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jolalibrary · 4 months ago

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the man who has returned home

javier peña x f!reader | masterlist

summary: this week’s sex diary - the man who has returned home under the covers’s sex diaries series asks anonymous men to record their sex lives — with angst, sometimes sexy, and always revealing results.

wordcount: 3k warnings: sex diary. modern!times (for the plot). smut (it's a sex diary) 18+, so the usual explicit things. reader in this has a nickname to protect their identity. an: I've wanted to finish and post this for ages, all because I've read and been inspired by The Cut’s Sex Diaries for the longest time. not sure what this will be, but at most going to be a loose collection of the ppcu boys, but for now, i don't want to run before i walk, so meet javi p.

DAY 1 5.32am

He’s woken earlier than he wants to.

There’s sweat on his forehead, on his spine—it forces the off-white sheets, which are crumpled under him, to cling to him. Worst of all, he’s breathing heavily, his heart angrily thumping in his chest, a tightness that doesn't lessen the more he gulps still-warm air.

He knows it's another nightmare; another shapeless horror that can be added to the tab.

Foolishly, he thought they’d lessen in time, ease a little as time ticks from weeks to over a month of being back.

Instead, it’s only worsening. A thought which ruptures as he digs the base of his palms into his eyes, groaning, before stopping himself.

The last thing he wants is to wake up his Pop.

6.18am

The shower isn't fixing the irk in his bones, it doesn’t wash away the woven annoyance in his muscles as water cascades and slides off the slope of his nose to his chest.

He tries fucking his fist to the memory of... let's call her Cinnamon. Cinnamon is a woman he used to know and now knows in an entirely different way. She doesn't ask questions, doesn't appear to care what he did overseas or not and mostly doesn't look at him like he hung the moon.

It's why he fucked her. It's why he keeps fucking her.

Now, he's touching himself to the thought of her. Hoping it helps, alleviates.

A few tugs and he’s panting, forehead pressed to the cold tiles as he groans her name. It's all acidic, purposeful. It hisses out all coiled around pleasure before it's swirling down the drain.

It does rid the annoyance, but it’s replaced instead by shame. It blooms out similar to the red welts as he dries himself, running the towel over his shoulders, chest, stomach, and thighs.

He doesn’t recognise the person he greets in the mirror when he goes back into his bedroom. The one with dark bags under his eyes and a haunted look he manages to mask every day when he steps into the rest of the house.

He’s barely pulled his jeans up his thighs before a fresh irk swarms him. Wondering, nursing his lip between his teeth whether breaking the new horse in might help. It’ll keep him busy, at least.

Then he spots the number on his dresser. The one staring at him as he tucks his shirt into his jeans—the one etched in lipstick. His phone is next to it, all but tempting, making his jaw jut to one side as he contemplates if he should open that text chain again.

He doesn’t.

He wonders if he’ll crack sooner on this than he did smoking.

6.38pm

Twelve hours could be a new record.

Cinnamon’s fingers claw, scratching at the back of his head. Each slap of his thighs against the back of hers makes her whine. A delectable noise, a sight for sore eyes. Especially as she’s smothered in a faint sheen of sweat and perfume, neck bowing as he pants against her neck. Inhaling her. Feeling her pulse against his tongue.

Each plunge of his cock, each press of his fingers into her supple skin makes him grunt. The feel of her, squirming, desperately rutting back into whatever he gives you only makes him more desperate to fuck her so hard he hopes it’ll fuck the bad out of his head. Loud, sinful noises come from where the two of them are joined, the sheets a mess under the two of them.

He can still taste her on his tongue. He’d delved, made her thighs stretch around his broad shoulders as he buried his face into her pussy, fucked her hole with his tongue as her breath hitched and her fists clamped around her sheets.

He suspects she knows that he’s not sleeping, but she doesn’t ask. Likely has little care about how he’s using her, because he suspects she’s using him too.

Dragging his mouth to hers, she moans against his tongue. She pants out harder, as though knowing he needs permission. He does. Makes her skin ripple with the force of it as more sobs and mewls are punched out of you as your pussy clenches, flutters and pulses.

Fuck, he groans—quickening his pace, desperately clinging to not come just yet. Needing her to. Wanting her too. Feeling her squeezing and bearing down as she nods, as she tells him she’s close, I’m close, fuck I'm c—

When she comes, she arches into him. Tensing before becoming boneless and limp. Wrapping her tight, fucking heat around him that makes his morning feel futile.

And it is, because he never wants to leave this. A need. A desperate, hungry need. One he can never replicate this as a moan is forced from her throat and her pleasure crashes over her in a thick, heavy wave. It pushes him over with a few more thrusts until he’s groaning into her neck, bruising her hips to the point of no return as he pulses inside of her, fucks his spend into her until he’s softening.

Fuck, she says, panting.

Fuck, he replies, before he finds his mouth is latching to hers and the two of them become a heap in her bed.

7.12pm

He suspects there should be some guilt that he keeps doing this with her.

A thought that ruminates as his fingers twitch for a smoke. A need for it. One she must tell because she smirks and says nothing.

He won't admit it, but he likes it when she smirks. Has some perverse reaction to it. Because it reminds him she took him in her mouth behind the bar, his nails scraping brick, coming forcibly down her throat as she looked at him like she somehow expected more from him.

All that's to say, it's ruined her smirk now. It makes him hard now whenever she does it, like some sick Pavlov's reaction.

She may have a new number, a new look and an apartment, yet she’s the same girl he’d once known deep down. She's been shyer then, but he knew she wasn't innocent, not like she let others think.

But, he supposes that's the meaning of a true friendship. When you know a person intimately, like he knows her. Like he knows that she hates heights because of the time they climbed a tree and knows she sobbed when she tripped and broke her arm on his ranch. In the same way, he knew for a long time what oversized tees she owned, could almost predict which she'd choose, until one day there was suddenly a sundress that made his cock hard and his brain malfunction.

Fuck, she still has nice legs.

A thing he had witnessed when he was a teen. When she began dating a friend of his and wore their jacket on cooler evenings with him on the ranch. We're ranch friends, she used to say, hooking her pinky with his.

Now he’s fucking her.

Spearing her and making her fingers clamp around his as she needs him for leverage as she careens towards another orgasm. Those glorious, beautiful, stunning fucking legs wrapped around him or pressed to her chest as he sheaths his cock inside of her.

She reminds him of how good they are when she slips from his arms to retrieve water. Naked. His and her slick likely still smeared between her thighs.

His arm comes up over his forehead, muscles relaxing into your mattress and flower-scented sheets. He shouldn’t sleep.

He shouldn’t sleep over.

He falls asleep anyway.

DAY 4 9.12am

He’s not sure whether to be offended that he doesn’t hear from her or if he’s out of practice.

Before, back in Colombia he supposed it was more scheduled. A need for info and a need to forget. Routine, almost booked in. I’ll be here to hear what you have to say and then hear how you say my name.

Back home isn’t like that.

Cinnamon does have a job—a good one, from what he has been able to pull out of her. She keeps things locked down. Any time things toe the line of getting too close, she clams up and shifts the conversation.

There’s no faded tan line on her finger, though. No gossip when he enters stores about her.

He thinks he could ask his pop. Quiz him.

He decides against this ten minutes later.

4.12pm

Cinnamon is busy tonight.

He kinda hates that he was the one to ask. He hates it more than she only replies with the word can't.

10.48pm

He hears his phone go off when he’s doing his best to pretend the world doesn’t exist.

For one, he should be asleep. A thing he knows but hasn’t quite managed to get more than five hours since he came home.

The sound of nothing bothers him more than the old sounds of busy streets, guns and shouting. It crosses his mind he should check in on M tomorrow. See how he coped when he came home.

His phone sounds again. Jaw grit, he checks it, and sees a photo from Cinnamon.

Felt bad not being available is accompanied by her holding a towel in a way he’d describe as art. He can almost feel the condensation from her skin, how the droplets would feel on his palm and how he’d collect the beads from her perk breasts. She’s chosen her angles, even made sure to twist her hip toward him, casting a shadow that leaves your perfect pussy hidden.

He’s hard before he can wrap his head around it. Palm around his velvet skin, tugging, hips meeting his movements.

He comes hard, phone in one hand, fist around his cock.

You’re forgiven, he texts back when he’s cleaned up.

He sleeps for six hours.

DAY 13 9.02pm

It’s been days.

Odd texts, a phone call that lasted 18 minutes. But otherwise, silence. Awkward, weird silence that makes him feel shitty.

He wonders if he’s the other man. If there’s a whole life that she lives and he’s the break for her. It makes him think, question, ponder. Delve into a side of his thoughts he shouldn’t do sober or without a smoke.

Then, like the sun after a storm, Cinnamon asks if she can come to the ranch.

A thing she has yet to do since this thing began. There’s a white line, he imagines, between the road and where he sleeps.

She looks upset when she exits her vehicle, with red eyes and a sternness he thinks is forced. He asks her what she needs, and she responds with a shrug.

He doesn’t think when he places his hand on her lower spine, when he leads her down the beaten path—when he scoops overhanging branches from her face and takes her to the edge of the ranch.

It’s crosses his mind that he should ask, that he should check she’s okay, but then her mouth is on his. Hot, fervently, breathing him in as her fingers slide into his hair and pull him as close as she can have him.

Stop with the puppy eyes, Peña. You don’t have to… we’re not like—

He kisses her instead of letting her finish her thought. Better that than ask why not. Choosing to part her lips with his tongue, moan into her mouth like he’s starving, like he needs a taste of her as much as she needs him.

Maybe he does.

Maybe that’s why he can’t fucking sleep again.

Wanna taste you on my tongue, Javi…

And her hand is undoing his belt, not even needing both hands, managing with one and a smirk. Easing his jeans down to his knees, licking a stripe up her palm before he’s grunting, shifting his hips into her hand as she kisses his lips, his jaw, before descending down to her knees.

Can I?

He snorts before nodding, because how could he refuse her? A thing he almost says but Cinnamon has the sweetest mouth.

She takes as much of him as she can, right down her throat. He knows if he reached his hand around, he’d be able to feel how determined she is, trace his fingers over the bulge of him there.

The thought makes him grunt her name—her real name. Hissing it into the quiet air that only is interrupted by the cicadas.

He bites at his lip as she swirls her tongue, gazing down to find her cheeks hollowed and her eyes staring up at him—uncaring that her knees are in the dirt and she’s slobbering over her chin.

Her breaths are measured, nostrils flaring as she bobs up and down, and the sounds of it meet his ears.

And shit, fuck—she looks wrecked, fucked, and he’s not even touched her.

Suspecting if he did, however, he’d find her soaked, dripping, desperate to be stuffed full of him.

It’s that which almost makes him confess that he can’t stop thinking about her. He’s almost become sore from how much he’s stroked himself to the memory of her, to the image she’d sent and the one she’d let him take.

His photo album is becoming dedicated to her, to them. A shrine. Images of her in lace or nothing; her body contorted and her face hidden. Then, the latest one, her body splattered in shadows from her undrawn window, skin wearing only moonlight and the light sheen of their activities—one covering a breast, the other dipped between her legs, doing as he said, two fingers swirling around her clit, chin tilted up, take the photo, Javi. Just take it.

He wonders if she’d let him take one like this. Or if he’d have to settle on a memory.

A grunt passes through his clenched teeth, hand firm on the back of her head as she takes him deeper, as she bobs her head and sucks and swallows—

A louder noise leaves his throat soon after. One that rips from it as he spurts down her throat. When his body is licked by flames and something has tightened to an impossible degree in his lower stomach before he’s hissing, feeling her cleaning him up and releasing him with a pop.

Then, he’s treated to another prize, another treat. Cinnamon’s mouth opens, seeing the white ribbons swirling in her spit. Her tongue almost outstretched as though presenting him with a gift wrapped in a bow.

Swallow, he commands.

And she does.

He wonders if it’s romantic to fuck her in a field.

He does so anyway.

DAY 20 7.02am

There’s something about morning sex he can’t put his finger on.

Whether it’s because it’s a thing he hasn’t indulged much in. In Colombia, he’d only encountered it a handful of times.

He suspects it’s Cinnamon.

Her soft thighs on either side of his waist, the way she arches into him, contorts so her chest is flush against his as he finds himself deeper like this, hitting that spot inside of her that makes her look at him with nothing but lust.

It’s slower, less rushed. The pace not punishing, but controlled thrusts that somehow make her slicker, tighter.

He comes to the conclusion it’s her when she grasps his forearm, feels it flex under her fingers as she splutters his name and splinters around his cock. He realises this because he understands her, and knows what she needs. Has her figured out as he shifts her muscle-slacked body to hit the angle she needs to see stars again. It makes her eyes and her whines become desperate moans. He wishes she’d bury the sounds into his skull, into his brain. Wishes they’d cover screams and the sound of a life being taken.

For a moment they do. She makes sure of it.

Heat becoming blistering in his lower stomach, a need to increase his pace as she keens and whines, fingers digging into his shoulders, cut me he thinks, dig your nail down he silently pleads.

Her orgasm crests and he becomes dizzy from it—pushing a thigh closer to her chest, staring down at the place the two of them conjoin. Seeing the mess he’s made of her, how she takes him, how her slick coats around the base of him and the tight curls.

Then his own breathless moan forces itself out, small jerks followed by a stillness before her lips find his. The taste of him there, evidence of what began the entire morning thing.

12.33pm

He has a call with M, one he takes in his truck—overlooking the place he’s from.

It’s quiet here. A favourite from when he was at school, a place he brought people to so he could impress them.

Once, a long time ago, he’d brought Cinnamon here too.

As a friend. To make her smile—cheer her up.

He thinks about that when he should be listening, a thing he seems to do more and more of lately.

He hopes M hasn’t said anything helpful.

8.24pm

Do you fancy grabbing food?

Five fucking words that he regrets typing out, never mind sending. Biting his nails, rocking on the two legs of a garden chair as he prays his weight won’t make it buckle beneath him.

He stares at the slight curve of his stomach under his tee. The one that had formed as age caught up with his horrendous diet and his lack of fitness out of running and fucking.

He almost launches his phone when it beeps, and he sees a reply.

Now or as a date?

He contemplates his reply.

DAY 24 7.02pm

Cinnamon arrives looking fucking beautiful, just as he expected she would. Her eyes latch and dig into him as she moves between tables and he finds himself on his feet to pull her chair out.

She’s wearing a different perfume, a different lipstick than the night they’d reunited. She also looks nervous, politely asking for water before turning her smile to him. She likes his shirt, and teases him about not wearing a tie—he laughs. Finds it slips from him with ease.

He keeps laughing, interspersed with hers.

She finally shares that has never been married. Engaged though, once. He asks her if the breakdown of it is as rememberable as his, and she smirks, eyes shimmering, nothing can be as memorable as you, Javi.

He hopes she chose her words carefully.

She confirms later she did, dragging him through her door, his fingers undoing her dress.

Finding her wearing his favourite colour. A thing he’d said offhand the night they reconnected in the bar.

I remember, Javi, she had said then.

Now, he realises he maybe should have believed her back then.

an: hope you like this different styling. I've had this half-done in my drafts for ages, trying to find the courage. so a huge thank you to @thetriumphantpanda for always believing in me, cause without her so much of what i'd write would find its way into the bin.

#javier peña x reader #javier peña x you #javier pena x reader #javier pena x you #javier pena fanfic #javier pena fanfiction #javier peña smut #javi peña x reader #javi peña x you #javi peña smut #narcos fanfiction #pedro pascal characters

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madschiavelique · 1 year ago

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Mads babe I have a v self indulgent request 👀

What if Miguel is self conscious about all his scars from Manning those Spiders and reader traces them and kisses them and he's just so in love with reader and how they make him feel and AUGHHHHHHH 😫😫😫😭😭

AAAAA BESTIE you read my mind because this is literally one of my favourite things to read generally WE KNOW THE GOOD STUFF

I FINALLY feel good enough to write so i am BACK BESTIES HEHEHE

summary : reader kisses miguel’s scars and reassures him about it

content warnings : mentions of scars miguel had during fights, self conscious miguel, reader comforting miguel, mention of reader's scars (had during missions), other than that SO much reassurance, genderneutral!reader, no use of y/n word count : 1,4k

tag list : @fandom-ash

Depixelating his suit at the end of the day was often, if not always, a difficult step. He was well aware that worrying about things as superficial and ephemeral as looks was pointless, but knowing that the marks that ran the length and breadth of his body would stay with him forever was a constant reminder of what he was: a hunter, a tracker of balance, control left on him handcuffs drawn into scars different from those administered to the anomalies under his care.

He sighed, his brown eyes roaming his body in the reflection. So many enemies, so many traces, so many marks eternally etched on his skin.

Costumes are all well and good, because like a carnival mask, they hide enough of oneself not to appear whole, but they also reveal enough to others. It's almost impressive, the way a single thickness of pixel covers the deep lacerations, the acid stains, the ancient fissures when he was cut.

He tucks in his chin as he observes his arms. Long trails of scratches, burns and other poisons erased in his blood but not on his skin ran across them like randomly scribbled textures and patterns.

Only doodles are much more pacifist in idea, he thought. Maybe... maybe he could find a way to reconstruct his skin tissue? Arranging a new technological prototype. He'd heard of an Earth-199999-style device for reconstructing skin tissue. Perhaps he could make use of it? Find a way to get rid of all this... filth.

He wasn't proud of it. They represented his violence, his willingness to put himself in danger and endure brutality just to get the job done.

A sword is said to be good by its marks, its nicks, its scratches, all proving its durability and the fact that no matter the enemy, it holds. How long could his sword last?

You had just entered the bathroom, coming face to face with Miguel, looking at his hands. How many irreparable, eternal scars had he left in his wake? How many bodies had he marked with his claws and fangs with such rage and zeal that the gesture had permanently altered skin and minds?

"Is everything okay, amor?" you'd asked as you approached him, placing your hand on his back.

He had shuddered at your touch, how could you let the softness of your hand reach out to touch the evidence of atrocities that littered his body?

"Yeah," he assured with a deep breath, "yeah I'm just..." he pursed his lips, "I was thinking about doing something about my scars."

The idea made you frown for a moment, was Miguel worried about his appearance? He was always the first to tell you that your body didn't matter, that he thought you were absolutely gorgeous no matter what you looked like, so the fact that he was saying this for himself caught you off guard in the moment.

"What do you mean?" you asked, coming to guide your hand to his shoulder where a gash resided.

He remembered every cut, every pain he'd felt when he'd received new marks. He breathed in, watching your eyes in the reflection of the mirror as he bit the inside of his cheek.

"I want to remove them."

Your lips parted, mixing surprise and tenderness. You probably only had the surface of Miguel's ideas, for he was still occasionally secretive about his thoughts. And the realization that Miguel might be ashamed of his scars had struck you right in the heart.

"Why?" you questioned anyway, caressing his skin.

"Because they're... ugly," he said, bobbing his head and lowering his eyes to your hand placed on his shoulder, "they're proof of some of the things for which I'm not the proudest."

Your eyes sought his tenderly, you saw them lowered, ashamed, as if the mere possibility of meeting your gaze made him feel like a child who had broken something, dreading the scolding of his parents.

You lowered your eyes to your hand, your thumb lightly tracing the scar on his shoulder. Your other hand came to rest on his arm, and you placed a kiss on the tanned gash.

He took a shaky breath: nobody had ever kissed him here, his skin exposed. Only to the sun had kissed him there. Only the sun.

"Those scars do not represent you, Miguel." you affirmed as you took a step to the side to face him, tilting your head up to see him. He was so tall, his vast torso covered in oscillating traces of colours and shapes.

Your hand trailed from his shoulder to his chest, which was cleft by three large marks, no doubt a claw. You wondered if he'd come close to death when he'd been scratched here.

"They're not admirable," he sighed, his breathing almost ragged as the travel of your hand over all those areas he hated so much made him shiver.

The contrast of the softness of your touch against the obscure reality of him was electrifying. It was as if, with your simple touch and your pure words, you'd managed to right a wrong you hadn't committed, evils of which you weren't the author.

"Not all scars can be considered to be admirable," you said as you traced his cut skin, "we just consider them to be a proof that we survived no matter how little or great the menace was. It's nothing you should be ashamed of." Your eyes settle on his face. "There has never been any shame in surviving, has it?"

He breathed, his eyes finally meeting yours. They were soft, almost melancholic.

"Maybe..." he murmured, his voice almost inaudible as he listened to you.

You kissed his scratches on his collarbones gently, your hands caressing the tender skin of his completely lacerated back.

"Scars are not us, they're not our identity. It's terribly complicated to forget the pain, but I think it's even more difficult to remember the softness. After all, we don't have any scars to show for the joys we've had... "

Your fingers illuminated the darkest parts of him. Those sensitive places that held so many crimes of sorrows and screams, you covered them with colours and creams. He felt so soft under your hands, under your touch, under your mouth.

He couldn't get over the fact that you were kissing the most monstrous parts of him with those same lips full of sweetness and sweet words.

You learn so little from peace.

You pulled back.

"I'll show you mine."

You looked up at him, and your hands came away from his body to take hold of your T-shirt. You took it off, pulling it over your head to let Miguel rediscover the multiple gashes in your skin.

You'd been on many missions, some less successful than others, and since it's part of the spider's panoply to always get up no matter how heavy the blow, your body had experienced great agonies that had left marks all over you.

His eyes were riveted on you, shifting from one scar to another. It wasn't the first time he'd seen them, but he'd never looked at them from the angle in which the discussion was taking place. His hand came to rest on your shoulder, his fingers gently tracing one of your cuts with tenderness.

"We're not always proud of it," you asserted, "but sometimes scars bloom no matter where we plant them, and we don't decide what garden our bodies become when we do the job that we have."

"Mine don't bloom," Miguel whispered, his eyes returning to yours as his hand traced down your arm.

"Why not?" you questioned.

He shrugged, his hand continuing its path until it reached yours, caressing your fingers.

"They're weeds," he whispered, taking your hand in his.

You smile, little stars forming in your eyes as he looks at you questioningly.

"I like weeds."

He pouted confusedly. "Why?"

You came and kissed the three gashes on the centre of his torso, resting your chin on them as you looked at him, clasping his hand in yours.

"They always survive."

He could almost feel the tears welling up. He brought you against him, hugging you gently.

You drew stars around his scars, and he felt more loved than ever.

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narrans · 5 months ago

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My Borrowed Son | 28 | Painful Truths

Chapter Twenty-Eight | Painful Truths

Have you ever had a moment in time last a lifetime? Did you ever feel time stop just for you? Everything around you continued to function, moving and carrying on with their task that, in the moment, is completely menial compared to what you’re going through?

This place was where Amanda found herself.

Parker’s question loomed in the air to the point they felt tangible. Her heart clenched. She’d run out of tie. She should have told him sooner, and now she was confronted with the worst case scenario.

Oh yes…

The world continued to spin, and Amanda could do nothing about it.

She stared into the angered gaze of the boy she would do anything for – the one she called son for so long – and felt herself shatter.

All of those feelings from the first day she found Parker came flooding back. Her lungs constricted. Any coherent thought was lost. Nothing in this moment could make everything right.

Amanda knew it was time – well past it in fact.

Amanda’s throat clenched. She knew this conversation was going to happen, but not like this. She looked into Parker’s soft brown eyes and saw he was clinging onto the last threads of hope. It was part of that desperation she saw earlier.

And she had no lifeline to give him.

“Well?!” Parker’s voice cracked as tears welled up in his eyes. He looked to be on the verge of collapse.

Amanda bit back her own emotions as they constricted her throat. A bottomless void opened in Amanda’s heart.

“Parker… you are my son. I’ve always been your mom,” said Amanda. Parker couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Was she serious? Or was she lying. The tether he thought he was receiving was just within grasp. Maybe this was all just a bad dream.

Her next words shattered him.

“But I’m not your only mom. Someone… some beautiful, wonderful woman gave birth to you.” Amanda’s cheeks were etched with tears at this point. With the last bit of her strength, she choked out, “I love you, Parker, as if you came from me… but you’re right. You are not mine.”

In that moment, Parker felt himself fracture. He couldn’t believe it. How could he be such an idiot? Holding out hope for something he knew was a lie was crushing him from the inside out, but not as much as the thought that the person who raised him – who professed to love him – could feed him the lie that she was his mother.

Parker fell to his knees, giving into the shuddering force that he had been desperately fighting this whole time. His insides lurched and the last spurt of bile that had been building in the back of his throat erupted out of him. His hands instinctually reached up to the tattered cloak that was around his shoulders, and he pulled at the edges of it.

It felt nice for whatever reason for his fingers to grasp at something. The rough fabric was grounding. It reminded Parker that this was real – that he was real.

