#but it goes SO against my muscle memory and instincts that its really hard for me to grasp

[adhdwerewolfgf]

holding w whilst rocket jumping limits your speed and maneuverability in the air. launch yourself side on then turn to face your direction of travel, strafe and turn slowly left or right if you need to adjust your angles. same is true for all air movement, which is useful knowledge for scout and demo especially. sorry i just love rocket jumping

are you flirting with me

[ervotica]

Inspired by the moment in ACOSF when it’s mentioned Cassian likes physical contact. A fic where reader and cassian are besties and hanging all touchy, maybe reader is braiding his hair and the mating bond snaps.

Kindly requested to be tagged if written/published.

𝐬𝐩𝐢𝐭𝐞𝐟𝐮𝐥, 𝐰𝐢𝐜𝐤𝐞𝐝 ��𝐚𝐭𝐞

pairing; cassian x fem!reader

warnings; porn with plot, basically just smut tbh but smut with FEELS (the best kind), p in v, oral (f!receiving), cassian is a sexy bitch

word count; 2.4k

a/n; dooo we want a p2 (and to find out what reader has planned...) i'm planning one in my head so if you guys are interested please let me know! @bxm-1012 enjoy!

Cassian shows love through touch- whether that be an affectionate squeeze, a kiss on the forehead or a playful shove; it's how he expresses love for the people around him.

You often take the brunt of this, being his best friend. You walk the streets of Velaris arm in arm, squeeze into one armchair that really isn't built to hold even Cassian alone, but somehow manages to fit the both of you, fall asleep on top of each other in a heap of skewed limbs after hours of partying and drinking and dancing at Rita's. You fit together like two pieces of a puzzle.

You're really not sure how you didn't see it earlier.

You're lounging in the aforementioned armchair when the bond snaps. Your legs are thrown over the arm and Cassian is settled in the centre, head to your chest as you scratch and tug at his shoulder-length hair, pulling it up into a braid. He tilts his head up, grinning at you through the dark lashes framing his eyes, and the whole world shifts on its axis.

Something stirs to life inside of you, a warmth blooming and spreading and seeping into your every pore; you can feel the way you're tethered to him, the gravitational pull between you.

You go stock still and your lips part in a silent gasp. Cassian's grin grows tenfold.

"You knew?"

"I suspected," he murmurs. He twists his body to face you. "I hoped."

"Oh," you breathe. You can't help it when your hand comes up to trace his cheekbones, the tip of your thumb skimming the bridge of his nose. His eyes fall closed and the bastard tugs on the bond so hard it emits a squeal from you, and you're pressing a palm to the centre of your chest to soothe the entirely unfamiliar feeling.

His mouth opens to break the silence but you're already moving, careening into his chest and burrowing yourself in tight. Your body sags with pure, uninhibited relief.

"You feel the same, then?" he teases.

Your eyes are glassy when you peel your face far enough to meet his stare.

"I always thought I'd have to make peace with it when you found your mate. I'd have to settle for loving you from a distance and that would be enough. As long as you're happy, I'm happy." He softens at the admission- your voice rasping and raw as you lay your feelings bare for him- hooking an arm beneath your own to drag you up his chest until you're nose to nose. "But I guess I can be selfish now, and keep you to myself," you whisper.

"Mm," he purrs, and the sound turns your core molten. "I like the sound of that."

He doesn't waste any more time before his mouth is on yours, lips slanting hungrily over your own; you part your lips in submission, granting him access to lick into your mouth, his tongue tangling with your own. He rises to tower over you until you're flattened against the curve of the chair, and plants his hands either side of your head to cage you in. His wings flare where they'd been previously tucked against his back. Your body goes involuntarily soft and pliable, heat prickling under your skin at his every touch. Instinct takes over- it's as if it's muscle memory. Giving yourself to him is as easy as breathing.

Your head swims at the feel of his body under your roaming hands, his scent that seems to shift from affection to something deeply primal and dominating. You urge him closer with a whine and a pathetic tug at his t-shirt. How has this man reduced you to a mess with no more than a kiss?

"Cass-" you gasp when his head turns and his mouth latches onto the sensitive spot beneath your ear; teeth sink into flesh and you have to bite your lip to conceal a wanton moan. "We-we should go somewhere... more private."

"Oh, don't stop on our account," comes Rhysand's amused drawl through the closed door. "We're vacating the premises as we speak."

A growl rips through Cassian and searing, unyielding need barrels to your core and pools there; it takes every ounce of willpower to not rut your hips against him and demand his clothes off that very instant.

"Sorry!" you squeak; as quickly as the word leaves your mouth, Cassian's smothering it with another eager kiss. You lose any semblance of control you were clinging to, a moan dragging its way from your chest and into his waiting mouth. A string of saliva stretches and bows between you when he lifts his head to look at your face.

"My mate," he purrs. "My beautiful mate."

Your eyes cloud when you gaze at him through half-lids, reaching down to grab the thick length of him and squeeze. His hips grind into your palm, something deep and almost terrifying loosing from the depths of his chest. It only serves to make your cunt drool.

"Wicked thing," he gasps. "Spiteful female."

You grin, wide and unabashed, before your hands grapple for purchase to tear at his clothes until his toned abdomen is revealed to you; you want to lick every inch of him.

"Desperate little creature, aren’t you?" he teases.

"Shut up!"

His eyes roll when you at last wrench his pants and underwear down his thick thighs, freeing his cock, hard and weeping and begging for your touch.

"Who’s desperate now?" Your brow quirks.

He echoes your sentiments, cadence deep and gravelly with lust. "Shut up."

Your snarking comments seem to loosen the tether he’s kept on his desire to hold you down and have his way with you, and you gasp when thick, calloused fingers curl their way around your windpipe; his fingertips are bruising against your jaw, tipping your head back to bare your soft throat for him. You go boneless in his grasp, eager to take whatever he gives you at whatever pace.

"So you do know how to behave," he muses, free hand coming between your bodies to paw at your clothes until they come away in ribbons, torn from your form and leaving you bare before him.

The first inch of him inside of you is a delicious stretch; your cunt parts and flares to make room for him. He pauses, and when he finds nothing but pure, unadulterated lust in your blown out pupils, he gives you the rest.

Slowly, agonisingly, he drags it out; moaning praises fill your ears as he grants you inch after inch of him until he's seated firmly to the hilt. His fingers are bound to leave bruises where they're curled around your waist.

You whine, fingernails digging cruelly into his sides. He’s so deep you’re sure you can feel him in your throat.

"Cassian."

"Fuck, sweet girl," he hisses. "Usually I’d take my time with you, work you up first until you’re crying. But I need you right now."

The breath is punched from your lungs as he sets a punishing pace; your spine curves and moulds to the arm of the chair when Cassian’s hands venture lower to cup the swells of your breasts. You feel his cock kick up inside of you when he catches sight of your pert nipples, hardening into buds at the exposure of the cool air and the feel of his hands brushing the sensitive beads.

"I’ll get my mouth on you later, baby."

You’d melt at the words if you weren’t already reduced to nothing more than mush from his dick alone. The thick girth of him splits you wide, nestling deep against spots you have yet to discover, pushing you further towards a precipice you’re almost terrified of— you’ve never experienced pleasure like this, to this degree. The insurmountable, unfathomable pressure builds until you’re coming with a scream, your body trembling around his own, cunt clamping down around him to suck him in further.

"There’s my girl," he coos, slowing inside of you to brush away the hair sticking to your slick face. "You’re perfect.”

You whine and cant your hips downward to rock yourself onto his cock, and the bellow that rips through him would have you flushing white-hot under any other circumstances; you’re too far gone to care, a shaking hand splaying against the ridges of his wing until he shudders under your touch. You moan at the sight.

"Now that’s just mean, baby."

You suck your bottom lip into your mouth, gaze flitting up to meet his own with a coy smile. He brushes a slow line with his knuckles against your cheekbone— a loving gesture that has your heart clenching as well as your pussy.

"I love you," he says. "I love you so much."

"I love you," you repeat his words as he smears a kiss between your pinched brows. His forehead presses to yours as his hips rut up into your own. Dewiness clings to every inch of your skin and your knuckles bleed of colour where you cling to Cassian.

He brings you to completion four more times before he reaches his own peak, and only when you're reduced to tears beneath him does he crawl the length of your body, lips grazing over the slick skin beneath him until he reaches your cunt once more.

"Cass-" you gasp; your voice comes out a broken, strangled jumble of noise and he grins wolfishly up at you before licking a broad, long stripe from your spasming hole to your clit. Your back arches and you're not sure whether it's towards or away from his touch, but he stops you short when his fingers curl around your ribcage to press you to the plush fabric of the armchair.

"Told you I'd get my mouth on you, didn't I?"

Everything is simultaneously too much and not enough, and you're torn between grinding down into his mouth and shying away. Pleasure licks white-hot up your spine and you writhe against his bruising hold on your hips when the stubble on his chin scratches against your sensitive bundle of nerves. It's red and angry, swollen from Cassian's undivided attention, and it has tears gathering at your waterline once more. Your eyes are glassy and half lidded and he reaches up to brush the tip of his thumb against your cheek, his head never coming up from between your thighs.

Your skin sheens under the soft lights of the living room, sweat beading across the crown of your skull and your temples; you whine and thrash beneath him until your muscles seize and go taut like a bowstring, and pleasure drags you under once again. You're screaming - comes the dazed realisation - and your chest heaves as Cassian works you through it, offering up sweet praises for your orgasm. He smiles as if he hasn't just given you the best sex of your life.

You're utterly limp, boneless in his firm hold when he lifts your body to cradle you to his naked chest. The bridge of his nose presses into the softness of your cheek, skin rubbing against skin where he nuzzles into you.

"That was fucking amazing," you breathe with a laugh. "We should do that again."

"Mm," he hums. "Don't tempt me."

You giggle, pressing your face closer to his; everything about him intoxicates you: his smell, the feel of him under your hands, the dominating rasp of his cadence.

"We have something else to do first."

"What?" he asks, visibly deflating when you push yourself up on wobbling legs; your knees almost give out instantly. You can feel his smirk forming, burning into your naked form.

"Don't. Say. Anything," you grit. Your fingers brush the carpet when you bend to grasp a slip of fabric, and you quirk a brow at your sheepish mate. "My clothes, Cass!"

"I'll get you some more. Anything you want," he immediately says, watching you through half-lidded eyes. The love swirling in his irises almost has you staggering.

"While I appreciate that..." You lean down to press your lips against his, only pulling back to rest your brow against his own. "That doesn't solve my problem right now."

He snorts. "I like you naked. Maybe you should never wear clothes again."

"I'm not sure anyone would approve of that but you." Your smile is devilish. "Maybe I could distract a few High Lords at the next meeting..."

His teeth bare, a low warning growl reverberating through your very bones. You laugh, light and airy, and Cassian's sure you're heaven sent even as you send red-hot fury roiling through his veins.

"I'm sorry," you trill. "That was mean." You snag his own t-shirt, still predominantly in one piece, and slip it over your head; it lays against your mid-thighs and the scent of him cloys in your nostrils. "C'mon." You beckon him up with an outstretched hand, wiggling your fingers until he stands and slips his fingers between your own. A smirk pulls at the corners of your mouth. "Um, darling?" A pointed gaze has him grinning in return, clasping his chest in faux disappointment.

"I thought you liked me naked!"

"Oh, I do," you muse. "I'd just like to not scar everybody else in this house for life."

"It'd hardly be an unpleasant sight-"

"Yes, but I'm sure everyone would prefer it if I didn't try to kill them for looking." Your smile oozes saccharine, and then you're nudging him towards where his underwear lays discarded on the carpet. He pulls the material up and over his thick thighs and then he's back by your side in an instant; you preen under his adoring touch, pushing into the hands that slip underneath your shirt to grope at your bare skin.

"C'mon," you repeat, begrudgingly denying yourself the pleasure of sinking into his arms for another round of slow sex. "We need to do this first." You press your lips to the corner of his mouth. "Mate."

[zhongli-topper]

Hello, that Zhongli fic is *chef kiss* can I request dom reader with xiao, with orgasm denial, overstimulation but also praising him? Can the reader be gn? but fem reader is fine too. I've can't stop thinking about this man please, sadly he didn't come home so I'm here stalking xiao tag 😔

xiao x dom reader - taking care of him (nsfw)

pairing: xiao x gn reader includes: praise, orgasm denial, overstimulation, light dom reader/sub xiao a/n: thank you so much, lovely! 💖 sorry for the delay, i got busy with life. i love xiao, he’s baby and he absolutely deserves to be taken care of~

“Xiao.”

It never fails to astonish him, how just the way you say his name can feel like a caress, and you don’t even need to touch him. Despite his instincts, despite the voices that tell him to take up his burdens in solitude, he finds himself drawn to you like a moth to light.

“Come here?”

Under the lantern-light of your room at the Wangshu Inn, your voice is somehow softer, your gaze darker than the velvety night sky settling over Dihua Marsh.

He approaches you on the bed, stance wary like a cat’s. You know his caution is born of necessity, a natural outcome of his thankless and eternal battle, but right now it mainly makes you want to hold him and comfort him and try to help him untangle that ball of pain, even if just a little. Even as he sits on the bed next to you, his body’s tense, and still fully dressed even though you’re ready to sleep, if you felt like sleeping, which you didn’t.

You turn slightly towards him and place your hand over his, and the warmth of your skin seeps even through his glove, and even to a two-thousand-year-old adeptus, the mystery of human touch is still something unfamiliar to him—though with you, he’s learning to grow accustomed to it.

It had been a relatively slow process, even in mortal, human terms. After Xiao had begun to accept your fleeting, friendly touches during your acquaintance, it had taken a while for him to reciprocate, and even longer for either of you to progress into more physical, intimate forms of affection.

In that time you had learned to read the subtle shifts in Xiao’s moods, the quiet differences of his anger and sadness, and the rare, sun-bright glimpses of his happiness. For him, learning to be vulnerable was—and still is—an uphill battle, but in the time you two had been together, you could sense what he needed, and right now, with his brow drawn and hand clenched beneath yours, you were determined to give it to him.

“Xiao,” you say again, and flip his hand to thread your fingers through his. “You seem tense. Did anything happen today?”

“No,” he answers automatically. Then he frowns. “I’m the same as ever. What makes you say that?”

You’re a little stung at his blunt tone, but you know he means nothing by it. You shrug. “I know you, Xiao. I’d hope you would give me a little more credit after all this time.”

He looks at you fully then, and his frown deepens as though he’s disappointed in something. “I—I know.” He blinks, his lashes fluttering. His gaze grows determined then, and squeezes your hand in return. “I need…”

“Yes?”

“Just…” He shakes his head, a frown etched into his features. “Memories of the war. They’re… being difficult to deal with again.”

He averts his gaze from yours, suddenly shy. “I… thought I would ask if you…” His mouth presses into a thin line as he cuts himself off, seeming to be embarrassed at what he was asking you to do.

“What did you want to ask me?” you encouraged him.

“If you would… help me to forget. To stop thinking about it.” As he said it, a pink tinge bloomed across his cheeks, an endearing sight that clued you in as to what kind of activity he had in mind. You turn your hand over and twine your fingers with his, and you’re happy to see him reciprocate rather than shy away as he had done in the past.

Giving him a small smile, you nod. You pull him closer, slow enough for him to get comfortable, and press your lips to his. “Then, let me take care of you, Xiao.”

~*~

You kiss him, slow and deep, and he melts under your touch, his hands grasping at your shoulders, your arms and chest, anchoring himself to your body. He’s taken off his accessories, leaving him in his sleeveless top and pants. In between kisses, his breaths already have an uneven quality, as he presses himself into the warmth of your body.

You pull back to catch your breath, and see that even with his eyes closed, his brow is still clenched, and you smooth over the crease between his eyebrows with your thumb, following it up with your lips. He shifts on your lap, and you can feel through his pants that he’s already half-hard, and trying not to rut against your thigh.

You smile against his skin. “You’re doing so well, Xiao,” you whisper, kissing close to his ear after you say it. You can feel him shiver, just slightly, at your praise, which you’ve learned is something that really gets him going.

“Do you want me?” you ask, just to make sure.

His fingers clinging onto your shoulders tighten and he nods fervently, refusing to meet your eyes.

“Please.”

You swallow the rest of his panting breaths by sealing your mouth over his, and slowly you push up the fabric of his shirt, his tight shirt that never left much to the imagination. Xiao might have been small, but his body was solid and muscular, and his naked skin under your hands was hot. You could feel the vibrations of his soft moans as your palms dragged up his toned torso, over his abdomen to splay your fingers over his chest and play with his nipples.

“Y/N…” he pants, forehead pressed to yours. “I…”

“Shh,” you say. “I said I’d take care of you, love.” You let your mouth trail over his jawline and down his neck, enjoying the little huffs of breath he lets out. “You deserve to be taken care of.”

You feel him hesitate. It’s always been difficult for him to admit to it, that he is worthy of such gentle, loving attention, but you want to make it known to him that he is.

Your lips descend to his chest, and you swirl your tongue around his erect nipples, drawing small gasps from the adeptus. He soon grows pliant beneath your caresses, and you easily push him down to lie on his back, and place the hem of his shirt in his hands so he can hold it up.

“Keep that there,” you instruct him in between kisses down his abdomen, until you reach his waistband and the tent he’s forming in his pants. His lips are trembling as he looks down at you, already sensitive from your kissing. He attempts to reach down with one hand but you bat it away, prompting him to return to holding his shirt up, and you slowly pull his pants down.

He’s already hard, the tip of his dick starting to leak precum, and you press your palm to its top before sliding it down his shaft and encircling him in a loose fist. You pump him a few times, and lower your head to his hips.

Your eyes flick up towards Xiao’s, and you can see him biting down on his knuckles, unwilling to make noise. You pause in your movements, looking at him meaningfully, and he growls into his skin.

“I want to hear your voice, Xiao,” you tell him, “I want to hear the sounds you make when you’re feeling good.” With your other hand, you let your nails dig into the muscle of his thigh.

He gasps at the sudden pain, releasing his hand from his teeth, then frowns at you, but you’re already smoothing the hurt over with kisses, getting closer to his cock.

“Don’t hold back,” you tell him. “That’s an order.”

He only grunts in response, but you stop moving and give him a pointed look until he says, “…I won’t.”

Pleased, you finally give attention to his cock. You start to leave a line of small, light kisses up the side of his shaft, lips fluttering over his heated skin until he’s gasping and barely stopping himself from bucking his hips in search of more friction.

“Good boy,” you say, “you’re following my instruction.”

He mewls as you give tiny licks to his cockhead, tasting the slightly salty flavor of precum, before swallowing it whole and sealing your lips over his shaft.

“Aa-ah!” He trembles, suddenly engulfed by the wet heat of your mouth. You close your fist around him and pump in tandem with your head, slowly building the intensity until his eyes glaze over and his hands threaten to rip the fabric of his top. All the while, he moans and whimpers, and you can see how his lips tremble in embarrassment before letting the sounds out.

You release him with a pop and his hazy stare goes to you, hips chasing after your face only to be stopped by a hand on his hip. You look down at him, and he’s so cute, panting underneath you, you can’t help but grin.  

“You look so cute like this,” you tell him, “feeling good under me. I like how you’re moaning too~”

His eyes widen and then his brow clenches, blushing hard at your praise. You give him a little kiss on the nose, his lashes fluttering at the contact. He had been getting close, you could tell, but you wanted to tease him some more.

You push his legs up and spread them, using your thumbs to massage around the cleft of his ass.

“Aah!” A high-pitched gasp leaves him, your fingers having taken him by surprise. His golden eyes fly towards you, in between his thighs, spreading his asscheeks to have access to his entrance.

“Nnh… that’s…” He bites his lip and trails off, apparently lost for words. You grope around for the bottle of oil you keep in your nightstand before spreading some over his hole, then continuing to massage around it, loosening up some of the tension in his muscles.

Apparently you’re taking too long, because he growls and says “Stop teasing,” which might have sounded threatening if not for the pleading, high-pitched note in his voice. At his demand, you let your nails dig in to the meat of his thigh—not too hard, but just hard enough to draw a small hiss of pain from your mewling lover.

“I said I’d take care of you, and I will,” you tell him. “Or don’t you trust me, baby?”

He grumbles and has to avert his eyes before saying, “…Yes. I do. Sorry.”

Xiao chews on his lip when you slip one finger inside, then eventually another. His small gasps are coming out in an uneven staccato, his hips writhing slightly as he tries to get your hand to hit that sweet spot inside of him. You settle in between his legs, adding a third finger, and he moans, clenching at the bedsheets.

“Fuck,” he groans, “please, deeper.”

You do as he says and curl your fingers as you drag them against his insides, and he all but howls when you press against his prostate.

“Y-Yes! There—ngh,” he gasps, opening his bleary eyes, looking down at you in a daze. You smile, keeping your fingers buried inside him, and grip the base of his still hard cock tightly. Sweat is sticking his dark fringe to his forehead and beading on his skin.

He presses the back of his hand to his mouth, his hips rutting into your fist, but you’re not moving, holding him too tightly. Rather than giving him pleasure, your hand is keeping him from cumming, even as you continue to pump your fingers inside of his tight hole.

“Please let me cum,” he begs, stilling his hips with effort, his thighs shaking as you keep thrusting at his prostate. He whimpers, clearly at the edge and overwhelmed at the sensation of being so close and denied his release.

“You can hold on for me,” you coo, your voice sweet. “You’re taking my fingers in so easily. You look so hot begging for me, I want to see more of it. Can you spread yourself open, baby boy?”

Panting, he lets out little huffs of breath as he bends his legs up, pressing his thighs against his chest, opening his legs wider. His face is bright red, his voice growing in volume when you resume thrusting your fingers and lower your head to take him in your mouth again.

Xiao sobs, the warm heat of your mouth engulfing his weeping cock, driving him closer to his peak even as you still grip his base.

You drag your tongue along his length in time with your fingers on his sweet spot, and he bites his lip bloody.

He all but screams, his hips and thighs shaking. His eyes are glazed and he seems lost for words, aware of nothing but the sensations your hands and mouth are giving him.

“I need to cum,” he cries, “c-close, please—”

He’s held out for long enough. You drag the hand on his shaft up along with your mouth, sealing your lips around his sensitive head, while aiming for his prostate once again. Like clockwork, his fists clench in the sheets and he cums, spilling down your throat.

You swallow down the salty, bitter taste of his spend, hearing him begin to quiet above you, but you're not done with him yet. You nudge again at his spot and give his cockhead a broad lick before sucking him back in.

