradled against Geralt's chest. During the warmer months Geralt would strip them both down to their sleep clothes. Julian sleeping in nearly see-through linen nighties and Geralt in a pair of soft pants and no underclothes. In the colder months Geralt would sleep in heavy wool pants but never had the heart to put a shirt on, knowing Julian found comfort in skin-to-skin. Julian would wrap up in his heavy nighty and a pair of thick socks. 

They both grew into their new schedule, they just fit together, like an easy rhythm. 

----

Julian got stronger, he ate more, in the nearly two years since Geralt had arrived, he'd grown able to make it down the stairs, stay awake all during the day, and even ride into town and see the people, often only needing his cane. He could pour the whole table glasses of wine with just a slight tremble. He was so happy with life, he was so happy with everything. Even on his sickest days he felt everything was okay. Because Geralt was there and Geralt was… Geralt was strong enough for the both of them. 

--

One night, he felt... viral . He felt alive and hot in belly for the first time in so long. 

He was laying in bed, just under a sheet, waiting for Geralt to get done cleaning up after their baths. They’d begun bathing together, hualing the big tub up from the first floor up so they could sit front to back in the tub. Geralt claiming he didn’t have much shame, and Julian agreeing cause wow… Geralt had let Julian touch him, sort of. He never let him touch his cock but let the boy press their bodies together, half hard cock rub against his plush ass. 

Julian had liked that feeling but they never had that… sensual atmosphere in their baths. But that night… he had a hot melty feeling in his groin and his cock ached. His head was full of images of Geralt, his body, the way he looked soaked from the rain, short hair flopping over his face, water dropping running down his chiseled muscles. The way he grunts when he has to haul something heavy around, the weak little huffs he makes when he has a bad dream, the sighs he lets out when he lays down after a long day. 

He let his hand creep down to himself, under his chemise. He was hard. Goodness... that hadn't happened in years. He could barely remember the last time he was hard and awake. He’d woken up with a wet nighty many times but never woke up… hard. Nor had he worked up to a hardon while he was awake for so long. 

"Geralt!" Julian called and heard the thundering quick steps of Geralt running to the room. Julian had his bottom lip caught between his teeth. Hand cradling the burning flesh of his cock. 

"What? You scared me, you prick." Geralt said as he saw the boy was fine in bed. He took a calming breath and put his hands on his hips. Julian had an odd look on his face and he had his arms weird across his body… Geralt just stared at him and slowly walked up to the bed. 

"My prick indeed." Julian said and pulled his hand away from himself after a quick squeeze.

"What're you on about?" Geralt asked. He was tired and just wanted to go to bed. Julian looked away from him, face turning a cherry red. 

"Geralt... can we do something together?" The count asked nervously and brought his knees together under the thin sheet. He wanted Geralt so much, just seeing the other man standing there in his thin pants and light shirt, the feeling of getting down to Geralt’s skin, to feel his warmth. 

Geralt looked down at the boy, his eyes blown big, cheeks cherry red and creeping down his chest. He wanted to pick the sheet up to see underneath, see what the boy was hiding. He felt the pull, the warmth in his own belly, he wasn’t a very sexual man but Julian was so soft. So sweet smelling and warm with the plushest body and the kindest hands. 

"What do you wanna do, Julek?" Geralt asked, letting his fingers graze atop the covers beside Julian’s arm. He gave the boy a look, golden eyes warm and open, lips practically begging for a kiss. 

"I um... not to be so forward but will you lay under the cover with me and well... l-lay with me?" Julian asked, letting out a breath he didn’t know he was holding. 

Geralt grinned, pointy teeth on display and crawled up on the bed, throwing a leg over Julian’s thighs, causing his legs to lay flat. 

Julian had a nervous look on his face that was soon being washed away by biting tongue filled kisses. Geralt let himself go, hips grinding down onto Julian’s, savoring the feeling of a hard cock rubbing up against his own. He got washed away in the feeling of Julian yanking his shirt off and untying his trousers. 

“You’re stunning, my dear, so pretty” Julian said and let his hands wander, rubbing across Geralt’s broad shoulders, down to squeeze his hips, back up to cup his muscular pec. 

“Do you really want this, Julian? Do you want me to… to do this to you?” Geralt asked from where he had started sucking and nipping down the boy’s neck. Julian grabbed two fistfulls of his hair and yanked him up to face him, determination plain on his face. 

Geralt sucked in a breath and dared not move from where Julian had an iron grip in his hair, the pain of it sparking something he rather not look into. He stared down at the boy, he wanted, gods he wanted , but… he couldn’t do anything until Julian said okay. 

“Geralt, man who’s stolen my heart, man who’s the only one I’ve ever loved, if you don’t touch my cock in the next moment I’m going to cry. I can’t do much else but I’ll cry.” Julian threatened and tears already welled up in his eyes. He felt good and Geratl was so pretty and it was so so good and so so new. 

Geralt shook his head and Julian let go of his hair. He leaned down and pressed a sweet kiss to Julian’s lips. Julian sniffs as tears roll down his face, breaths hiccuping as Geralt ground down again. 

“I thought you wouldn’t cry.” Geralt said and leaned back to pull the sheet away and look down at where Julian’s cock was standing up against his belly, nighty rucked up to his sternum. He looked down and gave it a few light strokes. 

Julian moaned and bucked up, hands scrambling down to grab at Geralt’s wrists. He cried out and looked up at Geralt who had a look on his face, like a starved animal. 

“You gotta hold still for me, for just a minute, baby, just hold still, Julek” Geralt panted out and leaned back yanking his pants down, struggling just to get them down. 

“Geralt, what- what’re you going to do? I don’t… you know I don’t know how this works. Not with… not with two boys” Julian said in a panic as he yanked Geralt’s pants off his feet and flung them away. Geralt was back on him, straddling his waist, huge heavy cock covering Julian’s own. 

Julian just stared down at it… it was nearly the size of his forearm and it felt like fire on his skin. Geralt was so fucking perfect and… Julian felt so nervous, his belly twisting in a bad way. 

That was until Geralt was rubbing his hands up and down Julian’s sides, shushing him. 

“Just hold on, little bird, you just have to hold on for a second.” Geralt said and looked at Julian’s small bedside… oil. They needed some for this activity. 

He thought about it just for a moment before remembering something he’d seen in Julian’s harp case. He leaned down and kissed the boy again, sucking on his tongue for a moment when he pulled back. 

“Do you have that… that polishing oil with your harp still?” Geralt asked as he leaned back from kissing him. Julian was breathless, tears rolling down the sides of his face as he nodded, eyes unfocused and lips kissed red and puffy. 

“Yeah, it’s- it’s in the drawer” Julian answered after a moment to process what Geralt had said. He watched the larger man move to climb off the bed and dig through the drawer in the corner that held all Julian’s instrument’s tools and such. 

Gorgeous. That’s all Julian could think as he witnessed Geralt standing in the moonlight. One side of him, pale skin glowing in the light of the full moon, the other warmed by the candles. His hair was longer than it had been when he first arrived, now catching the light and casting the most stunning shadows across the man’s angular face. 

“ Julian ~” The boy finally heard as he came back into his mind, noticing Geralt was speaking. He looked at him, all tall and strong and hot and his cock and body and…

“‘M a bit dizzy” Julian said and Geralt soon returned, laying Julian back down flat, wiping tears away from his face, shushing him. 

“It’s alright. Do you still want to do this? It’s okay if you-” Geralt said and leaned down to wipe Julian’s eyes clean and looked down at him. He was cute. Plush and snuggly, adorable in his frilly nighty and his little socks. He was hard still, cock hard against his belly, dripping with need. 

“Please, I want you to do it. I wanna do it with you. I wanna lose… it … to you. Please.” Julian begged, staring up at Geralt’s amber eyes. He didn’t wanna be a virgin a moment longer; he wanted Geralt more than anything else. 

Geralt smiled down at him letting his hand go from wiping away tears to push the hair off Julian’s face. He crawled back up on the bed, straddling the boy once more, hands faced on his chest as he ground his ass over the boy’s hard cock. 

Julian let out a long moan and grabbed Geralt’s hips, thick muscular hips. 

“Be good, little bird, have patience.” Geralt whispered as he sat up straight, uncorking the bottle of oil. He looked down at Julian as he covered his fingers with the slick. Julian watched and looked confused. 

That was until Geralt was letting his fingers rub and slip into his hole. 

“I put my cock there? In you there? Won’t it hurt?” The boy asked as he watched Geralt’s hands move, one fingering himself open, the other holding the base of his cock, occasionally giving it a few tight strokes. 

Geralt was efficient with stretching himself out a bit, Julian wasn’t really that big. He huffed a laugh at the boy’s questioning and pulling his fingers away, stroking Julian’s cock a few times getting the extra oil off on him. 

Julian watched him, hands gripping the sheet below him. He stared down at where Geralt was kneeling over him, where Geralt was holding his cock to stand up. 

“It’s not gonna hurt me, sweetheart, this is just how… how boys do it.” Geralt said, breathless as he guided Julian’s cock to press against his wet hole. Julian just made sorry little huffing sounds until Geralt was easing down onto him. Both then letting out long moans until Geralt was sat on Julian’s hips. 

“You did it. ‘M not a virgin. Fucking gods, you feel amazing” Julian moaned, throwing his head back against the pillow under him, overwhelmed with the feeling. The feeling of being connected, of Geralt’s tight warm body, the feeling of them being together, matching and fitting together like puzzle pieces. They did match perfectly together. 

And they could both feel it. 

“I did, I took you. You’re mine, Julek, mine only. Promise me, promise your mine.” Geralt panted out and took Jlian’s hand, holding it to his heaving chest. Julian nodded, automatically agreeing. 

“Yes, yes my dear heart, my love, I’m all yours. All yours. Now have me, please.” Julian said, desperation creeping into his voice at the end. Geralt stayed for a breath longer, feeling how his heart felt sparked alive. 

And then the love melted away and the lust won over. He rose up on his knees till only the tip was still inside him and then he was letting himself fall back down, careful not to hurt the boy’s legs. Well as careful as he could be when Julian was clawing at his hips and moaning like he was putting a show on at a brothel. 

Julian was quick to cum, as expected, and was nearly passed out when Geralt guided his hand to wrap around his own cock. He was stroking himself more than Julian was, but that was okay, it was better than okay when he came and a single drop reached up to Julian’s chin and the boy licked it off. 

“That’s nasty, why do people swallow that stuff?” The boy said and made a face when the drop of cum hit his tongue. Geralt laughed, really laughed, as he sat beside the boy, feeling the cum drip from his hole. 

