#but i do recall with queasy sense memory

[sedgwickpdf]

just saw an instagram reel that reminded me to be grateful i do not have braces. shit sucks but at least i do not have braces on my teeth right now

[cordeliawhohung]

Touch Me 'Till I Vomit (pet!au) [3]

pet!au | part 3 | ghoap x fem!reader (though very heavily just johnny in this one)

johnny's been waiting for this all night

cw: non-con, dark content, groping, thigh-fucking, threats of harm, drugging

Something tethered you to the earth when you woke up.

Not by rope or chain, but by weight. Every part of you was heavy. Lethargic limbs, weighed down eyelids that couldn’t quite flutter open, a diaphragm that refused to pull in enough air for you to breathe. Even your tongue turned into lead in your mouth as you stared up at an unfamiliar ceiling. 

A quiet TV droned on somewhere close by, but its sound was so faded it was impossible to tell if it was the morning news or some late night football rerun. No, it had to be morning, you were certain of it. Or, at least daytime. Gentle beams of sun danced on the decaying walls just out of focus, which would have paired nicely with the scent of cooked meat that wafted into the room had your stomach not twisted at the smell. 

The effects of dehydration in your body was agonizing. Cotton-like dryness accompanied the heavy tongue in your mouth, and your skin felt like it contracted in on itself. Hazy memories attempted to surface in your thoughts, but they were disconnected. Incomplete. You could recall the sweat on your skin at work and the taste of fizzy soda on your tongue, but that was it. All you were left with in that moment was an overwhelming sense of warmth and a panicked frustration. 

You needed to get up. You needed to do something. Yet when you tried to move your legs, nothing happened. Muscles tensed and strained, but a greater weight held them down. Your neck cried out as you lifted your head up — were you laying on a bed? It felt too soft to be anything else — and you only managed to lift it enough to catch a simple glance at the figure on top of you before your head collided with the mattress underneath you. 

A man rested his head on your stomach as if you were a pillow and not a human. Every muscle in your body went stiff with fear as your brain processed that realization. There was a glimpse of dark hair shaved into an overgrown mohawk accompanied by thick arms that wrapped around your hips, keeping your body close to his. It was then that you realized you were stuck in a cage with some sort of beast. No god in the depths of the universe could heed your silent prayer to be unnoticed by him. Your blood had already begun to sing in fear, and that was something a dog like Johnny never failed to notice. 

His head perked up off of your stomach where he caught sight of your conscious state, and a grin bloomed on his lips as he rose above you. Everything felt lighter without his weight holding you down, but that did not mean you were any less trapped. The ocean blue of his gaze paralyzed you into submission as his arms caged your body on either side. 

“Mornin’ Bonnie,” he greeted in a near purr. 

Fear muddled with confusion settled deep in the confines of your stomach where it bubbled and festered. Its taste was soured when coupled with the queasiness that overwhelmed your senses, and you found it difficult to even muster an answer. He looked at you with such adoration in his eyes that it was almost as if the two of you had known each other forever, but you couldn’t recall a single memory of him in your life. The scars on his chin, the slight stubble along his jaw, the collar around his throat; all of it was unrecognizable to you. 

The man chuckled something sweet and bone chilling as he buried his face in the crook of your neck. You felt your body tense and recoil, yet it wasn’t enough to deter him. His inhale of your scent was overly obvious as he bumped his nose against the underside of your jaw like a dog. 

“Still tired? You’ve been sleepin’ all night. Waited all morning for you to wake up,” he said in a near whine. 

Your legs finally moved, but that was not your own doing. The man’s knees slid between yours where he used his thighs to part them. Wide hips sunk down against yours where you could feel him grind up against you through your pants, something that he performed without any embarrassment. The garbled whimper that erupted from your throat as your body wiggled in protest sounded just as pathetic as you felt. 

“Could help ya wake up, if you want, Bonnie. Been dying to get a taste of you all day,” he whispered, voice low and even up against your ear. 

Why wouldn’t your body listen to you? Why couldn’t you fight, kick, and scream? All you had been reduced to was a husk, some empty shell for this strange, delusional man to play with. Your teeth ached to sink into the side of his neck as one of his hands began to wander under your shirt. Fabric bunched up around your waist as he shamelessly pawed at your tits like a ravenous beast. It was only then that you realized your bra had vanished, but that was the least of your concerns. He reveled in the feeling of you with another chuckle while his teeth nipped at the soft flesh along your shoulder. 

His movements ceased when heavy footsteps sounded outside of the door. He did not seem at all bashful for what he did to you, and that smile still remained on his face as he pulled away from your neck to sit back on his haunches, still nestled between your thighs. His unrelenting gaze finally broke away from you to look at the doorway, and your eyes had no choice but to follow his lead. 

The figure that emerged from the shadows of the hallway made you want to tuck tail and run as fast as you could. You thought about it so hard you could almost taste it, yet with your body in whatever state you had woken up to, you were nothing but a pathetic worm baking under the searing heat of his gaze. His tight jaw and pursed lips spelled nothing but disdain, and you swallowed hard. This man didn’t look human. You were certain no other human could look at someone as if they were so far beneath them, yet this stranger had somehow done it. To him, you were nothing but filth. Nothing at all. 

“Eager, aren’t ya?” the looming figure asked as he pressed further into the room. 

“She just woke up,” the man above you beamed. “Come on, I’ve been patient all night. You’ll let me have her, won’t you?” 

“Down, Johnny.” 

Silence fell over the room as the man stepped closer and closer to the bed, and you could feel your body shake underneath his gaze. There was nothing kind or playful about his aura as he knelt on the floor next to the bed. Even when he was on his knees he was still plenty taller than the bed, giving him ample room to reach a hand out for your jaw. His cruel grip drew a squeaky wince from your parched throat as he forced your head to the side to fully face him. Dark eyes watched with careful attention as your pupils dilated. Fear was one hell of a drug, but it was nothing compared to the roofies that still tainted your blood. 

“She’s awake, but still out of it,” the man said as he let go of your jaw. 

“But can I have her? Please, Simon, I’ve been good, haven’t I?” Johnny asked as the man stood to his feet. 

Relief flooded through you when that man — Simon? — finally looked away from you, only for your stomach to drop when his fingers looped through Johnny’s collar. In order to prevent himself from falling when Simon tugged at it, Johnny’s hands came up to rest on his chest, but he didn’t seem nearly as terrified as you felt he should have been.

“What did I say? Not ‘til I say so. Fuck ‘er now, she might get pregnant. Would hate to get rid of ‘er ‘cause of that. You don’t want that, do you Johnny?” Simon asked.

Johnny shook his head and Simon’s grip on his collar loosened, but didn’t fully go slack. There was something in that terrible man’s gaze that softened in a way you didn’t expect. Maybe it was the twitch of his scarred lips, or the relaxation of his brows, but he almost seemed to actually care. About Johnny, anyway. His eyes were as cold as stone the moment they landed on you again. 

“I’ll be back tonight. Make sure she gets some water,” Simon continued as he dug into the pocket of his jumper. 

“‘Course,” Johnny replied. 

Black fabric hung limply around Simon’s fingers as he worked it over his face until you saw nothing but his eyes. Those eyes. Unkind and bitter, just like they were the night before. 

“Remember, play nice,” he added.

It all came crashing down around you as he left the room and Johnny’s attention fell back on you. Fuzzy remnants of memories of your night at work with that large monster haunting the corner in the back. You remember noting how he didn’t take a single sip of his drink the entire night, ever removed that stupid fucking mask. It was him. 

That son of a bitch. 

That realization sparked something in you. Something foul. Something that wanted blood. It demanded that you sink your claws into him, wet your maw with his blood until your mind was blank. But you were in no such state for vengeance. Your body tried in its pitiful way as your elbows dug into the mattress in an attempt to sit yourself upright, but that only made the world spin something fierce, and a sob nearly escaped you as your torso fell back onto the bed. 

“What’s the matter, Bonnie?” Johnny asked as he rested his hands on either side of your waist. 

“That man… that man kidnapped me,” you said. You wanted to scream those words out, to convey your desperation, but your tongue wouldn’t move properly and every thought took nearly all your energy just to form. 

“Oh, Simon?” Johnny questioned with a grin. He always smiled. Always seemed happy. Too happy. “Silly lass, he saved you just like he saved me.”

Saved you? It was crazy enough for you to almost laugh at it.

“No, no you don’t understand, I’m not supposed to be here,” you retorted. 

Your words fell on deaf ears. Johnny’s mind was too shrouded with lust and desire to make any sense of what you begged for him to understand. The hands that rested on either side of your waist instead moved to the waistband of your pants where his fingers gently slid underneath the fabric. He gave it a swift tug, and you found your legs attempting to close in protest only to be blocked by his hips. 

“What’re you so worked up for, Bonnie? Of course you’re supposed to be here,” he said in an attempt to convince you. 

Even with your fuzzy brain, you knew that wasn’t the case. No, you should have been home in your shitty apartment underneath the covers on your bed trying to sleep off a long night’s work. Not there in some stranger's home. Not there with a man between your legs who began to tear your pants down your thighs like an animal. And perhaps he was, in some twisted way, an animal. He looked like a man, spoke like a man, yet he had that collar around his neck as if it was a warning. You should have known this was coming the very moment you woke up to find his teeth bared at you. 

Everything spun as Johnny flipped your legs to your left, and your torso had no choice but to follow, turning you on your side. With your stomach full of nothing but the remainder of your drink and Simon’s tampering from the previous night, you swore you nearly threw up right there on the bed. Your eyes screwed tight as Johnny’s fingers slipped your panties past the swell of your hips. He hadn’t even bothered to fully take your clothes off; just moved them down far enough until your ass and cunt were exposed to him. 

“Please, stop,” you pleaded, voice hardly carrying over the sound of your heart jumping in your chest. 

In some sort of pathetic attempt to save what was left of your dignity, your hands blindly sought after your pants, but Johnny pushed them to the side as he unzipped his own pants. White hot fear raged in your chest as you dared at glance over your shoulder. You would have thought Johnny’s eyes were beautiful if you weren’t filled with terror at the glint just beyond their blue hue. That feeling only got worse as you caught sight of the way he fisted his cock. 

“N-No, you can’t,” you tried to plead further. “Please, I’m not- he said not to, remember? We shouldn’t, he’ll get mad, please.” 

It was the only thing your mind could think of that might convince him. To bring up what the other man had said earlier. Would hate to get rid of her. Simon’s words had seared your brain, and you knew you didn’t want to find out what he meant by getting rid of you. Johnny’s infatuation with you seemed to know no bounds, and though it felt disgusting trying to play into their game, it was the only hand you were able to hold in your state. 

“Just the tip, please Bonnie,” Johnny insisted. The head of his cock pushed against your tight cunt and your body recoiled at the sensation. There was no slick to be found within your folds, the only lubrication came from Johnny’s leaking tip. “That’s it, that’s all I want. I need it.” 

The breath for your response didn’t even have the chance to pass through your lips before he pushed into you. Your thoughts cut off with a simple yelp at the sting and stretch of him while he bullied into you. With the dehydration that ravaged your body, there was nothing to soothe the ache as he forced your cunt to swallow him. You weren’t sure how much of himself he made you take, but you knew if he went any further he’d ruin you. 

“Christ, Bonnie. Fuck, I knew it. Knew from the moment I saw those pictures of you that you were the one,” Johnny rambled as he shallowly thrusted into you, keeping his promise of only giving you the tip of him. “Been waitin’ for this for so long…” 

After a few more pathetic thrusts, Johnny pulled out of you. It was sudden, but the reprieve was almost enough to make you sob. Perhaps animals were capable of telling the truth after all; of grinning with razor sharp fangs and only taking what they promised they would. 

Much to your dismay, Johnny’s hips slammed against you once more, and you cried out. But there was no stretch. No deep ache where your body was supposed to be forced apart to make room for him. Instead of nestling his cock into your cunt — like you knew he wished he could — he slid it between the plush flesh of your thighs with a near growl. You could feel the warmth of it, the way it throbbed with a vicious yearning to rip you to shreds, and it didn’t take him long to start pumping himself in and out between your legs. 

“I promise, Bonnie. I’ll fuck you properly when Simon says I can. Just been waitin’ so long for you I- I have to have this,” Johnny babbled. His hands pressed down on your thighs, forcing them closer together, making the stimulation all the more intense for him. You watched as his head rolled back, exposed neck straining against the leather collar he was bound by where the word Soap glinted on the silver tag; like a proper dog. “A real angel. I told him you were. Thank you. Thank you.” 

You didn’t bother to entertain his insane mumbling with a response, but he didn’t seem to care. Each drag along your heating skin only seemed to melt his mind into a further mess, and all you could do was lay there and take it as he fucked your thighs. It would be over eventually, you told yourself. It had to be. 

Lucky. That word popped into your mind with relentless force, ruining your attempt at ignoring the situation. Lucky. It was a miracle he hadn’t gone any further, hadn’t ravaged your cunt until you were raw and broken. But you did not feel blessed when the bile in your stomach roiled in protest at every thrust. It did not seem auspicious that your head pounded with each violent shake of your body as if your mind tried to self-destruct to save you from the agony of survival. You were anything but fortunate. 

Johnny’s hips pressed flush against the crux of your thighs, and you felt his cock pulse between your legs. His sticky spend shot out and clung to the inside of your thighs as he came, head falling forward against your shoulder until he had fully caged your body with his again. His cum seeped out from the top of your thighs where it dripped onto the bed spread below you. Had you been home, you would have worried about stains. But you weren’t. No matter whatever twisted future Johnny and Simon had planned for you, that would never be home. 

Not bothering to zip his pants back up, Johnny collapsed onto the bed next to you. With you already on your side, it was the perfect position for him to slot his chest right against your back where he wrapped a firm arm around your center. His skin felt warm and disgusting against yours, and if you weren’t so spent you would have attempted to scurry off to clean up the mess he made of you. But there wasn’t much you could do as he nuzzled his nose against the nape of your neck and exhaled a deep sigh. 

“Please,” you pleaded, voice raw, “let me go home.” 

“But you are home,” Johnny chuckled. “Finally home.” 

Home. In the arms of a man with his cum between your thighs. Yes, that’s what he wanted. Johnny would ruin you every night if that’s what it took to get you to see that you really had been saved.

[lucivinyl]

seasons may change, winter to spring

pairing : thoma x gn!reader

Thoma can’t recall a day where he doesn’t reminisce about Mondstadt at least once.

There are many things about his homeland that he misses: the wine (of course), the folk songs played on lyres, and the breeze that stretches across the entire nation. Sure, Inazuma has its perks, but a part of Thoma’s heart is always tethered to the city of freedom. More often, he finds himself wondering about the people. Is his mother doing well? Do his friends still remember him? Is the Windblume festival still celebrated?

And sometimes, more reluctantly, his mind wanders to the most tender part of his memories— you.

—

Within the first week of the abolishment of the Sakoku Decree, Ayato approaches Thoma with a suggestion.

“Do you wish to return to Mondstadt?”

Thoma’s mouth hangs open, flabbergasted by the question. As a matter of fact, he hasn’t asked himself something like that in years. Chalk it up to the fear of rejection and disappointment.

Of course he wants to go back, but it’s not like him to just turn his back on the people that have provided him with shelter. That would be against his sense of loyalty, which he plans to uphold until his very last breath.

In the end, he decides to pay the city a visit. His stay won’t be permanent, he’ll still come back to Inazuma, but at least he gets to take a look at the city that he longs for.

Boarding one of Kamisato’s fancy ships, he drifts northward, in the direction of home.

—

During his time away, Thoma has written four thick stacks of letters. They sit in a large sack next to his other luggage.

Most of them are addressed to his mother, and a good few to his old buddies. As for the remaining, they are to you.

He plans to give them all to their rightful recipients. His mother is guaranteed to appreciate them, but it’s your reaction that he’s most uncertain about. If you squint just a little, you’ll notice the hints of desperation that seeps through his words when he gets more homesick than usual, how his affection never faltered in all those years.

He pictures your smile as you read them (he’s unsure if his imagination is accurate; your features have probably changed a lot). Perhaps it’s full of adoration and unspoken love. Perhaps it’s full of pity or regrets for what could’ve been.

Looking out at the glistening sea, queasiness troubles his stomach. Being aware that you could’ve moved on and forgotten about him is one thing, accepting it is another. Brimming beneath his facade is the fear that the hurt will show when- if you really have no care for him anymore.

He would rather you be furious and mad at him for leaving than be totally unbothered. Indifference is the real salt to the wound.

A sailor knocks on his door, informing him of the close arrival at Mondstadt. He manages a terse response before packing up.

—

Mondstadt is as he remembers— wind that carries fragrances, windmills that stand tall and are visible from hills away, unblemished plains and water that meets the sky, forming a picture of pastoral tranquility. 

He makes a stop at his home first. The shock in his mother’s eyes is as large as the sun as she takes him in. The basket of carrots drops from her hand as she rushes to pull him into a tight embrace. She still smells like lilies and home.

“Oh, look at you.” She sandwiches his face with her hands. Thoma notes that they’ve become more calloused and wrinkled. “You’ve grown so much. Has Inazuma treated you well, dear?”

“It has, mum.” He touches her hands tenderly, wetness filling his eyes. “I met some really good friends too. I can’t wait to tell you all about them.”

“That’s good to know.” She laughs as he sniffles. Even when he’s already so much taller than her, he still looks like a little kid in her eyes. “Come on, I’ll whip up something for you. Hash browns?”

He beams. “That’d be perfect.”

—

Thoma stays in the village for a few days, catching up with the neighbors and the uncles that watched him grow up. They keep asking him about his journey in Inazuma, and he patiently repeats his story to them. 

On the fourth day, he hands the letters to his mother, and watches as she reads through each and every one of them. Written between the lines are struggles that he has overcome by himself, ups and turns in his everyday life, and childish musings that only a mother gets to know. She is proud of the courage he possesses, but there is also melancholy in knowing that he was once alone and lost, that she couldn’t help him in any way.

“Who are those for?” She points at the other stack of letters, still tied and untouched.

“Oh,” He wipes his eyes dry with the back of his hand. “They are…uh… for a friend.”

“A friend?” She gives him a knowing look. 

He chuckles. “Come on, mum.” 

“When do you plan on finding them?”

“Later, maybe. I have no idea where they are though.”

“You know, if you were to ask around in the city, someone is bound to give you an answer.” She squeezes his plump cheek in a doting manner. “The question is, are you just too afraid to find out?”

“I’m not afraid…”

“You don’t think I can see through you?” She raises a brow.

Thoma remains silent. He knows that, even in this very second, his thoughts are being studied.

“Just go out there and find them, honey. Why should you wait any longer?”

The answer hangs in the air, muted and heavy.

—

Thoma once told his mother that he could still navigate the city with his eyes shut. He was wrong.

To be fair, he still remembers where the turns are and where the stairs are situated, but there is now a girl selling flowers and stalls lining up along the side of the cobblestone road. He’s probably going to crash into them walking blind.

Other than that, the buildings are also different from what he remembers. The shop that once sold toys has been turned into a tavern. The bookshop downtown is now a jewelry shop. That building right there was once blue instead of beige. The changes may be subtle, but together they already form a totally different city.

He finds Wagner by the city gate, working away with a hammer. He seems to have gotten more muscular. 

“What do you need?” The blacksmith grunts, not sparing him a glance.

“Oh, um…” Thoma bows his head, trying to enter Wagner’s line of vision. “Do you remember me?”

Brows furrowed, Wagner looks up and stares at the blonde boy. After a stern second, his face eases up. “Thomas?”

“Thoma,” he laughs. “Close enough.”

“That’s a face I haven’t seen in years. I heard you went to Inazuma and never came back.”

“Yea, my boat got overturned in the storm and I got washed up on shore with absolutely nothing in my pocket. I was only able to come back because the Sakoku Decree has been lifted.”

“Sounds rough. Good to see that you’re still doing well.” He gives Thoma a pointed scan from head to toe.

“So do you,” after an awkward beat, Thoma shakes his head and asks the question. Your name slipped out of his mouth like spring.

“Of course they’re still around,” his heart leaps with hope. “They opened a bakery a few blocks away. See if you can catch them there.”

Briefly thanking the blacksmith, Thoma all but races down the street, the bag of letters bouncing off his back. Finally, he comes to a stop in front of a wooden shop sign, with different types of pastries listed out in your familiar handwriting.

As for the shop itself, it’s closed for the day.

Heaving a sigh, Thoma kneels down and traces his finger down the board, smudging the edges of your writing. There’s a devilish voice in his mind that’s telling him it’s a sign from above advising him to turn around and go back home. 

But then there’s also hope shimmering in his chest. Knowing that you’re still in Mondstadt, touching the marks you have left behind, it fueled him with an even stronger sense of longing. 

Straightening himself again, there’s one other place he can go to.

—

“My dad says you’re a bit of an airhead.” You blurted out, grimacing as you watched Thoma take in the information. 

Waves lapped at his feet and ebbed away. Looking out, there was nothing but the endless expanse of the jade-colored sea. Afternoons out here at the Falcon Coast were his favorite pastimes, even more so when you’re accompanying him. 

“What?” He said, caught off-guard. “Do you think I’m an airhead?” 

You gave it some thought. “No. I think you’re a gentle person.” 

“I see.”  A pause. “If your dad dislikes me, does it mean I cannot hang out with you anymore?” 

“I don’t think he dislikes you, he’s just… not very happy with you. Anyway, who cares about what he says? I’m gonna hang out with you until the end of time.” 

“Thank archons.” A stone seemed to be lifted off his chest. “Till the end of time… does that mean we are going to grow up together?” 

“Of course.” 

“What do you think we’ll look like when we grow up?” 

“Mm… I think you’ll become a lot taller than me, and a lot more handsome. You’ll keep your hair long and tie it into a ponytail. And when you’re old enough, you’re going to become a knight—“ 

“I can’t imagine myself as a knight.” 

“What do you want to be then?” 

“I…” no words came out. He realized that he didn’t have a particular ambition. Until now, all he’d ever wanted was for everyone around to live happily and harmoniously. It didn’t matter what occupation he took up as long as he lived a peaceful life. 

“Let’s just assume you’re going to be a knight, ‘kay?” You continued. “As for me, I’m going to open a bakery, just like my dad, and every day we’ll come here to look at the sea while you eat the leftover pastries.” 

“Sounds sweet.” 

“Uh-huh. And when the sun sets, we’ll go home together and cook dinner. Maybe feed our dogs. Or cats. Or both. Which one do you prefer?” 

He’s still a bit hung up on the part where you would go home together. “When you said ‘together’, did you mean we were going to live under the same roof?” 

“Obviously! How else are we supposed to stay with each other till the end of time-- oh, archons, we would have to get married, wouldn't we?” 

“I—" 

“We’d better start planning our wedding now!” 

Thoma doubled over as laughter escaped him.  

“What are you laughing at?” You pushed his arm accusingly. 

“No-nothing. Carry on.” He recomposed himself. He didn’t have the heart to burst your fanciful bubble. 

As you expanded your fairytale, he interrupted you at times to give his input. Time flew past, and soon the sky was covered by the veil of dusk.  All the talking finally caught up to you, rendering you silent as you watched the scenery. 

With a futile tremble, the sun descended entirely into the sea. You’d better leave before it got too late (and before your dad adds ‘bad influence’ to his list).  

Yet the moment he faced you, words died on his tongue. It was like the sun was in his eyes. Painted across your face was serenity; your drooping eyes, curved smile and hair in the wind.  

It was then that Thoma realized this: whenever he thought about the future, you were always in it. 

Thoma regrets not having left home earlier, because it was already late evening when he arrived at Falcon Coast. But it’s not enough to slow him down, not when he can already smell the salty water in the air.

His surroundings rush behind him as he paces toward the edge of the cliff. The sight is one that makes his stomach drop— what used to be a wide beach has been flooded by the high tides, to a point where only a few sandy islands remain. Desperate eyes rake over every corner they could reach, until they land on a lone figure, perched on a jagged rock.

He cringes at the way his voice croaks as he calls out your name, but no matter. The figure shifts, as if turning toward his voice. Despite not being able to see clearly who it is, he inspects the height of the cliff, takes a swollen breath, and jumps.

Regaining his balance, he dashes across shallow water. His heart drums along with his heavy pants as your features sharpen. Doesn’t matter how much time has passed, he’s sure he can infallibly recognize you in a crowd of thousands, especially with a sunset as the backdrop.

“Thoma?” The wind carries your voice to him, crystal clear, unlike the many times he’s heard it in his dreams.

“Thoma!” You mirror his haste, running down the rock with such speed that he worries about your safety.

The shorter the distance between you, the quicker his steps become. Soon he feels like he’s being moved by the wind, gliding through time and space, until he collides with your body with his breath choked out of him. His arms find purchase around your waist. 

“Is this a dream? Is this really you?” You manage to ask as he twirls you around. 

“It’s me, I promise.” He nods, smile buried in your clothes. “It’s me.”

As he pulls away to take a good look at you, his heart swirls with fondness.

You look just as radiant as the setting sun years ago.

[errythinisblue]

Without me

Mason Mount x Y/N

Summary: Your realtionship with Mason is complicated to say the least. What is going to happen between the two of you once you see some videos of him partying with some girls in it?

Warnings: alcohol consumption (LOTS of it).

This part is only about Mason! ...How will he react to Y/N’s message??

Without me Masterlist

gif credit to @proudofmason

A pounding headache woke Mason up the morning after his wild night out. He groaned, as the sun light coming from the window hit his sensitive eyes, while he rolled on his back. As he turned around a perfume hit his nostrils, a feminine scent that made his stomach churn. But when he noticed that he was alone in bed, with nobody else in his room but him, he felt a strange sense of relief wash over him.

 His left arm made quick work of covering his face, blocking the light and that nauseating perfume out, while his right hand was reaching for his phone on the nightstand. As soon as he felt like opening his eyes again, he looked at his phone screen and his heart immediately stopped.

 Countless notifications appeared before his eyes, but he could only focus on one. He could only focus on your name as he hastily unlocked his phone and opened your message: ‘Don’t you ever dare to try and come near me again, if you don’t have the balls to speak up for me when I’m not around to do it.’  He read the message multiple times, his blurry vision making it hard for him to do so. But as soon as your words started sinking in his foggy brain, the room started spinning around him, as his head was trying to process what could have happened for you to send him a message like that.

