#and Gilgamesh has to come back from work and be like get out get away from her you pests!!! | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

halcyone-of-the-sea · 1 year ago

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PAIRING: Hunter!Simon 'Ghost' Riley x F!Werewolf!Reader

SYNOPSIS: There’s blood on your hands again.

WORDCOUNT: 16.8k

WARNINGS: Intense gore, body horror, death, mutilation, weapons, firearms, knives, intended harm, violence, blood, descriptions of wounds, angst, fluff, protective!Simon, religious mentions, period time standards for men/women (1700s), etc.

A/N: The first of my reverse AUs is finally here! Enjoy!

*I do not give others permission to translate and/or re-publish my works on this or any other platform*

The tale of the Werewolf extends back to around 2100 BC. It was written in The Epic of Gilgamesh, scored into a clay tablet by hands long buried—a corpse forever still in the earth so deep, the bones have yet to be found by greedy eyes. Perhaps the oldest surviving story in human history, and there is still a passage that bleeds into stories hundreds of thousands of years later.

In such, Gilgamesh, a man on the search for immortality, rejects a woman for the reason of turning her previous husband into a wolf.

“You have loved the shepherd of the flock; he made meal-cake for you day after day, he killed kids for your sake. You struck and turned him into a wolf, now his own herd-boys chase him away, his own hounds worry his flanks…”

And then, the tales spread, changed, through history and through spoken words of caution. Like water trickling from a well, down the shape of the wooden bucket delving deeper and deeper into a pit of age—of caution.

“The Beast of Gévaudan. Man-eater.” Through France

“He has a wolf-head, you know? Tall thing—short brown hair all over him.” Through Scotland

“Beware the man that changes shape under the full moon.” England.

Now, in the late seventeenth century, it all comes to a head. Even the people in 2100 BC knew that someone who changes into a wolf, or some bastard-like imitation of one, was very much real; it is very much an affliction that overtakes sense and reason. A curse.

Transferable down to the saliva of one entering your bloodstream.

You must never get within the beast’s sights.

—

There’s blood on your hands again.

Hunched over, your body quivers, and the bareness of your flesh in the moonlight is of little concern to you—trapped in a fetal position while the chilled wind howls.

Howls.

“Get out of my head.” Your fingers grasp at your scalp, pulling; ripping. A sob jaggedly slashes your throat open. “Please,” you rattle in a fast breath, the grass snapping as you writhe. “Get out of my head.”

It had happened once more, and you can’t remember any of it.

The forest is deathly still. No birds sing their songs—no breeze moves the long grass, patches trampled down around you as if a beast had staggered into the small clearing you’re lying in. Maybe it had. There are shadows that listen to your quiet panic, the low whines and gasping quivers of your throat; from behind the trees that speak in the way that only they could. The deep night creeps into you, and the moonlight bathing your flesh doesn’t push back the terror in your bloodstream.

Your body burns like you’ve broken every bone twice over, and judging by the blood stuck in between every line and dip of your skin, to anyone walking past, the analogy could be very real. Fingers flexing and bending, you try to force out the venom inside of your head with desperation befitting a dying dog, spine visible out of the skin of your back as you sob all the harder.

You tried to stop it—you had; you always do. But, just like every month when the full moon mocks you with its silver-hued face, it never works.

It never works.

Your eyes stare at nothing as you lay here, in this place of grass, blood, and bile, of corruption as deep as a vile sin of flesh. It came over you like a wave, fingers trapping your throat and bearing it to the caress of fangs. There were different names for it here, miles from your village and the terrified eyes that search the tree line; names coming from the hunters and their black deeds.

Shapeshifter.

Demon spawn.

Werewolf.

“I can’t take it anymore,” you shove the side of your head into the ground, pushing the torn earth away from the cuts of long claws. Tears flood the dirt until it’s wet and muddy, pushing the crimson stains on your skin away in long streaks. “It hurts, God, please, it hurts.”

The sound of your hysterics rises and falls in the stillness—the inactivity of fearful birds and beasts wondering if your fangs would rip from your gums and your claws would tear from your fingertips. Fur along your body the color of which leads to stories of their own spreading far and wide.

The White Wolf. The Specter of St. Francis’ Village. A hound from Hell.

More pale than snow, and sharper seen than a knife or blade through the black trees. Even if the memories of your shifts were fuzzy at best, there were flashes of those who��d seen your gargantuan form from the confines of their stone-cut homes. Those wide eyes. Yelling—screaming; sprays of blood as heads were separated from bodies—

“Stop!” You scream, your legs kicking out as your toes scrape the grass. “It’s not me! It’s not!”

There’s a call of alarm from deep within the woods, the flash of torches and bellow of hunting dogs. They’re running you down, you’d forgotten that in the depths of your breaking mind and body, and by the time your elongated limbs had set themselves back into a more human-like appearance, your spine cracking at every vertebrae, it had slipped your thoughts entirely. It always took you a long time to understand what had happened after…everything.

But even now, the shouts of the hunt are pointless to the visceral breaking of your consciousness, stuck between leaving bloodlust and knowledge of horror. There’s flesh in your teeth, and you wail before your fingers drag down your face, cupping over your ears. In the back of your skull, the panting of dogged breath echoes; running, blood, blood, blood. It’s a dance of fangs, of pale fur, staining every inch and flooding the back of your mouth. Drinking it down like water.

Flesh—lovely, disgusting, flesh rent and torn to the bone with smacking gums belonging to a square snout.

Who had you killed this time?

By the time the dogs had tracked your scent to your curled body, it was already too late.

“Here!” Male voices shift in and out on the backs of crows, hard and cruel. “It’s here!”

“Get the dogs on it!”

“It’s not me,” you mutter incessantly, not truly understanding what you’re saying as hounds burst through the bushes, all snapping teeth and slobbering tongues your eyes widen in an instant. Panting, your jaw clenches; long whines move your throat.

“What…?” Blinking quickly, the dogs surround you—having to be at least ten of them on their nimble legs and thin tails. Everything is distant to you; separated. A knife could be driven through your heart, and you wouldn’t even realize it until minutes later, bleeding out on the grass.

The hounds are afraid of you.

They dart forward and balk back, your scent driving them up a wall until rabid slobber drips from their maws. Torchlight pulls through the trees—quicker now, running. Fangs nick your shoulder and you yell, shoving up to your backside as the world swirls, shuffling away as the dogs snarl. Their eyes are red-huen. Drunk off fear and order.

Your head darts and shifts, blood dripping off your chin to travel down the flesh of your stomach and navel—so much crimson that the whites of your eyes are violent under the moon. Hands slipping over the wet grass, your face pulls and slackens in delirious confusion as you try to stand but fail. You cry out in sharp pain, and the dogs go wild in their kill circle, nearly attacking one another in anticipation.

You glance down and see the black crossbow bolt sticking out of your thigh.

The scent of wolfsbane in the air only then becomes clear to you, and the realization is slow. Wolfsbane—you’d been told about it by the village priest. It makes beasts of the night dumb and weak; minds unclear.

In a moment of clarity, the reason behind your incurable hysteria becomes clear.

Lungs heaving and eyes far-off, the hunting party bursts through to where you stay, and you look up in animalistic fear. Figures dip and slip into one another, faces becoming demons as the visages melt into twos and threes. You yell out, sniffling and sobbing, trying to back up until the hounds grapple onto your shoulder and rip a chuck out of your arm. Screaming, your hand moves back, shoving at its snout before hands staple themselves to your wrist.

“No!” You wail, injured leg dragging as you’re forced back into a heavy chest. Hot breath fans against your neck as multiple grips pull and touch you—shackling you down with rope and chains. Your throat screams itself raw, kicking and struggling futility. “Let go!”

You’re too weak—too drugged off wolfsbane and blood loss. Rotting teeth move across the canvas of a smeared painting, you can’t focus beyond the riot of your heart inside of your ribs.

Grubby hands snap under your chin, digging into your flesh as you cry, not able to move as the restraints are tightened. A silver muzzle is slapped over your jaw. Dark eyes shimmer as you rage—aggravating the bolt wound until fresh blood forms a puddle on the ground, which the dogs lick their lips at.

“Look at that,” a low, lust-filled voice eases out, and hands around your body tightening as you squirm, head spinning. Silver and wolfsbane. Your eyes snap to fight the sudden flood of fuzzy heaviness in your body. “Pretty little Hell-Beast, eh? Almost seems a bit strange to have the Spector be her. Think that hunter shot the right bitch?”

“Course,” another grunt, a hand grabs the top of your head, jerking it up as your head lulls along with the force. You can barely focus on the words being said. “He isn’t a fuckin’ twat. Killed a werewolf in the next village over, too. Heard he skinned the fucker and took its head for his mantlepiece—just like the vampire skull he wears.” A pause. The dogs are still barking—echoing out in the trees. You can’t feel your legs. “Isn’t that right, Hunter?!”

A shout is sent into trees as your panic breeds with the drug, eyelids drooping as your head is snapped and moved by your hair. Your buggy eyes don’t focus on the man until he steps into the torchlight, the crowd parting for him as the metal of your chains drags and clinks together.

It’s as if the very blackness of night takes human form.

The man, the Hunter, is tall—very tall. He looms like an aloof animal over most of the others here with his dark boots and his black hood, and yet, under the fabric, there is no whisper of his face.

Only the upper visage of a pure white skull, and two long, needle-pointed teeth where canines should be.

“Ghost,” one of the men laughs, groping at your bleeding thigh before you shriek, muffled from behind the muzzle, and weakly kicked out. “Good shot, Mate. Right in the meat of the thing. Gave a good trail for the hounds.”

Ghost blinks slowly, grunting under his breath as the large crossbow in his hands is shifted. He stays silent as your visible pulse hurries on as if you were a rabbit and not a wolf, watching from under the cover of his hood. The darkness of his clothes is blue in the moon—silver buttons down the length of a loose shirt and pants stuffed into boots. The hood is attached to a jacket, which itself extends down to his knees and sways lightly with every shift. The silent resting of weapons and tools is not lost to anyone.

Belt of filled vials and large knives; a firearm over his back, and two pistols hidden on either thigh. That crossbow was still in his hands.

Brown eyes openly dig into your soul, dead as a corpse, and your voice whines as your thigh is finally released with a laugh. Your vision blacks and comes back a moment later as you try to breathe from behind the muzzle, gasping. That skull on his face…you don’t like it. It scares you.

And the Hunter only continues to watch numbly as his wide shoulders stay stationary.

“Get the cage!” Someone roars, and you flinch, shrinking until a dog with short fur comes and nips at your ankles, the man holding you grinning sharply as you sob and shake.

“C’mon—expected more of a fight from you, Spector. Getting bullied by dogs, now? Ain’t that a twist of fate, then. Bet this devil’s whore can’t even walk with all that wolfsbane in ‘er, eh?”

A grumble of chuckles as the rattle of metal is in the distance. You grow more fearful, mind flashing to a burning stake and the trials you’d seen in village after village. No—no they can’t put you in a cage; they can’t put you on trial.

They’re going to make it hurt.

“Say we try it out.” A shadow comes closer and grabs you by the arm, ruthlessly shoving you to the ground. You cry out as your spine meets the earth, arms and legs kept under chains that tangle and screech in their metallic way. The rope that holds the muzzle pulls against your neck until you can’t breathe except in ragged wheezes.

“Go on,” they taunt, some holding back the rampaging dogs just to watch you flail and shimmy. Your face grows hot as you struggle to sit up—shaking so violently you can’t focus on anything but the quiver. “Put on a show for us, Beasty!”

Death would be better than this.

Tears hit the ground as the cage is finally brought into view, the men all groaning and annoyed that you hadn’t even attempted a forced shift or a desperate run into the trees.

Ghost’s fingers, you notice from the side of your blurring eye, tighten minutely around the body of his weapon. You do not doubt that he’s wondering if it would be easier to just put a bolt through your eye right now.

“Get it loaded up,” the Hunter’s voice is accented and gravel-like. As if rotting wood is being peeled back and scraped along gravel, he stares at you for a long moment and then glances at the dogs. “And get those fucking mutts under control.”

“Which one?” Is the low-blow joke, and the ruckus of loud amusement that follows makes you want to die.

It’s not your fault, how do you tell them that? It’s not your fault.

Your throat bobs in an attempt to speak, but you can’t move your jaw from behind the restraint of your face—held tight to you as the men come back over and grapple for you again. The priest was right, wolfsbane makes werewolves sluggish.

You can do nothing as you’re ruthlessly dropped into a silver cage, borrowed, no doubt, from the Vatican itself, and christened with holy water. But it was a funny thing, really, and the dark humor wasn’t lost to you even like this. There was nothing godly about this contraption.

Locked in, you shove yourself immediately into a corner and hunch over, grasping at your thigh as the bolt still leaks fluid in a long trail over the ground. The pain is so great in your head, that the physical agony is little—a bullet wound to a sliver.

Your temple slams into the metal, smacking into it as your eyes shove themselves closed.

Head hurts—hurts. I can’t think. Can’t think. It’s humming, my skull is breaking open.

Bile pools in the back of your throat, but the muzzle keeps it in, leaving you gagging as the cage is lifted with a grunt and carried by long poles; back to St. Francis' Village, no doubt, but you can’t…focus.

“Think you might ‘ave given her too much, then, Hunter,” one calls, slapping Ghost on the shoulder as the crowd follows after the panicking quarry. The large man only gives him a look from the side of his eye and the villager pulls away immediately, awkwardly chuckling before hurrying off after the others.

Brown eyes watch your bare body hunch and spasm, pupils wide as you’re carted off.

He’d been generous with the wolfsbane, truth be told. He’d expected you to be…Ghost’s dark brows pull in from behind his grim mask…he’d expected you to be different.

Humming under his breath, the Hunter watches the torches disappear into the trees and lets his gaze linger on you.

There was something…off.

Blinking, he turns, eyes studying the place where they’d found you with sharp attention that misses nothing—not even the birds that come back to settle into the trees again. Large boots shift through the grass, and as he’s re-settling the crossbow in his hands, his eyes find something glinting.

Watching, Ghost takes another step and brings his body to the item in the grass, hidden, before he kneels. Digging with large digits, the Hunter’s hands loop through the chain of a necklace, dragging it through the torn earth until he can gaze at it fully under the light of the moon.

Blinking in slight surprise, Ghost finds the body of a silver bullet hanging from the confines of a leather strap. Brown eyes shifting to look over his shoulder, the man listens to the cheers and merriment of the hunting party mutely. A simmering understanding brews in his gut. It’s only one that you could know from years of experience doing just as he had—hunting and being hunted in turn with a knowledge of all things dark and unholy.

It could never be easy, could it?

A low grunt later, the man sighs out a deep, “Fucking hell,” and moves to slowly stand, slinking back into the darkness.

—

They kept you in the cage and set it on display in the middle of town for days.

Shivering now from the cold more than the wolfsbane, you stay collapsed into yourself as people come past to poke and prod at you—even sticking knives into the slits of the cage and digging them into you like an animal until your flesh was marked and brutalized.

You don’t remember what it’s like to not be bloody.

The bolt wound was festering; infected. You dare not touch it, because the pain only makes you want to vomit, and if you do, you’ll most likely suffocate on your own bile before the trial ever happens.

Yet, on the fourth night of this, as your eyelids flutter and your body grows weaker, a shadow comes to visit.

“You weren’t born one.” It isn’t a question, but the sudden voice makes you startle.

Eyes locking onto Ghosts’, your mind flies with fear—thinking that perhaps there’s more abuse that you’ll be put through. But no…the man has no weapons on him tonight. Only a long knife at his belt. The mask stays.

You stare, unable to speak as your fingers twitch.

Grunting, Ghost’s head tilts, gaze moving up and down as you curl in tighter around yourself. A cold breeze rips through the square, and your eyes clench closed with breaking will. When you open them again, the Hunter is kneeling by the cage, and holding up something in his hand loosely.

“You going to behave if I take that muzzle off?” You nearly gasped at the hanging image of your necklace—a silver bullet on a leather strap; that dark and heavy thing usually kept around your neck. A reminder.

After a moment of wide-eyed staring, you nod quickly to his question, a desperate, pleading thing without the need to utter words. Please, you want to scream at him, take it off.

Ghost’s eyes are as dark as a mound of dirt, sharply intelligent and filled with an unflinching reality. He doesn’t care what you are, and he won’t until you speak to him and let him judge your character far before any courtroom can. The man knows what a lie is better than any priest.

“Good,” he says curtly, accent far more deep as he thinks, re-capturing the bullet in his palm and standing before he shuffles it into his pocket.

You can’t help the anxiety as Ghost moves forward, loping to the side of the cage with the side of his eyes on you incessantly. It’s obvious how his other hand lays limp on the hilt of his blade that, with only one wrong move, you’d feel the chill of the edge with no time at all.

But the temptation of getting this muzzle off was too good to ruin, and so, you stay as still as you’re able as crows call in the distance and the deadness of the town leaks into your blood.

Ghost moves his free hand and orders, blankly, “Closer.”

You hesitate, body tight before you drag your face closer to the bars, angling it parallel with the metal so the tight bind on the back can be taken up. The fear can be smelt the second your eyes have to break contact with his with the turn of your head—neither of you trusts the other.

Ghost hums under his breath at the sight of your broken body coming farther into the open light of the moon, the whites of your eyes all the more visible from under the slathering of blood and tears. He hadn’t been absent to witness the abuse you’d been put through, even if the coin from his successful hunt was feeding him at the inn, a small window allowed the tight view of your torment at the hands of the people you’d once lived around.

But the reality was that you’d killed people—scores of them—and yet the worst part of it was that he wasn’t sure if you even knew that.

It took four nights for him to break his only rule: never get involved after the job’s done.

But the hunch he had was too important to ignore.

Large fingers latch onto the knot at the base of your skull through the cage itself, Ghost grunting at the sight ahead of him. The rope had been gradually chafing over your flesh, peeling back hair and skin until only the bloody meat was left—Simon had to wonder if the people of this village even wanted you alive for the trial or not at this rate. You’d be dead by tomorrow if that infected bolt at your thigh wasn’t taken care of.

Despite himself, a part of his chest tightens at the sight of the thing sticking out of your leg, dripping a yellowish puss. It had been a good shot, and he had overcoated the bolt in wolfsbane.

Ghost hadn’t expected you to be so susceptible to it—most werewolves only got slower, but you…you seemed to have a stronger reaction. He files that fact away and tilts his masked face to the side.

Grasping at his blade, the sound of a knife being slipped out of a sheath makes you startle, jerking your head back and shoving away even as your muffed whine of pain falls out. Ghost momentarily readies himself for an attack, but the way you force your mangled body to the opposite corner has him grumbling out a hard, “Easy.”

The Hunter raises the blade, watching you with unblinking eyes. Your body shakes; panting. It was like calming a feral dog.

“You want the thing off or not? Have to cut it.” Once more, the man rises and walks over, boots almost silent over the small raised platform the cage had been set on like a trophy, you inside are comparable to the golden coins that greedy eyes touch and run their dirty hands over.

Your mind is a troubled thing as you watch this Hunter and his crude knife come closer, kneeling again, and motioning with two fingers to shift your head.

“Out ‘ere,” Ghost says, brown eyes not letting you guess anything about his true motives. “Don’t have time to fuck around. Guards’ll make a round soon and I’d rather not get caught wide-eyed.”

Your brows pull in, hands clenching and unclenching in your lap as goosebumps travel the length of every limb. You were tired—hungry and thirsty; there were open wounds that burned with infection and ones that were crusted over with dirt and grime. You can’t feel your toes, and the tips of your fingers have long since gone numb.

The thought of getting this muzzle off was like the promise of heaven being dangled in front of your nose. Your hesitation this time is far longer than the first, moonlight glinting off the visible blade in Ghost’s hand as he stares. That mask holds death.

The hood is gone from him—only that pale bone left and sewn into dark, dark, fabric. The sharpness of the teeth leaves your throat bobbing in a nervous swallow as your head carefully shifts to rest on the bars. Bending, you present the knot once more and try not to focus on the way Ghost’s attention is fully on your expanding lungs; the pulse that is seen through the meat of your neck.

But he says nothing before his fingers once more grasp the rope and the tip of the knife slips up. You don’t even feel it before the sudden slackening of the muzzle, and then the thing slips from your face before it slaps the bottom of the cage with a dull thump.

The first thing you do is vomit.

Spine pulling in, your body jerks as the bile that had been in the back of your throat rockets out, restrained hands slapping the ground as the acidic concoction leaks from between your torn lips. Face on fire, you choke and retch for what seems like minutes before you can finally breathe in the damp air—the innate shame and disgust rolling through as you cough raggedly.

It’s only after you’d forgotten the man kneeling outside that he seems to remind you of his presence with a grumble.

“Breathe. It’s no use if you can’t speak to me.”

A weak, quivering glare comes across your eyes, saliva dripping off your chin as your tongue moves to lick at your lips. But the brown gaze is as immovable as stone. Finding it pointless, your hands come up and delicately touch the base of your skull, only making you flinch when the fresh blood pools down and over your neck, licking at your shoulders. Tiny droplets fall to hit the metal one at a time.

Ghost’s fingers twitch as he puts the knife away.

“Who bit you?” You stare at him, hands falling before your wrists rub at the aggravated skin of your jaw. He shifts his head, voice slow but heavy. “Speak.”

“...I’m not a dog,” your voice is scratchy, hoarse. You send a small glance his way, mouth open and nostrils flaring in an attempt to bring in the oxygen you’d been lacking.

“Really?” A hidden eyebrow is slowly raised. “Hell, coulda fooled me.”

“Damn you,” you whisper, not meeting his gaze as you shuffle back. The crossbow bolt catches on one of the cage’s bars and you bite on your lip to stop the shrill yell that threatens to exit. Head moving, you lightly slam your skull into the wall in pain.

Breath hitched, you clench your trembling jaw tight.

“Speak or don’t,” Ghost grunts, and he makes a move to stand. “Your funeral.”

A spark of fear stabs you as he begins to shift, and you can’t explain why. Perhaps it was because it was the first conversation you can remember having lately that wasn’t one-sided or on the edge of a blade.

“W-wait,” you stutter, blinking through the blood. The Hunter doesn’t slow, and then he’s on his feet and fixing the gloves over his fingers, flexing his hands before his foot begins to pivot—

“Please, don’t go,” your voice is thin and pleading, echoing through the street. “I’ll answer your questions, any of them you want,” the sentence cracks through a dry throat, tears welling. “Please, don’t leave me here alone.”

Ghost had half of his body turned away before it went rigid; the side of his dead eyes flash to you, swirling with specs of moonlit silver. A hunter and a werewolf lock gazes, great beasts respectively brought together in seconds that seep into slow minutes of delicate need.

Knowledge and company. Understanding and a horrible fellowship.

The Hunter’s eyes twitch in their ever-narrow resting place, glancing away before he mutely moves back to where he was before.

He wastes no time.

“Who bloody bit you?”

You stifle a pathetic sigh of great relief, taking company with a man who had shot you not days before. Yet the ability to speak and be heard was a commodity that was dimming each and every day.

“It was already fully turned,” you speak quickly, tongue tripping. “A big wolf—a gray one with eyes like the sky.”

Ghost glares to the side. Gray? There were no contracts for gray werewolves with blue eyes in the area. Only you—only Specter. The next question is just as stiff.

“When?”

“Three years ago,” your lips move. “Only three years, I promise.” Brown eyes narrow slowly, fingers tapping the fabric of his pants once before he makes a noise in the back of his throat. Ghost’s jaw clenches, mind working through the hoops that need to be jumped.

To you, the questions might seem pointless, but to a hunter, they were important—very important. Werewolves who are born afflicted with this moon-drunkenness are different from those turned by a bite. Not only are shifts from turned werewolves more violent, more deadly, but they rarely know their own actions from that of the frenzy under their skin; those that are born as such are rarely out of control, unlike your faction.

The only question now was if Ghost could condemn you to death when it was obvious your human form was entirely different and you had no semblance of an idea of what was going on. Was it even his problem to care about? Even looking at you now, the man blinked away from cuts and inflicted injuries—the muzzle on the ground.

The blood and the bolt.

He’d known it had been a foolish play to bring all of those townsfolk with him on this hunt but he needed their knowledge of the terrain; he hadn’t passed through St. Francis’ before. At the time, Ghost hadn’t been averse to assistance as long as he got the job done in his own fashion: capture or kill, the contract had stated. Rarely was he known for capture.

Maybe, deep down, he’d known something was already wrong about this.

“Show me it,” the Hunter grunts, staring you down, a deep anticipation growing in his bones. He had to make sure you weren’t lying.

You lick your lips, face pulling with every twitch and sway of your form. The black at the edges of your vision was coming back, and you blinked quickly, chains dragging before you shifted your back with a quivering breath. The punctures were difficult to see through all of the gore, but Ghost made do as he grabbed at the waterskin at his waist and the rag hanging from his belt.

Flooding the fabric in the lukewarm water, he hums out a firm, “Don’t move. Cleanin’ it,” before you feel the press of the rag to your back.

Gasping lightly, you almost jerk away before the sensation becomes a nearly welcomed one—the drag and slight scrape of rough material. Your averted eyes dip lower, staring at nothing as your heart momentarily slows to a normal pace. Ghost cleans the areas where the swell of scar tissue is the most obvious, and, one by one, the violent groves spread out like a slash of paint over canvas. Along the left side of your waist, the blood gives way to a dented ‘v’ shape of healed punctures. Deep, dragging; a point to where your side was almost ripped away before it broke off swiftly.

Ghost’s dark eyes fight the need to widen, and that hidden blankness stays.

A great gray wolf with blue eyes…

His mask tilts, head shifting as his gaze moves slowly. Gloved fingers twitch to touch them, moving in an almost examining way that befits a surgeon and not a decapitator. Your breath is held in the back of your throat, but you sag nearly entirely into the bars of the cage, growing more unsteady by the second.

The scent of infection is so strong it makes your head burn, and you’re overtaken by it as Ghost’s presence suddenly disappears.

You don’t know if it’s minutes or hours before you understand that you’re alone again, but when your limp neck finally turns to wonder where your silent captor is, you are greeted with nothing but moonlight. Blinking through the sludge behind your eyes, the sinking in your gut was stark and sudden—like a knife dragging itself from gullet to navel.

But all you offer is a light whine as more blood moves to cover the places where Ghost’s rag had just cleaned. You were scared of him, no doubt. A hunter through and through down to the vampiric skull on his face and the shroud of death at every inch of his form.

He’d shot you and drugged you with wolfsbane. Found your necklace.

So why had he talked to you?

Your head is too muddled for this, too delicate. Like the crimson under your nails, it dries and flakes off of your brain as the lack of distraction breeds stored agony. There wasn’t anything left to focus on besides the upcoming trial, your death, and the pain that doesn’t let you sleep except for now, on the brink of not rest but unconsciousness.

And at the sound of a key being slotted into the silver of your cage’s door, only then does your body slump with the weight of doom.

You don’t even feel the hand that grasps at your ankle.

—

The sway of the horse makes your teeth clatter with every clop of hooves.

Your conscience mostly comes and goes, only staying in thin seconds where you feel the press of clean bandages on your afflicted flesh and the tipping of warm broth into your mouth. Grass under your head.

Blankets being shuffled over your clothed body when you shiver.

When you’re finally able to speak, when the horse is moving along and hands keep your back stuck to a strong chest, it’s a low, garbled, “Ow.”

Ghost barely blinks down to your head as it slumps to the gait of his horse, glancing before his attention returns to the thin forest trail ahead of him. You’d made noises in your sleep often enough—this was no different except for the fact he felt your shoulders flex.

Slowing the horse with a pull on the reins, the dappled mare settles to a walk.

“You up, then?” Ghost hums, his hand around your waist tightening as you groan under your breath. “Good. Thought I was dragging a corpse—would have wasted my bandages.”

Your eyes shudder as they open into the light, having to focus on moving them before the sting of the sun makes them water. But you do, and then the confusion outweighs the numb stinging of tended wounds.

Head shifting, you look behind you slowly with wide eyes as the horse under both of you snorts.

Brown eyes watch you before a dark brow twitches upward. “What is it?”

You just blink, mouth slightly open.

“Where…am I?”

“Forest.” Ghost states matter-of-factly.

If you had the energy to glare, you would have. Seeing that nothing will get the man into a proper conversation—he was a brick wall even now—you look down at yourself and land on the scarred forearm that keeps you secure on the saddle. Ghost’s gloves were still on, but the sleeve of his dark shirt had ridden back to his upper forearm, and in the wake of pale skin, you find the black ink of all manner of warfare.

Werewolf skulls; vampire fangs and fire. The slash of inkish chains with skeletons.

Your lips thin, your senses slowly becoming your friend again as you stare at the snarling face of a needle-hewn wolf. Eyes tightening as the horse moves to the left, your body follows the reactive action before Ghost’s pressure tightens once more, visibly veins behind the pale flesh. You move on, seeing the thin tunic and pants over your body—feeling under that, the bind of wrappings with the scents of mashed yarrow leaves in the fabric.

They’d been re-applied recently, too.

