#and i don’t have the patience or desire to go back over the structurally sound patch just to make it look ~pretty~

[j-esbian]

i know it’s been said a thousand times but i’m real tired of fast fashion clothes made out of tissue paper

[lupically]

#F40B32 | RYOMEN SUKUNA.

genre | light fluff, light angst, very faint romance undertone 

word count | 2616

warning | mention of death, mention of injury, mention of killing, decapitation 

note | i just wanted to try my hand at writing for a villain that is obviously irredeemable in a semi-realistic way.

what happens when you are irredeemable? you will fall in love anyway.

but ryomen sukuna wasn't in love with you. after all, he had killed you one too few times to claim that he was in love with you.

the first time he killed you was out of instinct. you were an intruder touching his soul the way mahito did, except you barged in without any malicious intention. he had gazed over your fallen body with mild interest then; a mere mortal, yet you emerged from thin air into his locked tight domain without dying?

the second time he killed you was a choice. he gave you not a minute to explain yourself, even though you had wasted the minute asking questions about his identity and the skull-filled area instead of giving him any valuable information about yourself. he had been fed up, he was never a man of patience, so he killed you with a wave of his hand and returned to his dull life alone on his throne.

the third time he killed you—he did not kill you. there was no third time; people liked to say the third time's charm but sukuna believed no such superstition. he killed you twice already and each time, you came back unscathed, both your body and your memories. whether he liked it or not, killing you for the third time would do neither you nor him any benefit, so he kept you alive.

you were afraid of him. he could tell, and he meant for things to be that way until he realized it served as a misfortune on his part. in order to understand this mystery—your sudden appearance into his domain, as well as your inability to leave it and his inability to kick you out—he has to gain some piece of information about you, but you were too shaken up from being murdered to talk to him at all.

sukuna's patience was reaching a breaking point and he thought about torturing it out of you, but he understood that humans are fragile, way more fragile than your typical jujutsu sorcerer. he could accidentally kill you and you would return with no scars and more unwilling to converse with him than before. then it was the waiting game all over again.

he wasn't planning on going through such a dull ordeal again, so he left you be and waited for you to calm yourself down.

the first time you talked to him, you asked him a question.

"are you going to kill me?" you asked him.

sukuna peered down at you from his throne. small, frightened, curled into a ball with no desire to touch the skeletons at his feet, but you looked up at him out of politeness.

he scoffed, displeased. "no, but i always can."

the second time you talked to him, it was to exchange a brief introduction.

"ryomen sukuna," he hummed curtly then he nudged his chin toward you. "your turn."

you shuffled up to your knees and sat down on your heels. your fingers fidgetted at your lap as you timidly peered up at his tattooed, disinterested expression.

"[full name]," you said with a nod, unable to meet his eyes. "nice–nice to meet you, sukuna-san..."

the third time you talked to him, you flinched.

"ma–may i ask you two questions... if i can...?" you asked, for the first time standing up to face him directly.

sukuna leaned away from his propped-up arm. after taking a better look at you, accessing your figure analytically despite having seen you move around slowly for days already, he shoved his hands into the sleeves of his robe and he suddenly jumped down from his throne to stand before you.

you pursed your lips nervously over his looming figure, face heating up with terrible anxiety while your eyes darted down to the watery ground. oh, his presence has been so overwhelmingly deadly that you forgot your white tennis shoes were stained red and your pastel ankle socks remained wet. you did not dare to complain, not even in your head.

"i'll allow it," he said.

"where am i?" you quickly asked.

"an innate domain," he replied.

you have questions, but you decided not to ask. you only nodded after breathing out a soft sigh to calm your nerves. this man constantly sounded condescending, he was kicking open your comfort zone without actively doing anything that would make you uncomfortable.

"okay..." you said, "thank you."

"aren't you going to ask me another question?" he stated with a raise of his brow. "you wanted to ask me two questions."

you gulped, blinking hopelessly at the air as a grimace appeared on your face. "the first question was if i can ask you two questions, and the second one is about where i am... so that makes two."

oh, a meticulously cautious one, and somewhat humorous too he would give you that. sukuna scoffed loudly, but it was less out of annoyance and more out of disbelief of your incredible dullness. however, as plain as you were, he has grown accustomed to your presence; the scent of fear that bounced off of you and the fact that he cannot kill you at will.

"you must be dying to know what this place is, are you not, you brat?" sukuna asked.

when he saw the flashes in your eyes, he knew he had you down through and through. all you were was but someone who was too afraid to say what they want, which was just as he expected from you. you wouldn't cause him trouble, you never could.

reaching his hand out of his sleeve, he stayed silent despite seeing the way you flinched with your eyes shut at his raised hand. his movement had been slow, but that was an involuntary response, an instinct that he didn't craft into you. he wondered what it was.

"you can ask me three more questions," he said as he pushed the heel of his palm against the curve of your head. he was gentle at first, then he clamped his hand down on your head as he bent his waist to meet your eyes. he laughed. "i'll allow it."

he could keep you here. he has no choice but to keep you here, and he would kill you once he realized he has the ability to. but for now, perhaps he could act a little civil, something like a human being but one that people would hate to the core.

except he was met with a little obstacle in the way, which was that you were no bad company.

the first time sukuna gained a liking toward you was when you asked him a peculiar question.

"sukuna-san," you called one time when there was only silence within the innate domain.

you sat on a bed of skulls, one that you tentatively asked the king of curses to make you so you wouldn't have to lean on the rib-cage structure and sit in water for slumber.

he denied it at first. calling you names and threatening you about ever requesting something from him—a bed in his domain? fucking atrocious. but your insomnia was killing you; you hated the blood water and your neck burned whenever you wake up having it arched at the worst angle possible.

he did not grow soft. he just made one so he didn't have to watch you sleep in his peripheral vision.

"hmm."

"why do you think curses exist?"

he raised a brow at you. "did i not teach you that before?"

"you did, sorry," you nodded, "then do you believe in god?"

"where the fuck is this coming from, you brat?"

"from where i came, god is good. but from what i am seeing, whether from where i came from or here, everything goes against that value," you muttered loudly as you pulled at your fingers. "cursed spirits harm people. if i can argue that way, i think cursed spirits are harmful within themselves."

"if god is good, and god is real, why would this happen," you said. "why should we feel negative emotions? why do we have the ability to create cursed spirits? why do curses like you exist?"

he furrowed his brows in irritation. have you reduced him to mere curses? have you reduced him to nothing but a brainless being that only takes joy in the suffering of others? no matter how he approached your words, he felt infuriated that you could minimize his importance to simply being a bad person.

he was much more than a bad person, much more than just a pain! he has ideals, he has goals and ambitions, he has wit and strength! he has anger and malevolence and power beyond which your soul could ever contain and endure! he was ryomen sukuna, the strongest curse in a thousand years and more!

he will fucking kill you.

"i'm really glad you're here, though," you finished off softly, an unknowing smile on your face as you rubbed your thumbs weakly together.

he will kill you.

"for a long time, i was told my anger and hatred aren't real. that they don't and should not exist, and i learned to bury them to the ground so they never appear on the surface again," you said, your innocent smile audible to his ears and making his chest twitch with guilt.

"cursed spirits' existence is proof that my negative emotions are real. they may be a problem, but i am not crazy for having them because they're here. they became something, they're here and alive."

he will... he will kill you.

"i just think it's unfair to put the blame on cursed spirits and cursed energy alone when the society's standard guarantees the manifestation of them," you said. "if my anger got out to the world in the form of a monster and it hurt someone, i'll forgive it. i will forgive myself."

he...

"you don't need to hear this, i wish i had your confidence, but i have to say it," you looked up and smiled at him, "i'm a little glad you're here, sukuna-san."

he will kill–he will ki–

the second time, he went stoic.

mahito was too smart for his own good. the first thing he noticed when he entered the soul within yuji's body was the way sukuna has the collar of your shirt clutched in his hand and your body pulled close to his side. it was a glance, he had one small glimpse of you both before he was kicked out of the domain.

your face was riddled with tears—crying, disappointed, and frustrated, but why? for the transfigured human whose name mahito almost forgot, or because sukuna just had one of the most sadistic outbursts you have ever witnessed.

and sukuna, the king, the lord, the almighty—didn't he look annoyed. well, not annoyed, per se. angry, mad, overwhelmed, knowing, protective. very, very, very protective; glowing eyes that glared at mahito's patched up face, fingers that gripped at your shirt so tightly he could rip the fabric apart, an aura that was ready to spit any moment if mahito so much as reach a finger toward your direction.

you meant something to ryomen sukuna. mahito realized that, so the second time he entered the innate domain, he killed you.

right before his eyes, with a cunning and triumphant smile, your neck cracked and your skin broke, and mahito tore your head off just before he was once again beat out of the domain.

sukuna tried to heal you. he tried to seal your head back to your lifeless body, time and time again pushing your decapitated head against your haphazardly cut neck. but his reverse curse technique wasn't healing you. your skin refused to piece itself back together, you refused to come back to him. time passed and he was getting mad, he was going batshit crazy trying to force himself out of this body.

bastard! bastard! bastard! he was supposed to kill you! he was supposed to be the one to kill you! he would murder that patch-faced piece of shit! he would kill mahito! and he would destroy the whole world, light it on fire and kill all that wasn't worthy of his time! he would jump universes, light-years, the bloodstream of the galaxy to find you and bring you back to him. he would—

"sukuna-san, i'm sorry i took a while! i thought you were fighting–holy shit, is that me?"

the third time, sukuna admitted to himself.

"what kind of flowers do you like, sukuna-san?" you asked, voice drowsy and your legs dangling after you climbed on one of the bones of the rib-cage structure.

"why does it matter?" he asked from his throne, eyeing you carefully.

your were a clumsy idiot. you could fall anytime.

"it doesn't, but it's flowers," you mumbled with your chin leaning against the bone, eyes threatening to close. "sukuna... sukuna..."

"what?" he snapped.

"i like lilies, the red ones," you said with a silly grin. "will you visit me when i die? sukuna... will you bring... mmm... bring red lilies..."

he looked ahead. your death; your grave, decorated with red lilies, protected and preserved with his curses. your death—he gritted his teeth. he refused to think about it. it was a waste of time.

or maybe he simply hated the idea of your death.

sukuna has not gone soft. he was irredeemable; a killer, a curse, a tragedy to descend upon mankind. he was not good and he never would be, nor did he ever have the intention to be good.

still, from you, there was proof that he could be more. what was left of his being; his anger and his torture, what was left within the gaps of his hell, the rare softness that once was there, belonged to you now.

you were the vessel that pocketed all that he could potentially become if he wasn't born to be ryomen sukuna, a version of him that you have witnessed. within you, there was proof that he did not only exist to hurt people, but also to validate madness and pain, to acknowledge passion in its murderous wakefulness. within you, there was proof that within himself, there are pieces of what it means to be human and alive.

hearing your soft breath, sukuna looked up to find you asleep with your head against the bone. your arms barely supported your weight and you were threatening to fall off as you dozed with faint snores. he stared at you, his fingers twitching, then he finally waved his hand so he could bring you away from the ribcage and to where he sat.

he paid no mind to subtlety when he set you on his lap. his hand supported your back while he kept your head pressed against his shoulder. his other arm went around your body, preventing you from falling off the throne made only for him to sit on. when he was done adjusting to the new sitting position, he relaxed.

brushing the hair away from your face, he stared down at you with disinterest, but his heart pumped and pumped for you to be warm and well, his arms tightened for you to sleep soundly.

"i will bring you all the red lilies you want," he whispered, the back of his finger gliding past your soft cheek. you did not smell like fear when you fall asleep, you did not smell like fear now even when you looked at him. "i will allow myself that."

after all, ryomen sukuna was only fond of you. very, very fond of you. 

[siriusmydeer]

smut req: being risky with sirius in the showers in the locker rooms after his quidditch practice (omg gia im sorry lol)

caught in the act

sirius black x fem!reader

summary: you and sirius get caught in the locker room showers together.

word count: 1.5k

warnings: penetration, pet names, dirty talk, teasing, choking, getting caught, exhibitionism, mentions of voyerism.

a/n: in my catholic school, during math class, writing smut. sounds v gia to me.

“darling, you don’t want us to get caught now d’you?” he crooned into your ear affectionately and in faux-fright as his hand danced around the hem of your skirt that had been pushed up from his needy touch of your skin. his lips previously nipped small marks of blooming red hues at your neck, his presence evident at your short puffs of air and small splotches of red transitioning to violet on your neck by the minute; his tongue previously drawing dainty swirls on the flushed skin under your ear, your whimpers only persuading him to continue in the public area of the gryffindor locker room.

his fingers buried themselves gravely underneath the hem of your black lace underwear, just at the sight of your jutted lip in limited-patience for his warm touch. your flushed-skin feeling the calloused pads of his fingers glide flawlessly through your cunt. the sight of him beating away bludgers belligerently without the bare amount of effort it usually took others was enough to have you clenching your thighs together as you cheered for the gryffindor male.

he caught the hint as soon as your legs crossed whilst he was mid-flight and sirius caught sight of the impatient recurrent bounces of your leg, suddenly taking several missed opportunities to tease you to the point where once he had finally landed you were anxiously clawing at his uniform in the quidditch lockeroom. “ahh— patience puppy.” he began to chastise you at your desirous whines while pulling on the bottom of his vermillion-hued uniform.

“please— i need you.” it was like your small plead was a rapid switch in his creativity-roaming brain, trying to contain every single sound while students chatted amongst each other just outside the locker room. it was almost a guarantee they would hear— at first sirius wanted to refrain for your sake of embarrassment, as you were a prefect, but now all he wanted was to be buried inside you with the whole of hogwarts students who yearningly pinned after you, hearing how he could make you feel at his very decree.

his hand grasped onto the column of your throat, slightly catching you by surprise but before even uttering a word of confusion he hastily placed his lips on your own; his own desperation taking over his clouded mind. without a warning be shot his tongue directly into your mouth, tasting your recurrent mango lipgloss directly onto his tastebuds every time he kissed you— it was familiar like your tongues greeting, similar to old friends, just tremendously more passionate.

the next thing you heard was the clatter of metal, feeling the small tinge of discomfort at first, realizing you were now pinned up against a vermillion locker with sirius’ small scribbling along with smeared ink all over it. your lips that were once melding like glue, and tongues prodding each other were seperated for a moment. at the anxious flick of sirius’ wand, hot water was streaming from the closet shower, the glass fogging up in merely seconds that could slightly cover up your bodies from any peering eyes that could interrupt the both of you.

you both glanced at the other for a moment, his pearl irises hastily gaping on every detailed aspect of your face; your eyes, the creases in your eyebrows, the pout of your lip, it all drove him absolutely mental in the best way possible. his hands now rapidly opening the buttons of your uniform top, as well as your pleated skirt. your own hands nimbly tugging the maroon and gold jumper off of his torso, pausing for a moment to appreciate the sweaty streaks that were glazed onto his clenched and over-worked abdomen from the quidditch practice he had partaken in.

the heavy sound of the water pouring out of the stream that directly landed onto the ivory tiled floor was heard amongst the teenagers heaving breaths as you both rapidly disarrayed each others clothing and made way to place yourself’s under the searing stream of water.

you hair was clinging to the nape of your neck as you were in a familiarly lustful position with your boyfriend, this time under the scorching shower head; sirius’ hand grasped onto your throat yet again, pressing you against the shower wall in the midst of a passionate kiss. the stream gliding through your body’s, chest to chest, without any room between the couple.

the prod of sirius’ prick was felt directly on your inner thigh, taking tutelage of the situation you placed your legs in a lock behind his back— in the direct position you had been desperately aching to be in for the past hour and a half of watching sirius stride through the air effortlessly on his broom, and his uniform sticking to every nook and cranny of his torso showcasing his an structure to every female sat upon the quidditch stands; a tinge of jealousy still remaining from all the girls fawning over your boyfriend.

“you’re sure?” the murmur was barely coherent, but it was still heard from the close proximity that you both had been sharing for the past ten minutes. the vibration of his words directly hitting your pouted lips as he patiently waited in response for your consent to continue. “yes, need you, please.” you confirmed with the anxious shake of your head.

aligning himself he took the tenacity to steadily push himself into the warm walls of your cunt, you body clenched suddenly as he waited for you to adjust to his substantially sized prick inside of you. he waiting for the shake of your head to continue before he took it upon himself to hold you against the wall of the shower and pace himself in the deep walls of your cunt before starting a paced speed before gaining velocity.

pure skin on skin being shared between the two teenagers, the thrilling feeling of adrenaline shared thickly through each other’s kisses running directly through your blood stream like recurrent laps around the quidditch pitch at the mere thought of someone watching sirius claim you for himself in such a public area. the sound of the falling patter of water mixed with the slap of each other’s skin was prominent; the lingering sounds of hoarseful grunts and moans from the rapid pace that was set from the beginning of his thrusts and only continued as he edged you both further to release.

“my desperate little puppy, begging for me.” the mockery of his words had begun, while he thrusted deeply into the walls of your clenched cunt. your brain bleary in pleasure, too distracted by the way he was inside of you too even nod at his words, you could barely even acknowledge his voice; only finding the will to whimper subconsciously as it travelled from the crevices in your throat directly into his ear.

“cant even mumble a word f’me, getting all fucked out are you?” he began to question your unresponsive figure, he knew you couldn’t answer and just further got off on the fact that your only focus was how he euphoric he could make you feel all at once. the squeeze of your neck from his hand, that had remained on your throat, at the sides evidently brought you to where you were as he awaited your response to his mocking words.

“yes— yes i am.” you finally muttered as the quick broil in your belly started to swirl through your bloodstream recurrently like lightning bolts ready to loop around the crevices of your spine and finally ready to spill into the depths of your awaiting cunt.

the twitch in sirius’ cock was predominant as he was close to his release as well after teasing the both of you for such premeditated amounts of time, “gonna cum, gonna finish.” you hummed into the coagulated air, that was dense from the steam of the shower and the arousal that set into the ventilation system, as he pushed one final thrust inside of your trembling figure the squeak of the door rang through your ear like violent alarms bells ringing like someone had stolen one of the most pristine items in the world.

while in the midst of your elated orgasams both overcoming your sweaty bodies being coated in the scorching water of the shower, while the feeling of sirius releasing into you was overcome in arousal. the tinge of fright started to become more prominent as the seconds ticked of whom had just walked in on you and your boyfriend intensely having sex meters away from them.

“sirius? where is he” you heard the familiar whisper of the quidditch captain, james mother fucking potter, the boy who could never shut his trap walk in on you and sirius having sex. he whistled in thought as he padded in around the locker room in a stroll for his best mate. his eyes starting to crease at the clothes scattered across the floor.

you glanced at sirius with wide eyes as the footsteps became more coherent to both your ears, sirius paused at the whistling numb down, his body frozen inside of you as a small skid was heard on the ground and a heavy sigh following.

“sirius, in the showers? really mate?”

taglist: @sirius-animagus @ronbrokemyheart @aricela @kirascottage @five-cups-of-coffee @myloveforluna @abbott27 @hufflepuffsfordraco

just a reminder i have a seperate tag for nsfw so if you wanted to be tagged in nsfw content go check out my taglist in my navigation!

[hoe-imaginess]

red | shigaraki tomura

Shigaraki x hero!soulmate!Reader

Based on two soulmate prompts:

You can only see color when you and your soulmate are touching.

You can’t use your quirk to harm your soulmate. 

word count: 2.4k

a/n: is two soulmate prompts cheating? idk. anyways, this is just some random angst I thought of a while ago, and just recently found in my drafts. probably some typos. pretend not to see it (:

��⤰⤰

If there was one thing worse than recruiting weaklings, it was recruiting slackers.

Active enlistment in the criminal world had the unfortunate ramification of attracting the lowest of the lows. The last two miscreants Giran drafted for the League had used the weaponry rationed to them for petty crimes. This included the robbing of a video store. Not just any video store, but one directly down the street from the League’s hideout.

Of course, that was unacceptable.

Shigaraki had little patience for the new recruits to begin with, but it was rapidly extinguished with their hazardous act, along with any leniency he might have had for their punishment. These men had exploited the power Shigaraki gave to them, and worst of all, undermined the League’s legitimacy. The solution to this problem was clear.

Kurogiri offered to dispose of the traitors swiftly and soundlessly, but Shigaraki’s hunger for retribution against these trespassers required a personal effect. And so, Kurogiri transferred Shigaraki to the location. The men were hobbling around in the same alley they’d been found in when Shigaraki emerged from the black vapor’s of Kurogiri’s quirk.

Upon seeing him, the duo went into an indignant frenzy. They knew who he was, and without even needing to ask, without even needing to hear the promises of violence that Shigaraki muttered under his breath, they knew what he was here to do.

The confrontation lasted mere seconds. They were as meek as they were stupid, and neither men were fast enough to counter when Shigaraki grabbed for them. He dispatched the first man with voracious haste, but took his grueling time with the second.

As the man’s sleeve cracked like dried mud, pieces falling to give way to vulnerable flesh underneath, Shigaraki reveled the sight with a sickening smile.

The deteriorating man’s cries of anguish were dreadful: the cries of a man forced to confront his imminent death.

It was a sweet tune of victory to Shigaraki’s ears.

Then, something ruined it.

“Stop!”

At the sound of your voice, Shigaraki glanced over his shoulder, his feverish, red eyes glaring at you from behind Father’s mask.

A hero. A hero on patrol, Shigaraki guessed, seeing that you were fitted in your uniform.

“Put the man down,” you demanded of him, with that confident, entitled authority that heroes enjoyed, and Shigaraki detested.

But Shigaraki granted you the request, not much concerned with revenge, or the man, now that he was soon to be a pile of dirt. Indeed, the minute Shigaraki loosed his grip on the man’s arm, Decay took its freedom in stride and consumed him within seconds. The screams abruptly stopped.

Now it was just you and Shigaraki in the empty alleyway. What had remained of the forgotten men floated away in the light breeze.

Your throat was tight, acid edging its way up the back of your mouth. The scene before you was horrific. Where the distressed man had just been, now remained only dust. And the villain standing over the formless corpses was looking right at you.

Shigaraki didn’t recognize you, didn’t know what your quirk was. But it didn’t matter. He would have killed you anyways, but the fact that you’d just disrupted the recreation of his revenge was all the more reason to do so.

He took a step forward. Not to be daunted, you did the same.

“Stop right there,” you demanded again.

Just another disillusioned display of hero supremacy. Shigaraki had no patience for it.

“Stop,” you commanded, firmer now as his approach went undeterred.

The eery slowness in his gait betrayed the bloodlust he radiated; his fingers twitched with their vitalized hunger for violence, and after you’d seen the carnage those fingers extracted on human flesh, you weren’t about to let your guard down.

In an instant, he was lunging for you. His speed shocked you, and the second you spent activating your quirk for a counter-move was enough time for him to invade your space. Adrenalized fear shot through your limbs, and briefly, you wondered how your quirk might defend against his. But it didn’t matter. You were about to find out.

With surprising agility, he ducked out of the way of your defensive attack, then took hold of your forearm. His quirk descended upon your flesh. The pain registered, and your throat tightened around a cry of alarm—

But then, something in the air between you burst.

Like ripples fanning across a puddle, euphoria extended from the top of your head to the soles of your feet, filling every space inside of you as it invaded your senses.

Shigaraki suffered a similair disturbance. The explosion was almost nauseating. But even more shell-shocking was the world which greeted him once his eyes adjusted.