He reached back and grabbed the water from the bedside and guided Julian to drink some. The boy drank some and laid back, eyes slipping close as his hands rested against his clothed chest. 

He felt no shame laying in his bed with his wet cock out and his belly and nighty covered in another man’s cum. He only felt happy, and content, and tired, and wow… wow. 

“I love you Geralt. Do you want to get another bath?” The boy asked without opening his eyes. He missed the way Geralt looked down at him, eyes full of love and devotion. He didn’t know what was touching him either before he was being lifted up and carried down to the stairs. 

He didn’t open his eyes to see Geralt’s tears rolling down his face, or his smile, or his trembling lip. He was already asleep as Geralt filled a tub and held him close to his chest and wept as he cleaned them both. 

“môj vtáčik, môj, zostaň tu, zostaň so mnou” ( my little bird, mine, stay here, stay with me ) He whispered quietly as he tucked them both back into bed, holding and cuddling close to Julian who only sighed and wrapped his arms around the warm body open to him. 

It was perfect. So perfect. Warm and cozy and they both slept so well that night. Love was so thick in the air you could nearly see it. It was more than just perfect. It was nice. Geralt learned that nice was… so much better. So much better than being alive, than seeing, than hearing, than anything else. Nice was lovely. Nice was… alive. 

However nothing nice ever lasts.  

Julian got sick. 

So, so sick. 

He was pale, he barely ate, he was always cold, he had nose bleeds and his eyes went fuzzy and he was...

He was dying. 

Geralt tried everything to help him, gave him meds, asked the mages, asked the warlocks, he tried everything but Julian would smile and kiss and tell him it would be okay. 

"You knew this would happen when you came here. I'm sorry, Geralt. I'm so sorry I'm hurting you." The boy cried and held the man’s face in his trembling hands. He felt so terrible, not for himself, but for seeing Geralt be so worried. He could see the pain in Geralt's eyes each day when he wasn’t any better or when he struggled to breath or when he hacked up blood. He felt so terrible for hurting his beloved man. 

"No Julek, you're not hurting me. I never knew I could love before you. I love you, Julian, I love you." Geralt said as tears slid down his face, hands holding onto Julian’s thin wrists. He smiled at the pale skeleton that was once his plush pudgy love. 

He still loved him.

He’d love him a thousand times and a million times over. He’d give anything for him. He’d give him life, his heart, his body, anything. He just wanted Julian… to stay with him. 

"I love you too, my gem, my handsome man. Don't weep, my love, don't cry. You've given me more in the past few years than anyone else has my entire life. I'm so grateful for you. Please don't forget how much you gave me, I can never repay you." Julian said and wiped Geralt’s tears away with his thumbs. He was happy, he supposed. He was happy to have ever had Geralt for a moment. To have ever met him, to have ever even seen him. He could never repay the gods, destiny, or whoever brought the man to his home. He was happy to have had the man in his life. It hurt his heart to know he was hurting the strong man who wept before him. 

"You could stay. You could stay with me forever. Never leave me, please, please stay with me. I don't have anyone else." Geralt begged and begged. He’d do anything for Julian to stay. Anything. Julian only smiled and used his sleeve to pat away Geralt’s big tears. He shushed the bigger man and leaned forward to press a kiss to his forehead, his cheeks, his nose, and his lips. 

"I'll stay. You're mine, I'm yours. We’re meant to be with each other. Our destinies are intertwined, our lives are melted together. Like soup." Julian said, remembering the first conversation they ever had, the feeling he had. Geralt huffed a sad laugh and nodded. 

"Like soup." He agreed and laid Julian back down. He could rest for a bit before Geralt brought their dinner up, even knowing Julian wasn’t going to eat, he’d still sit the boy at the table and sit with him. 

They went to bed, Geralt putting a nice clean nighty and socks onto Julian, and disrobing himself down to a pair of thick pants and socks. The seasons were changing and it was a bitter night. He made sure to cover Julian up, making sure he was warm. 

“Goodnight, my love, try to get some sleep, you’ve been restless for so long now.” Julian said to him with a soft kiss before rolling over to be spooned and snuggled. 

“I love you, Julek, my heart is yours.” Geralt confessed and pressed as close as he could to the boy and let exhaustion take over him. 

When Geralt woke up Julian was gone. 

He dressed him, put him in the middle of the bed, and made him look like a king. He got a cloth and washed him, ran a brush through his soft hair, and made sure he looked neat and noble. 

Not a tear rolling down his face. He needed to go away, he needed to leave before the successor came. He needed to make sure Julian was treated properly and then he needed to leave. 

He cleaned the room, face stone cold. 

He was in shock really, his chest hurt. He walked down and called everyone into the dining room and they all already knew. 

Geralt went into the town and informed them. 

A cousin would be taking the estate and the power. 

Geralt dug his grave and buried him the way he wanted to be, with his music notes and his childhood harp. He had cried over the boy when he was tasked with covering him in soil. He sobbed and sobbed, letting out the most pained sounds half the town had ever heard. He howled and cried out like an animal being shredded by wolves. 

He slept there in the dirt over the boy, refusing to leave him until the leaves covered the grave. He carved a J out of a strong branch of wood and placed it over where Julian was. 

Geralt was darker than night as he moved through the house, he would come at night and leave at dawn. Things were moved and changed, no one caring though. No one was going to question him and his grief. 

He was told Julian had given him a house in the mountains and that was the last anyone ever seen of Geralt, Servant of The Flower of Lettenhoven. Lover of the Great Count Julian Of Lettenhoven. 

No one knew where he went, assuming he had left just as he had arrived, in the darkness of night in silence. The house in the mountains had been destroyed by an avalanche years ago, no one went looking for trouble anyway.

Next Chapter ->

[yiga-hellhole]

TWILIGHT FOREST, TWILIGHT KING: CHAPTER 16

the next chapter is live! does the promo art look a little familiar? :3c

Ghirahim is forced to face his mistakes. Perhaps he'll make a couple more.

again thanks to @bulgariansumo for proofreading!! additional credits go to twilit conlang and the enochian decoder. you'll have to do a little puzzling this chapter if you want the full context.. heehee

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11

ao3 mirror

cw this chapter for referenced mutilation and self-neglect

It was a fool’s errand, but one only he could dare to run. Ghirahim made his way through the Temple as if mounted on tracks, heading right for his Master’s offices. He knew he’d be angry. That he wouldn’t care for his company and, by all means, could put him right back in the crate where he came from. Yet, at that moment, that kind of absolution was all that could bring him peace. After the buzzing that haunted his mind the past few days, he felt the wrath of his Master would at least set him straight.

A knock at the door, a grumble allowing him entry. Ganondorf was working documents at a great, dark oak desk, framed by the reds of a roaring granite fireplace behind him. The same gold filigree that seemed to spontaneously grow throughout the Temple sprawled here, too, fanning out across the furniture like twisting vegetation. Ghirahim’s entry was not acknowledged any further, leading him to the nerve-wracking decision to approach him on his own accord. He padded across marble, across tapestry, until at long last he stood beside the Gerudo. His dark bronze skin was lined with fatigue, though it was an indulgent one. Ghirahim didn’t need to touch him to confirm the divine power that now surged through his veins. Shreds of mortality were stripped from him that fateful battle upon claiming the Triforce of Power; now, simple concepts like ‘hunger’ and ‘exhaustion’ only held their truest value in nostalgia, lingering to commit to a humble memory until he needed them no longer. All that power and Ghirahim had disappointed — no, enraged him. Somehow, remorse had to be conveyed, lest his loyalty be questioned. But before he could speak, his knees buckled. He fell forward, grasping at the fabric of his clothing to keep himself from collapsing to the ground. It was pathetic. And pitiful. And somewhere, he was thankful for it. To faint into him was a far more succinct way to beg for forgiveness than any words could have conveyed. The Demon King looked down at him and let him stay.

For a while, they remained silent. Ghirahim kneeled beside his Master’s seat, his cheek and folded arms resting on his thigh. Perhaps this was the mere quiet before the storm, simply lying in wait while Ganondorf thought of a suitable punishment, but he didn’t care. The fireplace cast him in an amber light, warming his skin but incomparable to the heat Ganondorf sent through him. 

His eyes fluttered shut and he let his force surge through him. Like a cyclical breath, golden power entered his body, sparked in his core, and flowed back out. Lights danced behind his eyelids, deep magenta Malice joining hands with shining stars and weaving together into one single glorious aura. It was so, so familiar, but so far from him he could cry. The vague impression this embrace gave him was nothing compared to the tidal wave he felt when Demon hands clasped around his hilt and encouraged him to kill.

His eyes lazily creaked back open when Ganondorf began to speak, still not looking up from his desk. “I trust that this warning will have sufficed, Lord Ghirahim. My patience is running thin.”

The scratching of the quill halted. Ganondorf was considering his words enough to pull his concentration from his work. “I have tolerated petty distractions and selfish ambitions. I have allowed you your whims, yes, for I find nothing as distasteful as keeping reputable men on a leash.”

“It is your duty to understand that I did not hire you for you to act as my disobedient pet. What I will not allow, is for your reckless behavior to lead to failure. ”

Ghirahim winced at the resumed sounds of quill scratching on paper. The sharp noise and his scolding combined enough for it to feel like the words were being scratched into his skin.

“I will not let you down again, My Master. I only hope that you understand my plight. Disobey you, I would never, but I cannot help what I was forged for.”

“You are crossing a line, Demon Lord,” Ganondorf growled, lip curling as he tapped his nib irritably against the parchment. “I will not repeat myself. Your failure to set your ambitions aside poses threats to my army. Threats which I will suffer no longer.”

Ghirahim stiffened. Indeed, Ganondorf could not have made himself any clearer and should not have had to. He clutched him, pressed himself against him fearfully as if he were not the source of that fear. 

Something warm placed itself on his head. His Master was stroking his hair. A sigh puffed out of Ganondorf. The contact and the almost wistful noise were enough to make Ghirahim melt to the touch. “Perhaps… When this war is over and the throne is in my hands, I may consider returning you to my scabbard.”

A perhaps, a maybe, a promise not to let him defend him in the glory of war, but to be strapped at his hip as an emergency measure. It was humiliating, teeth-grittingly so, yet to his frustrations, he felt a fluttering feeling in his gut. In the end, knowing he would be wielded made him happy, no matter the circumstance. Ganondorf was a deliberate man, organizing him carefully among his now many commanders, whereas Demise would have seized him long ago. Ghirahim huddled himself tighter to his leg, closing his eyes again under the comfort of fingers stroking through his locks.

