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couldeatthatgirlforlunch · 2 months ago

Note

Hi!

I’d love a part two to your hit me hard and soft fanfic. Maybe Y/N continues to avoid them as a romantic relationship but begins to accept a platonic one liking eating with Dick or hanging out with Jason at school, etc… but the Batfam gets impatient and talks about why they are afraid (and maybe hunt down the ex which could gain their trust?)

Hit me Hard and Soft: Whispers in the Shadows

Synopsis: The relationship between the batfam gets broken after mistakes lead to accusations, and accusations lead to contingency plans.

Pairing: Yandere!Poly!Romantic!Batboys X Gn!Reader

Tw: Poly!Yandere; All characters aged up; Possible betrayal; Bad father Bruce, but is he actually the asshole here?; Arguments; Mentions of killing and torture; Possibly ooc batboys: English is my 2nd language.

Word count: 2k

Requested? Yes.

Extra notes: Not much action between Reader and the batboys here, but definitely something. Read the end to answer my question👀

General masterlist | Hit me Hard and Soft - Series masterlist

— You can't be serious.

The tension was at its highest point. Only a few times priorly did the conflict between all of them get this bad, and as always, they feared things couldn't go back to the way they were.

— I am being serious. That's how things work. — Bruce stated darkly and Dick narrowed his eyes. — We tried it the nice way, I trusted you to behave, but you couldn't do that. — Bruce raised his gloved hand and pointed at Damian. — First, Damian can't control himself. He spent a decade acting right. Justice, not vengeance. But now, he's using (Y/N) as an excuse to defile orders and act as an assassin again! — Damian hissed and clenched his fists, taking a step forward.

— If you really cared for them, you would understand, father! But as always, you put your so-called mission above everything, even us! Even them! — Bruce clenched his jaw and narrowed his eyes in his direction, then turned to Jason.

— And you! How many chances do I have to give you? Both of you! You don't change. You will never change. And until you do that, you will never deserve (Y/N)’s or mine trust. Or their love. — Jason's heart broke in two, but he didn't react on the outside. Just kept his hard, Red Hood’s exterior. As he always did every time he and Bruce had a falling out.

— Bruce… — Dick muttered, a mix of a warning to remind him of not going too far, and betrayal by what he was witnessing. Bruce didn't look phased. And the fact he was still wearing Batman's suit, minus the cowl, just made this whole situation more genuine. He was neither Bruce Wayne, the persona, nor Batman, the vigilant. He was just Bruce. Their boss and their father.

— You hunted down that man, tortured and killed him! And you… — He took his gaze away from Jason and glared at Damian again. — Knew about it, and didn't notify us!

— I did know about it. Todd, you should have told us before. I also wanted that scum’s blood in my hands-

— ENOUGH! THE BOTH OF YOU WILL STAY AWAY FROM (Y/N). FOREVER.

Tim raised an eyebrow.

— Sound’s convenient. — All head’s snapped in his direction.

— What do you mean, Tim? — Dick asked. All muscles on his body tense. Tim gazed at him for a moment, then at Damian and Jason, then at Bruce again, staring directly into his eyes. — I just think it's very convenient that Bruce's getting rid of two of them. While your reason checks with past conflicts we had, with your morals and mission. It's also good for you that you wouldn't have to share (Y/N)’s attention with so many people in the future. Right, Bruce?

Silence took hold of the room.

— What are you implying? — Bruce stomped forward until he was face to face with Tim, their nose’s almost touching, daring him to say more. Tim didn't back down.

— Yeah, Tim, what're you implying? — Jason raised an eyebrow behind his helmet and took a step forward. The others copied that action.

— I’ve been watching you, Bruce. Just like you've been watching us. I know you’ve been upgrading contingency plans, more specifically, our contingency plans. I think he's been trying to keep us busy. To rile us up to commit mistakes. While he hogs all of (Y/N)’s attention. He said Damian could be trusted again if he proved himself, that was a year ago, and he still didn't give Damian permission. I bet he knew Damian would get restless and get more violent with criminals. Until he had an excuse to kick him out. And Jason, he let you spend time with (Y/N) at university. But as soon as (Y/N) started calling you their best friend, hanging out with you outside of classes and even confiding in you about their trauma, proving that our plan to make them trust us was finally working, suddenly (Y/N)’s ex receives an offer to transfer to GCPD, while everyone here has a… Weakness, when it comes to losing people we love and avenging their suffering, it's a known fact some are more… Trigger-happy than others.

Dick shook his head.

— Tim, that's something serious you're accusing him of.

— Let him continue. — Bruce growled darkly.

— I don't have anything to accuse you of, Bruce. I just don't trust you. — He shrugged as if it wasn't a big deal.

— So you're ready to brush off what they did? — Bruce accused and Dick started to feel even more restless seeing that the distance between them didn't change, feeling the urge to get in the middle and defend his little brother.

— I didn't say anything. But I wouldn't be surprised if me or Dick were next. — That made Dick snap.

No, he can't.

He can’t keep me away from them.

After everything I did.

We're just so close now.

Just earlier today we were having lunch together.

He can't.

He can't do this to me.

Is that how Jay and Dami felt? Is that why they snapped and started killing people? Is that why Jason killed that guy? Just for the idea of losing them forever?

Is that why, even with how heartbreaking and horrible it sounds, any possibility of someone trying to take them away from them made Tim voice out his paranoia? Thoughts Dick had when everything was quiet, when he just brushed it off as intrusive thoughts?

It isn't… Logical… But it also is…

The only thing stopping him from believing Tim wholeheartedly is the lifelong trust he had on Bruce. But those are just feelings. And they all feel. Intensely. For you.

And as much as they tried to make it peaceful, everyone having a piece of you and being happy. They were having problems, and a traitor was always a possibility.

Either way, he couldn't take that chance.

That night, Wayne Manor slept almost completely empty. All of the sons were gone. And you would know it too.

It's been a week. They've been meeting at the apartment just beside yours. It was empty, until Damian bought it, and started living there after cutting ties with his father. He wasn't happy that the others were also using it as their nest, a place to meet and talk about strategies. And keep an eye on you.

Damian was slowly steering his tea, mind elsewhere, not really paying mind to the conversation. While it was important, his stomach was full of butterflies and his heart pounded hard every time he thought about earlier, something he couldn't stop doing. After a whole year of being almost completely away from you, finally spending time with you was like a dream. That just made his resentment towards his father grow worse, even if he didn't do that on purpose, it still felt like injustice.

He knew since he was born, his way of doing things was always better.

He just told you he didn't know that part of the town much, and you, sweet you, already acquainted with his brothers, invited him to show him around. A bad taste came to his mouth whenever he thought he was the least close to you, even if he knew everything there was to know about his beloved. He got left behind. He let himself be left behind.

Because he was weak. Because he was submissive. Because he trusted his father.

His mother did send him to his progenitor's home saying that he needed to learn from him.

— We could use the League.

All heads snapped to him.

— Huh?

— We are talking about contingency plans for our father. We could have the League of Assassins on our side. Infinite resources against one single man. (Y/N) would live in luxury. And they did tell us… — His heart warmed at the sensation of finally feeling included in your life. — … Multiple times that they despised the cold weather Gotham always seems to have. Eth Alth'eban is always hot.

— We are not joining those fuckers, and you shut down that idea before I start believing what that old man said about you and kick your ass into your grave, demon brat. — Damian kept stoic after Jason's response.

— We could use the League for something good for once. I could. As the Head of the Demon. — He retorted with confidence.

Dick shook his head in disbelief.

— Dami, I think that's too much. It would only prove what Bruce was trying to say. — Damian leaned forward, as if getting closer would make his point come across as more genuine.

— I could do it! Not as a dictator like my grandfather! But as something actually good! Not just for us, but for everyone! The whole world!

— Does that megalomaniac plan of yours have an actual strategy? — Damian rolled his eyes.

— Of course it has. Kill anyone who gets in the way of my rightful place at birth. — Damian tilted his head at Tim, who looked at him in disbelief.

— Even Ras? — Damian frowned. What a dumb question. Damian would do anything for you.

— Especially Ras. — A fist hit the table and the oldest got up with a scowl in his face.

— No one. Is going to kill. Anyone. And we are not going to use the League. — Damian got up too.

— What is stopping you? This is for (Y/N)! It is not just some fucking petty act to annoy father. He acted behind our backs and he will take my beloved from me! From us!

— We don't know that yet! — Even with Dick's exclamation, it was clear not even him was totally sure about Bruce's intentions.

— … Failing to prepare is preparing to fail. — Tim muttered. They all observed he had a distant look on his face, it was the look he had when he was planning something. After a few seconds, he looked up again and got up, facing Damian. — I'm with you. It’ll be nice to see Ras look when he realizes he lost to me one last time. And to have whole guardianship of my spleen he keeps on his bedside table again.

— What? — The other three sputtered.

— I won't kill anyone. But I will help you and be an ally. Even if that means losing the Titans and leaving behind everything I build here. All for (Y/N). — Tim spoke. Jason got up.

— Tim, you can't be serious too. — He received a glare in return.

— I am. You're invited to join us. Or to become our enemy.

Damian was staring at Tim, the brother he always had a strange relationship with, full of fights and sarcasm, but they always knew they could count on each other in the end. Because they were family.

Of course, it would be nicer to have you all to himself, but he also needed more allies, and brilliant minds like his own. It would also hurt to lose every person he loved while choosing you, even if he would always choose you in the end.

— … What if (Y/N) doesn't trust us after this? — Dick mumbled, trying to see both sides before making a decision.

— We’ll explain to them. About how we got rid of every single individual who wanted to isolate and steal them from us. How we want to care for them. Keep them safe. And how I- We, made the world a better place in the process. — Dick glared at him halfheartedly.

— We have a solid plan here, Dick. We Just have to form our strategies based on what we have. It will work!

Dick sighed and rubbed his face with his hands. He started walking around the apartment, contemplating, listening in on your apartment and Tim and Damian in the background, trying to convince Jason.

When even Jason seemed convinced, Dick knew what he had to do.

Everyone turned to him when he came back to the table again, in expectation.

He looked Damian in the eyes and put his hand on his little brother's shoulders. So grown. So different from what he was before meeting you. You brought the worst out of him. Out of all of them. And you didn't even know it. That was the worse part.

But Dick was always known for being a manipulator.

— Congratulations, you're the new Demon's Head.

Extra note: I'm curious to if you guys think Bruce was actually planning something and not just being regular canon Batman putting his morals above family👀

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yinyuedijun · 4 months ago

Text

TOKYO VICE | part 1

You knew that if you agreed to move in with Suo, you'd be setting yourself up for a life without autonomy. You also knew that these alarming behaviours were all signs that he desperately needed therapy to process his master’s untimely death. Living with a man in constant grief, who refused to talk about his trauma unless he was making up a lie related to the nation of China, was probably not a good decision. Doubly so when this man was clearly paranoid about losing you, and triply so when he was a high-ranking member of a violent syndicate. Unfortunately for you, you rarely made good decisions. (Or: After joining the yakuza, Suo develops the concerning habit of controlling every facet of your life. This is somehow less worrying to you than your uncontrollable lust around him.)

8.7k words. suo x fem reader. deeply unserious yakuza au. yandere suo (not abusive and reader is into it), dark comedy, a little angst, smut. warnings: borderline sex work, off-screen criminal violence. nsft – no actual smut in this chapter, but there are still graphic discussions of sex. mdni. thank you to @sleepyqinfei for beta reading and to @/cafekitsune for the banner!

sequel to sincerity and this sakura/reader wip

part 2 here

You’re not exactly sure why you and Suo have never fucked.

It’s certainly strange, given that you're pretty sure that Suo has expressed at least passing interest in you over the years, and you have felt a lot of interest in him. (By ‘interest’, you mean that you feel an insatiable lust around him that you fight to ignore on a daily basis.) You can't exactly pinpoint why nothing has ever happened despite this mutual attraction, especially given your profession and indifferent feelings toward casual sex.

You can think of a number of probable reasons, which are separate from those you classify as stupid reasons. The latter class comprises silly concerns like a fear of rejection, fear of abandonment, fear of not being pretty enough, fear of not being good enough, et cetera. All very juvenile feelings—insecurities that you had in your teenage years, the days in which Suo ran around Makochi as a delinquent while you worked an honest job at a bar. (It was a girls’ bar in the red light district, but that's neither here nor there.) Your circumstances have since changed, and those anxieties have since faded. None of them have any material consequence for your current life, so you don't see any point in thinking about them.

The stupid reasons, then, definitely don't have anything to do with why you've never fucked Suo. But you can think of a few, more concrete reasons that may explain it. For one, Suo has been your friend since childhood and it’s generally a bad idea to have sex with your long-time friends. He was also your roommate for a while and it’s an even messier idea to have sex with your roommates. And now, in your adulthood, he’s your landlord in addition to being your boss, which makes him the worst possible person you could have sex with. You could lose both your home and your livelihood if things go south—both severe, material consequences that should theoretically keep your lust at bay.

Also, he's also a member of the yakuza.

Now, strictly speaking—you're not really opposed to having sex with violent criminals. It’s definitely not a good idea, but you don't usually have good ideas anyway. But for the past several years, you’ve been pissed at Suo for joining the yakuza in the first place, which actually does keep your blatant attraction to him in check. You simply dry up when you think too hard about all the feelings of betrayal.

When Suo was on the cusp of graduating from Furin and thinking about his future, you’d grabbed him by the collar and made him promise not to join the yakuza. They constantly tried to recruit from Bofurin, and they especially wanted Sakura, Suo, and Sugishita. You were adamant about chasing them off from Suo and Sakura whenever they approached—you had no need to worry about Sugishita, as Umemiya had already said he shouldn't talk to them, so there was no chance he was going to—and you begged Suo over and over not to join. Delinquency was fine, but a crime syndicate was something else altogether.

Suo seemed serious about it when he said he'd listen to you. He even applied to colleges, talked about maybe becoming a teacher and eventually supporting you so you could stop working in the mizu shobai industry. Back then, he often teased you by saying that you should marry him and be his housewife (or he could be your trophy husband, if you so wished). You thought he was joking, but with the way he always talked about his life after his degree, you wondered if he would seriously suggest it.

Of course, it was most likely just teasing, and you were fine with that. You were simply excited that he'd found a career that would make him happy. Nirei had also been accepted to university at that point, and even Sakura had an honest job lined up on Keisei Street. The future had looked bright for everyone.

Then Suo’s master died, and he lost his fucking mind.

The two of you buried Suo’s master in a Chinese funeral. He had never had children of his own, having satisfied his paternal instincts by picking up strays, and he didn't have much in the way of family in Japan either, so you and Suo performed the shou ling yourselves. One person kept a constant vigil over his body while the other searched on Google for what arrangements should be made next. After all, while Suo’s master had immersed his foremost disciple in his culture, he had never taught Suo any funerary customs. He hadn't thought there would be a need.

Suo didn't cry nearly as much as you, but he was probably in more pain. Your master had trained you a little bit when you were a kid, and he'd taken you in for a while after your parents kicked you out, so of course you were gutted. But he had practically raised Suo, so it was naturally worse for him. More shattering.

You often think about the first night you decided you'd sleep with him in the same futon because he was crying so much. He insisted he was fine, but he didn't complain when you got under the sheets with him and started thumbing away his tears. When you took off his eyepatch, you found, to your astonishment, that he was crying from his missing eye as well. Both of you thought the tear ducts had been destroyed in either the accident or the enucleation, but it appeared that not even that prior trauma could mask his grief over this one.

Nevertheless, by the time of the funeral procession, Suo had stopped crying.

“Master supported us and taught us to stand on our own two feet,” he said as the joss paper burned. He took your hand in his and smiled. “So it'll be fine. We’ll be okay on our own. I'll make sure of it.”

At the time, you had found this very comforting. You didn’t think too much of it, as you had a bad habit of relying on Suo for your emotional stability. His master had raised him to be an emotionally intelligent person, so it had been fine, even though you had a track record of reckless decisions. He’d still exercised endless patience with you. He never once got angry with you, nor did he ever force you to do what he felt was the right thing. Instead, he gently redirected your self-damaging behaviours—not so different from the martial art that he practised.

He disapproved of the run-down and lonely conditions of your apartment, so he spent a great deal of time there and helped make it into a proper home. He didn't like how dangerous your job at the girls’ bar was, so he walked you to and from work every night until you never left without him. He worried when you started having sex with your customers, especially when you began having nervous breakdowns over it (you were, after all, still a teenager and really only interested in having romantic vanilla sex with Suo), so he staged an intervention with Nirei and Sakura. In this way, Suo convinced you that you were loved and protected and didn't need to do something you hated so much. They would get you out if you felt trapped. And you didn't feel trapped, per se, so you left on your own—but it was still only because of them. You promised them afterwards that you'd never do it again.

This was Suo’s brand of kindness as a teenager. He always taught people, guided them away from harm rather than steering them—a behaviour he’d mimicked from your master. Your master, in general, had defined all of Suo’s values and his way of living, which was honest and gentle and conscientious. It was one where he used his abilities to protect the weak and care for his friends. He even kept his spiteful and alarmingly violent tendencies under control, though sometimes he slipped when fighting genuine assholes. But he still tried. He tried because he strived to be as kind as his master—who represented everything that Suo wanted to be in his adult life.

Thus, the death of Suo’s master meant the death of his principles. It changed the kind of man that Suo wanted to be. You don't want to say that he became a worse person, but he absolutely became a worse person.

He especially became a worse person with you.

As it turned out, Suo’s idea of making sure that the two of you would be fine on your own was, well, not really fine. It wasn’t that he became cruel to you, per se. It was more that whenever he saw a problem with your behaviour, his approaches to redirecting it became—put as nicely as possible—heavy-handed.

After your master’s death, you got a job at a high end, yakuza-owned club. Two weeks later, Suo broke his promise to you and joined the yakuza. So I can stay close to you, he explained gently, wiping away your tears as you cried hysterically, but you're convinced to this day that he did it partly out of spite. So a few years later, when you started having sex with your customers again and he tried to stop you, you decided to spite him back. I need to stay on top of the rankings, you'd explained dispassionately. The mamasan said it's fine, and the manager doesn't care. He even thinks it's good for business.

Suo’s response was to simply become the owner of your club.

This move was very extreme, but also very effective. Any customer who so much as brushed against you on the premises was instantly thrown out, and the mamasan started watching you like a hawk to make sure you weren’t going to any love hotels after work. Douhan were off-limits. For the first time since your teens, you became completely celibate—not only because of your new workplace circumstances, but because you simply didn't want to find out what Suo would do if you got together with a man he despised (and he despised every man you dated).

His most absurd play was when he became concerned about your living conditions again. Your latest apartment was too plain, too small, and the area was too dangerous. It didn't even have a shower, and the other tenants behaved concerningly toward you when you went to the bathhouse at night. But the rent was cheap, and it was still an upgrade from your last place, so you shrugged it off when Suo suggested that you move. Even when someone tried to accost you at night, you were nonchalant about it. You kicked the shit out of them in a fight and continued your routine unbothered.

The next month, Suo bought a luxury penthouse and suggested you move in with him.

His offer (command) came with conditions. One of the bigger ones was that you'd let him accompany you out at night if you ever needed to run errands in dangerous places. Or—nevermind, actually. He should really just accompany you everywhere at night. Maybe during the day too. And—ah, there was no way you'd be going to work alone, nor coming back by yourself—you were now always to be driven by someone in his organisation, if he wasn't available himself. Rent was a point of contention, when you asked about it: you wanted to pay at market rate, and he insisted that there was no need to pay at all. He ended up proposing a highly discounted price, which would give you ample financial freedom, but questionable financial independence.

These were insane terms. You knew that if you agreed, you'd be setting yourself up for a life without autonomy. You also knew that these behaviours were all signs that Suo desperately needed therapy to process his master’s untimely death. Living with a man in constant grief, who refused to talk about his trauma unless he was making up a lie related to the nation of China, was probably not a good idea. Doubly so when this man was clearly paranoid about losing you, and triply so when he was a high-ranking member of a violent syndicate. Case in point—he was likely connected to the brutal accident that later befell the man who tried to assault you.

“I'm not sure what you're implying, but at least he didn't die,” Suo said cheerfully when you confronted him about it. Which really meant: At least I decided not to kill him. This was a flag bigger and redder than any other you've ever known, and you consider yourself an expert in red flags. You knew you should run in the other direction.

So naturally, you put your arms around him, tenderly said, I'm sorry I've been worrying you, and then you moved in the next day.

While Suo treats you with endless patience, you have personal limits to the patience that you exercise with him. Specifically, your patience with how he treats you.