“Stay still unless you want to re-open them,” Ghost utters, eyes scanning the trees for unseen threats. It was midday by now, the sun high above the trees watching the both of you on your trek to seemingly nowhere. “We’re far enough away, but I want more distance before I take the time to close them fully.”

“The trial,” your arm moves up, fingers grazing the side of your nose before it falls back down. Ghost can feel the air heat with unease. “The…the cage?”

“Trial was two days ago,” he draws, thighs shifting over the saddle. “Give or take.��

The confession isn’t as shocking now that you have woken up here, but the lack of remembrance on your part of that time startles you. It’s a blank slate—just like the aftermath of your shifts. You don’t like not knowing.

The next question comes out with a haggard cough, sweat dripping off your nose. “Why?”

“You’re going to tell me ‘bout the werewolf that made you,” the Hunter grunts. “And you can’t speak if you’re lit up like a pig on a spit. Took you the night we met in the square.”

Through it all, Ghost barely looks at you—always his attention keeps to the trees and the shadows that linger; seeming to listen. He knows more than anyone that they do.

The horse continues on, your pain surfaces again, and with a shuddering breath, you fall into a fitful sleep once more. The arm around your body tightens, and the warmth it lends is accented when Ghost’s shifting gaze glances at the top of your head. He wears an expression he can’t name yet.

When the throws of fever pull their curtains back for the last time, it shows you the slats of the attic above your head, wood polished and clean as the heat of fire moves over your body. Pulling a large inhalation of air into your lungs, you blink softly as if clearing away cobwebs with a broom—willing sense to return in the few seconds it had flown away.

The furs are warm.

In the village, you weren’t anyone of standing. A simple woman—unwed, and, thus, unimportant due to the era the world sees itself in. It wasn’t all bad…namely, it hid your affliction far longer than you could have hoped it did. You had a small piece of family land passed down to you on the edge of the village, and that was where you stayed. Nothing fancy; a hearth, a large, single-room property with a garden and a well. You were known to keep sheep, a fact that had caused perhaps a few hysterical chuckling fits when, every full moon, one or two went missing, but it gave you the ability to accumulate money and, more importantly, an alibi.

Who would suspect a werewolf to own sheep?

But this home already had a more detached feel to it—something removed. The air was sterile, somehow. Groaning, your face tightens before you rise to the palms of your hands, muscles quivering to keep the strength your stubbornness gives to them. Half-vertical, you turn and study the area.

Square, the four walls are stone with mortar and clay to keep the rounded blobs together. You’re on the ground floor, a staircase to the far right while the bed is stuck into the left corner; a nightstand sitting void of all except a single chamber-wick holding an unused candle. A sturdy table with one wooden chair, a stone fireplace set into the same wall the headboard is level with, and a large oak door.

There are runes written on it.

You can’t make sense of what they mean, but when you see them, your tiny-pupiled eyes slip to the rest, all placed at windows or near some point of entry—unassuming things until you realize why they were red in color.

Your shoulders tighten, and whatever bit of magic moves through your skin lets your nose pull to the scent of human blood.

You clear your throat and look away, licking your lips with a dry tongue. Moving your toes under the two bear furs that rest at your abdomen, you notice the lack of earth-shattering pain that accompanies it, and, shifting a hesitant hand, you grab the edge and push it back a bit farther.

Bandages with perfect ties meet you, void of any crimson staining.

Truth be told, you expected more of a Hunter’s home—skulls; trophies. The town always spoke of burnt bodies strung up on crosses that mark the property of those in this profession, a ward and a sign of grim hope. Vampires mostly, wasting away in the brutal sun. Others as well. Werewolf fur and witch bones shoved in blessed boxes.

This place is almost normal, you think, thighs shifting over the dip of the bed as your finger runs the white wrappings where the bolt should be. Your mind dares not go to how he got the thing out of you, and at the stretch of sutures, you take your curious grip off of it entirely.

Looking around once more, your brows furrowed tightly.

Where was the man? The hunter responsible for your current predicament? Ghost. With his vampire skull mask and his black attire—a hellhound with dark ink and intentions. More importantly…

Why were you still alive?

Your memories come back slowly as you stand, bare feet moving to the floor as the tunic over your upper half falls to your knees at the verticality of your spine. They creak a bit, the bones, at the ability to stand fully upwards and not be impaired by bars of silver. A strength seeps through you slowly.

In the deafening silence, you clear your throat tinily and lightly itch at the clean flesh at the back of your neck where the muzzle sat; rubbed raw now scabbed and healing with the spread of natural oil balms. Taking in a slow breath, you step forward with a heavy limp and watch the door, glancing at locked trunks and cupboards, eyes blinking. Your muscles ached, but the sting only served as a way to remind you that you were still here—living. Few in your position were granted second chances.

You’re about to study the runes at the door when you’re called to with the creak of the stairs in your left ear.

“Wouldn’t recommend it.” Your head snaps over, blinking quickly.

Ghost carries the leather holders of his twin pistols in one hand, the bodies of the weapons in them hanging as he comes to ground level one step at a time. Brown eyes glance over through the confines of his skeletal face-covering as he walks to the table, placing down the items.

“Keeps the spirits out—smudge ‘em and the house gets haunted,” he grunts. “Rather not bleed myself again to get the runes copied.”

You stare in mild shock, sound sparking from the back of your throat. “...Right.”

Side-eyeing the markings, you shiver and step back from the door, silent as Ghost seems to focus on his task at hand—looking over his weapons.

Large hands running the metal and wood, the pistols in his grip shift as the drying light of the day streams in through the curtains of the windows. He touches them intimately, knowing every grove and dip until he tilts one and rubs away a slash of dirt from the barrel with his bare thumb.

You quickly turn awkward, looking down at yourself and the bareness of your lower legs. It wasn’t lost to you that the man was the reason you were in this situation in the first place.

“You shot me,” you grumble—not unlike someone who had a knife to their throat.

“Affirmative,” Ghost says nonchalantly. You get a slow, blank glance and nothing more.

“Have you drugged me?” You ask, heart speeding up. There wasn’t anywhere to go—not without an escape plan and with Ghost in front of you.

“Wolfsbane?” The Hunter shifts his thighs, boots moving over the hardwood. “Negative. Not yet.”

“Yet?” An attitude seeps in, lips thinning.

Ghost sighs under his breath, slipping the pistols back into their holsters. “Forgetting about how we met, Love?”

“No,” you huff. “Not really.”

“Perfect.” Eyelids pull down slightly. “Don’t.” Ghost nods his head to the table's chair, crossing his arms over his chest. “Sit.”

“I told you I’m not a—” A sharp, numb look makes your snappy reply stall itself, and you stand there for more than a minute before you find the pointlessness of this.

You limp forward and sit in the chair.

Looping your arms around your waist, you glare to the side as your skin crawls at the unblinking eyes that stare. Ghost rolls his shoulders, tilting his head.

“What do you know about the werewolf that bit you beyond appearance?”

“Nothing,” you chuckle hopelessly, moving a finger in confusion. “I…I don’t know why you’re asking me about it—it’s not like I had a conversation with him.”

The Hunter blinks at your sudden confidence, unable to separate your form now from the one in the cage; blubbering ceaselessly in a grassy clearing. But lesser pains always bring out someone's true colors. As long as you told him what he needed to know.

Ghost explains with a sheen of dull annoyance. “Every turned werewolf holds a connection to the one that bit them. It’s pack mentality.” At your blank look, his brows pull in, the mask shifting. “You telling me you’ve never come back into contact?”

“...No?” Your lips dip. “For three years I’ve been by myself with this.”

Brown digs into your face, a small sheen of confusion slipping in to tighten them, around his biceps, Ghost’s fingers twitch.

You lick your lips, speaking up in the impending silence. “I don’t remember anything after I turn. Is that normal?”

“For you?” He mutters, still not taking his eyes off of you. “Yes.”

“I’m not going to pretend like I know what’s going to happen,” you shrug. “But at the very least I want to try and understand why I’m like this.” You open and close your mouth for a moment. “Before you kill me, anyways.”

“If I wanted you dead,” Ghost grunts through a half-amused tilt of his head. He doesn’t beat around the bush. “...You would be.”

“‘Capture or kill,’” you huff. You’d seen the flyers; heard from word of mouth. “Right.” You sigh. “They’ll track you down, you know. They’re not going to just let you take me.”

“They won’t make it through the forest. Bastards would get lost on the trail.” The Hunter moves until he can grasp the waterskin from the counter, dragging it over with his hand. He tosses it to the main table in your direction after he comes back over, and you hesitantly reach forward and pull the top off. Ghost changes the subject back to his studies of your condition closely. Dark eyes slip down your front as your lips part to take up the liquid. “Before your shift, tell me what you see.”

Your throat bobs as you drink the water, thirsty as it soothes your dry mouth. You hum, but the inquiry makes your hair rise. Your arm wipes at your mouth as you lower the waterskin, a small thankfulness in your heart. “It’s less of what I see and more of what I hear and smell—blood; metal. River water. I…” Your chest tightens. “I feel my bones breaking and I hear howling mixing with whispers.”

“Whispers?” Ghost leans, eyes alighting with dim interest. “What’re they saying?”

“I try to block it out,” you whisper, not exactly answering. “Makes it go faster.”

A long nothingness ensues.

The impending night grows deeper, and then Ghost finally speaks again after you begin to shift with unease. He nods firmly, tilting his head as if it’s already been decided.

“Next full moon, you’re going to listen to them.”

Your horrified face snaps up. It’s a moment of stuttering before you force out a heavy, “What? No!”

He’s already turned, moving back over to the stairs and placing one foot on the steps.

“Ghost!” You yell, face devoid of blood.

He side-eyes you. “Go back to bed. You’re dead on your feet.”

And then the same man who shot you in the thigh with little remorse disappears into the attic.

—

The Hunter was a strange beast.

The days the two of you spent together were mostly silent—left with tight stares and tense shoulders. Clipped sentences.

Ghost, for what it was worth, gave you space in this small house; as much as you could get. He kept himself up above while you stayed on ground level keeping yourself occupied. You’d gotten spare trousers and socks, a jacket, and the bed was practically yours with how your scent rolled off of it now. Yet, you had never been permitted to go outside.

You’d seen the land from the windows—careful of the runes, of course, and it wasn’t anything… ghastly. A vegetable garden, a single-stall stable with a dappled mare, and a beaten-down trail out the front.

No livestock.

No bodies.

It was only when you had become ever more curious about your lupine curse that you braved the stairs to the attic—one week into the impromptu stay. It’s funny due to the fact that Ghost had never said that you couldn’t go up there sooner.

You stand now in the flat room with a sloping roof and find the man making bullets. It’s a long table, parallel to the walls in the center of the room; dark and covered in all manner of books and tomes. Grimoires tied up and locked. Racks of weapons with markings and blessings tied to sheets of ribbon…it was something you’d never seen before.

Studying it now, the contents were a dark fascination.

Ghost fiddles with his silver shell, mixing in gunpowder into the hollowness. He doesn’t speak until you do, but he knows you’re there.

“Tell me more about werewolves,” you speak through the air, and he waits before answering. “The ones who are born with it.”

“Rare,” Ghost comments, and you’re stuck by how willing he is to tell you about this. He puts down his bullet and picks up another. “Harder to find, even harder to kill. Unlike you, they know what goes on when they’re running ‘round. Fuckin’ nightmare to pick up the pieces—bloodbath.” You thin your lips. “Not all of ‘em are murderous, but they’re unpredictable. Can’t help but make packs.”

“Instinct,” you murmur, coming a bit closer. Ghost pauses, looking at you before huffing in the form of a gruff ‘yes.’ Your wondering continues. “But why am I alone then?”

“That’s the question,” the hunter says slowly. “Need to figure out why.” Brown eyes slowly move to you. “‘Fore more people end up dead. Or turned.”

“Can I,” you stop at the table, standing opposite the man. “Can I turn people, too?”

“No,” is all you’re given. Ghost’s eyes glint. “And I’d rather you didn’t bite on me to try.”

Your face heats.

Your attention focuses for a while on how he works—prepares for something unseen. He’d said he’d kept you alive to help him find the one who bit you, but he’d also cleaned your infected injuries, bandaged you, and fed you. Kept you warm. Safe. It was far more than could be said about your village.

However, it was strange how Ghost’s stark muteness was something that you found in the darker hours, a small comfort. When the moon was coming in from the windows, and you hid from its rays as if being stalked down, he once found you sleeping under the bed on the floor because of it.

He never said anything, just offered you a silent hand and helped you back out with a slow blink and a tilt of his head.

There was a distrust, obviously, but there was also an unspoken nearness. No one would make any sense of it—you couldn’t either. It was like a wolf and a raven; something built on hesitence but necessity. You didn’t like Ghost’s mask or his brutalist profession of shooting his wolfsbane-coated bolts, and he didn’t like that once a month you turned into a rampaging werewolf.

Comparable things, really.

But even here, in this workshop in his attic, you saw the need for this—for hunters. If you couldn’t stop yourself, there came a time when you had to be stopped. Truth be told, you expected it to be a quick and final end. Maybe that was just a foolish hope.

A silver bullet would have always been your final song, you believed. Perhaps the very one that had once swung from around your neck; the one you’d never taken off until now.

But then, perhaps that would have been your own brutalist profession.

“Thank you,” you nod. Ghost pauses, fingers stained with gunpowder. He blinks at the bullet in his hand as you continue. “I know you don’t care about anything beyond your work, but if you hadn’t gotten me out of that cage they would have burned me alive. Skinned me.” Your tongue pokes out of the side of your mouth. “I don’t know, but it wouldn’t have been kind. Job or not…thank you for getting me out of there.”

“I shot you,” he utters, voice gravel. Ghost seemed confused.

Your lips flick. “I never said I forgave you for that part.”

A smooth chuckle wafts out over the attic and your own softly mirrors. Your head tilts somewhat quizzically. “But, about that…did you mean to put so much wolfsbane on it?”

Ghost shakes his head, grumbling. A small sense of honesty leaks out. “...Expected you to be bigger.”

You blink, and then, a few seconds later, a loud snort echoes like a ringing bell.

The Hunter's unimpressed look only leads you to find him all the more enjoyable. “Shut it. Fuckin’ hell.”

A hand is waved from your party, dismissing the harsh snap. “Sorry, sorry.” You puff out amused air. “Spector not up to your expectations?”

Ghost nearly rolls his eyes, trying to focus on the task at hand. He didn’t mind your company, at the very least he knew he needed to keep an eye on you for any potentially forced shifts or hostile attitude. What he hadn’t expected was to find you so…different from your muzzled counterpart, your shared physical inhabitant.

He could almost call you endearing if he wasn’t so numb to the sight and scent of reality.

“Sightings were far between,” Ghost grunts. “Here-say. I took an educated guess—better to put something like you out of commission than drag my way out of a forest without legs.”

“No apology?” You try, tilting your head.

“None,” is the drawn response. “I don’t have regrets. You’re alive.”

Your fingers touch the outside of one of his journals, tracing the bumps and grooves of age and wear. You hum, but don’t reply. Most of your pains have been pushed back now, even if you still weren’t up to full strength. Food and rest helped, but the anxiety that perpetuated only lengthened the healing process.

When you can’t trust even yourself under the drunkenness of the moon, it only makes your fear of the sun worse. Everything made you afraid—most of all your mind; most of all, the future.

“Why do you want to find the werewolf that turned me?” You have to speak this, have to push. Your curiosity demands it.

Ghost puts the bullet down and grabs a rag from his belt, mask turning to look your way as he brushes off his hands. He pauses, looming with that gargantuan height—natural intimidation in the span of his chest and the trunk that makes up his front. You find yourself in his shadow as he rubs at his fingers with the rag, taking it away and slotting it back into his belt a moment later.

The man’s heat leaks into your body as he blinks over, glancing your form up and down in a single look; keeping a respectful distance but still making his attentions known.

He stares. “If it keeps biting people, there won’t be any villages left to take up contracts from.”

“Money?” You frown.

“Principle,” Ghost counters, chest rising and falling steadily. “There needs to be a middle ground. Too many feral werewolves, too few people. Cut off the head.”

“Ominous,” your form turns to his, itching at the back of your head again—the scabbing skin. “If what you said was true, how do you know the thing isn’t already dead? If it hasn’t tried to get to me, what was the point of making me?”

“Because you hadn’t left St. Francis’ by the time I put a bolt in you.” Ghost grumbles, rubbing a hand on his bicep, itching above the fabric of his tunic. He stretches with a grunt—and you see his shirt ride up and the pale skin underneath. You gawk for a moment at the length of scars and brutal muscle.

“Charming,” you dryly utter, stuttering in a brief second of pulling back your senses, but the Hunter continues on, ignoring you.

“That was where you were turned—your territory. You stayed because your leader is still close by waiting.” Legs shift, and all of a sudden, a body is over you, hands are on the base of your skull, pushing your own away as brown eyes dig into the injury you pick at.

Your breath hitches, tensing for a second as your spine straightens. You watch widely from the corner of your eye as Ghost runs a careful hand over the flesh. He puffs a breath, chest moving in a grunt that is both commonplace and expected, yet the brush of his chest to your shoulder is not.

You restrain a shiver, nostrils moving to the overwhelming swell of leather and gunpowder. Bone fragments; the tang of whiskey.

His skin as he runs a thumb over the edge of your wound.

“It’ll start cracking.” Ghost utters, and through his fabric, you feel the brush of speech. “Have to apply more balm. Stop messing with it unless you want stitches soon.”

It takes a moment more of his surgical study and a small clearing of your throat before you can speak. Your mind changes the subject for you.

“So…if my bite can’t turn anyone,” you breathe, nearly sagging as Ghost’s fingers catch in your hair, shifting it under his attention to get a better look. He listens, you know. He wasn’t good at talking, but he always listened. “Why did they muzzle me?”

For a brief instance, you think you feel the Hunter’s fingers jerk a tiny amount—some reactionary muscle twitch that leads your body to still.

Ghost can’t say why he did that, though perhaps it was the sudden flash of the injuries that he’d wrapped on the road back to his property that went over his eyelids. Or the cage—your pleading face aching for whatever small sliver of brutish company you can get.

The silver bullet that he still had in his pocket, attached to that leather cord. He knew the purpose; the intent. Just as he knew the scrape of scabbing under his fingertips.

“Control,” he grumbles, and it’s all he’ll say.

Your burning face is somewhat down-turned, letting him do as he must, study what he can. He hadn’t made any moves to endanger you, and besides the upcoming full moon, there was nothing here that screamed imminent danger. Danger as a general, yes, of course. You were a werewolf in a hunter’s home—it would always be…your eyes flutter when his fingertips drag over your scalp…it would always be danger….dangerous.

Ghost doesn’t think you notice it, but your eyes are drooping.

He watches after the slight shock wears off, a tiny smirk flickering the hidden skin of his lips after he realizes the reason. If you had a tail, he’d assume it would be moving in a soft arch by now.

The man was mildly amused at that, and before he moved away fully, he had to stop himself from uttering a sarcastic, ‘like that, then?’

He had to remind himself not to get attached to whatever…this was. He was using you as bait, as some key to his problem. Not a companion. The distance here had to be firm and heavy-handed.

“The balm is down in my packs,” he grunts, leaving just as his name implied before you had the chance to gather your bearings and the lack of caressing heat. You startle back to the attic room, eyes wide and face loose before Ghost’s retreating footsteps echo on the stairs. “Don’t bloody use it all, then.”

The front door opens and closes with a pull of weighted wood.

—

“I can’t do this,” you mutter, pacing alone in the middle of the night down in the living room

The full moon was tomorrow.

“I can’t do it,” you itch at the back of your head, peeling at the nearly healed flesh harshly. Your nails dig into the soft tissue, drilling like a knife. A bead of blood slips around your fingers, but it doesn't stop you.

It’s late—late enough to know that Ghost should be asleep by now. For days, the paranoia, just like always, builds until you are nearly as mute as your Hunter. No more curiously searching his attic; no more questions about his job or how he got into this business. Brown eyes had been lingering more as the days went by, this strange companionship growing. You knew, in his own way, he was…worried.

So silent, even he had been getting noticeably uneasy. Shifting legs and quick glances. Nights where you hid under the bed from the moon until lunch came around, Ghost speaking as easily as he could to try and coax you out to no avail. You, a feral dog with white-rimmed eyes.

At supper, only hours before this panicked pacing, you had told something to Ghost that made him double-take.

“If I can’t stop it…I need you to shoot me. In the head.”

He’d never answered, but his eyes seemed to get ever-sharper as the hours continued on. More tense. Ansty.

But…that was his job, wasn’t it?

“Can’t do it,” you murmur. Blood slips down your wrist. “It isn’t right—”

“Spector?” Ghost’s voice had become so familiar to you that the only thing that made your heart skyrocket was the sudden call of it. Your gasp is sharp from behind a panted breath, hand flinching away from the crater you were steadily digging in your skull. A long string of blood trails into the air as your fingers jerk away, and it’s only then that you notice the deep pangs of pain.

Your eyes shudder for a second as Ghost’s form makes it to ground level. He comes over slowly, attention staying on the way the moonlight makes the crimson stains glint from the dripping line seeping into the sleeve of your tunic. He blinks, and you both stand.

The man’s skeletal adornment was missing, though the fabric under remained. A loose sleep shirt and pants, stained by the rays of night.

“Let me see,” he sighs under his breath, a tiny rasp telling of the sleep he’d been awoken from.

“I didn’t mean to wake you,” you utter. He doesn’t seem to care, grabbing your wrist and pulling the limb away as his body takes up presence behind you.

“Was already awake,” Ghost grunts, eyes narrowing in hidden worry. You calm down a bit at that, one less problem to worry yourself about.

The Hunter, quietly, leaves for a second and grabs his pouch near the door. With a muffled command, he nods to the bed until you’re backing up and hitting the back of your knees off of it, sitting.

Ghost lights the candle on the nightstand and opens his belongings with stiff glances your way. He noticeably doesn’t ask why you’ve harmed yourself like this.

“I can’t,” you say it like a plea for help. “Ghost, I can’t do it again.”

Hands fiddle with clean bandages and take out his waterskin. The man douses a rag with the liquid and comes over, shifting onto the bed and lightly turning you so your back is to him—legs half hanging off.

The hard press of cold water makes your breath hitch, and you bite your lip.

“It hurts,” you push out. Ghost knows you’re not talking about the newly opened wound.

“Breathe,” he says to you, seeing the way your sides expand with heavy lungs. Brown eyes flutter from the push of his large hand to the warmth of your shaking flesh. “Tell me about your home, yeah? Heard you lived in your own place.”

The question makes you double-take.

He’s asking me that? Here? Now? Hours away from perhaps another catastrophe?

Yet, you can’t help the slippage of your tongue as Ghost’s fingers rub into your scalp. The rag is lessened, and, soon, the material is rubbed gently over the sore itch of weeping skin. You fight a whimper and reply with an addled mind.

“It…it’s quiet. Calm. I always keep the candles going because I don’t like the dark.” Ghost works quietly and quickly.

“There,” he grunts, glancing at the flickering light of the candle he lit. He’d have to remember that. “And?”

“I kept sheep.”

He pauses, and, without meaning to, a soft scoff bounces off the confines of his chest. It catches your attention far better than a bullet could. Ghost shifts a needle and thread out of his gathering of items, taking away his limbs only for the short while it takes him to loop the two together.

“How many?” The masked man asks, amusement gone just as quickly as it had come.

“Only a handful,” you whisper. Your mouth opens and closes, glancing over your shoulder as the candle-light spills out over the room; casting shadows over Ghost’s face, catching on his long eyelashes. Those browns of his glint like tree trunks covered in dew.

“Please,” your words are muffled. Eyes wide and fearful, there isn’t anything that can console you on this. “You need to kill me.”

There was a dichotomy to you—a violent thing. You didn’t want to die, no, you feared it heavily, more than the moon, but the truth was that you couldn’t keep going through this. The unknowing. The breaking bones, the blinding pain. The understanding that nothing that you do can stop it.

“It hurts, Ghost,” your breath stutters. “More than taking off a limb, more than slicing yourself open and ripping out your intestines—it burns more than the light of the moon.”

The Hunter listens through all of it. He sits, he stares, and he hides the brimming sense of concern behind his dead eyes.

With a pulling of his eyebrows, Ghost’s free hand moves upwards and grabs your chin. Freezing, you study this phenomenon from over your shoulder, face on fire with eyes wide to the pale skin visible to your view. You hadn’t realized until now, but this was the most you’d seen of the man’s face.

You could make out the point of his crooked nose—the strength of his jaw under the form-fitting fabric. Cheekbones and the heaviness of his brows. Wisps of hair. He had eyes like a cat, you had to admit; something sly about them despite the numbness that seemed to extend bone-deep.

But his hands had been kind to you.

Firmly, Ghost’s fingers run your flesh, and he blinks softly before a low sound echoes in his throat. He pushes carefully on your jaw and shifts your head back forward so he can help you. When he lets go, your heart quivers in your breast

“I’m ‘ere,” he mutters, and you feel the first stitch enter the thin flesh of your head. You take down deep breaths, focusing on the scrape of his fingertips and not the point of the needle. Ghost can understand the fear of it—of pain. It’s instinct. He tilts his head and pushes out, “I can only ask for one full moon from you, yeah? No more. I just need one.”

“And if I can’t find the werewolf?” Your voice vibrates with emotion, staring down at your hands as Ghost’s chest brushes your spine. The scent of him was addling your brain; the rub and slide of his hands.

The Hunter’s jaw clenches softly. “...Then I let you go.”

It wasn’t what you were expecting, but anything from the time you’d gotten a bolt through the thigh was unknown territory, and, like a dog without a leash, you’d run into it. Your brows furrow, blood oozing down your neck before Ghost’s grip shifts to place the rag back again, swiping away firmly.

“Go?” He nods, but you can’t see it. “But what about the hunt?”

“I can manage.” The stitching pauses. The air is broken up nearly a full minute later. “You’re not evil.” Before they start up again as if nothing was uttered aloud.

The confession makes the sting in the back of your eyes start up again—a strong thing of confusion and vulnerability. Ghost continues his task, pulling together your skin one suture at a time until the injury is fully closed; clean.

“Chin,” he lowly states, and you allow him to tap your jaw, shifting it up so the wrappings can loop above your ear and over your forehead—securing them.

Even far after the blood has seeped through, the two of you stay.

—

Come morning, you already feel wrong.

Your body stays in bed, shaking—sweating. A large pain flairs in your chest over and over like a pulsing well in the earth, skin twitching with the spread of blood. Ghost sits beside the bed all the while, having dragged over his chair. He leans back into it, one arm over the side, hanging with the thing ever so often moving to rub at the back of his neck.

You don’t think he’s moved since he brought it over last night; since he got another candle to stick into the holder—push back the dark. To watch, to study, or just to stave off your rising anxiety is another question.

It’s only after the fourth time you try to rip at the stitches at the base of your skull that he finally grabs your hand and holds it silently. Now, his thumb moves over your knuckles—his gloves back on.

At noon, he tries to suggest eating.

“Hungry?” Ghost asks.

“No,” you say instantly, sweat dripping over your temple, your body partially buried under blankets. “No, I’ll just throw it up.”

Brown eyes glint. “Just one bite?”

Your mouth is already salivating—thoughts of wet flesh and blood in the forefront until you whine and shove your face into the pillow; panting heavily.

Whispers dance in the shell of your ears.

I’m here.

“Go away,” you whisper quickly to them.

Ghost pauses, hesitating. After a moment, his thighs tense with the action of movement, thinking you’re speaking to him. Something swirls in his chest, but he starts to stand nonetheless.

Your eyes widen.

“No!” Both of your hands latch onto the Hunter’s wrist, fear a needle stuck in your gaze. “No, not you. Stay, please.”

A silver cage covered in blood slides across Ghost’s slightly shocked look, but he only licks at the corner of his mouth and slowly leans back once more.

“Not going anywhere,” he says, accent dipping. “Tell me what you’re hearing, yeah?”

His hand slips back into yours, and he presses into your pulse softly, counting. The sun continues across the sky.

“I don’t like how it sounds,” you say, shaking your head. “It’s wrong.”

“Focus,” Ghost breathes, looming closer. His grip squeezes once. “It can’t hurt you.”

You shiver, eyes tightly closed as tears burn the back of your nose. “It’s howling.”

A suddenly gloveless hand spreads up your cheek, resting there and pushing back the sweat that pools. It’s calloused—scarred. You whine, head spinning.

I’m waiting.

Find me.

“I don’t want to,” you utter under your breath, words an amalgamation of slurring gasps.

“Spector,” Ghost calls, head moving closer. “Eh.”

“I don’t want to hurt anyone,” your hurried panic is similar to a mind overdosing on wolfsbane. “Gotta go away—gotta get out—”

“Spec!” The Hunter’s quick bark makes your eyes pop open, and you lock instantly with brown orbs.

They’re tight, unblinking just as always. They offer just a few moments of clarity.