He makes a noise of surprise, trying to watch as you don’t stop, but his entire body shivers from the overstimulation, and he's unable to prop himself up, instead shaking and boneless under your hands and mouth on the bed.

You pull your mouth off him for just a brief moment and say, “You said you needed to cum, baby. So be good and cum for me some more, huh?” You lock your eyes with his blurry gaze and keep them there as you begin to suck him off again.

“Ngghh,” he groans, and it doesn’t take too long until he’s shaking and fully hard again, and close to a second orgasm. When you feel him approaching his peak, you release his cock from your mouth, pulling a frustrated groan from Xiao as he cums a second time, a dry one, as his hips bear down on your fingers inside him.

“Good boy, Xiao,” you say when his lashes flutter open, slits of gold peering at you.

His whole body is trembling even after you pull your fingers out of him, and you kiss his sweat-slicked brow before wiping his cum off his stomach. He finally lets go of the sheets and then blinks at the torn fabric that falls from his hands.

“…You ripped the sheets,” you say with a laugh. “Was it that good?”

He grumbles again, turning on his side. “You kept going. I’m blaming you.”

Still smiling, you slide into bed behind him, and lay an arm around his waist. You can feel his soft exhale when you wrap around him, and he subtly nudges himself back, further into your embrace.

“You did well, baby,” you tell him, kissing at the sensitive spot under his ear.

“…Thank you,” he mutters, and you almost don’t hear it. You pull him close, nuzzle your cheek into his dark hair.

“You don’t need to thank me.” Nothing answers you but the sounds of soft breath, and when you check, Xiao’s fallen asleep.

You pull the blanket over the both of you, making a mental note to have them repaired in the morning. “Good night, Xiao.”

[ashintheairlikesnow]

hmmm can vampires get sick? maybe sick vampire chris thinking Jake is gonna pull out or file down his fangs? or just thinking Jake’s gonna hurt him?

CW: Sick whumpee, vampire whumpee, blood drinking, vague implications of past sadistic/creepy whumper, dehumanization, vague tooth/mouth whump (nothing direct, but aftermath)

Sort of a sequel to this piece, part of the Vampire Chris AU

"What hurts?" He keeps his voice low, and carefully doesn't hesitate before he lays a hand over the vampire's forehead. Of course it feels lukewarm, room temperature, but he still goes through the motions of feeling for a fever. It's muscle-memory, instinct, and he keeps forgetting Chris is dead.

He has been dead for a long time, if his occasional comments on what sounds like Prohibition are true.

"Bones," Chris whimpers, twisting where he lays in Jake's bed. There's a bright flush in his cheeks from the blood he'd drained from the two men who broke into the house. Those odd eyes glitter, overbright. "My... m'bones hurt, Jake."

His mouth opens, pulling air in over his tongue and down his throat in soft pants, and Jake is reminded that vampires don't sweat. Not the same way, anyway, although with enough blood they can, in thin sheens of pink-tinged liquid that are even more alarming than their tears.

His fangs are visible this way, razor-sharp canines that come down further than the rest of his teeth, a brighter white than all the others from being pulled and regrowing so many times.

Jake swallows against his nervousness, brushing hair away from the vampire's forehead. His slit pupils are dilated, taking up too much of the iris, and he tells himself that Chris is as scared as he is of the instincts that drive him, barely understands them.

Vampires aren't animals - but when they don't understand themselves, they act like it sometimes.

"Do you think maybe those guys were on something? Like, a drug maybe?" He pets through Chris's hair, fingercombing his hair, and watches Chris's eyes flutter closed.

It's hard not to feel more than a little reassured not having to look at them any longer. Which makes him feel guilty, considering this not-a-kid kid just beat up people for hurting him.

Killed them, his brain whispers. Killed them like he could kill you.

"May, maybe," Chris mumbles, and pants again.

His gums seem oddly dark, where normally they're pale, and Jake frowns. He wishes now he knew more about vampire physiology, that he'd paid more attention in class when they took the safety courses on how to avoid them.

There's not exactly a class on caring for one - not unless you can afford to purchase them outright.

"Well, when you were-... uh, before you found us... did you ever feel like this?"

Chris's eyes blink slowly back open and he nods. "Sometimes. My, my, my, my-... someone would, um, take something before, before the party, and I'd..." He groans and shudders. Jake can see the pain move through his body as he trembles nearly violently. "I'd feel like, like, like this after... for hours..."

"Okay. So... probably you just have to let this get worked out of your system, right? Or... is there a medicine?"

"No... just... just drink more." Chris looks up at him, eyes so wide and sad and scared and hurting, and grabs onto his wrist with one hand. Those cool fingers are never not a little startling, colder than the air around them, than the rest of his body.

Vampires have poor circulation, Jake knows, even when they're filled up on a fresh meal. He's seen Chris heal his own wounds before with his tongue, had him explain that they don't heal on their own with time if they're on hands or feet.

"Chris-"

"You, you, you, you-... can, um, you can take my teeth after. You can. I'll hold still. I'll, I'll be good." Chris's plea is barely a whisper.

His nails, which must have been a little too long when he was killed and turned, dig painfully into Jake's wrist in his desperation.

"I'll be so, so, so so so so good, Jake. So good for you, and then, you can, you you you can take my teeth-... Sir always liked it, it makes me me me cry, we we cry blood, Sir liked to take photos of it-"

"Sssshhhh. Hush, Chris." Jake's mind races. There are others in the house, but-... he can't ask them to give up blood to Chris. They've already taken over cleaning the blood up from the hardwood floor. Nat's already dealt with talking to the cops and the EMTs and the coroner before the bodies were taken away. They already handled hiding Chris in a false-backed closet while Jake was interviewed by police officers who looked interested and excited,, not disturbed.

It's not every day you see a vampire attack, after all.

Mostly they're under control, kept on leashes and muzzled like dangerous dogs, the property of rich celebrities looking for novelty in a world where they already have everything. The few ferals are killed pretty fast.

Or so everyone says.

Jake is starting to wonder if there are more vampires out there than he knows about.

The cops had even insisted on checking the attic, as if Chris was a bat they might find hanging upside down. That had been ridiculous, but it's not like Jake could say he knew better without being asked how he knew so much about them in the first place.

Oh, because we keep one like a stray fucking puppy. That wouldn't go over well.

He feels a little woozy from the adrenaline crash, and still aches from the bruised ribs where he was kicked around. His mouth aches from the duct tape they'd put over it, and he'd got a hell of a rash starting around his wrists. He's so exhausted he might collapse.

But... Chris really did show up right on time, and maybe saved his life.

Chris pulls Jake's wrist to his face, nuzzles into the inside of it against the pale blue veins that show through the thin skin. Jake shudders at the feeling, swallowing back a low-level disgust.

He wonders how old the teenager really is - he wonders that all the time.

"You c-can have my teeth, after," Chris whispers, lips moving against Jake's skin. "You can keep them. Sir used to, to, to keep them in a box and show m-me. Just, please, please help me feel better, Jake, please... It won't hurt."

Jake closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. "If it'll help... fine. But I'm not taking your teeth. They're yours."

"Thank you," Chris breathes out. "That's, that's, that's okay. I can still fix it for you. Thank you, Jake." His fangs slip back into Jake's skin as easily as a heated knife through warm butter.

The venom hits his bloodstream before the pain hits his nerves, and Jake feels himself slump over, head falling onto Chris's shoulder as all his limbs go dead.

It almost feels good, as his ribs stop aching, and the bruises stop throbbing on his skin. He can see why rich people love it as a party drug. You could drift in this place of perfect no-pain for a long, long time.

He feels only the wet movement of Chris's tongue, the shift of his fangs, the soft pressure of the other teeth pushing down. Chris purrs softly, drinking his blood like a kitten lapping milk.

It goes on and on, and for one terrifying second Jake thinks he's not going to stop until he's dead.

"Ch-... Chris-"

Those fangs slip suddenly out of his skin, the wet cool tongue licks rough over his wounds - closing them instantly.

The venom slowly fades, the aches and pains settling back into his body. Jake groans, feeling weak and exhausted.

Chris has to push him up off his shoulder, with unnatural strength moving him to lay on his side on the bed. Jake can barely keep his eyes open.

Chris, leaning over him, could rip his throat out and he couldn't even raise a hand to try and defend himself right now. Jake sees the body of the first dead robber behind his eyelids, the expression of horror written in eternal rictus in his expression, the blood down his shirt and puddled beneath him on the floor. The other man, fighting until he stopped, slumping until Chris had drained him to death.

"I feel better," Chris whispers, kneading at Jake's shirt briefly. "I, I, I feel so much better. Go to, um, go to sleep, Jake. I'll fix it so you're safe."

Jake can't even begin to understand what that means before he's already slid into something more like unconsciousness than actual sleep. The world around him simply goes black, and the last thing he feels is Chris pulling a blanket up to his chin.

The last thing he hears is those soft padding footsteps leaving the room.

When he wakes, he finds two fangs, pristine white with bloodied roots, sitting in a washcloth next to where his head lays on the pillow. he finds a pair of small pliers on the bathroom sink, with droplets of red around them.

The sun is shining outside the window, a bird singing loud enough to drive a drillbit into his head, and Chris is curled up asleep in the dark at the back of a closet, mouth slightly open.

Jake stares down at the empty spots where his fangs should be, and wonders if he's grateful, or horrified.

-

@burtlederp @finder-of-rings @endless-whump @astrobly @newandfiguringitout @doveotions @pretty-face-breaker @gonna-feel-that-tomorrow @boxboysandotherwhump @oops-its-whump @cubeswhump @whump-tr0pes @downriver914 @whumptywhumpdump @whumpiary @orchidscript @nonsensical-whump @outofangband

[thesightstoshowyou]

Thomas Hewitt x F Reader (NSFW)

Summary: Hoyt issues an ultimatum and Thomas is the perfect gentleman.

