#and if i could just survive the water pressure and be invincible

[taco-night-frenzy]

Trials of Love?! Aphrodias' Ancient Treasure!

Naga and I, Lina Inverse, explore an ancient ruin for a legendary treasure said to come from an ancient goddess!

But, hey! This place is more boobytrapped than Naga's skimpy outfit! And that's not even the worst of it! To obtain our treasure, we have to pass three 'Love Trials?!'

As if! Who in the world could ever love Naga?! Hopefully I find a way around this...

Can we unlock the secrets within with the power of our love? Absolutely not!

Fandom: Slayers Characters/Pairing: Lina Inverse/Naga the Serpent Rating: G Word Count: 8,869 Mirror: AO3 Notes: 

--

Naga and I were in the middle of exploring an ancient elven ruin some distance from a little town of Dite. Now I know what you’re thinking, ‘ Lina! Aren’t you always exploring ruins? Don’t you have something better to do, like save the world for the billionth time?’

First of all! Rude! Second of all, how do you think I get all those cool magic-supporting accessories? And third of all, there’s been a massive shortage of bandits lately. Seems the population is getting hunted by someone? Can’t be me, it’s not like I pillage—er—defeat that many bad guys! Probably Amelia or something.

And a girl’s gotta eat! It’s not easy paying for all the food I eat and Naga’s share as well. Ugh. Why do I pay for her meals?

“Ohhhohoho~!”

Naga’s cliché princess laugh echoed through the temples’ musty stone halls. Head tilted back, hand fanning her mouth, she discreetly yanked a furious piranha off her butt and squeezed filthy ruin water out of her soaked hair.

She had just tripped over another deadly trap and managed to survive. Barely.

Yet that laugh of hers never faltered. Her manic smile endured despite the bruises, despite the filth, despite the constant humiliating failure.

I sighed.

If I didn’t pay for her meals, she probably just wouldn’t eat. She was like a pathetic little puppy.

“What are you so happy about?” I asked, trying to stop that shrill laughter of hers.

“Hm?” Naga’s sharp eyes set on me in an instant, trapping me in her gaze. “Do you even need to ask, Lina Inverse?”

Ugh! That stupid look on her face! This is why I ignore her half the time! Give her one drop of attention and she’s begging for more. “No, I really don’t.” I shrugged and continued through the ruins, the red of my Lighting spell leaving Naga in the dark.

“Huh?!” Naga whined, eyes probably dribbling with puppy dog tears behind me. Ha! “Well, allow me to tell you anyway!”

“Here we go…”

“I, Naga the Serpent, your greatest and eternal rival, have once again overcome an insurmountable obstacle with beauty and grace! Ohohoho~!”

“Yeah, real graceful the way you pulled that fish off your butt.”

“I would thank you if you weren’t telling me something I didn’t already know!” Naga laughed, trailing behind my cape. “You see, I can’t expect you to understand.”

“That’s rich. Understand what?” I growled back. Truth be told, I should have kept ignoring her, but talking to her like this made exploring old caves and ruins a lot easier on me. Spelunking on your own doesn’t seem so bad until the darkness starts to settle. A few hours in and you’ll be begging for even Naga to be your talking partner, just to make sure at least someone knows you exist.

“I can’t expect you to understand overcoming anything with beauty and grace!” Naga repeated, her grating voice only going an octave louder. “You see, when you avoid all those traps and other mishaps, you lose an opportunity to grow! I take each and every failure in stride, making me nearly invincible!” She sneered in the dim light. “Just take a look at how much I’ve grown more than you! Huhuhu~…”

Like I’d want a tall lanky body with some big bimbo boobs anyway!

“Is that so?” I asked, hiding my grin as I stepped over a pressure plate.

“Yes! You can’t handle one little stab wound without crying and moaning while I, the great Naga, can handle mostly any—AAAAAAaaaaaaaaa!!!”

Just as I expected, Naga stepped on the pressure plate and exploded in a blaze of great magical fire. Her screams of pain were a little damaging to my psyche, but I knew she’d just wipe off the soot and laugh it off. For a mage with the brain of a peanut, she was quite durable. Maybe a cockroach would best describe her.

“Ohohoho~!” Naga laughed as the blackened soot fell off her like she’d been hit with a gust of cleansing wind. “See?”

I’ll admit, it was a little impressive in its own way. A little. Again, it’s mostly impressive in the sense that a dumb bug could survive catastrophic events just by being hardy.

“You complained the entire time we traveled through the jungle. You complained you didn’t eat enough dinner last night. You’ve been complaining literally about the traps in this temple!”

Like a blast from a Fireball, she waved off my retort without missing a beat. “The jungle is very unsanitary! You only let me have two steaks for dinner last night! And to be frank, this temple is unnecessarily boobytrapped.” She placed a finger on her chin, a rare moment of thought entering that thick skull of hers. “Is the treasure really worth all the trouble?”

“Of course it is!” I shot back. “It’s an Elven ruin! This is the lost temple of Aphrodias! It’s legendary among merchants and mages alike! There’s said to be a great relic made by Aphrodias herself!”

Naga’s eyes lit up like diamonds at that description. I don’t think she processed a word I said other than ‘legendary’ and ‘relic.’

“So, it will sell for quite a lot?”

“Are you listening?! Yes, whatever it is, it’ll sell insanely well!” I grinned. “That is, if I don’t want to keep it for myself.” Remember! I come from a family of merchants! I know treasure.

Naga nearly drooled on my hair! But at that last sentence, she slurped it back up (gross) and asked, “Hm? Keep it for yourself? When we’ve worked so hard to get it together you won’t even think about sharing?”

“Oh, when it’s dinner it’s me me me, but when treasure is involved, suddenly you learn how to use a few more pronouns don’t ya?!”

“Ha!” Naga reflected my retort easily. “Dinner and treasure are two very different things, Lina Inverse! I would expect my rival to have a little more intelligence than that, but it seems I— WAAAAAGPFfft!” A pillar came down from the ceiling and smushed her like a pancake. She sprang up and continued like she wasn’t a walking slinky. “It seems I overestimated you, ohohoho~!”

I didn’t need to dignify that with a response. I stepped forward into the buzzing darkness, trying to keep my mind off Naga. Sadly, that energy should have been better spent paying attention as I felt a pressure plate slide into the floor beneath me. Stone rumbled against stone and in an instant, there was no longer ground beneath my feet.

It looked like I was the one who sprung the trap this time!

As I fell, I chanted a quick spell of Levitation only to find it didn’t work! What?! I could cast spells like this in my sleep! Something sparkled beneath me in the darkness, and I knew for a fact it was a pit of cliché impaling spears! Oh, this wasn’t going to be a painless death at all…!

Clasp!

Naga’s hand grabbed mine, dangling me above the pit like a sack of laundry. What I looked up to was even worse than what was below me.

She was smiling. Smug. So smug. So. Smug. I was starting to consider falling to my death a better alternative than this.

“Caught you~! Ohohoho!” Naga laughed. But I noted, while she did save me, she certainly wasn’t in a rush to pull me up. She was savoring this.

Ugh! Just why didn’t my spells work?! I glared at the walls that lined this pit and noted a faint glow emanating from them.

Damn! Of course! Anti-magic runes!

They boobytrapped their boobytrap! No fair! Anyone that fell here wouldn’t be able to cast a spell to save their life! Literally!

“Don’t you have something to say to me, Lina Inverse?” Naga sneered, openly chuckling to herself.

“Yeah. Why aren’t you pulling me up already?! ”

“No words of gratitude, hm? I seem to recall a number of times you sacrificed me! Maybe I should do the same…” I felt her grip around my hand loosen.

“Agh, c’mon, all those times I knew you wouldn’t actually die! Just pull me up, will you?”

“See, now this is what I’m talking about!” Naga went on. “Always moaning about stab wounds and getting impaled! Never taking it with any grace.”

“How about you come down here and see if you can handle getting impaled then?!”

“Maybe I will!”

“Fine! Go for it! I’d be glad to see you skewered like a kebab!”

“Hmph! The feeling is mutual!”

“Will you quit it with this bit and pull me up already?!”

“Gratitude! Gra-ti-tude! Show it to me!” Naga whined, kicking and stomping like a brat.

I was about to maybe thank her for potentially saving my life possibly, until I heard stone grinding against stone. Naga must have triggered another trap in her tantrum.

Two things happened. A gust of wind blew down the hallway. Then Naga’s bumbling body fell with me.

“You idiooooooot!” I screamed as we both fell to our death.

“AAaaaaaaaaaaaa!” Naga screamed back, directly into my ear by the way, before spreading her lanky arms and legs out. Dust billowed as she scraped against the rocks, crying all the way about her palms.

Just as we were about to become kebabs, Naga came to a stop, the tip of a rusty spear so close to piercing her stupid shiny butt. She let out a sigh of relief while I clung to her like a koala.

“I told you; you should have just pulled me up!!!” I screamed, adrenaline still pumping through my veins.

“I clearly should have dropped you!” she screamed back. “In fact, you’re much too heavy! Would you mind letting go?”

“You realize that’d kill me, right?” I wasn’t a weird lanky freak like her! I couldn’t spread my legs (like the master leg spreader here!) and grab onto the walls!

“I’m well aware!”

“If I die here, I’m taking you with me!”

“Maybe I’ll drop down and kill us both then!”

“Fine! See if I care!”

“We’ll be dying by my hand you know!”

“Oh, you just have to try and one up me at everything don’t you?!”

“Ohohoho! I feel my hands slipping again~!”

She was actually going to let us die!

We couldn’t cast any spells. I couldn’t do anything in my position wrapped around her squishy bits like this. I couldn’t take it. I was desperate to live. If I was going to die, at least make it dignified!! A guttural noise gurgled from my throat until it became louder and louder. I didn’t know what it meant. Some kind of animalistic beast took over me. With a horrible screech that I could never emulate again if I tried, I threw my head back and bit Naga’s ear.

“Ohoho-YAAAAAAAAOOOOW!!!” Naga howled, eyes crying out waterfalls as she scampered up the walls like a monkey on a mission.

In the next moment we sputtered out of the trap gasping for air, chests heaving. Naga gently cradled her bruised ear, while I happily let go of her practically naked body to fall against dirty stone.

“Little gremlin!” Naga cried, still stroking her throbbing ear.

“Giant bimbo!” I retorted, still too tired to get back on my feet. It wasn’t the best insult, but gimme a break! I nearly died like three separate times there!

We gave ourselves a moment to catch our breaths and both decided we would forget about what just happened and continue through the ruins.

…

We ducked underneath a decayed doorway, rubble piling up at its base, barely able to stand after ages of disrepair. Moss and lichen grew across the walls, vines and roots sprouting through every crack and crevice. Water pooled together across the ruins, from puddles to floods that spanned through entire hallways. Luckily a good Ray Wing made traversing through all that filthy ruin water easy, and even someone like Naga could do that on her own.

I’ll admit, I wanted to keep a Ray Wing shield up the entire time I was out, water or not, since this humid place buzzed with all sorts of annoying and disgusting bugs. It’s not like I couldn’t! A normal mage might struggle to keep a Ray Wing steady, what with it being a constant vortex of rushing wind and all, but I could handle it! I figured it would be best if I conserved my magic, however.

“Uuugh, I hate these bugs!!” Naga shrieked, smacking another mosquito out of the air. Not bad. “And the water! So much water! There’s nothing I hate more than getting drenched! I have very sensitive skin, you know!”

“So much for dealing with trouble gracefully…” I murmured. I decided to change my Lighting spell into a more powerful flame that I could hold just above my hand. The Lighting was attracting bugs. This way they’d at least get zapped into dust, heheh! … What? They really were annoying! Just because Naga was right, doesn’t mean I couldn’t have a little revenge!

“That little fire of yours isn’t a terrible idea,” Naga said, pointing at it like it was some child’s toy. “However, it’s making this intolerably humid hole even hotter! Allow the great Naga to improve upon your work!” With a flourish of her cape and a bounce of her bosom, she produced an open palm. “Watch this!”

Similar to my magical fire, a floating crystal of misty ice appeared over her hand.

“And just what is that supposed to do?” I asked.

“Ooohohoho~!” Naga shrieked, her laugh echolocating every wall ahead of us. “The same as your brutish little flame, but better! Look at that wondrous light it gives off! And…!” Shing! A mosquito froze in midair, shattering against the stony floor. “Ohohoho~!”

Like always, it was almost impressive.

With the flick of a wrist, I killed my flame. In the next instant, it turned dark as pitch again. Naga’s laughter stuttered as she tripped over a twig and nearly flattened me with those stupid balloon tits of hers.

“Doesn’t seem to do much without my light reflecting off it. Oh, and would you look at that? The bugs won’t even go near it either.”

“Shut up!” Naga whined. “It was merely an… an extension of your power! Meant to work in tandem!” She nodded, making this all up on the spot as if she planned it from the beginning. It wasn’t long before she was laughing again…

I sighed and brought my flame back. I couldn’t deny it. That ice crystal reflected my fire’s light, illuminating more than before, throwing rays of orange and rippling light across the ruins. It was actually kind of beautiful. Not to mention it was really hot and that cool chill gave some much needed relief.

Well. Maybe I could upgrade her from cockroach back to puppy.

Exploring the ruins didn’t feel quite so awful anymore.

-------

Some time later, we made it to what must have been the center of the ruins. I know what you’re thinking again, ‘Lina! Why didn’t you just blast through the ruins and get to the center like you’ve done before!’

Don’t be stupid! Those were dungeons ! It’s very different! Dungeons are meant to be mazes with traps and twists and turns that eventually lead to some haughty villain! There’s nothing of value lost there. In temple ruins like this? Who really knows where the ancient elves left their treasure! The last thing we’d want to do is destroy all that valuable loot!

Oh. Oh, and the history stuff. That’s important too!

“Say…” Naga started, gazing at the intricate mosaic ahead of us, blocking our path. “Just what exactly is the relic we’re trying to steal?”

Ugh! Don’t call it stealing! I mean… okay it is! But it sounds bad!

“Do you really not know? Why did you even come with me?” I asked uselessly. Naga never had a good reason to follow me around.

“Ohoho~!” Naga laughed. “Your usual group was busy, hm? That blonde dummy and the rock man and the loud girl?” Hello? Pot calling kettle black alert? Naga is probably louder than Amelia! I’d say she’s even dumber than Gourry! “You must have been lonely!”

Grrr… Like I’d ever be lonely!

“You’re saying it like you’re doing me a favor!” I growled, wanting to rip that smug look of hers off like that stringy little outfit she wore! (...What? I mean. Like to humiliate her! Geez! Don’t read it weird!) “You just wanted to leech more free food!”

Naga shrugged, her mischievous smile only growing taller. Why did she have to look at me like that?! “Oh. Well, the food is good, but if you want to be rid of me so badly… I guess I could leave~!” She twirled around, cape fwomping in the dim ruin light.

“W-wait!” I cried out.

Naga stopped and looked over her shoulder. “Oh? Will you… miss me?” She took another step and tripped over a piece of debris and straight into the same arrow trap we passed. With a screech, she narrowly avoided another volley of death.

“You won’t be able to see a thing without me…” I sighed. “You’ll definitely get yourself killed on the way back.” Sure, she could use a Lighting spell, but I couldn’t trust Naga to drink water if I didn’t force her! She wishes I’d miss her.

“Hm,” Naga said casually, brushing an arrow out of her hair. “I suppose it would be a waste to come all this way and not get any treasure!”

As if you’re getting any!

“I have made up my mind!” Naga posed; legs splayed wide. “I will continue to stay by your side!”

“Great, I’m glad we cleared that up,” I said sarcastically.

“As am I!” Naga said genuinely.

There was no time to continue doing this bit! The joke had run its course! The scene was boring! We were right smack dab in the middle of the temple, at our goal! We needed to move on, for my sake.

Tuning Naga out, I evaluated the final chamber in this terrible temple. Strangely enough, this was the least ruined area in all of the ruins. Giving it a second thought, I knew why. Magic buzzed through the air louder than any insect. In fact, it was so strong, it seemed even the bugs didn’t want to live here.

Ominous…

The source of this magical power came from the intricately carved wall before us. To someone like Naga, it probably seemed like this chamber was nothing but a huge dead end, but I knew better. This wall, without a speck of moss or dust, with its murals depicting some sort of ancient Elven history, had more to it than meets the eye. I noticed a few indentations running through the middle of the mural, which appeared to be subtle cracks at a glance. But, remember, this mural was in absolutely pristine condition! Why would there be flaws here?

That’s because it was meant to open up.

Our treasure was just beyond here.

“…and that is why I’ve continued to follow you, Lina Inverse!” Naga continued, oblivious to everything.

“Shut up a sec,” I said, waving her off.

“Rude! I was finally opening up to you! I’ll have you know; I’ve never told anyone the things I just said, like my mother—”

“Yeah, yeah,” I interrupted. “The treasure’s behind this huge stone wall you know.”

“Ooh!!” Naga’s eyes sparkled, completely forgetting that I totally ignored her. “Really? Really? Let’s open it up!”

“Not that easy,” I said, focusing on the ancient Elven language before me. “Seems we need to prove our worth through some kind of trial…” You’ll have to excuse me, my ancient Elvish is pretty rusty. Like, I could ask an ancient Elf for directions to the bathroom pretty easily, but I’d need to look through my journal to get a refresher on this intricate stuff.

“Boo, trials!” Naga shook her head. “Let’s just blow it up!”

I ignored her, nose down in my book of Ancient Elvish Tourist Spots You Can’t Miss. “Go ahead, try it if you—”

I knew what she was going to do, so it didn’t matter what I said.

“Fireball!!”

Naga slung the orb of powerful exploding magic like a baseball pitcher, mouth as manic as can be. As I suspected, an ethereal glow emanated from the mural, and Naga’s Fireball bounced back at her with a cute squeak!

The resulting noise that left Naga’s throat was less cute, another scream as flames engulfed her for the umpteenth time.

When she brushed it off, I muttered, “Magic barrier.”

Naga stamped a foot on the floor. “Why didn’t you warn me!?”

I was busy. Didn’t feel like talking in full sentences. “Stupid.”

“What?!”

“You. Stupid. Wouldn’t matter.” I flipped another page. Ahh, so that’s how to ask where the library was…

“Gremlin!” Naga screeched, taking a seat on a piece of the ruins. With a frustrated sigh, she began rubbing and cleaning the soot off her skin/cape/clothes etc. It must have been hard work looking like a cliche bimbo and getting blasted to bits on an hourly basis.

At least it gave me time to translate in peace.

After about 30 minutes or so, I felt confident in my ability to barter in Elvish over a steak and even give directions to the nearest Elvish hospital! Just needed to use some flashcards, and bam! You could call me Lina Elfverse!

Don’t call me that. I will blast you.

“So? Have you translated it yet?” Naga asked.

Ugh! I translated it! I did! I just… I didn’t want to say it.

“...No?” I lied, terribly. Even Naga wasn’t stupid enough to buy it.

“Truly? Lina Inverse, stumped by a wall? Unable to speak such a simple language?” Naga laughed.

“You don’t know a single word of Elvish!” I screamed back, blood boiling.

“I don’t need to, I have my minions for that,” Naga said, fanning all that hot air my way.

“I am NOT your minion!” I raged, already feeling the heat of a Fireball in my hands.

“Lina Inverse, you get so worked up over little details!” Naga laughed. “Just tell me what it says, will you?”

Hmph! Let’s see how she liked the answer so much then!

“You know what?! I will!” I grinned demonically. “This is a trial of LOVE , idiot!”

“Eh?” A strand of Naga’s hair curled out of her head. “What in the world does that mean?”

“To open this door,” I explained, “We need to show it love. True love.”

Naga squinted at me, suspicious. “How would that door know the difference?”

“It’s magic, dummy!” I said, kind of hoping she wouldn’t prod me further on it. Love magic was never really my specialty, considering my cool loner attitude. “Just like any other power, it can sense the levels of magic in the room! Love is an extremely powerful emotion, a power that you feel in your chest prominently, (I’m told) and it seems these ancient Elves had a way to quantify it.”

Naga simply smirked. “Is that all?”

I sighed. She acted like she understood it, but I knew not a single thought went through her-

“Lina Inverse,” Naga said, pointing at me dramatically. “I LOVE you!” Her smug smile let loose an arrow that pierced my heart.

Ba-dump!

“Y-you idiot!” I screamed back, looking away. “You can’t just shout that! It doesn’t work that way!”

And besides! It’s weird!

“Why not?” Naga asked in a sultry tone, completely unphased. 

“Don’t you have any dignity?!” I asked in return. Then I remembered her outfit. Oh right, of course she doesn’t. “It can tell if you’re lying!”

“Can it now…?” Naga said, mischief on her lips.

Suddenly, the mural lit up! A dim, very dim , blue magical light filled the indents of a few of the runes. It was like someone pouring a drop of water into an empty cup!

“No way!” I said, flabbergasted.

“Ooohohohoho~!” Naga howled, without a shred of decency. “Was this supposed to be a difficult trial? Maybe for someone like you! ”

Urgh!

I reeled backwards, away from her uncomfortable haughtiness. “It’s–it’s not difficult!” I didn’t understand! How could that have even MILDLY worked?

Naga wagged a finger at me, clicking her tongue in such an annoying way. “You look like a frightened little girl! How easy it is for a woman like me!” She looked me straight in the eyes, gaze as sharp as her spikes, and her shining lips said, “Li-na. In-verse. I. Love. You.”

Gack!

It felt like someone socked me right in the chest!

“I love you, Lina Inverse!” Naga repeated with ease, almost in a sing-songy voice. “I love you, I love you, I love YOU! Ohohoho~!”

Before I knew it, I was on my knees, clutching my head. “Can’t you see you’re killing me here?! You shouldn’t be trying to torture me!”

“But it’s so easy!” Naga crowed. “And look! It’s working!”

Between my fingers, I managed to find the strength to look at the glyphs. Sure enough, they looked brighter. Slightly brighter. Barely brighter.

“I love you, Lina Inverse!” Naga cheered again, enjoying the pure psychological damage she was doing to me. “Me, Naga the Serpent, loves YOU! Lovey-dovey, love-u-love-u!!!”

“Cut it out, will you?!” I coughed. “Look, you must have hit the cap! It’s not getting brighter anymore!”

That shut her up for a moment, thankfully. Hand on her chin, she thought for a moment. “Hm. I love you?” Sure enough, nothing. It was still barely lit up enough to even call itself a nightlight!

Ha! Not so smug now are you! I felt some of my energy coming back.

“Aha!” Naga’s clenched hand hit her palm. “You just have to say it back to me!”

Aaaaaaaagh!!!

Time out! Time out! Severe mental trauma! Tummy ache! Anything but that!

“No! No way!” I squealed out, convulsing on the floor. “I refuse!”

Naga sighed, looking down at me like she was so tough! “My, my, Lina Inverse, you truly are weaker than I expected. Three words is all it takes to bring you down?”

The light on the glyphs dimmed ever so slightly.

Ugh! She was right! I’ve chanted forbidden words calling upon the darkest gods themselves! Was I really afraid to lie? If Naga could lie that easily, why couldn’t I? I didn’t come all this way to be beaten by a stupid wall! To be beaten by Naga!

I punched the floor, pushing myself back up to my feet. With a, dare I say, sexy flourish, I pointed at Naga and said, “ I love you!!”

Blue light burst out of the glyphs, much brighter than before, bright enough to highlight the blush on Naga’s face. As much as I wish my words affected her, it is important to note that Naga always has a blushy face, as if she’s out of breath or something. I could hardly notice a change in Naga, maybe a brief widen of the eyes, or maybe she just smirked more.

“How’d you like that?” I said, crossing my arms.

“Hm? Sorry what?” Naga put a hand to her ear. “I couldn’t hear your single tiny proclamation of love over all my proclamations of love for you! Ohohoho!”

“Grr!!” I stamped my foot. “Look! The glyphs are nearly lit up because of me!”

Naga shrugged. “Nearly isn’t good enough, Lina Inverse.”

“So, you wanna play that way, do you?” I rolled up my sleeves. “Fine! Don’t say I didn’t warn you! Take this!” As if chanting my most powerful spell, I closed my eyes and held my hands up, saying, “I call upon myself, Lina Inverse, to say my innermost intimate feelings for you…” And then, WHAM! threw my hands at her with a, “I LOVE you, Naga the Serpent! I love you! Lovey-dovey, you! Wuv-wuv, even! Mwah! Mwah!” That’s right! Kissy face! And even kisses blown!

Haha! Even Naga was taken aback this time! There was no hiding her shock, her smug smile tripping into a confused frown. And that wasn’t all!

One of the glyphs exploded in light! The heart was completely full! Yes! I did it! Me!

I wiped the sweat from my brow, my chest heaving with exhaustion from my spell. But I won! Like I always do.

“Lina…” Naga started; her voice quiet (for her). “That was quite undignified of you.” She shook her head sadly.

STRANGLE HER. I was going to strangle her! For real! This would be her tomb!

“Will you shut up!? Look! I filled the glyph up! No thanks to you!”

“Yes, I always knew you had feelings for me,” Naga said with a nod. “But this? Goodness, Lina Inverse, it’s borderline obsession!”

“I do NOT have feelings for you!” I screamed, trying not to pull my beautiful hair out. “I never have! I was lying!”

Naga raised an eyebrow, pointing easily to the heart glyph, full and bright. “What about that? Mine barely did anything.”

“You’re a damned idiot is what you are!” I yelled. “It’s because I reciprocated those feelings you gave me! Not to mention it’s going off of how you feel too!”

Naga shrugged. “I just don’t think I feel the same way, Lina.”

“Why… you!! I….” My hands were in stranglin’ mode. I had to use every ounce of my power to stop them from ending her life.

“The door still hasn’t opened though…” Naga said, looking at the glyph, deflecting my rage by changing the subject.

Lucky! She was lucky I was interested in this.

“Let me have a look,” I said, shoving Naga over.

“Rude!”

I pulled the skin under my eye and stuck my tongue out at her, making the ugliest face I could before going back to the runes. Naga tried to do the same back, but I was already ignoring her! Ha! I’m so good at ignoring her, aren’t I?

Interesting…

“Some new runes have appeared,” I said more to myself than anyone. “Another heart…? Oh no…”

“Hmm?” Naga perched her lanky arms and head on top of mine, struggling to see what I was seeing. “What is it?”

“Grr, get offa me!” I screeched, tossing her like a bag of dirty laundry. “We’re not done yet, you double-D-dunce!”

“There’s mooore?” Naga whined, even though she had just said how easy the trial before was. “What else could we do to prove our love?”

Yuck! It still gave me shivers just hearing her say that.

I didn’t like what it had said. I didn’t want to say it. I had to pretend it was a chant like any other spell again, just like before. Close my eyes and repeat the words, that’s all!

“It says the next step is to prove our love is with a kiss,” I said. It felt hotter here! “A heartfelt kiss. With passion.”

Naga tilted her head. “Tongue?” she asked nonchalantly.

That was it. I couldn’t concentrate. “H-how should I know?!” I blew up, averting my gaze.

Ugh! Wrong move. I could feel Naga’s smug stare at that. “Ohohoho~! Lina Inverse, do you not know how to kiss with tongue?”

Don’t! Don’t say anything. Don’t give her ammunition!

A pause. Naga’s voice was quieter. “Lina Inverse, do you not know how to kiss in general?”

NOT GIVING HER AMMUNITION. SAY NOTHING. ANYTHING I DO CAN AND WILL BE USED AGAINST ME.

Naga clicked her tongue and wagged her head sadly. “Oh, Lina Inverse, you poor poor thing.”

No! No, please, haven’t I suffered enough? The last thing I wanted was pity! From Naga of all people!

“Shut up!!” I finally shouted. Why would I need to know how to kiss?! What’s the point?! I mean, sure, love magic exists but it’s barely been used and it's mostly useless! While most idiots were kissing, I was studying the blade! And magic!

“Well, let’s get this over with,” Naga said with a sigh. She leaned down to my height, a bored expression in her eyes.

“What’s with the attitude?!” I took a step back. She was too close!

“If I’m going to be your first kiss, then it certainly won’t be a good one for me ,” Naga huffed. “But for the sake of the treasure and your fragile pride, I’ll do it.”

“I-I’ve kissed before!” I tried to counter.

Naga raised an eyebrow. “How many times?”

Gack! What was a good number to say… I couldn’t say the truth because–

“So not nearly enough,” Naga interrupted.

Damn it! She really was good. How was I supposed to know there was something Naga was good at?! She can barely feed herself!

“Come on, Lina Inverse,” Naga said, her stale expression never changing.

“Do you gotta act so bored about it?!”

“We already did this before with the ‘I love you’ rune! Of course I’m bored by now!”

“ One trial and you’re already bored?!”

“I’d be less bored if you didn’t take so long, Lina Inverse~!”

“Fine! Like you said, let’s get it over with!” I grit my teeth and returned her gaze. “G-get ready!”

An eyebrow raised. A smile twitched in her lips. Naga said, “Very well. I’ll let you make the first move.” She closed her eyes and puckered her lips.

Geez! Geez! Geez!!! I’m really doing this!? Am I really doing this!?

Who cares! Who cares! I don’t! It’s just for treasure! It’s just skin on skin contact! Scientifically speaking, it barely means anything!

She actually looks… peaceful? She’s so sure of herself, so composed, almost like a real princess… Even her lips look…

No, no, no, I don’t…!

“Lina Inverse!” Naga’s voice and hard stare shook me out of my inner monologue. “I. Am. Bored! Kiss! Now!”

“Yeah, yeah, close your eyes again, will ya?! Can’t do it with you staring like a weirdo!”

She rolled her eyes before closing them again.

I’m doing it! I’m doing it!

I took a deep breath through my nose. I closed my eyes. I moved my face forward. I… I felt her lips brush against mine. Instantly my mind clouded, instantly I seemed to lose control over my body. My heart pounded in my chest and my thoughts swirled in every direction. I felt like I was floating, but my feet were still on the ground. It was… it was so much better than I could have imagined. I…

“Was that it?!” Naga groaned, breaking me out of my trance.

“H-huh?!” was all I could manage to say, my lips tingling, my cheeks hot.

“Just a peck!?” Naga’s hands were at her hips. She motioned with her face towards the rune and I noted how it glowed the dimmest of pinks.

“W-what?!” I tried not to stammer. I couldn’t help it. “It was still a kiss!”

“Not good enough, clearly,” Naga grumbled. “Lina Inverse, let me show you how it’s done.”

Eep! I reflexively took a step back from her.

Naga sighed. “All right?” was all she said, but… somehow… that seemed to be more than she’d ever said to me about anything. She never asked me how I felt before she came flinging spells at me or stealing my steak, but for this…?

I lightly slapped my cheeks between my hands, renewing my resolve. “All right,” I replied.

Like a demon that had just been freed from her chains, Naga was on me in a flash. She was so different from before, from that princess-like kiss moments ago. Now she moved like a dark mage, powerful, overwhelming, and she loved it. Whatever peaceful princess state she had been in before must have been why she was bored. This was what Naga wanted.

Before I knew it, she had picked me up by my arms, pinning me to the stone wall, her knee holding me up between my legs, her chest heavy against mine. 

I was completely powerless. I’d never felt like this before! I’d never… I’d never given up control so easily, I’d never let anyone beat me! But Naga, oh Naga, she wanted that control so much, she wanted to beat me so much .

I let her.

Her mouth hit mine, a mess of teeth and lips and hunger, and I could do nothing but gasp back. She drank gasps, licked me dry of everything I had, her body entirely overwhelming mine to the point I wasn’t even sure where she began and I ended.

With a breathy snicker, I felt her wet tongue slide between my lips, messy and hunting, tasting every part of me. I let out another gasp into her, my back arching, my chest pressing into hers. Before I knew it, she had coerced my tongue out of hiding, mine sloppily hitting hers, our breath a heated mess of gasps and sucking.

I was at her mercy. I’d never felt like this before, I wanted more, I wanted Naga to…

Suddenly, I fell to the floor. My hot head was a haze of pleasure and confusion. Naga? Why would she…

“Ah, there we go!” Naga said with a cheer, staring at the second rune which positively beamed with light, its heart full to the brim. “Done!”

“H-hold on a second…” I gasped, trying to get my bearings, still on all fours on the floor. I wiped the slobber off my lips with my arm, so very sure what I just experienced couldn’t have been a dream.

“Oh, come now, Lina Inverse!” Naga said with a smug snort. “You’re panting like a little puppy! Ohohoho! Was I too much for you? I went as easy as I possibly could!”

“Y-you call that easy?!” I huffed, getting back up on shaky legs.

She narrowed her eyes, sneering ever more towards me, that blushy face of hers driving me mad! “Yes, I do! I do so hope you aren’t falling for my charms~...”

“Y-you wish!” I shouted. “You were like a squid sucking on my face! I could barely breathe!”

My insult didn’t make a dent in her confident smile.

“Whatever. I just hope this thing is done now…” I turned back to the runes, happy to get that grinning idiot out of my vision for a while so I could think straight.

Let’s see…

Ugh. One more trial.

…

No, no…

…

“Are you serious?! ” I exclaimed.

“What? What?” Naga poked herself in yet again. “Another trial is there? What else could there be?”

This was where I had to draw the line. Even Naga wouldn’t be able to deal with this!

“It–ugh–it says to fill the third and final rune we must become one before Aphrodias herself.”

Naga tilted her head. “What does that mean?”

Of course she knows all this kissing business but is too dense to understand this!

“It means! It wants us to… you know! Come together! With our bodies!” Ugh! Was she getting this at all? “Without clothes on!”

Recognition lit up in her eyes. “Oh! Sex!”

Gack! “Y-yes, that…” I couldn’t even repeat it! It was so wrong! So weird! “This Aphrodias is certainly one perverted god! I think this is where we’ll have to finally give up and–”

“That’s not so hard!” Naga said easily.

“WHAT?!” I screamed, my jaw hitting the floor so hard my teeth hurt.

Naga raised an eyebrow at me. “Hm? What’s the matter?”

“You… You understand what it wants from us, right?” I repeated. Naga wasn’t the brightest.

“Yes?” she said easily, nearly annoyed.

“It wants us to have…” Urk. I practically gagged the word out. “Sex. Together. As in you and me.”

Naga’s expression stayed the same. “...Yes…? I got that.”

“And you’re fine with that?!”

“What part of ‘That’s not so hard!’ don’t you understand?!” Naga growled, acting like I was the stupid one here!

“Some creepy goddess tells you to do someone and you’ll just do it?!”

Naga shook her head. “It’s just a wall, Lina Inverse. There’s no one actually watching, you know. It is simply a magical receptacle awaiting a certain type of love.”

“Y-you! I… Don’t…” Flabbergasted! I was flabbergasted! “D-don’t try to explain it to me like I don’t know what it is!”

“Then what’s the problem?”

“Ugh!” I threw my hands up in the air. “You think it's easy to just get naked like that?!”

Silence.

I stared at Naga the Serpent in her trademark teeny tiny leather bikini. She was already practically naked.

“Okay, stupid question, I’ll admit that.” I held out my hands in defense. “But still…!”

“If you really don’t want to do it,” Naga said with a sigh, “We don’t have to. No one is forcing you.”

“But we…” My mind started swirling again, as if we were kissing again, but we weren’t! “We worked so hard to get here! We already did so much…!”

“Exactly,” Naga said with a shrug. “That’s how I feel. But if you think this trial is too difficult for you, then there’s nothing that can be done now is there?” Naga shook her head. “It can’t just be me.”

“Agh!” I screamed. “T-trying to guilt me!”

“I am not.”

“Trying to taunt me!”

“I still am not.”

“Teasing me!”

“Lina Inverse, but you are so sensitive, aren’t you?”

“Not! I am not!”

“We don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do.”

I paused. I paused some more. I let … I actually let my thoughts slow. I let my mind read what it was trying to tell me. I…

“I don’t want to do it if you don’t want to,” I finally said.

“Hm?” Even Naga faltered at that.

“You don’t want to do any of this,” I said, my mind swirling again. “ I don’t want to do this. I’m–I’m not doing this with someone who doesn’t want to!”

“Little puppy…” Naga sighed with exasperation. “I want to do it with you, Lina Inverse,” she said tonelessly.

Wish she’d stop calling me a puppy! I’m not a puppy! She is!

“Do you really?” I asked again.

“Yes, yes,” she added, “For the treasure of course.”

I thought about it. “For the treasure…” Maybe… maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. Naga was experienced and she seemed to respect my wishes, at least when it was about this kind of thing. “Maybe… uh… yeah… I could…”

“Ohohoho~!” Naga cackled. “Of course you want to do this, Lina Inverse! Now prepare yourself for you are about to be blessed by me! Naga the Serpent! Ohohohoho~!”

Ugh! No. No! No way I’m really doing this!

Am … Am I?

She’s so stupid! But she’s…

She stepped forward and I stood frozen. No way. No way. No! Way!

That’s it! That’s it!

CUT!

Cut the feed! Cut the film! No way, no one's gonna know about this! Go to black! Whatever you think is going to happen ISN’T happening and isn’t GOING to happen, got it?! Got it?!

Turn this thing off!

…

…

…

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

So, the third rune was fully lit. Done. Easy. Don’t gotta go into details how that happened. But the trials were done!

Clasping my cloak back on, I let out a sigh. At least the makeshift bath after was nice. I had gotten way too sweaty with Naga when we… er… finished the final trial.

“Ahhh~!” Naga yawned, stretching her lanky arms high. “That wasn’t so bad now was it, Lina Inverse?”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” I muttered back, still refusing to accept reality.

“Oh, come now, you were positively loving it when–”

“LALALA,” I scream-sang, hands over my ears. “I can’t hear you!!”

For whatever reason, this only made Naga’s smug smile worse. “You are still a little gremlin, but you can be cute at times.”

Ack!! “Shut up!” I countered. Not great. Not great. Naga had been really getting to me recently, in so many ways. I still wasn’t sure how to feel. I mean I know what just happened, but that was all just for the treasure!

… right?

“Screw this!” I shook my head and stomped my way over to the brightly lit wall, all three hearts as full as could be. “Let’s just get our treasure and get out of here!”

“Of course!” Naga said easily, a tiny snicker as she loomed over me at my side. 

I placed my hands against the runed wall, the heat of our love magic tingling in my fingers. “Aphrodias, hear my call! Each trial we have faced, and we have done them all! I command thee to open this wall!”

The ruins reacted to my touch, to my words, to our love, and shuddered. Stones grinded, dust and pebbles collapsed as this dreadful wall slowly and finally opened itself up to us.

“Wow!” Naga watched in open-mouthed awe as the walls parted. “Did you need to cast another spell to finish the trial?”

I shook my head. “Nah, I just wanted to rhyme and sound cool. All I needed to do was touch the wall.”

Naga shrugged.

When the dust settled and the stones finally rested once again into eternal slumber, Naga and I entered the fabled Aphrodias’ treasure vault, our hearts pounding with excitement.