It first registered in his peripheral: something glaringly present, something striking against his vision—

Was that his hair? 

No, it couldn’t be. 

It didn’t look like his hair. Not the hair he normally saw shrouding his face.

But then he realized it was in fact his hair. His hair, but colored.

It stood out unimaginably stark against the drab schemes of the alley. But then, the alley too found life. Its color came to fruition: a wash of brown along the brick wall, dirtied, beige cement holding the structure together.

Then, from the periphery, the infectious color worked its way to the center of his retina. The kaleidoscope of color that was you hit him in full force. Your outfit, your hair, your face and eyes—your eyes which flicked desperately between his own, and the place where his hand made contact with your skin.

Reminded of his assault, Shigaraki looked to where his digits curled around your forearm, and took in the color of your skin. The color was intervened by another now, deeper and angrier, as fissures broke along your flesh under his Decay. Lines of destruction that had always looked grey in his monochromatic world, like topography on a map, were now imbued with life—with the real, true physical destruction.

But the new life in his vision was momentarily overshadowed by another discovery: you were still alive. Alive, and whole.

He looked again, closer, at the place where his lethal hands gripped your arm. The spread of his Decay was compromised by some unknown force, the destructive lines breaking your skin denied in their desire to consume you completely.

His quirk had been stopped. He couldn’t hurt you.

All of these discoveries happened within seconds, and for a moment, his mind lost its war with rationale. He came as near to speechless as he ever got. While his sense of the world, of its truths and realities, tried to reassert itself, he became ignorant to the dilemma before him, and lost himself in the pleasure of color.

Something suddenly caught his eye, and he glanced downward. 

Were those his shoes beneath him? 

Their vibrant color was the very same as that of the raw sinew that showed itself beneath your flesh, as it cracked away under his quirk—

Red.

That was the name of the color.

He’d heard it before: a way to describe spilt blood. It was blood he was seeing. Your blood.

And the reason he was seeing it, the reason he was granted the gift of this true sight, the reason this contact hadn’t yet ended in your demise—was because you were his soulmate.

Shigaraki pulled away, eyes wide. The color left the world, replaced with the grays he’d endured for a lifetime.

He wondered if breaking contact would elicit Decay to recover its power. His mind raced as he prepared to watch you crumble, to watch you scatter into flakes and blood and organ—

But no. Decay was still obstructed by something unseen. It had damaged you, but refused to do any more than that.

“That’s impossible,” he muttered, almost uncertain if he’d spoken it out loud or not; the fretful shock on your face, and your lack of response, giving no indication.

Apparently, you didn’t even notice the catastrophe his quirk had left on your skin. You merely stared at him, stunned into silence, consuming the same realizations he was.

Then, stirred into an involuntary need to confirm the revelations, to make certain it wasn’t some trick of the mind, you started to move toward him.

It couldn’t be, you told yourself. It couldn’t be him: this villain. It couldn’t be…

Shigaraki knew that you intended to reach out and touch him, your hand shaking as it angled upwards. But before you could make contact, he stepped back, extending his own hand not in an invitation of contact, but as a threat, his palm out and fingers ready to deliver Decay. Useless as it had proven itself to be against you, it was the only sense of control he had in the situation.

“Don’t,” he warned you, his voice weaker than he’d thought it to be.

There was a lump in his throat, centering his confusion and panic, both which spread over him in quick fashion. Mania returned to him like clockwork, a mania he often endured when facing accursed heroes. But he’d never felt it like this. Now there was anger, bewilderment, curiosity, and adrenaline all in one.

Unlike him, you worked through your confusion vocally, sputtering strings of rampant logic.

“But you’re—We—” You shook your head, and your arm moved again, inching up to him, seeking a touch that would give you answers. “We can’t be.”

Distress rushed through Shigaraki and he growled. “I said don’t.”

“It can’t be,” you kept on sputtering. “You’re a —It can’t be.”

A what? A villain? A monster? He dared you to go on. 

But even as his frustrations rose at the implications, Shigaraki concurred. You were a hero. A plague on society. But wasn’t the truth inescapable? Hadn’t that flash of colorful vibrance that nearly stopped his heart been evidence enough? Evidence that you two were fated to each other?

“It can’t be.” You said your mantra again, so close to touching him now. Kill, a voice in his head urged. Kill, kill, kill—

The pad of your finger made feather-light contact with his wrist, and the iridescence reinvented itself without delay.

All the colors that had teased him made themselves known again, bringing with them some disgusting bliss that made his insides curl with warmth. It was a delectable temptation, so overwhelming it made him nauseous.

Your eyes searched him, scrutinizing his colors and imbedding them into memory. An inkling of degradation tugged your brain as you realized the life of color you so desperately reaped was from a villain, one of the worst you’d ever encountered. Only from him would your sole, real taste of reality come.

You both pulled away this time, and the dull world of gray welcomed you like an old friend.

You shuffled back defensively, no colorful heaven able to erase the precarity of the situation. The throbbing, searing pain in your forearm returned, reminding you of the death he’d aspired to bring you.

Shigaraki stared behind Father’s fingers, eyes red and wide.

Kill, the urge came to him again. Kill you. Kill the colors, kill it all.

But he wasn’t sure if he could.

“Get me out of here,” he muttered.

You stared at him, wide-eyed. “What?”

“Get me out,” he demanded again, infuriated. “Now.”

And after brief static, Kurogiri’s dutiful voice answered from the other end of the hidden communicator. Shortly after, the promised warp gate opened against the alley wall.

Shigaraki stepped back into its gloomy arch quickly. Realizing that he made to escape, you stepped forward, eager to prevent it.

“Stop,” you pleaded, but not with the antagonistic authority you’d shown before. It was a simple, desperate plea. Shigaraki knew he was leaving you with no less confusion than he felt in his departure, but his mind was scattered, and unable to rationalize this so long as he was in your presence.

Your mouth opened around another fruitless protest, but Shigaraki was already backing into the safety of the hideout, its colorless interior granting him security.

With one last valiant effort, you shot forward to reach for him. Shigaraki stumbled back and hit the floor when you lunged for the portal, but it was too late. The warp gate conjoining you both disappeared, separating you from him for good.

With Kurogiri’s gate officially closed, and you officially out of reach, Shigaraki simply stared at the spot where you’d been eager to touch him just moments before.

He was reminded of his station on the ground when he felt the hard wood on his backside. But he didn’t bother getting up; his muscles refused him.

“Shigaraki Tomura.”

He ignored Kurogiri. He ignored it all, let it fade into the gray banality of the colorless, lifeless world around him. How else could he describe it except lifeless, now that he’d had a taste of the true world?—The colors and their vibrancy?

And what was the price of attaining this world of bliss? Knowing that his fate was tied to you. A hero. The very thing he’d dedicated himself to hate, to kill. You, a hero, his soulmate.

It was disgusting. It was cruel. It was unfathomable.

Kurogiri was saying his name again, but Shigaraki didn’t care. He instead looked down at his body, down his stiff legs to his feet. His gaze remained fixated.

His shoes. What fucking color were his shoes? Red, he knew. But what did red look like? Why couldn’t he fucking remember what it looked like?

Kurogiri’s voice was harsher now, spurred by dutiful compulsion. “If you’re injured you must let me know,” he pleaded.

“What?” Shigaraki answered, voice thin, and lost. “What happened? Are you injured?”

“No.” “Then... why did you retreat?”

Now Shigaraki looked at his hands, the hands that had tried, and failed to kill.

His quirk. His Decay. For once, his touch had bore something other than destruction; it had shown him life.

Years before, when he’d still doubted his purpose in the world, and had yet to fully commit to any ambition besides to survive, learning about the histories of soulmates had been a gratifying discovery. Learning that there might be someone out there that would see him as more than just a destroyer, more than just a wielder of such a deadly power, had inspired hope.

But now, now that he’d all but given up on the idea of a soulmate—ridiculed it, in fact, having seen the optimistic idiocy it swelled through the populace—he wanted no part in it.

He’d always known the idea of a soulmate was baseless; that two people were to be decided for each other by fate.

Fate? What did fate matter?

Only cruel fate, the very same which had left him to suffer under the mantle of false heroes in his youth, would presume to make his soulmate one of those very heroes. Only cruel fate would show him a world of colorful life, but put its key in the hands of the enemy.

And what—he was expected to willingly accept it?

No. That wasn’t his fate. It wouldn’t be. This was no blessing. Tasting the promised world of color wasn’t worth the fretful irony. It was filthy. It was greedy. It was wrong. And he didn’t want it.

However alluring the true world was, however satisfying its colors and exquisite its details, Shigaraki fought the compulsion of its visual pleasure. He wouldn’t be a slave to destiny.

“Send me back,” he suddenly commanded. Kurogiri lingered over him, nervous in his confusion. “Are you sure? But, you asked me—”

“Send me back.”

There was only one way Shigaraki would find resolution. He would have to destroy the unattainable world of color, so he would never be weak to its promise.

And to do that, he would have to destroy you.

[fortisfiliae]

Promised Part 15 - Tom Riddle x reader

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Masterpost | Masterlist

Summary: In this story, Tom didn’t grow up as an orphan, but with his grandfather and uncle. Reader’s sister got very sick and the Gaunts offer their help. But not without asking for something in return.

Disclaimer: Please be aware that I don’t condone any of this in real life. (GIF is not mine)

A/n: This chapter is written from Tom’s pov. Reader will be addressed in third person.

Warnings: Arranged marriage

Word count: 2k

Part 15 - A Dagger for a Devotee

Now that all of the ingredients for the antidote were gathered and added, the potion was as good as finished. It just had to simmer on for a while. If the instructions were correct, it would be finished on June 29th, which was the last day of school. Graduation day. One day before the wedding. 

The wedding. Tom thought about it a lot. It would happen. That, he knew. The plan was to give Elsie the antidote on their wedding day so that she would be completely healed and they could still keep a low profile towards Marvolo and Morfin. Their wish would be fulfilled then, and even if the Gaunts were going to ask for more, they wouldn’t know that Elsie wasn’t under their might anymore. Tom was sure they were going to try to pressure him by threatening to hurt Elsie someday, even when he was married. That was just in their nature. They would never be satisfied.

He wondered how long it would take them to figure out that she had been healed. Weeks, months, years? And how they would react then. Were they going to take out their anger on him? The more he thought about it, the less he cared. He had even fantasised about it if he was honest. That Marvolo would lose his temper and would attack him. Tom had waited so long for an excuse to pay his Grandfather back, his fingers were itching just thinking about it. Oh, the things he would like to do to him were unspeakable and the grin on his face only widened the longer he envisioned them. He would welcome the opportunity with open arms. 

Some nights, when he lay awake and couldn’t just fall asleep yet, Tom wondered if his life would have been different, if he would have turned out to be another person, had he not been brought up by the Gaunts. He didn’t wish for it, like his fiancée had mentioned so often, no, but he still couldn’t help but wonder. Was there a possibility for a different Tom Riddle to exist? One that would live with parents, one that wasn’t as cold and narrow-minded, one that could crack a real good joke to his friends? A funny, warm, kind version of him? His stomach squirmed at the thought. Disgusting. 

He could have turned out like Benjamin Hilt. Merlin’s sake, what a nightmare that would be. To act like him, so loud and bothersome. Head in the clouds, mouth always open and never thinking about any consequences. Hilt had it so easy. But nevertheless, Ben’s attitude was intriguing. Annoying yes, but intriguing. Tom wouldn’t have thought Hilt would be able to keep his muggleborn mouth shut and keep the pact a secret, but he hadn’t told anyone about it yet, as far as Tom was aware. And he didn’t seem to keep his word out of fear, but rather out of belief. Ben wasn’t the type to have deep thoughts, by the looks of it at least, but he had his priorities set. And for that Tom respected him. Everything Ben did seemed to come so easily from within, not wasting one too many thoughts. It was something so deeply ingrained that it must have come naturally. 

He was so different compared to Tom’s friends. Or whatever word one would use for people like Avery, Lestrange and the others. They were nothing more than followers, blind and mindless. They wouldn’t just offer their help to be a good person. They always wanted something in return, even if it was just Tom’s recognition. And he knew, if someone else were to take his place, they would drop him in an instant. Their loyalty was superficial and egoistic. Just as his own. He would drop them too if someone more useful were to show up and solicit themselves. 

That was how it always had been. How he had thought friendships were meant to be. A mutual agreement, quite similar to business. Be polite, make use of a person as much as you can, make sure they’re intimidated enough to keep their knowledge to themselves and wish them well on their way out. Simple, beneficial and most importantly efficient. 

But what his fiancée, Ben and Camille had was so different. He had waited for Camille and Ben to ask for something in return. Weeks had gone by, where he had anticipated for them to come up and ask for a favour. A note from the head boy to get out of detention, or something else. But they hadn’t. They had helped to steal the Banshee tears and were still tending to the potion in the Come and Go Room every day. For nothing? He couldn’t fathom it at first, and only when he thought about it again, it came to his mind that this could be what real friendship was like. 

He didn’t like how much it churned him, how much consideration it had taken to come to this conclusion, when apparently for other people, that was the most natural thing in the world.

Tom obtained a much greater deal of wit than Ben, without a doubt, but yet, Hilt possessed so much more emotional intelligence than Tom could ever dream of. And he was jealous of him. That Ben could just walk through life, listen to his gut and trust that whatever it would tell him would be with good intent. Tom could have made real friends too then. He could have developed that trust to his gut too, if he hadn’t been fed those vicious thoughts by the Gaunts his whole life. He could have even gotten to know a muggle for all he knew, if he hadn’t been told, day after day, how worthless and irrelevant they were. That’s what they had always said. But the Gaunts had lied so often, maybe they had lied about that too. He had believed them for so long that he couldn’t even tell which opinion was his own and which one had been planted in his head by someone else. 

And then came three people who acted against all his values, showing him a glimpse of what life could be like. Everything he knew, his view of the world, as well as his belief, had collapsed in a matter of months. He had learned so many new things, he wasn’t even sure if he knew himself anymore. 

Had he changed? He must have, somehow at least. It was ironic, how the Gaunts’ plan to marry him off to a pureblood witch, who they thought would bring their family safety and respect, turned out to result in the complete opposite. Nothing, not even Marvolo’s paranoia and obsession for being a step ahead had come of use. They all had turned against them in the end, and for what? The faint idea of power and reputation? What worth did those things even have when everyone who bowed down to you only did so out of fear? They would take the first chance they got to stab you in the back with the very dagger you had given them. If you can’t trust your devotees, why bother?

Trust was something he thought of a lot, too. Did someone truly trust him? His fiancée for instance. She had put her faith in his hands several times in the past, yes. But would she trust him with her life? Had he done enough to earn her deepest trust yet? Or would she let him fall too when the opportunity arrived? When the deal was sealed, her sister was free and the Gaunts were powerless. Would she leave him, or would she stay? It kept him up at night when he thought about being alone again. Not because he depended on someone to be there, he was fine on his own. But he couldn’t change the fact that he wanted her to stay. And only her. No one else would do.

No one else had ever awoken that part of him before. That part that wasn’t as selfish, as calculating and cautious. And he knew no one else could. There was something about her, that slight brush of a hand when she touched him, or that unintentional notion of a smile she wore so often that broke out a whirlwind of emotion inside of him again and again. And he still didn’t even know what it was that he felt. It was nerve-racking, this mixture of nervousness, excitement and joy. If he had been able to, he would have buried those feelings long ago, deep down somewhere where they could have never disturbed him again. But he hadn’t. And he was glad about that. No matter how irritating it was, he craved it now. 

He craved to see her as often as possible, the sound of her voice, the touch of her fingers on him. Her mind, her body and everything in between had him longing, thirsting for even more proximity. He ached for that bond so much, it had become a hassle and he needed to suppress it to prevent himself from shying her away. 

But it was hard to feign composure when all he wanted was right there before him and she was so willing to accept his bid. It took all his might not to do what he most wanted and lock her up in a golden cage, where she would remain for him alone. His secret, his very own jewel. But most importantly his.

He couldn’t do that to her, he knew, she wouldn’t allow it. And he wouldn’t dare. He would never dare to add imbalance to the fragile structure they had built over the last year. She had come back to him eventually, day by day. He just needed to remind himself of that. Wait and improve his patience. Trust that she desired him as much as he did her. And by all accounts, she must have. Why else would she treat him the way she did? The idealist in him feasted on the way she acted towards him. How fearless and comfortable she was. How her mood could swing from gentle to feisty in a second, never dreading his reaction. Her honesty, which was the easiest, as well as the hardest thing to give someone, was what he most cherished her for.

Never before had he experienced something so close to perfection. The purity of emotion, so vibrant and raw it nearly hurt. But its absence was even worse, like a bottomless hole that sucked him in and ate him up from the inside. He had become addicted to the feeling and he would do anything to keep it. 

He would marry her, yes, and willingly so. He would do anything she asked from him. But if she was to leave him then, if she would take that dagger and push it into his heart, he knew it would destroy him.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Masterpost | Masterlist

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[darkficsyouneveraskedfor]

Secrets ~ 6

Warnings: noncon sexual acts later in series; light touching.

This is dark!Bucky and dark!Steve and explicit. Your media consumption is your own responsibility. Warnings have been given. DO NOT PROCEED if these matters upset you.

Notes:

Tomorrow will be a 12 hour day for me. Working on Xmas but oh well. I got this done on my one day off and I hope I survive the next week coming up!

I love you all, I thank you for your patience and feedback as always! Please don’t shy away in the comments, reblogs, etc.

Your time at Regia passed quickly and slowly all at once. You were woken most days abruptly by Barnes pounding on your door or standing over you with his smug half-grin. Then you dressed in clothes you reviled and ate a breakfast you couldn’t enjoy for all the expectation of your intake. You were allowed some recreation though that was often reading bland historical texts or walks in the garden with your keeper.

Your least favourite part of each day were your dance lessons. You had to relearn how to walk, talk, look, and eat, but you had never had much rhythm. Besides, being so close to Barnes with him commenting on your every misstep was hardly fun. He delighted in every mistake you made, eager to reproach you for each, and was easily amused by Priscilla’s stick smacking across your legs, back, and ass.

You counted eleven days as you began to truly fledge. You were tired, annoyed, and to be honest, hungry. That day, you beat Barnes’ early disturbance. You sat, in a coral blouse and a pleated grey skirted, with the lowest pair of heels in the closet. He greeted you almost with approval and that made your want to tear the blouse and shred it.

You didn’t. You followed him downstairs to your usual miserable meal. When you finished, he escorted you back up the wide staircase to the hall of mirrors. You hated the room. It gave you an all to inclusive view of your ridiculous attire. You didn’t look like you. Sure, you were one for a scholarly look but this wasn’t really that. This was a pompous, over-stylised look which would go well only with a silver spoon on your tongue.

A man waited in the hall of mirrors, a woman too. The man was slender and tall and his long fingers were twined together as he waited emotionlessly. He bowed as you entered and recited a dull ‘your highness’. The woman was squat and stuffed into a patterned wrap dress spotted with bright reds, pinks, and oranges. She was more jovial as her voice chimed with the same recitation.

“Lester, Deanna,” Barnes announced, “My apologies for the delay. I trust you are ready.”

“Darling, your highness,” The stout woman swayed over to you, “Come with me.”

“Huh,” you looked at Barnes and he smiled as he gestured you forward.

“Just go,” he ordered, “She doesn’t look like much but she’s not one for defiance.”

You sighed and let the woman usher you over to the attached room. The racks of dresses were gone but long garment bangs had been hung from a hook along the opposite wall. The door snapped shut behind you and Deanna flitted around you, like an elephant in heels, and turned you to face her.

“Oh, love, you are gorg,” she chimed in a peculiar accent, “I think however Lord Barnes was a bit off on your measurements,” she grasped your waist, “Lovely, lovely.”

“I hate to be a bitch but what the hell is going on?” You asked.

She blinked and laughed. She drew away and pushed her dark curls back as they burst forth from the jeweled pin behind her head. “Oh dear, you are fiery. The king will… like that. I think.”

She didn’t sound convincing as she spun away and marched over to the hook and took down the first bag. She unzipped it as she neared and turned it to reveal the contents. A white lacy dress with thin straps and a scalloped hem around the neckline. The bodice was fitted and the skirt flared out into a princess silhouette. You knitted your brow as you stared at it.

“Your wedding dress,” she sang. “Oh, it will surely look splendid on you, darling. Your highness.”

She stripped the bag away and was careful not to let the skirts touch the floor as she held it aloft and folded the swaths of fabric over her arm. She held it out to her as she beamed at you.

“So… I don’t get to choose?” You wondered. You didn’t care very much but you hated that all your decisions were made for you.

“Oh, but this was refashioned from the former queen’s dress. It is a tradition in Astrania. In fact some of this would date back centuries!” She explained, “Of course we do update the style.”

You chewed on your lip and shrugged. “Let’s just get this over with,” you muttered.

You felt defeated as you couldn’t help but fixate on the white gown. It was like you were wrapping yourself in a flag of surrender. You’d wave your skirts and let yourself be taken. You undressed and stepped into the dress as she opened it for you. She pulled the straps over your arms and zipped it up. 

“Rather, it fits you well,” she came around as she pinched at the fabric and smoothed out the seams. She wasn’t wrong, though it felt rather constricting. “Well, come on. Lester needs to do his figures. He’s always the better eye for this. I just sew.”

She took your hand as you lifted your skirts with your other. You let her guide you back out to the hall of mirrors and you avoided looking around you. You couldn’t look at Barnes either as you sensed him watching you. You blurred your vision as you lifted your head and the tall man, Lester, walked around you. He began to pin little pieces in place and Deanna pulled out a small notepad as she began to jot with a stubbed pencil.

“Hmm,” Barnes appeared before you and your vision cleared, “Not bad…” He brushed the lace with his fingers and traced the curve of your waist with his hands, “However…” He lingered just below your chest, “You can’t show the entire kingdom your bra. You would do better to leave that behind on the day.”

“We can add some structure,” Lester offered evenly. “But our adjustments will be minor.”

Barnes reached over and tugged the skirts from your hand and fluffed them out around you. He rounded you and gripped your shoulders. You saw yourself in the mirrored wall and tried not to show your surprise. It wasn’t awful but you still didn’t like it.

“We have three days left. You have the other dress?” He asked.

“We have options,” Deanna said, “We were uncertain if the king would prefer red or blue.”

“Let me see,” Barnes sidestepped her and went to the attached room. 

Deanna glanced at you and waved you after him as she approached and gathered your skirts. She followed after you and your vigilant chaperone. She released the vast skirts and went to Barnes as he neared the hanging garment bags. She unzipped both and he tilted his head and tutted.

“Red,” he said, “I believe the king will be in blue.”

“Very well,” Deanna pulled the dress from the bag. “Now dear, let’s get you changed.”

Barnes turned back and neared you. He faced you and reached around you. He pushed the zipper down slowly and leaned in until his breath tickled your nose. “Three days.” He reminded you. He drew away and left you as the bodice fell slack. He closed the door behind him as Deanna replaced him.

“Darling, I think red will look marvelous on you. And the king in blue! He has the most amazing eyes. Oh, if I was younger… maybe, skinnier,” she giggled, “Well, should I even tell you? You’ve seen him. Ugh, handsome bugger, he is.”

“Mhmm,” you grumbled as you wiggled out of the gown, “What a tragedy it’d be if his outside was ugly too.”