Warnings: Dubcon, “fuck or die,” blood, gore, swearing, fingering, creampie, manipulative reader

 ~~~

             The surface beneath you is cold and hard, like steel left to sit in a dark room. This is the first thing you notice when you wake. Next comes stronger sensation: Pounding headache, sweat sliding down your face, your chest, aching muscles, burning knees. Then comes sound. You hear talking, but it sounds as though your ears are stuffed with cotton or the speaker is three rooms over.

             Your fingers twitch. You can move them, at least. That’s a start.

             “And I can see why! Look at those legs!”

             The volume turns on all at once and you flinch. It’s a man speaking. He’s close, and loud. A heavy thwack follows his words.

             “I woulda kept a pretty thing like that too. Can’t blame ya for that, Tommy.” The man’s tone is condescending. He sounds as if he is speaking to a child. You don’t even know who he is but you already dislike him.

             Your forehead head feels wet and sticky. Sweat? No, its thicker than that.

             “Tell you what, Tommy. I’m feelin’ generous today, what with this bountiful harvest. I’ll let ya’ have a go at her, huh?”

             You swallow thickly. Is he talking about…you? Sloshing water, another noisy thwack. Blood pumps furiously in your ears.

             “You ever did that to a girl, Tommy? Huh?” Laughter. Thwack, THWACK.

             You’re beginning to feel pity for this ‘Tommy.’ It takes monumental effort to crack your eyes open. For a second, you panic. Your vision is halved. You can’t see out of your left eye. Then, you wipe your face across the back of your hand, clearing your eye of the blood caked into your eyelashes. That explains the sticky feeling. What happened?

             “Oh, look-y there! Here’s yer chance!”

             Your head feeling as though it weighs a thousand pounds, you lift it and glance around. The room spins. You snap your eyes closed once more, waiting for everything to right itself. When you open them again, it takes a moment for everything to come into focus.

             You’re in a poorly lit room, like a cellar. The dirt floor is flooded, a few inches of murky water covering most of the floor. Seated on a rickety wooden table directly in front of you is an ancient sewing machine. Along the cracked and chipped walls are dusty shelves filled with dingy bottles. The whole room smells musty, air thick with humidity and something rancid, like old meat. Glancing down, you find yourself on a rusty metal table stained with—

              Movement pulls your attention to a man standing near your feet, hands on his hips. He is dressed like a sheriff and he’s leering at you. Something is tugging at the back of your mind, a memory, something urgent. It’s about the sheriff, but try as you might, you can’t bring it to the surface.

             “What’dya think of that, girlie? Wanna give ol’ Tommy a try?” You flinch away when the sheriff squeezes your calf. There’s red splattered across the front of his uniform. You hope it’s paint but instinct tells you its not.

             “Where am I?” Your words are slurred, your dry tongue thick in your mouth.

             “Bonked yer noggin real good, didn’t I?” The sheriff says with a harsh laugh. You focus on his face, on his dark eyes and his cruel lips pulled back in a sneer over yellowed teeth.

              Another noisy thwack makes you crane your neck to look behind you. Instantly, you wish you hadn’t. There’s another man there, his back to you. Tommy. His shoulder length hair is dark and his shirt, wet with sweat, clings to his broad shoulders. He’s huge, menacing even when he’s not looking at you. He’s hacking away at a mangled body, suspended in the air by chains and missing several limbs.

              Chainsaw. Screaming. Shredded flesh. SMACK goes the shotgun butt to your head.

               Memory returns like a punch in the gut and you suck in air through your teeth. You recoil, clawing at the edge of the table to pull yourself away from the monster behind you. These murderers, these animals killed…oh god, your friends…oh god, Annie….

                The scream is out of your throat before you register it’s coming. You shriek and cry, scrambling across the table toward the stairs behind you, but you’ve forgotten about the sheriff. One of his hands finds your hair, the other gripping your jaw roughly to hold you in place.

                 You writhe in his grip, but freeze when Tommy finally turns around. He wears a leather mask over the bottom half of his face. His eyes are hidden under his brow, too hard to see in the poorly lit room. You whimper, sweaty hair sticking to your tear streaked cheeks, heart hammering against your ribs.

               “Honeymoon’s over, huh?” Another mean laugh and the sheriff wiggles your head playfully back and forth, “Who’ll it be, Tommy? You or me?”

                You sob, the real reason you were kept alive now out in the open. Panic rises and you grasp his wrists, attempting to wrench yourself free. The sheriff grunts, squeezing your jaw painfully in retaliation.

               “Ya’ like that, honey? Wanna give Sheriff Hoyt a taste?” His breath reeks of stale chewing tobacco when he breaths out across your face.

             The loud clang from across the room startles you both. Tommy has set his cleaver down hard on a nearby table. He’s facing away from you again, his shoulders rising and falling in heavy breaths.

             “Weh-hell, Thomas Brown Hewitt! If I didn’t know any better, I’d say yer jealous!”

             You blink. Panic subsides, replaced by rational thought. The gears in your head whirl at top speed. Maybe this isn’t the end for you, not just yet. A plan drops into place.

             If Hoyt—if that’s really his name—gets his way, he will fuck you, kill you, and that will be that. But Thomas…. You bet that mask he’s wearing is hiding something, maybe a deformity, maybe something else. You’ll also guess not many people have been kind to him throughout his life. People are cruel and if you don’t look normal, most are quick to point it out. Perhaps, if you can win Thomas over, you’ll have a chance at survival. Who would dare challenge a chainsaw-wielding behemoth?

             It’s a gamble, sure, but it’s a gamble you must make.

             “Alright boy, alright.” Hoyt relents, releasing your head and standing up straight. “I’ll give ya’ twenty minutes. If she’s still dressed by the time I get back, I’m putting my foot down.” He laughs, long and loud as he turns and stomps up the stairs. You’re glad to see him go, but now you’re alone with Thomas.

             He still isn’t looking at you. He hasn’t spoken a word this entire time either. Maybe he can’t. You might just have to do the talking for him.

             You close your eyes and inhale slowly, steeling yourself. You push down the revulsion and fear and grief, shoving them deep in your heart to be revisited later. You must be calm. This is your only option.

             “Um, Tommy?” You try, keeping your voice as level as you can. You swallow to lend moisture to your dry throat. “Is…is it okay if I call you Tommy?” Thomas half turns, glancing at you over his shoulder and giving a curt nod. You scoot to the edge of the table and let your legs dangle over the side, hiking your dress up as discreetly as you can.

             “Um. The…the sheriff…Hoyt…. He didn’t really give us much time. Um, if it’s…I mean, I know I’m not—not in charge here, but…if it was up to me, I would…I, um, would want it to be y-you.” You glance up at him under your eyelashes, dipping your shoulder so the strap of your dress slips down your arm.

             Thomas turns further toward you, staring. You wish you could see his eyes through the gloom or know what he’s thinking. Did you guess wrong? Is he going to pick up that cleaver and bury it in your skull for your trouble? Desperately, you will your racing heart to be calm.

             Finally, he looks away. Reaching behind him, he unties his gore-soaked apron, lifting it over his head and draping it on a shelf. He begins to move toward you but pauses, turning quickly and plunging his hands into a bucket of water near the corpse dangling from the ceiling like a macabre marionette. Hastily, he scrubs his palms and fingernails. Seemingly satisfied, he wipes them on a dirty rag before turning back to you.

             Cautiously he approaches, like you’ll spook and run if he moves too quickly. He might be right. When he’s close enough for you to reach out and touch him, he stops, hands moving to his pockets, then behind him, then in front of him again. He’s nervous. He’s never done this before, you realize. That thought is almost a relief. Almost.

             You meet his gaze. His eyes are dark blue, deep and expressive. You can see his hesitance in his eyes and his body language, in the way he’s almost half turned away, as though he might run instead.

             You bite your lip and reach for his hand. Your trembling fingers close around his and you pull him closer. He lets you tow him, helplessly, until he’s standing between your legs. This close, you can smell him; sweat, coppery like blood, and something pine scented, like cleaner or cheap soap.

You place his palm on your bare knee. Christ, his hands are enormous, palms and fingertips calloused and rough against your sweaty skin. You’re sure he could crush your knee like a soda can with just one firm grasp.

             He doesn’t move, simply staring at the hand on your leg like he can’t believe this is happening. A twinge of annoyance burns under the fear. You don’t have time for this. Hoyt could come back at any minute.

             You reach under your dress, hooking your fingers in your panties before dragging them down your legs. Thomas jerks his hand away like your skin has burned him, awkwardly clasping and unclasping his fingers as you set the garment on the table next to you. Again, you reach for his hand, pulling him back, scooting closer to him until you can feel the heat from his body between your spread legs.

             This time, you guide his palm up the expanse of your thigh, under your dress. He sucks in a breath when you press his fingers to your cunt. You meet his gaze again and find him searching your face. He’s looking for something, maybe fear, or disgust, something….

             “It’s—it’s okay, Tommy,” you whisper, voice quivering, “Touch me, please.”

             He does, slowly, gingerly. His thick fingers explore the skin at the apex of your thighs, then trace between your lips, learning you. You’re sure it’s unintentional when he teases your opening before moving higher. You can’t stop the shaky gasp that slips from your trembling lips when he brushes against your clit.

             Thomas, ever observant, does it again, then applies more pressure, circling the calloused pad of his thumb around the sensitive bud. Your eyelids flutter and, unbidden, your hips buck into his hand. All the while Thomas stares, hardly blinking, watching for your reactions.

             Heat curls through your gut, surprising you, at Tommy’s ministrations. He keeps a steady, maddening pace that soon has slick leaking from your neglected cunt. Half-whimpers climb up out of your throat, barely contained behind your teeth.

             Thomas eases up and you’re almost disappointed, but then his fingers slip down your slit to find your soaked entrance once more. Testing, searching, he pushes a finger past your folds, slipping into you. Another gasp tumbles from your mouth. Just his finger, thick as it is, is almost enough.

             You grasp his forearm, urging him to move his hand. He catches on quickly and soon he’s pumping his finger in and out of you. Pleasure blooms through your core and you grind your hips down into his hand.

             “Tommy, can—can you use another finger, please, I need—

             You choke on a moan when he wastes no time in obliging, slipping another finger in next to the first. This is ridiculous, you think deliriously. You’re not sure you’ve ever been this wet before. You can feel it dripping down your thighs to pool under your ass and into Tommy’s palm.

             The coil of lust within you tightens and you realize with shock that you’re going to cum. This huge, deranged murderer is going to make you cum on his fingers. And you’re not going to help him.

             You rock your hips once, twice and then stars explode behind your eyes, knees clamping shut around his arm. Thomas groans above you, his other hand wrapping around the back of your neck, keeping you seated on his fingers when you try to pull away.

             Are you sure he hasn’t done this before?

             You pant and shudder, finally peeling your eyes open to meet Thomas’ heated gaze. His own chest heaves, the hand on your neck shaking. You swallow, intimidated by him all over again. You think he might bore a hole through your head with his gaze alone. Does he look at all his victims like this?

             You shake your head, ridding yourself of your tumultuous thoughts. You have no idea how much time you have left. Hurry, you must hurry.

             Thomas must be thinking the same thing because he gently pulls his fingers from your heat. They drip, little droplets splashing into the water covering his boots. He releases your neck to adjust himself and your eyes fall to the sizeable bulge in his pants.

             It’s your turn to watch his face as you reach out and unbuckle his belt. Slowly, you pop the button, slide the zipper. He releases a shaky exhale when you run your thumb along the long length of the overheated cock hiding behind his briefs.

             “Oh fuck,” you whisper when you free him from his underwear. Of course, his cock is huge just like the rest of him; girthy, long, one massive vein running along the underside. You’re unsure if you can handle him.

             Thomas frowns at your words, but you’re quick to reassure him, “I’m sorry, I’m just…you’re, uh, really big so I was just, um….” Your words trail off into nervous laughter, “Will you go slow?” you plead, tears pricking at the corners of your eyes.

             Thomas nods earnestly, reaching out as if he is going to cup your face. He pauses, fingers inches from your cheek, and the hand withdraws, settling nervously next to your hip. You take another deep breath. No time, no time.

             You scoot forward, spreading your thighs wide to accommodate his hips. You grip him, hard and hot under your palm, and guide him to your slick entrance. Thomas tenses when you hook your leg around his hip, using it to ease him toward you.

             Sweat beads along your forehead as he inches forward, taking the lead once you release him and lean back on your palms to brace yourself. Thomas grips your hips with shaking hands, pulling you forward, stuffing you full with his cock.

             The uncomfortable stretch is there, certainly, quivering muscles straining around Tommy’s generous girth, but your slickness eases the passage and you feel warm pleasure winning out over pain. Before long, he’s fully seated within you, his haggard breaths washing over your sweaty forehead.

             Thomas moves and you gasp, one hand flying to grip the front of his shirt. The drag of his cock along your overstuffed walls is unreal. You sigh, biting your lip in a futile attempt to keep the embarrassing sounds safely in your mouth.

             A strained groan leaves Tommy and he jerks his hips forward, wrenching a surprised mewl from your own mouth. That noise, or the way you clench around him must destroy his resolve. The grip on your hips turns bruising and Thomas begins pounding into you with enthusiasm.

             All you can do is clap a hand over your mouth, your other hand white knuckled and braced against the table. Each harsh thrust sends a jolt of pleasure up through your gut, causing you to lose control of your words.

             “Please, please, pleasepleaseplease,” you chant, not even sure what you’re begging for, your mind hazy with desire. You can barely hear yourself over the noisy slap of skin against skin, the wet squelch of your battered cunt, and the creaking of the rusty table under you.

             Thomas trembles, his thighs tensing under yours. He grunts and you can tell from the sound that he’s gritting his teeth. He’s trying not to cum. How he’s lasted this long is beyond you, but he isn’t going to have to wait much longer.

             That tight coil has returned, burning hot pleasure zinging up your back and racing across your skin. Thomas moves one hand up your hip to dig his fingers into your waist. He’s so strong, so ruthless in the way he pulls you onto his cock. He could break your spine with little effort.

             The coil snaps and you cry out, your body tensing and arching. You grip Thomas’ shoulders for dear life, pleasure pulsing through you in powerful waves as tears spill down your cheeks. At the same moment, Thomas buries his cock as deep as he can, groaning and rutting against you as he fills you up. It sits warm in your belly before trickling down your ass to make an even bigger mess of the table beneath you.

             You pant together as though you’ve both just finished a marathon. You glance up to find Thomas studying you again, searching your eyes and face. This time, he does cup your cheek, rough thumb stroking your flushed skin. The action is so unexpectedly tender your breath hitches. The way he’s looking at you—

             The door at the top of the stairs bangs open and you nearly leap out of your skin. Thomas jerks away from you to quickly button up his slacks. You reach for your underwear but don’t have a chance to put them on before Thomas scoops you into his arms, cradling you protectively against his broad chest.

             “Well, well, well, what have you lovebirds been up to?”

             You don’t hear Hoyt’s antagonizing question. You don’t hear anything but the blood pumping in your ears and your own ragged breathing. The way Thomas is holding you, gripping your flesh like his life depends on it, your cunt dripping with his cum, you know.

             You know he’s never going to let you go.

[pine-lark]

Ooh trap him somewhere either very hot or very cold?? :D

Oh.

Oh.

This is a perfect excuse to write an old daydream from my childhood. Well, there's two-- Arion on a grill and Arion in a box. I chose the box for this one but I may be tempted to write the grill at some point. I haven't written The Box before now because it doesn't exactly... fit with the plot of the actual story, but I mean...

Alternate Rescue AU, coming right up, Anon. (Also sorry I'm like, infinitely late haha. School threw me into a hell pit and I've been recovering. I'm back now ((though I'm not sure for how long, things might change in a week or two... we'll see.)) For now, I'm working on a lot of Arion stuff that will hopefully pop up within a few days! Cheers!)

CW: Tiny whumpee, some blood, cold/hypothermia symptoms (duh), cages/referenced captivity, briefly implied forced nudity from said captivity, brief reference to a past fever and resulting vomiting, referenced/implied physical abuse, water/rain/storms/being submerged in/splashed with water, thoughts of dying (of the "I might die" and "Am I dead?" and wishing to be put out of misery type), crying, (thinking about) needles, short (kind of) graphic description of a bird being run over, brief religion references

-

His legs still ache from running.

Arion sits in the cardboard box he found on the side of the road, huddled in the corner, shivering in the dark. Although he tries to clamp his jaw shut and stop it, his teeth chatter and his shoulders quiver. It feels like the frozen autumn air has grasped him entirely in icy claws that shake him violently in an inescapable grip. It reminds him of being trapped in Heston’s hand, shaken, body tossed in every direction until his head pounded and his eyes watered.

It’s colder outside than it used to be in the garage. But it’s better out here. No one can hurt him here.

As long as they don’t find him.

He rubs his hands over the goosebumps on his arms, hoping to warm them up and calm down the wild pain buried deep in his skin. As he does so, blood smears along the path he touches. It’s still gently creeping out of the series of cuts etched into his forearms. With it, the image of Heston’s glinting eyes surfaces in Arion’s memory. He buries his head in his shaking knees with a wet sniff. But he’s done it, he reminds himself. He’s escaped. Finally. Chewed through rope, slipped through an unlocked door. Heston's gone. For now.

Please, please don’t come looking for me.

A dog barks somewhere in the distance. He jumps. It sets off an echo of shivers all the way down his spine as his hair stands on end.

A raindrop falls on the cardboard roof. Then another, and another. Thunder claps harshly overhead.

Arion shuts his eyes tight, bites back the frustrated tears welling up at the corners of his eyes. He curls up tighter, hugging himself, doing all he can to keep any scrap of heat he has close to his body. A storm might just do it. Might just kill him. A storm means wind. Freezing wind. And freezing rain. The last thing he needs right now is rain. It can’t rain. He presses his body closer to the cardboard wall, knowing it might not be standing there much longer if it rains.

And it does. It pours.

He sees the rain splash into the road before him. The storm swiftly grows. It’s ferocious and feral and cruel. The temperature around Arion drops. His tiny body shakes uncontrollably, as if it weren’t his own. It reminds him of the terrifying fever he had, long ago, in the confines of his red cage just weeks after being taken from his home. He’d been throwing up and twitching and having the most horrible, vivid dreams (on the occasions that both Heston and the illness let him sleep). The fits of shivering drove him mad, the endless teeth-chattering and flashes of uncomfortable warmth and sticky sweat made him feel even worse. It's like that, he thinks. Except, now, as he shivers, he’s unbearably cold.

An involuntary whine fights its way out of him. When he swallows, his throat feels stiff and achy. Snot runs profusely down his lips and no amount of wiping it away with his bleeding arms is helping it slow. Water has thoroughly and entirely drenched the cardboard, at this point. Has crept through the floor and the walls, and, gradually and persistently, has started to drip through the sagging ceiling. For a moment, Arion remembers he has toes, and that they’ve been numb for awhile now. Actually, now that he’s thinking about it, his feet haven’t felt like anything either, and when he tries to move his fingers, they only twitch. They feel heavy and prickly. He feels prickly all over. Like Heston had shoved a thousand frozen needles into a thousand different places all over his body. It hurts to breathe. There’s no way to get warmer. Nothing to hide under, not even something as decent as clothing. No way to escape, nowhere to run to, even if he had the energy left to try. He lets out a miserable sob.

And then the ceiling falls through, in a blur of collapsing cardboard and splashing waves of water that crash over his head and the rest of his body.

Arion tumbles out of the box, drenched. He coughs up water through jittery movements. For a second, he chokes on a mouthful, and he briefly he thinks he'll never breathe again, before his chest jerks and with another cough, the water falls out of his mouth. He tries to get his arms and legs under him, to stand or even crawl, but his limbs fail him and he crumbles face-first back to the harsh surface below him. The rocks mixed in the road’s tar are sharp. They cut deeply through his nose and cheek and the shoulder that followed his face in the fall. Arion winces against the fresh, sharp pain and the beads of blood that begin to form where he’s been hurt. His breaths come in ragged heaves.

He sniffs. Tears drip from his eyes. He lays helpless in the middle of the little road, in his mind begging to no one that a car doesn’t come along and crush him. Under any other circumstance, he’d love to be put out of his misery. But he’s seen a bird been run over before. Under a truck’s tire. And the memory makes his stomach churn. Flattened face, open stomach, popped like a bubble in a stream.

Briefly, Arion thinks of himself in place of the bird. He thinks of the smear of red underneath his empty, open eyes. He thinks of the way the headlights might look as they would suddenly appear right in front of him. The horrid, mind-numbing honk of a horn. The image he creates in his mind of those headlights, his last moments, is vivid. It’s so vivid that he thinks it might be real, or maybe hypothermia is setting in and beginning to ruin his mind.

It’s just his imagination, he thinks.

And then he smells exhaust from a car.

And the screech of brakes.

And for a second, whilst his body is numb and bright white light is all he can see, he thinks he might be dead.

“I swear, if I keep stopping my car for every mouse that sits in front of it, I’m never going to get anywhere.”

That voice drifts from the car stopped in front of him.

Not dead, then.

Almost, he thinks.

“Can’t help it though. What else am I supposed to do, run them over? Just vet instincts, I guess. Huh, Jasper.” There’s a meow in response. Arion’s breath hitches. The voice says, “Me-ow. I know, I know. I’ll be right back.” A car door shuts. Then there’s heavy wet footsteps. Boots clopping over puddles and asphalt. Panic floods Arion’s chest as a shadow cuts through the blinding white light from the vehicle. The outline of a human lowers, kneels in front of him. His breath stops. His mind goes blank.

“What…”

A moment passes. Something touches him. He flinches hard, but trying to run isn’t an option. His body is completely, entirely, wholly exhausted and far too numb to move more than flailing back a couple inches.

“Oh, geez, that’s-- not a mouse. Okay.” Her head turns in a way that Arion can see her face. A young woman with red hair, watching him with a warm but frantic gaze. “Okay. Okay okay. Oh, God, you’re injured pretty bad, little buddy. Your arms are all… cut up. That’s not good. Um.”

Arion stares blankly ahead. Suddenly, freezing to death isn’t something he feels like putting too much effort into avoiding.

“Okay. Here’s what we’ll do,” the girl continues. “I’m gonna bring you into my car where I can see you better, alright? Then I can help you. It’s gonna be okay. Here. I’m picking you up now, ‘kay?”

The feeling of a warm hand washes over his body. It’s both terrifying and incredibly welcome. The sting of cold seems to seep out of his skin, albeit very slowly. Quickly, though, burning prickles replace whatever comfort the touch brought him.

“Oh, you’re freezing, little guy. You must have been out here for a long time. That can be really dangerous… I’m glad I found you. I’ll get you all warmed up in the car.”

Arion whimpers against the hands that carry him to somewhere warmer, where he hears the faint, deep sound of a large beating heart. For a second, he wonders if this is God. And then the car door opens and creaks, and the girl curses under her breath, and Arion remembers he’s an atheist.

Still, as the stinging in his warming skin subsides, the warmth of her hands starts to feel… nice. If his mind were still intact (instead of shattered into vague, useless fragments as it is now), Arion would have done anything and everything to get away from any human or other predatory beast in sight. But with his head swimming, he leans into her touch, and compliantly accepts the soft feeling of some kind of cloth being wrapped all around him.

Words are spoken to him, but he can’t listen. To him they sound broken up and blurry as the insistence of sleep becomes more desperate in the back of his mind. As he gets warmer, his muscles relax, and his eyes get droopy. His vision darkens, and the girl’s voice hushes.

Just before he drifts off into a far overdue, deep and restful sleep, he thinks to himself, vaguely, that he hopes this human is different. He hopes that when he wakes back up, it won’t be in another cage.

-

Tag list because this ended up being a full drabble:

(Also, let me know if you'd like to be removed from the tag list. No hurt feelings! I know it's been a long time and if you've lost interest that is A-Okay, friend)

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@whumping-every-day, @deluxewhump, @sola-whumping, @haro-whumps, @inaridriscoll, @whatwasmyprevioususername, @kiretto-laorentze, @just-a-whumping-racoon-with-wifi, @ahorriblebimess, @whump-me-all-night-long

[chockfullofsecrets]

Critical Role: Embarrassing and Undignified

(Read on AO3)

Rating: Gen