First thing to note, the vault wasn’t as big as the walls had made it out to be. However, due to the magical runes, everything seemed to be perfectly preserved, jarringly so. Whereas the ruins before had been cut stone and engraved walls covered in moss and cracked with time, the treasure vault appeared to have plain blue wallpaper? And the floor–the floor was carpeted! An extremely fuzzy and tacky purple shag carpeting?!

As if this wasn’t already setting alarm bells off in my head, the second and most eye-catching thing to note was the three glowing heart runes in the center of the room. Similar to the ones outside, but these ones were stacked inside of each other, blinking in alternate intervals, almost like a… neon sign?!

And last, but certainly not least, beneath the blinking heart runes, lay what appeared to be our treasure. A rectangular shaped pedestal that went up past my waist with some kind of strange ancient apparatus made up of more runes.

“This is… weird,” I said, checking for any more potential traps. It seemed safe.

“The decor is a bit tacky, yes,” Naga nodded, not really understanding what I was saying.

Our treasure must have been in this strange looking pedestal. I wasn’t sure how to get it working, but I certainly wasn’t opposed to pressing random runes to see if I could get things working. At my touch, something lit up!

I noticed a small slit in the pedestal began to glow brightly. Brighter… brighter…! It whirred to life, vibrating with motion as it worked some kind of ancient mechanism.

Ding!

We both stepped back out of caution, but the machine went silent.

It spit something out. Something shiny. This must have been our treasure!

…

This was our treasure…?

“What is it, what is it?!” Naga yapped, hopping behind me excitedly. “Is it a guidebook to forbidden magic?! A powerful charm?! A priceless plate? Maybe it’s the best skincare lotion in all the realm!”

“Shut it, will ya?” I nabbed the paper from the machine. It was paper, yes, but high-quality paper at least? Something was written on it, in the same runes as before.

But wait!

“Ohhhhh!” Naga cooed, mouth agape. “It has our names on it!! Why?!”

I wish I could mimic her excitement. “Hold on, that’s what I’m trying to find out. Let me see if I can read it.”

“Come on, I want to know why my name is there!! Maybe I’m an heir to their throne now??”

I cleared my throat and read the words slowly, still not very proficient. Let’s see…

“You who have completed my trials,” I read aloud. “You and your partner who stand before my altar, your love proven to me without a doubt, I now bestow upon you the highest gift that I, Aphrodias, the Goddess of Love, can bestow. I now pronounce you, Lina Inverse, and Naga the Serpent– MARRIED? ”

“Whaaaaaat?”

Hold on! Hold on! Let me just read the details a bit more…

“A love so powerful and true,” I continued, my voice shaking. “That none may ever break it. With the love magic stored between you two in my altar, your love will forever stay strong, stay true, and nothing will come between you two. All will know of your love for all of time, and even the Gods and Demons themselves will not be able to deny it or destroy it.”

“So it’s…” Naga tilted her head. “A marriage certificate?”

I stared at the certificate in my hands but didn’t look at it. Realization washed over me like a cold street puddle. “A marriage certificate made of powerful runes from the Goddess of Love herself… an ultra-powerful magical marriage that binds our souls eternally together…”

“So no divorce?” Naga asked casually.

My voice had become monotone as I spoke, my body rigid. “No divorce.”

“Hmm. It’s laminated!” she added with a cheer. “That’s nice.”

“It is,” I responded tonelessly.

“So, Lina Inverse, it looks like you and I are destined to be rivals till the end of time! It is fitting that I make you my wife! OOOohohohoho~!” Naga screeched, her laugh reverberating through my skull.

Naga… my wife? Naga was my wife now? For all of eternity?

This… this was the treasure? Everything I did… everything I did with her… was for this?

An unbreakable magic marriage certificate? That bonded us together through all of time?!

No, no, no… no.

Naga the Serpent…

“What’s the matter, Lina Inverse?” Naga said between her shrill laughter. “Are you rendered speechless that you have the honor to be my wife? Ohohohoho~!”

This big boobed bimbo…

No, no… Anyone but her! No!

Unbreakable bond?! Blessed by the gods?! Nothing in the world could break it?!

We’ll see about that.

“Darkness beyond blackest pitch,” I muttered. “Deeper than the deepest night.”

Naga’s laughter finally quieted. “Lina Inverse? Are you casting something…?”

“Lord as vast as the largest ocean

Colder than the coldest ice.”

“Why are you glowing like that? Is your hair turning white?”

“King of Darkness who shines like gold upon the Sea of Chaos…”

“Honey?” Naga asked nervously. “Wife? What are you… what are you doing…?”

If nothing can break our love, if nothing can break our bond, then I’ll just have to break EVERYTHING .

…

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEE!!!”

-----------

…

…

…

“And that’s how we got married!” Naga explained for the millionth time to yet another innkeeper.

I drank my mead and ate my steak with a frown, watching as my wife retold the story again to everyone in the vicinity. No one cared, no one wanted to hear, least of all me.

“Uh, that sure is swell, ma’am,” the innkeeper said with a sheepish smile. “You sure, uh, gave a lot of extra detail that maybe wasn’t necessary, though.”

“Yep,” I groaned, unable to do anything else but sit through her humiliating story.

“Oh, but you need to know how my adorable wife squirmed!” Naga laughed.

“Erm, not to butt into your relationship, ma’am, but your wife doesn’t seem to appreciate it…”

“Nonsense!” Naga went on laughing. “If she hated it that much, she’d have gone through with that Giga Slave spell!”

I sighed.

“Giga… Slave…?”

“Yes, you know, the spell that could destroy the whole world as we know it!”

“Can’t say I do…”

“Well, she was about to cast it when we were first wed, but decided against it! Isn’t that sweet?”

“Erm…”

“Personally, Lina Inverse would never be my first choice to be my wife, but oh! The way she fawns over me and follows me around like a lost puppy, how could I say no? She has trouble being honest with herself and her feelings and is a bit frumpy here and there and certainly below my level, but I am so generous and love to please my wife! Ohohohoho~!”

I really should have casted it. I should have gone through with the Giga Slave.

…

At the end of the night, just like every night, Naga and I came to our room to rest and prepare for the next day’s adventure. With just the two of us by ourselves, I allowed my hand to brush against hers, to interlock our fingers together.

“Ohohoho, Lina Inverse, you cute thing!” she said, poking my head irritatingly. “Need some attention tonight?”

I didn’t respond. I didn’t need attention from her! I didn’t! But… It was nice to share a bed with someone. I never realized how hard it was to sleep alone. Even with Naga’s tossing and turning and snoring and general annoyances, I always felt so soothed by having her at my side.

I looked up at my blushy, lanky, monster of a wife. She smiled just as brightly, just as smugly as always, never letting anything bother her. Like always, she knew what this meant.

Naga leaned down and gave me a quick kiss. “Love you~!” she cooed in that annoying voice of hers.

“Love you too,” I said quietly.

Like every night and all the nights after that, we slept peacefully. Mostly. I got used to her snoring.

[jenotapes]

to all the boys i've hated before. (part 1)

pairing | nct dream x fem!reader

genre | fluff with big clumps of angst, to all the boys i've loved before inspired au, a whole love octagon, implied enemies to lovers, college au

words | 6.7k

warnings | profanity, alcohol consumption, mentions of bullying, implied sex (no smut, just suggestive), mentions of vomiting, the dreamies are assholes here, FOR THE SAKE OF THE FIC. they're absolute angels irl so plz take it with a pinch of salt

taglist | [CLOSED] @marklexleaf @rrnhyuck @runawayreki @czenieehyuck @jaeminslut @tsupuffs @ihearthaechan @angelssung @renkkuri @injunzz @woofie-nctzen-fanarts @jaeyux @scintillating-souls @yixingtion @bath1lda @channiedani @yourelate @alyvieyr @huangberryyy @shnchintya @germoryisinvain @one16core @treeforlight @sharkbb @justvelvet14 @chnzlele @grassbutneo @daegalfangirl @itsjustveryhard @latta-e @rosyb7aby @softieehyuck @ryu-naa @totalbetty @renjun-pretty @legbouk @mahae66 @babyksworld @artsenthusiastk77 @peepsibo @natttjuless @todorokiskitten @jaeviez @seobecca @fullbitchsun @resceluwu @flower-lise @aedreamzy @bananaxsydeee @nctevia @dandelionxgal @wildxdreamer @bbnana @luvdroids

synopsis | an incident that spiralled your life in so many ways possible. out of your entire school life, you had only written letters about people who you so much despised, being it for your eyes only. until a day, word came out that they’d been exposed. you remembered, out of hundred and nine– there was a top seven.

before you dive in, make sure you've read the preview first!

I. operation, hide yourself.

You liked being invincible, you could do something and no one would care a single bit. That’s how you were during your high school days, just some smart basketcase trying to survive school– all the while persevering the people who had given you such a hard time.

Writing letters gave you leeway to pour all your feelings out, a hatred so intense you didn’t know what else to do. Out of at least hundreds, there was a top seven.

—

You slump on the kitchen countertop of your dorm, face rested on the cold surface of the marbled top. “Looks like someone woke up at the-” “Wrong side of the bed.” You mumbled, continuing his sentence. It was an everyday phrase used by Donghyuck, not to say everyday but it was consistent. That exact same sentence you’d hear whenever you chastised him for his constant host for hooleys– ones that were never consented by you either. But he never listened, leaving you to hold some sort of routine to always clean up his mess, whether it’d be an expected aftermath from a party, from taking an earful from the landlord, holding him up as he has his drunken outbursts and whatever more you’ve endured from the moment he became your roommate.

“Not my fault everyone decided to do a mosh pit party.” He defended, with a stupid excuse to back himself up to no avail, as always. “And you let them? What if someone breaks the wall?” You ask in disbelief. What was to expect from a boy with such a high nightlife? “Hyuck, if we get kicked out, it’s all on you.”

“Is it though?” He gave you a glance, as if he was indirectly pinning the blame on you— telling you with his own eyes that you, yourself, should be enough to stop the parties, as if you haven’t tried. You pick up what he was thinking like it was a walk in a park.

“Yeah, well? And it led me to be splashed on.” That incident still gives you shivers the more you think about it, not only that, but you had single handedly saved Lee Bansoo, the number one target on campus, as dubbed, from getting splashed with ice cold water without even realising it.

He sips his latte, slinging his backpack on his shoulder. “Not my problem.” He shrugs. He himself was enough to raise your blood pressure, you felt like you were ageing faster with these stupid people in your life. He opens the door to leave the dorm, but before he could take a footstep– you nagged. “And you didn’t buy a coffee for me either? Wow, Hyuck. That’s so kind of you.” You put on a rather distasteful smile, leaving the latter to do the same to you.

���Right? Anyways, Chenle’s waiting out.” He nonchalantly ignores you, bidding goodbye as he leaves the door wide open. Not even a thank you either, you meshed your braincells all together just to compliment his ‘kindness’ and he walks off like that? Ugh.

You look away momentarily to sigh, eyes slowly positioning to the Chinese boy making his way inside the dorm. “Pissed you off again?” He stifles a laugh, “He does this shit daily.” And you were sick and tired, daily. A faint smile appears on your lips once the latter walks in, though you could barely look at him.

Yesterday.

Reminiscing through all the letters was a little tough, especially when it came to Chenle’s. Your words still linger somewhere in a small part of your brain, looking at him can’t help but make you remember— you do discern that he had changed somewhat along the way. It makes you feel like the bad guy, in this situation, when you had written the letter.. but you tell yourself that your feelings have the right to be angry. You hoped to take those letters to the grave, as much as you despised how he treated you that time, your friendship now was too precious to be snicked.

You take a minute to get rid of your emotional state, deciding to stop yourself from sticking to the counter as you take a deep breath. “You look bummed,” He chuckles. “Take your coffee, it’s still warm. If anything it’ll help you from being freezed to death outside.”

“Yeah, minus eleven degrees today.” You cock your brows in surprise. January always had been one of the coldest months in Seoul, and before you knew it, temperatures were dropping. You take the cup of coffee Chenle passes to you, relieved of the warm feeling that it gave you. You had run out of heat packs, Donghyuck probably taking all of what was left in that container.

You dug your hands deep in your pockets, lips thin as the both of you ran out to walk to campus.

—

It was time for your Chemistry course you had taken up as an offer months ago. Your thumb gently pressing on your forehead as you listen to Professor Yoon vent about his telling life story through Chemistry. How the hell do you even do that? Life is chemistry, dilute your sorrow, evaporate your worries, filter your mistakes, boil your ego. To be honest, you quote it yourself too.

“Enough said, I’ll sort out the partners for this project before our class gets dismissed.” The aforementioned Yoon says, scanning the room as he takes a chalk to write the names of the pairs. You really hoped that your partner was someone tolerable to say the least, if anything– the worst thing is you’d have to do this project alone while they’d be doing whatever floats their tote. You don’t really know anyone who’s been talked about lately, this campus full of chit chatters– luckily none of them in Chem.

You tap your fingers against your cheeks, the only thing filling the classroom were the nonstop scrapes of the white chalk. Your name was yet to appear and the majority of the pairs seemed to have been sitting next to each other already. You didn’t even realise it was assigned that quickly, looking around to see if anyone was alone.

There seemed to be a boy with dark brown hair, puffing and swishing his cheeks up habitually as he was waiting for his name to be written.

JUNG Y/N and PARK JISUNG.

Park.. Jisung? You couldn’t recall the boy ever admitting himself here, looking back— he seemed to have grown up much more. He definitely had become taller, no doubt as he started walking to you. He still looked the same, but his features had developed to become more defined.  Was that really him though? Worst case scenario, he probably didn’t get the offer to that really good university. From what you’ve heard though, you thought he got accepted. Why is he here?

Much to your dismay, you realised you were partners again. Fate seemed to have particularly picked up the broken pieces from your letters to glue them all back together. You didn’t even realise he was in your Chemistry class, let alone how the two of you ended up becoming the last pair.

“Y/N..?” He calls out, snapping you out of your trance. “Oh, hey.” You softly smile, shifting over to the empty seat next to yours so he could sit down. You were partnered up under Chemical Bonding, not to be delusional but at an encounter like this, back from something that you know ended up badly– Chemical ‘Bonding’ was definitely quite a topic to assign us to.

He seemed a little more shy than before, you don’t know if it’s because of you, or because he’d change over the years, him still having his clumsy, shy boy antics to cover up his troubles would be a possible reason. Man, this dude is full of surprises.

“I haven’t seen you in forever, um.. how’s life?” He asks, pursing his lips. What a question to ask you. “Wish it could be better. What about you? I thought you were enrolled in KAIST?”

He sighs at that, looking around before gesturing for you to come closer. “Promise me you won’t tell anybody?”

You nodded, shifting closer to him, bringing your ear closer as he gently leans in.

“I lied.” He whispers.

“Lied? What do you mean?”

“Told most of my friends I got the offer, when I really didn’t.” He sighs, rubbing his temples out of stress the more he talks about it.

“I’m not an ass kisser, I’m telling you. Each and every one of them had gotten offers to Hanyang, SNU, even getting scholarships to study overseas in prestigious universities. I just felt so pressured, so KAIST just came out of my mouth.” He rambles, continuing on his sentence. “And you didn’t tell them it was a mistake?”

He shakes his head nonchalantly, “No, I wish.. But they all would’ve started laughing at me. It already hurts seeing someone else live my dream, sort of. I don’t know.” Wow, you thought. You never knew .. Park Jisung had hopes and dreams, even though he was crushing yours in the process. Jokes aside, let’s not over exaggerate. You were once that person, but not anymore. You swallow your thoughts, patting his back gently as he gives you an apologetic gaze.

“If anything, at least we’re somewhere in the top 50?” You were never good at comforting people at the slightest, laughing awkwardly to subside the already sentimental atmosphere. He chuckles, nodding his head. “I guess. It might be tough once they find out I've been lying though. They’ll know sooner enough, you can’t always keep your secrets to the grave. You can learn a lot from Pretty Little Liars, you know?”

He sure does talk a lot.

People specifically talking about taking secrets to grave gave you PTSD.. for sure. Heavily reminded of the angsty letters you wrote, the last one being quite recent. Whatever it was, it was pure bullshit. You could simply take all your darkest secrets to the grave unless, if you’re stupid enough to scatter all the evidence. You could just burn the letters, but that moreover makes you feel more guilty— why were you thinking over this so much in the first place? Over papers filled with words?

God, you wished for it to be all over with. You’ve been projecting so much today it’s a little concerning.

“Yeah.. you sure can.” You nod. “Anyways, this is a diorama project right?” If anything to keep away from the topic, you decided to remind him of the actual discussion the two of you were supposed to get into. “Right, something about defining sulfur, calcium and some other stuff using clay. Do you wanna go out some other time?”

“As in?”

“I-I mean, like.. to gather the materials, and like.. make it together, you know?” He panics, jutting out his bottom lip as he fumbles himself. “I know what you mean, I was just messing with you.” You only chuckle. “I prefer anywhere else but my dorm, unless we won’t be working on it all night.” You faltered, worried random students are gonna come barging in to party until they drop dead again. “Sooo, we’re gonna rendezvous on Saturday? I promise we won’t be up all night.” He smiles, as you sigh. “Yeah, I’m totally free. The time you finish projects is always so unexpected, isn’t it? I took all my time with an essay once and it ended up taking all day to finish. Here I thought I was able to finish it in under three hours.” Right, never procrastinate unless you really need to, kids.

Before we could discuss any further, Professor Yoon dismisses the class as he notices to turn it in before the week after.

“I’ll buy the cardboard, clay and colour papers, you’ll handle the sticks, strings and everything else.” Surprisingly, the two of you walk down the stairs together as you go on along talking until the next respective class. You never imagined walking beside him after avoiding him all those years, from what you remembered, it was even during Chemistry that it had happened.

“So.. I guess this means I'll see you then?” He chirps. He really has grown, and why the hell is he so tall? Practically towering over you at some point, the height gap was somewhat adorable. “Yeah, I’ll see you then.” He waves goodbye and walks off to his next class, while you decide to just simply stroll around the department to find Chenle’s class so you could walk with him, whatever it is– you just hoped you’d see him.

Luckily, you spotted him in no time; who else would look good in ripped jeans other than anybody but him? Even during winter. He seemed to be in a rush, sprinting to your direction as he immediately circles your wrist to drag you to a more ambient part of the area. Any place that was just, away from whoever he was talking about at least.

“Y/N! Oh my fucking god, you will not believe who the fuck I just saw.” He gasps, his voice kept to a whisper. “What? Who did you see?”

“You won’t believe this. If I tell you now you might scream your lungs out and if you do scream, I might be the one getting arrested and we don’t want that so, I’ll tell you everything when we get back to the dorm.” He was partly kicking his feet, and you thought he was going crazy.

“Chenle, If you don’t tell me right now I might just scream out of anticipation instead.”

“I know you won’t, because if you do, I’ll be running away.”

“So what? Are you just gonna leave me hanging?”

“Yeah, definitely. I am a hundred percent sure you’ll have a mental breakdown, and if you do have one.. let’s not do it in the middle of campus.” He reassures you, though the situation right now is not at all reassuring for you. First, you meet Jisung in chemistry class of all places, and paired up with him of all people. Now there’s some dude Chenle’s warning you about that you don’t even know of, possibly. You’re either anticipated, impatient to know or absolutely terrified and want to completely just forget he even bothered you about the guy in the first place. Things like this irk you to the core.

“Let’s just forget about this, I’ve already paired with Jisung in MChem, that’s enough to keep me insane.” You exhaled, Chenle’s eyes becoming wider than before. “The boy that spilled acid on your thesis? No fucking way.” He whisper-yells, eyebrows arched as he looks like he’s seen some awful ghost.

“Yeah well, it happened.. I’ll tell you everything in our next class.” You inwardly sigh at his words, walking alongside the latter to go into the auditorium for your next class.

_

You finally finish your classes after a long day, due projects and art school always having to keep your college life booked and busy. You unlock the door to your dorm, expecting some random students gathered inside– though it did seem awfully quiet.

To your surprise, Donghyuck seemed to be scrolling through his phone instead as he sat on the couch and.. there was no one else to be seen? Usually he’d be partying the night like some wild boar on the run on days like these. Do boys have their time of the month too?

His head immediately diverted to your direction, eyes widening as he jumped off– running to you. That honestly gave you a jumpscare, was he okay? “The fuck, Hyuck—”

“Are you busy tonight?”

“No? Not that I know of?..” He seemed oddly ecstatic the moment you came home, and that gave you everything but a good feeling. “Well..”

“Nu Kappa’s holding a big party today to celebrate the new year.”

“..No.”

You immediately declined without a doubt. You couldn’t care less if you were dubbed a coward, but if it means meeting Mark, then you would rather have shoved a fork in a plugged toaster. It’s not like Donghyuck knows about the bad history between you and Mark, but you can’t help but say no. “Aah, come on now. You’ve had a long day and I barely see you party your life out. Now may be a good time, especially since it’s a huge one.” You watch as he tries to persuade you, even going his usual overdramatic ways to sweep you off your feet.

“Tell me a good reason why I should.” You lift a brow, he had never bothered you about parties– why would he only do it now? All for a huge frat party? “You need something to get your mind off of things. Babe, you’re overworked to the core. You need a break.” Funny, you could only scoff. “First of all, do not call me babe. Secondly, I need you to tell me the real reason you want me to go.” You emphasised quite strongly, crossing your arms as he pleaded.

The latter starts to sigh, unclasping his hands as he digs his hands in his pockets.

“Mark wants to see you.”

“I’m sorry what?”

“Yeah, he wants to see you. He told me–” Before he could say anything you brought your palm to muffle his mouth. “No, no and no.” You reiterate, the brown haired boy grabbing your wrists to let go. “I won’t stop persisting.” He says with a stern glare. “Why the hell would he want to see me? I’m not gonna embarrass myself again, Hyuck.” But he’s still too stubborn to care, why does this boy never listen?

“I’ll stop annoying you for good. Even ask you permission this time, maybe throw less parties here and somewhere else, please?”

“This deal is too good to be true, all this for some simple talk?” Too good to be true indeed, what did Mark even want to tell you in the first place to get the Lee Donghyuck begging on his knees? He nods almost immediately.

“You’re such an ass kisser it’s unbelievable, really,” You take a deep breath.

“Fine. I’ll go.”

You gave up either way. No matter how much you promised yourself not to join in his shenanigans, you did want to lay off a little, have some fun. You had some things to hear as well, no matter how much you did hate Mark, it intrigued you enough that Donghyuck himself had to plead you this way– although a prideful prick like him would never do so. It must’ve been important, hopefully. If not then, you’ll probably live the rest of your life in shame and request another roommate.

The boy infront of you seemed to be glittered with happiness as he even starts to carry you to spin you around the living room. “Hey! fuck off Hyuck–”

“I love you so so much, I can’t thank you enough.” He yells in excitement, tone giddy.

“Oh come on now, you’re so gross.” You roll your eyes, maintaining a fed up expression on your face. What a steal it was. It was like trading off ten dollars while someone gives you thousands to repay, if you know what I mean.

He puts you down, giving you the most genuine idiotic smile he could maintain. “Go get ready, it’s in an hour.” Your eyes widened. “An hour? I haven’t showered yet!” You gasp, running into your room to take a good shower, even though you’ll most likely reek of sweat, alcohol and people afterwards, you’ve got to be smelling good for the first few.

—

Finding any suitable dresses for a party was harder than you thought, wanting to present yourself nicely, bla bla bla. You haven’t been to one in months, if anything, you were pretty much going against your will this time. Fuck Donghyuck for putting up such a heavenly deal.

Did you need to borrow from one of your sorority friends? You’ve dug deep into the closet, tongue licking the corners of your lip as your hand searches throughout. The familiar feel of soft fabric makes you widen your eyes, immediately grabbing it as you finally sigh in relief.

It was the black bodycon dress you had bought months ago while you were out thrifting with your friends. It perfectly fit your figure, putting it on as you completed it with a white jean jacket, along with a few accessories that obviously matched with your outfit. You had already done your makeup, running out to the living room to spin around in all of your ‘I feel so gorgeous’ glory.

“Well someone’s happy.” Donghyuck smiles to say the least, chuckling as you spun on the carpets. He simply wore a white t-shirt, a dark raven jacket to cover as his dangling chain complimented his entire outfit. Not to mention his black pants. Hair, middle parted, you hated to admit it– but he looked unnecessarily attractive. (For reference, this)

“I’m not. Who says I am?” Deny, deny, deny. That was all you could do right now.

A soft giggle escapes his lips. You wondered if he had gone crazy, you can’t help but give him the stink eye anyway. “What?” He laughs.

“Who are you and what the hell have you done with Lee Donghyuck?”

“Shut up jackass. For once in a while, I’m actually seeing you like.. genuinely smile around me. It’s sort of unsettling but seeing you happy is a sight to see.” He murmurs, leaving no words in your mouth left to talk. Was he serious? You didn’t really know what else to say other than to look around shyly like some high school girl who had just gotten confessed to. You gulp, albeit feeling your throat becoming drier by the second. “Let’s go now, you’re ready right? Nothing left? Let’s just leave so we aren’t late–”

As you turn around, he considerately grabs your shoulders. “Just wait a second you dunce.” He softly mumbles, spraying his cologne on his wrist as he leans closer to gently dab it on your neck. “Don’t know if this helps, but if any creep tries to touch you, just call me, they’ll know by this scent anyway.”

His voice was so unexpectedly soft, you hated it.

“Thank.. thank you.” So this was his signature perfume? It’s oddly soothing.

“My cologne’s strong as hell, one pump could last a day or two. It’s this smell dating thing I read about online, some shit I thought could be useful for a particular day and here we are.”

Too close. You were appreciative enough, this side of him usually goes unnoticed and it was practically your first time experiencing it face to face. Why was he only protective of you now? You realise you were actually going to a party, full of people you might not know– at some point having to meet Mark and seeing some faces you’d never expect to see again. Your brain has never wanted to automatically shut down, go to sleep and just never wake up so badly.

Social interaction, scary. You don’t feel so invisible anymore.

“Yeah, Here we are. You’ve never brought a girl out to a party before?” It feels weird, with him being a people person and all, he’s had his hookups. He appeared to be embarrassed, rubbing his neck while biting the bottom of his lip gently. “Well, I've picked up some from parties, you know.. just never brought a girl along.” And you so happened to be the first one, great.

“Yeah, yeah, I get it,” A chuckle leaves your lips, even though you had never expected to have such a heartfelt moment with Donghyuck. Not even in a long time the moment you met each other, this was your first ever.

But it felt like it’d been a while.

“Right, let’s go?” He lifts a brow, grabbing his dangling car keys that were hung on the upper drawer.

“Let’s go.”

—

The two of you had finally arrived at the popular area at campus, lines full of fraternity and sorority houses. Some had their own parties but the one crowded with tons of people in and out, flashing party lights along with deafening party music that could even be heard from outside, was none other than the Nu Kappa residence.

It was kind of intimidating, the parties you’ve been to were more tame than this, it’s a huge new year party after all, what were you expecting? Maybe it’s no match to Donghyuck’s hosting but that’s probably because your dorm is cramped and wild, high nightlife-induced college students are capable of doing anything. Plus, you loathe them; the parties, I guess you can include some annoying people you’ve had bad encounters with.

You and Donghyuck walk besides each other, making your way through the crowds as he whispers in your ear. “This is where we’ll part, stay cautious okay? Don’t drink too much.”

You nod, the loud music barely making his sentences audible for you and before you knew it, he had already disappeared. There were a few options for you to do first; find Mark and proceed to know what the fuck he wants, go to the kitchen and get yourself a drink or get absolutely drunk and nasty—No, we’ll do that later, better to get intoxicated in a more suitable ungodly hour.

Initially deciding to find Mark, you’d think he’d be more busy upstairs conversing with other people other than partying first. He just seems like the type to ‘chat first, party later’. You just wanted to get things over with, find him as soon as possible and then you could only start drinking all of your feelings out. Surprisingly,

“Y/N?”

He was able to find you first.

You flinched hearing the sudden call of your name, turning around to see the black-haired Canadian boy you’ve hoped to see, Mark Lee. God, the two of you were just staring at each other awkwardly at this point, the last time you even saw him was during graduation day. If there was any real face to face interaction you had, it’d be that incident and you preferred anything but that awful trip to memory lane. A lane full of visits to the Nurses office.

“Do you.. uh, wanna get a drink first?” He blurts out, jerking his head to direct to the kitchen. If it was anything to dilute the awkwardness then you were then happy to oblige.

“Sure.”

The two of you walked to the kitchen, it was a little quieter in here as everyone else was busy partying in the living room like wild animals. He pours some punch into a red plastic cup, handing it over to you as he smiles. “..Did it hurt? The ..injury I mean.”

That was such an abrupt question.. Did it hurt? Did it hurt? Hell yeah it did, thanks to him that you were barely even able to see. “Yeah, it’s been years, Mark. I'm more than fine.” You retort, since when were you beyond fine? Why was he only asking how you were now? “Are you sure? That scar on your left cheekbone is pretty noticeable, was it that bad..?”

You think?

Right now, you’d rather just focus on drinking your punch, or do something else. “Let’s play beer pong.”

You came to the residence to party, not discuss emotional past dilemmas. He seems to look at you understandably, biting the inside of his cheek in anticipation as you prepare to take a shot at one of the cups. “Ah fuck, I missed.” When is he going to say whatever he wanted to say in the first place? Was it just that?

He takes the ball from your hands, squinting both his eyes as it was his turn to make a shot into one of the cups, to no avail– he also failed. “What the hell was that? You were closing your eyes.” You scoff, snatching the object away from him to take your turn. “It’s not my fault that’s how I focus, do you not squint your eyes either?”

“No? How the hell were you the greatest rugby player in high school?” It baffled you, a lot. How was the asshole who threw the ball at your face such a stupid dork? ..Dorky assholes exist? There’s the stupid in asshole, but dorks were way too romanticized for you to be jerks with no shame. The world works both ways I guess.

You gently threw the ball this time to score, but you still managed to miss in a heartbeat as it fell down the countertop with your weak throw. “This thing is rigged.”

“Y/N, your throw was like throwing a paper plane at a criminal.”

“I’ll rock your shit, Mark. You try doing it!”

“Look and learn, you need to do it precisely. Throw when it’s the right time.” He murmurs, doing his idiotic squint as he yet again fails to win. “What am I learning here Mr. Mark? Guidance to failure 101?” He could only gasp dramatically in response, passing it onto you as he furrows his eyebrows. “Okay then, Miss Know-It-All, you try scoring it then.”

The two of you had gone back to back, arguing on the right way to play— score beer pong like a champ. In fact, none of you had even scored at least a single cup, occupying your time by just showing off who could get the first win. Fighting back and forth as the chemistry between the two of you oddly fit well for some.. reason. Either of you could have simply just chosen to lean in, cheat-win, call it a day and never see each other again, unless…

You try again for the umpteenth time, despite missing every single time you tried. You lick the corner of your lips in aim to focus right in the cup in front of you.

With the thump of the cup, you did it.

“Holy shit.” His mouth was wide agape, your eyes become rounded in surprise. “Holy shit!” You excitedly jump, clasping your hands with Mark’s as the two of you jump around with your first win. Weird, you thought you’d be all over his face, bragging till you dropped dead— apparently not.

Maybe you aren’t as bad, you thought. The two of you lean against the rim of the kitchen counter, sharing wholehearted laughter as you both had just took in how long you went over the quote unquote, winning beer pong banter. Your laugh falters, looking at the latter as you thought twice before wanting to ask him,

“What were you gonna tell me in the first place?”

Mark’s eyes avert to yours, his ears painted crimson red as he rubs his bare neck, seemingly timid. “I.. I used to..” “I used to like you.”

“Like, really. I was still immature back then and I’m genuinely sorry. I accidentally hit you with the rugby ball, but because I was such a show off I tried to play it off cool. I felt really guilty, trust me, I did. I’ve asked the nurse about your condition and gave you one of my old prescription glasses to help with your eyesight, but I’m pretty sure you thought I was mocking you for not being able to see. Whatever it is, you don’t have to forgive me but just know that I'm trying to come clean and apologise.”

You were taken aback by his sudden apology, his words elicit only a small ‘oh.’ from your lips. It was awful really, all of these things, people coming at you right now. You were never prepared for any of this in the first place, first of all— you could even barely take in that you met Jisung either.

Now Mark is saying sorry?..

You could only frown ever so slightly, guilt resting at the pit of your stomach.

His gaze is set on you, expecting a response but nothing came. It’s not like he expected you to take it in, he understands– you're confused, unable to respond almost.

Mark was someone who had always tended to avoid his problems to make them magically disappear, unknowingly making the situation worse for himself in the process. That’s what he was, a coward. Always choosing the more thorny path in lieu the more clear one standing right in front of him. He could have helped you, but he didn’t. He could have apologised after, but he didn’t. He didn’t need to say anything, but he did.

Do you want to forgive him? The choice was yours but you feel your heart sinking drastically. “I-I’ll.. think about it.” You could hear him sigh under his breath, this fond expression displayed all over his face. “Take your time, I'll leave you alone.” A faint smile seems to curve his lips, but you could only stand there as you watch him leave, his figure fading into the crowd.

“I’m sorry.”

—

That was so anticlimactic.

Take your time? You were gonna take all of the time you needed alright. It was already nearing 2am, drunk people all over the place as everyone else still kept the party going. You don’t know where Donghyuck is and Mark is nowhere to be seen. You’re alone.

You missed this feeling of being isolated, sort of. Deciding to drink your feelings out, you ask for a small shot of soju from the bartender— tapping your fingers on the table as you sigh hopelessly.

“Y/N? You’re here?”

You stumble to halt, freezing in place as you hear that unmistakable voice you’ve wished to never hear again. Hiding your face in the palm of your hands, you were trying your hardest to look away.

“Go away, Jeno.”

“Feisty, usually you wouldn’t give a fuck.” He scoffs aloud your conversation, taking a seat next to you as you could only groan in frustration. Now he’s here? Great. “I still don’t, I just don’t like seeing you here.” The bartender passes you the shot of peach soju, downing it in a second as you ultimately decide to request for the whole bottle. “Well we meet again huh? Not even a hi or anything to a good friend?”

“Friend, my ass.” You rolled your eyes, anything but that. You could’ve sworn you just asked him to stay away. There was no point in leaving either, once you meet Jeno, you don’t even get the warning to get the hell out of there as fast as you can. There should be a big enough “CAUTION” in all bold text poster taped on his body. If he’ll pester you, he’ll pester you. You take another shot of the soju, feeling the need to down more than two bottles after his appearance.

“Slow down, that bottle isn’t going anywhere.” He ponders, resting his chin on his palm as he watches you down the alcohol like a maniac.

“If anything, I wouldn’t want to be the one bringing you home.” He was right, you didn’t want him to bring you home either– he seems like doing so anyway, seeing how he isn’t getting drunk at all. “You’re lucky Hyuck told me to anyway.” He mumbles under his breath, even so you were too busy chugging the bottle like a lunatic to notice he even said anything. He quickly snatches the bottle away from you after realising how much you had drunk, eyes widened as he tries to stop you from literally making yourself black out.

“Jesus fuck, Y/N. You’ll get alcohol poisoning, I'm not going to have to take care of you and feed your dumbass some hangover soup.”

You could only mumble random words, grabbing onto the latter like a pole as you lightly punch him on the chest. “Where’s this bitch when I fucking need him..” Jeno tries to stop you from smacking him at some point, while muttering curses under his breath trying to spot Donghyuck in the many crowds of people. “Hey! Stop slapping me.” He winces.

It was a little embarrassing, you were subconsciously trying to beat the shit out of Jeno to no avail, in a meek, vulnerable state. Your weary eyes literally at war with your tears 5 minutes in after downing a whole bottle of soju. Your alcohol tolerance was obviously in the dumps, having been lightly smacking Jeno while keeping your tears in as you try not to emotionally pour out what you’ve been keeping in from him for the years.

People tend to do stupid things when drunk don’t they? “Stop bawling, you look horrible.”

Well excuse my naivete? You had little to no experience of an intoxicated mental breakdown, with it being escalated this quickly too. Barely holding on, Jeno sighs at your current state. You were slurring your inaudible sentences, holding onto the latter while smacking him repeatedly out of anger, tears brimming your eyes as countless of them fall off your cheek. Gosh, you were literally at the edge of your seat. You were a drunk mess, embarrassing yourself in front of Jeno out of all people. Donghyuck, Chenle, anyone but him.

You puff your cheeks up, alerting Jeno that you were close to vomiting as he widens his eyes. He’s been in the Nu Kappa house numerous times before, so finding the bathroom was easy enough as it. He gently holds you up by your shoulders, bringing you through the crowds before you could puke in front of everyone else.

“Excuse me, excuse me..” Jeno makes way for the two of you to go upstairs, reaching one of the Nu Kappa’s member’s bedrooms to open the door to an unoccupied bathroom. You immediately run inside to do your needed business inside the toilet as the latter waits outside, leaning against the comb wall.

He decides to dial Donghyuck’s number on his phone, tapping his feet impatiently while his face holds an appalled expression hearing the commotion going on in the bathroom. The phone rings for a few seconds before he finally answers. “What do you want?”

“Y/N’s puking, you should take her home..”

“Fuck, are you serious? ..I’ll come quick, where are you?”

“In uhh… Heeseung’s room, pretty sure.”

Before Jeno could utter another word, the latter hung up– thuds of footsteps coming in the room along the way. Donghyuck barges in, huffing his heart out as he looks at Jeno. “Where is she?..” He pants.

The boy’s hair was unkempt, his jacket laying low and his white shirt hung by his shoulders. There were lipstick marks all over his face, hickeys engraved on his bare neck. “While I was busy humiliating myself, you were busy getting it on?” He scoffs.

“Quit splitting hairs, okay? Potatoes, tomatoes, doesn’t matter… The point is if she’s okay.”

“She’s fine, probably passed out in the bathroom.” He shrugs, opening the door to see you worn out on the floor, head resting on the bathroom walls. A sigh leaves Donghyuck’s lips, holding you up bridal style; hands gently gripped on your neck as he pulls you close to him. “I’ll see you later, Jeno.”

“Wait.”

Before Donghyuck could leave, Jeno hangs his arm around his shoulders. “I’ll come along with you,” His hands lightly pressing Donghyuck’s forehead. “But ..It’s better I drive.”

—

The sun beamed through your dorm blinds, causing you to stir awake from the sheer brightness of the sun. Usually, waking up wasn’t such a problem for you– but the moment you opened your eyes, a sharp pain hit your head.

“Ugh, did I drink too much?” You groan, scratching your neck as you realise you were still in your party clothes. You began to sit up, putting your hand on your throbbing head. Picking up your clock from the nightstand, you curse under your breath and realise you had literally slept all throughout. “Fuck, Miss Kim and Prof Yang are not going to be happy when they see me next week.”

You finally change into some comfortable clothes, nudging the door open as you see Donghyuck resting his chin on his elbow. “Hey, good morning Hyuck.”

He looked at you, but seemed to be, avoiding your gaze in a way. “You too.” His response was so oddly deadpanned, what was with him this morning? “Why the long face?” You ask, holding a jug of water to pour it into the glass.