 What did he do? He couldn’t remember. He felt panic invading his veins, as he scrolled through every social he was following you on. You blocked him everywhere, so he couldn’t even try and get in touch with you. “Fuck!” he almost shouted in the empty hotel room, “Fuck fuck fuck!” The room started spinning faster and faster around him as he felt instantly sick. He made a run for the bathroom, hunching his body on the toilet as he felt incredibly queasy.

 Once he was feeling slightly better, he decided to take a shower to wash away the sensation of disgust he had on his skin. He leaned his forehead against the cold tiled wall, as the water was running down his shoulders and back, and his head filled with memories of you and him; of you taking care of him when he was sick, when he had a terrible hangover just like this morning.

 “You shouldn’t drink that much Mason…” you would always whisper to him in between other things, when he had too many drinks, your voice so sweet and low as you didn’t want his headache to get worse.

 “Yeah, you shouldn’t drink that much you stupid prick…” he said to himself through gritted teeth, his hand slamming against the shower tiles as he was growing frustrated because he couldn’t remember a thing.

 As he came out of the shower an idea popped in his mind. He rushed back to his room and grabbed his phone in his shaky hands, looking for Y/F/N’s phone number. She had to know. You two were best friends for God’s sake, she had to know what happened. And he wanted to know too, as he couldn’t stand not being able to recall what he did to you.

 “Hello?” Mason heard Y/F/N’s voice answer his call.

 “Y/F/N! I- It’s Mason here-“ he started before your friend cut him off.

 “Hi Mason, everything alright?” he could sense a shift in her tone, she was being colder than she ever was with him.

 “No! No I’m not alright, Y/N sent me a message a-and now I can’t get in touch with her! I need to talk to her! I don’t even- I don’t even know what happened!” his chest felt suddenly tight as he was rambling now.

 “Hey hey, calm down. You don’t know what happened?” she sounded surprised for a second, “You didn’t see your friends’ stories on Instagram?”

 “I was drunk out of my mind, I d-don’t! I only know I have to talk to her…please…” his voice cracked as he begged her, “I read her message and I’m panicking, I didn’t even know about those stories for fuck’s sake!”

 “Okay you really should calm down now… give them a look, you might understand her point of view or, I don’t know, what she meant to say to you, after watching those videos…” she told him.

 “I will but I need to talk to her, can you like go to her house or something… I need to hear her voice, I need to know we’re okay…” he murmured.

 “We? Mason, are you still drunk?? There’s no “we” here. And even if I want you both to be okay, I’m not gonna do anything.” she started sounding impatient at hearing his absurd demands, “You broke her. And I won’t do a thing for you. I think it’s better if you talk to her when you’re back honestly…”

 “I can’t! I’ll be back in a week! I can’t go on without hearing from her, you know that!” he whined. He was desperate to hear your voice now, he was desperate to know he didn’t fuck things up. The fear of addressing his feelings was quickly vanishing now.

 “I can’t help you Mason. It’s your mistake not mine.” she said to him, “Let her be, leave her alone for a while… she’s not okay right now, I won’t lie to you, and she needs time to ease her pain… So please, don’t even try and call me again. Bye…” she told him before hanging up.

 “Fuck!!!” he shouted this time, throwing his phone on the bed. He felt his eyes burning as his fingers were now pulling at his hair. His mind was clear now, and as he completely sobered up he knew he fucked up big time.

 -

 As his friends waited for him in the lobby, Mason unlocked his door and exited his room. He had his sunglasses on, as his head was feeling even worse now. He watched the stories your friend told him about, immediately getting what you were hinting at with your message. Now he was absolutely sure that there was no way you could forgive him after his behavior. The way he flirted with that girl was horrible, but the fact that he didn’t take your side when she started talking shit about you was even worse. He should have told her that you meant the world to him, that you weren’t just his fuck buddy, you were so much more than that. There’s no excuse for how he behaved. Being drunk wasn’t enough of an excuse for what he did, or better did not. Not even being insecure about his own feelings was, he should have defended you.

 However, the worst thing for him was to believe that now you must be thinking that he shagged her. He could be wrong, in the end the two of you weren’t together, but he couldn’t stand the idea of you thinking so low of him, especially since he had a gut feeling that he didn’t really have sex with the girl he met last night. He didn’t know for sure, yet there was something in the back of his mind that was telling him to wait before making wrong assumptions.

 “Hey bro where’s that girl from last night???” one of the guys asked him.

 “Don’t know and don’t care.” he shrugged, as now images from last night were flashing before his eyes. He opened his eyes wide, as flashes of that same girl leaving his room while he still had his clothes on appeared before his brown orbs. He didn’t have sex with her, he didn’t! He felt incredibly relieved at that, but why? He never backed down from an easy lay, why was he acting like this now? He had a feeling he knew the cause.

 “Wooow someone is moody today!” the same guy laughed, “At least tell us, was she good in bed? ‘Cause it doesn’t look like it!”

 “Can we stop talking about that girl??” Mason moaned, “I wanna grab some breakfast, my head is killing me and you all are not helping.”

 “Okay okay!” the boys raised their hands in the air as they made their way out of their hotel.

 They had a great day sightseeing; they visited the most famous places in the city, the most beautiful ones too. Yet Mason’s head was elsewhere. He couldn’t stop thinking about you. As far as he was concerned, if he was alone he would take the first plane back to you. He had to make things right, even if that meant facing those feelings he was so insanely scared about.

 And he went on thinking about you for the whole night too, while he sat in a club with his friends, the ones who convinced him to go out even if he wasn’t feeling like it. He made sure to always have a full glass in his hands, the need to ease his own pain was stronger than his will to party. He didn’t want to party. He wanted to wallow in his self pity. He wanted to feel bad about what he did. He knew now he didn’t deserve you, as he gulped down yet another drink. Then another. And another.

 By the end of the night he was so drunk that he couldn’t even walk straight. And that’s pretty much what happened every other night that he was out with the others. He drank until his body couldn’t take no more. He felt sick every morning, he kept thinking about you every morning. And every night he dreamt about you, calling your name in his sleep. The alcohol was keeping his thoughts at bay, but it couldn’t save him from his dreams. It could save him from all the girls that were constantly throwing themselves at him, as he was so drunk that he didn’t have it in him to bring them in his room. But he knew why he couldn’t bring them in his room, why he couldn’t even sleep with that girl on the first night he was there. Even when he was drunk out of his mind, he knew that those girls weren’t you. Even when the alcohol was completely intoxicating him, and fogging his brain, he didn’t want anybody else but you.

 You know when some say that ‘drunk words are sober thoughts’? Well Mason was pretty sure this was the biggest lie one could ever say. He thought so until not even drowning himself in alcohol could save him from thinking about you. And it was in that moment that he knew, he knew he had to make things right. He knew he needed you in his life. He knew he was in love with you.

 Now he was boarding the plane to go back home. He had a new found hope warming his chest, as he wasn’t afraid of his love for you anymore. He only hoped you could forgive him, and it didn’t matter to him if he had to wait all the time in the world for that to happen. He loved you and wanted to be with you, he knew that, he was sure about that now. He didn’t know what was waiting for him on his return, though.

tag list: @forkepa​ 

[animeyanderelover]

Thank you🥺. This became pretty non-Yandere, but not everyone has to be crazy after all.

Tw: Yandere themes, unhealthy mindset, unhealthy relationship, possessiveness, obsessiveness, delusions

Prompt 40: “What I am doing? I’m punishing myself. Why? Because I upset you earlier.”

Silence was embracing everything in the house, every room dark and quiet except the kitchen. A dull light was lightening the room up, giving a weirdly depressing and anticipating vibe off. In a way it might have looked relaxing and comfy, the hot tea that was steaming in the cup in front of you surrounding and lulling you in with it’s exotic aroma. Wasn’t a hot drink at night supposed to calm your nerves, fill all your tense muscles with warmth?

Then something was definitely wrong in here and it was without a doubt indebted because of the fact your fiancé hadn’t returned yet. He hadn’t even been here when you had returned merely a few hours before yet there were all signs that he had been here, but had left before you had come back.

The bed had been made, the laundry had been done and food had been cooked, with the intentions of guaranteeing that you wouldn’t need to do anything after a day that had put your nerves truly to the test.

After a day where you had screamed for the first time since you could recall at Wakatoshi.

Being hot-tempered wasn’t a trait you would expose to others to often, but you had been already the whole day loaded with stress and more and more had just started adding up to it until you had almost felt like you wanted to run yelling around to let out all of your frustration. Wakatoshi had pressed the final button and before you had even found the time to think rationally, you had ended up using him as a personal punching back before you had gone back to finishing for what you had had so little time.

You knew that he’d never want to stress you out, put you under even more suffering than your current job was already suffocating you with. Sometimes be was probably a bit overbearing which was related to the fact that he was rather protective over you, but he’d never want to hurt you on purpose. If you were to think about it now, you were actually able to see that he had only wanted to help you by talking with your supervisor in hopes of removing the weight that you had been dragging with you those last few weeks already.

And how had you thanked him for his concern and worries? By yelling at him to get lost and to not bother you.

Queasiness was spiraling around in your stomach and the back of your throat and the sweet scent of tea only seemed to worsen the situation. Yet it was already the second cup you had taken, wondering somewhere in the back of your head why you were drinking something that only caused your nausea to get worse as of now.

At this rate you didn’t even really know what you should do with yourself anymore, your mind wasn’t able to think about anything else besides the earlier situation this morning. Thinking about it only pulled sharply on your heartstrings, an overwhelming feeling of guilt and frustration at yourself packing you like a beast it’s helpless prey.

Cold hands were clutching themselves tightly around the hard form of the mug as another wave of guilt and blaming came rolling over you like a wave and you wondered whether bursting out in tears would be a temporary solution to release yourself of all those complicated emotions.

You found your eyes once again wandering to the clock on the wall, pursuing the clock hand with an absent expression on your face. Everything still was so…confusing, hard to figure out, the morning was like a blur in your memories. It just felt surreal, like some sort of dream you would wish to be over now. Even this very moment didn’t feel real nor right, the tension in the room was so thick that you had the feeling you might just be able to transfix it with a fork in the drawer.

Slowly, with a lingering sense of struggle, you slowly turned your field somewhere else in the room, not wanting to count the seconds on the clock to only grow more and more worked up over your lover’s absence. Instead of focusing on something, just anything, to distract yourself you still found your gaze, to your huge disappointment, instantly landing on your phone which was resting next to your lifeless hands.

Should you dare to try it again?

You weren’t so sure, after six calls and ten messages you had drawn a line, you didn’t want to end up spamming your fiancé. Not after you had calmed down after trying to reach him like some lunatic, walking up and down the room without a feeling of easiness that might have enabled you to sit down at first. Something inside of you had felt uneasy, almost tormented, by the mere thought of sitting on a chair and not moving, taunting you to stomp around.

The whole drama had been for nothing in the end though, he hadn’t answered a single thing and right now you were afraid of trying again only to be left waiting again, risking this sudden pang of pain and disappointment again. You weren’t even sure if you wanted to see if he had read any of your messages, terrified to know that he might have chosen to ignore you out of a grudge or because he was blaming himself.

The small device felt unusually heavy as you picked it up, or maybe it was just your own imagination. It didn’t even feel as cold as it normally did, but that was mostly to blame on your own hands which felt like every drop of warm blood had left them long ago.

As you were looking at the black screen, still debate whether to call once again or not, a sudden burst of dislike and disrelish hit you as you saw your reflection, looking with a tired and empty expression back at you.

This person you had been cursing and had hated on the whole evening now was staring back at you and this sudden confrontation irritated something inside of you and at first you felt the impulse to get rid of this image in front of your eyes. Though you were logical enough to not do so and ruin your mobile. Not if it was the only way to reach Wakatoshi. Instead you found yourself glaring fiercely back at yourself, questioning why you had been so incredibly ill-willed and dumb to him.

Ring!

Like a sudden and loud Thunder in the deepest of night filled this ringing your house, tearing the coat of silence around everything away. And just like someone had just given you an electro shock, you felt a jolt waking up your tense and tired body, shacking up all of your senses and you almost threw the chair away in the process.

Just like someone had knocked all thoughts and emotions up and down in your mind, causing you to lose sight of what you even wanted to feel and think, you pressed with a shacking finger the green button, holding your phone close to your ear.

“…”

You were met once again with this harrowing silence that had been torturing you the whole evening and you felt tears that you had been holding back this whole time climbing their way back to the corner of your eyes before you heard slight breathing. Wakatoshi.

Relief. Pure relief that was crashing over you upon just hearing his breathing on the phone, something that made you almost dizzy so that you had to grab the back of the chair to support yourself. A thousand thoughts, if not more, were racing per second through your head, you had so much you wanted to say yet you couldn’t say a single thing. Everything was overlapping itself and you had a hard time distinguishing where something ended and something new began.

But even with this silence you felt like you could almost hear things that wanted to be said, but we’re left unspoken. Not only from you, from Wakatoshi’s side as well.

“What…are you doing?”

It felt like you were fishing out the words you could make out inside your mind and speak them out aloud, though you probably didn’t even know what you were thinking until you heard yourself asking this question with a pressed voice.

Instantly afterwards you felt like you wanted to slap yourself that after everything you had gone through and all the things you could have said, it had to be this.

For a few seconds you heard nothing except him taking soft breaths and a new anxiety arose inside of you due to it. You wanted to hear something from him, even if he would end up being brash or yelling at you. This silence was clawing dangerously at your mind and heart and you didn’t know how much you could possibly endure by now.

“What I am doing? I’m punishing myself.”

Another wave of relief washed over you as you heard finally his deep voice that seemed to do wonders to your nerves, though your heart clenched when hearing the sadness and exhaustion that was lacing his voice, not to mention the words themselves.

“Punishing…yourself? Why?”

“…Why? Because I upset you earlier. I just assumed that after my intrusion this morning you wouldn’t want to see me too soon again.”

How could you let him feel like this? You were a terrible person that felt like crying and shouting at the same time right now, though for the sake of a calm conversation you swallowed everything down, despite the emotions clearly trying to fight their ways out of your soul. But your own feelings didn’t really matter to you right now anyways, not when your concern was only causing you to think about Wakatoshi.

“I…just want you back home.”

.

.

.

It was a chilly night even with the warm jacket he had put on, Wakatoshi was still freezing as he was walking firmly back to your house. He had been out in this cold and gray weather for the last few hours and his ears were stinging painfully after being exposed for too long without any warm protection to the cold air that was biting every bit of skin it could sense.

After your argument with him earlier where he had just silently listened to you having an emotional outburst before you had forced him to leave, he had been carrying a dull ache inside of his chest. It had to be his fault for your sudden shift in behavior, you loved him after all. And it was to blame on your damn boss as well who had pushed you to speed up with your tasks to the point where you had stayed awake until the early morning to finish everything.

Wakatoshi was fearing that one day you’d just snap, that was why he had been wanting to have a serious talk with your boss in the first place. But instead it had only led to him angering you whilst you had already been running around like a tired zombie in the office.

As your future husband he only wanted the best for you, he earned enough money so he had been playing recently with the thought of offering you to take a short break until you were feeling a bit better again.

He himself had felt the tiniest bit okay whilst preparing a meal for you and cleaning the house a bit, just wanting to take a bit of the burden away from you, before he had left it himself. He had been hoping that it would help you putting your nerves to a rest.

But you had sounded on the verge of crying on the phone, taking deep and shaking breaths for try to calm yourself, but even with those tries you hadn’t been able to hide the vulnerability inside of your voice. He had felt the whole day already shitty so knowing that he hadn’t been there and hadn’t even checked his phone for messages and calls up until shortly before he had called you made him reach the lowest level by far. He felt terribly incapable.

The lights in the floor were out as he entered the house quietly, after having hesitated for a bit whilst standing in front of the door frame. Having caught a glimpse from the lights burning inside of the kitchen, he still knew where you were and that was what had driven him to come home as fast as he could in the first place. You had become in those last few years something beyond just his world and his universe, something he couldn’t grasp and describe within just words.

The stillness had something electrifying on it, something lying underneath it, he could almost feel it as he carefully went to the door of the kitchen, pausing in front of the only thing separating him from you, hands lingering on the doorknob. He felt ridiculously nervous right now, but no one would have been able to blame him after this day. He even found his fingers, dull from the coldness outside, trembling slightly. Not only because of the coldness, also because he felt nervous, maybe even a bit anxious.

And maybe it was because of some sort of sixth sense of yours that you just knew that he was dreading behind the kitchen door that you found yourself slowly opening it, feeling the same dwelling dread as your fiancé did in the same moment.

No one knew where to even start as both of you finally saw each other again, staring at each other with emotions mirroring themselves in your and his eyes that spoke more than a thousand words. You didn’t even move at first, noticing with growing awareness that something inside of you was starting to swell up, squeezing itself against your throat so that a sudden tremble shot through your body, alongside with the barely healed pain and so much more being reopened again.

You had been holding it in this whole time now, the strong wall in front of you. But having Wakatoshi standing now in front of you was the last straw that caused your already crumbling walls to finally break. Maybe it was because you knew that you didn’t have to pretend to be fine in front of him.

Everything just exploded inside of you, leading to you starting to cry and sob harshly as trembles started taking over your body and you stammered words out that were meant to be apologies. It was only due to him instantly embracing you and calling your name out softly that you didn’t feel like falling apart completely in that moment.

[imagineimpact]

I'm Glad You're Alright (Albedo x Reader)

An experiment goes wrong and you wake up days later. Your boyfriend, Albedo, is assessing you after the incident.

(Request from a personal friend)

I'm Glad You're Alright

Albedo x Reader

...

A darkness rests, the figures hovering over you in a frantic hurry as the world around you shifts around, arranging itself to make sense and clear the fog from in front of your eyes. It was most certainly a peculiar instance, the strange lack of clarification in the confusion of everything that had been occurring around you.

All you know is that you had just woken up.

That, and something was terribly wrong.

A familiar face hovered in front of you, retrieved by someone else who you hadn’t had enough awareness to identify. His blonde hair swept down towards you, his face in it’s usual expression of calculation. He was talking, but the words weren’t registering… the mindful mumbling from his mouth relating to your condition. You just reached out your hand from under your blanket and found the motion unusually stiff, but grabbed his hand nonetheless.

He paused for a moment, eyes wandering over to it as if the motion was a strange one to make, then shifted his hand to hold yours too. The words started to make sense to you… He was checking your condition.

“And what were you thinking, trying to pull off such a feat. You must’ve been aware of all the potential side effects of such a formula.” Albedo lays the back of his hand against your forehead. “You were passed out for days.”

“Albedo? I… What do you mean?” He instantly stopped his unclear mumbling, looking down and gazing into your eyes for just a moment before moving his hand to your cheek.

“The first word you utter when you wake up from days of being unconscious is my name.” There’s a momentary smile that peaks through his calculations, and then it falters again, his eyes clouding with a seriousness. “Good, your memory is working then. What is the last thing you remember?”

A standard question. He’s impatient for your answer, eyes flickering between yours as you realize that recalling it isn’t as easy as it maybe should be.

“I… I was doing an experiment… and…” Your memory was fuzzy at best. “I don’t…” You didn’t want to finish that sentence, it was a terrible thing for you to say. “I don’t quite… recall… anything that might have occurred after that.”

“Hmm.” He hummed. He quickly stood up, parting from you as the door had a quiet knock on it again. When he returned from the door with a bucket and a cloth, you knew that your condition must have been bad.

“I didn’t mean to worry you. Please, I’m sorry. Forgive me.” You want to grab his spare hand and pull him back to you, to hug him and apologise for whatever trouble you might have caused. “I thought it would be a good test.” A quiet sigh left him as he knelt beside you again, placing the bucket aside.

“Indeed, it might have been. The issue lies in the fact that you decided not only to test the experiment on yourself, but to also give no warning to anyone else.” He fetched up a small towel from the bucket of ice water beside you, wrenching the water from it before gently running the cloth over your face.

“You do that all the time!”

“It’s different. I am in full capacity of my calculations and my science. If something could kill me, I wouldn’t take it.” He shook his head. “You, on the other hand, did not properly assess the dangers, and thus you’ve landed yourself here.” He sighed. “Do you know that the small fragments of slime condense that you added were all it took to incapacitate you for three days? You should have known that it would react negatively with-“

“I know, Albeido.” You interrupt. “I just thought-“

“And you were wrong.”

“I know!” You snap. He looks slightly taken aback, and his gaze rests firmly on yours. You falter. “You don’t have to tell me that.” Your words are in a huff, though less harsh than before.

There’s a moment where the air is still. His eyes are baring into you - not anger or calculation, just the sheer blankness that accompanied perplexity. You feel queasy for a moment, as if you could fall back into your coma. Sound itself seems to fade as you link eyes, watching each other. It gives a feeling that not even science can explain.

“I see.” Albedo breaks the silence, peering down and away from your eyes. He leans over you, a hand running through your hair and then resting on your cheek as his expression settles. His eyes return to you for a moment, and then he leans down to leave a kiss on your other cheek. “I’m glad you’re safe.”

You place your hand over his. You know that he’s frustrated with you but that that’s all that it really is: He’s worried about you. And maybe he doesn’t really understand why you got annoyed at him.

“Next time I’ll let you know before I do anything like this.” You insist with a quiet voice. “Someone, at least.” You feel a strange sense of dejection when he doesn’t respond right away. “I’m okay now. I’m sorry that I worried you.”

He silently watches you, then leans down and plants a soft kiss on your lips. “It’s alright. You’re unlikely to repeat such a mistake.” The air around you stood still, allowing for the two of you to just stare into each other’s eyes, a simple connection. “Just be careful, alright?”

“Of course.” You insist. “I don’t want you to worry about me when you have to go away.”

He looks away again, taking a spare piece of paper from a log of your condition that he was writing up. He doesn’t share his thoughts with you, but you can tell that he wouldn’t want you to know anyway. You let him sit beside you, grabbing his spare hand as he balances the clipboard against his leg, facing you. It’s a subtle inconvenience to him, but it’s also a way of showing you that he’s there, and that he loves you.

[deluxewhump]

if you have time of course. 💦 - An intimate bath. for zee and cam??

I wanted to write the post run away drabble bath that Cam gave to Zee and I never did, so here is a piece of it!

Cam and Zee: Bath

CW: bbu, boxboy dynamics, pet whump, past drowning/water torture, brief reference to Cam's childood bathtub experiences, past abuse, nudity, bathing, hair washing, past forced starvation, mild nausea

****

Zee caught a look at himself in the mirror before he got in the tub.

He looked bloodless and pale, with purple rings darkening under his eyes. He knew if this had happened to him a few months ago, he would’ve looked even worse. He’d put on some weight since those hazy, panicky house days, and though the baby fat was now gone forever from his face, his shoulders had broadened and his ribs no longer showed.

“Strip,” Cam told him. “Those wet clothes aren’t helping.”

“Your clothes are wet, too,” he argued, pulling off his shirt and plopping it into the sink.

"Yeah, well, I wasn’t out there for hours."

For once he was all business, no suggestive looks or jokes as he helped Zee into the tub. He hovered close to him with both hands out, like he was spotting him at the gym. And maybe it wasn’t a bad idea, because Zee was a little dizzy. He held onto Cam’s forearms as he lowered himself, steady as steel railings.

The water felt tingly hot on his fingers and toes, but only warm on the rest of him. He shuddered as it lapped around his waist. Aware of his stark nakedness, he drew his knees up halfway and leaned over them.

Cam pulled a towel off the rack and dried his own hair with it. Sopping-wet Cam reminded Zee of a young Leo DiCaprio in that movie his mother used to like to draw the shades in the middle of the day and get weepy over. Two VHS tapes in one cardboard sleeve. I put the diamond in the coat. I put the coat on her.

“Is Alex really mad at me?” He set his chin on the cool edge of the tub. The hot water they had submerged his clammy body into was making him feel woozy and slightly nauseated.

Cam came back and turned off the tap, his hair still damp but wild now, towel-dried and pushed to one side over his forehead.

“Alex isn’t mad at you. He’s… he feels bad.”

“I yelled at him,” Zee whispered. He closed his eyes. “Oh, fuck.”

“So?” Cam sat on the floor beside the tub. “You’re thinking of it in boxie-terms. Alex isn’t. He’s probably going to tell himself how great it is that you actually hauled off and yelled at him.” He snorted, recalling it and finding it terribly amusing. “It was pretty great.”

“It was awful.”

“He and I used to draw blood when we fought. You remember. This is nothin.”

He picked up a bottle of shampoo and started to wash Zee’s hair. The soapy scent of apples cut so sharply through his queasiness it seemed to cure it. He sighed and let the feeling of Cam’s fingers on his scalp take over his fraught senses, a corona of pleasure spreading from a single point and crowding out all the cold and the ugly.

He had learned long ago to take what he could get, be it a gas station Slim Jim some sympathetic freshman slipped into his pocket or being let into Dominic's bedroom, sleeping soundly on those slightly pilled sheets he often missed.

"I’ve never taken a bath in here before," he mused sleepily. He’d always taken showers. It had never occurred to him to stop the drain and draw one.

“I hate baths.” Cam muttered. He took his fingers out of Zee’s hair. “Rinse your head. You can make it a metaphor. Absolve yourself of your sins, Zeezee.”

Zee didn’t like that, though he couldn’t put his finger on why. Still, he dipped his head back, holding his breath and letting the water rise up over his ears. A long-ago memory of being held under water in a different tub came surging up from the dark well of consciousness— a bloated corpse that startled him and made him open his mouth as if to scream but finding no air to do it with. He jerked up, splashing water up the sides of the tub.

“Y’alright?”

He grunted and wiped water from his eyes. The heat made his heart knocking around his ribs seem pulpy and weird. “Fine.”

“You look better,” Cam said gently, clearly not sharing the memory of the first time he had drawn a bath for Zee. “You know, I was kind of freaking out when I couldn’t find you for so long.”

“So was I,” Zee said, remembering his modesty and leaning forward again. “I’d been trying to get back for hours, but I got all turned around.”

Cam draped his arm over the lip of the tub and set his head in the crook of his elbow so their faces were only about a foot apart. The spout of the tub dripped every five seconds, and in the quiet he could hear the electric hum of the lightbulbs above the sink.

“Everything’s still okay, Zee.”

Cam opened his hand. Zee reached his out of the water and took it. They held them loosely, until Zee allowed gravity to slowly pull his back, and they were only joined by their two hooked fingers.