👑

That night was as restless as any. You laid in bed for a time, tossing and turning. You tried to forget about the blinding white dress and the abhorrent red number that came after. And how time seemed to pass regardless of your fears or your desires. You felt helpless. You used to be in control of everything and now, you couldn’t control even yourself.

You sat up in a slat of moonlight. You weren’t going to sleep. Your frustration mounted the longer you squeezed your eyes shut and clawed and clutched for rest. You grunted and stood as the duvet fell away from your legs. The short silk nightie sent a chill up your spin as it fluttered around your thighs.

You crossed your arms and went to the window. The lawns were peaceful despite the anxiety within the palace. You turned away as the lush green rippling in the silver shadows only heightened your uneasiness. You took the blush coloured robe from the chair sat before the vanity and swathed yourself in it as you neared the door.

It was, to your surprise, unlocked. As strict a warden as Barnes was, you just assumed he would have locked you in. You let out a breath and stepped out into the hallway. The portraits of your predecessors, dead and dusty, watched you pass as you tiptoed along. The windows cast shapes around you as you went along and at times, you were certain you heard whispers.

You descended to the lower first floor and ventured down a wing never explored before. Your eyes were attune to the darkness but still played tricks as you crept along. You heard the distant, muffled, and quite possibly, imagined ripple of water. You smelled a pool, the sharp scent of chlorine. Your senses brought you to a door at the end of the corridor.

Frosted glass framed in heavy metal. You pressed against the slotted handle and the clasp slowly lifted. You inched inside as you peeked around the door. Broad shoulders, bare and thick with muscle, beneath a head of dark hair. You were shocked by the scars along Barnes’ left shoulder and the arm no longer in place below. You’d never even noticed the prosthetic now laid out with his clothes on a bench near the wall.

He shoved himself into the pool and the water swelled around him. You placed your feet carefully as you eased the door shut and neared the bench where his suit was folded neatly with his shoes, socks, belt, and tie. You bent closer as you admired the hand at the end of the prosthetic; you touched it curiously. It felt lifelike even as it sat limp.

“Convincing?” Bucky’s voice frightened you as you heard the water move around his body. You turned to face him as he brought his right arm over the edge of the pool. “Don’t worry. You can toss it around. I won’t feel a thing.”

You were speechless; embarrassed. You hadn’t meant to intrude upon him but your fatigue mixed with your confusion had goaded you on.

“Sorry, I… I couldn’t sleep.” You hugged yourself and swept back to the door. “I wasn’t meaning-- I shouldn’t have--”

“Just an arm.” He said as he pushed himself up and turned to display what was left of his arm, a scarred stub just below his shoulder. “Good thing I was born with two.”

“Barnes…” You backed up until you were against the door. “I should go.”

“Alright,” he pushed himself back and floated with his single arm outstretched. “I always found swimming helped… with sleep.” He said lazily. “Calming.”

You didn’t move. You only watched as he floated along in only his briefs. He was entirely unbothered by your presence as he hummed and reached out to stop himself at the other end of the pool.

“Well, are you enjoying the show or you going to join?” He asked.

You watched him warily. “You’re not mad?”

“Maybe slightly irritated,” he shrugged, “You hovering is ruining the mood.”

You stared at him and slowly pushed yourself away from the door. You took small steps forward and lowered yourself along the rim of the pool. You held in a squeak as you hung your legs into the cool water.

“So, were you just not going to tell me there was a pool?” You chided.

“You didn’t ask,” he said as he waded casually through the water. “To be fair, you didn’t seem much interested in this place though as I’ve gathered, you are disinterested in most things.”

You frowned and rolled your eyes. You peered over at the wall and pondered leaving him as you found him. You were surprised by a wet hand on your knee.

“If I can get to you so easy, Steve’s gonna drive you mad,” Barnes said. “So if you’re going to be so easily perturbed, you better work on hiding it better.”

“Whatever,” you huffed.

“Whatever,” he mocked as his hand slid under the water and he gripped your ankle. “Loosen up.”

He kicked himself away from the wall and pulled you down into the pool. You plunged with a yelp and threw your arms up in panic. Your nose and mouth filled with water and he let you go. You bobbed back to the surface and spat as your silken night clothes clouded around you.

“What the fuck, Barnes?” You sputtered. 

“I’ll admit,” he said through chuckles, “I had a drink or two.” He winked as he moved around you. “Well, Duchess, you do play the role much better than you think.”

“Ugh,” you turned away and reached for the wall of the pool, “You are the worst.”

“Wait,” he pressed against you and caught you around your waist, “Wait, wait.” He drew you back with him. “Come on. Relax.” He dragged you further into the water, “Look, you’ve only got a few days left and even if you hate to listen to me, you should. Once you’re at court, this won’t happen. Ever.”

“What do you care? You haven’t so far.” You struggled with him and dipped below the water again. You twisted and turned and came up facing him as he clung to you.

“Duchess,” he warned, “Don’t be a brat.”

“A brat?” You blinked. “Let go of me, Barnes.”

He grinned and held you to him as he moved backwards across the pool. You felt something between you. It moved against your pelvis and as he spun you and pinned you against the tile, you realised what it was.

“Are you serious right now?” You snarled. “What about your king, huh?”

He chuckled and his hand slid down your back. He squeezed your ass as he kept you against the side of the pool. He was so close you could feel his breath and smell the remnants of his sweat and cologne.

“I’m supposed to show you how to be a good wife,” his finger tickled under your thigh, “In all areas.”

“I doubt he had this in mind,” you pushed against him but he was too strong. He slid between your legs as his hand stretched along the crease of your thigh. “I mean it, Barnes--”

Your voice gurgled as he reached below your nightie and stroked the front of your thin panties. The water splashed as you slapped his chest and growled.

“James!” You cried out. “Stop!”

He narrowed his eyes and tilted his head. He twirled his fingers and you gritted your teeth against the tingle it sent through you. You stared into his eyes, fighting against the urge to let him go on. You shook your head slowly and pressed your hands to his shoulders. He let you push him away as his hand trailed over your leg.

“Oh, you just wait, Duchess,” he purred as he combed back his damp hair, “The king isn’t so willing to take orders.”

[chiquitinchino]

【7:46pm】

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ꕥ Fluffy Puffy ꕥ

Yunho x reader  

Warning Too cute to be true    (AU)

Descr: You are making up extra credit for your art class, so you decided to take a pottery class. Based on the name that was given to you, you thought that the teacher would be an old man. Your Pottery class turned out to be private lessons with a stunning young man that was around your age. Oh what to do . . where is this lesson going?

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The professor from your art course is making you take lessons to boost your grade. Not that it was bad or anything, you just wanted an A to make your GPA look pretty. Your art teacher was a pain in the ass with her grades, “so stingy”, you would say to yourself. But pottery couldn’t be that bad. Every assignment was equally stressful as it was relaxing anyways. Best of both worlds I guess.

You chose from the list she had, “5 Ceramics/ Pottery lessons with Sir. Jeong” it was a weird last name and sounded old but you went with it. It was only 5 lessons and playing with clay how hard can it be? 

-

“Ugh It’s just 4:25 and it’s already so dark”, you said walking into your 4:30 class. Taking off all layers you sat comfortably on the stool. Right next to sign that said 4:30 class. No one was there. You were kinda creeped out. The lights were dim, the sun was already gone and all you heard was a person shuffling in another room. Not even a receptionist! “Oh these are private classes”, . . . “With an old maannnn. . .” You sat there wincing at yourself allowing your brain to wonder through 5 million different scenarios.

Thud! “Okay . . Class time”, you heard a voice say. It didn’t . . sound old. . Nor look 👀. A Tall handsome young man appeared in front of you. Black hair, very pink lips and soft eyes. Perplexed at what laid before you, the young man was . . Actually very very handsome.

“Sir Jeong???? He deserves the name of Mr. At least.”, you thought to yourself as the teacher walked towards you cleaning his hands from clay.

“So you’re my new student. Huh?”, he asked.

“Uhmmm, yes . . I guess”, you replied looking around.

“Haha alright let’s get started then”.

You were now so happy it was a private lesson. He was giving you a tutorial, and your eyes were just wondering his body. He face was full of concentration; body big for the little stool he was in; not lean, strong build; well rounded all around; his hands. . . Seemed strong. . You thought to yourself; his concentrated face gave him a different look than what he had when he walked in, but his cheeks squished your hearts with how soft and plushie they looked; and his black hair seemed so silky and soft; and his voice wasn’t rough or smooth or deep or high, but it was definitely sweet and full of patience and delicacy. “Like . . Honey, or maple sap”

WHIPPED IS WHAT YOU WERE

“Eehhhh, I would say more like dough, because it’s easier to structure than honey. But whatever makes you comfortable”, wide eyed you looked at his face. Blankly he stated back.

“Everything okay? You’re looking at me like I have 3 heads”.

Panicked you responded, “ah no no nothing Mr. Jeong, please continue”.

“Please call me Yunho, it’s weird to have someone around my age to call me that”

“Oh, okay then. . Yunho, please continue”.

After 30 minutes of Yunho talking and demonstrating you how to treat, knead, and play with the clay you were finally able to do it yourself. Excited you rolled up your sleeves. Sitting at the stool, Yunho stood in front of you watching you. He seemed taller and taller the closer he got. A little shy you dived in. You started off better than you expected. With enough confidence you entered the hard part, building your desired pot. Before molding your pit of clay you stood and took a few steps back. Thinking real hard on how you wanted it to come out. Like a light bulb it clicked. You went to work. Super concentrated you were building up your creation.

SNAP!

Just like that went your concentration as from the blink of an eye a ring of your clay was on one hand and the other places spinning on the wheel. You heard giggling from your side. Looking over you saw Yunho giggling. “No go ahead do as I showed you”, “Ehhh. . . Ha. . . “, you liked blankly at your mold not moving. Looking back over to Yunho he wasn’t there. Thud, you heard something behind you. It was a stool that wasn’t there when you first sat down, and it was reallllllllllly close. A rush of black flooded your sight. It was just Yunho sitting behind you.

“Come. look.”, he said wetting his hands. You turned around quickly, as your face flushed red realizing what’s about to happen. His chest bumped onto your back lightly leaning you forwards, his arms stretched forward towards the mold and taking the clay in your hands. Molding it into what it used to be. Extremely flustered you watched his hands.

“See ?”, He said standing up from the stool.

“You remember now ?”

“mhm”

Why are you so hot, you felt like sweating. UGGGHH what was thattt?! He was so warm and delicate with me. He might have sat behind me but he didn’t even touch you much. Is he really that big or am I just small. So many thoughts rushed through your head while you tried building your vase. Every few minutes your clay would flop, break, and bend too far. After thinking for too long you just grew frustrated.

“Ughh come onnn”, you talked badly to your clay. Putting it back and adding more pressure to your art. And SNAP.

The damn clay broke off.

Tensing up you squished the clay in your hand.

“Hey, heyyy don’t take it out on the clay now”, you heard a voice behind you say softly. His big hand brushed against your clenched fist. Feeling another hand on your other shoulder, you saw Yunho’s face pop on your side view.

“Let’s try again, this time let me help you, okay?”, he said slightly smiling.

Feeling something on your hand you looked at your hand. His hand. His though brushing against your hand to ease up. Looking back, how could you not calm down. Releasing the tension, you let the frustration fall off your face.

Yunho let out a cheeky smile, “great okay, now lets go back to putting it on the mold”, his voice was so . . Patient it was so sweet. He held both of your hands to the mold. And you both wet your hands in wet clay. You can feel his chest on your back. His breathe was calm. And his skin was soft. He was very warm too. You oddly felt safe.

“Done”, In an instant your bubble popped. “Huh?” You looked at the vase before you. It wasn’t the one you wanted to make exactly but it still was pretty. Popping up once again at your side you looked over your shoulder. It was a smiling Yunho. You quickly turned around flustered of the pretty boy.

He got up and placed the stool in it’s place. “I think that should be it for our class today, I am going to heat it up so then we can paint next class”, Yunho explained to you. It seemed like everything was moving so fast. You weren’t ready to leave him. He was too dreamy please don’t let the class be over yet.

The moment you laid your eyes on him, it’s as if time stopped. But in reality it went by faster than light you complained to yourself. Sulking you picked up your stuff.

He walked you to the door and you walked out “till next class”, he said

Looking back, you wanted to take a picture of this exact moment. His cute smile and the way he stood at the door. Little did you know this exact moment, was engraved in your brain, you just had to wait more time till you realized this night would be the night you always come back to thinking about him.

“Till next class”

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Authors note: I meeaannnn if y’all want more ain’t nobody complaining. Just let me know.

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[sp00kworm]

Kinetic Siphon

Ollmoch

Demon x Reader

~~~

~~~

A whole week free from work. You smiled as you gazed up at the old battlements of the castle. It was built during the Orc revolt and held many of the old designs of the time. Reinforced stone and steel hidden within the heavy stone bricks. Mortar had been used in recent years to try and keep the original structure together and preserve the natural history of the land. The revolt was a trying time, that resulted in many deaths on both sides. It was firmly engrained in history, but now the Orcs had come to be far more beneficial allies. Modern medicines for bacterial infections were based on many old Orcish root remedies where they’d worked to isolate the key components. Now the world was a much more accepting place. You looked at the old stone as you stepped through the portcullis. There was no longer a drawbridge, but rather a new heavy stone bridge, but the old metal gates were still in place, restored and painted to protect it against the elements. Still, it looked like something you saw in fairy tales. Gazing up at the stone, you tried to keep your mouth shut as you entered through the battlements and gazed at the inner building. It was made from the same stone with several French influences for the pointed tower tops around a central cuboidal shaped tower. The old windows were still intact from the modern occupation and you looked on in awe at the giant structure.

 A winding staircase led you up to the castle doors and you waited in the small line before being allowed in to see the beautiful rooms, decorated to resemble the time period and filled with relics from many years gone by. The hunting room was grand, around a large, old desk, used by the head of the family for many years. It was sad to see blank spots where the barbaric practice of hunting other races had once decorated the room. You looked at the information board. Once an Orcish clan leader’s head had sat on one wall and various Fae and Goblins alongside them. Magic, species and race were all greatly misunderstood back then. You offered a solemn look to the missing heads and hoped they had been returned to their families, where they rightfully belonged. Still, the dragon teeth on the desk apparently didn’t count as the same thing. You left the hunting room and continued towards the dining room, then through to the drawing room, where guests were hosted. It was full of overstuffed chairs and fainting couches. You marvelled at the tapestries on one wall and the depictions of a battle with the Orcs. It was history, however sad it was. The castle was large, and you spent a few hours looking at the information and the history inside before you took to wandering the enormous, well looked after gardens.

The stairs out the back of the main castle lead into a well-designed garden, full of the area’s flora and flowers from abroad, of which were not common. The greenhouse was the far side of the castle, and you wrapped your scarf tighter as you headed towards it. It was particularly windy as you headed towards the large greenhouse. The signposts pointed towards the battlements and the internal corridors that ran beneath them. You looked at the wall and frowned at the sign. It pointed into an unusual door. It was heavy and wooden with a thick metal latch. You opened the handle and peered inside. It was lit up well with new electrical lighting, and you shrugged, entering the hallway before making sure to close the old door firmly behind you. The hallway lights dimmed and flickered as you stepped inside fully, and you scowled up at the ceiling as they started to blink, the bulbs making a soft ticking noise as they snapped on and off. After a minute, the blinking stopped, and you continued down the corridor.

“I’m pretty sure this is the wrong way.” You hummed to yourself as you followed the long pathway to the end. A set of stairs sat before you, “This is definitely not where the greenhouse is.” But still, there was no key card access and no locks. Curiosity got the better of you and you walked down the stairs, spiralling lower into another dim room, closing another heavy oaken door behind you as you entered.

 The room was huge and filled to the brim with works that were in the process of being restored for the castle. Vanities and huge dressers were positioned in places of high airflow and covered with sheets and wraps. It was amazing to see even suits of rusted armour placed around the room, their hinges and metal plating underway to being shiny and brilliant once more. You tried not to gape at the room of antiques as you moved past the furniture and into the carefully lined up and ticketed pieces of history. There was a statue of a female goddess, her sword raised to the sky, and you smiled as you squeezed between it and the wall in your attempts to really gaze at the riches of the rest of the collection. The vast expanse of antiques was arranged around a great rack of catalogued swords. You eased your way towards them and avoided knocking over giant vases as you weaselled towards the more interesting antiques. It was glorious. Long swords, sabres and broadswords were positioned with knives and daggers, some handles made to be in matching sets to the swords. You looked at a small tomahawk before you looked at the end of the rack and to a cloth wrapped scabbard that was discarded on the floor.

 The cloth wrapping was rotten and musty. You carefully picked up the scabbard and eyed the jewelled hilt with a sceptical eye. The ruby set in the end was dull. You wiped the jewel with your coat and coughed at the dust as you unwrapped the sword. It was intricately patterned, a form of tanned black leather pressed with runes and swirling lines. You ran your fingers over the pattern and unclipped the wrap from around the hilt, gazing at the tarnished metal before you sucked in a breath and slid the great sword free from its scabbard. There was nothing. You gazed at the blade and huffed a bit under the weight, but held it out from your body, looking down the length before you turned it flat. It was then that a great rumble sounded, shaking the ground beneath your feet. The shaking started in the walls before soon the whole room was moving back and forth. Vases and pottery clinked and shuddered in place as you grabbed for the sword rack and peered up. A great, high pitched whining noise made you flinch as something tore open a hole above your head. You gazed up as a black slit opened in the space above you and two clawed hands pierced the space. The red hands wriggled before clutching either side of the hole and clicking. The space opened wider and you watched two arms slide through before you were faced with the face of a monster.

 There, staring at you from the space, slowly sliding free of the hole, was a creature with six, rolling viper eyes. The golden orbs investigated your face as a jaw opened along its cheeks, just beneath its slitted nose. Great pointed teeth dripped with saliva as it unhinged its jaw and stretched its arms further. The great horns caressed the sides of the hole before it twisted it’s neck and slid free. Three pairs of horns curled from its head, the front most pair, and the tallest, forms a chitinous plate over its nose, framing its sideways blinking eyes. With a growl, it tore the hole wider with another click and tear of his claws and placed its giant talons on the floor, sliding the rest of its body free in a smooth ripple of muscle down its back and legs. It perched itself on the floor for a moment, looking around, chitinous back plates facing any danger as a pointed tail swung left and right. The beast was covered in more spines and spikes, hardened and sharp to the touch. Your gaze peered downwards, and you tried to hide the fact you had gazed at his crotch, where he was hidden with a simple covering of hanging cloth. The face looked at you again, eyes open wide before a tongue dipped out to lick at your face, tasting the skin before he flicked it, tasting the air, mouth and nose open wide. The monster stood to his full height and you gazed at his back where the plates formed a neat, intricate row down his spine. He curled his feet and you looked at him as he curled the talons into the stone. Two great plates curled over his shoulders and you swallowed at the sight of more great spikes lining them.

 “For what have I been summoned?” His voice was like thunder, vibrating the very air around you with power as he stretched his body and turned, his tail snatching you from the ground, dragging you closer to his six eyes. They moved independently for a moment before they all fixed on your terrified face, the lids sliding over them in pairs, down his face in turn.

“I…” He leaned closer to your face, his hands gripping you as he crouched near to the floor, his eight-foot frame ducking down, “I didn’t mean to summon you.” You confessed quietly, but the demon heard you, his pointed ears flicking. You watched the bone that pierced through them shake as he drew back and laughed, his tongue out and teeth exposed.

“Such jokes with your family.” He gripped you tighter, “Come now, I have no patience for your games anymore. Your ancestors may have bound me, but I could still tear you open and die with you.” He threatened, looming over you with unblinking eyes, his hands constraining your waist tight making you wheeze softly, “It would only take a moment.” He purred in delight, “Now, tell me your desires, little one.” His talons grazed your hair, “I grow bored.”

 You took another breath and dropped the sword, gazing up at the creature with tears in your eyes, “I didn’t mean to. I don’t know what you’re talking about but please, please let me go.”

The demon scowled, as well as he could with no real eyebrows and only plates covering his brow bone. He licked at you again and hummed, “I cannot taste a lie…” He mused as he stood up, his horns scrapping the ceiling before he properly situated himself, “Then…” Confusion clouded his face, “Where am I, human?” He asked as he crouched down with you in his grasp, “Why have the possessions been discarded here?”

“I… It’s the two thousands. This castle is owned by the last remaining members of the Hollack family but its open to the public.” You dared to look at his eyes, “When were you last, um, summoned?”

The demon tilted his head and licked at his lips, “Sixteen fifty-four.” He nodded and then took note of your clothes, “It…has been so long?” He questioned the air as he placed you on his plated thigh, “You are not of the Hollack family, are you?”

“No…I got lost. I’m visiting and I ended up here. I guess…I bit off a little more than I could chew?” You offered lamely as the demon anchored himself up with his tail, you perched on his leg as he idly set his claws over your legs, trapping you in place.

 The demon threw his head back and gave another round of thunderous laughter as his eyes blinked and closed in their downwards pattern, “Perhaps you have.” He confirmed before stretching up to his giant height. Carefully, he placed you back down on your feet and peered up at the cold rift.

“Where…where do you come from?” You asked quietly as you listened to the silence.

The demon ducked his red head and let out a rumble, “A pocket dimension…It is my cage, so to speak. I sleep until I am summoned…I feed only when I’m allowed out.” He offered quietly before his sharp teeth snapped together, “It has been so long. Even speaking is making me tired and ravenous.”

“You just sleep?” You offered before awkwardly shuffling, “Can you not break the contract?” You asked, feeling silly in the face of a creature so old.

He laughed again and you watched his tongue roll against his teeth before he reached to his chest and pressed one taloned hand against the skin. The red skin parted and revealed a great glowing eye. The golden eye blinked awake and starred deep into your own eyes before it began to glow. The demon snapped his fingers and wiped his hand over his chest again and the eye disappeared.

You suddenly felt tired, “What was that?”

“That was my power. It is weak. I consume energy, change it, or siphon it. My ability to control it is now tied to that…relic.” He hissed as you took hold of the sword again and peered at the metal.

 The length of the blade glowed with burning gold runes. It was a sight and the demon hissed at the word written down the length. You couldn’t read the runes and you frowned up at the demon.

“What are those?” You asked, “I can’t read them…”

The demon’s mouth unhinged in a maniacal smile, teasing you, “My name, written in the ancient mage tongue.” He hissed through his teeth again as he looked down at it, “The language is lost, little one.” He lamented, “No one has been able to read it since the dark ages.” He offered as he sat down on the floor and clicked his fingers again, the portal closing with a swirl and a great pop.

“If I could read it, what would that do?” You asked as you took the scabbard in hand and stood by his knee, “Would it release you?”

The demon laughed again, “It would transfer my contract to you. My bindings would be shifted from the Hollack family to you, but I have never met someone capable of bearing my burden. I am old, it would take a great deal of power to break such a curse.” He grazed his talons over the stone in a great raking motion, “I am... ravenous.” He purred before you, his golden eyes squinted with glee at his mischief.

“You need a lot of energy then?” You asked.

“Mmm.” He purred, “I used to rip open rifts and portals and consume leaks of energy within the continuum, but that was how I was trapped. They created such a great energy rift that I was attracted, such was the greed of my youth, and trapped with that cursed thing.” The demon stretched his plates again and snapped his fingers out, snatching the blade from your grasp, “If I could tear apart the very molecules of this sword and be free, I would.” He snarled in anger.