Ghost holds your head still while the rest of you shivers with cold sweats, you can hear the blood inside of his veins; his heart pumping. The scent of his skin was addicting to the point of memorization on the airwaves. You watch, gulping down breaths as your throat bobs.

Eyes dart you up and down, fingers spreading out to offer what little comfort he can. The man wonders if he’s completely in over his head.

Ghost pulls his face-covering up to his nose, and your heart skips beats at the sight of ravaged skin and stubble, scars spreading out like your own. Long ones, short ones, burn marks, and hyperpigmentation. He wasn’t pretty, but he was real.

Oh, he was real.

His grip on you strengthens until all you can focus on is him.

Ghost blinks, and you see his lips move. The gravel of his voice was never more clear. “Fucking hell, keep that head on, okay? Nothing’s going to happen as long as I’m here. I’ve got you.” He sighs out a low breath, thumb running your undereye as the small dribbles of tears begin to sneak out. Ghost murmurs. “I’ve bloody got you, alright? Let it happen—we can figure it out.”

He’d grown fond of you over the course of a month. You were curious; not pushingly so. Honest. Good. You’d been dealt a bitter hand, and damn him if his stone heart wasn’t stretched thin at the raw fear on your face. This wasn’t your fault, but he needed to find who turned you and stop them before it got any more out of control than it already was. If more unstable werewolves went running through the woods, there wouldn’t be anyone left in the territory alive.

“When you turn,” Ghost says as clearly as he’s able. “Go. Don’t fight it. I’ll find you.”

“Promise?” You ask, a weak flicker coming to your lips—eyes vulnerable.

Ghost nods once, and it’s all you need. “I’ll find you,” he repeats. “Doubt me?”

“No,” you ease, clearing your throat. “But…one more thing?”

“Anything,” the Hunter instantly says.

“Just don’t shoot me in the thigh again.”

When the claws start protruding from your nailbeds hours later, you’re bolting to the door with only one last glance at the Hunter and his half-pulled-up mask. Booted feet hitting the wood as he stands, he lets you go even as his thighs tense in a need to run after you. Patience was his beast to tame, but it seemed to have left him in the form of a woman disappearing into the tree line.

There is companionship in broken things.

Your body slips into the forest just as the creak of your bones begins to shift and bend. You fall into a heap, hearing the gargling of marrow under your skin like a call to sea. An urge grows to infect you; a feral need to run and hide. Biting back a shrill scream, a hoarse yell escapes instead—flesh rippling as your mouth opens, fangs breaking the supple mushiness of your gums as blood floods like a river.

Find me.

“Ghost,” you whisper, hands snapping to your head. “Ghost, please.”

Your bullet, you want your silver bullet.

A rabid scream rips from your throat, and back in the house, Ghost’s hands tighten into fists as he glares at the open door. He growls under his breath, eyes tightening in a certain type of anger that brews in his gut. The nights your shuffling woke his light slumber were more common than when you hadn’t, and every utterance was clearly heard to his ears. It had become a curse to him—how you’d met.

A regret was seeping in, a care, and now, as he forces himself to back up and head into the attic, Ghost clenches his jaw tightly. So unaffected by the horror of monsters, he was now at a loss of sense for this growth of feelings.

He wasn’t dull, he knew that some of the contracts he took marked him as a tool and not a person of stable mind. He’d done things he wasn’t proud of, and he would continue to do them for no other reason than they were the orders he was given.

But you had broken a piece of that off of him, somehow, someway, your face had seared itself into his retinas—speared him at the brutality that your community had treated you with. The muzzle. It was cruel, and while Ghost was precisely that, there was a limit.

He did his job, and that was that. Anything after wasn’t his problem.

You became his job, and the one who turned you was an add-on. Maybe if he justified it to himself, he could understand his actions better.

But he was already sprinting to grab his gear when the first howl shattered the night.

—

A white beast prowls the forest.

It stands on two legs, but it isn’t human—isn’t natural. It’s taller than a grown man is; snout pulled back in a soundless snarl that puts dogs to shame with rows of teeth so sharp, they look like pale knives. Its feet—large, splayed—soundlessly skate the ground until clawed fingers slam to the earth.

A nose inhales the scent above the dirt, tongue lulling as a shaggy tail lays limp behind a curved spine. In between the erect ears, under the thick skull of the werewolf, the rolling bumps of a brain spark. A pull.

Find me.

Your eyes are tiny black dots—and they blink once before you rise once more. A great growl moves inside of your chest, the large collection of hair around your neck standing on end.

I’m waiting.

But there’s something that keeps you here—standing in the grass as the moon shines atop your head, your fur nearly glowing even with the stain of bloody injuries. The remains of clothes are about a meter away; only strips of what was.

Your gaze looks over your shoulder, and your gargantuan frame lumbers backward until you can stoop to them—nose once more sniffing with your arms reaching.

Your fingers twitch, blackened claws digging through the ground as a near purr echoes in your throat. The scythe-like additions card across the strips.

Gunpowder.

Leather.

Whiskey.

Something you can’t quite name, but feel drawn to despite the tightening noose at your throat. There was something there you can’t focus on…something that you need.

Your drooling jaws snap, saliva coating the fangs until they drip off one at a time to stain the grass. Body shifting, your head lowers until your wolf-ish visage rubs against the fabric, licking at the sides of your gums as delicate grumbles slip out of your mouth.

A far-off howl leaves your frame freezing.

Eyes slipping back into the feral-inhumanity of a wild animal, your body jolts up, gaze to the forest trees and the rustling of bushes. The swell of rain on the clouds is in the back of your nose, and the previous attraction to the ripped clothes is lost as simply as it had come.

You were being summoned.

Ears twitching, the entirety of your body refuses to move to the sound; tensed and ready to spring on anything that moves if only to let off the spike of anger at the lack of control. The pull grows stronger, and it feels like something is trying to drag you away into the wilds.

This was the sensation you were always trying to fight—the one that led to the aggression; the hunt. You knew that if you followed that howl, whatever was left of your human sense would be gone entirely before you could stop it.

Yet, this time, there’s a nagging need to find the owner, and you can’t remember why.

Your large head tilts, feet spaced as the curve of your spine grows more aggressive—hunching forward as you snarl at nothing, claws shaking as your fur is more bristly than sleek.

Like pure white spikes.

In the back of your head, a thin sliver of a memory slips in. Fingers on the back of your head, caressing calluses and dark, dark, eyes. Clean bandages and gentle touches.

I’ll find you.

If the side of your vision picked up the shadow shifting from far off into the trees, your curled lip never turned that way. If your nose twitched to the heavy weight of a man’s sweat, it never shifted to point as a mutt would to the rustling bush.

Your body bolts after the resounding echo of a wolf’s howl, and it’s no later that Ghost slips after your clawed prints to follow.

—

Crossbow in hand, the hunter’s mask gleams in the darkness, his pale eyes twinkling. Bending down, he glazes at the long pushing tracks of your form—seeing the spray of dirt to the side and the broken branches. Ghost blinks, shoulders tense before he swiftly stands and continues on. The firearms at his thighs lightly rattle, and the bolts in his crossbow are already laced with wolfsbane; silver tips smelt a week ago.

He passes a river with only a single glance at the tossed rocks from the bed, sloshing through the water as the bottoms of his pants get weighed down. Ghost’s mind is on one thing only: make sure this plan won’t get you killed.

The bolts aren’t for you—the silver bullets aren’t for you.

He grunts under his breath, the dark woods casting phantoms over the ground. The Hunter’s legs shift through tall grass, and he carries himself with the ingrained confidence a man of his station requires. If he were anything less than a monster himself, he would have died ages ago. Ghost shoots and lets others come up with the questions, but he could never be called dumb.

Seeing what fast glimpse he had of your shifted form after the last time, he was struck by how erratic it acted. Snapping head, twitching ears, and roving eyes. If he didn’t know any better, Ghost would have called it rabid.

Yet, your actions with his borrowed shirt were…body-stilling, to say the least about it. It had made his gut swirl.

“Give me a trail,” Ghost utters to himself, brown eyes still picking up the dash you’d taken. His agile feet splash through a puddle, the beginnings of raindrops hitting his head.

The man grabs at his hood and pulls it up stiffly, frowning under his mask.

Rain would wash away the tracks.

“C’mon, Love,” he grinds out, body hunched. “Leavin’ me to do the dirty work, eh?”

It’s too quiet—even a collection of minutes later of hard hiking, the trees barely move. There aren’t any birds; no animals beyond the black bodies of crows in the far-up branches, waiting, watching with obsidian eyes that don’t blink.

Ghost isn’t off-put, but the length of his strides gets far tinier, carefully stepping over twigs and rocks like a soldier at war. Then again, he was at war. And if he was caught unawares, there wouldn’t be a bullet to pull out of his side, but, instead, a chunk missing.

His ears were almost ringing from how hard he was focusing.

Brown eyes shift from one area to another, and then, suddenly as if a deer, he freezes.

Ghost’s body winds up, fingers twitching from the stark trigger discipline of his crossbow downward instantaneously. No one but him can explain what just happened, but he knows when he has to listen instead of act. Stuck in a clearing not unlike the place he’s first met you, his feet rest shoulder width apart and his eyes stare blankly into the trees ahead.

Your tracks end here.

From behind him, just as the large raindrops slap the side of his bone-ed visage, the small crack of a twig makes his ears twitch.

A low snarl sets his hair on end.

Looking over his shoulder, Ghost is met with the same color that he’d become so accustomed to in a full month completely blacked out. Void. Lifeless to anything besides rage and bloodlust.

Your white fur was infected with dirt, blood, and leaves—a mosaic of ferality ingrained into your body; pale fangs snapping. The beast slips through the treeline, slapping a veined hand into the soggy earth.

Ghost only watches, eyes a mystery.

His finger shifts over the trigger, and for the first time in his life, he hesitates.

The man looks into your glinting orbs, the dripping saliva on your lulling tongue as your esophagus pants for breath. One hesitation, he always knew, would mean death. One mess-up.

You’d asked him to end it, he shouldn’t feel remorse, guilt, perhaps—he was still human, despite his appearance, but remorse was deeper. It left wounds that were harder to lick clean again.

…So why isn’t he sending a bolt into your forehead?

Ghost remembers the times he’d found you under the bed, your shaking, and the way you hadn’t allowed him to change your bandages the first few weeks you’d stayed with him; didn’t want him to touch you. The nightmares and the small smile you’d gain when he’d spew his dark, sarcastic words as if this was a joke. How you’d always thank him under your breath for the food he’d give you, hunted by his own hand.

A silver cage. Crimson blood. The sight of your pleading eyes when you’d told him to shoot you.

Maybe the two of you were far more alike than he’d dare to admit. And he currently won’t, not even on his deathbed. Not even now.

Ghost watches, and he waits.

He can’t do it.

Your body slinks closer, stalking with the sound of anger, nearly rib-shaking in its volume. Ghost’s jaw clenches, and his body shifts to face yours head-on. At the sight of the crossbow, your snarl turns into an air-biting rage, saliva flying through the rain.

“Spector,” he keeps his voice low, even. The sight he’d seen as you smelled his clothes had to mean something. Ghost tilts his head, moving out a hand from the side of his weapon in an appeasement gesture. “I’m not going to shoot you. We have a job to complete…get those fangs away.”

He wonders if ordering you around will even work. You had told him before—you’re not a mutt. Ghost agrees. No mutt was the size of a fucking boulder.

The werewolf’s claws drag—goring the mud as if a pig to tear apart.

“Spector,” the Hunter tries again. But something’s different about his tone; he drops it, letting it pull on a softer string. “I’m here to end this. We’re here to end this.” He blinks and lowers the crossbow completely. “Breathe. The night can’t last forever.” A breeze whips the trees. “I made you a promise.”

There’s a second, he thinks, where he can see something shift in your gaze, pupils slightly widening above the deluge that wets down your fur into a sopping mess that hangs off muscle.

“That’s a girl,” Ghost grunts, taking a small step closer. “Never told you,” he utters, eyes locked with yours. He sees your nose twitch minutely. “But if we get this right, Spec, there’ll be no more painful shifts, hear me?”

Your dog-ish mouth is closed, hanging off every word as Ghost comes even closer.

“I kill this bastard,” the hunter breathes, gloved hand still outstretched, nearing closer to the near-silver of your form. “The moon’ll have no claim on you. She’ll let you off the leash, Little Wolf. You get to decide when it happens.”

He thinks he has you now, back to some state of recognition in the addled brain that tries to see him as prey; as competition. Ghost’s fingers are close enough to almost touch you, but just before he can brush his gloves over your wet fur, your mouth opens in a display of untamed challenge. Your growl is enough to make the man unconsciously reach for his pistol, and in the time it takes him to realize the fault of it, you’ve already rampaged forward with an unhinged jaw.

Ghost’s eyes widen, taking a quick step back.

Your legs push off, and you shove the hunter out of the way just before the fangs of an immense beast can clamp down on him, your own finding the shoulder of gray, thick fur.

Fighting as wolves do, Ghost only needs a moment to recover and get to his feet, though the sight in front of him can rival any that he’d seen before. His crossbow clatters a few feet away, sending the bolt off into the trees with a metallic ‘twang’.

The two werewolves roll around the pouring clearing, snapping teeth and rending claws drawing blood that’s deep enough to swim in to the green grass. White and gray meld together—blue eyes like a knife to Ghost’s chest when he takes it in from between the sound of tearing fur.

“Bloody fucking…” the man trails, staggering as his palms slap to the pistols at his side. He blinks, shouting in more of a bark than even a dog could imitate. “Spector!”

The wolves pull and rip the other to shreds, flesh torn and limbs grasping for purchase. Bodies are slammed to the ground before getting tossed to the side, fangs flashing in the moonlight. Ghost watches crimson stain your fur a pinkish-red.

He can’t get a good shot.

The werewolf that turned you sinks its claws into your sides, dragging them downwards as you yowl, eyes tiny with aggression before your jaws connect with its snout, biting down with more force than a horse’s hooves. The monster screams—a garbed thing of fangs and saliva.

Just as easily as it called you here to it, as it stalked your Hunter, it bashes your body back into the earth and takes you by the scruff of your neck. Eyes wide in that lupine way, you lock on Ghost’s profile before your body is lifted, and tossed away violently.

Spine slamming into a tree, you hear the cracking and bending of your bones in your ears just after you hear the sharp shout from the man in the clearing, body dropping to a heap into the grass and mud. Angled head flopping back and forth, black infests the edges of your vision, coughing up blood that seeps from between your gums and slips down the back of your esophagus. Fur and flesh are stuck at the base of your throat.

Whining, your limbs drag and pull futility, eyes flooded over with crimson and fogged by rain. A great roar worries the air, sending long shivers over your spine as you try to rise to your limbs, a five-fingered hand slamming you back down.

Just before the fangs can clamp your throat, two great booms burst through the forest.

The wolf atop you reels back, great bellow escaping its throat when you can finally drag your head to look over. This beast was clawing at its chest, shaking its large head in an arch to try and dispel the shock of having two silver bullets entering its back—the gray head snapped around to Ghost, who held his twin pistols aloft with eyes burning with anger from behind his mask. An avatar of vengeance; a bringer of death.

The orbs inside of your sockets widened, nose twitching wildly as you bleat a quick warning bark.

Blue-Eyes rises, body far larger than yours would ever grow to be—on two feet more powerful looking than a bricklayer many years into his craft; tall enough to reach to the sides of black-shingled homes and pull itself up. Ghost takes one look and growls under his breath, knowing there would be no time to reload the weapons in his hands.

So he drops them and pulls slowly at the cruel blade in his belt until the gleam winks in the low light like a curved smile. Setting it in his hands, the small flicker of a sharp smirk on his lips is lost to you.

Yet, there isn’t a chance for some brawl between two beasts—there’s only the flash of pale fur and the final crunch of a body hitting the ground.

You bury your fangs into the wolf’s neck; the one responsible for all of your pain and torment spanning years of isolation. You feel the body seize as it drops, the last remnants of a dying brain trying to fight the inevitable nothingness that ensues, and, you only hold on the harder, the bloodlust seeping back in with every drop of life pooling into your locked jaw.

Your throat releases tiny growls of pleasure, biting a bit to make sure there wasn’t a sliver of a chance that something living was walking away from this scene.

Ghost pauses, and in the back of his head, he knows he should stop you. Brown eyes see the animalistic sheen of enjoyment at a fresh kill, the way you pull at the flesh until chucks peel away from a gurgling wolf. Even when the thing is long dead and the rain still slaps the earth, you barely let go until you get a hold of the meat and tear with a backward jerk of your snout.

“Love,” the Hunter sheathes his knife, taking a step forward. The blood was pooling under your body. How many of those were treatable? He had to know. “Let me see what’s—”

The eyes that lock on him are not yours.

Up to your ears, the entirety of your face was awash with the stain of life, dripping off the whiskers at your cheeks; your chin.

Before he can utter another word, he finds himself on his back with a snapping snout right in front of his face, two dead eyes staring deeply into his own. Ghost sucks down a quick breath, hand snapping to the large wrist shoving down on his chest.

He pants out, gravel accent far more deep than it was before.

“Easy, Spector. Easy. Eh—focus on me.” Your tongue licks at your fangs, body shaking. Ghost pushes out, “That’s it, then. It’s over, yeah? You did it; let's pack it up and head back home.” He grunts. “Recon even dogs get cold in weather like this—the bed’s waiting. Get a nice fire going.”

Ghost sees your face move closer, and his hand minutely shifts to the vial of wolfsbane on his belt. It wouldn’t kill you, but it could put you out of commission until your body shifted back into its proper form. He could carry you back—that wouldn’t be a problem at all.

But he was worried about your injuries. Even now the droplets of blood roll off of you faster than the water can.

Too much.

Brown eyes crease, darting a look down.

“Fuck,” he growls, seeing the carnage and the open meat. “Sweetheart, we need to get you checked out—you need to listen to me. Can you do that?”

He can see the conflict; the internal fight.

Your mouth moves with fast pants, claws stuttering over his gear futilely. You blink rapidly, shaking your large head in fast increments with small snarls.

“C’mon,” Ghost says slowly, fingers looping the vial. “Keep listening. Know my voice is utter shite, but only you can tell me it.”

Your head drops to his chest just as the wolfsbane is popped open, and, for whatever reason, Ghost pauses. He waits.

You take a long inhale of his gear—of the leather and the gunpowder, and just before the Hunter can dump the vial over your skin, the long blackish claw on your finger loops the bottom portion of the fabric under his bone attachment.

The man’s breath hitches as you let it rest along his nose bridge…holding it there as you drag your head upwards as if it were an impossible chore. Your mouth dribbles out gore to his cheeks, but the Hunter stares upwards into your eyes as they soften in a lupine way.

Inexplicably, you let out a bone-rattling sigh and slump into oblivion.

—

Come morning, you sleep under the spread of large fur blankets—clean bandages over your bare frame as the man has tended to you for hours. He mutters for you to slip your arms into a spare shirt after he finds your eyes open, not uncomfortable by your nakedness, though he wants you yourself to be at ease.

His brown eyes are creased, and you can’t remember what you’ve done.

You comply with small grunts and moans; more sore and cut up than you can recall ever feeling as a large tunic is slipped over your head by scarred hands.

Gunpowder.

“What did I—?”

“You finished the job,” he says, sparing you a glance as he shifts back with his eyes averting themselves from your visible legs. The sun seeps in through the windows. “It’s morning.”

You blink slowly, and the man eases you back down into the furs.

“I’m tired,” your voice yawns out—weak and brittle like the hope you’d had that this plan of his would work. Eyes half-closed, they blink at the hunter with a soft kind of care that you can’t remember showing before. Whatever pain medicine he’d given you, it was working. The underlying itch was still as strong as ever, though.

“Tired is good,” Ghost nods slowly, standing still until he crosses his arms and sets his feet. He’s in a fresh shirt and pants. There’s blood under his fingernails; traces smeared over his flesh. “Means you accomplished something.”

“Don’t think that’s entirely true,” you breathe. A pause. “...Why is your mask like that?”

It was half pulled up—showing off his lower jaw and the stubble. The scars that you already have memorized. Ghost shrugs, blinking those dead eyes of his.

“Ah,” he grumbles. “Forgot. Here.”

He reaches up and slips the thing off in one motion. Your loose brain takes a moment to realize the entire face you’re staring into, but the second it does, the image is engraved into your mind forever. You make a noise in the back of your throat.

“Better, Little Wolf?”

“W—” Your lips stutter, new sutures pulling tight. “Why would you…?”

“Hungry?” Ghost asks, quickly changing the subject. “Know you like that venison that I caught.”

“No,” you breathe. “No, I’m not…I’m tired, Ghost. My head hurts.”

A hand sweeps over your forehead, staying as you sag into it with a hum and a fluttering of your eyes.

“Bloodloss,” the Hunter murmurs. “Normal. Go back to sleep; take however long you need. I’ll be here.”

The bond between the two of you has strengthened to that of a silver rope.

“Stay,” you plead under your breath, already slipping back into nothingness with no promise to wake up again soon. “Hold me, Ghost?”

“Simon,” he grunts to only himself, knowing that the words are lost to you. Perhaps that makes him all the more eager to share it with you when you’re better. “Stay still.”

It wasn’t like you could protest.

The broad man slips in, shifting the furs until you’re covered back up and your forehead is to his chest—keeping himself closest to the door where the runes still sit in their bloody glory. If he listened hard enough, he could even hear them humming him a tune.

No song was better to him than the one of your breath at this very moment. Alive. Moving. There were many times in the night that he thought...hm.

“Better, then?” The dry tease slips out.

A kiss to the side of his mouth is what he gets in answer, and he doesn't say a peep more until he knows you’re back in the clutches of a dream—a good one, he knows, because he watches your expressions like a loyal guard dog would.

Ghost, Simon, rests his lips on the top of your head, and in a delicate murmur, eases, “You did good, Love.”

There was much to do, but for now, all he had to do was hold you a little bit tighter and let his stone heart beat a little bit faster.

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that-gay-guy-from-hell · 1 year ago

Note

Can I request headcanons or a scenario for Reader (pick a gender, idc) giving V a handjob? Just holding him close, somewhere safe in some nice + safe bolt hole somewhere in Red Grave city, listening to him moan (and maybe talk? If he can talk while getting off) while Reader gets him off? Please, his voice is so pretty, he'd sound so nice 😍 And he deserves to feel good 💜

Lineaments of Gratified Desire: V x G/N Reader

Minors DNI; FOR 18+ ONLY!

Seriously, go away; go read some fluff or angst or something.

SUMMARY:

Despite V’s physical limitations and condition, the fragile man has saved you on more than one occasion from certain death. Today, you decided to repay his kind deeds.

BEGINNING NOTES:

Requested 10th June 2023 by Saiyanblood2 on Tumblr :))))

🛏️📔🛏️ Submissive V x G/N reader Fluff..? If you squint Smut Handjob; V receiving 📔🛏️📔 🟪Takes place during DMC 5 🟪The reader is a demon hunter who works with the DMC. 🟪The reader uses Gilgamesh and Revenant. 🟪Quick reminder that “sword” sizes are found in the character's H/C chapter (Linked here) 🟪I haven’t finished “Visions of V” yet (not very good at reading things and I haven’t had much time/motivation to do so no Vergil joke intended lmfao) but I’m like 99% sure that this conflicts with that, sorry. 🟪Yes, I know that jumping from a window you should do like a parachute roll or whatever it’s called; just let me have this lmao 🟪Bagheera is the name of the jaguar from “Jungle Book” which I’ve never seen, if I’m honest. But! I feel like Dante and Vergil would’ve seen it as kids since the movie was made in 1967 and they were born in 1980. (I use Bagheera in here and I figure I should explain it lol) 🟪Boxer briefs (as far as I am aware) usually have a zipper fly; so V’s do as well. 🟪This is my first time writing (and acknowledging) that I h/c V to have an uncut dick. It might be a bit rough; sorry. (Fun fact: I also h/c Vergil and Dante to also have uncut dicks lmao)

===

“So,” Nero mindlessly wandered around the interior of the van, waiting for Nico to finish her work, “You and V, huh?”

As you adjusted Gilgamesh’s gauntlets and furrowed your brow, responding without looking up, “What about V and me?”

Leaning against the inner wall of the van, Nero stuck his hand in his jeans pocket in an attempt to act casual, “You two a thing?”

“Wh-what?” A flustered expression adorned your features as you slowly panned up to meet Nero’s curious gaze.

“Come on,” he gave a playful smirk, leaning forward slightly, “You can--”

A loud southern-accented voice cut him off from the back of the van, “He an’ I got a bet if y’all are fuckin’ or not.”

“If we’re…” You slowly blinked, processing what was said, “V and I are not-” Putting your hands up, you shook your head, “We aren’t anything or doing anything.”

Nico clicked her tongue in disappointment while Nero pumped his fist with a quiet, “Yes!”

Rolling her eyes, Nico pulled a wad of cash from her back pocket, counting out what looked like ten dollars. Nero strolled over to her workbench, a smug grin plastered on his face. In an almost exaggerated manner, he snatched the money from her and tucked it in his duffle bag, which was neatly placed underneath the couch.

A squeak of the van door caught everyone’s attention, V looked around for a moment before his gaze fixated on you, “Pardon my late arrival, I was… busy.”

You smiled and took a few steps to stand closer to him, “It’s alright; it was nice having a break for a few minutes.”

Nero raised a brow, “You guys are already heading out?”

With a nod, you turned to address the pair, “Just a quick sweep of the next dozen or so blocks; we shouldn’t be long.”

“Uh-huh,” the white-haired man took a deep breath, shaking his head with a small smile, “You’re gonna burn yourself out again; gotta sleep at some point.”

He tossed you Revenant which you caught and slid in the holster on your lower back, “I’ll sleep when I’m dead. Besides,” you took a deep breath and sighed, “the city’s not gonna clear itself.”

Making a phone call motion with her hand, Nico spoke, “Keep in touch, hun.”

With a playful sarcastic wink you gave her double finger guns, “Will do babe,” the two of you shared a laugh before you addressed V, who, unbeknownst to you, hadn't stopped staring at you, “Ready?”

“Of course,” he pivoted around, opening and holding the door open, “I’ll follow your lead.”

With departing waves, you stepped out the door, V following suit. A warmth found its way to your face as you smiled as you walked side-by-side; a comforting silence settling between you. Despite only knowing V briefly, you had grown quite fond of the lithe man. The way he treated you and spoke to you was so different compared to the roughness of both Dante and Nero that it made his first meeting with you stick out like a sore thumb.

===

It had only been a week or so after the Qliphoth had appeared.

After only God knows how long, you had taken some vacation time and left the city. Upon hearing the news about the outbreak, you immediately turned around and put your holiday on hold. This wouldn't have been too big of a deal if not for the unbelievably high amount of military checkpoints you had to go through; re-explaining that you work as a devil hunter and your employer had been asked to help handle the situation. It was monotonous, to say the least.

Not to mention that Nico, Nero, and the client--whom you hadn't met yet--were on the complete opposite side of the city.

An exasperated sigh left your lips as you kicked a rock using Gilgamesh's boots. It had been nearly 72 hours since you'd slept, eaten, or had any sort of significant source of water. Exhausted didn't even come close to explaining how you felt.

Thankfully, life decided to throw you a bone and you stumbled upon a relatively un-damaged apartment complex. Not passing up the chance, you headed straight inside and cleared out the first and second floor: given it was only lower-level demons like Empusas. One of the second-floor rooms had a door still attached and a corpse-free bed. Quietly shutting the door, you flopped onto the bed.

Even with you sleeping with one eye open, you were jumped by a demon that you hadn't heard. It was a Nobody and by the time you got your arms up to block, it was too late to ground yourself. The demon smacked you out the room's window.

Landing on your feet, Gilgamesh took the brunt of the fall; however, it still sent a shocking pang of pain up your body. Crumpling over on yourself, you grumbled some obscenities before returning upright. Your eyes settled on a newly formed horde and you put your hands up, ready to fight.

The extent of your exhaustion was becoming evident as you threw sloppy punches and were only able to kick half as high as normal. Despite this, you still managed to clear the demons... or so you thought.

An icicle from a Baphomet nicked your bicep causing you to hiss in pain. Placing a gauntlet over the torn flesh, you spun around to see the demon which was floating right out in the open. Though it was a stupid move, you spirited straight at the icy demon, avoiding all manner of magical attacks.

Using Gilgamesh's saws on your boots, you sprung upwards and drilled up into its brain with the gauntlets; killing it. Smiling to yourself, you landed and shook the corpse from your hand.

Your hair stood on end and your expression fell.

Slowly pivoting around, you came face to face with a trio of Hell Judeccas. As you waited with bated breath for one of them to move, you felt the blood from your wound glide down and drip off your fingers. The Baphomet was a challenge enough right now; so this fight would most likely end poorly for you. Death was almost a guarantee and there wasn't even anyone around to see it.

Taking a deep breath, you took off towards the demons and dodged two sets of blades that were sent straight at you by sliding on your knees. Pulling Revenant from its place on your back, you shot at them, praying that you hit at least one. However, you weren't so lucky and they all moved or teleported out of the way.