No, he wasn’t Him. But he was Demise’s promise. So long as that Kingdom stood firm, there would be those who opposed it. To Hyrule, it was a curse, but to Ghirahim, it was his grounding beacon. If he could not serve his true Master, then he could join those who shared His Hatred and inherited His power as the torchbearer. It was all a weapon could do — what a weapon should do.

He had a purpose and he lived to fulfill it. There simply wasn’t room for anything more, nor did he have the right to wish for it. 

Face digging into the fabric of his breeches, he swallowed down the lump that formed in his throat.

A rapping at the door interrupted them. Someone outside cleared their throat briskly, and from that sound alone Ghirahim recognized who it was. He had to restrain a sigh.

“Milord, you have received correspondence from the Deku Lordship in the north,” announced Yuga from outside the room. “Shall we review it together?”

Ganondorf craned his head to face the door, then glanced back down at Ghirahim from the corner of his eye. “You are dismissed. I trust you to see to the trainees for today.”

His body was sluggish and hesitant to pull away from the warm comfort of Ganondorf’s lap, but his spirit was firm in its obedience. Ghirahim rose his head with a nod, gazing up at him one last time. Before Ganondorf could bid the sorcerer beyond the door to enter, the sword spirit had already blinked away.

—

Of course, he didn’t have to attend to his duties for long. His relentless drilling of the Demon King’s lower-ranking commanders had made fine warriors out of many of them. The training fields beyond the Temple’s vast gardens were occupied by hundreds, be they demon, Gerudo, undead, or aberration, all equally eager to show off their skills before their esteemed lieutenant. Pride surged through him as he walked through the sparring masses. He was far too busy enjoying the fruits of his labor to notice all the distasteful displays of footwork and clumsy swings among the common soldiery. His commanders were immaculate: elegant and deadly; quick to punish. There was hardly any need for him to intervene in their training. If he did, it was only ever for his amusement. Yes, every single one of these small-fries, he’d left them in good hands. 

They were holding up just fine without him. 

That realization was subtle at first, budding as a comfort and as proof that he had instructed them well. Watching from the sidelines, his foot began to tap onto the trampled dirt with a nervous tic the more he saw the commanders swoop in to correct their pawns. Had they done this the entire time, with such efficiency, in his absence? He felt branches grow, tendrils, bearing thorns and pointed edges that dug into his pride the longer he stood and watched. He couldn’t stomach it. A being made for combat should not merely watch as others have all the fun. The Demon Lord was many things, but redundant, he was not. 

Before he knew it, he’d pulled one of his commanders aside, and barked the command to clear a path for them. Eyes were on him again, feeding a ravenous desire to be marveled at, as he pulled his sword on living armor almost twice his size. 

Demonstrating footwork and simple strikes would have been wasted on such an opponent. He went straight for the jugular. Before long, the monster's parrying grew more and more frantic, and he drove the two-ton menace back with each slash and jab of his obsidian blade. He could feel the training sword chip and scratch with every strike, screeching and groaning under the force of his jabs. No longer could the Darknut keep up. Ghirahim was hitting armor, leaving scratches and dents, kicking at joints, and piercing through gaps. Piercing, piercing, carving, something soft, something-

An ethereal cry came from an otherwise empty helmet, and with a puff of smoke, the commander’s arm fell to the ground with a hollow thud and rattle.

Ghirahim paused. His sword faded from his hand in diamonds. The whole training field was silent, then, for a moment, until some began to cheer in morbid delight, others whispered among one another. His defeated opponent merely held his arm in his remaining hand, somewhat dejectedly trying to reattach it but failing to do so. 

An example was set, he supposed. His place in the hierarchy was justified and reinforced. Yet, he couldn’t find any satisfaction in it. How strange. Wanton violence never failed to invigorate him, yet this time, he just felt more bored than he did before. So, he turned, offhandedly gesturing for a Poe on the sidelines to tend to the duelist’s injury, though he didn’t bother to look behind him to check if they did. With his departure, their little arena quickly dispersed, and the training field was back in formation like he’d never disrupted it.

Once again he returned to the halls, staring out the ceiling-length windows to keep an eye on the little specks of soldiers from afar. How dreadful it was, to have nothing to occupy oneself with! Ghirahim sighed, seating himself on the windowsill. He gazed out over the mansion’s property, though he registered very little of what he saw. It was simply staring for the sake of staring, passing images through a blank mind. The outside world began to tire him as the first drops of rain tapped on the window before him, gently ushering him out of a self-inflicted trance. He perked up and instead turned his attention back to the hallway, where his eyes landed on a painting he could swear wasn’t there a day or two earlier. It bore a purple frame, matte and dark as if absorbing every bit of light and obliterating it for the crime of taking away from the figure depicted inside. Surrounded by a haze of swirling violets was a young woman, perhaps sixteen-to-nineteen years of age (though, mortal lifespans always puzzled him). She looked eerily familiar, now that he paid attention to it. In some ways, she reminded him of the Spirit Maiden and every incarnation before her, but some things were drastically different. Her hair was dark and wavy, and her eyes held fatigue and sorrow no frightfully optimistic Zelda he’d known could ever carry. Whoever she was, her painter held a fondness for her. Having been at the other end of the easel, he knew how the Lorian Sorcerer could fuss over her models, how she’d preen their hair and scold any slouch. The tired yet endeared smile Ghirahim had carried then, was reflected on this girl, too, and it had been immortalized affectionately on the canvas.

Yuga. Perhaps she was up for company today. With some luck, he’d get another portrait or two out of it. The atelier wasn’t far. He hopped down from his seat and winked out of view, leaving that strange, purple girl in her own company.

Ghirahim arrived at the painter’s workshop to find it unoccupied. He supposed with a sigh that the Demon King must have been keeping her busy. That left him with more time to waste than he’d care for. Well, there wasn’t any harm in looking around. He’d known Yuga’s atelier back at Gerudo Palace, but he hadn’t yet displayed himself lavishly in this one, surprisingly enough. Much to his amusement, he found it laid out as a near-carbon copy of her other atelier. There was a wooden cabinet, though a touch smaller, with little labeled drawers that held her countless pigments. The place was a mess of props, curtains, and sketches, though most were covered to protect them from the sun, should it peek into the room. For this atelier was a bright place. Whereas the atelier at Gerudo Palace was more shrouded in darkness, keeping out the merciless desert heat, this room faced the West with tall, floor-to-ceiling windows, fashioned with rose mosaics at their pinnacles. It was certainly lived in — right at her little balcony, Yuga put up a chair, where a piece of parchment and a handful of oil pastels left behind the hints of an idyllic spare time picture. This must have been where she’d sit to paint the sunset, Ghirahim figured.

All very fascinating, to poke around somebody’s business while they’re not present, but he’d much rather speak with the person than consult with images he’d conjure of her in his mind. He turned back to the center of the room, where bright, red-and-gold curtains hid away an easel that stood before a podium. Making his way over, he found a canvas, perhaps an arm’s length, covered by a white sheet. His eye fell on the podium first, finding it set up with a luxurious embroidered curtain for a backdrop, and a small still-life next to a similarly concealed piece of furniture. 

Someone had been posing there. An initial spark of annoyance lit in him when he realized there were only a few candidates for her to paint, and that it hadn’t been him. Before he could decide which option ticked him off more, his eye fell on a collection of sketches that had been pinned to the wall beside him. The sight of a sharp, aquiline nose, and a well-groomed beard instantly made him whip around and grip the edge of the sheet. Something in him fumed and thrummed. Whether it was with rage, jealousy, or fear, he could hardly distinguish, but it drowned out any polite hesitation that kept him from peeping and forced his hand to rip the covering clean off.

White fabric shook, billowed, and fluttered in the air as if frozen there, before it flopped lifelessly to the ground, dropping from an enraged fist that lost its strength. Ghirahim’s core sank at what he saw on that canvas.

The room was silent, save for the insistent pattering of rain on the windows, but Ghirahim was deaf to it all. Captured in paint was an image of his Master. Ganondorf was splayed comfortably on the scene on the podium, boots casually kicked off on the ground, but his powerful form still inspired grandeur. Yet, there was an intimacy to it. His provocative smirk and the subtle spread of his legs were inviting. The way his undershirt flared open at the chest suggested that the invitation had been accepted more than once. The wrinkles at the corners of his eyes, the subtle scarring between calloused fingers, and the shimmer of his jewelry… Such details would have been lost by any who hadn’t been able to see him up close — to touch him — yet here they were, depicted flawlessly. 

What shattered within him wasn’t mere childish jealousy. The whole foundation of his being began to crack and wobble. He’d wasted too much time. Nights he spent in the arms of a stranger should have been spent where he belonged. An ungrateful, frivolous wretch he’d been for dancing around his purpose. His habit, his curse, to repeat the same mistakes had cost him dearly. Now, the one he’d devoted himself to… No, who owned him, had chosen the company of someone else. 

Listlessly, Ghirahim hung the sheet back over the painting, not caring if it was affixed properly or not. He could bear to look at it no longer, and so he turned from it. 

His feet dragged him back to the window, drawn by the trails of raindrops racing down the glass. Their little rivers split and joined endlessly, rearranging themselves at the mercy of the deluge. Such a horrid little reminder of how his fate had been toyed with! One little droplet had gotten in his way, and now he’d veered off course. Dropping himself into whatever seat found itself below him, he peered out into the distance, drowning his sorrows in the roaring sounds of the rain. The vines and thorns that crept their way up to the window were beaten in the downpour, removing them from their last shreds of vibrant life. How gray that garden looked without its petals.

When Yuga returned she encountered him lying on the couch across his easel. It was covered by a sheet, presumably to protect it from dust, but Ghirahim knew it was the very same one from the painting. It smelled just like their King. He’d even found one of his hairs caught on the thin white fabric. He draped himself on there, sleek white and glittering, yet desolate as a discarded bridal veil, face tucked into the nook of his elbow. Peering past his lashes, he found Yuga looking quite peeved. He could only guess the painter saw how the cloth covering her painting had been moved, and now knew her secret was out.

“I see you’ve taken the liberty of letting yourselves into my private affairs,” Yuga said with a tilt of her hips and her arms crossed.

Ghirahim narrowed his eyes. “Private affairs,” he mocked. “I am his Blade, Yuga. An extension of his being. There is nothing ‘private’ you can have with him, without my involvement.”

Yuga scoffed as if it was a bluff. Ghirahim’s eye twitched subtly behind the curtain of his bangs. It never should have been a bluff; yet in this world, it was. The Lorian spoke. “Is that so,” she sneered, hands at her sides. “Then what’s that sulking on my set for? Surely you didn’t discover anything new.”