[quazartranslates]

Welcome to the Nightmare Game II - CH48

**This is an edited machine translation. For more information, please [click here]**

[<<< Previous Chapter | Table of Contents | Next Chapter >>>]

-----

Chapter 48: Star Death Reality Show (XXXI) {cw: misgendering}

"Will Qi Leren be alright?" Dr. Lu, who had already run away, looked at Du Yue behind him in a panic and murmured in a low voice, "I have a bad feeling."

"Qianbei will be fine," Du Yue said confidently.

"No, let's go down and have a look. If he’s in trouble, we can help," Dr. Lu said.

"Okay, let's go." Du Yue was fine with it.

The two people studied the route to find the safest passage. Dr. Lu's sense of direction was bad, and Du Yue wasn’t much better. Two headless flies wandered around the institute and accidentally found intermittent blood on the ground.

The two walked along the blood trail, and finally found the injured Lara in a hidden room. Her injury wasn’t serious, but her spirit was not good. After seeing Du Yue and Dr. Lu, she was silent for a long time, and her voice was hoarse as she asked: "Have you seen Jing Siyu and Jing Sixue?"

The two shook their heads, and Lara sighed: "I'm afraid they’re in danger."

Lara told them what had happened after they ran away. Jing Siyu and Jing Sixue disappeared quickly, but Janet, Alex and Lara were together. They’d had an argument because Francis had been parasitized by an octopus. Janet strongly suspected that Lara was parasitized, and Lara would naturally not admit to such false accusations. During the argument, they met Leviathan, who had been thrown off by Qi Leren once before.

Janet, who was the closest to Leviathan, was the first to be killed. Alex tried to escape, but Leviathan jumped up again. Alex, who was eager to get rid of it, tried to push Lara out, and even stabbed Lara with a dagger. However, Lara had a strong will to survive. She took the dagger regardless of her injury and stabbed Alex’s vitals with a knife. She hid in a room, locked the door, and crawled away from the vents.

After that, Lara tenaciously fled the whole way, and finally came here and met Du Yue and Dr. Lu.

"We also met the monster, and Qi Leren led it away. Here's the thing..." Dr. Lu plainly told the story again, and finally asked, "We’re going to find Qi Leren. Would you like to join us?"

Lara touched the wound on her hand and nodded firmly: "Let's go."

This time, all three people were in a heavy mood. Especially after seeing the incomplete bodies of Jing Siyu and Jing Sixue, Lara cried sadly and asked aloud, "Are we the only ones left? Is Qi still alive?"

Janet and Alex had undoubtedly died by Leviathan's mouth, as well as Jing Siyu and Jing Siyue. Francis, Annie, Mark and Xue Jiahui were all parasitized. He Yi became Leviathan’s host. Only four of them had survived, and among them, Qi Leren’s life and death were still uncertain.

"Of course he’s still alive!" Dr. Lu said firmly. "He must still be alive!"

　　&&&

In the vast underground ice palace.

"Prophet, are you awake?" A blindfolded woman stood up from the chair of carved ice and respectfully saluted him. The ice and snow maids who were responsible for guarding the underground ice palace also bent over in salute.

"Soothsayer? Is it your rotation today?" asked the Prophet.

"It should have been the Iillusionist’s turn, but he had something to do, so we changed it," the Soothsayer replied.

"How is that boy recently?" When it came to the Illusionist, the Prophet's tone was clearly casual.

"Not bad, I heard that he made an interesting new friend, and he played tricks on others all day long." The Soothsayer smiled and asked again, "This time, you slept for a much shorter time than expected. Is something wrong?"

"It's not an accident." The Prophet frowned and looked up at the dome of ice and snow, but his line of sight seemed to pass through the thick layer of ice and look at the vast universe.

The blindfolded Soothsayer could not see his expression at the moment, but she could feel his inner unrest.

"Someone has discovered their original force, and that force is biased towards us," said the Prophet.

The Soothsayer breathed a sigh of relief, smiled, and said, "Isn't this a good thing? Although it’s only the first step, it’s always ahead of the other sentient beings on the starting line. Maybe it will eventually condense a half-field or even a field."

It was only the first step to discover one's original force, and it would take some difficult self-testing to condense a half-field, but this already meant that this person was about to embark on a road different from ordinary players. Any master at the field level started from this first step. Although most people would fall in the long road of experience, everyone who had reached the field level had terrible strength.

The Prophet sighed faintly: "It’s too early to talk about field condensation... Although I’m optimistic about him, I didn’t expect it to be so fast. This may not be a good thing for him. There are still too many problems in his body that have not been solved."

The Soothsayer asked curiously, "Do you know that man? What is his original force?"

The Prophet sensed the new force full of vigor and hope, and gently spoke the answer:

"Rebirth."

　　&&&

In the deep underground glacier wrapped in eternal cold, the temperature was 60 degrees below zero. When human beings were exposed to this environment, it only took a few minutes for the blood in the nose and ears to be unable to maintain circulation because of the cold, and the cells would quickly die.

This underground world without light seemed destined to be forgotten in the cold.

Crushed skull, whole body fracture, ruptured organs, internal and external bleeding... Worse than that, when falling from that height, the speed would return to zero at the moment of contact with the ground, and the body would be deformed instantly under the huge force of the impact. Even the space alien Leviathan, whose vitality was extremely terrible, was seriously injured after falling and fell into a deep sleep.

To say nothing of a human being.

Death was the only outcome.

But suddenly, something moved in the ruinous "tomb" created from broken ice.

And then moved again.

Qi Leren felt as if he was in an icy hell. Every time he breathed, thousands of ice needles punctured his internal organs crazily, which made him feel miserable. He couldn't even think of why he felt so painful and cold, or where he was.

Under this inhuman pain, he only felt that he didn't want to live any longer, but he couldn't even die.

Breathing returned, heartbeat returned, he still couldn't open his eyes, he could only move with all his might. The stones and ice blocks on his arms also moved and collapsed violently, and his sound echoed in the lifeless darkness.

Qi Leren's consciousness gradually returned, and he remembered who he was, but he still didn't realize where he was. He complained crazily in his mind that the air conditioner in his room was too cold, and that he had even accidentally fallen from the bed, and now he couldn't move.

But how could it hurt so much? It was like all his bones were broken.

Qi Leren's confused thinking leaped illogically. He saw many things, and the broken pictures rampaged in front of his eyes, but they just passed away. All he remembered was that he saw a pair of blue eyes.

Blue eyes.

Ning Zhou.

The name suddenly appeared in Qi Leren’s, which was like a spell to unlock the seal on his memories. Countless heavy memories were bearing down, which were more painful than the rose thorn stuck in his heart.

He was going to find Ning Zhou, and he was going to bring him back.

Qi Leren finally recalled his mission, and he began to struggle, struggling to get up from the tomb built from broken ice. Just turning over exhausted his strength, and he had to lie prone on the ground and breathe for a while, only to recover his strength slowly.

He noticed the time. It has been twenty hours since he’d fallen from the ice cliff. It was ten o'clock on the fifth night. The fifth day’s Best of the Day had already been announced, but he didn't know who it was. At the same time, his privacy time has been reset with the new day day, and he had another ten hours.

If you fell from such a high place, the tracking camera should be damaged. If not, the low temperature here should make it unable to work normally. But just to be on the safe side, turn it off.

"Turn off the camera." Qi Leren squeezed his voice out of his dry throat, and coughed wildly as soon as he finished speaking. His mouth was full of the fishy sweetness of blood, which made Qi Leren feel queasy.

Suddenly there was a light sound in the dark, as if a stone had been pushed down.

Qi Leren immediately took out a flashlight from the item bar and shone it in the direction of the sound.

Not far away, there is a mound of rocks and crushed ice, and a tentacle was slowly sticking out from the inside, which was extremely slow and seems to be seriously injured.

That thing wasn't dead yet? Or did it sense the breath of the living again and wake up from hibernation?

Qi Leren struggled from the ground. Although he was mysteriously resurrected, his left hand, which was bitten off by Leviathan, still didn't grow back. If he tried this again, he would only die.

But fortunately, he had a key item that had cooled down.

When the Prophet's Heart was used again, Qi Leren felt subtly different from the last time. The phantom angel falling from the sky came to him and took him away from the terrible world to the carefree Garden of Eden. Under the cover of God's grace, he didn't need to worry, and he didn't feel fear. The world was like sand in his hand, and he could easily knead it into the shape he wanted.

Heavy rocks and ice were pushed away with a flick, exposing Leviathan lying on the ground dying. This horrible monster had a red eye, and this huge eyeball was full of ferocious madness.

There was an invisible giant clock behind him, and the pointer walked quickly. As long as it finished three laps, the power he borrowed would be like the chime of midnight, dissipating all magic.

He had to hurry.

Qi Leren held out his hand and raised his palm in the void. Leviathan floated and began to roar and struggle, but this degree of resistance had no effect before the original force. Moving the palm of his hand slowly, Qi Leren felt that he could easily knead it into pieces, just like what he did to Mark's octopus.

But this was not the only way. Qi Leren felt the mystery of time and carefully explored its secret. A mysterious feeling emerged in his heart. He rubbed his fingers and the sands of time slowly flowed down in his hands.

Leviathan floating in the air as if it had been cast in magic. Its shell was rapidly aging, coated with a layer of rust, and finally it seems to be petrified. Its body was full of cracks, and finally it turned into powder like beach sand, which sprinkled to the ground slowly, leaving a golden treasure chest and a round sphere.

Qi Leren waved his hand, and these two things fell into his hands. The treasure chest was opened, which was an item.

[Lucky Revolver: There are six slots in this gun’s chamber, one of which is loaded with a bullet. Shooting at one's own temple can give one minute of absolute defense within a radius of 500 meters around the locked target, but the absolute defense is invalid for this bullet. Even if you are lucky, God will only give you five minutes. If you are not afraid of death, you can continue for another minute. Locked target: not set.]

Qi Leren immediately decided that this was of no use to him, because he would blow his head off with the first shot, and unless it was matched with S/L, it was a waste.

Disappointed, he looked at the other object, which was an eyeball as big as a bowl. The scarlet pupil seemed familiar. It was called [Leviathan's Eyeball].

What was this thing? There wasn’t even a brief introductory description, which reminded Qi Leren of another prop without a brief introduction, namely, the "Scepter of Hell", which Maria had entrusted him to give to the Prophet.

Time was running out, and the clock representing his time limit only had half a rotation left. The translucent wings behind the Qi Leren lifted him, flying over the deep underground glacier, crossing the collapsed ice tunnel, flying all the way along the coming road, and returning to the iron door at the entrance before time ran out.

"Qi Leren? You’re still alive? That’s great!" "Qianbei! Are you alright? Qianbei! How did you grow wings!" "Qi, are you alright?" The three people wandering around the door with flashlights rushed up in surprise at the sight of Qi Leren.

Prophet's Heart’s time was up, and Qi Leren landed on the ground. After the sacred power retreated, he sat down weakly and walked out of the underground ice cave with the help of the three panicking people.

"It's okay, it's all taken care of. Just in case, we should quickly leave here, seal the exits, and wait for rescue." Although Qi Leren was still in the aftershocks of coming back from the dead, his mind was clear, and he clearly commanded the three people. He was worried about whether there were any octopuses hatching in the research institute, but he was afraid to say it now, for fear that after his mouth moved, his good luck would run out.

Du Yue had great strength, and single handedly carried Qi Leren, who had lost his arm, on his back. He listened to the three people say what had happened after they’d split up, learning that after discovering that the other people had become Leviathan's food, the three people had come to the bottom of the institute to look for Qi Leren. They went in several times, but the temperature inside was horribly low. Unlike Qi Leren who had been blessed by the holy light, they finally had to retreat, worried that Qi Leren was dead.

Qi Leren didn't say that he and Leviathan had fallen off the ice cliff together, only that Leviathan had fallen off, and that he was injured and unconscious for a long time but didn't die. Finally, God blessed him and gave him strength to return to them.

Dr. Lu and Du Yue were very embarrassed, but Lara was very moved. She took Qi Leren's remaining right hand and sincerely said, "When we go back, introduce me to your teachings. I’m willing to be baptized."

Qi Leren, who had no intention of preaching at all, was in a distressing situation. One atheist has destroyed the worldviews of another atheist through acting skills and unscientific miracles—maybe more than one. Should he be sealed as a saint or something?

They left the underground research institute, blocked the exit, left the basement, and returned to the surface. The night was bright and the whole land was covered with white snow and ice. Lara, who was the first to leave the room, pointed to the sky in surprise and shouted: "Look, what is that!"

The three people raised their heads and looked at the approaching black spots.

"Is it... Is the rescue coming?" Dr. Lu was excited.

"Great." Qi Leren also breathed a sigh of relief. The copy was coming to an end, and they could return to the Nightmare World soon.

The spacecraft was getting closer and closer, and before long, they would be able to board the spacecraft safely and leave, but the spacecraft was slow to land. The four people waited anxiously, just like waiting for a late plane.

"It seems like something’s wrong." Lara stood up and looked at more and more spacecrafts that had no intention of landing. "What are they waiting for?"

A thought flashed through Qi Leren's mind: "Are they a civilian spacecrafts?"

"No, these are..." Lara said, her voice stopping abruptly.

A beam more dazzling than sunlight converged on the muzzle of the spacecraft, and the terrible energy was aimed at this planet!

Stunned, the four people watched the devastating attack on the plane beneath their feet, and they couldn't help feeling shocked. They had never thought that, after escaping death from a horrible space alien, they would finally die at the hands of their own people. In order to prevent the octopus from spreading, the army gave up the idea of a rescue landing and blasted the whole planet to pieces at a safe distance, where there was no risk of contact.

At the last second in this copy world, Qi Leren and the others were judged to have completed the task requirement of "surviving until the army arrived", and left the world in the light of the blast.

-----

Editor’s Notes: Obviously those items can only have positive results, right?

As a bonus for the end of this arc, BMBL wrote a collection of the program audience’s reactions on her Weibo. They’re posted as images so I can’t easily throw them into an mtl, but here’s the link for anyone who wants to take a stab at it: https://weibo.com/1741082525/F4b6D7Upr

-----

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[qhostqizmo]

Made To Fall In Love With You

Every creak of the floorboards reminded Essätha of a series of Eldritch Blasts going off as she tried sneaking her way down the hallway. The sorceress was no professional burglar; and despite picking her steps with care to where her weight would not awaken the shifted building’s quirks, each footfall was too loud in her ears. Every few steps her eyes trailed behind her, catching no sight nor sound of any waking murmuring or hobbled shuffling. So far, so good.

To her great surprise, no one manned the front desk as the sun peaked upon the horizon. The smell of bacon grease drifted from another room. It was distant; the Yuan-Ti woman assumed the keeper of the inn may be about while their help worked on preparing a meal for travelers willing to pay. Naturally her tummy grumbled and gurgled in a fit to the delicious aromas. Her cheeks warmed with embarrassment while hurrying the last few steps to the threshold.

By some grace of the Gods, the hinges of the door did not creak and it barely stuck as she pulled it open. The first rays of sunshine blasted her in the eye; a blinding array of dazzling white. Essie squinted for a moment, blinking as her sight adjusted to soak in her surroundings. The large front porch greeted its way to a gravel walkway, and down to the road littered with potholes out of town.

Her heart stammered in her chest uneasily. Licking her lips, she gazed over her shoulder once more.

Nothing.

An ill feeling of trepidation sank in her stomach, yet still she persisted on. The door sealed shut behind her with a click. It was a sign: there was no turning back now.

She took the steps off the porch in a hurry; twitchy that perhaps her sloth-like speed within the dwelling would have ripped precious seconds away from her escape. Rock and dirt crunched beneath her boots as she hurried for the street. The heaviness of her bag began to slap against her back; supplies giving a sturdy thump and rattle with each step. It fell in tune quickly with her rapid pulse. What was she doing?

What was best, she reminded the fearful voice in her head. It quieted, but did not release its grip on her conscious.

From the stoop, a figure raised its head as she paused, panting from street-level. The shape defined itself as a mastiff tilted its head; a solid swish of its tail thumping against the porch. The beast began to stand, shaking its mane of black and chocolate brown.

“Ssstay!”

Her hissed warning surprised the hound, which jerked its posture backwards and away a step down the stoop. It began to whine; deep and throaty and remorseful.

Essie licked her lips again. “Please,” she begged, insisting.

Again, the great canine whimpered, pacing the deck with uncertainty. Should it follow, or should it obey?

From within the structure, there was a rustle, and someone called out. The mastiff pricked his ears to swivel its gaze towards the door.

There wasn’t going to be a better distraction.

I’m sorry, Caesar.

Feeling a tear forming in her heart, Essätha let her feet fly. She knew how to push it; run past the point of lungs burning and the wobble in legs threatening a collapse. She’d been doing it all her life, after all. This was no different.

But it felt different.

Her throat jumped; swallowing around a great and heavy formation in her throat. All she could hear was her heavy breathing, her pulse pounding frantically in her chest, the pebbles and debris kicked up with each launch of her feet from the ground. It was a sprint against the sun; chasing shadows and disappearing between the sparse houses and closing in on wooded forest. The world was an endless blur of smells and colors around her; hues and spectrums of clean laundry hanging, flowers in bloom, tarry-pine trees freshly cut, the streaks of muted house-colors of greens and browns. A startled bird took flight before her into the sky, cawing. She didn’t look twice, but her dread thought that it may have been a raven.

She wasn’t going to survive long alone. Not like this. Not with two adversaries on her tail; one a personal vendetta, the other a vast network of cult members.

But it wasn’t her chances she was worried about.

Someone yelled at her in a startled voice from a smithery as she ran by, but her spare time had already been bought and sold. She beelined for the treeline that was rapidly approaching. At least her knowledge of untamed wilds would give her a clean escape. If she hit water, she’d even be able to throw off the dog perhaps if they decided to pursue her.

The timbers and undergrowth swiftly became a dense jungle too thick to traverse full-hurtle. Forced to pick her way around thorny bushes and clamor over fallen trees, progress began to waver. The sun rose slowly higher in the sky, little by little. Sweat covered her back from the fabric of the backpack, and her stomach growled and complained from lack of breakfast.

It couldn’t have been even an hour when her knees hit the ground, exhausted. She blinked, shivering from fatigue. A series of wet droplets hit the ground, and continued to fall from her face.

Lowering her head, Essie swallowed. Her forehead touched the dry earth; inhaling dust. An irritable bug bit at her arm. She could hear past her own heavy gasping, the sound of distant birds singing Pelor morning praise for raising the light into the sky once more.

A heaviness overtook her queasiness, and another whimper drew past her lips. She crumbled to the ground even more, falling to her side among the leaflitter, the weeds, the grass, the moss. Just the spot she belonged, among the mud and filth.

It seemed only a moment; and perhaps it was, that she closed her eyes. Breathe. Just breathe. However when she opened them again, the thicket was crashing and shaking; something large charging through and headed straight in her direction.

The sorceress reached for the hilt of one of her daggers, but didn’t grasp it yet when the barreling of fur and claws hurtled through the bushes.

“Caesar!” She exclaimed, dropping her hand as the beast scrambled just enough to stop before her. “I told you to stay-”

The mastiff whined, his butt wiggling with overzealous glee. He’d found her, and he was more than happy to lap his big, wet, sloppery tongue on her face.

“You might have told him to stay, but I told him hiruvalyë.”

A tremor raced down the Yuan-Ti’s spine. Her exhale rattled out of her like a last breath; uneasy and fearful. Goosebumps trailed and dotted down her arms with knowing as she lifted her head higher, spotting the void expression staring back at her. The man wearing the expression was dressed in a heavy garment cloak with a bear-fur mantle. She knew the texture of better than she recalled the memory of her own skin, or the feel of the kinks in her wavy hair.

“… What’s that mean?” she rasped. Her voice cracked, throat dry.

“It is Elvish; translated literally to ‘thou shalt find’.”

Essie dug her fingers into the dirt; lodging grime to the bed of her fingernails. She looked away from the nobleman’s sharp features and blankly staring eyes. Despite the fact he could no longer see her face, she self-consciously wiped at the tear tracks on her face now dusty dried-lined. Though she wanted to beg for forgiveness; to kiss the ground he walked on, she bit down upon her wobbly lower lip as he made his way to stand before her.

He took a knee, ushering the frantic and whining mastiff circling her back. Reluctantly but obediently, the massive dog sat where indicated and waited patiently.

Time slowed to a crawl. The pacing was worse than that of her break-out of the inn. Each breath came and went, with nothing happening. The quiet lingered. The guilt rose in her; mighty as the crashing of a thousand bison thundering hooves on the plains. The guilt burned into plumes of shame. The shame to self-loathing, like so many daggers stitched into invisible wounds on her skin.

When she did not move or speak after the seconds turned to minutes, finally the figure sighed ever so quietly. Essie did not flinch or shy away from the hand that reached for her face. She wished it would strike her, or push her, rather than cradle her chin as carefully as it did; guiding her to look skyward. She wished the thoughtfulness of this touch would hate her as much as she hated herself.

Instead; her eyes golden as the sunlight, stared up to find the red-rimmed void of blue and black staring hauntingly back at her.

If she thought she hated herself before, she wanted to succumb to Asmondeus’ themselves worst trails in the Nine Hells now. She deserved it. She deserved fates worse than death, for being the cause of such agony and hurt in such gentle eyes.

“… You promised you would never leave me.”

The words fell out of her faster than she could catch them: “M’lord Amon, it is safer this way, for all of us.”

More than anything, Essie wanted him to be angry. She wanted him to be furious; she wanted him to spit on her and tell her he despised her. That he had been burned and left too many times to accept this betrayal. That she was worthless. That she was a mistake.

Amon blinked; a fresh spring of tears in his eyes, and he looked at her with all the things she did not deserve. None of it she was warranted. He looked at her with reverence beyond any known language, and a gut-sense knowing wiser than the lifespan mankind could survive.

“I know you that you’re scared,” he whispered hoarsely and with understanding. “I see it in your eyes, I feel it in your body laid next to mine, I can tell by the way you breathe that you are terrified. But you never have to run from me, Essie,” Amon murmured. The rough pad of his thumb swiped away a stray tear that had fallen from her eye.

“I was so scared when I woke up, and you weren’t there-”

Her throat tightened, words barely audible as she wheezed, “Then I am a failure and a liar, and you should never have followed me.”

“I’m not upset with you.” She knew this, even as he spoke the words; reaching to hold her face in both hands now. “I’m not upset with you; I swear. I forgive you. I… I know what it’s like to push others away; to run from everything, to turn from hands that want to help you. I’m so relieved to see that you are safe. There was no note, no sign I… I didn’t want to believe or consider what could have happened… ” He swallowed; adam’s apple jumping.

“Neither of us is going to be if they find us here,” she reminded him, panic rising in her voice. Her gaze shift as though to search for the ghost of her past behind him, but his hands held her steady and true. It was out of habit to seek his eyes. She could not stay away long from them; they anchored her, completed her, soothed her like the lull of the ocean deep and true. Quietly mesmerized; fully enamored by the reflections of color off those shadowy eyes.

“I would die a thousand deaths, before I lived a day without you.”

The quivering in her lip returned, only time time it took over all of her body.

“I don’t want that, m’lord. I didn’t want to- to hurt you or to see you hurt or-”

With a conviction that he displayed only in private; only in brief moments, he moved closer to her and dropped to both of his knees. Amon’s face was alive now; emotions moving in his eyes, his browline knit, his mouth open wide and gasping for air as though he was avoiding hyperventilating. He shifted closer still; the smell of leather and firs, his eyes swallowing her into deep pools.

Essätha breathed him in, shaking, as his forehead pressed to her own.

The nobleman licked his lips. “If you have to go, know that I will go with you,” he swore, reaching for her hand. He brushed a kiss to the back of her knuckles, and heat inflamed her face.

“Amon-”

He ignored the desperation in her plea, continuing: “You can choose to flee but you can’t choose who follows you. You never left me alone in my worst moments; not when you found out my dark truths, not during trial, not when others warned you that I was nothing but smooth-talker, and I am not leaving you. We are in this together. I don’t care what dangers I have to face, as long as I am with you. If I am only allowed a second for a final breath, I would just die happy because I shared it with you.”

“You are worth the fight. You are worth whatever sacrifices I have to make, to make sure that you’re protected. Just as you have taught me, you do not have to face your demons by yourself, Essie. I’ve got you. I always have your back, no matter what happens. You don’t need to run away from me. Nothing is going to keep me away from you. We can get through anything as long as it’s you and I, remember? You told me that we could make it through anything together.”

The pressure of his hand interlocked with hers was a lifeline. There were no words to describe it; the coarseness of his palms; weathered, firm, rough. They should be almost frightening to someone like her; soft, delicate, weak. Where his struggles had lead him to his sharp edges, her own had lead her to careful hands and swift feet. There were opposite products of tragedies and misfortune.

“But I need you to live,” she wept, tears freshly falling to drip from her chin.

“Then let me live with you,” her nobleman urged, tenderly wiping tears from her face. “You helped me to meet a better version of myself I didn’t know existed. I’m stronger; kinder, more patient and merciful because of everything you’ve taught me, Ess’. I’m all of those things and more, when I’m standing by your side. You’ve taught me compassion and freedom and strength on a whole scale I never imagined. I never want to stop learning and growing with you; I never want to stop looking into those beautiful bright eyes and that warm smile, not for even a second. I can’t imagine an existence; cold and dark, after witnessing so much light that comes into the world when you’re in it.”

“I need you,” he crooned. “I need you more than air, or food, or water, or shelter. I need you; your persistence, your joy, your fearlessness, your heart, your drive and graciousness. You are everything to me. You mean everything to me. You and I Essätha; we can take on the world. We can do it, together. I look out for you, and you look out for me. You have nothing to fear; until the last fight is over we can stand side by side. I am not leaving you alone. Not… Not like this. Not until… Not until I’m sure you do not want me, that you…”

Heartbeat hammering in her chest, Essätha shushed him gently, wiping her filthy hands against her shirt. When she was certain they were clean, she reached to take hold of his face. He melted into her touch with such open want that she audibly exhaled unsteadily with shock.

“I am never going to forgive myself, if something happens to you.”

“It would not be your fault.”

“Amon-”

“Let me do this,” he insisted. “I can keep you safe. Forever, I swear.”