 You reached towards his hands and held out your hand for the blade, “Where would your name be?” You asked, “Is the blade named after you?” You asked and he held the hilt out towards you.

He scowled, “I do not remember…” But his eyes widened as you rushed back towards the door with the sword in tow. With a howl he was after you, disappearing before he reappeared in front of the door to the way out. His talons snatched you from the floor again as he opened his mouth threateningly, “You will not have that sword!” He hissed.

“I…” You wheezed, “The catalogue book.” You pointed and wheezed again.

The demon looked at the desk behind him and plucked the big logbook from the table.

Suddenly, he was very sheepish, his ears back and his lips pouted as he sat down with a thump again and placed you on his lap. He handed you the book, “Ah, yes. I apologise, little one.” His shoulders twitched as you smiled up at him, rubbing your ribs as you opened the cover and peered at the numbers. Everything was catalogued by value and item description with a numerical identity code attached to the item type name. Sword. You looked for the code, SW and flicked through the book quickly to the section. There wasn’t that many, most of them on the rack behind you and the demon. You tried not to scare as the demon wrapped his tail over you, his eyes peering at the pages as you ran your finger down them.

 “Here. Look.” You held the book to his face, “There’s only three with names attached, all of them have been translated too.” With a cheer you watched him hold the book in his hands.

He frowned at the words, “I do not remember.” He lamented as defeat flashed over his features. The demon gave you the book back, “Perhaps if you read them?” Lamely he turned his hand and with a scared nod you climbed from his lap and watched him dip to his knees and stretch his back straight, so his horns sat like a crown.

“Do I need to do anything?” You asked meekly.

The demon nodded and placed one of your hands against his head, right on the hot skin between his curved, three pairs of horns, “We must be bound for this to work.”

“Wait…I can’t be a vessel for you!” You flinched away but the demon held your hand firm.

Golden eyes looked at you with sadness, “Please.” He whispered before growling, “I have spent seven centuries in agony!” He caught himself before his fury could truly boil over, “You don’t have to see me again…I will disappear and feed and never bother you, so, please, just release me.” His other hand clutched your own on top of his head, “I do not beg mortals lightly, little one, but please help me.”

“How do I know you won’t kill me after this?” You whispered back.

“I will be bound to your soul. It would be impossible.” He placed a hand over his chest, “If I did, I too would suffer the same death.”

 You took a deep breath and looked at the three names before you in the book. You curled your fingers against the chitinous base of his horns and spoke.

“Maelstrom.”

The air was silent, and the demon continued to breathe quietly underneath your hand, radiating heat and anxiety as he clenched his chest and waited. After a moment you continued down the list.

“Azar.”

Silence again. You looked at the stones, expecting a rumble from them, but they remained still. You took a final breath and looked at the final name. It was old, and you didn’t understand the meaning as you whispered the name and then repeated it into the open air.

“Ollmoch.”

With bated breath, you waited. Like a crack of thunder, you heard the demon’s claws slam into the floor as the sword next to you vibrated violently. With an echo of metal, it slid free of the scabbard again and burned gold with power, the runes searing from the metal as the demon gave a grunt and slammed at the floor again, his teeth exposed in a pained snarl. His chest heaved as the great golden eye opened between his pectorals. The viper pupil burned with light as it bled from black to a bright red. The light grew brighter and brighter, until you were forced to close your eyes. There was a violent flash behind your eyelids before you felt your hand fall from the demon’s head.

 “Little one.” You heard him whisper next to you, “You can open your eyes.” A hand brushed your cheek and with a gasp you opened your eyes to gaze into his golden irises. They burned with pulsing red veins and you looked at his skin as it gave off wave after wave of burning heat.

“What happened?” You asked him, “Wait, you’re called Ollmoch?” You felt the floor swim in your vision as you looked down, and you gagged as your swung back and forth on your own feet. Ollmoch was quick to catch you in his giant hands, holding you before he tucked you carefully in one of his arms, holding you gently.

“Quiet now, little one. You are exhausted.” Ollmoch rumbled to you as his fingers snapped and his tail swung behind him. The ceiling swam and you closed your eyes to try and get rid of the feeling of nausea, panting heavily as you felt the blood rush around you. There was a crackle of energy around you, and your hair stood on end as you planted your face against Ollmoch’s pectoral, your eyes rolling open and closed before you passed out completely to the delighted howl of the demon as he leaped for the portal swirling overhead.

 Sunlight burned your eyelids as you slowly felt feeling return to your fingers and back. With a small gasp, you bolted upright in bed and clutched at the sheets as you rubbed your tired eyes and looked around the room blearily. It was still daylight. You looked closer and did a double take. It was morning. The sunlight peaked over the horizon weakly, bathing your room in a barely-there warm glow. It was early but the winter mornings had been getting darker and darker recently. You slapped at your table for your phone before realising you were still in your jeans and you reached into the pocket to take out your phone and gaze at the time.  It was barely eight o’clock and you sighed as you tried to remember how you had gotten home. It was then, as you yawned, that a hand slid under your covers. With a squeal, you jumped away and watched as horns rose over the side of your bed and a great, red skinned demon hauled himself out of a chugging, black portal in your carpet. Six golden eyes appeared next as the demon’s hands curled into your sheets, tugging them away from you as he rose up and stood over your bed.

 “Are you well, little one?” Ollmoch rumbled as he curled his talons into the cotton and carefully eased his hands up towards your legs.

“What happened?” You asked as you crossed your legs under you, looking up at the half nude demon as he dragged his hands back and caressed his own horns, stretching with a hum.

Ollmoch tapped the middle of your forehead, “Your brain gave in. I believe you fainted.” He offered before he opened his mouth and sniffed, pulling air into his mouth, over his tongue and into his nose, “You were drained. It is good energy has returned to you.” He raised his hand and licked at his palm which had grazed your skin, “You are very lively. Full of energy. Untapped potential.” The energy demon smacked his lips before he licked at his fingers again and hummed, “Not enough to truly command me.”

“Why would I want that?” You asked with a scowl, “You wanted to be free, so you can do that now, right?”

Ollmoch nodded his great head as he hissed and touched his chest, “Yes. It is a good thing because I am starving.” He offered before he raised your hand to his face, licking the back of it before he kissed the palm softly, “Thank you, mortal.” He blew a hot breath over the skin, “I am in your debt, and I am at your call, as is the rules of such a bargain.”

 Your mouth went dry before you carefully scratched between his horns. Ollmoch’s bone jewellery jingled and clinked as he accepted the touch before he pulled away and tucked your hand back against your side. His chest eye opened with a growl and you watched as your wall distorted. A sharp click snapped open a hole which the demon stretched with another movement of his hands. Ollmoch gazed into the abyss before he held up one talon.

“If you need me…Say my name, little one. I will be here.” He promised gently before grinning his sharp, shark-like teeth. You smiled back at him.

“Good luck, Ollmoch.” You offered as your cheeks felt hot, “I hope you fair better than in that pocket dimension.” Lamely, you let your hands fall to your side. Ollmoch looked at you, one pair of golden eyes focused on your face. Sadness.

He flicked his tongue and tasted the emotion on the air before he grabbed at your hand again, pressing it to the hot skin beneath the bright, burning eye in his chest, “I will come back, little one. I must feed, but I will be here.” He promised as he grazed his talons over the back of your neck, “What you feel, I will feel.” He whispered as he scratched the back of your neck and flinched himself, “We are linked. Nothing can take my binding from your very soul.” Ollmoch grinned as his talons gazed their way over your face, “Call, little one. Call and I will come.” He promised before he melted back into the wall, his talons and plating disappearing into the void of the in-between.

Your cheeks burned as you flopped back against the bed, looking at the ceiling as you felt the ghostly touches of talons over your skin.  

[gisellelx]

Walls (new Cien Años short)

Walls Ashland, WI November, 2020

To live with Esme Platt Cullen was to live in a carefully ordered chaos. 

In more stable times, and in more stable homes, this chaos had been the chaos of their children, now six-almost-seven of them. Emmett and Jasper, enjoying a boisterous playfight. Rosalie and Edward snipping at each other in that odd way they did that was one part love, one part self-hatred, a third part disdain. Renesmee, when she had been younger, trying everyone’s patience and most of all her parents’. The way the house would eventually rise to a fever pitch like a thrumming beehive and Carlisle would eventually retreat to his study, simultaneously craving solitude and also intensely grateful that, these days, solitude was so hard to come by. Eventually, his wife would come find him, standing next to his chair and raking her hands through his hair as she pulled his head to her bosom. 

Solitude was, unfortunately, easier to find these days. With the children in Europe and the two of them alone in the house which seemed strangely too large without the omniscience of Edward’s gift, quiet was their constant companion. 

And the chaos now was different. Instead of the raucousness of their large family, this was the chaos of sawdust and century-old plaster, warped floorboards with haphazard nails—nails which couldn’t hurt either of them, of course, but which still seemed to appear out of the ether in places Carlisle could’ve sworn they hadn’t existed twelve hours ago. 

He’d retreated to their bedroom, or what was left of it. His body remembered the route more than his mind did, up the staircase and to the right, through the second doorway.  The footprint was still here; wall studs turned a deep brown with age and striped with the pattern of the lath boards which had been removed and carefully stacked in a corner. Esme had told him that he wasn’t to touch them; she’d salvage what she could. 

The house needed new systems. It had been built with only the most nascent plumbing, and while he’d run electricity, it was the electricity which had been able to be run at the time;; not what was standard now. Esme would restore it to its mid nineteenth century glory in the end, but first it needed bringing into the twenty-first. For now there were no walls, just outlines of where walls had once been, with bright-yellow conduit dangling like vine, and red and blue flexible plumbing snaking its way to what once had been and soon would be again the kitchen and bathrooms, making the house look like the anatomy textbooks Carlisle was more used to. Blue veins, red arteries. It made sense to him to think of the house like a body—helped him make sense of, and honor, his wife’s diligent work. 

Esme was on the roof when he arrived home and slid into the remains of their bedroom, shedding his briefcase, his pea coat, and his white doctor’s coat as he passed the foyer, the coat closet, and the hamper, respectively. She understood and honored his desire to live as humanly as possible, and so she had warned him that the roof was coming off for a few days while she brought the trusses up to twenty-first century building code. But that hadn’t happened yet, and for now, there was still this ghost of the structure of the home he had bought, when his only identity had been “sire” and sometimes, if he dared to think it, and Edward had allowed him, “father.” And so he stripped down to his scrubs in this odd shell of a home, and sat, cross-legged, on the floor of the furniture-less bedroom. The sound from above him was rhythmic as his wife worked through the existing structure. First the scraping of the wrecking bar, then the quiet ping of the nail releasing from the roof, then the resounding thwap of the shingle hitting the ground two floors below. 

Scrape. Scrape. Ping. Thwap. The repetition was meditative, and he allowed himself to get lost in it. He was so deep in his own thoughts that he missed the cessation of sound on the roof, the quiet sounds of tools being put carefully back into place, the opening and closing of closet doors in what was left of the frame of the house. 

He finally became aware when he heard the thunk of the tool belt in the foyer, the toeing off of the unnecessary work boots. The soft padding of socked feet on the bare, stripped staircase. A moment later, the light shading through the patchwork of lath which awaited replacement revealed a feminine silhouette, arms crossed as she regarded him coolly.  

“How much longer do we get to keep the roof?” he asked.

“I should have it off by tomorrow midday. I timed it with your long shift.” The socked feet padded across the room and then she, too, had dropped into a cross-legged posture behind him, and then her lips were at the base of his neck. “That is, if you don’t distract me too much while you’re home, Dr. Cullen.” 

He smirked a little. “Far be it for me to separate you from a demolition.” 

She laughed her clear laughter, and he twisted a little so that their lips could meet. They kissed for several seconds, the gentle, familiar kiss of the long-married, her hand finding its way to his hip. 

“You’ve had a bad day,” she said when their lips parted. It wasn’t a question.

He nodded. 

“Do you want to talk about it?” 

“Not particularly.” He looked toward the ceiling, or what once had been the ceiling. It was now, like everything else, bare beams, the odd mixture of new and very old, and he could see to the roof, where the removal of the shingles had exposed the places where the old roof boards had shrunk away from one another, letting in little slivers of daylight. 

“I’m looking forward to furniture,” he admitted. “How far in the future is that?” 

She laughed again. “I’ll get you some for Christmas. In the meantime…” She patted her thigh and, almost without thinking, he lay down, putting his head in her lap. In the same instant, her hands were in his hair, her fingertips against his scalp as she combed through it.

It had taken decades, this part of their relationship. He had been used to fending for himself, convincing himself that he was invincible. And Edward, as glorious as he had been, had only made this aspect worse, as every day, Carlisle had tried even harder to be Edward’s rock. And so when Esme had joined them, it had taken him years to admit to even the slightest crack, and even longer to reach this utter surrender.

He closed his eyes, letting his senses be overcome by the feeling of fingers in his hair, the sound of breath, rolling in and out, the cinnamon-lilac-honey of his wife’s scent—one part his own, one part her own perfect unique essence. 

“There were eleven today,” he muttered finally, not opening his eyes. One of the worst days yet. They’d moved because of the surge here, and he had steeled himself for it. Nothing he’d faced in the states held a candle to Italy, not even this, but the comparison didn’t make it any easier. Sometimes, he’d walked out of the room; let a nurse in full protective equipment, looking like an astronaut hold a phone in a gloved hand as family members on FaceTime looked on while their parent or grandparent slipped away from life. Other times, he stayed; he was the one to hold the phone, to flick the ventilator to the OFF position, to witness the deep, rattling, final breaths. 

His wife sighed sadly. “Eleven is so many, Carlisle.” 

He nodded. “Eleven is too many. One is too many. This whole year is too many.” One by one, the same progression, over and over. Ctyokine. Hypoxia. Multisystem organ failure. The same sequence, the same dread, the same point of no return. And if he thought too long or too hard, he could recall each and every face. 

Carlisle squeezed his eyes closed as the fingers made their way back into his hair. One hand in his hair made its way to his back, the other to his arm. He let his body go slack as he let the day’s pain slip away into her hands.

“Thank you,” he breathed several minutes later.  

“Thank you for letting me in,” his wife answered, bending deeply and pressing her lips to his again. 

He chuckled. “Well, it’s hard to keep you out when we don’t have any walls.” 

Carlisle felt, more than heard, Esme’s answering laughter. It was a tiny cough of a laugh, small against the all the world was throwing at them. 

But, he realized as he allowed himself to rest, it was also just enough.  

[littlefreya]

Lines in the Sand

Summary: She is one of the best snipers serving in Iraq, but she is also suffering from an attitude problem and ironically has a hard time following orders. After an incident in her former base, she is sent to join the Special Forces unit led by Captain Syverson, who requires a talented sniper. 

Unlucky for her, Captain Syverson is a hard man who likes things by the book and according to order. He ain't got the patience for troublemakers.  

Pairing: Captain Syverson x OFC (Jessica Gallagher)

Word count: 1,784

Warnings: Smut in future parts, some foul language and sexual content.

A/N: Please enjoy, reblog, like. The world needs more Syverson, and I think he is one of Henry's finest roles.

Tagging: @writingaftermidnight​ @centaine​ @sciapod​ (who encourage me to write)  Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 |Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Epilogue Chapter 1: Iron Maiden

Bad girl. 

That’s what they say she is; trouble, attitude problems. 

She heard all of it at psych evaluation. 

'Prodigy' is another word they use for her. 

And sometimes even 'asset'.

She likes this one the most. It strips her of all human notions. 

That’s the only reason to keep her around, and it’s not like she has any desire to go home anyway. Home is tough. Here in the desert, surrounded by death and horny virgins - that’s the easy part. 

“Killing is easy,” she said to the military psychologist who had her profiled from head to toe before being transferred to camp Warhorse.

“Gallagher?” a young soldier calls toward her, huffing and covered with a sheen layer of sweat as he runs toward her. She glares at him bemused, holding the fresh new uniforms which she just collected from the storage unit. 

“Yeah?" 

The boy's face is lightly freckled, his big doe eyes seem untouched by war and his freshly shaven buzzcut shows he only just arrived. 'More meat for the grinder'  she muses, just another kid who doesn't belong here, like the most of them. She knows the type well enough to write a thesis about it by now. If she thought she had any brain to do that sort of stuff. 

"Captain Syverson wants to talk to you.”

The kid looks her up, probably wondering why she even here. She got used to that type of stare a while ago.

“I just arrived here from another division” she explains, “didn’t even get into my uniform, what’s the fucking rush?”

The kid shrugs, looking slightly terrified as if she is supposed to be scared of Captain Syverson and shouldn’t be talking that way.

“Fine…” she sighs heavily, lowering the tip of her army hat and rolling her eyes.

As a soldier serving at the professional US army, Gallagher knows she has a shit-ton of issues with authority, yet she wouldn’t be in any other place.  

The Captain sits at his office, wearing his favourite red t-shirt and army shorts that cut at his knees. A small portable fan is perched on his desk, pinning from side to side and blowing tiny droplet of sweat from his ridged forehead.  

During that time of the year, the temperatures reach a level that won’t shame the fiery pits of hell. Even a southern-born man like him an effort dealing with the heat, but Sy suffers quietly, not even mentioning a word of the weather. Small-talk is a waste of time, and ain't nothing but the pretence that people care when they don't.

“Captain, Sir,” the kid walks into his room, saluting the Captain. “I have private Gallagher with me.”

The young woman follows, a blank stare on her face. She salutes toward the Captain, looking robotic and so indifferent he can tell already she had a great potential of pulling some stunt and getting detained. 

“Thanks, Private Holt, you may leave now," he answers in a heavy southern accent,  and voice low and rich like smoked Whiskey.

Holt leaves the room in a hurry, leaving Gallagher to stand quietly in front of the Captain. She has dressed in a plain white t-shirt and khaki field trousers while her eyes remain hidden beneath the tip of her hat. 

“Sit down, soldier." 

He commands, taking her file in his large dirt-stained hands.

She sits down quietly. Scanning the room with silence. It is yet another captain’s office, maps on the wall, guns and ammo. A "Slayer” labelled mug rests on in his desk with freshly brewed coffee, next to it is a deck of cards. No pinup girls posters apparent anywhere, not a perv unlike her former Captain, or at least he is hiding it in his bedroom.

He finally turns to look at her, manspreading on his chair with zero elegance or concern toward her. Why should she be treated any differently?

Captain Syverson is surprisingly a very attractive man. A big guy with broad shoulders and massive muscles. His cropped short hair does well to bring out his excellent bone structure while a few scars decorate his forehead and his upper left cheek. His strained face is covered with a thick, untamed beard which he strokes at his chin while thinking to himself. 

He takes one glance at her with his fierce blue glare, and then gives her his next command “Hat off, private.”

“Sir”. She replies with compliance, taking off her hat and placing it atop her folded uniform.   

One glance at her now exposed face, and he is forced to fight back a snort of laughter. He learned how to keep his emotions hooded in this job. She is petite, her arms may look strong yet quite skinny. And it’s quite a wonder that her skin is pale while serving in the middle of the fucking Iraqi desert. 

If this was anywhere else right now, he’d offer her a burger. This is the elite they’ve been speaking of? For fuck sake. Better be worth it. 

He is aware, of course, that she is pretty, they usually are. Chase and Annica for example. Sometimes he wonders if they send all the cheerleaders squad to his unit to fuck with him, since he can’t actually, fuck them.  

“That’s better”. He gives her a small smirk which quickly fades back into what seems like his usual grumpy face. 

“We’ll keep it short and honest, private,” he says, opening her file “You’ve been transferred here from your unit, they say you are a prodigy…”

“Take me out there, and I’ll shoot a rabbit between the eyes from 20 miles away.” she interrupts him, speaking coldly. 

“Did I give you permission to speak?” he asks her with slight anger. Never in his life, he had a young recruit dare to do so, especially not a woman.

She remains silent, knowing that’s actually the required response. For change, 

“Good. Your file shows amazing achievements” He throws her file in front of her with what seemed like an utter lack of actual interest “it also shows you have attitude problems.” His eyes meet hers as he says these words, his lips clasped to show some sort of severity. “Do you know what I want to know?”

Her blue eyes stare back into his with a dead gaze. 

He sighs, rolling his eyes “Permission to speak granted.”

“You want to ask if I’m going to cause any trouble.”

He nods, folding his arms together, his eyes travelling up and down her features for a mere second. 

“No, Captain.” She can’t promise him that even if a gun was pointed at her head, but she plays along. Everything in life is like her stupid video games anyway. Oh, she does miss those. 

“Good.” He gives her another hasty smile, the kind that doesn’t show any genuine care or affection and is just meant to move the conversation forward. “So you know why you’re here?”

“I’m very good with my sniper rifle, Captain." 

"It says you’re a fucking wonder”. He answers, not ashamed to curse in front of her, which she finds slightly refreshing. All the other men constantly apologize as if she doesn’t shoot people’s head-off for a living. As if women don’t see brutality as much as men do. Perhaps even more.

“Listen, I care about my men. Just live up to your name, be a good girl and you might just make daddy proud ”. He explains to her, not even regretting saying the finale part. It’s just how he talks and if she has a problem with that she might as well not be here. 

But she doesn’t even flinch. Instead, she replies with a small, nearly invisible smirk and nods. 

“Yes, Captain." 

The Captain’s eyes lit up with the charm of a child as he smiles widely for surviving yet another conversation with a new recruit and even though he has scruff all over his face she detects two large apparent dimples in his cheek.

Finally, he stretches from his chair and stands. She follows, noticing he is menacingly tall and seems to carry himself with sheer confidence and intimidation. 

"Come, I’ll show you your room." 

She follows him silently down the hall. He doesn’t bother with making any boring small talk which she is actually quite thankful for. It’s easier to not try to connect with people. The base is quite loud at the moment anyway, and she’d be unable to hear half of it.

"Men go here.” He points to one room by the end of the hall and then continues walking until they pause next to a closed room, “Ladies go here, you met the other girls?” he asks to which she shakes her head “Well you will. Girls get their own private shower in the room, in under no circumstances you are to use the collective shower room”

He pauses and turns to look down at her. Eyes growing sofer all of a sudden. “Anyone ever bothers you, says anything even slightly inappropriate, you come straight to me, you get it?” he asks her, managing to sound both severe yet still soft at the same time. 

“I’m just over there, by the end of the hall.” he looks to the other side, touching her shoulder without thinking, so she’ll face where he is pointing. His hand leaves her shoulder without any of them, giving it any attention. 

The Captain has his own little private kingdom at the end of the very house they turned into an army base, so it seems. She wonders if that’s where all the pinup posters are hidden at.

“Enjoy your stay, Gallagher”. He speaks, looking down at her face, wondering how long will it be before he has her in his office for some sketchy behaviour. 

“Thank you, Captain, I will.” she gives him another one of her forced smirks and turns away, walking into her new quarter. 

He takes one look at her as she turns from him, unable to resist his natural temptation to look at her ass. 

It’s small, tight, the way he likes it.

'Yes, she’s gonna be trouble.'

There are two girls in the room, sitting on their beds. A beautiful redhead with rather wide shoulders and strong arms. The other woman is somewhat petite as herself with tanned skin and beautiful dark eyes. They’re both looking quite curious to know her.

“The fuck is with your captain, walking around with severe big dick energy?!” she speaks out with sheer confidence.

The other girls look at her for a long moment, complete shock on their face by the content that came out of her mouth but then burst into laughter that can be heard all over the base. 

Clearly, she isn’t the only one who noticed.