He rubbed his lips clean with the back of his hand but stayed focused on a small seam in the floor that came in and out of focus during every other blink. Parker felt the acid burning his throat, but it was far from making everything alright.

There were too many thoughts bouncing around the teen’s head.

Everything hurt.

Nothing felt real.

If Parker didn’t know better, he would’ve thought he was going into some kind of shock. He wanted to crawl away and hide, but something else kept him rooted to the spot; and that was the desire to know more.

Who was he?

How much did his so-called mom know?

Amanda, on the other hand, watched helplessly as Parker fell to his knees and vomited onto the ground before wrapping himself tighter in the odd clothing piece he found. She crouched onto her hands and knees, desperate to reach out and comfort Parker while also terrified to make the wrong move in this moment.

Her entire world was in the balance and there was practically nothing she could do. It was like watching a mirror spiderweb into crack after crack until the perfect image was split beyond recognition.

Amanda doubled over and sucked in a breath as she tried to gather some semblance of thought. The urge to say something – anything – overcame the panicking mom.

“Parker… Parker, please. Please, listen to me. Sweetheart, I… I never meant to hurt you. I never wanted any of this to happen.” Every word was barely forced out of her. Parker didn’t even register that he heard her. He simply stayed there kneeling on the ground in a crumpled heap. It was a punch to the gut, but Amanda forced herself to continue.

“I… I wanted to say something sooner. I wanted to tell you everything. It… it just never felt like… the right time. I wanted to tell you once we moved here… but… I was too late.” Amanda was practically sobbing out each word now. Parker’s lack of response was so uncharacteristic that she feared she was beyond the point of reaching him. “Please! Parker. I’ll answer any questions you have. I swear I’ll tell you everything. Just talk to me.”

Amanda’s dread was starting to completely cripple her when she saw Parker blink slowly and look up at her. The look in his eyes was the same as before. There was obvious hurt and pain, both of which Amanda knew she directly caused. There was also an anger that, like a science fair volcano, was bubbling up and ready to erupt at any moment.

“Convenient that you were going to say something after the move,” Parker muttered. That bubbling frustration was manifesting itself and making him feel emboldened to ask the tough questions.

“Parker…”

“No! Just… stop!” choked out Parker. Immediately, Amanda pinched her lips shut as she looked down at him.

It felt condescending.

It made him feel small.

It was something he wasn’t used to – and he hated it.

Parker swallowed again, the rawness in his throat feeling like sandpaper. His mind was drawing a blank. He wanted to know everything, but the last thing he wanted to do was talk to the person who was angering him. How could she lie to him like this for so long?

Questions began manifesting in his mind and he began putting together what was most important for him to ask. Honestly, there was too much going on. What was most important, in his mind, was hearing how it actually happened. It was then that something occurred to him. It wasn’t even that amusing, but he found himself scoffing disbelievingly at how the events paralleled.

“You… both said the same thing. That it never felt like the right time,” mumbled Parker as he kept shaking his head back and forth. It was like he could shake himself awake or clear away the feelings in his head if he shook them away. Sadly, the sensation was more like a snow globe. The more he shook, the more everything seemed to swirl and kick up more thoughts.

“W-who?” Amanda dared to ask as she looked at her son. When met with his scoff again, Amanda prompted him again. “Parker? Who said that? Did… you talk to someone else?”

Parker glared at his mom, pausing his head shaking only now, and ground his teeth together. “Yes, I did; and they were a lot more helpful than you.”

“They?”

“Yes! Kers and the others! They! There are others like me!” shouted Parker. The force of his voice, despite his size, made Amanda flinch away. “And, unlike you, they told me everything. They told me what I was – who I was – and explained everything I’ve had questions about for years. My balance. My senses. Ha! You know what they told me? You wanna guess? They thought I was captured. They thought I was your pet! And I’m starting to think they were right!”

Amanda’s heart clenched. She wanted to run and hide. This was truly a misery of her making, and it was worse than she could have imagined. It made her question every decision she had made with Parker, but she wasn’t going to back away. She couldn’t. Parker needed her despite his anger.

She had to believe that.

“Parker, I…”

“You what? You didn’t want to tell me? You didn’t know? You didn’t know so you decided to lie instead of just telling me you didn’t know? What happened? How did you get me? Where did I come from? Did you know my real parents?” demanded Parker. He pushed himself to his feet boldly. His heart was hammering a hole directly through his ribs.

Amanda felt gutted. Hearing the term “real parents” made her feel sick. Parker was asking every hard question all at once, and it was obvious he was losing patience with her. She didn’t know the answers, and it was apparent based on her stunned silence.

After those few seconds, Parker had enough.

It was his right to know. His hyperventilation intensified and, finally, the bubbling volcano erupted inside of him.

“Tell me!”

The desperation in his voice snapped Amanda out of her stunned trance and, finally, her thoughts came back to her. Tears dripping down her cheeks, she found the words from that first day she found Parker.

“Parker… I found you….” Amanda swallowed dryly and nodded a few times, as if the motion would help force the words out. “You were hiding under a bench in the park where I used to take you back in our apartment. I… had just gotten divorced from my husband and was completely lost…. I didn’t know what I was going to do. I wanted to crawl in a hole and never come out.

“And then I heard you. I… couldn’t believe it. You were so small and so young. I didn’t think you were real. I thought you might’ve just been some kind of stress dream or hallucination, but then it got dark out. I couldn’t just leave you out there, Parker. You looked sick. You hadn’t eaten. I… I wouldn’t leave you.

“So, I held out my hand and told you that you were safe and that I would take care of you. I made you a promise, and you came with me. I brought you home and gave you something to eat and a warm bath. I had my friend Mel come over and give you a check-up and… well… that’s pretty much everything. She helped me get some papers for you so I could register your birth and put you in school and then we… I… decided to tell you that your size was genetic.”

Parker’s jaw flexed as he ground his teeth together.

“So, you did lie about my ‘condition’?” he spat bitterly. Amanda winced and forced a nod. The motion felt impossible, but Amanda couldn’t lose her composure now. She promised she would tell Parker anything he wanted to know. She promised the truth, and this was the cost.

“Yes, because I didn’t know what else to tell you,” mumbled Amanda. “I read about some things online, but none of them seemed right. It didn’t fit you.”

“Things? What things?” demanded Parker.

Amanda’s mind scrambled. She hadn’t thought about these things in years, and being put on the spot wasn’t helping. “I… just… things. There was a book series about l-little people… Parker… please…”

“What book series? You mean there are books out there about people like me!” Parker shouted, ignoring the way his mom choked up as she explained herself. Her heart felt like it was about to explode, but Amanda dipped her head in shame as she nodded.

“Y-yes. It’s about Littles. They have m-m-mouse t-tails and call us ‘human beans’ and live in the walls with im-improvised tools,” explained Amanda.

Parker felt confused. He’d dared to look up “little people” before on his computer, but nothing really came up. It had been a long time ago when he first got his computer, and the subject never really interested him anyway. He thought he had the answers after all.

“But… why couldn’t I fi-.” Then Parker thought of something, which only made him more infuriated. There was something that would keep him from searching it, and now he knew his mom was devious enough to do it. “Did you block my searches on my computer? Did… you keep me from finding out?”

The look on his mom’s face told him everything he needed to know. Parker clenched his fists as he heaved in breath after breath. “You did!” He roared.

“Parker… please… I… I did add a few blocked searches at first. I just…”

“Just what?” demanded Parker.

“I just wanted to protect you! I didn’t think you were ready for that information yet and didn’t want you to find out by yourself. I wanted you to come and talk to me if you had questions. Please, Parker, you have to believe me. I never meant to hurt you,” pleaded Amanda.

Parker scoffed and choked back the sob threatening to come out of him.

“Well, you failed. You hid the truth to keep me here as your… little… plaything!” Parker shouted. He began pacing back and forth before running his fingers through his hair, anxiousness compressing his chest.

“Parker, that’s not true, and that’s not fair. I never treated you like that, and you know it,” retorted Amanda.

“Yes! It is true! It explains everything. Why you never wanted me to go out on my own. Why you never let any of my friends come over. You didn’t want anyone to know that I’m a Borrower and not a normal human boy!”

The word took Amanda off guard as did Parker’s behavior. This wasn’t like him. This wasn’t like her son at all.

He was hurt. He was really and truly hurt, and the only thing he could do was let out his frustrations and anger. Surely, Parker didn’t mean it; right?

“A… what?”

“A Borrower! Live in the walls. Improvised weapons. Borrowing for survival. Trying to keep away from humans to avoid being captured and turned into pets who live in cute little houses and cages,” snarled Parker.

It was a new term Amanda hadn’t heard of or, if she did, it hadn’t made a lasting impression. If this is what this “Kers” guy said Parker was, then it was probably true. Nothing else that Parker said made sense, but it hurt all the same. Amanda had only tried to keep Parker safe, and keeping others away was the only way she could think to do this.

Amanda had considered she might be isolating her son, but he had friends who he met online. She thought this might be enough, despite Parker asking to meet some of his friends in person.

Desperate, she tried to reel the conversation back into the point. “Parker, I never wanted you to feel like you were being treated any different than a normal kid. I promise. I just wanted to keep you safe. I wanted us to be a family – I wanted to give you a family,” explained Amanda. “I am so so so sorry that I waited so long. I just… I didn’t see it. I didn’t see how fast you were growing up. You have to believe me, sweetheart.”

“Believe you? Believe you! After everything?” Parker couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “After you kept all of this a secret, you want me to believe that you were doing it all for me? How do I know you didn’t take my real parents away? How do I know you just ‘found’ me?”

Amanda flinched away. Her shirt was little more than a soaking rag, just like how she felt, as she wiped her eyes on the collar of her shirt.

“Parker, I swear it’s true. If I could do it all over again, I know what I would do differently. I would’ve told you everything I knew from the start. I would’ve told you sooner. You have to believe me.”

There was an agonizing silence as Amanda stared longingly into Parker’s once understanding brown eyes. Where she once saw an intuitive, kind innocence, Amanda now saw frustrated rage looming beneath the surface. It took that one look to know it.

She wasn’t getting through to him anytime soon.

“Well, hindsight’s twenty twenty, isn’t it,” growled Parker as he backed away toward the door.

“Parker… please. I’m so sorry,” Amanda pleaded as she leaned forward and offered her hand. She had done it a million times before when she or Parker wanted to console one another with a hug. Parker violently flinched away, and his arms raised to shrug her off.

“Don’t touch me! Just… leave me alone!” roared Parker. Amanda bristled as she scooted across the floor toward Parker.

“Parker…”

“No! You’re not my mom, so just leave me alone!”

That shot was what did it. Amanda had been able to endure the onslaught of practically everything else, but hearing Parker snap at her like this was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Amanda watched as Parker stormed out of the kitchen and headed toward his room, climbing the stairs one at a time as she collapsed onto the kitchen floor. The sobs that wracked her body shook her to her core.

She knew she needed to address Parker’s disrespectful behavior and every other thing that was said, but she couldn’t do it. Amanda felt completely and utterly broken. The only thing that could make any of this right was Parker’s forgiveness, and he wasn’t about to give that tonight.

So, she laid there on the floor and sobbed. She wept until her body refused to shudder. This was meant to be a happy occasion, moving to a new home, and turning a new page in their lives, and it was splitting at the seams right in front of her. By the end of the night, her head was also splitting with a headache. She barely registered making it to her bed, and she barely acknowledged the fact that she went into Parker’s room and tried to talk to him again.

She got no response and saw the shadows die out as soon as she came into the room.

Amanda had to make this right, but she couldn’t do it now.

Both of them needed the night to reflect.

So, with a “Goodnight Parker, I love you so much,” Amanda shuffled off to bed where her tears sealed her eyes closed.

Parker, on the other hand, stormed up to his space and collapsed on his bed. He only remembered crying this hard one before when he thought he had broken his arm. The pain was in his chest and in his soul. It made his entire body ache in a way that crippled him completely.

Over and over, the same thoughts tormented him.

Why didn’t his mom tell him?

Where were his real parents?

Didn’t his mom trust him?

After all of this time, didn’t he deserve the truth?

She hid it! She hid the truth from him – on purpose.

The more he thought about it, the more he felt himself festering over everything.

At one point, he heard his mom come in and tell him goodnight, but he didn’t reciprocate. He couldn’t stand to talk to her, let alone look at her.

The young teen wasn’t sure how long he laid there on his bed mulling things over and over again, but at some point the thoughts of the unknown mixed with his frustrations compelled him to act.

Parker decided he needed to learn more. He pushed himself up out of bed and got to work. There were too many unknowns and there was only one thing to do to find the truth. He felt like he couldn’t trust his so-called “mom.”

No.