She hated the agony in his voice. The anguish. The desperation. He wanted her to believe; needed her to believe. And she knew his every word was true. She knew this; a fact, as the sky was blue, as the moon would rise even if there was overcast, as the grass was green and the days would continue on she knew.

It was what could happen that frightened her the most.

“You wouldn’t stop following me even if I told you not to, would you,” she mumbled. She knew the answer to this, too, even before he replied. Spoken as a statement, not a question.

“Not until I knew you were out of danger”

Another shudder racked down her spine, and she closed her eyes. When she opened them again, he was even closer; his breath now tangling with her own. Her thoughts scrambled dizzily; mind and heart buzzing with her pining.

Her nobleman licked his lips anxiously; eyes darting from her own to her lips and back again. “… What I would sacrifice to the Gods right now, just to kiss you, even once,” he whispered gruffly.

Her heart launched into the stratosphere.

Brushing her lips against his own, Essie whimpered faintly, “What did I ever do to deserve you?”

Groaning thickly, Amon pressed closer; barely restraining the temptation of her lips, but he didn’t have her consent. Not yet. He was holding back by the tiniest of margins, nesting her face in his hands.

“Essie… I love you.”

The sorceress’ breath hitched.

“Prove it to me, then, and kiss me.”

She should have known anything her nobleman committed himself to was going to be nothing less than perfect. His lips were light and soft; a stark contrast to the rugged feeling of his palms to her face. It was a kiss barely-restrained; chaste and longing but remarkably controlled. Gentle. Considerate. Giving. Something that lasted all of a few seconds, and it stole all oxygen from her lungs and left her there, eyes closed, reminiscing the moment over and over again. The pressure of his lips against hers. The tingles that it sent hurtling through her; humming in her veins like liquid fire. The taste of him on her lips as she tasted them.

Finally, she opened her gaze to meet Amon’s own, and his mouth hanging agape. He immediately looked between her eyes to her lips, and back again. His throat jumped.

“… I love you too, Amon.”

His years of patience must have snapped; the final thin hair-line fragment breaking. He did not wait for her approval for a second kiss, melding against her in a mess of sweetness and lingering want.

It was her weakness. It broke her. It was infuriating and exhilarating; she knew there would be no turning him away. She should have realized this would happen when she had been so careless and brainless to vanish on him as she had in the first place He was willing to chase her to the ends of this world, and beyond it if necessary. It made her heart swell, and it made her putty, and it felt like a blow to the chest all at once. Even after she’d left him; run away, his worst fear realized that once again he was alone, he came racing to her side anyway with a golden heart of amnesty and his endless yearning.

Essätha had been wanting this sense of completion for so long. She couldn’t believe she had wanted to deny him the very same satisfaction she so selfishly wanted of him just because it was the easier answer.

Caesar gave an exasperated ‘boof’ from his lack of attention as they fell into each other; gentle love-bites and muted gasps of ‘I love you’s between grabby hands latching on to each other. Desperate for something to hold; to cling and merge and fold into each other.

There was no separating Amon Thomas Illiad from Essätha Meduza, just as there was no breaking the cycles of the cosmos. In the end, they’d always seek out each other.

And that was more of a blanket of security than all the weapons she could ever own and all the years of isolation she’d ever have. The risk was worth it. He would always be worth it.

[vesuvian-american-fics]

better with time. Ch 16

you're not safe.

You're hit with a harsh reality check. Just because you're not out there, beyond the walls, doesn't mean you're safe. (AO3)

Words: 1,570

“What are we doing here... it’s been two hours and nothing.” Connie complained, holding his head in his hands. Sasha only hummed lazily in response, a blank look to her eyes. You shook your head at their conversation before averting your attention to Bertholdt’s and Reiner’s chess game.

“Think of it like a day off, we don’t have any training or expeditions today since we’re here. We aren’t even dressed for work.” Sasha said after the quiet threatened to put her to sleep.

“Don’t you find that odd? Being in our plain clothes and not allowed to do anything. Even more suspicious, everyone outside is armed...” Reiner chimed in while Bertholdt took his time expertly deciding where to place his rook. You shifted uncomfortably, knowing exactly why everyone was here unarmed. They’re investigating us to weed out any more titans in the ranks, and it only makes sense that you’re here too, according to Hange. You decided to change to subject before the scouts got any more suspicious.

“W-what are expeditions like? On a good day, I mean?” You asked awkwardly. The table lapsed into silence for a moment before Bertholdt responded.

“On an ideal expedition no one dies, we count how many titans are within forty kilometers of the wall, and then we head home by lunch. We haven't experienced an ideal expedition.” He cleared his throat after his last comment and watched as Reiner placed his knight down onto the wooden chess board.

“Oh... I’m sorry I shouldn’t have asked––”

“No, don’t be sorry Y/N it all comes with the work! Bertholdt and I understand as much, I’m not too sure about these kids here.” He said, chuckling as he nodded towards Connie and Sasha starting a lazy game of I Spy.

“Kids? Aren’t you only a few years older than them?” You laughed, getting to know Reiner more today was nice. He seemed like a funny guy and dependable, at the very least by the younger scouts. You adored his close relationship to Bertholdt, they seemed a lot like brothers in your eyes. A faint blush tickled Reiner’s cheeks at your words, making Bertholdt stifle a small laugh before refocusing himself with the game of chess.

“I like to think of myself as a big brother to a lot of these guys.” He said, stumbling over his words just a bit, you supposed he’s shy when talking about his feelings.

“I like to think of you as a warrior...” Bertholdt cuts in, he had a small smile on his lips but they didn’t quite reach his eyes. You didn’t pay that any mind, no one else seemed to notice besides Reiner anyway.

“Well anyway, Y/N, how old are you?” The blonde brute asked, changing the subject. You thought about it for a moment, you thought about your features and how you looked in the mirror. You didn’t look old per say but in your heart, you knew you weren’t around their age. The way you carried yourself, you factored in the time you spent as a titan, and how when you woke up your hair was overgrown. You can’t imagine you had your hair so long it almost dusted the floor in your past life so you decided to take a guess.

“To be generous, I’ll guess I’m in my twenties at the very least. Twenty-five to shoot for the middle?” You added, shrugging your shoulders.

“Oh really? You don’t look a day over a hundred!” A snarky voice called from over your shoulder. It was Ymir, she stood behind you with two drinks in hand, one for herself and the other, you imagined, was for Christa. You frowned at her words, but shook them off with a small laugh.

“One hundred and twenty-five then, I suppose.” You said, giving Ymir a short smile. Ymir tried to look annoyed with you but her resolve crumbled, a small smirk playing around her lips. Up close you noted the way her freckles danced about as she spoke, her eyes narrowing at you, no real venom to it. Ymir was interesting to say the least, though thorny from time to time.

“Ymir! Stop teasing!” Christa called from the back of the room, without missing a beat Ymir turned on her heels and made her way back to her friend.

“Alright alright, I’m only playing around!” You heard her say nonchalantly. Turning back to your table you caught Bertholdt and Reiner sharing some intense eye contact before they broke away and looked back to the game before them. It was odd but you couldn’t think more about it before Connie and Sasha showered you with questions.

“Do you remember anything about being a titan?!” Sasha asked, scooting over to be across from you. Connie scooched forward now too into your personal space to ask his own invasive questions.

“Was it fun being so big? Do people even taste good?” He asked, his golden eyes boring into your own. His eyes were so large it was almost unnerving, you pushed back on his shoulders so that he was sitting properly again and not leaning forward to you.

“Okay, okay! I don’t remember much alright, and I definitely don’t remember... eating anybody. I’m glad for that!” You said, and for the next half hour you answered questions, paying no mind to the way you drew attention from other scouts, or the way Ymir’s stare made the hairs on the back of your neck stand on end.

“So... How’d you come back?” Connie asked, his brows knitted together in thought.

“W-well, I hadn’t eaten so the... my titan was frail. Hange told me they don’t need to eat to survive but still I was weakened. Hadn’t moved for years and just suddenly it’s like I could hear the outside world. But with my own regular ears, it was muffled, and my back felt warm. And so... I just moved, and it felt different. It wasn’t the titan but my own body. I’m not sure I think time and lack of food, and the fact that I somehow kept sane through it all helped. That’s all I remember. I’m not even sure how or why I was a titan. It sounds impossible!” You said, finally silencing yourself after rambling trying to piece together your past.

“Well from our perspective, Levi all but ripped you from out of that titan. We thought you were eaten and cutting your way out with all the steam but it was coming out of you too.” Reiner said, his once laxed attitude nowhere to be found. He sounded serious and cold now, the muscles of his arms flexed.

“He dropped you in Reiner’s arms and we took you back to base. You looked like Eren with the little titan muscle things attached to your face. Egh!” Sasha added, sounding a little queasy as she recalled the events. Your brows raised; this was news to you. You touched at your cheek as you took in her words.

“And you were naked.” Connie added, snickering as he disclosed the information. A furious blush formed on your face, frazzled you slammed your head down onto the table before you to hide your shame. The force knocking over a few pieces of Bertholdt and Reiner’s chess game to the point that they decided to abandon the game all together.

“Why would you tell me that!” You whined, Connie always seemed like the childish type, his playful antics only growing with Sasha nearby. You groaned, what a great first impression you had with Levi. Hell, with the rest of the scouts as well. You were so new to everything that happened the moment you were free that you hadn’t even noticed you were unclothed. You continued to furiously shake your head, trying in vain to free yourself from the memory.

“That looks like a good idea.” Sasha said with a yawn. She dropped her own head harshly onto the wooden table, for a nap you suppose. She was only there for a moment before she snapped her head up, a fear-stricken expression on her.

“I hear thuds! Like footsteps!” She shouted, out of breath. You didn’t understand what was happening but she caught the attention of everyone in the room. A bead of sweat slipped down Reiner’s face.

“Get serious Sasha... If you’re suggesting that there’s titans that would mean... That would mean that Wall Rose fell.” He said, not sounding like he wanted to believe Sasha’s words, but his expression told another story.

Titans... here?

“Titans are coming?” You said, your voice trembling, you hadn’t seen a titan since you were a titan. The anxiety pierced through your, your heart thrumming painfully fast.

“It’s true! I really hear it!” She said standing with her hands in the air. Your hands began to tremble, palms feeling clammy. Bertholdt noticed your fear, his eyes darting between you and Reiner. Before Sasha could continue, Nanaba was outside the window with a cold look in her eye.

“Multiple titans, five hundred meters to the south. They’re coming right this way.” She informed, addressing the room. Your mouth fell open, this couldn’t be happening. You never had time to address your own fear of titans. You had struggled with nightmares of them and of the hell you endured out there. You shook your head slowly, trying to will your mind that this was all a very vivid dream.

“No...”

[haru-sen]

Imperial Forces

I’ve written...a lot of words for a fanfic no one asked for, and only one person has confirmed knowing what the hell I am even talking about.  My god. This is a preview of the IAL anniversary gift and may be changed down the road.  Certain people instigated this, you know who you are, and I’m still salty at you.

TW:  This is a darker piece of work compliant with some of the unpleasantness that one expects the Sith Empire.  Includes: dubcon, mentions of previous sexual assaults, attempted sexual assault, bad boundaries, bondage, and improper use of the Force.  Edited: Posted some minor corrections. Part 1/?

You sat at the table, ramrod straight, focusing on the silverware, and your glass of wine. The cut of the crystal was exquisite, and the wine was a Dathomirian Fury Red, if you recalled correctly, which you might not, because the entire day had been an absolute disaster, and you would be so very lucky if you made it to the dessert course. Surviving this situation was highly unlikely. You’d known for awhile that your time was extremely limited. But having dessert before you were murdered by a Sith lord, would be kind of nice.

You glanced up at the masked Sith, and then the bored moff across from you: dinner, dessert, death. At least the dining room was luxuriously decorated. You’d always expected to die in a dark, gross alley. This was an upgrade, really.

But for some reason, all these high-end pre-murder amenities were not making you feel any better.

**

They called you Cipher 13, because your real name was classified, and because the previous Cipher 13 took a one-way trip down a sarlacc pit the night before your spontaneous promotion. In all fairness, the name was probably cursed. You were the “unluckiest” of the Cipher agents, often getting the worst assignments or having your missions interrupted by the most unbelievable accidents.

It was an old joke by now, but you still got regular comments about your unenviable misfortune. Like today, when you’d gone to the quartermaster to stock up on the special blend of stimpacks Ciphers used. Fixer 3 had made an awkward joke about how your formula had “unpredictable results” and looked uncharacteristically scared when you took one right in front of him. Fixer 3 was normally a sensible guy and you liked him. You weren’t sure what he had been thinking today.

But it had been a long week, and you had not been given the regular rest break between assignments. Something “urgent” had come up. Watcher 5 had briefed you of your next mission, which was something convoluted and political. You were working for a Dark Council member. Watcher 5 had slipped in a snide remark along the lines of, “try not to let your personal chaos spill into this operation. Sith Lords have little tolerance for surprises.”

He said this, like you had control over these things. Ridiculous.

For example, how could you anticipate that a rancor would get loose at a diplomatic banquet and eat the person you were supposed to interrogate (along with half a dozen or so other very important people)? Not your fault, and certainly not within your control, and despite slicing the needed information from his personal terminal, the mission had been judged (unfairly!) to be a failure. Then there was that pazaak tournament on Nar Shaddaa where you had been burned by another Cipher, who outed you to the Hutts. It didn’t matter, in the sense that you won the game, shot her in the face, and received the boon you had entered the tournament to acquire. (The Hutts didn’t care who you worked for, as long as you weren’t crossing them.) You received demerits for having your cover blown by another agent’s blatant betrayal. (But she didn’t get any, because she was dead, and Minder 2 was pissy with you after that forever.) Then, there was that time you’d walked right into a Jedi strike team ambush meant for Darth Baras on Corellia… You were lucky to only lose a hand that day. Coincidentally, the officer who had given you the bad intel had also been fatally unlucky. He had a rare and deadly allergic reaction to the nuts in his ryshcate pastries, served at a diplomatic fete that weekend. How tragic it is when one can’t even enjoy their pastries.

But it wasn’t just misfortune. The current Keeper did not like you, had never liked you, and was growing more and more frustrated by the fact that you kept coming back alive, when many others did not. (You knew for a fact that the Minders had a betting pool regarding your survival. Minder 12 had been very helpful in providing you the behind the scenes information. You missed her.) As Keeper effectively ran the ops division of Imperial Intelligence, this was a definite problem.

Watcher 4 had been instrumental in keeping you alive. But now that he was gone, you were on your own with very few allies within your organization. That was why you had been given this newest assignment. (You missed Watcher 4 as well, and while you could not and would not try to prove it, you thought he and Minder 12 might have faked their deaths and run off together. It was a purely fanciful notion, but you could dream, right?) Imperial Intelligence agents didn’t get happy endings. And Ciphers usually didn’t make it to five years.

You had seven.

By all rights, you should have been able to transfer to a Watcher position a long time ago. But that never happened. It was probably because Keeper hated you. You did not know exactly why. You suspected it was because you were not born into the upper echelons of Imperial high society. You had started out a slave, earned some freedom, and trained as a Cipher; but on the Imperial capital planet of Dromund Kaas, that wasn’t enough. Your continual survival offended him, a constant reminder of his own failure to erase you.

And so here you were, assigned to the whims of Darth Thanaton, a member of the Dark Council, a crusty overpowered madman, and worse, an absolutely unmitigated boor. He was urbane enough in his public appearances, but behind closed doors? An absolute drama queen.

You stood in his foyer, Thanaton was shouting now, and you got the impression that he did this a lot, having an audience present was optional. The man himself was older, fit enough to show his face (no mask or rebreather), and had been quite the assassin in his day. The room was black marble, filled with ugly stone antiques, and it felt like a mausoleum, only louder and more oppressive. Your head was pounding and your stomach churning as you struggled to pay attention to his spiel. You were professional enough that you could maintain a mask of respectfulness, despite your growing physical discomfort. You had powered through worse.

Like that time on Tatooine when you’d broken a leg in melee combat with Tusken Raiders…That had been a bad day. Or that time you’d gone undercover as a Hutt’s dancing slave on Nar Shaddaa. Or even when…

Focus. Thanaton was bad enough. You did not need to take a trip down traumatic memory lane in the middle of a Darth’s monologue.

Thanaton spent a good quarter of an hour railing against the failing morals and falling standards of the Sith academy on Korriban. And then another quarter of an hour complaining about the bureaucratic delay in assigning a “suitable” Imperial Intelligence agent to his cause. He went into great detail about how much the Council needed this work done, and how important it was, and how Lord Messor’s habits were unseemly, and Moff Kiljack needed to know his place, and...and...and… It went on much longer. He sprayed spittle when he spoke. It was painfully distracting.

You nodded along, like a good Cipher, even though you could feel the nastiness of his aura crawling along your skin. It worsened your nausea. You were no saint, but being near powerful Sith made you queasy. There was something fundamentally wrong with most of them, and your body knew it. But you stood at attention, masking your disgust, because to cross a Darth was a clear-cut and uncomfortable death, usually with choking, sometimes lightning. You’d seen it up close many times and experienced lighter versions of those punishments yourself. Best avoided if possible.

Keeper knew what he was doing. There was a fifty percent chance that you wouldn’t even make it to the mission. Snotty old Darth Thanaton would take offense at you for simply existing and smite you before you had a chance to get to work.

But you were not unaware of the situation. Lord Messor was an unconventional dark lord, taking more than his share of apprentices from Korriban (and doing who knows what with them? Sith Lords didn’t usually keep more than one alive at a time). Moff Kiljack had been one of those apprentices, and had shown an extreme aptitude for military strategy. He had then been put on a different career track, promoted to head of Messor’s security forces, and given free reign. Eventually however, things between the men soured, and the former security chief had managed to wrangle a promotion from the Imperial army, instead of just wasting away as Messor’s lackey. He gained some powerful allies and rose quickly to the rank of moff. To no one’s surprise, Messor hadn’t taken the change of allegiances well, and now things were awkward, to say the least.

Thanaton claimed that he found the entire situation offensive. You didn’t think it seemed any different from any other horrible day on Dromund Kaas. There were so many betrayals, atrocities, and political cliques, you just tried to keep your head down, and your heart beating. It was more likely that Thanaton feared Messor’s growing power and wanted to eliminate a rival.

If only you had gotten another off-world assignment. You’d already disabled the kill-chip implanted in the base of your skull. You could just fake your death, move to some peaceful, secluded farming planet, and not worry about being flayed alive for accidentally making eye contact with a power-mad sorcerer.

You’d always suspected your cause of death would be “someone else’s ego” or at least “collateral damage,” but you didn’t expect it to play out so literally. By the time Thanaton actually got to the point, you had been standing in his foyer for an hour, watching him froth and rant. Lord Messor or Moff Kiljack had just been assigned to deal with a situation on Hoth or Voss (you couldn’t tell because Thanaton had been going at it for so long that he kept switching the names and not giving you any kriffing context…) But you were to sabotage those efforts, make Messor and the moff lose credibility, fall from grace, and be tossed into the bone pile in the waste dumps outside the city.

That’s it. Ruin them on the basis of his disapproval and use his tenuously plotted scheme to do it. Failure would be met by death.

Success would also probably be treason, and that too was punishable by death.

Hell, if you did succeed, Thanaton would have to kill you to tie up loose ends.

Death, death, or more death, with no obvious way out. Normal mission parameters, really.

Nodding, you told him, “I understand, my lord. It will be done, my lord,” while preparing to take a shuttle off-world and commit very public suicide on Nar Shaddaa. Hell, you could just go throw yourself at the mercy of Theron Shan. He probably would only torture you a little, as a formality, before taking pity on you, and ending your misery himself.

OK, clearly you had been in Darth Thanaton’s dark energy radius for too long, because his madness and depressive thoughts were now rubbing off on you. Plus you still wanted to throw up. And Thanaton might have sensed your urge to flee, because he sent you back to the Imperial High Command with an escort: one of his security advisors, a pompous man of “good breeding” named Captain Prince, and a dozen heavily armed guards.

Druk.

The soldiers weren’t really there for you, you realized once you were already seated in the convoy listening to Prince further explain Thanaton’s “plan.” Lord Messor was taking on a greater role in the war effort against the Republic, and Imperial High Command was providing more men for his military gambits. Prince and his men were being overtly assigned by Imperial High Command, though they were actually loyal to Thanaton. Prince would be reporting to Messor tonight. Your cover was as Prince’s assistant. Your job would be reconnaissance and sabotage, and you would be reporting your progress to both Prince and Thanaton. You also would be expected to produce reports for Keeper, not that Prince understood the workings within Imperial Intelligence.

...It was shit plan. You knew it even before you heard it, though Prince seemed confident that his background would pass muster. That was a little more reassuring than Thanaton’s mad ramblings, but still amateur. Prince was a decorated military man, and had seen some very vicious combat, committed atrocities, and been rewarded for his service. He was not the man you would have put in charge of any operation that required subtlety. If Keeper had wanted this job done right, he would have assigned it to you himself, and given you free reign. There was a lot of subtext to unravel, but right now you had to nod along to Captain Prince’s blathering. He wasn’t nice, he stared at your chest longer than was polite, and he put a hand on your knee. You lightly brushed it off, reminding yourself that you could not kill Thanaton’s representative on the first day.

Like any highborn noble, Lord Messor had an estate outside the city. The route was straight forward, and you were taking a regular speeder to get there. Contrary to your expectations, the ride actually helped clear your head. You were still a little shaky, but less nauseated. Getting away from Thanaton helped. Wind lashed at your skin as you watched the jungle pass by, and you wondered how much of a lead you would have if you left for Nar Shaddaa tonight. With any luck, it would be hours before anyone noticed you were gone.

You waited, hands steady, even as you and Prince exited the vehicle. It was raining, as usual, and the air stunk of ozone. Three more men followed from another transport, and Prince did not offer any introduction, though you could feel them watching you with predatory eyes.

The Messor estate had several outbuildings, and the gates were high. A large fortress had been partially carved out of the cliff, the jungle providing more strategic cover. Though solid, it had the columned facade of an ancient Sith temple. You studied it, not quite sure what Thanaton had been complaining about. Lord Messor seemed to have traditional Sith tastes (gothic and imposing), at least when it came to architecture.

“Come on, kitten,” Prince said with a leer. “If you want to marvel about size, I have something to show you.”

The men behind you laughed.

You just smiled politely, and decided that maybe Prince would lean too far out a window tonight. The jungle provided a lot of ambient noise to cover any screaming. The winds were dangerous. Accidents happened, especially around you. Hell, if Prince was defenestrated, they’d probably be too busy mopping up the meat confetti to look for you…

Prince led the way to the fortress, frowning as an HK droid met you at the bottom of the steps.

“Greetings, Captain. Lord Messor is expecting you. Please come this way.” The droid pointed to a more discrete entrance: a small path leading to a recessed door. With the foliage and the angle of entry, it was well-concealed.

Prince’s upper lip curled in aggravation, but he adjusted course. You followed, noting the placement of the turrets, the thickness of the walls, and the fact that the droid that met you was a high-end assassination model. It spoke like a protocol droid, it had those functions as well, but you were very familiar with the HK series.

You followed Prince through the heavy durasteel door and to a narrow set of stone steps. The lights were low, and the stairwell was mostly in shadow. Then the door slammed shut behind you, leaving the HK droid and the other three men outside.

Prince stopped, he glanced at you questioningly.

“I didn’t shut it,” you said.

Prince pushed past you and tried the handle. The door did not budge. He frowned and drew his blaster pistol.

“Let’s go,” he told you, gesturing with the pistol for you to go first.

“Of course, Captain,” you said, maybe a little sarcastically, as you marched up the stairs, keeping an eye out for trip wires, pressure plates, or any of the other nasty surprises that Sith lords liked to keep around their homes.

...Druk. Sometimes there were creatures. The local fauna was bad enough, but the Sith liked to import nasty things as well as craft their own monsters. You’d seen plenty and you had no desire to face Sithspawn again any time soon.

You stepped lightly. The stairs went up for at least three stories, and then there was another door. You glanced back at Prince.

“Hurry up,” he growled.

You opened the large metal door, and stepped into a cavernous room big enough to serve as a huttball field. Dim lights shone in wall sconces, and two rows of black pillars lined a path to a massive carved throne. All these features seemed to be cut from the same mountain stone.

There was a figure on a throne, black and red robes under a heavy breastplate, a black hood and stylized skull mask covering his face. He wore heavy metal gauntlets, tipped with dangerously sharp talons.

“Captain Prince,” Lord Messor spoke quietly, his voice smoother than you expected, a lot calmer than some other dark lord whom you had met earlier today. The acoustics of the room were amazing, his voice carried through the hall.

“Ah, my lord,” Prince stepped past you, his blaster already holstered. “I am honored to finally- be in your presence.” He gestured for you to follow as he led the way toward the throne.

“I did not give you orders to approach.” He sounded almost bored.

Prince stopped. “My apologies, my lord. I did not-”

“You don’t need to explain,” Lord Messor said, resting his chin in one palm. “And I don’t have patience for your excuses.”

Prince cocked his head to the side and looked almost comically confused.

And then Moff Kiljack – you recognized that striking blonde hair and those icy blue eyes - stepped out from behind a pillar, and pressed his blaster to the back of Prince’s skull. There was no hesitation. He blew the captain’s brains out right there in Lord Messor’s throne room. Prince dropped with a thud.

You barely had time to avoid the splatter, let alone wonder what Moff Kiljack, Lord Messor’s sworn rival, was doing in his throne room. You glanced between the Sith lord and the moff, wondering if you had time to dive for cover while they battled.

Instead, Lord Messor just sighed. “Ensign De Veo,” he said, using your cover name, and giving you hope that he didn’t know exactly what was going on. “Also known as Cipher 13,” he added, crushing that hope. “I’m sorry for the mess. Kiljack can be so...uncivilized.” He stood and began descending from the dais.

You glanced over at Moff Kiljack, not at all surprised to find the blaster pistol aimed at your head.

“That’s unnecessary, Kiljack. I’m sure our dear Cipher understands her position.” Messor swept down the stairs from his throne, red and black fabric swirling behind him. He circled you like a hungry sleen. “Now, I realize this isn’t what you expected. But I’d be delighted to explain everything. So why don’t you join us for dinner, and we can discuss what you’re doing here, why you’re still alive, and what you need to do to stay that way. This should be easy enough for a woman of your caliber.” He chuckled.

