#because the devastation is both numbing and it cuts into me like a blade in my chest blunt edged but constant pressure

[elytrafemme]

i'm starting to wonder if therapy is going to be productive because no matter what happens i'm probably going to experience this every night of my fucking life

[genshingarbage]

Don’t Say Goodbye. || One-Shots ||

I am just in a mood to create broken hearts right now it would appear, this is just a few one-shots on a couple of the boys and my take on how they would act with there s/o dying in their arms due to various reasons based on the character i am writing for. - Mod Diluc

Diluc

The sound of yells grew distant as the vision began to blur from your eyes. The only sensation you could still feel was the tight grasp of your hand in the larger one wrapped round it squeezing it. Diluc was holding you as you laid there on the muddy dirt, resting your bloody and broken body on his legs. Cradling you like a new born while shaking back and forth, trembling in traumatic disbelief over what was taking place before him.

His eyes were swelling with tears threatening to break out and spill down his cheeks, he kept kissing your weak hand gently, each kiss being dragged out longer than the one before, shaky shushes passing his lips in a frail attempt to soothe your weakening body. You'd been adventuring alone again for several weeks away from Mondstat and The Dawn Winery.

You didn't think much of it as you often left for long adventuring trips, bringing back goofy and silly souvenirs for your beloved Diluc, you just didn't realise this time around you'd be ambushed by the Fatui on your long trek back to his winery. Having been unbeknownst to you fatally wounded, you managed to break free and escape, bleeding heavily from your right side, shakily sprinting to the only place you knew could be a safe haven, Dilucs winery.

You'd fallen to the ground in a crumpled heap not barely a few seconds after Diluc spotting you running down the dusty and dirty road. He sprinted to you eyes wide yelling as loud as his vocal chords would physically let him. "Y/N! No!" He skidded and slumped down into the dirt himself, tugging you carefully but quickly into his lap muttering 'No' over and over in rapid breaths. And now you were where you were at, the life slowly but surely leaving you while all you could feel was Dilucs gentle kissing lips and warming embrace.

Does he know how much you love him? Did ever know how much he meant to you? Oh no... the souvenir you'd found for him... you dropped it back when you was ambushed... he would've loved it so much... however likewise with him to you, did you know how much you meant to him? How truly happy he was that he'd finally found someone he could trust and give his life to. Had he ever even said he loves you back? All these questions that were going to be left unanswered to the both of you.

Still trembling he watched as your light dimmed in your eyes, leaning his head down he softly placed a kiss against your unresponsive lips, parting ever so slightly to rest his forehead against yours and whimpering in a broken tone. "I love you, Y/N" When he lifted his head back up he felt the air being squeezed out of his lungs to see your eyes were now closed and there was no longer movement in your body.

He looked up at the night sky, the stars twinkling so beautifully over such a devastating and tragic moment. Closing his eyes he silently prayed the gods take good care of you up there till he can finally be there with you. Lifting up slowly with your now lifeless body bridal style in his arms he began to walk back to his winery, his expression stern and showing no pain. But it was all a facade for inside he was crying and screaming to the heavens and hell for having let this happen to you.

"They will pay Y/N, I promise you. I'll see you again soon; someday."

Childe

The rain was pouring heavily, hitting angrily against the cold hard concrete, the drops splashing up and back down as they landed with such impact. You were wet and cold, but your body had been going numb for minutes now as the blood was leaving your body so quickly. You shakily looked round to see the last attacker being cut down to the floor by your one and only love, Ajax.

The unknown man's body hadn't even hit the floor by the time Ajax had thrown his weapons down and rushed to your side. "Oi oi, come on now, look alive. More will be coming soon." He let out a nervous laugh not wanting to believe what he was seeing in front of him right now. You'd only gone out for a little drink and joke about in the beautiful rainy day, you both enjoyed running around in the rain so much after all. He tapped your cheek gently trying to keep you conscious as he could see your focus leaving you as fast as your blood was.

He pressed his hand against the open wound in your chest; a pitiful attempt to try slow the bleeding. You cursed yourself for not being more alert of your surroundings when that man crept up behind you and ambushed you by surprise. He shook his head vigorously side to side. His mask hiding most of the unbearable pain behind it. He should've known better than to think it was safe to come back to Liyue so soon after having caused such chaos.

Why the fuck did they have to go for you both though, you were innocent from all this it was him they wanted so why, why?! Why you?! He made a soft 'Tsk' sound from his mouth as he choked back the tears while looking at you. You had little vision left, little time too, but with what little strength you had remaining you lifted your hand up gently and pulled his mask off. Wanting to see his face one last time before you're gone from this world.

Exposing his damp cheeks and red eyes to you, you were able to form the smallest smile at him. "Don't... d-don't leave me Y/N, please..." his voice was barely a whisper now as he remained stiff by your side. "I won't..." You coughed back gently, you didn't even try to sound believable with that; you both knew it was a lie and you were on your way out with only seconds to spare.

You were his everything, he knew you was too good for him from the very beginning, yet you was determined to always be by his side. He knew he was a bad guy, a villain, but with you by his side he was able to feel like someone's hero. You meant fucking everything to him so why did someone so pure have to be taken so soon. You coughed gently once more before choosing your last words carefully, knowing they were to be your last.

"Childe- Ajax, you're not a bad guy. I have and will always love you..." Your voice faded into a whisper and then... nothing. Your eyes closed and your hand that had been against his cheek was now limp, the only reason it was still in its prior place was because Childe himself had been applying slight pressure to keep it there. You were gone now, at rest and probably somewhere much better and further away from this hell.

He looked at your resting face just wishing you'd open your eyes again and say it was all just a big terrible joke. But that wasn't the case, however his broken and torn expression immediately dissolved when he heard the rapid steps growing louder. "There he is! Apprehend him now!" One of the guards shouted to the several others. He quietly apologised to your resting form, letting your hand leave his face and finally rest with the rest of your body, he was also sorry as he wasn't gonna be able to give you the burial you deserved, he wasn't gonna be able to use that ring he'd bought you to propose with, and unknowing to him, you wasn't gonna be able to tell him the good news that he would've been a dad.

He lifted up slowly, hair now soaked and water droplets falling from all over his body. The blood leaving your body had began to swirl and dance with the water pooling against the concrete as the heavy rain showed no signs of slowing down. His mask back in his hand before it found its way back on his face, turning and stepping over to his slung down blades and kicking them up into the air grabbing them. Parting his knees swiftly and getting into his battle ready stance. The mask made him look like the bad guy every one claimed him to be, but underneath was the most broken and tormented boy that they'll never know.

"I'll always love you too Y/N, I am sorry but you're wrong, I've always been a bad guy, I just... I tried to be a better one for you."

Xiao

The sky was ablaze, organe and yellow flickering all over, ember floating up and down softly. It was so hot; unbearably so as you were laying on the wooden floor of the top balcony at the Wangshu Inn, blood spilling out of you and soaking the wood all around you. The fire was growing dangerously closer, but did it matter now? You would be dead in a couple more minutes away.

Had everyone escaped the Inn at least? Was everyone safe? You hoped they were. But it was then you felt an instant gust of cold wind wail past you like a roaring monster and die down the flames that had been encircling you and drawing ever so closer. Your vision was nearly gone and it was hard to make out anything except the smoke and fire, but those blue oni mask eyes were unmistakable, Xiao was above you right now.

His hand was hovering over your cheek, still scared that even now he may cause you more pain than comfort in your fleeting moments. "Y/N wake up. Don't be defeated so easily, this is truly pathetic, even for your standards." Harsh words as always, you knew he was sad and just lashing out, his words were cracking and his voice was wavering in its tone. Was that a sniffle? It was hard to make out among the crackling fire destroying the walls and wood around you and his mask muttering and muffling his already quiet words.

Why did they go for you? They wanted him to become nothing anymore, to just slip away and leave the entire history of Liyue to them. Leave the nation built under Rex Lapis to the incapable feeble hands of mortals. He couldn't ever allow that, he refused to back down so easily. But this? Surprise attacking the Inn and burning it down while taking the only mortal who held something to him away? How sick and lowly of them.

You went to speak but all you could muster was a cough as blood spat out your mouth across your bottom lip, your time was fading fast. He swallowed down and removed his mask, a shake in his hand as he did so, resting his proper gaze on your form one last time, allowing you to see him in his first ever vulnerable state, tears slowly falling from his face, letting his hand slide across your cheek gently, swiping the blood off your soft delicate lip. Why did it hurt him so bad? Why was this reaching so deep within him?

All those times he'd sighed and disappeared to get away from you, all those eye-rolls to your silly jokes and huffs to your tedious and pointless tasks. Why did he feel an ache in his throat when he thought about how he won't ever get to experience those annoying moments again? What was this? It couldn't be. Had he truly fallen in love with a mortal? Impossible, but what else could explain this gut wrenching feeling he had swirling inside him.

Everything was crumbling apart around him but his focus remained on you as you looked at him with those eyes, those same eyes that often stared at him with hope and admiration, now they stared with soft kindness and fleeting wishes. If this was love then he wasn't ready to have it taken from him so soon, but what could he do except watch as you left this world. He gritted his teeth together and his hand clenched tightly round his blood stained spear. This was truly unforgivable. If only he had killed those monsters sooner, got to you quicker... maybe then he could've saved you.

"I..." he began to stutter gentle words out while stroking his thumb delicately across your cheek, why hadn't he just swallowed his pride and touched you sooner? Why hadn't he just admitted this to himself quicker and embraced you. You had always been there for him despite his many harsh rejections, you were nothing but kind and truthful, loyal and honest to him and now? He resented himself for not having taken the chance to love that he had had in his grip for so long. Your vision was gone now and your ears were following quickly behind. "I... Y/N..."

Just spit it out already, before the time runs out for you- "Y/N I love you..." he looked at your face searching for a response but you were gone now. The gods had given you all the time they could spare and unfortunately it wasn't long enough to Xiao. It wasn't fair. He couldn't even let you know how he truly felt before you were ripped from him. Tears rolled down his face faster now, but the sorrow and pain he felt quickly welded into anger and inner rage boiling at the highest temperature.

He frowned deeply, lifting up from your body, hiding his broken expression behind his oni mask once again, shakily breathing in with a deep sigh, the shake in his hands slowly dissolving as his mind set itself onto a new mission, he turned and walked to the banister of the balcony and swiftly lifted up onto the top, looking over the landscape around him as the only place he'd truly ever known as home was burning to ash around him. He turned round taking one last longing look at your lifeless form and then leapt high into the air soaring through the skies, straight for Liyue.

You never wanted this, he knew that, you'd never want him to cause a war over your death, but you wasn't here to talk reason into him anymore. He was never gonna see your annoyingly beautiful face again, and this was all Liyues fault. They had to pay, and if that meant causing a war between humans and Adepti... then so be it.

"Forgive me Y/N, but without you here now, I see no reason to keep caring for these monsters. I'll hope you'll understand when I see you again one day."

[diana-prince-s]

WIP Wednesday!

leave before you love me

hello hi I’ve had this written for a month so I figured I’d just post it this Wednesday

Triple loop.

The ice is comforting. Denali always knows where it is — it is unmoving beneath her blades, supporting her fluid moves and crunching landings. She skates over the ice in the early morning, feels her muscles pump and clench. Her force presses down into the cruel surface and carves jagged designs, proof of her own existence that isn’t easily erased.

It is austere, especially this morning when the sun rises through the great glass windows in the rink and projects orange patches over its glistening surface. Denali is at the rink earlier than everyone but the owners and the snack stand guy, and she revels in both the privacy and the comfort that this place brings her. She’s stiff — she hasn’t skated since the accident three weeks ago, having taken off work to devote time to Sara and Lauren. Her spins are slower, her jumps are lower, her landings are shakier. Her current performance doesn’t bode well for the string of lessons she has booked today. She stops in a patch of sun, squinting from the glare, and looks at the ice beneath her feet.

The ice is strong, formidable. It breaks windows, sinks ships, holds up an entire ecosystem. Building, protecting, feeding, creating. The ice isn’t fickle. It won’t suddenly disappear, pulled out from under her like a rug. She’s never left the ice afraid that it wouldn’t be there when she returned. 

Denali is determined, today. She’s hit her doubles and one triple, she’s at least made an effort on her turns. But three weeks off shouldn’t feel this exhausting. She speeds across the ice and flies into another spin. Her hamstrings scream at her to stop. She won’t — she just wants to go back to normal. Denali picks up speed again, her blades cutting the ice with crisp cracks. One foot in front of the other. She turns around and skates backwards. Left foot, right foot, kick. Her toe digs into the ice and launches her into the air. She makes two and a half rotations, and as she goes for the third, her skate scrapes on the ice. She doesn’t have time to catch herself, and she lands hard, falls to the ice and slides out.

Figure skating is a competition against other skaters, yes, but it is also a competition against the laws of physics. Gravity wants bodies to stay on the Earth. Figure skaters want to leave it, and they rely on their own bodies and the ice to do it. No matter how high Denali jumps off of it, no matter how far or fast her body travels over it, she must always return to the ice.

Even when she falls.

Triple lutz.

When Denali was seventeen, she had the chance to compete at the U.S. National Figure Skating Championships in Spokane, Washington at the novice level. She had moved away from Alaska on her own by then and was training in Salt Lake City among the likes of Nathan Chen and Mirai Nagasu. She had devoted her life to skating.

She was also dealing with her sexuality, an increasingly-pressing issue that she had put off for too long in Alaska. By then, she couldn’t deny how much she loved other girls, how much she wanted their attention, their love, their praise. Denali was a people pleaser. That’s why, just a week before she had to leave for Nationals, she went to a local concert with Emily, the hot older girl from school she’d had a huge crush on. 

Emily snuck in joints and her friends brought airplane-sized Fireballs and Denali tried everything, just so she could impress Emily. They stayed out until two-thirty, but Emily came to her apartment and was in her bed until five in the morning, when Denali was supposed to get up and train.

It took her exhausted body double the effort to simply skate around the rink. Her limbs felt numb every time she went for a jump, she could barely get her arms over her head for spins, and when she tripped trying to pick up speed, she laid on the icy surface for a moment and wished that she could just fall asleep.

Denali had nailed all her triples in training, they were like clockwork at that point. Easy. But the triple toe she tried to do that morning didn’t go smoothly. She landed hard and rolled her ankle, tore three ligaments in it and had to pull out of Nationals.

It was the devastation of her career, the end of her life’s work. She was already considered old for her competitive level, so this setback marked the end of her competitive career. She’d never make the Olympics, so what was the point of continuing?

Triple salchow. 

The doctors, the coaches, her parents were all optimistic — not because she could skate again after the injury healed, but because she’d been injured before it was too late. She could still go to college at eighteen, build a career for herself, have a normal life on the normal timeline. So, that’s what she did. She went to NYU and got herself a job as a waitress, she majored in business. She met Jackie.

Jackie was the one to convince her to return to skating. She did it sneakily, too — they got tipsy at a bar early one night in the fall of their freshman year and Jackie bet her that she couldn’t make it three laps around the rink without falling. A few dollars and Denali’s pride were on the line, so they looked up the nearest rink with an open-skate and made their way over. 

It was her first time at a rink in seven months. Denali grumbled that these aren’t even good skates and the ice won’t be fresh — but all ice is the same. It’s reliable. And as soon as Denali stepped foot on that beautiful, cold surface, she remembered what it was like to be held up by something so unmovable as ice. She fell in love with skating all over again.

Even though she did fall before her third lap.

That night, she and Jackie made friends with the owners. She came to the rink every day for a month to retrain her body and get her moves back. It wasn’t easy — she wasn’t able to land a double until after finals and her spins didn’t tighten up by Christmas — but the owners saw her potential for teaching and gave her a few beginner students. Denali was on the full teaching staff by the beginning of her second semester.

All because of Jackie.

[sweetestlamb]

Rain On Me

A Motel Smut Fic 

Summary: The rumbling of the engine vibrates through her exhausted body, the fatigue from her aimless walk now catching up with her as she clings to the wide span of his torso. The rain leaves his thin cotton shirt plastered to the coiled muscle of his abdomen, those enticing abs she had only seen a glimpse off are tight and compact beneath her weather worn digits. 

Author's note: Sorry that this took a while, life has been a bit busy in the best way. I’m very excited to see so many others joining the fandom and writing fanfiction though, glad to be able to read stories from talented writers! I hope you guys enjoy this one, I had a harder time than usual with this smut, and the pov switches a few times because MY and GT had a lot to say and I just followed their lead. I can never write smut without a tinge of emotions so please excuse the excessive inner thoughts and inner monologues, I initially planned on just starting with the sex but I just love a build up. * Plays Ashanti’s “Rain On Me” 

Thank you for the beautiful header @essantial​ you’re the absolute best! 

The rumbling of the engine vibrates through her exhausted body, the fatigue from her aimless walk now catching up with her as she clings to the wide span of his torso. The rain leaves his thin cotton shirt plastered to the coiled muscle of his abdomen, those enticing abs she had only seen a glimpse off are tight and compact beneath her weather worn digits.

She hasn't the vaguest idea where he intends to bring them but she knows she'll follow him wherever he leads. Her heart had spattered to a stop just like the motorcycle's rumbling engine when she saw him approaching, his face chiseled and undeniably beautiful under the hard cascade of precipitation pouring from the skies. She'd never had a knight in shining armor, never had anyone try to protect her. She was hard, jagged and sharp, lashing out and wounding others before they could get close enough to harm her.

Yet.

There he'd been. Coming to save her even after snapping at her like a viper, acid dripping from the tip of his tongue as he crushed her under his foot like the empty can he'd compared her to. She had been too shocked to respond, to retaliate, to defend herself.

There was also that little voice that had awakened in her mind, advising her to think before she acted, a voice that frustratedly sounded like the very person who she itched to lash out at. The irony of her situation was not lost on her. He was both the one who tormented her and soothed her.

Ergo, she'd let his words slash her skin, hot tears boiling in her eyes as he rejected her once again. She hated herself for how devastated his words had left her, what he declared was no different from the thoughts that plagued her mind already. Was she just an empty can with no feelings? Loud and clattering, merely a hindrance to others who needed to be avoided at all cost? Was her father justified for squeezing the air from her lungs? If she had succumbed to death's inevitable call would she be doing the world a favor?

But, he had come to rescue her, and by extension of his act did that mean she was worth saving? Worth living?

"Get off. We're here." His curt words abruptly drag her back from her rumination, as he begins to slide off the bike, trying to pry her cold fingers from his immense warmth. "Let go." She tightens her hold fearing that if she releases he will abandon her, leaving her cold and alone. With a strong swipe he breaks her tight grip on his soaked shirt and stands up, long legs unfurling from their bent position on the bike.

"Come on."

He walks away before she obeys his direct command, and that's when she realizes where "here" is, a brightly lit motel, fluorescent light blinding in the dark fog left by the rain. After a slight pause, she hops off the bike following him through the glass door into the motel, the heat surrounds her almost immediately, her soaked body shivering underneath his sweater- the knight's armor.

The motel clerk perks up at their entrance, pushing the magazine he'd been reading to the side before welcoming them, "Hello, how can I help you?" His voice is inviting, much like a vendor selling goods on the streets.

Gang-tae flounders at the innocuous question, as she rolls her eyes, he routinely claims she's impulsive and needs to take time to think things through, yet he is the one that sped out on a motorcycle during a storm and now brought them to a motel only to act like a deer in headlights when asked a simple question.

She doesn't save him, watching him raptly along with the motel clerk. Curious about what he'll say next. Seconds pass as they both watch him awaiting an answer before finally, he solemnly turns to her, "Get a room here and wait out the rain. I'll ride home."

His words cut her like the blade of a sharpened knife, his presence was merely temporary, he'd had no plans of remaining with her, she was simply something to save and capriciously toss away before forming any attachment, insignificant. Anger and shame simmer in the pit of her churning stomach.

Poison curls around each syllable in her words, "I didn't ask you to bring me here, I was fine walking in the rain!" She spins around, with the full intention of marching right back into the rain and walking until her body is numb, longing to feel nothing and become the empty can he believes her to be.

His hand on her wrist halts her motion, "Stop being stubborn! You can't go back out there, it's too dangerous! Are you that fearless to travel outside in this weather by yourself? What if something happened to you and I wasn't there to--"

Her eyes widen at his shouted concerns, his grip on her wrist is hard as steel as his eyes pierce into her soul. Who is he to look at her like that and say those words to her? As if he cares about her.

She explodes.

Snatching her wrist from his hand she bulldozes into his space, eyeing with satisfaction as he retreats as she looms closer, one step forward, one step back.

"Why do you care if I'm out in this rain? Who cares if I put on a strip show outside like a crazy woman?" His eyes minutely twitch at the suggestion, something almost possessive flashing for only a second.

She misses it as her rant continues, "Are you angry? Does it bother you? Do you like me? Do you think you can handle it!" She barks each question into his face, until they collide with the machine, lights blaring in their sight, the crash from her hand slamming on its surface deafening in the otherwise silent hall.

It is dead quiet, only the sound of their breaths filling the air.

"Well? Why aren't you answering? I want to know how you're feeling, I can't tell. Maybe it's because I'm a empty can." She states spitefully, watching regret swirl in the dark pools of his eyes, his wet rain curled fringe only distracting her for a split second.

She shows no mercy, mockingly pressing on, "Why are you being so quiet? Are you an empty can too?"

Despite the clear difference in their height, he shrinks under her wrath, cowering under the weight of the carefully placed venomous words.

"I...I..." He stutters out, incomplete sentences dangling in the air, she watches as his eye dart across her face before he looks over her shoulder and suddenly turns a fiery scarlet hue. His cheeks lighting up like a wildfire. He pushes past her arm cornering him in and she spins around to continue her tirade.

Before her eyes land on the motel clerk, shiny foiled contraception hanging from the tips of his fingers, mischievous smirk on his face.

"She'll take a room." He reaches into his pocket, pulling out his wallet and slamming down an indiscernible amount of money on the table.

The clerk begins to rattle off information about the quality of his "steamy hot" rooms and all the features available, mirrored rooms, costumes, handcuffs, and even a hot tub. She hears almost none of it, still stuck on his statement, she'll take a room.

The motel clerk passes the room key, glimpsing at them both, eyes pointedly lingering on Gang-tae as if trying to converse with him with just the shifting of his pupils, before mouthing, stay with her.

She doesn't give him a chance to answer, reject her again, he has hurt her enough today to last a lifetime.

The rolling sound of the zipping descending is loud as she pulls it down the length of her body, tugging the jacket swiftly from her body, ignoring the immediate chill that stabs her skin, shivers rushing through her body. Vehemently she throws the sweater at him, watching as he jumps back from the soaked material before his eyes land on her throat. He gasps at the sight.

She knows what he's seeing, can feel her father's hands still curled around her throat bruising the tender skin and marking her a monster. Something to be passionately murdered, snuffed out of existence.

If that was his sole purpose for coming she didn't need his fucking pity.

Snatching the key she storms off, absently listening as the clerk directs her to the location of her room. She strides down the winding maze of the hall, following the signs as they guide her until she sees her room door, 1J. Finally, she approaches the door, key already in hand.

Only to be stilled by a hand on her shoulder, twisting around in shock she's rendered speechless by the face that greets her.

She's never seen this man in her life but his smarmy smile instantly puts her on edge. A gold tooth glints back at her when his mouth curls up in a salacious grin, "What's a pretty little thing like you doing here all on your lonesome? You look like you could use some company." He boldly moves into her space, openly perusing her like goods, her skin crawls under his appraisal, her black undergarments peeking through the soaked white of her dress.

The desire to cover herself is colossal.

"Don't touch me." She shoves him away, snarling at his audacity, homicidal thoughts surging in her mind as she contemplates removing her shoe and bludgeoning him until he's an unrecognizable pulp on the dingy carpeted floor. 

He chuckles at her refusal, "Don't be like that. You should know that girls that look like you only come here for one reason. Don't play hard to get. I have money." He proudly pulls a few crumpled bills from the dark crevice of his pants, his hands encroach closer, intending to slip the money into the top of her dress.