He takes a while to reply, the long silence accommodated by the sounds of the TV. You hear him sigh before finally saying.

“I got something.”

You raise a brow with piqued curiosity, drinking your water as you hummed in response. “What is it Hyuck?”

“Your letter.”

Oh shit.

PART 2

note | part one is up! i wanted to get the chemistry between y/n and the dreamies going first before completely diving into the letters being exposed, renjun and jaemin will defs show up next chapter to ensue more chaos <33 so this is just a mere intro to their personas, bla bla bla hopefully u guys enjoy reading, it looks so rushed but I just went with whatever to satisfy myself with LOL taglist is always open rest assured

do not translate or copy © jenotapes 2021

[friendlyfaded]

I was inspired to write angst, so here’s angst!

Set after “Confronted By Your Pack Alpha” and before “Getting Closer to Your Vampire Mate”

CW: depression, mentions of suicidal thoughts, mentions of Quinn

Tank couldn’t express how tired they were of people telling them things they already knew. The entire pack meeting, they were bombarded with well-meaning friends assuring them that they always had a place with them and that they would help them no matter what. They all seemed to miss the point. Not even David had seen the glaringly obvious issue that stood out to Tank alone. There was a reason Quinn hadn’t gone after anyone in the pack. He’d had well over a year to do it, if he’d wanted. Still, he hadn’t. Tank wished David would have let them speak when he was giving his righteous lecture in their living room. Then, maybe, they could have told him why he and the pack shouldn’t help.

The truth was, Tank was right. Not telling them was the best way to keep them safe, and they stood by that, no matter how much David disagreed. Quinn knew their standing in the pack. Tank had only lamented about it a thousand times during their time with him. They were a nobody, an outcast, someone who no one would miss if they disappeared. Someone who had done all they could to cut ties. Someone who wouldn’t care if the pack was hurt. Quinn was under the impression that the pack meant nothing to Tank, and that Tank meant nothing to the pack, and Tank was happy to keep it that way. It kept everyone they cared about out of the firing line. Tank left to protect the pack, and now, that had been ruined.

All that time in Washington, all that time spent sniffing around old blood trails, it was all for nothing. Quinn would find out that they had rejoined the pack. He would take that as the opportunity it was. Tank knew Quinn better than anyone. They knew how he operated. David, as noble as his intentions may have been, had forced them to put everyone in serious danger. It was enough of a risk having Sam help, but Tank knew there was nothing they could do to dissuade him. The vampire was as stubborn as they were, and Quinn had personally caused Sam problems. Now, Tank had the responsibility for the lives of an entire pack on their shoulders. If any of them died, it would be their fault, and they knew that. The pressure was almost enough to break them.

Still, despite this setback, it was their responsibility to fix things. If they couldn’t protect the pack, they would give them the means to protect themselves. At that meeting, they told the pack as much as they could. It took hours of talking, multiple bottles of water, and a temporary abandonment of their pride, but they gave the pack all the information they needed and more.

It took everything in them not to scream when their packmates cornered them after the meeting, scolding them for not telling them before and trying to convince them to ask for help when they needed it. Tank wasn’t an idiot. They knew this was a hunt they probably wouldn’t survive. They also knew that they’d rather die themself than have the blood of any of their pack on their hands. They always threw themself at problems like they were invincible, but they knew they weren’t. They just didn’t care. At least, they didn’t care before. Things were a little different with Sam around, but that wasn’t the main issue at the time. They would have to call him, apologize for getting angry like they did. It wasn’t his fault David was perceptive as hell. He was just doing what he thought was right, and Tank couldn’t fault him for that.

That intense ball of self-loathing, ever present and pervasive, only grew as the evening went on. Little things made it hurt worse. The sag to Asher’s shoulders, the hurt in Milo’s expression, the worry in Amanda’s aura, everything was just… too much. They just wanted to go home and sleep. They wanted to feel safe and accepted. Now, they had no one left who wouldn’t look down at them with judgement. Even Sam, the light in Tank’s darkness, knew at least some of what Tank had done. Sam knew now that it was their fault that Fred and Bright died that Halloween. They wouldn’t blame him if he hated them. They hated themself, too.

Still, it wouldn’t be fair to Sam if they avoided him. He deserved an explanation from them. They’d apologize, both for getting mad and for all the shit they had caused, and beg for his forgiveness on the off chance he was willing to accept their remorse. The only thing keeping them from running off again, for good this time, was the fact that they knew it would only make things worse. People would waste resources looking for them. Sam would be heartbroken. Quinn would target everyone to bring them back. They couldn’t be selfish. They had to finish what they started.

And hopefully, when they finally got their teeth around Quinn’s throat, he would also get a blow of his own in. At least then, Tank wouldn’t be able to hurt the people they care about again.

[ilikemesometaetaes]

Set Me Free (M)

Min Yoongi Oneshot

•••> Author: @ilikemesometaetaes​

•••> Summary: You are just an ordinary woman with a strange aura about you that Yoongi can’t seem to resist- even past the compulsion of his mentor. The question is: why?

•••> Pairing(s): Yoongi/Reader

•••> Requested by @itsgottabeyoo-ngs​ : “Hi daddy, One shot request with vampire Yoongi x brat reader. Bonus points for adding in choking or spitting idk make it filthy k thanks love you byeeeee xoxoxoxox”

•••> Word Count: 10.95k

•••> Rating: 18+

•••> Tags: smut | vampire!au | Yoongi!AU | Vampire’s Mate | Vampire!Yoongi | Human!Reader | Gifted!Reader

•••> Warnings: smut, oral (female receiving), unprotected sex, murder, attempted murder, slight choking/strangulation, dirty talk, biting, blood drinking, spitting, violence, horror, vampire/human relationship, cursing, mental attachment, thirsty Yoongi, Yoongi thinks he’s scary, but he’s totally not

Copyright © 2020 ilikemesometaetaes. All Rights Reserved.

Thank you for the request, babe! This one is a bit to unpack, as you can see. I hope you enjoy :)

~#~

Yoongi never claimed to have his thirst under complete control.

He stands before his brothers once every week for the feed, snarling as he consumes his share of blood, while the others bear witness so as to provide him ceremonial protection- a vampire is very vulnerable while he consumes blood. The polydipsia made one lose all form of reason and sense of mind, driven to the brink of animalistic insanity when it was in the process of mildly quenching the eternal hunger.

Polydipsia, used to describe his level of thirst, was the word made just for him in his own little world.

It wasn’t normal thirst, like a human, but the savage-like impulse to drink and drown until he could swim in a river of blood and take deep lungfuls of the crimson fluid. The impossible desire to consume and be completely consumed by blood until he became it himself always loomed over his mind in his early days as a Deadblood- a vampire youngling- causing him to search for a word that could completely describe his affliction.

Then the Greeks begun transforming their language, perfecting the word that he could use to chronicle his need. He had mulled over the thought throughout the few centuries that the word came into existence, truly connecting with it on a level that was deprived of him when his soul was taken from his body.

But the word was not only used to describe normal thirst; it described the abnormal desire to drink as a symptom of disease- and a disease is what Min Yoongi had.

From the days he explored the lands of Goryeo as a young teenage boy, he knew that disease racked every inch of the world. Street beggars, riddled with sicknesses and incurable illnesses, asked him for coin, food, clothing, and any necessities that could potentially carry them through the night into another sunrise. But the one thing that they begged for the most was water.

Liquid life. Yoongi thinks back on the ironic turn of events and how, even as a privileged boy of nobles, he understood just how desperate a person got when they were deprived of the one, singular fluid that supported life as he knew it.

As Yoongi approached adulthood, he was promoted and bestowed larger honors in the name of the Min clan, allowing him to provide more for the beggars and lower-class individuals that he came across on the streets every day- not that his father would find out.

Until he did.

Yoongi recalls the moment he knew that his father figured out that his son was spoiling the family riches on the lower class. They weren’t sitting down for dinner and having a conversation nor taking a stroll along the river like the two of them normally would- it was quite surprising, really. Yoongi had to applaud his father for the creativity of the circumstance.

He knew that his father figured out his whereabouts when he found himself bleeding out in the middle of the woods with three arrows, adorned with the Min clan crest carved into the wood, sticking out of his chest. He was sent to look for his supposedly lost little sister under the direction that she was probably at a watering hole- which Yoongi had never heard about- about forty-five minutes from the edge of Goryeo’s walls.

Many people ventured outside of the city to fend for food and necessities, or to find civilization elsewhere, so it wasn’t surprising to him that his curious baby sister wanted to see for herself what life was like outside of the city’s limits.

As Yoongi lay dying on the soil of the earth, staring up at the greenery of the trees above while they lightly swayed in the breeze, he realized that everyone, regardless of social-class or physical health, was fighting the same, universal disease: death. No one could escape it and no one was safe. At least, that’s the epiphany he had in an effort to comfort himself while he felt his heart painfully struggle to beat with an arrowhead lodged into it. Copious amounts of blood spurt out with each pulse of his damaged organ.

And then the universe decided to set him free from death with a cure worse than the disease itself.

Yoongi doesn’t remember who his creator was. He doesn’t remember how long he spent on the forest floor with the arrows still in his chest. He doesn’t remember waking up.

His memory of his new life started from the moment his consciousness returned, in the exact second that he found a set of vocal cords clutched in the palm of his hand, dripping with crimson, after apparently ripping them out of a young boy who was actively collapsing in front of him. The boy, who Yoongi immediately recognized from the streets of Goryeo, was choking on his own gore as he clutched at his now nonexistent throat, staring up at his killer with a jumbled expression that silently begged for help yet withdrew from terror.

It took Yoongi five years of trekking everywhere and no where while attempting to control his thirst before he found new meaning. He mostly had a hold on the scorch in his throat by staying away from the city and surrounding villages before he met another and figured out what he became.

The woman- no, girl?- appeared young yet spoke as if she had seen countless winters, the wisdom of a million middays glowing behind her carmine eyes. She was the first person he had met who did not end up dead within the first two minutes of scenting them on the wind.

“You are a vampire. You survive purely on the life essence of others. You are still a young Deadblood. Judging by your age, you should become a Redblood soon.” She sat with her back to him, overlooking the valley below the then-unnamed Odaesan mountain that they sat perched upon. “Do you know who created you?”

“Created me?” He asked. “What do you mean? My parents?”

She turned, her vibrant red eyes continuing to shock him. Did his own orbs look like this?

“I mean, who turned you?” She seemed to look at him incredulously, shocked by his lack of knowledge. “Who gave you their venom- their shi?”

“I…” Yoongi tried very hard to remember anything before the burning sensation that scraped like rocks against the insides of his bones and flesh, but all he could see and feel was fire and agony- and then blood. He couldn’t help but think with a grain of salt, disbelieving of the method in which he was born into his new life. “I don’t know. I just remember from my first kill.”

“Strange.” The other vampire muttered, returning her gaze to the valley. “Strange, indeed.”

Yoongi was always the silent type, only interacting when he needed to as a habit formed to avoid the questioning glare of his father when he returned home late on certain occasions.

But he couldn’t help the burning desire of curiosity within him, a welcome distraction from the need to feed within him. He had so many questions.

“You may ask your questions, Min Yoongi.” The woman sighed, not even bothering to spare him a glance whilst she spoke. The man was shocked to find that she knew his name without him telling her.

“How do you know my name?” The new revelation took precedent in his mind, hoping that she was not an enemy of his clan.

“A valid question.” She mused. “Anticipated, but valid. I suppose I’ll answer your question to the best of my ability.”

Yoongi shifted his position in preparation, a new habit that he formed in his new life. He learned from the first time he moved to stretch that his body did not need to be stretched as it usually did. He never ached, never cramped, never tired, and never lost energy. Despite the lack of his emotions in their usual form, he knew that it should have been unsettling to find such a new change within him, so he did the sensible thing of pretending that he needed to.

He pretended he needed to breathe- after two hours at the bottom of a lake he stumbled upon in his aimless journey, he was amazed to find that he required no oxygen to continue existing- and that he didn’t need to sleep nor use the bathroom. He would practice taking breaths, trying to inhale and exhale evenly without becoming allured to the pungent yet undeniably attractive scent of animal blood so that he could finally smell the forest again. He pretended to go to sleep and wake up with the urge to relieve himself of the noneixstent pressure in his bladder despite not having any of the instincts he once had.

The woman spoke, answering his first question.

“I can hear your thoughts. They’re not necessarily specific, but I can hear when you are wistful- like you are now- or when you are curious or sad or angry. I can hear the causes of these emotions.” She paused. “It comes with the gift of my second life. A form of protection, if you will.”

“Why would I need protection when I am invincible? I’ve seen the things I can do and what my body can endure.” He briefly recalled repeatedly jumping from a cliff, automatically landing on his feet no matter how hard he tried not to. Before, he had a will to survive with a choice of dying, but now? There was no comprehensible choice. “There is nothing that can hurt me.”

Yoongi couldn’t help cocking his head to the side like a confused dog when the woman let out a breathless laugh.

“Because, young one,” She looked at him with her eyes again, a look of mock endearment filling them. “You are not invincible.”

For a moment, Yoongi did not believe her. He believed that the liquid running through his veins was pure ichor, an essence of the gods, but when he returned her look of sincere truth, he understood that dying was still very much possible.

Thanking the gods, Yoongi looked to the ground and began toying with his fingers at his revelation. He could stop murdering people, willing to die in order to do so.

The woman shook her head. “No, Min Yoongi. You do not have to die to stop killing humans. In fact, it is the reason I have not killed you yet. You are unaware of the possibilities.”

His head perked up at the comment, suddenly eager to learn.

“How? How can I live without killing?” All he could see was the young boy that he had murdered in cold blood; the boy’s warm brown eyes staring up at him as he watched the life drain from them burned into his memory- he didn’t even know the boy’s name. The boy could not have been older than his own sister.

“I never told you that you could continue to live without killing. Of course, you have to kill. But you do not have to kill people.” The woman nodded her head down the mount. “Do you smell that? Do you smell the life that lives throughout this mountain?”

Yoongi attempted to focus on his senses but could only feel the thirst once again tormenting his throat. As soon as the woman shifted his attention back to the aroma of life, he salivated. Of course, he smelled the animal’s scents, but he could also detect traces of human life upwind that completely took away his desire for anything but humans.

“Push the thirst aside to open your senses. Embrace them. Embrace your power and your abilities. Focus on those.”

Again, he tried to push the scorch in his throat to the side, only to find that it was an impossible feat seeing as he had not fed in several months. He wanted human blood so badly.

“Poor child. I did not realize how weak you were.” She let a grimace morph her features, the first true expression of genuine emotion that Yoongi had seen on her. “Come sit in front of me. I will help you.”

For a moment, Yoongi hesitated. Was she going to kill him? He was not sure, but after a few more thoughts to himself, he realized that he had nothing to lose. Following her direction obediently, he moved to sit with his legs crossed in front of the woman.

“Now, close your eyes and listen to my voice.” She raised her hands to his head, placing her fingertips on his temples, and began whispering while he let his eyes flutter closed.

He felt as if he was mentally hit by a charging bear.

The woman’s words echoed in his mind, seating themselves amongst every corner and crevice that they could touch before Yoongi could understand what was happening. Shocked by the feeling of being intruded upon, he tried to push back against the mind-numbing force of her words, uncomfortable and feeling violated by the sensation. Instead of stopping them, her voice just broke down his amateur attempt at a mental barrier and pushed its way further into his brain. He was helpless to her superior mental awareness and gift.

“You will not focus on the thirst. You will focus on your abilities. Focus on the blood of animals and the blood of those already dead.”

And Min Yoongi had no option but to obey for he was forced into a dieted life.

But as he stands, thousands of years later, in the middle of your kitchen whilst watching you silently with the inferno of the blazing sun in his esophagus, he couldn’t help the need that overcame him. He could not obey his mentor; miraculously and horrifyingly, the gift of his mentor did not work with you.

He was impelled by his mentor’s gift, effectively removing most of the bloodlust he had for humans. In his lifetime, after the unavoidable command was bestowed upon him, he had only killed a handful of humans when he was consumed by the thirst after living in self-induced exile for so long. But standing before you, he may have needed to add a finger to that handful depending on what you did next.

Yoongi first clocked you on his radar the moment you walked into the small coffee shop he was occupying for the later part of the morning.

Building a friendship with you was quite easy.

You were bright and warm and everything wonderful upon meeting him. Your smile was just shy of naive, yet he couldn’t help the alien tugs on his heart when watching you giggle.

“How old are you, Yoongi?” You asked while circling the straw in your caramel macchiato.

“Old enough.” He chuckled, looking down with what you perceived as shyness.

“Oh?” You laughed with him. “And how old is enough for you?”

“I could ask you the same question. How old do you think I am?” He met your eyes, once again shocking you with their beautifully vibrant shade of brown.

“Well…” You trailed off, studying his facial features closely- the hint of a permanent smile line, fresh haircut, and no wrinkles alluded that he couldn’t be over thirty. “I’m gonna say… twenty-five?”

The man across from you smiled. “Very close. I’m twenty-seven.”

So he wasn’t that much older than you. You could totally do him.

Yoongi noticed the flash of lust that ghosted through your pupils for a split second, recognizing the dilation of them as you glanced at him. He watched you stick your chest out a bit more, begin fiddling with your hair more often, and part your lips while you let the thoughts of sexual satisfaction run across your mind.

“Twenty-seven, huh? That’s not bad at all.” You smiled, letting your tongue lightly swipe along your bottom lip unconsciously.

Yoongi zeroed in on the action with a piercing gaze, watching as the muscle seemed to move in slow motion tauntingly, daring him to dig his fangs into it savagely before tearing it from your mouth to feel the blood pouring from your lips onto his face. 

His body reacted sensibly, blood rushing like fake adrenaline to awaken his better instincts- rushing everywhere- and making his jeans become uncomfortably tight as they restrained his filling manhood. 

Blood drinking was as exciting as it was satisfying for a vampire. An extremely personal and holy moment, consuming lifeblood was the most raw and sexual moment to experience. A vampire could not experience real sexual desire without it.

He dug his fingers into the faux leather of his side of the booth until they broke through the material to restrain himself from attempting to attack you in the middle of the day.

Quickly, gaining his sense of mind once again, he tore more holes into the leather to round out the punctures so that it could appear as if the holes were from wear and tear.

The scent of your blood transpierced by the hormones and adrenaline beginning to flow through your veins made it just that much more implausibly alluring. Yoongi admitted that you were a beautiful and kind woman from the conversation throughout the morning. He also knew that you had a deviant side due to the surprisingly quick appearance of your lust-filled gaze.

Yet he couldn’t help the urge to murder you on the spot.

He knew that he couldn’t touch you. The supernatural safety of the sun that shone on your body prevented him from laying a finger on your skin without his own lighting aflame. He learned the protection of sun rays on humans the hard way.

His fifth human victim, a monk who travelled the heights of Mount Odaesan- Yoongi’s sanctuary and home- for a religious trial, travelled early in the morning as the sun was rising. Yoongi smelt the sweat dripping from the man’s skin instantly. In the small cove he called home, he tried to resist the urge to kill the man for he hadn’t smelt human blood in several years.

His mentor’s words were ever present. ‘Focus on the blood of animals and the blood of those already dead.’

Despite having those words affecting his instincts, Yoongi had managed to convince himself that the monk was a dead man standing once he smelled remnants of a virus tainting his scent, effectively bypassing the impulsion of the woman’s mind control.

Yoongi found himself rushing at the man without a second thought, fangs bared and fingers curled in preparation to tear the man’s limbs from his body. However, before he could get within two feet of the vulnerable monk, he was thrown back by an invisible and boiling hot force that left him screaming in agony and flying through the air.

The monk quickly ran back down the mountain in terror, yet Yoongi could pay no mind as he lay on the forest floor, ready to die once again as his skin singed and fell from his flesh like swamp sludge.

As his throat tore itself raw from his wails of misery, his body writhed in and out on itself in complete and utter anguish. The smell of burnt flesh overwhelmed his nostrils, pungent and nauseating in every possible way. How he was able to focus on something other than the pain was beyond him.

Despite the burning, Yoongi could feel his aflame skin beginning to heal itself. Clawing through the dirt, he felt the blood stored in his stomach rushing through his veins to the broken and severed ones, rebuilding them and recreating the network of arteries necessary to begin restoring his expanse of skin.

Before long, the pain subsided and Yoongi was no longer screaming. The entire ordeal lasted approximately twenty minutes- long enough that Yoongi no longer heard the footsteps of the monk and long enough for him to process the events that had just happened. 

He was thankful that he became a Redblood with the ability to use consumed blood throughout his body, unsure of what would have happened to him if he had been a Deadblood at the time. Deadbloods burned through consumed blood quicker than a spark from a flint could ignite kindling into a flame.

He definitely needed to ask the woman, Zizi, about it. And he definitely needed to track that monk until sundown so that he could get rid of any loose ends.

Yoongi grimaced slightly, remembering the occurrence like it was yesterday, as he sat across from you.

You were still looking down at your cup in blissful unawareness of his inner turmoil and life that he’s lived thus far. You definitely were not dense enough to not notice his gaze on your skin, but you were definitely ignorant of the fact that he was thinking about what would happen if he could just get you to move a few feet to the right to gain cover from the direct line of the sun. He just needed to get you into the shadows.

“Y/N,” He called your name. You instantly looked up in response. “How old are you?”

“Old enough.” You teased him back with his own words. He let a small smile thin his lips before he looked down to hide it. When you followed his gaze and noticed that he didn’t have a drink, you jumped to the opportunity.

“Can I buy you a drink, Min Yoongi?” You asked him.

“Oh, I’m not particularly craving coffee at the moment.” He paused and held his breath, as if trying to find the words to say. “I just like to sit here sometimes and enjoy watching the street.”

“Well,” Ask him! Ask him out! Yes! Do it! Your head screamed at you to be confident. You knew he was the shy type; you would be waiting all day for him to make a move and you just didn’t have the time nor patience for that. “Let me get you a drink at my bar?”

The man looked mildly impressed for a moment. “You own a bar?”

“A small one.” You swiftly added. “It’s not a big popular one or anything but I didn’t want a place too big. I like the smaller things.”

Yoongi couldn’t help but smile. You were a kind and beautiful woman living a simple life. He dreaded the moment that he was going to have to kill you.

“I take it you’re pretty well off then?” He asks. “And please don’t take this as me digging around. I’m just curious.”

“Don’t worry about it. Yeah, actually.” You laughed and sat back in your chair, looking out the window onto the street as people and cars passed by. “I’ve always been pretty lucky for some reason. The gods always seem to be in my favor and give me what I want.”

Yoongi smirked for a moment. If she wants me, she can have me. Then, I’ll have her.

When Yoongi found himself in the prime position to attack you in your kitchen, several weeks later, he knew. He finally had you where he wanted you.

A handful of dates that he found quite pleasant were all it took. 

You turned out to be just what he thought- a strangely attractive and alluring woman, the scent of your blood aside. You exhumed an odd magnetism about you that Yoongi had never felt from a human. He regretted the decision of waiting so long to kill you seeing as he was considering letting you live. But he knew that he couldn’t do that.

With your back turned to him, busying yourself with dinner, he could easily snap your neck so that you wouldn’t scream and struggle- and you would be dead almost instantly. A quick and nearly painless death was what you deserved. He didn’t want you to suffer at all.

However, just as he crouched in preparation to lunge at you, you spoke.

“Are you ready for dinner, babe?” You asked him.

He smiled devilishly, venom filling his mouth as he salivated. “Yes, I am. I’m starving.”

You chuckled. “Okay.”

“Go and sit down at the table.”

It was the most simple of commands. Telling Yoongi to sit down wasn’t an order. You weren’t demanding him to do it. You never demanded anything of him. It was a mere suggestion in your eyes.

Yet Yoongi felt his body moving to the dinner table without a second thought, unable to resist obeying your words.

What in the everliving fuck.

He sat quickly, impotent to move from his spot while he waited for you to bring the food from the counter. His thirst obliterated his throat, causing it to seize up and restrict any air that he could previously breathe, but he sat in wonder as you seemed to hold power over him that he had never felt before.

You turned with both of your dinner plates in hand and he quickly smothered the panic on his face, wondering what in the world had just happened.

“I’m not at all a chef, but you better eat everything.” Yoongi tested your words, seeing if the inclination to finish your food was present, only to find a slight mental nudge- as he expected. You didn’t tell him to do anything; you merely made an ‘or else’ statement.

No longer desperate to kill you for the time being, Yoongi sat still and waited for your next words. Once you sat the plate in front of him, you uttered a joke.

“Dig in.”

And dig in Yoongi did. He picked up his fork and scooped into the pasta you made without any willingness to deny you.

The pasta wasn’t fantastic in any sort of the word- It was plain, although it could be due to the fact that it wasn’t at all what he truly craved and needed. It was like eating a piece of stale bread while he was offered a perfectly cooked and outright juicy steak on a silver platter. The food that he ate wouldn’t be consumed by his body and used for nutrients; the shi in his stomach would burn it to nothingness within the next few hours.

Uncontrollably, Yoongi shoved mouthful after mouthful into his mouth- he couldn’t stop. Once he finished chewing one bite, his hand was immediately bringing him another, and then another. Despite lacking the need to breathe, Yoongi felt himself suffocating with each bite as the realization that he could do nothing except eat his food settled in his mind.

“I see you were hungry.” You laughed, unaware of his predicament. Yoongi’s eyes shot up to yours and silently hoped you would give him another command so that he could stop the foolishness.

You, however, just sat there feeling sort of proud of yourself- not only for making an edible meal, but for making one Yoongi seemed to enjoy. Even though it was slightly shocking to see him out of his usually cool character, acting like a man suffering from hunger, you couldn’t help but find it undeniably cute.

Eating slowly while watching him, you let your feelings for him come to the surface.

Yoongi was utterly beautiful. His black hair that fell over his face while he was cleaning up the last bits of his plate was just long enough to cover his eyes, yet as he looked at you without reservation, you felt he had a clear line of sight straight into your soul.

His skin was nearly flawless save for the light and narrow scar that cut into his right eye. Others found the scar intimidating and ugly, but you found it rather attractive. Yoongi, with his uncanny physical allure, was undeniably the most beautiful man you had ever seen.

Your body was alight with joy and content. In the few weeks that you got to know him, liking him was incredibly easy and having him in your home, in a domestic setting, lit your heart on fire with the possibility of falling in love with him.

He was incredibly easy to love, you discovered. Everything about him begged you to fall for him. As if the universe created him just for you, Min Yoongi was the epitome of perfection- in your eyes, anyway.

Briefly, you had shown a photo of him to your mother. She became unsettled instantly by his appearance.

“He’s so pale. And a little scary-looking.” She squinted at the photo you took of him when he wasn’t looking. You never brought him up again to your mother, disliking the fact that she didn’t like your potential boyfriend and found him scary.

The picture just happened to be your favorite- being because he didn’t like pictures and it was the only one you had of him.

He kindly asked you to not take photos of him. When you prompted him as to why during one of your more intimate moments at your bar, he only answered playfully as he held you close to him, lips begging for you to kiss them.

“Because I don’t want to leave evidence.” He whispered, breath tickling your nose. His body was warm and sturdy, muscles rippling under your touch as you clung to his shoulders.

“Evidence from what?” You asked breathily. The heat in your panties had increased tenfold over the last few minutes as his eyes grew hungrier with want. Yoongi’s fingers dug into your waist painfully, pulling you so close that you barely had room to expand your lungs to breathe, yet you couldn’t help the edgy feeling of how rough he could be with you.

“From when I eat you up.”

Thinking back on the memory, you shivered involuntarily, hoping that tonight might be the night you actually get to have him. He’d made you wait for a little over a month and you had no idea why. You definitely felt him straining through his pants a few times. But no kisses or anything further than the pressing of your bodies was accomplished.

Yoongi finished his plate and sat upright briskly, pulling you from your wishful thinking with a jump.

“Y/N,” He nearly growled, shocking you. “What else do you want me to do?”

The fork you were holding clattered to your plate instantly. Wow. He’s sizzling hot.

“I-“ You stuttered a bit. “I- uh.”

“Spit it out.” He hissed. You jumped again, trying to find the words to say with the heat growing in your panties.

Quickly, you answered him. “I want you to take me to my bedroom.”

“Thank god.” He groaned, getting up slowly with a smirk on his face. “Is that just a request? Because I can walk out now if you don’t actually want this.”

“Take me to my bedroom, Yoongi.” You stood slowly, carefully, as if you were afraid to trigger him.

Yoongi pushed in his chair and moved towards you at a speed that was almost inhuman. You yelped in astonishment as Yoongi attempted to control himself- he couldn’t bring you to your bedroom at his natural speed or else he would have a very motion-sick human to worry about. Instead, he trembled with the effort to resist your command at full force, knowing that the only way it was possible was due to the fact that he was still, in fact, taking you to your bedroom.

Picking you up was easier than breathing. You weighed absolutely nothing in his arms because of his advanced strength, so when he felt you trying to assist him in carrying you by holding your body stiffly, he huffed out a laugh whilst he walked.

“Relax, woman. You are as light as a feather.”

You blushed under his words, leaning into his chest to hide your cheeks.

“Stop that.” He growled, entering your bedroom. You looked up at him and he couldn’t tear his eyes from the blood that rushed to your cheeks. “I can’t resist if you do that.”

“Then don’t.” You whispered. Your heart pounded in your chest, begging him to hear it. “Don’t resist.”

His fangs came forth immediately, for he could not resist your command while he flew to your bed to throw you down. Despite your unknowing of what you were telling him to do, he fostered no opposition to what he was about to do.

The roughness of his throw startled you for a moment as you looked up at his vastly approaching figure, only to grow terrified when you caught sight of his face.

The veins protruding out of his temples and cheeks pumped blood straight into the whites of his eyes, turning them completely bloodshot, as they framed the now-crimson irises. Long incisors protruded from his mouth as he opened it with a hiss, revealing the way his human teeth shifted apart to allow his inhuman ones to break through the gums. Instantly, you parted your lips to scream.

Yoongi was upon you instantly, hand covering your mouth and silencing your cry while he snarled menacingly, yet he couldn’t help but feel remorse for killing you.

“I’m sorry.” He whimpered through his animalistic demeanor. “I can’t stop.”

You were screaming below his hand and, instantaneously, he had an idea.

He was leaning forward slowly, able to slow himself in the process of not resisting you. “Y/N,” He strained, changing the frequency of his talent, and waited for you to silence yourself in order to listen to him. He took his hand off of your mouth slowly after he heard your heart calm itself past your weeping. “Tell me to stop.”

“Stop!” You sobbed whilst clawing at his chest and kicking at his legs. “Don’t kill me!”

Not a second passed before Yoongi flew off of you, throwing his back to your wall with a loud thud while he cursed lowly.

You scrambled to the headboard of your bed, pressing your back against it in an attempt to gain some distance between the two of you. Your eyes were wide, chest heaving with your breath short, as you looked at the man in front of you.

“I-“ Yoongi stuttered for the first time in decades. “I’m sorry.”

“Your eyes!” Your burst out. You were unable to contain your fear and shock, so you displaced it into your curiosity. “Y-your- Your face! Your teeth!”

Yoongi stood against the wall, breathing just as hard as you, with his eyes cast to the floor in the process of trying to control his facial features. He could no longer kill you. The thought revolted him- every time he considered drinking your blood, the idea was banished from his mind with a sense of nausea following. Good god. She is unaware of her ability yet I am completely at her mercy.

“I apologize. I couldn’t help myself.” He breathed. What Yoongi forgot to take into account was the fact that he began implementing the gift of his second life on you the moment he stepped foot through your threshold, so your mind was completely scrambled by this point.

It was nighttime now; he could not leave your house no matter how hard he tried. He knew of the fallacy that vampires needed to be invited in and he found himself giggling from time to time at how close humans got to the actual lore of his kind.

He could enter your house, uninvited, during the day. He could lurk every corner of your abode without a bother, yet when night fell and the sun finally set, he would be stuck inside until morning. He knew he would be staying the night in your house the moment he agreed to have dinner with you. If he attempted to enter through your door during the night, however, he would have no luck- the night’s protection would convince his brain to walk away from your home without any further reconsideration until he was a good distance from it.

He was in the first position now.

He wished that he could leave you and disappear from your life without a trace so that you could live a peaceful and happy life without him, but he was afraid that it was impossible now with sundown a mere two hours prior. Your powers were no match for the natural protection of the earth. The both of you had a long night ahead of yourselves.

So he used his ability. Yoongi gave you control- rational thought, rather. His gift allowed him to grant organization of the mind and precise focus to others, but he could also take it away.

Upon entering your home, he began the process of slowly but surely ebbing away your barriers and logical thought- he couldn’t do it too fast or else you would panic like you were now. With a presently impossible-to-kill human whose heart was beating out of her chest and a command to not kill you forcing him into submission, he was obligated to prevent you from having a heart attack that was caused by him.

With laser-like focus, he channeled his gift straight into your open mind. Yoongi rebuilt the walls he had previously broken down over the past few hours, restocked your jumbled thoughts into their proper spaces, and flowed his energy through each corridor of judicious conception so that you could continue to develop your focus into that of supernatural proportion. He hoped that you, with a new mind, would tell him to get away from you and to kill himself. Dying by the hands of such a robust ability wouldn’t be too bad of a way to go.

You, however, never had such a decisive mind. Your mind was never clearer and you had never felt such clarity in your thoughts before. It allowed you to feel the magnetism that he radiated.

You knew he was a vampire. You don’t remember how you knew or how you recognized it, but you knew that he was not the first of his kind you had come across. Maybe it was the obvious fangs that gave it away.

“Yoongi,” You whispered. “You’re a vampire.”

His eyes, now back to their normal gorgeously coffee-bean shade, flicked up to yours in surprise.

“You know what I am?” He spluttered, flabbergasted. “You don’t think I’m a demon? Or the devil?”

“I’m not stupid. I know a vampire when I see one.” Your tone did not waver nor shake despite being a potential victim to a vampire. Was it the adrenaline?

“Then you know that I am a danger to you.” He said lowly, shock still evident on his face, while he began gravitating towards your bedroom door to leave.

“No. Stay.” You found yourself pining for his presence while he froze up in his spot. You eyed the action analytically. “If you were a danger to me, I wouldn’t be alive right now. You had plenty opportunity to kill me.”

“That’s the thing,” His hands pressed to the wall and scratched into it with the effort to move further from you. “I don’t have much of a choice anymore.”

“And why is that?” You relaxed your body and slowly slid your way across the bed towards him.

“Because I can’t.” Yoongi actually gasped for air as you stood from your bed to slowly approach him. “Y/N. Don’t come near me.”

“Why don’t you have a choice?” You ignored his warning, fully aware of the risk you were taking yet uncaring of the consequences. You were too focused on the fact that you actually wanted him.

Yoongi could not move from his spot, a side effect of your command to stay, but he refused to meet your eyes. The irresistible scent of your blood clashing with the order to not kill you fucked with his mind in ways he never experienced, creating an excruciatingly splitting headache between his temples. He wanted to drink from you so bad yet he could not move a single muscle.

“You can tell me to do anything. You can tell me to stay away from you. You can tell me to leave you alone. Hell, you can tell me to kill myself and I’d do it.” He ground out, attempting to press his back further into the wall as he felt your body heat against his skin. You came too close. He could smell your hormones lacing through your blood, triggering a wash of his shi over his dry tongue and a yearning to tear you apart overriding his senses.

He wanted to sink his fangs into your flesh so badly that he was beginning to scare himself. Allowing his venom to seep into your system would undoubtedly send you into ecstasy; you would only feel a pinch of pain as his saliva instantly burned through your nerves and set them alight. He could kill you while you were in pleasure; you wouldn’t feel anything but bliss as he drained the life from you.

“And why do you, a powerful creature such as yourself, allow me to have this power over you?” You asked. Was he in love with you? You definitely could love the man with how much you felt drawn to him but, for crying out loud, it had only been a few weeks.

“I don’t allow it. You are a gifted human. You possess this power over me.” Although Yoongi enjoyed having a calm conversation with you, he couldn’t help but feel bad that he used his gift on you. It was almost an unfair playing card- a “get-out-of-jail” card.

Because you should be running, terrified and screaming, even with his ability active in your mind. Maybe he had used it too much? Yoongi recalled the one time he went overboard with his gift, driving a man to suicide as he focused too much on the meaning of life and the regretful things he had done. Immediately concerned, Yoongi reached out a mental tether- a rare talent amongst his kind- to gauge your stability.

What he found, instead, was a dark and curling line attaching to his, pulling it in as quickly as Yoongi offered it. Before he could reel back away from it, it was fully intertwined and pulling his line to attach to you, only to rear back and completely obliterate his senses when it entered his head.

No. No no no. It’s impossible.

Yoongi was moving forward and caging you against the bed at full speed before he could stop himself, nestling his body between your eagerly opening legs as a hiss escaped his lips. Immediately, he realized that he broke through your command unwavered. The thirst came back at full force when you moaned from the friction on your heat.

“You’re-“ He tested the sensation of true, sexual arousal with a slow grind of himself into you, gasping with a jerk of his dick when his action squeezed his member between his body and yours. “You’re my-“

You moaned again, sitting up slightly to try and capture his lips with your own, unable to control the desire that surmounted in your heart. When he resumed his look of shock, backing away from your advance so that he could look at where your bodies touched, you spoke through the heady emotion. “I’m your what?”

“It can’t be.” He whispered. After a single beat, he leaned down and pressed his lips to yours with a crushing pressure that split your lip instantly.

The pain seared across your bottom lip and distracted you for a moment, emitting a groan deep in your throat that he matched when the taste of your blood exploded onto his tastebuds. Instead of swallowing it like he wanted to, he brought a hand to your chin and opened your lips to spit your blood, along with his venom, back into your mouth so that it would take your pain away.

For a moment, you held the mix of liquids on your tongue, unsure of what to do as no one had ever spit in your mouth before. You looked up to him with confusion extremely evident in your arched brows.

“Swallow it.” He growled.

The taste of iron and an almost sugary sweet tang of saliva was too strong for you to keep sitting on your tongue, so you did as he told you to before he kissed you again to repeat the same action. Slowly, you got into the rhythm of swallowing what he gave you.

Before long, he simply gave you his tongue, allowing you to suck the saliva from his mouth greedily. You didn’t understand why, but the taste was addicting and adding to the pulsing feeling that radiated between your legs. Were you getting lightheaded? No. This sensation was much more blissful and exciting.

He pulled away after sucking on your wounded lip once more, spitting the mixture into your awaiting mouth for a final time before sitting up to look down at your body.

His venom was already taking effect. He could smell it on your skin as it flowed through your veins and filled your system just like a virus would. It would be simple to turn you at this point. You would be his for eternity, bonded to him in ways only the Fated One of a vampire would. Yoongi shook the thought from his head as he wasn’t even sure that you were, indeed, his.

“What am I to you?” You asked genuinely, swollen lip slightly obstructing your speech.