There was only one thing to do.

~~~~~^*^*^*^*^~~~~~

Continue

Beginning

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blackmoonlightexpress · 1 year ago

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TTEOTM Easter Eggs Part 2 (Production Details)

Anyone still rewatching Till the End of the Moon? Here's another round of easter eggs!

(1) Does this shot look familiar? In Ep 1, we see a visual reference to the first teaser poster released back in Nov 2021.

(2) In Ep 1, we already see Xiaoyao Sword formation, which Cang Jiumin learns from Zhaoyou in Ep 30.

(3) In Ep 2, we are introduced to Ye Bingchang, who is feeding the poor. What is she serving? Congee. (Not poisonous, of course)

(4) Throughout Ep 3-7, there are many shots of observing crows which explain how Tantai Jin gets his intel, e.g. the location of the dream demon's forest, his maid Yingxin's plot to poison him, Ye Xiwu's plan to set up her sister with the unplesant fifth prince, or Ye Xiwu and Xiao Lin's conversation about TTJ.

(5) When we first encounter Mingye in his dragon form, he is shown holding tightly onto a broken clam shell.

In addition, the dragon has two eye colors: TTJ enters Bo're dream through the black eye (half god) and XYW enters through the red eye (half demon), foreshadowing Mingye and Sangjiu's fate.

(6) Sangjiu actually manages to drag Mingye (drugged and drunk) all the way back to her own bedroom to complete her wedding night.

(7) Tantai Jin finds out that the congee Ye Xiwu cooked for him is poisoned through the butterfly that dropped dead after tasting the congee. As you may recall, TTJ's mother has an affinity to butterflies. There's a fan theory that this is his mother protecting him.

In fact, the butterfly also shows up in Ep 6 when Ye Xiwu goes on an acid trip conjures an illusion to cheer up Tantai Jin.

(8) During Tantai Jin and Ye Xiwu's wedding night where the Dragonheart Shield flew out to protect Tantai Jin from the three final nails, we briefly see Mingye's eyes as though he is protecting him.

(9) In Ep 36, an impressive one-shot-through sequence is shown to represent the evil and suffering of the world. We follow a sick man who is too poor to buy medicine. We've actually seen the man and the montage before as he was kidnapped by the dream demon and his experiences harvested to grow nightmare flowers in Ep 3.

(10) In TTJ's own Bo're dream, we see YXW's father walking around with crutches even though he was physically fit and died fighting TTML's army. That is because the dream was created in TTJ's mind, and TTJ never found out that he was faking the injury the entire time.

(11) Sangjiu and Mingye's wedding is an exact mirror of Tantai Jin and Li Susu's wedding, from the entrance on a flying carriage to the procession. Even the dancers are the same!

(12) Ye Xiwu's grave in the Jing mausoleum says "beloved wife of Tantai Jin", but TTJ's grave only says "husband of YXW". TTJ wasn't sure he was loved by YXW at that point (but it would also be slightly presumptuous of him to etch that after the events of Ep 39.)

#till the end of the moon #black moonlight holds the be script #luo yunxi #chang yue jin ming #cdrama #chinese drama #tteotm #bai lu #tantai jin #ye xiwu

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davidtennantgenderenvy · 1 year ago

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eternal youth is overrated - a good omens one shot

Summary: Heartbreak and loneliness have left Crowley marked in more ways than one. Aziraphale helps him see that this isn’t such a bad thing.

NOTES: I’ve always had a bit of a bittersweet fascination with aging (David Tennant’s crows’ feet make me emo in ways I cannot hope to describe), with the sadness but also the beauty inherent in it, and I thought it could be interesting to bring this idea to good omens. The concept was “what if Crowley started getting grey hairs after Aziraphale leaves, if, over time, his physical appearance subconsciously changed to reflect his mental state?” The fact that I wrote this as a 19 year old honestly just shows how much I need therapy, but it was honestly incredibly cathartic to work through some of my own mental struggles via Crowley in this fic. Aziraphale’s pov was equally fun to write, as I basically just got to write how he feels about Crowley based on what I feel about David (lol). Hope you enjoy my first Good Omens one shot- I may or may not make an A03 account if it gets enough engagement, I’m honestly pretty proud of it! Special thanks to my wonderful partner in crime @flyingfluse for providing some much needed inspiration!

PS: The title is actually from a song I wrote called Grow Old With Me (hopefully will be available someday fingers crossed)

——————

It had been a year.

Nothing to a demon, really. In the vast expanse of six thousand years on earth, not to mention the innumerable eons Before The Beginning, a year didn’t count for much more than a blip. But heartbreak is a funny thing. Time, for Crowley, now seemed to pass in a much more human fashion- the year that had elapsed since Aziraphale’s return to heaven, a year devoid of anything resembling laughter or joy, a year spent largely either sleeping or stewing in self-loathing, had seemed longer than the past hundred combined.

Crowley’s gaze blearily wandered to the rearview mirror of the Bentley. His reflection, as everything seemed to these days, mocked him.

Those sickly yellow eyes, reminding him of all he was and all that he could never be, like the sulfur he had been cast into all those millenia ago. On his worst days, it was like he could still feel it, eating away at him from the inside out, decaying his soul and with it, his body. It carved shadows into his cheeks and circles beneath his eyes, deep and dark as caverns. It rose in his throat until he choked on it, leaving his voice hoarse and acrid. It spewed out of him onto everything and everyone, every time he opened his mouth, an acidic bile of rage and bitterness.

He had been destroyed and rebuilt over and over through the millenia, and the product was a rough, hardened callus of a being, like a patch of skin that had been picked at too many times. He felt grotesque, untouchable, damaged- there would be no point to pursuing any new connections when no one would understand, nor why would they want to, when he seemed to turn everything he held to ashes?

A ray of sunlight leaked through the window of the Bentley, catching upon Crowley’s hair, revealing it to be littered with strands of grey, collecting dust-like in his copper mane. How the mighty have fallen, he thought bitterly. Falling, always falling, like leaves in autumn, their color draining as their forms grow brittle and they become one with the earth. From dust they were made, and to dust, they shall return.

Perhaps in a year, he would be dust too. What would he care?

Demons didn’t naturally age, or so he had thought. But loneliness seemed to have made a mortal out of Crowley, centuries of it crashing down upon his corporation, wearing it to the bones, etching his torment into his skin. He could always just miracle any part of himself back to the way it was, reverse all this damned erosion… but what would it matter? Why even try to keep his hair from losing its color when all the color had drained from his life the second his angel had left it?

He felt so, so old.

A single, desperate sob escaped Crowley’s mouth, cracking out of him like splintering firewood.

As he weeped against the steering wheel, the Bentley switched on its radio in sympathy.

I’ve walked too long in this lonely lane,

I’ve had enough of this same old game.

I’m a man of the world, they say that I’m strong,

But my heart is heavy and my hope is gone.

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

The demon lay curled in Aziraphale’s lap, clinging to his chest as a snake might in search of warmth. It clutched at Aziraphale’s soul to see Crowley this vulnerable, the swaggering and smirking stripped away to reveal a heart in desperate need of care and healing- a task Aziraphale considered his greatest duty and greatest pleasure, for he knew Crowley would do the same for him.

Aziraphale ran his fingers through Crowley’s hair, earning a deep sigh from his beloved, whose brows turned up in fragile, stirring comfort. He loved doing this, both to see how much his touch moved Crowley and because he simply loved his hair itself. Bold, striking, an instant head-turner, just like everything else about him. It was now the longest it had been since biblical times, falling in elegant waves past his shoulders. But oh, something else was different… it was streaked now with rivers of silver, gathering in deltas at his temples. It lit a familiar flame in Aziraphale’s chest; that bittersweet blend of desire and sympathy.

“You’ve changed your hair, I see”, he said softly.

Crowley takes a labored swallow, strain and self consciousness seeping into his face. Whatever he says next, it’s clear that the admission is going to cost him.

“When you left, I suppose I… let myself wither away.” His voice is lodged deep in his throat, thick and murky, leaking out of him like tar, a sound from the depths of his own personal hell. “Oh, Aziraphale…” he exhales, and it’s one of the most poignant Aziraphale has ever heard. “I’m so tired. So worn down. So bloody ancient.”

“So am I, my dear,” he says, trying to come across more soothing than concerned.

“Yes, but you still shine in the same way you did all those millenia ago… still so bright, so soft. I’m all tarnished and rusted up… I don’t know how you still want to touch me.”

Aziraphale gazed down into Crowley’s eyes, piercing and pleading and fragile, like shattered stained glass. At his craggy, rough-hewn cheeks, all bones and edges he’d happily cut himself on to caress. At the deep, deep lines around his eyes, carved there by every grin and grimace and longing and ache. And oh, the silver in his hair… it suited him so, both rejecting and combining black and white with a color all his own. It wasn’t normal for immortal bodies, ethereal or occult, to bear the marks of time and experience as Crowley’s has. But then, Crowley was never an ordinary demon, or angel, was he? No, he was something far more exquisite.

“Oh, but I do… I do…” Affection surges through Aziraphale as he kisses every crease and wrinkle, every scar and every glorious grey, every sign that his dear Crowley has lived. He feels Crowley’s hands winding through his hair in response and kisses those too, those eloquent, spindly fingers and calloused palms…

“Crowley, my most cherished books… the covers are peeling, the pages are torn or yellowed with age… so why would you be any different?” His heart seizes up, his voice breaking a bit. “I have seen the fire and rain rage within you for so long, and I have seen the marks they have left upon you, and each one is precious to me. You know how I love to read… Why would I not want to see the story of my beloved written upon their face? My

dear old serpent, my survivor…you don’t have to fight anymore…”

He pulls Crowley tightly to his chest, drawing the tension from his shoulders and back before cupping the sides of his face as Crowley stares back, looking overwhelmed and old and so, so beautiful. “I want you exactly as you are. Rough and hard and frayed at the edges… you will never be too much of any of these things for me. In fact…” A slightly wicked twinkle forms in his eye as he smiles pointedly at Crowley: “They make you more tempting to me than ever.”

Crowley processes this for a moment. “Well…” he croaks out, that hint of playful snark finding its way back into his throaty timbre, “I suppose there is something to be said for… shades of grey.” Aziraphale laughs, remembering the words he himself said to Crowley all those years ago, on the same night he realized just how much he adored him.

Crowley smiles, that crooked, twisted, perfectly imperfect smile that Aziraphale missed, his eyes crinkling magnificently at the corners. “Kiss me,” he whispers, and Aziraphale is happy to oblige. Happy that Crowley, bold, fierce, independent Crowley, could finally let his guard down, could finally embrace that all of his scars and imperfections, every mark of time upon his face, everything he ever thought made him damaged and ugly only made him more beautiful in his sight.

#good omens #Ineffable husbands #crowley #aziraphale #david tennant #michael sheen #fanfiction #fanfic #hurt/comfort #Pro-aging #Anyone who has ever wanted to read Crowley with grey hair this is for you #Song: mother love by queen

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sis-goleona · 5 months ago

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Winchester siblings

A sad little imagine

Dean x Sibling! reader

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

The reader looked closely into the grimy bathroom mirror, the reflection barely reflecting the hurt that had etched its way into their heart. The bathroom was dimly lit but it still illuminated the tears that trickled down the scope of their face and collected at the bottom of their chin. People say it's good to cry because it relieves pain but to the reader, the tears only serve as a reminder that the pain is not gone and their loved one is never coming back. They wiped their tears away with a rough hand, the friction caused a bright red mark to appear on their lower cheek, and it burned slightly. They let out a meek whimper, more tears pouring out of their eyes from frustration. Hands slammed down on the off-white porcelain sink with a loud slap. They were tired, oh so very tired, the days bled into weeks, weeks into months, and there was no distinction between night and day, that's what lack of sleep does to the human body; robbing the brain of all that it needs to properly function. The reader wanted to sleep but every time their eyes closed they saw him, him, screaming at the top of his lungs, clawing at the hardwood floor, begging and pleading for the immovable force to spare his life, those pleas fell onto deaf ears. Those eyes, those mosey green eyes that were as still as a lake bore into readers as he took one last fleeting breath until he was gone. ‘I’m so so sorry Dean’ they whispered into the crude curvature of the sink, their vision blurred from the constant flow of tears that collected in the ducts of their eyes and fell into the silver-pitted metal that was welded into the porcelain. Their eyes traveled back up to the rusting edge of the mirror, the rust looked like growing spores..disgusting. Their eyes traveled up further until they were looking into a pair of light green eyes, they were their own but how they reminded him of Dean. The reader sucked in a deep breath through their gritted teeth…They could not bear looking at themselves if all they could see was someone who was never coming back. They backed up in a hurried motion, their feet carrying them as far away as possible from the mirror, in a confined space as the bathroom they really could not go far. With the hurried motion, the reader lost their balance and slipped on the smooth tile of the floor. Falling down the reader's mind was completely blank, with no semblance of a thought forming. They fell straight on their ass, their head whipping back and slamming against the wall with a loud CRACK, the pain was instantly noticeable. It spread like a disease from the back of their head to behind their tightly shut eyes. The acidic taste of bile bubbled at the back of their throat begging to be let out. A loud groan of pain left their lips in a moment of shock.

There was no denying it anymore…Dean; their brother was dead and gone, sooner or later they would have to come to terms with the big gaping hole that resided in their heart.

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

Sad.....

#dean winchester #sam winchester #supernatural #the winchester brothers #author sybil

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acteur-dramatique · 20 days ago

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Layers of Want

Each morning,

I stand before the mirror,

serums lined up like soldiers,

bottles gleaming under soft vanity lights,

and I press them into my skin -

a ritual, a routine,

a quiet kind of devotion,

This is my armor,

my alchemy of ampoules and creams,

the fleeing promise of a new face,

one they might notice.

I smooth retinol, dab peptides,

layer each with a kind of reverence,

hoping each drop will soften something

they never cared to see.

Mark,

Liam,

Samuel,

Kyle,

Connor -

names that haunt me in every pore,

etched into every fine line,

imprinted beneath the glow I try to cultivate.

I wonder if you'd see me now,

in the way a new face might erase the old,

if each layer I add

could peel back the weight of longing

until there's nothing left but glass.

But even in this polished mask,

I can't escape it -

the imperfections,

the way y skin catches light and shadow

like a memory clinging to flesh.

I press harder, work deeper

tonics and acids soaking into my skin

as if I could dissolve myself completely,

become pure, translucent,

someone you'd want to hold.

At night,

I begin again,

peeling back the layers,

stripping down to raw, untouched flesh,

searching for something you'd find beautiful.

And each night,

I find new flaws,

small betrayals of all I try to hide -

a line that softens and reappears,

a darkness that creams cannot touch,

an ache beneath the glow.

Maybe it's vanity,

this endless war against my own skin,

or maybe it's something darker,

a desperation buried in toner and eye cream,

in the ache of knowing

I am always just a little less

than what you wanted.

Each touch, each spread, each pat -

a quiet confession,

a whispered plea.

I am my own project,

a face remade in shadows and light,

in layers too thin to see,

but thick enough to mask the cracks

they left behind.

#me #poem #about me #grief #sad poem #loss #abandoned #poetry #skincare

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sicknessbysalem · 10 months ago

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tw emeto, nausea, stomach pain, character not telling significant other about something

fun fact(s) for this fic: novak has a girlfriend (yuliya) and also, novak has what he and his mom think is celiac disease but he hasn’t been officially diagnosed.

Yuliya's apartment was filled with a cozy warmth as Novak and Yuliya settled in for a night together. They’d gone out to dinner after their respective practices, Novak’s football and Yuliya’s figure skating jumping practice. They went to a nice, quiet restaurant they always seemed to choose for date night, before heading back to Yuliya’s.

Marina was taking care of Elya, and had all but kicked Novak out for the night so he could have a night to himself, with his girlfriend.

Usually, this happened once a week, or once every two weeks. So it wasn’t exactly out of the ordinary.

What is out of the ordinary is the way Novak’s stomach churned, and the way waves of nausea washed over him, all while sitting on the couch next to Yuliya.

Yuliya, noticing the change in Novak's demeanor, furrowed her brows with concern. "Hey, are you feeling okay? You seem a bit off."

Novak forced a smile, attempting to dismiss the question. "Yeah, just a bit tired. Long day, you know?"

Yuliya, however, wasn't convinced. "Are you sure? You were a little more talkative during dinner. Did something happen?"

Novak shrugged, “Seriously, just tired.”

“Well, do you want to just lay down and cuddle?” Yuliya asked, “Watch a movie, or something?”

Novak agreed, grateful for the suggestion. As they settled into bed, the warmth of Yuliya's presence offered comfort. They scrolled through movie options, eventually deciding on a lighthearted comedy. Novak, however, couldn't shake the increasing discomfort in his stomach.

As the movie played, Novak gradually dozed off, the gentle rhythm of Yuliya's breathing lulling him into a restless sleep. The apartment was quiet, the soft glow of the TV casting a warm ambiance.

Hours later, Novak stirred awake, his stomach in knots. The room felt stifling, and beads of sweat formed on his forehead. He cautiously disentangled himself from the cozy embrace and tiptoed to the bathroom. He felt oddly dizzy, and between the intense cramping of his stomach and the general nausea, Novak felt his jaw clench.

The nausea hit him like a wave, and Novak leaned over the sink, gripping the edges as he endured the discomfort. His breathing was shaky as another painful cramp seized his stomach.

Whatever he ate was clearly bad for his stomach, the way it ached and turned over with every shaking breath.

Yuliya, awakened by the sudden absence of warmth beside her, sat up, looking around the room.

Her door was open. She slipped out into the hall, seeing the light on underneath the bathroom door, which was surprisingly slightly ajar.

She walked over, carefully pushing the door open just in case. But instead of Novak using the bathroom, which Yuliya would have been mortified to see probably, Novak stood, head bowed, ash blonde hair cascading down either side of his face.

But in the mirror, she could see the way his eyebrows were knit together, the way he squeezed his eyes shut, the way his breathing was shaky and his whole six foot four muscular frame trembled.

Concern etched her face, “Hey… Hey, Novak, what's happening? Are you okay?"

Novak, through gritted teeth, tried to reassure her. "It's just my stomach acting up. Happens sometimes. I'll be fine."

Yuliya, unconvinced, reached for her phone. "I'm calling your mom. Something isn't right."

“No, Yuliya it’s-“

Novak heaved. It was dry, but Yuliya could see by the look on his face that the next one probably wouldn’t be. In response, Novak hastily tied back his hair as fast as he could, taking a few steps over to the toilet.

Novak still had his hair in his hands as the next heave sent up a slightly thicker stream of what seemed to be acid. By time his hair is up, enough, he heaved again, clutching his stomach as a thicker wave of sick came up.

Yuliya yelped. She’d never seen Novak so sick, so she dialed Marina, hoping maybe Novak’s mom would have insight of how she could help her suddenly apparently very sick boyfriend.

While the phone rang, Yuliya paced, going to the kitchen to grab water. She could hear the occasional heave from Novak.

“Yuliya, honey, is everything okay?” Marina’s voice suddenly asks.

“I don’t know?” Yuliya said, heading back toward the bathroom with a bottle of water, I mean things were fine I think but now Novak seems like he’s in a lot of pain and he’s-“

Yuliya cringes as Novak heaves, hard, and she just catches the sight of a thick wave of what she figured was a reappearance of dinner splattered in the toilet.

“Yuliya..?” Marina asked

“Novak, Novak’s vomiting,” Yuliya said, setting the water on the counter, “I don’t understand, he was fine during dinner. It was only when we got home that-“

“What did Novak eat?” Marina asked, “Do you remember?”

“Some… I don’t remember what he-“ Yuliya started, pulling back a few loose hairs from Novak’s face as he spit in the toilet, his breaths heaving in a way that told Yuliya he’d probably still throw up again, “Uh, weird as it sounds but… looks like pasta… of some kind?”

“Look like..?” Marina questioned, but there’s a lightness in her voice. Like she’s trying not to laugh.

Yuliya wants to scream at Marina’s tone, because she is terrified and Marina doesn’t seem to be. But, she doesn’t. It probably wouldn’t be a good idea to yell at her boyfriend’s mom.

“He threw up, it looks like he threw up a pasta of some sort,” Yuliya said.

“How do you-“ Novak starts, but doesn’t finish.

“Okay, Yuliya,” Marina said, now she is laughing slightly, “First of all, breathe…. Second of all, my son is an idiot. He gets that from his dad.”

“I’m sorry Marina but,” Yuliya said, completely stunned by the reaction, “How are you taking this so-“

“Novak has celiac disease, we think,” Marina said, “Novak knows he probably has it. But, sometimes, Novak doesn’t exactly make smart decisions.”

Yuliya's eyes widened with realization. "I didn't know. He never told me…”

Confirming Yuliya’s earlier suspicions, Novak does in fact vomit again, but Yuliya notices the water bottle is now sitting on the back of the toilet and some has either been drank or used to rinse Novak’s mouth.

Either way, the linebacker is heaving, quite painfully it sounded like to Yuliya, and getting sick again.

“What’s going on, Marina?" Yuliya asked, gathering more of Novak’s hair, “God you didn’t even try to tie that back.”

“I was nauseous,” Novak said, coughing and spitting into the toilet, “Am nauseous.”

Marina, with a tone of humor in her voice, explained, "We think he has celiac disease. It's an intolerance to gluten. If he consumes it, it wreaks havoc on his stomach. And by the sound of it, he failed to think of that at dinner.”

As Yuliya absorbed this information, she turned her attention back to Novak, who now pressed a hand to his stomach, and Yuliya could tell he was trying to figure out if he was going to throw up again or if he would be fine to rinse his mouth and lay down.

“Well can I do anything?” Yuliya questioned.

“Honestly, not really,” Marina answered, now more calm and slightly serious for Yuliya’s sake, “We’ve come to figure out that nothing but getting it out of his system helps.”

“Well he seems to be having no problem with that,” Yuliya said, still trying to keep Novak’s hair back with the hand that wasn’t holding his hair.

Novak, still hunched over the toilet, spit one more time. He nodded weakly. "I think so." His voice was strained, and he avoided looking at Yuliya directly.

Yuliya, sensing Novak's discomfort, maintained a reassuring touch. "Do you need anything? Water, maybe?"

"Don’t listen to him, get him some water," Marina suggested over the phone. "Novak… he’ll fight to hell and back to not drink anything when he feels like this. Make sure he stays hydrated. It helps, even if he won’t admit it. Call me if you need anything else, alright?”

Yuliya nodded, her worry evident. "Okay, water it is.” She hung up the phone and tucked it in her pocket, “Novak, can you walk back to bed, or do you need more time?"

Novak straightened up, "I can manage."

Yuliya grabbed the water bottle as the two headed back to Yuliya’s room. As they moved to the bedroom, Yuliya helped Novak settle into bed.

Yuliya handed over the water and it took one warning glare for Novak to try and drink some of it.

Yuliya, no longer afraid for her boyfriend’s wellbeing, slapped his shoulder with the back of her hand.

“Well that wasn’t very-“

“Why didn't you tell me?" Yuliya snapped, “You made me panic for what? Why didn’t you tell me the food made you sick?”

Novak sighed, "I don't like making a fuss about it. Usually, it's not this bad."

Yuliya crossed her arms, frustration evident on her face. "Novak, this isn't just 'bad.' You scared the shit out of me. I need to know these things."

Novak ran a hand through his hair, looking apologetic. "I get it. I should have been upfront. I just didn't want to ruin the night."

Yuliya softened, realizing his intention. "You don't need to hide things from me, Novak. I care about you. I'd rather know and help than be kept in the dark."

Novak nodded, appreciating her understanding. "You're right. I should have communicated better."

"Okay," Yuliya said, already softening and petting Novak’s head, running her fingers through his hair by his scalp, “Let’s get through this night together, and we'll figure out a plan for the future. Deal?"

Novak smiled, a mix of gratitude and relief in his eyes. "Deal."

#emeto #emeto fic #emeto cw #emeto tw #sickfic #emetophilia #sick novak daskalov

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kalevalakryze · 1 year ago

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Goth Dad Skills

Relationships: Shin Hati & Baylan Sköll Characters: Shin Hati, Baylan Sköll Warnings: This is 💕fluff💕 Notes: This also actually reminded me to go bleach my own hair asdfghjkl ANYWAYS GUYS CAN WE TALK ABOUT THIS? !!!!!! I’m sobbing, I am kicking my feet, my heart is fulfilled and I am in love, this is the cutest thing and we need more, because Baylan is a good Goth Dad who loves his adopted murder child !!!! (summary taken from Mine ) Word Count: 1,419 VERY EXCITED TAGGING WITH ALL THE LOVE IN MY BODY: @thegirlsinthecity AO3 Link: Here! Summary: Sabine’s fingers carded through their hair. “How much work do you put into this?” Frowning at how off-track things had gone, Shin’s hands shifted to rest under Sabine’s thighs as shift her weight around, hiking her further up against the wall and her hips as she thought. “My Master helps me every couple weeks?” “Seriously? Baylan can dye hair? Sick,” Sabine shifted to press their lips together, slower than Shin had become accustomed to.

Every few weeks, brown started to overtake the mop of platinum on her head, dead ends of her hair would tickle at her cheeks and get stuck in her face, bringing an irritable Shin to the surface.

Truly, they could be hard to deal with when their hair started to grow and their original hair color would start to fade back in. The first time Baylan had tried to work with Shin after her hair had grown below her shoulder blades and the brown went past her ears, she’d nearly tore his head off during her lessons.

He hadn’t known what to do, then, only when Morgan mentioned the change in his Padawan’s appearance effecting her behavior did he cautiously approach the topic. They’d been cautious to accept his help, and he’d been cautious to mess up her hair, but it had come with its rewards in the form of a calmer Apprentice and a new skill to learn.

Baylan had come to learn the approaching signs that his apprentice needed a hand that she would not ask for (He’d seen what happens when she tried to do her own hair and was unwilling to handle that chaos ever again). Their fingers would tug through the ends of their hair and a look of annoyance would cross their lips, or they would keep their hood pulled over their head, even when it was just the two of them.

Shin’s boot was pressed into the console of the war table, other leg dangling in the space between her seat and the edge of the table. Her hood was pulled low over her eyes, though he could see her restlessness in the way she tugged at the strands of dead platinum hair poking past her hood.

“Apprentice,” He called as he stepped into the cabin, his hand resting on the back of the seat. He was silent until their head begrudgingly raised from the zoned out staring at the hologram of the star system.

“Master,” Her voice was quiet, gruff, and tired. Baylan knew that the reminder of her hair reverting to its state before he’d taken her in served as a reminder of the life she’d lived before him, that wanting to leave it all behind was difficult when she couldn’t look into a mirror without staring at her past. Her eye makeup was scrubbed away, leaving only the bags under her eyes to contrast against pale and red rimmed skin.