Summary: Caleb doesn’t smile much. It’s something he rather likes about the man, that he prefers to save his pleasure for that which is truly worth it - but there’s nothing else he can call the expression that briefly narrows those blue eyes. “Reacting like that in front of a friendly tiefling?” he says - teasing, almost, and Essek feels his stomach flip. “I am not so sure.”

Essek's time in the hot tub goes a little awry.

Wordcount: 3.3k

A/N: Fill for this anon prompt! (i’m so sorry for taking 2+ months to write this... i love Essek so much and he needs more tk content)

---

Essek is no stranger to being - unusual. He often welcomes it, really. Achieving a status such as his for the better part of a century comes with its fair share of eccentricities, his floating among them, and at this point hovering just above the rest of the Dynasty has become something of a favored routine.

And yet, it seems, the Nein have him beaten at every turn.

He had meant to take his leave directly after dinner, unsure of his place among Yasha’s solemn questions of loneliness and Beauregard’s transparent attempts to pry information from him and Jester’s threat to invoke a Zone of Truth for idle gossip -

(and the slight jealousy, he admits, if only to himself, of seeing Caleb, ambitious and focused and loved, among them - )

But. Lonely and friendless he is, as has been quite thoroughly pointed out to him through the evening, and he’s intrigued enough by the rarity of this hot tub to clamber up awkwardly onto the enclosing stone wall and dangle his feet into the water while his hosts bustle around and shuck off various pieces of clothing.

Caleb sits next to him, rolling his own pant legs crisply to the knee and lowering his feet in. “What do you think?”

He looks over - thank the Light, Caleb’s still wearing his shirt. “It’s - nice,” he says. He drags his toe through a slow stream of bubbles rising from what he assumes must be the hottest parts of the depths. “Unfamiliar, but quite impressive that you’ve constructed it on your own.”

Caleb raises an eyebrow. “The hot tub, or -” He traces a small circle with his index finger, encompassing himself and his companions. “- all of this?”

Decades of court experience well up unbidden on his tongue. “The compliment extends to you either way,” he offers smoothly.

Caleb squints at him, but before he can say anything more the rest of the Nein are joining them with pleased exclamations and a thoroughly distracting amount of splashing. Essek watches, bemused, as Jester flops in belly-first before even unbuckling the last clasp of her outergarments - she wrestles them off, finally, crumpling the dripping green cloak into a ball and flinging it away, and he winces on behalf of the fine Kryn fabric.

She looks around, eyes lighting on him, and her hands fly to her round cheeks with an excited gasp. “Essek! Your legs!”

Startled, he looks down - they seem quite normal, with his boots off and his neatly pressed trousers folded at the knee, if a little more purple than anyone else’s present. “I would prefer to keep my clothes dry, yes.”

She leans in, eyes wide. “Are they re-al?”

Light be with him - she’s hardly said anything, but he struggles not to flush under the scrutiny. “Ah, yes? Why should they not be?”

Just then, something brushes lightly over the sole of his foot - he startles, and -

His seat is well made, certainly, but not enough to stand up to the Nein’s shenanigans; as he recoils, his center of gravity shifts right off the narrow ledge and he’s tumbling backwards before he can do more than blink.

Light, if this is how he dies -

He flails for a solution - it’s been years, at least, since he’s done something so pedestrian as fall, and there are spells for this, certainly, but what he’s prepared for today is more showy fare, in case the Nein asked for a demonstration, why can’t he think -

A hand closes roughly around his bicep, then another around the opposite shoulder, and then he’s dangling from Caleb’s grip with his back nearly parallel to the floor - he reaches out too, panicked, and crumples the front of Caleb’s shirt in a death grip.

“Good reflexes,” he says, breathless. Blood pounds in his ears. Caleb stares down at him, blue eyes wide and jaw tight -

“Ooh, now kiss!” Jester hoots.

The rest of the Nein burst into laughter behind them. Caleb goes bright red and hurriedly turns away, looking over his shoulder. “One of you jokers come here and help me, please,” he chides, strained, “I am not the muscle of this group.”

The tension in Caleb’s face becomes infinitely more explicable - finally capable of rational thought, Essek flicks his fingers and casts a weight-lightening cantrip just as another strong hand latches onto his knee and bodily tows him upright. Yasha nods at him, chest completely bare, and wades back to her corner as Veth pops up from nowhere with her long ears twitching maniacally. “I’m SO sorry,” she screeches, insistent far beyond the point of sincerity. “I brushed against your feet COMPLETELY ON ACCIDENT.”

“VERY ACCIDENTAL,” Jester agrees loudly. Next to her, Fjord winces.

Veth’s voice softens, then, as she pats him gingerly on the leg. “I didn’t think you would do that - are you okay?”

“It’s all right,” he says weakly. Her ears droop in what seems to be genuine relief - it is pointless to care, perhaps, but he feels better for having reassured her.

He sucks in a solid breath for what feels like the first time in minutes and turns to Caleb to thank him. There’s still a guarding hand resting warmly against his back - and worse still, he realizes belatedly that his own hand is still fisted in the buttons of Caleb’s shirt.

He snatches it hastily away, ears burning. “Ah, my apologies. I shall pay closer attention to gravity, for the rest of the night.”

Caleb doesn’t smile much. It’s something he rather likes about the man, that he prefers to save his pleasure for that which is truly worth it - but there’s nothing else he can call the expression that briefly narrows those blue eyes. “Reacting like that in front of a friendly tiefling?” he says - teasing, almost, and Essek feels his stomach flip. “I am not so sure.”

A friendly -

Surprised, he glances over at Jester and finds her wearing a smug expression that might not be out of place on Da’leth himself, if significantly sweeter. “E-ssek,” she wheedles, wide-eyed with delight, drawing every syllable to its maximum extent. “Are your feet like, super ticklish?”

Essek blinks - ticklish? But he hasn’t - really, he can’t remember the last time he might have known. As a child, perhaps, when Verin used to tempt him into playing by tackling him straight off his feet and -

Oh. Oh, dear.

At least that particular piece of evidence is decades out of date - a poor excuse to discard it, but he’s willing to compromise in the face of Jester’s ever-sharpening grin and the traitorously pleased squirm in the pit of his own stomach. “What? No, of course not, I was merely surprised-”

“You can be surprised and ticklish,” Jester corrects, skipping forward with a splash. Essek shirks back into Caleb’s hand, millimeters from tumbling off the ledge again, and she giggles. “And I’m pret-ty sure that you’re both.”

The hot tub, for all of its excellent qualities, is unfortunately not large enough to keep her at bay for longer than that. She reaches out as he’s still deciding which direction would be the best to flee in and scoops his ankle up in a grip like steel. “Ah-” he sputters. “I - Jester, wait-”

She drags a fingernail up the arch of his foot.

It feels like one of the few times while developing a lightning-based spell that he’d electrocuted himself - but the feeling doesn’t stop, shooting up his leg and tickling at his lungs too to make them shiver, and it’s silly, and he just -

He panics, jerks back against Caleb’s hand again, and in a moment of brash stupidity the animal instinct of his brain decides that the only safe place to hide is Caleb himself. He buries his face in Caleb’s side and grabs him around the waist just in time to shriek as Jester repeats the same lazy route up and down the sole of his foot, pausing only to scratch tingling patterns into his heel. “Tickle, tickle! Aw, guys, he’s so ticklish, look at how much he’s laughing!”

The fabric of Caleb’s shirt isn’t much of a barrier to Jester’s teasing - or to his own ticklish laughter, embarrassingly high-pitched and loud in a way that makes his whole face heat with shame - but at least they can’t see him blush.

Caleb jumps a little as Essek latches onto him, but his hand stays put, stabilizing, and starts to rub gentle circles on his back as Essek dissolves into cackling at another spidering assault on his arch. “Jester, please be gentle,” he says, amused. “I am not sure that is a good idea.”

Essek’s not sure how he feels either. It’s terribly embarrassing, and undignified, and if this was happening in front of any other being in the Dynasty he would have to learn some sort of memory erasure spell, but - the Nein have never cared for his layers upon layers of decorum anyway, have they, always prying for indignation and confusion and warmth that he’s not certain he even possesses.

Caught between Jester and Caleb and a vat of hot water, with the rest of the Nein making relatively amused noises behind him, he doesn’t think he’s ever felt warmer.

Jester just laughs. “I’m barely doing anything!” she teases, shaking Essek’s leg lightly. “He’s just so sensitive - oh, Essek, is it ‘cause you never walk anywhere? Is that why your feet are so soft and tickly?”

He’s giddy, even with the sudden reprieve, giggling too hard to speak. “I - ha - I dohon’t - ehe-”

“Of course it is,” Beauregard says smugly from a distance that seems far too close, “waving all those secrets and magic over our heads and he’s hoisted on his own fuckin’ petard-”

“What’s that?” Caduceus asks. Essek vaguely remembers the term to describe some sort of bomb, but Jester chooses that moment to send her mischievous fingers exploring under his fucking toes and it tickles like absolute hell. He shrieks even louder than before, if such a thing were possible, and makes a solid attempt to burrow his way straight into Caleb’s ribcage as his entire leg jolts in involuntary protest. No amount of desperate attempts to flex or curl his foot make the sensation any more bearable - it’s like the sucking feeling of a Teleport spell, like everything inside him is unmoored and floating in a sea of mirth and the only way he can get any of it out is to scream.

His cheeks hurt and he realizes, suddenly, that he’s beaming.

Jester cackles. “Come get his other foot, Beau,” she urges, easing off to just pinch his big toe between two fingers and wiggle it. “He totally loves it, he’s not even kicking-”

“Uh-huh,” Beauregard says, and there’s another splash. “Maybe I will.”

Caleb’s still rubbing his back - he stops, briefly, and from his huddled position Essek feels that Beauregard has jostled his other side on her way past. “His feet might be worse than yours,” she murmurs. He can hear the grin in her voice. “Better hope Jes doesn’t remember and go after you next.”

“Don’t remind her,” Caleb says, strangled. It’s remarkably friendly for Beauregard, though, and Essek is once again caught up in the paradox of this little group - merciless but fiercely protective, reluctant but trusting. It’s hard to be regretful - or wistful, maybe, one of those feelings that twinges in his chest every time he thinks of the Nein nowadays - with Jester tickling her way up the back of his bare calf and cooing over the way it makes him wriggle. But his heart, a traitor to the last, manages. There are so many secrets between them still.

Beauregard seizes his other ankle, hauling it up from the water, and he realizes for one terrible moment that if they were to, say, force him out of hiding and keep tickling, he might be inclined to spill some of them. “Scoot over, Jes,” Beauregard says, and there’s a squeak that, for once in the evening, doesn’t come from him. She chuckles. “Good thing he’s not trying to tickle you back, huh?”

He expects Jester to sputter and redirect her, as he would, but she sounds entirely unconcerned at the prospect. “Oh, Beau, do you want to have a tickle fight? We totally could, after this-”

“No,” she says, not entirely drowning out the little panicked noise that Caleb makes. “Not the kind of wrestling I want to do when half of us aren’t wearing shirts, if you know what I mean-”

“Beau!” Jester shrieks, giggling. Fjord groans loudly from the other side of the hot tub, and Essek, still squirming, is very sure that he’s blushing enough for it to show on the back of his neck, under his high collar. “Who do you want to wrestle with? Is it Yasha-”

“Yeah, yeah, okay, moving on.” Beauregard interrupts hastily. There’s a popping noise that takes a second for Essek to place as her cracking her knuckles. “Hey, Essek - you think you’d trade another favor to get us to stop?”

Essek flails for something resembling a complete sentence as Jester’s fingers curl teasingly behind one of his knees. “Nngh - heh-”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought.” She squeezes the back of his other knee, barks out a laugh as he jumps. “Jes, stop messing around, let’s get his feet.”

That makes him kick, but at this point his entire lower half is restrained - all he can do is take one last breath before fingertips are scribbling over both his soles and he’s cackling so forcefully that his laughter peaks into agonized wheezing with each fresh gulp of air. “Hhh - ha - ahahaaaa, hA -”

Caleb shifts a little, bending until one of the strands that always hang stubbornly loose from where he ties his hair back brushes the tip of Essek’s burning ear. Essek shivers. “You can tell them to stop, you know,” he murmurs.

Essek’s almost entirely sure that he’s crying into Caleb’s shirt, tears leaking from squeezed-shut eyes as Beauregard and Jester torment his feet, but Caleb seems - fond, oddly - as he starts to rub his back again. “They’re not trying to be cruel - I believe they’re just excited that you’ve. Ah. Lowered yourself to our level, perhaps.”

And what level is that, Essek wants to ask, suddenly conjuring a mental image of Caleb in the same throes of helpless laughter. But he’s barely capable of that, as he’s currently dying, so he just tightens his grip on Caleb and shakes his head. He can barely even register Jester and Beauregard’s teasing anymore - he doesn’t think he can speak right now without embarrassing himself even more if he tried.

“Fuck, alright,” Fjord says abruptly from somewhere miles away, “I think he’s actually crying now, the Dynasty is going to have our heads if we break him.”

“He wouldn’t let them, he’s our friend,” Jester trills, but she does stop tickling, ghosting a hand up over his heaving shoulders to pat him gently on the head. “His ears are really purple though, like magenta purple, I think he’s blushing.”

For some reason - perhaps because he can finally think - it strikes him, fighting through the warm and pleasantly tingling haze of being touched and gentled back into himself, that as much as the casual label of friend pleases him he cannot afford this kind of vulnerability.

“Or suffocating,” Beauregard says a moment later, dropping his foot unceremoniously back into the water. “Thelyss? You alive in there?”

And, a beat later, when he doesn’t reply - “Are you just, like, smelling Caleb now?”

“Gross,” Veth squawks. “Get him off, get him off!”

Caleb smells quite pleasant, actually, but that’s not the point - his self-awareness is slowly trickling back in as he remembers who and where he is, and what he’s done to the Nein, and now they’ve broken him and he would rather die than look any of them in the eye for the next year.

Caleb pats his back. “Come on, friend, chin up.”

And he’s right, Essek can’t afford to cling to this veneer of comfort any longer - but to his immediate and eternal shame, he whines and nuzzles further into Caleb’s ribs. Just a moment to gather his wits, maybe, and he’ll be able to Misty Step to the front door and don his mantle-

“No? Alright, then - I’ll go to work too, if I have to.”

The hand on his back lifts away and walks itself on two prodding fingers neatly up under Essek’s arm, gently wriggling into the hollow until he can’t bear to keep his arms up any longer. “Nnn, hnn! - eheh, thahat’s - enough, please-”

It’s. It’s not, is the problem - he tries to stir up anger, distaste, but there’s only fear. He would deal with this indignity again, suffer it gladly, even, just to have them speak to him kindly. It’s new, and terrifying, and he needs to think it over alone with a generous glass of wine in his tower.

He shrinks back in on himself, still snickering at the tickling under his arms, and Caleb takes the opportunity to grab him neatly by the shoulders and sit him back up - Essek catches a glimpse of his blue eyes shining with rare merriment and promptly swivels to look away from all of them. No one stops him as he rolls his pant legs down and shoves his feet into his boots, heedless of the damp. He can feel their curious gazes prickle on the back of his neck - shifting into an unconscious competence that’s carried him through many anxieties before, he’s already floating off the ground before he can remind himself otherwise. “I’m going to go now,” he says, rushed, still too terrified to turn his head. “Thank you, I -”

“Essek, wait!” Jester says, confused, and Beau scoffs, and he’s not going to think about how he can recognize their voices without even seeing them, he’s not -

Yasha’s voice, at last, breaks through the hubbub, and it’s only in deference to their conversation before dinner that he pauses to listen.

“Hey,” she says, quiet and certain enough to shake him. “You said that you’re lonely, right?”

The noise fades away. He inches down to the ground with it. “Recently, yes,” he replies, just above a whisper, fighting to keep his voice steady with the enormity of this, this feeling -

“I didn’t say so before,” she continues, perfectly calm, “but it’s a little scary, right? To not be so lonely, anymore.”

Essek says nothing - he knows, without the mantle, that they can all see the slight tremble of his shoulders.

“Go away, then,” she says confidently, and then, hastily, “oh, no, that’s not right -”

“Yasha,” Jester squeaks, horrified, and Essek, to his own surprise, laughs. More of a chuckle, really, but. That’s a relief, after all this.

He can place her roughly in the rightmost corner of the hot tub, turns just enough to catch her heterochromatic gaze in his periphery. Her mouth drops slightly open before she gathers herself. “I just, I meant -” She inhales nervously. “I used to leave all the time, to go do - things - and come back when I was ready. You can do that too, if you want, we won’t mind, as long as you come back. And the tickling - we’re all ticklish, you don’t have to feel bad about it - ah, maybe someone else should say something.”

Caduceus pats her shoulder. “Nah, that was pretty good.”

Essek agrees, despite his better judgment. He rolls his shoulders, forcing them loose. “No, no, that’s - helpful,” he assures, and then, taking a deep breath and praying that his cheeks have cooled, he turns to look at them all. “I am to show you my abode tomorrow, yes?”

Caleb looks extraordinarily stressed. “Ah, you don’t have to, if you would rather-”

Beau punches him in the shoulder harshly enough to make him wince. “Yes.”

“Yes, and breakfast pastries!” Jester cheers, clapping her hands together - he’ll have to talk to his staff tonight.

“Until tomorrow, then,” he says, and spares only a brief smile before casting Misty Step to take him to the door and then again to the street.

He’s not quite ready to lose all his dignity, yet.

[equestrianwritingsstuff]

Promise Status, Broken

Warnings: fake death, blood, taking shirt off, drugging, hospital setting, needles,conditioned response, mention of torture

He plunged the knife into Hero's abdomen and pressed. He pressed until the hilt was hardly visible under the layer of blood that pooled around the open wound. He pressed until Hero's stuttering breaths stopped.

And he let the dead body fall to the ground with a thump. Villain put his boot onto Hero's dull face and kicked. She didn't deserve kindness, dead or alive. Villain pulled the knife out.

Suddenly, the dark shed that he committed the long overdue murder was infiltrated by an eerie white glow.

"Hero," came a breathless gasp. Then the shocked voice changed into a professional order, "Hands up where I can see them!" A gun clicked.

Villain slowly turned around. His smug attitude and cockiness was apparent as he held the bloody knife deftly between his fingers. The blood dripped to the ground with a splatter.

"Drop the weapon," a young police officer yelled. "Drop it."

Villain smirked. The police officer was so tiny. Villain was muscular and very agile. He could've just tossed the knife and mortally wound the officer if it wasn't for the sudden flash of white in the back of his head.

Villain collasped forward, falling onto his side. He blinked, trying to dispel the dizziness and stars. The dark room seemed even darker like a black abyss. The moonlight he saw earlier was all muddled into a blob.

Through his swimming vision, Villain saw the young police officer swoop down to pluck the prey off the ground. He cradled Villain's lolling head with a fake concerned look on his face. Villain blinked, squinted, did everything in his power to focus on the young face.

The officer must've realized Villain's effort because he said, "Do you know who I am?" Villain shook his head. To him, it was an effort, an effort that cost the room to tilt and Villain to sway. But in reality, it was the weakest thing.

"Recognize me now?" The officer said in a deeper voice. Villain's brain very slowly placed the voice with the face of Hero's sidekick.

"Sidekick," he murmured, his voice barely above a whisper.

"Good boy," Sidekick rubbed the side of Villain's head. It sent a new flare of heated pain through his body, centering on his head. Villain tried to jerk himself away, managing to break free of Sidekick's grasp. The only thing it added up to, however, was two more arms catching him before he toppled to the ground.

"Dizzy?" Sidekick said in a babyish tone. Villain didn't answer. Everything burned and ached and it was getting harder and harder to stay conscious.

"You just murdered Hero, Villain, why?" Sidekick asked.

Villain's cognitive skills weren't one hundred percent, so his tongue spoke before his damaged mind had a chance to catch up.

"P-promise... m' status... broken," Villain whispered. He just wanted to fall backwards and die. Oh, would that be sweet. But the arms supporting him kept him up and awake as nails dug into his skin. It was a new sensation, one Villain never experienced before. Nails into the skin.

Sidekick's once serious face turned into one of pure childish curiosity. "Walk," he sneered. "We are walking to the car."

Villain felt himself being lifted onto his feet. Then, he felt all of his weight relying on those two support beams. He swayed, determined to stay upright.

Dizziness once again ran its course as Villain stepped forward- one teetering step at a time. He let out a groan, and a moan, and a whimper, and a- the list goes on.

Villain did not remember stepping into the car. The second his body touched the seat, he was out. Sidekick had to move his head so that he wouldn't break his neck going over a bump. He sighed and stared sadly at the poor Villain's head. It was necessary, very necessary, or Hero wouldn't have been able to escape.

"Thank you," came a pained voice. Sidekick spun around to see Hero limping forward. She had her hand protectively covering a bruise on her stomach. Sidekick sighed in relief and embraced her. The extra padding and fake blood worked well.

"I should be thanking you," Sidekick laughed. "If you didn't hit him, I would be dead."

Hero's happy face contorted into a much more serious expression.

"Why did you make Villain walk like that?" She asked. It was very rude, and practically unnecessary. She couldn't help but think that Sidekick wanted to offend Villain. She glanced at the sleeping, limp figure in the back of the car. Villain's blood from a nasty gash that Hero caused with a metal bar, pooled around him. She grimaced in guilt.

"Hero?" Sidekick asked.

"You never answered my question," Hero snapped. She ignored the painful bruise and glared at her sidekick.

"If we didn't have that protection on, you would be dead," Sidekick defended himself.

Hero scoffed and said, "Don't make excuses for your actions. We both know that it wasn't his fault that he turned out like this."

"He could've control his emotions, turned to goodness, not anger," Sidekick pointed out and pursed his lips. "He's not the innocent one."

Hero closed her eyes shut for a moment, replaying a memory that haunted her for a long time.

"I promise to always be there for you," Hero told Villain as she hugged him under the stars when they were nineteen, three years ago.

"Promise?" Villain's sweet voice cracked, absent of the usual sarcasm. Of course, he wasn't a villain then.

"I promise."

The next week, Villain was kidnapped by Supervillain.

"Don't look for him Hero, he's as good as dead anyways," her sidekick told her. Sidekick always saw the practical side of everything, so Hero assumed he was right.

The next year, Hero stumbled upon a broken body in an alleyway. Her heart lurched as she examimed the countless injuries. Broken ribs and nose, bruises littered the torso and his lungs struggled to take a breath. Hero tentatively pushed the skinny arm of his face and she gasped in horror. It was Villain.

Villain was alive, not dead.

Hero didn't hesitate to lift Villain's severely underweight body up and bring him to a hospital. She sat by his bed until he woke up a couple days later. She was beyond exhaustion at this point, and was so relieved to see Villain conscious that she nearly broke down in tears.

But a small, weak voice stopped her emotions from letting loose.

"Promise status," Villain murmured, his eyes already closing. Hero didn't register the words right away, she just tried to shake Villain awake. "Broken," he finished his sentence. Only then did Hero realize the meaning. She never looked for Villain. She just left him for dead, assuming the worse. After Villain's eyes slid closed, she noticed how conditioned the sentence was. It wasn't even a complete sentence. More like a robot repeating its task over and over, "Cycle One, Complete. Cycle Two, Begin. Cycle One..."

Hero, knowing she really shouldn't, laid her head on the bed, too tired to stay awake anymore. She hated the way Villain spoke to her, but was ecstatic to know he could wake up. So she slept.

Maybe two hours later, she woke to Villain scrambling up in fear. All the monitors started screaming. Without thinking, Hero pressed the HELP button, which only added to the piercing noise.

"Villain, hey, hey," Hero tried to soothe, which only resulted in Villain jerking back so hard that the IV ripped from his arm. Blood splattered everywhere, but that was the least of Hero's worries. Villain's hands went up to his mouth, yanking the oxygen mask off. In one split second, the previous rage settled into a slight panic. His chest heaved, unable to breathe properly.

Shortly after, the nurses rushed in with a syringe that contained a clear liquid.

"What is that?" Hero asked, instinctively stepping between the nurse and the terrified Villain.

The nurse hesitated before replying, "We need to calm him down before he hurts himself and others. It's just a sedative."

Hero shakily stepped out of the way. She felt useless watching the nurse inject Villain with the needle. She felt useless seeing his eyes widen in fear.

After a few minutes, the wildness in Villain's eyes were replaced with a tired look. His muscles loosened and relaxed as his breathing deepened. Another nurse rushed in with an oxygen mask.

Very soon, Villain's eyelids slipped completely shut. Hero and the nurse slowly lowered him into the bed.

The nurse laid their hand on Hero's shoulder and squeezed sympathetically. When she left, Hero sunk down into her chair and took Villain's hand in her's. She brought her finger to the bandage that covered his wrist and rubbed it. She thought of how she just left him to suffer under Supervillain's wrath. It wasn't fair.

A horrid thought struck her. What if Villain wouldn't trust her anymore? He already seemed to be terrified of her. However, that could also be due to the hospital setting.

"Hero!"

Sidekick's voice dragged Hero from her flashback and so did the repetitive snaps of his fingers.

"Oh sorry," Hero gave a half-smile and walked to where Villain was sleeping. She sat down next to him, crunching his legs so she could fit.

"Are you seriously sitting back there?" Sidekick asked, leaning against the open door.

"Yes," Hero said, bringing Villain's feet onto her lap. "Of course." When she saw the look on Sidekick's face, she added, "He can't do much at the moment."