You don't mind the lack of social freedom, nor the lack of personal freedom, nor the lack of freedom of movement. You also don't mind living with a man full of intractable trauma surrounding the death of every parental figure in his life; in fact, you'd rather be by his side than not, if he needs to cope with something so painful. And anyway, your friendship is otherwise unchanged if you ignore the heavy restrictions he's imposed on every facet of your life. So that's all fine.

But the celibate lifestyle that he's cornered you into? You simply aren't built for it. Holy shit, do you need to get laid.

Nearly two years without sex has brought you close to another nervous breakdown (there have been few better sources of entertainment or validation in your life), and worst of all, it has made your profound lust for Suo incredibly hard to ignore. Waking up every morning to him in a towel, his hair still wet from the shower and his broad silhouette exposed, tests the absolute limits of your self-control. The contours of his lean and muscled form are distracting enough; coupled with the vivid colours and lines of his irezumi, the sight of him becomes maddening. It is a horrible thing to be exposed to when you haven't gotten any dick nor strap in over a year. It gives you thoughts about him that are overtly sexual, which is bad, as you have materially consequential reasons for not wanting to fuck Suo.

Things with him must absolutely stay platonic. But with sexual frustration like yours, being platonic with him means that you need to get erotic with someone else. A boyfriend or girlfriend is out of the question; you don't want to be responsible for yet another brutal accident. So you instead decide to quit your job at his club and start working on Keisei Street. At least this way, you can start fucking your customers again.

It’s a perfect plan. Suo’s oyabun is very indulgent toward him, and everyone else in the family respects him too. He consequently has a tight grip on his organisation and the territory they control, despite his relatively young age. Not a single person is ever to touch Keisei Street—largely because Sakura is part of Roppo-Ichiza, and Suo is nearly as weird about Sakura as he is about you. Plus, many of his other fellow Furin alumni are in the gang as well. If Suo’s men ever started fucking with people on Keisei Street, it would not only have grave implications for gang relations—it would be personally upsetting for Suo. This means you can fuck all the Keisei Street customers you want, and not get a single one of them threatened or killed.

A pretty brilliant idea, if you do say so yourself.

Suo’s expression doesn't change when you break the news to him. He delicately places his teacup—custom-made from Yixing, just like the matching clay teapot—down on the mahogany tabletop, and he looks at you with a calm smile.

“Come again?”

“I'm quitting my job at Red Dragon,” you repeat. “I already gave the mamasan my resignation.”

“And she accepted it?” Suo asks, in a tone that is so carefully nonchalant that you know it means he is actually furious with her. “How interesting,” he muses. “What brought this on?”

“I've found a better paying opportunity on Keisei Street.”

“I'll give you a raise,” he says easily.

“A raise?” You cock a brow. “The pay is mostly commission-based at Red Dragon. You know that.”

“Then it would be unwise to leave. You have a loyal customer base at Red Dragon. All very rich, and”—his smile grows sharp—“very polite.”

Polite. An interesting word. It actually means: None of them will ever proposition or harass you because they know they'll be maimed if they do. An easy thought to use to your advantage.

“It's loyal but it's small. Everyone who's anyone in this part of town thinks that we’re married. Do you know how hard it is to pull new customers in when they're scared shitless of my yakuza husband? And anyway”—you frown, trying to look as pathetic as possible—“I'm lonely.”

Suo stares. He looks surprised, possibly because you absorb every minute of his free time with silly conversation, new restaurants, and skiing trips. (He likes snow, so you ask for these trips more for him to relax than anything else.) You also text him frequently on days he's working, and he very diligently replies, even if he's in the middle of something like a raid or a hit or brokering a massive deal. Suo still very strictly keeps to his rule of never touching his phone when in conversation with other people—unless he needs to text you.

So his suspicion is fair. Suo is very attentive and doesn't allow you much opportunity for loneliness. In turn, you’ve always been very happy spending time with him, even when it's only him.

“Lonely?” he repeats. “Are you, now?”

“Yes. You work so much,” you complain, which is not a lie, “and I don't have any friends to spend time with when you're gone.”

“You have friends from work.”

“No, I have competition at work. The hostesses are so cutthroat about rankings, they hate me. And each other.”

“You like Shuuhei and Hanzo,” he points out, referring to his men who most frequently chauffeur you.

“Yeah, they're friendly, and they're very funny. I like them, but I can't be their friend.” Suo stares at you, nonplussed, so you spell it out: “They're too scared of you to get close to me. What if it looks like they're trying to fuck the boss’ wife?”

“Hm…” Suo studies you, looking thoughtful. Perhaps for the first time, he's contemplating the consequences of restricting your freedoms and marking you as his. That is to say—maybe he's finally realising that you have no friends and no life.

The beads of his earrings glimmer as he tilts his head at you and frowns. Suo almost looks innocent with that confused face of his. “And how would working on Keisei Street help?” he asks.

“Because all our old friends are there!” you exclaim. “Sakura’s in Roppo-Ichiza now so he’ll definitely be coming by all the clubs. Tsubaki too. And Nirei and Kiryu visit them quite often—and even Tsugeura does sometimes, even though clubbing isn't one of his virtues.” You grab onto his arm, pull yourself close, and give him your most disarming, pleading expression. “Please, Suo?”

“Hm.” He strokes your cheek and looks at you fondly, in the way that one would do with an adorable and slightly annoying kitten. “I don’t think so. It’s not very safe there.”

He isn't wrong. Not only are you untouchable on his turf because of your association to him, Suo has also just crushed all the han-gure and petty criminals in his territory with brutal efficiency. His part of the red light district is, quite ironically, one of the safest places in the city, and certainly safer than Keisei Street.

But undeterred, you point out, “Shuuhei and Hanzo can still drive me there and back if you want. But I don't think it's necessary. Do you really think Sakura would let anything happen to me?”

This is the true brilliance of your plan: capitalising on the fact that Suo is as nearly as weird about Sakura as he is about you. He pauses as soon as you bring up the point, and you can practically see the gears turning. “Well, if it's him…”

“I even texted him about it. Look—here!” You whip out your phone, receipts ready. The corner of Suo's mouth lifts at your obviously rehearsed pitch. “He says he'd make sure I'm taken care of. And he says it'd be nice because he misses seeing us. Can you believe it—Sakura actually admitted that he misses us! Typed it with his own two hands and pressed send! I bet he was super embarrassed about it.”

“Huh. He even used a sticker. I've never seen him do that.” Suo smiles as he reads through the chat. He looks like his old self. You suddenly feel a little wistful, and also a lot bad. This started as a ploy to get laid, but it’s made you realise that you really do miss your friends—and Suo probably does too.

“If I worked on Keisei Street, then you would have plenty of reason to visit,” you point out, feeling somewhat tender.

“I guess that's true,” Suo says. Your heart aches a little bit at the look he gives you. It's a platonic ache, of course. Or at the very least, it isn't an erotic one. It doesn't really make you want to have sex with him anyway. But if you could lean forward and press your lips to his—platonically—then you definitely would.

Suo's civilian friendships are complicated by his double life. Quite unusually for yakuza, Suo’s syndicate insists on using pseudonyms and false histories to avoid anti-yakuza laws, on the off-chance that the police decide to do their jobs and actually enforce those laws someday. Lying for comedy is one of Suo’s greatest passions, so he was happy to manufacture an absurd backstory: his name is Yanzhao, and he learned kung fu in a Shaolin Temple before moving to Hong Kong and working for the triads. He wears the eyepatch because he lost his eye in an altercation with the cops, which he won. By the way, you're his criminally beautiful wife who he met in Macau. The two of you had to leave for Japan since he killed a police officer and now he's wanted by the governments of both China and Hong Kong. Also, he's a very devoted husband, so if anyone lays a hand on you, he’ll kill them too.

Somehow, everyone has bought into this story. Every criminal organisation in the red light district now fears a high-ranking yakuza known as Yanzhao, who is easily recognizable by his eyepatch and tassel earrings, and who is also homicidally obsessed with his beautiful wife.

In some ways, his infamy is convenient. No one wants to fuck with Suo, or with you by extension. But it also poses some issues: Suo has to keep a low profile in areas controlled by rival organisations, or else he might be ambushed. It also means he cannot easily go out and see his old friends. Even though he always masquerades as a civvie when he does, wearing stud earrings and a glass eye, it's still a little risky—especially since he likes to visit the strongest member of Roppo-Ichiza. While Roppo-Ichiza aren’t yakuza, they're still han-gure, so some of its more criminally entangled members might recognize him anyway.

But Sakura himself, bless him, has not put two and two together and figured out that Suo Hayato and Gui Yanzhao are the same person. This is partly because Suo lies very convincingly about his fictional career in the tea industry, but you think it's also because Sakura is so gullible it's endearing.

I use the glass eye now because it's better for networking, Suo had explained before Sakura could interrogate him too much, his voice too smooth and too quick for the other man to get in a word edgewise. My business partners find the eyepatch too silly. The tassel earrings too. By the way, would you like some Baimudan tea? I thought of you when I smelled it—I know you like fragrant things—so I picked some up for you on my last visit to China. I was there for business a couple of weeks ago.

He, of course, neglected to mention that said business involved meeting with the 14K triad.

Despite the enormity of Suo's omission (lie), Sakura is none the wiser whenever he meets with you. He thinks you're just a regular hostess who has freedom of movement and various other human rights, and that Suo’s just a regular guy who isn’t homicidally obsessed with you (a detail of Suo's fabricated life story that is unfortunately grounded in reality). All this to say, Sakura doesn't think twice about mentioning the fact that you have a routine of going to love hotels after work.

Suo, as always, remains calm in the face of unsettling information. He sets down his tea (just tea, without shochu), and politely says, “Pardon?” He's once again using the nonchalant kind of tone that suggests mortal danger.

“She's always going to love hotels after her shifts.” Sakura is frowning at you, pink but scowling. “I thought you said you were done with that stuff. You promised us you wouldn't do it anymore. Suo—are you really okay with this?”

On the one hand, you find it exceptionally sweet that Sakura, after all this time, remembers your promise and wishes to hold you to it. He was so worried about you when you started having those nervous breakdowns as a teenager, and he probably still is. On the other hand, you're shitting bricks at the fact that Suo is now aware of your activities. Because sure, he likely won't fuck with Keisei Street—but you realise, as he stares at you, that you can't be certain of this. After all, your fake yakuza husband has very real homicidal urges.

“Um,” you say. “It's just business.”

“Business,” Suo repeats.

“You don't have to do that stuff to keep good business,” Sakura grouses, unaware of Suo’s carefully suppressed rage. “You're real popular already.”

“Are you?” Suo asks, looking right at you.

“I mean—I told you the pay would be better, right?” you reply, voice oddly high and nervous, and this is when Sakura notices that something is wrong.

“Oh,” Sakura says, looking between the two of you. “Suo, you didn't know?”

“I didn't,” he says. “Actually, she told me specifically that she wasn't going to do that if she worked here.” He turns to you, still smiling. “That's the only reason why I allowed this at all, remember?”

A chill travels down your spine. You did, in fact, commit to a perpetually sexless lifestyle in order to be granted some semblance of freedom: Of course I won't sleep with any customers, you'd said. You know I don't really like doing that anyway. I promise I'll behave! I’ll be out of the clubs and right back home. Sakura said he’d make sure I’ll get to a cab safely after the bar closes and everything!

“Um,” you say again, but this time you have no follow-up.

“Wait,” Sakura demands, “what do you mean by ‘allowed her’? What, do you need to give her permission to work now or something?”

Suo smiles disarmingly at Sakura. Without missing a beat, he says, “Generally no. But we’re dating now, which complicates what she’s allowed to do with other men at her job.”

Sakura spits out his drink. You choke on your spit.

“I… um?!” Sakura’s staring at you, so you quickly recover. This is a mortifying lie, but it's better than Sakura finding out just how batshit Suo has become since his school days. “I thought we were going to keep that a secret, dear?”

“Ah, you're right. Sorry, I got too excited.” Suo gives you an endeared look before turning to Sakura. “We were going to keep it to ourselves unless we got serious about it. But we've been talking about marriage lately, so I thought it was fine to mention.”

“...”

You’re going to have an aneurysm. Why does every cover that Suo comes up with involve a marital relationship between the two of you?!

“Oh… holy shit.” Sakura’s expression is complicated—somehow, more complicated than yours, even though you’re the one getting cornered into a fake engagement. It's unbelievable how shy he still is about this kind of thing. Maybe it’s just particularly embarrassing since he's known you two for so long, you reason. Regardless, he remembers his social cues enough to say, “Congrats, guys. That's great. That's really great.”

Suo gazes fondly at you across the table. “We were thinking you could be our best man,” he adds, and you consider violently kicking his leg.

“O-oh. Uh, yeah! Sure! But what about Nirei?”

“Rather than having a maid of honour,” you say reflexively, used to lying through your teeth for Suo, “we’d like him to be our best man as well.”

“Oh. That makes sense.” Thrown off guard, Sakura completely forgets about the love hotel business. He whips out his phone. “When were you thinking of having your wedding? I'll put it in my calendar.”

“I’m not sure.” Suo turns to you. “What were we thinking again, dear?”

You're going to die. You're going to die and it's a good thing because if you survive this embarrassment, your future will be bleak. As soon as Nirei finds out about this, he’ll want to start helping you with wedding planning, and then it would just be too awkward to cancel things. You’ll have to enter a fake marriage with Suo, which will be completely sexless, because even with a vow of everlasting love, there are still too many concrete and materially consequential reasons for not sleeping with him.

Condemning yourself to a lifetime of sexual frustration, you reply, “I think we were talking about a summer wedding.”

The drive home is awkward.

Hanzo and Shuuhei pick the two of you up. Suo mentioned that he wanted to talk to you and you alone, so they bring the Rolls Royce with the privacy suite. The two of them are entirely cut off from you thanks to the soundproofing, which traps you with Suo, who’s drinking a bottle of oolong tea as the two of you sit in complete silence. You think he's waiting for you to squirm—which you do.

You stay like that for five, agonising minutes before Suo finally says, “So you're sleeping with your customers.”

You swallow. “Yes.”

“For business?”

“Yes.”

“How much do you make?”

You blink. “Huh?”

“How much do you get paid for a single night of work, including gifts that your customers give you in exchange for sleeping with them?”

You're halfway through citing your earnings when you realise where he's going with this.

“So you make less than you did at Red Dragon,” Suo concludes, “and you're very smart with your money, so I know you know that, and you probably went into this knowing that you'd end up at a net loss.” He turns to you, gives you a look so sharp that it almost scares you. All made worse by his civilian disguise, which makes him feel unfamiliar. His glass eye shines strangely in the light, and his scar tissue is hidden by the makeup you helped apply. You wish he'd taken it all off before having this conversation.

“So,” he says, “what’s the real reason you changed jobs?”

Already knowing that he’ll figure you out sooner or later, you admit, “I just wanted to start having sex again.”

Suo blinks. “You… what?”

“I wanted to have sex with people,” you repeat. “I hadn't been touched for nearly two years, okay? I needed to get laid or else I'd go insane.” You cross your arms and look away, suddenly feeling petulant. “I'm sure you've noticed that our arrangement makes it impossible for me to see people.”

He doesn't answer, because of course he's noticed. He’d designed his house rules with precisely this intent. If he accompanies you everywhere you go, then you can't exactly go on dates, and you definitely can't meet people for sex. Not unless you feel like having Suo watch as some anonymous guy fucks you, and you don't. As hot as the idea is, it’s definitely not platonic behaviour, and it would probably trigger the whole homicidal obsession thing.

“Do you like it?” Suo asks, startling you. You look at him, confused.

“What?”

“Do you enjoy having sex with your customers?” he asks. His voice and gaze are even. Unrelenting. “Does it make you happy?”

You stare at him, a deer caught in headlights. You didn't expect Suo to actually care about whether you enjoyed it or not, and you didn't really expect to care yourself either. But truthfully, you hated it. You simply weren't feeling it with most of your customers and avoided intercourse with all but one. Then in that one case you let someone earnestly fuck you, it was a complete letdown. Possibly the worst sex you'd ever had. You spent the whole time watching the clock, wondering how long it would take, and it turned out that your hookup had remarkable stamina but absolutely no technique. To pass the time, and in an attempt to feel something, you tried to imagine it was someone else who was inside you. You cycled through a whole list of people, including all of your exes, a few of your past customers, every single member of BTS, and then—finally, inevitably—your long-time friend, roommate, and landlord.

To your complete horror, when you imagined that it was Suo who had you folded in half, his cock so deep inside you that you could feel it in your throat, you came so hard that you drenched the sheets.

You lay there afterward as your customer showered, alone in the bed. Normally you'd be getting dressed at that point, but you were too distracted. You kept thinking about what it would feel like to be held by Suo after having your guts rearranged by him—embraced tenderly like you know he would do with you, kissing him platonically like you've always wanted to do with him—and you realised that you didn’t actually want to have sex with anyone else. Despite all your life experience, sexual experience, and job experience—in that moment, you felt like a lonely nineteen year old girl who wanted nothing more than to have romantic, vanilla sex with her best friend, but who was instead having impersonal, disappointing sex with various salarymen.

This was a feeling so disgusting that you’ve decided to never tell anyone at any cost.

“Yeah, it's fine. I guess I like it.” You pretend to study your nails. “Sometimes I cum, which is all I really want.”

Suo keeps staring at you. “That’s it?” he asks, voice measured and careful. You raise a brow, playing dumb.

“What do you mean?”

“That's all you want? Just to get off?”

You gaze out the window, trying not to look at his lips.

“Yes, that's all.”

No matter how batshit Suo gets, he always maintains a certain kindness and maturity in how he handles conflict with you. It's a lesson that he learned from his master, which has perhaps been distorted over time, but remains important to him nevertheless.

If you do something upsetting, Suo is never forceful about getting you to act differently. Sure, he has fucked up ways of either getting you to behave or making you understand the consequences of your actions, and perhaps he has his manipulative moments. It was probably not a good thing that he coaxed you into indefinite house arrest, for instance. But he never threatens you, and he never hits you, and he never disrespects you. In fact, more than anything, he makes it a point to never let you feel like you aren't loved.

So when Suo abandons you after that conversation in the Rolls Royce, you lose your fucking mind.

Suo doesn’t come home in the days following that evening, without any note nor explanation. For the first time in years, he stops replying to your texts. Your immediate thought is that he's been gravely injured or perhaps even killed, which sends you into a panicked spiral. But every one of his men who's come by to check on you has implied otherwise—but I'm not allowed to tell you anything else, anesan, I’m sorry, they all say. And when you realise that Suo is actually fine and he's just playing a fucked up mind game with you, one that makes you feel distinctly unloved, you feel simultaneously heartbroken and apoplectic. The man is not allowed to corner you into de facto imprisonment and then just fucking leave. In fact, if he tries, you might imprison him.

You spend a few days sitting at home and crying over this, as well as torturing yourself by thinking about useless things (fear of rejection, fear of abandonment, et cetera). But eventually, you get tired of wallowing in self-inflicted misery, and you decide to just track your fake husband down. His men have been adamant about not letting you out of their sight—presumably so you don’t fuck any more of your customers, because Suo can be spiteful like that—so you have to be strategic about your plan to find him.

You decide to do it during work. You tap out in the middle of a shift, feigning illness, so nobody bats an eye when you put on the most shapeless hoodie you own and throw on a face mask. Your chauffeurs (handlers) don't notice as you sneak off—and for the first time in years, you walk through the red light district all alone.

It feels strange not to be protected, and even stranger not to be surveilled. You marvel at the unfamiliar experience of complete freedom, and at the possibility of being able to run off and disappear if you so wished. But you don't, of course. Not only do you care too deeply for Suo to abandon him, you're also pretty sure he has your driver’s licence and ID card locked up somewhere. At least you haven't been able to find them, and Suo was oddly evasive about it when you asked. (I haven't seen them, he'd said, but I don't think you’d need either of those things immediately, anyway, do you? And you nodded in response, because it was true that you liked being his passenger princess too much to care about your licence.)

So rather than bolting for the subway, you head straight to your old workplace. The gleaming doors of Red Dragon welcome you as you cross its threshold, and you're greeted immediately by the scent of luxury colognes and expensive cigars—both evoking a strange nostalgia in you. Even the click of your heels against the marble floor feels familiar. You realise that you've missed the place despite its cutthroat culture and its owner’s authoritarian control over you, which you suppose isn't surprising. This club was more or less your home for years and, thanks to said owner, was the safest place you've ever worked.

And being that you feel you've returned to your very safe home, you don't expect it when you're abruptly stopped by the bouncer.