Quickly getting to your feet, you readied for another attack when a strange cat-like snarl from behind you caught you off guard. The supposed source of the sound, a large black jaguar, darted passed you and attacked the opposing creatures.

Then a shrill cackle came from behind in the same direction, quickly approaching and flying over you, “Ha! Bagheera was right, I’ll be damned.”

Confusion set in as you watched with mouth slightly agape at the demons being shredded by, what you could only assume to be, more demons.

“ “The most sublime act is to set another before you. / If the fool would persist in his folly he would become wise.”.” A low sultry voice from behind you caught your attention, turning slightly; attempting to keep an eye on both the demons and the new voice.

“Who-?”

You froze, your already pounding heart picking up a few extra paces at the sight. Though Dante had called you and given you a small description of the newest client of (The) Devil May Cry, you hadn’t expected him to look like this.

He slowly walked past you, sliding the well-kept brown pleather and golden accented book into his, rather promiscuous, leather jacket. When you turned back around to face the demons, the amount of confusion you had only tripled. The two animals had taken care of the three Hell Judeccas, all looking oddly de-saturated and on the verge of death. The gaunt tattooed stranger, using his cane, swept up one of the large demon’s sets of blades and swung them around, slicing it in half. He repeated the action but was able to kill the final two in one combined swing.

All you could muster was a confused open-mouthed huff.

The large hawk addressed the raven-haired man, “Well that was fun.”

Rolling his eyes, the man sighed and turned his attention to the jaguar. The large cat had begun to creep up to you; not in a threatening way but rather, what appeared to be, a curious one.

Just as it got within an arm's length from you, the man placed his cane down using it to support himself, and simply said, “To me.”

Both animals returned to him and quickly disappeared into the man, causing more blackened ink to appear on his pallid skin.

“Are you alright?” His eyes focused on you.

“I-” You closed your eyes and rapidly shook your head, rationalizing that his animals weren't real, thinking it was caused by your delirious state, “I’m fine; thanks for the help.”

A warm smile pulled at his plush lips, “The boy asked me to keep an eye out for someone who looks an awful lot like you,” he gestured with his eyes down to Gilgamesh, “and would have that devil arm.”

You laughed softly, “Nero’s actually here, huh?”

“He is, however, we parted ways after stopping in that woman’s loud van.”

“Nico’s here too?” Shaking your head you looked down with raised brows, “Man, the whole crew’s out here.,” You looked back up, “What about Dante or the ladies? They out here too?”

His smile faded, “No, I’m afraid that they are more than likely dead at this point.”

“Dead? Surely you’re kidding.”

With a flat mouth, he broke his gaze away for a moment, “No. Sorry to relay such bitter news upon our first meeting.”

Grinding your teeth in thought and moving your jaw back and forth, you stood thinking for a moment, “So it’s just Nico, Nero, me, and--?”

“Call me V,” the lithe man took a few strides closer to you, standing comfortably close.

“So you are the client then?”

V nodded, “Yes, that is correct.”

“Man,” you gestured with one hand up and down his body, the other hand resting on your hip, “Wish we had customers like you more often,” for better or for worse, you spoke your mind, “cause damn you’re-- wow.”

He looked down, hiding the slight pink on his face at the comment, and laughed, “You’re much more blunt than the others led me to believe.”

A wide smile stretched across your face, emphasizing the bags under your bloodshot eyes, which V finally noted, “Just callin’ it like I see it, V.”

“May I do the same?”

Putting your arms up, you cracked your shoulders as you responded, “Sure.”

“You need rest.”

Putting your arms down with a heavy sigh, “It’s that obvious, huh?”

V laughed slightly, “Just calling it as I see it,” slowly, he began to walk back the way he’d come from, “We aren’t far from Nico, I'm sure you could rest up there.”

Happily, you turned to follow him, “I’ll follow your lead.”

===

“What’s with that expression Wanderer?” V raised a brow, his voice pulling you from your thoughts.

“Oh!” With an embarrassed smile, you placed a hand on the back of your neck, “Just got lost in thought, sorry.”

“May I ask what you were thinking so intensely about?” He shifted slightly, allowing Shadow to take a break from traveling, and began supporting himself with his cane causing the two of you to move slower.

“Just thinking about our first time, that’s all.”

A breathy sultry laugh left his lips, “ Our first time? Well now, I didn’t take you to be such a bold flirt today.”

“Wh-huh?” Replaying the conversation, your eyes went wide and you turned to him, doing your best to not trip as you continued walking, “No no- I didn’t-- that wasn’t-”

V laughed again, eyeing you up and down from the corner of his eye with a smirk, “Right, pardon my assumption.”

You stared with parted lips momentarily before returning to face the correct way, lips pursed and cheeks unbearably hot. Nervousness settled like a brick in your gut as you watched the ground in front of you, causing you to miss the fact V was staring at you with half-lidded eyes.

Mindlessly playing with his teeth with his tongue, he debated whether to tease you any further about what was said; ultimately he decided to drop it. In truth, however, the lithe man was a bit disappointed that you weren’t thinking about the idea of being with him as he had thought about many times before. V felt almost guilty about the intense lust he felt for you.

The raven-haired poet was unquestionably, unfathomably, undeniably, in love with you--even if he has only known you for a short time. V was certain that he wanted to be with you for the rest of this lifetime and, what could be argued to be, his next; in whatever way you’d have him. Whether it was just as colleagues, friends, or lovers; it didn’t matter, he needed you in his life.

His grip tightened on his cane, realizing that Vergil may end up pushing you away, despite the pronounced dependency on you. You were like a rich dark sweet wine that he was unable to put down and wanted to do nothing but sip upon you till the end of time itself. A low sigh left his nose, secretly praying that he was wrong about how things would be when all was said and done.

“V?” Your voice was quiet as you adjusted Gilgamesh for the umpteenth time, “Can I ask you something?”

“Of course,” he straightened upright, holding the cane horizontally, gloved fingers wrapping around the blade.

“When this is all over, could we…” You paused for a moment, “stay in contact?”

“Do you want to?”

Sheepishly, you nodded.

V smirked, “Then of course we can.”

Your eyes flicked up to meet his unwavering gaze, smiling brightly at him, “Thanks.”

“Perhaps, if you’d like, we could consider some other things as well.”

“O-other things?” A shake had found its way to your words as you waited with bated breath for his answer.

However, he didn’t answer, instead, he gave a low chuckle and turned his gaze from you, gesturing with his cane, “It seems we have work to do,” he put the metal back down and leaned on it again.

A heavy sigh left your lips and, without a second thought, you took off toward the horde.

Not hearing V calling out for you to stop.

Out of the corner of your eye, you saw fast almost unplaceable movement. Although you went to bring your gauntlets up as fast as possible, you were unable to make the time gap. Except when you opened your eyes, instead of a big demon skewering you through your middle, you were on your ass and V was lying on top of you. His arms wrapped around your hips with his face right underneath your navel, face down and breathing heavily.

Before you could ask, a familiar squawking voice chimed in, “Aw, how romantic; Romeo can sure as hell hustle when he needs to,” the bird let out a laugh.

A snarl left Shadow’s maw, seemingly annoyed at the lack of help from Griffon.

“Yeah. Yeah. I’m on it,” Griffon returned to the fight, leaving you to assist V up.

Slowly, he picked his head up enough to look at you, emerald eyes holding a heavy unplaceable emotion. Heat quickly filled your face at the realization of the position you were in which didn’t go unnoticed by the raven-haired man. Without moving too much, V snapped his fingers causing his hair to go white and the last of his tattoos to dissipate.

“Are you alright?” You propped yourself up with one arm and used the other to cautiously tuck his hair back, resting an armoured palm on his cheek.

“Mmn,” he paused in thought, enjoying the feeling of your touch, “If you are then I am.”

A corner of your mouth twitched up slightly, “I’m alright; thank you.”

He took a deep breath in response, resisting the urge to place his face back down against your abdomen. Though all good things come to an end he knew he had to get up. With a grunt, he pushed up and sat up in a kneel, one knee up for him to push off of. However, you were quick to your feet and offered a hand instead, which he graciously accepted.

“I’ve got this,” you squeezed his hand before letting go, “Don’t worry about it.”

Not giving him time to banter or reject your offer, you took off and finished off whatever half-dead demons were strewn about.

It didn’t take long for the horde to disappear into nothing but blood and gore. Admittedly, V always enjoys watching you work--especially with hand-to-hand weapons. Whether it is a holdover from Vergil’s distaste for guns or if it is because of the innate sensual nature of the style; he couldn’t help but find it arousing. The way you seemed to show off for him was just a cherry on top.

There was something in the way you pranced around that he couldn’t help but be mesmerized by. With all of this considered, V was struggling to not become visibly excited and, much to his dismay, was starting to lose the fight.

Once the demons were dead, you waltzed over to V and carefully grabbed his arm, tugging slightly, “Come with me.”

“Is something the matter, Wanderer?” The lithe man’s hair returned to its dark shade as Nightmare faded from sight.

You shook your head, flashing him a closed-eye smile, “Nope; just trust me, V.”

He swallowed hard and nodded, “Very well, lead on.”

A confused tilt adorned his brow as he tried to piece together what you were doing-- or planning. It wasn’t long before the two of you reached the destination you wanted, a mostly intact hotel.

“Could you leave Griffon and Shadow out here, please?” You turned to him, stopping in front of the entrance.

His gaze thinned, “May I ask why?”

“Last time I went into one of these, I got attacked and thrown out a two-story window,” you gave him a falsely doe-eyed smile, “Figure they could be our lookout for a little bit--just until we’re done.”

V wanted to push for a better answer, knowing that made no sense; however, his curiosity got the better of him and, deciding to play along, summoned both familiars.

“Stay here, we will be back shortly-”

Griffon immediately turned to you, laughing with a slightly impudent attitude to his words, “Be careful with him, don’t need him dying of a heart attack-”

You laughed, cutting the bird off, “I’ll take care of him; I promise.”

With that, the two of you disappeared into the building.

“I’m going to scout ahead a bit; okay?” You let go of his arm, making V ever-so-slightly frown.

“Sure.”

As you went on, V’s eyes quickly drifted to your hips. Lewd thoughts echoed in his mind as he watched you seemingly bounce down the hall, peeking into each room with just the right amount of lean forwards so that he got a perfect view of your body. Each stride of yours had this certain flaunting nature to it as if you were purposefully taunting him.

Reaching the final room on the first floor, you decided to head in. Though no one else was aware, you’d already surveyed this building earlier and cleared out every demon within; meaning only small fries--like Empusas--would be here, if at all. This room was the closest to normal there was, having almost zero damage.

The room was relatively large; the bathroom was to the left of the doorway and the rest of the room to the right. The bedding was still neatly tucked, the faucet still ran, and there was even a radio with quite an array of classical CDs.

You made your way over to said radio with a hum, bending over at the waist to rummage through the music.

V joined you in the room, looking around in slight confusion before his gaze settled on you again. A sway had found its way to your hips and, despite your flustered and nervous feeling, you smirked. You knew he was looking at you; confirming your hunch about his oddly vague words.

Eventually settling on a random assortment of Tchaikovsky's work, you slowly stood upright and placed the disc in the player with a half-surprised laugh at the fact it still worked. When you turned around, a wide-eyed stare was all you could give to V, who was shifting awkwardly and avoiding your eyes. Though you’d hope some light teasing would get him in the mood, you hadn’t expected him to get so hard so quickly.

Without a word to him, you slipped past him and into the bathroom. Carefully, you placed Gilgamesh’s gauntlets and Revenant on the countertop then washed your hands, using the soap left in the dispenser. Returning to the room while drying your hands, you meandered toward the extremely confused horny goth.

As you discarded the towel, V finally spoke up, “Wanderer, what are we doing here?”

“Well,” you gently grabbed the open of his jacket, a hand on each side, thumbing over the black leather, “After how many times you’ve saved me, I figure that it’s about time you get a reward.”

His eyes flicked all around your face then down to your forearms, resting his cane against a nearby wall. Cautiously, V snaked his arms around your back and pulled you tight to him, “A reward ?”

“Yeah,” you leaned closer and placed your nose beside his, lips just barely apart, speaking with a whisper, “If you’re interested…”

Closing the gap, V leaned into you for both support and to deepen the kiss. An icy hand slid up your back, gracefully dancing across your still-clothed skin, and came to rest on the back of your neck. Your hands slid down his sides, coming to rest at his belt line, hooking your forefingers into the loops of his ever-tightening skinny jeans.

Switching to long drawn-out heated kisses, V squirmed under your touch as he felt you pull his hips into yours. Breaking away for a moment, the two of you stayed close, breathing heavily in content. A smirk pulled at his lips as he moved to kiss your up jawline, taking his time, making his way to your earlobe, tugging on it with a bite.

V rested with the side of his face against yours. The hand from your neck made its way to your upper back and, mindlessly, the thin man began to sway with you, enjoying the music and relaxing in the moment. You could feel his heart racing from just his chest resting against yours; no wonder Griffon gave you shit about V having a heart attack.

Bit by bit your hands left his jeans and went to his corset, undoing the already loose strings further. Taking the hint, V let go of you and removed his jacket then his corset; being tossed onto the bed and floor, respectively. A small huffed moan left his lips as he watched your hands grope up and down his torso.

“Wanderer…” His voice was low, but brimming with an unmistakable lust.

Resting your hands on the sides of his hips, you stood for a moment. A smirk tugged at your lips as you watched his chest rise and fall with each breath. Leaning closer, you placed a kiss at the crook of his shoulder, followed by a soft bite. V submissively tilted his head away from you, giving you more access to his neck. A smile tugged at your lips as you placed tender kisses, and the occasional bite, along his cold skin. A hand slid to the front of his jeans, finally, your touch wasn’t to just tease him.

V placed his hands on your sides, holding you closer, pursed lips hiding a groan that hung in the back of his throat. Though he knows it’s a bit pathetic, just feeling your hand against his cock was proving to be somewhat of a challenge for the inexperienced man to not prematurely finish.

Using both hands, you went to remove his belt, before stopping. V’s swaying had become much more pronounced--not having a means of support other than you.

You whispered against his neck, “Why don’t we sit down, hm?”

V, much to your surprise, seemed to stumble over his thoughts, “Any par- particular position?”

Fully leaning back, you grabbed his hand and guided him to the bed, “Get up here-- do you need help?”

He gave a nasally laugh, “No, I am alright,” he crawled up onto the bed, kneeling with his knees both on the bed, “Now what?”

Without answering, you climbed atop the mattress as well, sitting with your back nearly against the headboard, and patted your thighs. Understanding what you wanted, V sat on your lap facing you, wrapping his legs behind you.

“You’re beautiful, V,” reaching up, you moved a strand of hair from the front of his face, tucking it behind his ear, and leaned in close, speaking right above his lips, “So very beautiful.”

The gap quickly closed between you and V’s hands cupped your jaw, thumbs rubbing against your cheeks. Your hands went back to work on his belt, making him shift slightly. Feeling that you had the belt fully undone, his lips left yours, and he moved back just enough to look you in the eyes. With kiss-swollen lips slightly agape, V swallowed hard as he heard you unbutton his jeans.

Slowly, methodically, you unzipped the fly on his jeans, making sure to note every little micro-movement V made. This had been something you’d wanted for a long time and you were going to make sure to enjoy every last bit. When you finally broke from his gaze to look down, you raised a brow.

Nervousness pooling in his gut, V noticed your expression, “Is- is something wrong, love?”

A wide smile tugged at your lips, “No- not at all,” trying to hold back a laugh you looked back up at him, “It's just, with the rest of your outfit, I honestly expected you to be wearing a thong or g-string; not boxer briefs.”

V let out a laugh of relief, “I see; I-” A stifled moan cut his words short.

Resting your hand on the inner side of his thigh, you started to slowly run the side of your thumb up and down his bulge.

Heavy exhales left his nose as he watched your hand and he moved his hands to the outsides of your shoulders.

Out of the corner of your eye, you saw V’s coat on the bed and got a wicked idea, “You know V,” your motions slowed even further causing him to let out a small huff of disappointment, “I really like your voice…”

His brow twitched slightly, attempting to figure out what you had in store, “Is that right?”

Carefully, you reached over to his jacket, grabbed his book from an inner pocket, and then handed it to him, “Why don’t you read me something, hm?”

“Is there a particular poem you’d like?” The prized item was held between you both, the top of it resting gently against your chest.

You shook your head, “Whatever you think fits best.”

As he flipped through the book, you resumed your touch. With eyes trained on his crotch, you unzipped the boxer’s fly and heard his page-turning falter slightly. Slipping his cock out into the open air, V let out a small moan, a page pinned between his forefinger and thumb.

“Now, now, V.” You looked up at him from the tops of your eyes, “You stop, I stop; got it?”

He pursed his lips and then nodded, continuing with his search. There was a visible shake to his hands as he did his best to play along. Ghosting your fingers along his shaft, you noticed that he had pre-cum already dribbling from his tip and he was heavily twitching; apparently, he was much more sensitive than you’d expected.

Rolling his foreskin back slightly, you thumbed over his tip. His page-turning had stopped again, and you hummed slightly, “Find one?”

With a slightly strained voice, he nodded, “Y-yes, I,” he moaned as you lightly wrapped a hand around his shaft, closing his eyes he continued, “I found something suitable.”

“Good,” you brought your thumb to your lips and put it in your mouth, cleaning the digit, “The floor is yours,” V’s eyes flicked to you, watching you mindlessly roll your tongue over your lips, and his blush deepened tenfold.

A shaky breath left his mouth as he focused on the page before him, “ “What is it men in women do require? / The l-lineaments of Gratified Desire.”.”

Spitting into your palm, you once again wrapped a hand around his shaft. With slow lazy pumps, you noted the feeling of his cock in your hand. Eyes flicking between his face and dick.

V’s brow twitched as he let out a hissing groan, “ “Wh-what is it women do in men require? / The lineaments of Gr-gratified Desire.”,” The raven-haired man’s hips unintentionally jerked slightly at the feeling of you putting your forefinger and thumb tips together, encircling his cock, and gently pulling up on his tip.

He hunched forwards slightly, his hair falling in front of his eyes, “ “The look of love alarms / Because ’tis f-fill’d with fire; / But the look of s-soft de-deceit- / Shall Win the love-lover’s hire” Ngh-ah~” The fragile man’s legs constricted your middle ever tighter with each passing moment. Returning to stroking his entire length, you slowed down; not wanting him to finish quite yet.

Lips trembling, he continued, “ “S-soft Deceit & Idleness, / These ar-are Beauty’s sweetest dress. He--”

A sustained groan left his lips as he leaned forwards even more, placing the top of his head against your lips, which you placed a loving kiss upon, “ “He who binds to himself a- a joy / Dot the winged life d-destroy;”.”

V bucked his hips slightly upwards, desperate for more friction, speaking with a whimpering moan, “Please, Wanderer, I can’t-”

Whispering against him, you slowed your motions even further, “You’re almost done, my love… finish it for me; please?”

Taking a stuttering inhale through his nose and low breathy exhale from his mouth, he licked his lips before continuing, “ “But he who ki-kisses the joy as it flies / Live in Eternity’s sun-sunrise.” Ah-ah~”

Quickening your hand even faster than before, you placed another elongated kiss against his hair, “Good boy.”

Tossing the book from his hands V sat upright. Icy fingers wrapped around the back of your neck and gripped the side of your shoulder. The raven-haired man began to thrust his hips into your hand, practically riding your thighs.

You smirked and leaned in to place kisses on his collarbones, “I love you, V.”

“I- Uh-ah~,” another loud noise came from the man as he felt you add you use his pre to slick his cock even more, “I love you too, Wanderer.”

You upturned your face slightly, kissing his throat up to the underside of his jaw, a confident purr to your words, “You gonna cum for me, V~?”

The frantic shifting of his hands to cup the sides of your face gave you your answer. V guided your face up to his and placed his forehead against yours.

“Please,” his voice was soft and pleading, his mind a hazy lust-filled mess that was unable to come up with any other words.

Upon using one hand to stroke him and the other to play with his tip, you felt his thigh muscles tighten and his fingers dig into you. He pushed his lips onto yours, kissing you as if he were never going to be able to again. His hands wandered down your body, groping at your clothes.

Balling up your shirt in his hands from his grip, he broke off the kiss, a string of saliva connecting you momentarily. The skinny man leaned back and arched his body into yours.

He let out a final full-mouthed moan and bucked his hips one last time as his body tensed.

Warm silky white fluid decorated your hands as you slowly rode out his orgasm. A feeling of pride filled your heart as you made sure to etch the sight before you into your mind.

V’s skin had completely lost all of the inky patches and his chest was heaving. With how far he arched back, you could see the underside of his ribs and the prominent hip dips on each side. You watched his Adam’s apple bob up and down as he audibly swallowed a few times.

After a moment, he leaned back towards you.

Ghostly white hair fell in front of his flushed features as V’s eyes met yours. A small smile found its way to his lips and the two of you shared one more kiss. This time, however, it wasn’t lustful but a sweet loving gesture. With slow long kisses, V placed a forefinger under your jaw. Upon breaking away, you both shared a breathy satisfied huff and he slid his hand to cup your cheek, thumbing over your skin.

“So,” you relaxed into his touch, “Are we getting attacked or something?” His brow twitched in confusion, “Your hair.”

“Did I really..?” he leaned away and focused on the strands in front of his eyes which were slowly returning to black, “That’s… I didn’t know that would happen; how strange.”

You removed your hands and looked at them, a slight playful teasing to your voice, “Little pent up there V?”

Although you weren’t complaining, V had cum quite a lot harder than you’d expected and made a mess between both of you.

With an embarrassed laugh, he turned from your gaze, and rested his hands on his thighs, “Perhaps it is because you are so important to me…” V didn’t want to admit that he hadn’t even tried to masturbate while in this form--not to mention that Vergil hadn’t done anything like that in over twenty years.

Humming quietly along to the long-forgotten music, you brought your hand up to your mouth and cleaned it off. V’s eyes immediately flicked to you and he stared at you wide-eyed. Slowly, your eyes drifted to his as you continued.

When you went to give your other, less coated hand, the same treatment, you noticed something else and raised your brows in surprise, “That was a quick turnaround.”

The tattooed man looked down and then back at you, “It’s not my fault you are so… appealing to me,” once more, he leaned his forehead against yours, “Wanderer.”

“Mnm, well then,” you placed a long kiss against his lips, biting his lower lip after, “Guess my work isn’t done then, hm?”

“Your work?” V backed away and removed his legs from your waist, running a hand down your middle, resting it just above your hip line, “If it’s all the same to you, this time, I’d much rather be the one to play.”

===

ENDING NOTES: Not me having no clue how to end this lmfao 🛏️📔🛏️ Been a long time since I’ve tried to write V lol I really should write him more Also hope that this was close enough to the request. I just kind of ran with the flow so it’s not exactly the same--the poem reading isn’t really what was asked but I figured it was close enough. Another thing, sorry for the improper dividing of dialogue trees when V’s reading. It was too chaotic for me to feel comfortable leaving in one chunk (which is technically what I should’ve done since it was only V talking) sorry lol Also if you are into like video edit shit, I’ve been re-watching one from “V’s Love” on YouTube titled “V | Slow Down | DMC 5 GMV”. Give it a watch- seriously it’s fans myself gayly oh boy. 📔🛏️📔 Poem(s) Quoted: William Blake: Proverbs of Hell William Blake: Several Questions Answered (full version)

If you like what you read here; please check out the rest of my one-shots on AO3. Comments, reshares, and likes/kudos are appreciated!! Thanks for reading!

MASTER LIST FOR TUMBLR

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naoa-ao3 · 1 year ago

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Calling From The Heart

Gilgamesh had thought a cell phone would be a good thing. Thena wanders off some times and though he knows she can take care of herself he can't help but worry when she does. It's part of the reason they're so far from anywhere inhabited.

Just the same he fears that one day she might wander off in a fit of madness and never return. It's irrational but he can't help but feel it and so he buy's her a cell phone. It's more for his peace of mind than anything else.

She opens it at the table, a look of amusement spreading across her face. Phastos could have made something infinitely better but they're all living their separate lives now and this will work just as well.

She looks at it curiously and tears into the packaging, the little plastic thing small in her hand as she smiles.

"We have a phone." She say's.

He rubs at his neck. "Well, this one can leave the house and it came as a pair so I have one too."

She presses buttons and seems relaxed enough.

He cherishes moments like these. Moments when everything is calm and he has his Thena, the woman he knows and loves. The woman's he's fought along side of and called friend for all his waking life.

"Show me yours." She say's, leaning across the table.

It's a warm night but not so warm they can't go for a walk later.

He fishes his out and hands it to her and see's something bright in her eyes. "Mine is already set up. You'll have to activate yours." He say's.

They're simple gadgets.

Phastos would have been bored.

"I can call you on it from anywhere?" She asks.

He shrugs. "So long as it can get a signal."

There's a tower put up not too far away. He's found it isn't great but they should be able to get ahold of each other.

"You can even make it play music." He say's and she laughs like she hasn't been on the Domo, like she hasn't seen wonders lightyears ahead of this.

"You think I should?" She asks and she throws her head back and laughs loudly.

He's glad she likes it, it isn't much and it won't stop Mahd Wy'ry from taking it's toll but now at least he has a way to reach her if she ever wanders too far.

She breaks the phone of course.

A month later and she isn't thinking about it. She forgets and knocks it from a shelf and the damn thing breaks.

Gil cleans it up and see's her half apologetic expression. "I'll get a new one." He say's.

She smiles. "I'm sorry."

He knows she doesn't really care about the phone. She hasn't used it.

Thena was made for battle and a cell phone means very little to her but he buys her a new one anyway and set's it up for her, seeing her smile again when he puts it in her hand. She hasn't asked why he's bought it or why he bought the last one.

Maybe a part of her knows but he holds her hand for a moment just the same.

It's because he cares.

The next one breaks during a bad fit, when Mahd Wy'ry takes over her mind and the little thing falls from her pocket and slaps to earth, breaking just like the first one.

Gil buy's another and she say's she hadn't realized the second had broken.

"Well, this one is a newer model." He say's, putting it in her hand like the last one. "Maybe it will last longer."

Thena smiles and kisses his cheek, she isn't as affectionate as she once was. Mahd Wy'ry has taken that from her but every once in a while she's still the same old Thena, every once in a while she wants to spar but even that has gotten more difficult over the last few centuries.

She forgets when she spars, the madness comes to her and she suffers and for Gil it's one of the worst sights to behold.

He wishes he could take her suffering away, make it all right and good. He wishes he could build something like Phastos that could shield her form this pain and damage, that could slow her mind's descent but even Phastos doesn't have an invention like that and so instead sometimes he tells her some of Sprite's stories and things they've done in the past. Most times she say's she remembers but sometimes she admits she doesn't.

During those times he holds her hand and even if she never really cares about the phone he still buys her another when she breaks the third one.

His own is dated by then and yet he holds on to it, sentimental perhaps. . . they've never actually had to use them to call one another and so one day when he goes into town he uses his to call hers just for the heck of it.

It takes her a minute to answer and even then she sounds amused.

"Did you forget something?" She asks.

He's only gone for a few groceries.

"Ah, did we need any flour?" He asks.

He hears her hum and check. "Yes."

He can't say why but it amuses him to use the phone like this, to be able to just reach out and call her. Maybe he should get some of the others to give them their numbers. That would have been interesting, maybe even fun.

"I'll make sure to get it."

He hears her laugh softly. "Don't forget."

He doesn't and he never really did.

"I won't." He promises and he doesn't.

Thena never really cares about the phones. At one point he buys her one that can take pictures, descent pictures even and she's amused by it for a while, she sends him pictures when she goes for walks. Little things that she see's out, lizards and clouds and rocks.

He saves them to his own phone.

Snap shots of Thena's view.

He treasures them as he treasures her and when that phone breaks also he buys her another then as well.

He does get Sersi's number and they send her a selfie one day, the two of them in their home smiling at the camera, Thena has her chin jutted out proudly and Gil saves that picture as well.

No, even if Thena doesn't really care about the bit of plastic and metal he plans to keep buying her phones because it's worth it for the peace of mind and he likes being able to reach out to her. Maybe if she has one she'll be able to reach out when she needs to one day and he'll be able to pick up.

Maybe it'll help and if not, what's the worst it could cause?

He loves her and he wants to be there for her in any way he can.

#eternals #thena #gilgamesh #thenamesh #marvel #immortals #fanfiction #fanfic #one shot #cute #romance #fluff #fluff and angst #cell phones #love #domestic fluff

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yakdeculture · 2 months ago

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Fate/Extra CCC Review

As a note: I picked Tamamo as my servant (The other choices were Nero, Gilgamesh, and Archer (yes that Archer). And I got the Tamamo ending and the CCC ending.