Sidekick still gave her a doubtful look, but jogged over to the driver's side and hopped in. Hero shut the door.

They drove in silence until they reached Hero's base. It was a small buidling, but had a couple cells, medic lab, and many bedrooms. It was mainly known for the gorgeous decor, both outside and indoors.

Hero and Sidekick worked together to bring Villain into one of the medic rooms. When Sidekick rushed to find Doctor, Hero took the time to examine Villain's physical health other than the bloody wound on his head.

Hero gingerly lifted his shirt, but then put it back, too scared to actually see what was under there. When Villain was discharged from the hospital, the doctors told her that the psychological healing would take awhile, especially since he would be reminded everyday with the scars. She took a deep breath and looked.

The criss-crossed scars made her want to vomit. They lined his muscles, putting unnecessary dents into the perfectly lined abs. Trying to ignore the marks, she tried to find the positive things. He was much more physically in shape than she had ever seen. All the lost weight was returned to him.

Footsteps sounded so she put his shirt back, trying to dispel the image now engraved in her mind.

"You whacked him hard," Doctor commented, examining Villain's head. "But he should be able to recover with minimal damage, but we will see. I do want to take tests and do a scan when he wakes up." Doctor cocked his head and then asked, "Is he better?"

"What do you mean?"

"Has he recovered from Supervillain? The last time I saw him-"

"No," Sidekick interrupted. "He was trying to kill Hero."

Yeah cause we let him, Hero thought, but remained silent.

"Hmm," Doctor mumbled. "Expect confusion for a couple days." Then he left.

Sidekick and Hero hovered over Villain's bed, silently. Hero recognized that things seemed to be more quiet between them, but didn't dwell on it.

After a moment or two, Sidekick left, leaving Hero alone. Again.

She sat next to Villain and held his hand like she did a couple years ago. It was the same setting, just a different hospital.

Suddenly, Villain's hand jerked away from Hero's touch. She looked up at him, fear coursing through her body. He just tried to kill me, she told herself over and over.

"Promise status, broken," Villain said. "Promise status, broke. Promise status, broken! Promise, promise..." Villain voice trailed off as he looked around the room. "Promise status, broken," he whispered and closed his eyes. Hero gently shook him.

He looked at her, evil eyes meeting righteous eyes. Hero couldn't help but feel yet another twinge of guilt.

Villain, in his delirious state, could not recognize the figure in front of him. She was pretty, was all he could think, and the same words. "Promise status, broken," was the only thing his tongue allowed him to say. Nothing made sense, nothing at all.

But what didn't make sense the most was when the girl leaned forward and took Villain's head in her hands. He wanted to recoil backwards and escape the misery, but she was stronger and the blinding headache made little things impossible.

"Don't worry. I am gonna fix you up... I promise."

[thisisthehardestthing]

Recurrance - Mirio x Fem!Reader

Recurrance, Apocalypse AU

18+, theme’s of violence, 3k word count

Synopsis: Hell has risen and turned Earth into it’s very own apocalyptic playground.

Warnings: smut (oral receiving, penetration), blood, there’s a dagger, eventual noncon, yandere (in a way)

Written for the BNHarem NSFW Server Collab. Enjoy!

Thank you @joyousandverywarlike​ for beta reading this and keeping me from doubting myself.

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

Shit, fuck, blood, so much blood. It’s on your hands, in your mouth, burning your eyes. Too thick, too warm, staining your skin. Are you crying? It’s too wet. Too dark. Oh God, where are You? Where am I? Slowly it shifts, mutating to burgundy, wine, black.

“Sweetheart?” You are in his room, sitting attentively on the edge of his bed, waiting, naked. He’s standing by the door, almost too tall for the frame, backlit. He’s all shapes: circular, square, muscles you unwillingly know like the dark of your eyelids. You’re unsure how. It’s your first time here.

He steps towards you. His black silhouette clearing into dazzling blonde and flawless skin. He reaches for you. You feel the need to claw at him, resist, but why? Time stands still. He is eternity and death all at once. So you sit still, obedient, with bated breath. Scorching fingers ghost over your cheek and along your jaw, tilting your chin up with a soft touch. The tip of his index prods your lips, pressing between the soft skin, knuckle deep to make you gag. It’s a shock. It’s familiar. His blue eyes hypnotize your own.

“You’re mine.” It’s a statement, an order, and in that moment, the truth. You nod, tears threatening to spill as you swallow back bile. He smiles, a million watts bright. Your tongue is flattened underneath his thick finger, trapped. You’re heaving with a hollow stomach, acid building but none comes out. His fingers withdraw and your mouth is cold, empty.

His lips are a ray of sunshine against your forehead. His kisses are burns that leave behind unseen blisters. He breathes in the smell of your hair, a moan escaping from his throat. His gentle touch leaves bruises far deeper than your skin, trailing up your forearms, triceps, shoulders and neck. Your hands don’t move. You will them to; it’s been too long since you’ve felt touch so tender, so desperate. But your body aches as if it was yesterday. His palms cup your face so delicately that you’re unsure they’re even there, yet you feel your spit on his finger, a solid stripe.

Mirio is shirtless, pants baggy on his hips, a dagger strapped to his bicep. It’s a warning, protection. He kisses down your face, the tip of your nose, before hovering over your lips. It’s a tease and as you instinctively lean to close the distance, he counters backward, a breathy chuckle tickles you, and it smells like freedom as he whispers,

“Don’t you want to help me out of my pants, darling?”

You keep your eyes on his as you undo the button, cold metal, and they drop. There’s no controlling your hands as they spread over his thighs, his knees opening yours wider so he stands between them. He’s so long you swear you can feel the tip of his cock tickle between your breasts. You suck in, and with the air comes his mouth. It’s warm and deep, captivating your lips as his thumbs stroke your cheeks. You want to lie back, to feel him completely cover you but he holds fast, keeping your spine upright and taut.

You don’t really remember how you came to be in this room, all you can remember is him and his love, the thought flittering around the back of your mind, overshadowed by Mirio’s tongue sweeping across your lower lip. Its tip is strangely cold. When you don’t immediately part your lips to let him in, he nips the bottom. A squeak erupts, the sudden pain a shock. You taste iron, and once again, it’s familiar. Why? His tongue is invasive as it explores the cave of your mouth. There’s no fight for dominance as he runs the muscle over your teeth, up against the roof, finally swirling it with your own. He pulls back, the slightest frown above twinkling eyes.

“Sweetheart, don’t you want me?” The thought that you’ve finally been broken crosses his mind, but he pushes it down, focusing on the confusion in your eyes, your downturned lips. Your hands on his thighs twitch, clammy against his skin. You move without thinking, automatically, your hands slide around to grab his hamstrings, fingers digging into the muscles.

“I do, Mirio.” Your voice is unwavering, rehearsed.

There’s a certainty in your answer that shocks you. The blonde tips of his hair come into view as he drops to his knees at your words, that dazzling smile on his face lets you know that your answer is the right one, the only one. Your hands glide up on his shoulders, resting in the dips of his joints as they ripple beneath your touch. His palms wander down, lightly grazing the tips of your nipples before his fingers press into the bend of your hips, pulling you to the bed’s edge.

“Good. You know how badly I want you too, right?” His voice is sandpaper, polishing you smooth. You nod again.

Your knees spread wider between his shoulders, and you can feel yourself start to drip onto the sheets below. His sapphire gaze doesn’t leave your face as he peppers kisses along the inside of your thigh, up the left, exhaling over your sex, before going down the right. You hold your breath a millisecond before he inhales the smell of your arousal, chest expanding, pushing your knees even further apart. Somehow, you knew he’d do that. His nose tickles as he leans in.

“You smell delicious,” lips against your skin, the vibration in his voice travels to your core. “And I’m starving.” The words have hidden depth you struggle to comprehend as his teeth nip at your labia. “Lie down for me, baby, let me enjoy this meal.” A too large, too warm palm presses against your sternum, and you collapse back, eyes up. He leaves his hand there, pinning you down.

The grooves on the grey ceiling, some kind of cement, fascinate you. They swirl, dizzying you as you follow the lines, unable to look away. It’s a hidden language; a face, drawings and a story you can’t decipher. A long lick against your slit brings you back to your body. The moan that leaves your throat joins the words above. Your eyes shut. Your hands are in his hair, softer than you imagined, not straw but golden silk. His lips wrap perfectly around your clit as he sucks. The blood rushes from your head to your groin, and you feel like you’re being swallowed whole. It’s tender and rough, and you’re easily overstimulated by the assault.

Mirio is practised, skilled, as though he knows all the ways your body reacts to his touch. It’s comforting and frightening as your fingers tug at the soft hair. A particularly rough flick of his tongue and you groan, pulling his scalp tightly, up, away, ruining the build to orgasm before you can crash into it. He chuckles, the thumb on your hip rubbing soothing circles as he gives you a second to catch your breath. Your slick on his chin rubs against your inner thigh as he smiles against your skin.

“Not cumming is a punishment, darling, and you’ve been so good.” He presses his nose against your clit, breath fanning over your entrance. “Why don’t you let me take care of you?” Your cunt clenches, aftershocks from an earthquake yet to happen, making you sit up and stare into the eyes peeking over your mound, devilish despite his angelic appearance. Something in you tells you not to trust his words, but those eyes are hypnotizing. Once again, you fall under his spell when a finger slowly teases between your folds.

Your hands shoot to your face, palms against your eyes. You see fireworks as you press; blue and red and yellow shooting across the black sky behind your lids, imitating the explosions in your body as his thick finger slips inside. You moan as his mouth comes back to build you once more to a crescendo. When the first pulse of your walls begins again, a second finger joins, and your back arches off the bed, hands flying to grip the sheets as his name escapes past your lips. The hand not in you is pinning you down again, forearm trapping your hips so that only your shoulders shake and thrash. Mirio coos praises between each lick against your clit, edging you on, further off the ledge and into a pit of pleasure.

Your orgasm hits you like a storm, his name tumbling from your lips repeatedly, crashing onto the shore of pleasure. You barely register him lifting off the floor, fingers languidly stroking you through your high as he brings his knees onto the bed. Your eyes find the ceiling once more, and you can see clearly. Your face is there now, his name, your moans, all carved in a beautiful story. But there are others, confusing, terrifying. You see a knife, Mirio’s face. It’s twisted, scowled, devilish. Then he comes into view, interrupting your gaze, angelic despite the drawings behind him. His arm curls around you, the nook of his elbow around the top of your head, with glistening slick dripping down his chin, onto your neck. A knowing smile on his lips. The fingers in you pull out and he offers them for you to taste.

Once again, your tongue is flattened under his touch as you suck off your juice. You’ve done this before. You’re starting to remember. That million watt smile goes black as night. Mirio pulls you higher up the bed, hands curling around your biceps like you weigh nothing. This is not real.

You had no choice.

“Mirio…” Your name stills his movements, a thigh frozen between your legs. “What is happening?” The question hangs in the air, thick and heavy, dropping into your stomach.

“I told you,” he sighs, your legs spreading as he places himself between them. “You’re a good girl. You keep coming back to me.” Your eyes drift down to the cock hovering above your entrance; thick, red, long, hard, head swollen with lust and beading precum. As his thumb rubs over the tip, spreading the fluid around and down, you begin to piece your memories together.

He’s perfect. The golden child. Sunshine impersonated. You had gladly accepted his outstretched hand, your angelic saviour.

His head parts your lips, and you want to scream as he splits you in half, but the shock in your veins has you frozen. Internally, there is a storm so wicked that you’re thrashing and crying, shaking and trying to escape. Your body won’t budge as you feel him stretch you out. He moves slowly, with so much restraint that is unlike the memories you’ve begun to stitch together. When he’s finally inside you, you’re so full that you’re empty, cold and alone. And when he thrusts, you swear you feel him in your throat. You swallow down as you fall into those gemstone eyes, so jagged that you feel miniscule cuts across your face where they linger. He’s so deep, it’s as though parts of him melt away and he can move through you. Each bump to your cervix reminds you more and more of the past. 

How could you forget?

No one could’ve seen it coming. When the darkness descended and the world went into chaos. Hell rose up, controlled by an unknown force, unstoppable, even against God’s power. When you found him, you thought you were saved. Mirio; a prince, a king, no, an Angel.

How could you have known?

It has been months, close to a year since you met him, since he conquered you, stole you away. You did not oppose him. Everyone was gone, all dead. Not buried but left behind, atop the ground for rabid animals to gnaw on, swallow and excrete. Their remains now waste. It was their fate, it would’ve been yours. He was so beautiful, charming, captivating.

A particularly rough thrust pulls you out of your stupor, hands flying to his back, nails digging in to scratch long, red lines down the muscles. He groans, in pain and pleasure, and you feel the warmth of blood trickle under your nails. You’re empowered, frightened. Your fingertips are now slick against his skin, and you struggle to breathe the same way you struggle to grip him. Your hands slip down, around the strong muscles of his lats. Mirio wishes he could see you like this more often; feral, fighting, wanting to escape. You push his chest to slide away and up, but he drops to his forearms, elbow pressing against the top of your shoulder to keep you in place.

You see red, taste red, are covered in red.

His smile is back, and this time it’s not dazzling bright, but soul-sucking darkness. His eyes no longer sparkling sapphires but the endless deep of an ocean. There’s desire, lust, anger, control, all fighting in those swirling depths and you squirm under his gaze.

You can’t speak, can’t beg, as the rope tightens around your throat.

“Please, Mirio, I don’t understand.” You’ve said those words before. He chuckles, feeling your walls clamp down around him, a traitor to your mind and fear. He breaks eye contact first, leaning down to kiss against the soft spot behind your ear, licking, sucking and marking you in ways you now recognise. You see the etchings on the ceiling, describing the myriad ways you die, over and over again.

Your back arches up off the bed. A hand wraps around your neck, squeezing. It’s dark, fading to black. Too fast, too soon.

You can’t die again. You grip his shoulders, bracing yourself as you take his powerful thrusts, holding him at an arm's length. He smiles at your defiance. This is his favourite part, when you begin to fight back against him, against all of it. Excitement courses through his veins as your hips buck up against his, trying to flip him over. You’ve never ridden him before, he’s never let you. He detaches from your neck, pushing onto his palms to stare down at you, a quizzical expression on his face.

“What’s the plan, sweetheart?” He hovers above you now, thrusts picking up their pace, knocking the breath out of you with each snap of his hips. Behind the outline of his face, you can see your next move so clearly that it shocks you. Have you done this before too? Your fingers dig into his shoulder muscles, a new angle making you cry out. He smirks and shifts his weight onto one hand, lowering the other between your bodies to rub circles on your clit.

“Fuck,” you begin to moan, head turning to the side, your plan almost melting away as your orgasmic wave begins to swell. You catch a glint of the dagger handle, strapped to the arm keeping him upright, and you remember.

You were crying, standing over the bodies of your friends, ripped apart by the limbs, eyes glassy, cold, dead. You had gotten there too late, the dirt they laid in dark with blood. The tears that streaked down your cheeks eventually dried, salty tracks in their stead as you kneeled, a palm grasped between your hands as though willing them to wake up, run to safety. You were so vulnerable, eyes closed, back to the world.

Mirio isn’t phased. You haven’t been able to stop the nature of Hell before, so why would it work now? He sees your hands grab for his weapon, slightly amused, slightly worried, as it unsheathes and you press it into his neck. The finger on your clit stills when he feels it pierce his skin, letting a trickle of blood slide down the blade and onto your fingertips, pale from gripping too hard. The pain only makes him harder inside you, the fire in your eyes finally as hot as his kisses were on your skin. His palm wraps around your wrist, taking control of the dagger, pushing it deeper into his flesh, relishing in the way it stings his skin, the way the blood trickles down and into the bowl of his collarbone.

He feeds off the thrill of you realising what’s happening, your journey from submissive to defiant, your emotion’s so deliciously human. No one was supposed to have survived the purging, capturing and torturing, now all are residents of Hell on Earth. Except you did. When he saw you, with dried tears, covered in blood and determination, untouched, he knew he had to have you.

Mirio grins, it’s sadistic, full of pleasure. He wants more.

‘This is wrong, all wrong. He’s not supposed to like it.’ Your thoughts ravage your mind as you come to realise you won’t ever escape. The only freedom you’d taste again is the breath on your face or the cock splitting you open to release your soul. You need to get away from him. You drag the knife across his neck, a waterfall of blood cascading onto your body below. You’re blind, drowning. It oozes through your pores and into the mattress. His body slumps, finally still.

You’re angry, devastated. His muscular frame crushes yours as the dead weight pulls you deeper into the river of blood forming between the two of you, pouring down your neck and into your hair. You can’t see; it burns your eyes, your breath ragged and inconsistent as the gravity of what you’ve just done settles over your body, mind and soul. You don’t notice it, but a new carving is blossoming on the ceiling above you, one where you gain a victory.

Your arms won’t move, trapped by his chest, so it’s all you can do to blink the red out of your eyes, but it’s no use. It seems to be getting thicker, heavier, like a blanket weighing you down. It expands in your nose and mouth, blocking off your oxygen. No. You want to shout, you’re supposed to be free. Your body convulses, your chest spasming into itself as you implode. There’s blackness around you, invading your senses.

How could you have known?

“Sweetheart?” He walks towards the bed, backlit by yellow in a hallway leading to a labyrinth of rooms with twisted games. His tall, muscular frame comes into view, blonde with flawless skin, save for a single scar across his throat.

[nikosomething]

Thought it might be fun to share my concepts for my Beautiful Sacrifice Series

My Concepts

The women of The Untamed are so amazing ughhh

This whole series happened thanks to @mdzswomen​ s event to honour the women of MDZS. When I read about it I noticed I had never tried to draw any of these amazing women and I knew I needed to change something about that.

My idea was to create a tribute to these strong women and their decision to sacrifice everything. My choice of characters was based on the week one prompts: Jiang Yanli, Wen Qing, Mian Mian and A-Qing. There were more prompts and women, but at that time I didn’t even think I’d manage to draw more than two of them let alone a conceptual series.

It all started with Wen Qing, actually, even though she was the prompt for day two. I knew I wanted a really tall format like a banner hanging from a ceiling (as they are often used in an honorary context) and parts of the character to stick out of its boundaries.

As you can see at first I experimented with Wen Qing fiercely staring into the distance. I tried another sketch with her eyes closed and that’s what inspired all other elements, really.

I decided that I wanted to depict one of the saddest, but also most beautiful and strongest aspects of their journey: the end. I’d call it their final moment, but that doesn’t quite cut it. Jiang Yanli saving Wei Wuxian might have been instinctive, but it wasn’t done to her, she chose to push him away, whatever it may cost her. Which is why I want to go for the phrasing of it having been their final decision. It was an action. And a strong one at that. MianMian chose to end her career, unwilling to tolerate those close-minded people. Wen Qing chose to face the Lanling Jin clan, knowing death was a very likely result. A-Qing chose to signal Xue Yang’s position knowing how dangerous he was.

I didn’t want to portray the scene too realistically, but rather in a symbolic way. For the Beautiful Sacrifice Series I wanted to focus on ease/liberation, sadness and beauty. I chose to portray the deceased with closed eyes and a peaceful expression (as they don’t regret their final act), which is why Mian Mian’s eyes are wide open with her determinedly looking ahead. I also included the last sentence we hear each of these women speak in the show before their (old) life ends.

WEN QING

The first character I had a concept for was Wen Qing. I knew immediately that I wanted to include fire as the cause of her death, but I also wanted to simplify it, to turn it more into a symbol than the actual scene of her being burnt alive.

(At least I imagine that that’s what happened, I may be wrong, though. We know they got her ashes. However, she may have been killed first and burnt later. Or they made it a spectacle to watch one of the last Wen die in flames. Very cruel, but perhaps some found it satisfying).

Wen Qing’s hair is floating in the upwind of the fire’s heat. The flames point to the last thing we hear her say. The background is red for the Wen and fades to black to make the fire shine bright.

The colouring process was quite challenging. I spent days on it, it was really giving me a headache hahaha, I just wasn’t satisfied with anything, the colour palette, the shading, the lighting (it’s the first time I tried a more fancy lighting situation). In the end I put some layers on multiply, which actually helped as I now know her robes were coloured too light, which meant there wasn’t enough contrast to the bright flames in the background.

I was really insecure about the whole piece. I am still stunned that Wen Qing is the drawing with the most notes of this entire series. Thank you so much, it gave me a lot of confidence and motivation to keep trying out new stuff!

JIANG YANLI

Immediately after I had scribbled my Wen Qing concept I knew what I wanted Jiang Yanli’s tribute to look like. Soft and tender, like she is. With Wen Qing it’s the powerful flames that make her hair puff up, resembling Wen Qing’s fierce personality. For Jiang Yanli it’s a gentle breeze that lifts a strand of her hair and carries the lotus leaves with it.

Her eyes are closed as she is deceased. A lotus flower is located where she received the lethal wound in her brother's stead. The flower symbolises her sect, family and fond memories (be it playing by the water with her brothers or making lotus root soup).

Jiang Yanli is wearing my favourite outfit of hers and not her mourning robes which she died in, because I think it captures the gentleness of her personality perfectly with the pastel Jiang colour palette (and it’s actually a layer of see-through fabric in the show).

I really enjoyed colouring this piece and while it was the second design it was the first one I did the lineart and colour for.

MIAN MIAN

I wanted to include an element of disillusion since she experiences that moment of humiliation which is followed by the realisation that the Jin clan doesn’t have her back and goes against her morals.

In the caption I wrote: She spoke up, she stood her ground and then she left all these narrow-minded people behind, choosing to walk alone rather than be silenced. She was the true spark amidst plain snow and she had to realise that the white peony she served was rotten. That day she escaped these golden robes, shedding this old skin which had gotten too tight, and stepped into the future that was hers and hers alone.

The white peony is the symbol of the Lanling Jin sect and while it shines brightly on the outside Mian Mian learned to see through the façade, recognising all the rotten parts she didn’t want to tolerate any longer. With her leaving the peony sheds its petals until it vanished from her life.

In my initial sketch Mian Mian is portrayed with the simple robes she wears underneath her Lanling Jin attire. Since I didn’t give Jiang Yanli her mourning robes and didn’t plan on drawing A-Qing in her white robes either it didn’t feel quite right, though.

The phrase “shedding old skin” and the image of a snake came to my mind. First I thought about experimenting with an actual snake or the pattern of its scales. In the end I settled on the Jin robes being that old skin and showed Mian Mian’s personal robes as the shiny new skin underneath. I wanted to show that she may be stepping out of the Jin sect, but that she is starting on a new, meaningful path.

(Drawing the Jin robes was quite bothersome hahaha. I took tons of pictures of me wearing a robe, but it was so slippery that I almost pulled a muscle while trying to make it look right in the photo. I spent an hour or so on it without any satisfying result and ended up drawing it from imagination after all.)

While I loved my sketch the execution was a p-a-i-n. Colouring her personal robes almost drove me mad and the face, the face was such a struggle. I think I redrew it four to five times. I still think I could have done better, but after days of trying to fix it I decided that perhaps I need some more months of practice to get her expression right (so I might re-draw her in the future).

A-QING

I didn’t think I’d enjoy the A-Qing piece as much as I did!! After having drawn three artworks I was worried that I may have exhausted all possibilities / ideas and that it would end up being a repetition of what I had already done.

I rewatched her episodes for inspiration. I watched all significant episodes of all the women I drew for that matter haha. The last thing we hear her say is directed at Song Lan, actually, which in retrospect surprised me. I could have sworn she talked to Xiao Xingchen last. Or Xue Yang (like in the novel). But nope, it’s our poor poor Song Lan.

Given that A-Qing died the youngest (I think?) I wanted to make her look younger than the other women, so I kept her head round and used pastel colours on her face.

I like moths (unless they eat my clothes or settle down in my food). Moths seek the light and in some way Xiao Xingchen was that light in A-Qing’s life. With the glow they symbolise A-Qing’s soul leaving her body through the lethal wound Xue Yang inflicted on her.

I placed one moth on her mouth as she has been muted by Xue Yang. The new moon in the background stands for the eternal darkness Xue Yang cast on her as moonless nights are the darkest.