There was no room for panic. You survived because you could think on your feet. Because you didn’t get caught up in “what should have happened.” You kept your mouth shut and most of your insubordinate comments in your head.

You gave a stiff bow from the waist. “I would be honored, my lord,” you said, already tasting lightning in the back of your throat. It was very unlikely that you would get through the night without a demonstration of Sith might.

Lord Messor laughed, like he found you genuinely amusing, and headed toward the eastern doors.

“Cipher,” Moff Kiljack was at your side, offering you his right arm. He was a tall man, very fit in his officer grays. There was blood on his cuffs and glove. He stood like he was carved from ice.

You swallowed and tentatively placed your metal hand on his bicep, wondering if you could scratch him with one of your poisoned needles without him noticing.

“I wouldn’t,” Kiljack said, not even turning his head to look at you. “Be a good girl, and you’ll make it out of this alive.”

You shivered, suddenly very cold in your officer’s tunic. The fear crept down your spine, threatening to freeze you in place. But that would not do. You forced yourself to breathe. You had forgotten that the moff had once been a Sith apprentice. Force-users could pick up surface thoughts. Normally though, you were better at shielding. You steered your mind back to nav-charts and the asteroid belts of the Outer Rim. Head held high, you walked with Moff Kiljack to Lord Messor’s banquet hall.

**

And so here you were now, seated to the left of Lord Messor, a very bored Moff Kiljack sitting across from you, watching you with cold eyes.

The table was long, almost the length of the room, and also carved from the same obsidian stone as the chamber. The same with the high-backed chairs, though they were not attached to the floor, and had plush cushions on them.

Your brain was working almost too fast, panic welling in each heart beat. You tried to calm yourself, as you stared at the vividly colored salad in front of you. You turned some of your hyperfocus on that. It was very aesthetically pleasing, and would not be out of place at a restaurant on Alderaan or Coruscant. Perhaps it would pair well with-

-So what the hell was going on? Moff Kiljack and Lord Messor shared a well-known enmity. But now they were working together, likely because they had learned of Darth Thanaton’s intent to bring them both down. Prince’s men were definitely dead. HKs were ruthlessly efficient like that. You were a loose end, but one they could bargain with. They would want to use you against Thanaton, of course, but you were an experienced Cipher. You still had some resources-

-a Starblossom spritzer or a Coruscant blush wine. You weren’t sure what the next course was, but traditionally there would be a protein and a starch, and-

-This wasn’t a con you could pull off alone. Not that it had much of a chance before. The original plan was half-baked garbage and you didn’t really want to-

Wait.

You willed yourself still, taking a moment to breathe. Your mind was moving too fast. There was something wrong. Had been wrong all day, your focus slowly sliding into the abyss. But trying to figure out what was exactly was wrong, was like grasping at fog. And with both a moff and a Sith lord watching your every move, now was not the time to buckle.

Your memory coaxed up a tiny epiphany. This started around the time you met Thanaton. Was it him?

Kiljack took a bite of his salad, his flat expression not changing, even as he chewed.

Lord Messor was not eating though. He raised his mask to sip his wine, but given the kinds of damage Sith lords did to their bodies, it was possible that he did not have a normal digestive tract.

“Is the food not to your liking, Cipher?” Messor asked, curling those metal talons against his palm with a rhythmic tap tap tap.

“It is exquisite, my lord,” you said, picking up your fork, and taking a bite. The vegetables were crisp, fresh, and lightly vinegared. There were sweet berries mixed in with crumbles of salty cheese. If this was your last meal, you could have really done worse. “Are these Alderaanian fickleberries? They’re a wonderful addition to the dish, just the right amount of sweetness.”

“Indeed,” Messor practically purred. “You have a sophisticated palate. I understand that you are well-traveled.”

“Or she’s used them before,” Kiljack said, still eating his salad. “Likely when she mixed them with the nuts in that Corellian ryshcate to poison Ambassador Morrow. Clever move: I understand the symptoms mimic an allergic reaction. Never thought to mix fickleberries with vweilu nuts and a decoction of grillig-juice. All are harmless on their own, but when combined together, the enzyme produced causes catastrophic organ failure in most humanoids.”

You froze.

“Do you think that would work on Darth Thanaton?” Kiljack asked, tilting his chin up “No, that’s far too radical for him. Mixing foreign nuts and berries, he’d never go for that.” He flashed you a predatory smile. “You might have better luck with a rancor.”

They knew.

This wasn’t just about Thanaton. No one in Imperial Intelligence decisively knew everything that you had done, or how: just that you got results. But Moff Kiljack and Lord Messor, two mortal enemies had just sat you down to dinner and they karking knew. And if these two knew what Imperial Intelligence did not, that meant they were far more driven and dangerous than you initially expected and how did they know? Why did they go through all that effort-?

Terror, still fresh from your encounter in the throne room, blossomed in your chest once more. Dozens of scenarios played out in your mind: the consequences of your exposure. There was no need to go into graphic detail, though you kept getting distracted with colorful visions of your own evisceration. No matter what you thought of, it all ended very badly for you.

In that moment, you cursed your premature deactivation of your kill-chip. They knew. And if it was you versus a Sith lord and his moff ex-apprentice, you would not win. They had already done the hard part, already figured out what you did and how. And then you had just walked into Messor’s home, a gift-wrapped sacrifice. They wanted something from you, and judging by what they already knew, what it took to find that information out, they had the will and means to break you. You’d seen the inquisitors work, seen the aftermath too, the piles of mewling meat begging for death. Being on the wrong side of Sith and moff persuasion wasn’t any kinder. Electrocution or a snapped neck were far better.

You were on your feet in seconds, already turning to run, hoping Moff Kiljack would take you out in one shot.

“No!” Lord Messor raised his hand, and you slammed back down into the chair. Something in your body cracked as you struck the stone, and the world went black for half a second before you snapped back into your body.

You tried to move, but the force held you in your seat, pressing tightly against your chest, your arms pinned down on the armrests. You could barely breathe, let alone move your limbs. Shuddering, you could only watch as Moff Kiljack leaned against the edge of the table in front of you. He reached out, one gloved hand tilting your chin up.

“You hit her too hard, Messor,” his voice was calm. “She’s bleeding and her pupils are uneven.”

“Couldn’t help it. She moved too fast, and she was planning to self-destruct.” Messor’s voice came from behind gritted teeth.

“That, or hoping to get one of us to do it for her.” Kiljack shook his head.

Cold sweat dripped down your neck. Your breaths came in short bursts. You were trapped, back flat against the stone chair. You couldn’t move. And you were at the mercy of men who didn’t know the meaning of the word. A strangled sob died in your chest as you vainly tried to move your limbs.

“Shhhhh, don’t struggle,” Kiljack reached for your napkin and then gently blotted your nose. “Messor, she’s having trouble breathing.”

“I know,” Messor shuddered, and took a deep breath. “She’s very scared.” There was a note of something like hunger in his voice, but he raised his hand again, and suddenly you could draw in a little more air.

“Mmm,” Kiljack nodded, those blue eyes studying your face. “That’s it, stop fighting us. This doesn’t have to hurt.” He set the napkin down, watching you intently, like a puzzle he wanted to dissect. He smiled then. “You are very loud, Cipher.”

You gritted your teeth and tried to stifle your breathing. You must be badly injured if you were making too much noise. Ciphers didn’t make a habit of being loud. For obvious reasons.

“That’s not what I meant,” Kiljack said. He leaned in, nearly nose to nose with you. “Quiet your mind.”

You stared at him, trying to swallow, but your throat was dry and your vision blurred. You dropped your head, too dizzy to stay upright.

Kiljack lifted your water glass to your lips. “Here. Take small sips. We don’t want you to choke. On the water.”

You flinched, waiting for one of them to follow up with a traditional Sith demonstration of force choking.

“Just drink your water,” Kiljack ordered.

You opened your mouth, closing your eyes as the glass touched your lips. The cool water tasted better than you hoped and the light steady stream cleared your throat.

“That’s it, good girl.” He stroked your cheek, his black glove soft against your skin. “Is that better?”

You managed a nod, feeling queasy from the motion alone.

“Now, are you going to behave?” Kiljack asked coolly. “Or do we have to keep you restrained? Another stunt like that, and I won’t be so nice, do you understand?”

“I’ll be good, sir,” you said, voice weak, and you had to grit your teeth, because speaking hurt. That force blow had done some damage to you. You couldn’t pinpoint the exact location, because your whole body ached. You still couldn’t move. And to make things worse, Moff Kiljack, of all people, was trying to gentle you like a wild tauntaun.

“Does it hurt?” He asked.

You closed your eyes, focusing on the different routes off of Nar Shaddaa instead of your current location. And you waited for the next threat of more pain, or the lightning, or whatever Kiljack wanted to use.

“Now, she’s gone silent,” Kiljack muttered.

“She’s in pain,” Messor said, his voice still low. “And while I find nav-charts far less tedious than endless streams of pazaak, someone really needs to teach you how to shield your mind better. I don’t know how you’ve survived this long with such loud and irreverent thoughts.”

Normally, you were better at it. But Kiljack had said your pupils were uneven...OK, concussion. That made sense. You took an inventory of your injuries: bad concussion, something fractured in your chest or abdomen, and you still were trapped here with a dark lord and a moff who wanted you for nothing good. Druk. It would have been so much easier if one of them had just killed you outright. They were supposed to be good at that kind of thing. Hell, you could still bite your tongue off and-

Kiljack gripped your chin, prying your jaw open. “I thought you were going to be a good girl, Cipher.”

You whimpered.

“I will get the bit and the slave collar,” he said glaring at you.

You relaxed your jaw. You weren’t trying to upset him. You were concussed. And you didn’t have complete control of your faculties right now.

Kiljack narrowed his eyes at you. “Is that so? Do I need to get the bit for your own safety? Or would you prefer I make you a cloth gag? Messor, can we borrow your sash?”

“Sah-ee, sir,” you said. It was not the first time you’d given a disingenuous apology with another man’s fingers in your mouth at the dinner table, and quite frankly you were a little embarrassed to be in that situation again.

Then came the spasm of pain that would have bent you in two, if you could move that far. Instead, you twitched, teeth clamping down on the moff’s fingers as you struggled to breathe. You tasted blood in your mouth, though you weren’t sure whose it was.

Kiljack’s eyes widened, but he didn’t move, and the slap you expected did not come. He waited for you to unclench before withdrawing his fingers. He examined his torn glove with a sigh. “We’re going to need kolto, Messor.”

A kolto pack floated over the table to Kiljack.

Nimble fingers began unbuttoning your collar. You opened your eyes to see Kiljack unfastening your tunic, a kolto pack in hand. His gaze lingered on your thin undershirt for a moment, and then he applied the cool healing gel onto your stomach, along your sides, and around to your back.

“I don’t think we’ll be finishing dinner out here any time soon,” Messor said.

“Messor, I’m not making do with just a salad, no matter what kind of fancy berries you put in it,” Kiljack said, wiping his hands off and checking his fingers. There were teeth marks, and some broken skin, but nothing severe. After the kolto application, the wounds started closing up as you watched.

Messor laughed. “We can take our meals in our rooms. Why don’t we call the medical droid and put our guest to bed first?”

The pressure on your body suddenly lifted, but before you could regain your bearings, Kiljack scooped you out of the chair.

“Is this causing you more pain?” He asked, one arm supporting your back, the other under your knees.

“No,” you said, though breathing was still uncomfortable. Rib damage, likely. You didn’t struggle, too woozy to make good decisions right now. On the bright side, it looked like they weren’t going to kill you just yet, but also, you hadn’t made it to dessert, and you were a little sad at the prospect of missing whatever Lord Messor’s chef had concocted. Even if it was fickleberries mixed with vweilu nuts and a decoction of grillig-juice.

Despite the danger, you could not keep your eyes open. The world faded away.

You dreamt.

**

You were back in that dining room, candlelight casting eerie shadows on the walls. You saw yourself bent over that banquet table, Lord Messor’s hand on your back, your face pressed against the stone, your wine glass rolling on its side, the red liquid dribbling onto the floor. You felt a spark and flinched, that light crackle of electricity as those metal talons trailed down your spine.

“Scared?” Messor murmured, his breath hot on the back of your neck.

“Yes, my lord,” you panted, squirming under him, feeling his cock pressed against you through his robes.

“Good.”

**

You were on your knees, staring up at Kiljack, the tip of a riding crop under your chin. You didn’t recognize the room. There was a small fountain flowing in the corner. It was an office, probably aboard a starcruiser from the shape of the window. You did not recognize the orbit. But Kiljack was in full moff regalia, gray tunic coat and jodphurs, black boots and gloves, and a heavy belt. Was this his battleship?

“I told you to open your mouth,” Kiljack said coldly.

You hesitantly parted your lips, noticing that your hands were unbound. You could-

Kiljack pushed a piece of silicone into your mouth, the ring shape holding your teeth apart. He fastened the strap snugly around your head.

“That’s better,” he said, an edge in his smile as he cupped your cheek. “This wouldn’t be necessary if you were more careful with those teeth. Now be a good girl and stick out your tongue.”

**

The bedroom was large and dimly lit.

The bed was enormous, draped in scarlet silks and pillows. It was comfortable, but you could not actually move very far. You poked at the gold collar latched around your neck. You wore matching bracelets and anklets, but there was a chain attached to the collar and secured to the headboard. You rolled your eyes at the outfit: the dancer’s garb with the red and gold harness top, chain belt and lashaa silk loincloth, and knee high boots.

You had worn these before – what spy hadn’t? But you didn’t remember getting here, or where here even was.

There was someone else in the room, somewhere in the shadows, just watching you. You looped a length of chain – your best bet for a weapon, and began examining where it connected to the headboard.

“I thought you were going to behave today.” Messor’s voice came from somewhere in the darkness.

“But if this is how she wants to play, why should we deny her?” Kiljack laughed.

The lights went out. And suddenly you weren’t alone on the bed.

**

“So do you like the view?” Kiljack whispered. “You’ll have to be quiet, or everyone will hear us.” He tightened his grip around your waist. “Or maybe that’s what you want.”

You sat on his lap, looking around the throne room, in all its sinister glory. Crimson imperial banners hung from the walls and pillars, the firelight casting harsh shadows. There was a second story balcony overlooking the throne room. It was too dark to see if anyone else was up there. But the rest of the cavern was a vast expanse, easily surveyed from the throne where Kiljack sat: Lord Messer’s throne.

He was right. If you made any noise, it would echo.

You swallowed roughly, eyes drifting to the spot where the moff had executed Prince. There was no body or blood.

“You didn’t answer my question,” Kiljack growled in your ear.

You opened your mouth to speak.

“You’re in my seat,” Messor said, the words echoing off the walls as he materialized from the shadows. His tone was dangerously mild. He stalked up the stairs toward you.

You started to move, but Kiljack held you tightly against him. “About time you got here,” the moff said. “I was getting bored giving the tour. Maybe we can move on to something more exciting.”

**

You sat up with a strangled gasp, your head pounding. Another unfamiliar bed, but when you looked down, you were covered in blankets. You peeked underneath, finding yourself still dressed in your thin tanktop and uniform pants. You ached, like you’d been in a fight. But there wasn’t pain between your legs, a small, but important reassurance. The inside of your mouth felt like a stable floor and you winced as you looked around, the dim lights still aggravating your eyes.

It was a large elegant bedroom, the furniture silver with red trim. It was neat, but it felt lived in, not a guest room. You started to look around, but your vision swam. Holding your head, you gave yourself a moment before trying to focus.

Yesterday was an absolute sarlaac snarl. You’d been sent off on a poorly-planned suicide mission, and your reactions were...wrong. Judging by how awful you felt right now, you’d been drugged. You gritted your teeth, forcing yourself to analyze each location step by step. You started feeling ill in Darth Thanaton’s presence, but you neither ate nor drank there. Maybe he did have some secret force brainwashing powers, but that was unlikely. That ability was too subtle for a bombastic coot like him.

...The stims. Something had been wrong with the stims. Fixer 3 wasn’t being a smart ass. Fixer 3 had been trying to warn you. Echuta! It had been right there in front of your face and you were too distracted and arrogant to notice.

You growled, throwing the blankets off. You tried to stand, but found you were still too dizzy.

“Well, I’m glad to see that you’re feeling better.”

You blinked.

Just off to the side, nestled between a wardrobe and a table, sat Moff Kiljack. There was a blanket on his lap and a blaster pistol on the table. He yawned, stretching his arms above his head, before he stood, fully dressed, though his jacket was unbuttoned. A faint dusting of stubble shadowed his jaw. He looked you over. “That’s better.” He tapped his left temple. “You’re not so loud any more.” He gave a sigh that sounded a lot like relief. “I know that wasn’t entirely your fault. You were out of your head. The medical droid analyzed what was in your system, if you’re curious.”

“Someone sabotaged my stims,” you said, resting your head on your knees. “Someone in Imperial Intelligence.”

Moff Kiljack nodded. “Makes sense. You also had a bad concussion, cracked ribs, and some bruising. The kolto pack helped a little, but a localized injection sped it up.”

“Thank you,” you said, even if you were not so sure that you were grateful to be saved. Because you still had a lot of questions about what was going on, why these two “enemies” had put so much research into your accomplishments, and how much they knew about Darth Thanaton’s intentions.

You closed your eyes, knowing a few things already:

Moff Kiljack and Lord Messor had a complex relationship; this was likely Kiljack’s room and Messor would not keep it for him if they were really enemies. You needed to figure out the exact nature of their alliance and how much of that infamous enmity was a smokescreen. They worked too well in tandem for all of that showboating to be real.

Keeper was now actively trying to kill you. It would be very difficult to tamper with the stims otherwise. Thanaton was probably meant to be the instrument of your death. He was old, powerful, and no one would bat an eye over a Darth executing a Cipher.

The sensitivity was getting worse. Once it had been an asset, just enough insight to give you an advantage. Now it was opening you up to too many other things. And you lived in the capital city of the Empire, where so many hungry Sith congregated. No, this was bad for you. Kiljack was right, you needed to shore up those shields, and hide yourself better. Anything less would get you shipped off to Korriban.

“Can you hold down food?” Kiljack asked, suddenly standing beside the bed. He set a glass of water on the night stand.

“Not sure. Thank you.” You eyed it for a moment, knowing that he could have slipped any manner of drug in there, but at this point, what choice did you have? They needed you for something, and that meant they probably needed you alive and functional. You took the water, sipping it slowly.

The moff watched you like a hawk, probably worried that you were going to choke or throw up.

You studied him, noting his bare hands. There were scars on them, but it looked like the bite marks had healed. “Sorry about biting you last night,” you said. Apologizing seemed like a good idea. It would be wisest if they thought you were docile and amenable to them. You still weren’t certain that you were going to thank him for sparing your life. But you were a little more confident that they weren’t planning on torturing you to death. Not immediately, anyway.

“You need to be more careful with those teeth,” he said, without a hint of inflection, that handsome scarred face stoic once more.

You stared at him for a second, a moment of deja vu. You shrugged. “I need to be more careful, period.” You dropped back onto the pillows, another wave of dizziness skewing your balance.

The moff picked up a personal comm. “Echo, let Messor know that our guest is awake, and have something mild brought up from the kitchens for her.” He glanced over at you. “I can send for the medical droid.”

“You already had me checked out, right?” You asked, staring up at the stone tiled ceiling.

“Yes. There was a small amount of bleeding in your skull. We took care of it. It can provide some painkillers and anti-nausea meds if you want.”

We took care of it.

That was an interesting way to phrase it. The medical droid might have accomplished it on its own, though the procedure would be more invasive.

“I think I should go for the anti-nausea meds,” you said, one hand over your eyes. “But if you give me a minute, I can try to get upright and-”

“Just stay there,” Kiljack said. “Messor will be along shortly. Finish your water.”

You sighed and downed the rest of the glass, spilling a little down your chin, and not really caring because your head hurt.

**

The comm unit chimed and Kiljack stepped out of the bedroom. When he returned, he was carrying a large platter of flatbread, grilled fish, and some fruit. There was a small glass of anti-nausea medication too. He set it all on the nightstand and poured you another glass of water from the carafe.

Your stomach rumbled, so you took a few berries and ate them slowly, letting the sweetness roll down your throat. You downed the medication in one shot.

When everything stayed down, you took a few more berries, and then a piece of bread, passing on the sauce, just in case.

Kiljack settled back down in his chair, watching your every move.

You had taken a break from trying to eat, when there was a knock. It was distant, and you realized this bedroom was probably part of a suite. Kiljack got up, giving you a stern look.

You pretended not to see. You were still too messed up to make a run for it, and even if you did manage to escape, where would you go? Keeper was trying to kill you. Thanaton was not going to be happy about Prince. And Nar Shaddaa with its flashing lights and cacophony of sounds, would give you a migraine bad enough to make your head explode. You could stay here in the comfortable bed for a moment. You needed a more accurate picture of the situation, before you did anything rash. You did not need a repeat of last night.

“No, it’s fine, I don’t have to get back to the fleet, I’ll just stay here and babysit your new pet spy,” Kiljack said sharply as he returned and practically threw himself into his chair.

Lord Messor followed, still in those sweeping red and black Sith robes, that stylized skull mask in place. The Sith had several skull motifs, though to be honest, his reminded you a little of the Mandalorian mythosaur skull symbol, without the horns.

“I’m glad to see that you’re feeling better,” Lord Messor stood in the doorway. There was a slight mechanical quality to his voice that you had not noticed last night. The mask had a built-in vocoder then. Interesting.

“My lord,” you said, attempting a bow at the waist and feeling your head swoop dangerously close to your knees.

“Don’t-” He sighed. “We can do this informally, Cipher. You’re still recovering from your ordeal.”

You nodded, wincing as you leaned back into the pillows. “I appreciate that, my lord.”

“We’re in private, Cipher. You can forego the title as well.”

Thankfully, you were already lying down, because otherwise you would have fallen over in shock. You had never actually expected to hear a Sith lord say that. After Thanaton, it was a pleasant reversal. But you did not trust that magnanimity.

If Messor and Kiljack knew about the “extra” missions you did, then they had to have a fairly accurate psychological profile of you. They had to know that people who forced you into bad situations ended up having freak accidents. Being polite was just a good way to manage you. You had no illusions about the altruistic natures of moffs and Sith lords. But you could appreciate the effort and you would work with good manners. This was certainly better than spending an hour being shouted at by Darth Thanaton.

You waited for one of the men to speak. They were the ones who wanted you here, after all.

“You were recently tasked by Darth Thanaton to sabotage our strategic efforts on Hoth and Voss. You were assigned to Darth Thanaton by Imperial Intelligence, but that does not mean Imperial Intelligence condones his actions. However, as Thanaton is a member of the Dark Council, politics must come into play.” Messor’s hands twitched. He wasn’t wearing the gauntlets today. He had large hands, dark skin, and thick callouses, probably from handling weapons.

“So someone in Imperial Intelligence tipped you off?”

“Your...Keeper saw fit to warn me,” Kiljack said, fingers steepled.

You frowned. “But not Lord Messor.”

“I think you’ve already figured out that Messor and I are...exaggerating our feud.” Kiljack gave a wry smile. “But that is very guarded knowledge.”

“Yes,” you nodded, and then winced, because you did not need to be bobbing your injured head like an idiot bird. Your brain had taken enough of a blending.

A secret political alliance gave them an interesting cover and access to a wider range of intelligence. But Moff Kiljack did not have the wealth and prestige that Lord Messor did. He would be at a fundamental disadvantage. A Sith lord was not likely to trust anyone outside their control. There were a lot of disadvantages to this tactic and you could not see a clear payoff. You sat with that for a moment. There was an important reason for their ruse, though you doubted they would tell you anything but a plausible cover story today. But the layout of the game started to form. You looked at the empty spaces, trying to find the details that didn’t make sense.

...There it was. There was a third party in play, aiding and abetting this ruse. Someone with enough clout to help Kiljack get his promotion. Someone that even Keeper did not want to cross...

Another Dark Council member then. And given Kiljack and Messor’s military interests and mostly low-key behavior, you had a good idea whom that Council Member was, though again, not why they were using this exact ruse. But if Kiljack’s patron was who you thought it was, you did not blame Keeper for wanting to stay on his good side.

But you were also pretty sure that you were not supposed to survive that meeting with Thanaton yesterday. The exchange would go something like this:

“Send me another minion, peon!”

“I’m so sorry, your Decrepit-ness, you killed my only available agent and we’re very shorthanded! There’s no one else to send. You’ll have to wait.”

Keeper would be off the hook with Thanaton and Kiljack’s patron. You would be dead. Three problems solved.

Except you were alive, and no problems were solved. You looked up to see Kiljack studying your face.

“Do you suspect that Keeper knows the feud is fabricated?”

“No. That’s very exclusive knowledge,” Messor said without a trace of doubt.

You wondered how he could be so confident – not because he wasn’t ruthless – but because your business was secrets: keeping them, stealing them, rooting them out. If people wanted information badly enough, they would find a way to get it. No matter how well you thought you covered your tracks. Your stomach soured a little at that thought. They’d figured out some of your secrets. You’d have to return the favor, if only for your own pride. And maybe some leverage.

“So you want to recruit me as a double agent against Thanaton,” you said.

“Partially,” Messor admitted. “But I had a more permanent offer in mind for you.” He cleared his throat. “My current intelligence chief will be retiring soon. You were recommended to us.”

You blinked. “I can’t just quit Imperial Intelligence, believe me, I’ve tried,” you blurted out.

“You can if you have the right patronage,” Kiljack said. And he had some experience there, having gone from Sith apprentice to moff.

“You want me to help you bring down Thanaton, get you onto the Dark Council, and then you’ll hire me?” Your lips twitched at that tall order. Sith expectations.

“I will hire you now as a house intelligence agent, at double your current pay with all the usual amenities one expects from the well-to-do estate of a Sith lord,” Messor said. “Promotion to intelligence chief pending results.”

That would have been extremely generous, except Imperial Intelligence was criminally cheap. Sure you had some good benefits, but they didn’t have to be competitive when their employees literally weren’t allowed to quit. Still, it was not a bad offer. Better than a lot of the alternatives.

Messor continued. “Handling Thanaton and the Council are longer term problems. If we succeed on Hoth and Voss, I will have enough clout to extract you intact from the employ of Imperial Intelligence. And it will be easier since you’re already assigned to me: possession is nine tenths of the law.”