“Can I help you?” he asks, his arm in your way. You don't recognize him, but you see the edges of his irezumi peeking out from the rolled-up cuffs of his shirt.

“Yeah, actually,” you say. “I'm looking for Gui Yanzhao. Is he here right now?”

The bouncer—or chinpira, you guess—bristles.

“You're looking for who?”

“Yanzhao?” you say impatiently. “Eyepatch, tassel earrings? Owner of the club? Probably your boss?”

The bouncer steps forward and reaches for something in his pocket, which makes you suddenly nervous, and also makes you realise that in a hoodie and a face mask, you ordinarily wouldn't be allowed in this club, let alone into the room of its yakuza owner. You're so used to VIP treatment here that you simply forgot.

You take a step back. “Um. I think there's been a misunderstanding.” You lower your face mask, which doesn't help as you've never met this man, and he must be new. You’ll need to complain to Suo about his onboarding process later, if you aren't killed before you can find him.

It turns out that this yakuza rookie has a knife in his pocket, which is not the worst thing he could have been carrying, but is also not the best. You're getting ready to run in the other direction when a more senior member of the gang comes by. He gives you a startled look, which then turns alarmed when he sees his younger brother’s knife.

“Anesan!” he yells hurriedly, and he snatches the chinpira’s knife straight from his hand. His lunge for the weapon turns into a hurried bow. He pulls his colleague—whose face has turned very white in a very short amount of time—into an even deeper one. They look on the verge of prostrating.

“Oh, Yamashita. Hi! Is this guy new?”

“Yes! My sincerest apologies for my younger brother’s idiocy, and his insolence in raising a weapon at you.” There's a sheen of sweat on the back of his neck. “If you would like him to atone, then he would be more than happy to—”

“No, that's fine. I'd really like him to keep all his fingers.” If you have to see a rookie cut off his pinkie today, you think you might actually change your mind on running away. Fuck your documents—Suo can keep them. Surely life without proof of identity can't be that hard. “By the way,” you say, trying to change the topic before Yamashita can suggest alternative acts of atonement, “have you seen my husband?”

Yamashita hesitates at your question, looks conflicted. You feel a little bad for him, and for every other gang member who needs to worry about accidentally offending Suo. You watch him sweat for a full ten seconds before he says, “You can follow me. But anesan, you might find it unpleasant upstairs. I can find someone to drive you home instead, if you'd like.”

You give him a funny look. This was your workplace for a very long time—you can’t think of many things that would happen here that might seriously upset you. “What, is he cheating on me?” you guess.

“What? No! Aniki would never!” Yamashita seems genuinely shocked at the suggestion. “He's crazy about you!”

“Then I'm sure he’ll be happy to see me,” you say, although given that he's ignored your texts for four days straight, you aren't so sure. Regardless, this seems to be good enough reasoning for Yamashita, and you’re taken to the top floor of Red Dragon. You ponder the whole time, on the elevator ride up, just what exactly Suo’s been up to that's made Yamashita this nervous about letting you see him.

Then the door opens, and you’re given your answer in the form of several body bags—all cleanly zipped up and conscientiously laid out in front of the elevators in a single, neat row. A sight that is significantly worse than a rookie cutting off his pinkie finger.

“Oh,” you say faintly. You try not to throw up. “So this is why he hasn't been home.”

“Exactly!” Yamashita replies, beaming. “See, anesan, I told you. He'd never cheat on you!”

Suo is in the lounge of the top floor, which has been cleared of both civilians and corpses for the night. He's sitting on one of the couches, leaning back with his one eye closed, as if asleep. The golden tassels of his earrings are draped over the expensive leather of his seat, intertwined with his dark hair. A cup of tea sits in front of him, steaming. Even this far away, you recognize it by the scent alone: jasmine, probably from Longjing. One of the most expensive blends he has, and that which he saves for days he’s stressed, though he never admits it when he is.

The sight of him would almost look tranquil, except for all the blood on his knuckles and his cuffs.

Off to the side, two of his younger brothers are chatting away. One is pouring cups of some doubtlessly expensive liquor, and the other is smoking a cigar. There's karaage on the table too. You recognize all of this as part of a ritual that some of the guys like to do after a hit or a shootout, not dissimilar to getting ramen or McDonald’s after going to a club.

You catch a bit of their conversation as you approach. One of them holds up the liquor bottle (Isojiman sake, you now recognise from your girls’ bar days, one of the rarer bottles costing around nine million yen) and asks Suo if he wants to join. “No thanks,” he says predictably, “I'm on a diet.” Then he turns and looks right at you—startling you, because you had thought you were being fairly quiet—and gives you a smile so genuine that it reminds you of his Furin days. “Would my beautiful wife like to drink for me, though?”

“No thanks,” you reply, “but your beautiful wife would like to talk to you.”

The two guys clear out to give you some privacy. You’re left alone with Suo, feeling awkward after several days of resenting him for no reason. (You’d rather die than go to therapy, but the whole fear of abandonment thing is probably something you should start addressing.) You don't even know where you want to sit. Eventually, you settle for placing yourself next to him, which is a decision that Suo quickly overturns by pulling you into his lap.

A flutter erupts in your stomach as he settles you on top of him. This physiological reaction is absurd, as not even ten minutes ago, you were trying not to throw up at the line of corpses in front of the elevator. It should also scare you somewhat that Suo’s hands—delicately adjusting your body—are still covered in blood. But truthfully, you can't help but be happy when he makes you feel so loved.

You take one of the napkins on the table and start wiping at his knuckles. Tenderly, in case they're bruised or skinned.

“You didn't call or come home,” you start.

“I thought it would be too dangerous.”

You frown, thinking of all the bodies outside. “Was this a rival organisation?”

“No. They were ours.” He sighs. “A succession conflict. There are a few people who don't like how I'll run things if I take over.”

You nod. Suo is very old-fashioned in his ideals about the yakuza, which you think is an imprint of his master’s influence, and something that appeals to his current ‘father’. He values chivalry. He likes protecting the weak. His filial devotion to his deceased master has now extended to every member of his yakuza family, especially his oyassan. He’s almost certainly the top candidate for taking over after the oyabun dies, but being that part of his old-fashioned principles excludes lucrative projects such as sex trafficking, you suppose it’s natural that some people in his organisation would prefer him dead rather than in charge.

“You’ve never ghosted me during violent conflicts before though,” you say. “I was worried that something happened to you. Or that you were upset with me.”

Suo’s hand drops to your waist, pulling you a little closer.

“They knew where we live. They tried to get to you, you know.” Your eyes widen in alarm, so he cups your face with a palm. His thumb glides along your cheek, and your response is almost Pavlovian: your heart rate immediately slows at the comfort of his touch. “It’s fine. They won't bother you ever again.” The cheerful smile returns. “And if anyone else ever does, I'll handle them too.”

Your heart swells. Enthusiastic pledges of murder are not a healthy sign of affection, but after so much loneliness—whether from the past several days, or the years before that, you aren't sure—you can't find it in yourself to be disturbed. You feel and sound painfully fond when you reply, “I know.”

Suo’s expression dims a little then. “I thought you'd like the space anyway.”

“What?” You give him a confused look. You have never once given him any indication that you want even an inch of space from him. You'd crawl into his ribcage if you could. “Why would you think that?”

“I thought you felt suffocated. You left my club just so you could have sex with other people.” You blink, lingering on his wording. Other people. He continues before you can ask about it, sighing, “You didn't even ask me who I'd give permission to touch you. You just went ahead and decided on your own.”

“...”

You try not to look disturbed. Suo’s apparent wish to control your sexual decisions is news to you, and somehow more alarming than the murder pledge. And even worse—you immediately clench in response to his words. The thought of Suo dictating who does and doesn't get to touch your cunt is… well, your mind is heading in a distinctly non-platonic direction.

Trying to ignore the heat in between your thighs (but at the same time encouraging it), you ask: “Who would you have been, um, okay with touching me?”

“Sakura or Nirei,” he says immediately. “Though only Sakura would be interested.”

“What.” You gape at him, all arousal forgotten. “Bullshit. He would never.”

“Yes, he would.” Suo tilts his head. “Haven't you noticed?”

“I don't think there's anything to notice? And also—he’s so shy, I don't think he'd ever agree even if he were interested!” You give him a bewildered look. “He couldn't even look at us when we said we were getting married, he was so embarrassed!”

“Embarrassed?” Suo stares at you, an amused glint in his eye. “Is that what you thought was going on?”

“Was there anything else?”

He studies you for a moment, clearly entertained but not explaining why. “Well—it’s fine,” he says. “It doesn't matter for now. Especially since he's helping us plan a wedding and all.”

You make a face. “I still can't believe that's the cover you went for.”

“Are you upset with it?” he asks smoothly, and you huff and say yes, but from his sly look, you think he knows it's a lie.

Naturally, you deflect before he can further interrogate you. “So, given that you are now my fiancé, am I no longer allowed to work on Keisei Street and see customers after my shifts?”

You don’t expect it when Suo says, “No, you can.”

You stare. “What?”

“You can keep seeing customers if you'd like. You said it makes you happy, so why would I stop you?” Suo’s brow furrows, his usual calm replaced with concern. “Do you really think I do the things I do to make you miserable?”

Guilt gnaws at your heart. He looks so disappointed. “No,” you tell him. “I just thought it'd make you miserable that I was sleeping with people without your permission.” It is partly why you hid it from him in the first place, after all. You don't like to see him sad—you’re still haunted by the deep grief he was in, after your master died—and also, his misery tends to bring bodily harm to other people these days.

Cognizant of both concerns, you ask, “You’re really okay with me sleeping with my customers? I can stop, if you want.”

“No, it’s fine. I still don't like it, but you can continue for now if you want.”

Suo’s mouth curls—not in a gentle way, as has been his expression since seeing you walk in, but in a way that sets off your flight or fight response.

“I'm sure we’ll reach a mutual understanding soon enough.”

END PART 1

thank you genuinely if you read all that because this is a deranged au and I still can't believe I wrote it sldfkjsldfkj. please do let me know if you enjoyed my yandere suo delusions. sorry there was no smut in this chapter. I promise there is a ton in the next one (probably too much... lol. it's a 10k chapter and literally half of those words are about orgasm denial sldfkjalskdjdf). it's completely written and I hope to edit and have it up by next week!

also here is glossary of terms and world building notes if you are interested!

tagging @kweenkatsuki-fics !! <3

#hayato suo x reader #suo hayato x reader #wind breaker x reader #wbk x reader #i dont even know what other tags the wbk fandom uses sdlfkjalksdflkj either ppl see this or they dont. it is in gods hands

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aventurineswife · 5 days ago

Note

Could I request the Astral Express trio (you can choose Stelle or Caelus) with a reader (GN) who is also a member of the Express who is like an older sibling? Reprimanding them when they get hurt, or comforting them when they're upset?

No One is Alone

Summary: Life aboard the Astral Express isn't just about fighting enemies or exploring new worlds—it's also about looking out for each other. As the team's older sibling figure, you take it upon yourself to reprimand Dan Heng and Stelle after they return from a mission injured. Through scolding, comforting, and heartfelt conversations, you remind them that they're part of a team and don't have to face their struggles alone.

Tags: Astral Express Trio x Reader, Platonic, Found Family, Hurt/Comfort, Sibling Dynamics, GN!Reader, Protective!Reader, Team Bonding, Angst with a Happy Ending.

Warnings: Mentions of injuries (non-graphic), Mild guilt/self-blame themes, Emotional vulnerability and introspection.

The hum of the Astral Express filled the air, a comforting backdrop to life aboard the interstellar train. You sat in the lounge, scanning over a datapad while keeping half an ear tuned to the faint commotion from the infirmary. It was a sound you'd become all too familiar with since joining the crew.

Dan Heng and Stelle—recovering from yet another scrape they shouldn't have gotten into.

The infirmary door swished open, and March peeked out, her expression torn between amusement and sympathy. "They're ready for the scolding..." she chirped.

You sighed, setting your datapad aside. Rising to your feet, you felt the weight of your role—neither a fighter nor a strategist, but the de facto big sibling of this unconventional family.

The scene in the infirmary was almost comical. Stelle sat on one of the cots, a bandage around her upper arm, her usual unbothered expression firmly in place. Dan Heng stood nearby, his arms crossed over his chest, looking stoic despite the gash on his shoulder that hadn't been there when the mission started.

"Care to explain?" you began, arms crossed and gaze level.

"It was just a minor miscalculation." Dan Heng replied calmly.

"A 'minor miscalculation' doesn't leave you bleeding, Dan Heng," you said pointedly, turning to Stelle. "And you—didn't I tell you to call for backup if things went south?"

Stelle gave a sheepish shrug. "I thought we could handle it."

"You thought wrong." You sighed, your tone softening as you crossed the room. Grabbing a chair, you sat between them, your expression gentler now. "I know you're both incredibly capable. But even the best make mistakes. You're part of a team—you don't have to shoulder everything alone."

Dan Heng's gaze flickered to the floor, and Stelle's shoulders slumped slightly.

"You don’t need to push yourself to the point of breaking to prove anything," you added, standing to place a reassuring hand on each of their shoulders. "We're in this together. If something happened to either of you, we’d all feel it. And you’d feel the same if it were March, right?"

Both nodded, though they didn’t meet your gaze.

"Good. Now, promise me you’ll call for help next time."

"Promise." Stelle said, a small smile tugging at her lips. Dan Heng gave a slight nod, his stoic mask cracking just enough for you to catch the faintest hint of guilt.

Later, in the privacy of the archive, you found Dan Heng surrounded by stacks of books. He looked up as you entered, his expression as composed as ever.

"You didn't just come here to read, did you?" you asked, pulling up a chair.

"...No," he admitted after a moment, his voice quiet. "I thought I could avoid putting others at risk by keeping things to myself. I didn’t think about how that might affect the team."

You smiled softly, resting a hand on his. "Dan Heng, you're not a burden. You're not just running from your past anymore—you’re building a future with all of us. And we need you to trust us enough to let us help."

He hesitated, then gave a small nod. "I'll try."

Later that evening, Stelle found you in the lounge, sitting with a warm drink. She plopped down beside you, her usual confidence dimmed by something you couldn’t quite place.

"You were right," she said, uncharacteristically subdued.

"About what?" you asked, setting your drink down.

"About asking for help." She stared at the floor for a moment before meeting your eyes. "I’m used to going it alone. But... it’s different with you guys. It’s like, I know you’ve got my back, and that’s scary because now I care. You know?"

You smiled, ruffling her hair like a younger sibling. "That’s not a bad thing, Stelle. Caring means you’re not just surviving anymore—you’re living."

She leaned into your side, her head on your shoulder. "Thanks, big sibling."

"Anytime," you said, wrapping an arm around her. "Just stop scaring me with the near-death experiences, okay?"

"I’ll try." she mumbled, and for now, that was enough.

(yonagi on X)

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paulyenvol6 · 3 months ago

Text

Byka Atroksia (Chapter 2)

Contains: Kissing, touching, inappropriate behaviour between niece and uncle, power imbalance

Wordcount: ~2.69k

Masterlist of this story

Obviously you would have wanted to spend the evening in your chambers.

You didn’t want to attend this feast, perhaps see Daemon once more with Rhaenyra and you didn’t want to put on a nice face for all the guests but you knew you couldn’t go hide again. Your father would be angry with you if you did.

Speaking of him, you were standing in the corner of the hall now and saw the King searching for someone. When his eyes met yours his face changed and he walked towards you.

"Daughter.", he spoke and you looked to the ground. "Look at me Vhaela." You painfully raised your gaze and saw your father watch you with raised eyebrows.

"What was that, Vhaela? Why didn’t you come with us to greet your uncle?"

"I’m sorry.", you whispered but your father shook his head. "You didn’t answer my question." "I was feeling unwell. I had a headache." Viserys took a deep breath. "Are you feeling better now?"

You quickly nodded and lowered your gaze again. There was a moment of silence and then your father caressed your arm and leaned down to you. "Vhaela…" You still didn’t look at him. "What is wrong? You don’t seem well."

Of course you knew that your father didn’t really believe you, perhaps he believed that you had a headache but he definitely knew that there was something else bothering you. "I don’t want to talk about it, please don’t make me.", you said, tears in your eyes.

"Did you fight with your sister?" Now you neither shook your head nor nodded. "Look, daughter, I know that your sister – " "No please, father. Please can we just not talk about it? I will be better if I simply forget it." Viserys sighed and straightened up again. "Fine. Alright, we will let it slide. For tonight."

You finally looked up to him. "Thank you." "But I want you to know that your sister loves you. Even if she sometimes can’t show it." You nodded but didn’t really agree with his words.

"And I love you also, daughter. Very much. You and your sister, you are the two most valuable things in the world to me." Now was the first time a soft smile appeared on your face and your father took your hand.

"I love you too, father." He returned the smile and then the conversation was over. The king walked away to talk to some council members while you were left alone.

You took a cup of lemonade from one of the servants and remained in your corner. It was a very common position for you, watching the feast from afar and observing the guests. You saw your sister dance with your cousins and several lords, saw her laugh and smile at the right times. And you saw the lords‘ reactions. They were thrilled by the lovely Princess and like so many times before in your life, you wished you were just a little bit more like your sister.

You were overwhelmed when you had to talk to one lord on an entire evening. You couldn’t make them laugh or smile and if they made a compliment it had been made out of good manners.

And you knew that your father knew about your lack of social intelligence by now as well. He had tried to encourage you to socialise with some lords in the past. Now that you were 16 years old you were of age and in the near future should be betrothed to an honorable lord. But ever since your father had saw you try to make conversation with multiple lords on your sister’s name day he hadn’t pushed you again.

You had actually appreciated his reaction because he didn’t make a big thing out of it. He had simply smiled at you softly and said that you two would find a good match for you. That if you won’t find a good match naturally, you could just go on a tour across the continent.

So at the moment you didn’t force yourself to make conversation with the guests. You had greeted some people and exchanged some words but mostly kept to yourself. Perhaps the people could sense that you didn’t feel very well because usually even though you weren’t good at socialising, a lot of people would still come up to talk to you. But now you had time to watch the ceiling, the other guests and let your thoughts flow.

Daemon had also attended the feast by now. Your father had said a few words to express his gratitude for his brother and from your corner you had seen your uncle talk to Rhaenyra. She was glowing, it was like she lightened up the room. There was this glistening in her eyes and you could see Daemon’s wide smile clearly.

You didn’t even bother to feel hurt. It was the way things worked. Rhaenyra was more charming and prettier than you and so she got the attention. But deep down you still felt miserable. You were happy that Daemon was back but you knew it would also be exhausting from now on to either watch your sister and uncle get along so well and try not to be sad that he wouldn’t grant you the same attention or fight for it.

It didn’t matter what you would choose, it would hurt you and tire you.

The minutes went by and the feast was now in full swing. People were dancing and the music was playing loudly. You were holding a cup of lemonade in your hand when you saw your uncle walking through the crowd in your direction. At first you thought he was looking for Rhaenyra or your father but then his gaze met yours and he approached you.

"Niece, I’ve been looking for you." "Sorry, I was…."

"You wanted to hide in this corner.", he smirked and leaned with one arm against the wall next to you. He held a cup of wine in his other hand and watched you smugly. "You look pretty.", he said and you looked up to him.

"Thank you.", you whispered and felt your face getting warm. "And you’re wearing the necklace I brought you." You nodded and now gave him a little smile. Daemon straightened up again and you looked at him curiously.

"May I have this next dance, little owl?" You felt your mood getting better at his words and your smile intensed while your insides already danced. "Yes."

Daemon offered you his arm and smirked while the two of you walked towards the middle of the room where the people were enjoying themselves to the music. Your uncle put his right hand on your waist while your left connected with his shoulder. His other hand held yours gently and you started moving to the music.

"Aōha kepa vestragon naejot emagon shijetra nyke" (Your father seems to have forgiven me.), Daemon suddenly said in High Valyrian.

Your uncle referred to a disagreement the King and Daemon had had a few weeks before he had left King’s Landing to fight at the Stepstones. Your uncle and his army of gold cloaks had messed around in the city and killed and hurt criminals. The King had been furious about the fact that Daemon had broken the law even though he obviously didn’t tolerate the criminals either. Daemon had argumented that he only had brought justice but your father had said that only because Daemon was his brother didn’t mean that there were different rules for him.

"Īles iā bōsa jēda. Ziry's sepār biare bona ao māstan arlī." (It was a long time ago. He’s just happy about your safe return.), you spoke and Daemon shook his head.

"Aōha kepa iksis iā sȳz vala. Yn ziry shijetra tolī adhirikydho." (Your father is a kind man. But he forgives too quickly.) You frowned. "Skoro syt gaomagon ao daor kirimvogon zirȳla bona ziry daoriot ȳdragon hen ziry dombo?" (Shouldn’t you be grateful that he doesn’t speak of it anymore?)