For A-Qing I wrote in the caption: She couldn’t protect the man who had taken her in and cared for her. But she stayed. She became a lonely guardian, watching out for the remains of her lost brother in the silence and darkness which were forced upon her. Until that fated day when she gave her life so that the culprit who had shattered this tender soul would be brought to justice.

I finished A-Qing’s artwork way quicker than expected. The robes were tricky with all the torn spots and loose thread, but the rest came easy. I had lots of fun with the moths and the moon. And the glow. I love that cool light blue glow.

THANK YOU

All in all I really loved drawing this series and I thank you for your support, for your wonderful tags which make me smile and giggle and for every reblog and like! Whenever I have a hard time I revisit your tags and find strength within them.

[summoner-asha]

You know I've always had this scenario in my mind and always thought about how it would turn out. The basic premise is that you (the summoner) exist in other worlds sorta like how there are other Askr's. Maybe some of these versions of you existed in other Fe games and had a completely different life than the you who was summoned to Askr. Then that led to me thinking about what if one of these versions of you was in a relationship with one of the Fe characters and somewhere along the way you died in battle protecting them. After some time they get summoned to Askr to see "you" but not the one they knew, but you from our world. It makes me kinda wonder how some of them react to seeing "you". How would someone like Chrom, Ike, or even someone from 3h would act? What are some of your thoughts? This has been on my mind for a long time and I wanted to see how someone else who played Feh would think of this. Thank you for your time. ฅ^•ﻌ•^ฅ

[ [ oh my Gods, I hope you didnt think I was ignoring this. I saw this and immediately got excited because I have thought about thi very thing! Like...For instance, in the games where you get to ‘make yourself’ i.e Awakening and Fates/Birthright, what would happen if the YOU from those worlds ALSO came. And I =ve always thought about this and so when I got this I got the perfect one! vwv I used our grumpy ninja Saizo because when I first played birthright I went for his ass because Ive a thing for teasing grumpy and manly men and the reward I got for dealing with his ass was not what I expected. Plus I feel that half the time (on a serious note) no one understands just how AMAZING of a partner he can be. (Well if you didnt go for him as an S rank yeah)....You know what would ALSO fuck that up???? If your KIDS came and remembered YOU as their parent. Also sorry its long ;A; I was really amped! ] ]

[ [ See and I thought I was the only one thinking of this kind of scenario too! And I have just the one in mind too! No one gives Saizo any love >: C And if you haven’t ever got him to S rank in Fates then you have no gods damn idea what youre missing with this boy-o here. SO HERE I GO! ] ]

When he had first laid eyes on you...or well….laid EYE on you, he was taken aback so terribly. If one could compare he’d best relate it to a poisoned arrow shot right into his heart. He couldn’t believe it. He thought he was seeing a ghost. Upon seeing you come into view when he was first summoned he wanted to run and grab you and hold you so close that you just might die. Again.

But he knew better. Ever so quickly did he know better. The [ Y/N ] he was seeing now was not the [Y/N] he held ever so dearly in his own World. No. It couldn’t be. And he had to learn to quickly place those thoughts aside. Being a Saizo though, he couldn’t. He needed to investigate. He needed to lay his woes and curiosity to rest. And so he did what he did best. He patrolled. Out of sight, in the shadows. Every time he was able to. Which, being a ninja, was always. Even though his own Lordship , Ryouma was there, his heart told him he needed to place importance there.

For a while he did stay away though. He made sure to never get too close to you. If you were both in the same room, he did his best to not gaze at you for too long. But there was so much that you and his [ Y/N ] had in common. It was almost sickening. It tore at his heart strings. But he steadied himself around you.

So...So...SO MANY similarities….Like how you smiled even when you were nervous. The way your head bobbed when you were trying to think of a plan. Or how your eyes glossed over when you sat and just...watched the sky. Like how the both of you would on quiet nights in Hoshido….

Eventually you would catch him though. And he’d be floored so badly. He should have seen this coming though. Back in Hoshido you were always so predictable. At least to him you were. You would tease him,

“You just have really weird supernatural ninja skills!’ You would raspberry from time to time. He would take your hand and hold it and simply sigh,

“It is through the deep connection between us that allows me to know every step you take.” His voice always soft in this fact. His large hands holding your soft and small ones. You would wrinkle your nose and roll your eyes.

Here in Askr, you would do this too with those you were close with. When Shareena would joke with you about a Hero you might like. Even in distaste when Loki would attempt to smother you in her plots.

His mind was elsewhere now as you stood before him, a brow cocked up pretty high, palms on your waist. His eye blinked, coming back to reality. You seemed annoyed. Like how Hoshido you would be whenever you found him stalking you.Oh wait, he was caught.

“Hello???” You huffed at him.”Saizo, you’ve literally been in this corner for so long. Are you-“ You wrinkled your nose with annoyance.”Are you STALKING me?!” When you got annoyed or angry at him ,you were surely a force to be reckoned with. Maybe that was also what had drawn him to you back in Hoshido…You were the only one who dared step up to him...

Saizo, this is not Hoshido anymore!

“I…”He started, a hand raised as his digits fiddled with the air as if the words were just there for him to pluck. “I was...patrolling.” His voice was faint. His eye glossed over a bit.

“You’re ALWAYS patrolling. Don’t you do anything else?” You were truly annoyed with this man. Every word pinging his memory. Like flash backs in a reel they spun in his head. “I’ve heard the others and what they’ve said about you.” At this point your arms were crossed over your chest, hips slanted to the side, toes tapping. “I can assure you I’m fine. Go back to Ryouma.” You honestly weren’t trying to sound harsh to him. But him practically breathing down your back for no apparent reason was weird and unnerving.

“I know you’re worried that if I’m not ‘tactful’ enough your precious Lordship will be in danger, but trust me, I got this.” You’d been in this world long enough to know how to care for yourself. And by care for yourself you meant you slaved nights away planning and going over maps to make sure you got the best results when taking out the Charges of Heroes that were placed into your hands the moment you rolled out of that accursed mirror.

Yeah, you fell into a mirror. That’s how you got here.

While you went on about how Saizo could just stop being a creep and let you be, all he could do was see and hear his Beloved [ Y/N ] back in Hoshido. Every detail etched into his memory. Now playing out in front of him. It almost brought him back to the day before...He lost you.

It was so cold that night too. Assassins tried your patience. Wars with other countries having brought back the instincts of war within the both of you. You had been molded into that of a seasoned and fine Leader. You had been busy with being a leader and making hard decisions. He didn’t want you to,though.You going out onto the battlefield always made him nervous. It was why he was always by your side. To take on the muscle. Be the muscle. You refused to sit back and watch though. You had a duty to the small kingdom you protected. It was your duty to be out there in the fields as well.

By this time you were still going on about how he needed to relax. There was already a plethora of other Hereos trying to “keep you safe” and you most certainly did not need more. You also just wanted him to relax and worry about himself and to just make sure he was in top form for whenever it would be that he was needed. You just wanted him to...be.

In times like this, back in Hoshido, whenever you would go off on one of your ‘angry tangits” at him, he would usually shut you up with a passionate yet soft kiss. Pulling you into his big , firm and strong arms and pressing his unmasked lips against yours. And you would melt. So simple. But not here. He couldn’t do that here. He couldn’t because you weren’t his...You someone else’s [ Y/N ] and it tore at him. Any fool would act on their hearts will, but his will of mind was stronger. Even when it was breaking apart for the second time.

“Ok are you just not listening to me or something?” You were more than annoyed. Having been going on about how he needed to chill. His eye looked at you. Almost in a glare.

Oh, if you only knew [ Y/N ].... If you only knew.

He snapped to it finally and his brows furrowed at you. “If you weren’t so aloof about what goes on about you, I wouldn’t need to ‘stalk’ you.” He gruffed. Mentally slapping hisself. That sentence was what started your relationship in your own world. And he knew he messed up by saying that. You rolled your eyes at him.

“If I had an orb for every time I was told that I would have…” you paused…”I don’t know how many but I know it would be a lot!’ You threw a finger down. He scoffed at you.

“Simpleton.” Was all he said to you after, quickly vanishing without a trace. Damn he was good ninja. You didn’t even see him leave.

He’d not be far though...He’d be at the corner of your eye, every time. Just back in his world. Ever so silently watching you from afar. Holding onto his heart break every time he would lay eye on you. And you would never know. You’d never have a clue that the man everyone rumored to be as cold hearted as he looked, once held you to the utmost importance in his life. He loved you dearly. So very dearly...You’d never know though. Never...

[there-must-be-a-lock]

Coming Home

Dean x Reader

Word Count: 4980

Warnings: Smut. Relatively vanilla, but decidedly explicit. 

A/N: For @impala-dreamer​ and the “Make Me Feel It” challenge. My prompt was “The Story,” by Brandi Carlile. To me, that song feels like letting your guard down and trusting someone to see you at your worst. 

Major thanks to @fangirlxwritesx67​ and @stunudo​ for the read-throughs and suggestions, and to @justcallmeasmodeus​ @thoughtslikeaminefield​ and @cracksinthewalls​ for listening to me grumble about this monster all day. 

October, 2006

Dean can’t sleep, and what-fucking-else is new? Not like he was Sleeping Beauty to begin with, but it’s harder since Dad died. He tosses and turns on the lumpy motel mattress, listening to Sammy’s snores. His muscles ache and his eyes itch and he can’t stop clenching his jaw. It’s been a couple days since he’s managed more than a catnap at a rest stop. 

If he pauses for too long, if he lets himself rest, the grief catches up and chokes him. Dean’s fine, or he will be. He just has to keep putting one foot in front of the other. 

He gives up around 4am, leaves Sammy a note and trudges down the block to the all-night diner. 

Left foot, right foot. Don’t look back. Don’t stop. 

All the diners are starting to look alike. On good days, the familiarity is comforting. Today it just feels surreal, like he keeps driving and driving and never really gets anywhere, and the grey fluorescent lights make his vision skip and skitter strangely. 

There’s one other guy at a table in the corner, a trucker nursing a cup of coffee; otherwise it’s empty apart from the waitress wiping down glasses at the other end of the counter. He blinks away the disorientation and sits down heavily on one of the cracked vinyl stools.  

She sets down her rag and comes over, smiling, and it cuts through the grey and the cold and warms him from the inside. 

He orders a coffee and a slice of pie, and he starts eating without really tasting anything. He feels fucking cold, like he brought October into the diner with him. 

He watches the waitress tidying up, rolling silverware, cleaning the counter… Dean catches himself staring at her hips, the way she shifts her weight as she stands. 

Maybe it’s the way she moves that’s got him distracted, maybe it’s just sleeplessness making his vision blur, but one way or another he misses his mouth entirely when he goes to take a sip of coffee. Blistering-hot liquid sloshes over his hand, and he promptly drops the mug. It shatters at his feet. 

He looks down numbly at the splintered pieces as the puddle begins to spread. She’s there with a towel before he can really register what happened. 

“Jesus,” Dean spits, finally snapping back into his body. “Fuck, I’m sorry.” 

She just gives him a little half-smile and shrugs, and Dean slides off the stool to get out of her way. He tiptoes gingerly around the mess and grabs a handful of napkins to get the worst of the coffee off his lap. His cheeks are burning with embarrassment. 

When she’s done, Dean perches back on his stool to shovel down the last few bites, ready to get the hell of her way, but she sets a fresh cup in front of him.

“Thanks,” he says automatically. 

She quirks her lips in a tiny smile, and fuck, she’s cute. Dean tries to muster up his most charming grin, but it feels stiff and twisted on his face. 

“Long day?” she asks softly. She’s watching him with her head tilted to the side like she actually wants to hear about it. 

“I’m fine,” he replies. Smile, shrug, don’t think. 

She looks tired, too. She’s got dark circles under her eyes to match Dean’s, but there’s something sweet and open in her expression that makes him feel comfortable, somehow. Something about her is warm, and Dean’s first instinct is to hold out his hands like he’s thawing them over a fire. 

Her smile isn’t pitying, just empathetic, a sort of bone-weary been there, done that look. 

“My dad died,” Dean blurts out. 

He wasn’t planning on telling her that. It’s the first time he’s said the words quite so bluntly, let alone to a stranger. He’s not that guy, he doesn’t go around dumping his problems on other people, but… he looks up, meets her eyes. His chest hurts. 

“I’m fine,” he insists. 

Fine. Smile, shrug, don’t think. You’re fine. 

Dean heaves in a breath. His ribs are being squeezed by some cold iron grip, and his throat is tight. 

She reaches out across the counter and puts her hand over his, and she gives it a tiny, gentle squeeze. 

“You will be,” she offers. 

He’s not that guy, he’s just not, and the ache in his chest is this massive unbearable thing that’s about to split him open, and the longer she looks at him with that warmth, the harder it gets to hold himself together. And he needs to hold himself together. If he lets go, even just a little, he’s going to fucking drown. 

Dean yanks his hand back like he’s been burned. 

“Sorry,” she says. Her eyes look sad, but she’s giving him a tiny smile, like she understands. 

“I gotta -” he chokes out, and he stumbles as he gets off the stool. He throws some bills on the table without really looking, and he turns to go. 

Left foot, right foot. 

He doesn’t look back. 

***

March, 2008

“Fuck, Dean, just take this exit,” Sam says. He’s got that bite in his voice again. 

“I’m fine,” Dean says. He burps and puts the cap back on the flask one-handed. He gets in the right lane, though. Time for food. 

Signal. Turn. Brake. 

Time’s passing strangely. He blinks and there’s another day gone. He hasn’t got that many days left. If he closes his eyes for long they’ll disappear. 

He pulls into the parking lot of an all-night diner. Sammy jumps out and slams the door before Dean can even cut the engine, like a petulant fuckin’ kid. 

Dean shivers, goosebumps running down his neck. He takes one quick slug from the flask, then another, trying to shake off the chills, before he follows Sam inside. 

He hasn’t been sleeping. Better ways to spend his last weeks. He’s crystal-clear, though. He’s fine. Everything is bright and sharp and hard-edged around him. The whiskey just warms him up a little. 

“Ordered you a burger,” Sam mumbles, when Dean sits down next to him. “To go, so we can get to a fucking motel.” 

“Told you, Sammy, I’m fine,” Dean says breezily, and asks the waitress as she passes, “Could I get a coffee, when you get a sec?” 

He ignores Sam’s glare. 

The waitress comes over, and Dean gets a quick impression of a soft smile and curious eyes as she passes him a steaming mug. He takes a greedy sip and burns his tongue. 

“Hot coffee,” he says hastily, setting the mug down to blow on it, and then he delivers the line with an almost automatic grin. “You know what else is hot?” 

“Come on,” Sam mutters.

Dean finishes with a wink: “You.” 

“You’re not gonna spill on me again, are you?” she smirks. 

He looks up at her, really looks. Something about her smile says come inside, stay a while, like stepping in from the cold to the golden flicker of firelight.

“I remember you,” she says. “You were having a rough night.” 

“Oh,” Dean says. “Oh.” 

He stares as she introduces herself. It feels so far away, now. Feels like he’s lived a few lifetimes since then, but he hasn’t, not really; he won’t even have a chance to live this lifetime. 

He shudders and wishes he’d brought his flask inside. 

“Sorry,” she says, “Not a good memory to look back at, I guess.” 

He shakes his head. 

“No, I’m fine, just… took me a second,” he says, and recovers, pasting on a bright smile. “Don’t know how I could forget such a pretty face.” 

Sam makes an exasperated noise next to him. 

“Smooth,” she says dryly. “What’s your name, butterfingers?” 

“Dean.” 

“Well, Dean, if you make a mess again because you’re too busy flirting to remember where your mouth is, you can clean it up yourself this time. Okay?” 

The words are light and teasing, but her smile looks like an apology, like she knows all too well how hard it is to look back sometimes. 

“How ‘bout you let me make it up to you?” Dean offers. “Let me buy you a drink when you’re done here.” 

She’s eyeing him up and down, and Dean flashes his most winning smile, even though he has a sudden inexplicable urge to hide his face. There’s a bell from the kitchen window and she turns without answering. Dean’s pretty sure he just struck out, and he’s more bothered by it than he’d like to admit, but then she’s back. 

“Yeah, okay,” she says casually, handing over a couple takeout containers. “I’ll be done in fifteen.” 

“Fuck’s sake,” Sam grumbles, as he counts out bills. 

“Hey, you get your wish,” Dean says, grinning. “You get to sleep in a bed tonight. Motel’s right up the road, if I’m remembering right.” 

“Yeah. Great.” 

She’s talking to the cook, hands on her hips, and Dean catches a string of profanities. He smiles to himself and shakes his head, trying not to stare. 

“I’ll meet you out front,” he says. She gives him a little wave, and he almost trips over his feet on his way to the door. 

Sam shoulders his bag, jaw set, eyes tired. 

“I can drive you,” Dean offers, guilt slithering through his stomach, but Sam shakes his head. 

“I’ll walk. I can see the sign from here.”  

“I just - I wouldn’t be able to sleep anyway.” 

“Yeah. I won’t wait up.” 

Sam turns to go, and Dean feels panicked, for a second. He’s going to blink and lose another day. He’s spent too many days sniping and snapping and being a shitty fucking brother. 

“Sammy,” he says, and Sam looks back, tight-lipped. “Thanks.” 

Sam’s expression falters, the bitter mask falling away and leaving sadness in its place. 

“It’s okay, Dean, I get it,” he says, so quietly it’s almost lost to the wind. 

Dean doesn’t watch him go. He gets in the car and fishes his flask out of the glove compartment. Then he leans against the hood of the car and eats his burger.

Chew, swallow. Don’t think about it. 

He sees her through the window, coming out from behind the counter. Dean sets the takeout container on the hood and gets to the front door just in time to open it for her. 

“So, where to?” he asks. 

“Not sure,” she says softly, looking down at her feet and fidgeting with the strap of her purse. 

“You okay?” 

“I’m fine.” 

Dean snorts. “I’ve told that one a few times myself.” 

She rolls her eyes and laughs, sheepish. “Yeah, okay. I… I don’t usually do this.” 

“Hey, no pressure,” Dean says. He holds his hands up and takes a step back. “If you say the word I’ll leave right now, no harm done. Okay?” 

She’s evaluating him, and it feels like an x-ray, the way she stares. He can see the moment she makes a decision. 

“I’ve got drinks back at my place,” she says, and adds sharply, “I’ve also got mace, so… don’t get any ideas.” 

It’s oddly endearing, for a threat. 

Her place is a tiny, cluttered studio apartment in a not-great part of town. When she opens the fridge, he sees a mess of takeout containers and bottles. 

“Beer, tequila, whiskey…” 

“Whiskey’s good.” 

He looks around and realizes there’s nowhere to sit. There’s a single stool at the kitchen table, and an armchair in front of the coffee table; the only place big enough for two people is the bed. He looks at her, and she’s blushing, like she just had the same realization. 

“Shit, sorry, this is weird,” she says, rolling her eyes. “I don’t - I’m in a really fucking strange place in my life. Everything is… temporary, I guess.” 

“You and me both,” Dean mutters. He sits down on the floor, in front of the coffee table. She gives him a grateful little half-smile and hands him a glass. 

“Tell me about it?” She settles on the floor too, cross-legged, rolling her glass between her palms like someone who’s very used to holding a drink. 

They skip all the small talk, the flirtation and the easy questions, and they dive right into the things that Dean fucking hates talking about. Somehow he doesn’t mind. 

This was supposed to be a simple pickup, one fun night, a distraction, and instead he’s sitting on this chick’s floor asking about her childhood, finding that he actually cares about the answers… this isn’t like any one-night stand he’s ever had. It’s so much more intimate than that. 

The rules are different, with her. He doesn’t have to pretend to be fine. She doesn’t seem to pity him, when he talks about some of the fucked-up things in his life. She just accepts it. She accepts him. 

He’s not sure how long it’s been, when he finishes his third drink, but he’s starting to go hoarse. She doesn’t ask if he wants another, just takes the empty glass out of his hand. Her knee pops audibly when she gets up, and they both laugh. 

“I’m too old to be sitting on the floor, I think,” she says, heading to the fridge. “If I say we should relocate to the bed, are you going to take it as a come-on?” 

He smiles up at her, exhaustion and whiskey making his vision blurry around the edges. “Only if you want me to.” 

“Jury’s still out.” She looks down, cheeks flushed like that’s not entirely true. “But I think for the sake of my fuckin’ kneecaps… make yourself comfortable.” 

He does. He sits back against the pillows, sinking into them. She comes over and passes him a drink, and he looks up at her, feeling oddly vulnerable stretched out on her bed like this. 

“Be right back,” she whispers, and sets her own glass on the nightstand before she heads for the bathroom. 

Dean closes his eyes, thinking, just for a second. 

He wakes all at once. There’s bright gold sunlight streaming through the windows and a quilt on top of him. She’s curled into his chest, nose brushing his collarbone where his henley is unbuttoned. His hand is resting on the curve of her waist, tucked under her thin shirt. She’s just starting to stir; she shifts, settles closer, and he feels her lips on his throat. 

Dean can’t remember the last time he felt this rested, or this warm. 

He can’t remember the last time he wanted to stay somewhere. He wants to stay right here in this moment, taking in the tickle of her breath on his neck, the cheap pillowcase under his cheek, the sound of a siren in the distance. 

She pulls back slowly, sleepy-eyed. Then she smiles. It feels like coming home. 

His phone buzzes in his pocket, and he remembers who he is. He remembers that this isn’t his life. 

He digs the phone out of his phone and snaps it open long enough to growl, “Be there soon.” 

She’s still smiling, but her eyes are sad. Dean wants to stay, more than he’s wanted anything in a long time, and that’s why he makes himself pull away. If he lets himself have this, even for a morning… if this was his life? He’s not sure he could let himself be dragged away from it, hellhounds or no. 

She takes the phone out of his hand and enters her number, “Just in case you’re ever passing through.” 

“I doubt it’ll happen,” he says roughly. “But… if I’m passing through.” 

Stand up. Deep breath. 

He feels cold, the warmth leaching from his bones already. 

This isn’t your home. 

He doesn’t have a home. Now he never will. 

She walks him to the door and he hugs her, barely feeling it, barely noticing the feather-light kiss she presses to his cheek. 

“You okay?” she asks. 

“I’m fine,” he says, and he turns to go. 

Right foot, left foot. Don’t look back. 

***

October 2008

If Dean doesn’t get out of this fucking motel, he might lose his fucking mind. 

He paces the bathroom, back and forth, feeling brittle and edgy and hollowed-out. One more nightmare, one more argument, and he might snap. He’s sick of Sammy’s fucking face, and looking at his own in the mirror is even worse. 

He sees hell whenever he closes his eyes. 

He dials her number before he can talk himself out of it, and she picks up on the second ring. 

“Hey,” he says hoarsely. “I don’t - I mean, I ended up coming through after all. I don’t know if you remember me, but… this is Dean.” 

“I remember you,” she says. He can hear the warmth in her voice, even through the static. 

She texts him the address: new place, same town. He tells Sam not to wait up. 

He’s not sure why he’s nervous. He’s not sure what it is about her, but there’s something about this chick that he can’t shake. The important thing is that it’ll be fun. It’ll get his mind off things for a night. He rolls down the window and turns the music up. 

Don’t think about it. 

When she opens the door, Dean’s heart jumps crazily in his chest. 

“So, do you want to go out, or...” Dean starts, as she closes the door behind him. 

“Can we just pick up where we left off?” she asks, breathless. 

Dean can smell the fresh, sweet scent of her hair. He feels dizzy, hot and cold all over, and when he leans in to kiss her it feels like falling.  It’s deep, syrupy-slow, her mouth opening easily under his, intimate and familiar. 

She lets out a barely-there whimper, deep in her throat. 

“Bed,” he chokes out. He’s not sure he’ll make it that far. 

He grabs her again, stumbling, as they practically fall through the bedroom door, and she whirls around to face him with this fiery, blazing look that makes him forget how to fucking walk. Her back hits the wall and he crashes into her. She slips her hands under his shirt and drags her nails down his lower back, and Dean gasps, grinding into her helplessly. 

“Please,” he pants. He kisses her neck, bites her jaw, whispers it again: “Please.” 

She yanks at the hem of his shirt. He almost rips her tank top. She shoves, sends him stumbling backward, and reaches back to unclasp her bra, letting it fall unceremoniously. Dean takes a step backward, still staring, so the edge of the bed against the back of his knees takes him by surprise. He sits down hard and scrambles back.

She pauses at the foot of the bed, letting him look. He rakes his eyes over smooth curves, speechless, as she unbuttons her jeans and shimmies them down her hips, and she crawls up the bed in nothing but plain black panties. 

She straddles him, pushing at his shoulders until he falls back against the mattress. He runs his hands over her, up her sides, trying to memorize the lush pillowy swells and dips of her, the velvety feel of her skin. Her mouth is hungry on his. 

She’s moving, slow and snakelike, rolling her torso so that he can feel the slight drag of her hard nipples up his chest, then twisting her hips, rubbing herself against him. It’s almost too much even through his jeans, all this hot rough friction. He grips her hips and rocks up against her, and she lets out a tortured little whine as she breaks away from the kiss. 

She gets Dean’s zipper down, tugs, and he lifts his hips obligingly so that she can get his pants off. He kicks at them awkwardly, making a face, and she giggles; it’s a nervous giggle, and it dies in her throat when he rolls on top of her. He pauses with his hands braced on either side of her head, and she stares up at him, cheeks flushed. 