With more confidence than he’d usually felt, he reached to brush her hood back with a calm hand. Her eyes narrowed, though she said nothing as he studied the inches of growth, brown hair thick where it leveled with their eyebrows. “Come,” He called, patting the back of the seat before disappearing down the small hall to his cabin.

Shin’s boots on the durasteel floor announced her presence a few minutes after he’d entered his room. It was spartan in design, though star maps and etchings were hung up around the walls, as well as a trinket or two from the Clone Wars, incentive to follow the Nightsister’s mission to find Thrawn.

Their stool was sitting in the center of the room, with the acidic smelling chemicals that would change their hair color being mixed carefully in his hands. Shin dropped onto the stool without a word, unhooking their cloak and bunching it up in their hands. Once the mixture was complete, he’d passed the bowl to Shin before grabbing her cloak from her hands and hanging it on a hook near his desk, smoothing out the wrinkles before he’d returned.

On his desk, a small music player sat between his datapad and his spare lightsaber pieces. As he hung the cloak up, he’d reached for a spare music file before sliding it into the device. A Galan-Kalank album fired up, various instruments harmonizing with Corellian voices filling the small room.

The disposable gloves they’d had on board were too small for his hands, but he’d made it work, latex stretched out across his fingers and threatening to rip. Taking the mixing bowl from Shin, he’d set to work.

Each layer of the harsh chemical was carefully applied and worked through to where brown met darkening blonde, generous amounts of bleach were spread across her head, though he was always careful to leave just a little bit of brown closest to her scalp. The holonet had some terrifying images about the hair bleaching process, even for a man who’d seen the worst of the wars.

Shin stayed silent as he worked the small brush through her hair, arms crossed over her chest as the heel of her boot caught on the bar of the stool, other foot bouncing against the ground as she waited. Her appreciation was shown not in words, but in the way her head would dip back into his hand, or when she would move her head where he needed without needing to be asked.

After the laborious process of applying the chemical was finished, he’d bunched her hair up to the top of her head, using a clip to keep it in place, while allowing her padawan braid to dangle outside of the material he used to wrap her head to trap the heat.

The time was passed by Baylan passing his datapad over with an old assignment, leaving her to read quietly while he cleaned up and grabbed what he would need to cut her hair after she rinsed it out.

His internal clock warned him of their time approaching. “I will be here once you finish,” He informed her as she started to rise. Setting the tablet back on the desk, she strode from his room to the fresher.

Baylan did not see her for another twenty minutes as she’d washed the excess out of her hair, though when she returned, the weight pressing in on her shoulders and the shackles that chased her were noticeably eased.

Their footsteps were lighter, lowering themselves onto the stool as they finished pulling a towel through their hair The brown was all but gone, with only her roots poking through damp strands of hair.

Now free of uncomfortable gloves, he began sectioning out her hair, softer than it had been when he’d gone through to bleach it after she put conditioner in it. Humming along to the music file he’d been given on Tattoine, a cheery quartet with a lot of sax, Baylan grabbed a brush from the stand, working out the knots she’d gained with careful hands.

His scissor work was exquisite as he’d lined her hair up and snipped away overgrown and dead strands, levelling the ends of her hair to fall above her shoulders. He was careful as he layered platinum strands, laying them out carefully before continuing until both sides of her hair were symmetrical, save for the unwound padawan braid, loose hair falling down her shoulder, crinkled from being taken out of the bands that kept it together.

He brushed out the strands of longer hair with a comb, before working through rebraiding the hair together with dark orange bands, until the braid could fall back against its home in her shoulder.

When he’d finished, he was met with Shin’s relaxed shoulders and closed eyes, arms still crossed over their chest, with none of the earlier tension. “Shin,” He called once, his hand resting heavy on her shoulder.

Silver blue eyes blinked open, her hand dropping to the saber on her belt for the briefest of moments, though her hand dropped away from her belt as she looked up at him. Now that she couldn’t feel her hair at her back moving their head was easier. Their hand raised to reach for the end of the Padawan braid brushing across her neck, letting the soft hair slide between her fingers before dropping back down. “Thank you, Master,” Her head dipped in acknowledgment of his work, and she allowed his hand to rest against the crown of her head.

“Whenever you need me, I’ll be there,” He promised with a conviction that his own Master had not granted him. The cycle of Masters not preparing their apprentices would end with him, he was certain of it.

Shin was sent off to bed so he could clean up the hair he’d cut away and return to his reading and music, the ship falling silent after some clanging from Shin’s disaster of a room, and the occasional rumble of their ship traveling through hyperspace.

#Shin Hati #baylan skoll #Ahsoka spoilers #Goth Dad Baylan Skoll #Murder Daughter Shin Hati #enby shin hati #star wars #star wars fics #he's so supportive in such an awkward way #I just know he Saw Some Shit when he watched the hair cutting holovids #do not go on the holonet alone guys #THERE'S ART FOR THIS NOW #mentioned #wolfwren #wrenwolf #sabine wren #spoilers #I'm making up a backstory for shin in my head #and no one can stop me

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storiesbyrhi · 2 years ago

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Bones and All - Chapter 1: Copper Fever

Eddie Munson/Reader Bones and All AU

Warnings: canon typical violence/gore, updated each chapter

Synopsis: What do you hunger for?

Author's Note: The first chapter of the fic is the setup, so Eddie will be introduced in the second chapter. This fic will make sense even if you haven’t seen the film/read the book. However, I have heavily used both the film and the novel by Camille DeAngelis (which are quite different btw). This fic is very much a love letter to those texts and if you’ve recently seen/read it then you’ll spot a lot of Easter eggs.

Chapter 1: Copper Fever 2453 words

The others were all so normal. They had youthful pimpled skin and homework deadlines and weekend plans. They suffered only growing pains and unfair curfews and parental expectations. Yes, some suffered cramps and dark alleys, and some a father’s belt or the mirror’s weight, but...

Empathy.

Empathy is what you wanted to feel. If not, then sympathy. Hell, you’d settle for apathy. Anything but the gnawing jealousy and constant migraine of loneliness.

You couldn’t take it anymore, retreating from the cafeteria out into the main building. The school was abuzz; end-of-year dances and graduation ceremonies had teenage hearts aflutter. And, if you could just keep your shit together for another month or so, you’d be joining your class in robes and diplomas.

Technically, it could have happened a lot sooner but with the way you and your mother moved around, some sacrifices had to be made. Real last names, for example. A legitimate learner’s permit. All normal adolescent rites of passage.

Through the hallways and into the library, there you sat. A twenty-year-old with someone else’s name, alone between the shelves of books.

A stack of paper slammed down in front of you suddenly.

“Are you a vampire or something?” Sherry asked as she sat on the floor opposite you.

“What?”

“Vampires hate having their photo taken. You’re not even in this, you know. Mr Essex kept telling you to go do it. Now it’s like you weren’t even here.”

You looked down at the papers, big red letters spelling out ‘yearbook – final draft’ on the top leaf.

“Yeah… sorry. Been busy,”

“Whatever. You’re coming tonight, right?”

“My mum will never let me,”

“So?” Sherry replied with a grin. “Just sneak out after she’s gone to bed.” She sensed your hesitation. “Just for a couple hours? Please? You’ve never come to a sleepover. We’re almost done with high school and I’ll be at Brown soon. This might be our last chance. Please?”

You looked at her. She smelled so good. Like the peaches she’d eaten at recess.

“Please,” she begged, stretching her hand out to take yours. So warm. Close.

“Yeah, okay,” you said quickly, taking your hand back and gathering your things. The faster you could leave, the better.

…

She’d never get used to it. The sight of you dazed and dripping blood down your shirt was forever etched into the darkness behind her eyelids.

“You didn’t… In the car in three minutes. Whatever you can take in three minutes,” your mother instructed, her voice a pained mix of panic and grief.

You walked to the bathroom and looked at your reflection. Blood.

Blood.

Your mother yelled your name, then, “Move! When the cops get here, we have to be good and gone.”

The sleepover had started well. Sneaking out was easy enough and Sheree’s friends were nice. It was comfortable. Normal. Nail polish and warm beer. Skirts made of tinsel and cheese pizza.

You had been laying on the shag rug in Sherry’s room. Kim, a Junior you hadn’t really met before, was next to you. She was kind, told you that her father had skipped out on her too.

“Try this,” Sherry said, painting Kim’s nails. “It’s called Copper Fever.”

Kim studied her hand. “It’s too orange,” she concluded, then stuck her hand in your face. “What do you think?”

Innocently, you’d held her hand and looked at the colour. It was too orange… or not orange enough. You breathed in the acidic smell of the polish, but it faded fast and all that was left was Kim.

You bit down so hard that when the other girls pulled you away, your teeth had degloved Kim’s finger entirely.

In the bathroom, your mother grabbed hold of your shoulders and shook you back into the moment. “Did you hear me? We have to go.”

…

The cockroach appeared from under the refrigerator. As it scurried around, you watched it. The hunger deep in you was a living creature, and even the small dirty thing mapping the kitchen floor made the creature growl.

It had been three days since your mother left you.

Two months after the sleepover, you thought everything was going okay. Then you woke to find yourself completely and utterly alone. She had not taken all her things, only the things that she loved most. And you had been left behind.

There was a folded piece of paper and an envelope on the kitchen table you had yet to open. The contents of the letter were predictable, as was the pain it would inflict. Instead, you had haunted the house. You had wailed and sobbed. You had broken glass and locks. You had sat motionless for hours on end.

When the cockroach made his kitchen debut, you were reminded of the hunger. You were reminded of who and what you were.

Picking up the envelope, you found it unsealed. Inside was cash and a certificate of live birth. The only piece of proof you were real and not an imaginary monster living in the storybooks of a child.

The letter began with your name.

You’re not going to see me again. I can’t help you anymore. I can’t turn you in to the cops. I can’t do anything someone like me would do in a situation like this. So, I have to go.

The first time it happened, you were three-years-old-

You stopped reading, folding the letter, and putting it in the envelope with the cash and birth certificate.

All your belongings fitted into one backpack. When it was full, you put on the jacket your mum left behind and headed out the door.

You had known the day would come when she would leave. There was only so much horror she could take. You knew she’d leave you a letter and some money. She wouldn’t say goodbye. The jacket was a surprise though. Your dad was its first owner, and your mother wore it like a widow’s veil. She was leaving you both behind, you thought. But you, you were moving forward. Toward your father.

…

“Shouldn’t you be in school?” the woman at the bus station asked.

“You’d think,” you replied dismissively.

“I don’t know what that means,”

“It means I’m twenty-years-old and I can buy a ticket if I want.”

The greyhound could take you part of the way, the rest would have to be hitching. The bus was old, cramped, and smelt stale. Sometimes prone to motion sickness, you felt queasy. To take your mind off it, you pulled the letter out and picked up where you left off.

Her name was Penny Wilson. I thought it must have been a satanic cult. All that gore. I was so scared they’d taken you and done unspeakable things. But then I found you in your crib, sound asleep. The blood was dried up on your face. I still didn’t see it though. I didn’t understand until I fished out of your mouth something you were chewing on. It was the hammer of Penny’s eardrum. It’s a small bone. The malleus. I looked it up. You were sucking on it like it was a pacifier. I knew then. I knew what you were.

The letter was rich with information. Succulent and filling. You could only read it a paragraph at a time before you felt too full, verging on ill.

The town you’d arrived in that morning was new to you, but the address circled on the torn-out page of a phone book was seared into your memory. Years ago, your mother got sloppy and left a Christmas card from her parents out on the kitchen table. It had a return address and you’d never forgotten it. She hurried to rip up the envelope and throw it away before you could get your grubby hands on it but it was too late.

You sat on the curb behind a car down the street a little. It was the right place because your mum’s car was parked out front. When she couldn’t parent, she returned to hers. Tears rolled down your cheeks and you burned with shame. It wasn’t her fault. She didn’t ask to birth a creature like you. She wanted to be like the other mothers, playing with their children and cooking wholesome meals. But it wasn’t a dinner she served you each night, it was a sacrifice.

The walk back to the bus stop was lonely, but part of you felt relieved. If you couldn’t do it – be out on your own – you could always go back there and beg to be loved.

The Lord of the Rings kept you company while you waited. It would be hours before the next greyhound came through. If you finished Tolkien for the hundredth time, there were other adventures awaiting in your backpack.

“Well hello, little missy,” a strange voice announced themselves.

You startled, couldn’t place the sound until a figure emerged from the shadow of the building next to you. The man wasn’t smiling, but he looked at you with familiarity.

“I didn’t mean to scare you,” he offered.

“Do I know you?” you asked although you knew the answer.

“I guess not in the way you mean… I smelled you…”

He wore a suit jacket covered in pins, badges, and other things tacked to it. The top of his hair was neatly cut, but a long rat’s tail of a braid curled around his neck. His left ear looked mangled, the top entirely gone, which reminded you of an alley cat scrapping with the others to get his feed.

“You hungry?”

Before you could think, you were nodding. The stranger turned and began to walk up the road, throwing a look over his shoulder to see you apprehensively following him.

“I got rules. One, number one: never, never eat an eater… Think you can do the same?”

You nodded and took his invitation into a grand old house, marked 400 by a sign out front. Inside it was dark but homely. Floral wallpaper and a sign that read ‘bless this house and everyone in it.’

The stranger began to pull things from the fridge and cupboards in the kitchen. Sitting at the small kitchen table, you watched.

“You got a name, missy? I’m Sully. Life’s never dully with Sully!”

His accent was strange. It wasn’t that you’d not heard someone like him, maybe from rural West Virginia, it was that he spoke about himself like he was two people.

“You don’t got to worry about Sully. He never eats ‘em live,” he told you.

“I thought I was the only one,” you admitted.

“Not lots. More than you think…”

Sully told you that you’d probably come across other eaters. They would have given you a funny look or earned a double-take from you. Maybe you’d misread them as being creepy. He also warned you from seeking them out, though. When you commented on the hypocrisy of him inviting you into house number 400, he shot you a look that was equal parts disturbed and lonely.

“Tell me about your first time,” Sully requested.

You realised then that you remembered more about Penny Wilson than you had thought. Sully saw the guilt on your face, telling you, “Can’t help what you are, miss.”

That’s when he retrieved his satchel bag and pulled something wrapped in muslin cloth. You stayed silent as he presented a rope made of braids of hair. It was a rainbow of human life and death. Sully told you it’s how he honoured the eaten. You didn’t know something could be so grotesque and so beautiful at the same time.

You were touching the rope when you asked, “You said you could smell me?”

Eaters can smell eaters. And Sully, well he was extra special. He said he could smell dying. That’s how he avoided killing. He stalked people with numbered days. Your blood ran cold.

“Sully… Whose house is this?”

Suddenly details came into focus. The photographs on the wall. The homemade carrot cake sitting in a Tupperware container.

“Lydia Harmon,” he said with definity. “Can’t you smell her?”

Upstairs, after a fucked up game of hotter-colder, the smell of cooked vinegar and tangy mud lead you to Lydia. She was old, well into her late 80s. She laid on the floor of her bedroom, shallow breaths ready to cease at any moment. Thankfully, she was beyond consciousness.

“We have to help her,” you said.

“It’s gone by, that point… And whatever you and I got, it’s gotta be fed. And if the circumstances are good and if they’re safe… then eat!”

You didn’t move.

“Sully don’t eat the livin’… That just leaves this…” he told you.

You took the spare room and waited for Lydia Harmon to die. Sully told you that you’d be able to smell it happen. You were horrified to discover he was right.

Sully had stripped down to his dirty white underpants. His head was deep in Lydia’s belly and her head was almost entirely gone already. The sounds. Did you make those sounds? Is this what you looked like in the daylight?

You ate and ate and ate until all that was left of her was a pile of bones, some chewed on. Sully said he always ate the hair and nails and bones if he could. Said it was a sign of respect. He put the leftovers in a plastic bag as you licked the floorboards clean.

…

Sully made coffee and began to consume the carrot cake left in the kitchen. Flies had found their way inside the house and were sticking to the blood and gore that covered your faces and chests.

“It’s not hard once someone teaches you,” Sully told you about being out in the world. “You don’t need to be alone.”

That was the thing though. Maybe it was self-punishment. Maybe even a form of self-harm. You deserved to be alone. Deserved to suffer hunger and cold and isolation. You were a monster.

The flies that crawled over Sully’s face, forcing their way into his nostrils and mouth, didn’t seem to annoy him. There was a deadly stillness deep in the man. Lydia’s hair became part of the braided rope and you felt the danger screaming at you.

As soon as Sully excused himself to shower, you cleaned off in the powder room’s sink and fled the house.

On the next greyhound out of town, you went over all the information Sully had given you. How much of it was truth and how much fiction? Maybe that’s how stories start though. We tell them about ourselves like they aren’t the truth because that’s the only way anybody is going to believe them.

Next Chapter: coming soon

End Note: What do we think?! Are we excited about this?! I'm absolutely FERAL about it. I've seen it in the cinema twice so I could take notes, and I'm re-reading the book and taking notes. It's going to be so jam-packed with text-details. Yewwww.

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inner-sakura · 5 months ago

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Even Superheroes Need Sunscreen!

Rating: General Audiences Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply Category: F/M Fandom: Miraculous Ladybug Relationships: Adrien Agreste/Marinette Dupain-Cheng Chapters: 2 of 3 Summary: Two very tired teen heroes + one afternoon nap in the sun = quite possibly the most ridiculous reveal ever. [Or, the one where Ladybug and Chat Noir rely a little too much on their super-suits, Tikki waxes poetic about SPF, and Alya gets the last laugh. And the first. And many subsequent ones as well.]

Read it here

chapter 2: crash and burn

One glance in the mirror the next morning is enough to confirm Marinette’s worst fears.

Despite all of her hopes—and applying every topical treatment known to man—her skin has settled on a vivid, traffic-stopping shade of red that looks, if possible, even worse in the light of a new day.

“Oh dear,” Tikki says, coming to hover over Marinette’s shoulder. “That looks bad.”

“TIKKI,” she wails. “What happened? I thought the suits were supposed to protect us from everything!”

“That doesn’t mean you’re not supposed to wear sunscreen!”

Marinette gives her kwami an outraged look in the mirror.

“Forgive me for assuming that the MAGICAL SUIT that protects me from MORTAL WOUNDS would also protect me from the sun!”

Tikki squeaks indignantly.

“For the hundredth time, I’ve told you that my magic did all it could! If it weren’t for me, you would have sun poisoning by now, at the very least. Quantum magic is no substitute for good old-fashioned sun protection!”

Marinette grimaces at the admonishment, knowing without question that Tikki is correct. She normally wore sunscreen every day. But she’d been caught off-guard by yesterday’s akuma attack and it had completely slipped her mind. A mistake that she was now coming to regret dearly.

Because, as luck would have it, the burnt skin on her face was rapidly becoming the least of her problems.

She gazes at her reflection in the mirror, eyes wide and wild.

“Tikki,” Marinette chokes out, her voice strangled by the panic clawing its way up her throat. Her hand lingers over her mouth, as though that will prevent the truth from spilling out. “Everyone is going to know. They’re going to look at me, and they’re going to know.”

Tikki floats silently beside her, examining the stark white outline around her eye area, the unmistakable shape of a domino mask etched plainly into her skin.

“…maybe you could hide it with a really big pair of glasses?”

Marinette lets out a laugh that borders on hysterical.

“A really big pair of glasses is not going to prevent people from putting two and two together to realize that I am Ladybug!” She squawks, feeling as though her heart has fallen out of her chest and into the well of her stomach, where it is slowly being consumed by acid.

Tikki drops to rest on her shoulder, a solid and comforting weight amid a sea of troubles.

“You know,” she says thoughtfully, reaching out with one paw to pat Marinette on the cheek, before thinking better of it at the last second. “I’ve seen Ladybugs reveal their identities in many ways over the years, but this one might be a first even for me.”

“OH MY GOD YOU ARE SO NOT HELPING.”

-x-

“Good morning, chérie—oh my, those glasses are… exceptionally large! Is that what’s trendy with the kids these days?”

The door to the bakery opens, then slams shut in short order.

“…was it something I said?”

“Tom, dear, I feel like right now just might not be the best time.”

-x-

By the time Marinette gets to school, she’s cutting it close, even by her usual standards of tardiness.

The final bell is still echoing in the courtyard when she vaults up the stairs, skidding around the corner towards her classroom blindly.

It’s only when she’s wrenching open the door with more gusto than strictly necessary that she remembers that today is perhaps not the best day to be drawing unneeded attention to herself.

Too late, however, as the door is now wide open, and fifteen pairs of eyes have settled on her with varying degrees of incredulity.

Chloe is, of course, the first to break the silence.

“Good god, Dupain-Cheng, just when I thought your fashion sense couldn’t get any worse! What are those monstrosities on your face?”

As the rest of the class breaks into whispers, Mlle. Bustier levels Chloe with a quelling look, before focusing her attention on Marinette.

“Marinette, is there a… particular reason for your attire this morning?”

“I’m… allergic to the sun?” Marinette tries, fighting the urge to adjust her face mask as it chafes against the skin of her cheeks. The tint of her sunglasses is dark, but not so much that she misses the incredulous expression that flashes across their instructor’s face before she turns back to the blackboard.

“Take your seat, Marinette,” Mlle. Bustier says with a sigh, exuding the long-suffering patience of someone accustomed to dealing with the mercurial whims of adolescents. “Now class, as I was saying, please open your books to page—”

Tuning out the rest of what their teacher is saying, Marinette takes the opportunity to slump into her seat, relieved to be out of the limelight.

She feels Alya shift closer on the bench, her next words covered by the sound of their classmates pulling out their textbooks.

“I don’t need to be an intrepid reporter to know there’s a story here,” she murmurs, the raw amusement in her voice not at all diminished by her low volume. “And something tells me that I can’t wait to hear it.”

Marinette simply sighs, eyeing the empty seat in front of her while ignoring Alya’s snickering.

There was at least one bright side to this nightmare of a morning. Adrien, at the very least, wasn’t around to witness her entrance or her current attire.

She may not have a raging crush on him anymore, but she still has her pride, goddamnit.

-x-

Marinette manages to make it to lunch before the need to rip off her disguise becomes all-encompassing.

She seeks refuge in one of the lesser-used bathrooms on the first floor, tearing her sunglasses and face mask off once she’s determined that the coast is clear. Turning the tap on full blast, she splashes cold water over her face, trying to soothe the burning of her skin.

Beneath the sound of running water, she hears the bathroom door thunk closed.

Reaching blindly for the paper towel dispenser, Marinette feels a familiar hand meet her halfway, a piece already dangling from their fingers.

Dabbing it gently over her face, she straightens with a hiss, cursing the rough texture.

“Alright, girl, what the hell is up with—”

Alya stops dead, her golden eyes going wide when they catch Marinette’s in the mirror.

“—oh my god.”

For a moment, neither of them move.

Then Alya, for lack of a better term, explodes.

The force of her mirth is so powerful that it knocks the legs out from under her, leaving her slumped on the tile floor, fighting for her life as she wheezes through gales of laughter.

Marinette, for her part, simply stands there and takes it, understanding implicitly that this is the stupidest thing she’s done since becoming a superhero. Or possibly even ever.

“Yes, yes, get it all out now,” she grumbles, which only serves to ignite another wave of laughter in her red-haired best friend.

Alya pushes to her feet, brushing tears from her eyes. “What in the name of all that is holy have you done to yourself now?”

Marinette huffs. “I got a sunburn. Obviously.”

“Yeah, that much I’d gathered,” Alya snorts, coming to stand beside her at the mirror. She swipes a finger under her eyes, cleaning up the smudged mascara and eyeliner there. “Anyone with two brain cells to rub together could have figured out as much by looking at you.”

“It was a long day. I fell asleep outside,” Marinette grits out, very studiously avoiding Alya’s gaze. Her best friend most definitely does not need to know the details, and she definitely doesn’t need to know who she was napping with. “I didn’t have sunscreen on.”

Alya glances at Marinette sidelong, examining the telling white outline around her eyes. “I can see how that would be especially unfortunate, given your… particular circumstances.”

“Yes,” she grabs Alya by the hands, clinging to her like a lifeline. “Which is exactly why I need you to be my alibi. I can’t possibly be—” here her voice dips “—you-know-who if I was with you during yesterday’s akuma attack. And since I don’t think my skin will let me wear that disguise for even a second longer,” Marinette adds with a grimace, “the need for a cover story has become paramount.”

Alya’s face falls.

“Girl, you know I’m always down to help. But I was with Nino all day yesterday, remember? There’s no way I can cover for you this time.”

Just then, the bell rings, a mockery of the death knell tolling in Marinette’s ears.

“It’s over,” she says numbly, gazing blankly at her reflection in the mirror. “Monarch is going to win and it’s all because I forgot to put on sunscreen.”

Slinging her bag over her shoulder with one hand, Alya pulls Marinette away from the sink and towards the door, giving her hand an encouraging squeeze as they emerge into the hallway.

“Just tell people you fell asleep on your balcony. That’s close enough to the truth anyway.”

“With a mask on?” Marinette hisses, her voice teetering perilously on the edge of a crack. Alya maneuvers them swiftly through the crowd of students rushing toward their next classes. Even though she keeps her head bowed in an effort to remain as inconspicuous as possible, Marinette can still feel the stares she’s garnering as they walk and picks up her pace, eager to reach the relative safety of their classroom sooner rather than later.

“Listen, girl, if anyone can make that crackpot story believable, it’s you,” Alya says, following on her heels. “You underestimate the sheer amount of chaotic energy you exude on the regular.” From the corner of her eye, she spies Alya nodding to herself, satisfied by her own logic.

Marinette is less impressed.

“Gee, thanks,” she deadpans, not feeling particularly thankful at all.

Her attention solely on Alya, Marinette doesn’t realize how close they’ve drawn to the classroom until she’s turning the corner, one foot crossing the threshold as she continues speaking.

“It’s nice to know that I look like the kind of idiot who routinely falls—”

“—asleep in the sun.”

Surprised to suddenly hear her words echoed back in stereo, Marinette’s eyes dart up, landing automatically on the desk nearest the door.

A pair of green eyes are already pinned on her, rooting her feet to the ground against her own volition.

With the ease of someone long practiced, Alya slips past her rather than ramming straight into her immobilized form, even managing to make the move look somewhat graceful.