“Don’t worry about that right now, Y/N. Right now, I am going to fuck you, okay?” He met your gaze with his dark eyes filled with confidence, knowing that you would be unable to deny him if his belief was true.

“Yes. Yes, please Yoongi.” You breathed, begging him almost drunkenly. “Please. I’m yours.”

His mind was nudged forward by a different force this time, warranting unknown instincts to play into action.

He felt his center of gravity shift. His skin grew tight and uncomfortable around his body from the emotion that wished to burst through the surface. He breathed with you. Perfectly aligned were your rhythms; his heart soared alongside your own galloping one, desperate to match you in every aspect. The sensations in his body were difficult to ignore as he felt the ancient and sacred pull of a bond lacing itself through his limbs.

Instead of pondering over the reality of it any further, he slid his hand from your chin to your shirt and pinched the fabric between his fingers. You nodded in reassurance.

Your clothes tore form your body like paper. Wrapping his fingers around your arm to keep your body in place, Yoongi ripped your thin blouse from you easily. Your breasts, made plump by the bra you wore, caught his attention the moment they were revealed. Perfect.

Instead of looking like a moron seeing exquisite breasts for the first time, he moved his hand to your dress pants so that he could rid your body of them. In under ten seconds, Yoongi had you almost bare below him. Perfect.

Not even realizing it until you brought your thumb to his lips to swipe his shi from the corner of his mouth, Yoongi shook his head at the fact that the sight of you wriggling and bare-skinned beneath him made him literally drool, but his instincts went haywire when he watched you place your thumb in your mouth to suck his venom off yourself with a low moan of appreciation at the taste.

Yoongi’s hands couldn’t move faster as he tore the clothes from his body, stripping himself bare to reveal himself to you. He wanted to give you everything. To open his mind and spread everything out for you to see- he hoped you could handle it.

You, on the other hand, were laying below him with the desperate need to have him inside you.

You wanted him everywhere. You wanted him to sink himself into you- it seemed to be the only fathomable option. You wanted him to hold you and kiss you and surround you with everything him.

As you stared up at him with a needy look in your eyes, you couldn’t help but want him in every facet possible.

You saw yourself making love to him, holding him, kissing him- loving him. The new sensation brought on you by the psychic connection- that was all you could call it when you felt the mental attachment- brung passionate emotions through your body in an onslaught that you could barely handle. It was too much to deal with without him inside you to be with you through it yet you didn’t know if you could handle what would follow.

Yoongi could smell you through your panties; a delicious scent of the most raw tease he had ever allowed himself to indulge in. Unable to help himself, he moved down your body quickly, throwing your legs open- rather roughly- to give himself room to press his nose straight into your heat. Your aroma filled his nose as he expanded his lungs, triggering his natural instincts to push out his fangs and load his vision with blood to enhance it despite his eyes being closed. Fuck, he wanted to consume you.

You keened at the contact, closing your thighs around his head to trap him there. You felt his groan vibrate on you, driving you closer to the brink of insanity.

Without any further time wasted, he grabbed onto your panties and ripped them from you to expose your pulsating pussy to his mouth without moving his nose away from your intoxicating scent. Not a beat passed before he dug his tongue into you to scoop up your DNA-laced juices. Fuck.

Yoongi lost himself in you immediately. You whined out a small cry, unable to keep yourself from grabbing onto his hair and yanking when all you felt were his lips and tongue laving over your opening relentlessly. There was no skill nor technique in his movements; he was simply devouring you without a mind to pay attention to your bundle, yet you couldn’t stop the sensitivity from boggling your mind and driving you to an instant orgasm.

His hands squeezed your thighs around his head and, for a brief moment, he opened his eyes to look at you. The color of his eyes staring back at you was unexpected- a solid, snow white color filled his orbs and contrasted starkly with the red hue of his engorged veins and bloodshot scleras.

“Yoongi,” You whimpered from another swipe of his tongue and suck from his lips. “Y-Your eyes.”

He pulled away from you instantly at the comment, eyes widening and wet mouth hanging agape, while you let out a groan of relief- or sadness- at the lack of attention to your incredibly sensitive core.

“What color are they?” He asked.

“White.” You struggled to speak, voice cracking under the post-orgasm glow.

He took a moment to look down at your heaving body and messy pussy, jerking forward slightly at the sight of your delicious juice smeared all over your thighs. Once he had a handle on his thirst again, Yoongi met your eyes as the white faded from his irises. “Then you are her.”

“I’m who?” You reached for him, needing to hold him anywhere you could get your hands on. Yoongi caught this action immediately, the same desire to grasp you evident in his hand rushing to meet yours. It was natural to intertwine your fingers while he leaned over you to press his lips to yours in a short, uncharacteristically loving kiss.

“You are my Fated One- my mate. You hold my soul in the palm of your hand, as I do yours.” He murmured, feathering his lips over yours as he spoke.

Under normal circumstances, you don’t think you’d be able to comprehend his words with your current position with him. You were exposed to him and he was exposed to you, making you feel vulnerable and turned on beyond belief. Yoongi was reaching behind you to unclasp your bra while you took in what he had said. His thumb was brushing over your bare nipple before your bra even hit the floor.

“So-” You had to clear your throat again. “So you’re mine? Like, completely?”

He chuckled warmly at your question and you couldn’t stop yourself from reciprocating the smile.

“Yes, Y/N, I am yours.” He brought his hand down to grip your thigh and move it to the side. “I belong to you.”

Yoongi placed his dick against your folds and you watched him so do. You felt his tip capture onto your clit several times as he lathered it with your arousal languidly, preparing himself so that he could slide into you easier. “However,”

“However?” You looked up at him with a questioning look accentuated by your eyebrows.

“You are also mine.” Yoongi stopped his movement so that the head of his cock finally caught onto your opening, kickstarting your heart into a pace that you were afraid would kill you. “Do you understand that?”

He didn’t wait for you to answer.

Torturously, he began to push inside you. You widened your legs to accompany his approaching hips. As you warbled out a cry when he decided to drop his control and fill you completely in the next second, Yoongi began speaking again.

“Do you understand that everything about you,” He reared back and pushed inside you again, forcing your legs open to take him while he did so. “-is mine?”

You couldn’t respond. Your emotions were running rampant with your mind overflowing from too much stimuli while he fucked you. He spoke again without your reply and you could only pull him closer to you and take the feeling of his cock caressing your insides.

“Your lips,” Thrust. “your eyes,” Thrust. “your hair, your hands, your skin;” He punctuated each part of your body with a ram of his dick into you. “Everything, Y/N.”

Yoongi took a moment to look down at your joining bodies, smirking softly at the sight of how easily he slid inside. “-Especially this greedy little cunt of yours.”

You watched his smirk drop while he bit his lip and ground himself into you, lips parting again with a low moan whilst keeping his gaze transfixed on the sinful sight. You watched him in awe as his cock plunged so deep that it felt like it was in your throat.

He snapped his eyes to yours quickly, repeating his prior question. “Do you understand?”

Expecting to be interrupted by a thrust, you sucked your bottom lip in your mouth and braced yourself, only to be grabbed by the neck while he leaned down to bring you face-to-face. You could no longer breathe as he pulled his lips back to reveal his fangs. “I asked you if you understood, Y/N.”

With your airway restricted, you could only nod with your lip still stuck between your teeth. Did you taste blood? Promptly, you remembered that Yoongi busted your lip, yet you were confused as to why you hadn’t felt the pain of it since he first kissed you.

“And are you okay with that?” Yoongi began to nose his way down your neck once he turned your head to the side and slowed the rhythm of his hips. Right before you could answer, he released your neck to look at your face, allowing a large rush of air to enter your lungs just as you were attempting to give him an answer.

“Yes!” You released your lip to scream out at the welcome sensation of oxygen and the feel of his dick pushing it right back out of you. “I’m yours! Everything is yours!”

“Good, my love. Good.” He whispered, smiling down at you. His smile was wiped clean off his face in a heartbeat, his thrusts into you completely ceased, as he zeroed in on your lips. You licked them subconsciously, immediately tasting blood and internally cringing at the flavor of iron coating your tongue.

Yoongi attached his lips around your bottom one quickly and you felt him suck it into his mouth. Your walls squeezed tightly around his at the sensation of his tongue swiping over the spli in your engorged lip again and again. You knew that your lip would be swollen yet you couldn’t find yourself to care because it, surprisingly, didn’t hurt at all. The small bits of Yoongi’s saliva that slipped into your mouth were enough to keep you on edge, tasting like raw sugar at that point.

He began moving inside you again, starting a slow and steady pace. You whimpered into his mouth as he began taking his fill of your blood and you mirrored his thirst with the need to taste his mouth again. Your lips pressed closer to his in order to, hopefully, get a bit more of his spit.

You felt your orgasm building laggardly. It was creeping in at a speed that you were able to prepare yourself for your ascent towards ecstasy. You tightened your legs around his waist and dug your heels into the globes of his ass, pulling him in.

It wasn’t until you were bordering on your climax that Yoongi pulled away from your lip with your pop and sat up to focus on fucking you, his peace of mind obviously waning.

You saw it in his face; you saw the way he couldn’t control his veins from darkening his face; you saw the way his eyes burned white and the way he was attempting to hold himself back from attacking you.

So you did him a favor.

“Yoongi.” You mumbled past your swollen lip. “Bite me.”

Min Yoongi had no option but to obey your command.

He surged forward, pressing himself against your clit deliciously and bottoming out as he lunged for your neck with his fangs fully protruded and a warbled hiss scratching its way out of his throat. With barely enough time to prepare, you bared your neck to him once more and clutched onto his arms for dear life, hoping it wouldn’t hurt too bad.

What you weren’t expecting was for it to feel unreservedly good.

The sensation took you by surprise, warranting a loud moan to escape from your lips before you could stop it. Why did his fangs feel so good in your flesh? It should definitely be hurting. But all you could do was moan and whine like a madwoman as you felt his lips close over the puncture wounds and begin to drink your blood straight from your flesh. His tongue continuously swiped over the teeth marks in your neck, keeping them clear from your body’s natural ability to scar itself and begin blocking the escaping blood. Every lick he delivered sent a pulse straight to your clit and an automatic instinct to tighten yourself around him.

Your pussy quivered around him uncontrollably. You were so close to cumming that you could practically taste the release on your tongue. In the few moments that Yoongi took his sips from your body, his slow propulsions forward into you had become more rough and insistent- as if he was trying to split you in two. Even as you felt your life essence leave your body, you were being filled time and time again by his cock at a deep and passionate rhythm.

At the first sign of getting lightheaded from blood loss, you came- hard.

Your juices squirted around him every time he reared himself back and your eyes rolled to the back of your head while you craned your neck back into your very-bloody pillow. With no where to go, unable to still him with his supernatural strength, you were only able scream out his name.

His speed increased through your orgasm and your sweet exclamations of pure bliss drove Yoongi into a lunatic, freeing himself of control and using his uncanny speed to fuck into you. Your extremely drenched pussy, still convulsing around him was battered and raw, yet he could not find it in himself to care as he desperately surged into you over and over again so that he could fill you with the cum of several centuries. Picturing the image of your cunt spewing his release from it had him closing his jaws and pulling on your wounds harder to get more blood from you.

He knew that he couldn’t drain you. Hearing the pulse of your heart weaken slightly was enough to make him detach his teeth and lick over your wound so that his shi could assist it in healing- it would be completely sealed and unblemished in the next few hours. Instead of worrying too much about your neck, he reared back to look down at you again while he grabbed onto your hips with fervor.

You saw the drops of blood running down from Yoongi’s mouth and chin drip onto your breasts and stomach, creating an erotic and utterly unwholesome image of carnage and horror on your body, but you were unable to help yourself in feeling unsettlingly drawn to the wicked image. With a new flash of desire exploding through your body and reawakening your lust, you reached up and grabbed his neck, pulling him back down to trap him in your embrace.

The oversensitivity of your last orgasm was enough to send you hurtling to the edge of another orgasm- You just needed his fangs in you one more time. Silently begging for it, you kept your grip on his nape and softly nudged him back in the direction of your neck.

Yoongi was close. You could tell. But even past his stupor, he spoke.

“Y/N. I can’t. I took too much.” He almost whined with need, struggling to form words past his fangs.

“Just-“ Your body jolted wildly as he desperately tried to cum. “Just do it!”

Yoongi was able to deny your command, which he figured was due to not being a specific one, yet he couldn’t bring himself to leave it unanswered as his body built in preparation to release.

“I fucking can’t!” He was close to roaring at this point, gums aching to meet your flesh as he pressed his fangs into you and filled you with his essence. He wanted to so badly.

“Drink from me, dammit!” Your eyes were welling with tears of frustration, needing that small push from him to make you orgasm again- his dick hammering your cervix was too much to handle without that small bit of pain to ground you. And without hesitation nor the choice to deny you, he did.

Your orgasms were perfectly in sync as he placed his fangs back into your wounds, delicious blood spilling across his tongue once again. Liquid life. It was the perfect few words for how you tasted.

Your pussy ached with the force of how tight you squeezed around him and Yoongi groaned lowly against your neck as he pressed himself so tightly to you that you knew his hands would be leaving bruises on your hips and ass.

“Yoongi.” You sobbed as his cum filled you, pulsing spurt after warm spurt of the hot liquid onto your abused cervix. The thought of him taking your blood while he gave you his cum was too sinful for you to bear, an outburst of emotion causing you to chant his name over and over again. Never before in your life had you felt so complete and free.

You could feel your blood levels draining as you slowly came down from your climax, knowing that you would not be awake for much longer if he kept drinking.

“That’s enough.” You whispered tiredly, head becoming truly lightheaded. Yoongi, unable to rescind his teeth from your neck, kept drinking from you as the thirst and aggression of the first mating actuated his movements. “Yoongi.”

He tried to pull away- he really did- but the feeling of your blood coating his tastebuds was like finding a quarry in the middle of the Sahara Desert. He lacked the true thirst for humans for thousands of years- and now he was suffering the polydipsia for blood all over again.

“Yoongi, stop.” You commanded, testing your supposed ‘power.’

Yoongi ceased to drink from you yet his fangs were still embedded in your skin, vibrating with pleasure and need. As he stopped, he couldn’t help but whine and then growl savagely with want. The vibration of of his throaty sound in your flesh did things to your body. Unable to resist the temptation, your body clenched involuntarily around his softening cock.

Yoongi groaned again, retracting his fangs and face from your neck, and sat up once more to look at your body. With a slow hand, he stuck out his index and middle finger to smear the droplets of blood on your stomach in small circles aimlessly, picturing you as a canvas made just for him to ruin. “You’re quite the minx, aren’t you?”

“What do you mean?” You giggled deliriously, needing sleep as soon as possible.

“I mean,” Yoongi reached down to smear a droplet of blood across your hip before digging his thumb and fingers into the bone and the flesh of your ass harshly. “Your cunt is playing games with me right now.”

“How so?” You tilted your head to the side in mock confusion.

The vampire pressed his lips into a thin line and sighed almost disdainfully. You gasped as you felt his dick jerk within you, filling to stiffness once more and awakening a new cloud of lust despite the exhaustion you felt. “Well, if you want to play clueless, you can play clueless. We have eternity to teach you how to not play games with me, my mate.”

For eternity? You kind of liked the sound of that.

~#~

If you’d like to read more of my work, feel free to check out my Series Masterlist! If you’d like to read my first fic, check out the DHYB Masterlist!

[im-moreofa-dogperson]

Continuation for To Kill A Kingdom

Summary: Set directly after Lira’s POV and before Elian’s at end of novel.

Warning: Vivid description of blood, minor changes to the rules of TKAK universe, mild fluff

Words: 1410

POV: (second person) Reader as Lira

**MAJOR SPOILERS** For To Kill A Kingdom by Alexandra Christo (Enemies to Lovers book, 10/10 highly recommend).

masterlist

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When the Sea Queen melts away until all that’s left are broken shards of ice in her place, Elian and you are still embracing. The warmth of his hold makes you feel as though you might just melt alongside your mother and you laugh at the thought of it.

Elian finally pulls back and smirks, “What’s so funny”?

You smile at him, and shake your head, “nothing.” He traces his thumb across your cheek, pushing the wet strands of hair from your face.

A small part of you tells yourself you should find no joy in this and rather be feeling remorse. Or guilt. Or grief. Something that a daughter should feel when her mother, no matter how cruel and heartless, departs from this world.

But you don’t. In fact, you feel just the opposite as your heart is full only of relief. Relief that your mother’s tyrannical ways have been forever ceased. Relief that your cousin Khalia and the remaining surviving sirens kept or shifted their allegiances to you. And you felt especially relieved that Elian is safe beside you, and that his crew is mostly intact.

As if reading your mind, Elian, still crouched beside you, begins surveying the frost-covered battle ground, no doubt even more hardened than he was before by the souls now lost, both human and other. While he inspects all the worn faces, you suddenly feel a sharp pain course through your shoulder.

You grimace and Elian immediately returns his focus to you, placing his gloved hands on your forearms, gently forcing you to face him. It’s then you both remember the wound graciously left for you by the Flesh-Eater.

Your entire right arm is now stained as crimson red as your hair. Even with your familiarity to both receiving and inflicting pain, you still weren’t used to seeing this much blood pooling around you the way it did given that you’d spent the majority of your life underwater.

Even after you’d been shot, at least the wound had been far more controlled. A term Flesh-Eater didn’t seem to understand. Meanwhile, the relief washes away just as quickly as the pain increases as it was all you were able to think about now.

You gasp as Elian suddenly scoops you into his arms, drooping only for a second by the unexpected weight of your fin, and rushes to his medic whose other title of mechanical engineer fits just a bit better.

While clinging to his neck, you wished you understood more of the power that the eye of Keto granted, or that the invincibility of being Sea Queen was brought about after the old one passes on rather than when your skin once again reunites with that of the Diavolos Sea. Then you were sure you could just fix yourself and be done with it. Not have to involve a medic who could be aiding anyone else injured in such a merciless battle.

You don’t mention these qualms to Elian, however, already knowing he’d refuse to hear any of that, and would instead tell you to just be quiet.

When you reach the medic, it takes him a moment to place where the blood is coming from given the mess of crimson hair and liquid spilling all over your side. Elian gently places you beside him, seamlessly webbing his fingers with yours and shifting your weight so that the left side of your back was on his chest and you weren’t lying awkwardly on your side.

Madrid and Kye soon rush over both sporting various minor injuries, but all in all mostly unscathed. At least unbothered by their inflicted wounds.

As the medic gets to work on stitching you up, keeping his gloves on so as not to come in contact with the acidity of your blood, you begin eliciting subtle winces and hisses. Your face fluctuates between human and beast, vulnerability versus ferocity.

However prominent the two depicted emotions you expressed were, you still felt as though the human in you as well as the siren had merged into one. That you were now an equal part of both land and sea. This new revelation, however, didn’t subside the pain you still felt.

Hissing out a string of curses in Psariin, you tighten your grip on Elian’s hand who doesn’t even flinch at the added pressure of your newfound strength.

Kye crouches down on the other side of Elian with Madrid standing behind him placing her hand on his shoulder. They both see you as a member of the Saad’s crew now, therefore were once again desperate that you hadn’t lost too much blood and would be alright.

Being that you were a long way away from the Diavolos Sea and you didn’t possess the powers quite yet accompanying your being the Sea Queen, you were right there beside Kye and Madrid’s worries, hoping you’d have enough strength to make it back.

“So, what happens now?” Elian asks, no doubt attempting to relieve some of the tension that yet again clouded around a monstrous wound of yours.

You peer up at him and say with as much composure as you could muster, “Well I suppose your ship’s head engineer either strings me back together, or I’ll wither away like half of your brain cells.”

He chuckles and replies, “You know that loss is a result of conversing with you.”

You laugh in response and so he continues, “I meant after that.”

Rather than responding, you gaze out at the carnage left behind and begin pondering what you should do. Though the atmosphere had somewhat improved in lieu of recent events, the sirens still wore expressions of restlessness. Now that you were the Sea Queen, it was your responsibility to safely them back home.

You remembered the way your mother had spilled a pathway through the water, allowing the underwater folk a portal-like mode of transport from the Sea all the way to the Cloud Mountains. You lift up your good arm, Eye of Keto in hand, and close your eyes.

Willing the water to do your bidding no matter how far away you were from any real sea, you feel the push of the tides and muster what little strength you had left to pull back.

Opening your eyes, you notice the water begin to swirl hypnotically. You attempt to block out the pain emitting from your right shoulder and instead focus your attention on widening the doorway through the crystal-like waters.

The merfolk begin to take notice of the portal you’ve created and without barking an order at them to go through, they dive back in one by one. The number of sirens quickly dwindles as they return back home.

After the last siren dives through in a blur of blonde hair and sunset scales, you drop your arm and huff out a breath of relief. The water splashes back into place, rippling back out through the lake.

You collapse back on Elian’s shoulder in exhaustion just as the medic had finished stitching you back together as best as he could. The pain of your skin being threaded had subsided. Now you simply felt drained.

“Not going back just yet, huh?” Elian asks smirking, already knowing the answer.

“Did you want me to?” You respond.

“No”, he states. You smile at each other, grateful to be on the same page until Kye interrupts the moment, “If you two are done making love, can we start making plans to get the hell off this mountain?”

Madrid laughs and although at first you feel like joining her, you feel a slight twinge of guilt. You were so focused on freeing your own kind from this frozen wasteland, you’d forgotten all about the treacherous terrains that awaits the humans.

After some mild bantering and eventually coming to the conclusion that Elian’s crew were still too weary to travel back down the mountain today, you all begin making your way back into the palace to rest and revive, you in Elian’s arms.

You figure once your shoulder has had time to heal, you’d be strong enough to use the Eye to transform yourself into human to accompany the crew on their journey back before returning to the Diavolos.

Though the repercussions of the battle were not minimal, the war had still been won and you wanted to relish in that with the people who helped you to find that it was a war worth ending.

____________________________________________

[heavenaintaniceplace]

so i found my mother’s copy of the jw (new world translation) bible and i decided to yoink that shit for disposal but not before i realized there is a lot of lines highlighted in the book from when she was being manipulated by the jw lady that convinced her to do “bible study” for years. and what do you know if the lines the lady had my mother highlight weren’t the same lines that jws use to justify their cult beliefs! all the lines are cherry picked, no actual study, just the lady manipulating and priming her to accept their beliefs by presenting so called “biblical proof.” so here is some of the things that stand out before i finally rip this thing to shreds and through it away.

literally the whole book replaces every instance of the tetagrammaton with “jehovah” because they want people to believe its been “removed from the bible thousands of times because they don’t want you to know the true name of god”. the whole thing is translated with an agenda to make them look right and everyone else wrong and to make people believe they have some secret hidden knowledge (they don’t they’re liars). putting this under a read more because its very long.

heavy TW for everything related ro religious trauma, the jehovah’s witnesses, bible passages and christianity. incredibly long post. i plan on burning the jehovah’s witness copy of the bible, no joke.

the imago dei part of genesis to try and convince her that humans were super special to god

genesis chapter 3, the serpent convincing eve to eat the fruit of knowledge so that she would accept their version of the original sin doctrine and that women are cursed

chapter where cain kills abel to convince her that this was the first murder in human history (obviously incorrect)

highlighted the part where god kills everything on earth with a flood to groom her into expecting god to do it again later and seen as fair and just and part where god “gives” noah every living creature (because fuck other organisms apparently)

part of leviticus where (in their version) theyre like “no soul must eat blood” (what the fuck) to justify not allowing life saving blood transfusions

deuteronomy part about “jehovah being one” to justify being non trinitarian (they don’t believe jesus is god or that the holy spirit is god, this is meant to lure people who are already christians away from their denoms and into theirs)

“thou shall not kill” is highlighted for some reason and i don’t know why

highlighted job 1:12 to emphasize that they believe satan is in control of the world because god allows it and job 26:7 that has a note saying “the earth hangs there” when talking about sheol to convince her of where earth is relative to “heaven” and using a bunch of “face of the waters” creationist language to make it vague as possible. job 27:5 to make her believe that “no one is righteous” and that saying so is sinful

part in psalms that assures that “wicked people will be no more if you just wait a little while longer” (this is the apocalypse imminent narrative they use to groom people with fear of dying or leaving but also to get them warmed up to the idea of mass death). “the righteous will inherit the earth and live forever” narrative so they believe that jws will live on earth forever after being resurrected while everyone else (whos not a jw) is killed by god

psalms 91 to drive home the fact that these people think theyre invincible in every meaning of the word, to natural disasters and disease etc

proverbs 6 part about “false witnesses”. jws believe that three jehovah’s witnesses have to be present to verify that a crime (like domestic or sexual abuse) actually happened or the governing body and elders don’t care. literally. the “false witness” narrative is used against survivors and people they want to silence in their organization and emphasizes how much jehovah hates “false witnesses” aka people brave enough to talk and victims

proverbs 12:18 about “wise and unwise tongues”, basically anyone that speaks out against the jws are “unwise” and harmful

proverbs 22 about raising children (”train up a child”, if you don’t know it already this is a child abuser dog whistle) that implies that indoctrination will last until adulthood if done right. this is especially bad because this copy is from the early 2000s when i was in kindergarten. this woman had been lurking on us since i was an infant.

proverbs 27 about how neighbors near is better than brothers far away. the implication here is that fundamentally family who aren’t jws don’t matter

ecclesiates 5. i genuinely think its warning people to not ask too much of god or risk his anger, thats the vibe im getting here because the wording is confusing as fuck

isiah 40:22 trying to hammer in the notion that god is greater than anything especially “worldly” governments (except the governing body ofc /s). isiah 43:10 the “you are my witnesses” to justify the name “jehovah’s witnesses” and shoehorn the idea in

daniel 2:40, the idea of an indescribable kingdom, the whole kingdoms in the “last days” conspiracy they use to convince people the “last days” are coming

matthew 4:8 where jesus is persuaded by satan by offering every kingdom on earth. the point in text is “don’t worship anyone except god” but the point of the jws is that nothing on earth actually matters

matthew 6:9 (nice), the our father, meant to make the reader to ask god to hasten the kingdom of god or as we ex-jws know hasten the apocalypse and the death of people they dont like

matthew 16:24, meant to convince people to leave everything behind and join the jws, “disown yourself” aka “die to yourself” toxic bullshit repackaged

matthew 19:9, to convince people that divorce even in instances of domestic abuse is wrong because the governing body won’t allow it and loves to control women

matthew 24:4-14, “anyone who doesnt speak for the jws is a false prophet” and warms people up to the notion that war is necessary; also that evidence of war is a sign of the “last days” and that this is supposed to be good news. ongoing war and the hope for global genocide is “good news” to them.

matthew 24:21. this one is meant to make people feel the apocalypse could happen at any time and to be afraid of it, a great war is coming and only the “chosen ones” (jehovah’s witnesses) will survive when everyone else dies. there’s a paper bookmark on this page. makes me wonder.

mark 8:34. the “die to yourself” bullshit, the idea that the cross was a “torture stake” because jws believe that wearing crosses is idolatry and they want other people to believe their quirky beliefs so they accept heavier things

matthew 10:28, “anyone who follows jehovah and jesus will literally live forever!” but also that “no one is prepared to leave their family for jesus and thats shameful because you should want to sacrifice your entire family!”

mark 11:24 “anything you pray for earnestly you get”. this is spiritual bypassing btw. and :25 “ask for forgiveness and be automatically forgiven no matter what you did” is also fucked

matthew 15-23: jesus (almost) gets wasted while being crucified etc, not sure why this one is highlighted unless im missing some jw bullshit here

luke 20:27. don’t understand this one but they’re threatening “heavier judgement” on people

john 5:28, promising resurrection through jesus after people die but only for the Good tm people (the jws)

john 6:15. how jesus is about to be arrested but goes to a mountain. dunno why this on is underlined

john 11:24. bringing home the same “jesus will save you from dying if youre a jw” bullshit. john 14:6 “jesus is the ONLY way ever! there can’t be anything else except jesus” indoctrination tailored to make you co-dependent. john 17:3, hook line and sinker of promising resurrection and “eternal life” again

john 17:15. here is the “we aren’t of the World tm” shit meant to make you feel outcast from everyone else who isnt a jw, setting up “the world” (everyone else) as other

acts 15:25. “follow the jw rules because the holy spirit you to”

romans 10:10, spread jw beliefs and witness as much as possible. romans 12:9 “hate everything jehovah hates so you’re not a hypocrite” basically means hate other people the jws don’t approve of

corinthians 6:9 (nice but not so nice this time) “anyone we don’t like won’t inherit the earth” translation: anyone we don’t like won’t survive the apocalypse thats definitely happening soon so always be afraid. “homosexuals” are changed to “men kept for unnatural purposes for this one.” still homophobic.

corinthians 7:6, the idea that everyone has a gift that needs to be exploited and used by the jws

corinthians 15:33. “don’t participate in any activities with any outsiders because it will lead you away from jehovah!! fun is ‘drunkenness’, you’ll loose your resurrection if you do!! non jw people are bad influences!!”

2 corinthians 7:1. your body and flesh is defiled, you need to be cleansed in order to be good

galatians 5:20. “having human emotions is sinful! struggling is sinful! being angry is sinful! having a bad day is sinful!” basically that being human is inherently wrong or something

ephesians  3:14. tries to make people believe everything is owed to god only and that obedience is good so they fall for cult power structures later. 4:28 here is just the top of the page being labeled “new personality” and thats all we need to know about indoctrination and cult personality vs actual personality. also “let not the sun set with you in a provoked state” being used against people still angry about being wronged and hurt by others and its been used against me a lot of times

ephesians 6:4. make sure the jw fathers provide the most discipline to children, literally uses the phrase “mental regulating of jehovah”. it couldn’t be more cult like at this point.

timothy 5:8 makes people believe that men alone are expected to provide and if they don’t they’re worse than “those without faith”. no pressure though!

timothy 6:19. wants people to neglect everything actually happening in favor of the “real life” (”eternal life”) instead and to constantly prepare for that instead of actually living life. dedicate your whole life to jw activities

titus 2. women need to be subjects to their husbands but also homemakers, live to glorify their husband, chaste and definitely not mentally ill or showing any symptoms. what the fuck is titus i never heard of this shit until today.

hebrews 1:7-14, trying to convince people that angels live to serve god but also has some superseccsionist/replacement theology (antisemitism) vibes going on

james 2:23, wants people to believe that god “putting people to the test” is actually a way to become “jehovah’s friend” and that being put to the test (read: suffering) is actually a good thing because it primes them to accept suffering as their fault later on. james 4:7 “everything evil will vanish if you rebuke it long enough!!”

peter 3:9 the “god’s timing is always right” gospel bs and encourages people not to do things themselves but to wait and also that jehovah will be on time when its time to start another global genocide. how encouraging! peter 3:13, the same “end of world near” scare tactic, “new heavens new earth” promise to eradicate everyone the jws dont like as that is jehvoah’s “promise” to the witnesses

1 john 3:8, their version of the original sin doctrine, the devil is the source of all evil scare tactic etc

short detour: every instance of “servant” is replaced with “slave” in this version. it makes me feel ill.

revelations 7:16, wants people to believe that god will take away all their pain and that they won’t need food or water to survive anymore (bullshit). also the jehovah’s witness 144,000 chosen people bullshit is here too but not highlighted

revelations 12:7-13, a depiction fo michael drop kicking satan and the implication that satan has always been in charge and not god because they want people to believe that. also that the devil will fall to earth and try to eat jws

revalations 14-4: virgins get dibs on heaven and god i guess. i dont know what the fuck is going on. 14:6 an angel yelling fear god from above, probably where the jws get most of their apocalyptic imagery from that they use to scare children into believing they could die at any minute

so now that we finally got to the end of that mess, their version of revalations ends with jesus saying “yes, i am coming quickly” and “may the undeserved kindness of jesus christ be with the holy ones.”

joking aside, everything highlighted in this copy of this book has been used against me and my mother for years and is a huge part of the reason i have religious trauma now. everything she was told or encouraged to highlight aided jehovah’s witness indoctrination and propaganda, her own indoctrination and eventually mine which apparently started even earlier than i thought.

[maxwell-grant]

Can you write about the Shadow's disfigurement ? I read that originally he was supposed to have a bandaged injured face like Darkman but that changed later

(Fan-art by Ryan Thompson)

It's a great signifier of what kind of character The Shadow is and how interesting of a figure he is in that, even a detail as innocuous as just his face has a whole sprawling history of intrigue and contradictions to talk about, not even getting into the specific features of his like the eyes and the nose, just the face. It's really great how I never run out of stuff to talk about with this character.

The true nature of The Shadow's face is an interesting oddity from the early stories that was never resolved in them, and several stories later took for a spin. It was one of the bits of information about The Shadow that Gibson reserved for rare and critical occasions, but it never really had a resolution and seemed to have been ignored when it was time to reveal Kent Allard.

Thing is, though, it was never really officially retconned, and it wasn't something you could ignore, it played a crucial role in some stories. And Gibson wasn't at all the kind of author who forgets plot points, he was fond of keeping notes and occasionally referencing his own continuity, which makes it all the more odd that a detail as important as The Shadow's real face was just not brought up again past a certain point. So here's the story of The Shadow's "real" face:

In the very first story, when Gibson was still testing the waters of what the character was going to be, he included a passage that teases a backstory for the character, as a former aviator who was scarred in the war.

"I seen The Shadow..." said Spotter eagerly. "I looked for his face. I saw nothing but a piece of white that looked like a bandage. Maybe The Shadow ain't got no face to speak of. Looked like the bandage hid somethin' in back. There was a young guy once who the crooks was afraid of -- he was a famous spy in the War, and they say he was wounded over in France -- wounded in the face. I think The Shadow is this guy come back." - The Living Shadow

In many of the following novels, even past the point where Gibson would more or less drop the idea all together, The Shadow's face is repeteadly described as "mask-like", usually when he's Cranston, something that both refers to the fact that he's masking himself as Lamont Cranston as well as Cranston's general impassive character. Throughout the character's entire run, Gibson never drops the idea of The Shadow's face being mask-like.

Cranston's eyes were almost smiling, even though his lips weren't - Dictator of Crime

The Shadow's methods of disguise are vague, but usually described as him using make-up putty on his face, using wire contraptions or wire masks, or thin sheets that he drapes over his features, and etc, it usually changes depending on the story or is all of these at once. The idea that The Shadow's true face had some kind of bigger secret was brought back a couple of stories later, when a villain unmasks The Shadow for the first time.

An arm came from the curtain. It reached forward and plucked the black hat from The Shadow's head. A low sound of amazement came from the curtain when the face of The Shadow was revealed.

"The secret of The Shadow," came the monotonous voice. "At last it is understood! The man of many faces - with no face of his own!" - The Black Master

The events of this story were brought up later in a story called Green Eyes, and four months after Green Eyes, we got The Shadow's Shadow, a novel whose resolution incorporated The Shadow's face in the finale.

Zubian's snarl became a cry of triumph as he saw The Shadow roll upon the floor. The slouch hat was carried away by the bullet. The head of the Shadow lay obscured beneath the folds of his cloak.

Zubian was aiming to fire further shots, to make sure of the Shadow's death; but he never accomplished that final purpose. An arm swept upward from the floor. Behind it came those glowing eyes; but it was not the eyes that stopped Felix Zubian. He was staring into the face of The Shadow -- not the disguised features of Lamont Cranston or Henry Arnaud -- but the visage of The Shadow himself!

What Zubian saw there; what expression on The Shadow's countenance made even that fiendish villain gasp in horror; no one could ever know. For Felix Zubian knew his last moment of life in that fateful instant. His trembling finger faltered on the trigger of his gun. The Shadow's unfailing hand did not yield - The Shadow's Shadow

And then, a year after this story, we got The Black Falcon, which has the most overt usage of The Shadow's "horror" face as it's once again the secret tool that allows The Shadow to gain victory over the villain

"If you are not Cranston," he demanded. "Who are you?"

"You shall learn." The Shadow's tone was ominous. "It will be your deserved warning. For those who have seen the true face of The Shadow have never lived to recite their discovery."

The man's face was ashen. A whispered laugh came from The Shadow's lips.

Only The Shadow knew why the sight of his dread face had brought terror to this evil fiend who never before to-night had known fear.

The face of The Shadow! The face that was never seen except when disguised to represent some other countenance. Roland Ransdale had met The Shadow face to face. The Black Falcon, he who had terrorized the law, had lost all nerve when he had viewed the true visage of The Shadow!

Only brilliant eyes remained in view. Burning eyes that surveyed the gasping shape of a man who had once thought himself invincible. As the fierce crook caught the burn of The Shadow's eyes, that sight, he knew, had been his sentence of doom. His nerve had passed with that revelation."

Stooping above the body of The Black Falcon, The Shadow hovered like a monster of the night..." - The Black Falcon

The last time we'd get a mention of The Shadow's face undisguised came from The Python. After he gets attacked and falls on a river, he's rescued by a couple of fishermen, and the narration states that the Cranston make-up had been blown off.

Squarely in the center of the rowboat lay a form attired in black trousers and a bedraggled white shirt.

Most of The Shadow's make−up had survived; but his features were no longer a close resemblance of Lamont Cranston's. He was still disguised; but only in a fashion. A grotesque hollowness had come upon his hawklike countenance. To Tanker and Pete, however, The Shadow was no more than a chance swimmer exhausted in the river - The Python

For the most part, any and all references to The Shadow's face from that point onwards would only be about how he alters it when he disguises, a process that's vaguely alluded to and usually implies him using make-up or wire frames to mold his face. In The Man From Shanghai, he even switches from Henry Arnaud to Lamont Cranston in the span of a single cab ride, and apparently keeps the Cranston face underneath the Arnaud one.

Deft fingers, pressing against cheeks and lips, were molding the countenance as one might work with clay - Chain of Death

Opening the briefcase, he produced a make-up box. Surveying his countenance in a mirror, he laughed softly and began to remold his masklike features. His visage changed beneath the pressure of his finger tips - Cyro

So far, the things we'd learned about The Shadow's real face by this point were: whatever is in there is horrifying enough to terrify and even traumatize hardened criminals (even after The Black Falcon gets some nerve back, he still can't bring himself to look at The Shadow without shaking, and it ultimately kills him in a gunfight).

The first story stated it was wounded in the war, and word got out about said injury to the point even an American gangster in the 30s knows about it. However, this fact was never brought up again, and it doesn't seem like a debilitating injury, as his face is malleable to the point of being compared to clay, and he doesn't seem traumatized or upset about it, even laughing at those who see it (which raises the possibility that it wasn't a war injury at all and that's just the story that got out).

It's said to be like "a piece of white that looks like a bandage", and later it was described as something that doesn't even really constitute a face. The only parts of The Shadow's face that are consistent are his burning eyes and his hawklike visage and both of these are malleable, and the most of his facial features we ever get to see for ourselves are described as having a "grotesque hollowness" to it, which is a delightfully horrifying adjective to apply to a face.