She recoils from his grubby hands, voice raising with indignation and horror, "You think I'm a whore?! And you think you can pay for me with this measly amount of money? Get away from me you loser, use your hand like you have been all your life!" Her voice echoes off the walls and she watches the smirk melt off his face, giving way to pure distinguishable rage.

"You bitch! I'll show you your place!" His hand draws back, open palm flying toward her face. She stands still expecting the fire that will ignite on her cheek.

Only it never comes.

Her eyes which screwed shut in anticipation of the impact, flutter open only to see his broad back covering her completely. His hands are wrapped tightly around the wrist of the man, twitching in his grip as the man sputters out, "Who are you? Let go of me! This is none of your busine--aahh!!" He screams dropping to his knees as the pressure on his wrist increases, pain etched in every wrinkle of his putrid face.

"Okay! Okay! I'm sorry, please let go. You're breaking my wrist, please!" The man pleads on the floor, pulling at Gang-Tae's hold, unable to pry even a finger loose, she watches as he squeezes even tighter, his own white knuckles standing out starkly against the burnt red of the man's wrist.

Then finally he releases him. Tosses his hand away with a short cry, when he speaks his voice is crushed glass, "Get out of here." The man clutches his tender flesh to his chest before scrambling away, too terrified to even look back at them as he runs away.

He turns to her with a penetrating glare, "Why are you standing in the hallway looking like that? Come let's go inside." He motions at her body at his first inquiry, eyes struggling to avoid her tempting figure that can be seen through the almost transparent dress.

She remains still, baffled by his sudden appearance before turning to open the door and watching dazedly as he enters the room, dragging her alongside.

She'd unaware of the internal battle that had raged his brain after her departure, his eyes had followed her longingly as she moved further and further away before disappearing out of his sight. He couldn't deny the fear that raked through his bones, yearning to protect her, he'd tried to leave only to stomp back in to the annoyingly cheerful smile of the motel clerk. Defeated, he'd asked for a second key and followed her down the hallway, only to see red and then black. His reaction had been visceral, immediate and uncontrollable. He'd yearned to beat that bastard to a unrecognizable pulp for daring to touch her.

Thinking of what would have happened had he not been there makes his skin crawl. He can't leave her alone in a place like this with suspicious characters like that lurking around every corner.

Despite his best efforts he couldn't stop the pull that she had on him, his body dragged into her powerful orbit. He watches her beautiful face, expressionless as she gazes at him, none of that fire that's usually directed his way. His eyes soften at the red markings that decorate her otherwise blemish free silken skin. His anger flares again.

"What are you doing here? I thought you left." Never one to stray away from a confrontation, she immediately begins her interrogation. Eyes narrowing into dangerous slits, tracking his every movement for signs of deceit.

At a lost at how to answer, he simply stands there, their eyes locked in a battle that has been fought many times since they crashed into each other's lives.

"I don't need your pity." She bites out, snarling at him.

Her fury ignites his own, "Good. You won't get any from me. I brought you here so I should stay. That's all."

Her eyes scream liar, liar, liar as they pierce into him but she doesn't question him any further. Stomping off to the what must be the bathroom before slamming the door shut. He sighs a short breath of relief before collapsing into the bed.

Without her there to distract him he openly glances around the room, cheeks burning when he notices what exactly he has willingly walked into. The entire ceiling is smooth clear glass, streak free and crystalline shiny. His own embarrassed face stares back at him, his lips opened in a small oh.

Something fuzzy and pink catches his attention in the reflection at the head of the bed, he turns to see what it is before flinching away in surprise. He falls off the bed during his jolt, butt plummeting into the floor.

His brains tumbles before resettling.

Hand cuffs. A pair of hand cuffs are attached to the metal bar of the bed post, one half closed as the other lays open in a fluffy pillow. He's only asked for a basic room, nothing special, his exact words. Yet there is nothing ordinary about this room. He mentally curses the motel clerk, that presumptuous instigator, he'd give him a piece of his mind when they left.

All the blood rushing to his head distracts him from hearing Mun-yeong's return. Steam wafts from the bathroom, completing her dramatic entrance, his heart thumps into his chest violently as he watches her step through the steamy fog.

God damn it.

Her long raven hair spills over a naked shoulder, wavy and damp, clinging to her skin as she approaches the bed. The only thing protecting her dignity is a comically small towel, barely reaching the middle of her thigh, putting miles of bare skin on display, her legs smooth and long, skin gleaming in the dim light.

His tongue is heavy and dry in his mouth as he gapes at her.

He juts his head up at the ceiling only to groan in frustration when her equally enticing reflection greets him. Stammering out, "Yah! Put--put some clothes on. You can't.... can't just leave the bathroom with a towel on!"

She smirks, "Why are you getting so worked up? You saw my clothes they're soaking wet, I couldn't put that back on. This towel was my only option, unless you preferred I came out naked." Her perfectly plucked eyebrow lifts at the provocative suggestion, he adamantly tries to obliterate all images of that very vision that rush to his mind. Other regions of his body similarly taking an interest with this conversation.

He doesn't respond to her obvious teasing remark. Primarily because he is overwhelmed, not used to being this turned on. He can't even deny that reality, not as the heat between his legs begins to perk up in interest, ignored for far too long.

Terrified he glances back at her, finding her enraptured in the ceiling , winking and smiling at her reflection, oblivious to his plight. Gratitude and relief both dance in harmony across his skin, he uses the diversion to quietly scamper to the bathroom. The door closing signaling a much needed reprieve. He lets out a sigh as he presses his head to the door, the wood cool against his hot face. In and out, in and out. He centers himself, tugging the strings of control back into there rightful place. Feeling the desire that bloomed in his loins fissure away until only smoke remains in its destruction.

Seeing her undergarments carelessly strewn across the floor almost undoes all the carefully constructed walls he built but he closes his eyes and hops into the shower, willing himself to think of nothing.

He did the best he could to wring the excess water from his clothes before dejectedly dragging the wet cold material back onto his now shower warm skin.

It's not the best solution but it is unthinkable to exit the bathroom in only a towel, knowing that she would be donning as little as well. If they were both in towels, it would be bad. Catastrophic, even.

He gives himself a pep talk sitting on the towel, praying for control and Mun-yeong's deep slumber that will last the remainder of the night. 

His second wish is not granted as he opens the bathroom door, stopping in his tracks at the inexplicable scene.

Her lips are sealed around something plastic held between her fingers, she blows into the object and it expands in her hands, he notices the phallic shape before realizing that she's blowing the condoms like balloons.

Where did she get condoms?

Why does she have condoms?

Why was she blowing them up like erotic balloon animals??

He sputters out, flailing his arms, "Wha--What are you doing?"

With a final puff of moist air, she pulls her lips away from the condom, tying it off and looking at him nonchalantly, "You were gone for a long while, I got bored." She shrugs, "Plus we won't be needing any condoms tonight."

Disappointment drops like lead his his stomach at her statement, he should be happy, should nod in agreement and be thankful that they are on the same page, she will not be seducing him or tempting him to lose control.

Good.

Great.

Fantastic.

His heart shouts liar liar liar as he tries to convince himself.

"I'm on birth control so we don't need these getting in the way. I want to feel every inch of you, I don't want anything in between us." She calmly detonates a bomb on him, all while undressing him with her eyes and leaving every little to his imagination in her attire. Tossing the condom to the side to land with all the others she has blown up. 

"I told you to stop. Stop saying things like that to me."

"Hypocrite. You're the one who brought me to a motel, you're the one that got jealous in the hallway, you're the one who came out in a storm to rescue me. Your actions scream as loud as my words. You want this too. You want me. Just admit it."'

Admit it.

His head is spinning from her accusation, his behavior has been nothing but confusing to him as well since the moment he raced out on the motorcycle, but hearing her lament everything so concisely forces him to face the truth. He had been the one to seek her out. Impetuously, searching for her as soon as he heard what happened, unable to stop himself from reacting. Why did she have this affect on him? What was it about her that called out to him so strongly? Why couldn't he control himself when she was involved?

All questions he wasn't ready to hear the answers to.

She wasn't wrong, he was a coward.

Wordlessly he sways to the bed, needing something solid to keep him afloat in the ocean of his thoughts.

The red circling her neck grabs his attention again and he whispers, "Are you okay? Does it hurt?"

Different emotions swirl in the haunting eyes and he fears she'll lash out at his question, coldly banishing it as the pity she shouted she didn't want from him.

She never does what he expects.

A humorless grin spreads across her face, "I'm alive. I'm fine. This wasn't the first time and it probably won't be the last. That man hates me and the feeling is mutual. You know what's funny, you're the first person to ask me if I'm okay. All of your little nurse friends just watched as he tried to kill me. Isn't that funny?"

It isn't funny. His hands clench in ire thinking about her gasping for life on the ground as no one came to her aide. Unable to fathom how her own father could be so cruel.

"That shouldn't have happened to you."

She looks at him dispassionately, fight leaving her eyes and her shoulders sagging.

"All monsters must die. Didn't you say that people like me should be avoided? Don't you think he was trying to do the world a favor by killi--"

"Shut up." He slams his hand over her mouth, rolling cross the expanse of the bed until they are a mere inches apart.

"You said you didn't want pity. So stop pitying yourself. What happened was wrong and you didn't deserve that."

Her eyes desperately search his face again, as she looks up at him, finding what they're looking for before he sees the sadness bleed from her eyes leaving room for something better, brighter.

It's only when her eyes shift to his lips that he realized how close they are.

Too close.

Moving his hand off her lips, he starts to lean back, scurrying back to safety. But she moves with him, towel shifting down with her upward movement, precariously close to falling and his eyes grow larger in fear.

Suddenly their positions are swapped and he's gazing up at her hovering over him, dark curtain of her hair tumbling over her shoulder and cocooning him. He aches to run his fingers through the locks.

"I don't want pity. But I do want your desire. You're looking at me like you want to eat me alive. Do it. Give me that."

His body constricts at the demanding request, shaking his head in arbitrary refusal, disregarding the heat and want that swells like a wave at her words.

"No. No... We shouldn't. I can't. Just go to sleep."

She brushes a hand through the wet fringe that frames his forehead, sliding through the wet locks, "You look delectable with your hair like this. I have to admit though, seeing you racing to come save me. I was quite smitten."

Pride unfurls in his chest.

Then she steals his breath.

The kiss isn't sudden or spontaneous, she smiles at him, a gorgeous smile that transforms her face from pretty to breathtaking, before she becomes to lean down, her eyes locked on his lips leaving no need for speculation. Her intentions couldn’t be clearer. 

He has ample time to move, reject her once again and only allow himself to have her in small manageable doses. Being around her is far more addicting than any drug.

He is too weak to follow through. 

The kiss is soft, softer than he expected from someone as unrestrained as her. Her hands are gentle on his face, caressing his cheeks as she presses her insistent lips into his. The kiss is nothing like he expected and thus it is perfect.

Just a kiss. He'll allow only one kiss. That should be enough to sate his hunger for her.

She starts to deepen the kiss, tongue poking at the tight seal of his mouth impatiently, then her fingers trail under his now slightly damp shirt, nails raking at the muscle that lays hidden, his mouth falls open at the new sensation. Wasting no time she licks into his mouth, moaning when she finally gets a taste of him. He suppresses an answering groan, light-headed as she overwhelms his sense, her scent and her taste coiling around him in an impenetrable wall.

He losses himself in the kiss, riding the high of finally tasting that mouth that has tormented him for too long. Letting her tongue swirl in his mouth, sinuously dancing with his own, until his lungs are burning .

When she begins to push his shirt further up his torso, baring his stomach, he jumps away from her touch and ultimately breaking their wet connection. Grabbing her wrists in his own shaking hands, he halts her movement, taking a deep measured breath.

"That's enough. I.... can't."

His control shudders at the sight of her above him, her eyes begin to slide open slowly as she falls back to earth, the passion that pours out from those eyes is enough to knock him off his high horse, her lips are kiss swollen and rosy wet, teasing him, tempting him. Her face is flushed as she pants, minty breath landing on his face with every exhale.

"Aren't you tired?" The tone of her voice is exasperated, at his bewildered expression she continues, "Of lying to yourself? Doesn't it get tiring never getting what you want?"

You're just a kid who wants to be loved.

I know you want to have fun.

She's the only one able to see right through him, reading him like he's an open book with pictures and startling him with her apt analysis, another reason he knows he should stay away from her, she will be his undoing, untimely demise.

"You want this. Tell me otherwise." She demands.

He wills his mouth to open and do what she says, deny his desires and sever this moment, the glint in her eyes informs him that this will be her final request, answer wisely.

He lays frozen, words lost in the jumble of his mind. Moving too fast for him to pluck them out and form a coherent sentence. Then she begins to move away, taking her delicious heat with her and his hand flies out instinctively, grabbing her towel covered waist his brain screaming no.

She stills, narrowed slits glaring down at him. Reading him again. Searching his face before she nods, "Okay. I'll take that control."

Slithering up his body, she catches his lips in another toe curling kiss, harder than before, all tongue and teeth, biting at his lip and demanding entry, he rushes to give it to her, weak at her passionate onslaught. This time he kisses back, wraps his tongue around hers and sucks, drunk on her flavor and ignoring the voice in his head that demands that he stop.

He feels her hands traveling up his chest, brushing on his nipples, before running up his arm and settling on his wrists, she lowers all her weight on him, knocking a shuddering breath from his overexerted lungs. The soft press of clothed breasts on his chest throwing his thoughts off kilter. In a flurry of movement, he feels her tug his wrist with both of her hands, something fuzzy curls around immobilizing him as his eyes snap open.

He pulls and meets resistance.

She draws away from him to watch his reaction, both of their eyes fixated on his wrist. He peers into the ceiling unable to look fully above his head and his pupils dilate as he sees what he already knew, felt on his skin.

Handcuffed.

Just as she promised she'd taken away his control.

A moan escapes his lips. She squirms in response to the sultry sound.

"I found something else when you were gone." She leans to the side of the bed, bending at the waist to retrieve something, rocking into his erection with the motion and he bites his tongue to contain his moan.

With an all knowing grin, she sits up grinding down into his hard length, throwing her head back, long hair whipping over her shoulder, wild and free.

He almost spills from that image, alone.

"Look." She offers what resembles a tiny remote with a cord connected to the bed, light vibrations start to buzz through the surface of the bed as she twists the dial.

The bed trembles and shakes beneath them rocking them along with the waves of vibrations.

"What are you going to do to me?" He whispers, fear and anticipation fighting for domination.

With a shark like grin she replies, "Take you apart and put you back together."

Immediately she sets off on her mission, openly appreciating his body, tongue dragging across her lips as she takes in the alluring vision of him at her mercy. He watches utterly captivated as she runs her hands up her own body, briefly pausing to mold her hands around her breasts, squeezing them and moaning deeply.

His mouth is arid dry, tongue turning to sandpaper at the seductive picture.

Then she tugs at the seal of the towel, loosening its hold, one strong pull is all that is necessary to have it tumbling off her body and cascading to the bed, baring every inch of her body to his ravenous eyes that dart from the soft swell of breasts down to the smooth mound of her naked sex.

Again, she takes herself in hand, pinching at her dark pebbled nipples, groaning at the pain before comforting herself with a gentle swipe of her thumb. His free hand cries out to join her in this endeavor.

"Touch me." Before the words have even settled in the air, she's capturing his free hand and bringing it to her chest, soft, hot, fuck, the only words left in his vocabulary as his hand becomes full of her. After a moment's hesitation, he squeezes the soft flesh in his hands, eyes locked on the tight furl of her nipple. His touch his soft, revered.

In absolute disbelief at the precious gift is he being given.

"Harder." His hand responds to her cry, tightening his hold and viciously tweaking her peak, eyes darkening at the way she rolls along his body, smearing her wetness across the plane of his stomach. He can feel her heady warmth sizzling on his skin, fingers longing to run through the drenched folds and tease her hidden jewel.

"Watch me." He falters at her words, grabbing her waist when she starts to slide off his body, wordlessly begging her to stay. She pushes his hand away smiling at his worry and dismay, laying flat on her back next to him, "Look at me." When he twists his head, wincing at the twinge from the pull of the hard metal on his wrist, he finds her eyes averted to the ceiling, he meets her eyes there.

Entranced as she slowly brings a finger to her mouth, lips wrapping around the digit, she opens her mouth showing him the way her tongue laps and soaks it, before pulling it out with a filthy wet pop. The finger trails down her body, pinching her nipples but their journey continues until they reach her center. He watches her reflection dazed as she uses two fingers to spread her lips open, bringing her feet flat on the bed to give him an optimal view. His heart beat skyrockets pounding in his chest as all the blood rushes to his cock.

With a deep seated moan, she takes two fingers and plunges into her wet center, her puffy lips giving away to the press, widening at the invasion. She shoves in until her fingers disappear into the depth, before dragging them out and fucking back deeply, her voice slices through the white noise sloshing in his brain.

"Gang-tae, I need you."

She fingers herself, in, out, in, out, eyes screwed shut from her pleasure.

He smacks her hand out of the way, control all but decimated, mashed to smithereens,before rubbing across her wet folds her moan setting him on fire before he mimics her movement, showing two fingers into the tight grip of her pussy. His rigid erection jumps at the thought of taking its place, her wet heat wrapping around him.

The vibration of the bed bounces her on his fingers, knocking her back on to his digits every time he withdraws. She bodily rides his hand, "More, more, more." He presses a third finger in, forcing her walls open sighing as the flesh gives under the pressure.

Ramming into her he watches her face twists in pleasure in the mirror, his own lust blown eyes greeting him as he watches her. She grabs her breasts, squeezing them as his fingers plunge into her steadily and powerfully.

Grabbing the reins of his desire he presses a fourth finger into her, his thumb accidentally rubbing across her clit and the most beautiful sight plays out in the mirror. Mun-yeong twists violently on the bed, bucking away from his fingers but he chases her, shoving the fingers back in and purposely massaging at her observing as she falls over the edge, orgasmic screams drawn from her mouth.

Her juices drown his fingers as she quakes apart on the bed, his eyes drink in the sensual sight of her fluttering lips around his soaked fingers.

He slowly drills into her lax hole, lost in her heat before she grabs his wrist. She takes three deep breaths, naked chest rising and laying before she turns towards him, eyes dancing.

"You're a fast learner." He reddens under her open praise. "Your turn."

His turn? She answers his wordless question by crawling into his space, and he's momentarily blinded by her beauty. Her face and body a work of art, all clean lines and soft curves, petite and tight. Her hand tugging at his pants drag him away from his musings.

"What are you doing?"

"Shhhh no more talking unless you're saying my name, asking for more or moaning. I already told you what I'm doing tonight."

Taking you apart and putting you back together.

He shudders at her words and then at her daring fingers, tugging his now unbuttoned and unzipped pants off his hip. The cold air slams into his overheated erection, doing nothing to change its stiffness or ardor.

"Beautiful." Dismissing his blush, she grabs him through the soft stretch of his boxers, stroking teasingly from root to tip. Watching a dark stain form at the tip as she massages the head.

She strokes him through the cloth a few more times, avidly tracking his face, "So handsome." She whispers it under her breath, clearly not intended for his ears and he heats up at the open awe in her voice.

Nothing could prepare him for the pleasure that overwhelms him when she extracts his length from its clothed prison. It stands at attention, thick and veiny in her hand, clear fluid pooling at the red tip and spilling down the sides.

The beds vibrations pushes his erection into her grip and he groans twisting his hips up, desperate for her touch. "I got you." The promise laced in her words cause his eyes to water, he's usually the protector no one has ever supported him, he rapidly blinks the tears away shame faced. 

She misses his emotional riposte, her eyes locked on his erection jutting out and almost too thick for her hand to circumvent fully.

Using both hands she strokes him, using the leaking fluid from gathering on his cock to ease her journey, he pants in response, "Please." His pleads fall from his lips, desperation annihilating any reservations that lingered, he's completely on board now watching her burst apart from his fingers ripping the last tendrils of control from his grasp.

She doesn't leave him wanting, eagerly bending her head to pop the tip of his erection into her mouth, lips curling around the tip and swallowing the liquid pooled there.

His toes curl as she hums at the first taste of him on her tongue, vibrations hitting him from both ends now, the bed and her mouth. His head spins from the new sensations, he has never felt anything like this, scarcely even finding comfort in his own hands. Hard to find moments alone while sharing a space with his brother.

She sucks him in ever deeper, his hand slams on the bed, handcuff forcing his body to pull taut as he tries to prevent himself from thrusting into her mouth. It's a fruitless battle, she slurps and bobs on his cock, dismantling him down to a molecular level. Every atom of his body is screaming her name, he doesn't notice when it falls from his tongue, "Ughhh Mun-yeong!"

His cries emboldens her, she loosens her mouth sinking the rest of the length down his erection until her lips are flush against the root. His eyes slam shut, spots bursting behind his closed eyelids, he thrusts up powerfully his cock slipping down her throat and euphoria batters at his brain.

He's powerless as he bursts apart, release shooting into her waiting mouth, expecting her to pull off he's further deconstructed as she happily hums, swallowing each drop as it explodes in her mouth.

The tight suction of her mouth is too much following his release and he weakly tries to pull free, his cock slides out of her mouth, with a final suck of his tip she lets him fall from her mouth.

"Delicious."

Her voice is raspy and rough, the tone causes his dick to twitch feebly.

He feels fatigue begin to form after his earth shaking orgasm, his first with someone else. His eyes drift close as he falls into a deep slumber. He's vaguely cognizant of a wet material wiping across his skin and a blanket being tugged over his now chilled body.

"Rest for now."

He obeys, sleeping finding him easily.

                               ********************************************    

She watches him sleep, peaceful for once, all the worries missing from his handsome face. Her body tingles in memory of what they've done. His fingers in her most intimate places, his cum thick and hot on her tongue, his salty flavor still lingering on her tongue. His orgasm had surprised her but it was a pleasant surprise, she had greedily taken everything he had to offer, hungry for more. 

His flaccid cock lays innocently on his thigh now, taunting her, it had been anything but innocent plundering her mouth earlier. She's been watching him sleep for a few minutes, a boom of thunder waking her from her slumber and she'd been unable to fall back into the sandman's clutches.

Instead she watched him sleep, taking in every delicious inch of his body, that gorgeous face with a chiseled jaw and wide inviting lips, his hair curled beautifully from the rain, the wide berth of his shoulders and the solid stretch of his chest which tampers into his narrow waist that is all set atop long thick thighs and legs.

His dick twitches and she glances up to see if he's awake, his eyes are moving rapidly beneath his closed lids, in the throes of a dream it appears.

"Must be a good dream." She ponders as his erection swells under her watchful gaze.

He thrusts up, handcuffs clanging at his sudden movement, as he starts to pump into the air. His lips falling open as he moans incoherently before she hears something that causes her to moisten, "Mun-yeong..."

He's dreaming of her. From the movement of his hips, it's apparent what fantasy he is living out, she shifts next to him, prepared to make it a reality.

Glancing up at the mirror, she ponders her next move before looking at him fucking the air and reaching a decision. She crawls over him, legs straddling his thighs her back to his front, her breasts jiggling in her reflection.

She grinds down onto his upward thrust, his tip catching on her moist folds, hands on his chest she presses back harder, letting his cock run through her wetness, moaning as the head rubs against her hidden bead.

She hears the moment he snaps back into reality, his hand immediately grabbing at her waist, she looks up into the mirror smiling at his glossy eyes that burn a hole in her face.

Before he can ask her asinine questions as he's wont to do, she reaches behind herself, firmly gripping his cock and leans her back onto his shoulder, he watches the stretch of her body as she puts herself on display for his pleasure.

With steady hands, she guides him to her opening, he can see everything in the reflection, her folds glistening as she presses the head in, his eyes slam shut at the feeling.

"Open your eyes. I want you to watch."

Her voice leaves no room for argument. He has no desire to.

He watches as his cock slowly disappears into her wet hole inch by inch, all of the air in his body suspended, she widens her stance as the fattest part of his length pulls at her walls before he feels her loosen and sink onto him, fully. He is drowning in the vision of his cock spearing into her tight heat, he might never breathe again.