“What do you -” he starts, and before he can finish the question, she reaches up and brushes the pad of her thumb over the curve of his lower lip. He flicks his tongue over it and watches her eyelids flutter. He ducks his head to kiss the hollow of her throat, then her collarbone. 

“Thought about this,” she says. “I was kicking myself, after. For being too scared to make a move, for -” 

She gasps when he slips his hand down the front of her panties, dragging two fingers down through silky-slick heat, running them up again, teasing before he pulls the thin fabric down. 

“I was wondering,” he confesses. He hooks his hands under her thighs and holds her in place, and she shudders at the first brush of his tongue. 

“I don’t do that - don’t invite strangers over,” she pants. “I don’t trust people, but you - fuck, do that again.” 

“Taste so good,” he mumbles. It’s barely audible, the way his face is buried between her legs. She squirms, thighs shaking as he gets his lips around her clit. 

The words are rushed, high-pitched, spilling out along with tiny gasps and sharp inhales: “Thought about your mouth, fuck. Thought about this. It was - you do a thing, with your tongue, and - right there, oh, fuck, just - you kept licking your lips, and... Dean. Dean.” 

He sneaks a glance up at her. She’s arching her back, fingers twisting in the sheets, saying his name over and over in this broken, reverent voice. Dean feels raw and strange, like he’s the one spread-open and vulnerable here. He squeezes his eyes shut, tries not to think about it. 

She practically convulses when he slips two fingers into her, but he’s holding her down with his other hand. He works her with his fingers and sucks in quick little pulses, lost in the way she tastes. She grabs his hair, pulling him down against her, gripping so hard it stings his scalp, and it’s so fucking hot he feels like he could come just from this: her taste on his tongue, her fingers in his hair, her ragged voice as she says his name one more time. She shakes and shudders as she comes. 

“Gorgeous,” he can’t help but whisper, pressing a kiss to one of the stretch marks that show like pale tiger stripes on her thighs. The scar tissue doesn’t taste any different than the rest of her skin, but he kisses another to be sure, then drags his mouth up, nipping at the soft skin under her belly-button, licking a drop of sweat from the valley between her breasts. 

She’s panting, cheeks stained pink and sheened with sweat, looking up at him with glittering unfocused eyes, and the clench of pure fucking desire in his gut hits him like a freight train. The first slick press of his cock is almost too much. He closes his eyes and sinks in slow, feeling the give where her body opens up and lets him in. Her breath hitches in her chest when he grinds down, as deep inside as he can be. 

One of them is shaking, and Dean thinks it might be him. 

He kisses the underside of her jaw, mouthing at the soft salty skin there, and rolls his hips, and the wet-hot surge of friction is so fucking good. Part of him wants to move, snap forward and give in, fuck into her hard enough to obliterate the swelling sensation in his ribcage. Part of him wants this to last forever. 

He’s present in his skin in a way he hasn’t been in ages, frantic with all the input from his senses, lit up and fizzing with it. The strangled cry that rips from his throat sounds foreign, like an animal, like something wild… she digs her fingers into the muscles of his shoulders, tilts her hips up, and he’s so close to the edge of his control already. 

The physical details of it, the actual act, that’s nothing new. It’s this feeling in his chest. It’s the way he feels like he’s about to shatter. 

“There,” she groans. He opens his eyes enough to see her, and his vision is blurring, images of her coming through like shots from an unfocused camera: lips parting around his name, eyes rolling back in her head when he hits the right spot, sweat trickling down her temple to soak tendrils of hair. 

Dean’s so fucking close, so fucking hard, it’s like his entire universe is narrowing down to the throb of blood pulsing in his cock, the way she’s clamping down around him as she grinds up to meet every thrust, writhing under him, pulling him close, her fingernails fiery points of pain at the small of his back. 

This is so much more than he expected. He can’t breathe.

She lets out a gasp and a sweet little sob, arching up, and he can feel her all around him, soaking wet and searing hot, so good it blinds him. His hips jerk forward one last time, as if he could possibly get any closer to her. He gives in and lets himself go under. 

The tension bleeds from his muscles, leaves him wrung-out and quiet. He keeps rocking into her, soft shivers of pleasure rippling through them both, as she reaches up and cups his face between her hands, tugging him down for a kiss. He rests his forehead against hers for a moment, close enough that their breath mingles in the damp thick air between them. He kisses the tip of her nose, then her eyelids. He moves back to pull out. 

“Don’t go anywhere,” she whispers. “Stay.” 

“Can I go like six inches to either side?” Dean asks, and she makes a face, giggling, as they shift over together, trying to move without putting any real space between their bodies. 

Dean settles in between her sprawled legs, resting his head on her chest. Her heartbeat is slowing, gradually. He focuses on the sound of it, the feel of her ribs rising and falling under his cheek as she breathes, and she runs her fingers through the short damp hair at the nape of his neck. 

He wants to stay right here, just like this. 

He could pretend, for one night. He could pretend to be someone else, someone who gets what they want. 

“If I fall asleep, wake me up in half an hour,” she says dreamily. “Let’s do that again.” 

He can feel the waves closing in over his head. 

Her fingers slow and then stop. Her heartbeat goes low and even. 

When he’s sure she’s asleep, Dean shifts, doing his best not to disturb her. She doesn’t stir. He gathers his clothes and gets dressed silently. 

She looks so peaceful: hair tangled, skin glowing, lips curled up in a smile. She looks warm. Dean’s chest aches. He sneaks one last glance at her before switching off the light and turning to go. 

He doesn’t look back. 

***

February 2010

Dean waits for a moment, staring up at the dark sky, but there’s no answer. He wasn’t really expecting one. 

Deep breath. Drink. Swallow. 

He wipes away the tears, steeling himself to go back inside and pretend that nothing’s wrong. 

The wheezy voice echoes in his ears: going through the motions. 

Deep, dark… nothing. 

He wants to deny it, is the thing. He wants to deny it, but he can’t, even to himself, even to the quiet nighttime sky. But that dark nothing is easier than letting himself feel. When he slows down, when he rests, when he allows himself to feel anything, it all crashes over him, swamps him, fills his lungs and makes him choke. 

Inside, you’re already dead. 

When was the last time he felt alive? 

He sees her clearly: head thrown back on the pillow, lips parted, saying his name like a prayer. If he lets himself remember, he feels a ghost of her warmth and a swelling, fluttering fullness in his chest. 

Something inside him snaps. 

He practically runs to Baby, flings himself blindly into the driver’s seat, starts the engine with trembling fingers. He hits the gas and the tires squeal. 

The cold air slaps against his face, and his heart pounds, and he almost turns around five times before he hits the right exit. It’s not hard to find her place again, but it doesn’t occur to him until he’s knocking that she might’ve moved. She might not be home. She might have a fucking boyfriend who’s going to punch him in the face. 

She opens the door. 

He can see hurt and shock and something bright (hope?) flickering across her face, and then she looks him up and down. 

“Dean,” she says softly. “Are you okay?” 

“I’m -” 

“If you say ‘fine’ right now I’ll punch you in the mouth,” she says matter-of-factly. There’s no judgement in her eyes, just familiar wide-open warmth. “It’s three in the morning. You snuck out, like a fucking asshole, and then I didn’t hear from you in over a fucking year. So. Are you okay, Dean?” 

He has to force the words out; it feels like they’re scorching his throat. 

“No. I’m not.” 

He sways on his feet and sags against the doorframe. It’s pulling him under, one wave after another. 

She wraps her arms around him and squeezes, holding him close, right there in the doorway. He runs his hands up her back and buries his face in her hair, taking deep heaving breaths that burn his lungs. It’s all he can do to keep his head above water. 

She presses her lips to his pulse and whispers against his skin: “Come inside, Dean. Stay a while.” 

She pulls the door closed behind him as he takes one shaky step, then another. 

He doesn’t look back. 

.

.

.

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Tag team: @winchesterprincessbride​ @ultimatecin73​  @mrswhozeewhatsis​ @mogaruke​ @babypieandwhiskey​ @amanda-teaches​ @hannahindie​ @fandom-princess-forevermore​ @just-a-touch-of-sass-and-fandoms​ @maddiepants​ @fangirlxwritesx67​ @leatherandfrackles @waywardbaby​ @covered-byroses​ @thoughtslikeaminefield​ @dean-winchesters-bacon​ @atc74​ @onethirstyunicorn​ @tumbler-tidbits​ @67-chevy-baby​ @wayward-and-worn​ @the-chocolate-moose​ @geekgirl1213​ @notyourtypicalrose​ @myfanficlibrarium​ @calaofnoldor​ @indecisive20something​ @carryonmyswansong​ @sycochick​  @akshi8278​ @woodworthti666​ @sandlee44​ @flamencodiva​ @weepingwillowphoenix​ @shamelesslydean​ 

[og-danny-dorito]

[ Tanjiro Headcanons To Fuel The Fluff/Angst Tank ]

He Is Baby™ thank you very much and i love him with my whole heart

- hi hello i would like to share my thoughts on this baby cause i love him v much

- he gives me the vibe that he would def love anything strawberry related. like strawberry milk, strawberry shortcake, strawberry yogurt- the list goes ON

- he would eat them more often if they weren't so godamn expensive, and most of the time you can only find those kinds of products when in the city and he mostly travels through the woods rather than through heavily populated areas. he does get them when he can though, and usually has some stocked up when he and nezuko leave rural areas

- thats not the only fruit he likes though! hes also a huge fan of cherries but he gets those even less since they're even MORE expensive. he also very much likes mint chocolate chip icecream! something about the clash of dark chocolate and refreshing mint is just so good to him, and usually he’ll try to look for that specific flavor if theres any icecream places nearby. my basis for that?

- thankfully though he doesnt really buy things from others since he just gets most of his food from the surrounding forest. you see, tanjiro literally lived in the woodlands for most of his early life before the whole 'incident', so hes accustomed to being more of a hunter-gatherer when it comes to those sorts of things

- he knows a whole bunch of stuff about forest plants and topography for that reason specifically, and can make food out of pretty much nothing due to having to go through some rough winter times that required scavenging

- overall though hes a pretty good cook! his father and mother both liked to cook and bake and all that before they died, and, being eager to help and learn, he usually watched them when they did or asked to help with preparing the food

- he actually probably has a lot of domestic skills, now that i think about it. things like sewing up ripped clothing or repairing damaged items are almost muscle memory to him since he was raised to value what he had and not aimlessly spend his money due to his humble beginnings

- he’s actually more comfortable with simple things rather than lavish ones since thats what he grew up with. being a demon slayer means that he does get commissioned to do things sometimes or paid for it, but he usually gives most of his money to poeple who need it after spending some of what he has on more efficient and useful things like better fabric for clothes and repairs for things that he doesn't have the skill set to fix himself

- due to this humble attitude he has for things, he barely ever really treats himself to things he enjoys. he usually puts others before himself and thus forgets about his own needs, leading him to often deny taking care of himself if he deems to 'not have enough time' or 'not being important enough”

- usually forcing him to sit down and eat or at least take a moment to drink some tea can calm his nerves a ton, even if its only just for a second

- i'm pretty sure that his favorite drink is green tea (or strawberry milk), actually. its just so naturally calming and relaxing that he usually uses it as a staple for calming himself down or taking a breather from the stressful life he's lead so far

- for someone that barely takes care of himself hes awfully adamant about others taking acare of themselves. oh, you haven't slept in three days because of work? guess what you're going to sleep right now. no, dont Mention how he keeps moving even though he should be in bed because of a broken rib, your needs come first now go to sleep

- deeefinitely the mom friend type in more ways then one. its p obvious that he already takes care of Nezuko, Zenitsu and Inosuke as good friends of his, but hes kinda adamant on taking care of them almost like they're younger than him or something. this doesnt mean that they can’t take care of themselves of course, he just kinda feels the natural instinct to protect people he values if he can (mainly due to the fear that he’ll suddenly loose them without making it clear he cares about them first but we will unpack that suitcase LATER in the list)

-for that reason i can safely say that he's probably fantastic with kids because of his gentle nature. hes just so soft and pure that children naturally feel calm around him? its weird how like a baby will literally stop crying in a city full of people just because they saw tanjiro wave and smile at them and as SOON as hes out of eyesight they start crying again. also tanjiro holding a baby? you CANNOT tell me this man wouldnt softly sing some lullaby he remembers from his childhood to a child cradled in his arms, fast asleep. and the smile he gives to the person who finds him like that is BLINDING i cannot comprehend the purity-

-the EXACT same thing goes for animals. its straight up canon that he understands (to an extent) what birds are saying when they're chirping to one another, so its probably safe to assume that he might understand a little bit of what other animals may be saying when they communicate

- yet another effect of living in the forest most of his life and being way too observant at his age :p

- when dogs bark he responds to them out of instinct, knowing what they mean. when some pig just randomly snorts at him don't be surprised when he just says "oh, thank you!" in the most earnest tone possible because he probably knows what the animal said and is responding to it honestly. answering like he's pretending to know what it means would be dishonest, and thats too out of character for the sunshine boy

-its also gotta be mentioned that tanjiro physically rejects the concept of being dishonest. i swear to god I'm not making this up- when hes lying its so easy to tell because his face is physically rejecting the concept that hes not being sincere

-this goes for pretty much anything- he cant really blatantly lie without shifting in place or making a weird expression. its no expection that when asked about his feelings that he can barely keep a straight face by saying that he's "okay"

-theres just so much pent up grief and sorrow for so many things that its hard to really say that he's "just fine" or "alright" some days. the accumulation of trauma and guilt has lead up to this constant dread boiling in the pit of his stomach that he'll fail one day, and this would've been all for nothing

-he'll die one day without his goals being met, without Nezuko being healed, without his friends safe, without so many things that he thought he could fix that will eat him up until he fixes them. he doesn't have frequent depressive episodes all that often anymore since Sakonji helped him with that (kind of, it was kind of a group effort by his other superiors, the Pillars, too with some reassurance and advice since a good portion have Been There Done That with the survivor’s guilt and the like) in terms of teaching him how to meditate more frequently and search for positive outlets for his negative feelings. he helped him accept that it was okay to feel bad about it, but he couldn't give up, no matter what. because “What worth was your dream if you just gave up in the end?”

-and so he doesn't. he never gives up, on anything. he refuses to give up when his friends are in danger and the odds are against him, or when hes face to face with an eldritch demon who's been alive longer than the numbers he can count. tanjiro is incredibly persistent in his efforts, big or small, and makes a conscious decision every time to not abandon what he worked for because the phrase "What worth was your dream if you just gave up in the end?" motivates him to be better than who he was yesterday and try his best to reach his dreams

- because of this he's a heavy believer that most people can change. i say most because I'm pretty sure he knows Muzan will never change, or some of the other terrible people in the world. he's accepted over time that he can’t help everyone, but he'll be damned if he doesn't try his hardest in figuring ot if they are truly, genuinely, capable of being better. so he's incredibly supportive of people who actually do make efforts to improve themselves because he knows how hard it is to come from such a bad situation/bad mindset and reteach good values and habits

- that doesn't mean that poeple are expempt from their punishments of course- everyone deserves the consequences of their actions to be better to know what to improve on, but he has sympathy for the poeple who's consequences stop their lives short (example, countless demons that he feels terrible for because they came from really bad situations)

-since he knows how hard it is to improve on anything- he’s very very supportive to people who do that for themselves or for others. in fact, he would go out of his way for about anyone to make their life a little better but if he sees someone struggling their way to their personal best he'll happily be a help to them in any way that they can. oh, you were training really hard today and had no success in perfecting a certain technique? its alright, you can just lay down right now while he fixes your bath water and tomorrow he'll help you out with it in any way he can. hes the best cheerleader!

-overall tanjiro is very sweet and kind, even though he has personal problems with his own demons and feeling as if he's a burden most of the time. for all this suffering, he views the prosperity of the people around him worth it and is selfless to the end of the line for those whom he cares about

[ ~Thank You For Reading!~ ]

[ashintheairlikesnow]

if you’re still doing the ask game, I’d kill to see number five for either Jake, Jameson, or Jax. you know how I love my drug whump

I have so many prompts sitting in my inbox that are numbers to ask games that I can't remember what the prompts were... but I remember this one. This is as good a time as any...

CW: Pet whump, dehumanization, drugged whumpee, beating, described body/bones, brief emeto ref, restrained, sadistic whumper, collared, chained up

Direct Sequel to Deep Breath / I'm Ready. Part of the Jameson's Backstory mini-series.

-

"I have a system, dog. I have a method. I have a way these things are done."

Robert punctuates each sentence with another kick to his ribs, and the pet grunts with the impact, telling himself to let some of the pain bleed out into the man's boot. With his hands tied behind his back, a short rope linking them to his ankles, he's forced into an arch that leaves his most vulnerable places entirely unprotected.

Open.

On display.

Inviting the next blow.

At least whatever was forced down his throat dulls things a little bit. It's a mercy, he thinks, because Robert isn't done with him yet. The world roils and spins around him like the ocean on a stormy day. The pet is a white-capped wave when the next kick comes and something snaps inside him.

Watch it rain, a soft voice says somewhere inside him. A small hand grabs his own. Watch the rain fall, Johnny. Don't you love rain?

He whimpers, sweating into the blindfold, shivering reflexively as cool air hits the sheen of wet over his skin. He doesn't know who Johnny is.

"Please... please..." His pleading is weak, voice cracked and breaking.

But he just wanted to do the only thing he could to help the young man in the bathtub. He just wanted to help.

Now he's helpless.

Robert's boot, pulled back for the next kick, pauses at the sound. "What's that? You not enjoying this?" He exhales, letting out a thready laugh, before he drops into a crouch, running his hands over the pet's hair. Robert watches him flinch back, unable to see it coming. His thumb finds a spot rubbed bald by the straps of the muzzle and he runs over it, humming, finding the scarred places where the muzzle has cut in enough to make him bleed, over and over. The pad of his thumb is rough, calloused from his job. "You don't like taking your punishment, hm? Is that it?"

The pet holds as still as he can, panting, trying to push past the throbbing ache on his left side. Broken rib, maybe, or just bruised. He'll find out if it heals right or doesn't.

"Please-... please stop," He whispers.

That only gets him another laugh, meaner this time. "That boy had two more weeks of life left in him," Robert says, in a tone of perfect rationality. "I chose him special, and you got it in your head to ruin everything. I just don't see how I'm the bad guy here."

He sighs, and rips the blindfold off over the pet's head.

The pet looks up, struggling to focus, only to take a fist to the face as soon as he does. Knuckles crack into his jaw, but nothing breaks. It's a miracle he hasn't lost any teeth.

His head bounces off the floor, a flash of white behind his eyes. He hears a rough voice cry out in pain and realizes it's his own. The world, already a seasick cruise ship, bobs even more dangerously around him.

He's being blown around in circles, saltwater coming in too fast to bail out. He's going to be sick. He's going to throw up on the floor and drown.

Just like he drowned the man in the bathtub who begged him to do it, who said I'm ready, who held his hand, who struggled at the end and then stopped, and then-

And then...

The air had gone briefly cold after the man had stopped moving and the pet had felt a breeze through his hair, as if something in the man was leaving and moved past him on its way somewhere else.

He starts to cry, unwillingly.

His sobs comes out through gritted teeth, tears forced out of eyes he's closed as tightly as he can to try and keep them hidden. His body shakes.

"Two weeks you've robbed me of," Robert says, standing back up. He groans, and the pet can hear him moving around the room. He doesn't dare look up to watch him, not now. "Two weeks, and now it's all wrong. Now nothing happened the right way, it's all fucked up now. I have a system. I have a method, I have a routine, and you fucked it all up!"

The last words come out a deafening scream, and the pet cries out again, trying as hard as he can to duck his head and hunch his shoulders, wanting only to protect himself in whatever meager way he can. The sound of Robert's voice bounces around inside his fucked-up skull. The water is pulling him under now.

The waves lurch and break against him as Robert grabs him by the arms and drags him. Hog-tied, he can do little more than squirm as he's pulled back into the hallway, to the grimy bathroom.

The young man isn't in there anymore.

"I should kill you," Robert snaps, depositing him back on the cold tile, wet now with water splashed out from when Robert found what he had done and had dragged the body out, trying to revive it so he could hurt the young man more. "I should fucking kill you, you stupid dog. You ruined everything!"

The pet tips his head back until it touches the floor, looks up at Robert looming over him, all malevolence and rage. Beyond his fear, the pet finds a core of something that burns bright and hot, stronger than the smell from the basement. Something sharper than the knives he is cut with, something stronger than Robert's shouting or his fists.

The pet makes an expression that could be a smile or could be a snarl. It could be appeasement or bared fangs. His lip busted at some point and he feels blood on his teeth, tastes it on his tongue.

It makes him think of Nanda.

He lets the blood shift into his mouth, lets it pool on his tongue. Tastes the copper-salt, the hint of sweet. The taste of love, of Nanda's mouth, of his low voice, hands in his hair or on his hips.

Once he has enough, the pet spits blood into Robert's stupid fucking face.

"I hope the next one goddamn kills you first!"

Robert goes still, and silent. His eyes are ringed in white, like a horse about to bolt. Then his hand comes up to slowly wipe away the smear of pink-tinged saliva on his cheekbone running down to his jaw, marked with a five o'clock shadow.

"Fucking dogs don't know how to stop their bark," He mutters to himself. Whatever his plan in the bathroom had been, it's clearly not enough. He pulls the pet up, then lets him fall again. Stares around, eyes bouncing over the still-full tub, the ring of grime around the tub where the water still sits.

Then he just shakes his head. "No, no, no," He mumbles. "No no. Calm it, Bobby. Calm it. Think think think."

The pet stares up at him. His body holds more disgust in that moment than he ever thought possible.

Robert disappears back into the hallway, leaving the pet where he is. Outside the barred bathroom window there's a soft birdsong and the faint hint of sunlight. What time even is it? The pet never knows. The bathroom is the only window that isn't covered with heavy blackout drapes almost all the time.

He focuses on breathing, keeping things shallow to hold the pain in his ribs at bay as best he can. His wrists hurt from the ropes rubbing them raw, his muscles are pulled painfully taut and stretched.

Robert returns with the gag-muzzle, forcing the plastic bit between his teeth. His tongue pushes against it uselessly, working to try and make it comfortable even as his jaw already protests what it knows is coming. The straps slide over the bald spots, buckle into place. The pet shudders at the familiarity of the feeling and tries instinctively to jerk his head to the side.

Robert grabs him by the hair and forces his head back, giving a humorless rictus grin at the pained grunt forced from the pet's throat. "Oh, you don't like that, huh? Shoulda thought of that before you fucking ruined my system. My method. My routine."

You said that already, the pet thinks, but it occurs to him Robert probably doesn't remember that. He's never sure what Robert actually knows about his own words, how much sinks in to memory. He's always repeating things like it's the first time he's ever said them.

The rope between his wrists and ankles is cut and Robert pulls him up to his feet, shoving him forward. The drugs keep the pet struggling to hold himself upright, stumbling to one side or the other. He can still feel the waves - inside him, battering, trying to pull him back under the cold dark water.

He goes willingly enough, shuffling with his hobbled ankles, until Robert has him at the basement door.

The pet rears back in a sudden panicked realization, a muffled, unintelligible babbled plea coming out around the bit, behind the leather muzzle already making his skin pour sweat. He shakes his head wildly back and forth, tries to yank himself free.

Robert's laugh is wild and crazed this time as he shoves the pet forwards and it's either go down the stairs or fall.

The pet's foot finds cool smooth old wood that creaks and he whimpers, the smell flooding his nose making his stomach twist and turn. The next step. A third. A fourth.

The light is on in the basement, a single bare bulb shining a thin circle of light over the disturbed earth on one side. The other side is untouched except for some boxes and the chemical barrels, wreathed in dark shadows that let nothing escape.

"You like 'em so much, you can spend the night with 'em, huh? Just have a little sleepover with my friends here, hm? How's that sound? How that fucking sound?!"

The pet whines as Robert screams in his ear, shaking his head again and again as he is forced step by step down into the basement where they die, where he buries them. His bare feet touch down onto the earthen floor, coolly dry down here, chilly compared to the upstairs. The pet is shivering but it isn't really from the cold.