7 years after The Living Shadow, we got The Shadow Unmasks, which established that The Shadow's real, undisguised face was that of aviator Kent Allard. There were no further mentions of there being a "horror face" in further stories. You'd think this would be it, but if you've followed me long enough, you should know by now that there is no such thing as an "end" to weird mysteries when it comes to The Shadow.

In some stories following this one, his abilities of disguise would acquire some strange aspects. He'd be able to disguise himself by actively contorting his face along with the make-up.

Steadily, carefully, he bulged the contour of his forehead; squared his jaw; added a putty−like substance to his cheeks. It required longer for The Shadow to shape his nose like Wadsford's. The Shadow faked a facial twitch that resembled Wadsford's manner. - The Radium Murders

His features squarer; more mobile. Only a slight contortion was required to give them hardness. Thus The Shadow posed as either a respectable pedestrian or a tough-faced thug, according to the places where his search has taken him. - Buried Evidence

In others, he wouldn't even need make-up at all to alter his face.

His slouch hat and his black robe slid away from him. The disguise was thrust into a hidden compartment with one swift gesture. The Shadow was now Lamont Cranston.

But a ripple passed over his mobile face. His mouth and features seemed to writhe. Without changing anything save the habitual expression of his face, Lamont Cranston also vanished.

In his place was a smiling stranger. A man whose mouth looked weak, whose expression seemed almost timid. Well−dressed, faultlessly groomed, he seemed like a harmless, good−natured citizen whose car had broken down on a lonely country road - The Crimson Phoenix

In Shadow Over Alcatraz, The Shadow is even able to even contort the rest of his body to squeeze himself through a seven-inch gap, which is physically impossible for a grown man to pass through without extreme injury

The window was about three feet high, two feet in width. It had two upright bars, dividing it into three spaces, each about seven inches across.

Thrusting one arm through the central sector, The Shadow turned his head sideways and poked it through. Bars grazed his ears; when he turned his head, they became a sort of collar. He was wedging outward, drawing his other shoulder.

Below, his hand gripped rock. The Shadow tugged. It was a tight squeeze for his body, but he seemed to elongate as he drew his chest in. His hips slid past. His tall form teetered outward.

Crime County even states that The Shadow had become adept at remodeling his face through touch alone, and I cannot find any lines in the story that mention he's using makeup.

He was remolding the features of Cranston when Sparrow looked up. It was a process that The Shadow could perform by touch alone, even in comparative darkness.

Cranston's face was not The Shadow's own; in itself it was a disguise. A spreading motion somewhat flattened the aristocratic profile; downward pressure added a bulldog effect to the jaw.

And as the magazine reached it's final stretch, we started to get mentions in story that alluded to The Shadow's "real" face, undisguised, being that of Lamont Cranston

If Jud had known that Cranston in his other life was The Shadow, he would have... A tug of The Shadow's hat brim and his own face, that of Cranston, was obscured - The White Skulls

The Shadow's eyes, yet strangely Cranston's, for this was one time The Shadow did not care to disguise them - The Whispering Eyes

Which only capped off the mystery of his real identity by bringing a loop around itself, as suddenly it seemed Kent Allard was Lamont Cranston who was Kent Allard who was The Shadow who was Lamont Cranston and so on.

So looking on it now, "disfigurement" isn't really accurate. It's how it's been utilized in some stories past the pulps, Michael Uslan's comic storylines in particular leaned more heavily into it as a war trauma for The Shadow and a dramatic backstory. I have mixed feelings on this and you could argue it's playing with some ugly and unnecessarily ableist tropes (like The Phantom of the Opera), but if you gotta give him a punchy superhero backstory, I definitely prefer that than what the movie went with. It works to emphasize a tragedy tothe character's background.

But "disfigurement" isn't really the right word for it, because we only got one mention, in the first story, that it was due to an injury, and it came from a third party who had only heard faint rumors about a guy who could have been The Shadow once. Being defined as someone who's sacrificed his identity to fight crime, it's easy to assume that The Shadow's face is horrible to look at because it was destroyed in the war which already took so much.

Maybe that's just what he'd like you to think. Maybe that's all you need to know.

Every other instance in the pulps where we got to peer into some secret of The Shadow's face, it was never played up as if it was an injury due to some dramatic past event, but rather as if it was some horrifying secret of his true self that we were only getting the barest glimpses of.

Something that's gotta be much grislier than just mangled features, if it gets hardened criminals to quake in abject fear. Something that somehow still allows him to distort his face far beyond what's humanly possible, with and without outside assistance. Something that allows his "real self" to be, at separate points in time, Kent Allard and Lamont Cranston.

Something that makes it so he can have many faces, and yet no true face of his own. The great secret of The Shadow, and one that's always going to have a different answer. One where he himself only has one thing to say about it

Those who have seen the true face of The Shadow have never lived to recite their discovery.

Y-You cannot frighten me, maniac! You are only a man!

Am I?

[cutesuki--bakugou]

Steamy

Main Pairing: Katsuki Bakugou x Fem!Reader

Story Rating: Explicit

Genre: Fluff / Romance 

Warnings: Cursing, Alcohol Consumption, Public and Risky Nudity / Foreplay / Sex, Denial, Dirty / Degrading / Lewd Talk, Choking, Biting

Words: 6,483

Summary: For Bakugou’s 30th birthday, he decides to treat you both to a nice getaway to a spot up in the wilderness for whatever relaxing thing you decided to do. Massage, hiking, chilling in the hot springs... But at 2 in the morning, a bit tipsy and feeling like taking a risk, your brat of a husband drags you out of your room for a late night soak in those springs. It’s not just the water that ends up nice and steamy~

Art by me, @hvalrossart​ 

“Wait, you want to do what?” 

“I said I want to go out to the hot spring. Got bugs in your ears from hiking today or something?” 

You stared up at your lover in surprise as he came out of the bathroom of your little traditional old-style Japanese room, nestled at the far end of an inn just outside of Tokyo. The peaceful forest area was a perfect getaway for the two of you, and since it just so happened to be your husband's birthday, it was also his location choice. It had plenty of activities and relaxing things for you both to do over the four days you booked, and being on the second night, a couple of those things had already been done. The first day was nothing but relaxation, a spa day with bone popping massage included, and the second day was spent out in the wilderness hiking. 

In truth, you were exhausted from the activity, and the simple fact that you were still awake at two in the morning was enough to make you question your sanity. Yet here he was, saying that he wasn’t quite ready for bed, even after getting out of the shower and drinking a bottle and a half of sake between you. Perhaps it was the alcohol that made him want to take the risk, or maybe it was just that turning thirty made him feel invincible? Not like the great pro hero Bakugou Katsuki needed to feel even more invincible than his already huge ego deluded, but if anything were to boost it, his favorite sake would. 

With a huff and a pout, you narrowed your eyes at him, rolling over to lay on your back with your arms crossed defiantly over your chest. “No, I do not have bugs in my ears! I heard you just fine, I just can’t believe that the words came out of your mouth. It might be your birthday, ‘Suki, but we can’t just break the rules like that. We’ll get kicked out.” 

“No we fucking wouldn’t. A slap on the wrist, maybe, but they wouldn’t kick us out.” Towel still resting haphazardly on the top of his head, Bakugou took a moment to rub his wet blonde locks vigorously, giving you a chance to glance over his still damp, muscular figure. The sake may have been making him feel brave, but for you, all it was doing was making you feel handsy, and the way his arm and back muscles rippled with his movements was already making your core tingle. What was worse, he hadn’t yet touched you in a sexual way not once during this trip, making the sexy lingerie you had hidden in your suitcase useless so far. 

“Why don’t we just stay inside,” cheeks flushing as his crimson glare peered at you behind his bangs, you fiddled with the strap to your white bathrobe, bending your leg just a bit at the knee to show off the skin of your thigh. “We can just make it nice and steamy in here instead.” 

 Knowing smirk crossing his lips, Bakugou scoffed, tossing the wet towel away while keeping the other fashioned around his hips. “Tch, you’d like that, wouldn’t you?” Kneeling at the end of the futon where he stood, Bakugou grabbed your ankles and pulled you down towards him, making you squeak from the sudden movement and uncomfortable feeling of your robe bunching up under your hips. “For me to fuck that sweet little pussy of yours, huh?” Keeping your legs spread open with a grip under your knees, his lips began to travel across the skin of your inner thigh, leaving kisses, bites, and tender nibbles in his wake. “Is that what you’ve been waiting for?” 

Already, your heart was racing, and breath was beginning to grow heavy, the heat pooling between your legs and throbbing the closer he got. “Yes, Katsuki-” Your words caught in your throat as he pushed your legs back, spreading them open and exposing your scantily clad hips to him fully. The lace underwear did little to hide anything from him, and the darkness of the fabric between your legs was enough to give away how wet you were. 

“You’re such a naughty girl.” The smirk on Bakugou’s lips grew at the sight of you, and only for a moment, you thought there was a malicious gleam in his eye. “Already so fucking wet.” With a stronger push, he further contorted your body until your knees were on either side of your head, now hovering directly over you with his hips keeping your backside firmly in place. In this position, you were unable to move and struggling to make a coherent thought behind the pounding of your heart in your ears. It was matched with the throbbing between your legs as your body ached and twitched in anticipation of his next move, and as his lips came to hover over yours, the excitement in your stomach nearly bubbled out of control--

“Too bad,” Smirk spreading into a wicked grin, Bakugou found amusement in the sudden change in your expression, which fell in shock along with your stomach. “It’s my birthday, isn’t it? I decide when we fuck.” 

Your face flushing violently from frustration and embarrassment at falling for his fake advances, you squeezed your arms between your thighs, pushing back on his chest to try and get him off you. “Rude! Why would you tease me like that!? Damn it, you got me so horny, you prick!” 

Laughing, Bakugou wasn’t at all perturbed by the pressure on his chest or the kicking of your legs, keeping you in place as he smooshed rough and playful kisses all over your face. “What, babe, you really wanted it that bad?” 

“I do!” Whining with a pout, you glared up at him once he was done with his kiss attack. “I want to fuck… Please?” 

“Only if you go to the hot spring with me.” 

You should have known that was coming. Of course he’d be clever enough to use your need for pleasure to manipulate you into agreeing to go with him. If you were honest, you would have ended up going even if he hadn’t played this little trick, but now you had no choice, even if you were stuck between following the rules and being adventurous. On one hand, it would probably be really exciting, but on the other, it could go really wrong really fast. This entire place was public, and that included the hot springs. Sure, you could probably find a little corner that was tucked away, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t risky. 

Sighing heavily in defeat, you rolled your eyes, cupping both of his cheeks and squishing them together to pucker out his lips, which you kissed in attempted punishment. “Fine. Fine! You win, Mr. Stinky-Birthday-Brain.” 

“Stinky-Birthday-Brain?” Bakugou questioned as he kissed you again, releasing your legs to allow your body to lay normally. “That’s a new one.” Another series of kisses as you wrapped your arms around his neck, allowing him to lift you up and wrap his arms around your torso. “Not all that aggressive, considering I just gave you serious blue balls.” 

“You did.” A final kiss was given before he released you, allowing you to sit up on your own as he stood. “My lady-balls are aching. I gotta potty first before we go.” Using his steady grip to help pull yourself to your feet, you gave his back-end a firm smack before heading towards the bathroom. With sudden agility you didn’t think you possessed, you were able to leap away from his own swinging arm as he tried to land one on your ass, giggling as you fled into the bathroom. “Ooh, a swing and a miss! Loserrrr~” 

“Hurry up and piss before I change my mind and go by myself!” 

After a silent fight of sticking your tongues out at each other, you vanished behind the sliding door, unable to help the smile on your lips. Did his little trick annoy you? Yeah, of course it did, but his playful attitude was something that you couldn’t help but adore. Before the trip, he had been grumpy and at the end of his already thin patience with some drama going on at his hero firm, but the instant you both got out here, it was like he locked everything away. He was obviously determined to make this as good of a vacation as he could, and so were you. So, after taking a quick tinkle, you dug around in your suitcase that was in the closet connected to the bathroom. 

Finding the secret little lingerie set you had bought for him, you took a few minutes to change into it. Your body slipped snugly into the silk and lace, flattering your figure and accentuating all the little things he loved. You knew that clothes weren’t exactly allowed in the hot springs, but if you were going to go out there after hours, breaking one more little rule wouldn’t be all that bad. Besides, you knew it wouldn’t be on you long, not after Bakugou laid eyes on it. He’d be more likely to rip it off in seconds, as he had previous demonstrated with all your past sexy outfits. Much to your misfortune, he had a tendency to quite literally tear it off you in a frenzy of passion, and the delicate clothing usually never survived. 

Once you were set, you tied your robe back around you, making sure that there was nothing peeking out that could give away your secret. Hands washed, you popped on out of the bathroom, approaching your lover as he took another sip of what he had left in his sake cup. “You’re gonna be too drunk to go out!” 

“Am not. I’m not even tipsy, babe.” With just a little left, he handed it to you, letting you finish off the rest with a slurp. “Nice. You ready?” 

Giving a sigh, you set the little sake cup down next to the bottle, placing your hands on your hips. “Fine. Ready. If we get caught, I’m blaming it all on you, big guy.” You gave a playful tug to the strap of the robe he had put on, pushing up on your toes to kiss him. “I still can’t believe you really want to do this.” 

With a shrug, Bakugou led you over towards the door to your room, flipping off the light to shower you in darkness. “I don’t follow the rules all the time. Now shut up, and don’t trip.” Ignoring your nudge to his side in retaliation of him telling you to shut up, Bakugou slid open the door as silently as he could, peeking up and down the hallway. There wasn’t another soul in sight, and the lights were off in any of the other surrounding rooms. And so began your trek towards the springs, having to follow signs in the darkness to make sure you didn’t get lost or turned around. 

Eventually, you came upon the entrance to the hot springs area, which was a doorway blocked off by a gate that was effectively locked. That was quite pointless, however, as the gate only came up to your hips, and with Bakugou’s help, you were both able to get over it without a hitch. 

The closer you got to the springs, the more excited you became, but not exactly for the reason one would assume. No, you were freezing your ass off, the chilly spring nighttime air making you want nothing more than to be completely submerged in the hot water of the springs. You could tell Bakugou was decently cold as well, noticing his toes curl with the first step of his bare feet on the stone path. In the moment, you were surprised at how quietly he was able to walk around, considering his stature and the way he carried himself. It was probably his hero training, you assumed, but you couldn’t help but find it amusing at how incredibly different it was compared to his typical self. 

After walking for about five minutes and going through a final unlocked gate, you both reached the springs, which were deeper into the brush than you expected. Along with that, this smaller gate was decently creaky, so this gave you some comfort. Not only would no one be able to hear you if you were quiet, but you’d also be able to hear anyone coming in. So, after both of you took a final quick glance around, it was time. 

Bakugou took off his robe and tossed it onto a bench without a word, leaving you to watch his naked form as he stepped into the springs. Although you had seen him naked more times than you could probably count at this point, there was something different about this time, feeling your stomach bubble and cheeks flush hot against the chilly air. The entire environment was ridiculously romantic in a way that you hadn’t expected, with the moon illuminating from above and sparse lights beneath the water creating an ethereal glow. The water was murky in it’s typical white-blue haze, and the steam that rose around him created a damp sheen against his nearly flawless skin. 

How the heck did I get so lucky? He’s so stupidly cute! 

“You just gonna stand there staring at me, or are you gonna come in?” 

Physically twitching in shock from the sound of his voice, you hadn’t realized you had been just gawking at him, feeling your body flush in embarrassment. Fiddling with your wedding ring, you stuttered an apology, still unable to really pull your eyes away from his hips where the water came to a stop. The haze of the water made it impossible for you to see anything further, but that wasn’t necessarily what you were looking at, anyway. Just his stomach was enough to make you wet, and a twinge of further embarrassment hit you as you were suddenly reminded of the time you had brought yourself to orgasm by grinding on his abs. A stupid thing to remember in the moment, sure, but your frustration from his teasing in the room had begun to creep back beneath your skin and you’d be lying if you said you didn’t want to do that again. 

This time, you were fully pulled back into the moment as Bakugou flicked some of the hot water at you, which landed on the top of your chilled foot. “Babe, seriously, get your ass in here. Don’t chicken out on me now.”

“I’m not! I’m just admiring you, is that a crime?” Making your way over to the edge that had some stones as natural steps, you began to untie your robe, keeping it purposefully closed to hide the surprise beneath. “Besides, I have a gift for you.” 

“Oh, do you?” Bakugou sat down on a ledge, resting his arms up on the stone edge of the spring, smirk once again crossing his lips. “I don’t get to unwrap it myself?” 

“Oh, you will, ‘Suki.” As you let the robe fall loose around your body and slip off your arms to rest around your feet, it took every ounce of your self-control to not laugh at the way his expression changed, from a snarky grin to wide eyed shock. He hadn’t been expecting that for sure, for you to be dressed in something so sexy and sensual, so your little surprise had been a success. “What do you think?” Turning yourself around, you gave him a nice 360 view, even purposely bending over with your back towards him to pick up your robe and toss it over with his. 

“I think your fucking sexy ass better get over here.” 

The lustful growl in his voice made your skin tingle and you immediately found yourself following his direction, slowly beginning to descend the stairs into the water. Still, you wanted to tease him, to somehow get back at him for what he had put you through earlier, so you moved slowly with a deliberate sway of your hips. “Or else?” 

“You don’t want to know what-- fuck, babe--!” 

Suddenly, your heel slipped on a rock, sending you tumbling backwards and scrambling to catch onto the edge of the spring so you wouldn’t fall into the water with a loud splash. Now posed with your arms awkwardly behind you and legs spread to support your body, you could only watch as Bakugou ducked nearly all the way under the water, hand over his mouth as bubbles rippled around his face. He was laughing at you!

“Katsuki, don’t laugh!” You hissed at him as loudly as your trembling embarrassed voice and conscious need to be quiet would allow you. “I was trying to be sexy!” 

Still struggling to not laugh with the water now all the way up to his nose, Bakugou shook his head, holding up a hand to tell you to wait. Huffing, you flopped to sit on one the stairs, crossing your arms over your chest as you glared at him with a beet red face. You couldn’t believe he was laughing at you like that! What if you had really fallen or busted your head on the rocks? It was making you feel incredibly stupid and klutzy, wanting to just go back into the bedroom and hide under some blankets for an eternity. 

“Babe,” Bakugou somehow spoke between trying to control his urge to laugh, pushing himself into a deeper section of the pool to where the water stopped at his chest. “You’re fucking incredible. Are you okay?” 

“Incredible?!” Your cheeks somehow flushed darker, the heat spreading all the way to your ears. “I could have died! Don’t laugh at me, that was so embarrassing!” 

“You wouldn’t have died! Come here.” Grin on his face, Bakugou waved you over, keeping one arm outstretched to welcome you. Although you were sick to your stomach with shame, you stood, carefully making your way further into the pool. Thankfully, the bottom was much easier to walk on compared to the deviously slick stairs, so you were able to reach him without any other slip ups. You were surprised to find that he was waiting at the edge of a drop off, where the water line was at your belly button while for him it was up to the middle of his chest. It was odd to be taller than him, but you were more focused on still being extremely flustered, even as his hands came to rest on the sides of your thighs. 

“Are you okay? That was the most graceful thing I’ve ever seen.” 

“I’m fine,” mumbling your response as you glowered down at him, you placed your hands on his cheeks, squishing his face. “You’re so mean… laughing at me like that.” 

Leaning forward, Bakugou kissed your stomach affectionately, carefully pulling you a bit closer to the edge of the drop off as his hands slowly began to slide up the back of your thighs. “It was funny, babe. Besides, it’s not like it happened in front of a bunch of people. It was just me, and I’ve seen worse.” Before you could complain, his hands finally reached your backside, fingertips slipping beneath the lace panties to squeeze your plush curves. “But never like this,” His low voice became tinted with that lust from before, the deep purr and his lips against your skin making you tremble. “You’re so fucking cheeky, wearing an outfit like this out here. I fucking love it.” 

Small smile crossing your lips, you ran your fingers through his hair, slicking it back with the water that dripped from your fingertips. “I wanted to surprise you. I figured this would be more fun rather than just waking you up with it on. You like it?” 

“I think it’s my favorite one you’ve ever bought.” Bakugou’s hungry crimson eyes scanned every inch of your torso, following his hands up your sides. The water made the already form fitting lace stick against your skin, showing every curve and form of your body. He seemed mostly interested in your breasts, the thin fabric taut against your erect nipples. Hands caressing and squeezing them with burning palms, you couldn’t resist a soft gasp at the feeling of his hot tongue rolling over one of the sensitive buds, suckling and biting with the fabric still in place. The other was at the mercy of his fingers, which pinched and softly twisted. The mixed sensation of pain and pleasure already had you to the point of panting, your heartbeat once again matching the throbbing between your legs. 

Having to just stand there waiting for him to make a move was almost unbearable, wanting nothing more than to have him inside you. “Katsuki-” You moaned softly with a particularly hard pinch. “I can’t take it…” 

“What is it you can’t take?” Gripping your hips, he urged you to take a step forward off the ledge, guiding your body down until you rested against him, legs around his waist. Already, you could feel his cock pressing against your thigh, hard and ready, but he made sure you couldn’t move your hips anywhere as he gripped them tightly. “Tell me.” 

Digging your nails into the skin of his shoulders, you weren’t aware that he had been walking somewhere until your back was pressed against the stone side of the pool. His lips and teeth were now teasing the delicate skin of your neck, making your body twitch with sudden harsh nibbles or cripple against him with full on bites. It was so difficult to find the breath to answer, your mind growing as hazy as the water around you. “I… I need you inside me, please don’t make me keep waiting.” 

“I already told you in the room,” prying you off him, Bakugou lifted you up and placed you on the ledge, making sure you were positioned to the very edge and hips just barely above the water. “I’ll decide when it’s time for me to fuck you.” Holding your legs up and open with a grip behind your knee, you were forced to lean back on your hands, pouting at his mean and rough demeanor. On top of that, it was extremely cold out of the water, making you shiver. 

“Mean… It’s cold up here.” 

“Fuck, this outfit looks so good on you like this, all wet and stuck to your skin.” Ignoring your complaint, he once again ran his tongue over one of your erect nipples, spending some time abusing it before he started to make his way down your body. “You’re so fucking sexy, babygirl…” 

The praise surprised you, bringing a new heat to your cheeks and fluttering to your stomach. Releasing your knees, his hands slid down the outside of your thighs to your hips, and by the time they were in his grip, his head was between your legs. Letting them rest over his shoulders, you bit down hard onto your bottom lip as his tongue ran along your sex, teasing your clit and wet folds that were just on the other side of the lace. It was an odd sensation, the pressure against the sensitive button making you wiggle, but it still wasn’t enough as you craved the direct contact. 

Watching him over your heaving chest, you jumped and gasped at a sudden rough tug, the ripping of fabric followed by a sharp movement of his head. Growing impatient, he had torn it open with his teeth, creating a gap that exposed your entire twitching pussy to him, startling you while he was at it. “God, Katsuki, give me a warning next time-- a-aha! N-not so much, Katsu, my voice--” Covering your mouth with one of your hands, you trembled in place as he zeroed all his attention onto your clit, eating you out with hungry vigor. The cold that had been prickling at your skin was no longer on your mind, the heat from his wet and expertly skilled tongue rolling along every inch of your skin. 

 It was difficult to control the gasps and moans against your palm, your body trembling in his grip while you watched his every move and melted into the pleasure. The flicking and swirling of his tongue around your clit was soon joined by his hand sliding up to your breast, squeezing and teasing your now extra sensitive nipples. The other hand, however, vanished beneath the water, and the fire in your body swirled into an inferno once you realized what he was doing. His shoulder and arm pumped in a rhythmic motion, immediately giving away that he was jacking off.

Unable to take your eyes off him, you envisioned his cock in his grip, rock hard and throbbing with his own need for pleasure. Those hard, prominent veins. The pearling precum dripping so deliciously from his blushing, aching head. The length. The girth. Fuck, it was too much! Just imagining it all turned you on enough to make you cum on the spot, and so you did, your thighs squeezing around his head as your hips arched up into him. As if he were frustrated that you came so quickly, Bakugou growled against his efforts, removing his hand from your breast to force one of your legs out to the side. 

“You fucking horny bitch, cumming so fast.” Before you could really recover, his tongue was back at it, but now paired with his middle and ring finger plunging into your depths. Curved at just the right angle, he fingered you rough and deep, sending your body into a new round of ecstasy. Unable to stay sitting up, you fell back to lay on the grass and stone, clasping both of your hands tightly around your mouth. In and out his fingers ravaged your clenching cunt, building up your pleasure to a peak even higher than what you had just experienced, and before you knew it, you were cumming again. 

This time, it was different, an intense pressure releasing as your hips arched and your body jerked uncontrollably. The euphoria had you nearly screaming into your palm, eyes rolled back and ears pounding with your heartbeat. And yet, you could still hear the sound of rippling water and Bakugou’s deep growl of satisfaction, the vibrations of his voice tickling your clit. 

“What a good girl, squirting for me like that.” Sitting up, he gave your twitching and pulsing pussy a few good slaps, forcing a gasp from you and an involuntary clenching of your thighs. Removing your hands from over your mouth, you ignored the wet feeling of saliva that coated your palms, pushing yourself up on your elbows to look down at him between your trembling legs. 

“S-squirting? I did?” 

Smirking, Bakugou brought the two fingers he had fucked you with to his mouth, sucking them clean before licking his lips. “You did. That’s just how fucking horny you are. What a great birthday gift, to see my girl in a sexy outfit and watch her squirt for the first time. We’ll have to try that again.” 

Sitting up further, you let your legs slip back into the water, quick to find his cock and nestle it between your feet. With slow movements, you stroked up and down along his length, leaning forward to kiss him passionately. Cupping his cheeks, you found that he was actually quick to give in to you, welcoming your tongue as it danced across his lips. You loved the taste of yourself on him and how fierce he was with the combined pleasure of you stroking his cock, even biting down onto your bottom lip when you began to stroke him faster. 

“Mm, fuck, babygirl…” Bakugou growled against your lips, gripping onto your hips to scoop you up and back down into the water, giving you access to grip him with your hands instead. “That’s it…” He was so hard, throbbing and strained, and in that moment of stroking him with a tight grip, you realized that he hadn’t been this turned on in a long time. Was it the outfit? The scenery? The alcohol? Probably a combination, but it made it all the more exciting for you. 

“You cock is so hard, ‘Suki,” you nuzzled your nose against his, only teasing him with the thought of kissing you. “How do you want to fuck me, birthday boy?” 

Before he could answer, a sudden sound of rustling foliage and the clicking of a gate shutting made both of you freeze, quickly looking towards the walkway. The instant the glare of a flashlight was visible on the bushes, Bakugou immediately went into panic mode, putting his arms around you tightly as he shifted you both to the back end of the spring as silently as he could. You didn’t move or protest, clutching onto him as you watched with held breath for the person to appear around the corner. 

Had you both been too loud? Or was this someone doing a nightly routine? Maybe it was more rule breakers, and you’d be forced to go back to your room, or worse, have to share the space and postpone the fucking you had been dying to receive. 

Finding a little nook in the spring that provided a decent amount of cover, Bakugou turned you and pressed your front against the stones, resting himself against your back with his head beside yours. Surprisingly, the area he picked was pretty deep, and you could barely touch the bottom with the tips of your toes. Bakugou could stand steady, however, holding you up with his body and his head resting on your shoulder, watching the movement of the light closely. 

Although you knew you should stay focused on trying to hide and stay silent, his cock resting between your legs and up against your aching pussy wasn’t helping. The bobbing of your bodies against the movement of the natural spring jets was making your clit stroke against him erratically and with varying pressure, constantly teasing at the pleasure you wanted so badly. Seeming to become quite frustrated with it himself, Bakugou gripped your hips, lowering you both down a bit more as a person finally appeared from the pathway. 

At first, the man just stood there, using his flashlight to look around curiously. The first time the light passed over where the two of you were hiding, you felt your stomach drop. But, when it went by again and the man began to walk around instead, you felt a bit of relief that you were indeed hidden well enough. 

“Fucking prick…” Bakugou growled low in your ear, digging his fingers into your hips. Flushing, you turned your head a bit, pressing your cheek against his to try and comfort him. In return, he pressed his lips against your skin, one hand softly sliding up your stomach where he could reach. As it traveled back down, you had to suppress a squeak as his fingers went straight to your clit, rolling and stroking it with a roughness that matched his frustration. At first, you tried to keep most of your focus on the prowling stranger, who was walking dangerously close to the back of the springs. Though, he couldn’t reach the area you were, as the bushes and other foliage could grow freely. 

This simple fact was sparking a lot of confidence in your husband, who nibbled at your neck right below your ear as he spoke again. “Stick your ass out, baby.” 

Again, you knew that it was dangerous and pushing the already stretched limits of your luck, but you’d be damned to not listen to him when he spoke to you like that, the throbbing returning just from the simple demand. Swallowing hard, you did as you were told, arching your back for him. 

You could feel him smirk against your skin, a low and satisfied hum resonating deep from within his chest. 

“Don’t scream.” 

Right as his words registered in your mind, they were lost to the feeling of his cock sinking inside you. Slowly, inch by inch, until his hips were flush with yours and there wasn’t a single crevasse of you left untouched. Already trembling, your body ached desperately to move, but all you had the energy to do was wait, feeling his cock pulse against your clenching walls.

Don’t scream… Yeah right! Katsuki, you’re the worst! With the first light rocking of his hips, you bit down onto your bottom lip to try and keep yourself silent, resting your forehead against the stones in front of you. Hold it in! 

With a quiet groan of pleasure, Bakugou kept a tight grip on your hips, moving slowly and with long strides to prevent unnatural movement of the water. Pulling out all the way to the tip with each thrust, you were already made breathless by how deep he dug his cock into you. Every time his tip kissed your cervix, your pussy clenched around him, as if your body was doing everything it could to keep him in place. 

It feels so good… So hot! 

Clamping your teeth together, you couldn’t only focus on the stranger still walking around for a second, worried that any little slip of your concentration could bring about your demise. 

“Your pussy is so fucking tight, baby…” Bakugou growled in your ear, using that teasing and low voice that he knew set you off. “You like my cock inside you?” 

Digging your nails into the stone you held onto, you could only nod, knowing that if you opened your mouth, your voice would slip. Bakugou wasn’t having it, though, picking up his pace. 

“Answer me,” he growled, desperate to hear your voice. Whimpering, you watched your unwelcome company go back towards the entrance to the springs, his flashlight landing on your discarded robes. 

“K-Katsu, I can’t--” You were able to whisper in a trembling voice, promptly pressing your lips into the back of your hand as you were given a punishing bite to your neck, his sharp teeth digging into your skin. The spike of pain only made you arch your hips up higher for him, loving the fluttering of your stomach as it mixed in with the pleasure. 

“Damn it! Whoever closed left these, I guess…  I’ll have to look at the schedule.” 

Your teary gaze looked up momentarily in worry, watching as your robes were picked up and carried away. Bakugou didn’t seem to care or even notice, his fingers so tight against your hips you knew that you’d end up with bruises along the soft flesh. His teeth at your neck were just as dangerous, scraping against your skin with each rocking movement of your bodies. 

 “You better fucking tell me, or I’ll cum and leave your slutty pussy aching.” 

Knowing that he wasn’t lying, as he had done that to you on more than one occasion when he didn’t get the reaction he wanted, you caught his crimson glare over your shoulder, trying to find just a second when your voice wasn’t trembling so you could answer him. It didn’t help that he only fucked you harder the longer you waited, the knot beginning to twist in your core making it so difficult to focus. 

“I-it feels good, ‘Suki--” You began to feel dizzy, leaning forward against the rocks as your entire body began to feel numb with only the tingling pleasure pricking along your nerves. “It feels so good… Your cock… I-it’s so big, I can’t think--!” Again, you pressed your mouth against the back of your hand, though this time you clamped your teeth around your own skin, whimpering and moaning as softly as you could. 

The clanking of the gate shutting was barely noticeable to you, but Bakugou instantly took the pleasure to another level, bringing one foot up to rest on a rock for better leverage. Immediately, the spike in pleasure made you lose control of your voice, turning your hands around to cover your mouth before you screamed out into the cold air. Obviously satisfied that he had gotten more out of you, Bakugou chuckled, a deep groan against your ear. 

“Damn right, my little cock hungry slut. You like when I fuck you hard?” 

“Yes!” 

“You want to cum?” 

“Y-yes! Yes, Katsuki-- a-ah! I want to cum! Please, please--!” Your voice was cut off as one of his large hands came up and wrapped around your throat, squeezing with just the right amount of pressure to make your already dizzy mind grow lightheaded. The feeling like you were suddenly floating with the lack of oxygen, the pleasure and the sounds of his grunts in your ear made the knot in your core tighten rapidly. As your eyes rolled back and your nails dug into the skin of his arm, you were in a cloud of bliss before it exploded, making your body tremble and wiggle in his grip from the strength of the release. 

Even his voice, a deep groan and growl could barely pull you back, put the prolonged pleasure as he continued to fuck you against your constricting walls did. “Fuck, babygirl, that’s it! You’re such a dirty girl, cumming just ‘cause I’m choking you.” As his grip tightened on your neck, his thrusts became rougher and erratic, further displacing the water around you and forcing you up tighter against the side of the springs. “Here’s your reward--” 

Digging himself as deep into your throbbing cunt as he could, you could feel his release inside you, his cum even hotter than the water. It made you shiver, smiling and sighing softly in happiness and satisfaction along with his own moans into your shoulder. As if another person took control of his body completely, he caressed and hugged your body back against his gently, nuzzling his face into the crook of your neck. It wasn’t strange for him to become so soft after sex, but damn, was it cute. It made your heart flutter like you were a young person in love.

You were, just so absolutely in love with him, and his adoration for you was made just as clear with the gentle kisses he trailed across your skin. 

“Damn it, babe… You had me so fucking turned on, I could barely hold it until you finished.” 

Giggling softly, you rested your head against his. “Well, then I think your birthday surprise was successful.” 

“It was. This outfit is damn perfect on you. I can’t guarantee I won’t pounce on you back in the room.” 

“I wouldn’t complain. But uh… there is one problem about going back, love.” 

 “Hm?” 

“That guy… took our robes.” 

“He did?! You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me, babe!” 

“Let’s hope the cold doesn’t freeze your dick off.” 

[elizabeth-mitchells]

Andromaquynh’s Story - songs

(an incomplete list of my personal favorite songs/lyrics that make me think of the immortal wives. they come with sort of very specific context for each one.)

One night, one death. Hundreds of nights, thousands of dreams. Neither of them knows, at the beginning, what the dreams mean. Soon enough though, the dreams turn into hope, into a firm belief in each other’s existence. The dreams turn into love before they even look at each other’s eyes. The dreams are everything, and the best part is that they offer the possibility of something more. aka a hundred years of yearning:

When you sleep - mary lambert

I could make you happy / I could make you love me / I could disappear completely / I could be your love song / I could be long gone / I could be a ghost in your eardrum / When you sleep, will it be with me?

I swore I saw you in a dream / All dressed in white and wide smile

How did I miss you, when I didn't know you? / How did I miss you, when I didn't know you? / How did I miss you, when I didn't know you?

Quynh had giving up. She had given up entirely and she was determined not to walk out of that desert alive. Then... Andromache. The dreams were real, the dreams were standing right in front of her in the shape of the most strikingly beautiful warrior. Suddenly nothing else mattered but their future together. Their future was sweet, like Andy’s favorite pastries that Quynh adoringly watched her enjoy. The future was endless. Because as long as they had each other to come back to, death wasn’t strong enough to take them:

Work song - hozier

And I was burning up a fever / I didn't care much how long I lived / But I swear, I thought I dreamed her / She never asked me once about the wrong I did

There's nothin' sweeter than my baby / I'd never want once from the cherry tree / 'Cause my baby's sweet as can be / She give me toothaches just from kissin' me

When, my, time comes around / Lay me gently in the cold dark earth / No grave can hold my body down / I'll crawl home to her

Then there’s Andy. Thousands of years of solitude turn to nothing the second that Quynh’s eyes meet hers. For the first time Andy allows herself to feel hope, to love and be loved without the fear of loss. In Quynh’s smile she finds purpose, joy, and everything she could ever need for eternity:

The last of the real ones - fall out boy

I was just an only child of the universe / And then I found you, and then I found you / You are the sun and I am just the planets / Spinning around you

I will shield you from the waves if they find you / I will protect you, I will protect you

I'm here, at the beginning of the end / Oh, the end of infinity with you

I'm done with having dreams, the thing that I believe / You drain the fear from me

Fear the future - st. vincent

When the Earth split in two / I was I, you were you / I run for you, run for me, too / When the wall rose and fell / And the oceans all swell / I run for you, run for me, too

Cosmonauts - fiona apple

When I met you, I was fine with my nothing / I grew with you and now I've changed / What I've become is something I can't be without your loving / Be good to me, it isn't a game

Now let me see, it's you and me, forgive, good God / How do you suppose that we'll survive?

When you resist me, hon', I cease to exist / Because I only like the way I look when looking through your eyes

There was a time when she was worshipped as a God. And, afterward, there was no way Andy believed in the gods that humans make up every now and then. That is, until the first day she gets to hold Quynh in her arms. The eyes that can render her helpless and down to her knees. The smile that makes her feel alive yet the only thing that could kill her. The skin that’s soft, that’s on fire, that’s the only truly holy place where Andy has found herself lost in. aka homoerotic religious imagery for the immortal wives:

Take me to church - hozier

She tells me "Worship in the bedroom" / The only Heaven I'll be sent to / Is when I'm alone with you

If I'm a pagan of the good times / My lover's the sunlight / To keep the goddess on my side / She demands a sacrifice / Drain the whole sea

Holy - zolita

Worship your body as you walk my way / You're the only one who can make me pray / I fall at your feet, your breath's divine / And underneath my skin's an intrinsic shrine

I'll give my soul, sacrifice me / Cause your love is holy

I'd rather drown in your ocean / Than wither on the shore / Undying devotion, feel you in my core / Veneration, this faith's got me high / Nothing without you, live for you till I die

Church - fall out boy

Time capsule for the future / Trust me, that's what I will be / Oh, the things that you do in the / Name of what you love / You are doomed but just enough

If you were church, I'd get on my knees / Confess my love, I'd know where to be / My sanctuary, you're holy to me

The witches trials. Is there anything more to say? They go in feeling invincible. Partially for their immortality, mostly because they are together. They face death while holding hands and with smiles on their faces as they’ve always had. How could they have predicted what came next?:

Which witch - florence and the machine

And it's my own heart / While tried and tested, it's mine / And it's my own heart / Trying to reach it out / And it's my own heart / Burned but not buried this time / I'm on trial, waiting 'til the beat comes out / I'm on trial, waiting 'til the beat comes out

The bottom of the ocean is cold, it is dark, the pressure is unbearable and the pain unending. If Quynh has any time to think, before dying again, it might spent blaming Andy, missing Andy, hating Andy, loving Andy, with just enough time to curse the ocean around her. aka Quynh making the most of the water/drowning theme:

What the water gave me - florence and the machine

Time it took us / To where the water was / That’s what the water gave me / And time goes quicker / Between the two of us / But oh, my love, don’t forsake me / Take what the water gave me

Hold my breath until I die - tegan and sara

Late at night, when your words are eating me alive / Does it make you sad to leave me here like that? / In my dreams, the blood runs from my eyes / If I fall, will you catch me in your arms?