The tightest vice around his length, borderline painful.

The continuous vibrations from the bed mildly rocks him into her, but after a pause she draws off, only the tip remaining before slamming back down onto him, the dual sensation of simultaneously watching her sink onto him and feeling her overloads his sense.

She rides him languidly, hips gyrating in dizzying circles as she undulates on his length, his arm shoots out to wrap across her flat stomach, pressing her incredibly closer to him, his abs rubbing against her back. Her back curves into his hold as she plants her feet harder into the bed, her hole spread wide as he pistons into her. Vivid obscene images reflected by the mirror, he can't look away.

He blindly finds her breasts, squeezing and groping at them in turns, pulling and pinching at the taut nipples.

"Gang-tae, harder, deeper." She demands, he rams up into her, length drilling into her spread hole, sinking deeper and deeper, slamming into her so hard that the echoes of his hips meeting her ass cheeks bounce off the walls.

"I'm too close.." He warns her, visages of his dream still plaguing his thoughts, he'd been lost in a fantasy, one of many wet dreams featuring the temptress wild in his arms. They'd been brutally fucking in the rain, cold raindrops sizzling off their skin as he pushed her over the handle of the bike and slammed into her over and over again. Her cries lost under the booming thunder that roared in the skies.

Pleasure beyond his knowledge had dragged him from that scintillating dream, only to be met by an equally enticing reality.

He woke up already on the edge, unprepared for her attack.

She begins to grind faster, reaching one hand down into the hidden depths of her center, rubbing at her clit in perfect synchronization with the motion of their fucking.

Grabbing her impossibly tighter he shoves up, pushing his cock as deep as it can go, her cries music to his ears, as he slams in out in out in out. Her walls clench around him, her fingers a flurry of rapid movement on her bead, he never slows down, driving deeper and faster, until wetness gushes out of her and coats him, her body bows tight into his hold. 

For the second time tonight, his brain oozes out of his dick. Hot load exploding into her depth as his eyes finally leave the mirror and screw close as he rides the wave of his second orgasm. Unable to fight it with her walls squeezing him and demanding that he fill them, fill her up with his cum. 

She collapses onto his body, milking the last drops of his release.

With a deep shuddering breath, she pulls off his softening length, rolling to her side of the bed, pushing her hair out of her eyes, resembling a siren luring men to their doom.

"Wow."

He agrees, holy fuck wow.

Their eyes meet again in the mirror.

"You like watching." It's not a question so he doesn't deign it with a reply. They'd both seen first hand just how much he enjoyed watching.

"Aren't you full of surprises." She preens, slipping from the bed, comfortable in her nudity. His eyes follow her every movement, he could look at her forever.

She disappears for a moment after the flush of a toilet, reappearing with another wet towel, carefully cleaning him once more. It feels oddly intimate despite all they've done tonight, the lines between lust and affection blurring.

He attempts to turn onto his side before remembering the constraint on his wrist, he pulls at it before glancing at her.

"Take these off."

She blinks at him, "Oh. I didn't see a key."

He blinks owlishly in return, "What? You put this on before finding a key!" Voice raising an octave at the tail end of his question, disbelief furrowing his brows and dragging his lips into a hard line.

"I had to. You wouldn't have given in otherwise. It's your fault, you're too stubborn." She scoffs folding her arms defiantly, he tries his damnest not to ogle her naked breasts that are pushed up with the motion.

He fails spectacularly.

"I guess I could go to the front desk and ask for a spare key."

He thinks of her white dress, now transparent from the rain and then her standing in that little towel. Those are the only things she could wear to the front desk and the thought of her walking around in either of those options makes his blood boil. Especially remembering that piece of scum who had tried to assault her.

"No."

"Why not?" She stares at him in confusion.

"I said no." He doesn't elaborate, avoiding eye contact.

With a shrug she cuddles into his side, naked body warm against him.

"Okay I'll keep you locked up like my love slave. " He tries to glare at her but he can't muster up the energy, exhausted, shuffling until he finds a comfortable position with his arm locked over his head, it's not an easy feat but eventually he finds a spot.

Their eyes drift close, exertion catching up with them.

Rain pattering away on the window, thunder rumbling in the distance.

He feels movement next to his head and then a soft press against his lip, fleeting and gone as quickly as it came.

His heart stutters at the implications. He tries not to think, fearing the storm that is brewing between them.

Sleeps finds him unarmed, taking him to a land where they can be together. He dreads the morning knowing he'll have to push her away, erect the fortress that surrounds his heart once more.

He doesn't have the time or luxury to have what he wants.

Moonlight streams in through the window, illuminating the key that lies innocuously on the floor, hidden under their discarded clothes. 

[jangofctts]

Madness (Poe Dameron x Reader)

Rated: Explicit

Word Count: 5k

Warnings: Smut, handjobs, language, sex, creampies, Poe Dameron is a warning in its self, slight description of blood/injury 

A/N: sorry that this is a day late y’all. I'm v sick and high on nyquill yehaww brothers

This is not your fault.

Oh, Stars, but it is.

You bury your fingers, blackened with motor oil, into your hair and fold into yourself. You wish you could disappear. Wouldn't that be a fucking miracle and a half? You spare another glance at the destroyed droid and with a despaired wail, you bury your face into your knees again.

What the fuck were you thinking?

See, it started out fine, like most things do. But of course, like always, it turned out to be a real garbage fire. No, not even that. It was worse than a garbage fire. All you wanted to do was help out, and with the slowly dwindling amount of pilots available, you are pushed to the side. No pilots, no mechanics.

Droid maintenance is not your forte, but Kaydel Ko had specifically asked for your help and of course being the blubbering mess you are, you couldn't say no. All it took was a sweet, helpless smile and then boom! Here you are, stuck with a First Order droid with a processing chip all but fucking obliterated.

You thought it'd be easy to rewire the little BB unit, but the spunky little thing had its very own arsenal of weapons. Your legs and hands are a mess of electrical burns and tiny slashes that sting much worse than a papercut and steadily ooze blood. It would absolutely not stay still, so you resorted to a makeshift prison made out of duct tape and bungee chords until you could sort of pry into the droid's mainframe. You toyed with one wire at most and the droid spun its little head around, knocked the tweezers clean out of your hand, tore three more wires and with a disheartening woop; exploded in your face.

You aren't really thinking straight the moment you decide that hiding the blasted thing would be a grand idea. So, with your face covered in black soot and your hands bordering being numb, you scoop the destroyed droid up and sprint out of the base. You do have some luck, you figure. You run into nobody in the hallways leading outside; no one to see your absolute disaster that you plan on chucking into the dense forest.

You beeline towards the X-Wings and just as you think that you'd finally, finally be done with this whole mess, your worst nightmare appears.

Poe Dameron in all his neon orange jumpsuited glory steps out behind the body of his X-Wing. Right in your path of destruction. It's inevitable, really. The first syllable of watch out is barely out of your mouth before he even comprehends you're there and then you're crashing into him, faster than fucking lightspeed.

The resounding 'oof'  as you barrel into him will no doubt haunt your dreams, and you have just enough time to watch as the droid bounces on the ground, spraying sparks everywhere, then disappear into the underbrush, before Poe collapses on you. At least one of your problems is solved.

"What the hell?"

You would ask the same thing, but the entirety of Poe's weight focused on your back is doing a splendid job of crushing your lungs. Your hand shoots back and slaps at whatever it can. "P-poe! Can't breath!"

"Aw, shit. Sorry, kid."

You heave in precious air once he unravels himself out of the pickle you've put yourself in and before you know it, he hooks an arm underneath your armpit and hauls you up. He takes one good look at you, up and down, and has to bite his lip to keep his smile away. Not like it does much good.

"You—uh—ok, kid?" He coughs, trying real hard.

You throw your hands up. "Oh! Go ahead and laugh! That's all I'm good for anyway!"

What little pride you have left rapidly dwindles but as his shoulders shake in uncontrollable laughter that morphs into one of those laughs where you can't breathe, you can't help but smile yourself. Poe's glee is contagious (even if you are the butt of it) and you're glad you can give him some comedic relief. The days are getting darker, more friends are dying, and it's harder to put on a smile, even for Poe. It's a rare and special moment to provide some momentary happiness.

Eventually his chuckles taper off. He's folded over, clutching his stomach as tears shine at the corners of his eyes. "You—you!"

Another fit of giggles consume him after taking another peek at your face. "Wha—what ha-happened?"

You huff and cross you arms over your chest. Try as you might to appear irked, a lopsided grin still lines your face. "That is none of your business."

Poe wipes at his eyes and stands, his chest still heaving. "You're the one who tackled me. The least you could do is tell me."

"I did not tackle you," you scoff. "You were in the way!"

He's still smiling as he shakes his head. "Yeah, whatever. Kaydel Ko asked you to rewire that FO droid, right?"

You grimace. "No."

He raises a brow and ruffles your unruly hair. "Sure, kid."

Poe takes a glance at where the droid launched into the trees and points. "C'mon, I think it went over there."

To your horror he seizes your upper arm and drags you forward. Oh. nonononono. You dig your heels in but Poe is persistent and you're quickly coming to terms with your impeding doom and ridicule, so you let him take you.

It's easy to find. The droid is still smoking and sparking, looking oh so sad nestled between a tree and a large fern. Poe starts laughing again.

"The hell d'you do to the poor thing? Run it over with a pod-racer?"

"Something like that," you mumble.

Poe scoops it up and the damage looks even more devastating when he's holding it. You chew your lip and sigh as he hands it back. "Thanks, I guess."

With an amused 'mhm' he once again places a hand on your shoulder and wheels you out of the forest. You don't mean to tense up (a force of habit really) as his thumb whispers over your shoulder blade, but the damage is done and his hand drops. You want to wack yourself with a stick.

You pause by his X-Wing. "Hey, I'm sorry for, y'know tackling you. Also, th-thank you..."

He flashes you a smile and shrugs. "No biggie, Sparky."

You scowl. "Don't call me that."

That pulls out another laugh and then he's staring at you. Those big brown eyes, so warm and deep like the richness of the soil, capture yours as if they have their own gravitational pull. All grasp on words slip your mind and you're left to wrestle with your tongue into saying something. Why is he looking at you like that?

"I can help."

You blink. "What?"

"With the droid, I mean," he offers. You swear you can see the skin underneath his collar flush red. Poe Dameron blushing. Hm.

You have absolutely no clue why you agree, but his bright smile is enough to launch your heart against your ribcage.

"Great. I'll let Kaydel know we'll have it done by tomorrow."

"Tomorrow?" You squeak. Fat chance.

Before you can argue, he ruffles your hair again and shoots off. "Meet you at 1900 in maintenance!"

You glance down at the droid. The hole in its head sparks. "Oh, Stars."

                                                   =-=-=-=

You're pacing by the time 1850 rolls around, your stomach a mess of knots and twists. You don't want Poe Dameron to help you. In fact, you don't want him here at all!

You're clean at least. The black soot covering your face was a bitch to scrub off and there's still some of it hiding in the lines of your skin, but it's the best you can do. Not that you care. Well, you shouldn't care what Poe thinks. You know each other—scratch that. You know him from the years spent in the Resistance, because, well, he's Poe Dameron. As for yourself, you're 99.9 percent positive the only reason he happens to know your name is because there's only fifteen of you still alive following the aftermath of Crait. Kinda hard not to know your fellow survivors.

You never minded it. You're used to being alone, pushed to the side where you could blend in like a shadow. Really, it's the only reason why you managed to escape the First Order. No one paid you half a mind when you slipped inside that ship and piloted away. Well...you were shot at shortly after, but that's not important.

You're not paying attention--lost inside your head again when the blast doors swoosh open. You don't even fucking see him until you collide head on for the second time today. With a strangled yelp, you both stumble and trip over a flailing limb here and a hidden wire there. The whole debacle ends up with you smacking the back of your head devastatingly hard on the duracrete floor and with Poe's entire weight once again crushing down on your chest cavity.

"Holy shit, Sparky," he groans. His head is nestled in the crook of your neck and if you weren't seeing stars spinning in your fucking orbit, you'd have the decency to be embarrassed. "You trying to kill me?"

"Un-Unsuc-successfully," you wheeze. "How-how m'I doing?"

He pulls away just a fraction, hovering so close that you feel his nose brush against yours. "A for effort. Though, I don't think you're really cut out to be an assassin. Might wanna reconsider that career path."

"Agreed."

Fuck. Your head is pounding. You don't even get to enjoy the way Poe feels pressed against you, or how good he smells. Maker, he smells good, something warm and woodsy, but fuck, you are in so much pain. Are you bleeding? You're pretty sure you're bleeding.

"Did you hit your head?" He asks, his plush lips twitching into a frown. He still hasn't moved from the current position of lying between your legs and it makes everything worse.

"I'm fine."

"You're not fine," he huffs. "I heard your head smack the ground, Sparky. Lemme see it."

Poe peels himself off of you and tugs you into a sitting position. You reel and squeeze your eyes shut as nausea punches through your gut and the edges of your vision go a bit fuzzy. Damn, you really did not plan on getting a concussion today, nor have Poe Dameron be the one to patch you up.

He sits behind you and as his calloused fingers sweep across the back of your neck, you tense up. Poe hesitates then, his fingertips ghost above the skin, barely there and you try to relax. Years spent in an organization where corporal punishment is encouraged will surely make one hesitant of touch and try as you might, it's a hard habit to curve.

"I'm just checking to see if you're bleeding," Poe says softly noting your tension. "Is that ok?"

You nod and wave his concerns away. "Yeah, s'fine."

He cradles the back of your neck in one calloused palm while the other gently cards through your hair. He sucks in an audible wince and icy panic floods your veins. He must sense your apprehension because his thumb unconsciously begins to rub tiny circles onto your skin.

"Don't freak out... But you have a teeny, tiny cut," he tells you. "Microscopic, really."

You're gonna die. Maker, you're gonna die because of that stupid fucking droid. You're going to smash that fucker into smithereens even if it's the last thing you do. You try and move, eyes locked on the piece of junk across the room, but Poe is hurriedly pushing you back down.

"Hey, whoa, whoa, whoa!" His hands are like metal clamps on your shoulders and you grunt in irritation. "Just sit. I'll go get a medkit. Nothing a little bacta won't fix."

He's right. You're overreacting, but that droid's beady little eye seems to sparkle with smug satisfaction at your demise. You glare and swear revenge.

Behind you, Poe runs to the wall where the kit hangs and hurries back with the spray on bacta canister. You barely feel it coat the back of your skull and then he's done. "See, I told you. It's already healing."

"Wow, thank the Maker that the joke of the Resistance is saved," you sigh. You reach up to touch the dully throbbing area but Poe smacks your hand away. "Ow!"

"Don't touch it." He chides.

You roll your eyes and turn your head to face him and jut a thumb over your shoulder, "How long do I have to wait until we get to fixing that piece of shit over there."

Poe blinks, glances at the droid then back to you. "I dunno, half an hour?"

"Half—Poe! Are you serious?" You hiss. "We're going to be here all night!"

The pilot has the audacity to shrug. You want to throttle him. "It's not like we have anywhere to be."

You open your mouth to protest, but once again he's right. You scowl and glare at the frayed laces of your boot. This is officially, the worst day you've ever had.

A prolonged silence, a bit awkward and filled with your obvious irritation, blankets the room. Poe has enough sense not to prod at your buttons and settles down to your right. Your head is starting to feel much better at least.

It continues like this. Neither of you speak for the better part of ten minutes and then, quietly, almost to too quiet, he says;

"You're not a joke, y'know."

Your brows furrow together and you pause. You look up and he's got that warm, familiar look again and it only brings a dull ache that eats away inside your chest. Part of you wants to agree, but that dark and nasty other part that lurks deep in your chest lashes it's claws out at the thought. He doesn't know you—doesn't know the pain you've been through. You don't want his pity.

You look away. "I...I don't think you know who I am, Poe."

Your teeth bite the inside of your cheek as you pick at the skin along your fingernails. You can feel his eyes crawl over your face and you do everything in your power not to catch his eye because tears are starting to prick at your eyes. Maker, why are you crying? This situation, in its entirety, is beyond stupid.

He says your name, your full name and the air in your lungs seizes. "I know you. You were a Lieutenant in the First Order before you came to us. I remember the day you arrived too."

You spare him a glance and he smiles.

"I remember 'cause that janky Xi-class you were piloting was blasted to hell and you somehow managed to park it without killing anyone. And then—this is my favorite part—you walk out, still in your uniform and you go 'I do hope I don't have to pay for parking'. And then you collapse face first onto the ground." Poe's chuckling as a blush flushes up to your ears. You recall. Vividly.

You snort and rub at your chin. "It wasn't all that amazing."

"Sparky, you stole a First Order ship and flew to a Rebel base. That's pretty ballsy."

You shrug.

"I also remember that time you tricked out Jess's rig with those mods. Me and Snap were jealous for weeks. And that time you spilled caf all over Leia's datapac. Remember that?" Poe says. His hand inches closer your knee. "And when you gave her that replacement one, all those ads about male enhancement pills and 'hot Twi'leks near YOU' kept popping up?"

"Arhg!" You cry, burying your face into your hands. You're pretty sure at this point you could fry an egg on your face from how hot your skin feels. "That was so fucking embarrassing. I-I can't—why would—ahg!"

"Kid, that was the funniest thing I've ever seen."

"That still makes me the butt of every joke! And I still can't even fix a droid properly!" You wail. "Or how about that time I dropped a crate of explosives? I might as well throw myself in a trash compactor."

Before you can even fucking blink, Poe's hands snatch up yours and hold them so firmly you have no choice but to look at him. "Sparky, listen to me."

You quite like the color of his eyes you come to find. A honeyed caramel, so rich that it'd take years to explore the countless layers. There's no malice, no hidden motives you can detect. Just pure, unrefined kindness and hope and—Stars, he's gorgeous.

His thumbs run across the slopes of your knuckles and it's electrifying. "You are one of the only people keeping the Resistance together."

"Bu-"

"Shut up. I'm not done."

You mouth zips shut

"You focus so much on the bad that you don't realize how much you contribute," he says with a gentle smile. "You maybe aren't the best with droids, but people? Sparky, so many of us look to you for hope. I know it's cheesy, but you really do brighten a room with your smile."

A tear trails down the curve of your cheek and he's quick to cradle your jaw and swipe it away with the pad of his thumb. "I don't know what we would—what I would do without you."

"Poe," his name comes out shaky and soft and you know he can feel your blush under his palm, "I—I...thank you."

His eyes flicker down to your parted mouth and then he brushes his thumb across the seam of your bottom lip. He leans in close enough that you can feel his lips just graze yours, warm breath fanning over your chin, and your eyes flutter shut.

"Can I kiss you?" He whispers against your lips. Fuck, he is so infuriatingly perfect, isn't he?

"Yes."  Maker, yes, yes, yes. That shouldn't even be a question.

The first kiss is fleeting. An innocent peck that flings open the gaping maw of your desire. Your hand shoots up, tangles in the thick curls atop his head and you drag him closer. He groans into your mouth, grabs at your neck and tilts your head, deepening the kiss. His tongue, hot and wet sweeps over your bottom lip and you readily open your mouth and let your tongue glide over his.

He's playful; breaking away to catch your bottom lip between his teeth, then releasing to hook the tip of his tongue into your top lip then swoop in for a lingering kiss. It's impossible to keep up—he dances to his own tune while you stumble along. There's no lack of enthusiasm on your part however and he isn't bothered in the slightest by the occasional bump of your nose or when the hard enamel of your teeth click together. Your whole juxtaposition changes, and you suddenly want to thank that dumb droid. You'd break a thousand of them if it meant you could continue forever on like this.

Poe eventually leans away, the hand tangled in your hair firm so that you're still only a hairsbreadth apart, carefully lowering himself down until you hover above him. His warm hand that leaves a burning trail down your waist, hooks around your thigh and helps tug your leg over his hips. You pull back to suck in air that's suddenly so difficult to inhale and Stars—he's a sight to see. Those lovely black curls are wild and untamed, his plush lips swollen and pouty because you won't give him another taste of your mouth. His chest heaves and your breath stutters as he plants his hands on the swell of your hips, thumb pressing lightly against the outcrop of bone there.

"Maker, you're gorgeous..." You murmur. You lean down and nestle your head in the crook of his neck, lips seeking out the soft skin above his collar. You trail your lips across the curve of his throat and as your teeth catch his earlobe then lick at the small divot behind his ear, a soft groan leaves his mouth.

"Are-aren't I the one—fuck," his hips twitch as you mouth beneath his stubbled jaw, "s'posed to say that?"

You grin and pull him into an opened mouth kiss. His tongue pulls yours into the wet heat of his mouth and sucks lightly. With a whine, your hips stutter forward as fiery heat trickles into your belly. You can feel the growing bulge in his pants, pressing against your inner thigh and shit—you need him.

Your hips rock forward on their own volition and Poe is quickly there to support as his hands grip you tighter and drag you down harder. He props his knees up and with a sharp moan and digs his clothed cock into the apex of your thighs. The fabric of your pants catches on your clit and it's good. Dry fucking Poe Dameron is a wish come fucking true, but it's not enough.

Poe's smirking as his fingers toy with the buckle of his belt. "You wanna take a ride, Sparky?"

You punch him in the arm.

"Ow!" he pouts. "What was that for?"

"Don't say that shit to me ever again."

His warm chuckle echoes through the room and sends a pleasant shiver down your spine. "What if I ask if you wanna ride my cock reeeal nice and slow? Feel how hot and tight your cunt is when you sink down onto me. You wan't me to say that?"

Paired with his voice, his strong hands grab your ass and roll his hips up into you and you're done for. You melt into his chest, whining out your affirmations and you don't care how he's already got you wrapped so tightly around his fucking finger.

"Take these off." He purrs, skimming his fingertips over the waistband of your trousers.

Somehow you manage to escape your boots and shuck your pants off through the haze of your arousal. When you return, he's got his pants halfway over his knees, pristine white shirt haphazardly torn open revealing the beautiful expanse of tan skin peppered with dark hair. You straddle his thighs, eyeing the tent in his boxers that leaves little to the imagination and the heat in the pit of your stomach swells.

Poe shoots you a coy grin and sweeps a hand down. He grips his cock, still hidden beneath the confines of his boxers, and gives it a teasing stroke. "You want me?"

"Poe," You whine. Stars, he's making this difficult.

He's smug as he slowly, to the point of teasing, tugs down his boxers with his other hand and eases out his cock. It's gorgeous like the rest of him, deliciously thick and curving towards his navel. Precum shines at the head that's flushed a deep maroon, darker than the rest of his sunkissed skin. You're mesmerized with the way he strokes himself; lazy and gentle, focusing on the head then dipping down to squeeze at the base.

His cock bounces as he lets go and snatches your hand that's lying limp over his hip. He guides it over the searing flesh and it feels like velvet covering reinforced durasteel. He swears as your thumb rubs over the head of his cock, wiping away the bead of liquid that pools there. You circle your fingers around his length and stroke down to cup his balls and he juts his hips into your hand.

Fuck. You want to suck him off. Feel him shake and twitch under your tongue and cum down your throat. Yet, as his fingers trail up your inner thigh and pass through the slick folds of your cunt, you are vividly reminded where else you want him.

"Shit," he breaths, circling your clit with the tip of his forefinger. "You're dripping."

Poe probes further, curling his fingers into your cunt, juuust pushing into your entrance until his fingers are shiny and slick with your arousal. He pulls back and you groan at the loss.

He sucks his fingers into his mouth and moans. Fuck, why is that so hot? It shouldn't be. "Can I eat you out, Sparky?"

He's digging his fingers into the flesh of your ass, tempting you closer and Maker it sounds good, but—"Later. Fuck me instead."

Poe's lips curl into a wicked smile. "Are you sure?"

His fingers return to your the soaking flesh between your legs and thumb at your swollen clit. You shudder, quickly catching his wrist. "Please."

"Fine," he grumbles. "Later."