Such a despicably smug attitude! He supposed that when walking into the lion’s den, he needed some way to get the upper hand. Oh, yes; he could think of a thing or two that could sweep her feet out from under her. “What is he to you? You glue yourself to him as if you have any right to belong there. If you think Master is taking applications for pets, you’d be sorely mistaken.”

Her lip twitched in annoyance, but her poise remained firm. “Ganondorf is my Muse. That is all you are entitled to know.”

A non-answer, but he’d gotten under her skin. To the sorcerer, just about anybody with a pretty enough face around these parts was a Muse. The Demon King’s army just so happened to be a lush garden of supernatural and powerful beauty, ripe for the picking. At least, that was the picture he’d gotten of her. To be at the receiving end of her curt, blunt responses meant he was getting close to snapping her flimsy patience.

After glaring him down for another few seconds, her fiery gaze fizzled out into bitter ash. She had the clear intent of making some jabs of her own. “Zant. What did you do to him?”

Ghirahim jerked his head up with a scowl. With just the uttering of his name, Yuga just had to remind him of what he managed to stave off the past few days. He’d banished any thought of the Twili, locked them away, and swallowed the key. Now, with scorched brown eyes squinting so fiercely at him, he could feel that blasted key crawling its way back up his throat. “To him?” he hissed. “How presumptuous of you. I’ll have you know I long decided to let that distraction slide. I’ve nothing to do with whatever he’s moaning about.”

Yuga bit back instantly. “Don’t feign ignorance on me now, boy! I send you to go talk with him, and all of a sudden, we don't see hide or hair of him for days on end? You did something,” she spat, accusing a manicured finger at him and staring him down. When he refused to answer, she clicked her tongue. “… Go on! You’ve already pried into my business, so in turn, I shall pry into yours. Tell me!”

He shifted uneasily in his seat in response. Chin propped on his hand, he turned his gaze out the window. “I fail to see how his fickle mental state is my problem.”

His deflection was met with shrill, bird-like laughter. “That’s rich!” Yuga exclaimed. “For months, you’re all over each other, and suddenly, he’s no longer your problem?”

The gray outside world was doing absolutely nothing to distract him. Again he shifted, pulling his knee in to tuck himself closer to the armrest. Such a reminder was unwelcome, and he took it as more of an accusation of his negligence to his duty, than any perceived slights to the Twili. He squinted his eyes and furrowed his brow, hiding himself from her gaze with his hair. 

Wood creaked, the sound of feet walking up on the podium. Yuga’s voice mellowed some, but behind that restrained softness, anger still lurked. “… Is that what this is? Did you break up?”

“There was nothing to break up,” Ghirahim snapped back through gritted teeth.

Yuga groaned, tapping her foot on the floorboards before making her way over to him. For just a moment, he peeped at her through the gaps in his hair, but the unrelenting, gargoyle-esque snarl quickly made him reconsider. She ran her hand down her face in exasperation, dramatically yet with great care not to smudge her make-up. “I may be the last person in the world to be saying this, but… Ghirahim, you can’t simply up and walk away. You know how he is!”

He wanted to struggle, to object to her accusations, but he found no words coming out. And even if he had any, they’d have no room to squeeze between her ravings. She dropped down on the couch next to him and sneered her plummy little ultimatum. “There are two options here. Either you reel him in, or you let him swim. All this leading him on is just cruel.”

“Cruel!?” To think he cared about such a thing! It was laughable. He couldn’t decide whether the hilarity lied in the accusation with him as its receiver, or for the accusant to be Yuga, of all people. Nevertheless, he felt eager to shed himself of blame. It sloughed around him like shedding skin, and he wanted rid of it. He turned to her with a frown. “I’ve made myself perfectly clear to him. We are high-ranking commanders. That Zant wishes to fall apart over juvenile pass-time has nothing to do with my decision to-“

“You are a commander in this army, indeed. You are also an adult,” Yuga hissed with a jab at his collarbone. “Now how about you act the part, and go on over to him to settle this? Without Zant, our forces will suffer. His feebleness gets him killed, and it would be your fault.”

Such insults he would not take! Ghirahim smacked the hand at his chest away from him with the air of dismissing an insect. Blame still stuck to him, sewn back on by bony hands with something almost unprecedented. Guilt. 

The quarreling pair stayed locked in an exchanged scowl, and though it hurt his pride, he was the first to break away. To argue with her was a pointless affair, especially when their points of view came from such different worlds. He swept his cape around his shoulder and rose from the couch, offering Yuga nothing more than a curt nod to announce his departure.

Nevertheless, she had one more sneer to give before he left. “The nerve you have to stick your nose in my business when your own affairs are in such a state… Out of my workshop! I’m fed up with you, Demon Lord.”

She didn’t even have to ask. For once, he opted to leave a room through the door, if only for the chance to slam it behind him.

—

Once again, he found himself passing through the hallways of the Temple. Normally, he was perfectly capable of keeping petty ponderings at bay. Those times, though, he’d at least had a distraction. With nothing but the foggy, looping interiors of Cia’s mansion to occupy him, his mind circled as much as the tiles below him. 

Yuga was right in that the mansion had seen very little of the Lord of Shadows since that day. From his lingering in the hallways, Ghirahim hadn’t seen Zant leave even once. The only sign of life coming from that decrepit room was an occasional servant that either came to deliver or retrieve a stack of documents, exchanged with a pallid hand slipping through a crack in the door. 

It was puzzling. Ghirahim expected him to sulk, certainly, after his unspoken rejection. But alongside Zant’s habits of holing himself up, he’d also expected his token sounds of wailing, in torment of the ghosts of nightly visitors. Yet, there had been nothing but silence. He couldn’t imagine him dreaming quietly in a state of tantrum. Perhaps he hadn’t slept at all. 

The thought alone made him grit his teeth. Zant hadn’t eaten — certainly, the man’s reptilian appetite wouldn’t kill him with a few days’ break — Zant hadn’t slept. He was wasting away in that room, interrupting his self-pitying only to pour over his duties. And anyone aware of it had the gall to blame him for it. Undoubtedly including Zant himself. It was infuriating. It was sickening. It left a lump in his throat he couldn’t swallow and an icy pit in his core that wouldn’t thaw, no matter how much he paced there in an effort to summon enough burning rage to melt it all away. 

Of course he wasn’t responsible for this. All this time, Zant had ignored the realities of the one he’d gotten so charmed with, forgotten that it could only ever be temporary. Ghirahim wasn’t his to take, for he belonged to another. Certainly, the Twili had tried. He’d coaxed him into unfamiliar waters, luring him to plunge into the depths with him until their affection alone could warm that strange, cold abyss. But no matter how he’d toyed with such distractions, and how he’d snagged him, the leash of destiny kept tugging firmly at his throat. And he adored that leash, he’d worship it and let it drag him back to kingly hands even if it wore down to a single thread. He’d made a promise to Demise, then, an oath older than the lands themselves. 

Yet his feet took him elsewhere. While dwelling in his mind, he’d kept walking and ended up at the end of the hallway leading straight to the lieutenants’ chambers.

He had almost forgotten. His collar was fitted with two leads.

With separate ends tugging at him at once, Ghirahim was forced to weigh his options.  His instinct drew him to the obvious and forced him paces back. He knew who was meant to hold him, who was Demise’s worthy successor. Ganondorf had, in his own words, ‘spoiled’ him. The shreds of affection he’d given him were precious, unprecedented in their fondness. This Demon King was kind, in his own way, but no matter how much he indulged those needs for closeness, he’d denied his greatest need of all. He would not wield him. Perhaps when that incarnation had split his power off for his servant, that with it went the part that wanted him. 

Ghirahim could deny it no longer. It was all too meager compared to what Zant had showered him with. For every minute Ganondorf spent with him, the Twili had given him hours. Zant threw himself at him with blind trust time and time again. Doing so once would have been stupidity, but to repeat it could only mean a desperate cry for affection. Where one man had cast him aside in a wooden box, the other grabbed hold of him fiercely and eagerly, only to let go if all his fingers were amputated. With all sensibilities, Zant could have been a simple, power-hungry lunatic, eager to get his hands on a legendary blade. Yet, somewhere, he indulged in the thought that Din had smiled upon him for once, and Destiny had meant for him to be wielded by hands that loved him just as rambunctiously as he would love them.

They were mere fantasies, wishful thinking, and he felt thunder rumbling in him for the blasphemy of it all. But, oh, Hell’s Realms. Zant was a mortal man, after all. Ghirahim decided he could afford to pretend a little longer.

Yet, as he stood before the doors, he couldn’t think of how to proceed. Was he to knock? Call out for him and await his response? It wasn’t that he was afraid, but he was in haste. Every second he’d spend dawdling at this door made the risk he’d turn and run greater. Childishly, shamefully, he was clutching the feeling that raced in his core, of how he desired to see him and test what mortal affection meant. He didn’t know how long he could stave off the sense of duty he barred away, for it already started growling in the back of his mind. Were he to announce his arrival, he saw a baffling chance that Zant would reject him. If there was anything he would not do, it was beg. 

He fell into old habits as a result. He snipped his fingers and appeared at the other side of the door.

Frankly, the door should have been a hint. Unlike the other lieutenants’ chambers, this one had been bare, lacking in the personal touch Cia had given to each of her underlings. It suddenly struck Ghirahim that before this, Zant had never been to Cia’s dwelling. She’d revived him, certainly, but had let him reign his terror in the Twilight Realm only. There hadn’t been a need for him here, and thus, no chambers. The Usurper King was staying in a spare.

The inside was pitch dark. Thick curtains were nailed to the walls where windows must have hidden behind. Not a speck of light entered from the outside — Rather, the only light seemed to come from Zant himself. A dim glow of burned gold shed light on the little furnishing he had, their contents spilled on the floors. Darkness ruled so thoroughly here, it was almost thick enough to taste, bitter and dry like a furnace fire. 

It was the sound that alerted him to the shape draped on the bed. A droning hum blared from it, but through the noise, he could hear breathing, raspy and soft. The room was as viciously rejecting him as he rejected it, kept only at bay by the wafts of teeming Twilight radiating out from him. He did not belong here. The Temple was making it known.

Ghirahim’s presence hadn’t been noticed yet. How could he have been? So quiet and small was he amid this brewing storm of shadow. He bit through the vertigo and spoke. “Zant.”

The breathing stopped with a gasp. Zant’s figure stirred, shifted, and rolled over to push himself upright. Slowly, and heavily, as if rising from water, he uncurled his spine bit by bit to sit with a hunch. Glowing eyes turned to him, surfacing from a pure black silhouette. “Entering without my permission,” Zant replied, his voice an eerie calm. “Have you come to berate me again?”