You sat with that for a few seconds. You could play the long game, letting Thanaton think you had wormed your way into Messor’s confidence. That would sit well with Keeper – it kept him out of the hotseat. You could go back to Keeper and see which way he wanted you to go – for intel purposes only - and then do whatever you wanted anyway. You could say no outright, and get shot in the head by Kiljack…

“You have questions,” Messor said, still keeping his distance.

“How long have you been tracking me? And what brought me to your attention?”

“A man once called “Sparrow” recommended you to us a year ago. He is around here if you want to catch up later.”

You sighed, of course Sparrow was still alive. That explained a lot. He knew you well enough to guess which missions you had purposefully altered. He knew your expertise well enough to conjecture methodology. That he shared this information with a strange Sith lord should not have surprised you entirely. The former Cipher 7 was a skilled assassin; he’d been declared KIA with his brother two years ago. But it seemed he had found a safe haven here.

“His brother?”

“Didn’t want to work with us. No one was going to force him. He took a shuttle to Yavin 4. Sparrow visits him occasionally,” Kiljack said.

“Why me?” You asked, not because you doubted your abilities, but because you still did not quite understand how this coalition worked.

Messor was silent for a moment. “You are a reasonable woman. And looking at your track record, we thought your methods would align with ours.”

“And why do you think that?” You asked.

“The Rancor Incident,” Kiljack said with a smirk.

You kept your face neutral.

“Lord Vilhus was there, a very nasty individual. But the casualty list also included Ieyak the Butcher, Margrene the Bloody, General Arus, Enso Chain-Maker, and Lord Casten. Coincidentally, none of the slaves, servers, or civilian bystanders were hurt. And everyone thought it was just a terrible accident. That took planning, skill, and finesse.”

You stared at your lap, trying to remember if any of those people had good or bad ties to House Messor. Vilhus wasn’t anyone’s friend and Arus wasn’t related. Casten might have attended the Academy at the same time as Messor. You pondered that connection.

Because once you’d had a close...friend, a lower ranking analyst in Imperial Intelligence. A smart and pretty Twi’lek who didn’t deserve the things Lord Vilhus did to her. Lord Vilhus was a Sith lord and could do as he pleased to those weaker than him. So when you saw him there and that rancor… It was just an opportunity.

You looked up to see Kiljack studying you intently. “None of them were allies to House Messor or myself,” he told you.

“Am I...broadcasting?” You asked, trying to make sure your mind was quiet.

“No, it’s just the next logical question,” Kiljack said. He cleared his throat. “But there’s something else we need to address.”

“You’re a Sensitive,” Messor said.

You winced. Of course they’d picked that up yesterday. “A little. Nothing kinetic level, just intuitive boosts every now and again. Came along later in life.” Though it still might be enough to get you sent to Korriban. And now they knew. Which was a manageable thing. You knew about their fake feud, they knew about your force sensitivity. Mutually-assured destruction ensured that the balance of power remained less complicated.

Messor nodded. “Kiljack is very good at shielding. You should consult him about how to better protect your mind.”

Kiljack gave Messor a side-eyed squint, but did not protest.

Accept the offer, take a hard job, and maybe get out from under Keeper’s thumb. Or decline and end up dead. It wasn’t much of a choice.

“What do I have to do to sign on?” You asked.

**

Different Sith lords had their ways of ensuring loyalty, or at least compliance. You had undergone years of conditioning to be kept under the authority of Imperial Intelligence. A lot of that conditioning had come undone in your term as an active operative. You had worked hard to slough the restraints that would have otherwise hobbled your thinking. They might have had your service, but your mind was your own. Ciphers had a lot of leeway to run operations as they saw fit, because an obedient drone could not do their job. But there were still ticks, involuntary habits ingrained in your mind, pathways worn in by years of unpleasant reinforcement. Oh, you weren’t loyal to Imperial Intelligence, but you knew to instantly bow your head to a “superior,” to mask your emotions with a lie, and that the mission came first at the expense of all else... You knew these things in your bones, because of the conditioning. And you understood intimately how those rituals did psychological damage.

So when Lord Messor stepped into the room and drew closer, you prepared yourself for something unpleasant.

“Give me your hand, the flesh one.”

Permanently, or just to hold? You wanted to ask, but you kept your mouth shut and extended your right hand. He took it gently between his palms. His skin was warm and rough. You swallowed, preparing to be overwhelmed by your reaction to the Sith.

The world turned black.

Then heat and light poured into your skull, a waterfall rushing through you, and you screamed under the torrent. It cut through your perception, and tethered something in your head, to that little spot of intuition that always knew when a weapon was being drawn or when someone was lying to you. That metaphysical aperture expanded, wedged open by the hooks of Messor’s connection. He was in your head, and for a moment, you were face down on the dining room table, those claws tracing along your spine while he pinned you there, while you squeezed your thighs together, squirming at his touch…

Then you felt the weight on your left arm, felt Messor squeeze your right hand, and you forced your eyes open.

Kiljack held you to the bed, your left hand pinned over your head.

You could feel Messor through the force. He was in your mind, had his own private backdoor in, a new sort of violation. And that realization enraged you. Snarling, you thrashed, “You bastard! Get the hell out of my head!”

“If you shield well, I can’t see what’s in your head,” he said calmly. “And I won’t go looking.”

Cursing, you lunged at him, but Kiljack held you down, his full weight on your body.

“It’s not mind control, it’s a minor force bond,” Messor said, tone even.

So this was how he kept Kiljack in line. And you had just willingly submitted yourself to the same treatment. Maybe death was preferable. Fury overtook you and you tried to throw Kiljack off you. When he didn’t budge, you sunk your teeth into Kiljack’s shoulder.

He jerked, then braced himself, hand tightening on your throat. “I thought I told you to be more careful with those teeth,” he rasped, pupils huge.

You waited for the leash or the neural bolt.

It’s not a leash. It goes both ways. And it fades with time. Messor said quietly in your head. Also, if you keep biting Kiljack, he’s going to choke you out.

Groaning, you released the moff, feeling his fingers begin to loosen around your neck. You kriffing piece of sarlaac scum! I’m going to feed you your teeth!

“I hope you’re talking to Messor, because you’re not in any position to threaten me,” Kiljack said gruffly, running his thumb over your throat, before letting go of your neck.

“You’re on the list too, don’t worry,” you hissed.

Messor released your hand, a hint of amusement in his aura. “Get some rest, Thirteen. We can talk more later.”

I know so many annoying drinking songs from dozens of planets. I will be screaming them into your skull all night!

“Charming,” Kiljack said, rubbing his temple. He glanced down at his ripped jacket and glared at you. “If you’re going to be a nuisance, you can go crawl into someone else’s bed, because-”

There was the ghost of a memory, a shirtless Kiljack laughing as he lay in the bed, another man pinned under him, like you had been, a flash of heat pulsed between your thighs-

Messor inhaled sharply.

Kiljack pinched the bridge of his nose. “I told you-” He pushed his hair back, suddenly very tired. “Just go. Your proximity is probably making things more difficult.”

“Your shoulder,” Messor said softly, he stepped out of the room and returned with a medkit.

You watched silently as Messor carefully cleaned Kiljack’s wound, and treated it with kolto.

Kiljack leaned into Messor’s hands, his head resting against Messor’s shoulder, and it clicked.

There was more than one reason why Kiljack did not betray Messor, one you had not anticipated. You gave a dry laugh, how utterly ridiculous. These stories never ended well for the Sith or their lovers. Suddenly very drained, you dropped back into the pillows.

Rest.

I hope you get eaten by a gorryl slug, you bastard. You pictured the giant carnivorous slugs of Kashyyyk, arboreal hunters that dropped onto their prey and were nearly impossible to pry off. They would exude digestive juices and slowly digest their victims. An unlucky person could take a very long time to die.

What are those- oh that is awful. I’ll have to remember that one. A low laugh in the back of your skull. Kiljack is very good at shielding. He will help you if you ask, nicely.

I’m going to gut you like a ghest.

Get some rest, Thirteen. You’ll have plenty of time to threaten me later.

[bellatrixobsessed1]

From Chin To Yon Rah (Part 20)

She has left Chin. That was her only intent. But she knows that, that isn’t good enough. Not when her WuJing is within walking distance.

It’s desecrated, skeletal shadow haunts her. She knows that she needs to get out from under its shade. There is nothing in the Earth Kingdom for her anymore anyhow and somehow it has managed to instill more hurt and trauma than the Fire Nation had. It is time to go home.

She isn’t sure what she will do when she gets there, she is certain that they won’t even take her back. Or that they will but they will transfer her right back into an institution where she belongs. But she is going to do it. She is going home.

.oOo.

The grasslands are so empty and so vast. And this time she only has her own mind for company. She hasn’t even a mongoose-lizard nor an ostrich horse. And by Agni, her mind isn’t good company.

It yells at her. Chastises her. Mocks her for being too weak to protect herself and her family. Mocks her doubly for letting herself sink so far under. She thinks that she has managed to put herself in a worse state than the one she had been in on the day of Sozin’s Comet. At least she’d had some fight in her then. Some scrap of dignity to be retained. This Azula is simply pathetic. Pathetic and lonely and directionless. More so than before.

At one point, somewhere around a week and a half into the grassland she stops walking. Her feet are sore and her shoes are becoming worn. Her back aches and her belly pangs more often than not, she has nothing to fill it with. Having exhausted all other options, she resorts to eating grass. She finds out the hard way that this is a mistake.

That night was spent without any progress at all. That night was spent doubled over and queasy and heaving. By the end of it her sides ache and her stomach is somehow emptier and achier than before. She thinks that she may be seeing her loved ones sooner than she had imagined.

She is in a much worse state than before she’d consumed the grass. Her throat is dry and her body shakes. She quite literally drags herself for several excruciating miles. Only when she hears the sound of a stream does she will herself to her feet.

And only when she actually sees the stream does she hasten her pace. She is desperate with thirst and near ferally ravenous. She cups her hands and takes mouthfuls of water, lapping at it as though it will disappear if she doesn’t consume it fast enough.

She has the sense to stop for a moment and refill her waterskins.  She is thankful that she had found the courage and willpower to enter Wujing one last time to gather some supplies for her journey.

Hunger makes fishing difficult, but desperation makes it doable. She cooks her first fish while she catches her next few. Her next dozen. She isn’t sure when she will come by her next meal so she eats until she is nearly sick.  

Until she feels sluggish as she forces herself onwards. She thinks that she is only delaying the inevitable. The grasslands had been nearly uncrossable with a mount, to take them on foot, she realizes, had been an extended invitation to death.

Occasionally her mind wanders to a more pleasant place. Occasionally the field resembles a hill on the southern outskirts of Wujing.

This hill had been the perfect place for a picnic. The day before, they had made kites. She had made herself a blue dragon, Hajime had made himself a plain diamond with bright and intricate drawings, and Atsu tried his very hardest to make a badgermole.

Food was anything but scarce on this grassy hill. Ojihara’s family had come to join them and with baskets of fresh fruits and vegetables. And by late afternoon, it was a town event.

But to Azula it will always be a family memory. She was only two or three months pregnant then, but Hajime still pampered her as though she were at least six months along. She held her kite out and watched Atsu and Caihong race with theirs down the hillside. She wasn’t sure who the third child was but she tripped and Atsu helped her up. She remembers the feeling of Hajime’s arms wrapping around her middle. The feeling of his lips against the nape of her neck. She remembers the gentle caress of his hand over her bump and the breeze that tugged at her hair. She remembers having cupped her hand over his.

She remembers the moment being ruined by the breeze picking up their picnic blanket and slamming into the both of them. Their kites had knotted around one another. She remembers that she wasn’t angry or vexed. In fact she vividly recalls Hajime practically falling over with laughter as she tried to untangle the both of them from the blanket. If only the kites hadn’t tangled them up as well. Ultimately Seukhyun was the one to free them.

She remembers declaring that she was going to go back to eating strawberries and letting the children play with kites. She remembers Hajime laying down next to her and feeding her the strawberries.

She misses being spoiled like that. She misses hearing his laugh. Hearing Atsu’s laugh. Misses laughter in general.

That day she learns not to take things for granted.

.oOo.

She draws back and Sokka says nothing for a very long time. Agonizingly long. She should have just stumbled her way through an awkward declaration of love.  That probably would have been far less awkward. Perhaps she had gauged their interactions the wrong way. Her face is flushed quite vividly.

Sokka still doesn’t say a thing. He isn’t Hajime and she shouldn’t have made a move so abruptly. She would rise up and make a hasty retreat for her room, but they are still sitting upon her bed. Of course she could retreat to any of the guest rooms or the training room or perhaps  to take another bath just to have a bath…

She hasn’t quite stood fully when she feels a hand come around her wrist. Sokka gently pulls her back to the mattress, still silent. She thinks that he might be looking for something to say. And she supposes that it would have been rude to have kissed and fled.

“Sorry.” She grumbles at last.

“For what?” He asks.

She touches her fingers to his lips. “I thought that you…” he gives her fingers a small kiss before taking her hand and giving the back of it another small kiss.

“I don’t want you to apologize.” He rubs the back of his head. “I was actually kind of waiting for you to do that.”

“You were?”

“Sure.” He replies. “Though I kind of thought that you were going to kiss me while we were gardening.”

Apparently, even when she has the right emotion, she still has the wrong timing. It had been Hajime who had done much of the work. Hajime who had guided her in the right direction. There had been so many little signs and hints along the way. And then he’d ultimately given her their first real kiss. It had felt right. Natural.

This feels different. It feels jarring and frightening somehow. And maybe it is because she is still apprehensive about finding love at all. With anyone who isn’t Hajime. She isn’t sure that it would be fair to begin a relationship when her last one is still so heavily there. She knows what she will do if she should choose to pursue. She knows that she will compare every little aspect of Sokka--every little thing that he does--to Hajime. And how can she do that to him? How can she put him in a position where he’d be second choice to a dead man.  

She doesn’t think that she can do this. It had been an impulse decision. A spur of the moment action. She doesn’t even know if she loves him; isn’t love supposed to take time? It had taken her a year to decide to marry Hajime, and months before she even kissed him. It had taken time and she has only been around Sokka for a short while. And yet it feels the same as it felt with Hajime. Sokka is fun. He is patient. He is easy to be around.

She is hard to be around. Hard and awkward and confused.

She stiffly apologizes again, gets to her feet, and in one fluid motion, pulls herself from his grasp and out into the hallway.

Somehow this feels just as wrong as kissing him. She doesn’t want to make a rebound of him, neither does she want to write him off.

Azula steals away into the palace hot springs. She casts her robes aside and submerges herself as though her conflict and distress can roll off of her body with the steam. As though she can scrub her troubles away with a bar of soap and a handful of shampoo. She stays in the water until her skin goes wrinkly. And then a little longer after that.

She hadn’t the foresight to grab her pajamas so she changes back into her day clothes.

Somewhere deep within, she hopes that Sokka will be sitting on her bed when she gets back.

He isn’t.

She thinks that she must love him if it hurts this bad to see that he wouldn’t be waiting on her to get it together. She is a fool and she doesn’t know what she is doing. He doesn’t have time to wait for her to figure it out. Likely, he thinks that she has been playing some cruel game with him, just for the sake of making him upset. It is what she would have done some years earlier.

At least she won’t have to worry about tragically losing another lover. She had a second chance and she has already let it go. And for what?

Yes, she definitely loves him. She would be able to sleep if she didn’t.

[ateezmakemeweep]

richboy!seonghwa (part 6)

word count: 5k

angst, fluff

(part 5) (series masterlist)

your eyes pop open and it takes you a second to figure out where you are. because the blue and white walls, high ceilings and modern chandelier hanging a few inches away from the comfortable, soft bed you're laying in is a serious indication that this is definitely not your room.

you think you should probably be freaking out at this point, checking to see if your clothes are still on or frantically searching your pockets for your phone but you're...strangely calm as you try to piece together the events of last night that ended with you here, in seonghwa's bedroom.

you remember going to the party and waiting outside the house for him, scoffing when he simply told you come to the kitchen like you knew where anything was, before walking in and being overwhelmed by the extravagant high school party, bumping into a man and him persistently asking to get you a drink until finally getting to seonghwa but then...your mind blanks.

the sound of a door opening causes you to turn around under the soft comforter, blue blanket up to your neck like someone had tucked you in at some point. seonghwa's tired eyes meet yours and they immediately fill with relief, quickly making his way over to you and sitting down by your legs.

"hi, y/n." he says the sentence so quietly and softly, like he's tending to an injured animal. your eyebrows furrow because the sense that something's not right with him is immediate, no trance of his cocky and cool self anywhere. "how are you feeling?"

your mind is racing now, trying to piece something, anything together. but you can't remember. only flashes of unknown faces and strobe lights and loud chatter.

"i don't... i can't remember," you tell him, the confusion evident in your tone before slight panic takes over, "why am i here? do my parents know?"

he reaches out to place his hand on your arm before drawing it back quickly, your questioning eyes darting from his face to his drawn back hand then back to his face; he's being...weird.

"yes," he says softly, "i..i went in your phone and texted your mom, i hope that's okay."

you nod your head gratefully because that saved you from a disaster of a tongue lashing.

"so, what do you remember?" he asks softly, eyes roaming your face carefully.

you quietly tell him what you can recall: waiting outside, getting his text, walking in, bumping into a boy and him getting you a drink, then finding him.

"but i can't..." you struggle to find the words as you wrack your brain, "remember anything after." you turn your face to look at him and see him staring at you with a nervous, sympathetic gaze and it's starting to scare you even more.

"why are you looking at me like that?"

his tongue peeks out and licks at his dry lips, another sign of a nervous habit that's creating a knot in your stomach. his soft, brown eyes just stay on you and they're swarming with the type of sympathy people look at you with after times of loss or tragedy or...now, your stomach is really starting to churn.

"seonghwa, did something... what happened?"

"y/n..." he drags out warningly and this time, puts his hand on your arm gently. relief floods through him when you don't draw it back but instead slightly relax from his warm touch.

you don't say a word, just look at him expectantly because now he has to tell you. but it's as if your body already knows bad news is coming, your queasy stomach and sweaty palms and increasing heart rate.

"do you remember the name... jackson?"

he spits out the name like it's a bad piece of food.

a scene flashes in your mind of seonghwa standing between you and a man you still can't quite make out or remember. but the voice seems familiar, ringing over in your mind and causing your stomach to knot even more, that queasy feeling now making it's way up your throat.

"stop coming here, jackson, you're fucking old and it's getting creepy now."

"such a little dick, aren't you park."

"relax, tough guy, we're going now."

your head snaps up to look at him and panic immediately overcomes seonghwa's face, his hand tightening and then loosening on your arm when he sees you still holding a questioning gaze.

"you and him talked? when you came over and found me?"

he can only nod, his teeth digging into his lower lip because he really doesn't wanna tell you.

your hand boldly reaches up and gently moves his lip down so it springs freeze from the tight hold of his teeth. a breathy exhale leaves his mouth, overwhelmed and hating himself for relishing in your touch.

"why are doing that?" you ask him quietly, head tilting against the pillow, "why do you seem so nervous? i'm usually the nervous one."

you force out a tiny chuckle, trying to lighten the heavy mood just a little.

but it does nothing of the sort, his intense gaze never leaving your eyes. his hand reaches down to smooth out your messy bedhead and his movements are so slow and gentle that it causes your heart to flutter.

but then his broken whispers fill the space between you and it feels like it's about to explode out of your chest or shoot down into your stomach.

"i don't want you to remember."

maybe it's because his words are mumbled or because you've been conscious for a few minutes now or maybe just because the world has deemed it time for you to face reality. your mind suddenly becomes cluttered with memories and harshly whispered words from last night.

wet lips trailing over your cheeks and lips.

"don't cry, pretty girl."

a tongue licking over the skin on your neck.

"just wait, i'll make you feel good. sh, sh,"

a large, clammy hand fondling your chest as you thrash and cry and wiggle against a cold bed.

"who...stop...please.."

you hear your own broken voice in your head, teary and slurred and tortured and it's like all of it hits you at once. the fear and terror and confusion you felt in that moment, the blurry vision and clogged ears that rendered you helpless.

seonghwa knows the second you shoot up frantically and look at him that you remembered and he wants to wrap you in his arms and hug you immediately.

he knows that could quite possibly be the worst thing to do right now, given what you just appeared to relive, so he forces them to stay at his sides.

but fuck, if seeing you on the verge of panic and tears right next to him doesn't make him wanna hold you and comfort you until you fall back into a peaceful unconscious state where you can forgot about this for a few moments.

"i was almost...he almost..jacks-"

you can't even get his name out before a sob falls from your mouth, hand slapping over it and looking at seonghwa with tears in your eyes. his own are burning watching you, arms visibly twitching to wrap themselves around your body and fury burning back in his chest because he didn't get to kill the man who caused you harm.

"y/n," he says gently, "y/n...i'm sorry."

your breathing starts to quicken and tears start to pour from your eyes, blurring your vision yet again and then you collapse against his chest in a fit of quiet weeps.

breathing out a sigh of relief that you're taking comfort in him, his arms immediately wrap around you. his lips fall to your head as his hand comes up to stroke your hair, rocking you back and forth as quiet cries and sniffles fill his room and cause his heart to hurt.

because he can't stop thinking about if he had simply left the kitchen to get you, if he had stayed by your side the entire time or better yet, if he just not have invited you like yeosang had said, none of this would've happened. you wouldn't have to be reliving something so traumatizing and awful and could've been prevented had he just stayed with you.

he hears you whimper his name into his chest and he swallows the lump in his throat, cooing shushes and apologies against your head.

"why do you keep saying sorry," you mumble brokenly against his chest before pulling back to look at him, "you saved me."

a part of him, for a split split second, thinks to lie and take credit for saving you. because if he had, then maybe, maybe, it would make this situation suck a little bit less.

but he knows that would only help him, only cowardly heal him of his guilt. which is why he can't. because this isn't about him and you don't deserve to be lied too.

"i...it wasn't me, baby," he mumbles as his hands cup your cheeks and wipe your wet tears away.

"what? but...weren't you with me?"

his face crumbles and his teeth sink into his lip hard enough for blood to seep into his mouth and you would've noticed if your eyes hadn't been roaming his face.

because he looks so sad and broken and full of regret.

"no," he chokes out, "no...i-i left you with wooyoung for one minute because i thought jac...he had put something in your drink and then the next thing i know, someone is screaming for me that yeosang said to come upstairs and that's when you..."

suddenly a memory flashes of yeosang bursting into the room, cursing at jackson, ripping him off you, screaming at you to get out of the room before you ran into seonghwa's chest.

"then i found you," you squeak out quietly, teary gaze meeting his.

"yeah..."

you watch as he abruptly gets up and paces in front of you, veins bulging from his arm and jaw clenched and you can only sit in the bed and watch him, wondering why he's this angry and worked up.

it's silent for a few moments before he takes a deep breath and walks over to you. you watch with teary eyes as he bends down, his hands resting on the comforter just a few inches from yours.

"y/n, i'm so sorry," he grunts out, deep voice pained and scratchy as he looks at you, "i..this is all my fault."

your eyebrows furrow because: "what?"

"i should've never left you the first place," he growls, almost as if he's talking to himself now, "or just...went out and got you and this...he never would've seen you or talked to you and i'm so sorry, y/n, please," he begs and you watch in confusion and heartbreak as he has a mini breakdown right in front of you, "i'm so sorry."

his veiny hands bunch up the comforter and you can feel the tension radiating off of him. you're still consumed by your own recent knowledge of the trauma, the wandering hands and heavy weight on your body replaying in your mind, but you can also see that he's struggling.

it looks like he hadn't even gone to sleep yet, dark circles under his eyes and now a sad, defeated look in them as his fists clench and body shakes with fury and anxiety.

"seonghwa," you say quietly.

"i shouldn't have left you," is all he says, the words quiet and broken and it's something his brain has been replaying over and over again since he saw you last night.

"seonghwa," you say again, a little bit louder, putting your hand over his. his tortured eyes meet yours and he can't even see that you're looking at him without a hint of anger or blame, "i...i don't blame you, it wasn't your fault."

he swallows the lump in his throat, shaking his head and gritting his teeth so tears don't start building behind his eyes.

"y/n, don't even try to-"

"it wasn't," you say and it's probably the most confident and stern he's ever heard you sound, "i...i may not remember everything but i know it wasn't anyone's fault."

san's voice from last night rings through seonghwa's head, "it's no one's fault but his, we shouldn't be fighting about this," and he secretly knows you're both right. but it doesn't stop him from feeling guilty and angry at himself. doesn't stop him from feeling like none of this would've happened if he just didn't-

"seonghwa, please, stop," you tell him quietly, seeing that he's tormenting himself silently and wracking his brain with what ifs and other case scenarios. he looks up at you and you're no longer crying but your eyes are glossy and he hates seeing your red, tear-stained cheeks again.

"it's not my fault or yours or anyone else's," you tell him softly, "it's just...something that happened and something that someone else is meant to be pay for."

and now he feels even worse, because this horrible thing just happened to you and here you are, consoling him, with the level-headedness and clarity he should be executing.

"i just feel so guilty," he tells you quietly, "you didn't...i couldn't...you were so..."

he watches you scoot over and lay down, leaving the side of the bed empty and exposed before muttering, "come here."

he looks at you quizzically before standing up and crawling in next to you. his arm grazes yours as he turns on his side to give you some space while also allowing his eyes to roam over your face; you mimic his position so you're both laying on your sides looking at each other.

just the sound of breathing fills the room, the rest of the house quiet in the early morning hours and both your minds are going.

yours with processing what you know happened and trying to wipe the rest of the fuzzy memories out of your brain.

his ringing with your words from moments ago but nearly being overpowered by the sounds and flashing images of your broken state last night.

"i don't want you to feel that way," you suddenly say, "just like i don't want what he did to make me feel bad."

his eyes continue to roam your face and he can't help it when his hand reaches out to slowly caress your soft, blotchy cheek with his thumb. you shakily inhale at the feeling of his large, warm hand on you and your eyes meet his.

he's not gonna forgive himself completely, not gonna pretend what he did was okay and think he can be off the hook because you're kind enough to forgive him.

but he is gonna make sure he never lets anyone hurt you again. and he doesn't know how you managed to get him feeling like this in the short amount of time he's known you but you did and he does and that's why he's nodding his head at you.