Goosebumps burst all over his arms and legs, a thrill of terror down his spine as Robert pulls him over to the shadowed corner where the boxes are. There's a hinged metal collar with a chain that attaches to the wall, and the pet realizes that Robert must use it when they're down here just before Robert throws him down on the ground and closes the metal with a snnnnkt over his leather collar, around his neck.

There's thigh bones, he thinks, in a pile over underneath the lightbulb. Just a bunch of fucking goddamn femurs, like Robert comes down here to play fucking barbie dolls with dead people, taking them apart and putting them back together.

Welcome to Malibu Barbie Dreamhouse, he thinks, and a manic horrified laugh bubbles up his throat. John Wayne Gacy edition.

A padlock is hooked through the front of the collar, cold metal slapping down against the top of the pet's collarbone. He looks up at Robert, who is right in front of the light bulb from his perspective, his face black and unreadable.

Please, he tries to say. I'm sorry. Please. All that comes out is muffled animal whines.

"You love them so fucking much, you can be best friends." Robert ruffles his hair. He grins, and the yellowy white of his teeth is all the pet can see of his face. "Enjoy your sleepover, dog."

He turns and leaves, ignoring the pleading whines of the pet as he climbs up the stairs, the creaking like a chorus, a harmony to the pet's cries for this to not be real.

The light seems to shimmer around its edges - it's just the drugs, he tells himself, it's just whatever was in those pills - and shift. Dead people could hide down here in the dark places, with their bony fingers reaching out to grab him.

He whimpers again, softer this time.

He manages to shuffle himself on his ass backwards until he hits the basement wall, smooth stone older than the house itself. His hands are still tied behind him and his ankles are still hobbled. Tears run from his eyes, drift along the edge of the muzzle, drip down from his jaw into the dirt. He sobs around the bit gag, whining until he can't remember if he even is human at all any longer.

Then he sees a face and gives a full-body shudder.

At first he thinks it's the drugs, but it's not. The young man who begged him for help, the reason he's down here at all, isn't buried yet. He's just lying on the ground under a worktable on the other side of the basement. His hands are still tied together in front of him, his soaking wet hair has begun to dry, frizzy and tangled.

Something about the face, though, gives him pause.

He's seen them dead before, their faces etched in horrified screaming, empty eyes wide and terrified. He's seen them trapped in their final agonies long after they're gone.

But the young man across the basement looks like he's gone to sleep there on the floor, that's all. His color's all wrong but the dim light keeps that from being too obvious.

He looks like he's sleeping.

He didn't die screaming under Robert's knife, or begging for it to stop as the blows kept raining down. He isn't tied to Robert's bed, he isn't anything like that at all.

The pet's fear is still in him, heart beating jackrabbit-fast against the inside of his chest, but he stares and stares at the young man's body and begins to understand that... he doesn't need to be afraid of them.

He doesn't need to be afraid.

He needs to be angry that they die like this, not afraid of them.

Anger is what keeps him breathing, what keeps him thinking, what keeps him alive.

He made Robert furious, but more importantly he took a victory from him, he took power from him. He took away control. He made it so Robert can't feel like he owns the young man in his death, like the body is his because he made it.

No.

As long as he isn't dead, that means he isn't out of time. As long as he keeps breathing, as long as he keeps thinking, as long as there are parts of him that Robert doesn't know, doesn't own, that he can't control.

As long as he stays angry.

As long as he has hope.

I'm going to get out of here, he promises the young man's body, the pile of bones, the rest of them under the soil. I'm going to escape. I'm going to do something, someday, when he gives me the chance.

I'm not like him.

I'm not like any of them.

I want to be like you, instead, but alive. I want to live.

I'm going to live.

For a second he smells water, he hears a voice he can't understand and tastes the young man's voice on his tongue, the taste of sage tea with milk.

The pet swallows and closes his eyes, breathing in through his nose, holding the air, breathing out again. The air shifts around him, touches his face just above the muzzle.

In the perfectly still basement, a breeze shifts along his skin, rustles his hair just a little.

Something moving past him on its way to somewhere else.

-

@astrobly @finder-of-rings @whump-tr0pes @raigash @eatyourdamnpears @orchidscript @doveotions @pretty-face-breaker @boxboysandotherwhump @outofangband @whumptywhumpdump @thehopelessopus @downriver914 @justabitofwhump @butwhatifyouwrite @newandfiguringitout @yet-another-heathen @nonsensical-whump @oops-its-whump @endless-whump @cubeswhump @gonna-feel-that-tomorrow @whumpiary @burtlederp

[purplesauris]

Desperate Measures

Inspired by a prompt from @writinglizards  "Higher Vamp!Jask feeding on Geralt for like...Important and Unavoidable reasons." I have come back with more vampire!Jaskier (is anyone surprised?)

Read it on AO3 here!

“Surely you aren’t suggesting I stay back at camp?” Jaskier tilts his head to the side, appraising the witcher before him. Said witcher in question pauses in his prepwork, sighing heavily and capping the vial of Swallow he’d just brewed.

“Is that what you interpreted from ‘stay here’?” Geralt’s voice is dry, and he watches, unamused, as Jaskier makes a face at him and crosses his arms.

“Geralt, I am not some human you have to protect.”

“No, you’re an untrained higher vampire who I don’t want to babysit while trying to fight a leshen .” Jaskier gasps, affronted, and presses a hand over his heart as if the witcher has wounded him grievously. He sputters at a reply, irritated, and Geralt’s expression is cool as Jaskier tries to form some kind of argument. Geralt sighs heavily again, rubbing at his forehead and tilting his head back to look at the sun peeking through the trees. “You have to promise not to do anything stupid.”

Soft lips press to his neck then, and Geralt hums as Jaskier nuzzles him, grinning against his skin. “Swear on my life.”

“You’re immortal.”

“Swear on your life?” Jaskier tries again, and Geralt huffs, rolling his eyes and tilting his head down to kiss Jaskier’s forehead.

“It’s better, I guess.” Jaskier grins, and he slips away to get ready. Geralt isn’t sure what Jaskier has to do to get ready for a hunt, but Geralt doesn’t worry about it yet. He worries about his own prepwork- finishing the potions he’ll need, making sure his silver blade is sharp and covered in Relict oil. It’s going to be a hard fight no matter what, but the pay will be well worth it and he might actually have enough to go to the armorer in Velen after this. They’re camped as close to the supposed sighting as Geralt is comfortable with, and when he can’t stall anymore he stands, sliding his sword back into its sheath on his back. He smothers the fire, breathing in the scent of woodsmoke to ground him before he turns toward the forest.

There’s a soft noise from beside him, and he glances over just in time to see Jaskier hop down from a tree, clad in leather armor. The sight stops Geralt short, and his brows furrow in confusion. The leather hugs Jaskier’s form tight, bulked up around the most vital parts of him and thin at the joints to allow for movement. Jaskier catches him looking and spins in place, grinning.

“You like it?”

“When did you get it?” Geralt doesn’t want to admit just how much he likes Jaskier in armor, and he turns to begin walking again.

“Oh, maybe a decade ago? I figured that once I finally told you what I was you would be more agreeable to letting me tag along.”

“I’m not.” His reply is automatic, but Jaskier only chuckles, easily keeping pace as Geralt slinks further into the forest. Geralt listens to the soft creak of leather, but Jaskier’s armor appears to have been meticulously cared for and makes minimal sound. That’s good. “Tell me what you know of Leshens.”

“They don’t taste good.”

“Jaskier.” Geralt’s tone is sharp, and Jaskier huffs beside him, keeping his voice low as Geralt’s eyes track every broken leaf or odd footstep.

“They’re particularly formidable forest spirits who’s only objective in life is to kill, and kill quickly. They are capable of using roots, minor teleportation and control of wolves and crows to take down prey.”

Geralt hums in surprise, and Jaskier bumps their shoulders together. He sounds as if he were reading from a bestiary, and Geralt knows that’s because of Jaskier’s memory. Geralt can smell the pride radiating off of him, and he secretly nurtures the kernel of it in his chest. Jaskier has been studying- particularly the more dangerous foes, it seems. “What would I use against them?”

“Beside silver? Relict oil, Igni, and Yrden if desperate.”

“Good. Now hush. Hear them?” Geralt stops then, lingering a bit as Jaskier tilts his head and closes his eyes. He’s still for a moment before his head turns northeast, and Geralt’s lips twitch into a smile.

“Crows.”

“Where there’s crows, there’s an idol.”

“Lead on, love.” Jaskier’s footsteps are silent, and he hardly seems to be touching the ground as they move closer to the sound of wings and cawing. The first group of crows fly away in a flurry of wings, and Geralt hunts around a bit before shaking his head. Nothing. They sneak to two more flocks before Jaskier tilts his head, jerking his chin toward a thick tree.

There at the base of the tree is an assembly of branches, a staff almost, with a deer's skull firmly mounted atop it. Leaves have been carefully arranged around it, as if it were a mane, and Jaskier hmms quietly. He seems to admire the craftsmanship, and he takes a step closer to look. He doesn’t touch, thankfully, but the closer Jaskier leans to look the more Geralt’s skin crawls. He keeps careful watch of their surroundings, but the forest is eerily silent, as if holding its breath. “We have to destroy it to lure the leshen out.”

“Allow me, love.” Geralt draws his sword and downs Thunderbolt, rolling his wrist out and watching as Jaskier reaches forward. He crushes the skull between his hands with a dull crunch and rips the branches apart, tossing them wide. A low, mournful bellow shakes the branches around them, and Geralt’s nose is filled with the scent of blood and decaying leaves. He watches with bated breath as the leshen walks from behind a tree, then another, and then another, teleporting in a slow circle around the two of them. They watch each other, no one moving until the leshen raises a long, clawed finger and points straight at Jaskier. Geralt swears, but Jaskier laughs, the sound of wings rapidly blocking out the sound. Crows pour from the treetops, talons outstretched, but Jaskier is in front of him before he can breathe, arms outstretched.

“ GO .” The word vibrates with ancient, shimmering power, and the birds veer off in every direction around them, screeching. Jaskier glances back at him, nodding once sharply before taking off like a bullet through the trees. The leshen’s attention remains firmly on Jaskier’s fleeing form, crows batting between the two of them in a test of ancient wills. Geralt slips into the fray, slashing at the leshen with practiced, smooth strikes. He rolls away from a wide swing, rolling again when the ground shakes, roots unearthed and stretching toward him. The leshen seems to switch focus to an active participant, and the crows switch as well. Geralt can hear Jaskier call out to them, keeping their attention mostly diverted so that Geralt can prioritize the leshen.

The leshen battles with deadly efficiency, swiping with long claws and shaking the ground under Geralt’s feet. Geralt adjusts as best he can, but he hangs back when howls resound in the air. Having tired of Jaskier’s intervention with the crows the beast has called wolves, and Geralt spins and twirls out of the way of snapping jaws, dispatching each wolf that gets too close. The wolves do their job though, and Geralt snarls when jaws eventually latch onto his calf, tearing at the muscle. Geralt moves with the wolf, keeping his muscle mostly intact, and he swings his blade down blindly. The wolf lets go of him and Geralt downs a Swallow, ignoring the dampness that spreads through his pant leg.

Jaskier materializes from the treeline, breathing hard at the tang of Geralt’s blood in the air, and Geralt watches as Jaskier’s fingers curve into claws. They bite deep into the wood of the leshen’s body, tearing gouges from the bark and sending leaves flying. There isn’t blood really so much as sap, but the leshen dissolves into smoke, Jaskier chasing instinctively. Geralt’s calf has healed enough that he can limp after, favoring the one side. Jaskier circles the smoke the way a wolf circles a wounded deer, and Geralt yells a warning. A leshen injured enough is like cornered prey- viable to do anything to survive. Geralt leaps forward when he senses the leshen finally appear, sword plunging upward as the ground quakes under foot. He feels his blade scrape against the wooden core of the monster, scoring the heart, and he sends a wave of heat through his blade.

It’s a trick that Eskel had taught him- a way to push his signs into the runes inscribed down the length of his silver, and the leshen bursts in flames immediately. It brays and swings wildly, but Geralt pulls back and ducks, slashing at leg and watching as the spirit goes down, writhing in a ball of flame. Geralt doesn’t wait for the leshen to stop moving, severing the head with one mighty swing and watching as it rolls halfway over and settles, horns digging into the earth. He hears a pained wheeze to his left, and he looks over to see Jaskier in an odd position, half standing, half crouched, impaled on at least six different roots. They twist and burrow into his skin, punching right through the leather armor, and Geralt sheaths his sword without bothering to wipe it off.

“ Fuck . Don’t move.” Geralt circles Jaskier slowly, trying to find where to begin, but Jaskier is making these odd hiccupy gasps and Geralt’s heart leaps into his throat. “I have to cut them away.”

“No, just leave me-”

“Jaskier, shut the fuck up.” Jaskier’s jaw snaps shut and he glares at Geralt, bearing his teeth when the man gets close. Geralt does it back, hissing low in his throat and pressing his lips together when Jaskier falls into sullen silence. Jaskier squints at him, growling when Geralt begins cutting away at the roots. He focuses mostly on the ones that have looped back into Jaskier’s body, pulling each one away with a wet noise. Jaskier jerks and groans with each one that comes free, and Geralt tries to ignore the small chunks of Jaskier that come with some of the deeper roots.

“Geralt, either yank me off these right now or get the fuck out of the way-” Jaskier’s voice wheezes out of him, devoid of it’s usual musicality. Geralt can hear the same odd fluttering in Jaskier's voice, and he realizes Jaskier has at least one punctured lung. Geralt does as Jaskier asks, tucking his knife away and grabbing onto Jaskier with firm hands. He begins to mutter a count, Jaskier bracing for it, but Geralt hardly says two before yanking Jaskier up and off the roots. His body comes away with a wet squelch and Jaskier howls in pain, writhing in Geralt's grasp. Jaskier's hands come up to shove Geralt away on instinct, and he goes stumbling back at the force of it. Jaskier tumbles into the dirt, wheezing and snarling and back arching up off the ground.

Geralt approaches slowly, hands up and shoulders slumped to make himself seem smaller. Jaskier tracks him, pupils constricted to pinpoints, and Geralt goes down on his knees beside Jaskier. The ground around him is slick with blood, and Geralt has never seen Jaskier bleed so much. Holes riddle his abdomen and chest, and Geralt tries not to stare through Jaskier to the forest floor beneath him.

"What can I do?"

"Leave me." Jaskier's chest rises and falls in uneven, stuttered breaths, and Geralt shakes his head immediately.

"There has to be something -"

"Geralt, the only thing I am liable to do right now is rip your throat out and drink like a glutton to dull my pain. I will heal in a couple of hours, now leave ."

Geralt goes still at that and Jaskier thinks perhaps he's been a little too beastly, but Geralt sizes him up, eyes glowing in the light of the forest. Geralt fishes a vial from the small pack at his hip, downs it in one go, and begins to remove his armor. Jaskier watches in pained confusion, head swimming, as Geralt rolls his sleeves up and leans down over Jaskier.

"Will it help your healing?"

"Think seconds instead of hours. But I'll- I won't be able to stop."

"You will." Geralt smiles at Jaskier then, trusting and warm, and Jaskier feels supremely unworthy.

"Geralt-"

"You will. And I have ways to stop you if you don't." Geralt sits patiently as Jaskier thinks it over, eyes wary and afraid, but Geralt takes the bard's hand and squeezes lightly. Jaskier reaches up with a shaking hand, cupping the back of Geralt's neck and drawing him down. His touch is gentle, light, but Geralt moves with him without any resistance and Jaskier kisses him once.

"Thank you." Jaskier breathes, and Geralt opens his mouth to say something, but the only sound that comes out is a strangled moan as Jaskier sinks his teeth into his neck. Geralt can feel his pulse slamming through him, and he hopes that the white honey has had enough time to work or Jaskier is going to be in for a rough time. The first initial flash of pain melts away from him quickly, and Jaskier drinks greedily, shaking underneath him and hands gripping Geralt's ribs tight enough that he can feel them creak in protest. Geralt sags into Jaskier as he feeds, and maybe this wasn't the best thing to do in the middle of the forest, but he couldn't bear the thought of just leaving him here.

Geralt, despite the circumstances and rather shitty surroundings, is embarrassed to find himself rather aroused. He hadn't thought about it when he'd asked Jaskier to take from him, but Jaskier's fingers have slipped up and are tight in his hair and he keeps making these soft little sounds that goes straight to his groin. It doesn't help that Jaskier seems very, very skilled at what he does, and Geralt groans quietly. The noise seems to shake Jaskier, because he pulls back with a gasp, lips bloody and pupils blown wide. Geralt wants to say something about knowing that Jaskier could control himself, but he's being tossed onto his back like a sack of potatoes and Geralt's head spins at the sudden movement.

Geralt hears the buckles of armor coming undone, and he turns his head to watch as Jaskier rips off his ruined chestpiece. He leaves it in a heap by the leshen and moves with one fluid movement, swinging a leg over Geralt's hips and grinding against him. Geralt gasps at the sudden sensation, and his hands fly up to grab at Jaskier's hips as the man leans down, lapping at the blood on his neck and sealing the puncture wounds shut. Jaskier's hands are propped on either side of Geralt's head, and he rolls his hips in quick, fluid movements, panting and whining. Geralt presses his hips up, trying to give more friction, and he moans when Jaskier's hips bear down, pinning him into the dirt and grinding particularly hard. Geralt tries to catch Jaskier in a kiss, wrapping an arm around Jaskier's shoulders and pulling him in.

Their teeth clack together uncomfortably for a second and Geralt can feel his lip slice open on one of Jaskier's teeth, but it only serves to goad Jaskier on. The fresh taste makes Jaskier's hips jerk against Geralt, and he groans happily when Jaskier kisses him rather thoroughly. Geralt's heart races in his chest as he pulls Jaskier more flush against him, and Jaskier whines against his lips, hips stuttering and losing their easy rhythm. Geralt's other hand applies steady pressure to Jaskier's hip, helping smooth out Jaskier's desperate rhythm and guiding him when he gets close.

"So good, Jask- you close?" The words feel silly in his mouth, and he isn't usually one to say much, but Jaskier whimpers at the praise, nodding and babbling.

"Don't know what you do to me- please, I can't- please, Geralt, please-" Geralt shushes Jaskier softly, kissing him again and rolling his hips up to meet Jaskier halfway. Jaskier shudders, gasping in short stunted breaths, and Geralt's hand slips to Jaskier's ass, grabbing and shoving their hips together. Jaskier's hips jerk in Geralt's grip, and he ruts messily against Geralt as he comes, whining low in his throat and twitching when Geralt grinds up against him to work him through it. Geralt doesn't stop the easy roll of his hips until Jaskier goes boneless against his chest, shivering and twitching with overstimulation. Geralt presses kisses into Jaskier's sweaty hair, humming when Jaskier stirs and groans.

"Feeling better?" Geralt's voice is a whisper when he talks, and Jaskier's hands slip from the dirt to rest on Geralt's shoulders, fingers drawing idle patterns.

"I've healed, and more embarrassingly, made a mess of my pants like a teenager. I would say I'm feeling much better." Geralt chuckles quietly, pressing another kiss to Jaskier's temple just because he can and hissing when Jaskier shifts in his lap. Jaskier huffs out a hot breath, rolling his hips, but Geralt grabs at him to keep him still and grunts.

"I'm fine. I don't have enough blood in me to stay conscious and be hard."

"Pity. It'd be less embarrassing if you made a mess too." Geralt laughs at that and Jaskier gives a pleased hum, smiling against Geralt's skin from where he's tucked his face into Geralt's neck.

[sasorikigai]

A promise was a promise. And Yang was a woman whom kept her word too the best of her ability. Thus now there she was, staying in that safe haven house for herself and Scorpion to recover, after he had taken such a critical and devastating blow off her physical form. The old soldier knew just how close in that razor thin wire their soul had been too plummeting away from the world of the living, ever so familiar with playing a dangerous dance against the cold claws of death over her life. Like the two were old friends passing in the night on repeating long roads, whispers of comforting oblivion sang on winds of tempting rest, yet the shouting determination of life and memory drowning that all out into nothing. So this would be far different another time around, made even more obvious with the specter known as Scorpion ever watchful and growing so protective as to let himself feel such agonies of his host, of her form.

Which boded the ever curious question, could he ever really die if he was already dead? And on the flip side of those words, could he live? Not just breathe or feel a pulse, that was different… But to Live, pursue another chance on this earth in some other way. What a silly little dream, even sillier too want nothing more than help him achieve such a thing. Oh, Yang had done so much of her research, knew what could be waiting out there for this ancient soul if it was pursued. Would Hanzo Hasashi accept it, if given the option?

Various cups were filled with water, while such whimsical thoughts filled Yang’s head. Vocalization from her consisting of humming and softly sang songs so fill the small hide away house that had been being used for a time, one of her safe locations on this earth really. Sounds bouncing through the wooden hallways as her form moved about and watering the different plants scattered along. An avocado tree sprout just starting to get it’s stem thicker, a wildly growing mint plant with it’s vines curled long and powerful near a window, a few flowers on windowsill’s, and potted vegetables, such as komatsuna. A whistling sound echoed not long after her personal chore, a tea kettle having been heated, of which Yang darted for quickly to begin making tea.

The specific type of which had been chosen was the closest she could have managed for an older flavor of green tea. Specifically to try and bring some sort of feeling of home and comfort for the stalwart companion that had her back so often recently. The caring instincts had been steadily on the rise between them both, and now that ever beating heart Yang tried to keep carefully controlled withed for nothing more than to ease that ever burning soul. So it was with a tray of tea, and some carefully made onigiri, that she moved through the home to locate Hanzo. And only when she would find him, did her expression brighten into a gentle and soft smile. A ripple of balancing warmth and calming cool between the aether of magic and arcana free from her for once.

“Hey. I thought you could use a bit of a pick me up and we could talk. How are you feeling?”

Random Inbox Shenanigans || @yetremains​ || always accepting! 

▬▬ι═══════ﺤ 🔥 || Throes of suffocating descension, the serrating laceration that would almost sever him in two tore through him like a natural disaster, and it was all Scorpion could do to keep himself in one piece in both of their wake; to further scorch himself with the conflagration of maelstrom. As Netherrealm’s fire once slipped into every blueprint of his being, the corrosive, cauterizing flames saturated into his ravaged corporeality as Hanzo Hasashi’s Arcana resplendently glowed to something unique, untransferable, and precious. Perhaps it was a self-discovery Scorpion had long sought; the opening of an impalpable, transparent wall, that of his consciousness, between the world and himself. It is true that he senses his utter aloneless even with their Blood Connection, but how he transcends his solitude and forgets himself in his own precarious existence, as a spectral wraith.  

Tainted emptiness persists, as his subconscious becomes arms that can embrace his insanity; yet, he has not learned that it should be as such, for Scorpion has not given himself what he tells Yang that this is deserved. For the world had been an empty region as Hanzo Hasashi’s indomitable, resilient body and soul disintegrated beneath the scorching tendrils of hellfire, even as he refused to expel the last breathe, his dark-hazel eyes staring blindly towards the sanguine squelch and six feet below, and even below that - as he submitted to unhealed scar tissue in order to drown in a hard pile of contempt and chagrin, buried under the wrong kind of muscle. The brutal barbaric winter’s wrath may still permeate his being, but spring slowly, yet gradually dawns emerald green and the crystals of winter may still course through his blood vessel, Scorpion no longer becomes torn apart. 

For he is no longer delicate or vulnerable, and in the unstable equilibrium of his meditative stance, Scorpion no longer sees the hollowed graves of human remains of the Shirai Ryu, but of twitching hunger and aspiration pulsating within his magmatic bloodstream. Sitting at the exposed balcony looking over the promenade of the stroll garden, Scorpion feels his own obsession symbolized by metaphorical skin of his unblemished muscles, despite a lifetime of red perpetuating him and always coloring him red. Often times, his brain disconnects what he can feel from his soul, while everything goes slow in his corporeal sensations and all he sees is a blur. Perhaps he was stuck in-between realm of dreaming and sleeping, with his body see-through, his mind on autopilot mode. If it wasn’t for his halcyon flames unlocking further depth and scope of his Arcana, he would have come to terms once again with perpetuated loneliness and pain. 

Upon familiar footsteps and even more familiar intonation of Yang’s voice, Scorpion lets himself torn apart from the shackle and mandible of his torment and reminiscence, as the impervious depth of his cataract white eyes regard her with the usual intensity and intent. “It has been literal centuries since I had the luxury of savoring a simple, yet fulfilling meal, it would be no greater agony than enduring the unsatisfied need inside me, and I sincerely express my utmost gratitude for fulfilling such basic, but seemingly impossible fantasy.” No longer, it’s the strands of time rushing by, nor haloes of livid bruises causing his desiccated body to break, crackling and swelling, as he would go through the endless cycle of being reincarnated without life. “My body is much less consumed beneath another fire that burns in its own flame that lasts for an eternity. I simply lament battles unwon without my triumph and glory - for the shadow of my former self grieves, for this shadow speaks of only grief, penetrated by rage and vengeance.” ▬▬ι═══════ﺤ 🔥 ||