[hybridequalist]

Thinking Out Loud (Part 4)

Okay, so I ended up lying. This is a few months late to the cross-post from AO3. (Link here) But in any case, here it is if you prefer to read on tumblr.

Previous Chapter (tumblr link)

Taglist: @nesli26, @manga-crazy, @venomemes, @galleyleelol, @makingtimemine, @jackie-sugarskull, @nightshade7117, @skysthelimit291, @randomshizzles101, @inumorph, @snow-massacre, @phantom-fangirl-stuff, @pixellated-sparks, @vsalamandor2, @otaku-mai, @snarky-badger​

You woke up slowly, feeling heavy from a deep, dreamless sleep. The apartment was eerily quiet aside from a faint scraping sound repeating over and over. Your psychic “hearing” took a minute to focus on the three minds in the other room, but once it did, you were overwhelmed by the internal conversation Eddie and Venom were having.

“I LIKE THIS FEMALE. WE SHOULD OFFER OUR PROTECTION TO HER. ”

“I don’t think that would go over well. Remember the last time we were tased? ”

“SHE DOESN’T HAVE TO KNOW. ”

“Consent is important buddy. Not to mention we don't wanna freak out the tenants either."

Lauren's thoughts were more structured--she was writing her words down and concentrating on that communication. However, that didn't stop her from sneaking glances at Eddie and sizing him up, trying to guess details about his life and personality. Currently she was sneaking glances at his biceps...for some reason you really didn’t want to dwell on too long.

"EDDIE, I HEAR HER," Venom whispered to his host. Like, actually whispered; his mental voice was somehow quieter than usual.

“She’s awake? That was faster than I thought. She seem ok? ”

“I THINK SHE’S LISTENING IN. MORSEL, IF YOU ARE, GO AHEAD AND KEEP RESTING. WE WILL OCCUPY THE COLORFUL FEMALE .”

The last two words were accompanied by a mental image of Lauren with an intense focus on her vibrant hair and current choice of large earrings. You also caught the tail end of a thought that was very distinctly non-human and carried traces of a predatory desire to grab the shiny, colorful things. Eddie’s thoughts quickly curbed it--a nonverbal suppression that Venom agreed with.

You slumped back into the mattress, turning your gaze inward as you stretched and assessed your body.

You were a little sore, especially in your chest. The hyperventilation from the panic attack really did a number on you it seemed. Your hands also felt a little stiff in the joints, but it didn’t hurt to move them.

Panic attacks didn’t always end up hurting after the fact, but it wasn’t wholly uncommon. Fatigue was usually the worst aftereffect, your body struggling to recover from your survival response to an imagined threat. It sometimes went away after a good sleep, but today was going to be one of those days where the heaviness settled into your bones and made even the smallest tasks far more tiring than they ought to be.

The once-over complete, you decided you were up for leaving the bed...but not the blanket, which dragged on the floor after you like a fluffy train. You gently pushed open the door and poked your head out, peering at the kitchen down the hall, catching sight of Eddie's leather jacket at the corner of the table.

A jolt of nerves coiled in your stomach and you pulled the blanket cloak around you a little tighter. With Eddie and Venom’s attention focused mostly on Lauren, their thoughts didn’t reflect what they thought of your panic attack. What if they thought you were pathetic? Or too fragile to be around? What if they had never seen a panic attack and thought you were somehow sick?

“EDDIE, SHE’S UP. SHE’S IN THE HALL. HER BREATHING WENT ALL FUNNY AGAIN. ”

Venom’s rumbling thoughts broke through the returning panic spiral. With effort, you stepped out from the hallway and into Lauren’s line of sight. Eddie caught your gaze, brow furrowed, but before you could properly react to him, your landlady took up your view.

Lauren looked you up and down, appraising your condition. While her face seemed only lightly concerned, her thoughts were at war: her motherly tendency to worry battled with her desire to give you space and the noverbal clash of feelings was giving you secondhand mental whiplash.

“Do you need something to eat? Or drink?” she signed. You replied with the sign for water and she bustled off to fill a glass.

“So, uh,” Eddie started, then paused, looking for the right words to finish his question. He finally went with: “How are you doin’ right now? Did your rest do you any good?”

You nodded and sat next to him at the table, reaching for the notepad he and Lauren had used before your arrival.

I’m achy, but otherwise fine now. Mostly.

“YOU WERE HIGHLY DISTRESSED. DID SOMETHING HAPPEN? CAN WE STOP IT FROM HAPPENING TO YOU AGAIN? ”

Venom’s concern felt...oddly directed. He didn’t fully understand what had happened and Eddie’s explanations hadn’t entirely cleared up his confusion. He was under the impression that someone had threatened you or you had some logical reason to freak out. He wanted to find the source of that stress and remove it, like pulling out a thorn.

Mindful that Lauren would probably read whatever you wrote down later, you set about composing your explanation.

It was a panic attack. Sometimes there’s a reason, but most of the time, I start thinking about something stressful and it gets so overwhelming my body reacts like I’m actually in danger.

Eddie and Venom conferred briefly about your explanation and suddenly the symbiote had a new question. You felt your gut twist as you felt the guilt his thoughts now carried.

“DID WE DO THAT TO YOU? DID WE FRIGHTEN YOU OR STRESS YOU? ”

Again, you were careful with your words.

It wasn’t anything you directly said or did. It was more about the prospect of being in a social situation at all. I don’t go out much, so I started overthinking the minor details. It spiraled really quickly from there.

Lauren put down a tall glass of ice water on the table in front of you. You signed your thanks, put down the pen and gulped the cool liquid, savoring the relief it brought your scratchy throat.

“How long was I asleep?” you asked Lauren.

“4 hours.”

“You’ve been talking to Eddie for 4 hours?!”

“He has to write really slow for me to read it. His normal handwriting is too messy. Plus, we took a lunch break.”

Lunch break?! You snatched the pen back up.

I’m so sorry I had to miss out on the lunch. You wanted to show me something and

Eddie’s hand intercepted yours, not grabbing it but rather gently holding you back from writing any more. It was only a moment of skin contact, but it made a jolt run through you and immediately snagged your attention.

“Don’t worry about it. Honestly, I’m just glad you’re ok and gonna be getting better. We can reschedule if you want. No problem.”

You instinctively glanced up, looking for his thoughts. You found nothing but sincerity from Eddie. Venom was....well, you weren’t actually sure what he was thinking. On a surface level, he agreed with his host, but underneath that there was some lingering frustration. The symbiote had apparently been really excited to show you something and this forced patience wasn’t entirely sitting well with him.

You carefully moved Eddie’s still-hovering hand and started on a new line.

What about the stuff you wanted to talk about? You wrote, uncertainty and guilt still gnawing at you.

“It can wait. Seriously. My buddy wasn’t even really ready to show off his new trick; he gets excited easy.”

“I SPENT ALL NIGHT PRACTICING! I AM TOTALLY READY! APOLOGIZE! ”

“You’re ready, Vee, but it’s my hands you need if you want to show her in public. And it’s a little soon to invite her to the apartment. ”

“SHE’S ALREADY BEEN TO THERE. I DON’T SEE WHAT THE HOLD UP IS .”

“Those...were extenuating circumstances. And besides, it was more you than me that brought her there. In any case, she’s still getting to know us and I want her to get used to us in public before we do any of your other ideas. ”

It was amazing how quickly they could turn the conversation internal and how much it resembled a verbal discussion rather than truly sharing thoughts. Was it because they knew you were listening? Or was it just their natural state when switching from direct talking to others to each other?

Eddie caught sight of you looking and gave an awkward smile.

“Sorry to keep secrets, but--”

He was interrupted by a ringtone blaring from his jacket. He sighed heavily and snatched his phone.

“It’s my boss. I got an interview in an hour. Sorry to say that I gotta run. I’ll text you later, so go ahead and take it easy for a bit. I’ll leave you to your landlady’s care.”

He waved to Lauren as he answered his phone, turning on his heel to leave. Venom mentally grumbled but gave a nonverbal farewell directed at you. You stared after them long after the door closed, uncertain what to think.

Lauren sat next to you and started signing.

“Well, now I know why you called him a hot mess. Emphasis on the hot.”

You hated how fast your cheeks flushed.

[scullydubois]

Only the Light Ch. 4

Description: Missy and Scully’s girls night gets interrupted by an uninvited guest.

Read on Ao3 here. Tagging @today-in-fic​.

A long--and fun!--part. Hope you enjoy!

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

The elevator doors part, releasing Scully into the tranquility of her hallway. She steps out, glad to be away from the bustling FBI building and the noisy street and the elevator so squeaky that she’s pretty sure she’ll find herself trapped in it one of these days. That’s a problem for another time. For now, all Scully wants is to take off her shoes, pantyhose, and bra. The simple pleasures.

She sticks her key in the doorknob and turns. The deadbolt clicks. She’s locked it. She sighs. Missy left the door unlocked again. She twists the key the other way and it opens. She enters and drops the key, her purse, and her badge on the side table.

“It’s me!” Her voice echoes through the place.

“I’m in here,” Missy responds from the kitchen.

Scully enters the kitchen. Her sister’s still in the hostess uniform for the restaurant job she just got. She flips mindlessly through an issue of Better Homes and Garden.

“You left the door unlocked again.”

Missy flips a page of the magazine so hard she almost tears it. “Oops.” 

Scully sighs and sits down at the table. Her sister has always been the dramatic type.

“How was training?” she offers.

Missy sets down the magazine as if she’s thankful to have an out.

“Pretty standard for an upscale eatery that calls itself casual but charges twenty dollars for a bowl of soup. Turns out, the East Coast isn’t actually that different from the West Coast.”

“Wow. Who’ve thought?”

Missy chuckles. “I know, right?”

“Speaking of the West Coast…”

Melissa groans. Her sister’s been trying to get information about her whereabouts ever since she moved in. She’s under the impression that everyone’s life is as interesting as working for the FBI, and while Melissa tries to make hers so, there’s just not much to report. Except for the one thing she’s specifically avoiding. She will tell Dana at some point, she has to, but for now she doesn’t want to add to the cacophony of things her sister has to worry about. Besides, it’s not anything bad. If anything, Melissa is looking forward to telling her. It’s their mother she’s worried about.

“I told you, it’s nothing juicy. I was out there doing odd jobs. Waitressing, mostly. There was a stint as a gas station attendant.”

Scully laughs. “A gas station attendant?”

“In Oregon you’re not allowed to pump your own gas.”

Scully raises her eyebrows. “Seems like it wouldn’t be a very safe job for a young woman late at night.”

Missy shrugs, then, with the dedication of an Oscar-winning actress, says, “It was a male dominated profession, but I made do.”

Scully smiles. She knows the feeling. She steps out of her heels and carries them into her bedroom. She shimmies off her pantyhose, then sits on the edge of the bed and presses her thumbs deep into the arches of her feet. Heaven. After a moment of bliss, she takes a pair of pink fuzzy socks from her drawer and slips them on.

She returns to the kitchen--“Have you had dinner?” 

“Just a bowl of salad,” Missy replies. 

“Am I to assume by your pitiful tone that you’re up for something else?”

“If you order something and tell me I can have it, who am I to say no?”

Scully chuckles. “How courteous.”  She pulls out a drawer full of take-out menus in various conditions. Some of them Scully has had since her Academy days. 

“The ones on the top are Mexican, the middle is Chinese and Japanese, after that is Italian, and the bottom ones are Indian.” 

Few things that Dana has said have surprised Melissa as little as this organizational structure. What she doesn’t expect is the sheer volume of her sister’s collection. Her eyes widen as she approaches the drawer. There’s literally hundreds of menus stacked in there. 

“Um, may I ask for the chef’s recommendations?”

Scully pulls a couple menus out like it’s nothing.

“Well, if you’re in the mood for curry, this one is great,” she slides a colorful menu toward Missy. “But this is the best Chinese takeout in the city.” She sets down a menu with the Chinese symbols for good fortune on it (yes, Missy knows some Chinese). Missy figures they could both use some good fortune, so she picks up that one.

“Do they have hot & sour soup?”

“I’m sure. I always have the fried rice and orange chicken.”

“Oh, that sounds good too. Can we do a bowl of hot & sour soup and two portions of rice with orange chicken?”

Scully picks up the phone. “Of course.” She dials the number from the menu. As it’s ringing, Missy whispers, “And fortune cookies?”

“They always give you some. They’re not very goo-” The restaurant picks up. A fast-talking voice buzzes in Scully’s ear. 

Melissa laughs at this slip. As her sister’s about to recite the order, she adds, “I don’t care, I just want to read them.”

Scully tells the woman the order, confirms that it’ll come with fortune cookies, and gives them her address and unit number. She thanks the woman, hangs up the phone.

“It’ll be 25 minutes,” she tells Missy.

“Perfect.” Scully can tell from the sound of her voice that she’s up to no good. 

“Perfect for whatever villainous plot you’re about to drag me into, you mean?”

“Perfect for us to get ready for the girl’s night we’re about to have,” she replies matter-of-factly. 

Scully opens her mouth to protest, but Missy beats her to it. “I know, I know. It’s Thursday, you have work tomorrow, you’re tired...but it doesn’t have to be anything grand. Just a little self-care and relaxation, okay?”

Scully frowns in her funny, ‘I’m not actually upset, I just can’t think of a good comeback’ way. 

“And besides,” Missy continues, “you don’t wanna be a party pooper, do you?”

Scully frowns for real this time. This unearths some childhood insecurities she had forgotten she had. It conjures up the image of teenaged Missy with a pack of cigarettes--their mother’s--begging her to sneak out the window and smoke them together, that it would be fun. How she said no until she couldn’t bear her sister’s juvenile belittling anymore. It figures that she has to be guilted into having fun. She bets that her parents would never have imagined that their little girl smoked a cigarette younger than their free-spirited daughter ever did.

“Come onnnnn,” Missy drawls. “We can get in our pajamas and slippers, and I have some avocado face masks we can do. Plus, I brought my box set of Golden Girls.”

Scully can’t help but smile at that. On nights before big exams in medical school, she would put Blanche, Dorothy, Sophia, and Rose on in the background to keep her company as she studied. She called it her golden good luck charm because she passed every test she did this with. 

“Fine.”

Fine. The Dana stamp of approval! Missy leaps into action. “Go get dressed, and I’ll grab the face masks.”

Scully does as she’s told (per usual). She chooses her silkiest pajama set because this feels like an occasion to go all out. A few minutes later, she’s sitting on the couch letting Missy spread the avocado paste across her face. 

“Is this just mashed up avocado?” she asks. “Could we eat this?”

“I think there’s honey in it too.” Missy scraps a dot off where it spilled over to Scully’s headband and licks it. “Not bad...Are you that hungry?”

Scully chuckles. “No, I was just wondering.”

“Well, if it does to your insides what it does to your face, then watch out.”

“Yeah, I think I’ll pass on that,” Scully remarks.

“Good choice.” Missy finishes Scully’s face and turns so that Scully can do hers. Scully dips a finger into the green paste. It’s cold and sticky, not exactly a desirable combination.

“Do you do this a lot?” she asks Missy.

“Usually once a week, if I think of it.”

Scully wouldn’t have the time to think of it, let alone do it. “That’s nice,” she says wistfully, realizing there’s not much farther she can take the subject.

“I brew some tea, light some incense, and boom. My own personal nirvana.”

“Mmm.” Scully’s feeling increasingly isolated by this conversation. Missy reads her mind in the typical way.

“You don’t take much time for yourself.” It’s a statement, not a question.

 “I just don’t have much time in general,” Scully replies on the defensive.

“And you certainly don’t allot what you do have to yourself.”

Scully lifts her finger off Missy’s face, dips it back into the paste. “I take care of myself,” she says.

“But you don’t spoil yourself.”

“Who am I to be spoiled?” And there is the fundamental ideological difference between Missy and her sister. Missy, who wants life to be overflowing with joy, bereft of nothing. Dana, who believes that nothingness gives her strength, and strength gives her character.

The delivery man's knock on the door eclipses any response Melissa was planning to make. Probably for the best. This is the rift the sisters cannot manage to pave over.

Missy grabs the food and pays the man. She knows her sister would be embarrassed to be seen with the mask on, and she’ll do anything to make Dana’s life that much easier. 

They dig in, eating straight from the cartons. Missy insists on using chopsticks, which works great for the chicken but not so hot on the rice. She doesn’t bother trying them with the soup. Scully doesn’t have the patience for any of it, so she sticks to the plastic fork that came with it all.

Between bites of chicken, Scully reaches for a fortune cookie. Missy swipes it out of her hand, sending it catapulting toward the floor. 

“What was that for?” Scully exclaims.

“Haven’t you ever heard that it’s bad luck to read your fortune before you finish the meal?”

“No?”

“Well, that explains a lot then.”

Scully smirks, sets the cookie back on the table with the others. “I think you just wanted that one.”

Missy feigns innocence, then shrugs. “I have a good feeling about it.”

-----------

A few minutes later, the girls have settled on the couch, empty cartons of take-out strewn on the table in front of them. The four fortune cookies they received are all wrapped up. They’re too full to bother with them just yet. They chirp bits of commentary about the Golden Girls episode they’re watching back and forth between each other.

“I see some Blanche in you,” Scully comments, “but mostly I think you’re Rose.”

“She’s my favorite, so I will gladly accept that,” Missy replies.

The episode’s laugh track nearly conceals a slight rap on the door. 

Scully looks toward the door. “Did you hear something?” 

Missy clicks the volume down on the remote. “Maybe. I’ll check.”

She heads for the door,  peeks through the peephole, then unfastens the chain and lets the door swing on its hinges.

“It’s Mulder!” she exclaims after Mulder has already stepped through the doorway.

It is, in fact, Mulder. Still in his work clothes and holding a manila folder. His eyes widen in surprise.

“Oh. Melissa.”

She smiles slyly. Evidently, he did not expect her nor her face mask.

“Hello, Fox.”

Scully pulls her feet up onto the couch and crosses her arms protectively over her chest, hoping that somehow, maybe, he won’t notice her here in her own apartment. Her first thought is that she’s not wearing a bra. She realizes that this is an unproductive thought to have because it’s not like she’s naked or anything, she’s wearing a pajama top, and he’s seen her in a pajama top before. Hell, he saw her in her underwear on their first case! Not to mention that he’d seen her on her deathbed, and is there anything more naked than that? Still, she hadn’t expected him, and she feels caught off-guard by his sudden appearance. 

For what it’s worth, Mulder is caught off guard by her too. She looks...soft. Relaxed. He very rarely gets to see her in casual circumstances. Even in the assortment of motel rooms he’d sat with her in, she was always keyed up, her mind trying to piece together the puzzle of whatever case they were on. This was new territory. 

“Hi, Scully,” he croaks. 

“Hello,” she replies sheepishly. 

Mulder can’t take his eyes off her. He’s endeared by the green face mask and all of its components. The headband pulling tendrils of her hair tenderly away from her face, the stray locks that have slipped out and stuck to the paste, the extra youthful look it gives her...he never realized how much he missed out on. How much she keeps from him. Suddenly, he’s certain: the woman sitting on the couch isn't Scully. It’s Dana, and there's nothing he wants more than to get to know her better. 

Remembering what he’s there for, he holds the folder out to her. 

“Uh, I just came to give you these toxicology results. I thought you might want to review them before tomorrow.”

She takes the folder while keeping one arm stationed in front of her chest.

“Thank you. I will.”

She plops the folder with the mess on the coffee table and returns both arms to her chest.

Feeling like the intruder that--in Scully’s mind--he is, Mulder glances at the TV.

“Golden Girls. That’s serious business, I’ll get out of your hair.”

Melissa mutes the TV. “Actually, we were just discussing what Golden Girl we think we are. We agreed that I’m Rose, but we’re still trying to figure out Dana.”

This is a challenge Mulder is more than happy to accept. 

“Dana…” He looks at her with a lop-sided smile, letting the word roll off his tongue in a teasing way.

Scully blushes. Oh how she wishes her body would not so easily give her away. Figuring there’s nothing to lose, she takes this opportunity to catalogue the colors in his eyes. She has an ongoing debate with herself about what color they actually are. She’s seen green, brown, and blue with such certainty that she’s pretty sure he has the ability to change them like a mood ring. She’s not sure she would want to know what each color means. 

She decides that they’re looking quite green tonight (is that good?) and breaks eye contact with him out of necessity. Call it self-preservation.

This silent exchange pleases Melissa, maybe even more than it does Mulder. She loves being right as much as her sister does. 

“I was thinking she’s a Dorothy,” Melissa pipes up. “What do you think, Fox?”

He flinches. Melissa scoffs. “Sorry--Mulder. What is it with FBI agents and insisting on being called their last name? That’s got to be some sort of psychological phenomenon.” Then, because she can’t resist--“You should open a x-file on that.”

Scully chuckles. Mulder just purses his lips.

“Ha ha. Very funny.”

“I know,” Melissa claps back in jest. “That’s why I said it.”

Scully looks toward the window. She could have sworn she saw a flash of lightning outside, but no thunder follows it. When she looks back, Mulder’s eyes are trained on her once again. Yep, still green. He pushes some of the cartons aside and perches on the table in front of her and Missy. If Scully put her legs down, their knees would touch. 

“Dorothy is the obvious choice,” he says. “But that’s too easy. Scully’s not easy.”

Scully flicks her gaze toward Missy, who bites her lip to keep the sarcastic comment in her mind from slipping out. 

“So what is she then?” Melissa challenges.

Scully’s eyes meet Mulder’s. She’s not sure what he’ll say, and she’s not too worried about it. What matters is that she’s looking at him, he’s looking at her, and her skin feels like it’s been warmed by the sun. This is not a normal reaction to another human being looking at you, she knows. She made a pact with herself early on not to think too hard about it. It’s moments like this that make her question the point of that.

She feels sated...she so rarely feels that way. Realizing that there is nothing worth keeping from him, not right now, Scully lowers her hands into her lap.

Feeling like he’s done something right, Mulder smiles. He answers Missy’s question without taking his eyes off his partner. Scully’s burning up.

“Well, she’s smart but not pretentious, curious but not unconventional, reliable but not naive, honest but not a curmudgeon, and diligent but not intense...so I don’t know.”

He looks to Melissa. 

“Are any of the Golden Girls as interesting as that?”

Scully’s breath catches. This is quite possibly the most romantic moment of her whole life...What does that say about her? She lowers her feet so that her silk pajama bottoms nuzzle his coarse slacks. Call it a gesture of goodwill. Meanwhile, Mulder wonders if Scully notices that their kneecaps are touching.

Missy smiles. She’s engineered a moment, and what a wonderful one. 

“I suppose not,” she replies lightly. “Dana’s one of a kind.”

“That’s for sure.” Mulder clasps Scully’s hand, and for a second, she thinks he’s going to kiss it. His fingers slip away and grab a fortune cookie off the table instead.

He rips the plastic off it, then snaps it in half. He sets a half in Scully’s open palm as if on instinct. She didn’t even realize she had turned her hand up. Her fingers close over the cookie. She couldn’t possibly eat it now that he’d touched it. Or was that all the more reason to eat it?

Mulder pulls the paper from his half, pops the cookie in his mouth, and crunches as he reads the fortune. “Depart not from the path which fate has you assigned...huh.” He crumbles up the plastic and sticks it in his pocket. “Never seen that one before.”

“Me neither,” Scully remarks dreamily. Melissa looks on, feeling like she’s watching a movie play out in front of her.

Mulder rubs his hands against his pant legs to extend the moment, then stands up, bumping Scully as he does.