Not gonna talk much about the gameplay. It’s more or less a bit better version of the original game, but it still keeps the rock paper scissors system of the original so if you fucking hated the gameplay of the original extra it’s not like this one is going to win you over. That said, the story and characters? Dude what the hell. Gatou was like, a random dude was just kind of there in the original game and then he's obsessed with Arcueid and then he dies. In this one they actually manage to make him a real character who’s worth mentioning and actually pretty interesting. The formula of the game also really helps with this. Each chapter features a different character as an antagonist who we get to actively explore their background and character quirks (in chapter 1? The proulouge? I cant remember. But anyways you start with doing 2 at the same time, but they’re Rin (yes, Rin from Stay/Night is in Extra, she’s mostly the same character with some very minor changes in character) and Rani, both of whom are returning characters you’re likely already familiar with from the first game so its a nice easy introduction to how things are gonna go. To be honest I was tired so I went to bed and now that I’m coming back to write this I completely lost my train of thought. Fuck

Ummm anyways they do a crazy job of making the characters likable all the new characters are pretty interesting (I guess the alter egos are like “worst” characters of the new ones because they’re like. Just specific aspects of Sakura? Personally I think they’re fun but I would understand if you didnt think they were good characters), BB is a way better reimaging of what ‘Dark Sakura’ is and can mean, Honestly Kiara is just funny to me she’s so horny she does not give a fuck if people are dying, Jinako seems like a character that would be a complete disaster. Historically chubby girls in anime/videos games/whatever are just there to be made fun of and if they’re “lucky” they get to be skinny the epilouge. Jinko gets to escape this because while she is a fat nerd loser with no friends and pretty much everyone makes fun of her for it they are still pretty nice to her and also her depression levels are just off the charts its completely bonkers. The returning characters from Extra are all as good if not better than before. Maybe expect Rin and Rani for Rin it doesn’t really matter because its Rin and everybody loves Rin so she can just do her stichick forever without any innovation and nobody would care but Rani doesn’t really have much to work with because in Extra the routesplit is basically just you picking your heroine between Rin and Rani so like you have a whole thats pretty focused on Rani and her homunculus shit and whatnot but in CCC you just get both of the them the whole time so Rani doesn’t get a whole lot to work with just in the sense that even if you’ve played Extra you get a lote more Rin Affinity (or at least I did because I’ve read/played Stay/Night, HA, FGO, etc.) Leo and Julius are also kind of side characters in this but they play a new role in this game that's interesting to see them in so we’ll let it slide.

Anyways, what I have to give major credit to this game for is making a story about Sakura be actually like. Fucking good. In the original Stay/Night, IMO Sakura kind of sucks ass. She’s has kind of the opposite problem of Kohaku in Tsukihime so instead of giving her whole ass backstory away in the route right before hers leaving her with nothing to work with they instead just almost completely take her out of every single other route so you barely spend any time with her and don’t really get connected with her. Then when you finally get to her route, she’s yandere for a guy who sucks (Shirou fans I will not be debating you. Drown in your ideals and

Heaven’s Feel Sakura and Dark Sakura is a cool idea, and it clearly had potential because they basically tried it again. But this time instead of a girl not being able to have a normal life/love or whatever she would’ve said her deal was because she was sold to the Matou’s and put in the eroge torture pin and filled with grail mud now she’s an AI meant to support the masters, but “another version” of her has gone rouge and seems to have emotions, and is for some reason obsessed with the protagonist….

Speaking of the protagonist, I think Hakuno is an interesting case. Personally, while I know stuff like manga adaptations and the Last Encore anime and whatever uses male Hakuno, I don’t think anyone who knows me enough to feel like reading this is going to bother to pick male Hakuno so the choice might not even be there so for this section we are going to just pretend male Hakuno doesn’t exist. Anyways, she’s an interesting case because in BOTH games she’s an amnesiac. In Extra she doesn’t remember anything from before the grail war, and in CCC everyone starts off with no memories of their time in the Near Side, but when everybody gets their memories back she still doesn’t get anything back really. That said, it’s not like Hakuno has no character but they are certain fairly plain. They are the classic like well even if I’m average in every way I won’t give up and I do will everything I can to help my friends and you know what its pretty good. No voice acting or anything so for her so it’s not perfect but like for a silent protag I think they did pretty good. Definitely plus they just let you be a lesbian and Hakuno’s relationship with Sakura is actually pretty cute honestly, So if you are a Sakura hater but you’re like me or you thought something like “Well if Sakura was a lesbian actually she would be good” then play this game. If you haven’t played the original Extra honestly just go ahead and watch the cutscenes on youtube if you need a quick yuri fix

#game reviews #decade: 2010s #old reviews

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themculibrary · 7 months ago

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The Eternals Masterlist 2

part one

a love like ours turns even the darkest coldest realm into the happiest of homes (ao3) - OceanSpray5 druig/makkari G, 42k

Summary: Humans know the myth of Hades and Persephone. What varies is what they know and how it differs from how it happened. But the truth is not a far stretch from what they see. And the love the humans describe, the love two Eternals share, retains every bit of its essence immortalized in the myth as the fable of true love itself.

Of Hades, who is only a man. Of Persephone, with wind in her hair.

And they sang it la la la la la la la…

Or, how Druig and Makkari come to be immortalized as Greek mythology's most faithful couple: Hades and Persephone.

built to fall apart (then fall back together) (ao3) - agents_cxrter druig/makkari T, 20k

Summary: My name is Makkari, she tells him, spelling each letter then offering her name sign.

“Makkari?” He repeats, name sign effortlessly rolling through his fingers.

The pleased smile she gives him feels better than any spark of remembrance he’s ever experienced.

or; in a world inspired by the comic run where the Eternals minds are wiped, Druig and Makkari bump into each other (literally).

chip chrome & the mono-tones (ao3) - dannydays sersi/dane, ikaris/sersi T, 11k

Summary: “Welcome to Highton.”

“It’s a shithole,” Druig said, affectionately.

Sersi said, “We’re happy to have you.”

(human au. dane moves to a new estate and meets the eternals. shenanigans ensue.)

Come Home, Unbeliever (ao3) - un_familiar makkari/sersi G, 3k

Summary: Because, after all this time, born anew, she remembers what it was like to share a mind with a Celestial, even for a moment. It was overwhelming space, pinpricks of light coming into being simply by will.

Re-imagining Eternals: Celestia but this time I get to talk about religious trauma metaphors. Also Makkari and Sersi are dating (Gaiman's Eternals and Eternals: Celestia SPOILERS)

Eternity Together (ao3) - certifiedglutenfree druig/makkari M, 15k

Summary: Druig hates the idea of soulmates. He especially hates that he doesn't have one, because that means his crush on the girl in the library won't work out. But the universe does seem to work in mysterious ways and maybe just once in his life the universe will be on his side.

Forgiveness (ao3) - Wundersmidget sersi/dane T, 1k

Summary: After the Emergence, Sprite ponders her relationship with the other Eternals and especially Sersi.

i'll spend forever wonderin' if you knew (i was enchanted to meet you) (ao3) - notquitegucci (AllieKitaguchi) druig/makkari, thena/gilgamesh, ikaris/sersi N/R, 7k

Summary: How the Eternals discovered that Druig and Makkari were in love.

Some of them were a little slower than others.

In Paper Rings, In Picture Frames (Oh, You're The One I Want) (ao3) - OceanSpray5 druig/makkari G, 14k

Summary: Or, Druig and Makkari get married and wait for the rest of their oblivious family to figure it out.

I take the risk to feel your heart beating (ao3) - anachronistique (924inlegend) ikaris/sersi T, 57k

Summary: During the Deviants' attack in the Amazon, things take a turn when Ikaris is targeted for his powers during the battle. He is almost killed until Sersi steps in.

Light My Love (ao3) - Redheadclover sersi/dane, ikaris/sersi T, 95k

Summary: Soteri always second guessed herself, even in the very beginning when she was born an Eternal on the Domos. Although the rest of the Eternals can see potential in her, Soteri tries to find her way while protecting the planet with her family.

Perhaps she was too gentle and kind, or that she was too reserve to fully expose herself because of her force field and teleportation ability, but that never stopped her from finding hope and love with her family members, including a brooding mind controller. Her courage and her thirst for protecting those around Soteri has pushed her over and over as time went on. However, once the Eternals broke away from one another, Soteri felt lost without her family.

Without her home.

Now Deviants are appearing once more, her fearless leader is gone, and Soteri has to find her strength to defend and protect her family like she did before. Is she willing to have the old wounds of her fragile and reserved heart be reopened again for the sake of humanity?

Missing you is like missing a part of myself (ao3) - Mimisempai phastos/ben G, 1k

Summary: As Ben receives a message from Phastos announcing his return, he thinks about how much he had missed Phastos.

No Such Beauty as Where You Belong (ao3) - Ilyann ikaris/sersi, druig/makkari G, 21k

Summary: Druig and Makkari through the ages.

on a wednesday, in a cafe (ao3) - TaraLy gilgamesh/thena T, 111k

Summary: Thenamesh Coffee Shop AU. No angst, no plot, only love (and food).

oràil (ao3) - delphiniumblooms T, 3k

Summary: “ A nighean oràil, ” Ikaris says, our golden girl. He takes a little hand into his and counts the fingers. “She’s perfect.”

set after the events of the movie, which i have no knowledge of. ikarsi have a baby!

teach me to love (ao3) - iamjustabird gilgamesh/thena, phastos/ben G, 49k

Summary: Thena has just moved next door to her old friend Phastos with her young son Druig in tow. She’s worried about how he’s going to adjust to the move and to his new school, but Phastos assures her that his friend and neighbour Gilgamesh is the best teacher a kid could ask for. She’ll see about that.

teenage headache dreams. (i want to be free). (ao3) - proud_papaya druig/makkari M, 56k

Summary: - non canon compliant eternals (2021) -

there were millennia that they had been the only sense of normalcy for each other, and then, one night, ikarus flew into the clouds, and never came back down to her. then thanos snapped, and any normalcy was gone, as well as dane. he needed to come back.

TLDR: writing various areas of ikarus' and sersi's past, both during endgame and before, and then writing the entirety of the eternals movie, except i'm not killing ikarus off, because that really made me sad, and i bet i'm not the only one. possibly going into after that, as well. enjoy <3 requests are welcome, as well.

the blues and then purple pink skies (ao3) - TaraLy gilgamesh/thena G, 4k

Summary: It’s been a month since their first conversation on the bus, how are Thena and Gilgamesh doing?

The Eternals: Prelude (ao3) - EchoVdV makkari/sersi T, 25k

Summary: A loosely interpreted collection of stories recounting the endeavors of the Eternals to reclaim Earth from the Deviants. Due to many of these characters having a major lack of personality, in the books and especially in the movies, many characters are radically reimagined, especially if you're expecting them to be similar to the movie versions.

Visiting Rites (ao3) - qodarkness druig/makkari, ikaris/sersi T, 4k

Summary: Sprite was the first to visit.

How Druig knows all the gossip about what's going on with the Eternals despite living in the Peruvian Amazon with no phone reception for five hundred years.

we will make a home someday, one full of love and light (ao3) - delphiniumblooms sersi/ikaris, phastos/ben T, 1k

Summary: Sersi and Ikaris pay Phastos’ family a visit.

#themculibrary #marvel #mcu #masterlists #eternals #eternals masterlist #druig #makkari #gilgamesh #thena #ikaris #sersi

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animalisticallytimorous · 8 months ago

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A dumb first-world-problems ramble from an exhausted autistic chick

I know I don't normally make original posts on Tumblr much, but I just need to vent somewhere I can't be followed. The individual in question doesn't have a Tumblr, as far as I'm aware. I feel like an ass about vague-posting, but my patience has been running thin for a while now. And they're not really a bad person, but I can't exactly confront them about this without things escalating into a fight. And I know this is my general account & not my new 14-exclusive account, but I just need to release some steam.

You ever get those moods where, in spite of your best efforts to tune people out & ignore the bullshit, it can be really hard to keep loving your special interests/hyperfixations? Like, it's one thing when it's coming from random strangers you don't know on the internet. But it's another thing entirely when it's coming from the people you consider close friends.

Specifics under the cut, because it's a doozy:

Shit like this has happened to me before. That's how I fell out of love with old hyperfixations like Steam-Powered Giraffe & the Gregory Horror Show, & even Pokemon for a bit before the siren songs of ScarVi & Legends: Arceus lured me back in. People I considered close teasing me about super niche stuff (in regards to the former two) & saying my taste was garbage or that I was a sheep & a shill (the latter.) And you'd think that, "Huh, maybe if I happen to hyperfixate on something mainstream, I won't run into this issue again, huh?"

Well, imagine finding someone in FFXIV to geek out over some of the more obscure & niche questlines with. Of course, I adore the MSQ! If I didn't, I wouldn't be playing this game!

But it is BEYOND frustrating for me to want to be able to enjoy this game while simultaneously acknowledging its flaws & areas it needs to grow without constantly having the mainstream parts of this thing that I love being trashed by this person I befriended.

My mainstream favs being constantly misinterpreted & treated like garbage? The favs of my other friends getting this same treatment? Having the AUDACITY to try & defend them only to be met with such (paraphrased) lines like, "Then perhaps it's just due to JRPGs being so dogshit at writing. Padding out their stories with such convoluted, needless fluff that means either I'm too stupid to understand or I can see right through the bullshit they're trying to hide through their tangled mess." Surgically nitpicking other Final Fantasy properties I bring up out of my excitement for a Gilgamesh cameo while also bashing Keith Szarabajka's voice work because he isn't the guy who voiced him in ARR? Constantly assuming the worst out of all the writers/localizers & even wishing them IRL harm for doing something with the writing you don't like? Demonizing Naoki Yoshida like he's a monolith responsible for personally slighting you every time you don't like something in the story? Hell, they've stated on numerous occasions how much they outright LOATHE the MSQ and all the main characters! Only the side characters seem to escape their ire.

Half of the time, I can't even talk with this person about the niche things we both share without them inevitably bringing up something to complain about. And I just keep telling myself to not engage, ignore it, & walk away.

But this Twitter QRT has just been the final fucking straw.

So, me just wanting to enjoy this game in spite of its shortcomings makes me a simp for a cliche & unoriginal pile of slop.

Me being both excited & nervous for the upcoming expac makes me a simp.

How the fuck dare I enjoy myself. How the fuck dare I not be miserable & let the shortcomings I have overtake my genuine love of this little thing that brings me joy & helped me make so many new friends.

I just keep wondering why this person even keeps playing if it's only the small bits of side content that bring them any amount of joy? And I can't even ask that because it's rude of me. I can't ask them to tone down the constant harping or being more decisive about picking their battles because, "I'd be telling them to suppress themselves, cutting themselves into pieces to try & not be a nuisance."

The thing is that this person isn't stupid. They're not even a bad person. And I do happen to agree with a lot of their points when they aren't being so outright hostile. They just have social struggles & autism like I do, but in the opposite direction. I'm a meek, heavy masker who represses herself out of wanting to not pick or escalate fights (growing up used to having my words habitually twisted by bullies & authority figures, being a chronic mediator amongst past friend groups leaving me with compassion fatigue), while they've taken the opposite approach & are very bold & outspoken with their opinions to the point of jumping the gun with unintended aggression. As well as the aforementioned, "immediately assuming the absolute worst about of everyone involved in this property."

I don't know.

I'm just so tired of having the little things I like be constantly shat on by people whom I'm close to. It makes ME feel like I'm the idiot with no media literacy for finding joy in these things. That I've been gaslighting myself into thinking that the things I like are actually good or hold any modicum of value. It's been 26 years, & I haven't learned to tune out all the bullshit around me. I'm still so sensitive after all this time.

#this is such a fucking ramble I'm so sorry #I know my other far closer friends keep giving me the advice of cutting this person out of my life #but they've also had a really tough life and I'm one of their few friends left & I see a lot of myself in them #what kind of person would I be to just leave them out to dry like that

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johnconstantinejld · 1 year ago

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Gotham Tales-Freeze

I will permit you to take my attention away from my research for a time. It is for a good cause, unlike that of Doctor Crane, but like that of Doctor Isley.

Men talk of curses, and myths talk of searching for immortality. Maui sought out immortality, and was snapped in half by the legs of a goddess, Gilgamesh sought it out but his fruit of immortality was swallowed by a snake [note to self: The similarity of fruit of immortality to apple of Eden must not go without mention]. No doubt there are stories of men who gained immortality, only to find they are trapped in statue-like stasis for life, or as infants forever.

Did they count on me when thinking that? I think not. True, true, I stole company supplies and diverted funds illegally to help my wife. Of those crimes, I am guilty. I offered some garbled response to the accusations of my superior which would not have sense, but he responded by striking me and throwing the chemicals at me. He escaped because of his connections. We did not even have a union. Bruce Wayne makes an effort to know the name of everyone at Wayne Industries, from board members to the night watchman and janitors. He gives holidays and would allow a union. After all, he'd make sure there would be no corruption in the union. My thanks for Mr Wayne’s donations to my research.

Lex Luthor would know your name, but he didn't politely ask you what it is like Bruce Wayne. He doesn't know the name of the little people, though, wouldn't pay a holiday and his unions are corrupt.

Tony Stark is an arms trader who is wealthier than some European countries. He would fire workers attempting to unionise and doesn't know their name. Forgive me for digressing-when you are in stasis, you can talk a lot. I do not make any claims of holding off the Grim Reaper. Like all men, I whimper in fear at it. One day, I will switch off.

Nora, Nora. Can you hear me, Nora? What will be in the end? Do you want to be rescued, Nora? I will help you, Nora, even if you will no longer see a man. I am barely a human figure now as my body loses appendages. I can only suffice to greet you, maybe exchange what has happened, before I turn my attention to myself. After all, I can wait. Allow me to look out my window. Who is coming by? Ah, Doctor Isley. We pass professional greetings, as two doctors ought to. Both of us will be immortal. What world will we live to see? Her perfect forest, or waters and cold? I will leave for colder environs in due course, perhaps artificially increase their size. As an American might say, cut me a check! I could be of great use out there, Batman, doing some minor but still important work in increasing the size of ice caps. But no, humanity still won’t leave me alone. I get put in cold storage [pardon the pun], and then someone wants to shift through my body, cut me open, investigate. Your curiosity will kill you. If you truly cared for me, you’d leave me alone. Only you and your family, Batman, only you and your family truly understand that.

What is it they say when you visit a dentist? Remember, there might be a slight stinging sensation? Exactly what is given to those who disturb me. They turned up the temperature, my controlled temperature and stood back as I nearly died. My fortune for the families of victims of my previous actions. One day, many years from now, Dr Isley and I will be still standing. She will have her heat and her pleasant breeze, but I have arctic moss and lichen. Does she consider them as beautiful as her beloved plants?

We shall survive. She will have the warmth, I shall take the vast pine forests of Siberia and then further north. Or perhaps I will walk south, through Patagonia and the southern islands there. I am trained in multiple languages, I can get by.

I have all the time in the world.

I have given you enough time. Leave us. Unless you wish to join her.

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votestaynight2 · 2 years ago

Text

16th Day - EDEN (Scene 2) / Epilogue

Alright! So, this is the last update for the Unlimited Blade Works route, but before that, I just have to apologize for the sex scene last time. I make these posts before I read the update, so I squint while doing it so I can't read the text as I copy it into the post.

If I had been able to read it, I would have put trigger warnings for non-consent, that was not what I was expecting. It was disgusting.

“……! Haa”

I feel dizzy. I can’t brace myself anymore.

…I’ll die. I can’t endure it at the very end.

Should I loosen up since I can’t brace myself? If I do so, I should be able to push him back into the void

“Don’t take me so lightly…! I won’t let you take me with you…!”

I gather my courage. Will my arm rip off first, will his chain rip off first, or will he come out first? I don’t care either way. I’ll fight until the very end and die gallantly…!

“…Heh. You can do that if you wish, but dodge to your right before you do that.”

“Huh?”

I turn around instantly. I look back at the compound which has turned into a flat field.

At the same time, something passes by me.

“YouArcher…”

…The chain is released. Looking like he saw something unexpected, Gilgamesh lets go of the chain.

“”

I fall on my butt. I sit there dumbfounded, and the void shrinks and disappears in front of me.

“That… was” I can’t stand up, and just look behind me to the flat field.

Dawn is near. The one with the rising sun behind him is the knight in red.

“Damnshow-off.”

I complain without thinking. But I’m smiling happily for some reason.

“Heh. Well…”

I have nothing to say to him. I guess I’ll stay quiet so I can sleep.

A golden field that is now deserted. Seeing the knight standing there and Tohsaka running to him, I lay on the ground. Tohsaka should say everything I want to say to him.

So I’ll sleep for now. We’ll end up fighting if we see each other again, and I’m not used to parting with myself.

…And for the final time… I engrave my ideal into my mind so that I won’t forget it, and I close my eyes.

The land below him is like a wasteland he once walked on. There is nothing here. There is nothing, as everything was blown away from the mountaintop.

The battle has ended.

The battle for the Holy Grail has ended, and the curtain is about to fall on his battle as well. He does not know how long it was.

But the accumulated wish that should have bound him forever is gone now.

The end quickly permeates into him and takes away his body’s form.

“Archer…!”

He looks towards the voice. She should not have the energy to run, but she is running with ragged breathing.

He watches it in silence.

“Haa, haa, haa, ha……!”

The girl that ran up to him looks up at the knight.

The red cloak fluttering in the wind shows no trace of what it used to be.

The cloak is cut everywhere, and his armor is cracked and torn. His existence is weak. Standing there haughtily, the knight begins to disappear from his feet up.

“Ar… cher…”

The rising sun is in the distance. A golden light is emerging from the horizon.

“Too bad. Well, that’s what happened. Give up this Holy Grail, Rin.”

He must not have anything special to say. The knight in red says trivial things.

“”

That gets to her all the more. The knight who is about to disappear is still acting like before. He is her partner that she spoke cynically with, ran through the battles with, and trusted her back to. She can declare that those days were “fun”.

And it is still there before her eyes.

He has remained in this world to save her at the last moment. He lost his Master and received the king of heroes’ Noble Phantasms. His body was disappearing, but he did not come to her and ask for help, and he instead watched over this battle.

And the end is in front of her.

“Archer.”

The girl cannot think of what to say. It is always like this for her at the most crucial times. She loses her cleverness when it counts the most.

“Ha”

The knight smiles a bit. He knew that from the start. The clumsiness of the girl is a dear memory for the knight.

“W-What? You don’t have to laugh at me at a time like this!” She looks up at the knight.

“Oh, excuse me. It’s because you look so terrible.

I was just amazed at how worn-out we are.” He smiles while he talks.

“” She gets a lump in her throat after seeing his regret-free face. The instant she wonders if he should really disappear…

“Archer. Form a contract with me again.”

She says something she shouldn’t.

“I cannot do that. I do not know if you will keep your contract with Saber, but I am not qualified for that.

And I do not have a goal anymore. My battle ends here.”

His reply is free of doubt and his will is strong. His face is as bright as the rising sun, and how can she force him when he’s making a face like that?

“……But! But…

You”

‘won’t be saved’. The girl swallows her words and hangs her head.

That is not something the girl should say. And it’s not something that is solved by keeping the knight in this world.

“Man. I do not have any attachment to this world, but…”

It’s troubling to have her cry. For him, the girl always has to be a positive, indulgent realist.

He was always encouraged by her figure. So he wants her to stay that way until the very end.

“Rin.”

The girl looks up at the voice. Her face looks cute, trying to hold back the tears. Rather than expressing the attachment he feels, he looks at the boy lying in the distance.

“Please take care of me. I think you know, but I am unreliable.

Please support me.”

The knight says so as if it’s somebody else’s business.

Those are words of parting.

…The future might change. If a girl like her stays with Emiya Shirou, the hero Emiya should not be born.

His words contain such hope.

“Ar… cher…”

…But even if it ends up that way, the already existing knight will forever be a guardian.

The boy and the man are two different existences.

They only have the same starting point, and he is an ideal that the boy dreamed of.

“!”

…There is no salvation available for this knight. There is nothing to give to him, as he has already died and become a phenomenon. She nods in spite of that. She cannot give him anything, so she will give him her best smile.

He asked her to take care of him. She smiles so that she can answer the trust he put in her.

“Yeah, I know. I’ll do my best. I’ll do my best so that he won’t get twisted like you. I’ll do my best so that he will be able to like himself…!

So you should also”

forgive yourself.

She does not put it into words. She looks up at the disappearing knight with a flood of emotions.

How much salvation did it bring? After engraving the girl’s smile into his memory with pride…

“I found my answer. It’s fine, Tohsaka. I’ll do my best from now on as well.”

A breeze. The knight has finally rested his wounded body, without waiting for the girl’s reply.

“Heh. I never got to complain to you.”

She wipes away her tears and talks to the one who is not there. Her voice is clear, and the girl is standing firm again. It is only natural. She does not have time to be depressed after he made a face like that. She says goodbye to the ground that the knight was standing on and runs to the boy laying on the ground.

Within the golden sunrise… The smile he had was like that of the boy.

Epilogue

―――I sometimes recall the fight.

The crying spirit and the sparks flying off the clashing swords. My attacks were immature, and it's not something one could call a sword dance. We were both clumsy and did not know of retreat. The ridiculous sounds of clashing swords were annoying and I have no memory of them.

At that time… I lost an answer and found an answer. So a plus and a minus makes a zero. Nothing has changed. He's him, and I'm me. I'm just watching this fading dream.

It's been only a month. But it feels so dear now.

It seems like it happened so long ago. The memory of it is fading day by day, and I can't even remember what the person I was fighting looked like. But that is to be expected. That was something that was impossible from the start. We did not believe that the fight would change anything. We just tried to beat each other to ascertain ourselves.

So there is nothing to gain from victory. There never was any such thing. The loser comes to an end, and there is no prize for the winner. Man, it really was good for nothing.

But I can still recall it if I close my eyes. The echoes of unrefined metals. A dazzling, distant technique that knew no retreat.

It was our beliefs that crashed against each other. I fought against my own ideal to carry out my hope. The result is not clear yet. I don't know who won, or which of us remained. It should be a while before the result becomes clear.

An illusion like a mirage that disappears when one turns around. Only the reverberation remains, and my feet will eventually reach――――

"Wake up, you fool. Everyone else has already left for the assembly. Are you going to boycott it even though you are at school?" "――――――――" …My body is being shaken. The voice brings me back to reality.

"……? Wait, why are you here, Issei?" I raise my head and look at my classmate.

"'Why'!? We are in our classroom, today is our last day, and it is ten minutes before the closing ceremony! I came to look for you since I did not see you, but I did not expect to find you sleeping!"

I don't know if he's in a hurry or just plain angry, but Issei yells at me. "――――――――" We're the only ones in the classroom. It's 9:50. The closing ceremony starts at 10 o'clock, so I bet everyone's at the gym already.

"Hey. Are you really awake, Emiya?" "―――Yeah, that woke me up completely. Thanks, Issei. I'm glad you came to wake me up."

"Hm. …It is fine if you understand. But thank me later. We won't make it unless we hurry. I do not want to think how angry Fujimura-Sensei would get if she finds out we are not there."

"Oh, got ya. I can't face my classmates if Fuji-Nee gives us ridiculous amounts of homework before the vacation. I'll make sure to calm her down." "Please. We will be too ashamed to face our classmates if she gives us more homework. I am sure they will curse us."

He sounds scary, but the frightening truth is that it's very possible. The extra homework she gave us last summer after we got her mad was ridiculous. It wasn't even English homework. What was she thinking when she told us to enter any competition to win a medal?

"Emiya! We have to hurry!" "Sorry, I'm coming." We should hurry to the gym for now. It only takes three minutes if we run. We should make it five minutes early if no teacher finds us.

"No. We cannot run in the hallway." I was too optimistic. As expected from the student council president. He is really committed, as he is still following the rules even now.

"That's splendid, Issei. But we won't make it if we walk." "Let us hurry without running. We can make up any excuse as long as we are there on time." I nod and walk faster.

We are in the middle of March, and the sky is amazingly blue. Fuyuki City has long winters, but spring is finally around the corner.

―――The days went by quickly. It's been a month since the Holy Grail War. The city is back to normal now. The Holy Grail has been destroyed, and most of the damage caused by the Masters was taken care of by the church. The person that came as a replacement for Kotomine is old but energetic, and everything was smoothly settled.

But one can see the after-effects of battle here and there. Kuzuki Souichirou, the person that chose to fight as a Master, is considered missing.

Issei was sad that the one who he treated as his older brother was gone, but… "He suddenly showed up at the temple to start with. It is only fitting that he leave the same way." Issei just laughed it off.

The surprising thing is Fuji-Nee, and it turned out that they often drank tea together. She complained that she wanted to fight him once, so it seems Fuji-Nee knew that Kuzuki was a master of martial arts.

Shinji's life has been saved thanks to Tohsaka, and he's currently in the hospital. I guess the hospital is part of the Magic Association, and he's getting better. Sakura is busy visiting Shinji, so she's been showing up at my place only on the weekends. I went to check up on them once, and they were getting along surprisingly well.

I don't know if that event took something out of him or if he's just unenergetic from the wounds. Either way, Shinji is ironic but honest, and he's acting more like the Shinji I first got to know.