If I hold my breath until I die, I’ll be alright

Pool - paramore

I’m underwater / No air in my lungs / My eyes are open / I’m done giving up / You are the wave / I could never tame / If I survive / I’ll dive back in

Dying over and over again, Quynh comes out of the ocean with a certain... clarity. Hubris, she says is their sin. They’ve never claimed to be angels, but they’ve refused to be devils, which she says they are. She may or may not believe that their real purpose is to make humans suffer. If Andromache won’t listen, she’ll have to show her what it all means. aka Quynh coming out of the ocean to shame mankind, or just Andy:

Just one yesterday - fall out boy ft. foxes

I know I’m bad news / I saved it all for you

If I spilled my guts / The world would never look at you the same way / And now I’m here to give you all of my love / So I can watch your face as I take it all away.

Five hundred years ago, Andy lost the love of her life. But she meant it when she said she lost a soldier. She was a leader, she should have been the one to face Quynh’s fate. The least she could have done was find her soon, and she failed there too. Now, if Quynh has come back full of rage, furious and thirsty for revenge, Andy is willing to accept it with open arms. She believes she deserves it:

I don’t smoke - mitski

Being with you / makes the flame burn good

So if you need to be mean / be mean to me. / I can take it and put it inside of me. / If you’re hands need to break / more than trinkets in your room / you can lean on my arm / as you break my heart.

Quynh, having escaped her underwater prison, is completely overcome with conflicting emotions. She finds Andy broken, guilty, still wearing her necklace and crying for her. But wasn’t she the one that broke their promise, stopped looking for her, gave up? Quynh, dealing with an unmeasurable and overwhelming mixture of hurt, heartbreak, love, rage, love... love and all the pain that comes with it, and how it all might lead them to a final fight with each other from which both of them can’t come out alive:

My tears ricochet - taylor swift

Even on my worst day, did I deserve, babe / All the hell you gave me? / 'Cause I loved you, I swear I loved you / 'Til my dying day

I didn't have it in myself to go with grace / And you're the hero flying around, saving face / And if I'm dead to you, why are you at the wake / Cursing my name, wishing I stayed / Look at how my tears ricochet

You know I didn't want to have to haunt you / But what a ghostly scene / You wear the same jewels that I gave you / As you bury me

And you can aim for my heart, go for blood / But you would still miss me in your bones

You had to kill me, but it killed you just the same

You turned into your worst fears / And you're tossing out blame, drunk on this pain / Crossing out the good years

Then, of course, there’s Andy’s side of the story. Andy, did she ever really give up? Didn’t she pray to all the gods she’s outlived? Didn’t she protect that necklace more than her own life, even now that she’s mortal? She’d be ready to offer Quynh anything, everything she wanted for a little forgiveness, for a small moment just to love each other. In the end, will it all depend on the strength of their eternal love for each other?:

Old wounds - pvris

They say don't open old wounds / But you're still brand new

I've got nothing left to lose besides you / I've already lost you once, what more could you do?

I think I could love you 'til the day that you die / If you let me love you when the timing is right / And if they said I had to, I swear I'd wait my whole life / I think I could love you 'til the day that you die

[captainkurosolaire]

金 LFRP - Captain Kuro Solaire (Updated 5/2/21)

NAME: Captain Kuro Solaire AGE: 37 (Appears 29) - (’Relic Cursed’ Immortal, not Invincible.) RACE: Seeker of the Sun, Miqo’te GENDER: Male SEXUALITY: Gynephilla, Dom MARITAL STATUS: Poly SERVER: Crystal

PHYSICAL APPEARANCE ––––

HAIR: A slick jet black texture, Kuro’s hair is majority of the time unkempt with downward spikes often cascading across sometimes when grown-out it’s placed in a bandana and combed on the sides. Under rare occurrences the length of his hair can be lower then his shoulders and without being straightened leaving a shaggy and feral look. Often sporting an accompanied goatee through more veteran experience and grizzly age has extended that further with a stubble to boot and long sideburns.

EYES: One eye is often left visible with an amber tint. (Typically while the other eye lays remained behind an eye-patch for a particular reason that is usually left in speculation to other onlookers.)

HEIGHT: 6 fulms, 0 ilms. 

BUILD: (Trains and adjusts his mass depending on situation or if injured.) Typically built like an ultimate fighter (ref) 

DISTINGUISHING MARKS: Scattered scars from a gash hidden underneath a leather collar from his first defeat and near end. To followed historical injuries to dragon claws swiped across his hip to rib nearing his chiseled abs, to lance wounds on his pec, bite-mark from a fanged creature adorned on his shoulder. Scratch marks from passion on his back. To matching fiendish talons shredding the opposing side of his rib-cage. With a gashed-cut draped across his right-eye. Lastly an X incision on his chest crossing over his upper-torso and halting near his shoulders to his pecs. -- Additionally donned the cheek scar of his first that he had cast away due to old insecurity and trauma which was resolved. He’s got a tattoo on his forearm of runic engravings with summoner lettering’s that seem to be serving as a seal. Compass on his left-hand to prevent him losing memories of being a sailor that points in all four-directions. The south-seas etched above crossing over his bicep. Behind his back is a Goldbrand Crest a forgotten ritual that has since been lost among the GB Crew as little carry it left but two-survivors. He’s often shirtless for all to see. (Gives him that unrestricted feeling Miqo’tes like plus has meaning to him.)

COMMON ACCESSORIES: Talisman across his neck that has several link-pearls attached to a string with a condor feather which represents ‘freedom’, the pearls mainly allow him to keep in-contact with crew-mates and a bundle of criminal orientated allies or business associates. A combat satchel attached to his belt that allows him quick accessibility and utility. Owns a signature tricorne hat that is leather matching his often outfit of black leather which serves to highlight his seen mysterious and imposing scoundrel aesthetic.

PERSONAL –––-

PROFESSION: Captain of the Goldbrand, navigation, commanding, claiming panties all over Eorzea and providing pleasure where others need the lesson or reminder. Along with a thief, smuggler, diplomat and a veteran sailor. He’s also a chaser of treasure from old relics to folktales passed on in Legends through very little evidence of the existences but scrolls & charts that he reads and plans out accordingly before attempting his plunder for fortune.

HOBBIES: Drinking, Ocarina, Women, Pleasure, More Pleasure, Even more Pleasure, Entertainment (Former Pleasure Dome worker as a Dancer and Escort.) Juggling, Acrobatics, Jury-rigging, Swimming, Teaching, Training, Mentor, Fighting, Fishing, Brawling, Working out. Exploring. Adventuring. Landing into dangerous situations.

LANGUAGES:  Fluent (Mostly) Eorzean, Xaelic, and Hingan, Pirate Tongue. (Working on venturing past his horizon to open trades and communications with beast-tribes for business escapades or other relationships.)

RESIDENCE: Ul’dah

FEARS: None. (Backstory behind that) He’s not immune to psychological attacks and is prone to them.

RELATIONSHIPS –––-

SPOUSES: Failed many.

CHILDREN: Bastard children all around who knows you might be one. He’s often out there being ever the man-whore and shameless about the fact.

PARENTS: Hoku Solaire (Father - Alive) - (PC) Rokeia Solaire (Mother - Deceased giving birth to Kuro Solaire)

SIBLINGS: Unknown but Father was a former Nunh of a branch in the Coeurl Tribe, there’s more room to make some. (Has ancestors in an upcoming arc been polishing.)

OTHER RELATIVES: Many unknown. Though Sol Akagane / Founding GB Captain Gark would be considered along with his OG Crew as Family in a more surrogate / adoption style way. Wild Crew.

PETS: Which kind you wondering?

TRAITS –––-

extroverted / introverted / in between

disorganized / organized / in between

close minded / open-minded / in between

calm / anxious / in between

disagreeable / agreeable / in between

cautious / reckless / in between

patient / impatient / in between

outspoken / reserved / in between

leader / follower / in between

empathetic / unemphatic / in between

optimistic / pessimistic / in between

traditional / modern / in between

hard-working / lazy / in between

cultured / un-cultured / in between

loyal / disloyal / in between

faithful / unfaithful / in between

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION –––-

SMOKING HABIT: never / sometimes / frequently / to excess.

DRUGS: never / sometimes / frequently / to excess.

ALCOHOL: never / sometimes / frequently / to excess

@mooglemeet @crystal-rp-ffxiv​ @balmungrp​ @ffxiv-crystal-rp​ @balmungroleplayers-blog​

HOOKS + OOCLY, I AM –––– (Below cut)

HOOKS –––-

◘  Mystical Journey - Meet Captain who’s rebuilding towards something on a scale higher than the skies that’s far beyond himself. Whether friendships forged, romantic, rival, or outright enemy. Open to plot about just anything whether one-shot, or slice of life. Each confrontation and connection is impactful and holds weight that determines and shapes him, his source of power by himself is extremely low but the wind and orbit of who he’s surrounded swells and creates upon him alongside them or with that fact, he may overcame the impossible multiple times, even his goal of deemed ultimus. He’s lustful, prideful, sinful. Though there’s good in his scoundrel ways and also freely can be interpreted as evil against the pure heart. From descendants to nearly wherever sea’s may touch he can be found voyaging too or from. Depending on the City-State there’s more mystery surrounding him due to him trying to remain under the radar but he’s also pretty brash, open, which can net him in infinite chaos and trouble. This dark and often cursed seemingly lifestyle he’s thrown under sometimes he also needs to be in the company of innocent and light, peaceful individuals. To remain humane and stay on track of him straying from being the problem. Many lives have died under his company, many lessons and time’s he’s ‘wrecked’’ the smallest and few encounters overall tally and aid him with building his compassionate side to see those people again. ◘  Scourges - The worst of the worst pirate crew’s. They command various levels of commandment, control, conquering all that is blue and water-bound. Each hold their own vendetta and thoughts on what being a pirate or their own treasure ‘sake’ they wish to lay ownership. Ongoing and tackling these threats with Captain holds mighty risk. (Subject to your comfort) In this case it can result in injuries, mental trauma, or many afflictions that may provide more experience to your character or layers. - There are no clear solutions on how to defeat, overcome, or maybe it’s just an encounter with a band of Crewmates from the varying Crews, that’ll overall build steps closer to final battles or all-out Warfare or cripple these Crew’s to make him able to defeat them with his Wild Crew. ◘  Ulterior - (Mystery/+18Dark ) - A cultist crew held from marshy swamped seas, polluted and tainted. They blur webs of confusion alongside deceit. Operating in the blends of guises that shadowy walk in public crowds they don’t distinguish themselves. The pressure of this arc will be dark, twisted, and every foreboding, never certain what’s reality. Vastly in concern, they’ve begun becoming more bold and manipulating brave pirate’s, adventures, would-be sea goers who get reported missing soon afterwards. Only to be converted and abducted into this Cultist crew as nearly every encounter with them as they eat and feast off your fears turn’s their targets into belief of a high power, a mad god under all fleshing skin. Visited during nightmares. ◘  OMONGA - (Bloody/Violent +18 Extremely Dark) - This Scourge crew is one of the most dangerous altogether. They’re primitive freaks, viking pirates of sorts. Who outright raid, pillage, slaughter anything that moves approaching their territory. A force unlike any other, a dominating and deathly, blight of a Giant who strike’s fear just mentioned by pirate’s of old, stays clear from him and often plays nice to prevent gaining his wrath or detection, better to submit. YORE of the Gorey Seas is their Captain who destructively holds gatekeeper and one force that Maelstrom even cannot overcome their brute waters as they stay stationary and defensive, he’s not too mobile beyond his ‘Nation’  but his crew are savages and they operate like the fiercest warmongers, also they’ve got berserkers. Used to be known wanted but after many bounty hunters and foolish adventurers tried taking his life and the failures stacked up, using the defeated and weak for soil for harvesting their crops, and even their own fleets could bypass their engineering he remained untouchable. Sort of a necessary bridge from one individual owning all the seas altogether. They’ve a whole hierarchy, torture system, culture, that is ultra barbaric. He’ll need additional power to help him have a chance to survive and maintain more importantly the lives of his Crew. This is his last chance to get it all right. (There’s more too but I’ll save them unless asked or somehow the other’s become dealt with or too full.) ◘  Wanted: Deadman - (Suspenseful / Thriller / Mystery) - Recently Captain had resurfaced from death making advancements and pursuits only identifiable as his motives. Maelstrom and other officials, detectives, could be working alongside a set of Law characters that I’ve created also trying to seize and capture him for not just a hefty bounty it’s an instant hanging to death and gallows if he’s caught this time. Or a huge payout. He’s stacked multiplied crimes of indecencies, broken peace, slandered Maelstrom, stolen, scammed, rebelled for Freedom, liberated and uncovered crimes against city-state laws, he’s an outright menace to society. Though Captain and his Crew are crafty and now alongside his First Crewmate are covering his tracks desperately to prevent him from being heard again. Though if Captain succeeds in claiming or ‘Goldbrand’’ regains recognition and infamy again over the high-seas whether by gaining influence, relics, or defeating Scourges and creating more noise. He’ll be even more on the run. His Crew are accessories so capturing them may be enough to draw him out or still provide information and payouts. If he’s noted to still be breathing a full on world bounty can be placed to only increase the odds stacked against his time. (Also wanted by Voidals and anything relating to a Scourge. His enemies are highly stacked but he’s got some incredible reach and allies, people he genuinely loves and cannot be anything without them.) ◘  Isle RP - (High Fantasy / Evolving) - Various Isle’s can be visited, linked and tether to a Crewmate’s personal quest. Or maybe Fables. Each Isle has its own unique dangers and is creatively open to any adapting once the base concept is thought out. I have multiple in mind. Some of them have treasures, others have temporary treasures once the threat on each Isle is dealt with the treasure may be spent. Those things might be non useful, so the experience and journey alone may be the only reward. Or surviving and wreckage etc can also occur, it's all open to free-form.

◘  Relic Hunt - (High Fantasy / Evolving ) - (Reference) - Captain’s crew and trade is being a professional treasure hunter diver. Searching and uncovering ancient tablets and thing’s long forgotten past time itself from allagan, mhachi, amdapori and other mythological natures. From Voidal Relics to the series of Deity Relic’s there remains ruins and dungeons, trials, labyrinths, that possess unique items with governed power imbued from primals, high aetherial beings, or prototypes to strange works of magic and science. Depending on the Relic often determines how desperately Captain seeks to net it under his awareness than allow another to uncover as rival band’s of Scourges and pirate crew also would chase for such and want to use it for dominion and nefarious reasonings. Sometimes they’ll already possess said Relic’s and be threats to battle for the property. Which in that case it’s plundering.time. Depending what Relic is conversed around it could be difficult puzzles, or trials, or something more tame to fetch. If another Historian or someone he believes would preserve the item, safer than within his stead, he’ll only aid in retrieving and less on acquiring. Better the relic stay’s far from his lurking dangers that already pursue his waters.

◘  Crew / No Crew - (Optional Addon) - Can choose whether you wish me to RP the other Crewmates and have them interact with your character / characters or bring multi-muses too. Each Crewmate or the main 13 have their own quests, narratives, their own motives of why they’re even following Captain, but they can betray, be broken, all them will act very realistic and lifelike, so they can be romanced etc too. Captain would go to world’s end for them. Make no mistake, this is his Last Crew and shot, he’s on the thinnest surface of water. Soon the mightiest tides will crash and collide against him and his Worldly Finder, his ship, if he’s unable to reign them or lead them to aid their own morale's then he’ll have no chance in getting to the end of his own quest, goal. Each scourge, relic, everything is an obstacle and aiming for something grand.

Alternatively, I can just RP Captain himself and vaguely mention anything else regarding. Might also gain allies, other crewmates, other things that’ll play parts depending on the arc.

Writing is my lifeblood I enjoy stories.

Overly chill and outspoken along with communication my prime focus. I human so I break down and have to recuperate my energy and health sometimes. Not into drama outside RP.

I Para-RP but do nearly ever format and style.

I’m open to plot within any genre.

24/7 Nerd. +18 year RP experience all around from LARPing, Dungeon Master /  Former event runner /  Former Owner / Leader for Discords and Linkshells / Tabletop Creator. There’s nothing I cannot do.

I’m CST. Though chronic-deteriorating health makes my hours rando. I prefer Discord RP. (Tumblr too sometimes if have an idea.) In-game I can be swayed. ◘  ~ This all long but trying to be communicative and thorough upfront. A necessary evil, I fear.

YOU CAN CONTACT ME VIA ––

Twitter - Captain Kuro Solaire

Tumblr - I try to follow everyone in FFXIV Community so should be able to DM me.

Discord: Kuro Solaire#0508

Ref Sheet

+18 F-list

[he-is-mine-i-am-his-blog]

Wild geese 11/18

Fandom: Painter of the Night

Pairing: Baek Nakyum/Yoon Seungho

Ratings: M

Word count: ~2000 words

Story summary: When Nakyum enters an arranged marriage with Lord Seungho, he does expect to find himself in a situation where he does, fighting for his life. ***An arranged marriage AU, set in the Joseon period like the canon.

Warnings: This story contains graphic depictions of violence. These scenes are not terribly gory, excessive, pointless, and violence is not glorified in anyway. I will not give warnings with specific chapters as not to spoil the plot.

Read below or on AO3.

***

There is a damp cloth pressed against Nakyum’s nose and mouth. The smell of it is pungent, cloying, overwhelming his senses with its strength and pervasiveness. It is making him feel nauseous, making him feel dizzy. He can’t escape from it though. He inhales it with heavy gulps, as he is gasping around it, through it, just to get air back into his lungs.

He screamed when he could. He screamed until he was breathless – or he tried to scream, but he could barely hear it even himself through the loud thudding of his heart. There is no hope that anyone else could hear him either.

His voice is muffled and strangled into near nothingness.

It has his heart beating faster, harder yet.

It has this desperate, blind panic rush over him, like wildfire blazing through, spreading to every inch of his being.

The man is upon him, knees splayed on either side of him. His weight feels heavy on Nakyum’s chest and stomach, although he is leaning forward. There are two hands on Nakyum, one pressing the cloth against his mouth and another lighter wrapped around his throat.

Nakyum is fighting him.

He tries to kick and squirm under his attacker, but his feet are trapped in the tangle of his bedding, his body weight down by a man much larger, stronger than him.

He is struggling against the hold, hitting and grappling at whatever his hands manage to find. The hand that has only just healed from his injury at the hunt is weak, far too weak, but the other is not much stronger either. Sharp pain pierces through his wrist, but he pays no mind to it. He hardly notices it.

He looks up at his attacker in the dim-lighting of the room, tears already brimming his eyes.

When the hand over his nose and mouth presses firmer yet, his chest, his throat and lungs, seize up with the desperate lack of air.

He is in a state of devastating panic, trying and failing to fight against this monster of a man, this impossible opponent that looms over him.

There is a chilling thought that comes to his mind.

He may not survive this.

It is then that he sees it, a flash of his father and mother’s faces, of Seungho’s too, so vivid, so real. His heart twists painfully in his chest at the thought of them finding him dead.

The image spurs him into action, back into the fight where he had stilled.

His hands are blindly reaching for the front of the shirt on his attacker, for his face, but the cloth is pressed tightly against his nose and mouth. His eyes are watering just from the sting of the strong smell, and he can’t keep them open anymore. He still fights though.

He is wriggling and twisting under the forcible hold, as his hands keep repeatedly grasping and hitting the man, despite the throbbing pain at his wrist, despite the very fact that it’s all in vain.

When he hears the loud clatter of something falling on the floor beside his head, he snaps his eyes open.

Looking up at his attacker, he realizes that the mask has fallen on the floor, revealing the face that was hidden behind it.

The man adjusts the hand over Nakyum’s mouth then. It allows Nakyum to get a quick gulp of air or a few.

Nakyum stares up at him.

A beautiful face, long wave hair that is now freely falling down in cascades around them. It is an unfamiliar face, one that Nakyum doesn’t remember having seen before.

When the cloth presses against his nose and mouth again, it is as if the fight within him has been snuffed out.

Perhaps it is the shock, perhaps it is the exhaustion, perhaps it is the hopelessness.

His arms feel weak and heavy, too much to keep fighting back, to win in this battle that was never his to win. They cease to move, sagging against the man that is holding him down.

His throat and lungs seize up again.

Nakyum is gradually beginning to lose his consciousness, the merciful darkness and silence pulling him in.

He surrenders in front of it, lying calm and still – waiting.

He is already slipping into it, when he vaguely hears a voice, a shout from the other side of the room. He would’ve thought he imagined it, but the pressure on his mouth and throat lessens. And then, it’s removed completely, as is the weight on his chest and stomach.

Nakyum breathes, for he can finally breathe without obstruction.

Blinking rapidly to clear his eyes, Nakyum looks.

The man for whom he has no name has moved away from him. There is a dagger on his hand now, something that Nakyum only notices due to the flash of candlelight on the sharp edge of the blade. His attention is turned away from him though.

Still dizzy, still groggy from whatever he has inhaled, Nakyum turns his head towards the door. Mr Kim is standing there. The older man is staring at Nakyum’s attacker, the unbridled fury evident on his face.

He moves forward, when the attacker moves too. He tries to fight back to help Nakyum, to protect him now that he is lying nearly lifeless on the mattress.

But, a man with only hands and fists is no match against a man with a weapon.

Even less with the obvious difference in age and strength, difference in skill at the very acts of violence.

Nakyum can’t do anything to stop it though. He can barely breathe, barely see, as the blade slashes into Mr Kim's throat. It cuts into it, deep and easy. The man staggers on his feet, before he drops to his knees and falls on the floor, unmoving.

The attacker turns then back to Nakyum, the bloodied dagger still in his hand.

There is nothing left, only a sense of dread with what's coming.

 ***

 The man is kneeling on the floor beside Nakyum. The cloth is firmly pressed on Nakyum’s nose and mouth again, the hand keeping there, the other arm keeping him down.

Nakyum’s mind has cleared a bit as a result of the few precious lungfuls of fresh air he inhaled when his attacker turned against Mr Kim. Tears spring to his eyes, knowing that the older man is lying motionless by the door. Nakyum’s body is too weary to fight though, at least beyond the slight wriggling in trying to escape the heavy hold.

The man is staring down at him, his eyes intense but cold like a frozen lake, “His life is on you.”

Nakyum is almost startled to hear the man speak. His voice is deep, dark and smooth. His words cut sharp though. A stab of sudden pain lances through Nakyum’s heart, as visceral as if it is real, true. It is not though.

It feels real, because the words are true.

It is true that Mr Kim’s life is on him. The old man died because of him, of trying to help and protect him.

It can’t be in vain though. His death cannot be without meaning, without reason.

Nakyum musters whatever strength, courage, fight he has left in him. He hits the man once at his arm – then again – and again.

He fights.

He bangs his hand sharp and hard against him, against the weaker inner curve of the man’s arm by the elbow. It is still futile. The arm remains steady and unyielding, as does the hand that covers his mouth.

Nakyum hits him again and again.

He fights, but the tears already gather in his eyes.

He hits, but he is already getting fatigued, already becoming despondent in the face of the invincible force against him.

“If you went down like you should’ve, he could’ve been spared,” he says at a hiss, as he presses down harder, as he tries to catch a hold of Nakyum’s hands, “This’ll work just as fine too.”

Nakyum tries to fight him, but his arm is too weak, he is too weak.

“An apparent overdose – a suicide after killing a favored servant, yes, that’ll work just fine for a story.”

Nakyum is beginning to lose his consciousness again. The hand that he had used to hit this nameless man is just holding onto him now.

“It’ll be better for everyone if you are no longer here.”

The man adjusts his hold, just slightly, and Nakyum can finally breathe.

He breathes in deep – or as deep as he can – inhaling whatever drug the cloth is doused with. He breathes in again, as his arms fall lax against the mattress, one first and then the other.

There is no fight anymore.

There is no victory to be had.

Nothing to win, and nothing more to lose, when all is already lost.

It’s almost a relief to be letting go.

Perhaps it will be better, when he will be gone.

He closes his eyes, when the buzzing black dots in the field of his vision become too disturbing. His heart is finally settling down, beating steadily. His breathing is slowing down too, as his lungs and throat no longer seize up as they did.

Seungho, Nakyum thinks.

The image of his husband appears clear and bright in his mind. Him riding ahead on the dusty road between the fields, his head turned back to glance at Nakyum with the most glorious smile illuminating his face. The image arrives unbidden, but he holds onto it. He thinks of the man like a final, delirious indulgence, something where his mind can find peace.

He wants to smile thinking of Seungho, of this imaginary life that he could’ve had with him, that he would’ve perhaps had with him – if only they had more time.

But, perhaps his husband will be better too without him, even if Nakyum doesn’t want to believe, to think it now.

The image fades.

The rush in his ears has drowned out all noise, and, with his eyes closed, there is nothing to see either. It’s easy to imagine himself already gone.

The beat of his heart, the rise and fall of his chest grow slower, heavier.

He blinks his eyes open once more, looking up at his attacker. He is barely able to see him with the way that his hair casts a shadow over his face. He stares at him, still.

What he does see then is the shimmer of something long flash above the man in the darkness. It’s like a shooting star sparkling across the midnight sky.

Nakyum closes his eyes and makes a silent wish – a wish upon a star, just in case – that someday his parents may be happy again, that someday Seungho will be happy too.

He deserves to be happy, despite all.

Suddenly, all air is rushed out of his lungs with a blow of the hefty weight that falls upon him. It presses on him heavier yet. It constricts his chest in a way that he still struggles to breathe, even if the hands on his mouth and his throat have fallen aside.

The cloth is no longer pressed against his nose and mouth. The smell still lingers.

Nakyum struggles to get air back into his lungs, but he doesn’t fight for it anymore.

And then, the pressure is off his body too.

Tears gather behind his closed eyelids. He is so tired. He doesn’t want to cry. He doesn’t want to cry for himself, but he is so exhausted.

A warm hand comes to cradle his cheek. Nakyum wants to turn towards the comfort of a gentle touch, but he can’t move. He is too tired to move either.

A tear slips out from the corner of his eye – then another.

He hears it, as if coming from afar. Someone is calling for his name, speaking to him, the voice frantic, anguished, desperate.

Please, Nakyum can only make out a single word, before he can hear none at all.

[ofgoodmenarchive]

Blighted Empire: 9

Careless Hands

  ...Early researchers operated under the assumption that the social habits of wyverns would share similarities with those of highdragons, due to their visual likeness. With further study, the striking differences between wyverns and dragons became quickly apparent...

  I'm fifteen pages into this bloody thing...

  ...And there's still no bloody sign of him!

  What are they even doing?!

  ...The most prominent difference, and the one that seems to set apart their social rituals, is the inclusion of poison glands into the wyvern's anatomy. Whereas dragons test prospective mates through combat, or competing for prey, the wyvern tests suitors via the poison itself.

  Through scientific observation, it has been concluded this is due to the independent nature of the wyvern. They are loathe to share their territory or prey with any creature they judge as weak. Therefore, trust between these beasts can only be attained when both are assured that the other is hearty enough to withstand their poison...

  ...Maybe that's why he's acting so strange?

  Did I just...withstand his poison...?

  Maker, what am I thinking?!

  He's not a blighted wyvern, Pavus!

  Even if he bloody-well acts like one!

Huffing in frustrated surrender, Dorian shoved the book away. Arms forming a pillow, he dropped his face into it with a private, anguished groan.

  “Dorian...are you actually doing any work over there?” Katerina's voice chided from a nearby shelf, where she was collecting tomes, a few already stacked in one arm. He peeked at his friend from behind a robe-sleeve, the concealed pout evident in his voice.

  “Well, it depends on your meaning...I have a pile of books on wyvern behaviour right here, and-”

  “And you're not looking at them, either!” She scolded, the perfect image of a dedicated scribe in how she frowned, free hand on a hip.

  “I can't focus!” He jolted upright, knocking aside several volumes. “Where is he?! They said they only needed to chat...”

Rolling her eyes, Katerina turned to inspect more titles, absently carrying their discussion.

  “You finally bedded him and now you think you're his handler...”

  “I've done no such thing!” He was prompt in his denial, sitting straighter. “You've seen what he's like! Do you really think I'd take advantage?!”

  “That's definitely not what I said...” She rebuffed airily, not looking from her task. “...well, not the taking advantage bit, anyway. He seems fine to me!”

  “Because you don't really know him...” Dorian observed with a sneer.

  “Fila doesn't seem too worried...”

  “She doesn't really know him either!” Gesturing wildly, he upset more of his book-pile. “At least- not as his own person. She knows him as her older brother- which is fine! But she's more inclined to think of him as invincible than anything else.”

Katerina scoffed impatiently, shooting a glare before immersing once more into her work- though not before dismissing him-

  “Go look for him, then! If you're so bothered.”

Tension stretched across the lightly-crowded library, silence disturbed by the nervous tapping of Dorian's fingers as he pondered...

  “...Fine, I will!”

Chair-legs screeched as he bounced upwards, earning a few scolds and shushes from those who were actually preoccupied with work. Leaving them unacknowledged, Dorian strode into the hall, features twisted in concentration.

  He promised not to keep me waiting...

  ...I don't know why I believed him!

  Even at the best of times -

  isn't that essentially all he does?!

Subduing his frustration was difficult- thankfully not impossible. Evallan's inebriated-like behaviour was already digging under his skin, plaguing him with more questions than answers. One would think that experiencing a chunk of the elf's memory first-hand would enlighten Dorian somewhat. He supposed it did- somewhat- on some things.

Yet already the fragments of Evallan's past were becoming an incomprehensible blur, allowing Dorian but a few scraps of knowledge. A new, much-needed insight on the Keeper's internal world...

At the same time, there were many aspects that still eluded Dorian.

  Has he always been...so terribly clingy?

  Was he just...reigning himself in before...?

Despite this clinginess he was equally open to distraction- more so than usual. Sweeping aside these musings, Dorian refocused his efforts to what distracted the elf this time. Traversing the hall, he eyed the faraway door he knew to be Evallan's, wondering if he'd needed to return for whatever reason...

Regardless, he wouldn't be in the dining hall, would he? He was confined to the higher levels- the Templars would order him to depart once the room emptied. Maybe that's what happened- and in his Entrapped, disoriented state, he'd thought to hide in his room, forgetting to meet Dorian?

There was one way to know for certain, and he felt a tad uncomfortable to simply charge into the man's quarters...

  “...Alright...” He spoke aloud, glancing around to ensure solitude. “...I know you can hear me- and you probably know where he is. Mind lending me a hand...?”

Inspecting his surroundings, he added with a chuckle;

  “Or a....light?”

A response was given- though not involving any kind of visual. Instead he experienced a pulling sensation somewhere in his chest, as if there were a string tied to his ribcage, tugging him along. From this he judged his assumptions to be correct- this sense of pressure clearly led to Evallan's room.

  “I see I'm not worth any fancy veilfire tricks...” He joked to Lightbringer, smirking as he closed the space between himself and his destination. She'd been more than happy to display such 'veilfire tricks' when her chosen lost Dorian's Birthright. Apparently this situation wasn't considered as desperate.

  Which probably means he's fine, at least...

Knuckles rapped against wood, calling out as he did-

  “...Are you there...?”

  “Enter.” The reply was swift- but light. Whatever had consumed his attention, he sounded casual enough. Dorian accepted the invitation with equal swiftness, immediately feeling like the biggest block-head in the tower when he realised why Evallan was late.

Cool eyes blinked up at him from the writing-desk; where a bowl of fresh water, bandages and ointment had been laid out. The Keeper was still mid-way in a struggle with his dirtied wrappings, having paused to greet Dorian.

  “Oh-your bandages- of course...Kaffas- I'm so sorry, I forgot-”

  “It is fine, Dorian.” He consoled gently, seeming to want to wave him off.

  “No, it isn't- here, let me-”

Dorian rushed to perch on a corner of the desk, tentatively grasping Evallan's hands. Though he didn't recoil, muscles tensed in Dorian's grip- which was odd. While Entrapped, Evallan had seemed more than just a little receptive to his touch.

  “I- really do not need...” As awkwardly as he attempted to refuse, he was still docile enough to have aid forced upon him- and now Dorian was slightly suspicious. Why was Evallan so concerned with hiding his hands...? He couldn't possibly be embarrassed!- That was obviously an emotion he didn't have frequent access to, judging by his behaviour the entire morning.

Without his usual strong-headedness, Evallan merely sat and pouted while the spools of fabric unravelled from his palms. It became evident to Dorian why he'd wished to conceal the injuries- though he had to do a double-take - slivers of green light, peeking between creases. Once those bandages were discarded he was faced with a bright pulse, seemingly burrowed into the centre of Evallan's wounded right hand.

  “...Why is your hand glowing?!”

  “Please- do not panic-” Evallan attempted to soothe his nerves before they ran away with him; voice warm, his opposite, mundane-looking hand reaching to lay on Dorian's forearm.

  “I'm not panicking!-” Dorian spluttered, very much panicking. “But- why is it doing that?!”

Fingertips pressed with more urgency into his arm, seeking to comfort- it did help, a little...

  “Lightbringer connected to you for survival.” The Keeper explained, as composed as he was tender. “I was forced to connect to something else.”

  “Something else...?” Turning his brain upside-down for a satisfactory explanation, Dorian tried to angle the scenario through a perspective he could actually understand...

  “...Some sort of...reservoir of will, deep within the Fade...?”

  “Something like that, yes.”

The lack of deeper elaboration wasn't lost on Dorian, sighing wearily in his response.

  “...You're not going to explain, are you?”

  “No.” Evallan's mouth curved sadly, shaking his head. “You will only think me mad.”

He was so sincere and so damn sweetly melancholic about it- Dorian was powerless to argue.

  “Alright, fine...just let me do this for you, then...”

With nothing left to hide, the elf submitted to his fussing. Cautious with each of his motions, Dorian set to lightly cleaning the inflamed areas, already having all the supplies he needed on the desk. Though absorbed in his task, he could feel Evallan's eyes pinned upon him in silent consideration.

READ MORE ON AO3

[mamawolfblood]

Chap 13 X-Treme Torture

Chap 13 X-Treme Torture

Chris: Last time on Total Drama Island… The twelve surviving campers were put through Master Chief Hatchet’s brutal boot camp. Duncan was the first to be sent to the brig by Major Harshines for disorderly conduct. Shocker! But what was a surprise was when by-the-book Courtney smuggled food to P.O.W. Duncan. The two proceeded to pull a B&E to steal some PB&J and ended up K-I-S-S-I-N-G. Hoo. Leshawna won her stripes for the Gophers and the Bass smelt something fishy when Courtney was suddenly voted off. Confession cams revealed that it was Harold who tampered with the votes to get back at Duncan for torturing him. That seems a bit unfair, I mean, hello? He’s a bully. That’s what they do. Birds gotta fly, fishes gotta swim, dude. Let a playa play. This week the campers are pushed to be extreme. Who will crack under the pressure? Find out right now on Total. Drama. Island!

Chris: Incoming!

Geoff: Hit the deck!

Gwen, Harold, Leshawna, and Owen scream.

Chris: Yes! I can’t wait to get my pilot’s license!

[crash]

[wheels screech]

Chris: Just flexing your muscles for today’s [through megaphone] Extreme sports challenge! [echoes]

Gwen: Ugh… It’s too early for this.

Chris: This week, you’ll participate in three challenges. First up, [through megaphone] Extreme sofa bed skydiving! Contestants will plummet, uh… Skydive to a waiting sofa bed target below.

A spring sproings from the matress

Chef screams but is muffled by the sand

Chris: Of course, you’ll be skydiving from five thousand feet. And using these.[he shows some parachutes and the Campers gasp] Our lucky contestants are Trent and DJ.

Trent: Sure. Why not? You know what they say on Blackcomb Mountain, bro. “Best glimpse of heaven’s on the way into hell.” Let’s do this.

DJ: Yeah. Uh, sure. Bring it on.

Chris: Not so fast. Because the second challenge of the day is… [through megaphone] Extreme rodeo moose riding! Contestants will rodeo ride the great Canadian bucking moose for eight seconds or get hooved into a giant pile of socks from the lost-and-found.

Leshawna: That stink pile ain’t nothing but laundry day back home.

Chris: It’s your lucky day, Leshawna. You’re riding for Gophers. And Geoff, you’ll ride for Bass.

Geoff: Yeah!

Owen: He doesn’t look too bucky to me. Hi, beautiful.[ the buck whacks him off]

Chris [through megaphone] : And the final challenge… Extreme sea doo waterskiing! Contestants will waterski a race course grabbing as many flags as they can before crossing the finish line. While a member from the opposing team tries to deceive you.

Heather: How can we waterski without water?

Chris [through megaphone] : It’s really hard. Check it out. [sea doo whirrs , Chef screams and Chris laughs] Awesome! Harold, you’ll ski for Killer Bass.

Harold: Sweet!

Chris: And Lindsay for the Screaming Gophers.

Lindsay: Kewl! I can model my new bikini!

Chris [through megaphone]: Now for the cool swag! Whoever scores the most challenges gets bragging rights for the night, saves their butts from elimination and wins a tricked out Multi Massage Mobile Shower.

[harp plays as the shower is revealed making everyone gasp

Heather[amazed]: Can it be?

Chris: Oh, it be.

Owen [after he smacks his face ]: Ah, a shower? How ’bout something good?

Heather: Listen to me, you marshmallow eating goof! We are going to win that shower if it’s the last thing we do, got it?

Harold watched Iris knowing he had to expose her. He also knew she could easily out him for the votes. "Whats wrong Harold? Are you still in shock your here?" Iris said the darkness in her eyes. She was daring him to try something. He flinched ar her question knowing Duncan and the other bass were Watching. "Yeah I am still in sock that they voted off Courtney." He said shrinking into himself. As everyone got ready for the challenges Heather sat by Iris. "You know for someone against bullying...You seem to have to problem doing so to Harold. I was watching you and I have to wonder why?" The Gopher girls were now looking at them. "Yeah your right hmmm you must be rubbing off on me." Iris said standing up to walk away.

(Confessional )

Heather "you know it's odd Duncan leaves Iris for Courtney. Iris started to defend Harold. Courtney got voted off not Iris is keeping Harold in line. Come on people put two and two together. She used Harold to get Courtney off the island. Honestly this is play book 101. "

*static*

(End of Confessionals)

Iris pov

In the mess hall Bridgette and Gwen find a note and make a bet. "You know it could be for someone else right?" I said rolling my eyes. "It sure as hell ain't for you." Duncan said wrapping an arm around me. "Cuz that guy and I will have some words." I laughed and playfully pushed him away. "You wanted Courtney Duncan. You can't have me too sorry. I don't play second fiddle." I said walking out and sat on the dock. "So what's the next move?" Harold asked dose he think I'm domb? "What do you mean by that?" I asked confused. Before screaming and falling in the water. "Harold why would you do that? I have been nothing but nice to you." I said angry. My dad and the other campers came hearing me scream. "Dude what is your problem?" Duncan said helping me up. I glare at Harold. "I didn't do anything. " He tried to defend himself. "Oh so she just screamed and threw herself in the water for no reason?" Duncan said cracking his knuckles. "Stop no need to get violent its just water. I can go dry off no big deal" I said getting everyone away from him.