Marinette is too busy being gobsmacked to be impressed.

Because Adrien Agreste is in his seat, staring at her dumbly, his eyes outlined starkly white against the cherry-red colour of his cheeks.

He looks ridiculous.

He looks exactly like she does.

“Whoa, dude!” Nino’s voice breaks through her stupor. Through some Herculean force of will, Marinette succeeds in tearing her gaze temporarily away from Adrien’s complexional anomaly long enough to acknowledge her best friend’s boyfriend.

His wide-eyed gaze darts from Adrien’s face to Marinette’s, examining their nearly identical tan lines.

”Trippy! Is this some new trend that I don’t know about yet?” He turns beseeching eyes on Alya. “Babe, does this mean I’m not cool anymore?”

Alya presses her lips together, trying desperately not to laugh.

“No, baby, you’re still very cool,” she sidles up next to her boyfriend, kissing him sweetly on the cheek before turning her focus to the blonde seated on his right.

Marinette can’t tell if she imagines the way the light glints off of Alya’s glasses.

“You know, you didn’t have to take the sunshine child moniker quite so literally there, Agreste.” Though Alya’s tone is light, Marinette can practically see the gears whirring furiously in her head, connecting dots that had previously lived in completely separate hemispheres.

(The same dots currently sending Marinette’s brain into a dizzying tailspin.)

If it were possible to do so, Marinette is convinced that Adrien’s face would have turned redder under their scrutiny. As it stands, he attempts a smile, only for it to fall flat at the last second; too strained at the corners to be construed as anything even remotely genuine.

“Yeah,” he laughs awkwardly, a hand coming up to rub at the back of his neck. “I fell asleep while tanning yesterday and wound up… like this.”

As one, their eyes zero in on his face, taking in the mottled mix of red and white skin.

Nino nods understandingly, but Alya remains skeptical. She leans closer, examining the rings around Adrien’s eyes.

“Hmm. That’s a very weird shape for tanning goggles.”

Adrien shifts in his seat, his gaze darting nervously from Alya to Nino to Marinette. In the end, his green eyes remain on her, even as he addresses the redhead.

“Yes, they were, um, larger than normal. For added protection.”

If it were any other day, and she were any other girl, Marinette would have easily accepted such a feeble excuse.

But she knows that outline. And she’s becoming increasingly aware that she knows that boy too, far more than she once believed.

“I don’t know,” Alya hums. Marinette knows even without looking that her expression has sharpened. Alya is about to go in for the kill. “Looks to me like someone enjoyed a little catnap in the sun.”

Marinette isn’t sure who gasps louder, her or Adrien.

He rears back, thunderstruck.

“How do you—? B—wha—"

Alya reaches forward and pats him on the head. “There, there. Don’t hurt yourself now.”

Adrien looks like he’s on the verge of a full meltdown. Marinette is pretty sure she isn’t doing much better.

Because there’s only one other person in Paris right now who could possibly have a face that matches her own.

And, as it turns out, he’s been sitting in front of her in class this. Entire. Time.

“Adrien?” Marinette asks, convinced her eyes are playing tricks on her.

“Marinette,” he breathes, his own eyes growing rounder by the second. “Marinette!”

“Adrien!” Alya crows, smacking a hand down on the wooden surface of the desk in triumph. No doubt at having her long-forgotten theory proven correct. “Ha! I knew it.”

Adrien squeaks. “Alya?”

“Nino!”

Three sets of eyes fall on him.

“What?” Nino asks defensively, his cheeks growing ruddy under their combined stares. “I was feeling left out, okay?”

-x-

#miraculous ladybug #ml fanfic #marinette dupain-cheng #adrien agreste #adrienette #miraculous fanworks #miraculous fanfic #ml fic #my fics #now with a readmore :)

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jolalibrary · 1 year ago

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vii. you could never say too much

javier peña x dea f!reader | chapter seven of nowhere to run

chapter warnings: season three narcos spoilers. no use of y/n. hints at smut. jo-feels. it's the confession, the big reveal of what happened in cali... Wordcount: 7.1k AN: as always, thank you to @yeyinde who read the confession in its earliest form and told me i wasn't fucking this up. and thank you to @guyfieriii who lets me fall apart regularly, and stitches me back together.

It’s instinct, when he walks back in, to drop your papers and walk up to him: a calling, a pull.

The sight of his shoulders low, hair frayed at the edges from being toyed and pulled, undoing a knot you keep tight inside your chest. So much so, you almost reach out and brush his cheek, urging him to lift his chin, until you remember where you are.

Halting your fingers mid-air, dropping them, replacing touch with words, “What happened?”

His palm is across his jaw, shaking his head before shrugging.

“Javi…”

His eyes widened. And it’s just by a fraction, his fingers lightly wrap around your elbow, turning and guiding you, leading you to his office.

It's lucky the office is near empty, not even attempting to hide the smile at his thumb drawing a circle, a shape around the bone. Your body relaxes, both at the notion he’s back and that he’s touching you—letting your eyes watch him, and how he looks tired, drained, withdrawn.

It’s behind the half-shut blinds and closed office door, does he finally speak.

“She never showed up.”

“Who? Christina…”

He nods, releasing your elbow, both hands running over his face as he sighs. It’s his back being turned to you that pains you first, before the reality of what it means.

“So, Jurado fell through… fuck.”

“Fuck indeed.”

Bile—acidic and frothing—bubbles in the back of your throat, ridding the lasting taste of coffee. The next plan having tore itself into shreds before it lit itself on fire.

And you fold your arms, fingers tapping against your forearms, watching him as he watches you. “We need—need to find her.”

Nodding, he folds his arms—mirroring yours—biting the skin on his thumb. His eyes flicking from the floor to you, something puzzling him, troubling him…

“What?”

He shakes his head until you tilt yours pleadingly.

“You called me Javi.”

Your lips twitch. “Oh.”

He pulls a face, brows raising. “I liked it…”

It would be easy to smirk, but then you see the disappointment etched into his features. The tiredness that has sewn into the skin under his eyes.

“You should… go get some sleep, Javi.”

He snorts, and it takes all of you not to close the gap and pull him close. Instead, you turn on your heels, focusing on preservation—on keeping things uncomplicated—as your fingers reach for the door—

“Come with me, cariño.”

Glancing over your shoulder, his thumb running across his fingers at his side, eyes firmly on yours. Soft, sweet brown blanketing over you.

“Please…”

For a while, he has been dreaming of soft smiles and coffee-stained lips.

It’s a welcomed break from the replays of Curaçao. Waking up, panting, peppered with nightmares that he never catches him, and others which are far too close to the truth.

One night, he wakes to find the sheets empty—no warmth, no soft scent of lingering perfume and sex. He doesn’t waste time or energy fighting how his heart descends.

Just raises his fingers to his temple, massaging the grip from his dream, urging the failings to find refuge somewhere else in his head.

Because on another night, he’ll wake to find you naked beside him. Your eyes closed, chest softly rising and falling; head close to him, curled towards him, with a hand splayed across his chest—all protective and purposeful.

The loneliness, the one he’d grown okay existing with, slowly melted from his bones because it’s different, this.

He knows it.

The way you calm him—just by simply sleeping soundly beside him. He prefers it when you’re around when you’re here. Even when you’re shouting to him in the morning, reminding him he needs to drop you off at your place first. Because when you’re here, it means he can lean closer, press his lips to your forehead and watch you curl into him. Can feel the softness of your skin, how it fits against him so well, the warmth spreading over him—different from actual heat, because it weaves under the skin and nestles in his soul.

You feel like the sun and the lines you leave behind—a reminder, he thinks, tangible evidence that this is all real and not some make-believe.

A fair trade—a welcomed tit for tat. One that both of you appreciate in your own ways. For good measure, Javi leaves bruises on your skin as you leave scratches on his soul.

It says something about how deep his affection runs when he realises he likes knowing you’re wearing him. That you’re walking around the office with marks left by him—discreetly hidden by you. You carry them from night to day.

Even if his focus is the same, his goal is just as prominent as before… there’s a difference. And the difference is you.

Something he wasn’t sure he’d ever have, and now he does—he must keep it covered, keep a secret. Protect it. This thing the two of you have. One that isn’t all that dangerous to keep, in the grand scheme of things, but one he holds close to his chest as if it is.

It has done since the moment you stormed into his office. Something flicking, clicking. Your voice telling him to breathe—making air flow into his lungs with more ease than he’s known since he’d begun working for the DEA.

He suspects you like that—that you’ve got under his skin. Not that you’ll admit it in the slightest. You barely show him the thread that you even care about him—or that if you do, it’s in a way similar to how he feels about you. Sometimes, it’s there, but not always—and when he sees it, he wants to pull on it in the hope it pulls down your walls with it.

Instead, he brushes it away. Flattens it back down for you. Especially in the morning, when your eyes are nothing but gentle and soft, lashes fluttering as you wake. Basking him in everything, before he hears you whisper ‘morning’.

Just staring, gaze full of something which makes his chest bloom, a smile wanting to grow, and his fingers desperate to brush over your skin.

It’s why he applies kisses to the place where the thread is, just to the side of your lips, before applying more to your jaw and to your neck.

This morning, he starts close to your ear, being rewarded with a whimper of his name. It’s surrounded by breath and begging, smothered by his lips—tasting both your desperation and pleasure on his tongue as he rolls his hips into yours. The low sounds of your want become the soundtrack to the morning, with lyrics that involve his name.

Your fingers clutch his cheeks, moving with him as he presses his forehead against yours. It’s intimate, maybe more than the two of you should allow.

But he doesn’t move, and you don’t ask him to.

Instead, whispering for more as the sun rises. Knowing it’s going to make you late—make you rush around finding clothes for a new day, a bit more of a challenge.

Harder, Javi. Please, Javi.

You were his match, the person who he could both rely on and yet also shoved him to be better. He was better, when you were near him.

And it scares him.

It scares him more than he wants to process or think about. He just wants this—you. Early mornings and late evenings, knowing in time he’ll want other hours of the day, already doing so secretly.

Then your eyes flash open, staring deep into his—all the way down to his soul. Burning and setting a fire, one you’ll keep stoked and alive. You call to him beautifully, a composition of moans and whimpers—his lips asking you if this is good, if you want more.

“Javi…”

“I know, cariño. I know.”

He’s fucked.

More so when your leg wraps around his waist, nails scraping across his scalp. Feeling it coiling inside of him, the pleasure, the want…

And everything else he is avoiding feeling.

Between meetings, paperwork and bullshit, he notices how your cup hasn’t moved from its position.

The stack of papers on your desk is growing so much that they could topple and smother you.

They all need a win.

He feels it in the air, the thrum of excitement after Gilberto disappears—sucked from the air following Caraçao.

His fingers dance at his side, thumb catching the middle and index, pretending to read the lines on the paper, but only really taking in the first.

Throwing the paper, he feels eyes on him—not yours, but others. The noise, having been so loud amongst the disappointment, echoes around the office's silence.

It eventually earns a glare from you. He almost replies with a smirk, only managing to stop it from emerging at the last minute. Careful—we have to be careful. Your instruction is still as sharp and as direct in his mind. Leaving no room for arguments now, as it did when you delivered it one morning with a coffee on his desk.

Stechner’s words are still ruminating, both in his head and between the two of you. He suspected there was more to them, not that you graced his suspicion with much notice. Brushing it off, like you brush most things off.

Today, he couldn’t do the same. Not as he ran his hand across his jaw, not as he paced his small office waiting until Stoddard left his desk. Most definitely not when he found himself at your desk, fingers tapping on it lightly.

You wrench your eyes up from typing, blessing him in sunshine and beauty, even if the world outside is turning to night.

“You fancy… grabbing food with me?”

Brow arching, he watches as you lean back in your chair. “Is that code for something or…”

“You haven’t eaten all day.”

He watches as it catches you off guard, feeling his own smile drop into an expression of worry. Especially as he hears the slight pause, the way your lips are parted, but no sound emerges. The way you seem to chew the fact that he’s noticed and offered.

“You watching me, Peña?”

His hand finds his hip, running the top of his tongue against his lip. Wondering whether it would be easier to give in, to tell you he can’t take his fucking eyes off of you—or to walk around your desk and pull you close.

“You wanna grab food or not, cariño?”

He wonders if it frightens you too, the way the two of you magnetise. Whether you feel it, the way things brighten when the two of you are close or if it was just him who had noticed it.

Sometimes, it fills him with fear—how he feels. He’s always cared, his heart bigger than most people assume with his past record, but he likes a considerable distance. Likes feelings being well packaged, stuffed into a box.

You don’t fit in a single box, and likely would protest ever being shoved in one. Even if it would protect your reputation, keep more comments—like the ones from Stechner—at a distance from your skill.

Yet, you’re in his car. Fingers fastening the seat belt, eyes studying the side of his face as he adjusts the visor back into position.

“You like looking at me, cariño?”

He hears you snort, all light and airy. Barely any energy put into it, more for show than a tell.

“Apparently, we both have an issue with watching the other.”

Smirking, he brings the car to life before he glances at you, a questioning look spreading over your features.

“Is it really an issue?”

You don’t say anything, but you do smile.

It’s not wicked or hard, but soft and knowing before you turn your head from him.

For some reason, he just hears Stechner’s voice in his ear as the two of you leave the compound:

...She’s good. Been even better if she took the deputy job. Think of the ways she could have helped you then...

It niggles, his comments. They sit and ferment. Its roots spread under all that’s good, attempting to choke out the hope and leave everything to rot. The words he chose—the way in which they were delivered.

They sit in a similar way to the ones Stechner delivered when he sent him home—the cruel fate delivered with an ice-cold tone and a menacing glare.

All of them, both sets of words, weighing down on his chest.

“Can I put the radio on?”

He smirks, biting his thumb as he pulls up to a junction. “Yeah, cariño. Music would be nice.”

You don’t let him pay. Not even when he became insistent, your eyes looking him up and down as if daring him to try you.

Your money is already over the counter, brown bag in hand.

I’ll get the next one. The next one? We need food to fuck, cariño.

Javi doesn’t suggest going to yours. He just drives to his. No protest leaving your lips, tongue busy hypothesising whether someone adds dirt to the office coffee, or if it just tastes that way. That it’s Colombia, the coffee should be great, so why isn’t it when it’s desperately needed in their office.

A laugh is born from his stomach when you suggest it’s flown in from someone else. Suspecting someone prefers coffee with a hint of earth.

...She not tell you? Thought you two were close. Looked it anyway. Saw the pair of you walking in this morning...

He leans back when you take his tray, clearing the bag. You offer him a drink as though you live here, making one for you and one for him without waiting for a response. A habit, a normalcy that should frighten him, but doesn’t.

It feels domestic, nice—something welcomed.

The air changes, sliding into something between comfortable and worrying. The space between the two of you feels larger, even if it’s the same as normal—the two of you sit at opposite ends. Easily able to rectify it, but both often choose not to until later, when your bodies usually mould into one, and your pants paint the walls of his place.

There’s been something between the two of you since he came to yours. Since he found himself on your sofa—thighs on either side of his—letting the confession that it’s just you greet your ears.

Javi brings the whiskey to his lips as he remembers, eyes remaining on you—soft, and ever so gentle. Hoping not to prickle you, but get your eyes to cast over to him.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

The words land, striking a cord. He sees it in how your smile goes soft, more malleable—so easily able to twist into a smirk or a grin.

“You’re a terrible liar.”

He snorts, resting his lips against his glass. “Only with you, bonita.”

You smile with more than your lips at that—it hits your eyes, making your cheeks rise—but he also notices it’s there again.

That strum.

Like you’re diving your fingers into his chest with a simple look, thumbing the strands of him to a song that begins with your first name and ends with your last.

Settling the back of your head on his sofa, he watches as you flick your gaze over him. Trying to read him, peeling back the layers to unearth what is sitting on his tongue.

“Just… ask me what you want to ask.”

You cross your leg over the other, curling more into his sofa—bringing your wine to your lips.

He hopes, briefly, that you taste the notes of blackberries and spices. Having chosen it for the blend purposefully.

Swallowing, he licks his lips. “You ever think you’ll let me in, bonita?”

He braces for the air to choke and the room to go cold, but it never comes. Not even when your face doesn’t shift or change. Instead, just staring, processing. Mulling over his question, weighing up the options.

It’s not the swallow you do—the one you force—that makes him want to take his words back, or the way your eyes dip. It’s the words which follow:

“You should know as well as I do that secrets should remain locked away. No good comes from things when they get out….”

There’s weight behind your words, but the context is missing. One, you try to get him to understand with a glance, but the answers never come.

You don’t have tells, not really. Little things, occasionally, but he wouldn’t consider them tells. You’ve practised hiding, and become good at keeping people at bay. Hiding your past from plain sight.

Instead, you disguise your ticks in the mundane motions people do. Burying them and pairing them with jokes and sarcasm—so people won’t question the dip in delivery.

But he notices.

Has begun getting better at sieving the bullshit from the truth.

Exhaling, he rolls his lip. “I kept a secret and… well, look where that got me.”

“It got you promoted.”

He flinches. Your eyes looking at him daringly, all pointed and honed. The air tightens, restricting around his nose, just like when a storm is about to roll in.

His hand gently rotates his glass, liquid and slowly melting ice meeting the sides.

“You going to tell me I’m wrong, sir?”

It’s a struggle to hide the snort—and the smirk. The added sir, a clever choice, an intentional decision to try and camouflage your uncomfortableness.

It’s why he meets your gaze. Holding it. “No, just thought after our last conversation at yours, you’d realise you could trust me.”

A flicker of something passes over your eyes. It practically flutters, like it has tiny wings and is trying to fly. It’s quickly followed by a forced sheet of silence, allowing a mist of regret to descend over him.

It rains down his spine as milliseconds become a second. Each one ticks along as he hopes you’ll look up, but finds you don’t.

It’s a full minute before the sofa creaks, watching from the corner of his eye how you bring your knees up, letting shoes remain on the floor in a mess. You don’t care, so he tries not to—studying you as you bury yourself further into the corner of the sofa, chest rising and falling, not softly, not typically—

And he regrets it.

He wishes he could take it back. Rid it from the night and pull you close, smother his lips over yours and flood your mind with pleasure instead of the past. That he’s good at. He can handle that, pleasing you, making your toes curl, and your fingers scrape along his hair.

Javi isn’t sure he’s equipped for this—the silence. The way you seem smaller, almost half of yourself. A sight you’ve never shown him, but one he’s seen flecks off in moments he shouldn’t have witnessed.

He doesn’t take it back, doesn’t speak—barely even breathes. Not sure, from the way you’re steadying yourself, that you’d want that. Especially with the tension rolls from you, how it pulsates across the room. Whatever secret you're carrying has become a weight only you carry, a growth—a poison that bleeds through you when you acknowledge it.

And then, he hears it—soft, almost breathed out rather than spoken:

“I do trust you.”

It’s gentle, almost uncharacteristically so. Your eyes look through your brows at him before draining your glass, placing it on the side table with a slam.

“But…”

He licks his lips, resting his head on the back of the sofa. “But, what?”

It comes out like a croak, nervousness clinging to it. Whatever it is, it’s flowering and releasing spores—the horridness of it beginning to fill the air.

“It’ll change things. You’re my… you’re my boss, Javi. First and foremost, and this is…”

His heart thumps loudly.

And then again.

And again.

It’s so loud he’s surprised it doesn’t echo around the walls. The back of his eyelids see the scorched black lines on yellowed paper—the ones redacted from his eyes. The paragraphs, how they roll into another and another until it’s an entire page of you that he cannot read.

He whispers your name. Just as softly as you told him you trust him, arm extending across the back of the sofa. Fingers finding your shoulder, not tapping, just there.

You breathe.

It’s a choked inhale, one that should fill you with confidence but, if anything, makes you look even smaller than before. Something he knows you do your utmost to never appear. Choosing instead to look giant, spine-straight, tongue sharp. But he’s seen it, the person under it—the one who plays dress up. He’s seen it in your eyes when he told you it’s just you. Noticed it when he returned from the jungle when you’d kissed him—when you let him fuck you on his desk.

“Cariño, if you don’t want to—“

“I do.”

It’s quick to leave your tongue, those two words. Almost spat out. A presence looming, growing in the corner of the room—one he doesn’t recognise or know the shape of.

Followed by the least comforting smile you’ve ever presented him with.

“You know I was sent to Cali with an informant—I’m guessing that, at least, is free and public and in your file on me.”

Biting the inside of his cheek, he rests his glass on his thigh. Not saying anything, not arguing—hearing you take another soft breath.

“Well, they were Chris’s informant. In and out, said it would be easy, quick. Simple. Intel only, no need to intervene or do anything other than keep our wits about us and report back.”

Your head dips, and he circles his thumb across the top of his glass, something prickling in him. Thorns beginning to grow and press into his skin.

“Her sister had lived in this apartment—neighbours were low-level cartel members. We can assume she got in with them, that something went wrong, wound up dead because of it,” you say, fingers smoothing out on your thigh, eyes pinned to them. “Naturally, she didn’t tell her mother or sister who her neighbours were.”

Something swelled, clumped in his throat. Seeing how still you are, feeling only determination stretching out from you that was mixed with a need and focus on getting it all out.

But he spots the tremble. The one you try to hide by flattening your palm flat against your thigh.

You force another smile, suspecting it’s more for his sake than yours. One he wishes to brush out into a line, to tell you to stop if it’s too much.

But, no words leave his mouth—all of them catching on the back of his teeth.

Curiosity mixed with the dread he’s feeling.

“They looked identical—the two sisters. And, it was smart to send her there, knowing how alike they looked—that the cover story of her taking over the lease wouldn’t be far from the truth. Instead of him going, it was decided that I would go. That I was helping to pay half, a shy new roommate, my Spanish all rusty—trying to find work.”

He shifts in his seat, running his tongue over his teeth, bristling. “So, ‘cause you’re pretty, you basically went.”

Stechner’s words returning to him—purposefully chosen

…she’s pretty, isn’t she? Imagine the secrets she’d get people to spill if she was anything like you, Peña…

You say nothing, rolling your head onto his hand, the one now flat against your shoulders. A second drags into a few, eyes heavy with sorrow embedding into him as your fingers curl on your thigh, scratching—low, with an intent of reposeful, but he knew it was a tick.

A requirement, a trained one to keep you here.

“We found a lot out. Some are in the files we use even now. I managed to learn who some of the smaller players were and began piecing together some of the ways they had woven themselves into the police, the phones….”

You breathe heavily, fixating on something on the wall. Fingers itching a little quicker, nails digging a little more into your thighs—more forceful, the sound of scratching going up an octave.

Scratch, scratch—

“She was pretty—the informant. Kind. Too kind. She also had a lot of grief, anger...”

Scratch, scratch, scratch.

The sound doesn’t bother him; it’s the act—the cause that does.

Something unfurling inside of him, needing to comfort, to fix, to save. Especially as you curled into the sofa, not moving from his fingers but seemingly not grounded by them either.

Turning his palm, he begins to draw shapes—just traces a pattern into your shoulder. One he keeps doing, something rising in him—your eyes on the wall, unwilling to look over and see him watching you.

Then, he hears you lick at your lips—how dry they sound from spilling your truth. “He’s dead now. But, one of them—the neighbours—asked her out. I had a bad feeling. Said as much… I had a bad feeling about the whole thing. But, they insisted on it—the person in your job before you. Stechner… suggested it would be good intel, and all I was advised was to be safe. That’s it. No backup, nothing in place.”

He goes cold.

Taking the chance to swallow as his back stiffens. Something pulsing in the room as something else slides up inside of him. It’s full of fire and protectiveness.

Words from the bar that first night slams into him, filling his brain.

The barrel—barrels—they have you over… I get it. I meant what I said, Javier.

Every nerve in his body alighting, blood pounding in his ears as pieces slide into place before his very eyes. It mixes, like a deadly cocktail, with the guilt from bringing it up and the dread of where the story is going, creating a drink which’ll burn through his throat and decay in his chest.

You’re not the only one, to be fucked by bureaucracy—is all I mean. But, you likely know that, right? Heard all about me, and my failings.

“S-she went—I couldn’t stop her. At some point, between dinner and dessert, it went wrong. Must have. She missed check-in. And then a-another.”

They make you feel like you’re it, and then just as easily, they’ll rip it from you—and you’re left with… nothing.

He leans forward, feeling your eyes snap to him in confusion as he places his glass on the table. The look chills him—the broken sight in your usually fiery eyes, the way your bottom lip trembles, as though fearful he’d leave.

There are no words he can say, so he doesn’t try to find them, instead sliding on the cushion beside you, moving closer, pressing the side of him against you as his arm moves back around your head—fingers on your other shoulder.

Not caring if you protest, not sure if you’d fight him if he pulls you close.

But you don’t. You melt into him, shoulder sliding into a comfortable space as he manages to hold you loosely—not too tight, not constricting you. Feeling it, your anxiousness, the stress, how it crashes like waves on a beach and pulses from you.

“...I left the apartment. Hunted for her. I had to. Took hours, Javi. Hours. I just remember being cold. I hadn’t considered a coat—”

You hiccup.

A tear falls, landing on your cheek—the first since you began.

It’s large, and it shimmers, hanging on your skin full of misty pain and regret. Joined quickly by another, and another, no sound leaving your lips—just silent sorrow landing on your face.

“I-I f-found her.”

He’d already known, but the acknowledgement still made him wince. That and the sight of the pain etched into your features and the sound of you stuttering.

It almost breaks him in half, only just able to hide how much it affects him, just as well as you’ve hidden this.

“There… there was a hole—a knife, maybe—to the throat.”

Your eyes are unfocused, unblinking. Like you’re gone, having travelled back there—reliving it all.

“There were burns on her arms—thrown in amongst some rubbish. She was… mutilated… I’d never… I held her. Soaked my skin in her blood as I did. I don’t know how long I sat… just whispering her name over and over, as if I could bring her back.

“It was the hardest thing I had to do—l-leaving her there. Letting animals pick…. “

You let the words die, biting your lip, trying to steady your hands.

And he’s a passenger, suddenly seeing between the lines of the redacted lines. The sentences that were stained with black, suddenly shifted to scarlet.