"okay," his voice says softly, his thumb moving against your skinny again just as a tiny smile makes it way to your face.

"okay?" your voice confirms sweetly and a smile of his own finally makes it's way on his face. it's small but it's there and your stomach is fluttering at the sight of it.

"okay."

a tiny giggle suddenly bubbles out of you and he looks at you strangely, eyebrows furrowed but eyes holding a certain fondness at hearing you laugh after such an intense few minutes.

"did you see that movie?"

his eyebrow raises, eyes looking at you questioningly as he removes his hand from your face and a gasp falls from your lips.

"hazel and augustus? terminal cancer? the anne frank house?"

his look of confusion only deepens, looking at you as if you've spoken another language.

"i wish i had any idea what you were talking about," he says, sarcasm dripping in his tone and a scoff leaves your mouth as you roll your eyes.

"ugh and the stupid rich boy is back," you tease sarcastically, eyebrows shooting up playfully as you poke his chest daringly.

he smirks thinking back to you muttering to yourself in class with your flushed cheeks and babbling and he  and help but scoot a little bit closer to you in the bed.

"what'd i tell you, new girl," his deep voice sings, hand dropping to your chin to lift your head slightly, just rich."

you're flustered by the deepness in his voice and the look in his eyes and just about everything about him. you wanna say something witty back, make him smirk or laugh to lighten the mood even more when a giant, unattractive yawn bursts out of your mouth.

"oh wow," you hear him say and an embarrassed laugh bubbles out of you.

"i'm sorry, that was ugly," you laugh out, stretching your legs out underneath the comforter.

"not possible," he says quietly before his eyes droop and he settles himself deeper into his pillow. you wait for his eyes to pop open again but they don't.

"are you going back to sleep?" you ask him quietly and his eyes flutter open to look at you.

"yeah...aren't you?"

your cheeks flush because it's finally hitting you that you're next to him in a bed, about to fall asleep next to him and it all seems very...domestic and intimate.

"well...yeah, unless..you wanted to take me home."

"no," he says quickly and he feels embarrassment creep into his veins at his lightning fast response, "i mean..do you wanna go home?"

"well..." you contemplate your answer, debating whether you wanna go home to your empty, cold room or stay here, with him, in his giant, warm bed. "no."

he smiles softly at you, reaching out to tuck a piece of hair behind your ear. his hand trails down your face and lands on your waist before he completely retracts it and tucks it under his cheek.

you watch with flushed cheeks and a small smile as his eyes close, humming contently into the air as he buries himself in the warm sheets.

"seonghwa?"

his eyes pop open at the sound of your voice.

"y/n?"

you can't believe you stutter out the next words you do.

"why aren't...you should change...i mean you don't have to but..." he watches you with a blank expression before the next part of your sentence tumbles out, "i liked the fancy pajamas i first met you in. with the stripes."

a loud abrupt laugh tumbles out of his mouth, his hand coming up to cover it as he cackles into his hand and a fervent blushes covers your face.

"stop laughing, oh my god!" your hands fly up to cover your flushed cheeks, "i didn't mean it like that i, just...you're in the same clothes as last night and-"

his big hands cover yours, rubbing his thumbs over the back of your palms as he looks down at you softly.

"you're cute, you know that?"

your cheeks flame even more, if possible, before he takes his hands back and closes his eyes as one last small chuckles leaves his mouth.

words have been caught in your throat for several seconds now because what the hell do you say back to that. but you watch as the wide smile fades off his face, his features slowly start to relax and then just as fast as his eyes closed, he falls asleep.

you take a few calming breaths in and out, cursing yourself for mentioning those damned but exquisite pajamas, before the sound of his quiet, steady breaths lull to you sleep.

his eyes are the first to pop open a few hours later, your sleeping figure the first thing he sees and he's scared by how warm and happy his chest feels staring down at you. your face is so relaxed and smooth, quiet breaths leaving your nose with the occasional tired groan escaping your mouth.

he can't help the smile that crosses his face watching you nor can he stop himself from leaning forward and gently pecking your forehead.

he sits up in bed, stretching his arms and back out when he hears the faint sound of the doorbell ringing. he takes one last look at you before quietly walking towards the door, leaving it cracked open before padding down the stairs.

he opens the door and is greeted by the sight of yeosang, san, and wooyoung standing on his front porch. he simply gives them all a head nod, ushering them inside before closing the door. they follow him into the kitchen, all four boys plopping down on barstools.

it's quiet for a few seconds, the mood strange and awkward because no one knows if it's gonna be remain tense or if the elephant in the room is gonna be immediately addressed.

just as san and wooyoung look between yeosang and seonghwa, both the boys start to speak at the same time.

"look, about last night-"

"i'm sorry."

yeosang's mouth snaps shut and he looks at his friend in surprise, he hadn't expected him to apologize so easily.

"don't look so shocked," seonghwa growls noticing his friends expression, "i was a dick and in the wrong."

"are you hearing this shit?" wooyoung whispers to san who just pushes his friends shoulder lightly, "shut up, this is heartwarming."

yeosang's mouth opens and closes and it's rare that he's ever rendered speechless.

"you're right, you were," he says after a few seconds and a smirk crosses seonghwa's face because what a dick, "but i'm sorry too, i could've...handled it better and been nicer."

but the boy just shakes his head at him, running his hand through his hair because he had fallen asleep in such good spirits and now here are the bad feelings plaguing him once again.

"nah, you handled everything...perfectly," seonghwa says quietly, "if you weren't for you, who knows what would've-"

"i know," yeosang says shortly and seonghwa bites his lip before his gaze shifts to wooyoung.

"and i'm sorry for trying to blame you, woo," he says affectionately, "that wasn't fair at all."

"it's okay, i should've stayed with her i just thought...i was doing the right thing by getting you."

seonghwa nods, feeling bad as his friend's eyes also mirror a tiny bit of guilt behind them.

"i know, it's fine...everything is fine and it worked out," he breathes out and everyone can hear the heaviness in his voice.

san purses his lips in contemplation before asking, "was she okay? after you left?"

seonghwa simply nods, muttering that you had slept for most of the ride home. san hums thoughtfully along with the other two boys.

"how'd you get her in her house? her parents probably went fucking nuts," wooyoung says.

yeosang watches carefully as seonghwa rubs the back of his neck nervously, squinting his eyes at one of his friends nervous habits.

"about that..."

yeosang hears movement upstairs and his eyes lift to the second level just as you come into view. he's the first to see you peering over the railing sneakily, body half in view as you crane your neck noisily to see what's going on and who's here.

"we see you," his deep voice rings out and the other three boys snap their heads up to see you peeking at them, a guilty flushed look on your face.

an awkward giggle leaves your mouth, your hand coming up to give them a tiny wave.

"hi, guys," you squeak out, your scratchy voice echoing throughout the mansion.

"y/n!" wooyoung squeals happily, "do you remember me!"

san and yeosang snap their heads to look at him, because if you remember him then you probably remember...

"yes, hi wooyoung!" you giggle out and he smiles guiltily at the boys staring him down, "is it...okay if i come down?"

"of course, y/n," seonghwa says softly and his friends all look at each other knowingly, "can you just make sure my door is closed?"

you nod and as pad off to the door, seonghwa brings his friends in closer to whisper a warning.

"she remembered everything this morning and... took it surprisingly well," he says, "so don't say a word."

"like we would just casually bring that up," yeosang mutters and his friend throws him a dirty look.

"i don't know about some of us."

all three gazes fall to wooyoung who throws his hands up defensively.

"okay, fuck you guys, that's a serious matter! i know when to keep my mouth shut!"

your footsteps can be heard padding down the stairs and seonghwa quickly disperses to not look suspicious, taking out a few cups to fill up with ice water.

"hi again," you say quietly, eyes roaming wooyoung and another boy you don't think you've ever met. but your gaze lingers over yeosang the longest, an unreadable expression on your face as he gives you a nod and tight lipped smile.

the boy with dimples peeks his head around wooyoung, outstretching his hand across the counter.

"hi, i don't think we've met yet. i'm san."

a smile immediately lights up your face because there's something incredibly cute and pure about him.

"y/n," you say, taking his hand in yours, "nice to meet you."

"wow i didn't think anyone's hands could be smaller than his," seonghwa teases, placing a glass of water next to you as you playfully smack his arm in both of your defense.

"mean," you and san mutter at the same time and giggle when your eyes meet.

"oh, god, they share a brain," wooyoung screeches.

"that makes a lot of sense," yeosang mumbles dryly and a tense silence fills the room. your head snaps to the side to look at him as seonghwa's grip on his cup tightens.

the boy notices immediately and now throws his hands up in defense, "that was a joke."

you, san, and wooyoung laugh to fizzle out the tension as seonghwa narrows his eyes at yeosang who only meets his hard gaze with a shrug.

"sorry," he mouths sarcastically and the taller boy can only roll his eyes in annoyance when the sound of his stomach growling fills the kitchen; you throw your hands over your own.

"aw, is hwa hungry?" san whines childishly and relief floods through you because that would've been embarrassing.

"yes, i am actually," he says, "did you guys eat yet?"

you listen quietly as the boys answer and quickly make plans to get lunch, seonghwa's gaze moving to you.

"how 'bout you, y/n? you in?"

you adamantly shake your head, an awkward giggle leaving your mouth. "oh, no, thank you, i should probably be getting home," you say but nearly caving when you notice san and wooyoung's face turn into disappointed pouts, "but...maybe next time?"

"okay," seonghwa says, "next time."

you smile softly at each other and it's eventually the clearing of someone's throat that has seonghwa snapping out of it.

"uh, yeah, okay, so i'll change and we'll go?"

"waiting on you," yeosang says dryly and seonghwa grits his teeth at the boy's attitude. his hand grazes your hip as he passes you on the way to the stairs, "you coming up or waiting down here?"

your gaze lingers over the three boys, yeosang looking down at his phone while san and wooyoung argue over who can chug their water fastest, causing you to giggle.

"i think i'll stay down here to see who wins," you chuckle, "can you just grab my bag for me?"

"mhm," he hums against you, hand squeezing and lingering on your hip ever so slightly before he tears himself away; you hear his voice ringing in your head:

"i shouldn't have left you."

you shake the thoughts out of your head, your skin burning from where he just touched and your smile widens when wooyoung and san start to down their water.

almost immediately, chaos ensues.

san smacks the back of wooyoung's head just as wooyoung hits san's adams apple, both of them rushing over to the double sink in a choking fit.

"you...fucking...asshole!"

"you...did it...first!"

you giggle watching them fumble around the kitchen and turn to yeosang when you feel his piercing gaze on you.

you bite your lip nervously, your smile dropping ever so slightly because you knee you were gonna have to talk to him eventually. your feet shuffle a little closer to him, his emotionless gaze on you.

"hi," you squeak out.

"hey."

your tongue peaks out and licks your lip but his eyes don't leave yours. you don't really know what to say, hands curling into themselves and it's a nervous habit you've had for years.

"i..uh..guess we're even now, huh?"

his eyebrow raises in confusion, looking at you with a blank expression.

"well i mean...i really hated you for, you know, verbally assaulting me and calling me names..."

"i don't recall."

your eyebrows furrow and he's making this a lot more difficult than it has to be. but the chip on his shoulder and attitude has to be act, because he wouldn't have helped you otherwise. which is exactly why you speak again.

"but then i guess you...saving me from...jackson," you grit out his name, "holds some merit for apology."

"believe it or not, i didn't do that to get in your good graces."

your tongue pokes the inside of your cheek and you shake your head at him because he's twisting your words and he really is such a little dick.

"that's not what i...okay, whatever, just...thank you. you didn't have to do that."

a skeptical look crosses his face, eyebrows creased and face scrunched in distaste before it softens by a fraction. "i'd be a pretty shit person if i didn't."

"well you seem to be a better savior than a tutor, in my experience," you bite out half menacingly, half playfully.

"think the numerous people with all a's would disagree," he bites back cockily.

"ah, so you just don't tutor my kind with human decency?" you ask, teasing evident in your tone, "but saving the stupid, poor girls from creepy old men is okay?"

a smirk crosses his face, his tongue darting across his top row of teeth at your banter.

"aren't they the ones who always need to be saved?"

you turn your head to the side at him, eyebrows squinting because....you think he might be joking with you?

you open and close your mouth a few times to say something back before you hear seonghwa coming back down the stairs. you turn around and smile softly as he makes his way toward you, handsome as ever in a pair of black jeans and a red sweater.

"thank you," you smile at him, taking your bag.

"no problem," he says, sending you a smile of his own before turning his head to yeosang, "you drive here?" the boy just nods so he continues, "okay, i'll drop y/n home and just meet you guys there."

"wait!" san says, running over, "why wouldn't we just all bring her?"

"yeah!" wooyoung shouts, "we wanna see a commoners house!"

seonghwa shuts his eyes in agony because that's exactly why he wanted to bring you home alone. they shoot open and if his eyes had daggers, wooyoung would be dead. or critically injured at the very least.

you feel seonghwa tense up next to you and touch his arm gently, shaking your head at him with a small smile on your face. "it's okay, we can all go."

seonghwa peers down at you with that staple of an intense gaze and a little sigh leaves your mouth. "it's fine, seonghwa," you whine before your gaze turns to wooyoung, "my house could probably fit in the foyer."

"no way!" wooyoung shouts and you giggle at his shock, nodding your head before sending one last reassuring gaze to seonghwa.

followed behind him and yeosang, you walk to the car with san and wooyoung who just about die when you tell them your house only has one bathroom.

(part 7)

[howtodisassembleyourdeviant]

Birth of Something New Ch.1 (ConnorxPregnantReader)

I started writing this fic on Ao3 and it was pretty popular. I thought I would post it here, like my other stories. I read some pregnancy fics where the couple were trying for a child or it didn’t really explain how reader got pregnant. I wanted to go a different route. I hope y’all enjoy this, if not, I still have my other fics roaming around here. 

It started with the nausea. You woke up one morning feeling terrible before eventually emptying your stomach contents into the toilet. You figured it was just the flu or something you ate that didn't agree with you, so when Connor offered to take you to the doctor, you declined.

"I'll just... take today off and rest."

Your words did nothing to placate your fiance's worries, but he said nothing more as he rubbed your back when you violently gagged. After an hour or so, you were starting to feel better. Still, you took the day anyway as a precaution. Connor offered to stay to help you, but one person out of work is plenty. That didn't stop him from coming home on his lunch break to check on you, even making you a light lunch.

The nausea didn't stop. It would happen at random times, or when you caught a particular smell. While sometimes you could get past it, most of the time Connor would watch as you made your way to the nearest restroom as discretely as possible, following after you when he could.

You started sleeping more. Waking you for work had always been a hassle, but you usually were up and motivated after a half hour or so. Now, it was like you were never fully awake, even falling asleep at your desk a few times and being reprimanded by Captain Fowler.

When you flew off the handle after Connor had accidentally bumped into you getting up from the couch, he knew something wasn't right. You weren't the most mild mannered person he knew, your 'spit-fire' personality a trait he's come to love, but you rarely snapped at him.

Connor had promised you that he wouldn't scan you unless it was a life or death situation. It wasn't that you didn't appreciate it, you just didn't like knowing he could see your inner workings. He didn't want to break your trust, but your behavior could be indicative of an underlying illness that could be potentially fatal if left unchecked, and you still refused to go to the hospital. While you were sleeping, he performed the scan.

There, within your womb, was the early stages of another life.

Everything seemed to freeze at that moment. Panic tried to make itself known as he stares at the almost unidentifiable mass in your lower abdomen. The scan supplied that you were about five weeks pregnant. Going back through his memory, he recalled it to be a relatively busy week for you. There had been an influx of anti-android gang activity, and as the head emergency android technician, you were sent out to assist any injured androids. Connor and Hank still had their own duties in homicide, but it was slow moving, so Connor actually beat you home several times. He also noted an increase in your libido, using free time to engage him in sexual acts rather than catching up on rest. While he had pointed this out, you complained you were too worked up to sleep.

Had you been so lascivious that you found another partner while he was not around? Was he not enough for you? Under normal circumstances, he would have never questioned your love and devotion, but the evidence was right there for him to see. A child he could not produce.

Was that it? Did your basic human nature outweigh your fealty to him? He could swear his love to the stars and back, but it would never be enough to procreate.

Connor's processors were overtaxed, conflicting with one another. Possibilities and other statistics popping up as he tried to prove that what he saw was wrong, or some logical explanation that could explain any other way you could have became pregnant.

He couldn't explain it. You had slept with another man.

He felt like shouting, screaming as rage roiled around his body faster than thirium. He wanted to cry, the pain of being cast aside threatened to drop him to his knees. It was this kind of pain that makes Connor understand why androids are not supposed to feel, supposed to be incapable of it.

He can't bring himself to lie back down with you, as if he wasn't just a replaceable body for you to use. He stumbles to the living room, clipping his shoulder on the bedroom door as he exits. He couldn't see past the warnings in his vision, telling him he was overheating and needs to lower his stress level. Times like these, you were always there to ground him, but now you were the reason for his downward spiral.

You woke up, hearing movement throughout the bedroom. Feeling next to you, you noticed that Connor was no longer there. Slowly clambering out of bed, you looked to the time on the nightstand. 1:38am. There was the familiar queasiness sitting in the background. At this point, there wasn't much left in your poor stomach. It was becoming a problem to eat anything and keeping it down. Perhaps Connor was right, maybe you should make an appointment to get this checked out.

Your head swam as you stood, almost dropping you to the ground before your vision returned. Eyes adjusting to the darkness, you made your way out the bedroom in search of your future husband. You enjoyed addressing him as such, loving his flustered reaction. It was almost as nice as hearing him call you his future wife.

Seeing part of the living room bathed in red killed all feelings except panic.

"Connor! What's wrong?" The deviant was sitting on the couch, head in his hand over his eyes as his LED was a solid red. You rushed over but before you could make contact he flinched away. Collecting yourself, you got down on your knees in front of him,

"Connor? What's bothering you?"

It almost seemed like he wasn't going to answer you. When he did, it was a deep, cold voice rather than the rich honey he usually used when he spoke to you.

"You're pregnant."

You regarded him with a confounded look. Clearly you must have misheard him.

"What?"

He looked up. There was a storm in his ordinarily warm eyes, ice cold and sharp enough to pierce skin, and it terrified you.

"You're pregnant."

"T-that's not possible," your voice shook as he kept his eyes locked on you. Why was he acting like this? And why does he think you're pregnant?

"I scanned you while you were sleeping. You are pregnant."

A feeling of heartbreaking astonishment washed away some of the fear. "You scanned me? You promised me you wouldn't do that."

"Why? Worried I might have found out about your affair sooner?"

"Affair? I'm no-"

"Don't you dare fucking lie to me!" His words piercing harder than any bullet ever could. "You can't hide the evidence from me! It's right there!" He jabbed his finger towards your lower abdomen, you falling backwards onto your ass from the sudden motion. He was towering over you. Never have you felt this level of fear, especially not from your Connor.

"Am I not enough for you? Have I not given you everything that you ask of me?" He could see tears forming in your eyes, a part of him screaming at himself, begging him to stop.

His pleas fell on deaf ears as he seethed.

"Was I ever anything to you? Did you ever see me as more than a machine you could toy with, then toss aside when you're done?"

You tried to form words, deny his accusations, but he cut you off at every opportunity as you hiccupped and weeped. His hands shot out and gripped your upper arms, tight enough to leave marks as he gave you a rough shake.

"What am I to you!?!"

"I'M SCARED!!!" You shrieked. Like a cornered animal, you fought to get loose, kicking and scratching at him. Your petrified voice snapped him out of his acrimony. He let go as you shoved yourself as far away from him as you could, slamming into the far wall with a squeak.

What was wrong with him? How could he do such a thing to you? You, who had been his light for so long. You were shaking, harsh breaths as panic and fear smothered you.

"Y-Y/n... I-" he slowly reached out to you, but you recoiled before dashing off to the bedroom. He could hear the click of the lock as he fell to his knees. Even through the door he could hear your sharp gasps and deep sobs. The sounds tormented him as he broke down and cried.

At some point in the night, his stress levels hit 95% and he was forced into emergency low power mode, a setting he downloaded to deal with work stress. Only when his internal alarm told him it was time to get ready for work did he stir. He was still on his knees on the living room floor, tears dried and leaving a residue he could feel on his cheeks and chin.

Slowly standing, he looked down the hall. The bedroom door was shut, but you had stopped crying. He thought about knocking on the door and informing you of the time, of sitting down and having a proper discussion, even of apologizing. You might have broken his heart, but the pieces were still yours, and under no circumstances should he have hurt you the way that he did.

In the end, he knew he was the last person you wanted to see right now, so he got ready. For a moment he wondered what he was going to wear, his work clothes were in the closet of the bedroom, until he noticed a pair of jeans and a button-down folded neatly on the table, fresh socks tucked in his shoes. He almost broke down again. Even after what he put you though, you still snuck out and made sure he was taken care of. He got dressed with the weight of that thought in mind. It didn't make any sense. Nothing you did was indicative that you betrayed him. After a few more minutes of hesitation, he turned and left for work, leaving you alone.

You came in to work an hour late. You had make-up on, something you rarely bothered with. Somehow you had managed to cover up the bags under your eyes quite well, but the RK800 could still see them. To the unwitting eye, it would seem like you were fine, smiling and waving at fellow co-workers. Connor saw right through your facade, the fake smiles and forced laughs.

"Never would have pegged her as the 'sleeping around' type," Hank glanced over at you, to which you fake a smile before going back to talking with one of the android officers.

Hank wasn't as washed-up as Gavin might have people believing. He saw how you avoided Connor, practically running away from him when he ventured too close. Connor had already confessed to what happened last night, along with what was currently baking in your oven. While he sure as hell doesn't condone what Connor did, he understands where the kid's coming from.

You, however, he had known longer than Connor. There hadn't been any boyfriend or what have you before Connor as far as he knew. You hid insecurities behind high standards, and Connor had been the first one to see that. You wore thick armor to protect yourself, but Connor could see through you like glass, as you did him.

Hank thought he had never seen you happier, until Connor proposed a few months back. As soon as the law passed that recognized human/android marriages, the two of you would set a date. You had been so excited, and you showed off the deep blue crystal to anyone who ventured too close. A thirium diamond, made using some of Connor's own blue blood. Hank thought it was gross, but it did look nice.

The two of you were always clinging to each other, and when you weren't, you sure as hell always talked about the other all the damn time. You didn't fit the profile for a cheater, but that doesn't explain how you ended up pregnant.

"Could she have been raped?" Hank hated that it could be a possibility, but it wasn't off the table.

"Y/n is a capable person, even if someone had successfully assaulted her, she would have fought and therefore would of had bruises or scratch marks. There were only small bruises on her hips and one decent size bruise on her right thigh from hitting the corner of her desk."

"What were the small bruises from?"

"Me. I held her too tightly."

"You're fuckin' disgusting." Hank sneered. Suddenly, Hank snapped his head to something behind Connor. "What the fuck?"

Connor followed Hank's gaze and spotted four male androids, dressed in Cyberlife attire, standing in front of your office. They took six crates of bottled thirium while you talked to a female android, also dressed in a Cyberlife embroidered lab coat. You signed a document and handed over some papers before shaking her hand.

"The fuck was that all about?"

You looked over at Connor for the first time today, looking like you needed to say something, only to change your mind and head back into your office.

"You gonna see what she wants?" Hank eyed the RK800.

Connor's gaze lingered where you had stood,

"...No. I believe I will only make things worse should I go to her. I think the best course is to wait until she approaches me." The android turned away and brought his focus to the list of reports on his terminal.

Days went by like this. While you were pretending everything was normal, Connor had thrown himself into his work, a habit he developed when he was unable to deal with his problems or emotions and needed a distraction. He was filling out reports like a mad man, scanning drone footage near crime scenes, analyzing evidence, all in an effort to hide from his problems. He could almost forget how much he misses holding you in his arms, seeing your smile, or listening to your heartbeat.

He could almost forget how much he loves you, and how much it fucking hurt.

He only went home to change his clothes. While he didn't sweat like humans did, working out in the field can be quite filthy. Every time he did, there would be fresh clothes sitting on the table in the kitchen, even a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt should he decide to stay.

He had hardly seen you at all during this time, only locking eyes with you once and it had been terrifying. The light that shined in your eyes was out completely, leaving behind an empty shell. He never thought he would see you like that, and he wishes he never did.

At night, sometimes, he would hear you crying behind the locked bedroom door, the sound like a knife to his heart. Any efforts made to rectify the situation, or at least discuss the next step for them, was met with silence. You refused to unlock the door and he couldn't scare you again by forcing his way in.

Sometimes he felt a sense of injustice. You had cheated on him, betrayed him, and now he feels the need to apologize to you? At these moments, he feels his worse, because he knows that rage he can't control is waiting for the perfect time to strike.

"I don't know what to do. She won't speak to me. I'm still angry about what she did, but at the same time I don't think I can handle this much longer."

Hank leaned back and scratched at his beard, "I don't know what to tell ya, son. This is one of those things you have to decide on yer own. It's a huge change, no matter..." Hank looked up at the large newscreen, prompting Connor to tune in as well.

"...Cyberlife is recalling 190,000 bottles of thirium after several reports came in of pregnancy in human women after their android partner consumed the contaminated substance. It is believed that an experimental formula meant to help androids and humans conceive a child had been accidentally mass produced. Cyberlife is investigating the incident and asks any who might have been affected to report to a nearby Cyberlife hospital for further treatment..."

"Holy shit."

Connor turned to his partner, eyes wide as his breathing picked up, fast and shallow. He had been injured the week before you conceived, stabbed by a suspect trying to flee. It was minor, but you gave him some thirium to replenish what he lost. Then there were those androids the other day, carrying out all the thirium you had on hand. It all lined up with one another, which means...

"She didn't..." Connor couldn't finish his sentence, because the weight of those words crashed around him. It meant what he did to you was for nothing. The love of his life was now petrified of him, and it was all his fault.

He sprang up, chair falling over as he did. "I need to go talk to her. I need..."

"You need to calm down," Hank got up and rushed over, blocking Connor in as he picked up the fallen chair. Connor was pacing, trying to get past Hank. Other officers were starting to look on, but the lieutenant waved them off.

"All yer gonna do is scare her if you go marching in there looking like that."