Finally, you think as you hold his cock loosely and grind your slick folds against it. He makes a punched out sound when you raise your hips and move the blunt tip to your entrance. You slowly let him sink in, a long stuttered groan falling past his lips at the feel of your hot, tight walls stretching around his cock. Your own breath catches in your chest and you dig your nails into chest, leaving behind tiny crescent shaped dents.

—oh—shit—holy fucking shit.

His cock is catching every ridge and curve until the back of your thighs are seated on his. His eyes are squeezed shut and little gasps, as if he were in pain, are tumbling out every time you twitch around him. He's thick—deliciously so, and when you raise your hips and slide back down, his cock drags against your walls and presses in deep. You grind your hips down, catching your clit on his pubic bone and wildfire spreads throughout your whole frame.

"Ah, fuck," he moans. He gives your hips a squeeze and pulls you against him harder, guiding you into a slow, steady pace. "You fe-feel good. Knew-knew you would."

At this point you're hardly doing any work despite being on top; he has his knees propped up behind you and thrusts up into you then drags you back down by your hips. You're loosing your fucking mind like this. One of his hands drifts down and reaches for your clit, his middle finger stroking against the slick bundle of nerves and the fire in your belly quickly spreads down all the way to your toes. You're shaking, panting sharply, and Poe continues to toy with your clit paired with the even rolling of his hips.

"You gonna cum on my cock, Sparky?" Poe huffs out, grabbing a handful of your asscheek. "Yeah, just...just like that. Cum for me."

Your back arches and everything seizes up tighter than a fucking clamp, and with another pass along your aching clit, you burst hot and wet around his cock. With a hoarse cry, your core clenches and spasms through each one of his thrusts, stretching out your pleasure.

In one smooth, fluid move, Poe sits up and pushes you forward until your back hits the ground and he's towering over you. His hand is buried in your hair, cradling the sensitive area but you're still riding your high to notice the pain. With his free hand he hooks the back of your knee and folds it over his shoulder. Stars, you didn't even know your leg went up this far and when he roughly thrusts into you, the air in your lungs is sucked out and replaced with a strangled wheeze.

"You like that?"

You claw at his bicep as he kneels up and pounds down into you, hitting that heavenly spot within you. Your eyes roll back and Poe curls over you to nuzzle into your damp skin, teeth digging into the exposed skin above the collar of your shirt you never bothered taking off. His thrusts are slowly reaching the pace you need him to go and you bury your fingers in his hair and pull. His moan vibrates over your skin.

"Harder." You order. "P-Poe. I-I n-need—"

Poe digs his teeth in between the junction of your shoulder, slips his cock nearly all the way out of your cunt, then slams it back in deep. It's fast and brutal, and you can hear your flesh slap together, hear the obscene squelching noice your cunt makes from how wet you are. Your face burns in embarrassment, but he's hitting something so devastatingly wonderful that you don't really give a shit.

He's grunting in your ear, whispering praise—how wet you are and how perfect you whine and beg for him. He's plowing into you and you're close. So close to the edge again.

"Fuck," he growls, "m'gonna cum. Where—where do—"

"Anywhere," you gasp, arching into him. "In-in me. Cum inside."

Poe's hips stutter. The fist in your hair tightens and he rocks his hips into three—maybe four times before the muscles in your back stiffen and everything blurs and goes out of focus. White hot pleasure rips you apart, floods each cell with razor sharp heat as your body convulses in ecstasy.

He's hissing out swears between his clenched teeth, as his hips jolt and grinds himself balls deep inside you. Poe captures your lips and feel him pulse and throb, chest heaving, as his load, thick and hot, spurts into you and coats your walls.

Poe keeps you pinned there as his hips shallowly rock into you, savoring the last dregs of his orgasm as you catch your breath. He stills and you two lay there, filling the room with your gentle pants. Your knee slips off his shoulder and he moves to plant a lazy kiss on the corner of your mouth and pulls out. His cum trickles out after and drips down your slit but you're too spent to care right now.

He lifts his head that's resting on your sternum. "How's your head, Sparky?"

"Wha—oh." Truth is you hardly feel it now. The bacta truly does work wonders. "S'fine. Never better."

He shoots you a dashing smile, the gap in his teeth and his boyish air makes your head spin. "Wanna take me out for another spin, then?"

"Poe!"

And the droid never did get fixed...Oh well...

[imherongraystairstrash]

Hello! May I request prompt #7 with platonic Sophie and Will?

A/N: Thank you so much for all of the requests!! I’m having a lot of fun writing them! 

Prompt: “I can’t do this without you.” 

Will couldn’t think properly. What was he going to do? Despite the fact that he calls the Silent Brothers (Jem, if you wish to be technical about it) more than once a week, it wasn’t as though he knew anything about medicine. Sure, he knew a little bit of first aid; it was a requirement for patrolling Nephilim, after all. But this? 

“By the Angel Lightworm. You had to put yourself in front of the demon like the imbecile you are.”

Gabriel groaned in pain.

“Only the most talented of Shadowhunters like myself can do that.”

“Now’s not the time to scold me, Will.” Gabriel said, cringing at the pain he was no doubt experiencing.

When Will found Gabriel, he almost threw up at the sight of his leg. It was ghastly. Had he words to describe it, he wouldn’t have done so. Worst of all, he had no idea what to do.

“Heavens, what happened?”

“Sophie! Help me! I don’t know what to do.”

Sophie slid to her knee and got one look at Gabriel’s leg before she paled. Nevertheless, she held her ground and examined the leg.

“It’s broken.”

Gabriel tried to let out a breath he was holding but failed. 

“Breathe,” Sophie instructed.

“I’m trying.” Gabriel gasped out.

Sophie looked like she wanted to help, but knew that telling a seriously injured individual to breathe normally was pointless; Gabriel was simply in too much pain. She turned to Will.

“We can’t give him an iratze or his leg will heal broken.”

“I know, but how do we move him? The institute is too far to drag him, and we didn’t bring a carriage.”

 Sophie looked around the alley before speaking. 

“We have to break it again.”

“What?” 

“We break the leg again, make a splint with that piece of wood, give him many, many iratzes and help him walk back to the institute. Hopefully, he’ll go into shock and he won’t feel a lot of pain.”

Gabriel looked like he was contemplating asking Lucifer to take him away.

“The best I can do is give you a numbing rune.”

Will winced. This was not going to be pretty. 

“Or,” Sophie continued. “One of us can run all the way back to the institute, call for backup and have people carry Gabriel back.”

Gabriel shook his head. “Break my leg again. It’s quicker.”

Sophie was surprised. “Are you sure?”

“Yes. Do it.”

Sophie exchanged a look with Will and took a deep breath. “Okay. 

…

Will couldn’t have guessed how much time had gone by, it might as well have been an eternity. Gabriel passed out seconds after Sophie broke his leg again. Will remembered hearing him cry out in sheer pain before the alley was silent, save Sophie’s heavy breathing.

Now, Sophie looked up, sweat and blood on her face. “Will, I need your help. I can’t do this without you.”

Will hesitated. He could barely hold his guts in his stomach. But one look at Sophie's desperate face and he was kneeling across from her, holding the wood in place while she wrapped the bandage around Gabriel’s leg. 

“Is he all right?” Will asked, looking at Gabriel in his unconscious state. 

“Why? What happened? Has he stopped breathing?!”

“No! No, nothing like that. It’s just that he looks…”

“I know.” Sophie said when he trailed off. “I know, he looks dead.”

Will looked away quickly and met Sophie’s gaze. “Are you done?”

She nodded. “The leg won’t heal today, though, no matter how many iratzes we put on him.” 

“We should get him to the institute once he regains a bit of consciousness. Do you think he’ll be alright until then?”

Sophie nodded again. 

“All right then. I guess we just wait.”

“Yes.”

Will smiled. “Do you have any interesting news?”

Sophie pushed her hair back. “What do you define as news?”

“Anything out of the ordinary, of course.”

“You mean other than the fact that my brother-in-law is laying on the floor, unconscious, because of me?”

“Silly Sophie, knocking people unconscious is not out of the ordinary for you.”

Sophie rolled her eyes, “I’ve only done it one other time and it was necessary. It was for Jessamine’s own good.”

Will couldn’t really accuse Sophie; after all, if it weren’t for Sophie’s knack for knocking people unconscious, he and Tessa would not have had a particular moment on a particular balcony. 

“What are you smiling at?” Sophie asked, interrupting his thoughts.

“Nothing.”

Sophie shook her head. “You can’t even say ‘nothing’ without smiling.”

“I was just smiling at our fond memories together.”

“We must have different memories.” 

Will put a hand to his heart in mock agony. “How could you say such a thing?”

“William.” Sophie said, “you cannot possibly argue that, in the past, you were a delight to be around.” 

“No, but I assumed my devastatingly gorgeous cheekbones compensated for my incredibly malicious remarks in the past.” 

“By the Angel. How does Tessa deal with you.” Will opened his mouth but Sophie cut him off, “If you say it’s because of your ‘devastating cheekbones’ I’ll hit you with the blunt face of my seraph blade.”   

“Sophie, you are wonderful for making conversation.”

Before Sophie could answer, Gabriel groaned. 

Sophie locked eyes with Will. “Quick.” she said simply and they both got to their feet. 

They picked up Gabriel, each one of them under one of his arms. 

Sophie drew iratze after iratze, trying to ease Gabriel’s pain as they sped walked to the institute. 

…

Will shouldered open the institute gates once they arrived. 

“TESS!” He yelled, trying to get her to hear. 

Tessa appeared, got one look at Gabriel being hauled up the driveway, and told Bridget to call the Silent Brothers before racing down the steps to help. 

…

“That was quite a patrol.”

Will said, once they both cleaned up and Gabriel was being attended to. 

Sophie laughed. “I was afraid you would retch all over me.”

Will made sure to display a face that conveyed offense. “That’s a bit dramatic, don’t you think?”

“It’s perfectly accurate, is what I think.” Sophie said with a smirk.

Will shook his head. “You will never let me forget it, will you?”

“Squeamish Herondale? Never.”

“Cruel woman!”

Sophie curtsied.

“Anyway,” she said. “I’m off. I think it’s best for Gideon to come home and stop worrying about his brother. And besides, I would like for the last man I see tonight to be my handsome husband.”

“I’m going to ignore what you are implying by that statement and bid you a goodnight.”

“Goodnight, William. Let your sleep be filled with graphic images of Gabriel’s leg.”

“And yours as well. Adieu, Sophie.”

“Buenas Noches, Will.”

Tagging: @hitheresomeoneusingthus @livia-dovehallow @celias @tsccreatorsnet 

[ditheringmind]

No matter how many times I try to write about this one moment in my life, I can never seem to capture the utter devastation I felt.

Being 14 is hard everyone can agree on that. The hormones, trying to fit in, school, home, it all creates a perfect storm, and I, just like many of my peers, was caught up in the middle of it, just trying to keep our heads above water.

I had an after-school job; it wasn’t much, Just vacuuming all the classrooms and the library in the small private school I attended. It was necessary to help pay for my tuition because I in no way came from a wealthy family. Money was always an issue, always the main topic of conversations for my parents, always the reason they fought. Everything always came back to we don’t have money. Never enough.

So I didn’t always have the most stylish clothes or the best shoes. Everything constantly ill-fitting and uncomfortable. I chalked it up to having the oddest figure on the planet. I once had a girl in my class tell me, ‘you would be cute if you wore clothes that fit’ how kind of her to point that out. Another time my “best friend” gave the unsolicited advice that if I would just wash my face, she was sure my acne would clear right up . I was so embarrassed. If she knew all the things I tried to cure my acne, I even begged and pleaded with my parents to buy the stuff off of infomercials. Nothing ever worked.

So yeah, I got the sense that people saw me as an ugly acne-riddled person who chose to be that way. Like I wanted to look like that.

I had a pretty small class, just over twenty kids, and I was the lucky one who never got invited to any of the parties. Ever. The only kid in the class that got consistently left out. What was I supposed to think? Was I to have this hard armor on and not let it bother me? Be ok being the loner, the loser, the girl all the guys in the class would make fun of; I was the girl they used to put their friends down with, the “ oohhhh amy likes you.” The ultimate insult. I had ears, I heard, I would stuff it all down deep and console myself with fantasies of growing up to be beautiful. (Insert eye roll)

To say I hated school would be an understatement. I loathed every part of it, and I wasn’t just the unpopular nerd. I was also the dumb kid. I always needed extra help, and I burned with shame. It was almost like I had a greasy film coating my brain making it impossible for information to be absorbed. I felt the need to hide this, and I never said I didn’t understand something just bluffed my way through school. I am amazed now that not a single teacher I had from k-12th grade tried to dig deeper, how none thought to suggest I had a learning disability. Did they really just think I was lazy?

So when my teacher tapped me on the shoulder as I vacuumed the library and told me he needed to talk with me, I thought it would be the same as always. I had sat in every teacher’s office from third grade on and told I was failing, and I needed to work harder, that I needed not to be so lazy blah blah blah.

I started building up my walls as I followed him through the empty library. Breathing deeply through my nose and twisting the ends of my shirt in my sweaty hands because even though I knew what was coming, I had been through it so many times before, I always cried because it always hurt. But this time, I wasn’t. I didn’t need the added humiliation of tears.

Even though the classroom was empty, he still closed his office door, and the click it made had me feeling like a prison door being slammed shut.

He sat in his rolling desk chair and leaned back, and I stood as close to the door as possible, praying for this to be quick, praying that I could be invisible, praying I could disappear altogether.

He didn’t speak for a long time, just watched me squirm, and with each second that passed, I fought myself, my inner voice telling me to stay calm, not to cry, that I could handle this because I already knew what was coming.

I was so fucking wrong.

“ you don’t have any friends do you.”

It wasn’t even a fucking question, and those tears I was so determined not to shed burned at the back of my throat, clawing at my eyes. He starred at me, expecting an answer, and I hated him, I hated my classmates, but mostly I hated me.

I swallowed compulsively, my lips had gone numb, and I could feel my cheeks wobble.

“Lena is my friend.” The words came out thick and untrue. We both knew it. I couldn’t look at him while I desperately tried to gain control of myself. Each salty tear that ran down my cheek cut like a sharp blade.

“You’re not going to graduate,” he leaned forward in his chair, trying to catch my eyes, And I refused to look at him, instead looking down at my knock-off doc martins, trying not to sniffle like a baby. “ It can be hard when you don’t have friends, but I want you to succeed, amy.” I shook my head because speech was beyond me at this point, and really what could I say to that? Did he think me not having friends was my choice?

My memory gets fuzzy here, I don’t recall what he really said after just that we worked out a plan of what assignments I had to finished to bring my grades up to passing. I was crushed by dread, squeezing at my chest and a thick fog settling over my mind. I didn’t know how to do the work, I couldn’t do it, and I knew there would be no help either.

I was dumb, lazy, unlikeable. I was nothing.

I remember leaving his office and going straight to the bathroom, hiding in the stall and crying so hard I felt my stomach was coming out of my nose.

An adult saw what I worked so hard to hide. I was lonely, desperately so.

I remember trying to pull myself together, looking at my red blotchy face in the mirror, thinking how ugly I was and how much I hated myself, but I still had to go finish my job.

I left the bathroom looking like someone who had just had a mental break. No one I saw asked if I was alright, not any of the teachers still in their classrooms as I vacuumed, not any of the other student workers. It was okay. I was used to being ignored.

I did graduate 8th grade, not that I deserved to. I wondered if I got passed out of pity, maybe because I had worked hard at the end?

On graduation day, as I stood there by myself trying to look like it didn’t bother me, trying to look like I chose to be alone, my 5 th grade teacher walked up to me in that lightly hunched over way he had and told me he didn’t think I would make it. He looked at me like I was the worst kind of fuck up. He looked at me like he took pleasure in tearing me down. Why else would he feel the need to say that?

I’m an adult now, I’ve lived a whole lifetime since then, but I’ve never been able to shake those words. They burrowed into my psyche like a disease, festering, never healing.

You don’t have any friends

You don’t have any friends

You don’t have any friends

[theatresweetheart]

34 from the kiss prompts for prinxiety?

Raging River

Warnings: Blood, injuries, death mention (no main character death), depressive thoughts, kissing, hurt/comfort.

Pairings: Romantic Prinxiety, Familial Analogical

Characters: Virgil, Roman, Logan (briefly mentioned, but not present.)

Word count: 1818 words

Continuation/AU: Of Stars and Royal Gardens. 

                                             ———————

Riding on horseback was something the king was very much used to.

Trembling hands grasped the reins like a lifeline. Surrounding guards rode beside him, all weary and exhausted. Covered head to toe in blood and sweat. The ambush on the travelling group had been entirely unexpected and they had been overwhelmingly unprepared for such a feat.

Swords clashing rang in Virgil’s ears, as he stared forward with unseeing eyes. The shouts of the men beside him, attempting to defend him and Roman from the approaching bandits. Metal clashing against metal. Orders being barked as the thieves grew ever closer, snarking and spitting, reassuring the royals that they weren’t getting out of this unscathed.

Roman, ever the hero, had drawn his own sword, wielding it high and skilled and threatening, even if it was against the orders of the knights surrounding them.

Virgil had stood behind him, his hand on the hilt of his blade, watching and waiting for the knights to give them some sort of escape route out of here with their lives in tact. Having both of the kings go down in an ambush would devastate the kingdom. With no one to rule or maintain order, the kingdom would fall to chaos.

“Roman, don’t be an idiot, listen to them, they know what they’re doing.”

“I‌ know what I’m doing too, you’re getting out of here.”

“No, we’re getting out of here.”

The conversation replayed over and over in his head on repeat. Virgil’s mind refused to let the matter rest. His hands tightened on the horse’s reins, his eyes flickering over toward the empty saddle riding beside him. A choked noise rose in his throat, but he swallowed it down.

When they arrived in the town, Virgil would need to be composed enough for the people. When they saw how bloody and beaten the rest of the royal guard was. People would panic more when they saw their king in tears over something he could have changed.

“They will see it as a sign of weakness,”‌ he could remember his father telling him.

The images of the battle flickered back to life as he zoned out once more, knowing that no matter what, the guards beside him would make sure his horse stayed on the right track. Virgil knew for a fact that his mind being else where after something like this would not surprise the men that survived the ambush.

The group had been split, some guards taken down by thrown knives, some tackled and Virgil had drawn his sword in an instinctual movement, raising it and keeping his back to where the horses had been held hostage, taken by the reins and held so that no one could use them as an escape attempt. They were completely surrounded on all sides by either thieves, a mountainside or a cliff-face that dropped to a stream in a valley about one hundred feet down. Immediate death if one were to take a fall.

Which was why his stomach jumped with anxiety and terror when he saw Roman being pushed back further and further toward it by a bandit.

The blood staining Virgil’s royal attire wasn’t all his own.

He could remember the blood pumping in his ears, watching the bandit jab a sword too close to Roman for comfort. The other king, thank God, was skilled enough with a blade to have blocked it, but his foot almost slipped down the bank.

And Virgil had reacted without thinking.

He’d broken through what little wall of protection he had left of loyal knights and booked it toward the bandit currently toying with Roman’s life as if it meant nothing.

A lot of the fight was a blur of adrenaline. Virgil could very much remember his sword sticking through the back of the man trying to kill his husband. Blood had splattered the young king as he yanked the blade back out. Before either he or Roman could have shared a brief and fleeting moment of victory, Roman’s foot slipped fully and he slid backward.

Virgil had reacted on instinct, throwing himself forward and grabbing Roman by the wrist. He slid forward painfully on his stomach as he stared down at the drop into the river beneath them. Roman’s left hand holding tightly to his own, but they could both feel their holds slipping. Blood and sweat painted the both of them too much to have a sturdy grip on each other.

“Just– just hold on, I’ve got you, I‌ promise!”

“My hand’s slipping Virgil, it’s not gonna last.”

“Shut up!‌ Yes it is. Oh god, it has to!”

“Virgil—”

“Stop, please, God, I’m gonna pull you up, I‌ can do it, I‌ can, I‌ have to, I—”

“I need you to know that I‌ love you more than anything, Virgil.”

And Roman’s hand had slipped from him, leaving Virgil to watch him disappear beneath the icy waves below.

“Your Majesty!”

A knight had grabbed him and heaved him up onto his feet before dragging him back from the edge, all the while Virgil fought him. Demanding to go back, to released and let him do something, dammit!

As they entered through the gates of the kingdom, people flocked to the streets, filling them with chatter and wails and cries. Virgil kept his head high, feeling nothing but numbness coursing through him. The guards drew their swords, keeping the subjects at a reasonable distance.

As people noticed the empty saddle beside the king, their misery echoed louder.

The castle gates were shut soon after and Virgil was escorted back to their quarters. Handmaidens entered and left, cleaning him up, getting him changed out of the torn and bloodied clothing. Healers patched up where he had been injured, rubbed salves on bruises and open cuts so they would heal without scaring.

He’d barely been given time to breathe before he was escorted back to the throne room.

“Your Majesty,” the royal adviser stepped forward after Virgil took his throne. The empty one beside him a reminder he’d failed. “What should we do with the prisoners?”

In truth, Virgil hadn’t realized the guards had managed to keep two of the bandits alive for questioning.

“I don’t know,” he rubbed his forehead, wincing as his hand scraped against a wound he hadn’t known was there. His fingers came back painted with a light pink and clear salve. “I need a minute to think.”

There was a lot running through his head and if someone couldn’t understand that at this moment, they could take their leave. Virgil’s eyes burned and his throat itched, but he forced his thoughts to be elsewhere. The minute he focused too much on his physical side was the minute everything came crumbling down. No one in this throne room deserved to see their leader so broken.

Another, more tentative voice spoke up. “Should we start preparations for the funeral?”

Virgil’s hands clenched, but he didn’t say anything at first. The person who had said it seemed to get the picture very clearly that he did not want to talk about that right now.

“I want a messenger in here.” A‌ servant exited the room immediately and came back not three minutes later with a messenger in tow with a scroll and pen. “Send word to my father of what’s happened. Inform him that I‌ request his presence here with me as soon as possible.”

“Yes, Your Majesty,”‌ the messenger replied, scribbling everything down onto the scroll quickly but neatly. He then bowed and exited once more.

Even from there, though, Virgil wasn’t left alone. For hours on end, he was bombarded with questions; what was the king going to do? Were the bandits going to be hanged?‌ Tortured for answers?‌ Was there a funeral going to come in the next few days?‌ It just went on and on and on.

Someone had even asked if he was going to remarry.

Was he never going to get some privacy to mourn his loved one until he turned in for the night? Until he had to go back to a bed that was too big for one person? Virgil had gotten used to sleeping side by side someone else, sometimes cuddled close and sometimes on opposite sides of the bed because the room was too warm and Roman was too warm.

Truly speaking, Virgil could remain in mourning for as long as he wished. But to put the kingdom under that sort of reign?‌ Even his own father had mourned his mother, but it didn’t take over his life. Logan still had to rule, so Virgil would take after that model. Let it hurt, then move on and hide the pain away from the public eye.

He closed his eyes, letting his head rest in the palm of his hand, pressing on the bridge of his nose as if to ward off the oncoming headache. Who knew holding back tears could make your head hurt?

Virgil let out an unsteady breath, but his attention was lifted up once again as the door to the throne room opened. This had better not be another question about the upcoming arrangements for—

He paused, hand dropped to the arm of the throne as he looked at who was standing in front of him.

There, standing right there, was Roman alive and in the flesh. Bloody, bruised and his outfit was in tatters but he was alive.‌ At least, that’s how it seemed. Leaned slightly as he favoured his right side, but alive. Panting slightly, his breaths coming in and out unsteadily but alive.

Virgil rose to his feet and everyone else in the room dropped to a knee.

He didn’t waste a single moment more when crossing the distance between him and his husband. His eyes blurred over with tears and the room was meshed into a mash of colours and lights, but he didn’t care. His hands came in contact with Roman’s uniform, as destroyed as it was, and it was solid and real and warm and there.

Virgil’s breathing stammered, but he wrapped his hands into Roman’s tunic and pulled him down into him. He needed him to be close.