“Sorry,” he says, resting a hand on her shoulder. She shakes her head to indicate it’s nothing. “You’re fine.”

As she looks up at him, Mulder finds himself struck with the desire to swim in those blue eyes of hers. He knows that his feeling for Scully--whatever it is--is different from the girls on his magazines and tapes. His thoughts about Scully are somehow both innocent and ridiculously gratifying. His thoughts about the other girls are neither.

“Well, I’ll get going,” he says, stepping around Scully and Melissa’s feet. He turns back to meet Scully’s glance one last time--

“See you tomorrow morning.” He winks.

Scully is so charmed by this all she can muster up is, “Uh-huh.”

Missy bursts into laughter as soon as Mulder closes the door. Scully lets her. She looks down at her palm and realizes that she has put so much pressure on the fortune cookie that it crumbled. She won’t read into this either.

[cherubchoirs]

Cake’s Bad End Au Part III: The Holy Grail

Here it is, the posts that will finally outline the events of my Bad End AU! I’m not a writer in any sense, but with so many people enjoying the content I create for this AU and several people asking about it, I wanted to write up a synopsis of the events that take place and, more simply, what this AU even is. This is my idea of what happens when Akira takes Yaldabaoth’s deal on Christmas Eve and all of its implications, so I hope everyone enjoys it and that it puts the pieces for my AU in context. There will be three parts: Akira, The Thieves, and The Holy Grail. This is Part III: The Holy Grail, which details how Akira is saved and how the Thieves ultimately conquer Yaldabaoth. (7,325 words)

(TRIGGER WARNINGS: Mentions of abuse and some descriptions of illness/pain)

When the Thieves meet again, there’s a strained sadness, close to hopelessness as they look at each other in turn and wonder if anyone has any ideas...the longer the silence hangs over them, the closer they come to saying out loud only things Goro has had the courage to say until now but, surprisingly, Ryuji speaks up. He prefaces what he’s about to say with acknowledging how stupid it’s probably going to sound and that he never really understood too much how the Metaverse worked but...with the scar on Akira’s chest, with the way it bled to summon that god, is it possible Akira’s heart was stolen and...if they get it back...maybe…? He trails off with the idea as no one speaks up, thinking it must have been SO stupid the other Thieves don’t even want to recognize it, but Ann says hesitantly that she thought of something similar. Ryuji nods excitedly to her and looks over to Makoto, their stand-in leader, and he’s hopeful by the look of concentration on her face as she considers what Ryuji says. They wait on her silence before she asks Goro about Akira’s heartbeat, how he didn’t feel a pulse, and Goro completes her thought by saying, as a being of the Metaverse, Akira’s heart being stolen has translated into something literal in a sense. His heart is actually gone...but it’s not in the way the Thieves’ had stolen them before, correct? After all, Akira is a pure being that Yaldabaoth is attempting to “perfect”, Makoto positing that perhaps his shadow was destroyed similar to a mental shutdown but Goro suspects it could be that he is severed from his shadow...and if that is the case, his shadow exists in some capacity somewhere as it seems not all of his memories are entirely lost. A rescue mission in a sense seems more feasible after seeing the god that controls him and if they were to find his shadow – or his persona – lost in the sea of souls, there must be a way of reconnecting the two in order for Akira to regain his heart.

All of this is conjecture, they understand that, but Futaba immediately begins to think on how she and her Persona might be able to find Akira’s heart...surely it must remain somewhere in Mementos and if she begins attempting to track for Arsène’s signature, maybe...maybe they could find him. And while he may have forgotten himself being stolen from Akira, perhaps, if Goro really does have similar capabilities, he could negotiate with him in the same way Akira used to in order for Arsène to remember himself. It’s a longshot and they all know it, but what in their work as Thieves hasn’t been? It will require them to face down a hostile Metaverse, perhaps even moreso now, time and time again before they may even get a hint of Arsène, but they all agree to the plan...including Goro, who mostly holds out hope that in finding Arsène, they’ll learn exactly what happened to Akira.

So with a plan in place, they push forward into Mementos once more and day after day they will spend hours roaming its halls, Futaba helping to cloak them along with smokescreens they’ve created using Akira’s old notes, but still they seem endlessly hunted with the Reaper in particular tailing them far more often than it used to. It’s grueling work, however, the team’s morale whittling little by little every day after an excursion that leaves them bone-tired but no closer to finding their answer...and what if they’re wrong? What if the god has totally destroyed Akira’s shadow and has modified him after causing a mental shutdown in him? It must be possible for an entity like that to accomplish as much...but even still, they persist because, after all, this is their best option – they can’t leave Akira as he is, and it’s either fight to the death or bet on Arsène still existing somewhere in the vast reaches of Mementos. It’s exhausting, it’s thankless, and the public continue to shift more and more due to the amounts of hearts Akira reaps, but it also reminds them every day that this cannot stand, that Akira would never have wanted this...even if he was the one that created it.

It makes all their pain well worth it when Futaba’s search finally pings late into the night in another trip to Mementos – a signature like Akira’s, like Arsène’s, wandering deep in the Depths where they know they can’t stay for long without fear of being devoured. It’s a mad dash toward that signal before they lose it, Futaba keeping a good track of it even as it moves erratically through the floor, and finally, finally, all of their patience and hard work can pay off. Arsène obviously isn’t whole, his mask cracked with broken horns and torn wings, making it clear how forcefully he was ripped from Akira in order to sever his will of rebellion and brainwash him for that god. He initially behaves similarly to the other shadows that wander the Metaverse, although his attacks are far more frenzied and disjointed, but, knowing all his weaknesses, the Thieves can easily surround him to attempt a negotiation...and it’s one that proves interesting, even difficult, given Akira’s propensity to wear masks. They must answer in a way Akira would like, the true Akira and not the one molding himself to whatever the other person might want to hear, so it takes the effort of each and every one of them coming together to answer the questions Arsène poses to them. Goro takes the helm on speaking with him, however, distinctly aware of how similar he and Akira could be if the disguise was peeled away from them both, and with that knowledge coupled with consultation between all of the Thieves, they come to reason with Arsène and in doing so, he remembers himself, he remembers Akira.

He takes up residence in Goro’s heart after thanking the Thieves for finding him, admitting that he too initially sought them out but, given his weakened state and his separation from Akira, he forgot himself. They learn from him all that happened to lead Akira here, how the false god had led him through this past year, how they had forged a powerful bond just as Akira had with all of the others here, how that trust was betrayed...how all of them disappeared and Akira was left to decide the fate of the world while held hostage under threat of death, under the coercion of his teammates being revived, under the impression of a cold and callous public that cared not for him nor any of Thieves that had been lost. In that state, he made the wrong choice – he gave in to his own desires and the god ripped Arsène from him, tore out any connection they had to each other in a bid to destroy Akira’s rebellious spirit and make room for him to take up residence where Akira’s heart had once been. Arsène was not gotten rid of himself as Akira was still human at the time and doing so would have killed him, with the false god a bumbling fool himself that has no knowledge of how the human soul works and so could never safely perform the operation himself. So Arsène was cast off into the depths instead, where Yaldabaoth knew he would ultimately forget himself and, in time, possibly expire due to his lack of a human host at that point. In other words, Yaldabaoth is arrogant, narrow-sighted, and stupid, hardly a god but instead just a being given immense power that had twisted Akira’s cognition...for all those months, in fact. Akira, locked in the Depths of Mementos under the guise of the Velvet Room, the two fused in such a way that Akira was, without knowledge, exposed to Yaldabaoth’s distortion each time he stepped foot into that cell – with no image of rebellion to protect him, he was slowly poisoned with Yaldabaoth’s influence, insidiously, to the point that it may have helped tip the scale in Akira’s decision. Now knowing the truth and knowing what their leader had suffered to bring him to this state, all that’s left was to see if the Thieves could return Arsène to him...or if it really would come down to their deaths.

Now would come the full exploration of Akira’s cathedral – the Thieves wait until there is another lull in hearts being stolen, knowing it means Akira must have returned home in order to rest. It could be their final mission, all of them knowing one of three things will happen today: They die, Akira dies, or Akira comes back to them, and while they have no idea which one it will be, they have steeled themselves for any and all possibilities. Back into Mementos, back into the cathedral, now fighting through zealous shadows that attack them for daring to step foot on holy ground again, but when they find Akira isn’t resting on his throne, they know this has become a full on infiltration. They treat it like always, sneaking over the rafters, hiding in shadowy corners, working deeper and deeper into the labyrinthine structure to find where he must rest in order to avoid the shadows that crowd his nave. Out of the public areas, they find the cathedral full of angels that serve Akira and are single-minded in his protection, particularly against the Thieves that have angered their god so. But their resolve is hardened, no longer fearful as they fight through blood and tears to carve a path to Akira’s private quarters where his personal servants launch one last stand against them. They are hellbent on destroying these invaders but it comes nowhere near the absolute rage felt by every single Thief, tearing them apart to finally find Akira once more, already awake and waiting for them. He’s exhausted now, the smile gone from his face that looks sicker than it ever has, wasting and no longer in the mood to humor them. He draws his scythe without words this time and they know it’s now or never, they would have to fight, wear down whatever resolve he still has left, and return Arsène to him just as Yaldabaoth’s control breaks but before he comes to his child’s aid.

The timing needs to be perfect, Goro having to gauge that opening as he stays in close with the others keeping him protected against any of Akira’s blows. The fight is a desperate one, Akira clearly burning himself out by fighting so soon after his punishment for defying Yaldabaoth in saving the Thieves the last they met, but it’s exactly as they had hoped even if it pains them to think what he must have gone through for it. It allows them to reach his breaking point sooner, to rip off that yoke of control where they can hear him, hear their Akira in his voice, and in that second, without a beat between them, Goro breaks through the ranks of the Thieves to summon Arsène. He rushes into Akira, the other boy dropping his weapon as Goro’s hand slams into his chest and all the Thieves huddle in around them, no clue how they could help but lending all their strength and all their pleas to Akira to accept Arsène, to remember himself if only for one second to open his heart again...and Goro feels Arsène leave him, the heaviness of his presence lighting off of his heart. The mark on Akira chest tears again, bleeds once more, but only a moment later it fades...not gone, but now a scar instead of an open wound as Arsène manifests before him once more, asking him to take back his future. The pain it causes Akira is immense, Yaldabaoth roaring in his head and attempting to drown Arsène out, drive him out of his heart once more where only one of them can stay. Akira screams and shudders, collapsing under the weight of a splitting headache...but it feels familiar, like he has been called to this before. He feels like he teeters on the edge of death but Arsène’s voice is familiar...all of their voices are familiar in that instant...he can’t put the memories together, they’re too fractured, but Arsène’s voice drives over Yaldabaoth’s reminding him that he did all of this for them, will he abandon them now and let them die?

Never. Akira will always save them, no matter the cost.

Led only by his emotions, he takes Arsène’s contract to expel Yaldabaoth from his heart in an effort that sees him fold in on himself entirely where Goro catches him, the cathedral beginning to crack and collapse around them like the Palace of a fallen ruler. They move quickly, rushing from the quickly disintegrating building and the palpable anger of a god that’s had his most devout servant stolen from him by Thieves. This is the point at which the Bad End AU splits into its good or bad ending (NO I haven’t decided on what is the “true” ending skdfd) – Akira either dies shortly after these events or he continues to live on in order to assist them in felling Yaldabaoth. If Akira dies, he does so just as they reach the end of Mementos – he tells them he doesn’t have the strength to go on in reality and even now, his body is only sustained by feeding off of Mementos, off of what Yaldabaoth continues to give him. As a last bid to help them, through pained and breathless apologies as a fever grips him and his vision begins to fade out, he uses what’s left of his strength to reopen the Velvet Room and return Morgana to the Thieves, as well as have Lavenza and Igor’s aid as Goro must work in his stead now. He apologizes for this, especially to Goro, thinking...they must have made a promise like this before, right? Goro is stained with his blood by now, coated in the smell of fresh roses as the Velvet Room door opens once more and Morgana rushes out, desperate to help, to guide, to give them hope...but he knows he’s too late seeing Akira’s limp and fading form held fast in Goro’s arms. Lavenza comes behind him, passing by Goro’s shuddering frame as he squeezes Akira, holding him tighter and tighter like that will keep him there with them, and she sits beside him. Akira apologizes to her too, in a voice so quiet only she and Goro can hear, and she forgives him, telling him she always knew he would make the right choice in the end while Morgana comes to join her. He gets in close to Akira, telling him how proud he is and how he doesn’t need to worry anymore – Morgana will lead them all to victory and he can just get some sleep...he’s tired, right? Akira nods, smiling again as Morgana presses in against him and the last things he can feel are Morgana’s comforting warmth and the safety of Goro’s arms before he leaves Yaldabaoth in capable hands.

Should Akira live, however, they reach the edge of Mementos just the same and Akira unlocks the Velvet Room as well, but he instead informs them he can’t possibly exist in reality. He asks them to just leave him to his fate for rebelling against Yaldabaoth, but Morgana and Lavenza arrive to offer him shelter in the Velvet Room which, now free of the god’s control thanks to Akira, he should be safe in as Yaldabaoth will find it impossible to reach. The Thieves know it’s their only choice, very aware that they’ll die if they stick around to think about it too much longer, and so they leave Akira in the hands of the Velvet Room before exiting the Metaverse at Lavenza’s insistence that they go home for a rest – Morgana will contact them the following day to coordinate their efforts. Akira escapes to the Velvet Room, finding himself exhausted and confused to the point that he immediately collapses and spends the next full day asleep. Morgana sticks close to him, only leaving when Akira wakes once more and he needs to go into reality to fetch the other Thieves for a full meeting after all this time.

When they arrive, all of them are ready to rush to Akira, to welcome him back and have a mini celebration for his return...but he’s not healed the way they all expect. He looks no different and he informs all of them he has no memory of them, not even a sliver beyond splintered pieces that flash without his consent that he cannot piece together, and he is not at all human. But Arsène, all of his memories were whole...Akira just shakes his head, suspecting Arsène sacrificed quite a bit in order to fight with Yaldabaoth for his rightful place, so while Akira can feel again, while his rebellious will has returned and he feels an unspeakable amount of betrayal toward his father, the specific memories of his human life are gone. He informs the Thieves that he trusts them implicitly and he will fight for them and their ideals, so they can figure out the rest once Yaldabaoth is...gone, but his voice is full of obvious reluctance and immediately Goro states he’s too much of a liability to go into battle with against his “father”. The Thieves object instantly, saying it’s Akira’s right to stand up against him just like all of them have done in the past and that they believe in his trust of them, that he initially did all of this for them. Akira nods, however, noting that Goro’s point is one based on logic and could be correct – While Akira has regained some of his heart, it is broken in a sense and he doesn’t wish to hold the group back from what they must do. The risk of him bowing to Yaldabaoth’s control isn’t minimal either, so he would ask to act as support and perhaps provide an expert source of navigation for their return to Mementos, given that he understands it as it is really just a part of himself. No one had expected Akira to jump back in as leader, exactly...but to hear him say he would act in a support capacity without fighting to go up against the one who wronged him so terribly is unnerving to the Thieves. It’s just...not how Akira would act. They try prompting him further but his response stays the same – Goro is being logical, he shouldn’t be on the frontlines. Morgana takes over for him at that point, saying it most likely is for the best to let Akira act as he thinks he should with a threat like this looming over all of them. Still, despite the Thieves being put off by an Akira that seems more like a shell than the friend they knew...they have Morgana back and Akira is there to help them at the very least, and they need to take victories where they can. Goro isn’t so easily sated, but he knows he needs to swallow his emotions for the time being too.

Truthfully, Akira knows it may not even be the best logical answer to allow him to go along with them at all as he feels Mementos churning and twisting, having already taken a small private trip before the Thieves had been gathered to see the agitation in the shadows there (just to the first floor, just out of the curiosity that has always plagued him), yet they still don’t move to attack him. He’s slightly puzzled by the development, but he knows it’s something to do with the public’s cognition along with...his father’s, but he has been cut off from Yaldabaoth’s thoughts, and so he doesn’t pursue the question any further for it is not his place to guess at the divine. Akira still believes in the divinity of Yaldabaoth, that he is indeed a god that was born of people’s will, and it’s difficult to accept the fact that he’ll soon be standing by the Thieves’ side in opposition even if he now does believe his father is wrong. Even still thinking of him as a parent, as the one that provided for and protected him...knowing that going to him now with his convictions set to aid the Thieves meaning that either they or his father will have to die. But he can’t let humanity suffer under his cruel and callous rule, he can’t let him drain humans of their independence and their right to grow and change, because Akira knows it’s not out of care for them but instead hatred for their failings. Even in his faltering resolve, he knows what is right and what is wrong...and Yaldabaoth, his father or not, is wrong.

And, though he senses love and devotion from the Thieves, he senses their discomfort with him as well, their fear of him and the way they emotionally recoil when he speaks (he doesn’t have human speech patterns down, so his intonation is still odd and flat). Goro is particularly repulsed by him, lashing out at him and criticizing him while the other Thieves quickly rush to his defense despite the obvious misgivings of their own...but he feels a depth and breadth of emotion in Goro focused solely on him that is nearly alarming to a being like Akira. And for his part, he feels love and devotion to all the Thieves, but it simply lacks context, the memories that would provide him understanding and the human capability to experience emotion to provide him clarity...and similarly, his feelings for Goro are profound and complex, ones he can barely understand and parse let alone come to label in neat categories. All of this mixed emotion dictates to Akira that he must remain strictly as a functional unit of the group, providing them aid and navigation when needed without adding anything unnecessary that may cause strife and therefor miscalculation. The Thieves themselves feel deeply guilty for their own anxiety around Akira, but...he truly isn’t their leader, he isn’t their friend, yet they understand how much of an effort he’s making now to support them. There will be time to heal after all of this and that thought keeps them going as Morgana helps bridge the gap between them, helps ease all the tension they feel in order to work with Akira the way they need to. Only Goro seems resistant to it, but they do know why he, out of all of them, would struggle the most with what’s become of Akira.

They don’t really have the luxury of waiting and getting used to each other, however, Yaldabaoth moving forward with what he had decided on Christmas Eve now that he’s lost Akira. Akira knows his plan, that he will force the real world to fuse with the Metaverse now that the bridge between himself and reality is gone – humanity was judged to be sinful and only granted a reprieve because Akira worked so tirelessly to instill Yaldabaoth’s ideals into the public. So with only some rest, the group can wait no longer as reality bends around them to resemble the Depths of Mementos and, with the Thieves receiving some guidance from the Velvet Room, they move forward to save humanity one last time. Akira does well to mind himself, assisting in tactical orders or, if he finds his mind buckling, keeping himself silent to focus on blocking out Yaldabaoth’s ideals, his insistence, his voice ringing in his ears still. He can manage with the help of Arsène and Futaba by his side but the further they go, the closer they get to his temple, the more silent he becomes and the seed of doubt planted in the Thieves grows little by little...but still, they push forward, they know Akira can overcome this. However, they know all too well that the real test starts when they reach the shrine of the Holy Grail, when they once again face the god that had held him captive and stolen his human life, the very will from his heart. Goro strongly suggests Akira leave them before they do so, but in his first show of true emotion, true conviction, he rejects the idea immediately, saying he will never be free if he doesn’t enter that temple with them...if he doesn’t find closure with his father. He can’t falter now, he can’t afford weakness, or he will surely wither when this world disappears with Yaldabaoth – and he will not betray them. The Thieves all agree after some contemplation and Morgana’s blessing, Goro the last to accept Akira’s presence but there’s something different in his eyes when he watches the other boy now before they enter the shrine.

Their final confrontation arrives, the Grail shining brilliantly in the center of the shrine surrounded by his devout followers and Akira is immediately inundated with thoughts that are not his own, Yaldabaoth’s voice booming against his skull in reprimands, in disgust, in hatred for him. He speaks to the Thieves too but Akira knows his words to them are different and they begin their fight, attacking him from every angle in blows Akira can faintly feel ghosting over his own body. He grits his teeth against the lashes, all of them paling in comparison to the fight to continue controlling his own body under the oppressive weight of Yaldabaoth’s presence encroaching on his heart. There will be a place for you, my child, there is always a place for you by my side to join in my reality...Repent. Repent and return to me if you wish to protect not just these humans but the ones scattered in every corner of the world, the ones who will suffer without you. Repent, or they die along with you. His father is growing angrier, wrathful toward the rebellious Thieves before him and the son that has abandoned him, soon no longer wishing to humor them as he takes his true form, the one they had seen come to Akira’s aid that day in the cathedral. Akira has fallen to the floor, clutching at a chest with a wound that’s reopening, little by little the flesh tears and begins to bleed around his fingers as his resolve wanes in all the pain he feels, in the guilt he feels at his betrayal and the grief he can feel in Yaldabaoth. What a terrible child, what an ungrateful child...what a cruel child to strike at the god that had protected and nurtured him so.

The Thieves stand up against him even now though, the blows they level against him growing more and more painful to Akira, his thoughts breaking apart as he forgets,  Arsène’s voice growing weak and distant and Yaldabaoth’s growing ever more powerful...and he finds the pain fading as he takes up his scythe, as the name “Akira” flickers out of his mind. Akira opens his eyes to look up, to see the Thieves bloodied and battered and still fighting as Yaldabaoth rains an onslaught of devastation onto them only for them to support one another, protect the weakened to heal them while the others attack with a ferocity that one exhausted and drained human being should never be capable of. Futaba is focused on the battle in front of her but immediately turns to see Akira as he rises, weapon in hand once more and looking too oddly calm. She calls out to him in fear, the other Thieves picking up on the shaking in her voice and those on the backlines grip their weapons in sweating hands, healing each other once more as the god mocks their sentimentality, their insistence to save those who never asked for them. Akira’s movements are unsteady, each one is fought against as that shred of his heart restored to him screams in protest and while the Thieves are forced to raise their weapons against him again, they know he’s struggling with every swing of his scythe, he’s fighting himself more than he is them. Memories flash, he remembers the fear, the dread of losing his humanity, losing the will to care for the people in front of him now that call to him, who are fighting for their lives but do no harm to him even as he attacks them just as Yaldabaoth commands. But his body is pulled unwillingly, his heart is with him again even if he’s too stupid to remember the people that love him, even if he’s too selfish to keep them safe like he once promised he would. It’s Yaldabaoth’s bid to control him but he is no longer a part of Akira...he can’t be, his heart belongs to him and him alone, and he can’t afford to cause suffering to those that would risk their very lives to return it to him...even if they go against the people and even if they are sinners. That’s what Yaldabaoth would say, but he lied, time and time again he told malignant untruths to Akira, who now does his best to keep standing even as that excruciating pain returns to him in punishing waves. It’s the least he can do, stand with them as they do all the heavy-lifting for him, lower the scythe he can raise at them but not Yaldabaoth still...he wonders if he was this pathetic in his human life, but then isn’t that just like a human? Having to lean on others?