That thing—the thing you bring out in him—wanting to stop you from speaking, to bring you close and remind you that you’re safe. Because anger now more than simmered under his skin, it throbbed. An emotion he’s felt countless times—usually stemming from injustice, from loss, from fucking bureaucracy and the lack of it all at once.

Then, he’d welcomed it, practically cradled it. Before, it had been fuel, a necessity to complete the task. More recently, it has been more about proving something: to himself, to others.

This was contrasting and unalike.

This churned, awakening things. The more he learns, the more the chains he’d wrapped around that side of him—the one occasionally impulsive and selfish—began to slide off, freeing it, releasing it.

Not that he shows it, not wanting to stop you—not able to as more flows from your lips, and he shifts his weight on the sofa. Listening intently to the tale so underpinned by suffering, it felt cruel to take the legs from under it and leave it unfinished.

The thing in the corner had taken shape now, able to see the edges—no longer a phantom or a mystery. It’s there, staring at him, challenging him—you wanted to know, and now you do.

“...I l-lost track of time. Returned to find the apartment trashed. Turned upside d-down. The walls, they used to be yellow… sunshine in shade… all my clothes, ruined. I had… had my badge, passport, gun on me. Protocol. You know?”

He rubs his fingers over your shoulder, nodding. Finding you glance for it, seek it—appeased by its presence as though needing his approval.

Your chin drops as quickly as it had lifted, swallowing, staring off.

“I rang the office… ring after ring. No one answered. N-no one.”

Javi’s blood boils, his thoughts following. His spare hand ached from how clenching, his jaw closely following behind, as the other continued to draw soothing shapes. A juxtaposition to the churning inside of him. Flames within his chest, growing, smothering themselves across his sternum and collarbone, engulfing him—

You shiver.

It pulls him back, how it’s not from being cold. That it’s the past dousing you as you continue to spill its secrets, the ones which have turned black from keeping them so close, not allowing them air—having never let them be spoken.

Now they’re rolling from your tongue methodically—well-versed. As though you’re reading from a script, a file, then retelling him something which happened to you.

He wonders if you shudder because his hand is useless to you, even if it’s everything to him. A need to pull you close, to let your broken edges find comfort amongst his.

“I looked outside, and there was a man—in a car. Long, saloon kind of thing. He must… must have spotted me. Because his friend—in the passenger side—got out. Longer hair, stupid shirt… and I ran… I had to. Right?”

Javi unfurls his hand, taking yours within it from your lap, clutching it tight, nodding. All of his words clag on the end of his tongue, only able to whisper your name. Calling to you, trying to keep you here as you tremble and shiver.

“Not sure if they knew I was DEA, or they just fancied seeing how I’d get out. But I did. Managed to avoid the passenger—“

Your eyes rise, crashing into his, a look of clarity in your eyes that stills his worry.

“We know him—the passenger—Navegante….”

His brows lower, his throat tightening to the point of no space.

Not that you notice.

Guilt erupts through him, watching your eyes fall to the floor, the dissociating mist already clouding the prettiness around your pupils. But he’s churning, ruffled.

“... the other, the one who stayed in the car. He just… got out. Stared. Just stared. Likely knowing, more than I did, how hard it would be. How far the poison went up the vine… he didn’t try to stop me, just… let me go.”

You take a breath before tilting your chin up and looking at him.

“I see them, sometimes. Even now. Beedy. Black. Surrounded by a pale face and a disinterested blank look. They’re on corners, in cars…”

He hates that he sees shards, instead of your usual walls. How fractured you are, looking close to the time he’d kicked a stone at the back door at home. How it had gone right through, the glass splintering outwards from the impact—somehow held together—poorly, but still whole.

That was you—his door reincarnated.

Burning what little of you left into him, as though needing him to understand, desperately and intensely so. As if you want him to save you.

Until now, the voice cracks and stutters showed the struggle. Your level-headed tone, devoid of emotion as much as possible, determined to keep him out.

But, your eyes are what fuels it. Paints the rest of the details you’re unwilling to let him have: your fear, your grief, your overgrown pain that has rooted into every fibre of you—

“They knew before I left, there was a mole, a leak.”

His stomach drops.

The crescendo reached.

And he’s surprised it all doesn’t make a thud as his fingers halt.

“That’s how they think she was made. Their excuse for not answering was that they suspected I was dead. That's what… that’s what they said in the report even though I called. Over and over again. Chris… he helped, he got me…. “

He clears his throat, holding your hand tighter, feeling it shake even in his grip.

It’s then he finds you wrapping your fingers around the spaces between his grip, keeping his palm flush against yours.

“I know that the moment I found her body that I was broken. But, sitting at that conference table…” your eyes stare through him, and he can tell he’s losing you again. “Listening to them talk about me. What happened—as if they had any idea. As if they were there…”

It chills the air, your tone.

How it’s harsher, more fuelled with anger and bitterness. He feels the icier edges and a more level tone.

“T-they told me I had broken protocol. That there was no written documentation to support our solo mission. That Luisa didn't have the authorisation to go on that date, that we should have been back days prior—“

“The fuck.”

It flurries out, unable to stop it—seeing red. It covers his sight and narrows his view.

Stechner’s words, merging with yours tonight and the black redacted lines he’s sure he’ll forever see when he blinks. Because they’ve hidden this—all of it. Concealed it—

“—It wasn’t helped by the fact I wasn’t ‘acting as an agent’ who could accomplish what needed to be done. That I missed check-ins the night she was killed—that I….”

Meeting his eyes, he finds they’re yours again.

Pretty. Beautiful. Full of the same fire the day you first stormed into his office with. Eyes he enjoys waking up to, likes watching a flurry of emotions dance through when you give him half a chance.

“I couldn’t even speak, Javi. Just sat there, let them ruin me. Because I felt like…”

He knew. Knew in a way that wasn’t close to your experience, but in a way tied.

“You deserved it?” he finished, muttering it.

Looking as you nod, teeth biting down on your cheek as he brushes a tear away, not letting go of your hand to do so. Pulling you with him.

It lets a sob escape, and he hates how it bursts from behind your teeth—having been holding them back, even now with the rest all out in the open.

How you knew nothing about a mole as if he’d ever think you would. That they tried to pin it on you, over and over. It only came undone when the poorly-made cover-up went up in flames once you’d awoken and found your voice—questioning why they’d let you go and not shared the suspicions with the ambassador.

“—A suspicion large enough to not pull me out, but not big enough to share with the agent down there.”

In all of this, your tone has shifted. A fire in you which makes his arm remain around you, but his hand releases you to run over his face.

“That’s why they let me stay… here. Better to keep me close with all I know, than send me back. Because, as I told them, if they sent me back, I’d scream until someone would listen to the fact they killed her. That family lost two daughters, and one was stained on their hands.”

You swallow, and it sounds so unlike the others.

The lump in your throat has shifted, a wave of anger now to your tone—an edge. One he felt in his very bones but found didn’t lessen the irritation still sitting there from your confession. From how they’d failed you, how it was another case of people not caring for the ones who have the most to lose.

“Stechner, before I left, had tried to poach me. When I was handed desk duty, he reminded me of that. That I’d made another poor choice...”

Shrugging, you offer a smile.

One close to the one from earlier but lacking a force to it that makes it more chilling. It’s empty, flat.

“Cariño…”

“—That’s why you should get it above all other people—“

“Baby…”

“—Because they screw the people that want to help. You know that; I bet for as many CIs you had, you always do and did everything to protect them.”

Your voice cracks, words all splintered.

His fingers take your chin, tilting you, making your eyes hold his, whispering your name.

It comes out so softly, so tender. He’s not sure you hear him. But then he sees it, watches it spread out like still water when it’s disturbed by a pebble. It ripples. Shaking the foundation and the pieces which hold the smaller parts of you together.

It’s why he slides his fingers up along your jaw, your eyes unwavering. You try to smile, but it breaks before it hits your cheeks. Eyes full, the dam failing as tears fall against your cheeks like raindrops.

“She was m-my best-t friend…”

Whatever thing he was clutching, comes loose and almost makes him fall.

“Luisa—Lou—we met in college. She came back to help her Mom, her sister—I took the job too… She was my best friend, and she didn’t want to worry me. So she told Chris… everything.”

All of it becomes so apparent it’s like you painted it with your grief, all full of pigmented colour, practically breathing and living in the space between the two of you.

Sadness blooms where anger once sat.

Swallowing, you roll your lips. “That’s why I’m on desk duty,” you whisper, voice cracking, hearing it do so as his thumb brushes over your chin. “I lost… I lost the person I was meant to protect. I failed her—left her all alone. And I was mad at her for g-going in the first place.

“And, the man who put her in that position told me he loved me, and he… lied to me—for months. Just like I lie to them, to Stoddard, to the Ambassador. I tell them I’m not carrying this guilt because the last words I shared with my friend were horrible because we were fighting.”

He swallows, rolling his lips. Unsure whether to say a thing or let it sit. All of it.

“But, I don’t want to lie to you, I don’t…”

It sinks in slowly. Lodges in his mind and his muscles. His heart thumping a little harder against his chest/ Seeing it, as much as hearing it, that you want to let him in—want him around.

“…I wanted to not think, to just…use you. Now, look. You’ve become this person I give a shit about and… I don’t know what to do with that.”

You snort, forcing it out as tears form in your eyes.

Your former determination at keeping them away wavering, tiredness settling in as he swipes what he can and waits for the rest.

He traces a pattern into your cheek, clutching you as close as he can without you pulling away. There’s so much pain. He’s unsure how he had never seen how deep it went. An array of invisible scars most likely felt, if only he had touched you in the right way.

And then, because you’re nothing but informative, half-smiling and basking him in pretty eyes and a torn-up expression, provide an answer:

“She’s the one who called me Luna. Well, Moonie first—back when we were at college. Here, she added a twist—Luna. The moon. She d-decided it was more fitting. It’s why I hate that the office still calls it me, even though it’s not my name. It’s just a reminder… how I can’t sleep, being alone is….”

Your voice cracks, a more deep cry escaping.

One that slashes through the air, catching him and making him wince.

Because he, too, had called it her.

“You gonna start calling me a hero too, Luna?”

Back then, in the beginning.

And it makes him pull you close, smothering any more words against his neck as he holds you so tight, hoping the rest of your pieces are too afraid to fall. Your sob still slides out, piercing the air, shattering the semblance of a grip you’d had on your emotions as it’s followed by another, and another, and another—

“I know, cariño. I know.”

His words aim to soothe, all soft, and gentle. Hoping they’ll blanket you as you crumble at the edges, finding that you’re gripping him with more determination than you ever have done.

“I’ve n-never… never got through the wh-whole story before.”

The words take a second to register, truly only doing so as your hand slides to rest across his heart, flattening, feeling his heart thump against her palm.

A part of him wishes it’s enough to make you feel safe, pleading only in his head that you do. That you feel safe with him, his grip lessening, yet keeping you in place.

“Don’t l-let go, Javi.”

I won’t. He thinks, wrapping his arms tightly around you, letting you fall apart, hoping—in some way—he can try and stitch you back together again.

an: i'm sorry?

146 notes · View notes

youngbounty · 1 year ago

Text

How to Vampire

I know it’s a bit late, but I was at camp and didn’t have time to finish this before the date. I hope you enjoy this regardless. Vampire AU. Enjoy! @asobaroweek

The agony was unbearable. He writhed in agony, unable to pinpoint the source of the searing pain, and utterly clueless as to how it had come about. All he longed for was a respite, a chance to escape the all-encompassing torment. The anguish was unrelenting – throbbing in his limbs, throbbing in his skull, throbbing in his chest. It even seemed to inhabit his very being. Each breath was a struggle, his mouth and throat dry and on fire. He could not find release, and even the faintest attempt to scream was met with futility. Paralyzed and helpless, he was a prisoner in his own body.

His body was engulfed in flames of pain, leaving him questioning if anyone could aid him. With his eyes firmly shut, he remained oblivious to the world around him. The searing sensation ravaged his body, intensifying with each passing moment. His heart struggled to pump life into his fragile frame in the unsettling silence. However, this hope was short-lived, as the acidic torment threatened his existence. Despite his heart's desperate attempts to survive, it was unable to overcome the destructive force plaguing his body. The final beats echoed in his ears before succumbing to a deafening silence.

'Am I dead?'

Inhale. Exhale.

'I seem to be breathing, so at least I'm alive.'

Movement. The hand moved towards the chest, with fingers wiggling before finally clutching onto the soft cotton fabric.

'Blanket. I must be in bed.'

With a gentle hand, the blanket was moved aside to reveal the bare chest, devoid of any warmth or signs of life. Continuing upwards, the hand reached the neck to check for a pulse, but it was absent. However, a moment of silence was interrupted by...

'What's this? This mark. Did someone bite me!?'

As his eyes opened, he became aware of his surroundings. He lay on a plush bed, adorned with two large, pristine white pillows and a velvet blanket, embroidered with black thread that formed an intricate, sprawling tree with roots stretching towards the bottom. The room had a dim, cozy atmosphere with warm hues, exemplified by the light red curtains that adorned the windows. Despite the lack of light, he could still distinguish each object in the room, including the Mahogany dresser, mirror frame, bedside tables, bed frame and wardrobe, all radiating a sense of elegance. The carpet, a warm shade of orange-red, welcomed his feet with every step. The walls were decorated with floral wallpaper - a sophisticated blend of black and red hues over a soft white undercoat, adding to the room's luxurious charm.

As he stepped onto the velvety carpet, he made his way toward the window, curiously peeking out. The inky darkness enveloped the outdoors, save for the radiant moon, beaming down upon him with a serene smile. The picturesque garden lay before him, illuminated by a soft, pale light that accentuated its undulating flowers, verdant foliage, and towering trees. It was a sight of sublime beauty that left him spellbound.

'I must be inside the guest room of a very wealthy person,' he thought to himself.

Struggling to articulate, he rasped, "Did he-" before breaking into a fit of coughs. Clasping a hand over his mouth, he suddenly felt an unnerving sensation. Brushing his index finger over his teeth, he discovered two pointed canines that surpassed human sharpness. Panic etched across his face as he hesitantly murmured, "Am I-"

With a click, the door slowly opened and the young man swiveled around, alert and watchful. The soft gas lights illuminated the room in a blazing glow. Suddenly, the air crackled with an overarching aura of intimidation as a towering, older gentleman entered, exuding an air of authority. His eyes were a mesmerizing shade of icy blue and his swaying locks boasted a lustrous lavender hue. Dressed in a white button-up shirt tucked beneath a dazzling gold-trimmed blue waistcoat, he wore a striking ascot beneath his chin. Meanwhile, his off-white slacks flared out to his sizable boots, matching the indigo hue of his vest. Glistening at his hip, a sword glinted menacingly. The young man instinctively froze, his mind racing with a thousand unanswered questions. Was this the man responsible for bringing him here? And most pressing of all, did he...?

The man spoke in a reassuring tone, "There's no need to fear. How are you feeling?"

The young man struggled to ask who the man was but was overcome by a coughing fit, feeling strange and unable to speak.

“Forgive my discourtesy of not offering you a drink before speaking,” The man apologized and poured him a goblet filled with red wine-like liquid that had a unique fragrance. Without hesitation, the young man drank it all, thirstily.

“Who are you? Who am I? What am I?”

"My name is Barok van Zieks. You are now a vampire, transformed last night, and cannot remember anything before that," the man explained calmly.

Kazuma couldn't believe what he was hearing and looked in the mirror to find that his dark black hair had a choppy appearance, his dark brown eyes seemed lifeless, and his lips dripped red with the fluid the man just gave him.

"Is that blood?" Kazuma asked, wiping his tongue across his lips.

"Yes, human blood is essential to our survival. As you've just experienced, you can't survive or speak without it," Barok answered.

Kazuma met his gaze in the mirror as he processed this life-changing news. Despite not remembering anything from his human life, being a vampire didn't seem as terrifying. He asked, “Who made me like this?”

Barok replied, "It was me. You were on the brink of death, and I had to use my venom to save you."

Kazuma felt the bite mark where he had been bitten by Barok. He questioned, “why did you save me?”

Barok closed his eyes, gathering his thoughts, and replied, "I couldn't let you die. If I did, I would never forgive myself." Kazuma noticed a badge resembling a cross on Barok's chest.

In gratitude, Kazuma bowed to Barok and offered, “Then, I thank you for saving my life. If there is anything I can do to serve you...”

“I only ask you allow me to teach you about being a vampire. I expect your memories to eventually return in about a year. In the meantime, I intend on ensuring you know everything there is to know about being a vampire, hunting for food, surviving in the night and how to defend yourself from hunters.”

“Hunters?”

"Trained humans hunt and kill vampires, and I once faced one sent to kill me. There will likely be more to come."

“This Hunter, was he the reason I almost died that day?”

With a pained expression, Barok responded in a defeated tone, "You could say that." He turned his face away, unable to meet Kazuma's gaze. "Your friend was there too, desperately trying to save you from the fatal fall. Despite his valiant efforts, it was simply too late. No doubt, he's in the throes of unimaginable grief. It was he who implored me to save you... I would even say he begged."

“My friend?”

"Ryunosuke Naruhodo is not only your partner, but a dear friend. As a Vampire Hunter, he only targets those who pose a threat to humankind. Despite his efforts to prevent the Hunter from attacking me, the man's arrogance got the best of him and things escalated quickly."

“I see. He sounds like a very good friend. Where is he now?”

“Likely preparing for bed. It is past Midnight. Humans are not Nocturnal like us. He will be sleeping very soon.”

Kazuma's yearning to see his dear friend and partner grew stronger as he asked, "Can I see him please?"

“Of course,” Barok nodded. Kazuma hastily searched through the closet and found a Yukata to wear, wanting to dress more appropriately since he only had a pair of pants and no shirt. “Follow me.”

Kazuma trailed behind Barok as they made their way down the hallway, his eyes transfixed on the countless portraits adorning the walls. Vivid depictions of the tranquil beach, lush park and magnificent mansion caught his eye, but it was the portrait of Barok's parents that particularly piqued his interest. Despite his intrigue, Kazuma remained focused on following the older vampire, his footsteps echoing through the luxurious cavernous foyer. As he took in the exquisite decor, he couldn't help but wonder at the sheer magnitude of the estate. Had he ever seen anything quite so opulent before?

As they ascended the grand staircase to the first floor, Barok pointed out the location of the living room to Kazuma, directing his gaze to a sizable sofa where a young man was engrossed in a book while clad in a Yakuta. The moment he caught sight of the newcomer, the young man leaped to his feet and laid aside his book, hurrying over to greet Kazuma.

“You're awake! I feared you'd never open your eyes again?” The young man cried, filled with elation and tears welled up in his eyes.

“A-Are you... Ryunosuke?” Kazuma asked.

“Y-Yes,” Ryunosuke replied, brushing off the tears. “Lord van Zieks said you'd likely not remember me after the transformation. How do you feel?”

“... I don't know. Happy that I'm not dead, but mostly confused,” Kazuma replied, feeling misplaced. His hand reached to his throat. “My throat also feels scratchy.”

“Most likely from thirst. That bottle I gave you isn't going to be enough to fill you. You need blood, live human blood.”

“I-I see... where do I find one?”

“Erm....” Ryunosuke responded, his hand unconsciously rubbing the nape of his neck.

“You are looking at him right here,” Barok said, glancing at Ryunosuke.

“Him!? Ryunosuke!? You want me to drink HIS blood?” Kazuma asked, eyes dilating.

“It's alright. I told Lord van Zieks I'd be willing to let you feed from me when you first wake up,” Ryunosuke replied.

“O-Oh,” Kazuma said. Uncertain of his emotions, he pondered whether it was ethical to feed from his closest companion. Would he have consented to this arrangement in human form?

“Before understanding the art of hunting, it is essential to learn to feed. As vampires, human blood is our only means of sustenance and therefore, we must treat it with reverence. Feeding from a human without their explicit consent is strictly forbidden. Similarly, humans respect their food when they grow, hunt, or rear it in their farms. As a sign of respect, we never consume humans entirely and refrain from exhibiting gluttony. Instead, it is vital to nurture and care for our source of food. Ryunosuke serves as an excellent first source to learn this practice. If you can regard your prey with the same affection as your closest confidant, I trust that you shall always honor and cherish our source of nourishment.”

With a nod, Kazuma realized the truth in those words. Though he hadn't previously considered it, humans raise and care for livestock, such as chickens, goats and cattle, before consuming them. If humans could display such care and affection towards their food, why should vampires not hold themselves to the same standard when consuming humans? Kazuma now saw the value in choosing his partner and best friend as his first source of nourishment.

"How exactly do I feed?" Kazuma queried.

"First, ensure that your prey is relaxed and comfortably fed. You can discern this by checking the shape of their body. As an example, Mr. Naruhodo consumed a satisfying dinner a mere few hours ago," Barok advised.

"I must say, it was quite delicious. Thank you," Ryunosuke chimed in, grinning. Kazuma could sense the aroma of his friend's recent meal.

"You had beef, mashed potatoes, beans and broccoli," Kazuma said.

“You can sense what I've been eating?” Ryunosuke asked.

"Remember, our sense of smell is far more advanced than that of humans," Barok interjected.

"I see," Ryunosuke acknowledged.

"Kazuma, to locate your bite, rely on your sense of smell. It is essential to choose a spot at the back or side of the neck and refrain from biting near the front where the jugular can be found. Such a bite could damage the voice box, esophagus, and windpipe-- critical structures necessary for respiration and nourishment. It's crucial to remember that humans require breathing and sustenance to survive. Biting the carotid artery could prove fatal, resulting in the wastage of a valuable food source. Only consider biting that area when transforming a human into a vampire."

“Wait, you mean there's a particular way you bite when you feed?” Ryunosuke asked, his eyes broadening.

"Precisely. Drinking blood requires precision. Biting the artery is not recommended as it can become dangerous for both parties. Therefore, we aim for the Jugular Vein. It's crucial to make a small nick which will instantly allow blood to flow like a fountain into our mouths. Once sated, we use our tongue to seal the wound with saliva and stop the flow of blood."

“Alright, a small pierce of the vein located on the side or back of the neck, then close the holes with a swipe of my tongue,” Kazuma said with intent in his countenance. He faced Ryunosuke. “Are you ready?”

“Ready as I ever could be,” Ryunosuke reassured Kazuma, who inhaled deeply, honing his sense of smell to locate a stronger and richer flow of blood.

One thing Kazuma came to learn was that he couldn't just smell through his nose, he could feel blood flow through his teeth. There were two types of blood flowing from Ryunosuke's side of the neck. One felt stronger and richer, while the other one felt slow and poor. He bit the flow of blood that was stronger and richer, trying to be careful to not bite too hard.

Ryunosuke winced in agony, his grip tightening on Kazuma's arms as warmth flooded Kazuma's mouth in a delicious rush. The flavor was unparalleled, surpassing even the red liquid Barok had given him when he first awakened. As the liquid flowed down his throat, it soothed the scratchiness and calmed him, the sensation reminiscent of a baby nursing at its mother's breast. Kazuma felt the pulse from Ryunosuke's neck and the steady beat of his heart, both sensations oddly familiar to him. Perhaps it was a remnant of the agony he experienced during his transformation or the nearly deadly fall that nearly killed him as a human.

Kazuma's stomach eventually filled as he attempted to remove his mouth from Ryunosuke's neck, only to remember the holes still pouring blood into his mouth. He hastily licked the wounds before they sealed immediately, allowing him to safely remove his mouth and wipe the excess blood away.

“It seems you forgot to cover the holes before pulling out your canines," Barok observed.

“My apologies. I had forgotten for a moment,” Kazuma replied.

"Make sure to cover the holes next time. This is your first feeding after all."

Ryunosuke stretched his arms and let out a loud yawn. "Surprisingly, it didn't hurt as much as I thought it would," he said. "It's unlike any other attack I've ever experienced."

"Perhaps the difference in experience was because those vampires had malicious intentions to attack and kill you, rather than simply feed from you," Barok explained.

“O-Oh... I suppose that's true, huh?” Ryunosuke's lips curved into a grin as he rubbed the back of his head.

Kazuma's inquisitive tone filled the silence as he asked, "So... you're a vampire hunter. Was I...?"

"As I recall, our paths intertwined at Yumei University and then you encouraged me to join you in vampire hunting. It's a legacy that runs deep in your family, Kazuma. You were one of the most accomplished and formidable vampire hunters in the land," Ryunosuke stated with a gleam in his eyes. Moving towards the sofa, he picked up a bow and quiver with silver arrowheads and continued, "I supported you as your partner and archer. I would attack from afar, while you wielded the Karuma, your cherished family sword, with fearless abandon."

"Karuma?" Kazuma inquired with a hint of recognition. Ryunosuke affirmed the name with a nod and reached for a sheathed sword that was cleverly concealed from Kazuma's sightline. As he handed the weapon to his companion, Kazuma took it gingerly, examining it with caution.

"Be careful with that. Remember, you're a vampire now, so the silver will hurt more than it used to," warned Barok.

Knowing Ryunosuke recently lost blood from Kazuma's feeding, Barok suggested, "You should eat before going to bed, to replenish your energy."

"I hadn't thought of that. Thanks for the tip," Ryunosuke acknowledged with a grin, before turning to Kazuma and giving him a pat on the shoulder. "Good to have you back, partner."

With his fingers wrapped around the hilt of Karuma, Kazuma was awash with a warm and buoyant sensation. The sword felt like an extension of his very being, a tool to aid his transformation from seasoned vampire hunter to newly-made vampire. Kazuma knew that if he was to have any chance of survival in this strange new world, he would need to learn how to be a vampire. The very notion of it filled him with a curious mix of apprehension and excitement. As he weighed the possibilities of ever returning to his old life as a Vampire Hunter, Kazuma realized he needed to master the art of being a vampire first, assuming he even could.