At that, Connor sat back down. He focused on his breathing rather than the thoughts racing though his mind. Did this mean you were carrying his child? Was he going to be a father? Would you ever forgive him? Guilt and shame flooded his systems. It was him who had betrayed you.

"Why don't you go home early today? Clear your mind, think carefully about how you're going to handle the situation."

Connor looked up, as if to argue, before dropping his head and nodding. He got up without another word and made his way toward the exit. Hank took the opportunity to head towards your office.

"Hey, Y/n."

You looked up and flashed him one of your fake smiles. It didn't even reach your eyes.

"Hey, Hank, do you need something?"

He closed the door and your smile fell. Getting a good look at you, Hank could only think of one thing.

"You look like shit."

Your skin was pale and almost had a sickly hue to it. Your make-up was no longer able to hide the swollen, dark circles under your dull eyes. It seemed like you were going to puke at any second. He also couldn't be sure, but it looked like you lost weight.

You sighed, "Did you really come in here just to say that? If so, I don't need you to, I already know." You turned back to your computer.

"Actually, I came in here to talk to ya about Connor." You visibly tensed. "Did you happen to see the news report?"

"I didn't have to. Cyberlife came and replaced all the thirium I had stockpiled. They told me why and asked for a list of people who might have ingested it. They already know about me and Connor and informed me to go to a Cyberlife hospital. I haven't had time."

"Wait a minute, you knew for three days that Connor drank tainted thirium and didn't say anything?"

"Four nights ago he accused me of cheating and wouldn't even give me the benefit of defending myself. Why would it be different now? 'Hey, Connor, turns out I'm pregnant because you drank magic blue blood. We cool right?'" You turned to him, irritated, "And don't act all innocent. I seen the way you looked at me, like I somehow disappointed you. You know me a hell of a lot better than that, Hank!"

"What the hell did you expect me to think?Connor sure as fuck couldn't knock you up!" Hank growled.

"And yet, here we are." You spoke with a calm anger before doubling over, grabbing the trash can under your desk and heaving up a small amount of bile. The agitation left Hank as he went to help, but you swatted his hands away. "Fuck off." You choked out.

"When was the last time you ate somethin'?"

"I'm fine. You didn't care ten minutes ago, why start now?"

Hank didn't say anything. It was true. He knew you were pregnant, knew that you had been sick beforehand, and yet, not once did he ask since the fight how you were doing. He had viewed Connor as the victim without even meaning to. He didn't even ask if you wanted to press charges against Connor for harming you. Wasn't he a fucking cop?

"Shit, kid, I didn't-"

"It's fine, Hank, I get it, he's like a son to you."

"That don't make what he or I did right. Listen, if you don't feel safe around him, I can send an officer out to detain him."

You shook your head, "No, I can't exactly blame him for feeling how he felt, even if he was being an asshole. I would have thought the same. I'm not going to ruin his record like that."

"Well, if you want, he can stay at my place for a while. Least until you feel comfortable with being around 'im."

"As much as he scared me, I'm even more terrified at the prospect of being alone right now. People are not going to be happy about Cyberlife finding a way to breed their bots. It's another step towards evolution and to our extinction. I've already been alerted to several cases of women being attacked outside Cyberlife hospitals and because Connor is famous, many already know he's engaged to a human. I don't want to be alone right now."

"Alright, well, if you need anything, don't hesitate to ask. Even if you need a place to stay, my door is open."

"Thanks, I'll keep that in mind." A message popped up on your computer about a domestic abuse case involving an android, asking for your assistance. These had been popping up a lot lately, especially before the announcement. You stood up, gripping the desk as you threatened to crumple to the floor. The headache you had developed left you blind with its searing pain. Hank again reached out, helping to keep you upright until your moment of dizziness passed.

"You need to go to the hospital."

You nodded as you hurried out, not really listening at this point. You had a job to do, and you weren't going to let Connor, Hank, or even the child in your stomach get in your way.

By the time your shift ended, you were exhausted and agitated. Your headache was only getting worse, unable to take any medication in case it affected the baby. You managed to eat some grapes, but who knows how long they will stay down.

Once at home you noticed that the lights were on. Connor had beat you home for the first time since this all started. Anxiety tried to surface but your irritation was quick to kill it. Walking through the door you were quick to notice the smell of food lingering in the air. Your stomach turned painfully, not ready for the next round of dry heaves. The second thing you noted was how immaculate the the place looked. You haven't felt much like cleaning and just said 'fuck it'.

Connor rounded the corner from the bathroom and froze when he saw you, LED flashing red before settling on yellow. With where he stood, he blocked the bedroom door, not that you really felt like going that way anyway. It was your house too, and you weren't going to keep hiding in your bedroom. Connor stayed where he was, afraid to scare you off again, as he spoke softly the words he had put together and memorized.

"I'm sorry. I know I don't deserve your forgiveness, and I can understand if you never want to see me again." He paused, the thought that it might be a possibility painful. He drew in a breath to steady himself, "What I did was unforgivable. I questioned your love when you needed me the most, even going so far as to hurt you. If you do decide to forgive me, I promise I will spend the rest of my life making it up to you, and I will never doubt you again."

In the back of your mind, you were happy he finally believed you. Here he was, asking for forgiveness, true remorse written on his face. You believed every word and wanted nothing more than for things to go back to normal, to be held in his arms and let him mend the hurt in your heart.

However, you were still tired and resentful, and the hurt you were feeling wanted to be known.

"What? Now that you saw it on the news you suddenly believe me?" Connor looked away in shame, biting his lower lip. "I get that this is an unusual circumstance, but I expected a little more faith in me than that. I shouldn't have to be afraid of what might happen if you get pissed off again!"

"You're right, you shouldn't, and I don't want you to be. I never want you to look at me again the way you did that night."

"And don't think I'm not still angry that you scanned me! You promised me, and you didn't even ask! And what the hell is that smell?"

Connor looked towards the kitchen, "I made dinner. I couldn't sit still and I figured you would want something to eat when you got home."

"Throw it away, it's making me sick!"

Connor looked both confused and hurt, "It's your favorite..."

"I don't want..." your throbbing head started to swim, the room spinning as you fell. Connor ran over and caught you.

"Y/n! What's wrong?" He noted your flushed skin, temperature running higher than usual. "I need to scan you to figure out what's wrong."

You sighed before you nodded, too tired to care at this point. A quick scan revealed you were extremely dehydrated and malnourished. Your heart rate was also much higher than usual.

Hoisting you up in his arms, he carried you to your car and set you down in the front passenger seat before climbing into the driver's side. He hesitated to which hospital he should take you to. Deciding on a Cyberlife ran hospital, he drove to the nearest one. You both needed answers.

You had fallen asleep almost immediately. He tried not to think about how he had let you get to this state. You might have been too stubborn for your own good, neglecting your health at a crucial time in your life, but had Connor not been so busy being pissed off and upset, you would have never reached this state. When he asked you to be his partner, he vowed to always take care of you. Now, as he pulled up, bold, red letters lit up a corner of his vision.

Mission Failed

He entered the lobby, you bundled in his arms. Two android nurses came up and preformed their own scan.

"Come this way, please." They led him to a small room with two beds, both of which were empty. The room had been fitted for humans, rather than the androids that usually came here. "Set her down on one of the beds and we'll start administering an IV drip." Connor did as he was told, watching as the two nurses worked on you. They set up the heart monitor and slipped a needle under your skin, allowing you the hydration and some of the nutrition you desperately needed.

"The drip will take approximately twenty minutes to finish administering. Once it's finished, Dr. Bower will do an examination and determine the next course of action. He will also inform you of what's going to happen and answer any questions you might have, along with listing all available options."

"Thank you," the nurse only smiled back before they both left, leaving him alone with you. Even asleep you looked to be in pain. Connor can only hope he made the right decision taking you here instead of a regular hospital.

When the revolution ended, Cyberlife was crumbling. Everyone thought for sure that they would be bankrupt before the year was out. If that happened, it would deal a huge blow to the already crumbling economy.

Then, Kamski stepped up and offered to be CEO again. Naturally, nobody refused and Kamski was able to turn things around. He started developing upgrades for androids and selling them on the market. He converted factories and previous storage buildings into android hospitals. While androids were weary to go to these places or get upgrades, they slowly got accustomed to it. Connor couldn't even begin to imagine what could have happened that would cause this accident when their reputation was hanging by a thread already.

You began to stir and Connor moved to sit in a chair next to your bed. He hesitated before gently taking your hand in his, feeling the ring resting on your third finger. Despite the situation, it still felt nice to feel your warmth again. He had missed it so much.

You begrudgingly opened your eyes, feeling an itch in your arm. You went to pick at it, but Connor knew you too well, holding your hand a little tighter.

"Don't."

"But it itches."

Connor could laugh at the normality of it all. If he wasn't so guilt-ridden, he just might have. Your pout has none of the enmity that your words held previously.

"This is my fault."

You groaned, "Dammit, Connor, stop that! I was the one who refused to go to the hospital before it got to this point. You even told me to." Despite your harsh words, you didn't pull your hand back. Instead, he felt your thumb sliding back and forth against his own. Your face softened.

"I guess we have a lot to talk about."

He put his head down. This was it. You were leaving him. He had failed you and you were done with him. He felt your fingers run through his hair. He turned his head and gazed at you. While you still looked so tired, you wore the softest smile he had ever seen from you.

"Silly man. I was talking about the baby."

"Oh." Right, of course. In the midst of everything, he had almost forgotten what had started it all. "Do you forgive me?"

"If you rub my shoulders when we get home."

He scoffed, "I think I can handle that."

"Then, yes, I forgive you." Your face hardened, "but if you EVER pull that shit again, I will shoot you."

"Understood."

[haberdashing]

open your eyes (i see your eyes are open) (4/?)

Jon, faced with being the last one left in a dying world, sends his memories back in time to someone who might be able to fix things before the worst can happen.

Sasha James, for her part, is very confused.

Chapter 1 / Chapter 2 / Chapter 3 / Chapter 4

on AO3

The visit to Artefact Storage was nice, but just like when she’d been reassigned, Sasha was only too happy to get out of there and head to the Archives, though she knew well enough now that the latter was plenty dangerous in its own right. At least she knew what to expect from the Archives. At least the Archives weren’t literally paying her to test out horrible, unpredictable things...

...no, that was Jon’s job now, wasn’t it? Elias had chosen him, the Web had chosen him, and now he was the Archivist, and he was going to be put through things much worse than anything Artefact Storage had to offer...

Sasha had started this train of thought in the hopes of reassuring herself, but instead, as she entered the Archives, she just felt a little queasy as she thought of what lay in store in Jon’s future.

Or what would lay in store in Jon’s future, anyway. Things wouldn’t be so bad this time around, not if Sasha had a say in it.

Jon was already in the Archives, perched over Tim’s desk as the two spoke about something, and Sasha was struck by the sight of him. He looked so different than he had in his final days before, and not just because his skin was free of scars--his hair was short and much less gray than before, he was still wearing a suit of all things rather than the hodgepodge of outfits he’d rummaged through as his professional mask slipped and his options grew slimmer...

...and, as Jon turned her way, Sasha could see his eyes focus on her, and though his gaze was still dark and meaningful, there wasn’t the same weight to it, the same sense of the universe itself staring back out of those deep eyes.

(She still felt like she was being watched, but that was only to be expected now, wasn’t it?)

“Good to see you, Sasha.” Jon shot her a quick nod. “I was just briefing Tim on his next project--you’re still working on the Hodgson file, correct?”

God, that felt like ages ago, though Jon had only given Sasha that assignment last Thursday. The Hodgson file wasn’t even one of the real ones, just somebody who’d gotten drunk and mistook what was probably a plane for an alien vessel, though Sasha was struggling to recall all the details at the moment. “Right, yeah, I was, er, having trouble looking up the relevant flight patterns, I believe it was? But I’ll keep trying, of course, so-”

Jon looked over Sasha again, and his gaze softened slightly. “Are you feeling alright? You look a little pale.”

“I’m fine, I... it’s just, um...” ...hell, she was struggling to come up with an excuse, so why even bother? She wanted to tell Jon about what she’d learned eventually, and perhaps now was as good a time as any. “Actually, could we talk in your office? When you’re done with Tim, I mean, I don’t mean to rush you.”

“I think we’re done here already.” There was a flat tone to Tim’s voice that set Sasha on edge--had he and Jon been arguing, perhaps?

“Oh, yes, we’ve covered pretty much everything I wanted to discuss at this point, so.” Jon rapped twice on Tim’s desk with a slender fist, a gesture Sasha had never seen him use before his promotion but had already encountered several times since. “I’ll leave you to it, then.”

“Sounds like a plan, boss.” Tim’s voice had a bit more energy to it now, and as she walked with Jon to his office, Sasha saw him shoot her a wry grin.

Sasha closed the door behind her and took a seat as Jon got settled.

“What was it that you wanted to talk to me about?”

“Well...”

That feeling of being watched that permeated the Institute was making the hairs on the back of Sasha’s neck stand up, and she knew it wasn’t just because Jon was looking at her with an expression somewhere between curious and impatient.

What were the odds that Elias- that Jonah Magnus was watching them right now? Probably not great, really, he did have an actual job besides just spying on his employees, but he certainly could be watching. Was thinking about it that much more likely to make it happen, drawing his attention to her thoughts? God, it was hard to know, wasn’t it? And that was the problem, being caught up with knowing and not knowing...

“Now that you’re the head archivist here, it’s your job to hear when the general public’s encountered something supernatural, right?”

“If it’s in a statement given to us, yes, but those are usually made by liars and the mentally unwell.”

Sasha did her best to drum up a smile. “Good thing this isn’t a statement, then, right?”

It could be a formal statement, probably, but Sasha didn’t want that, not when anybody with access to their archives could read it afterwards, not when there was information she now knew that could prevent the literal end of the world if the right people acted upon it.

A soft sigh, more perfunctory than anything. Jon was trying to play the grump again, but Sasha was pretty sure she could see through it even without everything she now knew about Jon masking his true feelings. “Where are you going with this, Sasha?”

“This weekend, my mind just- just filled with a ton of information suddenly. Info about you, about the other assistants, about the supernatural, about a little bit of everything really. Things I should have no way of knowing, but now I do. I figured you ought to know--could come in handy down the line.”

“Do you have any proof of this?” Jon tilted his head to one side slightly. “Something you shouldn’t know about me, perhaps--and not just from hacking, either?”

Sasha thought about arguing the point about hacking with Jon, but honestly, it was fair enough that she be called on it. Instead, she just nodded and took a deep breath--not that she really needed the extra air for what she was going to say, but because it felt right, and who was she to deny the moment that extra bit of dramatic flair?

“Mister Spider wants more.”

Jon’s face went pale in an instant, his gaze unfocusing as he seemed to look more through Sasha than at her.

“Jon?”

Jon didn’t respond.

“Jon, it’s okay!” Sasha rapped gently on his desk. “It’s just me. It’s not... it’s not that.”

Jon blinked rapidly a few times before shaking his head.

“You alright?”

“I’m fine.” Jon was clearly not fine, as his hands were shaking slightly and his face still didn’t have its full color back, but Sasha wasn’t going to argue the point. “But I- I’ve never told anybody about that, how did you-”

“I told you. Weird supernatural information shoved into my head over the weekend. Simple as that.”

“Right. You- you weren’t making that up, then.”

It wasn’t really a question, but Sasha answered just the same. “Of course not. I wouldn’t do that to you.”

Jon looked unconvinced, and Sasha suddenly remembered how when “Antonio Blake”’s statement had appeared, Jon had thought only Tim could be trusted to investigate it, only Tim could be ruled out for having written it as a practical joke on his new boss--that felt like an eternity ago, and yet it hadn’t even happened yet...

“You said you didn’t want to give a formal statement, correct? Was there any other action you expected from me regarding this?”

Sasha shrugged. She still wasn’t sure how much she could share, especially here, in the belly of the beast. Maybe in the tunnels, some time... assuming there still were tunnels, and they weren’t being plagued by worms or Not-Thems or murderous Jurgen Leitners...

“I just wanted you to know about it, mostly. I know a lot about these old archives now, so if you’ve ever got a question, I’m glad to do what I can. Not that I wouldn’t be willing to help anyway, but, you know, if I already know the location and validity of statement number 0051701, or whatever, might as well use it, right?”

Jon squinted a little. “What is statement number 0051701?”

“Oh, it’s...” Sasha let out a soft giggle. “We haven’t gone over it yet, but it’s about an old calliope organ.”

“Kuh-LY-o-pee.” Jon corrected.

“Ka-lee-O-pee.” Sasha repeated, a grin growing on her face. “Though there’s really no one correct pronunciation, or so I’ve heard.”

“...right. Well, thank you for letting me know about all this, I suppose.”

“Of course. You are the boss around here, right?”

“As Tim keeps reminding me, yes.”

Sasha stood back up and cracked open Jon’s office door, but before she left entirely, she added, “Seriously, reach out if you need me- or any of us, really. It’s not healthy to spend too long cooped up in here by yourself.”

“Duly noted.”

As the door closed behind Sasha, she could only hope that she was doing enough, that her offers to help would be taken advantage of when Jon needed it most.

[tendertenebrosity]

New piece for TJ and Danny, my Path and Handler OCs from @wildfaewhump‘s Pathverse! Masterpost for these OCs is here. This might end up being the start of an Arc!

TJ pressed his hands against the back of his head, squeezing tight as if he could gather and hold his swirling thoughts closer, somehow gain more control over them. It hurt. Everything hurt. Even if he just tried to sit and breathe and think of nothing, it hurt.

You must deserve this. The thought seemed to wash nebulously around the edges of his mind, and he didn’t understand why but he accepted it, dully. Everything was dark and ugly and horrible and even if TJ didn’t know what he’d done to deserve the pain that felt like it was splitting his skull apart, it made sense. He must have done something, or just been something, terrible.

He felt like his mind was some sort of foul drain, and all the worst and most awful thoughts and images and memories sloshed around in it. Anger, disgust, fear, grief, violence… lapping around and over everything that he thought of as TJ until he couldn’t tell where he stopped and they began anymore.

But if he could just sit still, and breathe, and think of as little as possible and hold himself tight…

“Hey. Stop it.”

Gloved fingers pried at his, trying to make him let go.

TJ whimpered. He curled his hands up into fists instead, still folded up as small as he could get. The hands, large and warm, kept on touching him – pushing his arms away from his head, smoothing his hair back into place, patting his shoulder roughly and insistently.

“Come on, kid, where are you? Let go of your fucking… come on back, now. There. Hey. Kid.”

TJ took a deep breath, letting himself be pushed and dislodged from his tight ball, becoming more aware of where he was. He was sitting in a hard plastic chair. His mouth tasted of blood, and his breathing was clogged and heavy with the iron-thick smell of it. The warm bulk of his handler, Danny, was leaning over him, nudging him back into reality with rough touches and words.

“Hurts,” he whispered.

“Yeah, kid, I know.” Danny’s hand thumped him on the shoulder, shook him gently. “Shit, for a second there I thought...” He made a harsh noise, breath leaving his mouth in a hiss. “Never mind. You did good. Did real good this morning.”

But… TJ sniffled, feeling something warm and wet drip onto the back of his hand, where he’d placed it onto his knee. I messed everything up, again. If I did good why do I hurt so much?

He had a dim idea that courtroom days hadn’t always been like this. That they used to just be difficult work, not something that left him hurting this badly and wishing desperately that the day would be over. He thought – the memories he waded through used to hurt less, didn’t get into his dreams and fester as much. It felt like so long ago.

“Did I really?” he asked, his voice a low croak. Colours and shapes seemed to swirl behind his eyes, the normal darkness of the blindfold sickly whirling. “But I – ”

“You did fine,” Danny snapped. “Here. Drink this.”

Something was pushed into his hands, smooth and cool and beaded with moisture. TJ sat up obediently and lifted it to his mouth. Just water, cool and flat-tasting, immediately tinged with blood.

He swallowed it past a surge of nausea. “Do I have to go back in?” he asked, pitifully, miserably. It seemed an insurmountable certainty, looming over him, impossible to contemplate and yet inevitable. TJ didn’t think he could go back to another reading. But he had been thinking that for a really long time and yet…

“Fuck no!” Danny’s hand slapped on the table surface, making TJ jump. “Once you look alive again, we’re going back to the goddamn Agency, and mother-fucking Ethan can just shove it up his ass. I send you back in for another reading, it’ll just fucking overload you. Again.”

“Ethan?” TJ said, bewildered. “Again?” That had been a lot of words, he tried in vain to follow them. He thought it had been a no? His head hurt, so much, like it had been broken apart and now every time he moved it grated. “Do I… I don’t have to…”

He heard Danny give a heavy sigh. “No, kid, no more readings today.”

TJ sighed in relief, his shoulders slumping. He drank another swallow of the water. He could go home, to curl up in his cubby, maybe sleep, maybe later get clean… although he knew no amount of soap and warm water would get rid of the ugly, cruel thoughts bobbing about under the surface of his mind.

After a minute or so, when the water was nearly gone, there was a crackle and rustle of packaging, and something else was put into his hands, rough and sticky. TJ just held it, listlessly. It was probably a muesli bar. He didn’t want it.  

“Come on. You need the sugar.” Danny was moving around, putting things away and slapping folders around, making more noise than he needed to; he was angry, but not with TJ. “It’s your favourite. Apricot.”

TJ lifted it to his mouth absently… but then he paused.

“How do you know?” he asked, the words coming out thin but clear. The water had been maybe too cold; he found himself shivering. He clamped another hand on his wrist to hold the muesli bar still.

“What?” Danny’s phone was making blooping noises, rapid and impatient sounding. He sounded distracted.

“It is. My favourite. But how did you know that?”

“You told me.”

TJ tipped his head to one side, shuddered and rode out the wave of sick pain this caused. “Did I? I don’t remember…”

The beeping stopped.  

“Uh-huh. Eat the damn thing. We’re on our way in a minute.”

 ~

 TJ shifted in the bed, uncomfortably. The infirmary was… loud. Machinery noises, electric beeps, the sigh of air conditioning and ventilation filled his ears, nothing like the quiet and calm of his cubby.

Not loud enough to drown out the argument he’d heard outside the door of the room earlier, a familiar loud harsh voice and several softer ones. But loud enough that TJ couldn’t sleep now. His head still ached, though nowhere near as badly.

He could hear the scratching of a pen, too, from beside the bed.

“Handler?” he whispered into the darkness.

The scratching stopped. Danny grunted. “Yeah, kid?”

“Can I… ask you a question?”

A heavy sigh, the noise of someone shifting in a chair, the clink of something being put down. “Not getting any-fucking-where with this report, so you might as well. What?”

Maybe this was a bad idea. TJ hesitated, but this had been fluttering at the edge of his awareness for hours, and Danny wouldn’t be angry, would he? TJ felt pretty sure that Danny didn’t usually get angry, though he wasn’t quite sure where that conviction came from.

“Apricot muesli bars,” TJ said eventually. “How did you know?”

Another sigh, heavy through the nose. “You told me. Like I said.”

“But I didn’t?” TJ protested. “When did we talk about that?” Conversations about non-Agency things were rare enough that TJ treasured almost all of them, turned them over and over in his mind in his cubby at night. He was sure he would have remembered.  He couldn’t remember ever talking to Danny about his favourite anything.

“Yeah, well, it was months ago.”

TJ put his head back on the pillow and lay still for a while, listening to the beeping. He tried to count backwards. And it was a stupid thing to be worried about, really, but… no matter how he did it there just wasn’t enough room. TJ had 4 days at court a week, so – if he counted back from non-court days, estimated that way… how many weeks…

“You’ve only been my handler for a little while,” TJ said, weakly, confused. He was being disobedient, argumentative, a bad Path, and for something so petty… but this wasn’t making sense.  It hadn’t been months.

He could hear Danny shifting around, the hiss of his breath, fidgeting. His voice, when he spoke, was odd. Tired. Sad.

“Shit. I’ve been your handler for over a year now, TJ.”

TJ felt the way he did when he misjudged how many stairs there were, but worse, in his whole body, like a hole had opened up under his feet and he had fallen into it. He searched in his mind for more memories of Danny, a year’s worth of memories, and there was nothing there.

There was nothing else either. When exactly had he started doing readings for the courts? A long time, maybe a year, but… He recalled his last handler, a clipped voice that had never said more than two unnecessary words to him. When had she changed to Danny? What had his first court case reading been? If it had been a year that should be so many readings, way more, he remembered it being okay for a while and now it was so hard but what had happened in between?

“I – I don’t remember,” he whispered.

A heavy sigh, from Danny. The words came slowly, reluctantly. “No, kid. You don’t.”

“What – what happened? Why is – how do you – ” His hands curled up against the cool material of the infirmary sheets, and he shifted his head fretfully. He must have done something wrong, but what? It felt like there had been another TJ all along, one who’d done and said things that this TJ had no idea about. A machine somewhere beeped faster, and the bed seemed to be swaying underneath TJ even though he knew it wasn’t.

“Hey, hey, none of that, whoa,” Danny said sharply. The chair creaked, and big gloved hands took hold of TJ’s and pressed them still. “Shit, I shouldn’t have… look, kid, TJ. I know you don’t remember. But that’s OK.”

TJ shivered. His head hurt. He felt queasy. Everything was swaying and moving around him, nothing was solid or dependable. Except the hands on his.

“It is?”

Danny made an indecipherable noise, like half a chuckle or a huff and annoyance. His hands pinned TJ’s to the sheet over his chest.

“Yeah, kid, it is,” he said. “It’s fine. Don’t… worry about it. Everything’s working just as it’s supposed to, and you haven’t done anything wrong.”

TJ let his head loll back against the bed. Deep breath, in and out.

“Do you remember?” he whispered. “The whole year?”

Danny’s fingers squeezed his slightly. “Yeah, kid. I do.”

That was something. The year was not gone. It still existed, somewhere, even if TJ no longer had access to it.

“Then… I don’t need to?” TJ asked, quavering. “That’s why it’s okay? You remember it all so it’s okay if I don’t?”

“Sure. Yeah.” Danny’s voice was still odd, quiet, rough, tired. “I’ll always tell you whatever you need to do, so as long as you listen to me everything will be fine.”

TJ nodded, slowly. This was not his cubby, he didn’t know what was happening, nothing made sense. But there was a thread to hold onto, something solid and warm and real.

Danny knew what was going on, so TJ didn’t have to. As long as that was the case, everything would be fine.  

“Okay,” he whispered, and slept.