"I am.", Daemon said. "But I don’t want his enemies to think that he’s weak." Your gaze wandered to your father who stood next to lord Corlys.

"He’s not. He just really wants you in his life." Daemon raised his eyebrows. "Is that so?"

"He doesn’t like it if the two of you fight. Every time you do he’s afraid he’s gonna lose you. That you’ll run away and never come back. He’s not like this with everyone, he can be resentful but with you… He sees you as a bird who’s always by the open window, about to fly away. He does everything in his power to pull you back in. Even if he has to swallow his pride and forgive you anything."

You looked at your uncle again and saw him smirk. "What?", you asked. "You’re a good observer, little owl. You see things and understand them." You didn’t know how to react to his words and so just dropped your gaze to your feet.

"No.", Daemon spoke and reached out with the hand that had laid on your waist to lift up your chin. "You’re always doing this.", he said quietly and you looked right into his glistening eyes.

"You always look away or to your feet. I want you to look at me, little one." You gulped and forced yourself to look in your uncle’s eyes. You could feel your pulse in your veins and your face got even hotter.

Daemon seemed to have noticed that you were nervous because he slightly, just a little, soft touch, ran his thumb over your chin. Then he dropped his hand again and watched you intensely. "Come." Without waiting for a reaction he pulled you with him and the two of you left the dance area. You could see Rhaenyra in the corner of your eye looking at you but you couldn’t really focus on her at the moment.

Daemon guided you out of the hall and through the corridors of the Red Keep. The two of you were walking silencely until you found yourself in a dark corridor. You could still hear the music from the feast, so you weren’t too far away from the hall but you couldn’t see any guards or anyone else except Daemon who was now standing in front of you.

"What are we doing, uncle?", you whispered and you felt your hand slightly shake. He didn’t answer you immediately but moved a strand of hair out of your face. You watched him nervously and he chuckled at your tensed expression.

"Byka atroksia…" (Little owl), he whispered darkly and caressed your burning cheek. You could only stare up to him. You were frozen and weren’t able to say anything. Your heart was beating twice as fast as usually and you were glad that in the dark corridor Daemon couldn’t see the colour of your face.

"Such a pretty face you have...", he growled and moved his finger over your jaw until he reached your neck where he ran his fingers over your soft skin. Your breath was fastened and you could only look at his lips that were only a few centimeters away.

Daemon had moved closer to you and you could feel the wall against your back. "Daemon.", you said so quietly that he almost wasn’t able to hear it. Your uncle chuckled and now he connected his other hand, that wasn’t occupied with touching your neck with your waist. He moved even closer to you and slightly pressed you against the wall behind you. Your chest rose and fell rapidly and you felt like you couldn’t get enough air.

"Daemon.", you said again, not knowing why you had said his name and it almost sounded like a whine. It drove Daemon mad and he tightened his grip on your waist. He then finally leaned down to kiss your lips. At first very gently because he just wanted to savour the softness of your lips, but then really quickly he wanted more of you. He pushed against your mouth and his tongue demanded entrance. You had never kissed anyone before and were quite overwhelmed with the action but it felt good so you opened your mouth for him.

Daemon moaned against your mouth satisfied and his tongue entered your mouth. You couldn’t help but let out a helpless whimper and moved your hands to pull at his shoulders to get some support. In the meantime, he had his right hand on your neck to press you closer to him while his left still tightly held your waist. It was messy, intense and you felt like in a fever dream. What was happening right now?

It felt like it wasn’t you who was doing this. It was wrong, obviously. You shouldn’t kiss someone before getting married and so you shouldn’t let him touch and kiss you like this right now. But it felt too good to stop him. His touch felt like fire warming your skin and you had started to feel a pulsating heat between your legs. You didn’t know what exactly that was but it started to be uncomfortable so you unconsciously tried to get rid of it by moving against your uncle’s leg that was pressing against your thigh. You only realised what you had done when Daemon chuckled against your mouth and followed your movement. He pushed his leg between your legs and you let out a surprised noise.

His mouth continued to explore yours and you just tried to keep up with everything and not sink into a cloud of overload. Then, suddenly Daemon’s mouth traveled away from your lips and kissed his way down to your neck. He left a trail of soft, wet kisses and you intuitively held on to his hair. His mouth found your collarbone and his lips sucked on your skin.

"Daemon.", you whined. "We shouldn’t do this." Your uncle stopped his tongue movement, raised his head and his gaze found yours again. His mouth changed to a smirk and he placed his hand on your cheek.

"We shouldn’t, yes. But I don’t care what we should or shouldn’t do." His mouth got close to your ear and he very quietly whispered: "And I have a strong feeling my precious little niece is a bit eager for more, isn’t she?" Daemon let go of your face and rested his hands on the wall to the right and left of your face.

You breathed uncontrollably and then leaned forwards to kiss him again. But he moved his face away before your lips could touch and simply laughed at your discontent expression. You tried again but he denied you once again. Now you were angry and confused and didn’t know what to do. Daemon just watched you with a cocky smile and for some reason it made you even angrier at this moment.

So you put your hands on his chest, pushed him away from you and attempted to leave. But your uncle didn’t let you, he grabbed your arm and pulled you back so you were trapped between his body and the wall. He got very close to your face and then slowly pressed his lips on yours. It was only very short this time and after a few seconds he backed away once again. You grabbed his shoulder in an attempt to pull him back to you but you didn’t have a chance to move his muscular body.

You felt tears in your eyes from your desperation but Daemon still didn’t give in. He just leaned down to you and kissed your cheek. Then he suddenly reached down and lifted your skirts. In a matter of seconds you could feel his hand on your naked thigh and you were pressed to the wall once again. Your uncle’s face was close to yours and he lightly brushed with his lips over your jaw.

"Have you ever touched yourself, little owl?" "Touched myself?", you asked, not knowing what he meant.

"Between your legs. On your most intimate parts. Until pleasure washes over you that feels like a hundred waves crashing."

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slowd1ving · 3 months ago

Note

Kim Dokja with a Sung Jinwoo!Reader and their supporting constellation is Six-Eared Macaque

BAKHT ⁺ ✦ KIM DOKJA

"An existence as lonely as yours... chance has not been kind to you, it seems." It was neither choice nor good fortune that flung you into the rift that divided worlds: suspended in a limbo not of your own making, in a world with no dungeons like yours but 'scenarios' instead. Only the Story reaching its [◼◼◼] and you protecting the protagonist would guarantee your return, but how were you supposed to do that when the 'protagonist' you were meant to protect kept dying? honestly it's been a while since I read both solo levelling and orv so the plot is a bit hazy. I told myself to focus more on the actual interaction so it wouldn't snowball into storybuilding like the rest of my works... but alas... honestly this ask was extremely interesting like I've never read journey to the west but a sung jinwoo/six eared macaque collab??? damn me when I focus on tense first encounters rather than the lovey dovey aspect of relationships.. jokes aside it does get somewhat soft at the very end fun fact bakht refers to fortune in arabic, or rather finding luck in 'chance'; which unfortunately our reader doesn't seem to have a lot of... art by @ 1L9l2Aa8UCL0IGJ (blackbox) on x! pairing: kim dokja + sung jinwoo gn reader warnings: canon typical danger, mentions of death, also they're not really on the best of terms initially?? quite graphic depictions of blood wc: 2.7k

ORV MASTERLIST

MASTERLIST ・゜・NAVIGATION

Tonight, the wind carried only premonition in its whispers. It started like all the stories did—the ones that reached your ears, at least. Beginning as a gentle breeze, the songs twining past and future turned coarse as a gale once they encountered the pixelated appendages that seemed to have a life of their own: six downy auricles that were unable to decide whether to stay in the virtual realm or materialise themselves.

Most of the time, they hid in the umbrous kingdom—much like the rest of your shadows. When you donned the façade of the humans from Planetary System 8612, the tales you could eavesdrop on were mere gossip slinking in from the future and the bygone past—tidbits of paltry information that were perhaps divine retribution for not proudly donning the Six-Eared Macaque’s ‘crown’, as he seemed to put it.

But tonight was different. Tonight, the mellifluous litany of your flute was sharper than usual as you idled the time away. Tonight, with only the vast night shielding you and the countless shadows skulking on the rooftop, their dance appeared wilder. There was frenzy in the air, and prophecy tainting the cold, canorous wind.

It tasted acerbic.

‘Danger… horizon…. Dokja….’

The frequency soured the melody that brushed past the fur of your six-ears, and they flicked, irritably.

[The Fake Monkey King warns of something afoot.]

“I know,” you bitterly commented. Something was always afoot when it came to this world in which you did not belong. Falling past the veil separating a dungeon from nothingness wasn’t meant to happen. Your system subsequently trapping you in this limbo until you reached [◼◼◼◼◼], too, wasn’t meant to happen either. Let the Story run its course and protect its ‘protagonist’, and this dimension will naturally collapse just enough that you’ll fall through back into yours.

Kim Dokja, you’d repeated like a mantra while you lost your mind—over and over while your system glitched and protested in this limbo. Over and over, while he died and died and died some more. You’d bought and earned and fought for various potions, weapons and clothes to help him with his scenarios—leaving them in his vicinity where you knew he’d stumble across them—but it was all so fucking futile.

Each time, he returned past the veil; each time, you sank into a deeper mire of restriction. You hadn’t spoken to another soul in months: imprisoned in the very shadows you controlled. It wasn’t as bad, initially: you could still talk to people uninvolved in the ‘Story’, the poor souls dubbed as extras—so long as you didn’t cause any ripples with your actions. If Dokja was accounted for through both the soldiers in his shadow, and the whispers that reached the six ears that fanned out behind your head, it would be fine.

‘Hazard… kilometre north of Dokja’s camp….’

A kilometre. You’d be quiet. You always were.

Dokja. Dokja. Dokja. Your face soured as you exchanged places with Beru: ready to silently act as his guardian shadow, though if he was determined to sacrifice himself… Both of you would pay a price.

The silence in the city was razor-sharp and just as deadly, to the point you could hear the ionic buzz of your summoned demonic knives. Their ozonic scent bitterly filled your mouth, which only amplified the acerbic profanities mingling on your tongue as you glanced around for the danger. What danger? You’d be damned before you were sent back to that empty desert to reflect your wrongdoings. There was no chance to gain anything there—just endless time, chipping your sanity away and stirring up derision for the one who couldn’t solve anything without dying.

Because in the end, both of you would pay the price, and he didn’t even know it. He became a constellation, while you were shackled to a prison that was never of your own making.

Examining the wreck of this urban landscape that felt too much like the Seoul you knew, you came to the abrupt conclusion that there was nothing. Even when your six-ears flicked this way and that, it was too silent. Not a whisper, nor any trace of danger lingered in this space; such an occurrence was nigh-impossible in the scenario-laden dome of this city.

[The Prisoner of the G◼◼◼en Headband expres◼◼◼◼ his mistrust.]

Sun Wukong. A flash of hatred that was not your own wracked your body, complete with a burning envy and something far more insidious than anything you’d ever experienced,

Crackling messages began interfering with your system screen. You’d only seen this once—when you accidentally intruded on the fringes of the ‘Star Stream’ as an ‘unauthorised one’. An anomaly if you ever saw one.

“There’s nothing,” you muttered callously, scraping the tip of your blade against concrete ruins. If it had been a false alarm, then it was time to leave before you risked paying the penalty. Your job was simple—keep watch of the ‘protagonist’ from the shadows, and make his life somewhat easier.

[A nameless constellation argues that advertisements are simply a part of life, and that it’s not a big deal to build suspense.]

That’s weird. The messages were getting clearer, but the warning signs that typically appeared in the system windows weren’t there.

Your own supporting constellation was far too quiet as you sheathed your knife in the shadow dimension—the darkness cradled the weapon softly before it vanished, though the familiar whish could not soothe the unease that distorted your mind. Never had the six-ears failed to pinpoint hazards, as close to omniscient that they were.

“Got you,” something—someone—whispered from afar, the moment you stepped on the next broken slab of pavement and triggered a tripwire. A paltry toy, golden string that was incandescent in this darkened city, wrapped tightly around your body; right before you were shoved against a concrete wall. “You’re not the only one to see the ‘outcome’.”

Stand down, Igris, you commanded as the stranger continued to press into you; you could sense the turbulent shadows growing even more agitated at your position, though all of them could feel the ease with which you could’ve snapped out of the rope that was no more than a thread. The stream was eerily silent, while the glassy window only you could see kept its cold azure colour—nothing like the glaring scarlet that informed you of your penalty.

Who is this?

In the darkness, you made out the shape of a mouth pressed into a thin line. Dark hair partially swept over the stranger’s eyes, while a long white coat draped itself over his shoulders. But it wasn’t the garb, nor was it the features that alerted you of just who this was.

It was the umbrous cloud of his soul, the very one you’d been tracking all these weeks.

“Kim Dokja,” you greeted, half-placidly, half in intrigue. If he could bend the rules of life and death to suit him, you supposed that bending some more rules wouldn’t hurt. The interest was quickly replaced by irritation—for this was the very charge that had continuously shackled you to the in-betweens of the Seoul dome. Not quite a human from this planet, nor a monster—just an abominable anomaly that didn’t belong in this ‘Story’ at all. “I wasn’t expecting this.”

There was a polite smile on your face, but he only scoffed in disbelief. “What the hell are you playing at? Who are you? You think leaving all those materials for me to find will somehow increase your chances to survive? Why are you doing this?”

Incredulity laced each syllable. The Ugliest King stared hard at the face of the Shadow Monarch, though he didn’t know it.

You sympathised, you really did. Having someone trail after you (though he hadn’t mentioned your shadows—did he even notice them?) and leave you useful items might have been convenient to some, but chronic overthinkers (as Beru had reported to you from his shade) wouldn’t see it as such.

But it wasn’t like you had a choice not to, either.

“I just want to get back home.” For the first time, there was a hint of the welling annoyance that seeped through the cracks in your courteous expression: in your grinding molars, in the slight squint of your eyes. Babysitting this guy should have never been part of your job.

Don’t affect the story.

You pressed your lips together to avoid the tide of complaints that swept in. Why do you keep dying? Do you know how much it sucks whenever you do? Why the fuck was I put on babysitting duty?

“Just take the things,” you gritted out instead; to which a sharp blade stung the side of your neck. Quick, but not quick enough to pose a true threat to you. “They were annoying to farm, you know that?”

“I never asked for them, nor do I need them to reach where I want to be. You were never in the original— I can’t exactly trust you now, can I?” he scowled—more ill-tempered than Beru had included in his periodic reports. In a mere second, you surged: as fluid and fast as quicksilver, slamming the guy you’d grown to abhor into the cold, harsh asphalt. There was no apology dripping from your lips this time, only a snarling, bloodied grit of teeth when the penalty began etching into your skin as a direct consequence of laying hands on the ‘untouchable’ protagonist.

Sensing your distress, the six-ears materialised around your face—like they were countering the drip-drip of sanguine that slinked from your nose and onto the shirt of the man beneath you. You watched as you sullied the protagonist you were forced to stay away from—tainted in a way that was sure to finally end you. His dark eyes, too, traced the motion of each crimson rivulet: chest rising and falling desperately as he felt the very real, razor-sharp edge of his own knife lightly against his jugular.

“Listen, I never asked for this either,” you hissed. “Believe it or not, I too want you to reach the conclusion of this shitshow so I can get back home. You need to stay alive for that. I’ll wait.”

The pressure in your head intensified.

“I don’t know how you got past the restrictions on me—” Your grip on his shirt loosened as carmine began seeping into the system window. “—but I can’t stay here any longer without repercussions. Neither can I interfere with the story nor escape this hell—” Dark spots began floating in your vision, and the blade sliced into the concrete a hair's breadth away from his neck with a low-resonating chime. Maybe this was your only chance to make your job easier, without the loss of sanity that came with rule-breaking. “—but if you can’t trust me, trust that your accomplishment of your goal will allow me to get back to my own world as a result.”

“Wait–” Your body swayed as you stood, feeling the familiar frequency of the Stream boot up against the fine down of the six-ears. I don’t have time, you wanted to say, but iron was beginning to leave your lips too.

[The Prisoner of the Golden Headband complains loudly that fraternising with the enemy is a horribly stupid move, pulling out his hair.]

[The Demon-like Judge of Fire is unsure of this development, and would like to be filled in on this stranger’s connection with the Prisoner of the Golden Headband..]

The Star Stream was… clear. Not filled with static like it had been before, but cogent enough that you could observe each message coherently.

[The Star Stream has its eyes on you.]

A terrible foreboding surfaced, while your chest constricted with the sudden onslaught of red that assaulted your eyes—a cacophony of warning signs, all targeted at you.

“What is that?” A hand that wasn’t yours reached for the crimson glow, and you jolted as the cerise shattered: reverting back to the familiar blue interface. The ache in your head, too, vanished—yet the buildup of fatigue was still present in your hazy mind. Though, the only thing you could register was the change in his voice as he observed the screen, an inkling of understanding as he watched the characters fade from existence:

Protect the ‘protagonist’ Kim Dokja. Let the Story run its course, and you will be able to return to your home world.

{The Fourth Wall quietly observes the remnants of its meal.}

Gone, in a wave of his hand. That same hand, now held out to you as if it hadn’t just erased weeks’ worth of strain from your body: long, deft fingers reaching out to you. You could only stare as the world grew dim around you, as a faint voice brushed past the soft fur of your six-ears.

‘Error… error… due to unprecedented actions ◼◼◼◼ taken by the protagonist, the system has now… updated to provide for a deuteragonist model… consi◼◼der standby… updating… updating… ◼◼◼◼◼◼ ◼◼◼◼ objective updated… reach the [◼◼◼◼] alongside deuteragonist Kim Dokja to catalyse homecoming.’

“What the hell… did you do?” you slurred. The misguided loathing towards him had dissipated into a tumultuous state of frenzy; you could feel the shadows within stir with the agitation of your mind, though you fought to keep your cards at bay. Rather than the hilt of your familiar sword, you thumbed the worn edge of your flute in a last bid to stay calm.

“‘Reach the [◼◼◼◼] alongside deuteragonist Kim Dokja to catalyse homecoming’, huh?” The incredulity you felt at him repeating the words that only you ever heard was overshadowed by the bone-deep exhaustion you felt.

“Was… being honest,” you mumbled for the last time, fully expecting to feel the frigid asphalt as you collapsed and your eyes came to a close. The lingering penalties had finally taken effect, yet you didn’t quite hit the hard concrete like you anticipated. Rather, you collided against a wiry frame that, despite its initial gauntness, was far warmer than anything you’d felt in these apocalyptic weeks. “I might’ve died if I continued interfering.”

“You won’t die.” The words ghosted over your ear as he stared down at the person in his arms who’d been tracking him for weeks. They’d been a constant pain and irritated him to no end, especially with all the gifts he received that he’d never read about in TWSA; and there was nothing he hadn’t read about in TWSA save for the epilogue. “I won’t let you.”

His very headache was now slumbering in his arms, with only the ambition of going home on their mind.

What a lonely existence.

Maybe you heard him. Maybe you didn’t. All he knew was that he was crafting an epilogue that would shake this very world to its roots, and perhaps there was a small, you-sized shape cut out just for the person snoozing their little heart out. He had a feeling he had only breached the outermost layer of you; peeling back only the very dermis to reveal someone far too overpowered to compete with most of the dome.

Dokja’s thumb traced the bloody lines staining your face. You could faintly feel them; then, abruptly, the citrus smell that lingered on him grew sharper. Closer. A soft pressure applied itself to the crown of your head: fleeting, silvery. What was that?

It was everything that had been forcibly taken from you after you were brought past the void.

With something that was suspiciously close to a smile, your mind drifted away in the arms of someone who both damned you and saved you.

　⁺ ✦

“If Igris and Yoo Joonghyuk fought, who would win?”

“Igris,” you answered without missing a beat. There wasn’t a hint of hesitation in your face as you opened your mouth, and it was so strong that he almost believed that your Commander could beat the true ‘protagonist’ of this world. “And if he lost, I’d win for him.”

This! This was his chance to get back at that squid bastard!

“...Want to test your hypothesis?”