Roman let out a small noise of surprise when his mouth met Virgil’s but made no move whatsoever to pull away. Instead, his hands moved to wrap around the smaller man and pull him closer, as close as he could, even with his muscles aching against the movement.

Virgil’s hands moved to push through Roman’s soaked hair—he was briefly curious if it was water or sweat or blood or a mix of all three, but either way it didn’t matter.

Roman tasted like tears and home and safety.

They broke apart when they needed to breathe, but Virgil didn’t pull back. “You’re here,”‌ he murmured, so close their lips brushed.

“I’m here,” Roman reassured him, keeping his arms sturdy and tight.

And Virgil kissed him again.

[aquaquadrant]

shinies

Star Wars: The Clone Wars fanfic Rating: G  Warnings: Minor language, death mention  Summary: After Order 66, Rex and Ahsoka finally talk.

A/N: Hi readers! I hadn’t planned on writing anything for the final season of The Clone Wars, but then I saw some art by @lornaka (here) that really inspired me! And honestly, I had to write something for Rex and Ahsoka, I love them so much. Hope you all enjoy, the A03 link is below if you prefer, or you can continue reading on Tumblr! Reblogs/comments are much appreciated! - Aqua

Click here to read on Archive of Our Own

Click here to support me on Ko-fi

~*~

shinies

Rex does a third and final check of their hyperspace route before turning in the pilot’s chair.

Their shuttle is a small thing, and Ahsoka isn’t far from him. She’s sitting on the bench, resting her elbows on her knees as she stares at the opposite wall. She hasn’t spoken since they took off. She seems numb, in shock.

Rex clears his throat, rising from the chair. “You okay, kid?”

Ahsoka’s eyes cut to the side, regarding him with a look that isn’t entirely there. He’s struck by how harsh the hollows of her face look, the exhaustion that’s settled into her features.

Kid, he calls her, but she’s been without the innocence of childhood for a long time.

He remembers the shiny Padawan he met on Christophsis, what seems like a lifetime ago. Bright-eyed and capable beyond her fourteen years- Rex was only ‘fourteen’ for six months, as part of a childhood that passed in the blink of an eye. If they’re speaking chronologically, he’s still only thirteen.

But experience outranks everything.

They were both shiny, then. He’d liked to believe himself not to be. His higher level of training granted him a certain degree of authority that made it easy to forget he was leading brothers who’d been made the same year as him. But really, back then, he knew nothing. Nothing at all compared to what he’s been through now.

The war had been new, then. Ahsoka was part of the first generation of wartime Padawans, the young commanders raised on months-long campaigns and all the horrors that came with them. In some ways, they had it easier than the Generals, the Jedi Knights and Masters who remembered a time before the war, when the Jedi were strictly peacekeepers. In other ways, they had it much, much worse.

Fourteen years old and coping with the loss of men on her orders. Fighting for her life just to fight another day, no end in sight. Surrounded by death and destruction, haunted by the faces of the ones she couldn’t save.

In that way, they’re the same. They were both kids forced to grow up too fast.

There’s nothing shiny about him anymore. Every part of him is coated in dirt and grime, his hands and his soul stained with the blood of his brothers. It’ll never wash out, he already knows. He won’t try to forget- he owes it to them not to.

“You can talk to me,” Rex says quietly. Almost a plea. “Ahsoka.”

Ahsoka takes a deep breath, closing her eyes. When she opens them again, her gaze is clearer.

“The force is mourning,” Ahsoka tells him. “It’s so… empty. A gaping, bleeding wound. It’s… I’ve never felt such an emptiness before, never felt so… completely alone. It’s like every star in space has been blotted out. It’s disorienting.”

Her assessment is delivered with no small amount of grief, sharpening the edge of her voice. Rex can’t imagine what it must feel like. He feels the loss of his brothers as keenly as a blade to the heart, but he knows it’s not the same thing, the same way Jedi are connected to all living things through the force. To lose so many in a single moment must be devastating.

Rex approaches. “You’re not alone,” he reminds her. “I’m here. We’re gonna get through this, alright?”

Ahsoka stands up to face him, her expression terse. “You shouldn’t be following me, Rex,” she whispers, bowing her head. “I don’t know what to do.”

It’s a painful thing, to see Ahsoka so uncertain and lost. More so to know that she fears she’ll get him killed. It was always the Jedi with the plans, the clones dutifully carrying out their orders like good soldiers- good soldiers follow orders- and now that’s been turned on its head, like everything else.

Rex hums noncommittally. “Well, I know what I’m doing.”

Ahsoka looks up in surprise, confusion knitting her brows.

Rex speaks honestly, reverently. “However long they made us to last, I’m gonna spend it protecting you,” he swears. “It’s what the General would’ve wanted, to know you’ll be safe.”

Ahsoka is quiet for a moment. Conflicted. “It’s going to be dangerous, travelling with a Jedi,” she warns.

As if leaving her is an option. Rex summons the barest of grins. “Good thing you aren’t one, then.”

Amusement dances in Ahsoka’s eyes for a brief second before it’s gone, overcast by sorrow and guilt. “I might’ve been, again,” she confesses, surprising Rex. “I didn’t really want to leave forever. Maybe… if I hadn’t left at all, things would’ve been different-”

“You couldn’t have stopped this,” Rex cuts in sternly. “None of us could.”

Ahsoka smiles sadly. “That goes for you, too.” Her voice is soft, but knowing. “I know you want forgiveness from me, but you don’t need it. It wasn’t you. I know you’d never hurt me.”

Rex swallows and glances away, unable to hold her gaze. Damn Jedi and their ability to sense what he’s feeling. Or maybe that’s just Ahsoka, just because it’s him, it’s them. They’ve been through a lot together. They know how each other thinks.

He does want forgiveness. From her, for not being strong enough to resist the chip. From Fives, for not fighting harder for him or looking further into it. From all the brothers he had to kill or leave for dead. But Ahsoka’s right; it’s not something that can be given to him, so he’ll have to live without it.

He inhales. “And you’re not afraid…?”

Of me, he can’t quite finish. Of what I almost did. What I might try and do again.

Ahsoka’s hand travels up, fingers brushing feather-light over the bandage on the side of his head. “The chip’s gone,” she says simply. As if that answers everything.

Maybe it does.

He’s still got questions. Who was behind the chips? How many other Jedi managed to survive? Where will they go? Who is their enemy now? Can any of his brothers be saved? Who do they serve? Are there any other horrible secrets built inside of him, fixed to strands of DNA like armed mines, waiting to blow?

But they can wait.

“Yeah. Yeah, it is,” Rex murmurs. “It’s over now.”

Moving carefully, Rex cradles the back of Ahsoka’s head and presses their foreheads together.

Ahsoka doesn’t pull away. She winds one arm around his shoulder, her other hand gripping the front plate of his armor- armor that’s been scorched and beaten and worn, coated in ash and dust. She breathes in, breathes out. Then she breaks.

Her eyes squeeze shut as a sob is strangled in her throat, like a dying gasp. Her hold on him tightens and he feels her tremble. Terrible and violent, that trembling is, like the way the ground shakes in battle when it can no longer withstand the firestorm raining down on it. Her tears trace the lines of her markings, the same markings painted on the helms of the 501st.

Rex closes his stinging eyes against his own tears, pointless as it is. They streak unbidden down his face, dripping down his chin. It hurts to let himself cry, his mouth twisting into a grimace. His other hand grabs Ahsoka’s arm, to hold her close, as if that could somehow protect them.

They cry together, lost and confused and hurting, grieving the death of everything they knew before and terrified of the uncertain depths they’ve been plunged into.

Like a couple of shinies.

~*~

[angelkurenai]

Imagine finding out about the deal Castiel made to save Jack and being devastated because you love him. Only to break his heart even more by telling him you are pregnant with his child.

You couldn't think straight and hell if you could even see right because of all the tears clouding your vision. Your heart was hammering inside your chest, or at least whatever pieces were left anyway, your throat felt tight and dry and the big ache ran deep in your soul. Your chest was heaving and your hands were shaking, in fact your entire body was, as you walked down the stairs with such anger Sam and Dean would have never wanted to stand in your way. But they did when they noticed your red, glossy eyes and great distress.

“Whoa whoa, (Y/n), what's the matter?” they both jumped up from their seats, Sam being the first one to ask but it felt like his words just went over your head. Your mind, your soul and entire being in fact, could only comprehend one thing at the moment: the blue-eyed angel and how the pain intensified just by looking at him. It felt as if someone had stabbed you right through your heart and a choked sob escaped your lips before you could get to say anything.

“Shit” Dean breathed out with wide eyes, placing a hand on your shoulder “What the hell happened, kid? You went out just for a supply run and now you're-”

But Dean's words also felt like an echo, far and so distant, as you pushed away from him and took a step closer to the angel in the room. His eyes were wide, filled with concern and even more worry than the others'. A different kind of concern which you couldn't even bear to face at the moment.

“(Y/n) are you ok? What- What happened?” your boyfriend took a step forward but you only took one back in response, before he could reach out for you. You saw the hurt flash through his eyes, making him look even more like a kicked puppy. But your heart was already in so much pain you couldn't feel sorry for him now. Not this time.

“Tell me you didn't do it.” your voice was hoarse, your throat actually hurting as you spoke, but you didn't care. You looked at Castiel with tears in your eyes; cheeks already tear-stained.

“Di- didn't- do-” he squinted at you, the same way that would always make your heart skip a beat and your lips pull into a smile; not this time though “Didn't do what? I- I don't underst-”

“Damn it Cas, I spoke with Naomi!” your voice raised and his eyes instantly widened, you feared, in realization “Tell me she was lying. Tell me you didn't go and throw everything to hell. Tell me you weren't so careless so- Tell me you didn't do it!”

“Wa-wait- Naomi?” Dean blinked “What would you want from her?”

“She came to find me to speak about-” but the words got stuck in your throat, a mere broken sob escaped because you were unable to say what none of them knew; as you shook your head. You met his blue eyes again, your vision even more blury “Tell me you didn't make a deal.”

“(Y/n)?!” you could hear Dean's voice but it sounded so distant.

“(Y/n) I-I-” his eyes slowly trailed down, guilt and pain written all over his face, as a tear finally rolled down your cheek “I need you to know how much I- I love you. I love you more than anything in my entire existence. I would never do anything to hurt you but I-”

“Don't bullshit me, Castiel.” you hissed, another tear rolling down your cheek “Did you or did you not?”

“I-” his own eyes filled with tears “I wish I could have another choice but I couldn't-”

“(Y/n), please.” Jack took a step forward, his brows pulled into a frown with so much pain and guilt written in his innocent eyes as he took in the heartbroken look on Castiel's face “He would never want to put you in pain. But he-”

“Jack stay out of this, it has really nothing to do with you. Not anymore. This is between him and I-” you stated firmly, eyes glued on the angel “An answer to my question is all I ask. Tell me you didn't do this to me, Castiel.”

This time your words cut even deeper in his heart, deeper than any angel blade even could, tearing it into pieces as you called him by his full name. He was always your Cas or Cassie, but this was serious and broken and it killed him a bit more on the inside. You could only have that effect on him.

“I-” he wanted so bad to give you the answer you wanted, the one you wished for and not the one you thought you'd get, but he'd lied for long enough and he could not longer do that; especially to you, his other half “I'm sorry.”

His eyes trailed down once more in actual pain as a shaky breath escaped your lips. Your eyes widened even more and Cas couldn't bear to look up to see your red-rimmed eyes filled with betrayal or your cheeks stained by the fresh tears. Your uneven breathing was the only thing he could hear for a couple seconds, a shaky and choked “Y-You-” was soon followed by a humorless laugh that made him look up with a sad and confused frown.

“You're sorry? Sorry? Sorry for what in the first place, Castiel?” the laugh turned into a bitter one “No, no you're not even sorry. Not yet. But you will be. You will be when you realize what you've left behind. When you realize you threw everything away. When-” the sobs that left through your lips and shook your entire body prevented you from speaking. You allowed the tears to flow, far too broken and with no strength left to hold them back.

“(Y/n), please, I'm really-” but he didn't even get to complete his sentence as you cut him off. The only sound that echoed through the bunker other than small gasps... being that of your hand hitting his cheek. The slap hurt so much more than he could even put into words, and it was greater than any physical pain he could go through. A sob mixing with whimper slipped past your lips and Cas only closed his eyes when he felt the slap on his cheek.

“Screw you, Cas.” there was such anger and pain in your voice, he didn't dare look up. You placed a hand over your mouth to hold back your sobs, the other taking hold of the chair to support your weight; your eyes closed as you let more tears flow.

The silence in the bunker felt so thick for a moment, Sam and Dean far too shocked to comprehend what was happening. Sam was the one to make a move first, slowly placing a hand on your shoulder “(Y/n)”

“What is she talking about, Cas?” Dean asked with more defense, his brows furrowed deeply.

“Dean, I-” the angel started speaking but the second he looked at you shaking and crying in Sam's arms, he caved in. A choked sob left his own lips as his eyes casted down. “I'm sorry.”

“Cas?” Dean insisted more urgently, taking a step forward.

“Go ahead.” hearing your firm voice surprised him a bit “Go ahead and tell them. Tell them,Castiel, what you did!”

“I-” he closed his eyes for a moment, lips pursed and his head shaking softly before he gathered all his courage and faced his friends that were both expecting an answer “There was no way of saving Jack. The Empty came for him and it wouldn't leave until it got him. It was ready to take down all of Heaven's angels and Heaven along with them, other than Jack. I- I had to make a deal to- to save Jack, I had to make an offer to save heaven and I had to-”

“No” Dean's voice was gruff as it dawned on him.

“I had no choice, Dean. I was the only one that could end it. I was the one that woke it up so I-” he took a step forward, ready to apologize – not for his choice but for the lies and above all hurting you.

“Made a fucking deal?!” Dean roared “You sacrificed yourself to undo this?!”

“Dean” Sam said more calmly, at least as much as he could, hoping his brother would lower his voice when he saw the distress you were in. The older Winchester took notice, just like Cas and Jack.

“(Y/n)” Castiel's gruff voice made you hold your breath for a split second.

“You ruined everything.” you choked out, before he could bother to apologize “You went and threw everything to hell. You-” but more sobs came “Now. You ruined everything at the worst possible time. How could you do it now, Castiel? How?!” you shook your head, murmuring “Why now?”

“N-now?” Sam was the first to catch it, head slightly tilted as he took your state in and a thought started to run through him mind; but you didn't get to answer him. You pursed your lips and shook your head at him. You closed your eyes, placing a hand over your belly and trying to labor your breath. It was nearly impossible but you tried to calm down your shaking body.

Dean was ready to ask when he noticed your distress but the answer to his question and to the one Sam made just a couple seconds before was left to be answered by the younger man in the room. Jack took in the sight before him with a small frown before his eyes widened in realization and a small gasp left his lips. “You're pregnant.” and it was a statement.

All of their eyes widened as the the three men looked in your direction. “What?” Sam breathed out.

“I- I have seen that in movies.” he breathed out “Pregnant women do that, right?” e motioned at you “When a woman is pregnant and- and they're usually in distress, they place a hand over their belly when they try to calm down. Don't- don't they?” he blinked, looking at the two men with a small frown.

Sam and Dean shared a look, both of them ending up looking at you but you kept your eyes closed, your hand in a fist and your knuckles turned white as you held onto the chair. “(Y/n)?” Sam asked softly.

Taking in a shaky breath you gathered all your strength and opened your eyes “The spell Rowena used-” you tried to swallow over the lump in your throat “The one she used on me to cloak me from those demons we faced months ago prevented any supernatural being from seeing that there's also... another life in me. That's why you couldn't see I'm-” you gritted your teeth, shaking your head “But heaven knew from the first moment. Naomi came to find me because of the child, I told her to fuck off because I will fight for it but she ended up telling me about what happened, well-” you looked up at Cas with a bitter smile and a numb shrug “What you did.”

“You're...” his eyes were wide as they could be, lips parted as his shock slowly morphed into so many more things. Sadness, grief already, pain and yet happiness, tenderness and love. He gave you an emotional smile, the tear rolling down his cheek but he knew it was one of pure happiness, because for a second he forgot everything that would come for him. He had never felt this way, he finally realized what the word blessed meant for someone. In that moment he felt the world stop spinning and his heart burst in his chest. But despite all of it, there was something holding him back.

“And to think-” you laughed as you sniffled “I wanted it to be a surprise. Well, talking about a freakin' one.” you wiped away your tears furiously but more rolled down your cheeks.

“I'm going to be a father.” he breathed out, eyes moving back and forth as he looked at you.

“Yeah, well-” you took a step closer to him and he wanted nothing more than to wrap you in his arms at that moment “Fucking congratulations.” it was bitter and it angry but so much more sad “You will be a father... if you live long enough to see her that is.”

“H-her?” his eyebrows raised softly, a sob nearly escaped his lips.

Gosh, he imagined her having your eyes and smile and he felt a strong tug at his heart that made him want to sob.

“Yes, Castiel, her.” your voice cracked “A baby girl, we're having a baby girl. A baby girl you probably won't even get to meet because of what you did. Because of your choice.” another step closer as you looked him in the eyes with your red and watery ones “And oh I want you to remember this as you go there. I hope you do, Castiel. I hope you remember you left your little girl to grow up without her father and with all sorts of supernatural beings after her. I hope you remember that by sacrificing yourself, you also sacrificed her happiness. I hope you remember that your child will probably never even remember how you look like. And above all, I hope you remember what the mother of your child last told you, and I do tell you only one thing: I hate you with all of my heart, Castiel.”

And oh was that worst than death itself. It wasn't just the words but it was also the way you said them, as if you truly meant them. That was the most painful one of all. Up until a couple hours ago you told him how you loved him with all your heart and now you'd come to this. He had caused it. Cas felt his entire being crumble down, as he weakly reached out for you but you snatched your hand away and roughly pushed past him towards your room with tears in your eyes. He was thankful to Sam that, despite his disappointed sigh, followed after you to make sure both were alright.

He now understood. He now understood why the Empty had taken the deal. He now understood what the Empty meant when it said that it would come for him when he truly let himself be happy and let the sun shine on his face. It would be the two of yours daughter smiling at him the first time he got to hold her and probably...

The last.

[pandamega]

Sweet Fruit by PandaMega

AO3 | FF.net

A mysterious devil-fruit user attacks Zoro while he’s alone with Sanji gathering supplies. The power forces the two of them to engage in lustful acts at the risk of death, making them face their own desire and come to terms with their feelings for each other. Lots of sex.

“I swear to god why is it always the weird fuckers?!”

Kicks flew out as Sanji huffed in frustration at the bizarre group of pirates that had sprung out of nowhere. Powerful feet smashed into the face of one hideous and scantily clad pirate.

“You’re one to talk.”

A smirking swordsman cut through three more enemies, his long green robes whisking behind him.

“You better watch your ass, moss-head. Wait, that’s your mouth.” Another flurry of kicks sent a pair of overweight middle-aged pirates in ill-fitting fishnet stockings flying into the surrounding brush. The enemy pirates seemed to be wearing a mix of lingerie and bedroom attire that was all too jarring in contrast with their rough, pirate features.

“Honestly you fit right in with these freaks, I should just cut you down with the rest of them.”

Sanji scowled, sending a spinning roundhouse dangerously close to the swordsman’s head while taking out the pirate behind him. “Cut me down? I’d like to see you try,” he huffed, straightening his button-down shirt as he leaned backwards until his shoulder blades pressed up against Zoro’s, heat transferring between their backs before they launched away from each other again, throwing attacks dangerously, teasingly close to the other while easily dodging everything that came their way.

Fighting back to back with each other was a mutually thrilling experience. Zoro loved that they could argue and threaten to kick each other’s asses while coordinating their attacks with perfect, unspoken synchronization. Sanji loved that he could talk shit to the swordsman while simultaneously trusting in his every move. When they turned their backs to each other, there was no place safer than that space between them. Nothing unwanted could pass that threshold. As much as their words declared loathing for one another, their actions spoke of unwavering trust, and this paradox made their fights and interactions exhilarating in a fulfilling and sometimes confusing way. They had never spoken of it, but there was an electricity between them, as if both of their bodies were humming at frequencies that had them crashing constantly in a brilliant buzz. But when they came together they could match those frequencies in an instant, operating at the same wavelength so their bodies moved with matching intention, matching intensity, and anything became possible.

Making quick work of the enemy pirates while throwing insults to each other all the while, the chef and swordsman pair soon found themselves standing over a dozen or so unconscious bodies. Having pummelled the crew thoroughly, the pair brushed themselves off, still bickering, and continued walking deeper into the thickly forested island. It was a heavily wooded summer island and they would stay anchored here for the next week until the log pose set. As the island did not appear to be settled, the crew was left to scavenge the forest for food and supplies, and Sanji found himself lucky enough to be partnered with the green neanderthal to keep the man from becoming utterly lost in the wilderness.

The cook abruptly shoved Zoro aside to inspect the ground, “Watch where you’re stepping you lump, I think that was an edible mushroom.”

“ You’re an edible mushroom” came Zoro’s cheeky and absolutely ineffective retort.

Sanji snorted rather unattractively and looked back up at him from his crouched position over the crushed mushroom then started laughing.

Scowling indignantly, Zoro shouted, “What’s so funny?!”

The sound of twigs splintering underfoot caught both men’s attention and they looked up just in time to dodge a hazy wave of pink light that shot in their direction. A short, pudgy man with lecherous eyes and a crooked nose stood in their path scowling.

“You’re the bastards that took out my crew?”

Sanji scoffed at the wretched looking man, “Don’t tell me, that is their captain?”

“It’s their fault for being so weak.” Zoro chided.

Infuriated by their remarks, the captain raised both hands and aimed his palms towards the two men, shouting “Lust lust beam!”

Once again, the pirates jumped aside, dodging the pink laser beam. Hazy light seemed to shoot out of the man’s hands like a sunbeam, illuminating everything in its path with a soft warm glow which faded after a few seconds, leaving no trace or after effects. The foliage and trees that had stood in the path of the beam appeared undamaged.

“Does it… even do anything?” The chef scoffed, noting that there was no burning, wilting, or other physical effect on the landscape from the attack.

“Don’t underestimate me!” The pudgy man took aim again, this time pointing both hands at Sanji for his retort.

“Enough of this bullshit,” the swordsman muttered, charging the enemy with all three swords drawn to make quick work of him.

“ Beam!! ”

There was a clash, the enemy captain was sent flying into the trees behind him. However, the enemy had swung his hands around directly in Zoro’s face just as the swordsman had attacked, stunning him with the bright beam and thwarting the full force of the devastating blow. Zoro had halted in his tracks and stood frozen, swords held mid-swing, having not followed through after taking a face-full of the pink light. The half-attack was still enough to send the enemy pirate crashing into the foliage, but the sight of the powerful swordsman frozen in place, face unreadable at this angle, had an uneasiness stirring in Sanji’s gut.

“Marimo?” It had been ages since anything had been able to stop the swordsman mid-swing. The chef was shocked that this pathetic looking pirate captain was able to stun the demonic ‘pirate hunter’ with such a weak attack. Zoro fell to one knee, which had Sanji’s eyes bulging. Since the swordsman had returned from their two years apart with one eye and an unwavering confidence, the cook hadn’t seen Zoro even bleed, much less fall to a knee.

“Stand up marimo!” Sanji growled, then turned his attention to the pirate stirring in the bushes. “What did you do to him?” he shouted toward the crumpled form of the defeated pudgy pirate.

A sinister laugh rose from the bushes where the man had landed. “Gotcha.”

Zoro had now fallen to both knees, face flushed red, looking down, hiding an agonized scowl. Hands were clenched in a white-knuckled grip and it took all of his strength to suppress the trembling that wracked his body. His heart was pounding and it felt like all of the blood in his body had rushed through his guts to swell the space between his thighs. All thoughts had left his brain and he was left with a fuzzy numbness and an excruciating hunger that sapped the energy out of him. He looked up, with great effort, to meet Sanji’s eyes, intending to offer a reassuring look, but instead, upon seeing the chef’s bewildered and concerned face and meeting those crystal blue eyes, a jolt of electricity coursed through his body rippling over his skin with shivers. He was suddenly filled with a confusing desire that left his head spinning.