Over the next few weeks, Kazuma devoted himself entirely to training under the tutelage of Barok to improve his vampire abilities. He quickly learned that sustaining oneself on human blood alone was necessary for survival, but certainly not the only solution. He understood that like any other living being, vampires needed a diverse set of nutrients in their diet to remain healthy and energized. Similar to how varied food options are critical for animal survival, this concept applied to vampires too. While human blood was incredibly rich in essential nutrients such as iron, Vitamins A, E, B, folic acid, and carotene, animal blood was equally valuable for its distinct vitamin content, such as the inclusion of Vitamin C, Vitamin D, sodium, potassium, and cholesterol. Kazuma learned how certain human lifestyles contributed to the quality and composition of their blood, and thus, how some human donors could offer more of certain types of nutrients than others. For instance, individuals who remained indoors and didn't exercise regularly would not possess as much cholesterol as the blood of creatures such as owls or fish. Kazuma was also aware of the adverse effects of consuming blood from addicts, specifically nicotine-contaminated blood from smokers. The addiction from human smokers could easily transfer to a vampire if they drank their blood. This was the same case with individuals who drank excessively; if a vampire drank blood from a drunkard, they would experience the effects of intoxication too. The danger of getting addicted to human blood was one of the reasons why many considered vampires to be monstrous creatures. Tragically, Dracula, a historical vampire, had not been aware of the risks when he consumed the blood of Englishmen who smoked pipes. “What about garlic? Crosses?” Kazuma asked. "Raw garlic and many fruits and vegetables are acidic, which can be harmful to us as silver is. Therefore, caution must be exercised. Although silver is commonly found in crosses, our kind can handle crosses made of different materials such as wood, gold, and even rock. Interestingly, many vampires are Christian, debunking the myth that vampires are inherently evil and spawned from the devil. In reality, vampires have coexisted with all forms of life since time immemorial," Barok replied, while he and Kazuma were collecting mushrooms for Ryunosuke in the woods. Kazuma inquired, keen to learn more about their unique weaknesses, "What makes silver and certain acids in fruits and vegetables harmful to us?" "Pure silver can be harmful to our bodies as we are more sensitive to silver nitrate contained within it. When used on living skin, it exhibits healing properties, but on dead skin, it can be fatal." “Is it the same with acidic juices?” “Yes.” Kazuma's eyes traced the constellations above and he couldn't help but marvel at the ethereal beauty of the stars and crescent moon. Bathing in the celestial glow, he was struck by how the moonlight reflected off his vampiric skin, illuminating it with a silver sheen. Overwhelmed by the moment, he gathered his courage and posed the burning question. "Is it impossible for us to survive in sunlight?" "Not impossible, but we burn much quicker than humans do. This is why we are accustomed to being active at night. Our bodies simply cannot handle prolonged exposure to daylight." Barok explained, meeting Kazuma's inquisitive stare. "But if we aren't any different from humans, then why do they persist in hunting our kind?" After plucking some mushrooms, Barok took a momentary pause, looking up at the tree. Then he answered, "Humans fear what they cannot comprehend, and since we feed on them, this fear is natural. It is no different from other creatures in this world. How many animals attack humans out of fear of being attacked themselves? It is instinctive, just like wolves hunt in packs for food and to defend themselves." "Animals are not capable of speaking our language and similarly, we do not understand theirs. Fear is natural, but as humans, we speak the same language. So, hasn't our kind tried to communicate with them?" “.... we have. My brother paid the price for it as did your fa-” Kazuma came to a halt and turned around to see Barok, who had his face covered. Upon closer inspection, Kazuma noticed that Barok's facial expression bore signs of deep misery and melancholy. He approached his master and tenderly placed his hand on Barok's, which was visibly shaking. As Barok gazed at the intertwined hands, he saw the pain in Kazuma's eyes too. Kazuma's voice broke as he spoke softly, "I beg for your forgiveness. It was never my intention to bring back these distressing memories." Barok shook his head, responding with resolute compassion, "Please don't blame yourself. You're yet to retrieve your lost memories and it may take another year." Kazuma observed the fragile hand of Barok held in his own with a deep sense of sadness. He closed his eyes and attempted to remember something, anything from his past. But all was in vain. However, one thing he was certain of was that Barok was about to reveal something important. Kazuma was aware that he belonged to a vampire hunting family and his father was one of the finest vampire hunters. Sadly, his father's attempt to reconcile with the vampire community had tragic consequences, and Kazuma could feel the agony of his father's loss. Barok spoke in a low voice, "I shouldn't have said anything." Kazuma opened his eyes with teardrops streaming down his face. He asked in a trembling voice, "You were going to mention my father, right?" Overwhelmed with emotion, Kazuma broke down, "I've no memory of him, yet the thought of him being lost hurts me." Barok held Kazuma with both his hands affectionately and said, "I understand your pain." He continued, "I feel responsible for not protecting you from this distress." "But, I owe you my life." With a sudden change in tone, Barok exploded, "At what cost!?" Quickly, he composed himself and added apologetically, "Forgive me." Kazuma clung to Barok and asked, "Do you regret saving my life?" Barok vehemently denied, "Never. I only wish I could have done more to spare you this misfortune." He paused and added with hope, "Perhaps, everything will make sense when you regain your memories." Kazuma's heart swelled with warmth as he gazed at the stars and the moon. He felt a strong connection to Barok and never wanted to leave his side. Kazuma longed to uncover the secrets of his life, including the identity of his father and Barok's role in his past. Although he had never felt anything for Barok before, he now felt a strange, comforting warmth. Kazuma imagined being held tenderly, with their lips meeting in a gentle kiss, but he didn't want to risk spoiling the moment. Upon returning to the manor, Kazuma retrieved a bottle of blood that Barok had stored in a wine bottle. Although drinking blood from the bottle didn't satiate his hunger in the same way as consuming it from live creatures or Ryunosuke did, it was a satisfying snack for him. As Ryunosuke yawned, Kazuma noticed that the sky was turning lighter, indicating that sunrise was approaching and it was time for him to sleep. Barok was already in bed, sound asleep. Ryunosuke rubbed his groggy eyes and greeted Kazuma. "Good morning, Kazuma." Kazuma replied, "Morning," taking another sip of the blood. "What did you and Lord van Zieks do last night?" Ryunosuke inquired. "We picked mushrooms and he taught me about how silver, certain fruits, and sunlight affect us," Kazuma answered. Ryunosuke acknowledged it with a soft smile, "That's good." After a moment's pause, Kazuma hesitantly confessed, "I think I may have developed feelings for Lord van Zieks." Curious, Ryunosuke asked, "Oh?" Kazuma was surprised by Ryunosuke's response, "Is... that strange?" Ryunosuke explained, "Not really. You've had feelings for him when you were human as well." Kazuma was bewildered by the revelation, "I... did?" He wondered about his relationship with Barok. "How long have I known Lord van Zieks before becoming a vampire?" Ryunosuke replied, "It's hard to say. Technically, it was only a few months to a year, but you have known about him much longer. Your father and his brother were very close." Kazuma pondered, "So, I developed feelings for him in the few months to a year I've known him." Ryunosuke clarified, "It's more of an attraction than anything. You never called it love." Kazuma probed further, "What did I call it?" Ryunosuke replied hesitantly, "A uh... attraction." Kazuma sensed that Ryunosuke was hiding something, and there was more to his answer than he let on. Kazuma was hesitant, "Should I tell him?" Ryunosuke replied, rubbing the back of his neck, "Ah um... I suppose it wouldn't hurt?" Kazuma's voice trembled slightly, "Would he reject me?" Ryunosuke responded, "Not... really. Lord van Zieks admires you very greatly. However, you... haven't recovered your memories so..." Kazuma interrupted, "So...?" Ryunosuke explained, "He might be under the impression that your feelings for him will vanish the moment your memories recover." Kazuma was confused, "But, you said that I had feelings for him before?" Ryunosuke admitted, "He doesn't know that and... many complicated things happened during the few months to a year we knew each other." Kazuma was curious, "What do you mean?" Ryunosuke fell silent, and a pained expression crossed his face, giving Kazuma the impression that something had happened between him and Barok prior to his transformation. It was as if there was an unspoken pain that hung heavy in the air. "Did... I hurt Lord van Zieks?" Kazuma asked, his voice trembling with fear.

"No, no, don't worry about that," Ryunosuke replied soothingly, trying to calm Kazuma down. "There were a lot of complicated factors involved in trying to solve your father's murder. You should try to get some rest now."

"I feel like you're avoiding the question," Kazuma said, his tone slightly accusatory.

"I'm not trying to avoid it, I just think that once your memories come back, everything will become clear," Ryunosuke said, trying to reassure Kazuma. However, Kazuma could sense some hesitation in Ryunosuke's tone, making him doubt his friend's words. With a sigh of fatigue, he trudged wearily towards his bed, suppressing a shudder at the thought of resting in a coffin, as some myths would suggest. The reality was somewhat more mundane - Kazuma's bedroom was located in the windowless basement of the manor, not a coffin in sight. He slipped beneath the sheets, his eyes growing heavy as he struggled to find sleep. Yet, despite his exhaustion, his mind was far from quiet; it wandered restlessly, plagued by the memories of a life before his transformation into a vampire. Moreover, Ryunosuke's claims about Kazuma's supposed attraction to Lord van Zieks only added to the confusion, leaving him bewildered and unable to make sense of his own emotions.

"Kazuma, are you okay?" Barok's voice jolted Kazuma out of his daze, and he found himself staring up at a worried Barok as he loomed over him, blocking out the sky.

Despite Kazuma's best efforts, he was unable to utter a sound. The agony was simply too great for him to bear. Gasping for air, he forced himself to take shallow breaths, while his heart beat erratically in his chest. Finally, overcome by the pain, he shut his eyes and prayed that he would survive.

Barok gripped Kazuma's limp form tightly, tears streaming down his face. “Don't you dare leave me, Kazuma! Please!” he begged, his voice choked with emotion.

The pain was excruciating - Kazuma tried to speak, but only succeeded in coughing up blood. He tried again, forcing the word past his lips. "B...," he gasped, before collapsing back into Barok's arms.

Kazuma gasped, coughing up blood, and then he felt a pair of cold lips pressed against his own. He couldn't believe what was happening - was Barok actually kissing him? The kiss was so intense that Kazuma felt his breath catch in his throat, his eyes closing involuntarily as his mind was consumed by the sensation of Barok's lips on his own. The kiss was so powerful that Kazuma felt himself slipping into unconsciousness, lost in the sweet oblivion of Barok's embrace.

“Forgive me... and my selfishness.”

Kazuma groaned as he opened his eyes, wincing at the slivers of light peeking through the boarded-up window. It was still daytime, but he was too tired to stay awake for long. As he drifted back to sleep, his mind was consumed by the dream he had just had. Were those memories from his human life, before Barok turned him? And if so, had that kiss actually happened? It had felt so vivid and lifelike...

As Kazuma woke up that night, he noticed Ryunosuke savoring his tea and pudding. Barok had already gotten up much earlier. Kazuma could see that it was dark outside, indicating it was close to Ryunosuke's bedtime. As he looked out the window, he pondered about his past life as a human and what his relationship with Barok might have been like.

“A penny for your thoughts?” Barok asked.

Kazuma looked toward Barok and inquired, "What was my human life like? And how did I factor into your life?"

Barok closed his eyes, being deep in thought. Kazuma felt anxious just seeing that, wondering why Barok would have to think about it before speaking. However, he did eventually speak.

"I suppose that question was going to come sooner or later. We've known each other for quite some time – perhaps some months to a year."

Kazuma revealed that Ryunosuke had relayed the same information to him earlier. When Barok turned to Ryunosuke, he explained,"I only told him that you both knew each other for a while and that you admire him greatly," which Barok acknowledged with a nod.

"How did we come to meet each other, and what led to us developing a close relationship?" Kazuma inquired, as he looked at Barok with interest.

Barok revealed his mixed feelings towards Kazuma's question and showed signs of sorrow. "Rather, I looked up to you, although I understood your hesitation towards forming a close relationship with me. Our paths crossed when you were on the hunt for me, bearing the belief that I was responsible for your father's death at the time. As a vampire hunter, I knew your kind would be suspicious of me, but it was further complicated by my own loss - I believed your father slew my brother."

"If I understand this correctly, you believed my father killed your brother, and I believed you killed my father?"

Barok's voice trembled as he confessed to Kazuma, "He was a vampire hunter and one I thought betrayed me." He closed his eyes, filled with regret for his actions.

Kazuma's question pierced the silence, "You said this happened at the time. Does that mean you never killed my father, my father never killed your brother and my father didn't betray you?"

Barok nodded solemnly and replied, "Correct. It was a foolish mistake on my part. We found the one responsible and then..." He trailed off, the memories still haunting him.

Kazuma's heart sank as he watched Barok's sorrowful expression and probed, "And then...?" Barok revealed the truth with a heavy heart in silence. Kazuma answered, "I fell, right? The vampire hunter that was trying to kill you that night, was it the one that killed my father?"

Barok continued with grief etched on his face, "And, my brother, whilst framing me for all of his crimes. You jumped into action to avenge your father and..."

Kazuma's anger flared with the realization, "Why my father!? I can understand your brother perhaps, but why my father? He was a fellow vampire hunter, right!?"

Barok couldn't give a satisfactory answer, "I don't know. When you questioned him, he simply never answered. I couldn't find answers from him either before your fall."

Kazuma's troubled expression deepened as he asked, "Where is this vampire hunter now?"

Barok replied with uncertainty, "There's no telling. He either assumes you've died or have transformed. It is why Ryunosuke is here at all."

Ryunosuke revealed his role, "I've been keeping guard of the manor whilst you both are asleep. The both of you are much weaker in daylight."

Kazuma's concern for their safety prompted him to inquire, "Have you noticed anyone or anything strange since my transformation?"

Ryunosuke replied with calmness, "Not so far. Though, it's likely that Stronghart could be biting his time or doesn't know where Lord van Zieks lives."

Kazuma learned more about their enemy, "Stronghart. That's his name?" Ryunosuke affirmed with a nod of his head.

Barok pledged to protect Kazuma, "No worries. If he ever comes here, I won't allow him to hurt you again."

Kazuma showcased his determination, "Teach me how to fight. Surely, there must be some part of me that still knows how. I wish to get stronger."

Barok reassured Kazuma, "I'm certain your skills in combat are just as impressive as before. Being stripped of your past memories from your transformation doesn't strip any skills you obtained whilst human. Regardless, I would love to pare swords with you."

Grateful, Kazuma bowed to Barok and expressed his gratitude, "Thank you!"

Kazuma honed his sword skills while adapting to his new life as a vampire. Despite the inherent difficulty, dueling with Barok was entertaining and pushed him to his limits. They utilized silver swords during their sparring sessions, which taught Kazuma how to wield them effectively as a vampire. Throughout his training, he rediscovered lost skills and uncovered his innate talent as a Vampire Hunter.

Barok lauded Kazuma's progress and said, "Impressive, Kazuma," which made him feel proud of himself.

After sheathing his sword, Kazuma inquired, "What kind of hunter was I? Aside from Ryunosuke, did I work with anyone?"

Barok revealed, "You once worked under Stronghart's apprentice, until we saw through the lies. He was a friend of your father's-- or at least, we thought he was."

Kazuma commented, "He sounds like a piece of work."

Barok hummed as Kazuma gazed up at the full moon, prompting him to question, “are werewolves and witches also real?”

“Funny you should ask of such,” Barok replied, amused.

Kazuma persisted, “Are they?”

Barok speculated, “I suppose it's possible, though I've never met one.”

Despite his condition, Kazuma smiled at the full moon and remarked, “I doubt I'd ever see a moon this beautiful if I was a werewolf.”

Barok mused, “That may depend on how you would define a werewolf. It's much like claiming vampires can never see the sunlight. Don't you think?”

Kazuma agreed, before confessing, “Would it offend you if I told you that I have feelings for you?” He moved closer to Barok, holding his arm.

Barok turned to Kazuma, who appeared fearful and shy, almost blushing like a human if it were possible. He smiled and reassured him, "Of course not." Barok embraced Kazuma, who hugged him back tightly. However, Barok suggested they wait until Kazuma regained all his human memories.

Kazuma revealed, "Ryunosuke said I had feelings for you even then," cutting Barok's interjection. Barok closed his eyes and seemed to frown slightly. Kazuma asked, "Sir?"

Barok apologized, "Forgive me for being lost in thought."

Curious, Kazuma inquired, "What were you thinking about?"

Barok hesitated but eventually divulged, "The last moment before changing you into this."

Kazuma's mind wandered back to his dream, where he had gazed at the dismal sky, rain pouring down on him, as he writhed in agony. The one thing that shone through all of that pain was the arrival of Barok who had come to his rescue and bestowed a gentle kiss upon his lips. But Kazuma was hesitant to ask whether the enchanted dream held any truth. He imagined how torturous it must have been for Barok, who, if Kazuma's feelings were reciprocated, would have suffered terribly and experienced intense fear. The mere thought of being in Barok's place filled Kazuma with dread.

Kazuma tenderly caressed Barok's face, his lips meeting his. The kiss was mutual, and Barok's hand roamed through Kazuma's silky hair before their lips parted. His fingers brushed over Kazuma's jawline, and he held his chin delicately. Kazuma yearned for another kiss, the desperation evident in his expression, but Barok shook his head.

Barok whispered, "I won't take advantage of you until you've regained all your memories, I love you too much to do that." His confession slipped out without realization as his eyes widened in surprise.

Kazuma asked, "How long have you loved me?"

Barok confessed, "For a while," holding Kazuma gently to his chest, who snuggled up as if he was lying on a comfortable pillow. He never wanted to leave this embrace.

As Kazuma slept, he pondered over Barok's words, "I won't take advantage of you until you've regained all your memories, I love you too much to do that." Although touched, he felt disheartened knowing he couldn't be with Barok at the moment. He placed his hand over his mouth, reminiscing the tingling sensation from their kiss, and cried himself to sleep before sinking into a peaceful slumber.

Gasping for breath, he felt a familiar pain on his neck as he clung onto the back of Barok's cloak. The realization dawned upon him that Barok was feeding on him in a way he knew too well. He wondered why he was the one chosen for this, and questioned if this was when he was transformed. But, he knew it wasn't possible since he was close to death at that time. As he struggled to breathe, he wondered if this was a memory he couldn't recall.

After Barok withdrew his fangs from Kazuma's neck, he licked the two small wounds and cleaned up the remaining blood that had dribbled around his neck.

"Have you had your fill, Barok?" Kazuma inquired kindly.

Barok nodded with gratitude. "Yes, thank you."

"Don't make it a habit of getting into trouble just to be fed," Kazuma warned. "Remember, our mission is to make Stronghart pay for everything."

Barok exhaled a heavy sigh and mused aloud. "You're still as stubborn as ever, Kazuma."

"To know one is to be one," Kazuma retorted with a smirk. He reached for a basket of fresh fruit on the table and gladly took a bite.

"But have you considered the danger you're putting yourself in by joining us against Stronghart? He won't hesitate to take your life," Barok warned, his tone growing gravely serious.

Kazuma shrugged indifferently. "So what? I'm not one to back down from a challenge. Besides, I know I can handle him."

"Don't be too sure," Barok cautioned. "Stronghart is much stronger than you think. Underestimating him could cost you your life."

"Of course, I'll train as hard as ever. You and Ryunouske will see my progress," Kazuma declared with determination.

Barok frowned and asked, "But what if you get hurt? Have you considered the consequences?"

Kazuma scoffed at the idea. "I'm willing to do whatever it takes to make that bastard pay. Nothing will stand in my way."

Barok turned his face away and Kazuma took notice. He probed, "Is everything alright? You seem uneasy."

Barok turned away in embarrassment and admitted softly, "I'm afraid of losing you, Kazuma."

Kazuma softened and assured him, "Don't worry, Barok. If anything happens, I'll leave it to you."

Barok turned his head to Kazuma's sudden outburst, prompting him to explain. "We both have suffered from losing someone dear to us because of Stronghart. I know you're just as determined to take him down as I am. If anything happens to me, I trust you to make sure he pays."

Barok responded with a hint of skepticism, "Such confidence you have in me."

Kazuma's resolve intensified as he banged his fist on the table, holding a banana in his hand. "I'm serious, Barok. If Stronghart ever managed to control me with his venom, I beg you to make sure I am not turned into his pawn. I would rather die than be used by him!"

Kazuma expressed his concern to Barok, "I don't want to become a puppet to Stronghart's venom. Can you promise to prevent that from happening?"

Barok hesitated before responding, "I promise to make sure you're not under his control."

Once more, Kazuma found himself sprawled across the muddy ground, raindrops pounding against his battered body. His aching neck sent shockwaves of agony pulsing through every fiber of his being. Struggling to grasp his surroundings, he found himself lost in a blur of confusion. Who was Stronghart? What did he look like? How had he found Kazuma, vulnerable and defenseless, lying on the cold, unforgiving earth?

But his train of thought shattered with a deafening crack when Kazuma was suddenly pinned against a rough-hewn boulder. Agonizingly, he felt his bones snap and shatter, screams of harsh, guttural pain tearing from his raw throat. Somewhere in the back of his mind, Kazuma struggled to get a visual of this merciless assailant. Was he staring into the abyss of Stronghart's ruthless eyes? Through the mist of excruciating pain and flashing redness assaulting his vision, Kazuma could only see a black, faceless shadow looming over him. His world turned to utter darkness as bone after bone was relentlessly shattered until, finally, he could no longer move. In a last burst of clarity, Kazuma pleads for the pain to go away. A distant chorus of voices lifted in the rain, echoing through his pain-addled mind.

“Kazuma!” Ryunosuke's voice pierced through the chaos.

“Don't you dare...” Barok's threats rang out, sending shivers down Kazuma's spine.

And then, amidst the tumultuous noise, Kazuma heard the sickening sound of flesh being rent apart by vampiric fangs. He knew, with a sense of mounting horror, that it was Stronghart who was attacking him. Unlike Barok's previous assault, he was aiming for a different location - the artery. Panic building in him with each passing moment, Kazuma could feel the last vestiges of his strength slipping away. It was a race against time to survive this onslaught.

“Barok!” Kazuma's anguished scream split the air as he felt the noxious venom of the vampire coursing through his veins. Tears streamed down his face as despair consumed him. This couldn't be happening, he thought frantically. He was on the verge of being transformed into Stronghart's loyal minion.

In a sudden movement, Stronghart lost his hold on Kazuma's body. In that fleeting moment, Kazuma caught sight of Barok, his eyes blazing with anger. However, before he could process the situation, he found himself tumbling towards the edge of a cliff. The ground below rushed up to meet him, and he was swallowed by darkness as he lost consciousness. Through the haze of the venom coursing through his veins, Kazuma fought to remain steadfast in his resolve. He couldn't allow himself to be turned into Stronghart's slave. He had to find a way to resist the transformation.

Kazuma remembered the night when Barok had kissed him.

“Forgive me... and my selfishness," Barok apologized before biting Kazuma in the same spot as Lord Stronghart, causing a new wave of venom to replace the old. Meanwhile, Kazuma's thoughts are clouded as he reflects on the situation.

'I trust and love Lord van Zieks. I wouldn't mind being under him.'

Kazuma didn't have to fight since he only had to wait for the venom to take effect. Despite the pain growing more severe and starting to affect his heart, he didn't care because he was willing to serve someone he believed in.

"I feel responsible for not protecting you from this distress."

"Do you regret saving my life?"

"Never. I only wish I could have done more to spare you this misfortune."

Kazuma woke up in tears, still emotional from the events that occurred. Barok had not only saved him from certain death but also from being turned into a vampire under Stronghart's control. Kazuma realized how dangerous the situation was and how risky Barok's actions were. Drinking the venom from Stronghart and replacing it with his own was no easy feat. A human would have died quickly if the blood was taken from an artery. There was a possibility that Barok could have killed him.

Barok knocked softly before entering the room and approaching Kazuma's bed. Without a word, he held Kazuma tightly, comforting him as he wept uncontrollably. The tears streamed down Kazuma's face, but Barok held him with utmost care and tenderness, as if he were holding something incredibly precious and fragile.

"I recalled the day you saved me," Kazuma confessed hoarsely.

"Your memories appear to be coming back, Kazuma," Barok said softly, gently holding his face. "It might be quite a lot to take in."

"It's not selfish of you to want to save my life," Kazuma said, his voice raw from sobbing.

"Selfish?" Barok looked confused.

"You wanted me to forgive you for being selfish for changing me," Kazuma explained.

"It wasn't that. I was selfish because I couldn't bear the thought of losing you, no matter what," Barok said, his voice full of emotion.

"Why?" Kazuma asked.

"You know why." Barok leaned in and kissed Kazuma deeply, his love for him evident in the passionate embrace.

"When I first met you, your only priority was avenging your father. But after that, something beautiful blossomed between us," Barok whispered, his breath warm on Kazuma's cheek and neck. "Despite being a vampire hunter, you always made sure to take care of me. It had been so long since I had felt someone genuinely care for me like that. And on top of it all, you were Lord Asogi's son - so strong and pure."

With Barok's lips near his ear, Kazuma confessed, "I felt so strongly about you when you drank from me." He grasped onto Barok's gown and rested his head on Barok's shoulder.

Barok asked, "Is that so?"

Kazuma hummed in response and questioned, "Will you make me wait before I can have you?"

Barok turned Kazuma's head to face him. Their eyes locked as their lips nearly touched. "I love you. I always have. Even though I may not remember all of our memories together, I know that I have and always will love you..want you," Kazuma confessed in a whisper and brushed his lips against Barok's with an ardent look in his eyes.

Their lips met in a passionate embrace, each kiss feeling as deep as the last, if not deeper. Barok's body quivered as Kazuma's lips locked onto his - he could never resist him, no matter what. The desire he had for Kazuma had been building up inside him for an indefinite amount of time, like an ache that just wouldn't go away. Before either of them realized it, they were lost in a passionate make-out session on the bed. Their limbs intertwined, hands grazing each other as they gave into their lustful desires with frenzied open-mouthed kisses.

Barok was breathless as he lay atop Kazuma, his hands moving in circles around his exquisite face as their foreheads touched. Kazuma smiled dreamily, tempting Barok to claim him as his own. With such a handsome face and captivating lips, it was easy to succumb to his allure. Even after all this time, Kazuma still remained as breathtakingly beautiful as ever.

"You have much to learn," Barok stated, as he planted a gentle kiss on Kazuma's lips. "There's still so much you need to remember about us."

Kazuma replied, "I hope to convince you to take me."

Barok considered it for a moment, and responded, "We'll see."

After Kazuma had calmed down, he resumed his training with Barok that same night. They would typically hunt in the forests outside London, which allowed them more freedom to hunt since there were fewer restrictions on their actions. Kazuma was advised by Barok to wear a cloak and mask during these excursions to avoid attracting Vampire Hunters.

Thankfully, Barok kept a close watch on Kazuma even from a distance, which allowed Kazuma to camouflage himself behind the leaves and trees during their hunting expeditions. Kazuma successfully spotted his prey from a distance- a lone deer with strong antlers. Kazuma then stealthily approached the deer, climbed a nearby tree, and landed on the deer's back, biting onto its neck. The deer ran at first, but eventually slowed down and rested.

Kazuma savored his dinner- the sweet taste of deer blood. He had only wanted something light and juicy, not the strong taste of human blood. As he drank from the deer, he petted it to keep it calm. The animal eventually relaxed to the point of lying down to rest. Once Kazuma finished his meal, he licked the wound shut and then kissed the deer on the head while petting it lovingly.