#kim dokja x reader #kim dokja x male reader #kim dokja x fem reader #gn reader #slowd1ving #res ･ﾟ writing #x reader #ask slowd1ving #request #orv x reader #orv x gn reader #x gender neutral reader #omniscient reader's viewpoint x reader #omniscient reader x reader

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joelscruff · 2 years ago

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one thing i'm missing (joel miller/reader) PART ONE

hi there ! i'm new to the tlou fandom but not new to fic, and watching the show over the past few months inspired me to return to fic writing. the idea for this has been milling around in my head for a good chunk of time now and i finally felt ready to put pen to paper and get this thing started. i've already posted this to ao3 if you prefer that medium, but i'll also be posting it here now. let me know what you think!

summary: you and joel accidentally end up falling asleep together, and what follows is the beginning of a quiet and tender relationship neither of you saw coming. rating: 18+ explicit (this part is not explicit but this fic will be) warnings: (for future parts) smut, age difference (reader is in her mid 20s and joel in his mid 50s), praise kink - will add more as fic progresses word count: about 2.6k

You don't, under absolutely any circumstances, talk about it.

It started about a month ago, after all the shit that happened with that monster, David. After Ellie had decided she wanted to start sleeping alone.

It hadn't really been a conscious decision on her part, but you'd noticed that first night how she'd distanced herself from you and Joel when it was time to sleep. She'd curled up against the far wall of the basement with barely a word, shutting herself off entirely while you'd tended to Joel's injury. Prior to this – ever since Joel was stabbed – Ellie had started sleeping at his side, head on his chest, listening to his heart and hoping against all hope that it kept beating. You'd slept a few feet away, hoping desperately for the same thing.

After David, she avoided physical contact entirely. You and Joel wordlessly understood, though you could tell it alarmed and concerned him. Though he'd been in and out of consciousness for the past few weeks you know he'd become accustomed to having her at his side, curled into him with that familiar daughterly affection he'd been missing for twenty years. Seeing her ultimately decide that she no longer wanted that closeness, probably feared it, distressed him greatly.

“Fuckin' bastard,” Joel had murmured to himself that first night as you cleaned his wound – you'd learned what to do from watching Ellie, “I'll fucking kill him.”

“Shhh,” you'd hushed him, keeping your voice low in case Ellie was still awake, “He's dead and gone, she took care of it.”

“Shouldn't have had to,” he'd hissed, “Fuckin' bastard.”

He'd slept poorly. You knew because every so often you'd hear him mutter something else to himself about David between short fits of sleep. You didn't sleep much either, partly because in the wake of Ellie's sudden distance it was now your job to monitor Joel's wound, but also because you felt the same way Joel did. The thought of that monster... what he'd done to Ellie and what he'd tried to do... you'd never felt so much disdain and hatred for one person in your life. Every time you closed your eyes all you could see was the look on her blood-spattered face when you'd both found her, the way she'd barely been able to speak... you could only imagine how much worse the images behind Ellie's eyelids were.

So she slept alone now, which meant Joel slept alone.

For a little while, that is.

After a few days of short spurts of travel and staying in more abandoned houses (Joel wasn't well enough to walk much, though he tried to deny it, much to the frustration of you and Ellie) you'd set up camp on the outskirts of a small community. Ellie hadn't talked much and Joel hadn't been fully in his right mind since you left that first house, so the decision-making had fallen to you for the time being. Truthfully, you were done with the mouldy mattresses and hard concrete of those suburban basements, the smell of rotting food and being bothered by mice and cockroaches while you tried – and failed – to fall asleep. Neither Joel nor Ellie argued when you suggested setting up a campsite in the woods for a change of scenery.

The snow had melted quite a bit and there hadn't been anything fresh in almost a week, the temperature rising rapidly the further you walked. The idea of sleeping underneath the stars again with fresh air in your lungs and the sound of the wind blowing through the trees was enough to keep you going that day. That night, you'd watched as Joel made a fire with the materials you'd collected, Ellie already bundled up inside her sleeping bag a few meters away.

“Hey, you sure you're not gonna be cold over there?” you'd called to her gently, already knowing the answer.

“I'm good,” she'd replied, sounding earnest enough, “If I get cold I'll move.”

You'd sighed quietly, turning back toward the fire. Joel was blowing lightly on some kindling, eyebrows furrowed in thought. You used this rare moment of him being distracted to analyze his face; the dark circles beneath his eyes had been growing more prominent over the past few days, and he'd gotten into the unconscious habit of blinking very slowly, like he was always just a few seconds from sleep. You'd never seen him look this exhausted.

“You need to sleep,” you'd murmured, and his eyes had snapped up to meet yours instantly, “I'm serious, Joel, you look...”

“I'm fine.”

“You don't look fine,” you shifted your eyesight to the fire, lifting your hands to warm your palms, “You look like you haven't slept in days, which you literally haven't, by the way.”

“I've slept,” he'd grunted, turning his attention back to the fire as well.

“Yeah, for maybe twenty minutes at a time.”

“Well, maybe if I wasn't bein' woken up every twenty minutes by you checking if I'm still breathin',” his voice was hard and cold, but you were used to it.

“Don't be dramatic,” you'd snapped back, “I check you maybe twice a night now, if even that. Sorry for wanting to make sure you're okay.” The last few words had come out shakier than you'd intended.

He'd inhaled deeply, and you could see him looking at you again in your peripheral vision, “You're right, I'm sorry. I'm being an asshole. As usual.”

“You're not an asshole,” you'd muttered, “you're tired. And so am I.”

You'd sat together in silence for a few moments before Joel had reached behind him for his pack, digging out the blanket he'd started using in lieu of his old sleeping bag. He'd decided to leave that behind; it was what you and Ellie had used to get him back to that first house, the one Callus had dragged across the icy terrain with a bloodied and near-death Joel as its only occupant. He'd pissed himself in it, which he'd attributed as the main reason for leaving it. But you knew the truth: he'd spent too long wrapped up inside of it during that period of time to ever get a good night's sleep from it again. It needed to be put out of its misery.

Both you and Ellie had offered to give him your own but he refused every time, repeatedly stating that the blanket Ellie had found was warm enough, if not even warmer than the sleeping bag had been. You honestly didn't know if he was telling the truth, but he gave you no choice but to believe him.

“You take first watch, then.” he said quietly, “We're out in the open again, gonna have to stay alert.”

“Got it,” you were a bit embarrassed by your brief moment of vulnerability, but you'd quickly busied yourself with picking up the rifle to hold it in your lap.

You'd watched as he spread out the blanket on the ground, carefully kneeling down and wincing at the pull of his stitches. He laid down on the edge of it, then reached over and pulled the other side over his body like a makeshift sleeping bag. Sighing contentedly, he'd closed his eyes.

Despite how much older than you he was, the word adorable couldn't help but cross your mind.

“Goodnight,” he mumbled quietly to you, and you'd forced yourself to look down at the rifle so he wouldn't catch you staring.

“Night, Joel.”

You'd quickly learned that Joel's new blanket was in fact not warmer than his sleeping bag. After a few hours of keeping watch, you decided to check on both Ellie and Joel to make sure they were doing alright. Ellie was fast asleep and didn't look to be shivering or experiencing a bad night's sleep; she actually looked more peaceful than you'd seen her for a long time. You'd smiled fondly, fighting back the urge to push her hair out of her eyes; she'd made things very clear and you weren't going to overstep.

You wandered over to Joel and the contrast between he and Ellie was staggering; there was no peace here. He was wide awake, shivering ferociously and hunched in on himself with his hands cupped around his mouth as he blew on them for warmth.

“Jesus Christ, Joel,” you'd immediately dropped the rifle and leaned down to him, “why the fuck didn't you tell me you were freezing?”

It actually wasn't a very cold night, but the combination of Joel's thin blanket, his injury, and the fact that he was overwhelmingly exhausted were just making everything ten times worse. He also hadn't slept outside for weeks. You immediately began to regret the decision to camp tonight.

“Hold on,” you'd said quickly, scrambling back up to grab your own sleeping bag. You unzipped it so it was wide, then draped it over Joel's shivering form, “I'm gonna give you some body heat, okay? Don't make it weird.” You'd only said the last part because you knew he would protest.

You'd crawled underneath both layers of material and without any hesitation wrapped your arms around Joel, ignoring his shaky mutterings of “I'm okay” and “you don't need to”. He'd surrendered very quickly, relaxing into your embrace as you ran your hands up and down his arms at the fastest pace you could muster. You alternated between his arms and hands, taking them in yours and rubbing your palms against them like you were trying to start a fire, huffing hot breath against his skin. Beneath the blanket, you entwined your legs with his, pulling his socked feet against your ankles and trapping them there to warm them up.

It only took a few moments for the heavy shakes to stop and for Joel's breath to even out again. Despite this, you stayed where you were and kept doing what you could to keep his temperature stable. As he warmed up, he began to feel more like himself; he was no longer a cold statue but the warm and solid man you'd come to recognize, and you were hyper-aware of the fact that despite spending so much time with each other you'd never actually been this close to him. His arms, strong and steady beneath his coat, the same arms that carried around that heavy pack all day, the arms that cradled the rifle, they now laid loose and tender under your touch. His hands, calloused and rough around the edges but soft at the palms, the same hands that set the fire still burning a few feet away, the hands that once held his daughter and had learned to hold Ellie's – and now yours, feeling like in some way they belonged there.

You'd known you felt something for Joel, but you'd never realized how strong and real that something was until it was literally in your embrace.

Without speaking you'd laid your head on his chest, closing your eyes and doing your damnedest to fight back the sudden tears that were threatening to well up. Holy shit, was all you could think, a warmth you'd never felt in your entire life radiating in your chest and somehow extending toward him. Holy fucking shit. It was like time had stopped and all you could feel was him.

You'd looked up at his face, needing to see if he felt it too, felt you the way you felt him, but your eyes widened slightly when you saw that his were closed, mouth slightly agape. There it was, that peace you'd seen on Ellie's face, now transferred to Joel's. For a brief second you felt panic, but it was immediately interrupted by the light snore that emitted from his open mouth. He'd fallen asleep.

And a few moments later, so had you.

That was the first night you'd slept solid without waking up even once. Not just since Joel had been stabbed, but since the pandemic had started to begin with. You can't recall ever having such a peaceful, dreamless, absolutely soul-refreshing sleep. And neither had Joel; when you woke the next morning he was still fast asleep in your embrace, that peaceful expression still sculpted on his face like he was a living Michelangelo. In the night you'd only gotten closer to him, legs still entwined and head still on his chest. The only difference was that your arms had obviously stopped their rapid movements to keep him warm, and they'd ended up snaked around his torso, the palm of your left hand laying flat against the hot skin of his waist, just above where his stitches were.

Maybe you should have pulled away when you realized, gotten up and pretended it didn't happen. The thought did cross your mind, but then Joel had shuffled a bit in his sleep and you'd become aware of the fact that his arms were around you, hand pressed flush against your bare back underneath your jacket and shirt, holding you to him. And that was enough to make you stay.

About fifteen minutes later, he'd woken up.

He didn't flinch or yank himself away when he realized the position you were in. He'd blinked slowly at you, and you'd peered up at him just as quietly. His lips had parted and then closed again, as if he was going to say something but then thought better of it. Instead, he just kept staring at you, and you started to feel his hand on your back slowly and tenderly stroke the skin there. In return, you gently brushed your thumb against the bare skin of his waist. It was a moment that felt like it went on forever, both of you touching those small intimate parts of each other without saying so much as one word.

You felt butterflies in your belly when the hint of a smile twitched at his mouth, and you smiled back, sleepy and soft. You never wanted to leave this small piece of existence. You just wanted him to keep looking at you like that, his gaze holding yours with an expression you could only describe as contentedness. You'd never seen him look so relaxed; the dark circles had faded and even the lines on his face had receded into his skin. He looked younger, healthier, like all the bad things that had happened to him had vanished in one good sleep.

“Uggghhhh,” Ellie moaned a few meters away, and both your heads snapped in her direction. She was sitting up in her sleeping bag, back facing you. You could see her arms stretching above her head as she began her typical morning wake-up routine: stretch, groan, flop, repeat.

Without saying anything you'd both untangled yourselves simultaneously before she could see the sleeping arrangement you'd found yourselves in. The loss of warmth and familiarity was palpable as you quickly stood up and grabbed the rifle, walking over to the now completely burnt out fire. Joel silently folded up his blanket and your sleeping bag behind you, then muttered something about needing to look for more shit to burn.

That's how it started.

And you don't, under absolutely any circumstances, talk about it.

#joel miller x reader #joel miller x you #joel miller #joel miller fic #tlou fic #*#fic: one thing i'm missing

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roseykat · 1 year ago

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KINKTOBER DAY 1

Title: Same coin, different faces

PAIRING: Bang Chan x Reader

WARNING: minors DNI with this post or my blog. I create NSFW SKZ related content and I know I won’t be able to regulate/monitor every single potential interaction with those posts so please do not engage with my work and page whatsoever.

SUMMARY: Despite not being together with Chan anymore, you somehow end up in the back of his car...fogging up the windows.

TAGS: pre-established breakup trope, swearing, a dash of angst but also a hint of resolve, mentions of alcohol (neither the reader nor Chan is drunk), a bit of manhandling by both parties, oral sex (reader receiving), car sex, unprotected, sort of hate/rough sex.

MASTERLIST - KINKTOBER LIST

(This is currently unedited but I will be proofing it later on)

It wasn’t as fun as you had hoped it to be, a party that is. Given it was the end of the semester, people usually prefer to go all out - which they did, but you weren’t feeling it. There were far too many people off of their faces, including your entire friend group that you showed up with.

Two of them were playing drinking games in the kitchen, one of them - Minho, who had completely disappeared for the past few hours, and another one who had found himself someone to hook up with.

In the end, you were on your own for the remainder of the party. After having found a way into the lounge through the masses of people attending and remained on the couch, watching those around you for a while, you decided to get back up and grab a drink. There wasn’t an entire selection to choose from; either warm beer or cheap wine, which you grab from the latter and pour some in a plastic cup to try and fit in with everyone else.

The briny taste of the wine was enough to make you think that maybe it was time to go home. It wasn’t fun, interesting, nor a good way to spend your time on a Friday night. Before being able to make the decision to leave, you find yourself planted on the ground when your eyes catch onto a familiar figure amongst the people.

Chan. Your ex-boyfriend - your ex-best friend at that too.

It was a surprise to see him given that he isn’t really a party goer, but also a surprise to see him in general after the pair of you went through such a tumultuous breakup a month ago. Things just didn’t work out the way they were supposed to which was unfortunate because Chan is one of a kind.

There isn’t anybody like him that exists in this world. He’s gentle, caring, and has a bottomless well of love to give. Now that you’re not together anymore, you know that whoever he ends up with in the future is well taken care of.

“Hi,” Chan says, walking up to you.

“Hey,” you respond back, unsure of how to actually talk to him now. “What are you doing here?”

Chan sighs, looking at the screen of his phone momentarily then turning his attention back to you, “trying to find Minho. I’m here to pick him up, but I can’t find him. Is he here?”

“I haven’t seen him for the past couple of hours,” you answer. “I highly doubt he’s actually here still.”

He sighs and rolls his eyes, “course he’s not.”

“He probably went to Jisung’s at some point,” you add.

“Yeah, that makes sense,” he replies before his eyes peer down at the plastic cup. “Drinking? That’s not like you.”

“It’s the end of the semester,” you say in your own defence. “I was trying to finish off strong.”

“Right. Have you got a ride home then?”

Your eyes dart beyond Chan to ‘your ride home’ who has probably now consumed half of his body weight in alcohol. Chan catches your gaze, turns around and sees Seungmin throwing back another shot with a couple of strangers, presumably his classmates.

Chan sighs once more and faces you again, “don’t tell me he was supposed to sober drive.”

“He won’t be now,” you respond.

“Okay well, I can drop you off. Minho’s not replying and he’s probably not here, plus I’m getting tired,” he offers.

You ponder for a moment. Since Chan had come up to you, you hadn’t felt that sting of pain that a breakup usually induces. Not since the day you both called it quits on the relationship. But that’s only because things were never awkward with him. It’s only until now that you realise how depleting life has been without him. It’s not colourful anymore.

It’s an issue because you don’t want to be reminded of what you don’t have anymore. Sometimes, the best things can be the worst for us.

“It’s okay, thank you though,” you decline respectfully. “I might tell the others to get ready to head off.”

“And who’s going to drive them? You?” He asks with a brow raised then shakes his head with disapproval. “You’ve been drinking.”

“Not that much,” you retort. “I’m not even tipsy, plus I don’t want to leave them behind.”

“Seems like they left you behind,” Chan points out a very good point which you find hard to not be in denial about.

He takes the plastic cup out of your hand and places it on the nearest surface cluttered with other discarded items. He then returns back to you to gently take hold of your wrist and leads you out of the lounge full of people.

“Wait-”

“I’m not letting you drive under the influence, end of story,” he decides.

With that matter in hand, you’re quickly reminded that Chan has always had a strong head on his shoulders and his morals are very clear cut. He held reasonably strong opinions on doing unnecessarily dangerous things, particularly when it comes to you. It happened to be one of the poisonous factors that pierced the final dagger into the relationship.

The cold air then hits you when you both make it out into the front yard.

“I can walk thank you,” you say to Chan who forgets that he’s still holding your wrist. He looks down at his hand and releases.

“Sorry,” he apologises. “Car’s this way.”

He leads you once more just across the street to the vehicle while you think about the fact that you never actually agreed you were going to accept his offer to take you home. In saying that, there was no other alternative other than walking which Chan wouldn’t have put up with anyway.

The pair of you hop in his car, finally able to catch a break from the blaring music that was blasting throughout the house. After both of your seatbelts are on, Chan starts the car and drives away down the street.

It’s not long until silence falls quickly. Things had never been this terribly awkward between you both, but there had been pockets of quietness which used to be comfortable to sit in. Now you can see that it’s not as nice.

“So what have you been up to these days?” Chan asks out of the blue, breaking that silence.

“Nothing interesting I guess,” you answer blandly. “Just studies and that’s it.”

He nods, “how’s that going so far?”

“Fine, I suppose.”

Chan lets out a small huff, “you know, it’s still okay for us to talk right? We don’t need to be so hostile.”

The glow of your phone from your lap catches your attention away from his comment. You blink down at the screen and read a text from Felix.

Lix: ‘Saw you leave with Chan. Please tell me you’re both back on.’

You roll your eyes. You love Felix, but sometimes he can be too optimistic. There wasn’t any way you and Chan were going to find your way back to each other. If anything, it wouldn’t be the same anymore.

“I wasn’t being hostile, plus there’s not much to my answer anyway unless you want me to lie?” You respond back.

“No, I don’t want you to lie,” Chan adjusts his tight grip on the steering wheel. “But you speaking just proves my point on why we shouldn’t act like that.”

You turn your head, shooting him a well-deserved glare. This isn’t usually how Chan acts. He never says backhanded things as such even though he can be relatively blunt. Whatever subtle malice was behind his words obviously came from the same place that helped the relationship tear apart.

“This is why we never worked out because you always had to have some degree of control,” you scoff, ignoring the fact that you’ve now doused the flicker of the argument with petrol.

“I was only doing what I though was safest for you,” Chan argues back strongly. “It was never about having any type of control, it was because you couldn’t see what the consequences were.”

“Then why couldn’t you have let me figure it out for myself? How else am I supposed to learn, when you’re not here anymore?”

“You, driving drunk isn’t something that you just learn not to do. You don’t do it, full stop. Anyone with common sense knows that,” Chan bites back.

“I’m not even talking about that! When have I ever driven drunk? Now you’re just fucking reaching for things! All I’m saying is that it didn’t matter how much time I spent with you, I never got to be my own person. It was like I was turning into another ‘you’.”

Chan shrugs, “in comparison to what you can be like sometimes, I honestly don’t think that’s so much of a bad thing.”

The last nerve inside you, had been struck.

“Stop the car, I’m getting out.”

“No, we’re nearly at your h-”

“I don’t care Chris, I seriously don’t want to be anywhere near you right now,” you cut him off sharply, not wanting to hear another word come out of his mouth.

Chan looks over at you, absorbing how painfully angry you look right now and the fact that your hand is on the door handle, ready to bolt as soon as he pulls over. It was fairly obvious because once he did, you were out of the vehicle before he could say anything more. But as fast as you are out the door, Chan is already on the other side to meet you.

“Don’t go home angry,” he says urgently.

You shoot him a dirty look, thinking who the hell is he to tell you what to do, “or what?”

“Well can we at least talk then?” He questions, trying to grasp onto some common ground here.

With as much force as you can muster, your arms come up to shove Chan by the chest, “fuck you.”

He stumbles back a few steps and is not as nearly as surprised as you are by your own behaviour. Never has anyone elicited as much of a reaction from you until now. The shock has you to the point where you can barely assemble an apology to Chan. Even so when he comes back forward, grabbing you by the sides of your arms, and shoving you right back against his own car.