Sanji was floored but maintained a calm and collected disposition, shifting his weight and exhaling a cloud of smoke from the cigarette in his lips. Zoro had looked up at him with a face that read desperation , and it sent a tightness to his chest. Never had he imagined that the strong, hot-headed swordsman would have such a helpless look on his face, never had he imagined Zoro to be so pitifully subdued by such a weak opponent. Something was wrong.

“ What did you do? ” Sanji hissed, fury mounting within him as he prepared to smash the ugly little man’s head through the trees behind him.

“Your friend is going to die of hunger if he doesn’t get his fill,” the man crooned, coughing between words from the pain of Zoro’s previous attack, but managing to climb back to his feet.

The chef froze in place. Hunger? There was no way in hell he’d let any of his crewmates die of hunger. “I’ll just kill you and he’ll go back to normal,” Sanji growled, walking towards the injured pirate.

“Tsk tsk. If you kill the man that stabs you, does the wound go away?” the creepy man laughed shakily, still recovering from his injuries. This gave Sanji pause, and a deep worry coursed through him. The answer, of course, was ‘no’. Devil fruit abilities were hit or miss when it came to things like this; Sometimes defeating the opponent cancelled the fruit’s effects, while other times the damage lingered even after the user was dead.

“My Lust Lust beam makes you feel like your body is starving from desire. If they aren’t brought to ecstasy soon, the hunger will kill them.” The man backed away, attempting to sneak off into the woods.

Sanji snarled, stepping forward to stop the man’s escape, then glanced back at Zoro’s form, now on hands and knees breathing heavily. Shit. Fuck. Zoro looked bad. He needed to get him to Chopper immediately, it was more important to save the marimo right now, he’d deal with the other bastard eventually, but he was not going to let Zoro fucking starve. His pride as a chef would see to that.

The enemy pirate scampered away into the woods and Sanji begrudgingly let him go, rushing to Zoro’s side and kneeling next to him.

“Hey, shithead,” he uttered awkwardly, “get your ass up so I can take you to Chopp-”

“Don’t touch me,” Zoro spat through gritted teeth.

The chef’s brow furrowed. If Zoro was experiencing hunger akin to starvation Sanji understood, and he wasn’t about to let the swordsman throw a fit because his big ego didn’t want Sanji’s help. “Come on,” he growled, grabbing Zoro’s arm and lifting, forcing them to come face-to-face. A single, intense eye stared back at him and the look alone could have set the seas ablaze. Sanji’s heart stopped in his chest and in an instant firm hands had slid past his jaw and behind his neck, strong fingers weaving into his hair, as he was pulled forward until his lips crashed into Zoro’s mouth and he was being kissed hungrily. Shock froze Sanji in place as he processed what was happening. The moss headed fool had put his mouth on his. He was being kissed. Hungrily.

Hungrily.

Oh.

The gears finally clicked and Sanji understood what was going on. The beam. The fucking beam. The fucking Lust Lust beam. It made Zoro hungry with desire. So that’s what the asshole had meant. Sanji closed his eyes and a wave of acceptance washed over him with a calmness that surprised himself. Maybe it was his pride as a chef, or maybe it was because Zoro was nakama , or maybe it was something else altogether, but the decision was instantaneous. He would do this for Zoro, because he wasn’t about to let a crewmate starve to death, not in any way.

When realization hit Zoro and reality had blasted through his trance-like daze, his first reaction was to stop, stop right now!!! It took an immense amount of willpower, but he forced himself to pull back and barely managed to push Sanji away, awash with shame over the emotions that were overtaking him. Pressing his hands firmly against Sanji’s chest, eyes averted and unable to meet the gaze of the man he’d just assaulted, he growled, “ Go .” If the chef stayed near him for a second longer he didn’t think he’d be able to control himself. Every fiber of Zoro’s body was aching to pounce on the man in front of him, feast on his body in the most lecherous way possible. For the first time in his life he was genuinely scared. He was scared of what he would do, what he wanted to do, what he was about to do if the god damn shit cook didn’t get the hell away from him immediately. When Sanji didn’t move he articulated his speech with a harsh shove, barking “ GO. ”

Typical.

Typical Zoro move. But Sanji wasn’t about to abandon a crewmate in need, and the shitty swordsman wasn’t going to get away with pushing away the help of other people for the sake of his own pride or ego. This wasn’t something he could get through alone and Sanji would be damned if he let the swordsman die over something so utterly ludicrous. He was prepared, from the moment he had stepped foot on Luffy’s ship all those years ago, to take the lives of everyone on board in his hands, to be responsible for their health and wellbeing as their chef. He would never walk away from that responsibility, regardless of the circumstances, regardless of how self-centered and self-destructive and altogether infuriating the swordsman could be. Damn the consequences to hell, he would save this reckless man no matter what he had to do. He took Zoro’s face in both hands and forcefully turned his head to face him.

“ Like hell I’m letting you die like this, ” Sanji growled, and without hesitation, he pressed his mouth to Zoro’s in a firm, decisive kiss.

Sanji threw himself into the kiss with determination to do it right, to satisfy whatever hunger had awakened in his crewmate. But when Zoro slid his tongue over Sanji’s lower lip and sucked it into his mouth, it finally occurred to the chef just what exactly he had gotten himself into. A chill went down his spine while a heated flush climbed up his chest and to his cheeks. The kiss was hot and wet and intense with desire and Sanji suddenly began feeling flustered and extremely nervous. His thoughts flicked back to what the enemy pirate had said.

“If they aren’t brought to ecstasy soon, the hunger will kill them.”

“Ecstasy.”

The sudden realization hit Sanji like a ton of bricks.

Fuck.

He had to take Zoro all the way . He had to finish him off. He had to take him to the peak, make the volcano erupt, fire the torpedoes, boil him over, flood the banks. He had to… Just what exactly did he have to do? And how was he going to do this???

But it seemed like Zoro had a mind to take things into his own hands.

The devil fruit power had awoken something in the swordsman that had been lying dormant, and it was now bursting out of him with a furious hunger that he couldn’t contain. Lewd thoughts of the chef that he’d always managed to suppress to the very back of his subconscious had now sprung to the forefront of his mind with a hot and needy intensity. And now here he was, kissing Sanji like his life depended on it - his life did depend on it. The guilt and shame for assaulting the chef like this were buried under waves of desire that flooded over and crashed into him. He felt like a tsunami rearing up to crash into the coastline. Part of his mind was screaming at him to stop, but the physical urgency of his condition was overwhelming. Every part of him wanted Sanji. Every part of him wanted to be as close and intimate as possible. He wanted, needed, to put his mouth on every inch of exposed skin, slide his hands over that perfectly lithe body. He wanted to be on him, in him.

Zoro kissed the chef with an open-mouthed hunger as if he were savoring one of Sanji’s dishes, sucking and licking at Sanji’s lips and tongue as if he couldn’t let a drop or an inch of the man go to waste. Pulling the chef’s tongue into his mouth and nipping it with his teeth elicited a barely-suppressed moan from Sanji that had Zoro growling in return, something fierce and primitive awakening at the vibration. He wanted to hear more of those delicious sounds. He bit at Sanji’s lips, the sharp line of his jaw bone, trailed a tongue over the sensitive skin of his neck, behind his ear, and pulled an earlobe between his lips sending shivers up the chef’s spine.

Sanji couldn’t believe the acute lewdness of the swordsman. When did he learn to kiss like this?! He found himself more affected than he had expected, and Zoro’s strong, trained hands roaming over him had his skin alight with sensitivity. He was loathe to admit that he was enjoying this, but he’d be a liar if he said this wasn’t the most erotic experience of his life, despite his partner being an absolute barbarian… And Sanji just wanted that barbarian to tear him asunder.

A strong hand cupped one side of Sanji’s neck and the chef leaned into it, exposing the other side to Zoro’s teeth. The swordsman buried his face in the long, pale neck, Sanji’s soft locks brushing over his face and smelling distinctly of the chef - sweet, spicy, smoky, sweaty. He opened his mouth to rake his teeth down the length of skin, teeth smooth and sharp and powerful. Every bite to Sanji’s neck seemed connected to the nerves in Sanji’s stomach, which drew heat further south into dangerous territory that had him becoming very aroused, very fast. He was shuddering involuntarily under the whispered breaths and bladelike teeth, playing at his sensitive skin. Brain muddled, he worried if perhaps he had been affected by the beam too, though he knew he had not. This feeling was not the product of some foreign power. It was purely Zoro. Zoro was doing this to him. Zoro was making him weak in the knees and trembling for more. And as much as he might hate the swordsman, he trusted him. He trusted the way their bodies had, from the very beginning, responded perfectly to each other, whether they were fighting each other or fighting together. And now their bodies were once again perfectly in tune but in an altogether different way and it was exhilarating and so, so wrong, but felt so right. He would give in to the feeling under the pretense of saving Zoro. He might never be able to face the swordsman again, he might never live it down, but fuck it all to hell because he was on a roller coaster off the rails and if he was going to crash and burn, he was going to enjoy it to the last second.

Roving hands slid around Sanji’s waist, pulling up the shirt from the back and slipped underneath, instantly relieved by the feel of warm skin. Drops of sweat were gathering at the small of Sanji’s back and rough fingers slid over the cool, slick moisture as they explored the dramatic angles of powerful back muscles.  The calloused hands on Sanji’s back were rough and demanding, kneading into the tense muscles of the chef’s back in a way that had him rocking into them wanting more. He hadn’t realized how starved for physical affection he had been, nor how badly his aching body wanted the tension worked out of his sinews. Somehow Zoro seemed to know exactly what to do, exactly where to touch, exactly where to kiss, to put Sanji in a daze. The chef had at some point been pulled into Zoro’s lap, and with a blooming flush he realized with embarrassment that he was hard under his pants and was pressed up directly against the swordsman’s own hardness. As Zoro massaged into his lower back the chef found himself rolling into the pressure, grinding their hips together sinfully. Distantly he knew that he was supposed to be the one pleasuring Zoro, the one who had been affected by the beam, but he honestly didn’t know what to do besides sit there and succumb to Zoro’s hunger, rocking in his lap while the life was kissed out of him.

With great restraint, Zoro willed himself to be slow and gentle despite everything inside of him screaming to tear into the chef with reckless abandon. His kisses were desperate and fierce and starved, his hands dug into Sanji’s back with a craving, and every roll of Sanji’s hips sent waves of pleasure crashing into his brain threatening him to lose control. Lifting Sanji by the hips, Zoro found himself lowering Sanji back to lay in the grass, climbing on top and caging Sanji under him with his sturdy forearms resting on either side of his head, barely breaking his connection to the chef’s lips. A momentary panic flickered through Sanji from being pushed onto his back and pinned down, a part of him saying to kick the bastard off of him. But another part of him was acutely aroused by the exchange of power. He could lose control, pinned down by Zoro, because at the end of every fight, every argument, every disagreement, he trusted the man with his life. And there was something powerfully liberating about being able to bodily succumb to this man that he wholly trusted. It was terrible and terribly exciting.

Rough hands slid up the front of Sanji’s shirt, hiking the fabric up to his collarbone. Zoro kissed down the smooth neck to the chef’s sternum, letting his thumbs flick over Sanji’s nipples in a way that could only be described as sinful. Such a thing shouldn’t be allowed to feel so erotic. As Zoro’s head moved lower, trailing open-mouthed kisses down Sanji’s abs, the chef became aware of where the swordsman was going. Heat rushed up his neck and to his cheeks as Zoro’s mouth went dangerously close to the growing bulge in his pants. His heart raced so fast with apprehension he thought he might pass out, and he began squirming under Zoro’s weight to move the man aside, only to be met with a firm grip planting his hips in place on the ground. The swordsman looked up at him with his one half-lidded eye, the other eye hidden behind a scarred lid that was both dreadful and dreadfully sexy. The heated, hungry look pinned Sanji down as much as the hands, and he felt a lump form in his throat. That look didn’t so much ask for permission, it completely shredded Sanji’s composure and took permission. A trembling breath escaped the chef’s lips and he fell back to succumb to the beast above him.

The wet, hungry mouth kissed and sucked at the skin of Sanji’s hips and sternly cut obliques. The muscles tensed under Zoro’s lips in anticipation as each lean, rippling muscle was worshipped. The firm grip on Sanji’s hips loosened and those hands slid to his belt, sliding it out of the buckle and unclasping it with a tug that pulled at the tight fabric constricting his arousal. A slight groan escaped Sanji’s lips and his hands unconsciously moved to Zoro’s corded shoulders, squeezing at the tense muscles to which the swordsman hummed in pleasure. Sanji leaned up on one elbow to watch Zoro as he slid the length of the belt out from under the chef’s hips. The swordsman lowered his head, taking the front of Sanji’s pant’s in his teeth to pull it free from the buttons.

Fuck.

Did that guy have any idea how sexy he was? This was not something Sanji had ever wanted to realize but god damn, he was realizing it now. Zoro was a sexy bastard.

When the front of Sanji’s pants were open Zoro gripped the sides of the fabric with both hands and tugged sharply, exposing the chef completely in an instant which had him kicking in protest. Zoro looked back up at him, face hovering precariously over Sanji’s exposed shaft, asking for permission with a lusty gaze while his tongue lazily slid across his lips.

Fuck.

Sanji fell back in resignation, heart racing at the thought of what was about to happen, dizzy with arousal and confusion over his own emotions, but all thoughts were instantly stifled as a hot, demanding tongue was dragged from the base of his dick to the tip.

Sanji let out a sharp gasp, hand flying to his mouth to stifle the sound as his body was wracked with pleasure. Two hands slid down the front of his hips, massaging the knots of muscles where his hips hinged while Zoro licked at the throbbing organ, one hand sliding to it while he mouthed along the side of the length, teeth grazing the smooth surface, tongue playing across the skin as he moved his kisses from base to tip in teasing appraisal. Finally he pulled the head into his mouth with a strong suction making Sanji stifle a groan, then lowered his mouth completely over the shaft until his nose nuzzled the soft golden curls at the base. He gently shook his head side to side and swallowed around the stiff length in his mouth, eliciting a long, keening moan from the chef who arched beneath him. Zoro began dragging his head up and down in impossibly deep, steady strokes and Sanji found himself rocking into the movements, his hands instinctively moving down and tangling in the messy green hair, sliding over the thick muscles of Zoro’s powerful neck and digging his fingers into the caramel skin.

The swordsman hummed in appreciation, vibrating Sanji’s dick, sending a rippling buzz up his spine making him clench his fingernails deeper into Zoro’s shoulders. Vaguely his brain questioned why Zoro was focusing so intently on pleasuring him instead of receiving pleasure. Zoro was the one who would actually die if he didn’t reach “ecstasy” after all. Sanji mustered up the strength to rise back onto one elbow and look down at the swordsman. The sight nearly made him come on the spot.

Zoro’s impossibly powerful sword-wielding mouth was intently rising and falling perfectly over the entire length of Sanji’s cock, while the swordsman knelt over him, robes splayed open, with one hand tucked into his pants where he was pleasuring himself.

Holy fucking shit.

There was nothing more arousing in the world than seeing Zoro bent over him sucking him off while stroking himself. Sanji hadn’t realized that he’d let out an audible gasp at the sight, and the swordsman looked back up at him, mouth stuffed and face flushed, eye dilated and dazed with desire. The breath caught in Sanji’s throat as he unconsciously pulled his lower lip into his mouth, biting and worrying at it. Zoro’s hungry eye followed the movement intently, Sanji’s tongue wetting his lips as he continued biting at his lower lip, sweating and cheeks flushed a heated pink, golden locks messily framing his face, the blue of his eyes just a faint glimmer of sapphire around the swollen pupils dilated with arousal. Zoro’s brain wasn’t working, he was simply moving on instinct and desire, mouth plunging up and down over Sanji’s deliciously perfect dick with his eyes trained on the chef’s face, drunk on euphoria. He slid his mouth up the length, dragging his rough tongue up the sensitive underside and sucking all the way until he plucked his mouth off the tip with an audible ‘pop,’ exposing the wet flesh to the cool air for just a second before plunging back down on it, lips pursed together perfectly tight, diving down the entire length and maintaining eye contact all the while until Sanji rolled his head back in pleasure, unable to suppress the moans that escaped his mouth with every breath. Zoro  revelled in how the chef attempted to stifle his moaning by biting his lip, making the sound come out in an aching groan and leaving his smooth lips red and puffy. Those lips were so perfectly suckable.

Without thinking, Zoro slurped his mouth off of Sanji’s dick again, this time replacing it with the hand that had been stroking himself as he climbed back over Sanji, supporting himself with an elbow by the blonde’s head and combing fingers through the smooth locks. The chef looked up at him in a daze as Zoro lowered himself to his lips. Sanji’s gut reaction should have been to recoil but instead he pressed into Zoro’s mouth meeting his hunger, bashfully noting his own salty, musky taste. The warm weight of something fell against his abdomen and Sanji absently moved a hand to the object, realizing with a hot flush that he was holding Zoro’s heavy length in his hand. He was unsure of what to do but he knew that his mission was to get Zoro to climax, so he pumped at it in much the same way he would work his own arousal. Gripping it firmly he delivered each stroke with intention making Zoro groan into the kiss hungrily. Sanji found his grip clashing with the swordsman’s working hand, and he lifted his hips, pressing up against Zoro so that their arousals pressed together, and the two men adjusted their grasp around both shafts while Zoro lowered his hips down to press into Sanji. They found themselves thrusting in time into their fists, kissing each other feverishly. Sanji’s lips were nectar and Zoro was addicted, he just wanted to dissolve into him, and with each thrust towards Sanji he felt closer, but it wasn’t close enough to satisfy him. The impediment of their clothes separating him made him feel uncomfortably distant, until the boundary between them was too irritating and he forced himself to sit up abruptly, separating their mouths with a ‘plop’ that left Sanji leaning upwards into the air longingly. He looked up at Zoro kneeling over him to get a full view of the swordsman shouldering off the kimono to expose his bare chest in all it’s tanned, scarred glory. Zoro unwrapping the sash that bound the fabric together with seductively precise movements, gazing down greedily at Sanji’s mouth, once again biting at the lower lip.

God, he had no idea how sexy he was with that oral fixation.

The dark green fabric fell away from the tanned, muscular body and Zoro slid his black pants down to his knees until they reached Sanji’s legs, then pulled Sanji’s pants down further until both of their trousers were a tangle at their knees. The chef’s button down had managed to slide back into place over Sanji’s chest and Zoro tugged at it.

“Off,” he commanded gruffly, sending a shiver through Sanji who immediately scowled indignantly.

“I’m- I’m only doing this so you don’t die, marimo,” the chef protested, but obliged, unbuttoning his shirt. Zoro growled at him, tempted to rip the buttons off and devour the man for the irritating reply that he knew would weigh heavily on him later.

Zoro didn’t bother waiting until the shirt was fully off, sliding calloused palms up Sanji’s torso the moment the buttons had come loose. He lowered himself until their naked bodies were pressed together, revelling in the feeling of Sanjis flushed skin on his. Tucking his face into the crook of Sanji’s neck, Zoro wrapped his arms tightly around the chef’s shoulders, holding them close together, and ground his hips into the other man so that their erections slid against each other. Groaning into Sanji’s shoulder he began thrusting slowly, opening his lips to mouth at Sanji’s neck. Their movements were so lewd yet endearingly innocent, rubbing against each other desperately but not going any further than frotting.

Sliding a hand down Sanji’s side, Zoro squeezed at the firm hip muscles, ass, thighs. He slid his fingers under Sanji’s right leg and pulled it up around his waist, bringing their hips closer together so that their arousals were squeezed together between their abs. Zoro slipped a hand between them, grasping both of their lengths in a firm grip and stroking in time with his needy thrusting, occasionally dipping down to squeeze Sanji’s sack and rub the soft patch of skin behind it, sending waves of pleasure rippling through the chef. Sanji’s head tilted to the side as he breathed heavily, body rocking with pleasure, eyes half lidded and regarding Zoro through a curtain of sweat-slicked locks. Zoro claimed the lower lip that Sanji had been unconsciously biting and kissed him messily through each erratic thrust, the pleasure building, the pressure mounting within the both of them.

Groaning through the kiss Sanji bit back at Zoro’s tongue which only spurred him on. Fingernails were biting into Zoro’s back while imagery of being inside Sanji flashed through his mind. The thought of it alone made their actions seem chaste in comparison, the impossible obscenity of thrusting inside the chef so unbearably erotic that it brought Zoro closer and closer to the edge. He wanted that, the closeness, the oneness, the completeness of being inside another person, enveloped in the tight heat and delivering them unspeakable pleasure. He imagined burying his shaft deep inside Sanji, stroking the places no one had ever touched, bringing him the pleasure he never dared dream of, crashing into him like waves lapping at the shore, growing stronger until they reared back into a tidal wave bearing down and smashing through Sanji’s walls to fill him completely with ecstasy.

Fuck.

He was close. Sanji’s brain couldn’t comprehend that just hours earlier the two of them were nothing more than shipmates constantly at each other’s throats, because now he felt like his body would be physically deprived without Zoro this close to him. He was fucking into that powerful hand with a desperately urgent heat that built up like a volcano about to burst, feeling their dicks pressed together and sliding against each other rhythmically was so deliciously obscene and he was secretly reveling in the profanity.

Fuck . He wanted more.

When this encounter was over and the effects of that weird beam wore off would they be cast back into the throes of normalcy? Sanji didn’t think he could return to that. He hadn’t realized how badly he needed this. It was suddenly so simple and clear how this was the next logical step after their constant bickering and fighting and kicking each other’s asses. This, this was right. Wasn’t it? And what would come after this? He didn’t want to go back to normal. A bewildering ache ripped through Sanji’s chest at the thought of what would happen when this was over, and he pushed himself to last just a little bit longer to prolong the pleasure of their compromising position. Finally his thoughts went hazy and he felt the pressure mounting to a peak, just as Zoro’s thrusting and stroking became erratic, his breathing rough and labored over Sanji’s lips.

“Don’t stop,” Sanji muttered breathlessly, revelling in the mind-numbing pleasure.

The encouraging words lit a fire in Zoro that had him biting down into Sanji’s neck with bruising force to suppress his moans as he thrust through their orgasms, bodies racked with pleasure. Zoro’s mind was numb to everything but Sanji and the sensations of the body under him. Sanji arched into Zoro’s body, head rolling back with a long groan of ecstasy as his fingers dug deep into Zoro’s back, grasping him tightly for as long as he could, until the waves of euphoria washed over them and away, where they would be left to return to their former lives as if nothing had happened between them…

They remained breathing heavily until Zoro pushed himself up off of Sanji, not wanting to give the chef the chance to push him away first. Cum was spread between them and dripping from their stomachs obscenely. Sanji managed to find a handkerchief amongst his clothes to clean himself off, and tossed it towards Zoro when he was done, pulling his pants up and lying back down in the grass to close his eyes and light a cigarette. Neither of them spoke, neither knowing what to say or what any of this had meant. Sanji had simply done this to save Zoro’s life, right? He was a chef and he would not let his crewmates starve, in any way, shape, or form. Zoro knew not to overthink it.

As soon as Zoro’s orgasm had passed, the pang of hunger and desire had lifted off of him and he could feel himself being freed of the spell. Yet for some reason, looking over at Sanji lying in the grass, shirt splayed open and smoking a cigarette, he couldn’t help but feel that bit of longing still lingering deep within him. It made him feel an uncharacteristic sort of melancholy, as if he had lost something he’d never had, or gotten a taste of something forbidden and unobtainable.

Notes:  Special thanks to @dadeeacotzo​ and Karla for helping me beta/edit!

Next chapter will be Sanji’s turn to suffer hehehe

By the way, did you know that you can make your phone read you pages out loud? I have been listening to SO much fanfiction in Siri’s robotic voice lmao. When I’m in the car, when I’m chilling at home, when I’m working out (haha jk I don’t work out). People think I’ve got my headphones on listening to music but little do they know I’m listening to literotica/pornographic fanfiction haaaahahahaha

[roguemikmac]

Don’t Go Where I Can’t Follow

Summary:  What if things had happened a little differently in Beat the Devil? We all know Dean couldn't really leave without his Sam.