――――Saber is not here anymore. She left this world after destroying the Holy Grail. Something constraining her must have been released when she destroyed the Holy Grail with her own hands.

…It's vexing that I could not say goodbye to her, but I should be glad that she's freed from the binding of the Holy Grail. If―――If I do ever see her again, I want to thank her as much as I can.

So. And finally, the most important person…

"――――Gah, Tohsaka." Right after we get down to the first floor…

"Oh, student council president. Are you patrolling the building at this time? Or are you taking care of the club rooms? I am getting tired of saying this, but you really are diligent."

We meet up with the person representing the students at the closing ceremony, who's coming out of the teachers' office.

"…Humph. I am also tired of hearing that line. Try guessing something else for a change. Or do you keep saying that on purpose?" Issei glares at Tohsaka.

"Huh? Of course it was on purpose. What? Did you not realize that until now?"

"…I see. I thought you had more sense of humor, but I guess you really are a blockhead. I am very sorry. I always used the same greeting to show my affection for you, but I guess it was hard for you to understand."

"W-What do you mean by 'affection'!? I have not done anything that deserves your affection! ―――Come, Emiya, we will be late if we concern ourselves with this fox!"

Issei sure doesn't get along with Tohsaka. …Well, I feel the same way, so I'm in no position to feel sympathy.

So. Our eyes meet as I walk past her.

"――――――――" "――――――――" We decided to act normally when there are people around. I naturally ignore Tohsaka and follow Issei.

But… "Good morning, Emiya-kun. I'm glad you seem well." I don't know what she's angry about, but she embraces my arm and puts on a big smile.

"Toh――――" My head goes blank. It's because even though we've been seeing each other, this is the first time we've touched each other in a month.

"Tohsaka…" I try not to blush as I bear the sensation of her touch.

"I'm joking. But it is true that I am happy, Emiya-kun. Oh, let's go home together after you finish helping out the student council after the ceremony. I will keep on waiting in my classroom." Tohsaka puts emphasis on "keep on waiting".

"W――――What are you saying!? Let go of him already…!" "It has nothing to do with you, Ryudou-kun. Excuse us. I am busy as well since I have to make a speech in your place, student council president."

"Wha-" Tohsaka leaves, leaving behind the footsteps of a victor.

"What was that about, Emiya? What is your relationship with that fox…!?" "…Well, it's hard to explain. First of all, I think I told you before that we're acquainted."

"That was a month ago! I warned you to cut your ties with her―――O-Oh, I get it! Does she hold a weakness of yours!?"

"Well… I guess you can call it weakness." "I knew it…! Dang, I cannot let you go now, Tohsaka…! Consult me, Emiya! Confess, Emiya! We shall give that fox her due punishment…!" Issei shakes me.

"Look at the time, Issei. The ceremony's starting." "―――I do not care. The ceremony starts out with a speech from that fox. It shall be mentally good for us not to hear it…!"

The student council president keeps shaking me. Issei is normally calm, but his personality changes when it involves Tohsaka. Tohsaka must be his natural enemy, but…

"…Sorry, Issei. I'm sorry to let you down, but I can't do anything about Tohsaka. She'll beat me instead if I go to beat her. …Um, you shouldn't go near her."

"…Hm, that is a rare negative comment coming from you. Is the weakness she's holding that bad?" "…Unfortunately. So I'm leaving you to take care of Tohsaka. I know it's a hard fight, but please do your best."

"―――I see, all right. Do not worry, Emiya. It is for the good of our school. I shall reveal her true identity and overthrow her. She seems to be planning something with all the athletic clubs, but the student council will be ready for her before the next year is out. The real match starts then."

The student council president smiles in anticipation. …Um, but Issei… We'll all be graduating in a year…

The ceremony comes to an end, and the school starts to lose its liveliness. Spring Break has started. Most of the students have left with a smile, and the students in athletic clubs are getting ready for their training camps.

There aren't that many students left in the building. All the classrooms are empty and the hallway is tinted in red.

"So you're finally done, huh? Issei makes you help even on the last day. I'm sure that's his way of getting me back." An empty classroom. Tohsaka smiles and says so as soon as she sees me coming into the red-tinted class 2-A.

"Hey, that's because you did that ridiculous thing. I would have been freed a lot earlier if you hadn't gone and said needless things." I complain as I go into the classroom. Why is it so awkward to go into someone else's classroom even though they all look the same?

"What? Are you saying it's my fault, Shirou?" "Half of it is definitely you. Look, you're the one who said we should act as strangers until next year since everyone would get suspicious. So why did you do such a thing?"

"…Heh. You don't mind a bit of a running start since this year's over, right? First of all, there are other ways to ignore me. We weren't in a cafeteria or something. We were the only ones there, so at least give me a nod or something."

I don't know why she's unhappy, but Tohsaka looks away and complains. …Hm. Is it because of the evening sunlight? Her familiar gesture looks so fresh and cute that I'm fascinated.

"―――Man. Here. I got this, but do you want it?" I show her the orange juice that was distributed among the helpers.

"Oh, yeah, I'll take it. Good, you're considerate about things like this." She receives the juice box and takes a sip out of the straw. …She's sitting by the window. She looks down at the campus as if she's watching something bright.

"……" "……" I follow her example and look down as I drink. It must be the track team that's running. They sure are energetic, running like that when Spring Break starts tomorrow.

"Hey. Were you on the track team before, Emiya-kun?" Then. Tohsaka suddenly asks me a strange question.

"Track team? No, I was always in the archery club." "…I see. Well, I guess there are times like that. Seeing the setting sun just reminded me." Telling me to forget about it, Tohsaka continues to drink the orange juice.

"……" I'll forget about it if she wants me to. When she calls me "Emiya-kun", half the time she's going to make a sarcastic remark, and the other half she's going to say something really important. I'm sure in this case it's the latter. After a month of studying magic under her, I'm finally starting to recognize her habits.

"――――But time sure flies by. It's already been a month since the Holy Grail War ended and you became my apprentice. At this rate, I'm sure a year will fly by as well."

"……" It's been a month since Tohsaka started teaching me the basics of magic. I've been busy with hard work and Tohsaka's malicious nature, but she's right now that I think about it.

This past month sure went by quickly. So I'm sure a year would pass in a flash.

"…A year, huh? We'll be leaving this school at that time." "Yeah. Today would be my last time in this classroom and I'll be in a new classroom starting in April. And just like that, I'll be going to a new place in a year." Tohsaka holds her knees and looks down from the window.

"'A new place', huh?" What will I be doing a year from now when I graduate? …No, I don't even need to think about it. There's only one thing I must do. I need to make my ideal come true, just like he did.

…And, well… There is one other big goal right now, but I don't want to think about it since it's irritating.

"What will you be doing after you graduate, Emiya-kun? Are you going to succeed your dad?" "Huh? …Well, that's true, but I want to become a proper magus more than I want to succeed my father. I can't boast unless I'm a proper magus."

"Oh? And to whom are you going to boast?" She smiles as she asks. "……" This. My other goal is to make her admit defeat.

"I-It doesn't matter, right? My goal right now is to become a proper magus, and that's why I'm your apprentice right now. Please give me your best regards for the next year." "Oh, you sure are optimistic. You think you can become a proper magus in a year? I was ready to teach you for ten years when you became my apprentice… But I see, you're fine with just one more year, huh?"

"T-Ten years…!? T-That's great, but―――no, that's not it…! T-That's really a long way ahead. Wouldn't you get tired?"

"Nope. As your goal is to become a proper magus, my goal is to make you a proper magus. I have it all planned out in my head, you know? Should I write it down and give it to you?"

"―――――――Uh, um…" Well, that's… That's great, but…

"But I guess that's impossible. You're going to succeed your dad, right? Then that means you'll be staying here after you graduate." "…Yeah. But what are you going to do? Your family supervises this town. You can't leave this town, right?"

"Me? I'll be going to London after I graduate. I got an admission recommendation because of what happened, so I guess they're letting me in without any tests." "Wha――――you mean that London, the headquarters of the Magic Association…!?"

"Yup. There's a limit to what I can do here, so I'm thinking of studying there for about five years. I hear that my dad did the same thing. And it's natural to go to the highest institute of education if you want to be a proper magus, right?"

"――――" I'm stunned. It's so sudden that my head blanks out. It's natural for Tohsaka, who is a legitimate magus. I finally realize the difference in our positions.

"London, huh? That's a really amazing thing, right?" "Hmm, I don't know. It's vexing, but it's not because they approve of my own powers. I was only invited because of my dad's achievements, and because I'm the last one alive."

She speaks casually, but I'm sure it's an amazing thing. …But London, huh? …That's certainly too far away. My father wasn't in the Magic Association. I'm just like him, and I don't like formal stuff.

"―――But you have the qualifications to enter in that case. I'm sure they'll test you if I recommend you―――"

…But I might be able to move there. I can start working more, study English, save up traveling and living expenses, and find a job over there…

"―――I know you're not enthusiastic about going there since the Magic Association is your enemy, but the Clock Tower has proper equipments and it's really well-suited for training. Oh, but you have to keep your Reality Marble a secret, so I guess they'll test your basics. …Whoa, would one year be enough―――?"

No, no, let's say I am able to rent an apartment there. I don't know what kind of a place the Clock Tower is, but I'm sure Tohsaka will get even busier. …Then it should be better for me to go there after I become a proper magus by myself. Yeah, that sounds good. First of all, London isn't suited for me. I bet I'll faint if I go there and if it's filled with people like Kotomine――――

"……Hey. Are you listening to me, Emiya-kun?" "Huh? Were you saying something, Tohsaka?" "…………" Tohsaka frowns and shuts her mouth. ―――So. After taking a deep breath, she makes a serious face and…

"I forgot to tell you, but I'm being invited as the successor of the Tohsaka family. In other words, I can get a proper room as a proper magus." …She says something strange.

"…?" "I'm telling you that they approve of me as a proper magus. So it's not unusual for me to have an apprentice or two, right? There are factional disputes there, so I'm allowed to take at least one of my apprentices." Tohsaka sneaks a peek at me.

"――――Um, that's…" I may be blunt, but I know what Tohsaka is trying to say. In a word…

"Yup. I can unconditionally take one follower as an assistant. You won't have to take the test that way, and you'll be exempt from tuition fees. …Well, but you'll be in a disadvantageous position because you'll be a student at the Magic Association without being part of it."

"――――――――" My head resumes its thinking. No, I force it to start working again. What Tohsaka is telling me… I put every cell in my brain to work to weigh the options I have. I must look funny, as Tohsaka is giggling.

"W-What? I'm not considering going there because you talked me into it, okay?" "Is that all you want to tell me? Well, I'm going to London."

She looks kindly at me. Then, Tohsaka makes a mischievous expression. "So, what will you do, Shirou?" She asks me gently, with eyes that see through me.

"――――――――" My face turns red. Her words and expression blow away my humility and my dislike of the Magic Association. …This is what I mean by Tohsaka holding my weakness. I can't help it if I fell in love with her.

"Oh, why go silent now? I haven't heard your answer yet." She keeps smiling mischievously. She knows what my answer is, but she's mercilessly attacking me.

"Uh… I, um…" To be honest, London is too far away, but I can't imagine myself being taught by anyone other than Tohsaka. And I never even thought about parting with her. Most of all, I want to be with Tohsaka.

"Be clear, this is important. Will you still come with me, even if it's as my assistant?" She looks up into my eyes. She looks so attractive that I feel like my heart will pop out of my mouth.

"S-Shut up, you idiot…! You idiot, idiot, idiot! I-I-If it's so important, tell me about it in a more appropriate place! I can't answer you when it's so sudden…!!!"

I don't know what'll happen to me if I keep staring at her, so I look away. …I still feel Tohsaka's presence. She's happily watching my reaction.

"Hey, Shirou. What's your answer?" She murmurs gently. ………She's got me beat. Is it this hard to nod and reply honestly? "……….." But I can't turn around unless I say it to her.

"……You idiot. Don't ask me such an obvious question." I meet Tohsaka's gaze and tell her my honest opinion. Her smile broadens at those words. "―――Okay, then please give me your best regards from now on, Emiya-kun. I'm going to train you until you become a proper magus, so prepare yourself."

"…Same to you. I took that seriously. I'm going to get taught by you until I become a proper magus." "Of course. I'm going to make you an honest man and have you lead a happy life. I won't allow you to give up just by getting taken to London."

Where did her previous prettiness go? She says so with a daring smile and jumps off of the desk.

…The sunset should end soon. Spring Break will end, April will come, and another year should pass by quickly. We will part with this scenery until then. After a year… Tohsaka and I will spend our final days of student life here.

"Let's go home. It'll be a lively dinner at your place today." We leave the classroom without any lingering memories. We can still hear the club activities from outdoors. The sounds are far off, and they remind me of the sword fight.

I can't stay in the same place forever. Tohsaka and I will be going someplace different in a year. It should be a while before I find out if it is the right choice or not.

I recall that red figure one more time. Neither this classroom nor that fight will change. Everything is the same. Everything is an illusion like a mirage that disappears when one turns around.

But I can get there if I aim high. I will surely be able to catch up to his back with Tohsaka's help. So I'll come up with an answer at that time.

…The swords that echo far away. By relying on those sounds, I shall eventually reach that place.

Answer

―――What came and went were distant memories. They were signs that he forgot and cast away, something that cannot be returned.

The sparks of the crashing swords. Crashing spirits. Many dozens of unskilled attacks and defenses. They were clumsy attacks that just tried to deny each other. Why did such a thing revive a worn-out oath?

―――They were impossible attacks. His charging body is covered in wounds. His fingers are broken, his limbs are slashed apart, his breathing has stopped although the boy does not know it. Even at a rush, his speed is trifling, and his attacks are mediocre. Although he has absorbed his combat skill, his techniques are now as clumsy as an amateur's again. His attack is executed haphazardly. But… His attack is heavier than any that came before. There is no superhero. The boy's mind is obliterated by the one who grew to realize that fact more than anyone. The distorted mind should collapse from the stress. It is obvious that the boy will be devoured by his contradiction.

But where are the signs of his defeat? He moves his wounded body and steadies his faltering mind, but there is no hesitation in his attacks.

His fury is incomparable to before. The boy swings his sword recklessly. The attacks are equally matched. The space is filled with sparks and everything entering it will be cut to pieces. It is the embodiment of their minds that melt together even though they repel each other.

The desperate attack. It is only a dying spark that a man gives off in his last moment. The boy gasps with each attack, almost falls, steadies himself, and attacks yet again.

"――――――――" Seeing it, he is confident that his enemy has no power left. The boy in front of him is a corpse. But… Why is there infinite power in his arms holding the sword?

He sees an illusion. It must be because he got bored with seeing someone attacking even though he knows it is useless. The irritation boils up his most detestable impulse.

…What did he feel was beautiful and noble?

The boy said that he does not want to see people die meaninglessly. He wanted to save everyone who was in trouble if they could be saved.

It is out of the question. He knows such a wish is just meaningless hypocrisy. An ideal where others are more important than yourself is an ideal that should never be held.

……But. Did he ever not dream that such a life would be wonderful―――?

"………………!" He cannot hear what his enemy is saying. His enemy's voice is too weak to be heard, but his attacks are fierce. The enemy's hands are already one with the hilt. It must be to fix the sword there, but the impact will go to his body like that. The boy is covered with blood, and he will die if he retreats. For the boy, every attack comes with great pain.

"…………!" The voices are hard to pick up. The boy, who is on the verge of death, frantically opposes the impediment in front of him. He does not need to be told where the boy's motivation is coming from.

―――It is a bad dream. He is shown an old mirror image.

He keeps swinging his sword with tearing arms. The only thing there is a strained yell. "………!" There were people that could not be saved, and there was him, who could not save them. He saw people dying meaninglessly, and he swore never to let such a thing occur again.

"………!" There is only one thing that comes and goes through his mind. Things he believes in. Things he believed in. An ideal he swore never to surrender. Something he will never surrender――――

And so. He realizes that there will be no end to the attacks.

This enemy will not stop. The enemy will never stop on his own. Even though the boy is attacking with all his power, he is taking no notice of him. The boy is only trying to slash himself, the one who obstructs himself. His enemy is fighting for the things he believed and for the things he will keep on believing in.

"――――――――" Realizing that, he grits his teeth. The boy keeps challenging even though he knows he cannot win and that it is meaningless. That is the exact mistake he made. ―――But then, why? Why do these eyes keep on staring at him?

Another crashing sound. The attack is parried. The enemy that could not block any attacks repels the attack like nothing. ―――The mirror breaks. He is not strong. He is not strong at all. He fights risking his life, looking ugly and miserable. But… Who in the world can laugh at him…?

"――――――――" He stops his breath. Parrying the oncoming attack, the enemy readies his sword again. A final blow. Will the boy stay standing in spite of all his wounds and the strain on his mind?

Of course. The boy overcame such limits ten times. It is obvious that the enemy will not stop even if this attack is blocked.

"…………!" The boy slashes his sword even though he is collapsing. Those eyes… They are looking straight at him――――

He sees a familiar dream for an instant.

Whose dream was that, and who inherited that dream?

" !!!!" The boy's voice reaches the empty mind. A single scenery closes in.

―――What an ugly, fanatic good will. A beautiful ideal to struggle for.

The final blow is coming in. But the man does not watch the sword that is about to pierce him.

That is the only thing on the boy's mind. Even if his heart is a fake, the beauty of what he believed in is real. ―――That is something he cannot lie about. And it is the origin of his powers.

The boy cries out with a smashed throat. …That he wants everyone to be happy. Yes. There is no road of retreat. Because the dream is…

He has made numerous mistakes. He had no way to atone for them, except for hating and killing himself. His hands are covered in blood, and it is something that can never be forgiven. But still――――

―――A straight gaze. Mistakes and lies, Shaking off everything, running on without stopping―――

The battle ends with a victory. The pain in his chest does not lift up his conviction. As the man hates himself, salvation will never be given.

But he earns a small answer. The answer is only for this summoning. It is a meaningless thing that he will forget the next time he is summoned. But there is nothing to regret. It is something that has already been built up, something that the boy will build using all his life.

There is only one thing coming and going through his mind. There is regret. He does not know how many times he wished to redo things. Heroic spirit Emiya will forever curse this end. But still――――

But still――――I was not wrong―――

There is nothing to talk about. The boy will remain, and he will leave. The only things that remain are the exchanged blows.

The path is long. Relying on the sounds of the swords echoing far away, the boy heads for the deserted plains.

#votestaynight

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ultraericthered · 2 years ago

Text

Anime Update V2 51

Tokyo Magnitude 8.0 - Have seen the next two episodes, and I’m noticing that Yuki getting lost from Mirai and Mirai having to call out his name seems to be a once an episode trend now, as are the aftershocks and tremors causing more random destruction and casualties, and the newscaster lady giving a report after every credits that clues you in on what’s to come in the next episode. Episode 4 was particularly notable, with Mirai’s petulant stubbornness giving me serious cringe (just use the portable disposable toilet already, girl!) as well as her continuing to be a terrible big sister to Yuki, a really gutwrenching scene with her and Yuki both sobbing over missing their home and parents, and oh yeah, Tokyo Tower falling down!

Hunter x Hunter - At last, the end of Greed Island. I was glad for Gon, Killua and Biscuit that they were able to achieve the win, am going to miss Biscuit if she’s really going to be away for a while, and damn, every new thing I hear about Ging really makes him come off more like a jerk. Getting a guy’s name wrong for a more convenient game title and not retracting it ‘cause you find it funny? Major dick!

Fruits Basket - Another solid episode for Yuki’s character growth. We found out that Machi is actually the younger half-sister of Kakeru and that she struggles with having independence. Yuki also got locked in a closet for a bit and had to conquer more painful memories of Akito’s abuse in that time. But by far the episode’s most important development is that Cinderella has been chosen as the play for the upcoming school festival, with the roles cast as such: Saki as Cinderella, Kyo as the Prince, Minami as the evil stepmother, Tohru as the evil stepsister, and Yuki as the Fairy Godmother. I. can’t. wait!

Re:ZERO - This is no doubt going to be an unpopular opinion but, aside from Subaru’s continuing character arc of mental and moral degradation, I’m not particularly liking this arc compared to the ones before it. It had such promise at the very start, but rather than maintain focus on what it started with - the different campaign camps of the Royal Selection - it’s veering in a different direction that seems intent on throwing as much bleak, miserable, mean-spirited and edgy shit at you as it can. And if it was working dramatically, I’d be more forgiving of it...but I didn’t get “drama” from this episode, I got unintentional comedy gold. The Witch’s Cult shows up and we meet a character named Betelgeuse (yes, like Beetlejuice) and not only is he just about the most Extra psychotic weirdo I’ve ever seen in anime, but how he’s set up in the plot as Subaru’s new arch enemy comes out of nowhere. He kills Rem and torments Subaru about his “sloth!” (and Rem’s sloth too since she’s gratuitously in love with Subaru but hasn’t really acted upon those feelings) sending Subaru into a mental breakdown where he’s all “RAAAWR I’LLKILLYOU, I’LLKILLYOU, I’LLFUCKINGKILLYOU!” and even screams his name: “BETEEEELGEUUUUUSE!” There’s just no way I could take this seriously. The actually effectively creepy part was the very end with all the snow and the outline of giant monster Puck appearing, and then the evil, furious look on Subaru after time has looped back.

Fate/Stay Night: Unlimited Blade Works - Once again the part of the story where Shirou, Saber, Rin, and Archer face off against Ilya and Berseker for the first time, but this time with more details that the Deen anime left out such as Rin combating Ilya directly at one point, and there was even a scene of Kirei talking to Gilgamesh. Oh yes!

Symphogear GX - Another new start with another new enemy showing itself, this one being some creepy witch girl and her doll-like underlings who are after something from someone because they want to destroy the world. It’s not really clear yet, but I just loved seeing everyone again, especially with Kirika and Shirabe hanging with the main heroines now, and Maria doing her community service.

Eureka Seven - Finally got started on this, it’s been so long since I last saw any of this series, but Dai Sato, the head writer on it, is also the head writer of the currently running Pokemon Horizons, so the timing was serendipitous. Episode 1 spends a lot of time around Renton Thurston, a whiny 14 year old boy living in a small village who bitches about how much stuff in his life “sucks” but is also the son of a famed hero and who’s voiced in a very Tom Holland-ish sort of way by Johnny Yong Bosch (ironic since Holland is the first name of his idol), and some conflict with his grouchy old grandpa. It all changes when the Nirvash Type 0 shows up, piloted by a really weird girl with green hair and purple eyes named Eureka (pronounced EHUH-REK-UH), followed by Holland Novak’s crew in Gekko State and an assault from the United Federaton Military (which includes the cruel Captain Juergans and twerpy intel officer Dominic Sorel). So much is established within these two episodes I can’t recall it all off the top of my head, but damn does Sato’s strong writing make it fun!

Gintama - This episode took Gintoki and Katsura away from any of the other main characters as they’re roped into a temporary job that requires they crossdress and pass themselves off as women under new feminine identities. Yeah, one of those episodes, and easily the weakest to come out of this show at this point, though not without enjoyable moments. The plot with the ashamed son of the bigender owner of the place trying to prove himself a man led to something I had not been anticipating, and that in turn led to a laugh-out-loud ending joke. But for a cours concluder, they could’ve picked better.

AND

Oshi No Ko - For whatever reason, this anime was allowed to lead with a goddamn movie, one that despite its length is recommended viewing for determining whether or not this series is for you. And for me, it’d be a “nope!” Not because it was bad, I actually was quite engaged in it a good deal. But for a story with a premise this batshit crazy and totally ungrounded from the reality it’s depicting on-screen, it can only work if A: it’s a comedy, and B: Ai remains in the picture, as she’s the main selling point and the character with the most intrigue to her. Well, guess what happens at the end? It suddenly goes full “deep” and dramatic and serious, and it does so by having Ai get murdered at her home in front of her children by some rando stalker who may or may not have been brought there by the kids’ unknown father. Leading to a last minute swerve where Aquamarine vows to scour the entertainment industry for their father and whoever else might’ve had a hand in AI’s death, and get revenge! Yeah no, I think I’ll pass. I can see myself maybe checking back in with this every rare once in a while, but it’s not something I could get into.

#Anime Update V2 #Anime Update

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kitkat-of-doom · 10 months ago

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Omg thank you so much !!!!

So basically her girlfriend (not yet her girlfriend, it's a slow burn and Cass is pretty obvious about it while Kita has been Flirting™ for ages) was first her best friend, they met after Kita rescued her from an assassination attempt when they were 8. Kita basically grew up in the very poor side of the Capital and when they were 14 she got the opportunity to attend the academy school with Cass, she became a knight and since Cass is an illegitimate princess nobody really cared about letting her have a commoner knight as her personal guard, but the problem is that a war broke out not long after because of territory dispute and kita had to go fight in that war. It's also during that time that Cass run away, so basically when she came back Cass was gone and she had to deal with a whole lot of PTSD so she quit her position in the royal guard and decided to create a network of people who could help her search for Cass, and that's kinda how she created the intelligence guild ! She also had help from Huxian who is a fox shapeshifter and kind of her familiar but their contract is a bit complicated.

The adoptive father is Ash he's like the love of my life the prettiest boy I love him so much, so of course he's kinda the most traumatized one. Basically he served a king 2000 years ago and fell in love with a fae (most specifically a snake fae, this is important for later) and one time when he was traveling with her he got a fatal hit. Now I don't know if you have read the epic of Gilgamesh, but in the story they say that a snake ends up stealing the secret of eternal youth from Gilgamesh, so in my world, snake Faes detain the secret of immortality and eternal youth as well, but they are forbidden from sharing it. The thing is that this fae was really in love so she decided to save him by making him immortal, but since it's forbidden she was then taken away by her own kin and executed. also in this world only the person who gives you immortality has the power to make you mortal again, so ash is basically stuck being immortal for forever.

Now to get back on the king part, he served his king and admired her very much, she was like the chosen of the gods and the only one who ever managed to unite the continent, but a civil war broke out and basically her and all her court ended up dead, the only ones who were left were Ash and the child of the knight who initiated the rebellion. The only thing ash could do in this moment was take the throne to at least try to protect the people and the country that his king loved, and he also ended up raising the king to be the next ruler, cos there was basically no one else. Now the stories are that the gods will once again send a chosen king to unite the continent, but until then only the descendants from the firsts "regents" can be trusted to rule the country and give it back once the real king comes back.

(that's the last drawing I made of him, I'm working on a reference sheet as well so I can commissions artists, got no pics of Kita yet cos I can't figure out her exac design 😔)

Fast forward to now, Ash is still immortal and unable to die (even tho he's starting to get pretty tired of living and watching everyone else die) and he's a bard and storyteller who Travels around the world singing about the stories of his lost friends, he's terrified of forgetting their faces and pretty much doesn't sleep cos the nightmares really are that bad, he refuse to use violence because he's seen and done some pretty bad stuff during the years and is completely riddled with guilt about it, and he also have another adoptive daughter named June who is probably the most chaotic 10 year old you will ever meet.

To come back to cass I really really love the girl, this is an old reference sheet, she's a bit more curvy now but ye. She still have some jewels from back when she was a princess cos she basically stole them in order to fund her running away plans, I love the weather magic, especially since there's 2 main magic systems in my world, one that is I ate and one that is learnt. Weather magic and all element/nature magic is Inate but people who use it are usually seen as bad omens thanks to old propaganda by the nobles and the ruling class (with learnt magic you can control who has access to it, and they didn't want the peasants starting revolts by burning their castles - the mentalities have changes a bit now since commoners have access to the academy but old beliefs die hard) and the fact that they're seen as bad omens further alienated her from the rest of her family. It's also really nice to have thunderstorms and lightning in the background when she's angry or doing badass stuff.

Sorry for the long post I rambled a bit too much but Im just so insane about them

For the WIP tag game, I was curious about Cass! You listed a Cass storyboard and a Cass expressions sheet and now I'm curious 👀

Thank you so much for your ask !

Hope you're ready for a bit of an infodump cos I love her a lot

She's my main OC, that's her ref sheet :

She's from a fantasy story I'm writing kinda in the style of a visual novel, so there's good ends and bad ends, and I'm mostly obsessed with her bad end these days

As you can see on the ref sheet she's a runaway princess, her dad is the king of the country and her step mother wants to kill her to make sure that her own children get on the throne instead of Cass, so she ends up running away from her country and opening an small herbalist shop in the neighboring kingdom. She's got extensive knowledge on poisons and their remedies to prevent getting poisoned by her step mother and she can pretty much change the weather depending on her emotions but she's not the best at controlling it !

She also has a girlfriend who was her former personal guard and is now the head of the intelligence guild, and her adoptive father is an immortal guy who's life goal is to tell the stories of the people he loved long ago so that no one can forget them even after they died

I've been working on this story for about a year and half now, and i have a lot of world building including a whole magic system and little bits of story here and there so if you wanna know anything more don't hesitate to ask !!!