But he is quickly punished for his endless defiance and his wicked treachery, for the very thought that he should admire human weakness. His vision shutters, the sounds around him ripped away, even the feel of the wind battering against him is stolen with such speed and such force it’s almost painful, every sense suspended. Numb even to pain he wishes would come back. Complete deprivation. Akira has felt it, it’s not the first time Yaldabaoth has taken every sense without warning as a way of breaking his hysterias...so they are not totally severed, are they? He closes him off to everything, allowing only the experiences he deems appropriate, usually just his voice, his words after Akira has experienced a loneliness so penetrating he’s on the edge of losing even the false identity of The Son. But here, the silence, the lack of existence, only lasts long enough to remind Akira of all he has suffered, of all he has had, before Yaldabaoth’s voice speaks to him, no longer roaring, no longer shaking him with the very sound of it, but instead how he would speak to him in the days they spent in the Depths alone, only together surrounded by shadows. It’s stern, but it doesn’t have that hostility, it is only for him even if he knows his father must still be striking at the Thieves, working every second to kill them while he comes quietly to his child. He will have no place with them, he is no longer human and he will only repulse those he fights for now, the ones he now swears allegiance to will abandon the unnatural child...it is in human nature to do so. He asks that he repent, that he assist Yaldabaoth is killing Thieves that will only betray him, and the child can return to his only home in the Depths of Mementos, the human who’s heart has stopped and who’s blood is now made of the Holy Grail’s ichor. They are of each other and the two cannot be split, not after Akira’s resurrection through his elixir, and no measure of rebellious will, no measure of human stubbornness, the refusal to admit loss and all the deficiencies and fallacies of mankind, can bring Akira the humanity that has died. So he faces the choice of rejoining his father now, swearing his loyalty and returning his control to the god he is bound to, or Yaldabaoth will offer him the mercy to kill him with the others, to put him out of his misery if he chooses to drive himself mad by aligning himself with humans when he can only be rejected by them. But Akira can feel Yaldabaoth’s grip loosening, not because he wills it but because Akira’s own heart is interfering, gnawing at his power over him and allowing his senses to filter in little by little. Yaldabaoth’s offer, rejoin or perish here, show that his yoke has been thrown off of Akira’s shoulders – he cannot simply kill the Thieves and take Akira for himself again, he must return willingly...and so he appealed to his emotions, threatening him with loneliness, the exact punishment he had used on him to great effectiveness time and again.

But it’s enough. Maybe Akira will always be alone like this, maybe the humans he fights for now will leave him, but he tells his father it’s okay as his sight flickers in and out, muffled, distant sounds reverberating in his ears...because as much as he is no longer human, he is not like Yaldabaoth either, is he? Yaldabaoth is disgusted by him in a way too, he hates the human parts of him that react with emotion, that are irrational and distracted by hobbies, undeserving of the halo around his head in Yaldabaoth’s eyes. Yet his father asks that he stay with him, continues to reach out to him even as he actively opposes him and it is not a functional request - Akira knows Yaldabaoth does not believe he needs him by his side to destroy the Thieves, nor does he fear his child could be his downfall if he does not rejoin him...instead, Yaldabaoth feels richer with him, a fulfillment when they speak together, and he had learned to attach himself to something so imperfect, something that angered him, repelled him, something he should hate and yet felt what, in his own heart, could be thought of as the opposite. So why not the humans too? They will reach out to him, they will feel richer for knowing him, but they will not punish him so for the things they hate about him...and Yaldabaoth has grown malignant in his hatred for humanity, those he is meant to save from suffering. Even as The Son, a being meant to believe only in the word of his father, Akira knew of this hostility, always aware in some part of himself that it was wrong no matter how many times he may have forgotten that. So...weren’t all their arguments just leading up to this? His senses continue to return, flooding into him as he admits to his father this fight is what he wants, he wants to stand in opposition to Yaldabaoth, to the father that retracts his hand now in anger, in insult, in pain of rejection. He can hear Futaba shouting frantically for him when focus returns to his features, his slack frame immediately tightening up at the pain that rushes through him again but he remains upright, spine stricken straight as pearl-like eyes stay fixed to the blinding angles of Yaldabaoth who redoubles his efforts to destroy the Thieves that have stolen the one thing he may have ever cared for.

But there’s a moment as he stands by and watches, eyes moving to follow the movements of the Thieves, that it seems they...his friends...have a chance, it seems they really may be able to stand against his father and triumph...but it’s short-lived. He strikes them all down, each one of their bodies striking the earth beneath them and they can’t move, they can’t stand even though he can feel their struggles, their desperation to just get up one last time, their despair when their bodies refuse to obey. Now only Akira stands behind them, a coward who can feel Yaldabaoth’s gaze on him, burning into whatever soul he may have left, who mocks him for rejoining these pitiful thieves, who mourns the fact that he must kill him now with the others for his foolishness...to lose his child so pointlessly, even a god must grieve for him. Akira chokes on his words, wanting to encourage them to stand again but he can’t, how can he ask so much of them when he’s contributed nothing? And yet...it rises up in him, but he realizes it’s the cognition of the people, of the public as Morgana joins him to stand again and refuses to fall before Yaldabaoth, no matter how many times he may strike him down. Human hope. Human hope, which Akira so deeply admired, now stands up to his father small...but growing. It flickers but Akira can feel it too, he can feel what Yaldabaoth stole from the people, from his friends, from himself, and he begins to straighten his stance again even against the pain blooming from his chest. It’s hope, but hope fueled by anger, by a righteous fury unlike anything he felt working for his father, and Arsène’s voice overtakes Yaldabaoth’s as he can’t bear to hear anymore of his sanctimonious lecturing when he stole Akira’s very heart. Human hope and human anger, human rage at cruelty and unfairness, it overtakes him, a sin! A sin, Yaldabaoth screams at him, a sin to feel such wrath, feel it no more! If the Thieves cause the child to commit such grave atrocities, they will die to cleanse him and force his repentance at the time of his own death.

No more. No more victims, not him, nor the Thieves that saved him, nor the humans he abandoned.

His body burns and it’s licked with blue flames, Arsène appearing at his side as shocks of black return to his brilliant white hair, light, barely there irises showing in eyes no longer blind. The public rises up behind the Thieves, Morgana standing first and the pain is fading from Akira’s body, the others rising in obvious agony as his scar stitches itself up once more and he can no longer hear Yaldabaoth in his head, his voice only on the outside now, only what the other Thieves can hear. He walks forward to join them, raising his scythe as he finally speaks, tells Yaldabaoth this must end, he is no longer in the favor of the people, and if he doesn’t heed what humanity wishes, Akira must be the one to strike him down. An ungrateful child...perhaps so, but he will never be controlled by another, he will never allow himself to abandon his ideals that he fought for and he will not allow himself to ever again forget the humanity he so foolishly lost, so let him be the ungrateful child. And it’s laughable to the Thieves, to Yusuke, to Haru, to Goro who had to do just the same as Akira does now...Goro who stands just by Akira’s side now with barely any space between them, and Akira can feel the spike in anger in his father at the display. They’re not meant for this, are they? Yaldabaoth attempts to strike down the Thieves beside him again but they refuse to fall now, still demanding Akira repent now for joining the sinful masses and Akira rejects his offer, no more salvation. If he wishes to keep humanity in the dark, if he wishes to continue to control them under a vindictive rule, then the son must punish the cruel father.

Akira awakens to his true self then, the one that still sleeps within Arsène – Satanael, the one Akira knows innately as the child of Yaldabaoth in Gnostic lore, the child that works tirelessly for his father until he learns how wrong he is, how false he is, how unfair and resentful he is toward humanity, and he rises up against him to release them before he is cast into hell for his betrayal. The chains of the shackles around his wrists are broken when Satanael is born, taking his stand before Yaldabaoth in defiance for a life lost, for putting his Thieves through so much grief, for nearly sacrificing all of humanity. He cannot take back the mistakes he made, but he can take his stand to save them all now and there’s a quiet moment in that stillness, Satanael leveling his gun at Yaldabaoth’s head, a moment of grief passing between father and son, before Akira allows his persona to pull its trigger and shatter Yaldabaoth, destroy the face that Akira once held a hand in reverence to. And the god folds in on himself, a piece torn from Akira as his life fades out over them and he says his goodbyes to his child, to the one who still somehow came to fulfill his role as the trickster against him. He loses his form, returning to his inert state as the Holy Grail that naturally finds its way back to Akira, floating quietly before him in silent moment of reflection until he reaches out his hand and it dissolves. Ripped open, taken from, and now healed just a bit again...what remains of Yaldabaoth is now a part of him, his humanity forever gone. But in this state, with the will of the Thieves that gather around him now, he can rewrite the world as it should be based on their wishes...and so it is done. The Metaverse fades, reality returns to its untouched state, and Morgana, along with Akira himself, are preserved by their wishes and their wishes alone.

Shibuya has returned to normal, the public milling around them seemingly unaware of what they all just accomplished, but Akira can feel now that they are free, at the very least. He thanks all of the Thieves and they return the sentiment instantly, the wall between them and him seemingly vanished, crumbled at least, as they all express happiness at the peeks of black hair and his clothes now changed in reality, meaning he has some solid form again. He’ll keep getting better and so will they, so they insist they’ll see him tomorrow and absolutely, no questions about it, spend some time at Leblanc to catch up (he’ll love the coffee, they know it). He smiles again, this one more full and more earnest despite his grief, accepting their offer but wishing to return to the Velvet Room for now, too exhausted to carry on and the Thieves all agree...but as the group splits off and he watches his new but familiar friends leave in contentment, in relief, in a renewed sense of trust in him, he sees that Goro doesn’t follow suit with them. He’s quiet, but only because Akira senses a weight on him, one he can’t sort through himself and while Akira can’t fathom the correct human response, he instead just asks if he’ll be there tomorrow too...at Leblanc, a name he thinks he knows, that feels safe...he adds that he hopes he will be when Goro maintains his silence at the question. There’s a moment of hesitation but there’s a shift too, a small bit of surprise, before Goro looks toward him to nod with a faint but sharp smile, adding that he hopes Akira won’t forget before he takes his leave as well. And while Akira still feels so many volatile emotions in him, something did change between them before Yaldabaoth...and he needs to understand who he was, who they were, and without knowing why or how right now, he knows Goro will be integral in regaining what he gave away. He leaves the bustling square only when Goro’s been swallowed by the crowd, exhausted but with Morgana padding along at his heels in high spirits (but sooo ready for a cat nap, he says). And while it will be slow, while Akira distinctly feels he will never be human again, he knows now each step back will be one into his old life, into his friends’ lives, into what he and Goro share, and he can take his time.

[prolestariwrites]

The Wish [1]

Fandom: Devil May Cry Characters: Dante, Vergil, Nero, V, Lady, Eva, Sparda, OC  Rating: General  Tags: Family, Humor, Fluff, Angst, Typical demon hunting violence

Summary: A demon gives Dante the chance to have his greatest desires made real. When he finds himself in a seemingly idyllic life, all seems well until it starts to unravel. Will he sacrifice himself to save the family he lost, or will he choose to give them up for the truth?

A/N: Hooray for a new story! This story takes place sometime between DMC4 and DMC5. Thank you to @solynacea for reading and lending her OC for this fic. If you’re read Promise Me Forever you might recognize Lir, but she is completely different in this fic, so I hope you like it! I’ll be publishing about every week since I’m mostly finished. Your comments are always appreciated, and you can check this out on AO3 and FFNet too!

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Chapter 1: Be Careful What You Wish For

“Nero!” Dante’s voice echoes down the hallway as he peers through the rush of demons, swinging Rebellion as best as he is able as he scans for him. “You good?”

“Need help already?” The kid sounds nearby, but down a ways, and Dante snorts at the smart-aleck response. He bites back a response, remembering what it was like to be nineteen and feel invincible, to have power and stamina and enjoy the rush of killing demons.

It’s different now that he is older, the moves as familiar as breathing, the enemies mundane as paint drying. Meeting Nero and getting to know the kid, training him, especially with his suspicions all but confirmed, has breathed new life into the legendary devil hunter: but it’s still just a regular Friday night, clearing out another warehouse that houses another cell of demons for another client that’s just going to bitch about the holes left in the walls.

Dante continues pushing forward, slicing off arms and heads as he goes. There has to be a queen mother up ahead; no way this many slipped through a portal, these babies were bred. Maybe getting to the big bad will be interesting, and then he and Nero can stop before going into Fortuna to get a drink or six. Maybe he’ll even let Dante crash on the couch, now that he and Kyrie have set up in a house in town and have the room.

The drone of Red Queen suddenly cuts off, the lack of white noise catching his attention. “Nero?” he calls again, but this time instead of a snarky comment two shots ring out in response, followed by the entire building shaking as a roar goes up from inside. “Nero!” Dante shouts, slicing as he doubles his speed, actually trying now so he can find the kid and find out why the hell he needed his gun in such close quarters. Either he forgot one of Dante’s rules for demon hunting (“don’t shoot a gun in a tight space, dumbass”) or he’s in trouble.

Turns out it’s trouble—well, sort of. They are on the third floor, having been going methodically through each level to clear it out, and when Dante skids to a stop in the central part where the elevators are, he finds them gone. Instead, there is a huge hole where the elevators used to be, the concrete and iron in a heap below them where it had collapsed.

He looks up to see Nero on the other side of the giant hole, wiping his brow with his forearm. “You okay, kid?” Dante calls over.

“Yeah,” Nero shouts with a bit of a laugh. “I got them corralled but I guess the weight was too much. Just managed to jump out of the way.”

Dante shakes his head. “Stay there and I’ll come get you.”

“Nah, I got this. There’s gotta be a set of fire stairs at the end.” Nero points Red Queen towards the dark hallway behind him. “Let’s make sure that was the last of them. I’ll meet you at the bottom.”

“Yeah.” Dante sighs as he watches Nero go, and then looks around at where the floor and elevators had broken from the supports and given way. No way the weight made this happen; you could probably park a semi in here and it would hold. The building is structurally sound, supposed to be anyway, and it would take more than a few dozen demons to knock a hole in it. No, something made the floor collapse, and his gaze goes upwards, wondering where the queen bee could be hiding.

Dante doubles back and finds his staircase, taking the steps two at a time upwards. The hallways are eerily empty after the deluge in the bottom floors, and he stalks carefully through, checking each office. The damn place has a thousand places to hide, so there is no telling where the big bad could be.

On the top floor, lucky number seven, he hits the jackpot. The second he steps out from the stairwell Ebony and Ivory are drawn as he picks his way through the nest that covers the walls and floor and even ceiling. The emergency lights give a weird glow to everything, but his demon eyes can see clearly in the dim light as he listens carefully for movement.

He finds the demon in the corner office, thinking it has good taste and laughing at his own joke. At first he doesn’t see the queen, but a shift in the air catches his eye and he fires both guns into the dark, smiling at the sound of bullets making their impact.

With a wail it emerges from the shadow, clutching its chest. “What did you do that for?” the demon yells.

“Eviction notice, numbnuts,” he says. “Time to head back to wherever the fuck you came from.”

“I can’t,” the demon argues. “I have my eggs to hatch, my babies to look after—”

“Babies?” Dante chuckles, scratching his head as he places his other hand on his hip. “Sorry, I think I killed all of ‘em.”

The demon snarls. But instead of threatening him, Dante is surprised when it asks, “What do you want?”

“What?” he blinks.

“What do you want? To leave me alone?”

Dante huffs. “Don’t work like that, sweetheart.”

The demon moves closer and he aims his guns again. It starts to unfold itself from its spot, and Dante’s eyebrows go up to see it’s probably almost seventeen feet tall, completely squished into the office. “My name is Veguaniel,” it says. “I am the demon of fortune.”

“Good for you.”

“How much do you want?” the demon asks. “How much are you being paid to kill me? I can double it. Triple it even.”

“Are you serious?” he groans. “I don’t do this for the money.”

The demon looks him up and down. “That’s obvious.”

“Watch it.” He points the guns at its head, and the demon shrinks back a bit.

“I want to pay you! I can make you rich beyond your wildest dreams! You’d never have to slaughter the innocents like me again!” Dante snorts as it tilts its head. “You can’t possibly like doing this.”

He cocks the hammer on each gun. “Not about liking it. About paying the bills.”

The demon gives an annoyed huff. “This is what I’m saying. I can make you rich. I can buy you whatever you want. There’s got to be something you’d rather be doing than this. Would you like a mansion? A yacht? How about a palace?”

Dante chuckles to himself, but admits it’s almost tempting. Suppose this demon has some fortune granting power? He tries to think of himself as some fancy millionaire and fails. To be honest, all he would really want is a nice house and a nicer bike. Maybe work on engines, build things? Meet a pretty girl with a sharp wit and killer smile and settle down, like Nero and Kyrie have.

“This is stupid,” he says. “Not gonna happen.”

“So why do you do it?” it asks. “There must be something a god of fortune can give you for one tiny, little favor.”

Dante growls under his breath, his patience out. “I’m a devil hunter because I’ve been hunted by demons my whole life,” he snaps. “Ever since you fuckers came down on my house when I was a kid, killed my family, and then made my life miserable. Getting paid is just a bonus.”

“Hmmm.” A tentacle slithers out and taps on the demon’s cheek, as if it is thinking. “Did that make you sad?”

“What?”

“Did losing your family and all that make you sad?”

“What the hell? Of course it did!” Dante snaps. “But I don’t see why—”

“So you wouldn’t be a demon hunter if they hadn’t died, is that it?” The demon’s voice trails off, and Dante frowns. “I can grant you a fortune that has nothing to do with money. Would you like your family back?”

He grits his teeth, anger starting to bubble. “Shut the hell up.”

The demon bares its teeth in a grotesque smile. “Done.”

The floor gives way, and Dante shouts as he falls, firing upwards. He gets a glance of the demon waving to him just moments before he lands headfirst on the concrete and the world goes black.

✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧

The squeak of the shower turning on wakes him. Dante opens his eyes and immediately regrets it, pain piercing his temples like an ice pick to the brain. “Damn it,” he sighs, reaching up to rub his forehead.

The ceiling is white, not the faded yellow of his place, so he figures he must be at Nero’s. Damn, did the kid have to find him and save his ass? He’ll never live this down, and as he stretches his stiff limbs he sighs and closes his eyes again.

He remembers the warehouse and the demons, and Nero getting separated. Then he had found the head at the top of the building and it had… asked him about his family? Dante frowns, pressing the heel of his hand against his eyes. Demons are getting fucking weirder by the day.

He enjoys the few minutes of quiet until the shower turns off. Dante sighs, moving to roll over and sit up. Either Nero or Kyrie are in there, so he figures he’ll go downstairs and give them privacy, but when he sits up he notices two things. First, he’s in just his boxers, which is weird because that means Nero undressed him. Also, he doesn’t own boxers, preferring to let his junk ride free, knowing the ladies liked how it looked in tight denim.

Second, their bedroom is way different than it was. He’s been there a few times but he helped Nero paint the house and their bedroom was definitely green. Dante remembers this because Nero had bitched about the color to him because he couldn’t to Kyrie. But the bedroom is now a soft shade of blue, and he wonders if the kid finally confessed that the color sage reminded him of puke.

The door to the bathroom opens and a woman walks out wrapped in a towel. He blinks when it’s immediately obvious it is not Kyrie: this one is shorter, slimmer, her platinum hair almost white like his and falling in a trendy bob style at her shoulders. The woman takes no notice of him, moving to a set of drawers and opening the top one.

“Uh, excuse me?” Dante says.

The woman looks over her shoulder. “Yeah?”

“Who are you?” he asks.

She rolls her eyes. “Har har, very funny.” She goes back to pulling out clothes and says, “I know I said I’d never work on a Saturday, but Jenny’s kid is sick and I didn’t have the heart to make her come in. But I promise it’s only a half shift, and I’ll be home by two.”

That doesn’t answer his question at all, but before he can point that out she drops the towel. Dante spins quickly, his heart pounding as he yanks the sheet up over his lap, hissing, “What are you doing?”

“I told you, I’m covering for Jenny. It’ll be easy enough for a Saturday. It’s a nice day out, nobody goes to the library when it’s sunny.” Dante peeks over to see her thankfully wearing a bra and panties, which he stares at for a moment before remembering he shouldn’t be staring. He looks down at his own lack of clothes and frowns, wondering if it’s her house he slept in. Does that mean they had sex? Maybe he and Nero made it to the bar after all and he got lucky?

Not bad, he thinks as he looks back to where she is shimmying on a pair of jeans. She’s cute enough at least, gorgeous even, although he wishes he could remember her name. “Hey, uh—”

“Don’t forget to be ready by five,” she says, rolling on deodorant. Then she glances over at him and frowns. “You okay?”

“No. Yes. Sorry, five?”

Dante frowns and she laughs. “Yes. Reservations are at five-thirty and you know if we’re a minute late your brother will start complaining.”

That gets his attention, and Dante feels the blood drain from his face. “My… brother?”

“Yes. It’s your parents’ anniversary. Remember?” Dressed now, she runs a brush through her hair as she sighs. “Please tell me you didn’t forget. This has been planned for weeks.”

Dante jumps up and stalks towards her, pulling the brush from her hand and grabbing her elbow to turn her. She only comes up to about his shoulders, and his expression goes menacing as he glares down at her surprised one. “What do you know about my parents?”

“Dante, what in the world? What is wrong with you?” The concern in her voice tempers him a bit, and she pulls her arm away to press a palm to his cheek. She examines his eyes closely as she asks, “Are you feeling okay? Did you hit your head or something? You look strange.”

“I…” I fell, he wants to say, but she brushes his jaw gently. “Why don’t you take it easy today? You’ll have the whole house to yourself. Get some coffee and just relax, and when I get home we’ll see how you feel, okay?”

Did losing your family and all that make you sad? Where did that come from? “What about my parents?” he asks again harshly.

She takes a steady breath. “It’s the thirteenth. Their fiftieth wedding anniversary. We’re all going out to dinner to celebrate.” Then she rubs his arm gently, and it’s then that he notices the band on her ring finger. His eyes go wide, and startled, he looks at his own left hand, where a matching gold band sits on his fourth finger.

His blood is pounding in his ears so loudly he barely hears her goodbye. “Just stay home and relax,” she says, and when she reaches up on tiptoe to kiss his cheek it pulls Dante back to the present.

He watches her walk through the room and grab her purse just as she reaches the door. Then he is left blinking as the door shuts, the sound of his raging heartbeat still thundering in his ears.

[contrivedcoincidences6]

SO this is a continuation on my missing moments from the comics series called “Dirty Hands” @otterandterrier has betaed each and every one of them and I couldn’t do it with out her.  You can read these stories on their own but why not just read all of them? 💁🏻 This particular story is verrryyyyy NSFW

This takes place after Issues #16-19 right after Leia has a run in with a former Alliance spy turned crazy bad guy. Eneb Ray was an Alderaanian survivor who, after a run in with Palpatine, loses his shit and decides he needs to teach Leia how to kill people. So he traps her in the Alliance’s most secrete secure prison and tries to force her to kill the prisoners. Han and Luke come and try to save her but are immediately captured and used as hostages. (Also because this does come up Han and Luke had to herd literal Nerfs in the Falcon after Han lost a bunch of Alliance money gambling. It is golden.)

***

The trip to the base on Horox III from Sunspot prison was mercifully short for the small crews of the Millenium Falcon and the Volt Cobra. At first Leia had naturally just walked over to the Falcon for her trip back, but she found the place covered in various mysterious substances and smelling like it had been filled to the brim with Nerfs, which was a definite step down from the usual mix of dirty socks and wet Wookiee. When she’d said as much, Luke had turned pink and mumbled something unintelligible while Han had become belligerent. So Leia flew back with Sana, glad for the extra time away from Han for her to think through her next step with him.

Before going to Sunspot prison with Sana, Leia had shared multiple passionate kisses with the smuggler and he had seemed to want to discuss it, and assuredly continue it, when she got back. She, however, was not as eager for such a conversation. 