Before either of you say another word, his mouth crashes straight against yours. His swift hands are quickly groping and roaming in every place around your body that he can reach while you submit to his moves. You’ve forgotten how electrifying Chan can be at times when it comes to intimacy, that you really start to feel it when he slides his knee in between your thighs.

You gasp against his lips, yelping almost when his hands reach behind you to squeeze your ass and to try to bring your body as impossibly close to his as he can. For a split second, you break away to consolidate what is happening. Chan remains latched onto you, his mouth now working its way to your jaw and down to your throat, sucking and biting into your skin.

Neither of you care about whether or not he’s going to mark you up. All you care about at this point in time, is the hope that he’s going to fuck you.

“The door…open the door,” you mumble to him, even though you’re trying to find the handle yourself.

Even with the unshakeable frame of mind that he’s in right now, Chan listens to you. He pulls you forward with him so that he can yank the backdoor open. You hop onto the seat, pushing yourself backwards to the other side of the car to create room for him to join you. But Chan had his own idea planted already.

He grabs you by the ankles and pulls you right back to the edge of the seat closest to him. His hands take pride in reaching underneath your skirt and tearing your underwear down your legs.

He doesn’t even get the opportunity to fully take them off as they dangle on one leg. In saying that, it doesn’t take you very long to click onto what he wants to do. So you help him by doing your best to hike your skirt further up your thighs. Chan decides to take a few seconds to appreciate being able to relive this moment once more by using his thumb to swipe over your wet slit, collecting your juices only to bring it up to his mouth and suck it right off.

“Fucking missed this,” he speaks for the first time in about five minutes before lifting both of your legs and separating them for his head to slot in perfectly between.

The fan of his hot breath washes over your skin, already making your squirm forward towards his mouth. It’s been a long time since someone had touched you and Chan could tell. He knows how needy you can be, but not when you’re like this. Not when you’re straining to reach for the back of his head to pull him closer to your pussy. Not when you’re already moaning when he’s barely touched you.

Not when you’re wetter than what he usually thinks you are.

“Y-Yes…right there,” you sigh out and lie back down, waiting eagerly.

One of your hands threads through his dark hair and tugs every time he sucks on your clit. Shivers of pleasure reverberate throughout your body, already making your legs tremble on his shoulders. If anyone were to drive past, you know you and Chan would get done for public indecency. Except that devious consequence became an elicit far away thought drowned out by your own moans the more Chan continued to eat you out.

The best thing about it is that he’s not going easy on you. He’s being deceptively rough by digging his nails into your thighs and showing zero remorse when he relentlessly licks over that same sweet spot. The more work he puts into trying to make you cum, the harder he gets in his pants, straining at this point.

“P-Please Chan, hurry,” you cry out, trying to sit up and slide down further into his mouth. “Need to cum, please.”

When your begging and moaning become increasingly louder and more frequent, Chan knows you’re on the cusp of an orgasm. However, as much as he used to enjoy you cumming on his face, the idea of you cumming on his cock is just as good, if not better. So just as you’re about to tip over the edge, Chan pulls back.

You blink in amongst the haziness of what was about to be a mind shattering orgasm to see Chan who’s head had lifted up from in between your legs. His mouth and chin were covered in your juices, and is completely unashamed about it.

“You can just fucking wait,” he snaps and begins to adjust your legs so that he makes sure they cage his body at his sides, that way he can grab onto your thighs and fuck you hard and steady.

Although you can barely see, you hear the zipper to his pants open before he takes out his cock, hard and ready to put it to use on you. You bite down on your bottom lip when Chan uses his tip to tease your entrance. He pushes his hips forward, enough to make his cock slide up and in between your pussy.

Chan’s shaky hand manages to get a proper hold around his dick, aligning it with your wet hole, and slowly pushes in as the heat begins to encapsulate around his length. The top half of his body nearly falters forward if it weren’t for his hips that thrust forward first.

“Chris…” you mutter in an aspirated voice, feeling the fullness of his cock stretch you out.

There is no forewarning for the strength he has behind each buck of his hips. It takes you back to times before during your relationship and how deliciously memorable the sex always was. Chan’s main priority was to always make you cum first and regardless of his own needs and pleasure. Whether you misbehaved or were being an outright undeserving brat in bed, even then he would still let you cum. That’s how much he loved you.

“Nobody can ever fuck you the way I do,” Chan grits his teeth, his eyes watching his cock disappear inside of you each time he rams forward, hard and fast.

Every second that goes by, you’re grappling more and more onto your last threads of sanity. It’s hard to keep up and absorb Chris’s stamina and pace - a relentless and unapologetic pace that hits the same spot inside you over and over again until that build up of pleasure starts spreading around your lower abdomen.

“Make me feel…so good,” you mumble incoherently. “Gonna make me cum.”

It’s been a long time since Chan has heard you say those words - hell, even heard you moan at the very least. It’s enough to keep his pace steady but he’s very wary of the fact that he himself is already near the edge of an orgasm too. Nonetheless, he’s determined to get you there first once more.

So Chan lets go of one of your legs at his side so that he can use his thumb to now rub fast circles over your clit. Your hands grip at the hem of your skirt, back arching as you start submitting to the crest of intense pleasure Chan has built up for you. Then within seconds, Chan has you cumming hard around his cock, shuddering, and straining his name out of your mouth as it rings throughout his car.

“Fuck, baby…” he groans as his head tips back before he starts spilling white inside of you.

His hips stutter finally, gently slowing down to a leisurely pace while he drowns in the afterglow from one of the most transcendent orgasms he’s ever had. He gives you both time to come down before he carefully slides out of you. It takes you a while to fully fathom what just happened, but you allow yourself to think about it. Whatever it is, it’s not regret. There’s a longing feeling there, a borderline sense of relief.

Once Chan is decent, he helps you slide your underwear back on even though you’re both fully aware of the fact that he just came inside you. It’s not like either of you were prepared for this to happen. In saying that, Chan gently takes hold of both your hands and gets you to sit up.

“You okay?” he questions, using his finger to hook some of your messed hair out of your face.

You nod, “yes. You?”

“I’ve been worse,” he answers, making you smile. “I’m really sorry for what I said earlier.”

You shake your head, “I’m sorry as well for being so stubborn. I figured that the more hostile I am towards you, the more I push myself away so that I don’t have to deal with any feelings from before.”

Chan completely gets it, “I know. I thought I could do the same, but it seems that I’m too nice.”

You roll your eyes, “you’ve had your moments.”

“I definitely have,” he replies. “Anyway, we should go in case anybody just saw that.”

A bashful sense of embarrassment washes over you. It’s been minutes before you realised that you just fucked your ex. But even so, it doesn’t really feel that way. It’s just Chan, someone who you still have a lot of love for.

“You can stay at mine, it’s late,” you suggest to him.

Chan smiles softly, “as if I’m going to say no.”

A/N: Yes, I am a day late already to Kinktober - I just realised bc my dumb ass was trying to figure out time zones and when would be the best time to upload for people bc I’m quite some hours ahead from other countries. So I’ll just stick to my time zone, that way you’ll get my works a few hours earlier x

KINKTOBER TAGLIST: @mal-lunar-28 @fairy-lixie @dreamingaboutjisung @lizzetmv @luneskies 🩷🩷

#rosiewritesskz #stray kids smut #skz smut #bang chan smut #kinktober

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whateversawesome · 1 year ago

Text

Do you know that kind of people who...

...ask newly married couples: "When are you having a baby?" Or if you already have a kid, "when are you having a second one?"

The kind of people that say: "You should kiss your wife more! I never see you two kiss. I kiss my wife all the time!"

You know...the kind of people who would make a fake marriage nervous 😏 ...

Somehow Anya's grandparents make me think of these kind of people.

But only time will tell...

I'm so happy Anya has more people to support her and protect her. She's slowly getting a whole family! She has a mom and dad, a pup, two uncles, one godmother (Handler) and now grandparents. Good for her! (Maybe a baby brother or sister one day? 👶)

So about the Authens...

They seem to be the real deal; meaning not spies, but a real couple, who have gone through tick and thin together. My view is that in this SxF universe, the Authens may represent the truth.

And what does truth do to lies? It exposes it!

It's not a coincidence that the Authens are an old couple. It makes sense: they have seen a great deal, they know the world, they have experienced it, so they also probably know a lot.

The fact that Mr. Authen has memory problems is typical of someone his age, but it's also a metaphor of the truth: With time (age) it gets murky, truth starts to be forgotten, humans get a "bad memory" of past events and are doomed to repeat them. Sounds familiar?

Now, going back to the dynamic of the Authens with our dear Forgers. My guess is that this elderly couple is going to see right through them. After living for so long, they probably know people do crazy things to stay safe from authoritarian regimes like the one Ostania is living in. That includes entering a fake marriage.

Nevertheless, just like they could probably figure out Loid and Yor are a fake couple, they will also see that the love and care between them is real. Hence all the uncomfortable questions that could or could not happen.

It's all part of exposing the truth and the truth is that even though those two are not together for real (for now) they do love each other.

I can't wait to see Twilight and Yor getting extremely uncomfortable!

Also, since neither Twilight nor Yor grew up in a family with a healthy marriage (we don't know anything about Yor's parents and Twilight's parents didn't get along), the Authens can be that example for them.

It'll be nice for them to know what a good marriage looks like, how nice is to have someone who supports you, loves you and is with you through thick and thin. And this could be the way Mr. Authen pays back Yor and Anya: by helping them keep their family.

If we enter specifics (and since a public display of affection was shown in the last panel), Yor could see that physical affection is not something to feel embarrassed about, but something to cherish and to show love to her spouse. Twilight, on the other hand can learn it's okay to let your guard down with the person you love and that it's okay to lean on Yor. Look at all the Forgers already learning from this lovey dovey couple 😆

One more thing, SxF is full of foils and I believe this old couple is a foil of what Twilight and Yor could be in the future (if they do things right). After living a long life together, they still love each other. Wouldn't it be nice for them to see themselves reflected in the Authens? Wouldn't it be nice for them to start wanting exactly that?

#spy x family #twiyor #spy x family manga #sxf #loid forger #yor forger #anya forger #agent twilight #thorn princess #loid x yor #loidyor

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thisgirlnamedblusy · 4 months ago

Note

Hiiiii! Could you please write a fic where Donna takes reader to a lord’s meeting to help control Angie and Alcina and Karl start hitting on Reader to tease Donna, making Donna gettin really jealous so she ends up trying to state her claim on Reader by getting her pregnant. And if you’d like maybe Donna announcing to the Lord’s & Miranda that reader is pregnant and Karl & Karl teasing her about her jealousy?

Yesss!!!!! Thanks for your request!!! I hope you like it and sorry about the delay and the language mistakes!!! :))))

How to make you hers

Pairing: Donna Beneviento x Fem! Reader

Warnings: G!P Donna, smut, Minors DNI, slightly dark themes, dark Donna, jealousy...

Word count: 5,980

Summary: Maybe to go to that meeting wasn't a good idea...

N/A: Sorry about the language mistakes!!! Requests are open!!! I'm waiting yours!!! I love you all!!! :))

“Where are you?” You asked humming, walking slowly through the living room, looking for the Angie doll, like almost every afternoon.

Definitely, playing hide and seek with a possessed doll was not the strangest thing that had happened to you in the last few months, although it might seem that way.

It was even stranger when the village merchant, the Duke, hired you to be his assistant, arguing that you might have a future in the business world. How ironic, no one could have a future in that cursed village.

It was even stranger when your new job led you to meet the most authority figures, and emerge unscathed in the process. The few villagers who had the privilege of being close enough hadn't had much luck, and that included friends and acquaintances of yours.

And if something even stranger could happen, it was meeting one of those shadowy Lords, Donna Beneviento. She was a dark, sick and lonely woman, who saw your presence as a threat at first and little by little, as a necessity. Her shadowy figure, her hoarse voice, and the puppet she used to express her emotions were a combination of factors that also caught your attention.

But no, none of that was the strangest thing that had happened to you. The strangest, most extraordinary thing that had happened in your life was precisely finding yourself madly in love with the lady in black, almost as much as her, or even more. Those short meetings stopped being short, those talks stopped making no sense. Angie was no longer a speaker, but a complement.

Everything happened so quickly, but in such an intense way, that you soon forgot even to return home after visiting the old estate. There was a moment, the moment when that strange love materialized in the form of discovery, the moment when Donna lifted the black veil from her face so you could admire her beauty and throw her insecurities away, with your first kiss. At that moment you knew that you would no longer return to your old home.

Of course, you never forgot who you were kissing, who you were caressing. She was a Lord, a dangerous and terribly jealous woman. You couldn't blame her for being that way, not after knowing her past, her present, and not after wanting to be part of her future. That toxic possessiveness wasn't a problem for you. You understood her motives, although you had a hard time adjusting at first.

For Lady Beneviento you were a beam of light in the darkness, but also a new concern. Neither her scar nor her body was a reason for fear, for shame, not anymore. At the moment your lips expressed your love there was only one thing she feared, there was only one thing that made fear itself tremble, losing you.

“Come on... Come out of hiding... You've beaten me...” You sighed, tired of looking for the puppet all over the house.

Well, at least Angie had an easier time adjusting to your presence. The puppet had found in you an unbeatable playmate.

A nervous giggle reached your ears and formed an evil smile on your face, making you crouch down in front of one of the tables in the room, checking to see if the puppet was there.

“Ah!” You scream when a cold hand landed on your shoulder, causing you to jump and hit your head on the furniture in a comical way. When you stood up, rubbing the spot where you hit yourself, you realized who had scared you, Donna.

“Are you hurt?” She asked with that soft voice, the voice that betrayed the insane time she spent alone in her doll workshop. You smiled, like every time you saw that tender look, that fragility only you were capable of loving.

“No, I don't think so,” you said, playing it off, verifying that the blow was nothing else than that. “You’ve scared me.”

“I'm sorry,” Donna whispered, lowering her head, which you prevented by raising her chin with two fingers and leaning in to kiss her softly, which made the lady sigh in relief.

“Don't worry,” you whispered into her lips, turning them into a tender smile, accompanying that gesture of affection with a soft grip on her waist. “Are you finished with the dolls?”

The lady nodded, without erasing that splendid smile from her face, feeling comfortable in your embrace, exploring your skin with her hands in a curious way, as if she couldn't quite believe that you were there, that you loved her, that someone could loved her. .

“I have something for you,” she said, moving away from you a bit and handing you what looked like a golden chain with a medallion hanging from it, a small medallion with the symbol of House Beneviento. You took it with a grateful smile and examined it more closely. It was a beautiful necklace.

“Wow... It's so nice...” You whispered, running your fingers over the medallion. Her expression cooled a bit, betraying incipient concern.

“Don’t you like it?” She asked worriedly, to which you nodded profusely, putting that idea out of her head, hoping this time it wouldn't be as complicated as others.

“I love it, Donna. Come on, help me put it on,” you said amused, turning around and brushing your hair away from your neck.

The doll maker sighed again, wrapping her delicate hands around your neck and tying that little necklace where it belonged, slowly turning you around to admire the result.

“It suits you well, (Y/N)” the lady commented, observing you with that necklace on, with the silent symbol that made you hers.

“You suit me well...” You murmured with a seductive purr, drawing the woman a little closer to you, making her laugh nervously, her cheeks blushing.

It could have been one of those moments in which the silence of that sinister mansion was interrupted by gasps, by words of love, by the sounds of your passion, but it seemed that the phone resting on a table had other plans for you. The screeching sound of the device made you jerk away, making a disgusted face.

“Angie!” Donna called, making the puppet, the undisputed champion of hiding, come out of a dark corner of the room and walk comically towards the phone.

“I'm coming, I'm coming...” The doll sang. Donna's gaze was on that phone, although her hand remained in yours.

You sighed in frustration, but your touch calmed her nerves. The telephone was never a good sign at all.

“Beneviento house here, who is calling?” Angie said, grabbing the device and comically putting it on her head. “Oh, Mother Miranda…”

Donna tensed completely, not taking her eyes off her doll. Surely she would be listening to the priestess's words.

“Okay, see you later...” Angie hummed, hanging up the phone abruptly and getting off the table.

“What's wrong, honey?” You asked, seeing your lover's confused and worried expression. She let your hand go lazily.

“Mother Miranda calls us for a meeting,” the lady in black explained, walking away from you. You frowned and sighed, knowing that not even lust could fight against that.

“Meeting, meeting, meeting!” Angie screamed, making you cover your ears. “We can all play hide and seek together!”

“No, Angie, no one is going to play hide-and-seek,” Donna said, with a dry voice, showing how she didn’t wanted to go to that old cathedral and see the rest of her siblings.

“You boring thing!” The doll protested, making the lady turn around abruptly, surprised by this lack of respect from Angie.

“Hey, come on, tell her what she wants to hear and...” You whispered, putting a hand on her shoulder, calming her nerves with the heat of your caresses. “You know the way she is.”

Donna shook her head, chasing after her doll, which seemed to want to make fun of her, something she couldn't stand, something that made her too nervous.

“Come on, stay still,” the lady said frustrated, squeezing her hands tightly on either side of her hips. “Angie, please…”

“No! You're mean, Donna! You don’t want to play with me! You just want to play with her!” The doll screeched, pointing at you. The lady in black growled angrily, walking quickly towards the puppet.

“Maledizione… Angie!” The lady in black cursed, trying to snatch her black veil from Angie, an indispensable accessory when she left the safety of her home. You watched the scene helplessly, unable to do anything.

“I want (Y/N) to come with us!” The puppet ordered, making Donna stop and look at you slowly, studying that possibility.

“No, no way,” she said in a dark whisper, looking at you like blaming you for something.

“Well, I will run and run and I will not give you your veil!” Angie sang, running away from the lady again.

After a ridiculous chase and several well-founded threats from the doll, Donna agreed to her request and the three of you headed towards that horrible place.

You were used to the Lords, you knew them, but you had never seen them all together, together with Mother Miranda.

“Donna, dear, who is our guest?” The priestess asked when the two of you approached the altar, to that bird woman who gave you chills. You had your head bowed in respect, but her golden claws forced you to look into those cold eyes.

“(Y/N), Mother Miranda, this is my... My... My girlfriend,” Donna said, with an almost inaudible whisper, causing a sinister smile to form on the Goddess's face, looking at you curiously.

“Wow... I'm happy for you, dear, please take a seat,” she said, giving you a mysterious look, one that passed through your body. Donna took your hand and guided you to a chair next to hers.

“This place is so creepy...” You murmured, studying that ancient structure, with the lady's hand always in yours. She looked at you and nodded, unable to hide the trembling of her body, her own nerves.

“It won't last long, (Y/N), it's a routine meeting,” Donna explained through that horrible black veil. You nodded reluctantly, holding Angie, who was looking at you curiously.

Some steps that you already knew put you on alert. It was an elegant walk, one from another time, one that belonged to Alcina Dimitrescu, owner of the castle, and one of your first clients. You couldn't deny you showed some interest in her at first, but it went away when you met Donna.

“Well, well, well... What do we have here...” The tall woman said, walking slowly towards you. The sweaty hand that was squeezing yours started to hurt you. Donna was very nervous. “A little bird that has come out of her cage…”

“Lady Dimitrescu,” you murmured respectfully, lowering your head and earning a sinister smile from the lady in white.

“How daring are you, Donna, why do bring this delicious maid into my presence?” Alcina asked in a velvety voice, making the lady in black tense, shaking her head.

“She’s not a maid!” Angie screeched, nervous as her owner, or rather, speaking for her owner, who was breathing hard. You looked at her to calm her down, but she looked away, as if you had done something wrong. Going to that meeting was a bad idea.

“Isn’t she? And what is she? Your companion?” The lady in white asked with a mocking tone making angry even you.

“She's my girlfriend,” the doll said, jumping off your lap, facing that monstrous woman, something that made you smile.

“Oh, your girlfriend... I see...” The lady of the castle murmured, leaning towards you, making Donna stand up, dragging her chair with an unpleasant sound.

“Don't go close to her,” Donna hissed, in her own voice. Alcina looked at her and laughed softly, without stopping her actions, grabbing with one of her fingers the necklace that Donna had given you just an hour ago.

“Nice necklace, little bird...” She whispered, completely ignoring her sister's protests, which intensified by kicking the ground childishly.

“Thank you, my lady.” That was all you could say. Having that vampire so close made you very nervous, you couldn't help it.

“I see my sister appreciates you a lot, right?” She asked you, with that same seductive tone. “But tell me, (Y/N), does my poor little sister know how to appreciate you properly?”

“Basta,” Donna said, with a stronger voice, making the lady in white look at her out of the corner of her eye, but returning her gaze to you immediately.