If he had prepared any words in his mind prior to facing him, he couldn’t recall them now. But what he could remember was confusion, a feeling that drifted in him like a passing ship every minute they spent together. An idle curiosity about Zant’s infatuation with him became all the more troubling when he realized it became mutual. He knew attraction, he knew lust, he knew devotion. The intricacies of mortal attachment were entertaining to him from afar, how the Twili could amuse and comfort himself with something more fleeting than the beat of a wing. But he was never prepared for it to be infectious. Berate him, no. Perhaps it would be cathartic in the heat of the moment, but it would get him no further. He wanted answers, so perhaps he could know what to do with the guilt that ate at him. If he could do anything at all. 

“What do you want from me?”

It was a laughably simple question. A stupid one — not in its simplicity, but in how it laid him bare. It bared every card he had, boldly displaying his insecurity. He knew what Zant wanted. He simply wanted to hear him say it, so in the meantime, he could think whether he could squeeze his way out of what reciprocation would ask of him. 

Zant saw through him at first glance. A sullen laugh shivered its way out of him. “You have left me here to rot this long, and this is how you come to greet me?” 

He froze where he stood. Thinking back on the times he’d clicked his tongue, curled his lip, or frowned at him, he wondered where his past self had summoned all that nerve from. Looking at the gaunt, shadowy shape, drowning amidst the expanse of his flowing robes, he couldn’t think of a single contort. 

His silence was met with a softening gaze. “… It’s strange, Ghirahim. I’ve mulled over it for days, growing bitter ever still. I thought I would be angry with you, should you come knocking at my door, but…” Zant’s voice hitched and shook, tripping its way past a lump that matched his own. “Now that you’re here, I can only feel glad to see you again.”

Just like that, he was moving again. He expected to feel the leash acutely, but something else pushed him forward. Whatever force propelled him forward was an indulgent one. Drawing ever closer, the Twilight parted for him, lifting the dark on the silhouette of his Twili. What he saw stopped him dead in his tracks. He noticed it when first entering, but thought it only a trick of the light. Zant reached out for him, taking his hand to stroke his palm with his thumb, but no amount of cooing and fondling could distract him from what froze him in cold horror. 

An unfamiliar asymmetry drew his gaze. At the second fin from the tip, his right ear had been cropped down.

Eyes pried wide open, and mouth slightly agape, Ghirahim sat next to him. Not merely as a plea for intimacy, but because his legs wouldn’t hold him any longer. In an instant, he remembered. The blade to his ear, the pain of shame far greater than that of steel carving through false cartilage. How a hand big enough to engulf his entire head then reached out, and rubbed at the fresh, bleeding injury almost affectionately, as if the pads of His massive fingers might cauterize the wound. He remembered hoping that they never would, that he could keep bleeding ichor into His hands forever and stain Him deep enough to rival midnight’s black. 

But most of all, he remembered the fear.

Zant, too, would have had to conquer that alone. He couldn’t explain the pit that thought left in his core.

The runes on his forehead glowed softly, blinking with the rhythm of the circles Zant rubbed into his gloves. Zant didn’t meet the eyes that stared at him with such cold desperation but spoke nonetheless, his voice deep and dusty like one that would haunt a crypt. “You have been darkening my doors for days, Ghirahim. Do not look surprised. No shadow can be cast near me without me knowing about it. Yet, all this time, you avoided entering. What changed?”

Now, Zant’s eyes flitted up to look at him and they wouldn’t release him. Ghirahim steeled his nerves against the sorrow that shook him just earlier. “What changed is that I’ve figured out the source of my confusion. You haven’t answered my question.”

It was bold to demand things from him, bold enough to offend him. Zant released him from his gaze again, and the hold on his hand loosened. “Neither have you mine, not directly. We are talking in circles. I don’t care to be the first to listen.”

He fought against the weight on his shoulders, tried to convince himself it wasn’t guilt, and lost. Once again, he left a debt unpaid, an imbalance in their dynamic. He’d forgotten too quickly about how Zant offered to right his own wrongs mere days before. The least he could do was acknowledge it. “… I’ve hurt you.”

“You have,” Zant stated gravely before he could even fully finish speaking. “You’ve toyed with me, led me to great heights only to push me off of them. But you were not the first, and to hope for you to be the last would be wishful thinking.”

It was Ghirahim’s turn to grasp his hands. Were he to let Zant retreat further, he would lose the thin threads he had left to hold on to. If anything, he wanted to chase his curiosity, though he didn’t dare to think of where it would lead him. “I know, and I have hurt you, which is exactly what vexes me so. Everything we’ve done and said is against my nature as a sword, and you know this as well as I do.” He paused for a moment, trying to gauge Zant’s reaction, but found his face hollow of intent. “Yet, you continue to pester me, even if it hurts you so, and I can no longer trust your intentions. I’ve come to you today because I need answers.”

Zant let out a short laugh, teetering on the edge of scornful and intrigued. “Answers, hm… And this is your way of getting them? To barge into my room, pout with confession, and ask for forgiveness?” He shook his head, lowering their hands into his lap. “I don’t think you know how. Not from mortal men like me.”

Ghirahim narrowed his lips into a thin line. If he could not appeal to him in this way, in the closest approximation of a grovel he could manage, he had nothing. He was at a loss for words. 

Zant took advantage of his silence. “I’m sure you think I want an apology. I do not. Frankly, apologies often serve much more to ease the conscience of the guilty, than to soothe the one who’d been wronged. I’m led to believe that you are such a person too, Ghirahim.” He smiled at him, but not from kindness. It was a dreary smile much like the one Ganondorf had shown him, of fondness against one’s best judgment. “I will not give you that relief just yet. You have not earned it. What I want, is the truth.” 

Again Zant dominated the clasping of their hands, cradling his fingers in his before raising them to his chest. Zant’s brows furrowed, his face leaned closer to his, and he felt compelled to follow. “Ghirahim, what are we?”

His question was almost timid, like he feared whatever the outcome might have been. Ghirahim found himself in the exact same spot. What were they? Was Zant not the one to have asked him for their first kiss? Was it not Zant who came knocking on his door to drag him off to whatever corner of Hyrule he desired to see? Did he not propose an ‘anniversary’, mark him with a gift, and attempt to court him mere days before? 

Ghirahim had humoured him for all but one. He couldn’t fathom why he had to be the one to put words to them. “What do you think?”

Zant frowned, squeezing his hands insistently. “No. You will not appease me so easily. I ask you for your idea of this relationship. I want to know how you view us, without my words to shape your thoughts.”

Ghirahim blinked up at him. The thoughts Zant was asking for were hardly in a presentable state. Frankly, he hadn’t the faintest idea. It wasn’t that he was inexperienced; such a conclusion was silly. He’d known many flings and a handful of trusted companions, but neither bond approached what Zant had dragged him into. The bond most natural to him had been that of Master and Servant, and it was the only one near the intimacy they shared. At least, near the intimacy he yearned for in such a role. For this, there had been no equal, not once in his millennia of being. Few had dared to come close to him, and nothing had dared to do so unscathed. Zant, similarly, had not escaped unharmed, but he was the first to come crawling back. He wondered what word he could borrow. “… We are lovers, no?”

It was an innocent enough word, but Zant latched onto it like it’d been wreathed in gold. “Lovers?” He teased with it, but beyond that playful surprise, something of far greater gravity reared its head. “Do you love me, then?”

It was idiotic how the question almost startled him. Despite placing the bait himself, he was cornered by it nonetheless. The only love he knew now was the one for his Master, that lulled him into comforting subservience, yet drove him to strive for greatness. The love he knew could reduce the world to ashes. It was dedication, it was relinquishing his every will to the hands of the one who wielded him, even if he shattered in His palm.

Zant sought something else. Something without fear, without dominion. He had to, for he had rejected every attempt at such a dynamic. For mortals, love was an illogical force, at least in his eyes. It was a fragile, temporary thing, that made the flesh-born impulsive and complacent. A sensation so fickle, with no goal but to claim a person for one’s own in such a brief lifetime, seemed enough to risk one’s life for. As he sat there, his hands cradled to a beating heart, the thought of it felt oddly charming, as pathetic as it sounded. Perhaps the stupidity Zant forced him into, the desire for attention he’d awakened in him, came close. “I… I suppose I do.”

Big, amber eyes blinked at him. Zant swallowed, his voice low and hoarse as he pleaded. “Then say it.”

Ghirahim paused. “Zant, I…” 

I don’t know if I can, said the voice in his mind, but his lips did not move to say the words. Instead, something else surged forward, bursting free from whatever fissure he’d locked it in after it’d gnawed itself free from its chains. So forcefully it had wedged loose from him, yet the words came out so quietly, so softly, like a peck on the cheek. “I love you.”

Zant reacted to the words as if he’d been branded by hot iron. He forced a shaky breath into his chest, one that stiffened his body and straightened his back. That once pallid face turned red. “Again,” he stammered. “Please.”

The piercing look in Zant’s eyes, how his pulse hammered in his chest and his ears twitched and fluttered, told Ghirahim he made a promise he didn’t know he could keep. But whatever his mind could not comprehend, a little dagger within him took to with joy. Zant loved him, it was a fact as true as the sky was blue, yet he understood nothing of how to reciprocate. It was an alien concept to him, the damning implications of it dangling above his head, but shrouded in the dark as he was, he could not see its shadow. He couldn’t put into words what he felt if he tried. He didn’t know, he didn’t know, but perhaps he could learn. He was struck by how he wanted to learn, how simply saying the words bloomed so warmly in his chest. “…I… I love you,” he obliged, spoken almost like a question.

His Twili loomed closer now, enough for the feverish heat from his cheeks to hover over his cool skin. Timid hands found his face, ghosting their fingertips over his jaw. Zant laughed shakily, blinking away the dampness of his eyes. Tears speckled with orange and blue as they ran down his face. Whatever composure the Twili had mustered was now shattering. Such vulnerability normally would make Ghirahim see red, but now, all he wanted was to cradle it in his hands. Zant’s voice escaped him, as if he’d trapped it but decided to let it slip through the bars. 

“Again,” he whispered, quivering and squeezing his hands, eyes filled with hunger. “I beg of you,” cracked free under hushed breath.

Whoever steered his body now, Ghirahim did not know him. He was a stranger in his own skin. His hands sought out the other man, one laying on his shoulder and the other arriving to stroke his face. The pads of his gloves ran past the faded grooves of his scarring, testing the waters of the strange bits of tenderness Zant had shown him many times before. 