Genre: Gen, Angst, Family

Word Count: 1,856

Warnings: Blood, gore, angst

Link: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12978484/1/

A/N: I never thought I’d post another story, but here we are. As some of you may know, Jensen has voiced his…displeasure at the fact that Dean left Sam down in that mine shaft in Beat the Devil, but that it was too late to change it by the time he realized it. So this is a short fix-it fic, sort of. I don’t know if someone has already done this, but I couldn’t find a fic in my brief search and I needed a scene rewrite.

So please let me know how I did. I may not write all that often but I will strive to improve for when I do. No beta, so all mistakes are mine.

00000

As soon as Dean sees his brother brought to his knees, time seems to slow down.

“Sammy!”

He watches as one vampire sinks its fangs into Sam’s neck, and Sam cries out his name like a reflex.

Pinned as he is by his own attacker, Dean can’t help but answer, “SAM!”

To his horror, the vamp rips an entire chunk out of Sam’s flesh, and a nauseating gush of blood spurts from his neck. The sight makes something flip inside Dean, and he surges forward. He just barely catches the gasped “Dean” from his brother, voice weakened but still reaching out to him. Dean feels like he’s in a haze—everything around him is blurred, along with all thoughts but one: get to Sam. He knocks the vamp in front of him down and turns to do just that when, in a moment of clarity, he notices movement behind him. On pure instinct, he catches the vampire that jumps him and flips it over his shoulder, stomps his foot down on its chest to hold it, and slices through its neck with deadly efficiency.

Wasting no time, Dean leaps over the slayed monster and is in front of Sam in a few long strides, ripping him from the other vampires’ grip with adrenaline-boosted strength before they can drag him off into the tunnel. He grasps Sam in one arm, guards him with his body, and holds his machete out with the other, hoping to keep the vamps at bay.

The monsters snarl and make to lunge at the brothers when Cas appears from behind Dean to stab the closest vamp in the heart with his blade. Dean swipes the machete at the other, and its own momentum helps the blade sink into its neck. It collapses to the ground with a gurgle and goes still.

Dean pants and time speeds back up. He drops the weapon and clasps his hand to the side of Sam’s neck, crouching down as he secures him in his arms. “Sam! Sammy, hang on.” Deep down, he knows what he saw, how much blood Sam must’ve lost in even just the few seconds since his throat was torn out. His fingers slip in all the blood, which by now is just barely seeping out of the devastating wound. But it’s ingrained in him to try to fix it, so he clamps down on the wound anyways.

Sam lets out a tiny gasp and Dean feels like his own heart stops beating. The light is already fading from Sam’s eyes, though they flicker with life one more time as they meet Dean’s—they’re full of fear, sorrow, and other deeper emotions that don’t need to be said aloud but Dean sees clear as day—before glazing over.

Dean sucks in a shaky breath that almost sounds like a sob. “No...Sammy, please. C’mon.” He moves his bloody hand, trembling, to brush it against the side of Sam’s face. A few strands of hair fall limply. His whole body feels numb, and anguish begins to wash through him like waves, ebbing and flowing. He’s so frozen in shock that he nearly jumps when a hand settles on his shoulder.

Cas’s rough voice sounds from just behind him, “Dean, is he…?” Dean vaguely hears the others—Gabriel, Maggie, and the other guy whose name escapes him—also approaching from the other side of the cavern. Anger sparks briefly in him because none of them seem to be doing anything.

Dean looks up at Cas, eyes boring into him, then into Gabriel who’s come up into his line of sight as well, and back to Cas. “Cas, what are you waiting for? Heal him, right now!” The words punch out of him, gruffer than he intended but he's past the point of caring.

Cas turns his head away, as sorrowful as Dean has ever seen him. “Dean, I’m sorry, I...I can’t. He’s too far gone for me to…” He trails off, and the angel settles his eyes on Sam. The grief and shame at his own powerlessness are written all over Cas’s face.

It’s as if Dean’s very soul is cracking, and the knowledge that this can't be fixed—not here, not now—has him frantic. He turns desperately to Gabriel, not even needing to voice his plea.

The archangel appears just as regretful as he shakes his head once, silently communicating his helplessness.

No. Sam, he couldn’t be… Swallowing that thought and tamping down the swell of despair, Dean gently slides his arm out from under Sam, pausing to close eyelids over sightless eyes. It causes him almost physical pain to lay him down and stand up.

Dean faces the others and with more calm than he should have—though his voice trembles faintly—he addresses his friend, “Cas, you and Gabe should get them out of here. We should be close to the exit, you can hold off any other vamps well enough to get them through. Once you get out, make tracks for Dayton.”

Cas begins to protest, “No, Dean, what are you—”, but Dean interrupts.

 “Cas, please.” He cuts a glance at the body near his feet. “I’ll...we’ll be right behind you, I just gotta…” His eyes are watery as he stares at Cas, begging him to understand that he can’t leave just yet, can’t leave his brother here alone.

Cas doesn’t want to let Dean stay without backup, but he knows they’ve run out of time and he can’t convince Dean to come with and leave Sam behind. So he leans in so only Dean can hear, “You will catch up with us, right, Dean?” He can’t bear the thought of losing both Winchester brothers to this hellhole of a world, and he can’t do that to Mary and Jack either. He’s certain they will be devastated enough as it is.

Dean ghosts a half smile at him, though his eyes don’t reflect any mirth. “Yeah. Promise.” He doesn’t have the heart or energy to say more.

Cas nods and turns away, gesturing for Gabe, Maggie, and Floyd to follow him. They disappear without another word into the far tunnel.

After the sound of their footsteps recedes, it’s quiet, save for the scattered dripping from the opening in the ceiling into the dirty pool of water. There are probably more vampires lurking around, but Dean barely spares that a thought. He kneels and bends over Sam’s unmoving form. He cups his brother’s jaw and lets his eyes roam over the still, lifeless face. The face of the one who mere days ago declared they were in it together until the end.

If something happens, we will deal with it. Together. And if we die? We’ll do that together, too.

And Dean had believed him, because if he didn’t have faith in Sam, after everything they’d been through, he couldn’t rely on anyone. If the past five, ten, thirty years had taught him anything, it was that neither brother dealt well living without the other, so he didn’t begrudge Sam the sentiment. Not anymore. No, Dean didn’t mind at all the thought of going out with a bang, side by side.

I don’t really care what happens to me.

But he should’ve known better. Their mutual trust had been fought for and earned many times over, and they couldn’t afford to doubt each other. But they shouldn't have fooled themselves into believing that some evil thing out there wouldn’t take any chance to rip them apart. Quick, cruelly, and with no warning. Like Random Cave Vampire #4 getting the jump on Sam and taking a bite out of his jugular. In the blink of an eye, before Dean could do anything about it, his little brother gone just like that. Dying. Dead.

We’ll do that together, too.

So why did Sam go alone? Dean feels himself choke and tears start to drip from his eyes. He leans over further until his forehead just brushes Sam’s. His hand slides back to grip the back of Sam’s neck, fingers tangling in his hair, nails scraping through congealed blood settled into creases of cooling skin. Reminders that now Dean is the one who’s alone.

Dean only allows himself another minute of inaction. He sniffs once and cranes back to look at Sam’s face again, where a few droplets of salt water tears have fallen and dripped down, carving little paths through dirt and blood. It’s funny. Even though Dean’s world has essentially ended, he doesn’t have time to really let it sink in. He has to get out before more vamps show up. He has to catch up to Cas, find his mom and Jack, and go home while the portal is still open.

Jack… If Jack had the power to resurrect Cas from the Empty, is it possible that he could…? Dean prays that the nephilim can do it. The kid is family and Dean trusts him to do everything in his power to bring Sam back. That thought alone is what keeps him from pulling out his gun and ending it for himself right there, or rushing headlong into a swarm of vampires with no weapon. He will carry Sam the whole way to Dayton if he has to.

Dean pulls in a breath. His voice sounds like gravel as he—forever the big brother—reassures his little brother, “It’ll all be okay, Sam. Me and Jack? We’re gonna fix this.” He says it like he isn’t trying convince himself as well. He begins to gather Sam’s body to him, preparing to lift when he hears snarling echo off the walls. Dean’s head snaps up, renewed fear and adrenaline washing through him. Now that he has a mission, the sound of the approaching monsters makes his gut twist at the bad timing.

Dean reaches for his dropped machete, and he stands up, places himself between the incoming threat and Sam’s body, and readies his stance. His jaw ticks and his lip curls in determination. Nothing will take him down before he has a chance to save his brother.

Several vampires emerge from the mouth of the passageway. They spot the lone hunter and grin devilishly. Dean’s form is that of a deadly predator, ready for an attack.

The vamps rush forward, intending to surround him, when they suddenly stop as if they hit an invisible barrier. They stumble and strain forward uselessly, angry and growling.

Dean’s brow furrows in confusion, but then someone speaks from behind him, a voice that makes his body go cold.

“Well, well, what do we have here?”

Dean closes his eyes for a moment in resignation, then reopens them and slowly turns around to come face to face with the gleeful smirk of the newcomer. He’s not really surprised that the Devil made it here. Who knows whether or not Rowena is alive, but he has more important things to consider. Like the fact that Lucifer is standing there, his hand held up in a finger snap, expression smug as hell and watching him over Sam’s lifeless body.

“You fellas look like you could use a hand.”

[horizon99krp-blog]

– KILLJOYS, MAKE SOME NOISE –

PLUTONIUM, a PROTO has been spotted on the edges of Horizon99 !  Identified as ARES FURYAN TENEBRIS DARKEN, they have been living as a SCAVENGER for some time now, recognized for holding no loyalties in this wasteland.  They were created 7 years ago, designed to look 24 years old, with a tendency to act abrasive, arrogant, flirtatious, and lethal.  Unfortunately they are unregistered, with an operating license number of 2445900.

Real question now is… how will they react when the whole sky falls ?

PULL THE PIN AND LET THIS WORLD EXPLODE, GIVE US MORE DETONATION

abrasive on purpose, the war machine is every sort of sun-scorched patch of hell made available to him, his programming only able to account partial responsibility for his indefinite attitude, the sparks of independent intelligence having infested his circuitry since well before he is able to remember. he draws himself a portrait and then detonates inside of it, chaotic and arrogant and furious, the rage of his temper rivalling that of the tumultuous sandstorms that devastate the valley of slaughter occasionally. he enjoys battles, enjoys the stakes, the adrenaline, the flames, even when he can’t afford the risk involved, takes the blade point to the chest anyway; damn the consequences.

his ego is only slightly offset by an unexpected amount of charm, a flirtatious inclination heralded by fragments of a past life he only vaguely knows snippets about, the flashes of memories haunting him, snapping at his heels like dogs. he knows he worked in the sex trade, knows he was created to be aesthetically pleasing, anatomically correct, uses that to his advantage as often as possible, adheres himself to people’s weakest sides. despite how often he fights, despite how volatile his temper colors him, he finds flirting to be just as amusing.

THE FUTURE IS BULLETPROOF, THE AFTERMATH IS SECONDARY

PROLOGUE

the compound is a matte grey blotch against the wasteland skyline, a discoloration inverted against the pale, beige settings, standing unnatural in the blazing light, a large makeshift tent with no means of camoflauge, no cover of concealment, each corner jutting out offensively. either in daytime or under stars, the monstrosity sits, an obscene eyesore shifting a few miles here and there depending on the weather, the stakes ripped up from the gravel, the motors carrying it to whichever location suits it best for nefarious dealings, the insides seething with slime, with dust, with sin. screaming and wailing and pleading, women moaning and begging, men crying and yelling, gunshots and subsequent thuds of heavy objects ( bodies colliding into the sands and melting away into oblivion ) can be heard echoing from its creases at all hours of the night, and for a long time only the desert winds pull at the sound, only the hills absorb this travesty, the structure too far away from the city cybernetics, too distanced from helpful hands.

human and proto trafficking is a trade as old as the devil himself, dirty dealings done in clubside lounges translating into a hundred plus sentient lifeforms crammed into a space only meant for half that, feed an amount only meant a quarter of that. there is not enough for survival on horizon as it is, they say, the words always preceding an idea of some sort of purge ( which of course would never involve anyone with enough coin to pay ).

but a shadow falls over the door of the establishment, tall and lean and vengeful, with wings made from heavy machine guns, the barrels all adjusted and wired for pinprick accuracy, because the sky isn’t the only one with eyes out here in the valley of slaughter, the sun is not the only thing that burns. he carries the scent of a wolvern threaded into his clothing, a massive hide spread across his shoulders; he carries knives and bullets and a merciless vigor, an unquenchable aggression, a haunting grin that splits his face in two like a horror story, eyes red like a hungry sunset, the vulture in his chest starving for death. he bares the name of an ancient god of war, half mythos, half bloodlust, every inch of him a history divined from fades pages, a hoax perhaps at first, but now interwoven into the metallic core of him; he is a machine and a god, sent from heaven, sent from hell, sent from every holy nightmare you don’t want to remember.

the grin morphs into a grimace as his teeth clench, his fists tighten, the inhuman rage rippling through him as he shatters the door off its shitty hinges, crippling the entrance, breaking inside the edifice to lay siege to its protectors, to wreak havoc on their operations. he rains hails of bullets and sharp edges over the slavers, the destruction and mayhem nothing short of a bomb exploding inside these corners, human degradations meeting the war machine within their last couple of breaths before he rips their lungs out, their tongues and limbs and shredded pistols strewn useless across the floor by the end of it.

later, when the dislodged people spill from their confines, humans and protos clawing for the scraps of life alike, a woman grasps his wrist in gratitude, falls on her shaking knees, kisses him praises, crowns him glorious, but he just looks down at her, crimson eyes glowing in the yawning dusk atmosphere, watching this soft, breakable, fleshy thing of a creature, and chuckles, “i didn’t do it for you.”

FILES STORED  // WHAT HE DOES REMEMBER

001. the first time he kills a wovern is the first time he realizes why the gang is named after them and why he wears a leather jacket with the predators engraved on it; they are not easy to slay. even for something like him. the city of fyrestone is not foolish for having decided that running is honestly the best course of action in the face of these beasts. by the second kill, he begins to share attributes to their combat style; all teeth and jagged edges, claws and snarls and the absolute certainty of a massacre.

002. the underdome is both a lot easier and a lot more difficult than fighting in the flesh fair, depending on the day, the mooncycle, the rate of popularity, and the chaos in the crowd. also whether or not they’ve heard his name before, whether or not he’s a fan favorite or just death’s favorite, whether or not he makes the kill interesting enough to distract his audience away from everything else he’s trying to accomplish.

003. mad lacie likes when he wears high heels and fishnets, likes when he comes to her begging for a treatment, begging for a booster, whether he can afford it or not, likes when he dooms himself with every gulp of adrenaline, to save a heart not worth saving. so he does.

004. they tell him his heart is not worth saving and it sits and beats on the right side of his chest and he thinks about cutting it out sometimes while the moons hang high and the winds howl longingly in his ears, the wastelands spanning out forever. it beats and beats and beats, and he knows it’s breaking.

005. when he wakes up in the shop, tora, the gang’s leader, is standing over him, the scars on his face making him even uglier than the personality he’d implanted into his pet war machine, and when ares asks what happened, he explains it all in that rough, sanded voice of his, gruff, curt, biting. “when that keg exploded, a lot of our people were caught in the crossfire. we lost sirien, vaager, seulgi, minnie… and isbin.” all the words in the universe dry up and die inside ares’ throat, the sun shades into greys, all sounds sink down into the ground, as a cold numbness floods through his bones; a feeling he’s not experienced before. “that’s his heart right there,” tora points down to ares’ open chest, the mechanical ribs outstretched to present the half human heart pumping as though it belongs there.

“he was alive…” ares blinks down at it, dumbfounded. “he was alive when i shut down. i saw him.”

“he was,” a hardened look filters through tora’s gaze, something ares has come to understand as either a lie or a half truth about to spit out from his snake-like lips. “but then he died. and you needed a heart replacement.”

“he died before i needed the replacement?”

“what?”

“did he die first and then you took his heart to put in me?” suddenly the room stills, the air around them and the mechanic standing off to the side becomes dense with intensity. achingly, suffocatingly, ares’ pitch black eyes pin themselves to the flesh and bone man in front of him, his master by most accounts, the question pointed at him like a knife. “or did you see that i needed a heart… and then you…. took it…?”

006. isbin’s eyes remind ares of the sky, remind him of the greenhouses in the city, remind him of a flower blooming somewhere off the edge of the world, a droplet of flora surviving amidst the smog and smoke choking the tall buildings and all their inhabitants. isbin is much smaller than him and gets cold once the sun disappears, so he crawls over to where ares keeps watch over the camp and just curls up against his side, staring up at the stars until he drifts off. he talks to ares sometimes, despite tora’s scoldings, and tells him they are like brothers. ares doesn’t understand the word. not yet.

007. wolverns are fast and sharp and arduous to slay, larger than life and darker than the space between stars, caught between a warning and a legend, their bodies hardwired to withstand against claws and pressures and rippage. but humans are not; humans are soft, humans are delicate, destructible, fragile– loud as they die, screaming and bleeding, they’re voices howling into the empty winds as ares slices through to the cores of them, cutting open muscle and sinew and tendon.

like every other wolvern in this valley, he slaughters his gang, leaves no one alive, leaves no bones uncrushed, no blood unspoilt, no fragment of his gang’s campsite undefiled; he makes himself a hurricane and this is his new legacy, this is his new catastrophic wake, the demon he molds himself into.

he’s still dripping with their blood when he finds what’s left of isbin’s body and buries him under a mound of barren stones, calls it a funeral.

008. they don’t tell him why they are putting him in the dumpster, don’t answer any of his questions, don’t even look at him as they do it, just tell him to stay, to wait, to wait, to wait– and he does. waits as the sun drops, the moons spiraling, waits as scents collect around him, more trash, other scraps of protos, and it’s wrong somehow because he knows he is not scrap. he is fine, he is whole, and he is waiting.

009. taking too much of the booster will kill his heart. taking too little of the booster will let the heart die. all life is good for is fucking and fighting at this stage.

010. protos can’t cry, or at least most of them can’t; they aren’t built with tear ducts in their eyes since that wouldn’t serve a purpose for a functioning robot, wouldn’t play well into the narrative of protos unable to experience the same level of emotions as humans. humans can cry. but protos can only speak, can only shout, can only scream.

so he does.

FILES CORRUPTED  // WHAT HE CAN’T RECALL

001. his life before faceless men put him in a dumpster, the disordered tragedy of sights and sounds, touches and burning, some sort of ache deep in the center of him that he can’t quite name.

002. how many battles has he fought now? how many has he lost?

003. how long does he lose himself in the wasteland these days, each pilgrimage to and from the city becoming more and more rare, his interest in the menagerie hinging on a small few between its walls? at what point will he grow tired of flirting with strangers, death-defying, bullet-biting? how much will be too much? where is the alleyway he will be sauntering through when his heart inevitably cracks and shatters inside his ribcage?

004. the body belonging to a voice he hears echoing through his dreams sometimes when he shuts down.

005. do protos dream?

[tk-duveraun]

Sweet Dreams 9/10

Title: Sweet Dreams Setting: Modern Thedas Rating: PG-13 For Strong Language   Genre: Friendship & Adventure, minor Romance elements Pairings: (All relatively background) Ela/Cullen, Doribull Summary: For @elalavella. Ela’s been having vivid nightmares that are starting to feel far too real when the companions she has in the nightmares appear in her real life. She thought it was supposed to be the other way around! Previous Parts: One Two Three Four Five Six Seven Eight  Warnings: Mild violence and gore

Ela is 200% done with this shit.

For just one moment, Ela was frozen in place, every muscle locked stiff by freezing tendrils of fear. But before her sword could even shift in her numb hands, Ela shouted a primal, wordless sound. When the scream ended, she twisted her hands on the grip and all-but growled in her throat. “You know what? No. I’m fucking done playing your game and being so fucking scared.”

She kicked the little fearlings scratching at her ankles and swung her sword in a wide arc in front of her. “This is just a damn illusion. My friends would never fucking leave me here alone.”

Ela spun around and swung her sword in the opposite direction, knocking off the top half of a crumbling tombstone. “I’m not dancing to your tune for one more goddamn second.”

Panting, she stood still and stared into the emptiness of the Fade, waiting for her friends to reappear. When they didn’t, she bared her teeth and shouted again, “I said give them back!”

The last word came out as a bellow that made everything shake and shudder until the illusion shattered with a deafening crash. Judging by The Iron Bull’s surprised expression, no one else had been affected the illusion. All they saw was her standing there, panting and aggressively holding her sword.

“You okay there, Boss?”

“We’re leaving,” Ela snarled. As she stomped past her companions and up the slope, armor materialized around her, wrapping her arms and legs in hard leather. When heavy, dragonscale boots appeared on her feet, her footsteps were suddenly audible and echoing like thunderclaps in the Fade. The vallaslin on her face looked sharper and more prominent once her hair pulled itself away from her face and tied itself up into a tight plait.

Distantly, she heard Dorian say, “Well, I suppose they always say that will king in the Fade.”

“Too fucking right,” Sera said.

Ela didn’t look back, but she knew her friends were also suddenly in proper combat gear, with steps that made sounds and hearts ready to end this and go home.

More fear demons tried to attack with their spindly limbs and sunken faces, but Ela’s sword cut through them as if they were nothing more than rags and air. She barely slowed at their approach, simply changed the angle of her blade to slice them in half as she passed. They were nothing. The fearlings at her ankles were less than nothing. The Nightmare’s time was over.

“That’s what you thought last time, and then you left Stroud behind to die,” the Nightmare said.

Ela let the words fall off her like so much water. She didn’t pause until she planted her feet at the end of the path where the Nightmare demon’s gigantic form rested. At the end of the space, laid Stroud’s body. It laid bloodless and untouched by decay and time, his silverite breastplate still shining in the reflected light from Dorian’s mage fire.

Thirty seconds. Ela gave herself thirty seconds to grieve, to mourn, to regret leaving Stroud behind, and then she turned away from the preserved body and faced the towering Nightmare.

“Your reign of terror ends here!” Ela shouted. She ran at the demon, sword raised over her head in both hands for a devastating overhand strike. The Iron Bull roared his own, wordless challenge and stood at her side, both of them hacking at the unnatural, grey flesh. Behind them, Dorian and Sera fired away at the arms and tentacles that struck towards them from the horrific mass of demon.

“That’s right! Struggle, mortals! Fight for an eternity of despair until your soul gives out, just Stroud. The Calling would have been a cleaner death than you gave him, Elashorei,” the Nightmare taunted. It’s voice was unaffected by their combined attack and didn’t even seem to be coming from the demonic form their weapons were striking. “You belong to me and will never leave this place again! Now you know true fear!”

But Ela wasn’t afraid. She was angry. She’s lost her parents twice. She’d lost her sister twice. She’d lost Stroud. And she’d fucking destroyed Corypheus in the biggest shower of magic since that fucker Solas made the Veil in the first place. One demon was never going to scare her, no matter how big it was. No matter how long she had to strike it with her sword. It would fear Ela as she hacked away at it until she won through attrition because she wasn’t going to lose anyone or anything else.

“Biting, scratching, clawing. Wear it down. Wear it out,” Cole said.

Ela’s eyes widened at Cole’s words. They were barely more than a whisper and oddly coming from a place he wasn’t standing. They were also her own thoughts, but hearing them from someone else made all of the pieces fall together. She kept hacking away at the large form of the demon as her mind raced, double and triple-checking her conclusion.

With a fierce grin, Ela jerked her sword out of the writing, demonic mass. “True fear is a sneaking, insidious thing that claws at your mind slowly over time until you’re too weak to fucking fight back! Not today, motherfucker!”

Ela spun in place and thrust her sword into the scuttling fearling that had been harassing her at her ankles the entire time. A ghastly, screeching wail shattered the sounds of battle as the demon died. The remaining fearlings retreated as the mass of limbs and writhing skin dissolved in front of their eyes.