On to the first challenge

Trent fell face first into the sand. While Dj landed safely on the matress. It was not pretty to watch in person poor Trent.  He was lucky to be alive and ok...well for the most part.

The second challenge was about to start. Bridgette and Gwen still trying to figure out who the love note was for. Geoff didn't last long was flug into the pile of socks rather quickly.  It was funny watching him fly over my father's head pants down. Leshawna was talking smack and the moose charged out of the gate. Leshawna scored us the point making it one to one. The last challenge would be the deciding factor. I just hope we win because I know who is getting voted off.

Chris[through megaphone] : So, we have a tie! Whoever wins the extreme sea doo waterski challenge… wins invincibility!

Lindsay: I’m ready!

DJ and Heather gasp as she appears in a green biki and sunglasses as sultry music plays

Heather: We are so dead. Unless… I get to drive the wave jumper!

Leshawna: Just win the dang shower so I can get my hair did.

(Confessional: Harold)

Harold: This is it. We’re tied for the win. Bad to the bone Duncan is driving Lindsay. I’m skiing for the Bass. Winning is inevitable. Goodbye wedgies, wet willies, and toilet face plunge. Hello… [smooth voice] Dirty Harold.

(Confessional off)

Gwen: Okay, so haikuist candidates are Duncan, Harold, DJ, or Owen.

Bridgette: Well we know Duncan was crushing on Courtney, so he’s out. And Harold is…

Harold [smooth voice]: Ladies. [grunts in his normal voice]

Gwen: Yeah. I’ll take Owen, you take DJ.

Heather [to Harold]: You are so out of your league, Alpha Geek.

Chris: Here’s the road rules. Oh wait, there are no rules! Which means this is gonna be awesome!

Bridgette: So, read any good poems lately?

DJ: So, ask any arbitrary way-out-of-left-field questions lately?

Bridgette sighs.

Chris: And go!

[wave jumper runs]

Harold: Ahh! Oh! Ow! Oowah!

Chris [over loudspeaker] : Flag one for Bass!

Geoff: Nice!

Bridgette: Yes!

Heather[in panic]: No!

Chris [over loudspeaker]: Five flags and headed home!

Heather: That’s impossible!

Chris: Heather has to cross the finish line or be disqualified! But when she does, Harold will take five flags to victory for the Killer Bass!

Heather gasps

(Confessional:Heather)

Heather: I couldn’t let that little dorkwad win. So I decided to cut him loose.

(confessional off)

Heather grabs a knife and cuts the rope.

Heather: Game over, guppy!

Harold: Victory is… huh? [Heather screams as her top is ripped by a tree exposing her boobs] Ah! [grunts and crashes on a rock]

Heather screams

[bear growls]

Chris: I don’t know what Heather did to make Harold lose his concentration, but its a total wipeout for the Bass team!

Harold[amazed]: Boobies…

Iris watches as Duncan was getting on the jet ski. She walked over making her hand a gun and pressed it to his back. "Hands were I can see 'em handsome." She said and he chuckled. "This is a violation of my rights officer. But I don't mind if it's you." He flirted back turning to face her. "Did I say turn around?" She asked before having his lips on her's. "He you two brake it up. Duncan my dude thin ice." My dad said stepping between them glaring at Duncan. I chuckles before wishing Duncan luck.  "You young lady are on thin Ice too." Dad said befir starting the challenge and Lindsay won. This gave the screaming gopher's the win.

Chris: The Bass team went belly-up and will now decide which fishy to flush, while the Gophers totally scored some much-needed showers.

Leshawna sighs.

Owen: What’s up with chicks and showers?

Gwen: So we ruled out Owen and DJ.

Bridgette: I know! So who could it be?

Leshawna: Who could what be?

Chris: Another note from your secret admirer, Leshawna?

Bridgette and Gwen: Leshawna’s the crush, girl?

Leshawna: You two know someone else here with a booty as luscious as an apple?

Gwen: But who wrote it?

dramatic music plays

Chris: As you know, if you do not recieve a marshmallow, you will be forced to walk the Dock of Shame, and you will never ever return to camp. Bridgette and DJ, you are safe.

Bridgette gasps.

Chris [through megaphone]: Geoff! You’re safe, too!

Geoff: Muchos luchos, compadre!

Chris: Okay, that leaves Harold, who bailed big for reasons unknown.

(Confessional: Harold)

Harold[amazed]: Boobies.

(Confessional Off)

Chris: And Duncan who bailed even bigger because Lindsay left his circling the drain in a shameless–

Duncan [through gritted teeth] : The chick was determined.

Chris: Which is why you’re safe. Harold, sorry dude. You’re done like dinner.

[Elimination music]

Harold: Well, it’s been fun, guys.[after waving] Farewell Total Drama Island! I loved, I lost, and I saw boobies! What more could a man ask for? Be warned the Iris flower is not what it seems. It is a snake waiting to strike.

Gwen: You loved?

Leshawna: You’re a man?

Bridgette: You saw boobies?

Harold: Leshawna, I meant every word of that poem!

Leshawna[shocked]: Poem? That was you?

Bridgette: No. Way.

Leshawna: Baby, you some kind of freaky!

Harold [straining]: Give daddy some sugar.[Leshwana kisses him]

Bridgette, Gwen, and Lindsay gasp.

(Confessional: Chef)

Chef: Leshawna and Harold? I was as shocked as you. But you didn’t read the letters. [chuckles] Ooh, spicy.

(confessional off)

Geoff: Wait a sec. So, Harold saw your boobies?

Owen: Can we see?

Leshawna: Heck no. Wait a minute. Who’s boobies did you see?!

[dramatic sting]

Heather sighs as she comes out of the shower.

Leshawna[walking angrily towards Heather]: Uh-uh. Uh-uh-uh-uh-oh-oh-oh-oh. Oh, see now,  you messed with the wrong sister!

[werewolfdays]

Going Under

thought I’d give ya’ll a break from Nadya’s family drama to bring you some emo angsty shit. Six months before Homecoming and what it was like for my soft gays to lose each other - 

Dread crept its way up my throat like an approaching monster, making my heart pound almost painfully. Somehow, I felt like something was going to go wrong tonight. I couldn’t explain the bad feeling, but it disturbed me. So, before I headed out, I pulled Toby aside. 

“Can I talk to you for a minute? Alone.”

“Yeah, sure.” He agreed with an odd look. 

Skye was sitting cross-legged in the back of the car, too busy typing away on her laptop to hear or care about what I said, but Nadya caught it. She was leaning against the car and her head tilted to the side slightly, giving me a look similar to Toby’s. 

To reassure her, I forced the most relaxed smile I could manage, squeezing her arm and placing a quick kiss to her temple. “I’ll be right back.” 

I couldn’t stop the knife from piercing my side. The silver blade was buried almost all the way to the handle. Immediate and immense agony exploded throughout my body, causing me to cry out, blurring my vision and making my knees buckle. 

“It didn’t have to be this way, you know.” The soldier said smugly while he held me up. “You could have just surrendered.”

I could barely maintain eye contact with him. My breaths started to falter. “Fuck you.” I spat out.

He sneered and twisted the knife. The pain was so bad that my eyes started to water and my whimper turned into an outright scream. At that, he pulled the knife free and shoved me back, the force of his push making my body crumple to the ground. 

My ability to fight or run just became impeded. Plus, I was losing blood now. The wound was well placed to incapacitate me. I knew my chances of survival just plummeted, but I wasn’t going down without a fight. 

Summoning whatever strength I could manage, I called on my wolf to give me a desperately needed boost. The world cleared as my eyes turned from dark blue to glowing amber. Familiar tingling prickled along my skin and made my blood hot. My strength and senses increased. Unfortunately, this caused my adrenaline to rush and I felt my wound begin to bleed even more. 

“That’s not gonna help you now.” My opponent stated.

I didn’t even have a chance to react as his boot smashed into my face. Stars were dancing in my eyes, I could feel the new split in my lip and the blood pouring from my now broken nose. Then he stepped onto my side, putting pressure on the fresh knife wound. I growled in pain and frustration. There was nothing dignified about this. The bastard was torturing me. Making sure that my end was as agonizing as possible. It was making me furious.

“What do you need to talk about?” Toby asked once we were out of earshot.

“Well, it’s more I need to ask you to do something for me.” I said. The heavy feeling forming in my gut that was making me second guess this, but I knew there wasn’t a choice here. No turning back. “I can’t ask anyone else.”

There was a clear distrust in Toby’s dark eyes. “Okay…” 

“Given what we’re heading into…” I took a deep breath. This was harder to say than I thought it was going to be, “If something happens to me, we both know Nadya won’t let me go. It won’t be easy for Skye either, so… I need you to make sure they get out safely.”

“What are you talking about?” Toby started to raise his voice, either offended or in disbelief at my request.

My arm wrapped around the soldier’s leg and I whipped him around with all my might, knocking him off his feet. There was a satisfying smack as his head hit the pavement. It gave me the opportunity to stand, but I knew I couldn’t fight in my condition. The best chance I had was to run. 

But I only managed to stagger a few paces away when I heard a loud BANG. Searing pain suddenly spread out through my back and out of my chest. The bullet went right through me and I collapsed on the ground again. 

“Look, I don’t have any delusions about my chances of survival. With the life I live, it’s not if it’s when. I’ll be damned if I drag anyone down with me. So, please, I need you to promise me.” I thought admitting this would make me feel better, knowing that the people I care about most would be safe once I was gone, but it only made me feel worse. Made me feel… afraid.

Toby blinked at me, utterly exasperated. “Are you listening to yourself right now? How do you think Nadya and Skye would react to hearing you say this crap?” 

Shame made me sigh and squeeze the bridge of my nose to lessen the pounding of my head. “I can’t think about that, Toby. And you’re not going to say a damn thing to them.”

The pain blinded me enough that all I could do for a few moments was writhe on the ground and struggle for breath. It didn’t take long for the metallic taste of blood to fill my mouth. The bullet pierced my lung. I was going to die from drowning in my own blood. If I was lucky I’d bleed out before that.

“That was a good try.” the soldier remarked. He used his foot to flip me on my back, placing each leg on either side of me and kneeling down to straddle me. “You have been a pain in my ass for years,” his fists grabbed the collar of my jacket, shaking me roughly, “I wanna see the light leave your eyes.” 

I wouldn’t give him that satisfaction if it’s the last thing I do, and it looked like it was going to be. The gun had been placed on the ground beside us, he must’ve thought I didn’t have the strength to reach for it. That would be his last mistake. I worked up a mixture of blood and saliva in my mouth and spit it in his face. The soldier recoiled in disgust for just a second, but that was all I needed. Quicker than either of us thought I was capable of in this state, I grabbed the gun and pointed it right at his head. The trigger was pulled before he could do anything about it. 

“So, let me get this straight.” Toby started with venomous sarcasm, “First, you want me to just let you die.”

“Toby, that’s not what I’m saying—”

He held up a finger, “Then! Then, you want me to, what, throw Nadya and Skye over my shoulders while they kick and scream? Dragging them away so we can leave you behind?” 

“Toby.” I said forcefully, summoning an authoritative voice, “I’m not planning to die, okay? But I will be in the most danger. These people have wanted me dead or captured for years, I’m not invincible. If- and I do mean if- something happens to me… you guys are the only thing that matters to me and I can’t go down knowing that you will suffer the same fate. So, please. I am begging you.” 

With a weak grunt, I shoved the body off of me and stood on trembling legs. I took a couple of steps before I wound up on my hands and knees again, struggling through wet, pained breaths and coughing up blood. This was it. I was alone. I was dying. I have thought about this exact moment many times over the years. Waiting for it. Accepting it. But now that I was here, now that I could feel myself start to drift away, all that was left in me was fear. 

And the only thing I wanted for my last moments was to see Nadya one last time. To hear her voice. Feel her warmth. Smell her scent. Tell her how fucking sorry I was for it ending this way. Tell her I tried to fight. That I tried to stay. That I wanted to stay more than anything. 

I didn’t know which direction she was in, but I had to move somewhere. Listening to my instincts, I picked a path and painfully forced myself to my feet again. There was so little left in me though. I blinked and I was on the ground again. My head was swimming, barely getting any air, the agony so terrible that I couldn’t even think. 

“If…” Toby sounded a step closer to considering my request.

I grabbed his hand. “If you know, in your heart, that there’s no saving me...” my voice started to shake. Even with all my strength, I couldn’t hide how afraid I was. “Just please make sure you guys get out safely.” 

It felt like minutes passed as Toby’s eyes bore into mine. “I’ll do what I can.” He finally said in a quiet tone, “But Jayde… If you’re always expecting to die, how do you live?” 

“Nadya.” I choked out, like there was any way she would be able to hear me, but I was desperate for even just a glimpse of her to take with me to whatever was next. 

With everything I had, I crawled forward. It wasn’t much. Each inch was more agonizing than the last. I couldn’t breathe. And my vision was fading. My fight was futile, but I couldn’t bring myself to give up. At least I did everything I could. I hoped she would know that. 

I couldn’t see anything. I couldn’t feel anything. All that remained was the faint beating of my heart. Beating fainter and fainter… 

——

Skye wasn’t much of a conversationalist at this moment, she was too immersed in hacking her way through traffic cameras in the area, so I remained silent by the car while keeping watch. Quiet Skye was a bit weird to be around, but she was doing important work. We needed a way through that would give us our best chance against the facility and all its soldiers. Then we would need an escape route if we were successful. 

I always viewed myself as an optimist, but there was something… off. Something I couldn’t quite put my finger on, and Jayde’s behavior was just odd enough to make me think my concerns weren’t misplaced. 

I glanced in the direction that she and Toby disappeared in. Whatever she was talking to him about, she didn’t want it to be in front of me or Skye. That only fanned the flames of my suspicions and caused a feeling of dread to constrict my throat. 

Maybe we shouldn’t do this. Maybe I should convince Jayde to call this off. 

She reappeared from around the corner with Toby lagging behind her. He had a deep scowl on his face, and Jayde looked equally as disturbed, though she did try to hide it once I came into her view. 

“Jay…” I started as soon as she got to me, feeling shameful about what I was going to say next, “I… I don’t know if we should do this.” 

Her shoulders slumped with a sigh, “Nadya, we agreed to do this.” 

“I know, it’s just…” I shook my head, struggling to explain the feeling I had gnawing in my gut. 

Jayde placed her hands on my shoulders and looked me in the eye, “This is our chance. I’m tired of seeing you deal with running and fighting. Tired of seeing Toby and Skye deal with it too. All I want is to know what it’s like to have a life with you and them where I don’t have to worry about it being taken from me.” 

“I know, Jay. So do I.” 

Her hands gently cupped my face, and I took some solace in the comfort her touch granted me, even if it was just for a moment, “Will you trust me, then?”

I nodded, reaching up to wrap my hands around her forearms, “I trust you.” 

“I got a route,” Skye spoke up from the car, “You’re gonna have to go now though. Before the patrol returns.” 

Jayde nodded at her younger sister, then she smiled at me. There was a hint of sadness in her eyes. Perhaps even some fear. And her eyes carefully scanned my features like she was committing them to memory. I didn’t like that strange look one bit, but she pulled me in for a kiss. I thought about resisting it, try talk her out of this one more time, but the sensation of her sweet cadence pulled me in. Though I easily got lost in the kiss, it couldn’t fully banish the fear lingering in the back of my mind telling me that this was more than just a goodbye for now. 

She pulled away and rested her forehead against mine, “I can do this, okay? I’ll see you soon.”  

“Okay.” I breathed, willing myself to believe her words. 

We fell into an embrace that I never wanted to let go of. I gripped her jacket in my fists and buried my face in her neck, taking sanctuary in the warmth of her body. In just how much I felt at home in her arms. Jayde was unusually tense, which agitated my anxiety, but she started to soften against my form after a moment, allowing herself the same comfort she gave me. 

“I love you, Nadya.” She whispered into my ear. 

“I love you too.” I replied. 

“We need to find Jayde and get the fuck out of here.” Toby said as we hurried through the backstreets and alleyways, trying to avoid the lingering soldiers and approaching sirens. 

“The gunshots.” I reminded him, using all of my willpower not to panic over the possibility that it could’ve been Jayde that received them. 

Toby remained oddly silent for nearly a block, I noticed how his jaw was clenched tighter than normal. “We’ll find her and meet up with Skye and get out of this shithole city.” He mumbled like he was saying a mantra to himself. 

The gunshots, a voice repeated in my mind. I never should have let her go off by herself. That strange look in her eyes haunted me. Each step we took made my heart pound even harder. All I could picture was that look on her face. All I could hear in my head was the echoes of those gunshots going off and the fact that I didn’t know where she was. Fear crawled its way up my throat from a large pit in my stomach. A deep fear that was thick and tar-like, filling my veins and making my limbs feel heavy. 

I didn’t even realize I had started to jog until Toby’s footfalls sounded to catch up with me. I need to get to her. I need to find her. The gunshots I had heard echoed in my head again, so loud that it made my brain hurt. I wondered if I had actually imagined them. Maybe someone was shooting at us right now. It didn’t matter to me either way because I just needed to find Jayde. 

We came out of an alleyway that went into the street. The only lights were coming from the streetlamps. There weren’t any people around that we could see, probably due to the fact that it was late and there were obvious signs of a shootout. But this was where the gunshots were coming from. I started jogging down the street a little more, searching for anything that would tell me where Jayde was. My desperation nearly convinced me to call out for her. 

The tar in my veins turned to ice when I saw it. A body lying in the road. Even mostly cloaked in shadow, the nearest streetlamp made it impossible not to notice the familiar blonde hair. The hair that I’ve run my hands through. The hair that I’ve brushed back and that tickled my face when I hugged her last. 

Without telling it to, my body went into a full-on sprint towards her. I barely even registered Toby quietly shouting my name after I took off. The closer I got, the more my panic seemed to pull me deeper into a black abyss. 

“Jayde!” I yelled recklessly, not caring if the soldiers could hear me. She remained unmoving on the ground. 

I skidded to a stop beside her, my knees scraping against the asphalt and ripping through my jeans, though I barely even registered the stinging. Please don’t do this. Anything but this. My line of sight caught the massive dark stain on her back, the way it was sleeping through her jacket made it impossible to dispute it as hers. This isn’t real. I carefully flipped her onto her back and was greeted by the horrific sight of even more blood. A wound in her side, whatever it was penetrated through her ribs. Something vital. Worse was the hole in her chest. Maybe that one had gone through the most vital of all…

The street beneath her was drenched in deep crimson. It already coated my hands as they ran all over her body in utter panic. A panic that I’ve never felt before in my entire life. My limbs were trembling violently. I couldn’t get enough air. My heart pounded so hard that it shook my entire being to the core. All of my medical training disappeared. The only action I could muster was to try and stop the bleeding. 

“Okay, okay,” I muttered to myself, frantically pressing my hands into her wounds, ignoring just how bloodless her beat up face already looked. “I can fix this.”

I heard men shouting orders not far from us. Calling to one another. Get her out of here. I need to get her out of here. The blood wasn’t stopping. It was hard to tell if she was even breathing because my eyes became too blurred. Through the pure terror I was already feeling surfaced a new fear. Hardly important and only noticeable because I needed it to save Jayde’s life, but why was my vision going now, of all times, when I needed it the most? When it was absolutely vital to keep the person I love most in this world from leaving me. Why am I going blind?

Then I realized it was just my tears. I was so stupid. My hand wiped them away and I could feel that I just accidentally smeared her blood on my face. It made me want to retch. I was losing it. Rationality was fading away with the love of my life. Reality would surely follow if I couldn’t save her.  

“Toby, I-I can’t carry her, I need you to carry her.” 

There was no answer. 

I glanced over my shoulder and saw that Toby was completely pale, looking down at Jayde in a blank horror. If he loses it, then we were doomed— Jayde was doomed, and I could not allow that to happen.

“Toby, please! Help me!” I shouted to get his attention and turned back to try and staunch the constant flow of blood from Jayde’s wounds.

“Nadya,” Toby prompted in a hollow tone, “Nadya, we have to go.”

“Just pick her up.” I instructed again in a voice I couldn’t keep from trembling. She’s a werewolf, she can handle losing this much blood. But I was too afraid to check for a pulse. 

The soldiers were getting closer. I could hear their heavy-booted footsteps. 

“Nadya,” Toby repeated, placing a hand on my shoulder.

I ignored him. If he wasn’t going to help me, then I just had to find a way. I will not lose her. Not like this. 

A part of me knew it was futile, but I did my best to cradle her, resting her head on my shoulder, and attempted to haul her up. But I was only human. Even if I could lift her in my arms, I wouldn’t be able to hold her weight for long. And she was limp, which just made things more difficult. I let out a frustrated cry, laying her back down and trying to think of another solution. Dragging her crossed my mind, but there’s no way I could move us fast enough. Soldiers will be here any second. The dawning realization that there was no way out of this was starting to hit me with a fresh wave of hysteria. 

Not like this. 

Toby’s firm grasp locked itself on my upper arms as he began to pull me to my feet. 

“What are you doing?! Get her!” I yelled, trying to shake him off.

“There’s nothing-” Toby choked on a sob, wrapping an arm around my waist when he stood me up. “There’s nothing we can do, we have to go.” 

I realized what was going on once he started pulling me away. “I’m not leaving her!” I desperately tried to break free of his grasp, but I simply wasn’t strong enough. 

“They’re coming, Nadya, we don’t have a choice.” 

He was right about one thing, a group of soldiers were approaching. All armed. All ready for the kill. I knew if we stayed, we would be murdered or worse. Leaving Jayde guarantees her death, but staying wouldn’t save her either. There really was no way. This was it. Being dragged away from her felt like falling into the blackest, most endless pit that exists. Every foot away from her was the most agony I’ve ever felt, like my very soul was being ripped from my being. 

I still couldn’t bring myself to give up on her. Desperate for any sign of life, I started screaming her name. Screaming it so loud that it felt like I was tearing my throat. Anything. Give me anything. I blindly fought Toby’s grip with everything I had, swinging my elbow back and striking him hard in the face. He grunted, his grip loosening, but he caught me back in a vice before I could break free. All I could do was scream for Jayde as I watched soldiers bare down on her. 

Don’t do this to me, Jay. 

But I knew there was nothing. Nothing I could do. Nothing left to fight for. Just nothing. And as I slumped in Toby’s arms and watched the one person I thought would always be there disappear from view forever, I couldn’t help but feel like I was dying too. 

Eventually, my legs ran with Toby’s help, but I couldn’t tell where we were going. I could see my surroundings enough to avoid basic obstacles, but I couldn’t actually see much of anything. My mind completely shut down. I was numb from head to toe. The world sounded like everything was underwater. If I could feel, I was sure I’d be grateful for Toby holding my hand and leading me through this maze of a city. I was like a rat in a trap, there’s no way I would be able to get out of here on my own. A part of me wasn’t sure I even wanted to.

There was a car in front of us, Toby opened the backseat door and helped me in. He even took the time to buckle my seatbelt for me. It wasn’t until he got into the passenger’s seat that I noticed Skye was in the driver’s because she spoke. 

“Where’s Jayde?” Skye asked, her voice already so tense that I was expecting her next sentence to snap like a cord. 

I couldn’t look up at her. My hands were in my lap and I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the blood staining my skin and clothes. No doubt Skye could smell it.

“Go, Skye.” Toby said tersely as he slammed his door shut.

“Where is she, Toby?” 

“Skye—” 

“Where is my sister?!” Skye yelled loud enough to make me flinch. 

Her terrified and pained tone cut through my already bleeding heart and I leaned forward to close my eyes and press my forehead against my clenched fists. This is just a dream. Jayde has horrific nightmares all the time, maybe I’m having them too. 

“Skye, go!” Toby bellowed. 

There was a long moment of silence, but Skye must’ve understood because she finally started driving us out of here. 

Terrible, awful quiet blanketed the car like an ominous shadow, filling the air with a suffocating sorrow. I was fully consumed by that shadow. The world clouded in inky blackness as it clenched around my heart like a spiked cage. Leaving me utterly lost.

I couldn’t say for certain how much time passed, I honestly didn’t care, but we eventually made it to some seedy motel to rest for the night, which wouldn’t be long considering the sky was starting to turn gray. Once we got to our room, Toby led me to the bathroom with a bag in his hand, speaking the first words anyone has said to me in hours. 

“You should take a shower to get all that… to get clean.” He still sounded hollow and he set the bag down on the bathroom counter and turned the shower on. “There’s clothes in there. Can you wash yourself?” 

All I did was nod.

“Okay,” I noticed that Toby’s eyes barely ever left the floor while he was talking to me, just like mine. “We’re just gonna get a few hours of rest here. Then we’ll head home.”

Home? I wanted to ask. Home died earlier tonight. The Lodge wouldn’t feel the same. I was sure that nothing would ever feel the same, but I simply nodded again and Toby closed the bathroom door on his way out. 

Making myself go through the motions of taking a shower was surprisingly easy. Even though that emptiness in my chest remained, my body could still live off of auto-pilot. For how long, I wasn’t sure. For now it would do. I stood under the steaming hot water and watched as streaks of red traveled down my body and swirled into the drain. The last bits of her. It was sickening to miss it. 

The image of her lying in the street came back to my mind, striking me with intense nausea. I had to brace my hand against the tiled wall to keep from falling as I failed to hold back bile. Suddenly the sensation of having running water against my skin became too much and I frantically shut it off. All the blood was gone now anyway. I just wanted to get out. I carelessly threw the clean clothes on, not bothering to dry myself because the steam was making it too hard to breathe. 

I opened the bathroom door and saw my two remaining companions dealing with the night’s events. They were sitting on the ground, their backs leaning against the foot of the bed, and Toby had an arm around Skye while she wept into his shoulder. I could see now that I left a pretty noticeable black eye on Toby from trying to fight him and felt the urge to apologize, but also knew that nothing meaningful was capable of coming out of my mouth right now. 

They both looked up at me when they heard the door open and I could clearly see the immense heartbreak in both of their shimmering eyes. It was the same as mine, and their expressions caused me to fully break down. 

Toby reached out a hand to me when I choked on a painful sob and I collapsed on the ground in my own grief, leaning into him to allow myself desperately needed comfort. None of us said a word. Probably because we knew there wasn’t anything any of us could say to make this situation better. 

We all suffered a tremendous loss tonight. Not only did I lose the love of my life, but Skye lost the only blood family she had left, Toby lost a surrogate sister. The pack we had built for each other just had its heart ripped out, leaving the rest of us bleeding and suffering. Meanwhile that black abyss was feasting on me still, so I clung to Toby’s shirt and just let myself cry harder than I have ever cried before. 

Skye eventually cried herself to sleep, but Toby and I remained awake, staring blankly at the wall in front of us until the sun’s rays peeked through the blinds and bathed us in chopped gold. I couldn’t feel it like I used to. Honestly, I hated it. Hated that the sun had the audacity to ever rise again. I resented the world for going on like nothing had happened, like I wasn’t feeling terrible agony and emptiness. The very earth itself should be screaming in pain like I had screamed for Jayde. But outside our motel room, birds still sang their songs, and cars still drove down the street, and people still laughed and chatted. It disgusted me. 

As soon as my fury at the world rose like an incoming crashing wave, it dissipated to the hopelessness that had rooted itself in my chest. There was no point in being angry because she was gone. There was no point in fighting because this wasn’t a dream. It was real, real enough to feel unreal, making my nerves completely shot and my mind completely numb. 

I looked over at Toby with his ashen face and bags under his bloodshot eyes, and Skye who was too drained to be conscious, but still cried in her sleep. Even in this horror, I couldn’t help but feel some gratitude for not having to suffer through it alone. 

——

The woman’s thick-soled footsteps came to a stop beside the body of the dying young woman she spent years trying to find. This girl grew to be more of a challenge than the woman expected, she was almost disappointed that her hunt had ended. Even more curious was the screams of another girl, shouting the wolf’s name in utter despair. The woman watched this strange girl disappear around a corner, being dragged away by another werewolf that was more than likely on her hit-list as well, but she halted her soldiers. They made a mess of this city enough for the night and they got their prize.

“She’s on her way out.” One of her soldiers said with pride as he kneeled down and checked the young she-wolf, “All we gotta do is wait.” 

“Goddammit,” Another soldier swore as he looked at the other body lying on the sidewalk not too far away, “She got Jimmy.” 

“Well, at least he took her down with him.” the first soldier replied and the others murmured in agreement, scowling down at the bloodied werewolf. Her last moments were to be a spectacle. 

But something tugged at the back of the woman’s mind. She contemplated the direction that the other girl and her companion fled and turned her attention back to the Thatcher wolf. This werewolf was a young purebred, it was a shame when they lost her the first time. The woman’s gaze went back to the empty street. She also must have connections. Must know many others like her, possibly multiple packs of purebreds. And the girl that was screaming for her… you don’t scream like that unless you love someone. A potential started to bloom in the woman’s mind. Maybe she could still get some use out of the young wolf yet. 

“Save her.” she ordered her soldiers.

The conversations suddenly stopped. “Ma’am…?” One of them asked hesitantly like his superior lost her mind.

She fixed her charges with a level stare. “Save her.”

[aurora-the-kunoichi]

For The Love Of Shell - Chapter 35

Chapter 35 of my baby

Full story here

After filling their bellies with the food Master Yoshi had provided, they departed once again finishing their journey to the airport. With Aurora still drained of energy Donnie insisted on finishing the trip in the driver seat. Reluctantly she agreed, grabbing her bag she disappeared into the back room to put on fresh clothes for the plane ride. It was probably best she didn’t have bloody clothes on when she went through airport security.

Back in the main cabin Master Yoshi sat in front of Aurora at the kitchen table his arms outstretched his hands covering hers. The wonderment in his eyes he couldn’t hide, he had been waiting hours to talk to her. “Aurora, I have trained and prepared all my life in anticipation for yesterday’s events. And even seeing everything with my own eyes I still have trouble wrapping my mind around it. The masters had doubt that a woman would be able to endure everything that was required of you. Not only were you able to withstand the adsorption of power of all four warriors but you were able to give them their lives back when your task was done. I still don’t know how that was possible, it was a miracle.”

Leo walked up behind Aurora, he leaned on the back of the seat his hands in the open space of the seat next to her. His green digits reached absentmindedly for the empty water bottle rolling along the table and began rolling in between his wide palms. “We’re hoping it doesn’t have any lasting effects on her. When we get back Don is gonna do a full work up on her and us for that matter. He wants to see if anything that happened yesterday changed anything in our bodies or have become unstable from the surging power.”

“That would probably be a wise Leonardo, just to be on the safe side.” Master Yoshi agreed.

Aurora looked out the window watching the Japanese hillside pass by becoming less and less green as they drove into town and off the mountain, ominous dark clouds drifted across the sky covering up the blue morning sky alluding to a storm in the near future, “There is one thing I’m confused about.” Aurora started. “The demon, I mean he was large in stature, but I guess I was expecting something much larger. Like Godzilla big, you know?”

“The form you saw yesterday was his weakened form essentially. That’s why he needed you and the warriors. If he was successful with your consumption he would have grown exponentially, then he would have had the strength to take the warriors and after them he would have grown yet again four times the size. His power would have spread more quickly infecting the world’s population. He would have been invincible and able to destroy the world one city at a time.”

Aurora picked at the label on her water bottle and looked out the window to the vibrant colors of the Japanese morning. She could feel the warmth of Leonardo as he hovered next to her his presence bringing her solace. The sound of gravel below the large tires made them turn to the front of the RV; they were entering into the far field where she had picked up the turtles at the beginning of their journey.  As the RV rumbled to a stop the rain began to pelt the windshield. Donnie put the rig into park and turned the engine off looking up into the darkened sky. At least the storm would conceal them as they snuck onto the airport grounds and unnoticed into the bottom of the plane. Getting up from his seat he took the spot next to Raph who was sitting on the couch next to the kitchen table.

“The plane leaves in 2 hours. We better get a move on. Aurora still has to get through customs.”

Leo stood up as Aurora scooted from the bench seat and made her way to her bags closing up both. Leo quickly came up beside her his hand resting on her upper back. He could see she was still weak; her footing was timid and unsteady. “Do you want us to take your weapons bag so you don’t have to check it? It’s one less thing for you to carry.”

Letting out a heavy sigh she knew he was right. Just giving the bag a quick tug she could tell her strength was nowhere near what it usually was. She could barely carry her own body weight let alone the duffle bag with her two sets of katanas and miscellaneous weapons. She only had to carry it to customs but still she tired easily right now, still weak from yesterday’s ordeal. Nodding reluctantly, she lifted her duffle bag to Leo’s extended hand and he took it hooking it over his shoulder.

Reaching down Leo helped Aurora to her feet steadying her by placing his palm to the small of her back. He could feel her lean into it slightly getting her balance back; he hated seeing her like this. Usually strong and defiant he could see her legs tremble under her weight; he was a little worried letting her go alone on the plane. But he knew she would fight him so he left it alone, there was no use fighting when he knew she wouldn’t budge on the matter.  At least she gave up her bag to him.

Master Yoshi stood before them all; his smile was grateful and proud. “Turtles, you should be proud of yourselves. Your father taught you well and you have more than proven your worth. I know this deed will never be known more than an urban legend on the mountains, but I want to thank you for all your efforts yesterday. The world is safe once again with the demon banished back from wince it came, a feet unable to be fulfilled in a thousand years.” The old monk ran his fingers over his tired chin smiling warmly. “I suppose now with the Kingyos gone maybe I can re-open the monastery and update its teachings. I want you all to know that you are always welcome at its doors and this is including Master Splinter. If he would like I would be honored for a visit, I’m sure there are things I can teach him and perhaps a few things he can teach me. I wish you safe travels back to New York and I thank you for taking good care of Aurora.”

The four turtles gathered their belongings turned to bow to Aurora’s Sensei, showing their respect.

“Thank you, we will convey the message to our sensei, I’m sure he would be pleased to visit.” Leo smiled shaking the master’s hand.

Leo maneuvered around Master Yoshi and came up to Aurora his green fingers finding her chin tilting her face up to his. Her violet eyes bore into his as his mouth slanted over hers taking a quick but heated kiss. Pulling away slightly he ended the connection and closed his eyes. “We’ll see you in two days ok. Go home after the plane ride and go to bed and rest. When you get up the following morning come see us.”

“Sir, yes sir.” She mocked him giving him a sloppy salute.

Leo gave her a playful poke and stepped away revealing Donnie stationed right behind the blue banded turtle. He quickly filled the space Leo had once occupied and looked down on Aurora. “Your heart beat is still a little high and I can tell you’re still dehydrated. Make sure to drink lots of fluids preferably water and try to sleep on the plane. You need to get your strength back before I can take blood from you. Hopefully two days will be enough.” Timidly he leaded down and pressed a timid kiss to her lips.

Aurora smiled feeling the shy turtle kiss her, reassuring him she pressed up giving the sweet gesture a little more friction making the breath in Donnie’s throat hitch and his heart quicken.

“Ok, ok my turn.” She heard the grumpy voice of Raphael mumble pushing Donatello from her breaking their contact.

“Guys, I’ll see ya in two days.”

“Yeah we know but the past two days have been……stressful and emotionally and physically draining. The ordeal has left us all a little needy for each other’s presence.” Raphael’s usually rough demeanor softened as he gently gathered her into his arms. The bottom of his chin rested on the top of her head and the long warm drawls of breath from his nose rustled her hair.

The closeness of the big turtle made his scent drift through her nose and the dream she had flashed through her mind making her cheeks flush with red. “Get a hold of yourself.” She scolded herself internally, being close to any of them was making her pulse quicken for some reason. Raphael’s fingers relinquished their hold around her waist and slide slowly down lightly brushing against the top of her butt and around her hips sending a quick shot of heat to her groin. It almost seemed deliberate; she wondered if they were having the same residual reactions as she was.

Mikey curved around Raph’s retreating form and curved his one arm around her waist and dipped her back, his lips dove not for her mouth, but the side of her throat places a warm wet kiss to her pulse point. Her gut tightened at the spontaneous pressure from his moist lips grazing gently against her flesh and she could have sworn the tip of his tongue skated out tasted her skin. Hoisted back up she did her best to look normal despite her heart pounded against her chest. There was no disguising the flush in her cheeks and Mikey could see it giving her a playful wink before opening the RV door and disappearing into the storm. The three other brothers slowly filed out the door into the morning storm after their little brother.

“Let me know you got on the plane ok?” she called out to Leo’s retreating form as it disappeared into the deluge.

After returning the RV to the rental company at the airport concierge Aurora turned to Master Yoshi at the airport check in. She hoisted her backpack over her shoulders and bowed to her sensei. His face was warm and sincere as he closed the distance between them encircling her in his arms.

“I am so proud of you my dear. After all these years you’ve survived under great pressure and adversity and in the end you fulfilled your density. Hopefully now you can move on with your life with your turtle companions. I can see they all have strong feelings for you and you return them. I’m not so sure how deep those feelings go but you’ll all figure that out as time goes on. I think since you were a little girl you always knew you’d end up with them, you’d day dream about them often and I’d have to snap you out of it to continue your training.” He let out a soft chuckle reminiscing. “I’ll stop blabbing I know you have to catch your flight. All I have to say is, don’t be a stranger, I’ve missed you. Please come back for a visit. Because of your braveness and resilience I will be taking females into my teachings.”  

“Good, every gender deserves the right to learn the art of ninjutsu and the teachings of bushido. I hope my story has proven that in spades. There is no such thing as a weaker sex. And don’t worry; I will be back Sensei, I promise. You have my number now if you need to get a hold of me. I think it’s time I put down roots now that I’ve found my home.”

Master Yoshi now bowed to her in respect, “You honor me with your bravery and skill. I couldn’t have asked for a better pupil my dear. I wish you all the happiness with your future.”

Taking her leave Aurora entered the check point and headed towards her ride back home. Reaching the large overlooking window of the tarmac, the kunoichi stared at the large airplane that would return her and the turtles back to New York. The clouds were dark and heavy making the morning sky feel like late evening and the rain still poured from the heavens would easily conceal the four large stowaways waiting in the shadows.

An announcement over the airport com system informed the plane would start boarding first class now. Aurora waited for the line to die down and kept her eyes on the back of the plane as the last of the bags were loaded into the open hatch. Suddenly the lights around the plane flickered and cut off plunging the plane and surrounding areas into darkness. If she wasn’t in tuned to the darkness due to her training she would have missed them. Through the downpour four large shadows shot across the tarmac and into the open gate of the plane disappearing inside. Within seconds the lights hummed back on as if nothing had happened.