#yes i did spend a whole 40 minutes writing a long ass post about my sillies #i love them so much you guys have no idea....#kit draws

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stranger-nightmare · 3 years ago

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honestly anything hurt/comfort with druig!! LOVE your work btw <3

𝐒𝐡𝐨𝐰 𝐌𝐞, 𝐃𝐨𝐧’𝐭 𝐏𝐫𝐞𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐝

Pairing: Druig x (gender neutral) Reader

Summary: you get hurt when the deviants attack but you try to hide it from everyone else, (un)fortunately for you Druig knows you too well and comes to your aid

Warnings: angst, hurt / comfort, mention of injuries, mention of character deaths, swearing, Eternals spoilers

A/N: next up on the sleepover fun, some Druig angst... To this anon, first of all thank you sm, I’m so glad you like my work🥺 secondly, hurt / comfort with Druig? That’s a big yes from me! The title is taken from the song Don’t Pretend by Khalid, the song has nothing to do with the story but I just wanted to inform you that’s what the title is quoting😅 Hope you like this!!🖤✨

The attack had taken you by surprise. One minute you’d all been having a meeting about the deviants, next minute they were actually there, wreaking havoc upon Druig’s Amazonian compound.

You’d only just managed to fare them off, losing Gilgamesh in the fight. In the aftermath everyone was silent, indidivually dealing with their shock and grief. You were now sat back in Druig’s town hall cabin. Everyone else had left long ago, each needed their own space to deal with everything. The only other person left in the room was Druig, you had been eyeing suspiciously ever since the attack.

“What?” You finally mutter.

“I’m waiting to see how long it takes for you to admit it” he shrugs.

“Admit what?"

“That you’re hurt.” You scoff, pain flaring through your body that you know you don’t hide well.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about” you lie.

“Y/n, come one. Just show me, don’t pretend."

You just turn your head away defiantly. You hear him get up from where he was sat on the other side of the room. You hear his footsteps get louder as he walks over to you, but you keep your head turned, your eyes averted, your face hidden.

“I know you’re hurt, y/n.” Druig he says, softer now, only a few feet away from you.

He stops a few paces in front of you, looking down at where you sat in the corner. You turn your head back to look at him and pain flares through you. Druig notices, concern and anguish taking over his face as he closes the gap between you, crouching down to your height.

"Please. Just let me take a look” he whispers urgently. You continue to stare at him in silence for a few more seconds.

“Please” he whispers again. You finally nod once before moving to take your jacket off. Druig hears the sharp gasp that leaves you and he moves to help you remove the jacket from your shoulders. He can already see the blood seeping through your shirt from the wound in your side, staining the fabric black. Druig’s hand reach for the hem of your shirt. He looks at you, quietly seeking permission. You nod again and he lifts the fabric up and off you.

“What the fuck y/n?” He swears upon finally seeing the injury. You just stare at him blankly, your face finally contorting with the pain you’d been trying to hide for the last hour.

“I didn’t realise it was that bad. Fucking hell y/n why didn’t you tell anyone?” He cries.

“How did you even know?” You change the subject.

“Because I know you. You’re never this quiet, even after a deviant attack” he huffs as he gets up to grab his outback Amazonian equivalent of a first aid kit. It’s a small box filled with various herbs, liquids, powders and salves.

“Fuck” he swears again as he pulls out a particular salvesand starts to dab it into the wound. You suck in a breath through your teeth when it starts to sting.

“If I’d known it was this bad I wouldn’t have spent the last hour just waiting for you to crack. I wouldn’t have been so glib!” He huffs in frustration.

“You’re always glib” you laugh weakly. He just sighs, grabbing bandages out of the box and beginning to wrap them around your torso. You groan as you lean forward into Druig so he can reach around behind you to pull the bandage tight around you. His fingers are feather light as they work over your skin, adjusting the bandage.

“Why y/n? Why didn’t you tell any of us?” His voice is laced with concern. You swallow the cry that suddenly threatened to break through you, unwelcome tears sprinting in your eyes. You look away from Druig, the emotional intensity of the moment becoming too much for you. You feel your heart ache as you reflect on just how costly this battle with the deviants had been.

“Because Druig,” you finally start after a few moments. “We already lost Ajak. And now Gilgamesh...” your voice breaks and you sniff sadly. “I don’t know, I just didn’t want everyone to have something else to worry about” you shrug.

“Y/n” Druig looks at you sadly. He sighs, looking down, searching for the right words to say. He finally looks up at you again. He wipes away the lone tear that had escaped from your eye. He then grabs you hands in his own, gripping them tight.

“Y/n, if anything, their deaths only made it all the more important for you tell us that you were injured. We need all of us if we’re going to deal with Tiamut,” he pauses for a second before continuing. "We need you. But more importantly I need you, y/n. I can’t lose you. I won’t...” he chokes, his voice threatening to break. He clears his throat. “So next time you get hurt, you come and tell me right away? Okay?” He looks at you seriously. “Please” he adds.

“Okay” you whisper.

“Good” he murmurs, bringing your hand up to place a chaste kiss to your knuckles.

“But you know, if you could try not to get hurt in the first place that’d be even better” he smiles at you. The two of you laugh together lightly.

“I’ll try” you promise.

—————

Masterlist

A/N: I’ve tried to power out as many requests as I could before the end of the year so I haven’t really proofread any of them so I’m sorry for any spelling and/or grammar mistakes🥺🖤

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Taglist: @salirophilia @alice-madness-decends @tompetersebbuckyhazleo @artaxerxesthegreat @moon-beam95 @lacontroller1991 @ratcatcher2world @ppk1pinch @luminaaz @strawberriebabbles @rosie-posie08 @dreamcatcher121 @justifymyfeelings @redroomproperty @your–sweetest–downfall @dontbedumb3 @bookfrog242 @mothdruid @hybrid-in-progress @druigss @captainrexstan @krswrites @druigmybelovedone @sophiawithanph @bluemoonyumi @drreidsconverse @nikkitc0703 @twinsunkithies @druigsgold @camelliaflow3r @purplecrayola @ikarisanddruigwife @uwiuwi @real-gifted-chaos @dopeqff @thelightinmyshadows @haileyromanoff @jordynanderson9 @stardust-galaxies @dacryfeelia @wannabevampire

Please do not copy, repost or translate any of my work without my permission, thank you.

#waspswidows #wasp answers #hope hosts #druig #druig smut #druig x reader #eternals #druig x y/n #druig x you #marvel eternals #druig imagine #barry keoghan #druig oneshot #druig angst #druig fluff

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themoonandvenuslovechild · 3 years ago

Text

Pairing: Drukkari x Reader

Summary: For centuries you had been trying to move past the love you had for Druig and Makkari, always failing to force the feelings away. When the Eternals show up at your door telling you tales of the end of the world, you immediately agree to help, hoping that once it was over you would never have to see Druig and Makkari together again. But, you’re in for a bigger surprise than you expected...

TW// a little angsty, reading pining from a distance, tooth-rotting fluff

A/N:I know my writing is shit, but there needs to be more Drukkari x Reader out there. Also, she/her pronouns are used for reader. Also also, reader’s powers are not specified.

When you had come home from work, you weren’t quite expecting to see all but three Eternals standing at your door. Ajak, Gilgamesh, and Makkari weren’t there, which is strange since this seems to be a collection of the group.

“Uh...hey?” You said. The entire group turned towards your voice, all their eyes landing on you.

“(Y/N)!” Sprite exclaimed with joy in her eyes. “I’ve missed you!”

Before you have the chance to speak, the girl has thrown herself around you to wrap you in a hug that could suffocate you. It took only two seconds for you to process before you reciprocated the act of affection.

“I’ve missed you too, Sprite.” There’s a hint of sadness in your voice that everyone picks up on. When everyone had left, you had mourned to loss of your family, wondering how exactly you were going to go on without them by your side. Sprite had stayed with you for some time until going to stay with Ajak, getting tired of bouncing from place to place. The big, bustling cities you gravitated to during your travels didn’t suite Sprite the way they did you.

Your eyes turn from the red-head to the rest of the group, suspicion clear on your face. They all stare back, different emotions reflected in each of their eyes.

“How did you find me? And why are you all suddenly showing up unannounced?” Your tone is accusatory, but you can’t quite help it. These are the same people that had abandoned you like you meant nothing to them. To do what? Go off and explore the world? Could no one have taken you with them to do so? You couldn’t help but be angry, you felt abandoned.

“Ajak had your address scribbled down on a sheet of paper stuck to the refrigerator,” Sersi says softly. “We’re here because Ajak is dead. She was killed by a Deviant at her home.”

It takes a moment for you to understand exactly what Sersi had just said to you, your heart dropping down into the pit of your stomach. Hot tears well up in your eyes as you stare at the group, flicking your gaze between all of them.

“Where’s Makkari? Gilgamesh? Are they okay?”

Every single one of them turns their gaze away from you. Everyone, other than Ikarus. “Gilgamesh died while we were retrieving Druig in the Amazon.”

Your heart now seems to entirely disappear, ripped out of your chest by some supernatural force.

“We’re going to the Domo to get Makkari after you,” Sersi continues.

You tug your bottom lip between your teeth, biting down on it until you can taste the familiar tang of blood.

“What do you need me for?”

There’s a long pause before Sprite takes a deep breath, deciding it’s better if she’s the one who breaks the news to you.

“Ajak chose Sersi to lead us, and when Sersi talked to Arishem... this planet was doomed to die, (Y/N). We were sent here to stop the Deviants from killing all of the humans so that a celestial could emerge. It’ll destroy everything.”

There’s a long stretching silence, no one daring to say a single word.

“Well, let’s not waste any time then. C’mon we’ve got to go get Makkari and make a plan.”

~*~

Once arriving at the Domo, everyone stops for a minute, silence encompassing the group as everyone stares at the place that used to be their home. Phastos had used his technology to bring it from the ground, and now the big, black ship stays in everyone’s view, reminiscing the memories that they have here.

Stepping inside, it’s completely silent and darker than night. The only light is the flash light that Karun is holding with the camera as he films Kingo telling the story of the Eternals and all you’ve done for the world. Phastos rolls his eyes, frustrated before urging Kingo to stop.

There’s a loud pop and Phastos screeches before the light is pointed down towards Thena’s feet, a popped chip bag under her toe.

“Oh, it’s a chip bag,” Phastos says softly as he picks it up.

You take the initiative to walk ahead of the group, your feet making a soft noise as they hit the ground. Makkari knows everyone is here, she can feel it, but she waits for you to come to her.

When your eyes finally set on hers, she’s sitting in a throne, her legs thrown over one of the arms of it. Her fingers flip the pages of the book she’s reading until she finally feels your presence in the same room as her. “Is it time to go home?” She signs.

Everyone looks at her with pity on their faces, knowing they’ll have to tell her that home was never real and none of you will ever go back.

~*~

You’re sat in the throne Makkari previously occupied, watching over the group as they all do different things.

Makkari speaks with Kingo as he explains to her what everyone else has discovered, Druig and Ikarus pick up items they deem interesting, Sersi paces back and forth, Sprite sits next to you, Phastos uses his powers to begin creating something (what? no one quite knows yet), and Thena walks around seemingly lost in thought.

Druig and Ikarus stand, both holding items from the ship. Druig turns to Ikarus and they trade, before he walks away, heading towards Makkari. His back is pressing against hers as he speaks, the love in his voice bringing pain to your heart.

“My beautiful, beautiful Makkari. Did you miss me?” She smiles wide as she turns to him, love surrounding their entire being.

“I’m going out for a minute, I’ll be back soon,” you announce, abruptly standing from the throne and quickly walking out. Everyone’s eyes follow you concern written across their faces.

“Should we go check on her?” Sersi questions softly.

Kingo shakes his head, already having observed your feelings for the flirtatious couple before everyone split apart. “I think we should leave her be.”

Druig scoffs, his eyes drill hard into Kingo. “There are Deviants, we’re not leaving her be. Makkari and I will go check on her.” He grabs Makkari’s hand and begins to pull her towards the door, following after you.

“No!” Sprite pipes up as everyone turns to her. “If someone needs to go get her, anyone but the two of you.”

“And why’s that?”

Sprite shakes her head, conveying to him that she won’t tell him, not even if it would end up helping you.

It’s Kingo who says the words, they fall from his mouth easily. “She’s in love with the two of you.”

They both freeze, shock written across their features as they stare at Kingo. Druig’s eyes flick to Sprite, a look of anger on her face as she glares towards Kingo, and he knows it’s the truth.

“She’s in love with us?” Makkari signs, her eyes wide. Kingo nods and Makkari turns to Druig.

“Druig, do you know what this means?” There’s a bright smile spread across her face as she looks at him.

“It means we can finally tell her,” he says as he puts his forehead against Makkari’s.

They race out the door after you, finding you sitting in the grass with a sad look on your face.

“Are you okay, m’lady?” Druig asks softly.

You sniffle before turning to him and Makkari. “I’m fine, I’d prefer to be left alone, if you don’t mind.”

There’s a coldness in your tone that makes him ache as he and Makkari take a seat on either side of you.

“How long has Sprite known?” he asks you.

“Known about what?”

“About you loving us.”

Tears well up in your eyes again as you flick your gaze between the speedster and the mind-controller. “She told you?”

Makkari shakes her head. “Kingo did.”

“I’m sorry. You were never supposed to find out, it was supposed to be a secret, I don’t even know how Kingo knew. I never wanted either of you to find out, I knew it would ruin our friendship and I-” You’re cut off by Makkari’s hands holding your face, love in her eyes as she looks at you.

She presses her forehead against yours, closing her eyes, and you do the same. Soft lips mold against yours as she kisses you, slow and deep, proclaiming her love without saying a single thing. When she pulls back, your head turns to Druig in fear because you just kissed his girlfriend.

You’re taken by surprise when his lips also touch your own, holding you close and making sure you feel loved. Once he’s pulled away, you look at him.

“I... what?”

“We love you.” Makkari signs. “We’ve loved you for centuries, but we never thought you would love the both of us back.”

“Will you be with us, (Y/N)? Will you let us love you?” Druig asks.

“Yes,” the word slips from your lips before you can think. “Absolutely yes.”

Both Makkari and Druig squish you between them, happily to finally have their missing puzzle piece.

“Now let’s go save the world before it ends,” you proclaim.

#druig #makkari #fluff #drukkari #drukkari x reader #makkari x druig #makkari x reader #druig x reader #eternals

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redheadspark · 3 years ago

Text

Honey Bee

Summary: Druig and the Female Eternal develop their friendship over the centuries, growing closer together and having the Female Eternal question iwhat she is feeling for the mind controller before it’s too late.

Part Two of Dandelion Wine

Previous Chapter: Dandelion Wine (Part One)

W/C: 5,704

Warnings: Mostly fluff with a Hint of Angst.

A/N: I’m going to add a snippet for Part Three, or an epilogue! I had more to write for this but I didn’t want to drag it all the way out for another 2k of words! The Epilogue will come soon enough I promise! :)

Once again, this work bring on the topic of Asexuality! If this does offend you in any way, PLEASE LET ME KNOW ASAP!

I love the feedback that I’ve had with this work so I thank you so much!

Taglist: @lozzmullarkey @rach-12

1,093 AD

Countryside, England

"Has anyone seen Druig?"

You walked through the main meeting room of the Domo, looking around at the couple of Eternals that were lounging about in the early afternoon. You only saw Sersi, Sprite, Phastos, and Gilgamesh, the rest were out on a patrol when some Deviants were seen out near the countryside. Thankfully the Domo was well hidden in the forest, away from the humans and their curious eyes.

"He wandered off earlier today," Gilgamesh explained to you with a shrug, "He's been wanting some more alone time these days,"

"He hates not being able to help." Sprite commented as she was sitting on one of the benches, watching Phastos as he was twerking a piece of machinery that he was perfection with a hint of agitation in his brow, "It's making him more of a sour puss than anything,"

"I doubt that Sprite," Sersi reasoned as she walked over to you with a sincere smile, "I just saw him walking out to the fields in the East. It's real quiet out there, that would be your best bet to find him,"

"Thanks, Sersi. I'll go see him," You said to her lightly, clasping her on the shoddier before you walked off, a bit of a pep in your step.

"Make sure he gets back before the others do," Phastos said behind you, "Ajak will tear him a new one if she finds out he wandered off on his own again before nightfall."

"Will do!" You said over your shoulder, hearing Sprite snort.

"She's the only one who can talk to him these days," She commented, hearing a chuckle from someone else as you walked gracefully. It didn't matter too much in your mind that they were talking about the two of you. You knew they mean well, mere observation and gentle comments were never harmful to you. They didn't see the true nature of Druig, not as you did.

It was a sacred friendship that developed over time.

Since the night of Sersi and Ikaris's wedding, Druig became your friend and comrade on the ship. You felt like you gained an ally of sorts, someone who listened to you spill out your feelings and what was being battled within you. Druig never once looked at your differently, not since that night. On the contrary, he looked to you for some company a lot more in comparison to before. It was rather nice, having Druig around to eat meals with or be on patrol together as a pair. His company was comforting, your small talks and conversations were always positive and light.

As you grew closer to Druig, you were also feeling protective of him. You fought alongside the others during Deviant attacks, never once diminishing your bravery and your need to protect the humans. The ability to transform into an animal was a huge advantage on your end, and you were well notoriously known for transforming into a massive bear. Something about the spirit of the bear and the thirst to be loyal and protect those you loved move through you with your cosmic energy. It was such a contrast to your human form: the confident yet soothing woman with curves and a gentle smile that would morph into a massive and deadly bear.

There are a few times when you felt Druig's life was in the balance, and you would protect him without a second thought or in hesitance. It wasn't just Druig, but the others that you knew weren't vicious fighters. In your mind, they were your family and they came first in your life. Every time you saved them, or even Druig in particular, you would feel a wave of admiration from your fellow Eternals at your selfless act. It made you happy, truly happy, that they saw your value and your love for them and they loved you back.

Especially Druig.

Walking out of the Domo and going through the high trees that were shielding the Domo, you were once again attuned to the sounds of nature there in the afternoon and with the warm sun. Once in a while, when you needed your own alone time or a time to recharge mentally, you would go out into the woods and shapeshift nto an animal. Sometimes it was a fox, quickly and lively to graze along the grass or find a burrow to curl up in. Other times, you were a wolf, wanting to stretch your legs and weaving your way above the tree trunks and fallen logs. As tempting as it was to change into a wolf and bolt, you decided not to and just merely walk in your human form. It was only a 7-minute walk, give or take, to the open field that you knew where Druig was going to be at. So you merely enjoyed the sun on your skin and the wildflowers under your fingertips.

Finally, you reached the opening onto the plains, seeing the small slope of the tall grass and the blue sky high above it. It was almost picturesque to see and breathtaking, the mixtures of green against the light blue above with the puffy clouds that seemed like mist. You kept walking, your feet were quiet on the ground as you were scanning the field around you for some kind of sign of Druig. After a few moments, you saw a small hole in the grass off to the right near the top of the hill.

You gave three long whistles, intimidating a bird. It floated in the wind as you stood a fair distance away. It was a signal you and Druig would give to each other to alert each other. There were times when Druig needed to be alone, perhaps to have his own time for grief or to vent. You would give him space, but you’d signal to him that you were close by in case he needed your company. Druig did the same for you, and it became the little tactic you two would do with one another.

Finally, you heard three high whistles back from the hole in the grass, having you grin as you slowly walked in that direction

"I was wondering where you wandered off to," I called out as you strolled.

"Just needed some air is all," Druig's voice rang from the hole in the wall while you were walking closer. You finally approached the hole, standing right outside of it as you peered down to see Druig sprawled on his back, the tall grass around him like a force field, with his hands laced on his chest and his eyes closed. He looked content there in the grass, the warm sun hitting his face as he was taking in long breaths with a grin on his face knowing you were right above him.

"Did I disturb your beauty sleep?" You asked coyly, hearing him chuckle from his spot on the ground.

"Not at all," He replied in a hum, then opening one eye to see you almost perched over him with our hands folded in front of you. He grinned at you, then motioning with his head to the spot next to him, "Come join me,"

"If you insist," You replied, making your way to the ground to be on his right side with your own back on the grassy floor and your head tilting up to the sky. You could see the sun hitting your face, some of the shadows coming from the tall grass that blocked you from view and tickled your skin as your snuggled in a bit and giggled, "Wow, this is quite nice,"

"I wouldn't be down here on the floor if it wasn't comfortable," Druig joked back with you, having you look over at him and see the content gaze he was giving to the sky above you both. You knew it was getting harder for him to restrain from helping the humans, being told to stay back and let the humans run their course. He wanted to stop the hurt and pain, to bring down the wars and mass murders that would happen everywhere. Druig craved to bring peace and tranquility, with no more blood spilled. However, time was still going on and the once innocent planet you occupied was being tainted in sin and flaws.

It wasn't just Druig that felt that pain in not being able to stop conflict or turmoil. You had those moments too, having to watch humans hurt each other and murder one another with no chance of stopping it. Although it wasn't as heavy on your heart as it was for Druig In those times, it wore you down. So you leaned on each other when one was feeling low or broken down, whether it was just sitting next to each other in silence or giving each other words of encouragement. You both kept each other strong.

"You have something on your mind," Druig said, making you look over at him now and see his gaze at you with intrigue on his eyes.

"What makes you say that?" You asked him back.

"You scrunch up your nose when you think too hard," Druig explained, "Like this," He scrunched his own nose to match yours, cracking a smirk in the process. You rolled your eyes as you gave him a light smack on his chest, hearing him chuckle as you looked back up at the sky above you, "What are you thinkin' about?"

"You won't judge me if I tell you?" you asked him, not in fear or hesitance but mere curiosity.

"Since when have I ever judged you?" Druig countered back.

"Druig…" You commented, hearing him sigh.

"I won't judge you if that's what you want to hear," Druig explained, sounding like his true self now as you both were laying in the grass, side by side, watching the clouds roll by. You took in a long breath, already having those lingering thoughts that you've had on your mind all morning become magnified.

"Do you believe in love?"

Druig shifted a bit in his spot next to him, looking a bit confused at the question as your hands were resting on your lower stomach, moving with your inhales and exhales.

"That seems like a loaded question," He hummed, sounding soft but also serious at the same time, "Do you mean the concept of love?"

"Being in love, falling love…. all of it I guess," You hummed, watching a particular pattern of birds fly by high above you, "Just the word in itself is so vast and yet simple. Love can mean plenty of things and take many forms,"

"You've been talking to Sersi again, haven't you?" Druig asked, having you shrug as you waved your hand in front of your to bat away a fly near your nose.

"Perhaps I have," You answered, seeing him gently smile as he was watching the clouds high above the two of you, "There's nothing wrong in talking to another person about love. Humans have had love since their beginning here on the Earth, Sersi and Ikaris have it…"

Druig hummed nonchalantly, showing he was listening as you placed one hand behind your head to be a pillow.

"Do you ever picture yourself falling in love?" You asked him, seeing looking over at him for a moment. His eyes were still up at the sky, but you could tell he was thinking about it to himself. You made it sound like this was another conversation you two would have together, but it was such a heavy and delicate topic to have between you.

"Don't know," He said softly, sounding genuine in his answer, "I never thought about it." He then looked over at you finally, having you see the kind stare he was giving you and how his brown hair was almost melting into the brown soil beneath his head, "Have you?"

"Yes," You replied with no hesitation, giving him a soft smile before looking back up and pulling a long glade of grass between your fingers. You held it up in your view, over your head, and against the view of the sky as you twisted it in your fingers.

"Love is such a simple word, but it can mean so many things," you explained, watching the grass move in your fingertips, "Humans fought for love in wars and battles, they gave out love in songs and poetry, it's so easy for them. But to give it to someone whom you care for, seems like the ultimate goal for life on this earth, wouldn't it? To find that one person who knows you more than you know yourself, that will cherish you and bring you peace, and just being in their company alone makes you the happiest you've ever been,"

It always festered in your mind, the pondering thoughts if you were ever going to find that kind of person to be with. You saw it in Sersi and Ikaris, how they loved and took care of each other. How they looked at each other like the other hung the moon, or how they brought out the best in each other. It made you wonder late at night in your bed, or when you would be alone on your patrols if you were ever going to have the chance to have yourself.

If someone was going to give that to you.

"Would it be so wrong to be in love with someone?" You asked out loud, maybe not directly to Druig but yourself as you let the blade of grass fly away with a gust of wind, "I know being an Eternal doesn't really leave us with the opportunity to love someone here on Earth, since we're immortal and all, but still…..to have that just for a moment wouldn't be so bad, would it?"

You didn't think that Druig would ever answer, only to listen and have you air out what was stuck within your brain. But as your watched more cloud patterns float from the right to the left, the soft sounds of grasshoppers singing to signal the sun setting, the comfortable quiet was almost a moment of zen and time stopping.

"No, I suppose it wouldn't," Druig replied in a mumble, almost like he was in a trance himself. You grinned shyly blinking a few times.

"I heard Gilgamesh say that if you love something, you protect it. We've been protecting these humans all this time on this planet, and I wouldn't take it back, Druig. But if someone did love me, truly loved for who I was and who I am, I would protect them with my life," you explained, making your stomach feel a bit lighter. In your mind, love was deeper and more intimate than being physical with someone.

Love and sex seemed the same to most, but not to you.

Your reservations against sex were still there, it was still something that was now a part of you that you knew was never going to leave. But you were content now, more at peace with it. Yet love, love seemed so different. It wasn't just being physical with another person on that level. Love was about having your soul intertwined with another soul, it wasn't biology or evolution. You even thought about spending the rest of your immortal life with a person and just simply being there in the moment. Whether it was holding their hand or cuddling them close to you, or filling them up when they were down. You yearned less for physical intimacy and more for romantic and emotional intimacy.

Was there such a thing?

"Maybe you'll have it one day," Druig said to you in a breath, having you grin and look at him once more. He was peering back at you, a tenderness in his blue eyes and along his body as he was staying still on the ground next to you. You felt like you were under a microscope with him, but it wasn't in a negative way. Was he reading into your mind?

"You think so?" You asked almost sheepishly, seeing him give you the softer smile you have ever seen from him. You knew his smiles at this point: the forced smiles he would give when he would try and put up a front, or the sincere smiles when he saw humans being kind to one another. Yet this one, this was he has never used on another person, or in another situation.

"I do," He replied.

Over the next few centuries, you saw little things creep into your life thanks to Druig.

It was the smaller things that you were noticing with Druig that made you question for own feelings for him. He would always seek out to be by your side during meals and talks, which was not a huge change. But he would consistently seek you out for company when he did it the most. You didn't mind it, you enjoyed having him around you.

The more you hung out together and stayed close together, the more you could read each other and the moods that you would have. For Druig, his facial expressions would give him away for you instantly. When he was in his better moods, he was loose in how he stood and in how he walked. On the negative side, he would so stiff in his face and almost look like he would punch a wall.

You consoled him plenty of times when he was in his negative moods. Sometimes he would come into your room when you were reading or mending your civilian clothes, saying nothing but merely sitting next to you on your bed and taking deep breaths or sprawling out on top of your bedding with a huff on his lips. You would let him, not wanting to push him or make him uncomfortable. He would vent to you at times, but other times he would simply just breathe and try to release the tension in his neck.

When you were stressed and drained, Druig knew how to take care of you then. He would steer you from the situation that was draining you, placing his hands on your arms and walking with you to calm you down. You couldn't help it when you were feeling drained after fighting a Deviant or diffusing a situation. All you needed was to breathe, and Druig knew that instantly.

"Take some breaths, it's going to be okay," He would say to you like a mantra as he walked with you and consoled you. You felt safety with Druig when it was just the two of you, the protectiveness that he had with you was growing throughout the years. He calmed you and made you feel safe.

Safety was something that you loved having with Druig.

You were willing to put your neck on the line for Druig when it came to a fight. You knew he was no real fighter, he only fought with his words and with his mind-controlling ability, never with his fists. It was his nature to use his words and sway people in that manner, where for you it was better to just fight it out with the Deviants. You were strong in your animal shapeshifting, yet at times it was a bit dicey on your end.

At one time, over in the 1300s when you were all out in Asia, you were in the form of a red-tailed hawk flying over the area to look for Deviants within the area deep in the rural jungle. The rest of the team was below in the ground, Druig being the only one who could communicate with you through your thoughts as you were flying through the air and scanning with your hawk eyes for any more Deviants within the area.

"What do you see?" Druig asked in your mind.

"Two Deviants to the west, near the tree line and close to the main city walls," You thought back, then looking up and dipping out of the way just in time as a flying Deviant nearly collided with you mid-flight, barely touching your feathers, "Druig, I have a Deviant on my tail up here in the sky!"

"Fly back to us, we can get rid of him for you," Druig urged you, having you hear the urgency in his voice and how serious he sounded. You are flying hard, trying to dip and dodge the Deviant that was right behind you and trying to nip at your tail feathers. It made you go faster, a sense of fear now itching over you.

"He's right on me, Druig! I can't lead him back to you all!" You yelled in your mind, barely feeling the Deviant's tweet about to snap right at your talons.

"That doesn't matter! Get back here and we'll handle the Deviant!" Druig argued with you now, sounding stern.