“Come on, Donna, we're just talking, right?” Alcina said laughing softly, clearly mocking her, something that also made you burn. “I'm not going to eat her... Yet...” She whispered, making you clear your throat.

“She's mine,” the lady in black whispered, threatening again, making you have the most uncomfortable time of your life. Well, until then.

“Yes, yes, yes...” Alcina sighed, standing up again, making a gesture of contempt with her hands. “Maybe one day you would like to come to my castle and…”

“Hey, fat ass, leave the girl alone!” A male voice interrupted this mocking and uncomfortable conversation. You could have calmed down, but quite the opposite. The voice belonged to Karl Heisenberg, one of the Lords, according to Donna, the most dangerous.

“Oh, it's you...” The vampire sighed, listlessly, ignoring the metallic man. “Haven't they told you that you shouldn't interrupt a ladies’ conversation?”

“I didn't know you were a lady,” he replied, mockingly, as always, pushing the large lady aside and leaning comically on the back of your chair, blowing the smoke from his cigar at you in an unpleasant way.

“You stupid vermin...” Dimitrescu protested, to which Karl laughed amused, looking at you over his glasses.

“(Y/N), I'm glad to see you, my friend,” he told you, ignoring the vampire's fury, involuntarily shaking your hand. “It's good to know that Donna took you out for a walk.”

“I'm not a dog,” you protested for that derogatory comment, looking at the lady in black, who seemed calmer due to the presence of her brother.

“Oh, I didn't say such a thing...” He said, amused, shaking his head. “I have to congratulate you on the pieces you brought me last week, they were of amazing quality,” he commented.

You sighed to be able to relax after that huge amount of insinuations from the lady of the castle. But that tranquility would not last long.

“You should congratulate the Duke, I only make the deliveries,” you said, crossing your legs and arms, looking for Angie, who apparently had gone to greet Moreau.

“And also for having an assistant as beautiful as you,” he whispered, leaning into your ear, making you blush, closing your eyes knowing that Donna was nervous again, although she didn't show it as much as before.

“Wow, thanks for the compliment,” you said amused, knowing that at least with him, you could joke. Deep down, you liked him.

Karl nodded with a sinister smile, looking at the lady in black and leaning into your ear again.

“Just a question, just for the two of us… Is Donna as big as they say?” He asked, making you choke and open your eyes at that unpleasant question. Of course, the lady in black heard it, and she rose from her chair again, her knuckles white from the pressure she put on her fists.

“I'm not going to answer that,” you said, always monitoring Donna's posture and her breathing.

“There is no need to do it,” Karl said, leaning more comfortably on your chair. “They say that comparisons are hateful, but perhaps you would like to see it for yourself. I feel so alone in that factory...” He whispered, making your stomach turn.

“Stai zitto, cazzo!” The lady in black screamed, abruptly pushing the Lord, who laughed amused by that reaction. You stood up too, trying to calm the situation, which was already unbearably tense. “Porca puttana! Ti ucciderò!”

“Hey, hey, come on, calm down, little sister, I was just joking,” Karl said, avoiding the pushes of his sister, who was increasingly furious.

“Donna, calm down, nothing's wrong,” you said, grabbing your girlfriend by the waist, preventing her from hitting her brother, who seemed to be having fun at her expense. “Come on, stay still, calm down…”

“What have you done to my Donna, stupid, stupid?!” Angie screamed, joining that strange fight. “Let her go, (Y/N), let her give him what he deserves!”

“Silence!” A voice bounced off the walls. Apparently the priestess had enough, and you couldn't help but thank her. “Have you finished torturing poor Donna?”

“Oh, come on, we were joking,” Heisenberg protested, adjusting his coat while you sat your girlfriend back in her chair.

“You're like children,” Miranda hissed, shaking her head and walking towards you, placing a golden hand on the shoulder of the lady in black. “Are you okay, dear?”

The lady took a while to respond, but she finally nodded, holding your hands tightly while you whispered nice things to calm her down. Miranda looked at you out of the corner of her eye, with a strange smile.

“You're good at it, (Y/N),” she whispered, seeing that your actions had an effect on the brunette. “It seems that I can entrust my little daughter to you without fear.”

“Of course, Mother Miranda,” you said, calming your girlfriend's sobs, which little by little stopped being so intense.

“Good,” the blonde said dryly, moving away from you and spreading her wings to start the meeting and thus end that hell.

The meeting went off without a hitch. Things seemed to have calmed down, but it didn't take you long to realize that it was just an illusion. As if you had gone back several months in the past, Donna was quiet, completely silent, holding your hand, almost dragging you back towards the mansion. Not even Angie dared to say anything.

“Hey, my love...” You said softly, removing the black cloth from her face, revealing a furious, resentful look. “Forget it, okay? They were just joking.”

Your caress on her cheek was brushed away sharply. That harsh expression remained on her face, as if she deeply hated you for something you weren't guilty of.

“Don't touch me,” she hissed, pushing you, leaving you completely stunned.

“Donna...” You sighed, already used to those crises of jealousy, which her cruel brothers made more complicated. “Come on, don't be angry with me, I haven't done anything.”

“Haven’t you?” She asked. “Haven’t you done anything?”

“Of course I haven’t, they were the ones who...” You said with a more serious tone, not willing to apologize for something that was not your fault at all.

“You were delighted,” she interrupted, between clenched teeth, approaching you with a dangerous step.

“Well, who doesn't like to feel desired?” You said amused, thinking that humor was the best option. You were wrong.

“You like it too much, (Y/N)... You enjoy it...” Donna accused you, with that eye shining with tears, red with hatred and her deranged possessiveness.

“I can't enjoy it if it hurts you, Donna, don't you understand?” You defended yourself, putting your hands on her shoulders, preventing her from moving them away again.

“You don't understand that you are mine?” She asked back, making you sigh. No, you didn't like that term, at least outside of the bedroom.

“It's not my fault that your siblings were behaving that way,” you said in a more annoyed tone, with anger beginning to course through your veins.

“You're right...” She sighed, calming down mysteriously quickly, taking your hands and swinging them next to hers, as if she were turning something over in her head.

You, still alert, leaned towards her, kissing her quickly, thinking that a kiss from your lips would be the medicine she needed for her jealousy.

“I love you, Donna... I don't like to say it but... I'm yours, you know it, I know it. Nothing in this world will change my mind. I don't love anyone else, I don't want anyone else. Do you understand, my love?”

“Don't you like to say you're mine?” She asked, offended again by your words. “Then you don't like being so.”

You, sighing cupping her face in your hands, holding her gaze steady, ready to say whatever it took to make her calm down. Yes, you may not have liked the term, but the reality is that you were hers, and you always would be, you wanted to be hers.

“You're not understanding me, darling...” You said softly, brushing a strand of black hair away from her face, making her eye only look at you. “I like being yours, I want to be yours... It's just that... Well, I don't like feeling like an object.”

“You are not an object, you are my girlfriend,” she said, hardening her expression even more, but with a calmer tone. A shy smile appeared on your face as you nodded.

“You see? That's much better,” you said, kissing her gently again, noticing how her body relaxed with your caresses, with your selfless affection, something that none of them would ever have, and you would do anything to show it to her.

“Only mine,” she whispered, moving away from your lips, resting her forehead against yours, grabbing your face in an intense, desperate way.

“Yes, darling, only yours...” You repeated, wiping away a tear that was running down her cheek.

It seemed like everything was resolved, but Donna pulled away again, running a hand through her hair, shaking her head.

“No, it's not enough...” She murmured. “Your word is of no use to me…”

“Donna...” You sighed, frustrated at not being able to make her reason. “Come on, trust me.”

“I trust you,” she responded abruptly, with sincerity in her eye, which made you frown, confused. “But not them.”

“Well, that's normal,” you said amused, with a soft, comforting tone, approaching her again, caressing her trembling hand. When she raised her head to look at you, a different glow appeared in her eye, a strange one, one that you couldn't interpret.

“I have to... I have to do something... I have to show them that... That, that you are mine...” Donna murmured. She wasn't talking to you. She was talking to herself, which made you listen carefully to her ramblings to know what was on her mind.

“You show it by being by my side, giving me your affection in front of them... There is nothing else you can do to show that I only love you. You have to learn to trust me and...”

“You're wrong,” she interrupted you, changing her expression again. “There is something I can do…”

“What?” You asked curious. Donna wanted to respond, but she didn't, she just shook her head and took your hand, dragging you towards the living room. “Donna, what are you doing? What's wrong? You’re hurting me...”

Horrified by her impulsiveness, she let your sore wrist go, but the strange glint in her eye told you she was far from calming down.

“There is a way…” She whispered, grabbing you more gently this time, guiding you towards the dining room table. “A way to make them see that you are mine…”

“Okay, tell me what you are thinking,” you said in a calm tone, but with your body trembling from ignorance. It wouldn't take you long to realize her intentions, but at that moment you were completely lost.

“It won't do any good to say it. It's better... To let me doing it...” Donna whispered in your ear, biting your earlobe, forming a strange smile on your face due to that attack of sensuality. “I'm sorry, but you can't stop me, I have to do it or I will be consumed by my jealousy... I need to feel you mine, to claim you...”

“Donna, if you tell me what you're thinking...” You said, stopping talking when her hand went down your leg, getting under your dress, scratching your skin while her mouth covered you with kisses, preventing you from speaking or protesting...

“Silence, let me love you, (Y/N)” she protested, climbing you onto the table with excessive strength, placing herself between your legs and mercilessly attacking every exposed corner of your skin.

Faced with this change in circumstances, you decided to let yourself be carried away by that intense passion, by the fieryness with which her body claimed yours in such a sudden but strange way. It wasn't a slow moment, just small, innocent kisses.

No, Donna was wild, her kisses were messy and her hands played with the fabric of your underwear, thus showing her rush to have you, to take you right there, without thinking about the consequences.

“Donna...” You moaned at her soft touch, at the breeze you felt between your legs as you were freed from the article of clothing that was already beginning to get damp.

Her hips collided with yours in a sensual and fiery dance, her already noticeable erection rubbed against your body uninhibited by desire, by that sudden passion.

“Make me yours, my love...” You whispered tenderly, making her smile, releasing her trembling shaft, slowly placing it at your ready entrance.

“Don't doubt that I will, (Y/N), you will be mine forever, and we will be so happy... You'll see...” She murmured, giving your body the time to adjust to that intrusion, to the tip stretching your humidity slowly, but without wanting to withdraw.

Despite the strangeness of those words, you couldn't feel nothing but pleasure. Poor Heisenberg, surely the comparisons were hateful, hateful for him.

“Slow down, my love... It's so hard... So big... I love it,” you said, controlling your breathing, letting her erection slide completely inside you, with the ease that your excitement allowed.

Donna shook her head, gently grabbing your legs, spreading them a little more so she could move inside you better, something that made her moan, that made you moan. Her movements, although they betrayed an unusual haste, always tried to give you as much pleasure as possible, to make you see the stars, to make you swear and curse with pleasure, to make your hips move to adapt to her movements.

After a few thrusts, only accompanied by desperate moans and hungry gasps, you began to feel your body tense, preparing to release. Donna didn't seem to be far from it, but, unlike other times, her eye remained open, looking directly at you, checking the pleasure she was capable of giving you.

“I'm so close, my love... You're so good... You move so well,” you said, moving a hand to caress her cheek, a gesture that made her sigh in comfort before moaning at the wet embrace that your walls gave her as they contracted a bit.

“That's it, (Y/N), release yourself for me and I will do the same, I will claim you...” She said, her voice breaking from the intensity of her movements.

There was definitely something off about her, but your orgasm hit you before you could realize it, forcing you to arch your back and throw yourself into her arms, hanging onto her neck as her thrusts slowed.

“Good girl...” The doll maker whispered pleased by your movements, moving you away from her and lying you on the table. She grabbed your hips tightly, revealing the desire to release herself.

“You're so excited...” You said amused, moaning again as your body recovered from its release. “Watch out, okay? Try to do it out.”

Donna stopped and a sinister smile spread across her face as she shook her head.

“No, tesoro, I'm not going out. I’m going to do it inside... I'm going to get you pregnant so everyone will know that you're mine, mine forever...” Donna murmured, slowing her movements, making you sit up at those words, scared.

“What? Donna, wait…” You said when her movements resumed. Yes, that was her purpose, that was the way she would claim you. You didn't want it, but you didn't feel the need to run away or turn away either. After all, you always wanted to start a family. “This is very hasty…”

“I'm not going to wait. You will have my child, you will carry it in your womb and then we will be... A family...” She said with a whimper, unable to control her movements and words at the same time, just at the moment in which an agonized moan left her lips, making you feeling filled with her warmth, a sensation that you didn’t know, but from that moment on, you began to desire.

Your body accepted that release, writhing with pleasure as that wet, lascivious caress ran through you. You had never felt anything like that and desire and pleasure clouded your judgment, forgetting for a moment what your lover's purpose was.

“Donna... My love...” You said, your voice distorted by pleasure and worry, stroking her hair as she collapsed on top of your body, not wanting to leave you, not wanting to stop claiming you as she sobbed, surely regretting her abrupt attitude.

4 months later…

“Phone, phone!” Angie's squeaky voice was like a drill in your ears, waking you up from another of your countless naps.

“For Gods’ sake, Angie, don't yell,” you protested, sitting on the couch, sighing, with one hand on your already bulging belly.

“Don't scream, don't scream... You fat ass!” The doll mocked you, making you grit your teeth.

“I'm not fat, I'm pregnant. How should I tell you?” You said, ignoring the sound of the phone and getting up yourself to pick it up.

“Excuses...” Angie protested, making you roll your eyes and put your hand on the device, a hand that was stopped by a pale and soft one, Donna.

“Don't worry, tesoro,” she told you softly, with a reassuring smile. You kissed her softly and withdrew, pushing the doll away from your place abruptly and looking for a comfortable position, something complicated in your state.

“It’s a boy or a girl?” Angie asked, watching how you caressed your belly, while Donna responded to that call, which gave you very bad feelings.

“I've already told you that we don't know,” you said, irritable due to the pregnancy, but excited, much more excited than you thought.

“I hope it's a girl,” Angie said, when Donna hung up the phone and approached slowly, sitting next to you.

“What if it's a boy?” You asked amused, feeling more comfortable with your girlfriend by your side.

“I don't know, I guess you can make more babies, right?” The puppet answered. You laughed, eyes widening when you felt a strange movement.

“Donna, look...” You said excitedly, taking the lady in black's hand to your belly, making her feel those same movements.

“It's... Incredible,” she murmured, amazed by the movements of her child in your womb, by feeling that life the two of you had created in a strange, but lovely way.

“Yes, it is...” You whispered, enjoying that little moment for you, the beginning of that new family. “Donna.”

“Mm?” She murmured, hypnotized by her child, barely paying attention to you.

“The call, who was it?” You asked amused, making the lady wake up from her dream and look at you confused.

“Oh, yes, well... Miranda wants us to meet,” she commented with a relaxed voice, looking at you with a strange smile, which indicated she was going to ask you for something. “I would like you to come with me, you know, so everyone knows that…”

“Donna...” You protested, crossing your arms. “We have already talked about jealousy.”

“Please, I'm begging you, let me be proud of you in front of them...” She said, putting her hands together in a comical way. You had no choice but to nod.

The way was much calmer. As disturbing as it was that Donna thought a child would be the solution to her jealousy, in the end it didn't turn out to be a bad idea at all. Your pregnancy made the lady in black calm down in a surprising way, and she barely suffered crises or nightmares.

“Wow, (Y/N), I see you’re... Fine,” the priestess commented, clearly noticing the bulge in your dress. You lowered your head and bowed as a sign of respect.

“I'm better than ever, Mother Miranda,” you responded respectfully, not daring to look into those gray and dangerous eyes. She nodded, looking at Donna in a teasing but strangely loving way.

“I see... Congratulations, dear...” Miranda whispered, wrapping her arms around the lady in black, who nodded excitedly, whispering something in the witch's ear, to which the blonde nodded indicating for you to sit down.

It didn't take long for the other Lords to appear, as well as their mocking and sinister smiles, which were automatically directed towards you.

“What do my eyes are seeing...” Alcina whispered, approaching elegantly, swinging her hips sensually. You automatically put your hands on your belly, protecting it from a non-existent danger. “Little bird, you look so beautiful…”

Donna looked at her, but she didn't say anything, she seemed surprisingly calm. You nodded, grateful for the compliment, and because, after that comment and a fleeting glance at your belly, the lady in white retired to her seat.

Heisenberg, on the other hand, didn't approach you. He simply winked at you, making you shiver.

“Well, my dears, before we start, I think Donna has something to say,” Miranda commented, pleased cause that time there was no arguments or fights.

The lady in black stood up slowly, taking your hand so you could do the same. You were nervous, especially because all those evil eyes landed on you immediately.

“I just want to say that as you may have noticed, (Y/N) is pregnant. I wanted you to know before you tried to lay a finger on her,” Angie said, speaking for her owner, who was looking at you through her veil.

“Wow, and I thought you were eating too much pasta...” Heisenberg commented, amused, making Donna squeeze your hand tightly making you hiss in pain.

“You are a wild animal,” Alcina commented, despising her brother and looking back at you. “Congratulations, dears.”

“Wait, wait, wait,” Karl said, standing up comically. “The kid's issue isn't because of the teasing that afternoon, right?”

Donna didn't respond, nor did Angie. Certainly, he was the most dangerous, he was tremendously intelligent.

“Oh, is that true, dear?” Alcina asked, showing her great height as she stood up. “Please, you can't be so naive, Donna. We were messing with you a bit.”

“I don't like being laughed at,” the lady in black protested, kicking the ground childishly, making you relax her again with your caresses.

“You make it very easy for us, Donna,” Heisenberg added. “Look at you. You are going to be a mother just for us to know we cannot touch your girl.”

“Shut up,” Angie protested, with an unpleasant squeak.

“I'm sure it will be a beautiful girl...” Alcina murmured, leaving the teasing aside for once. She looked like she was genuinely happy and that reassured you.

“You have no idea, Dracula, it will be a boy and I will take care of him, he needs a babysitter...” Karl said, making you smile, shaking your head.

“Don't even come close to my child, bastardo,” Donna threatened, making the Lord laugh harder.

“What? It’s my nephew,” he said, raising his eyebrows and looking at you over his glasses. You rolled your eyes, and dragged Donna back to the chair so she wouldn't get into the conflict again.

Well, at least the teasing is over, teasing that caused your future to change abruptly. You didn't blame Donna for doing it that way, you couldn't do it. She was fragile, weak, and afraid, afraid of losing you.

What she didn't know is that she would never lose you. She would never lose her family.

#donna beneviento #donna beneviento x reader #re8 donna #re8 village #oneshot #requests

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kalki-tarot · 1 year ago

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WHICH BOLLYWOOD FILM CHARACTER IS YOUR FUTURE SPOUSE ?

Characters can be female/male, it's not gender specific, just focus on their personality.

Take a deep breathe and focus on your third eye chakra ✨️ pick a picture that calls you out.

1 - 2 - 3

4 - 5 - 6

Pile 01 🪞

. . Aditya from Jab we Met💌

Omg! The biggest Green Flag ever !

Your future spouse's personality is just like him. Romantic and sweet. He's always there for you, even in your bad times. You can always rely on him. He's a great friend too, listening to your likes and dislikes. You like his sense of humor the most haha.

Like every other human being, he has his own flaws too. But he works on them and becomes a better man for his highest good.

Message is that often in life when you hit rock bottom, there is only one way to go and that is UP. And just like Geet and Aditya, some trains are supposed to be missed, so that you hop into one that takes you to a better, happier and healthier destination.

Pile 02 🪔

. . Qais Bhatt from Laila Majnu 💌

The way he looks at laila is amazing and heart throbbing. His love for laila is pure and serene. He is madly in love with her. Totally out of control but in a healthy way.

You both may be star-crossed lovers. They were Destined to love each other. Like the dailouge in the movie says —

" Our story has been destined. And neither the world nor the people can change it. "

There was something unique between you guys. You may know him/her since childhood or even a past life was shared by you together. You are twinflames or even soulmates. I can also see people were against you both due to many differences like religion or ethnicity, but your love never dies despite the circumstances.

Pile 03 🪞

. . Guru from Ek Villian 💌

Guru is a typical bad boy from fictional stories. He's life is totally is chaos. Your fs would be like him personality wise, except the illegal or evil things portrayed by the character.

Your fs is someone who's sad and lacks purpose in life currently. But like in the movie, when guru meets Aisha, his life changes. And he tries to become a better person and lead a better life. It's like moving from the bad and fearful times to the good ones.