They arrived at the outpost exhausted and wounded, and Leia went to find a quiet place to finish putting together her report on what had happened. Horox III was desolate, which was a big reason why it had been chosen. When the rebels had set up camp, they’d built a couple permanent buildings but for the most part the outpost was just temporary structures and tents.

Hoping to avoid Han, Leia was watchful and quick, and only when she was behind a wall and out of sight of the Falcon she started to breathe a sigh of relief... until Han’s voice sounded behind her. 

“You really should be heading to medical, get some bacta on your arm.” 

Leia stiffened and turned to face him. She was covered in all manner of scratches and bruises from head to toe but had little interest in being a captive audience for Han while she got fixed up. 

Glancing down at the long gash on her arm, she scowled. It was worse than she’d thought and looking at it brought the pain to the front of her mind. 

“Thank you for your concern,” she said flatly, and started to walk away. 

“Hey.” Han followed her. “Just wait a sec, okay? Sorry Luke and I kriffed up the rescue.”

She frowned at him, shook her head, and kept walking until he took hold of her arm and stopped her. 

After a deep breath, Leia forged ahead with a speech she’d been practicing ever since their first kiss. 

“I’m not sure what you are expecting from me but I can’t give it. The kisses have been… nice…” 

Han snorted at her choice of words and she paused to glare at him. 

“Han, I don’t have time or patience for whatever this is,” Leia gestured angrily between them, “so I would appreciate it if you could drop it. If that’s beyond your capabilities, then we will just need to start avoiding each other-” 

“Kriff, Leia, you’re acting like I proposed to you or somethin’!” Han waved his arms in his patently wild way and, despite her deep blush, she continued before he could ramp up his rant. 

“We work too closely for this to become an issue; it’s a distraction I can’t afford.”

“So your life just stops then until- what- the war’s over?”

“My life stopped when Alderaan was destroyed.”

Han’s face grew deadly serious and he moved in close to her. She felt claustrophobic trapped between him and the wall, and looked anywhere but his face until he put a finger to her chin and forced her to meet his gaze. 

“How long are you planning on punishing yourself for what the Empire did?”

“Get over yourself Han.” Leia was fuming but he didn’t back down. She could have gotten away from him, either kneed him in the the groin or just slipped away, but she didn't. Instead, she stared up into his eyes. Equal parts brown, green, and gold, Han’s eyes were a reflection of the man himself; all contradictions fighting to take over, changing to fit the situation. They were dark as she looked up to meet them. They reminded her of the forests on Alderaan, beautiful and untamed, and she felt her heart give way a little bit under his gaze.

She really didn’t mean to kiss him, but in that moment it had felt like her only option, like it was what she was meant to be doing.

The past few days-hell, the past few months-had been so frightening, that sinking into Han’s kiss did more for her than a bacta tank. He leaned her against the wall and Leia couldn’t stop the thrill that ran through her body when she felt him press against her. 

Static filled Leia’s ears when Han ran his tongue between her lips and she gripped his arms, holding herself in place. He wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her even closer.  

The man knew how to kiss, and she opened up her mouth to let him show her the extent of those skills. 

He pressed against her hungrily and lightly bit her bottom lip. Leia felt herself responding in kind, needing him more than air. 

The distant sound of laughter from a nearby hangar forced them apart. They were hidden enough but someone could easily come across them. 

“Not here,” Leia said roughly, and she pushed him away before continuing her path to the tent she’d been assigned. 

Han followed her wordlessly, a man possessed, but still wary of any onlookers. Leia, however, hardly noticed her surroundings. She felt more alive than she had since she’d been on the Death Star. 

Fine. She would give into her unrelenting want for Han Solo, she would quench that thirst and move on.  

When he entered the tent, they hardly paused to look at each other, instead just colliding in the middle of the small space. Han’s hands tracked burning trails up and down her bruised body causing a small eruption of lust to explode in her belly. He roughly grabbed her ass, pushing her hips against his and she felt him there, hard as iron and hot to the touch through their clothing. 

She suppressed her moan by biting his neck lightly which in turn brought up a choked sound from him. 

“Quiet,” she rasped and kissed him again. 

Han was unusually quiet and in some ways that made it easier for Leia to pretend it would mean nothing. It wasn’t really Han, the brilliant yet goofy smuggler who tried so hard to pretend he didn’t care. This wasn’t the man who had helped her off the Death Star and who had chased after Darth Vader in a stolen AT-AT, who questioned her relentlessly but always backed her up when it mattered. 

This was just a body, a hard, calloused, warm body, with hands that knew exactly what to do and when. Hands that were making quick work of her bodysuit. 

There was a wince and a sharp intake of breath when Han looked down at her body. She was covered in bruises from her fight with Eneb Ray. The thought of the former Alliance spy caused a pain that began inside Leia’s soul and overwhelmed any physical pain; she couldn’t take it. She chased it away by taking hold of Han’s inert hands and placing them firmly on her cloth covered breasts. The thin fabric of her bra made for excellent friction between Han’s mechanic’s fingers and her diamond-hard nipples. 

He worked her body the way she’d watched him work his ship and countless pieces of equipment. Leia tried to ignore the way he looked at her, though; it was too tender to be coming from Han. His eyes would turn mossy and soft for moments between kisses and she preferred the dark desire that took over when she moved her hips against him in a way that made small fireworks explode all over her body. 

She tugged at his troublesome blaster belt until he finally grunted and pulled it off himself. Even the moment of lost connection felt like a blow to Leia, and she pulled him back quickly, letting one hand go back to her breast but moving the other between her legs. Han gasped silently into her mouth when his fingers touched her warm hot center, but he hardly hesitated. 

His fingers moved in different ways until he found exactly what she liked, and then he didn’t stop. 

Leia’s legs nearly gave out when he trapped her clit between two fingers and played with it there. God, it was almost exactly how she touched herself, how she’d touched herself just days before thinking of him, and that thought was overwhelming. 

“Cot,” she mumbled into his mouth. The one word was so mumbled, it sounded like an alien language, but Han moved to the cot without any further explanation. 

“Yes…” Leia breathed when he settled his weight on top of her and began moving his fingers again. His hips moved against her leg and the feeling of his hard cock was delicious and dangerous.

“Yeah, you like that?” Han asked gruffly. She squinted open one eye to see his sideways grin and wanted to argue with him, but the way he was moving his fingers was too heavenly and she didn’t want him to stop. So she just nodded. 

His smile took on a hint of playful menace and he took one of her nipples between his lips, lightly brushing his teeth against the puckered skin. 

“Aghhh!” Leia burst out before she could slam her hand over her mouth. She hated how vulnerable she felt, so easily read by Han and his-what had to be- Force-filled fingers. She wanted to push him off her and take control, but the waves of pleasure were stronger than her need to dominate Han Solo, so she let him have this round. 

After just a few more minutes, she could practically see her climax behind her eyelids; she bit down on one finger to keep from shouting as she thrust her hips against Han’s moving fingers in just the right way and she was flying through hyperspace to an unknown destination. 

Before the fuzzy feelings of her orgasm wore off, she was struggling to push his pants down. Han eagerly helped her and, after an eternity, he was in her hands. 

Leia had done this before and had been unimpressed. She’d been aroused by her boyfriend at the time and had enjoyed running her hands up and down his erection, causing him to lose it before he’d been inside her. Eventually they’d had sex, and afterwards Leia had wondered what all the fuss had been about. 

The boy at the time had been a secret fling, a way for her to privately rebel without truly being destructive, but this was Han, and the thought of having that kind of power over him almost drove her right back over the edge. 

She was starting to understand the hype.

Thanking the stars that the Alliance asked all people under their command take tri-monthly shots, Leia was about to pull him right into her when she realized how intimate their position was. He was looking at her like she was some kind of beautiful fantasy, and part of her soul lit up at that in a way that made her distinctly uncomfortable. So instead, she flipped herself over and onto her hands and knees. It would be better this way, not meeting his eyes. 

Han didn’t seem to mind; he practically growled as he grabbed hold of her hips and pushed in. 

Leia threw her face into the rough, Alliance-issued, probably used pillow and let out a silent scream. Han nearly bit into her shoulder, trying to control his own reaction, and he stopped moving for a minute as they got used to the feeling. 

It was such a good feeling, too. Leia pushed back against him, needing more, and he obliged. 

Within minutes they were moving together, totally lost to the world around them, only aware of each other and their own efforts to be as quiet as possible. 

Later Leia would thank the Force that most people had been busy at that time of day, and be grateful that the sound of running ships and equipment would have drowned out anyone but the closest bystanders, because she knew they were loud at the end. 

Han especially broke his silent streak with a string of Corellian curses as he came. He kept moving inside of her, seemingly determined to get her off again and, with one hand on the railing of the cot, he moved the other between her legs and swirled around her clit with his rough fingers until she came violently around him. 

They collapsed seconds later, sweaty, dirty, and sated. 

For a few minutes following the deed, Leia let Han collect her in his arms, but horror filled her when she began to gather her breath and understand her surroundings. 

“This won’t change things,” Leia insisted against his neck before she began to push away. He tried to hold onto her, but sighed in resignation and let her go when she kept moving. 

“Sure, sweetheart,” he muttered and wearily watched her as she began to dress. 

When Leia threw his pants on the cot next to him, he grabbed for them in a huff and was dressed before she was. 

She could see the frustration coming off of him in waves and knew he was trying to find the words to express it. 

“I need to find General Madine and turn in my reports,” Leia said, pointedly ignoring the awkwardness hanging in the air around them. 

“Sure. Have a good day, Your Highness,” Han snapped at her before he stalked out of the tent. 

After he left, she took one more look at the ruined cot and closed her eyes, wondering how much she’d regret this. 

Squaring her shoulders and collecting her data pads, she finally left the tent, determined to forget about this new tryst.

[exodusmc]

Prey

Genre: vampire au, smut 

Words: 3006

Paring: vampire Jin X human reader

Warning!:  Blood(feeding), rough sex, choking, unprotected sex, gore, overstimulation, manipulation(?), dirty talk

a/n: But like black haired Jin is superior :)

Gif is not mine 

He moved gracefully over the floor, eyes shing black and hair the softest of velvet. You stared openly at the handsome man, how his lips were so plush. Let’s just say you weren't the only one through heart eyes his way. He stopped before some girl, her eyes widening as she tried to look sexy. 

“Y/n!”your boss suddenly screamed at you, making you flinch and stop staring at the man.”Get to work!”

You started making coffee for the madame which was giving you an annoyed look, blushing furiously as you felt the handsome man look your way. It wasn't fun working in the food court but what wouldn't a student do for some more money?You would soon be going to college so you need every  penny you could get.

“Here’s your drink and sorry for the wait”you bow to the woman, stiffening at her scoff. 

“Start doing your work instead of staring”

“Sorry..”you mumbled as she walked away, eyes staring down at the floor just to not look anywhere else. You didn't mean to be so lost, he was just inhumanly handsome. 

-

Work ended later than it usually did, your body aching from cleaning the whole shop as punishment for your little slip up earlier. The mall was closed and it felt rather scary walking through it 11 pm but you were happy that you didn't have school in the morning or else you would be dead. You slipped out of the big building, shivering at the cold gust of wind which legit smacked you in the face.

“Oh god..”you ran to the bus stop, grateful for the little shed like structure which could hide you from most of the wind. When you saw the yellow vehicle coming, you realized that at least your job weren't the worst. 

Stepping inside the bus, warmth instantly made your body less stiff. You pulled a small smile at the man driving, which he didn't return, just drove before you could sit down towards the back.

“Rude..”mumbling you sent him a dirty look, deciding to use the seat belt incase he tried to kill you by driving of the road. You never liked being alone late at night but you couldn't walk home, so this was the best option.  

Music screamed in your ears as you stared out the window, seeing the same trees as you had seen for around 18 years. Autumn had really come now, the weather colder and duller. Halloween wasn't so far away either, which was fun. It meant no school and movies through the whole day. You smiled slightly at the thought being wrapped up in a blanket and having no worry in the world. Everything was so peaceful and you felt heavy, like you could fall asleep any second but the bus screeched, breaking so hard you flew forward, being caught by the seat belt but making a not so pretty sound. You took out one of your earphones, staring as the busdriver got out of the vehicle. Every hair stood on your body, an eerie feeling crawling over your skin. Something was wrong and the feeling grew the closer you got to the door. You saw the bus driver standing in the headlight, his back turned against you. A frown took its place on your lips, the song which you were listening to starting to sound like a running heartbeat. You swallowed hard about to call for the man when someone else appeared through thin air. His shoulders broad and he was taller than the driver. You stilled, eyes widening as the man grabbed a hold of the shorter ones throat, fingers piercing his skin and ripping his head of. You didn't know what to do, fear paralyzing you. The other one grabbed the headless body, putting his face against it and doing something you couldn't see, however he dropped the corpse and you could see him, who was too handsome and dripping in blood. You screamed, you had never screamed so loud before in your life. Stumbling backwards, panic growing when you realized you were stuck in the bus. The man snapped his head up at you, eyes staring at you, a predators red eyes. He moved with a speed no human could muster, standing inside the bus in one blick. You fell backwards, tears gushing over your cheeks, panic settling in your bones. It was the man you saw at the mall, the one with hair as the night, and now was he standing before you with his lower face covered in blood, fingers slick in the liquid. He took a step forward, instantly making you whimper. He was going to kill you, take all of your blood. 

“P-please d-don't kill m-me”you pleaded out, flinching when he leaned closer to your face, grinning down at you. 

“Oh..Why would I kill such a pretty little prey, before playing with it?”he questioned you, voice smooth and seeding shiver over your body. You cried harder, shaking when his hands reached for trembling limbs. 

The man grabbed you like you were a rag doll and you felt your world turn when you saw the fangs which pushed slightly against his plump under lip. You were so scared but could do nothing. He had caught you, his little prey. 

-

“Kim Seokjin! What in the world are you doing?!”Namjoon bombed through the mansion, eyes shining red. His anger was clear and Jin simply shrugged at the fuming vampire, a small smirk playing on his bloody lips. 

“Hm?”Jin answered bored, his hands holding your unconscious body. He couldn't care less about the leader and his irritation. Jin did what he wanted, even if Namjoon disliked it. 

“What do you think you are doing!?”brown hair stood everywhere on his head, evidence to him working late and running his hand through the locks. “You can't go kill people and take them!”

“But I just did”Jin looked smug and he realized that he was pushing at Namjoons patience, the latter having not fed in a long time. 

“ I know, I could smell her from a mile away and that means others could too!”Jin started to feel annoyance build in him at the nagging of the younger vampire. 

“You know what..my last feeding human died and I wanted a new one..”he hissed at Namjoon, who flinched back, his anger falling. 

“..You should have asked first, talked to me about it”

“It would have taken to long. She is mine now and I intended to keep her”Jin’s teeth shone in the lurky room, eyes like wise. 

He disappeared, leaving Namjoon biting his lip. He knew how much it hurt losing your human but Jin had never mention wanting a new one, refusing every time someone brought it up over the last century. So this was unaccounted for, completely random, and Namjoon feared because the humans had changed. Would everything go wrong and why was Jin so keen about keeping you?

-

It hurt, mostly because you felt stiff, but also because  your head spinned even when you had your eyes closed. What happened? You laid still, thinking that you were in your bed but the silk feeling and cloud like lightness made you open your eyes.. You had a nightmare filled with blood and a handsome face. Opening your eyes an inch, you wondered why you were in a different room when all you had was a nightmare.

“Good morning” instantly sitting up, chills ran down your spine when you saw your nightmare resting in an armchair, red as blood and velvet like his hair. “Slept well?”

He was beautiful and even more so when he wasn't covered in crimson liquid. You didn't know what to say or do. You were scared and all his attention made you feel small. 

“What are you?”whispering, you stared at him, taking in every feature. He wasn't human and that made him unreal. Skin slightly pale and shining. He had a gentle face but the way he watch you like a prey made him scary. 

“Oh I’m exactly what you think I am..A vampire” this can't be real. Vampires don't exist, which makes him just an imagination your head made up. Maybe it was  what you desire most but why would he be a killer then?You had a stare of, which you lost. He was powerful and sat with such grace you felt awful.

“Do you know what you are?”the question was weird, nonetheless making your blood run cold. 

“Human..”

“Right...My human”he got up from the chair, walking towards you as tears pooled in your eyes. Fright, chilling pure fright. It filled you, made you numb when he grabbed your chin with two fingers, forcing you to look at him, really look at him. Eyes shone bright red and fangs poked at the flesh of his lip. “My human...My blood”

He leaned forward, stopping to look in your pupils. You should have felt breath fanning over your face but didn't, because he was dead and didn't have to breathe. Danger swam in his glowing orbs, dripping in pleasure and  thrill. You lost a will to get away, relaxing into his grasp.  

“You’ll let me feed, right?”he mumbled, already scanning over your delicate neck, where his mark should be. You nodded, eyes dulling. Jin smiled down at your empty face, his hypnosis gripping you. “Thank you”

He kissed lightly against the skin, lips moving to coax blood to him. Licks made you shiver in anticipation, body reacting to him. Jin gave you one last kiss before piercing your skin, fangs burying down deep into you. Blood slipped from you, between his lips, hands holding you in place as your eyes widen. You felt warm and sensitive, small gasps leaving you, slowly turning to low moans. It felt great, addicting. You didn't want him to leave, to let you go. You wanted to stay in this feeling, drowning in him. Jin moved from your neck, chuckling at the whine which left you, fingers grasping to keep him close. 

“No, keep going..”you mewled out, trying to push his face back to your aching throat. 

“But I’ll kill you then”you whined louder, wetness pooling in your underwear, body burning under Jin’s grasp.  He could smell you and it was hard to control but he couldn't let go, not yet. 

Lapping lightly at your wound, you moan again , chasing after more. Jin kissed it one last time before moving from you, something which almost made you cry in desperation. 

“Don't worry my little bird, you’ll get what you want soon”tears flew from your eyes, body aching for more and sleep. You felt weird, light headed and horny to the point it hurt.

“No” Jin walked away, leaving you in despair and weak. You wanted more of him, all of him, but he left you to the darkness. 

-

“She smells too good”Taehyung groaned as Jin walked down the stairs, his head high, blood lingering on his tongue. 

“I know”

“Can I have a taste?”

“No”

“Why?”

Jin merely hissed at the younger one as a warning to keep away from what’s his. Your arousal still had a grip on him and he had to get away before he did something bad. Maybe it weren't a good idea to leave you smelling like that in a house full of vampires but he had to get away. 

“Touch her and I’ll rip your arm out”

-

Jin thought your hormones would have died down after four hours but when he stepped inside the mansion after a long run, he realized that it weren't the case. Your fermions laid around him like a hug, pleading for his touch of relief.  A small growl left him, mind fighting with his body if he should just walk out again or aid you. 

“You’re so stupid”Namjoon hissed, walking out from the right, his eyes shining red again.”You really left her like that with the youngest around”Jin knew it was stupid but he would have hurt her, so he couldn't stay. 

“Fix it”it was a command and it decided what Jin would do. He would go to you and he would help your burning body.

-

You tensed when the door flew open, hitting the wall with a thud and then closing a second after. He stood there, red eyed and  hungry. Your body acted on its own, begging for his touch. You whined out at the sight he was, dropped in a black silk shirt and the same color slacks. The items shoved of his body so well, following his broad shoulders and tiny waist. You wanted everything from him, every touch, every sensation.

“Please~”you whined out, leaning forward so he could see your neck, pricked with two faded marks. 

Jin hissed again, standing by you in a blink of an eye. He grabbed your wrists, pushing you to lay down on the soft covers, not really thinking about his strength. You squirmed, not caring about the force he put on you and how you would be bruised in the morning. Tongue dipped down on your jugular, licking a long strip up the whole body part, until he stopped by your jaw, he could feel your blood rush to his wet muscle, aching for him to take. Jin groaned at it, a hand grabbing both of your wrists and holding the over your head. You were on cloud nine and he hadn't even touched you. He made nothing of your shirt, eyeing your abdomen. Jin licked his lips, dragging a finger between your breasts, down your stomach and stopping by your jeans. It frustrated you, body burning in desire. 

“Keep your hand still and I’ll reward you”his purr had you drooling down there, fingers clenching to stay but begging to run through his hair. Jin smiled at your struggle, parting your thighs so he could roll down on you. 

He was hard and big, mouth watering. You let out a desperate sound, his hands dragging over your neck. Jin wanted to squeeze the part, to feel you struggle. Hair hung in maddening eyes, a predator catching his prey. 

“We can't keep these any longer..”the vampire mumbled while grabbing at your pants, putting a little more force on your hips.”They're in the way”

He shredded the fabric, having to close his eyes at the increase of your scent. The mix of your arousal and blood had him moving faster. Jin couldn't wait and he knew you couldn't either.  You never got to see him take of his clothes because he moved too fast, bare and in his flesh in a second. Your gaze wandered down his abdomen, gushing at how erect he was, pussy clenched at the mere glance of his cock. 

“Please please”chanting, you grabbed a hold of silk sheets, which were your only anchor. You needed him now. Jin smirked, ripping of the last pieces of clothing on your body, staring at your dripping cunt. You were so ready, he didn't even have to prepare you. 

“What do you want? Hmm? Use your words”whining and trashing, your body burnt at his tease. 

“Please fuck me~”it started to hurt, the feeling of arousal in you. Pressure only built and the second Jin pushed himself in you, stars took over your gaze. 

You gasped, back arching at the feeling of being filled. Jin moaned, your pussy clamping down  on his sex. Adrenaline flushed his system and he lost himself. Jin moved fast, pounding into you like no tomorrow. His hands gripped hard at your hips, scream like sounds ripping through your throat. 

“Scream for me baby, scream my name..”you gasped out, searching your mind for his name, realizing you didn't know it. “Jin. Scream it”

His name left your mouth like a prayer, hands letting go of silk sheets and grabbing velvet hair. You screamed and screamed, head turning. Jin kept his gaze on your neck, not being able to control the want to hold it. He pushed you down by putting pressure on your throat, choking you lightly. The loud sounds from you turned to stifled moans, making your pussy tighter. Jin smirked at it, growling while he moved. 

“You’ll stay forever, right? Give me your blood, right?”he panted out, face close to yours.You merely nodded, too out of it to speak. He hit the right spot every time he fucked into you, eyes rolling back. 

Jin felt his orgasm come fast, thrusts becoming sloppy. You were gone already, the euphoric feeling washing over you in forms of shaking and gasps. But the vampire didn't slow down, driving your body to overstimulation. Tears dropped from your eyes, choked out sobbs leaving your dry mouth. It hurt and felt so good at the same time. Jin growled out a moan as his hips snapped against yours, cock twitching in you before cumming in long spurts. He took deep breaths even when he didn't need to, while you panted lodly, hand formed bruises decorating your neck. He pulled out of you, landing besides you as your body shuddered. Sleepiness came over you mere seconds after your second orgasm. Jin glanced at your heavy eyelids, your screams of pleasure echoing in his ears. 

“Sleep my little human..Dream of peace”his voice was so soft, luling you so slumber. You had no grip on real life while Jin watched you disappear. Something between a smirk and a smile tugged at his lips. He lingered by your cheek, wanting to kiss it but choosing not to.”And stay by my side forever”

-

“Why Jin?” Namjoon asked the second Jin walked through his doors, hair still messy.”Why her?”A frown developed on his lips, his undead heart beating for the first time in a century. 

“Because she is her in another life and this time I am not letting her go”