"I'll lead him off and take him out in the tree line!" You explained, not listening to Druig and his pleas to get you safe. The last thing you wanted to do was to lead a Deviant back to the group when they were already trying to take care of two others on the ground. Deviants that were airborne were harder to maintain and handle, leaving only yourself and Ikaris to the task on handle those. Ikaris was nowhere to be seen, which meant you were on your own.

"Damnit, listen to me! You're going to get hurt—" Druig argued with you as your heart was beating so fast. You were about to take a sharp turn to the left when you then felt a stabbing pain in your left-wing like it was sliced. You screeched out, your hawk cry was heard and vocal in the sky as you were then falling to the ground and spiraling.

The last thing you remember was Druig calling out your name before your vision went black.

Something inside you was warm, rolling over you like a blanket as you finally woke up in a gasp. You are on the jungle floor, looking high above you at the high trees that made you feel like an ant. Your body seem so stiff and in pain, your head was against a fallen log and your left shoulder felt like it was on fire. You were trying to breathe, but your lungs weren't working properly. There was somebody perched over you, your face was being framed and held in calloused and shaking hands and wide eyes looking down at you.

"Hey! Hey, you're okay!"

It was Druig, protectively perched over you and was cradling your head in his hands. Your own eyes were wide from the pain in your shoulder, and you also felt some thick moister along your arm and onto your fingers.

"Where's Ajak?" You heard Kingo above your head, sounding concerned himself as you were still watching Druig with your wide and scared eyes.

"She's coming over now. Ikaris killed off that Deviant before it could do any more damage," Thena answered him to your right, sounding more in control but stern too. You wanted to look at Kingo and Thena, purely out of instinct to make sure that they were okay, but you were in too much pain to move.

"W-what happened?" You gasped out, hearing the pain in your tone and feeling it on your shoulder. Druig said nothing, looking petrified over you on the jungle floor as you looked with your eyes to your left shoulder. That's when you gasped loudly, seeing a rather large dent in your shoulder through your orange armor and on your skin. A hole was seen, drenched in blood and some blood was oozing out from the wound.

The Deviant pierced your arm.

"Ajak's coming right now, just stay still for me, okay?" Druig said to you as you looked back to him, still seeing the desperation on his face in his voice as you were trying to breathe again. The shock was coursing through you from the attack, your brain trying to get back into focus and your left hadn't was shaking. Druig looked down at your shaking hand, hearing you gasp out for breath consistently. Druig moved one of his hands from your face, reached down to lace your fingers together to hold it in a death grip.

"Are y-you guys o-okay?" You asked Druig, seeing him pause for a moment as he was squeezed your bloody hand. He almost scoffed at your genuine question, though you were still thinking about the others and what happened to them.

"Are you serious?! You nearly got killed from a Deviant punching a hole in your shoulder, and you're asking if we're okay?!" he asked in shock, almost angry with you as you watched him try to control his anger in front of you. Your eyes went wide in shock.

"Druig that's enough," Thena scolded him nearby, her voice having authority in it while you saw Druig grimace a bit from how he sounded. You were quiet, part of you understood why he was angry with you. But the other part of you was shocked at how he was reacting to you. He never spoke to you like that before, and you thought your heart broke slightly.

You looked away from him for a moment, feeling foolish then. Maybe it was the wrong choice to take on a Deviant with no help and no aid. You are injured now on the jungle ground, covered in blood, and someone whom you care for was angry with you and your actions.

"I'm sorry," you said in a low tone, feeling rather guilty being in this mess because of your choice.

"No, don't say that, okay? I'm the one who should be sorry," Druig said in a hushed tone, almost in pain as you were looking away from him. He still had his hand on your neck, the touch was so gentle and almost possessive as you tried to take in another breath, "I'm sorry I said that, okay? I'm just…I'm scared for you,"

You finally looked back at Druig, seeing his face change from the slighter anger and seriousness he had moments before to something more tender and fragile. There was a new pain on his face, maybe it was self-inflicted in how he was handling this with you, but you could have sworn you saw love there within in his eyes. He was emotional in how you were injured in front of him, emotional in how you were thinking of others before yourself, and finally, he was emotional in how he made you feel guilty. It was all bubbling within him.

Several sets of feet were heard rushing over in your direction, Kingo sighing in relief above you.

"Ajak! We're over here!" Kingo called out, Druig moving away then with a small amount of pain still on his face as Ajak was now in your eyesight. Druig's hand on your neck left you, that warmth was no longer there against your skin as Ajak was now the one cradling your face and looking in your eyes. But you still felt Druig cradling your bloody hand within his own hands, almost afraid to let you go.

"I'm here now," Ajak reassured you, petting your hair with your fingers before she placed her hand on your wound, "You'll be better before you know it, alright? Just breathe for me,"

You breathed through the uncomfortableness that was seeping through you thanks to Ajak healing you, yet it wasn't as painful with Druig holding your hand as a lover would.

That night you stayed awake in your bed, thinking back to what happened earlier. Your shoulder was all better, merely a bit sore not a blemish left behind. Your mind though was more occupied and filled with Druig, you couldn't help but. You thought back to how he was holding your hand, not minding how it was stained in your blood. How his voice sounded so broken and hurt from seeing you hurt on the jungle ground. And lastly, you thought back to the concern and pure emotion in his eyes and face.

Something clicked inside of you then as you were sprawled in your bed. You were in love with him.

It all made sense, and yet it surprised you. All those hours together talking and being together. The small gestures that Druig would do with you and around you when he thought you didn't notice came into your mind then too. Sneaking you snacks that you knew you liked during meetings, giving you some flowers every once in a while when you were down just to make you smile at him, or even giving you sound advice when you needed the council. You loved hearing his laugh and snarky tone from a joke, or his gentle soothing voice when it would just be the two of you sitting together on your bed, swapping old tales that Sprite conducted about the both of you.

Druig's presence soothed you, no matter if you were happy or if you were sad.

You never saw or admired Druig sexually, that wasn't the issue. That sexual attraction that you never had to anyone wasn't there with him, but it was other attractions that took place. The emotional attraction of feeling your full self when Druig was around, almost fully connected feeling the love and respect he had for you and vice versa. The physical attraction of being physically close to Druig and feeling cared for. Whether it was a shrug of the shoulders when you walked together, or how he would hold your hand when you are in distress.

You didn't know what to do, but you knew that you loved him and you would do anything for him.

1521

Tenochtitlan

"If you want to stop me, you're gonna have to kill me,"

You watched in pure sadness and defeat as Druig was eyeing Ajak up and down with pure pain in his eyes and anger festering under his skin. The flames that were engulfing the city below with the recent Genocide of the people tinted his face, showing his anger and pain as you were all at the top of the temple. It all happened within a blink of an eye, so any factor going in at once and there was no chance of slowing it down or stopping it.

Druig didn't want to play by the rules anymore, not when he saw people being murdered right in front of him and the slaughter of innocent people was being taken place. You saw his breaking point that night, and it didn't matter if he didn't lash out outwardly at first, he did after when you all saw Thena and her Mahd Wry-Ry almost kill Makkari and wound Phastos and Sersi. You were in stunned silence as Druig was unleashing all that was screwed in tight within him on Ajak, feeling in your bones as he was crying next to you and staring hard at the others in pain.

Finally, after he said that to Ajak, he looked over at you before he would walk away from the family. He searched your eyes, the redness in his eyes and blue orbs made you feel your tears about to fall too. All you could do was simply take his hand in your own, the two of you close enough to almost breathe in the pain of each other. As selfish as it was that you wanted him to stay, that you wanted him to work it out with the family and try to make things better, his mind was already made up.

He made his choice.

You didn't have to say anything to show that you did understand, and he didn't have to say anything to know that you were going to stay with the family. Your paths were going along a different way now, no longer in sync as it was for the past few centuries. You two were inseparable then, but now at that point, you both knew what you had to do. Deep within yourself, you wondered if you were going to see him again if that warmth that he brought to you would be there once more.

Your heart was breaking, but you hid it.

Druig pressed his forehand against your own, having you press your head back and hold his hand in a tight grip. You knew matter how badly you wished to tell him to stay, you had to let him go. It ached your heart, it pained it like a gutted wound.

"Will you stay safe?" You asked with your thoughts, not wanting the others to hear.

"I will." He replied calmly, though you heard the pain in his tone as you nodded your head against his and took in one more breath, “Please stay safe for me. We'll see each other again,"

"Will we?" You had to ask, almost not believing him. He looked at you directly in the eyes, having you see the reflection of the flames in his eyes but they were looking so certain at you and not at all hesitant. You wished to take that pain and heartache away from him and make him happy again, but maybe letting him go was going to be enough. Gilgamesh's words rang in your mind again.

"If you love something, you protect it,"

Letting him go, away from this fracturing family, was in a way protecting him. He needed to be away from them all, away from the hostility and the downward spiral of negativity and anger. Druig would be fine on his own, you said it over and over in your brain as you two were staring at each other intensely and with some affection there.

"I know we will," He replied in his mind to you. You watched with a heavy heart as he walked down the steps, out of your life. For now, you repeated. This was only temporary, you had to know that you two were going to meet up again sometime in the future.

If only you knew when your heart will stop aching, and your love for him would continue.

To be Continued....

Part Three: Mend

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A/N: SUCH A BIG ONE HERE! I swear, Part Three will come! Let me know if you want to be tagged for the third installment that will be short and sweet! Thanks for reading and for showing the love!

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taran-chan · 2 years ago

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the blues and then purple-pink skies Thena/Gilgamesh; Oneshot; AU

A sequel to "time, mystical time" It’s been a month since their first conversation on the bus, how are Thena and Gilgamesh doing?

Sprite

Sprite looks at her watch then pokes her head inside Thena’s office.

“Doctor, there are a few more outpatients waiting.”

Thena looks up, narrowing her eyes at her for a moment, then says, “Liar.”

“Yep, just bluffing with ya,” she grins, “Let’s go have dinner.”

They quickly change and go to the elevator, Sprite walks with a spring on her steps all the way. She doesn’t have night duty today, and because they’re both tired of cafeteria food so they decide to eat out. While they’re waiting for the elevator, she notices Thena typing away on her phone. With a knowing look, she harrumphs loudly.

“Sooooo… Aren’t you going to meet with your detective today?”

Thena’s reaction is better than she expected. She turns the screen away, pretending to check the ends of her hair and avoiding Sprite’s eyes.

“He has to work today.”

“But he will be here after work?” She blinks innocently, “And you’re texting to tell him your work is done so he can come anytime?”

“Shut up,” Thena makes a beeline inside the metal box as soon as it opens. Lucky for Sprite, there isn’t anyone else but them so she gets the chance to be cheeky with her mentor for a little longer.

“You two have gone on like, what, three dates? How are you still not going home with each other?”

“Sprite!”

“What?” She laughs.

“Those…are not dates. We simply went to eat together, the last time you were there too.”

“God, stop lying to yourself,” Sprite rolls her eyes, “If the waiter hadn’t brought our food out in time, you would have sucked on each other’s faces.”

“I’m still your mentor, you know,” Thena crosses her arms, “Watch your language.”

“Yeah, yeah, Doctor.”

They’re about to go out when Thena finds out she’s left her car keys behind, so Sprite waits in the lobby while she runs back to her office. The life of a first-year resident isn’t really a blast so recently she’s been investing in the love life of her mentor, the most feared and also the best doctor in neurosurgery at Eternal, with the Scotland Yard detective as intimidating as a bear, whom she heard that Thena met at a bus station or something about a month ago.

He doesn’t make a good first impression on her, really, standing like a threatening statue in front of the hospital to wait for Thena. However, he’s considerably less intimidating after the time he stopped by when Thena was doing surgery, bringing loads of food that he bought for her. He asked Sprite not to tell Thena that those are from him, probably out of embarrassment. Sprite agreed but since Gilgamesh - his name, made the mistake of calling her “Doogie Howser” because of her hair and her size, she doesn’t feel guilty at all when she deliberately dropped some of those sweets inside her snack stash.

Sprite looks up from her phone momentarily to see the ER doctor rushing a gurney through the front door. There’s a man with his head bandaged and wearing a neckbrace on it. The paramedic guy is filling the doctors in, “...50 years old. There was a drug bust. He was chasing a suspect when he got hit on his head with a brick.”

As they pass Sprite, she can see the face on the gurney clearly. His eyes are closed, one side of his face is bloody, swollen, but she still recognizes who he is. Her fingers are numb and stiff when she makes the call.

“Thena? You better come down here quickly.”

Ikaris

“On my count! One, two, three!” Ikaris commands and they lift the patient out of the gurney and onto the bed. He’s so big that they need another two ER doctors and two male nurses to help carry him. Ajak comes over to hang an I.V. bottle for him while Ikaris bends down and calls, “Detective. Detective! Do you know where you are?”

When he doesn’t get a response, he presses his knuckles down on Gilgamesh's sternum for a sternum rub and repeats, louder this time, “Detective Gilgamesh! Can you hear me? Detective Gilgamesh!”

He lets out a sigh of relief when the other man’s chest lightly rumbles and he exhales, “I heard you. I heard you,” he licks his dry lips before continuing, “I’m in Eternal hospital, right?”

“That’s right,” Ikaris says, starting to check his neck, “Is your neck hurt?”

“No, it’s fine.”

The doctor gets his flashlight to check Gilgamesh’s pupils, he’s about to order a CT scan when a ghostly figure dashes into the ER. The people who are standing around Gilgamesh's bed startle as Thena gracefully get into Ikaris’ place, slipping her hand into the detective’s hand on his side.

“Thena, what are you…” Ikaris begins his protest but stops halfway because Ajak puts her hand on his shoulder. She shakes her head.

“Can you hear me?” Thena asks with a gentle voice that no one there has heard her speak to another grown man, “Gil? Can you hear me?”

Ikaris sees the detective crack a very small smile, then opens his eyes for the first time.

“Thena,” he says simply, and that name makes his smile grow bigger.

“I’m here,” Thena replies, “Can you lift your left arm?”

Their eyes are glued to the patient’s arm, large and tough but a little shaky, slowly rising a few inches from the bed.

“Can you close your right hand?” Thena continues and Ikaris hears Ajak’s sad sigh at her breaking voice. She knows Thena has been seeing someone, of course she does. And even though she has never met him, she’s sure that he’s a good man through Sprite’s words, and she is also aware of Thena’s affection for him because she has noticed all the texting and smiling during meal times and breaks. And it’s only increased over the last month. The doctor thinks she’s subtle but she really isn’t.

Gilgamesh stretches out the hand that has been holding hers, then closes it with an utter gentle squeeze, in a way that Ikaris suspects he deliberately reduces the pressure so as not to hurt Thena’s slender hand, for his thumb right now is evenly rubbing on her knuckles. Thena closes her eyes, nodding to herself, her eyebrows knit together as if to stop her from crying. Their surroundings fall into stunned silence, hypnotized by that sight and snap awake when the patient speaks.

“Don’t make that face. I’ll be back on my feet in no time,” he smiles, “I’m in good hands.”

Thena bites her lower lip hard and nods again. She turns to Ikaris, all emotions nearly vanish from her face and she seems completely calm and together, “Let’s do a CT scan.”

“Yeah, okay,” Ikaris says mechanically. Ajak hints at everybody else to leave, giving Thena and Gilgamesh their deserved privacy. On their way to the CT Scan room, Ikaris voices his question.

“That man, is he her…?”

“Yeah, I think he is,” Ajak smiles. He has a feeling that what she’s thinking isn’t quite the same as what he’s thinking.

Kingo

Kingo finds Thena on a bench outside the ICU, staring at her open hands on her lap and looks like she’s lost in her thoughts. He steps up and sits next to her, silently putting a can of milk coffee into her hands. He pops open his own can, takes a sip then asks.

“How is he?”

“He has a subdural hematoma on the right side,” Thena sighs, “but thankfully the bleeding isn’t too bad. His skull is fractured, however I don’t think he needs surgery at the moment.”

“Even so, let’s just keep him in there and monitor him for the next few days,” Kingo suggests, “In case the bleeding gets worse.”

“I know.”

“Is he sleeping?”

“Just now. I talked with him earlier. He’s a bit drowsy because of his head trauma and all of the chasing and fighting tonight.”

“Don’t worry too much,” he pats slightly on her back, painfully stiff because of tonight’s events, “He’ll be right as rain. We’ll keep a close eye on him, so close that I’ll be surprised if he doesn’t file a complaint when he checks out.”

She doesn’t reply, but her expression is more relaxed and she opens her coffee can. She takes a sip, reading what is written on the can and frowning, “What is this? No caffeine?”

“Duh? Are you planning to stay awake all night or what?” Kingo looks at her once, then shakes his head, “Go home, Thena. There are doctors on duty here. Look, I’ll drive you to your apartment and then I’ll be back here right away. I won’t let anything happen to him.”

She starts picking at the can lid, a sign which shows that she’s torn, half-convinced but still worries about the man who’s lying in the ICU with his head bandaged.

Kingo presses on, “Don’t you have surgery in the morning? If you don’t want to go home, at least go to your office to get some shut-eye. Sprite already left some food in there if you’re hungry.”

“I still want to make sure,” Thena says, her voice as faint as a whisper, “That he’ll open his eyes again.”

“Leave that to me. You need to sleep,” Kingo insists, getting up and nudging Thena with him, “I’ll take you to your office. Please, do it for the sake of this longtime friend.”

Finally, exhaustion wins. They go back to her office and Thena lies down on her couch while Kingo settles for the chair by her desk. He flips open the small reading lamp and lets Thena lie in the dark. He refuses to leave when he can still see her eyes wide open, examining the ceiling.

“Back then, at the ICU,” she suddenly says, her eyes never turning away from the dark space above, “Seeing him lying there, do you know what I was thinking?”

“What?”

“If I had known this would happen to him, I would have told him how I feel sooner.”

Two days ago, Gilgamesh asked her to be his girlfriend through a call. Or at least that’s what she told Kingo, the truth is that it could be sooner. Thena said she needed some time to think, and Kingo didn’t know anything further than that, but now it looks like the guy hasn’t received any answers from her.

“That’s exactly why I told you to go ahead and date him.”

“If you’re here only to say ‘I told you so’, then fuck off,” Thena pushes herself up, and Kingo is close to panic when he finds tears fill her eyes, so much that his brain immediately starts thinking of something else to say, anything at all, just to get that look off her face. He only saw her cry a handful of times. The last time was many years ago, when she first witnessed her patient die after an operation. He didn’t see her cry even when she got cheated on, instead she made the son of a bitch cry like a baby, literally. It doesn’t take him long to put two and two together and realize Thena is head over heels for that sweet detective.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean any of that,” Kingo walks to the couch when she lies down again, turning her back to him. He sits down on the floor, pulling the thin blanket over her shoulders, “Let’s be patient for a few more days, then give him the best ‘get well soon’ gift ever, yes?”

Thena

Eventually, sleep grabs her at some point in the night and she jolts awake when her daily alarm rings at 6 am. Kingo left long ago and she’s alone in her office. She takes a shower then puts on a new scrub and her blouse to fend off the morning chilly before making her way back to the ICU. Gil is still fast asleep, though it seems he’s been moving around because one of his arms pokes out of the blanket, hanging off the bed. He’s snoring slightly as she steps in. She lifts his arm up and covers it again, yet it’s so warm she has a hard time letting it go. She smiles. Kingo was right, he’ll be alright. She’ll make sure of it, since she has something important to tell him.

After a second of hesitation, she shyly runs her hand through his soft hair, blushing when he stirs and unconsciously leans towards her touch. She’s been wanting to do so for some time, and if she’s honest with herself, maybe from the moment their eyes met on that bus.

“Thena?”

She pauses her moves abruptly. Her heart beats wildly in her chest, she looks down and finds he’s staring right at her.

“Thena?” He repeats, smiling dreamily.

“Hey, how are you feeling?” She forces herself to stay put despite her instinct to run away in embarrassment. But this is Gil and he’s nothing like she expected. In the best way.

“I’m so sleepy,” he breathes out, rubbing his eyes like a boy, “Like, very very sleepy. But it’s nice for you to drop by.”

“I wanted to check on you,” she bites her lips to hold her laugh. She didn’t think she’ll get to see Gil sleepy and goofy from painkillers this soon.

“Can you hold this for me?” He stretches his arm towards her.

“What do you have there?” She frowns, worrying that he might pull the I.V. string or wires from the monitor in his sleep. But he only drops his hand into hers, letting her hold the entire weight of it.

“I’m so happy, Jagiya,” he beams blissfully, but sighs right after, “I’ve missed you, you know? I was afraid that you wouldn’t want to see me again after I asked if I could be your boyfriend. But I’m so happy now because you’re here because I like you a lot, like, a lot, a lot, a lot.”

“You do?” Thena asks. She can’t help it. She doesn’t realize their fingers have weaved into each other until he pulls them up to look.

“More than you see,” he slurs.

“I don’t know, I think I just got a few ideas of it,” she tilts her head, moving some of her hair behind her ear. Gil sighs wistfully again when she does that.

“You’re so beautiful, Jagiya. So amazing and gorgeous and beautiful that I want to cry,” he pouts as if to demonstrate it, “I never want you to leave.”

“Don’t cry. I’m here, I’m right here,” she assures him, and fully intends to do so for at least half an hour until the others start coming in and she has to leave for her morning rounds. He keeps their clasped hands to his chest like it’s his most favourite thing on earth.

“I’m so sleepy, Jagiya,” he makes a huge yawn.

“Sleep, Gil,” Thena chuckles, “We’ll talk later. I promise.”

“Can you kiss me goodnight?” He asks, catching her off guard, and then does what she can only call the most persuasive puppy eyes she’s ever seen, even the cutest kids in Pediatrics can’t perfect it like him. As much as she wants to save their first kiss until he’s back to total health, she doesn’t think she can deny him. She doesn’t think she can deny him anything. So she looks around, making sure the hall outside is still empty, then bends down and touches her lips to his, only long enough so he can feel it.

“Now sleep.”

Gil closes his eyes obediently, murmuring, “I like you a lot, a lot, a lot, Jagiya,”

“I like you too. A lot,” she replies, but he’s drifted off.

Gilgamesh

He wakes in the early morning, snow is blinding the view outside the windows. His head mostly recovered and the incident four days ago feels like weeks away, even though he only left the ICU two days ago. His recovering speed is pretty fast, now he can walk around with his I.V. pole to buy himself drinks and does his own hygiene. Thena doesn’t waste any moment to move him into a VIP hospital room in Eternal. She states that he doesn’t need to worry about the fee, and just focuses on doing his best to recover. And he’d rather go back to the ICU than protest.

He starts having visitors. His colleagues and some of his friends stop by during the day and Sersi always shows up before and after work, bringing him food. But the person he’s longed to meet only walks in very early in the morning or very late in the evening, depending on her busy schedule. And since he’s barely awake at those hours, they haven’t exchanged more than a few sentences. She hasn’t given him an answer about whether or not she wants them to move forward either, but he can’t figure out the right time to ask. Has she forgotten? He doesn’t think so, however he thinks about telling her again, face to face this time. He’s prepared to accept her answer, whatever it’s gonna be. But his guts tell him that it won’t be so bad, if the last few days could be seen as some kind of proof. He doesn’t know if he dreamt it or not but once or twice, when he was about to fall asleep, he thinks she kissed him on the forehead, as light and soft as a feather’s touch.

Now, when he’s stable enough to really think about it, another image pops up in his head: him clutching at Thena’s hand and asking for a kiss, and then she kisses him. But that’s impossible, right? Simply impossible because he would never behave in such an inappropriate way. Begging for a kiss?? From her?? He lets out a groan.

“Gil?”

He turns to his right so fast that he feels lucky he didn’t pull any of his neck muscles. Thena is sitting right there, on a chair next to his bed, in her full work attire with scrub and blouse. Her hair cascaded down over one of her shoulders, an open book on her lap, and she’s glorious despite the small frown caused by his groan.

“Are you okay?”

“I’m fine, really, it’s just that my arm has fallen asleep,” he’s fast to deflate her worries. No matter how confused he is right now, he’s still glad to see her, “What time is it?”

She looks at the watch on her wrist, “6 am.”

“It’s early, why are you already here?”

“I have surgery at 8 so I came early to prepare,” she shrugs, “I have some spare time so I let myself in here because it’s quieter than down there. Is that alright?”

“More than alright. You’re welcome here anytime, Doc, even if I was snoring,” He places his hands on the mattress to sit up. Thena quickly closes her book, getting up to adjust his pillow and tuck back his blanket unnecessarily.

“How are you feeling?”

“Better and better every day. Nothing hurts anymore, and my alertness is back. I’m wide awake for the first time in the last few days,” he leans back, hooking his forefinger with her pinkie, “Thank you.”

“That’s my job,” she smiles sadly, “But you gave me quite a scare, nonetheless.”

“That’s one of the annoying bits in my line of work. But still, I’m sorry for scaring you, I’ll try to be more careful,” he switches his forefinger with his pinkie as well, “And I’m lucky that I have the best doctor in London looking out for me.”

That earns him a small laugh from her. She has an adorable laugh, even more so when he makes her laugh out loud or giggle. That gives Gil the courage to make up his mind and call out, “Thena?”

“Yes?” Her sharp green eyes shift to him and his stomach does a somersault.

“While I was in the ICU, did you ever stop by in the morning?”

“I did. Once.”

Gil feels his heartbeat increasing in record time when he continues, “Was I asleep or awake then? My memory is a little fuzzy, sorry.”

She rubs a lock of hair between her fingers and says, “You were asleep.”

“And I didn’t say anything to you?”

She shakes her head, “Why? You think you said something?”

“It’s weird, I could have sworn that…”

“Yes?”

Gil runs a hand over his burning face, then sighs eventually, “I’ll tell you later then.”

“I’ll hold you to it.”

He sees her press the back of her hand on her cheek, discreetly hiding a smile. He’s desperate to change the subject when she suddenly asks, “What’s Jagiya?”

For some reason, that word rings the alarms in his head. Gil clears his throat, no doubt that his face is as red as a tomato and most likely would start letting out steam if this keeps going.

“It’s a term of endearment, like honey, darling, or baby,” he squeaks.

“Oh,” she says simply, lowering her head and flipping open her book again.

“Wh…Where did you hear that?” He asks suspiciously.

“Ajak has been watching this K-drama series at lunch hours and yesterday I heard the term was spoken after the name of a character,” she explains naturally. He just stares at her while she gradually holds up her book until it blocks her face from his. She peers at him over the edge of the book.

“What?”

“Nothing, nothing,” he says, turning away to look out of the window. As the memories rush back to him, his heart rate is so fast he feels a bit dizzy, and Thena is truly a terrible, terrible liar.

Phastos

At 7 pm, Phastos takes the elevator to the VIP floor. He has dinner plans with Thena and when he can’t find her in her office, he knows where to go in an instant. She’s been spending a lot of time up there recently, which means Phastos is defenseless in front of the ever-curious interns, who always ambush him during breaks or meal times to get information about the doctors in Eternal. Like any good doctor, he hopes that the detective recovers as soon as possible, and what harm does it make if his reasons are a bit personal?

He manages (begs) to keep Thena with him at lunch hours and not disappear upstairs, but she really needs to come back and scare those interns into their place before the vein in his head pops (Thena will give him a lecture if he uses that expression in front of her - a neurologist).

There’s a woman standing outside Gilgamesh’s room, who Phastos can tell is his younger sister on first look. A bag that probably contains his dinner is at her feet but she seems uninterested in entering the room, but more like peering through the ajar door. She looks up when he approaches and gives him a bashful smile, “Good evening, Doctor.”

“Evening,” Phastos smiles back, “You’re Gilgamesh’s sister, right? Why don’t you go inside?”

“Yes, I’m Sersi. I brought dinner for him but I think I should wait here for a while, I don’t want to disturb them.”

“I reckon that his doctor is in there as well?”

“She is,” Sersi nods, stepping aside so Phastos can move closer and look inside. His eyes almost fall out when he finds Thena on a chair by Gilgamesh’s bed, reading aloud from a novel, while her beloved patient lays back on his pillow, watching her read and dear lord, they’re even holding hands.

“I love your voice,” he comments.

“Quiet. This is my favourite part,” she scolds, but there isn’t any real annoyance in it. They look at each other, taking each other in for a long, long moment, and their eyes answer everything that Phastos and Sersi ever questioned about their relationship.

Then, Thena resumes her reading, still holding her book with one hand, a faint blush on her cheeks.

“I see your point,” Phastos grunts. So much for a dinner buddy.

“Maybe we should come back later,” Sersi suggests, “If you don’t need to see her right away.”

“I don’t, really, it’s nothing,” Phastos chuckles, “In fact, how about we head to our drink station downstairs and I’ll buy something for you? Then we could think of being the third and fourth wheel. I’m Phastos, by the way.”

“Nice to meet you. And I think that’s a good idea,” Sersi laughs. They pull the door shut and leave the room that is now fluttering with pink hearts.

#thenamesh #thenamesh fanfic #thena x gilgamesh #gilgamesh x thena #thena #gilgamesh #eternals #tell me what u think bc i might or might not wrote this sleep-deprived

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