Several baggage men came out scratching their heads looking at the fuse box on the side of the building. After a few minutes they shrugged their shoulders and returned to their business closing up the back of the plane getting ready for takeoff.

Knowing they were safely onboard Aurora boarded the plane and took her seat by the window. A light buzzing brought attention to her phone in her hand.

“We’re aboard and ready to go home.” The message scrolled across her screen from Donnie. Quickly her fingers ran over the digital keyboard and responded, “See you guys at home, I love you all.”

Soon the plane pulled away from the main airport hub and started towards its departure. Thankfully the storm wasn’t too severe, so they were able to take off without a hitch. After the plane left the ground and ascended into the sky Aurora leaned her seat back and closed her eyes. She hoped she could sleep most of the way home, she could barely keep her eyes open, so it didn’t seem like it wouldn’t be possible. She concentrated on the low hum of the airplanes engines and soon drifted into slumber.

Below Aurora in the belly of the plane they four turtles were arranging several bags, so they could get comfortable for the long flight. Mikey flopped down in his pile resting his hands behind his head and let out a long sigh. “Well this trip didn’t turn out like expected.” He huffed.

“No, no it did not. But the upside is Aurora is free and no longer has to hide anymore. The demon is gone as well as the Kingyo’s.” Donnie smiled lying down on his makeshift bed as well.

Raphael sat down next to a crate which housed a sleeping dog, his green fingers slide through the grate and brushed over the soft fur of the canine. His mind racing, he looked up to his older brother and locked with his blue iris’. “Do you think we’ll ever know what happened while we were….um… you know.”

Leo and Donnie shot each other and glance and Leo nodded giving him the ok to inform them of the recording.

Donnie cleared his throat sitting down on his pile of bags, “When Aurora was thrown into out weapons she somehow activated my go pro, it recorded everything. I only watched a few moments before turning it off. But we should wait until were home so Master Splinter can watch the video as well. I have a feeling we’re only gonna want to watch this tape once.”

Making eye contact with each other the brothers nodded solemnly in agreement and settled down for the long ride.

Leo laid back and closed his eyes his dream from last night replaying in his head. The theme of the nighttime vision was of an erotic nature which included Aurora and all his brothers. It entailed each one of them taking their own turn exploring her body, taking her to blissful heights while the rest of them watched. It was rather strange; he had plenty of dreams about Aurora but none with his brothers included. He wondered if it had something to do with their merge, so to speak. He would need to broach the subject with Donnie when they got back and see if any of them had similar dreams as well. His green fingers ran unconsciously over the zipper of Aurora duffle he kept close to his person, getting quick wafts of her scent. His body was sore and tired and he needed a shower desperately. His mind was heavy with the burden with the choice he needed to make; it would alter their very lives and affect everyone in his family. He just hoped he would make the right choice which was in the best interest for all of them. With his tumultuous thoughts swirling around in his head Leo soon drifted to sleep.

Aurora jolted awake as the plane connected with the ground; her eyes shot open her hand clutching her heaving chest. Looking out her window the familiar sight of New York’s sky line calmed her racing heart. They made it home safe and sound, a little worse for the wear but nothing a little time wouldn’t fix. She had no idea how she did it but somehow she had sleep through the 14 hour flight without waking. She was still tired but when she stood to begin her exit from the plane her legs didn’t wobble beneath her.

Pinching the bridge of her nose she took a deep breath, her heart was still pumping quiet fast. She may have slept through the whole plane ride but she still dreamt. She had another dream but this time Donnie was prominent taking her from behind on his desk in his lab, with Mikey thrusting into her keen mouth. She could still feel Donnie embedded within her body, deeper then Leo or Raph could reach. And Mikey, she could have sworn she still tasted the saltiness of his release that he emptied himself down her throat with a shout.

She hoped she wasn’t making noises again but luckily no one was giving her sideways glances like she was a freak moaning in her sleep.  What was going on? These were Leo’s brothers, she loved them but this sudden attraction was very quick to manifest, or was it? She always had feelings for them, deep feelings that has grown over time. Brushing those thoughts away she exited the plane and made her way to the overnight garage to get her truck. It was time to go home and take a very very long hot shower.

Getting behind the wheel she pulled out her phone and typed a quick message to Donnie telling him she’d see them tomorrow.  

Getting off the plane undetected they disappeared into the sewers and hurried home, with everything that had happened seeing their father was of high importance. Coming face to face with death made the urge to see Master Splinter that more urgent. They had things to tell him….to show him.

Jumping the familiar turn styles of their lair their loud voices announced their arrival to their master who was mediating in his room.

“Father?” Leo called setting Aurora’s duffle down on the circle platform in the middle of the lair.  

Their eyes trained in on the entrance to Master Splinter’s room as he emerged from the darkened space. His smile was a ray of sunshine in the dark cloud that had followed them home. On light feet they all ran to him each giving their father a hug.

“My sons,” Splinter called out arms outstretched for his four mutant sons.  “It has only been a couple days since we have seen each other; you act as if it has been several months.”  Splinter chuckled looking up at his four large overzealous sons.

Leo kneeled down next to his rat father looking into his wise gaze, “Father, the trip did not go expected. They had a scout still at the monastery and they found us.”

Master Splinter’s smile faded and replaced with worry, his furry hands came out grasping his eldest son’s arms waiting more info. Leo continued, “They were prepared for us and we were hopelessly outnumbered. So needless to say the ritual was performed.”

Splinter tore his gaze from Leo searching behind his sons frantically, “Aurora?”

“She’s fine, just really worn out and tired. Her body took a lot the past few days. She went home to rest. She’ll be over tomorrow; I wanna do a few tests on her.” Donnie cut in reassuring his father.

“Sensei…..” Leo swallowed hard trying to bring his father’s attention back to him. “Aurora’s sensei is still alive, and we met him. He was able to give us the information we needed to defeat the demon. If the demon was released there would have to be sacrifices in order to give Aurora the power to defeat the creature.”

Splinter cocked his head, “Sacrifices, my son?”  

“Our lives.” Raphael whispered kneeling down with Leo. He needed to be part of this conversation.

“We died sensei.” Mikey made his voice known as well.

Donnie laid his hand on his father’s shoulder, “We had to give ourselves to Aurora to give her the power to defeat it.”

“But you are all here my sons and Aurora would never allow you to sacrifice yourselves.”

“Aurora tried to stop us, pleaded with us, but she was on the brink of death herself, she was being consumed by the demon and we were next. We had no choice. We don’t know anything after that except she was able to bring us back to life. There is a recording of the events after we passed on Donnie’s go pro. We waited until we got home to watch it. We figured you’d want to see it as well so we would all watch it together.”

They watched a range of emotions pass over their father’s face, his hands tightening their hold on Leonardo arms pulling him in for another embrace. Splinter moved to each son giving him an unusually long hug for the characteristically aloof rat. They could have sworn they had seen tears in his eyes.

After a few moments he spoke. “Come my sons let us watch this recording and hopefully it will answer some unrequited questions, so hopefully we can move on from all of this and grow with its knowledge.”  The old rat ushered them to the couch where they all sat down ready for the footage Donnie’s go pro had captured. The genius’s fingers flew over his wrist keyboard pulling up the footage sending the projection into the air for all to see.

“Father, please be prepared this will not be pleasant……for any of us.” Donnie called as the footage came up.

As the recording started Splinter flinched involuntarily seeing the large demon hurtling itself towards the camera taking him by surprise. It’s toothy gaping mouth screeching nearly engulfing the entire view of the camera stopping just inches from the go pro. His furry hand jumped clamping around Leonardo’s wrist hearing the pained cry from Aurora as she was hauled out into view of the go pro. Her face contorted in pain she tried freeing herself from the large hand wrapped around her bare waist. That’s when he saw his son’s hanging helplessly from shackles from a nearby wall.

Leonardo listened to his father’s breathing as he watched the fight enfold on the giant screen before them. Right off the bat when he saw the horrid demon, the old rat jumped not expecting to witness such an intense scene right away. Then his hand latched around his wrist and Leo could hear his father’s breathing catch and stop as the demon took hold of Aurora.

He couldn’t blame him; he was there for all of it, but reliving the nightmare was still just as horrible. As the video played they neared the part Leo knew would be difficult for his brothers and himself, especially his father. His blue eyes zoned in on Aurora’s as she writhed in pain being drained of her life, it pulled at his very being seeing her like that. The pain and sorrow in her eyes knowing she could do nothing to stop their impending decision.

Soon they all found themselves leaning forward towards the screen knowing what was about to come. They were about to witness their demise on screen and in color. Raphael and Leonardo felt their father’s arms come around theirs holding on to them his eyes transfixed on the scene.

Splinter felt his heart clench painfully watching his children, his precious four son’s bodies surrendering their life forces before falling lifeless. Tears welled up in his eyes and spilled forth wetting his fur. He knew they would be fine for they were sitting right next to him on their couch back at home with him but seeing it play out was heart breaking for a father. For a second a vision of them as babies tucked in their beds as he kissed them goodnight overtook him. His body trembled as short quick sobs escaped his throat. He felt both Leo and Raph’s hands come around and press down on his hands comforting him and through Leo and Raph’s arms came Donnie and Mikey’s hands resting gently on his knees.

“Dear Aurora had to witness that first hand.” Splinter softly whispered watching his son’s souls dance in the sky just above Aurora’s dying body her horrified eyes glued to his four sons bodies. “I am watching knowing full well you are alive sitting next to me but she didn’t kn…..” his voice cut off as their souls merged with her body sending out a burst of energy sending the demon flying.

Mouths hanging open they watched as her body hovered above the ground radiating her violet aura. Her eyes were closed squeezed shut tightly in agony, she had just witnessed their deaths and she could no doubt feel them within her. Her aura began to fluctuate and pulse as her hands clenched into tight fists her lips pressed into a thin line. Then everything exploded engulfing the screen in the vibrant purple hue, her haunting scream echoed over the speakers that delivered the sounds of the recording. They could tell Donnie’s pack rolled with the energy displacement but thankfully it rotated just enough to still record everything. As the light diminished revealing the scene again the forest fire had been quenched and the thick dense smoke had been cleared. Like something from a sci-fi movie Aurora’s body emanated power sending waves of her violet aura through the air.

Leo and Raph hissed feeling their father’s nails dig into the green skin on their arms as he watched Aurora stare at his son’s bodies seeming oblivious to the ravenous charging demon. Hearing them wince in pain Splinter let up on his grip never taking his eyes away from the screen. “Come on my dear he’s almost upon you.” Splinter called to the screen as if he was watching one of his stories.

Then she spoke lowing herself back to solid ground, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry I wasn’t strong enough to stop him myself. I’m sorry you’ll never see the sun again or Master Splinter.”

Closer the demon came, and her eyes remained on the four bodies hanging lifelessly. They could see her face contort in anger and fury as it built within her fueling her power. It was almost upon her and just as he was about to collide with her she stopped him midair with her outstretched hand.

In perfect unison everyone took a deep breath in shock as she stopped the 20 foot demon without even touching it, she lifted the stunned immobile demon higher into the air as if he weighted nothing. Then in a fit of explosive rage she began to throw the demon around like a rag doll with what seemed like the flick of her wrist.

“I won’t let you win.” She hissed low in her throat at the dazed demon she had just thrown across the large space into a smoldering tree truck.

It scrabbled to its feet launching at her again, but light shot from her fingers sending the demon back once again.

“They’re dead; I couldn’t stop it, now I have to live without them in this cruel world!” They could hear the sorrow in her voice behind the unbridled fury. Her eyes wide tears flowing freely, she was breaking. Aurora closed the distance between her and demon and extended her finger out and curved it bringing the flailing demon back into the air. The purple aura around her expanded growing brighter as her fingers opened her palm outstretched to the cool evening air and then she clenched her fist sending the demon into a twisted pain filled spasm.

Launching the demon once again she turned to her swords laying a few feet in front of her, eyeing them carefully she took a few steps forward retrieving them. When her palms connected the hilts of her blades the steal began to glow, the purple hue rolling down the scrolling illuminated the writing on the edges of the blades. Rising again into the air she waited.

By now the demon had gotten to its feet, the determination apparent in its wide soulless eyes. It was determined to end her, to drink every last drop of her powers hopefully taking what remained of the warriors within. It launched itself forward again ready to take the human woman down. But its plan fell short as he reached her and found her swords impaled in its chest. It gasped for breath clawing at the hilts eyes wide with disbelief.

“How?” it growled.

“It doesn’t matter now. Go back to hell!” Aurora yanked her katanas free stepping back to watch the demon disappear. A red light began to engulf the demon as it howled in the agony of it, consuming it. Aurora backed up further towards Master Yoshi and the turtles and her hand reached behind her covering them once again in a protective bubble just in time as the demon exploded sending a devastating surge of obliteration hundreds of feet around them.

Each one of them were breathing heavy their hearts racing, she had done it and they had been able to see it. They were able to witness her raw power, the rage, the pain, the passion, and the sorrow. The experience of it all was intense leaving them all at the edge of their seats, but it wasn’t over yet. She wasn’t done, she still needed to bring them back, and they were reminded they were dead a few feet behind her.

She dropped the shield and her katanas, the heavy metal echoed as it hit the stone ground. Her head fell back her chest heaving for breath as everything came rushing towards her at once. Closing her eyes her mouth opened her lips trembling with her unhinged emotions.  Her throat constricted and let a guttural sob rip from her throat as her hand pressing over her face muffling the heart retching sound. Her whole body shook with her grief.

The four turtles didn’t realize they had tears rolling from the corners of their eyes wetting their green pebbled green skin as they watched her mourn them. It was nearly too painful to watch.

Master Yoshi reluctantly came up behind her placing his hands on her shoulders steadying her. Ignoring the gesture, she moved to them her eyes moving over each of them. A sudden realization in her face made her eyes widen and gasp out loud, “Oh god!”

Raphael was first in line as she approached him taking his cheeks in her hands. Raphael held his breath waiting for the moment to happen, his fingers dug into the old tattered fabric of the couch in anticipation.  He heard her whisper her nickname for him and his heart leapt into his throat holding back a sob.

Then it happened their eyes moved her to stomach as their colors began to swirl behind her abdomen behind her skin. Her body arched forward towards Raphael’s body as red inched up her chest into her arms. Aurora gasped realizing what was happening, she stared at her arms in shock and looked back at Raph’s face a hysterically wide smile moving across her face. Moving her face towards him the red continued up her throat and poured from her mouth into Raphael’s making him lurch forward inhaling gulps of air. His whole body began to twitch back to life. Caught in the moment Aurora pressed her mouth to his kissing the red banded turtle. Her hands rose up pulling him free of this metal shackles with ease allowing Raphael to land on his feet. He quickly cupped her cheeks taking another impromptu kiss.

Raphael looked over to his older brother and nudged him in the arm playfully, “Sorry bro I couldn’t help it, was a heat of the moment thing.”

“It’s alright Raph, calm down.” Leo calmly reassured his younger brother he wasn’t upset with him.

With each turtle she brought back they watched their colors pull from her stomach bringing them back to the living at the same time draining Aurora of her new found strength. When she finally collapsed in their awaiting arms Donnie ended the recording. The lair lay silent for quite a while as they processed what they had just watched. No one wanted to be the first one to comment. There were no words just emotions that none of them were ready to deal with.

@blossom-skies​

[alphawave-writes]

Evil actions and good intentions chapter 9: Deja Vu

Synopsis: Talon keeps Sigma captive, revealing their plans. With the help of an unexpected ally, Sigma makes his escape. But will he be able to escape with Harold?

Read it below or find it on AO3. If you’re into Sigrold, join my Sigrold discord server. We’re planning on making the first ever ‘Sigrold week’. More details will be out soon.

-

Sigma wakes up in a padded room with a solitary door and no windows. The only light is from the single lamp above his head. The room is tiny, a square box that will barely fit his body if he were to lay on the ground, except he’s not lying on the ground. He’s chained to a wall, shackles made of metal and electronics enclosed around his wrists and ankles, their discordant tune the only noise that can be heard amidst the unsetting quiet.

He screams and yells, desperate to break free, but as soon as he attempts to bend gravity to his will, the shackles light up and pain shoots through his body. The door is made of the strongest steel, no other furniture in sight for him to manipulate. He tries to make the hyperspheres ricochet and hit his shackles, but all it does is shoot electricity up through his spine and shriek until he can taste copper in his mouth. Gravity is no longer his to harness.

No one will hear his screams. This room, the shackles on his limbs, the desolate loneliness, it’s utterly familiar in all the wrong ways. The pieces of his mind threaten to crack, exposing the glue that’s kept them together all this time. It’s taken him a long time to collect all the pieces. If he loses himself this time, he’s not sure he will be able to find himself again.

So he tries to go through his mental exercises. Craft songs, remember equations, embrace the universe and the beyond. Don’t think about the shackles digging into his skin and the sandpaper texture of his dry tongue. Don’t think about what they’re doing to Harold. Don’t think about Harold. Don’t think about Harold.

Tears drip down onto the padded cushion floor before he suddenly grits his teeth. “Hold it together,” he rasps to himself, a desperate attempt to keep his emotions in check. “Y-you have to hold it together.”

But it’s no use. He remembers the way Harold hung limply in his arms after the last Talon mission like a corpse. He remembers the angry reprimanding Harold gave him after the Tempest attack, when he almost lost himself to the violence. He remembers the tenderness in Harold’s touch as they finally gave in to each other, succumbing to the will of the universe. He sobs loudly, staining the floors with his tears until his eyes are red and he’s too tired to cry. Sigma falls into a restless, dreamless sleep that lasts far too long and ends far too quickly.

A distinct metal clang wakes him from his slumber. Lethargically, he raises his head as the heavy bolts of the door slowly screw open, revealing a single person flanked by bodyguards. It’s not Moira, it’s not Satya, it’s not even the ghost of Dr. Tempest Williams. Instead, it’s a distinctly male figure, dressed up in a clean suit of purples and whites. The colours of Vishkar.

Sanjay Korpal smiles in a friendly manner, like he’s meeting with a business partner. His arms are behind his back when the door opens, though he flashes his hands up to reveal that they are empty.

“You know, it is such a pity you are kept like this,” Sanjay says without a hint of irony or cruelty. “Like a chained, rabid animal. You shouldn’t be kept like this, you are a human being. You are a scientist.”

“I am not a scientist,” Sigma growls, straining against his restraints. A bolt of electricity goes through him. He howls in agony.

Sanjay frowns. “No, I suppose not. You are better than that. You have done the impossible. You have created a micro black hole. You have harnessed gravity. Your research alone has given us the ability to live on the moon. You are more than a scientist.” His dark eyes flicker. “But a scientist is ultimately what Dr. Winston is, no?”

“WHAT DID YOU DO TO HAROLD?” He yells.

“Me? I did nothing. But my associates—or should I say our associates—they are keeping him safe. But not for long.”

“If you dare touch a hair on his head—”

“You are not in a position to bargain,” Sanjay sneers, his true colours flashing for just a second before he composes himself. “But perhaps we can come to a deal. You have something we want. And it seems we have something you want.”

Sigma stares into Sanjay’s face for several seconds. Eventually his head drops, defeated. Sanjay sees this as a sign to continue.

“We can keep Dr. Winston alive. No one will touch him. No one will do anything unless he asks. He’ll live the rest of his natural life without fear or worry. But I’ll only do this if you give me the truth. You just have to tell us what we need to hear. Is that clear?”

Sigma scowls but Sanjay shoots him a dangerous look. With a grunt, he slowly nods his head.

“Good,” Sanjay smiles. “Now, I assume you are aware of Dr. Winston’s research?”

“Metabonomic studies of microgravity on HeLa cells,” Sigma rattles from memory. He feels the need to explain himself but he successfully quells it. Sanjay does not deserve an explanation.

“I mean his real research.”

Sigma’s brows furrow. “What do you mean?”

“Now don’t give me that, we all know that’s not entirely true. You surely must know.”

“Met de deur in huis vallen,” Sigma snapped. “Get to the point.”

“The genetic therapy he administered. The nanobots. Did you really think a man like him would inject it into his systems and forget about it? I’ve heard he’d been continuing his research, experimenting on them, perfecting them.” Sanjay’s smile turns insincere. “The nanobots are respirocytes, aren’t they?”

Sigma’s eyes widen. He remembered Harold talking about them long ago, back when they were both working on Horizon One. They were swapping stories about how they were invited to work with Lucheng Interstellar on the Horizon project. He said that he had developed the gravitational device that allowed for Earth-level gravity on the lunar base. Harold said his team had developed the respirocytes and modified them for space travel. All of the gorillas had been injected with them, to be carefully monitored over the coming years. He never pretended to understand medical nanotechnology, but Harold’s face lit up like the stars when he spoke of his research. In the present, Sigma feels a gnawing, foreboding ache in his chest.

“I did my research on them,” Sanjay continues. “Artificial red blood cells that can absorb nitrogen and carry 2000 times more oxygen than normal. Motion sickness will be eliminated. Fluctuating gravitational pressures will have no ill effect. In one breath, you could breathe for up to four hours. They’ve existed as a concept for a hundred years until Dr. Winston figured out how to create them. That’s what he gave the gorillas, didn’t he? That’s how he survived.”

Sigma turned his head away. “I don’t know anything about the nanobots.”

“Don’t lie to me. Or do you really not care for your friend’s life?”

“I’m telling you the truth. I am an astrophysicist. Nanorobotics is outside of my field. Harold didn’t mention anything to me about how they work.”

Sanjay takes a few seconds to stare at Sigma before his eyes shift in colour, revealing their electronic origins. His irises widen, a tiny red laser staring into Sigma’s soul before he blinks, and his eyes return to normal. Sanjay frowns. “You really do not know. What a shame.”

A cold sweat runs down Sigma’s back. The dark whispers return, showing them the invisible notes that connects his body to Sanjay’s, thin and brittle, ready to snap.

“Why…” Sigma gulps, “…why are you asking me about Harold? Why don’t you talk to him yourself?”

“He’s a bit incapacitated at the moment. Probably will be for a long while now.”

Sigma can feel his throat constrict tightly as every horrible possibility flickers through his mind. “W-what did you do to him?” He rasps.

“Nanobots are an awfully tricky thing to take out of a body. We had to take a lot of blood out, but if we can figure out the secret of the nanobot’s function, anybody can become invincible. But Dr. O'deorain thinks we can go further than that. What if they can pass the blood brain barrier? What if we are able to control a person’s body through these nanobots? To control both the mind and the body of a single person, to make the ultimate soldier, a living weapon far stronger than even you. Exactly the thing we need to continue Talon’s plans.”

Sigma thrashes against his restraints, trying to pull his limbs free. Searing pain shoots up his body, making his eyes water in agony, but he has to escape, if only to get his hands around Sanjay’s neck and squeeze tightly. If only so he will feel Harold’s pain.

“I’ll admit, I was always curious if you would ever replicate your accident and remake the black hole. It would have been a very powerful tool, but Dr. Winston has something that can beat even gravity.”

One of the bodyguards hands Sanjay a strange looking weapon, identical to the one Satya used. Casually he flicks through the settings, stopping at the one that says ‘kill’. Sigma can hear the wails of the universe ringing in his ears, shrill violins shrieking to the beat of his heart. He tries to fight, but the bonds remain true. Without his powers he’s weak and old. He closes his eyes and is reminded of the utter insignificance of his life in the grand schemes of the cruel, dark universe.

“You have outlived your usefulness, Sigma,” Sanjay utters.

“Not so fast,” a womanly voice chirps.

It all happens too fast for Sigma to comprehend. One second he’s staring into the glowing vortex of a ball of pure hardlight, the next there are incapacitated bodies by his feet. Tracer stomps her foot on the weapon, but it doesn’t break. With a roll of her eyes, she whips out her pulse pistols, making it explode into smithereens.

Their gazes connect for a second. It’s lightning fast, but Sigma thinks he sees the curl of a bittersweet smile. Then, she’s zipping towards him in a trail of blue lightning, undoing his restraints one by one. He drops to the floor, rubbing his sore wrists and aching back. He hears the soft discordant chords of the universe as his powers return. He's floating once more.

“Sorry I’m late, but we gotta get going, Doc,” Tracer says.

He can only stare at her wide-eyed, a million questions buzzing through his mind. His voice could only speak a few into existence. “Why…why did you save me? How did you find me?”

“Winston gave me the heads up,” she says. “As for the latter question, well, I got some help.”

From behind the doorway, Satya appears, still wearing her cyan dress. Her lips are pressed tight and her brows are permanently furrowed in shame. She does not look at him as she hands him a pair of very familiar gauntlets, confiscated from his person between the library attack and when he first awoke. He slips them on one at a time, flexing his fingers. They are heavy and unwieldy, but with the help of gravity, he adjusts their weight. With a wave of his wrist, the experimental barrier flickers in and out of existence.

“That is Vishkar technology,” Satya says quietly, staring at the gauntlets. “I helped developed the first prototype for the barrier a long time ago, before they streamlined it for civilian use. I recognized them when we first met, but they told me I was mistaken, that it was merely a coincidence. And I believed them, I believed everything they told me until they said you were a criminal, bent on spreading chaos. They wanted me to kill you, but I showed you mercy.” She shakes her head as she stares at her feet. “What a fool I was to believe such lies.”

She doesn’t say any more than that. Sigma suspects it’s her form of an apology, and her presence is her way to atone for her mistakes, but he does not dare say anything. Maybe later, when they are safe, when they are out of this wretched place.

“Sym’s got a teleporter,” Tracer says. “We gotta get going now.”

“But what about Harold?” Sigma asks.

“He is deep within the facilities,” Satya replies. “We have less than a minute to get out of here before the alarm sounds. Time is of the essence.” She flashes him a sorrowful look.

A wave of panic fills his lungs. “I cannot abandon him.”

“We will rescue him another day, but it is not this day.”

“I will not go without him.”

“If you try to rescue him now, you will die.”

“Then I will die trying!” He shouts.

Satya opens her mouth to disagree, but she’s interrupted by the sounds of numerous alarms going off. The hallway outside is tainted in spinning red lights. A small squadron of guards approach the entrance but Sigma raises a chunk of the floor with his powers and slams it into them in one fell swoop. They all fall unconscious, weapons rattling harmlessly on the floor.

Satya frowns. “We have missed our opportunity for escape.”

“No worries, love,” Tracer places a hand on Satya’s hand before zipping forward. “Guess we go for plan B now," she winks at him. Sigma nods, summoning the hyperspheres in his hand.

He follows Tracer as she sprints forward, dispatching waves of guards in their way. A part of him wonders if Satya will join him or not but he hears the melodic click of heeled boots on the tiled floors as Satya follows shortly behind, zapping at any who dare flank them from behind. The hallways are cramped and tiny, and there are no identifying markers to orient him, but with the flashing red lights and the sounds of gunfire, it reminds him all too much of the government facility he escaped from years ago.

It’s all cyclical, isn’t it? The people who save him eventually become his captors. First with the people who rescued him from the ISS, and now Talon. Who’s to say Tracer and Satya won’t betray him in the future?

He grits his teeth as the voices get louder in his head, heightened by the vivid images of his previous escape filtering into his head. The longer he takes to find Harold, the more lives he is forced to take. The more lives he takes, the more he risks losing himself to the violence. He doesn’t want to succumb, not if it means losing his mind. Not if it means Harold will look at him with such horror and anger.

They race through, bodies left in their wake, until Tracer stops at a door. There’s a tiny window, showing that it has been barricaded from the other side. With a grunt, Sigma raises his hands, the door flying off its hinges, shoving the barricaded objects out of the way. He forces his way through before Tracer has a chance to react.

It’s not a room, Sigma realizes, but a wing to another area. In front of him are dozens of medical beds, all with state of the art medical equipment by their side. They are all empty except for one, where a mixture of doctors and guards stand watch. They all train their weapons on him, but he doesn’t react. His eyes are on the figure lying on the bed, strapped in tightly so they cannot escape.

“Harold!”

It’s not a man lying on that bed but a corpse, Sigma can’t help but think. Harold’s skin is shriveled and pale, dark blood vessels staining his face and arms. There are even more wires and tubes on his person connected to the machines at his bedside. They’re pumping golden liquid away from his body, taking away his life essence. The worst thing about it is Harold is alive and he is conscious. His raspy breaths can be heard as he takes in desperate breath after breath. His closed eyes open microscopically, blinking weakly against the harsh light, dark irises staring back into Siebren’s blue.

From the other two hallways more soldiers shuffle in, guns focused on the trio. He feels Tracer and Satya press close to his back, weapons on the ready.

“We’re surrounded,” Tracer says, her peppy tone faltering.

Satya is mumbling something in Hindi, her fingers weaving intricate patterns of hard light. Turrets surround their feet, keeping back any who attempt to come close. “We cannot hold them off for long,” Satya states.

Shakily, Harold slowly raises his hand off his side. It jitters with every movement as he points it to the machines at his bedside. His voice is a harsh croak, inaudible over the alarms and the shouts and the universe’s whispers, but Sigma can just make out the words. “Injector…health…light…”

In the corner of his eye Sigma spies Harold’s jet injector, a cannister of golden liquid still inside. The universe croons their message into his ears as time slows down. For once, Sigma understands what it is trying to tell him. Release me, it croons. Let me be free, and I shall give you the power to save him. Give up your body and soul and they shall be safe.

Sigma doesn't hesitate as he allows the universe’s song to flow through him. Melodies and chords rise within his body as everyone begins to float in the air. In that moment it is like he has perfect pitch, able to pinpoint the discordant notes and adjust them to his liking. With a wave of his hand he finetunes the backing instruments, rewrites the chorus, adds in the screams of shock and terror around him. The music gets louder, building up and up until it has reached its peak.

Sigma sees the horror in everybody’s expression as they clasp their hands over their ears and knows in that fleeting moment that everyone can hear the universe’s melody. In an instant, beautiful yet destructive, the black hole that destroyed his life appears in his hands once again.

Nothing will ever be the same, his younger self echoes in his mind, the last words to come out of his mouth before Siebren de Kuiper vanished from the Earth and Sigma rose to take his place.

Everything is pulled into the black hole. The beds, the machines, the people, they are sucked in one by one, making the black hole grow bigger and bigger for everything bit of matter it consumes. Tracer and Satya hold onto the doors and walls as they desperately stop themselves from getting sucked in. Harold can only struggle wildly as he tries to escape his bonds. Sigma himself is unaffected. He is the conductor, the composer, and the performer all at once. Math and music have melded together until they are one and the same. Chords are equations, lyrics are numbers. He weaves them together, until they are at perfect harmony.

All of the weapons and guards have been sucked in to the black hole, but it continues to grow. The machines connected to Harold’s body strain as they tug at his limbs before disconnecting with a vicious pop, spiraling into the black hole. He gasps loudly, scrambling to cut himself loose from his bindings. Tracer blinks forward, desperate to help, but the bed moves beneath their feet, slowly pulling them both in.

“Doc!” Tracer screams.

Sigma can’t hear her. The black hole is growing massively out of control, taking up most of the room. At this rate it will become bigger than the building itself but the universe wants more. Its appetite is endless. It won’t be satisfied until everything is consumed.

Tracer frees Harold from his bindings. He weakly grasps at the jet injector before it can be sucked in, fingers barely enclosing around the handle. He aims it at his arm and squeezes the trigger. In an instant, his skin returning to normal, his eyes aglow. Bathed in radiant light, he looks like a god, or an alien. An entity that does not come from Earth.

Satya has conjured handholds out of hardlight but she is slipping. “I cannot hold on!”

“Sym!”

The black hole wants to consume Sigma. It wants him. He is the one that released it from its confines, and it will gift him every single desire he wants as reward if he lets himself get consumed by it completely. It tells him its tantalizing secrets, of the multiverse and the holistic strings that attach everything to everyone, of every possible way gravity can be unshackled and be his to command as he pleases. It wants him, and for a price it shall reward him with treasures beyond human perception. He just has to submit fully to the universe and let himself get sucked in past the event horizon and join the other lives that have succumbed to the nothingness. The offer is beyond tempting.

“Siebren!” Harold shouts.

Just like that, the world comes crashing down on Sigma’s shoulders. Clarity returns, and in that moment he now sees the black hole for the horrible monstrosity it truly is. He tries to wave it away, but it’s too late. It continues to grow. The song goes on. He’s no longer the conductor. The black hole is no longer his to harness.

“Siebren!”

“I-I can’t make it stop!”

The black hole bubbles out of control, losing its shape, unable to maintain its form. Like the dying moments of a star before a supernova, it’s gorgeous and tragic all the same as it jitters violently, expanding and contracting, emitting waves of radiation that threaten to burn his skin. Sigma can do nothing but watch. It shrinks so small it can no longer be visible before a blast of searing hot energy ripples through his body.

Suddenly there’s a blinding light that engulfs the room, warm and safe, and then the music stops. The black hole fades away, leaving behind only rubble. The entire room has collapsed, the heat burning the furniture and walls to ash, leaving no trace of their existence. A path to the outside has been unveiled past the billowing smoke clouds, showing the lush evergreen grass and the purple skies dancing amidst the setting sun. He shouldn’t be alive, but he is. When the smoke fades away, he sees that the four of them are all safe.

Harold gasps as his glowing eyes fade back into darkness. He collapses on the floor, the golden light retreating back into his body, his skin slowly regaining colour. Sigma approaches him carefully, kneeling down to press a hand on his shoulder. Harold’s lips press into a tired, thin-lipped smile.

“Never…do that…again…” Harold says in between breaths.

Tears sting Sigma’s eyes, a bittersweet smile growing on his face as he presses a chaste kiss to Harold’s lips. Dark eyes widen for just a second before he leans forward, kissing back. It lasts only a second, too fleeting to truly appreciate the moment, but it’s enough to remind him that they are alive and they are together.

“You saved me,” Sigma whispers.

“You saved me,” Harold counters. His nose crinkles in mock disgust but his lips pull into a smirk. “You stink.”

“And you look horrible." His hands rub tenderly over Harold's arms, sweeping away the soot and grime.

Tracer approaches them with the widest grin. “Adorable as this is, Air Tracer’s back online and the next flight is now! We gotta get out of here.”

“Perhaps now you shall take my teleporter,” Satya quips, her fingers making intricate patterns once again as the teleporter base blossoms by her feet. Her tone is still sharp, but her lips curl up into a sly almost-smile. It’s her first joke, and it will also probably be her last.

Tracer leads the four of them away from the wreckage and up to a helipad near an abandoned port. Her airship does not look all that different from the others, but as she preps it and goes through the motions with methodic familiarity, its true power begins to reveal itself. There’s no one around that night. The cold evening wind bellows beneath Sigma’s feet, and for once in his life he curses not having shoes on. Harold wraps an arm around his waist, pretending to shiver when really he is just looking for an excuse to hold Sigma close. Sigma in turn wraps his arm around Harold's shoulder, pulling him closer.

The main doors slowly open, sliding down to create a ramp. The interior is lightly furnished with bolted chairs and a mini-basketball hoop and it’s all very homely unlike the stark bleakness of the Talon airships. Harold is the first to step in, a robotic noise whirring softly.

“Welcome, Dr. Harold Winston,” the voice chimes.

“That’s Athena,” Tracers calls from the cockpit. “Overwatch AI. A lovely gal, really. You’ll like her.”

Harold rubs the back of his head sheepishly, gazing up to stare at the many cameras. “Can you call me Harold instead?”

“Certainly,” Athena replies. “Would you prefer I call you by different pronouns as well?”

“No, that’s fine.”

Harold makes himself comfortable on the plush cushions, settling in quickly. It takes him a few moments before he notices that neither Sigma nor Satya have joined him.

“Come on, Sym,” Tracer calls out. “Get in. You’re part of us now.”

Satya pauses for a few seconds, unfurling her fist right in front of her. In her hand is a small blank card half the size of her palm, the Overwatch symbol crudely painted in marker pen alongside Tracer’s real name. The item Tracer handed her earlier, Sigma realizes.

“I cannot join you,” Satya whispers. “I have betrayed you all. I have betrayed Vishkar. I see now that it is my very presence that brings about such disorder.”

Tracer hops away from the controls and blinks over. Her smile is tight but genuine as she glances down at the card. “You know why I gave that to you?”

“You want to recruit me.”

Tracer nods. “The world needs more heroes, now more than ever.”

“And you think I have the makings to be a hero?” Satya says incredulously.

“Everybody has the potential,” Tracer says. “It’s just a matter of choosing to take action. Just have to take that first step.”

The words are clearly meant for Satya but it resonates deep within Sigma. Like a gong has been sounded within his chest, spreading vibrations down his body. Harold stares at him without a word. They don’t need words or actions anymore to communicate. Just the silent transmission of their thoughts through a simple glance.

He wants to tell Harold his darkest fears. He wants to tell Harold that he’s dangerous, that he’s one step away from losing him to the universe’s destructive desires. For as long as he’s kept his fragile mind together, he knows he is a living weapon, waiting for someone to pull the trigger and detonate the world and realise Talon’s awful desires. But now he realizes that he’s not the only one. Harold’s abilities are just as powerful, if not more so. In the wrong hands, Harold can be far more dangerous than Sigma ever will be. Talon seems to agree, if Sanjay Korpal is to be believed.

For as long as Harold has been by his side again, Sigma thought he will only bring Harold pain and death. He still thinks it now, but perhaps together, with their combined talents and abilities, something new can be synthesized. A new substance that turns the pain and sorrow into something happier, more peaceful. A chemical bond that can not be broken by anything. Not even gravity.

The first step is the hardest, but it is also the most rewarding when he finally enters the craft and sees Harold smile warmly at him, relief and joy caressing his cheeks. He sits down next to him, trying and failing to hide a bashful smile. A few seconds later, heels click on the hard floor as Satya takes a seat opposite them, also failing to hide an anxious smile of her own.

Tracer blinks back up to the cockpit, starts the engine, and within minutes they are rising from the ground. Oasis gets smaller and smaller until the people can no longer be seen, and the buildings are just a bunch of shapes sticking out of the desert. Sometime during their ascent Harold leans his head over Sigma’s shoulder. Under the table, he reaches for Sigma’s hand, entwining their fingers together. His eyes close, his expression almost peaceful.

It’s absolutely obvious what he’s doing, to the point that Satya hides a quiet chuckle behind her hand, but Sigma pays her little heed. He leans his head on top of Harold’s and lets his own eyes drift closed. All of a sudden he’s painfully aware of the weight of the world on his shoulders, leaving him fatigued and sore.

“Next stop: Watchpoint Gibraltar,” Athena announces over the speakers.

“Next stop: Winston,” Harold murmurs under his breath, voice crackling with sleep.

The circumstances of their escape are far too similar to when Talon broke him out of the government facility. A small group of three, saving him from capture when he doesn't deserve it, saving him even though they know exactly what he's capable of. Even now Sigma has his concerns about Overwatch, if they will betray him like so many others have betrayed him. But there is one thing different this time. Harold is by his side, tired and broken but safe. He is absolutely sure that Harold will never betray him.