“I lo-“

He was interrupted by the sudden presence of lips against his own. Though he could not finish uttering the words, their meaning still carried into the breath passing between them. Before he knew it, he’d thrown his arms around his neck and tumbled the pair backward into the flowing mass of robes and blankets. Pressed so firmly against him, he could feel every bone that jutted from his skin and taste the blood that dribbled from chapped lips. By Demise, he’d ruined him. The eager lust that had motivated him before faded in an instant, instead overtaken by the urge to apologetically kiss the tears off his cheek.

Grey, withered hands found their way around him, digging their digits into the fabric of his cloak. Zant took his distraction as an opportunity to speak, a bittersweet smile gracing his face. “My answer to you, Ghirahim? I return to you, time and time again because I adore you. To rip you from me now would be to tear out the blade wedged into me, and spill out everything that keeps me breathing.”

A whimper got stuck in his throat, but his hand found his face before it found his ear, stroking a finger past his earring. “You’ve hurt me, antagonized me… I wish to be close to you, and if doing so burns me, then I will wear those blisters with pride. By the Gods, Ghirahim — those words, I’ve wanted someone to say them to me in my entire life, more than anything. I could not be happier that it’s you.”

Ghirahim sought the words to respond, but he buckled before he could find them, instead falling back into their embrace. It was desperate. Pitiful, almost. And he was thankful for it, for falling back into their lip-lock conveyed his affection far better than any words could. Any more thinking, and he might have come to the conclusion that he’d been wrong, that entangling himself further with this man was a mistake. The second he left this room, there was a real possibility he could. But for now, he fluttered his eyes shut, and let the heat this lunatic sparked in him take over.

The rest of that day was spent in timid togetherness, in prodding at the edge of boundaries to see what stuck. Neither was certain now how to proceed, having said words they could not return but feeling mutually strange after the distance they’d been forced into. No measure of distance could prevent Ghirahim from preening his newly-found ‘lover’ to a more presentable state, though. Greasy hair, dirty nails, and an unwashed face were distasteful enough for a King, but completely unacceptable for anyone wishing to associate with the Demon Lord. Ghirahim had been no stranger to taking care of him the past months, but now, every little touch felt much more deliberate. Slowly, but surely, the pale creature perked up, even if short-lived. A lack of sleep pulled him away from the dining table before the fussiest of their co-lieutenants could even think to inquire about the events that’d taken place, and they were back in the hall to their chambers. 

As they arrived at the doorway, Ghirahim froze. The second that door closed, the illusion could fade. So he grabbed his wrist and prevented him from entry. 

“Zant,” he whispered, meeting the eyes that warmly looked down at him. “Won’t you let me stick around?”

——

Days, weeks passed, with the Demon King in hiding while he experimented with his new Power. The other King, in his own right, similarly had not sat still. With the improvement of his health came Zant’s return to the library, and Ghirahim had skillfully ignored whatever squeaky little voice in the back of his mind told him to mind his business. The first aftermath of such nosiness showed itself that very day when Zant came to him wearing far more layers than usual and coaxed him into yet another ‘expedition’.

Hands joined, shadows whispered, and Ghirahim quickly squinted from the blinding white that overtook his senses. The pair found themselves at the top of a hill in the Lanayru region, overlooking an expanse of ice and snow. 

Ghirahim tucked his arms to his chest, hiding them from the cold under his cloak. “I must say, Zant. It did not take you very long to drag me into your nonsense again.”

Zant laughed, the sound muffled by his thick, woolen scarf. “I have a feeling you will have very few complaints about this particular outing.”

“Will I now?” He chuckled, looking down into the valley below. A vast, frozen lake lay at its very bottom, once fed by waterfalls from the cliffsides all around them. In the winter, it had to make do with the occasional icy trickle. They’d been here before, but Zant had been the last one to see it frozen. He’d taken them to Lake Hylia. “The choice of location already puzzles me. Sending us directly into enemy territory is a bold choice.”

“On the contrary,” Zant said, taking a crunchy step forward into the snow. “Most of the Zora migrate upstream to a seasonal town in Eldin this time of year, or so I’ve heard.”

“Right,” Ghirahim hummed, stepping after him. “Something tells me that whatever you’ve got planned, anyone that’s still lingering will want to give the place a wide berth either way.”

A mischievous little giggle escaped the Twili, then, and he turned to look at him. “So you’re going to humour me?”

“Have I any other choice?”

“There are always choices, Ghirahim-ili. I’m merely glad mine has landed in your favor today.”

Ghirahim shook his head in a fondly feigned annoyance, before joining by his side and patting his arm. “Go ahead and show me your devious little plans, then, Twilight King.”

“Very well,” Zant smiled, reaching into his sleeve to retrieve a grimoire… Or, well, a leather-bound mess of bookmarks and notes that served as one, at least. “I’ve narrowed down the summoning circle for a beast I expect to be quite useful in guarding the Desert Palace. I was hoping you could assist me in the ritual.”

Ghirahim hummed, eyes darting between the book and the valley. “I see. And we’re doing this at Lake Hylia… Why, exactly?”

“Well, the ice, I reckon, will make for a good canvas to scratch the sigils into. Furthermore, it is a sand-dwelling creature, so the cold will save us the trouble of pacifying it ourselves.”

Ghirahim pursed his lips in thought.“… Won’t the cold kill it, then?”

A little hoot escaped him. “Not if we transport it to the Desert post-haste, it won’t,” Zant turned to him, wearing a toothy smile.

Ghirahim blinked at him. Realization hit, and his face twisted into a grimacing grin. “So that’s why you brought me along, hmm,” he inquired, digging his nails into his arm in emphasis. “To be your packing mule?”

“Your words, not mine, Yima Dinifen. Let me show you the sigils. We ought to finish up before noon,” he chimed, hiding his smirk behind his scarf while his clammy fingers flipped through the pages. Ghirahim merely growled, begrudgingly looking past his shoulder to peer at the pages. Clearly, it took the mad scholar a few tries to get the sigil down perfectly, as the ink smudges and wobbly scratches from the previous pages bled into the one he showed him… But on a technical field, it was a flawless circle.

Ghirahim hummed, peering intently at the image to burn it into his mind. “Down to the coordinates, I take it?”

“Verily,” Zant nodded stately.

The sigil now memorized, Ghirahim withdrew from him, playfully patting his shoulder. “Then what’s keeping us?” 

With a head start, Ghirahim took off from the top of the hill and leaped down. His heels dug into the snow, kicking up sprays of suddy snow behind him as he slid his way down the incline. His cape noisily whipped and billowed in the wind in his descent, soon joined by the fluttering sounds of Zant’s array of robes beside him. The Twili caught up to him quickly, soaring a ways above the ground but leaving a powdery trail below him nonetheless. It seemed the so-masterful mage did not feel confident enough in the physics of winter to dare to plant his feet in the snow just yet, Ghirahim noted to himself in amusement.

When the hill’s incline got less and less steep, so too did Ghirahim’s descent lose momentum, and he wasn’t fond of losing any ‘race’, even if in this case, he was the only participant aware of it. And so, with a bracing of his knees and flitting his eyes to his companion to gauge his distance, he jumped for him. Grasping his sleeve tightly and ignoring the cry of alarm, he snapped his fingers, and in a flurry of diamonds, sent the both of them to the center of the lake.

Ghirahim dug his heels firmly in the ice upon reappearing, sending both of them spinning in place with a cackle. Zant’s flying speed only then began to peter out. Now slowing steadily, Zant’s hand slipped out his sleeve to grasp onto his, joining him in mischievous laughter as his feet landed on the ice, and his wild spins slacked to an idle twirl around him.

“Very funny, Ghirahim,” Zant teased while he gained his footing. “I take it you will treat the rest of this duty with the same utmost gravity?”

Ghirahim clicked his tongue. “Oh, nonsense. Look,” he gestured to the ice, where the edges of Zant’s brass slippers scratched into the surface. “There’s your central circle. The first component is complete!”

Zant looked down, letting out an astonished huff as he saw what he’d done. “Why! Indeed, there’s the scope. I’d like it to be a little neater, but… I can give it a once-over.”

Another surprised hoot rang from the sorcerer as Ghirahim hopped up where he stood, only for black blades to manifest under his soles and land him in the trajectory of the circles. “What say you,” the sword spirit hummed as he traced over the ‘scope’, as Zant called it, and tightened its contour, “I take care of the broader lines, and you get to scratching the runes, hmm?”

Zant quickly stepped out of the way to let Ghirahim continue his round, looking down at the circles he traced in silent wonder. “… You truly are more magically inclined than you let show, aren’t you?”

Ghirahim simply hummed, shrugged, and blinked away from his finished circle, only to reappear a dozen yards over to trace in the next.

Metal and ice hissed and sang together under the force of his blades. Tight trails carved into the ice, circles, lines, ovals, and outlines, dusted with sparkling snow and freshly shaved bits of frost that scattered under his makeshift skates. The sigil was rather complex, not to mention having to scale it up quite a bit from the pocket-sized preview he was shown. He’d done the math — it was a beast of 65 meters long, and approximately fourteen meters in width, should Zant’s bestiary be believed — with some wiggle room, taking into account the mass of the creature — think, think, at that size… Yes, the outer circle would have to be 47.12 meters in circumference, at the very least. A grin stretched across his face. How long it’d been since he last indulged in such arcane puzzles! Wind soared past his false skin, tousling his hair and cracking the cosmetics on his lips with their frosty cold. He lowered himself, his fingers brushing past the ice as he took a harsh turn. The blades on his feet carved yet another circle for him, painting the frozen lake around it in freshly shaved frost. He slid to a halt, skates lodged in old tracks, and gauged his progress. Right there, another small circle was needed. He could jump there if he wanted to! If he tried! 

He smiled enough to make his nose crinkle. Moving across the ice like a heron taking off in flight, he pushed himself forward, gliding past the grooves in the ice, and leaped —

Skates slammed back into the ice, carving harsh lines, but he stuck the landing. He would have retained his balance with perfect elegance, did not a harsh voice interrupt his whimsy.

“Quit showing off and focus,” Zant barked, pointedly focusing harder on his little grimoire as the tip of his sword scratched runes into his tracks. “I’m not even looking!”

“Oh, but you are looking, and you love it,” Ghirahim chimed in response, before with a jerk of his arms righting himself in his course again. Before he knew it, he’d rounded yet another circle and came back around to playfully poke Zant on the back. “You said it yourself, you grouch. You adore me. So humour my little tricks, lest I grow bored with you!”