After finishing his meal, Kazuma heard a sound deep within the forest that wasn't coming from Barok. Using his heightened senses, he detected that the noise was coming from a far-off location where humans were present. Kazuma hid behind the deer and climbed up a nearby tree to remain concealed from the human's view. Only two humans were present, who appeared to be Vampire Hunters. Kazuma remembered Barok's advice of never trusting a Vampire Hunter without knowing them personally, so he remained hidden.

A young woman was the first to appear and noticed the deer. She had long blonde hair tied in a braid - pinned around her head and was wearing green slacks, a tailed coat, and a matching cap. The woman approached and inspected the deer, gently touching the animal.

"We's got one 'ere, and this buck's feelin' warm, innit?" the girl asked the fellow behind her, donned in a brown trenchcoat, his mustache twitching. From the looks of it, he was munching on some newspaper-wrapped fish and chips.

"Is it alive?" the man asked in return.

"'E's alive, right. Vampire's probably lurkin' 'round 'ere. I know I saw 'im."

"The vampire is probably just hunting for food. We don't know what we're dealing with, so stay alert," the man cautioned. Kazuma remained hidden behind the tree, searching for Barok, but couldn't find him. "Let's look for the devils. Don't let them drink from you."

"You got it, Boss!" the girl responded, giving her boss a salute before trotting horizontally out of Kazuma's sight.

Kazuma continued climbing the tree while the two Vampire Hunters searched around for him and Barok. Kazuma couldn't see Barok. He realized that it was because Barok was skilled at hiding. He wasn't confident that Barok was watching over his location. All Kazuma knew was that he had to avoid being seen by the Vampire Hunters.

"I'm gonna 'ave a butcher's at this side," the girl said, turning to the right as her boss glanced over at her.

"Oi, Gina, don't go gettin' yourself lost now. These vampires ain't to be messed with," warned the boss with a stern tone. Gina, however, seemed to shrug it off with a semi-careless attitude.

Gina's instincts led her closer to Kazuma's hiding spot. She appeared to be aimlessly wandering, but managed to get closer and eventually ended up under the tree where Kazuma was hiding.

"Let's 'ave a butcher's. The boss said these bleeders 'ide themselves in the trees," muttered Gina. She rubbed her chin and searched upwards with her lamp, hoping to catch a glimpse of any lurking vampires in the shadows of the branches.

With his cloak and mask on, Kazuma's hiding spot was revealed when the light from Gina's lamp shone on him. In a panicked response, Kazuma attacked Gina, covering her mouth and pinning her to a tree so she couldn't call for help. In the process, Gina dropped her lamp, which Kazuma caught as the light faded out. A struggle ensued, and Gina managed to kick Kazuma in the chest, causing him to fall backwards and lose his hood, revealing his hair.

"Oh, cor blimey," gasped Gina as Kazuma rose to his feet, causing her to back away in fear. She fumbled for her gun, loaded with silver bullets. "Easy now, you bloke! I'm warnin' ya," she said, her eyes widening in shock. "Kaz's a goner. There's no way you're 'im."

“Do you mean Kazuma?” Kazuma inquired, unsure if it could be true. He slowly removed his mask as the girl's hands trembled in anticipation.

"Shut it," Gina cried, her eyes brimming with tears. "It can't be true, it just can't," she wailed. Suddenly she scrunched her eyes tight. "This 'as to be one o' them vampire tricks!"

A strange feeling crept into Kazuma's throat, making him realize that he must have held an important place in this girl's life. "I've recently been transformed, and I'm afraid I don't remember you," he admitted. "My master told me it could take a year before it comes back to me. Have we met before?"

Hearing Kazuma's confession, Gina bowed her head and lowered her weapon. "Blimey, Kaz. Why'd you let it come to this? You know I wouldn't have... " she cursed. She covered her face, tears streaming down her cheeks as she let her gun drop to the grass. "Just get on with it."

"I'm alright," Kazuma replied, gesturing towards the deer. "That should keep him fed when he wakes up."

Gina hesitantly removed her hand from her eyes, shooting him a look of disbelief before glancing down at the ground. It was clear she was struggling with something. After a brief pause, she let out a heavy sigh and finally posed the question, "Alright, mate. Who's your Master?"

“Barok van Zieks.” "'Ere, the Reaper? And, you ain't gonna drink from me?" "I already ate. I'm just on the lookout for my master. I can't seem to locate him after drinking from the buck," Kazuma explained. Gina furrowed her brow and crossed her arms, appearing deep in thought. Breaking the silence, she asked inquisitively, "Wot 'appened? 'Ow did ya...?" "During the fight, Stronghart tried to change me. It was almost successful until my master drank his venom and inserted his own. He saved my life and now I owe him everything," explained Kazuma solemnly. "Cor blimey, Stronghart!? Ain't he the leader of the Vampire Hunters?" “That's correct! He's also a Vampire Hunter,” Kazuma realized, feeling foolish for not catching the inconsistency. “Does that imply that a vampire is heading the group of Vampire Hunters, either to eliminate other vampires or maintain control over them?” “Kaz... that...” Gina heard her boss call out to her from a distance. "Gina!" Gina gave Kazuma a steely look and said, "Oi, you sure you ain't spinning me a yarn? This ain't a load of codswallop, yeah?" “That's all I remember and... As a fellow Vampire Hunter, you must know that newly turned vampires don't remember their human memories for the first year," Kazuma reminded Gina, who was lost in thought as she rubbed her chin. "Yer reckon you're gonna be gettin' peckish again, do ya?" Gina inquired. "I'll be needing human blood soon, possibly by morning. Are you offering to provide some?" Gina's grip on the strap of her bag tightened as she confessed, "I need to know if everything I was told is a bleedin' lie. Suz said you were as good as brown bread. That's wot Lord Stronghart fed us." “Gina, where in blazes are you!?” Gina's boss sounded worried when he called out. “Meet me at the cliff where the Reaper calls-o'da shots," Gina urged, grabbing her lamp and scurrying to her boss. "I'm right 'ere, but it's like you're killing me with all this chatter!" "What were you doing? Your lamp isn't on." “Obviously. I was tryin' to switch it back on when you interrupted me with your call." "Okay, as long as you're fine. I apologize for being so concerned. I thought another Hunter went missing under my watch," Gina's Boss said in relief. "Yer right," Gina muttered, her eyes flickering with conflict. Her boss must've been pondering about Kazuma. "Those Vampire Hunters reckon Kazuma's flown the coop, eh?" She continued, "But anyhow, I didn't lay me eyes on no vampires." "I agree. They must have run away. We should head back home. Staying here won't change anything, especially since the deer is still alive.” “Yes, boss!” Gina and her boss vanished from the dense forest, breathing a sigh of relief. Meanwhile, Kazuma leaned back against a tree, feeling the ominous presence of Barok as he rested his forehead against the rough bark. “Where were you, Barok?” Kazuma inquired. “I was hiding and watching over you. Although I had considered intervening, it appeared that your friend was hesitant to harm you. She's a truly good friend,” Barok replied. “I believe so too. She brought up a name - Suz?” “Susato Mikotoba. It's probable that she assumes you and Ryunosuke are deceased.” “Stronghart is both a Vampire Hunter and a vampire. How is that possible?” Kazuma asked in amazement. “Similar to how you evolved from a Hunter to something more, he intentionally transformed himself to eliminate the vampires he despises. His abhorrence towards them has never waned since his transition.” Barok elucidated. “Gina wishes to meet me at that cliff to give me her blood.” “She's likely confused. The Vampire Hunters have fed her false information, which contradicts what she's seen. You didn't act on hunger or thirst. You merely took what you needed and spared the deer. It's possible that you shared with her some insights about your father's truths before disappearing.” Kazuma understood that Gina was torn between what she had been taught and what she had seen. He planned to meet with her at dawn near the cliff, where he had previously battled Stronghart and had almost become his victim. However, he was concerned that Gina might bring her superiors or even Stronghart himself. Nonetheless, Kazuma trusted Gina, as she didn't seem to have any intentions of betraying him based on her behaviour. Kazuma kept his promise and waited near the cliff the next morning, feeling the urge to feed on human blood. Gina arrived with her bag, holding onto it tightly. Kazuma had removed his hood but kept his cloak on, not wearing his mask this time. Gina appeared apprehensive, as if expecting a difficult encounter. "I ain't lettin' ya turn me into no bleedin' vampire, ya got that?" Gina half-threatened, trying to hide her nerves at the thought of being turned into vampire chow. Kazuma provided an explanation, "If I were to do that, I wouldn't get as much blood." "Don't blabber 'bout 'ow it works! Just do it!" Gina bellowed, making a sour face. “Alright. Initially, it may hurt, but Ryunosuke mentioned that eventually it will numb.” "'Oddo is alive... blimey, just do it!" With a soft chuckle, Kazuma gently massaged Gina's shoulders, easing her into a state of relaxation. Skilled and patient, he honed his senses until he found the perfect vein, sinking his teeth into the soft flesh of her neck. Gina's face contorted in pain at first, but slowly her muscles began to unknot beneath his touch. Kazuma listened carefully to the soft sound of her deep breathing as she fought to relax, feeling the unique texture and sweetness of Gina's blood as it flowed into him. Compared to Ryunosuke, her blood was thinner, with a delicate and interesting flavor like nothing he had ever tasted before. As Kazuma drank from Gina's pulsing vein, he experienced a wave of recognition flood through him. Memories of their time spent together training as Vampire Hunters in London came rushing back to him, along with her rebellious spirit and fierce loyalty to her friends. Despite their current circumstances, Kazuma knew that her heart was pure and her intentions kind. It was no surprise that she had initially hesitated to harm him upon discovering his transformation. They were comrades-in-arms and good friends, and Kazuma could feel that bond as he drank from her. Satiated, Kazuma withdrew his fangs, ensuring that he had closed the wounds before gently licking away any remaining traces of Gina's blood. As Kazuma stepped back and broke contact, Gina blinked in surprise and instinctively reached to the tender spot on her neck where the feeding had occurred. "Yer ain't like any o' them bloodsuckers. Vampires go on a rampage without askin' questions and suck their victims dry," Gina declared with a scowl. "Maybe they were preying on addicts," Kazuma pondered. "Lord van Zieks mentioned that vampires who feed on smokers or alcoholics may exhibit signs of gluttony." "The whole lot of them we've met have been just like that!" “Not Lord van Zieks. Ryunosuke says we've been working together with him for quite a while, did I ever mention that to you?" Gina went into a bit of a ponder and said, "Yeh, you was tellin' me that if Lord Stronghart was the one who snuffed yer old man, then the other bloodsuckers gotta 'ave a boss that ain't the Reaper." "If Lord Stronghart is indeed a vampire, then he's most likely the one responsible for creating these other vampires," Kazuma mused. "I wonder if Masters have power over the vampires they turn and control them." Barok, who emerged from the woods, chimed in to answer. "Yes, they certainly can," he replied. “Blimey! Y-You're...!” Gina exclaimed with a hint of shock, taking a few steps back in surprise. "I've never done that before - never made anyone my master," Barok confessed, catching himself before he revealed the true depth of his emotions. He chose his words carefully. "But with Kazuma, it was different. I had to keep my promise to him... to prevent Stronghart from becoming his master." “So, Stronghart 'ad a go at convertin' 'im, didn't 'e?" “He did and I owe my life to Lord van Zieks. He was the one who saved me," Kazuma exclaimed gratefully. "Right, it's time we gave the boss the news!" proclaimed Gina. "Unfortunately, Gregson is in a very risky situation with Stronghart. Any sign of disobedience and Stronghart may hurt him just like he attempted to hurt Kazuma," Barok explained to Kazuma as he touched the bite mark where he had transformed Kazuma. "In fact, Stronghart could even be using you as leverage against Gregson," he added gravely. “M-Me?” Gina exclaimed, taking a step back in fear. “You weren't claimed by any vampire before, but now that Kazuma has bitten and claimed you, you're under his protection. Stronghart won't interfere, but he'll know who claims you,” explained Barok. Kazuma had an epiphany. “So, Stronghart will know that I'm keeping Gina alive?” The other vampire nodded. “Yes, but he never thought you were able to save her. You're lucky she survived with the lowest chance of survival.” “I'm ready to face Stronghart, if need be,” declared Kazuma. “Same. Now that I know the whole bleedin' truth, that bloke's gonna pay, mark my words!" declared Gina, her determination unwavering. Barok shook his head, “No, Kazuma. You can't face Stronghart again. Last time, you were almost killed. You're not ready yet.” “We don't have to face him directly,” Kazuma replied calmly. “We can use the element of surprise. As of now, Stronghart doesn't know that Gina is alive or that she has been claimed by me. Maybe we can use that to our advantage.” "'Ere, 'ang on a tick, 'ow d'ya reckon ya gonna turn that to yer advantage?" inquired Gina, crossing her arms skeptically. "Where does Gregson think you are right now?" Kazuma inquired. "Pfft, I dunno. I just snuck out while 'e was kipin'!" "What if you went missing that night and couldn't be found?"

Kazuma suggested. "Gregson would probably organize a search party and assume you went on a vampire hunt to find the one that made a meal out of that deer." “Meanin', 'e'll be scourin' around that there forest where the deer was spotterd, eh?" “Forgive my discourtesy of my impatience, but could you please explain how that relates to your plan to defeat Stronghart?" "Oi reckon wot Kaz means is, if I went missin' and they're thinkin' I went missin' in that forest where the bleedin' deer were spotted, the boss would send out a search party round there, wouldn't 'e? And if I ain't back in a jiffy, Stronghart would get in on the nitty-gritty, you know what I'm sayin'?" “Exactly! With Gina held captive by a vampire, Stronghart will assume that the captor is..." Kazuma concluded, his eyes turning to Barok. "Me,” Barok said, the realization hitting him. “Don't forget that Stronghart has no idea I'm involved,” Kazuma added, as Barok raised an eyebrow. Gina smirked and poked out her index finger, "Or that you didn't do a bleedin' thing to me," she teased. Barok continued, “If I'm understanding this correctly, our plan is to use Gina's disappearance to lure Stronghart here during the daylight hours. He'll be caught off guard by an attack from two Vampire Hunters, especially if he thinks one of them is already dead.” “Right, and if Stronghart needs Gina as leverage against Gregson, he'll have to search for her no matter the time of day,” Kazuma added. Barok nodded in agreement, then closed his eyes and said, “It's getting close to sunrise. We should rest now if we're going to follow through with this plan.” Kazuma noticed Barok's hesitance and trepidation, the shadows of doubt looming in the depths of his eyes. This was their only opportunity to vanquish Stronghart, once and for all - a moment they had long awaited. Yet, despite this, fear seemed to grip Barok in a tight embrace, his concern for Kazuma's safety taking precedence over everything else. The memory of that fateful night lingered still, haunting him with a terrible fear that he could not shake. The young vampire could sense his master's anxiety, the weight of his worry almost tangible in the air around them. Kazuma couldn't help but imagine himself in Barok's shoes, the thought sending a chill down his spine. He longed to comfort his mentor in some way, to assuage his concerns and calm his nerves. Gina accompanied the two vampires to Barok's manor after an exhausting Vampire Hunt and a late night. Finding respite in one of the guest rooms, she fell into a deep slumber. Meanwhile, Kazuma retreated to his own room to devise a plan for defeating Stronghart. Despite his incomplete memories, he refused to let that setback impede his mission, determined to see it through to the end. Kazuma heard a knock early in the morning, feeling instantly exhausted. It was Ryunosuke at the door, his panicked expression sending chills down Kazuma's spine. "Vampire Hunters are approaching," he cried breathlessly. Kazuma groaned wearily, feeling the weight of the impending danger. "Are you sure?" he asked, hoping against hope that it was a false alarm. "Oi, get yer arse outta bed and get a move on!" Gina exclaimed. Kazuma groaned but rose from his bed, shuffling down the hallway towards her.

Barok hurriedly took Kazuma by the wrist and led him down the hall to a hidden entrance in the manor. The entrance was located at the back of the fireplace and required crawling on hands and knees to get inside. Barok pushed the door open and crawled inside, with Kazuma following close behind. The entrance was secured with a small key, ensuring their safety. The tunnel beyond was pitch black, but with vampires being nocturnal, they were in no danger.

“It seems your plan to lure Stronghart to attacking during the daylight worked too perfectly,” Barok said.

“Is he the one that's on his way here?” Kazuma asked.

“Who else? From Ryunosuke's description of the Hunters, I have no doubt Stronghart is among them.”

“It's not too late, though. We still have a chance to follow through to our plan.”

“Have you forgotten that the sun is just as much our weakness?”

“No. We just have to be flexible with what we have right now,” Kazuma insisted.

Using his heightened senses, Kazuma detected Gina's presence within the manor, preparing for a potential attack. Meanwhile, suspicious intruders were approaching the building - presumably Stronghart's doing. Despite the advantage the opposing vampire had of hiding under the shade of numerous trees, Kazuma was determined to outsmart him. Armed with a silver sword and with the support of Ryunosuke and Gina, who could attack from sunlit areas, Kazuma had a plan to face Stronghart.

That was when Kazuma remembered the garden. Of course! They could lure Stronghart to the garden area. This would be a risk, but this was their only chance to defeating him.

Kazuma suggested, "Why don't we use the garden?"

Barok called out, "Kazuma!" as he chased after him down the tunnel. Kazuma took a sharp turn before eventually climbing up a ladder, with Barok in hot pursuit. "Kazuma, what's your plan? What do you plan on doing in the garden?"

Kazuma replied, "We can lure Stronghart into the garden and take him out there."

Kazuma reached the top of the ladder and slid a small part of the wall open using a small hole. He climbed inside and found himself behind a cupboard, where he squeezed his way through to the food pantry. Retrieving his cloak from atop the cupboard, Kazuma secured it around himself in case he needed protection from the sunlight. Suddenly, Barok emerged from behind the cupboard and firmly took hold of Kazuma's wrist.

Barok expressed his concern, "This is too dangerous! Stronghart almost killed you the last time and he's hunting us down now! You haven't even trained for half a year and you think you can take on the person who transformed you into this?"

Kazuma retorted, "We don't have any other options! We can't let Ryunosuke and Gina face him alone!"

"At least Ryunosuke and Gina aren't us! They might be taken as prisoners in the Hunters Camp, but those Hunters will kill US!"

Kazuma protested, "What if Stronghart tries to convert Ryunosuke or Gina?"

Barok argued, "Not in front of others!"

Kazuma countered, "But he'll have plenty of time once he takes them! We can't abandon our friends!"

Barok got agitated, "I won't let you risk your life again!" He clenched Kazuma's wrist tightly, snarling.

Barok's demeanor was akin to that of a vampire, exhibiting forceful aggression and speaking with a venomous tone. However, beneath the surface, Kazuma recognized an underlying fear, stemming from Barok's past trauma of nearly losing him to Stronghart. Barok was unable to bear the thought of losing Kazuma again, or being so close to experiencing that pain once more.

Despite Barok's attempts to obstruct him, Kazuma refused to be deterred. He glared at Barok and confronted him, "You're a coward for hiding me. How much longer do you plan to do so?"

Barok was initially shocked at Kazuma's sudden aggression. However, Kazuma broke free from Barok's grip, sensing the presence of Vampire Hunters in the manor. Kazuma swiftly armed himself with a wok from the cabinet, just as a hunter entered the kitchen and raised his silver hammer. Kazuma used the wok to shield himself from the attack before delivering a swift kick to the hunter's legs, causing him to trip.

The hunter found himself on his back, catching a glimpse of Kazuma's face. With a tremble in his voice, he cried out, "Kazuma!?"

"Who are you!?" Kazuma shouted back, gripping onto the wok.

"Don't you recognize your mentor, Jig-?" gasped the hunter, realizing it was Kazuma's old teacher. But before he could finish, Kazuma slammed him with the wok. Observing the silver hammer at his feet, Kazuma picked it up, relieved that the handle wasn't silver.

Confused, Barok tried to clarify, "That was Jigoku, the apprentice of Stronghart. He's the one who brought you to London."

Kazuma glanced down at the man and detected a peculiar smell emanating from him. Upon closer inspection, he noticed a bite mark on his skin, which he identified as Stronghart's.

Kazuma had a sudden realization. "He's one of Stronghart's blood donors."

Jigoku's words hit Kazuma like a ton of bricks. "Why are you with him, Kazuma!? He killed your father!" Kazuma realized Jigoku had been in the dark all along. He had no idea that Stronghart had attempted to kill Kazuma and turn him into a vampire. “Listen, I don't know what that Reaper told you but-”

Kazuma took Jigoku firmly in a chokehold, his voice low and dangerous as he spoke. "Let me answer your first question with one of my own: which do you prefer - the artery or the vein?" Jigoku's pupils shrank in fear, and his body trembled under Kazuma's grip.

“Y-You-You're...”

"Well?" Kazuma growled, his teeth dangerously close to Jigoku's neck. "If you're just trying to stall, I could always answer your question for you."

"Get away from me, you beast!" Jigoku yelled, pushing Kazuma off him. Kazuma licked his lips, anger flashing in his eyes. Jigoku reached for his hammer, but Kazuma struck him with a wok before he could grab it. Jigoku fell and saw his hammer within reach. But before he could grab it, he felt a sharp pain in the back of his neck, causing him to scream in agony.

The sound of footsteps caught Jigoku's attention. He turned his head and saw a muscular man brandishing a silver cane. "What's happening here?" he demanded, his eyes landing on Kazuma, who had sunk his teeth into Jigoku's neck.

"Stronghart!" Barok growled, baring his teeth.

"If you're smart, you'll tell your student to let go of my apprentice," Stronghart retorted, his gaze icy.

Barok's eyes flicked to Kazuma, who had his teeth sunk into Jigoku's neck. "Kazuma," he said, and Kazuma released his grip.

Suddenly, Kazuma struck Stronghart with a silver hammer on the side of his head. The blow left Stronghart seething in pain and covering his face. Before he could react, Kazuma hurled Jigoku at him and spat in his direction.

“Too thick for my taste,” Kazuma sneered as Stronghart rose to his feet, shoving his injured apprentice aside.

"You still haven't learned, have you? You're no match for me," Stronghart taunted with a sickly grin, launching an attack at Kazuma. Kazuma barely managed to dodge in time, thanks to Barok's intervention.

Barok pulled Kazuma by the wrist, making them run out of the dining room and into the entrance where the staircase was. Kazuma made a turn toward the door in the back where the garden is. Unfortunately, Stronghart was faster than Kazuma and began striking him with his silver cane. Kazuma felt the pain from the silver from the back of his head before being dragged by his foot, then thrown against the glass door, breaking it in the process. The sun burned through Kazuma's exposed skin. The glass didn't help. Blood was seeping from the cuts from the glass.

"You're a fool. You will die under the hot sun," sneered Stronghart, pulling out his bow and aiming his silver-tipped arrow at Kazuma, who was too injured to move out of harm's way. But just as he was about to release the arrow, a shot rang out, hitting the spot where his heart was. Kazuma flinched and braced himself for the impact of Stronghart's arrow, but it never came.

Stronghart let out a piercing scream when a silver arrow hit him squarely in his heart. He turned around and saw Ryunosuke standing in the sunlight with another silver arrow in hand. In one swift motion, Ryunosuke took aim and fired another arrow at Stronghart.

"Ahh!" Stronghart screamed as he collapsed on the ground, writhing in pain with blood pooling around him. Suddenly, he felt himself being dragged into the sunlight of the garden by Gina.

"Let's 'ave a butchers at who's croakin' in the daylight, ya bloody vampire!" Gina smiled wide.

“Lord van Zieks!” Kazuma cried, his eyes fixed on Barok, who bravely shielded him from Stronghart's silver arrowhead. The arrow pierced him around his waist, causing Barok to grimace in pain.

“Geh,” Barok groaned, trying to remove the arrow. He let out a mighty cry before he finally pulled it out. Gasping for breath, he found solace from the scorching sun inside the manor. Kazuma trudged to his side, visibly shaken by what just happened.

“Barok, if you die...” Kazuma's voice trailed off as he threatened.

“I won't die from just a flesh wound. I'd rather suffer this minor wound than lose the love of my life,” Barok smiled faintly through his pain.

“Don't lie to me! Stop trying to protect me!” Kazuma cried, his eyes welling up with tears. “Why can't you let me have you, Barok? It's not fair!”

“It's not that simple, Kazuma. I'm not sure if your feelings for me will remain the same once your past memories return,” Barok replied, trying to reason with him.

“You are wrong! I love you, and no memory will erase that. I don't care if I once loathed being a vampire. My love for you is stronger than any memory from my past,” Kazuma said, as Barok lifted his hand to cup his face.

“Kazuma...”

“You can't protect me all by yourself, Barok. Let me help you,” Kazuma pleaded, using his sword as a cane to slowly and painfully make his way toward Stronghart under the shade of a nearby bush.

“Are you really going to finish this? You're nothing but a monster,” Stronghart chuckled sickly, his eyes fixed on Kazuma still hobbling toward him.

"'Ey Kaz, don't go an' burn up on us, ya 'ear?" Gina cautioned Kazuma.

Kazuma and Stronghart engaged in a sword fight. Stronghart used his cane to strike Kazuma's sword, but Kazuma parried the attack. They continued exchanging blows and blocking each other's strikes while utilizing whatever bits of shade were available.

"What's your intention with this? You're aware that you'll die from the heat of the sun," Stronghart questioned with concern.

Kazuma smirked and replied, "Do you think I'm not aware of that?" He then charged towards Stronghart with his sword in hand, and as they both fell into the blazing sun, he chuckled. "I cannot allow you to hurt anyone else. Even if it means risking burning here, at least I know that you won't take anyone else I love away."

Stronghart's body writhed in agony as he gasped, "you bastard," struggling for breath. Kazuma pinned him down, feeling the searing heat emanating from Stronghart's back. The pain intensified to the point where it became almost unbearable, causing Kazuma to cry out in anguish. Resigned, Stronghart began to fade, his consciousness slipping away as he prayed for it all to end. Finally, Kazuma succumbed to the darkness, the pain of his injuries overtaking him.

Kazuma's eyes fluttered open to a surreal dream world, where Barok lay next to him on a plush bed, a contented smile on his face. Kazuma's senses were awash with the heady scent of lavender and rose, while a soft hand traced his cheek soothingly. He felt himself drifting away in the wake of pure happiness, relishing the moment. However, this idyllic dream didn't last, fading into blackness before reality hit. He was lying in a darkened room, and Barok was there, his wound fully healed. Kazuma drank in the sight of Barok's warm form wrapped around his own, relief and joy washing over him. As Barok's eyes slowly opened, Kazuma felt his heart fill with wonder and gratitude, his dreams and reality merging into one.

Barok surrendered, conceding, "You win."

Kazuma, unsure, prodded, "What do you mean?"

Barok's hands held Kazuma's face as he pleaded, "Please, you can have me. But please, promise me that you will never hurt yourself like that again." Kazuma felt the weight of Barok's defeat.

Kazuma mumbles, "I should apologize for pushing you."

Barok shakes his head, "No, you were right. I was being unfair. We shouldn't protect each other alone. I should trust you more and consider your feelings. I apologize for putting my desires before yours."

Kazuma agrees, "We both need to work on putting the other person first."

Barok seals their reconciliation with a kiss, whispering, "I love you. Let's sleep some more." Kazuma nuzzles into Barok's warmth and dozes off soundly.

With one another, they need not be apprehensive of any challenges that may arise. Kazuma's memories may return in due course, but his devotion to Barok will endure unwaveringly. Barok's love for Kazuma will also remain steadfast, undiminished by the passage of time. Meanwhile, Stronghart's physical remnants may be located as numerous ash particles strewn along the Thames.

#Ace Attorney #BaroAso #AsoBaro #asobaroweek2023 #Day 6 #AU #Commitment #Vampire AU #I've read a lot of vampire stories where Barok is the vampire and either Kazuma or Ryunosuke are the human lovers #Either that or Kazuma is the vampire and Ryunosuke is the human lover or vice versa #Never had a love story where both are vampires

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