The demon corpse skewered on her sword was the only remnant of their protracted battle. Ela pulled back her sword and kicked the disgusting carapace off the side of the rock platform so it could fall for all eternity in the Fade.

Sera walked up to her shoulder and spit over the edge. “Drinks on you for a while, eh, Elalaland?”

“On me?! I killed the fucking thing!”

“It was, arguably, your demon,” Dorian said, coming up on her other side.

“Yup. Your nightmares, your fault, Boss.”

“Oh, come the fuck, on.”

[hotdamnvoltageman]

fight or flight

kirigakure saizo x mc (unnamed)

a/n: alright so an anon requested prompt 2 “please don’t leave me,” and i had this partial one-shot lying around and thought ‘well, that could fit nicely.’ and then it just. kept getting longer. and longer. and here we are. it’s a monstrosity i’m sorry.

@jemchew @demon-princess-anastasia @naerial @pasunny

Not her, he thinks, desperately, his consciousness clawing to regain itself. Not her. Anyone but her.

There's blood running down his arms, his legs, his face—there's blood between his fingers and in his eyelashes and it’s still dripping, slow rivers winding down his skin.

He pulls himself to his feet, reminding himself that if he dies, nobody remains to protect her, nobody remains to keep her from dying.

She's strong, but she can't possibly stand alone against an entire army.

He spits blood and starts running. He's good at running. No matter how far she is, he'll reach her.

The wind is hollow in his ears, but he reminds himself that the sooner he gets there, the sooner he can assure himself that she's safe.

The sooner he can admit to himself just what it is that's sending him flying this way.

He's late to the party, it seems, though he already knew that.

He arrives to find fire and desolation. He stands in the village, momentarily confused and a little more terrified than he expected—

And then she's there, rushing towards him, and the fact that she appears unscathed is enough to make him nearly fall to his knees in relief.

But he's a ninja of Iga. So he doesn't.

"Saizo!" She cries, desperate. "We have to evacuate the village—help me, we—" He grabs her wrist and pulls her back towards him. Her breaths are ragged and her eyes reflect the fire burning around them. He smells the smoke in the air and shakes his head.

"It's dangerous," he says, simply. The anger on her face as she twists her arm out of his grip is, in his mind, completely uncalled for. It's enough to bring a frown to his face.

"I don't care! I won't let innocent people die!" He curses her kind heart, her compassion, her love—the very things that have ruined him—as she charges into the devastation again.

It's then that he realizes he has no choice but to follow her. Or, rather, outrun her.

He sighs at the pain this entire situation has become, and starts after her.

He's quick to pass her; quicker to get to people, quicker to send them on to the mountain path. She darts between houses, adrenaline obviously making her faster, and he hears her voice. He keeps listening for it, just to reassure himself he hasn't lost her.

He can't lose her. Not yet.

And then, very suddenly, the world tilts sideways and he feels himself collapsing. He coughs violently, spits more blood, sees it running in the dusty streets and tries to assess the situation—

"Saizo!" His name carries like an arrow loosed from a bow. She kneels at his side, stops him from sitting up. The world goes loose at the edges, fraying like fabric.

"I'm just fine, little lady—"

"Like hell you are!" She snaps. He finds himself pausing, and her eyes catch his and he sees it, the fear—and not her fear for these people, or the world, but just for him. Do you feel it? He wants to ask. The part of me that you have. Do you feel it?

Because he does. Because he knows that she has some piece of him that he can't ever get back (and wouldn't want back, because it's the only proof he has that he's any good at all) and that he's not sure when she took.

"You should have told me," she says, worriedly, looking over him. She lifts his bangs and he watches her eyes darting over his skin, catching on every cut, every scrape.

"And what about you, little lady? All this smoke can't be good for you." He reaches up and threads his fingers through a lock of her hair that slipped over her shoulder. She furrows her brows, frowning in a way that reminds him of her mother back in Kyoto.

"That's not important," she says, and he desperately wants to argue that it is—until he starts coughing up blood again. He'll have to get some of Yuki's Iga medicine in him, and fast—but, first, he thinks, looking up into dark, glitter eyes. 

First, her.

"Go on, little lady. I'll be right behind you."

That frown again, he notes, but there's something in her eyes that's different this time. He fixes a smirk on his face and looks up at her.

She sighs.

"You're not as good a liar as you think you are," she says, almost disappointed, almost affectionate. Saizo's stomach drops. Don't you dare—

"Come on," she says, and she starts to loop an arm around his back.

"Don't—"

"Saizo," she says, pointedly, in a way that makes him look at her. Her eyes, dark like night, but reflecting the very depths of hell itself, are narrowed as she looks at him. He feels (almost) scared.

It's actually not a bad feeling, though, this one.

"Shut up," she continues, and his lips twitch into a smile. For a brief moment, he almost laughs—even as she hauls him to his feet, his lips are pressed tight to hold it back.

"Aren't we stubborn, little lady?" He asks, affection dripping fearfully sweet from every word. She lifts her chin, just a touch haughty.

"I—"

Her voice catches, gasping, and she suddenly crumples forward, sending them both to their knees.

He throws a knife behind them, and he hears it hit its target, supporting her with his free arm. Her breaths come heavy, anxious, and she leans forward on shaking hands and arms. He examines her, eyes catching quickly on the arrow lodged in her shoulder, the blood quickly blackening her kimono.

He examines it, then rips at the hem of his hakama, slowly removing the weapon and binding her as best he can.

It's not enough, not nearly, but he pretends his hands aren't shaking.

"Come on, little lady, we need to go," he says, scooping her into his arms. She looks up at him, gaze sharp, and clutches at the front of his hakama.

"Saizo, you're hurt, you can't—"

“We’re going. Hold on.”

They’re the last words either of them speak for a long time, as she presses her face into his shoulder and he runs until the smoke is less than a memory, and his legs are numb.

"Saizo," she repeats, worriedly, halfway to a question, when his steps falter slightly. He grits his teeth and grins, but it's too sharp and she notices.

"I'm fine, little lady—"

"No you aren't!" She snaps, and he— he's never seen her so angry, not like this, not at him.

"I've survived worse."

"Saizo—!" He can hear the storm that builds in her throat, lightning ready to strike him down, but he's sensitive to the world around him and he anticipates her every move.

He tightens his grip, makes it so she can't look anywhere but at him, words dying on her lips.

"I..." He waits, out of selfish curiosity, to see what she'll say. He knows he's been through worse, but, well, things still look bad—he tells himself he's allowed to be selfish.

"I won't let you die because of me," she says, resolute, eyes burning—and she shines like the moon in the sky, illuminating even the darkest of shadows, and he presses his forehead to hers because to kiss her would be cruel, but, god, he wants to.  

"Then we'll both just have to live, won't we?" His words drip sweeter, softer than he means for them to, and he suddenly regrets making himself the center of her attention.

Nevertheless, backing down from a challenge isn't like him. It never has been.

"There's no point in a world without you, little lady, so..."

He's capable of being charming. Making women swoon is easy, he's fine it for years, but for some reason he feels the words sticking to his tongue and he has to focus on hers just to find his footing. He can see the moon there, a crescent, cutting a curve into the darkness. Enchanting.

"So, don't leave me." A pause, and he swallows, and he feels her hands tremble and her eyes roaming over his face, searching,

"Please, don't leave me." The words hang too heavy in the air, too sentimental. He schools his expression,

"Hold onto me."

She nods, and agrees in a faint voice, as if hypnotized, and presses her face into his shoulder obediently. He lets himself relish it for just a moment, just long enough to blink and feel her arms circle a little tighter around his neck, just long enough to know that he will do whatever it takes to protect her—

And he runs.

The next morning dawns a hazy pink, the color of dying blossoms, and he rises later than usual. He's sure he was given a sedative. He lies on his back and stares up at the ceiling, sunlight inching across the floor.

He can remember the feel of her eyes on his in the moonlight, and how she passed out in his arms along the way. He can remember collapsing in Shingen's camp, shortly after delivering her and the news of the village's current state.

He had seen that the fire was out in the distance, and then nothing else.

Obviously, they had moved to a castle in the time he had slept. He wanted to move, but whatever they had given him is strong, because his head spins even now. He closed his eyes and returns to something close to slumber. He feels her breath on his lips, like it's real, but the moon in her eyes is not.

"Saizo," she says, and he wonders when it was she learned to move without alerting him, when she managed to slip so far past his guard.

He opens his eyes as if he couldn't care less to see her, and inspects her without obviously broadcasting his worry (which is intense, worse than he's ever felt, sharp as a blade—and he knows how those feel).

He lets a grin twist up the corners of her mouth, one more than the other.

"Shouldn't you be resting, little lady?" She frowns, slightly, and enters his room.

"I'm fine, thanks to you," she says, a concerned crease running across her forehead. She looks as if there's something more she wants to say, and in his mind he dares her to say it, but instead she shakes her head slightly and looks down at him.

"I came to see if you could eat breakfast. Are you hungry?"

After vacillating briefly, wondering whether he'd rather have food or her company, he cedes to her suggestion. She leaves the room, and it gives him time to think.

What he had said last night now seems extremely significant; asking her to stay with him, after all this time spent pushing her away. He had bared his soul for a rare, brief moment, and left them both stunned.

If he had to guess, he would suppose that was what she had almost brought up—but, knowing her, she chickened out.

He's (mostly) aware of what she thinks of him; what the world thinks of him: he is cold and distant and, at time, ruthless. He closes himself off and keeps his weapons closer than his enemies closer than his friends.

He can hear her approaching, and pushes himself up into a seated position, shaking the jumbled thoughts from his head.

"It's just a simple porridge. I hope you don’t mind," she says, edging back into his room. He can see the way she favors her uninjured arm, and wonders how 'fine' she really is.

She kneels beside him, watching his every move—every stiff, embarrassingly slow move.

There's not a word said until he has finished eating, and the silence weighs heavy. He refused to speak of it before she does; she wrings her hands together in her lap and looks from them to him, back and forth. Her anxiety is so obvious it almost makes him nervous, and he finishes the food quicker than he intended, passing her the bowl with as blank an expression as he can muster. He keeps his mouth shut.

There's a moment—fingers brushing and air crackling and the bowl trembles in her hands—and he wonders as it passes if she'll challenge him, after all.

He wonders if he wants her to.

It goes against everything he stands for, and he's uncertain whether he's willing to be honest with her or not. He wants to be, but he fears himself even as she does not.

He will never admit it.

She shifts, and he thinks she might just leave, and he quells the desperation that flutters like an injured bird up into his throat. What she decides to do is none of his concern, he tells himself, but his heart still pounds.

(He thinks of the weight of her in his arms and the feel of his forehead pressed to hers, how her lips might feel—)

"Saizo," she starts, a little uncertain, but she meets his gaze with a courage he admires and fears. She's a great and terrible woman, he's realized. He loves her far too much.

"Hm." Disinterest suits him; he dons it as a cloak and hood and hides.

"About—about yesterday."

"What about it," he replies, stoically, watching as she struggles and hesitates. Her lips purse and she stares into the emptied bowl as if it holds the answers to her questions.

"You asked me not to leave you." Her voice is soft. Uncertain. He feels something, either dread or anticipation, welling up heavy in his chest.

He's opening his mouth to disregard the comment, simply because her struggling is making him feel uncomfortable as he wants to soothe away her worries, but without getting too close—

"I won't, Saizo," she says, fixing him with a look that burns far too bright for the anxious lines of her body, the rigidity in her hands holding the bowl.

"I won't leave you. I'm not afraid."

There are a thousand and one things he could say, excuses he could give, denials that could cut her to the marrow—but he blames the haziness in his head on medication he knows has worn off, leaning into her personal space and tucking her hair behind her ear.

She startles, like he expects, and a blush dusts over her cheeks, but she doesn't draw away. Saizo almost, almost smiles.

"Do you know what you've just said, little lady?" He asks, voice a low rumble in his throat, predatory and hungry for whatever taste she might provide.

Her blush darkens. She bites her lower lip, anxious. He wants to bite her lower lip, less anxious, and hear the way her breath catches.

"Are you sure you aren't afraid?" He feels possessed, feverish, and he should stop but he can almost feel her lips against his and it's just a spark, but it's been so long since he last saw light.

"I'm sure," she replies, meeting his eyes directly. Whether his passion is mirrored in her eyes, or it's just his reflection, he's uncertain—but suddenly they're kissing and he thinks he's made a mistake but, well—

The bowl clatters from her hands, and he pulls her onto his lap before she can reach for it. It's the point of no return, now; her flames have consumed him and now he'll never be the same.

He doesn't mind, dragging his teeth across her lip and pulling until she makes a noise that causes her cheeks to flare red. He laughs against her collarbone, pressing his forehead into her neck, dizzy and overcome. Maybe the medicine hasn't worn off, after all.

Her hands are braced against his shoulders, and he feels her begin to push away and get a look at him. He tightens his grip, unwilling to meet her gaze, unwilling to be honest.

He will be. Just not yet.

"Saizo," she says, in response to his stubbornness, and he closes his eyes, listening to her heartbeat as he holds her.

"Not now, little lady," he says, kindly. "I want to stay like this."

He hears the tremor in her inhale, and realizes that he's never made such an openly selfish request of her before; she complies, her body relaxing, her hands making their way into his hair, combing through.

He's not sure anyone has played with his hair before. It's soothing. He's frustrated at the noise that almost leaves his throat, and presses his face closer to her, nosing the junction of her neck and shoulder. He feels her pulse there and it calms him, slightly.

He almost says he loves her, but he's already said too much—so they remain in silence a long time, holding each other. And she's right, he thinks; he really is a terrible liar, when it comes to her.

But maybe it’s not such a bad thing.

[blueleader96]

Leorai Week (2017): Day 2

Leorai Week 2017: Day 2 – Fantasy AU Feudal Japan is known for its many myths and legends. Their depictions of horrible monstrosities and honorable heroes are still talked about to this day. This is one of their legends, about a war in the shadows, between two mystic ninja clans The Shredder, a wicked and vile man; forever fitted in a suit of armor. An armor which makes a mockery of the samurai’s way of life. He spreads his darkness across the land, crushing anyone that tries to dare oppose him under his Foot Clan army. But there was one Clan that always stood against him, who hindered the Shredder and his plans of conquering Japan. The Hamato Clan, though small compared to Shredder’s Foot army, were raised to challenge anything no matter the difficulty they face thanks to their clan’s Sensei, Master Splinter. A wise and powerful ninja master, who was once a man who led a resistance against the Shredder until a devastating attack by the full force of Shredder’s Foot Clan, including strange and horrific creatures. The attack wiped out nearly all of the resistance. Splinter, however, was captured by an even stranger yet equally threatening force, a race of unknown beings, who calls themselves the Kraang. Strange creatures that with their unnatural magic, were able to change any man or animal into an entirely different creature. The Kraang did it to Splinter transforming him into that of a rat-man. Splinter managed to escape the Kraang and the Shredder. But afraid of what he became, fled into the depths of a hidden cave, where he found an abandoned underground shrine. That is where he found four small kappa infants, lost, alone and defenseless. From then on, Splinter decided to raise the four Yokai as if they were his own sons. Naming them after four incredible foreigners who had aided him during the resistance. And so Leonardo, Raphael, Donatello and Michelangelo were raised into the art of ninjutsu. To protect the innocent that are being threatened by the Shredder and others. However, we are not here for the entire story. But for one of the many stories which branched out from this war. This is between well-respected members of both Clans and how a love started to bloom between each other. Hamato Leonardo, oldest of the Kappa brothers and the one who leads them to battle against the Foot Clan and any other villains who commit unspeakable crimes against the innocent. Always wanting to follow Splinter’s footstep, he came a bit of a teacher’s pet, which he was teased about many times. Known for his fearlessness and unselfish nature. Willing to sacrifice his life for the good of others. And Oroku Karai, a once innocent child to a family of farmer’s, that was until she was left orphaned at a young age. All thanks to one of the many raids the Shredder committed, she was found and raised by the Shredder himself to become a weapon of the Foot and lying to her that it was the Hamato Clan that destroyed her village. Blinded by his words, Karai became a top assassin of the Foot and the Shredder’s second in command. At first, the two were enemies of one another. But yet, they felt a connection… something more. As the war continued to rage on. They become less like enemies and more like friendly rivals, engaging in spars, rather than battles to the death. Though while their growing relationship made Leo’s brother a bit skeptic, especially with Raphael. She joined the Hamato Clan many times to face off against the Kraang, which she believe are the real enemy. Karai eventually saw the truth as just what a monster the Shredder truly was, once she learned that it was him that destroyed her village, as well as the death of her parents. Driven by revenge she went after his life. But was easily overpowered the Shredder but before her defeat. She shouted that she has aligned herself to the Hamato Clan. As punishment, the Shredder imprisoned her for many days, trying to guilt her into joining back to the Foot, but to no prevail. To which Karai considered it as a victory over him. During those days Leo and his brothers tried many times to free Karai from her imprisonment, though unfortunately failed in each attempt. Eventually, the Shredder tired of Karai’s refusal to return to his side and instead decided to use her to bait the Hamato Clan to come to him. Knowing that they will try again to free her. Leading them to a spring, which has been transformed by the Kraang into a pool of ‘mutagen ooze’, a type of unknown chemical which could combine the DNA of two or more organism into a mostly horrify abomination. Or in the case of the Shredder, his elite warriors. Shredder’s planned on using a venomous snake DNA to transform Hamato Yoshi’s own students into his own worst enemies. The Hamato Clan came as the Shredder predicted and an epic battle was taken place. Splinter faced the Shredder once again, while the brothers took on the rest of the Foot forces. Halfway through the battle, it seemed to be going the Foot Clan’s way, as one by one the brothers were captured in the cages that littered the ground. Splinter himself was tied up when the Shredder decided to have his own men intervene their battle. Thankful Leo has able to escape from his cage, thanks to having his sword wedged between its openings. He went after Karai, who was extended above the spring in a cage and was in the middle of freeing her. But unfortunately, the Shredder was having none of it. Leaping after the kappa, his signature wrist blades, poised for the kill. Leonardo was able to spot the madman coming after him and dodge as the blades came for his head, but that instead turned into a big mistake. The chain that kept Karai’s cage extended in the air was cut clean, and all that Karai could do was scream as she fell directly into the mutagen ooze. Both Clan stood in silence as the Karai is transformed into a snake-like mutant. It’s been weeks since that night and Leonardo is once again out on patrol on his own, desperately searching for the woman he loves. Yes, Leo loves Karai and has for some time. He was actually going to proclaim it to Karai once she had gotten comfortable living in ‘The Shrine’. But instead, he’s outside the safety of their home, searching for Karai. After ears-dropping on a village about talk of a strange snake creature appearing near the mountain, they live beside. Leo is sure that this must be Karai and begins making his trip up, in hopes he can bring her home. How long has it been? Groggily making up from her makeshift bed, she peeks out the entrance of the small cave, near halfway up a mountain, she calls home. The starry night sky beckons her that it’s safe for her to at least scavenge for some scraps food. Just as she thought of food her stomach growled in hunger, it's been days since she had eaten a proper meal. Her mind is still blurry from that night. However what she can remember, was the dreadful grip of fear, as she watched her new clan facing defeat. Which then turned to hope once Leo came onto of her cage. But that just turned in horror when she was free falling straight into the ooze. But what she remembers the most, just as her mind went numb, was the look of horror on Leo’s face. Never did she had seen him so scared, it plagues her nightmares. However, she knows that Leo is still looking for her, desperately wanting to bring her back to home. There were some close encounters between the two… but, she afraid. Afraid of what she has become, afraid of what she might do to Leo and his family. She will not lie that she had feelings for the adorable kappa. But that was when they were enemies, it would go against the Shredder and the Foot Clan. And going against his back just because of ‘feelings’, would be considered a death sentence. She had hoped that those emotions would diminish as the war continues. But instead, those feelings grew bigger and louder that she could not ignore them any longer; she had to tell him and she would of. If was not for the call of vengeance against the Shredder that so blindly led her to her fate. Maybe then they would have been a lot closer to each other, rather than continuing to play this pointless game of hide and seek. “Karai!” The sudden call of her name, making her jump. No, he already found her. Why can’t he understand, she’s trying to protect him by being far away from him. But she knows that her heart is screaming at her, not this time. Her pondering allowed Leo to cautiously walk into her cave, without her able to slip away from him again. “Karai?” Leo said cautiously, getting Karai’s attention. When she finally turns to see him. All that Leo could do was stare at sheer beauty. The moonlight gleams perfectly with her albino scales, showing off her curvy body. Her eyes are simply a perfect shade of green. He would not lie and say that she is perhaps more beautiful than when she was human. “Leo…” Karai hissed, sounding depressed. She clearly wants no-one, especially the one she loves to see her in this state. “Please Karai; not this time.” Leo continued, “No more of this please.” Karai could agree with him and would come home with him in a heartbeat. If it was not for this frightful fear of what she has become. “Just go back home to family.” Karai again tried to push Leonardo away. However, Leo was having none of it. “But you’re a part of that same family, Karai.” Leo pleaded, tears threatening to seep out of his eyes. “Maybe not in blood, but still family. Everyone misses you… I miss you.” Karai’s heart was already a mess. But hearing Leo’s voice sounding so lost and destroyed. Almost in the same way she feels about everything that has happened to her. She does not deserve his attention, let alone his affections. “Why… do you always care about me?” Karai hoarsely asked, tears already running down her face. But she wants to know why Hamato Leonardo has always come to her aid. Her heart knows the answer, but the brain wants to believe. To Leo ears its sound like a stupid question. But he can see in her eyes, she needs his answers. This is his chance, everything that he kept bottled, can now come out. “Because I love you Karai.” Leo finally said those three words. And he means them, from the bottom of his heart. Karai froze once she heard Leo said them. It was there that Karai realized that there was no point in hiding from him anymore. “I… I love you too, Leo,” Karai said back. And as if an enormous weight was lifted off the both of them, they embrace one another and passionately kissed. Karai gently wrapping around Leo body in order for the full effect. They continued until they needed air, then they stared into each other’s eye and remained in their embrace. Finally, the two were united. Karai was welcomed back to the Hamato Clan with open arms. It was then discovered that Karai was able to mutate back to a human form, although a few scales appeared here and there. The love between Leo and Karai grew larger and founder into a blossomed romance. Though limited thanks to Master Splinter’s stern one on one about what is acceptable in The Shrine and what is not. But when they were able to find time for themselves, it just felt right between them. However, there was still a war to be won. The Foot Clan was still on the march and the Shredder became more deranged and heartless. Even mutating himself into an abomination in order to get an upper hand against the Hamato Clan. It took two long years until it finally reached its climax. Launching a final assault on the Shredder’s domain. This time they will defeat the Shredder, no matter what. A battle to end all battles took place. Though while the Foot fought with the superior numbers and the same ferocity they always bring. The Kappa brothers and their allies were at their ultimate peak. After hours of none stop fighting, the Foot was brought to its knees. All that remained was the Shredder, it was fitting for the brother, to finish it off. After an entire hour of the kappa’s most grueling fight Leo manages to deal the killing blow, finally ending the madman’s nearly twenty years of bloodshed and destruction. Their victory finally bringing an end to the Hamato/Foot war. Though while the main threat was defeated. There were still those who threatened the peace, such as the Kraang. But Japan knew that their guardian protectors will be there to stop them. Perhaps that will be a story for another day. For Leo and Karai, they joined hands in marriage and eventually brought a son and daughter into the world. Leo eventually taking over as Leader of the Hamato Clan, after the passing of the one he called Father. And together, along with his brothers would raise a new generation of their own. And teach any of those in the way of the ninja who seeks out to find them and joins them in their fight to protect the innocent from within the shadow. The Hamato Clan will forever live on as Japan’s shadow guardians. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- And so that concludes Day 2: Fantasy AU. I hope I did okay, I feel I did okay. But I did it for you guys and to carry on the Leorai ship. And again, review, favorite and follow me tomorrow. Day 3: Sparring Together