“Fine! I need to see how the circle is coming along, either way,” Zant growled, carving the last strokes of his rune. Knees bent in his bracing and straightened back out to launch him into a jump. Several feet in the air, he came to a hovering halt, shivering momentarily in the cold of the open winter breeze. Certainly, the fool could pretend to be all business, but Ghirahim knew that the eyes behind that helmet trailed him before they watched his pattern. And so, he soared, he jumped, and he spun, laughing if only for the joy of moving his body with such grace. His hands trailed up his arms as he slid across the ice, dismissing his cape into a diamond trail after him. Now unimpeded, his harmonious movements seemed infectious. Wherever he’d finish his sketches, Zant would swoop down behind him, painting the finishing touches onto the ice. They worked in tandem, in secret joy. Glances were playfully stolen across the ice, quick but never fleeting. He’d thoroughly captured the Twili’s attention, forcing him into his company one way or the other. If it weren’t for the sight of his graceful form sliding past him, it would be his laugh or the sounds of his skates, or the occasional brush of his hand past his robes. And every time Zant’s front would break, splitting his stern, grey lips into a fond smile. 

Taken to the skies again, an astonished grunt sounded from above. “Unbelievable,” Zant grumbled, purposely twice as loud as usual as to be heard complaining properly above the sounds of wind and ice. “Despite your tomfoolery, the Circle is as good as perfect, still!”

Ghirahim twirled one last time, lowered and his leg outstretched to make another small circle, his arms raised in counter-balance. Once he’d carved it out enough, he rose with a cheeky smile, turning in place to face him. “I never settle for anything less!”

“You make it look fun,” Zant teased, lowering himself on the ice to stand beside him. How the lanky thing hadn’t slipped yet was beyond him.

Ghirahim cocked an eyebrow at him, pursing his lips with a self-satisfied smile. “Is Magic not fun to you, then?”

“Of course it is,” he chuckled in response, dodging the puffs of frost Ghirahim dusted off his shoulder. “It’s simply… Well, it’s becoming on you, Ghirahim-ili. You truly take somatic conduction to a different level.”

Ghirahim rolled his eyes, coming to a halt beside him, finally. “Oh, just say you like my dancing, you dolt.”

A giggle erupted beside him. “There is very little I don’t like about you,” Zant cooed.

“That’s lip service and you know it,” Ghirahim groaned, sticking his hands in his sides as he dismissed the blades at his feet. “Well, that should be all of it. Go ahead and say your little magic words. I’m eager to get this over with and leave this cold behind us, already. You’re shivering.”

“I’m inclined to agree,” Zant laughed, before once again paging through his grimoire.  “Alright, then. We’ll have to take some distance from the Circle…”

Each took their own side of the circle, one making his way across the ice more smoothly than the other. Ghirahim wrapped himself in his cloak, arms folded while he watched Zant test the waters with this new magic. Just the sight of him flipping pages back and forth, muttering to himself in lack of certainty, made that comforting, familiar urge to bully him surface. He soon found himself grateful for having kept his mouth shut, because the sight of Zant seconds later would have fed whatever mockery he uttered directly back to him. Within the first two syllables, the markings on Zant’s forehead began glowing vibrantly. The same teal glow faintly, but surely, bled into the grooves of the sigil on the lake, slowly spreading over to Ghirahim’s side. 

His voice was like the wind, icy and ubiquitous, a whisper that carried into every crack and groove in the valley and would haunt the deepest bottom of the lake. Ghirahim shuddered.

The final words were spoken, echoing through the valley until they last faded with the wind. For a little while, it was perfectly silent on the lake. Zant’s ominous presence lingered for a moment, causing even the lungless sword spirit to hold a breath. Their summoning circle glowed, albeit weakly. It took a minute, perhaps two, before the pair exchanged a frown from each side of the sigil, making the first timid steps forward to inspect their work for any mistakes.

A deep, resonant rumble stopped them both in their tracks. The inner lines of the sigil turned cyan blue, then a dull, sandy yellow, before blurring out altogether when the whole magic circle filled with a swirling light. Each man instinctively shielded his eyes but did not dare look away fully. Below the ice, a shadow slowly faded into view. It wobbled, it grew, it twisted, until Ghirahim realized it was a mere trick of the light. That shadow didn’t come from underwater but from the circle. 

Light burst from the circle, followed by a sudden wave of sand. The summoned inhabitant was climbing into the skies. Tawny brown scales shone on a massive, fish-like head, trailed by the bristling black spikes down its serpentine body, Its maw split open into two floppy, pink, and bulbous halves, unleashing a bubbling roar from a toothless gullet. At its first few feet of surfacing, the beast sounded confused and enraged, yet as more and more of it twisted into the freezing air of the lake, it began to screech and contort with pain. As Ghirahim thought, the cold was growing fatal to the creature now blotting out the skies very quickly. More alarmingly, the frost clinging to its body seemed to be impeding its ability to fly. Slowly but surely, it writhed, it shuddered, and it sank in the air, right above the madly cackling Twilight King, whose hands were raised in triumph.

Before Ghirahim could utter even a single word of warning, the shadowy man disappeared, and mere seconds later, the beast crashed into the ice with a high-pitched screech, its whining echoing through the valley. The ice could hold the two men with no problem, but whatever this sandworm was, it weighed several tons. The lake broke apart. One second, the surface was cracking into a web, and the next, each little island jutted its edges upward around their new monster with a resounding shatter. Pillars of water shot into the sky, spewing out between the cracks in the ice. Their peaks whipped away into mist from the wind, though a non-zero, pesky amount found its way to Ghirahim’s feet. As did some of the cracks in the ice, he noted. The roaring deluge crashed back down onto the surface. Wind from the impact whipped through Ghirahim’s hair, while the waves coursed across the ice to lap at his ankles. 

Right as he raised his hand to snap his fingers, a shadow loomed over him.

“Now would be a good time to retrieve our new asset, before either of you sinks to the bottom,” hummed a cold and deep voice beside him.

Oh, what impatience! Ghirahim had half a mind to let it sink, but it would be an awful waste of their combined efforts. Still, he winced at the thought of having to touch a cold, wet, sandy creature, who-knows-where the Twili ripped it from. Well, he’d put up with worse, certainly. The ice below him cracked alarmingly, shrieking from the weight of solid metal pushing down. He swiftly decided against a new gig as an anchor and snapped his fingers, yanking the madman hovering gleefully beside him into the aether with him.

Four hands planted themselves on a beast now too weakened to protest. Scales bristled, eyes rolled, and squeaks rang out, but the Molgera could struggle no longer. Perhaps if it’d known where it was headed, it would have struggled a little less. 

With a single snap of the fingers, diamond magic and specks of twilight combined. Seconds later, Lake Hylia was silent, a yawning crater left in its ice.

[aceviscontiswife]

what if uhh the song starstruck by the kinks as a prompt? idk if it really fits anyone besides trickster but dont let my limited imagination hold you down

Starstruck || Ji-Woon Hak

Not only did I 1) get a new song I love, I 2) FINALLY WROTE SOMETHING 🙌 going through a really bad depressive episode so this is an accomplishment lol

GN! Reader. Warnings: Ji-Woon gets a bit suggestive (barely), petnames such as baby and pet, this is kind of short and not proof-read.

You were a skilled survivor, it wasn’t often that the killer managed to sacrifice you; not without a fight, anyways.

But, that quickly changed when you met him. It was like a flip of a switch… he had you starstruck. Between his bright clothes, even brighter eyes, and his sadistic personality, you were rendered useless to your team the second you knew the killer was The Trickster.

Ji-Woon… You hadn’t heard of him before his arrival in the entity’s realm, but boy, were you quick to learn all about him. You had even managed to get ahold of his music, the songs playing in your head on repeat. Your team hated you for it, often leaving you to fend for yourself in most of your trials regardless of who the killer was.

It wasn’t like you could help it… He was just so perfect. Yes, he was kind of a narcissistic asshole who still killed you despite how obviously head over heels for him you were, but you couldn’t care less. Upon hearing or seeing Ji-Woon, you simply forgot your entire job as a survivor. As a human. You just stood still, waiting for his arrival… completely starstruck by him. All of him.

“Y/n… hello..?” Said Thalita, one of the realms newest arrivals. She and Renato had yet to find out about your… issue. They both treated you friendly, but probably not for much longer after this…

“Can you hear me? Is everything okay?” She spoke again, waving her hand in front of your face. You hadn’t heard her, of course, your mind and body focused on the soft hum you could hear in the back of your head. That was him.

Thalita sighs, shaking her head in disappointment. “Do you need help? I can go find someone..? T-The killer’s coming, Y/n.. We need to leave.” You couldn’t disagree with Thalita more. She was free to leave, but you? You couldn’t even if you tried. Thalita lowers her head in defeat, whispering something you couldn’t understand under her breath before running away from the small house you two were huddled in.

The humming grew louder, your heartbeat picking up as the hums turned into music—screams of your team and the many unfortunate souls before them echoing in the soft beat of the music. He would be here any second now…

It was only a few seconds until you saw him, the Trickster, in his signature yellow blazer—his toned chest exposed as always. Blood was splattered across his jacket, chest, and pants, his face and hair clean of any blood. Twirling his bat in his hands, a chuckle escapes him as he spots you. You were just standing by the generator, an awestruck look on your face as you stare at him.

“My biggest fan…” Ji-Woon says, the words sending a tingle down your spine and setting a familiar heat in your core. Ji-Woon approaches you, humming his familiar tune as he stops just in front of you. “Your screams are always so nice… my favorite.” A sadistic laugh follows his words, and he brings a hand to cup your jaw. You snap out of your daze for just a moment, leaning into Ji-Woon’s touch as a quiet hum slips past your lips.

“Ji-Woon…” You whisper, but Ji-Woon is quick to move his hand from your jaw to your mouth, silencing you in an instant. “Save your words, baby… You’ll be screaming my name later, anyways…” Another sickening laugh escapes him, the sound nearly causing your legs to give out from under you. The feeling of Ji-Woon’s palm against your mouth made you feel hot, your thighs tightly pressed together to trap the heat inside.

Suddenly, Ji-Woon steps back, his hand leaving your mouth. There was a warm, tingling sensation where his hand had been, as if it had never left. Ji-Woon reaches into his blazer and pulls out a few of his blades. You knew this next part well, since it was what Ji-Woon always did when he saw you. Maybe, just maybe, that’ll change.. Maybe one trial he’ll want to do more than use you as a pin cushion for his knives.

“You don’t mind putting on a show for me, hmm? You always look so pretty when you’re bleeding and screaming… all because of me.” Ji-Woon’s voice was so smooth, so convincing. It drew you in like metal to a magnet… how could you refuse? He had asked so nicely, too.

“Do this for me and I’ll give you the reward you’ve earned, pet.” Heat rushes to your cheeks from Ji-Woon’s words. You nod. “Good…” With that said, Ji-Woon tosses the first blade at you. It pierces your shoulder, a scream tearing through your lips.