He would gain a purpose, and that is you. He'd love you but he won't say that quite often, his eyes would tell. The warmth and soft feeling when he looks into your eyes will melt you right away.

Pile 04 🪔

. . Dr. Jehangir from Dear Zindagi 💌

Even though Dr. Jehangir was not an active love interest of Alia's character in the film, your fs would have the friendly and guide-like personality aspects of Dr. Jehangir in the movie.

Your fs would be a great listener. They may even belong the the medical field somehow. They'll drag you out of your worst situations in life. You two would share a comfortable, open and cozy bond together. Whenever you need some advice, they'll always be there for you.

I'm also getting that your fs can be your doctor or counselor at first. Or maybe just a great listener and giving you good advice.

Pile 05 🪞

. . Inder from Sanam Teri Kasam 💌

He literally holds Saru on her deathbed till she takes her last breathe 😭 What a wonderful character he is!

He's literally the most selfless and giving person to the love of his life. Your fs would be like him, pile 5, you're so lucky ♡ Your fs may have some legal issues going on or they may be a lawyer, as the justice card came up.

What I'm seeing is, like saru in the movie, you too are often betrayed or belittled by your own loved ones. You are often deceived by others and your fs does not like it at all. They just want your happiness. Even after you die, (may god not let it be) they'll still love you. They will give you whatever they have, you just name it. Wow. I'm in love with this reading ;_; ♡

Pile 06 🪔

. . Jordan from Rockstar 💌

Your fs is like Jordan from Rockstar. This movie is my personal favourite. Your fs is a heartbroken person, but when you arrive their life gets filled with happiness but when you leave their life burns into ashes. You may be twinflames.

There is something which holds you back from accepting this love between you both. You need to work on that fear.

I see your fs is famous, Despite being famous their heart yearns for love. There is still a void in their hearts Despite having money, power and wealth. Maybe they are waiting for you.

They are definitely an introvert and kind of famous online. Their heart burns with passion, very passionate and romantic individual. They may play an instrument or even sing. People like their rough and passionate personality.

Please like and rb if resonates !

I worked hard while making this so please show some love ❤️

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garr9988 · 6 months ago

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I say this as a big SU fan: If I had to give Steven Universe one glaring L above all else, while fully recognizing that it may be at least in part due to the final season & Future being so rushed:

It’s having Rose and her death be so heavily suicidal-coded (the art books went in on how much she loathed herself and thought she was incapable of changing, so) and yet ending the series with Steven being so irreconcilably angry with her and the impact of her death that he locks a reminder/representation of her away in a place he doesn’t visit so that he doesn’t even have to acknowledge her existence.

Granted, the finale ended with Steven getting therapy and clearly improving his relationships with the Gems, Greg, and Connie that were similarly causing him grief, but Rose in particular is a very specific case in that we don’t see whether he improves his feelings on her, and because she’s dead she isn’t an active presence in his life that he’s compelled to reconcile with. Greg is his dad and Connie is his girlfriend, he has to like them to keep them around, but there’s no incentive with Rose.

There’s also Greg, Pearl, and Volleyball still loving Rose even with the full picture, but to me that feels barely there anyway, a half-hearted tack-on.

I still have a big gripe with the movie for tacking on Rose’s treatment of Spinel and making Rose seem even worse than before, purely because neither the movie nor Future remind the audience of the ways she eventually improved. It felt like the writers went too far when they had already given us Rose’s story in reverse and already had the characters react negatively to the news she was Pink Diamond in the original show.

There’s obviously room for audiences having to remember these things themselves and that a narrative doesn’t have to point these out all the time. But a narrative bears responsibility for the way it frames things and the way it wants or expects an audience to view something.

Rose’s redemption arc being shown in reverse IS cool, in concept! But when the audience insert protagonist and a lot of other characters get this reverse arc and act like the terrible things are the conclusion of her self, that these secrets aren’t her past that she left behind but the mask being ripped off and the true evil monster being revealed for who she is… it doesn’t leave a good taste in my mouth.

That’s certainly part of why a good chunk of the fandom hates Rose the way they do, bc to a non-negligible extent the show is fostering their view, playing it out on screen without actually correcting it.

It’s obviously realistic and possible and downright good & compelling for someone to have a very negative response to another character’s death (suicide) and the fallout they’re left with. But a character who dies in such a way, especially Rose. deserves to be given sympathy and respect within the narrative.

#steven universe #rose quartz #pink diamond #rose diamond #rose quarts su #pink diamond SU #SU #Steven Universe future #SU future #original

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unholyhelbig · 12 days ago

Note

Cowboy Kate is about to fuck me uppp

Title: Outlawed (1/4)

Part One | Part Two | Part Three | Part Four

Main Masterlist

Summary: When y/n returns to her hometown of Barton Hollow she stumbles across an outlaw in dire need of help. Together, the two navigate complicated feelings, and demons from their past that are determined to destroy them in the way only the Wild West could.

Warnings: blood, urban legends, grave robbing, religious trauma, guns, droughts, horses (?), tattoos (also ?), horrible medical knowledge that is impossible I know give me a break, bad language, sexual content, bad grammar, I don't proofread these.

[A/n: This is my time to shine, right? I live in the wild west! No. I am a city girl through and through. This first chapter is dedicated the wonder @noturlondonboy and @thinking1bee because they are always phenomenal, give them both a follow and also lmk if you want to be tagged in future parts!]

“Easy girl,” the words pushed past dry lips that tasted vaguely of dust and the metal of blood. The heat of the sun had cracked them to all hell throughout the day, burned them past salvage. You’d worried them enough to strip two layers before the sharp sting became too much and the change in your horses behavior became the more pressing matter.

Othello came to a slow trot at the mouth of a canyon, a large and sparce mouth lined in red rocks. The foliage was dried out with the rest of the drought afflicting the land, raking across his chestnut fur that reminded you cruelly of fingers against windowpanes. Incessantly tapping and scratching to bide your attention in the dark of night.

Your mama told you to keep your back to the noise and to never, no matter what, open the window. Even if the thing begging to be let in on the other side of the glass sounded like something you knew. It was a regular occurrence at the farmhouse, and eventually, after being ignored for so long, you figured it had grown bored of you and chose another family to torment.

Out here, there was nowhere to turn your back to. Closing your eyes brought more darkness, and a window didn’t separate you from the horrors that liked to tap on glass. You listened to your horse, and the unease in your gut. That was another thing mama taught you.

The plains dropped to a lower temperature at night, your breath a specter in front of you, giving away your panic in each pant. Othello had slowed to a trot, her hulking form making slow work of a path many had traveled before you. It was something you’d much rather do by the rays of the sun, not the silver light of the moon. Othello kept her head down, streams of breath leaving her nostrils.

You tightened your grip on the reigns, muscles taut with fear and sweat soaking through the layers of fleece around your shoulders. Othello wasn’t partial to snakes, and neither were you. Your lungs began to ache with the cool breath you held, not quite sure if you preferred something hiding in the foliage with no legs, or too many.

Othello gave you a warning snort before she bucked you off. It was indignant but gave you a moment to unwrap the cured leather from your palm prior to her hollow back leaving you entirely. Your horse never went far. She wasn’t the type to traverse plains without you, but she would get herself a good distance away from danger, effectively depositing you right in it’s path.

A groan escaped you along with the air you’d been holding. You made quick work of canvassing the red clay you’d landed flat on. Four fangs hadn’t dug themselves into soft skin yet, nor had clawed hands stripped you of your hide. Instead, you felt the uncomfortable tip of a boot against your side.

“Shit,” you rolled onto your back, releasing a train of expletives “What the fuck?”

In the pale moonlight, you caught a sticky burgundy puddle that collected the dessert dust. The land was greedy for moisture, and it didn’t care if it was in the form of blood or water. A drought was a drought in these parts. Bodies would be picked clean and the same boots that dug into your ribs would be the only thing that remained.

A metallic scent tickled your nose, too much blood to be survivable. Shell casings littered the area, and you sat up with an indignant huff, taking stock of the mass of body that was slumped against the cracked sandy ground. She was dressed in mostly pitch, skin gaunt from her wounds.

An equally as dark cattleman hat was just out of reach, as if her fingers had brushed it’s rim but she hadn’t the strength to grasp it. Your father valued his cowboy hat more than he valued you, and if this woman was the same, then there was something to be said about her dying moments.

Her lips were parted, void of color. There was a beauty to her that made your heart pound in a strange type of longing. You hadn’t seen another soul in about a week, and your chest ached for someone who had died in the line of fire for god knows what. It was an ambush, you were sure. A beautiful woman who had been struck down and had died all alone, left for the coyotes to pick apart with their rotted teeth.

Regardless of her current state, and your reservations, you started to dig through the girls pockets, careful to avoid the saturated fabric. There were some russet-colored bills, and some loose bullets that you shoved haplessly into your own pockets. A pearl-handled colt pistol, tinted in a strawberry color, slippery in blood.

Your thumb swiped over the sloppy engraving in soft silver; K.B

Your fingers found a chain around her neck, a thick gold with a nephrite Wyoming Jade in the center. Valuable. Too valuable to be left if she was shot at close range. Whoever had done this had aimed to kill and had succeeded. You wrapped your fingers around the bulk of the chain, ready to pull with enough force to snap the clasp.

Deathly cold fingers suddenly wrapped around yours, bringing your heart into your throat. They didn’t squeeze hard, weren’t able too. But it was a warning. Her skin was tacky and barely alive. When your panicked eyes moved to hers, they had snapped open. Grey and ghostly.

“Graverobbing before I’m even in the grave, sweetheart?” She croaked out. “No respect for the dead.”

You were effectively straddling a dead body. A half-dead body. A mostly dead body, and shame was rushing to your cheeks. If you stayed still, you were sure her hand would drop from yours and you could mount Othello and be on your way. It wasn’t something you could do with a good conscience.

The strangers hand fell limply to her side, but if you focused hard enough, you could feel her shallow breaths. When you laid yourself flat against her and pressed your ear to her cold chest, there was a cracking inhale and exhale. Far apart, but still there. Another groan pushed past your lips, drowning out the girls pitiful attempts to hang onto life.

Othello chuffed next to you.

“Don’t give me that look.” You glared up at her. She was judging you. The whites of her eyes were visible and narrowed and you hated it when she took on this stance. “She could be some horrible criminal that’s murdered a whole orphanage.”

Another indignant noise.

“Well yes, I was robbing her, but objectively murder is worse. And who says I can even nurse her back to health?”

This time, Othello didn’t even make a noise. She didn’t have to. You were a physician, one of the only ones on this side of the country who hadn’t fallen for the fad of radium water, of course you could nurse her back to health, and you could do it well.

It would be easier, simpler, to let her parish. As dark as it had sounded to your own ears it would prove to keep your soul intact for just a little while longer. You weren’t practicing anymore. Couldn’t, and part of you wanted to refuse coming out of self-induced retirement for the likes of a stranger bleeding out a few miles from your hometown.

Othello pushed her nose between your shoulder blades, shoving you forward enough to see the constellations of freckles that were losing pigment fast on the girls cheeks. She’d gotten them from spending too much time in the heat of the sun as a child, just like you had. She had a family. Friends. People who you were sure loved her, someone who had given the gun you shoved into the breast of your own jacket.

A growl pushed past your lips, hands gripping her lapels “You better be worth it, K.B.”

A fine layer of dust coated the three-room farmhouse that had been long since abandoned. Most of the room was taken up by the kitchen, a wood burning stove the center piece that you begged to light. It was too damp, ironically. The musk that filled your lungs made you want to vomit, but you swallowed it down.

The kitchen table that your father hand carved still stood but one of the chairs was missing, pushed up to the ice box where it had been rifled through until it was picked clean. Iron pans were still hanging where your mama had left them and you didn’t’ dare look down the hallway towards where your room sat, likely untouched, but coated in the same red dust that the looming winds brought the rest of the land.

Despite your aching muscles and protesting bones, you deposited the stranger onto the bare mattress in your parents abandoned room and pawed around for the oil lamp on the bedside table. It ignited easily enough, filling the room with a kerosene scent that tickled your throat.

A squelching grumble pulled from the girls lungs that sounded too pained for your liking. It was almost a death rattle, and you couldn’t have that. Not after you’d pulled her so close to your front and kept your arms looped around her to keep her steady on Othello’s back.

It had become clear that she’d been shot through the center, something that had gone straight through and tore through organs cleanly. What you needed to do now was staunch the blood, to make sure her lungs hadn’t been clipped in the process.

You made quick work of stripping her of her coat, tossing it over the chair in the corner of the room. It was harder to remove her shirt, soaked so fully in blood that her pearl buttons were nearly impossible to get a grasp on. You were a professional, and a decent one at that, but it was hard to ignore the beauty of the girl underneath you, the tautness of her muscles as they contracted under your fingers, searching for her outward wounds in the soft yellow light.

Another gurgled sound and you grabbed the scalpel from your leather bag, turning her slightly to the side before you made a calculated slice, drawing more blood. It seemed counter intuitive, really, drawing in the scent of more metal, coating the bare mattress in even more blood- but it had culminated within her lungs and you needed to release the pressure, clear her airways.

It was a risk, something you’d only seen done once in a small town down south in a marsh area teeming with mosquitos that swarmed the wound before it had so much as dripped an ounce of color. This was different. The girl coughed wetly and expelled a mix of dark red blood and bile onto the front of your shirt and down her own chest, finally getting in a good breath.

“Disgusting,” You snarled, scooting back from her. “Seriously, this is how you thank me?”

You didn’t expect an answer and didn’t get one, either. The stranger, slightly less pale, flopped back down, her unbuttoned shirt riding up uncomfortably. But she was breathing better and there was color to her cheeks now. It was enough for you not to be as worried about her. Enough to where you could patch her up the rest of the way without questioning her mortality.

Exhaustion seemed to catch up with you as surveyed her. Most of her wounds, save for the lead slug to the gut, were superficial. She was dead weight, it was impossible to peel the shirt away from her entirely, but you caught the edge of black ink that escaped from the white fabric near her shoulder, your fingers running absently over the scarring, trying to identify something you couldn’t quite pin.

It was useless, blotchy and impossible to read. You had seen a handful of tattoos in your day. Not so much in the south, with it’s cloying heat, but the Appalachians, with it’s thick foliage and thicker legends, were wrought with them. The same needles you used to stitch up bleeding men were dipped into indigo ink and pushed past the first two layers of skin in an artful, tasteful way.

The daughter of the family that was kind enough to house you in a town just west of North Carolina had a beautiful etching of hemlock that stretched across the greater part of the back of her neck and dipped under the sheer white of her nightgown. It stretched it’s roots between her shoulder blades. You had brushed the whisps of mousy-brown hair to the side and kissed a venomous trail that had left her fisting the sheets.

Her sounds of ecstasy had woken her older brother, who kicked down the door with a double-barrel shotgun in his grip and a fresh handful of chew shoved in his bottom lip. He slurped through every other question, but it didn’t matter much because you were crouched under the girls window, hastily buttoning your shirt with one hand and biting the inside of the other to stop from laughing.

You bandaged the stranger as if it were habit. Medicine was like riding a bike. You had little to work without in the field and here, in the childhood home that you refused to rummage around, you figured that this was enough of a distraction to keep you from dwelling on the foreclosure. On being back here in the first place.

When you were satisfied with your work, you discarded your own blood-soaked jacket and plopped down into the nearest chair. It was coated in the same red clay dust that infiltrated the rest of the place. You breathed in the chalk. It masked the scent of your mama’s cooking and your fathers cologne. Small mercy’s.

He kept a marked-up bible in the bottom drawer of his dresser that you knew would still be there. That was the common law of the land. Of all land, you supposed. Not messing with a man’s bible. You weren’t particularly religious, despite attending Pastor Barton’s services every Sunday and swallowing the bland chili that his wife served up in the small patch of grass behind the chapel.

The thin pages were something to flip through, and you were always curious about your fathers beliefs. He was a stoic man with a heavy hand, speaking in violence rather than words that often evaded him. It wouldn’t’ shock you if many of the underlined passages emphasized hard work, and penance for wrongdoing. You stopped believing in God when he drank hard and came home hitting harder, with closed fists.

The leather was worn, and there were smudges where he had turned the paged methodically in a achingly human habit. You leaned back in the chair and propped your boots up on the side of the bed where the stranger lay, her fingers splayed on her chest. Your eyes started to grow heavy with sleep, scanning the text of the book, but not retaining a single thing.

It was your full intention to stay awake, to make sure she was still breathing through the night. You had done it countless times before for patients on the battlefield, and those who were spewing blood into cut blankets donated to consumption clinics to staunch an illness already too far gone. This should be no different. But the comfort of home, the weight of your fathers bible in your hands and the familiarity of a pillow your mama had stitched started to take it’s toll.

The dust that coated the windows only allowed odd streaks of sunlight through, skewing your assessment of time. When you jolted awake, you did so ungracefully and wobbled in the chair enough to plant your booted feet on the floor and let the sacred text fall flat on the stained wood, bending the pages towards the very hell it forsake.

Your body ached from your last day of travel, but more than that, it ached from your lack in judgement.

The stranger was awake.

There was no lingering grogginess from her recent unconsciousness. She had been watching you for a while, possibly hours, but was powerless to do anything about it. The frustration that was etched into her features was adorable, really. Those grey eyes were less ghostly in this light, and there was a semi-healthy color to her cheeks. She had pushed herself up against the headboard.

“You undressed me.” She rasped.

“I saved you,” You corrected, “I unbuttoned your shirt to address a gunshot wound.”

The stranger glanced down at the clinic wrapping around her midsection, and the incision you had made against her chest to release the blood building up in her lungs. She didn’t say a thing about it, likely didn’t know why you had done it in the first place. Her voice was still haunting, you realized. But you wouldn’t let it rattle you in your own home. The banks home.

So, you stood and picked up the bible, not bothering to smooth out the pages before putting it back in it’s proper place. It would most likely remain until the house was destroyed. Rotted through, or leveled into the dusty abyss until Barton Hollow was no more.

“How are you feeling?”

“Like I got shot through the stomach, left for dead, robbed, then brought back to life.”

You clenched your jaw, arms crossed over your chest as you stared deftly at her. She had a smug look on her pale, beautiful face that almost infuriated you. Almost. You should have listened to your better judgement and not your horse. She was a bastard, and she had a warm blush against your cheeks. You had tried robbing her, but then you saved her, and that should count for something.

“Well,” You cleared your throat awkwardly. “You should be fine in a few days. Bullet went straight through. If we can avoid an infection, which, if you stay in one place we can do relatively easily, then you should be fine.”

She frowned, pushing a small breath through her lips. The look of indignance you gave her only spurred on her movement as she swung her legs off the side of the bed and began to shakily lift herself up. “No can do, sweetheart. I have a lot of people trying to kill me, so if you’ll just-“

A pained grunt cut her off, shaky fingers finding their way to the bandaged edge of her ribs, hidden under the fabric of her shirt. A wetness filled the stormy grey of her eyes and you wanted to feel bad for her, you did. But you knew her type. She wasn’t going to listen until she tested her pain.

You stood in front of her now, head cocked, lip turned up into a ghost of a smile. “If I’ll just what?”

“Fuck off, Doctor dumbass” She gritted through pain, no doubt opening her wound once more.

“It’s Doctor y/l/n, actually. You can either lie back and be a good little patient, or I can leave you here to bleed out. Again. It’s not a pleasant way to go.”

She narrowed her eyes. “I don’t like you.”

“I’m not too fond of you either, gorgeous. You ruined my mattress and pissed off my horse. But you preemptively paid for my services with the cash you had in your coat pocket, so we’ll call it even, K.B”

She mustered a pitiful growl through her pain but did as she was told, lowering herself back onto the down pillow with only a few soft exhales. Her temperature was running hot and her skin was fresh with a fever that you didn’t like the looks of. The stranger had torn through the only healing her body had thus far allowed. Figured.

Shockingly, she let you work in relative silence, training her eyes on a spot of worn wood on the ceiling that you used to stare at as a child yourself. She seemed to flinch under the coolness of your hand, and you muttered a small apology, tender with your touch.

“It’s Kate.”

You frowned, working a small bit of iodine onto the gash you had created just below her sternum. “Pardon?”

“My name. It’s Kate.”

“Kate,” the name fit her, something that could punctuate the end of a sentence. It could be called out in annoyance, too. A simple syllable that rested at the tip of ones tongue. “You said people were trying to kill you. They close?”

“Closer now, I assume.”

You hummed. “The people in this town, Barton Hollow, they have a fine bounty on my head. So, you’re in good company. I’ll stay still if you do.”

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