‘So sweet… I must hear them again.’ Ji-Woon thought as he began to toss blade after blade at you. You took each hit so well, screaming just how he liked it as blood began to stain your clothes and skin. Some might call you crazy for this… but hey,

You were simply starstruck by him.

[cas-skz]

Spanked

After a friends birthday party, you and a Hyunjin convince Binnie to have a little fun.

18+!! MDNI

WARNINGS/WHAT TO EXPECT: pet names (brat), mentions of drinking, spanky spank spanking, more spanking

SKZ/BTS FIC REQUESTS: OPEN

I don’t know why my brain thought of this but it did so I went with it and I like it. Ok love you so much. - cas xx

“Stop taking my nuggets!” You yelled, hurling a pillow towards Hyunjin, who made an attempt to hide behind your boyfriend, giggling like an idiot. “This is why I don’t buy you two McDonald’s!” Changbin put in, catching the pillow with one hand.

The three of you had just come from a friend's birthday party, Changbin being the designated driver, with a hint of babysitter, to you and Hyunjin. The drunken antics Hyunjin had started with you had lead to you both screaming and begging for junk food.

Hyunjin leaned around to kiss Bin’s cheek, flipping you off as he did. “Thank you my superhero.” He said, dancing over to the laptop, poking around YouTube to find a song. Changbin joined you on the couch, “You two are little brats.” He scoffed, snacking on a few french fries. “You love us.” You giggled, poking at his cheek.

Hyunjin did a little dance over to the couch, bouncing down on the other side of Binnie. “Yea, you looove us.” Hyunjin leaned over, his hands resting on Changbin’s lap as he whispered to you, in a giggle. “We’re his little brats and he loves us.”

Changbin’s hand slapped down on Hyunjin’s ass, earning a little whimper from the male. “Hey!” Hyunjin wiggled to roll on Bin’s lap, looking up at him with a little pout. “Not nice.” He whined.

You couldn’t help but laugh, rolling your eyes at Hyunjin’s dramatic response. “Oh, please.” You start, poking Hyunjin’s nose. “That was barely anything.” You laid on your belly, stealing Changbin’s other thigh to rest on, facing Hyunjin. The two of you bouncing your chins off his muscular thighs. “Okay, drunk 1 and 2, I think it’s time for bed.” Bin laughed, patting you both on the head. You and Hyunjin gave each other a look, simultaneously crawling up to face level.

“But Binnie, we wanna stay up.” You say, your hand gripping at his knee. Hyunjin poked at his belly, walking to fingers around in circles. “Yea…We’re not even drunk anymore.” Hyunjin batted his eyes at Changbin, and you nodded in agreement with him. “But, I think we deserve spankings for being little brats.”

Changbin made you both promise to not tell anyone else. Setting rules, the safe words. “You’re not allowed to move until I say so.” Changbin swished back another shot of whiskey, his eyes darkened happily at the sight of you and Hyunjin, bent over the bed, bare asses in the air. “So, what does the winner get tonight?” Bin asked, his hand moving slowly over your rear.

“The rest of the night with you.” You both say smirking.

Changbin shook his head, laughing quietly. “Such brats.” He said, laying down the first smack on your ass. You bit your lip hard, holding yourself steady as his hand slapped down on Hyunjin next. His fingers curled into the sheets next to yours as the second round of slaps rang out.

The harder Bin slapper, the more you and Hyunjin jolted with excitement, the pain from Changbin’s hand sending shock waves to your core.

Changbin laid down a few snacks in a row, almost causing you to fall, but you held yourself up. “Tap out anytime.” Hyunjin smirked. A look that quickly disappeared as Changbin’s hand smacked down again, adding to his already red and swollen cheeks. Changbin’s hand moved back and forth, giving equal attention to you and Hyunjin.

You couldn’t help but hide your face in the sheets, the stings of his slaps earning a loud shriek. Hyunjin’s hand quickly grabbed yours as Changbin continued to slap at full strength, your fingers gripping tightly with Hyunjin’s, whining and moaning as the welts started to turn into bruises.

“Please Binnie….I can’t hold myself up anymore.” Hyunjin pouted, you nodded in agreement.

Hyunjin’s knee’s collapsed first, his body flopping down on the bed, a goofy smile on his face. “White flag. Man down.”

Changbin got a few more good slaps in on you before you fell next to Hyunjin, simply giving a wave of your hand to give up. You couldn’t help the small whines that continued, your body was vibrating like crazy.

Hyunjin was trying his best to hide how turned on he had gotten, but his body was practically humping the sheets. You didn’t even have the chance to hide how wet you were, since Binnie’s hands ran gently over your sensitive butt, leading towards your entrance.

“What if…” Changbin leaned hovered behind you, his body pressing against yours as he reached over to lift Hyunjin’s head to bring his attention to him. “You both stayed with me tonight.”

[phoenix-downer]

Secret Wish Chapter 2

Secret Wish: ~1110 words. Tifa keeps thinking about the nameless soldier who protected her and wonders if he's okay.

Story Info: Cloud Strife/Tifa Lockhart. Set during Crisis Core. Canon Compliant, Alternating POVs, Missing Scenes. Light Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Mutual Pining.

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 

Tifa’s thoughts were elsewhere as she tossed and turned in bed that night. Fluffy was perched on the windowsill, her red bandana vibrant against her soft white fur, her eyes as big as saucers as she stared out the window and made chattering sounds at whatever creature had caught her fancy.

There was something about the Shinra soldier that wouldn’t leave Tifa’s thoughts. He was just a member of Shinra’s Public Security Forces, going by his uniform. He wasn’t a SOLDIER, 1st Class like Zack was, and yet he’d protected her on Mt. Nibel from that creepy masked giant and his goons.

Why some random infantryman would do that for her, she wasn’t sure. His brave actions had saved her life and had gotten him wounded in the process. Why would he do that for her? They didn’t even know each other.

Something about the way he’d protected her…she couldn’t shake the feeling that…that it reminded her of Cloud’s promise.

No, there was no way. The hunch that had flitted around her mind for a few seconds was gone as soon as it came, banished by how silly it was. She’d meant to ask Zack about whether or not Cloud had made SOLDIER, 1st Class yet, but it had slipped her mind. She could ask him tomorrow.

And the mysterious soldier was just doing his job, right? That shouldn’t come as a surprise. Protecting people was what someone like him was supposed to do. But she also knew that donning a military uniform didn’t automatically make you brave or caring. Zack’s constant, puppy dog-like enthusiasm was a little much for her tastes sometimes, but she could tell he was a decent guy. He cared about the mysterious soldier, even though he far outranked him, and he cared about protecting her, some random villager from a backwater town, that much was clear. He wouldn’t have fought wave after wave of monsters and masked men to get them back to Nibelheim safe and sound if he didn’t.

Some of the other Shinra-affiliated people she and her father had come across…they gave her the heebie-jeebies. They were the opposite of Zack and his nameless companion, who made her feel safe. Protected.

Especially the nameless companion. Zack was SOLDIER, 1st Class, and yet her thoughts kept wandering back to the mysterious infantryman. He hadn’t made a single noise, hadn’t once complained about his injury. The way he’d leaned against her, trusting her completely to help him down the mountain, moved her. And the soft smile on his face after she’d given him water from her canteen…she hadn’t imagined that, right?

She glanced at the clock on her bedside table and sighed. It was too late to email Zack now and make sure the mysterious guy was alright. But she couldn’t sleep until she did.

Sighing, she pulled her phone out. “Is that guy alright? I’m a little worried, because it looked like he got hurt pretty bad. I’m glad you were there. Thank you, Zack. I had heard of SOLDIER and how tough they are. I hope we can talk a little bit more about SOLDIER one of these days, because there’s something I want to ask you.”

With that, she pressed “Send,” hoping that Zack had either put his phone on silent or was so tired he would sleep through any notifications. With that, she tried to sleep, a fitful rest marked by strange dreams of Mt. Nibel, of falling, falling, falling, of someone crying out her name…

When she woke the next morning, the sun was streaming through the window, and Fluffy was long gone. The errant cat had probably slunk downstairs the moment she’d heard Tifa’s father stirring to beg for food. Tifa was stiff and sore from yesterday, but not as sore as she would’ve been pre-Master Zangan’s training.

Checking her phone, she saw a little notification message. It was from Zack.

“Hey Tifa! Thanks for checking up on him. He’s doing just fine, and I’ve included a photo as proof. Thank you for helping him get down the mountain. I was just doing my job, but you went above and beyond, and he really appreciates it. And sure, you can ask me questions about SOLDIER. I can’t answer anything classified, but other stuff, sure.

P.S. Any word on Sephiroth yet? If you hear anything, let me know.”

She opened the email attachment, and sure enough, a smiling Zack was giving the camera a thumbs up from his room in the inn. The nameless soldier was in the background, helmet still on, sitting up on his bed but with his lips parted. Like he hadn’t quite been expecting the photo and Zack had taken him off guard. But it was clear from his posture that he was doing better, and Tifa was glad to see it.

Surprisingly glad to see it. She was shocked to feel tears blurring her eyes.

“Why…?” she asked no one in particular, touching her face.

Well, he had saved her life. She would’ve been upset if he’d died or if he’d succumbed to his wounds after what he’d done for her. This was a normal reaction to someone doing something so brave and heroic.

She stared at the photo for a few more moments, taking in every inch of it. Her eyes just kept being drawn to the nameless soldier, to his quiet bravery and steady determination. She’d fantasized about Cloud being a strong, fearless SOLDIER, and yet this infantryman was more impressive to her than any of her fantasies because he’d really, truly put his life on the line to save hers.

No, she couldn’t compare him to Cloud like that. Her heart belonged to Cloud and always would. Cloud would prove himself when the time came, she was sure of it.

Still, looking at this goofy photo of Zack and his nameless companion, she couldn’t help but smile fondly. The mysterious soldier probably had a lot to handle with Zack’s boundless energy and enthusiasm. They seemed good for each other, and they clearly cared about one another. And…she cared about them too. Maybe it was because they’d been through such a harrowing experience yesterday together, but she wanted to help them with their mission. Which meant she had to find more leads about Sephiroth’s whereabouts.

As she got ready for the day, she found herself hoping she could see the nameless soldier again and thank him for saving her. Surely that was alright. Cloud would understand. And helping Zack with his mission might give her more answers about what had become of Cloud, too.

It was time to start the day’s adventures.

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

A/N: Thank you for reading! With that I am going into hiatus mode now that the final trailer for Rebirth is out (which I am avoiding because of how spoilery it apparently is lol). Hope everyone enjoys the demo!