#but the idea of someone looking at my naked body makes me violently ill

[kuwdora]

fic writer questions: 7, 10

7. Any worldbuilding you’re particularly proud of?

oh gosh, I have SO MANY worldbuilding things proud of. Let me try to pick out a few favorites from things I've actually posted this year...

Leshen Eskel in my season 2 AU: The Warden Along the Path

Eskel's body mutated enough to become so tree-like and when he drank large quantities of witcher alcohol, he got violently ill and some of his branches fell off. Because you can't really feed a tree booze, that's not the nutrients he needs! (His body chemistry will eventually adapt but it was really startling, okay!) I did so much thinking about fantasy botany that could reasonably vibe with the witcher setting. This is just the beginning. 🌳

Eskel can now see and feel magic in a new way, including things and memories from other worlds because the Leshy Queen's connection to the monolith got passed down to Eskel in his mutation.

post-canon Redania - stories we tell, memories we share, and the words we hold dear aka the story where Geralt is naked and writes poetry for Jaskier. The story includes way too much history and a lot of silly puns but I have a worldbuilding nugget that I really love:

I made a reference to an event called the Three Day Incursion where Nilfgaardian forces crossed the Redanian border (for--you guessed it--three days). Dijkstra is such a strategic thinker and looks for every opportunity to help preserve his country and his power for the long term. Even if that involves a little pain in the process. Dijkstra encouraged or incited Nilfgaard enough to cross the Redanian border so he could use the anxiety and fear of the people to his benefit. That way he could step in and be the strong, steady hand for Redania and fight back with a plan. It helped inspire confidence in the new leadership and solidified Dijkstra's power.

10. How do you decide what to write?

oh my god. A better question is "how do you decide what stories to finish?" like many writers I suffer from Too Many WIPs and not enough focus. Also I'm having a lot of anxiety problems this year so it's doubly hard to see things through. I am a theme-driven writer and I tend to gravitate towards ideas and characters where I can really chew on for awhile. The stories I start are things that I will write out 10 million thoughts and unnecessary details and spend 16 years trying to whittle things down into coherency. It helps when I have someone to help prune my ideas (even though I still struggle with keeping things digestible).

Because my writing is dense and introspective in a lot of ways, this means I gravitate towards writing character studies and relationship pieces in lieu of action plotty things and tropey one-shots. I'm trying to flex my writing muscles in the plotty and tropey ways but oh, those muscles have atrophied over the years!

Even as I type this out this all feels like a non-answer, ahaha. God, a lot of things I decide to write I because an idea makes me laugh or it makes me cry and ache, or because I'm really interested in ways I can subvert canon and fanon characterizations and tropes and still satisfy myself in some fun way or interesting way.

But yeah... it's really hard deciding where to put my energy because I am so excited about so many ideas and my current WIPs... I just love all the witcher characters so much. Also puns. I love including too many puns and wordplay. So anytime I get an idea where I can be silly about it... I'mma write it. Will I finish it? Publish it? That's... remains to be seen.

I really need to get better about sharing snippets and making sure some of it exists outside my head and google doc and not just hide in my friends' discord DMs.

Fanfic writer meme

[katsukikitten]

Rapacious - rə-ˈpā-shəs- excessively grasping or covetous, living on prey,  ravenous

(A rapacious appetite only for you my doll)

Hello and welcome to my first formal collab with the lovely @lady-bakuhoe Our thirsty dms finally turned into a full blown collab where our writing melds into one. I hope y'all enjoy reading it as much as we did writing it! (｡•̀ᴗ-)✧

✧Triggers and Warnings ✧

Pro Hero Dynamight, aged up AU, adult themes, such as intense sexual interaction, yandere behavior, mind break (?), branding, and dub con. If any of these topics make you uncomfortable please do not read any further. Thank you.

The snow comes down heavily, beautifully as it sticks and clings to anything it can. Blanketing the outside world in an unsullied shimmer bringing a smile to your face as you watch the sun dip low over the horizon. The light painting the world in stunning reds and pinks as it filters in through your bay window that faces the street. A small shiver runs through your spine as you wait impatiently for your warm tea, convincing yourself that the chill has nothing to do with your outfit. An oversized Red Riot t-shirt, a pair of black dolphin shorts and black thigh high socks, it was comfortable and you felt cute. Even if it was just for yourself, besides what else would one wear to their solo Netflix binging? Surely not pants. 

A rapid knock comes at the door. Harsh, precise as you jump out of your skin, nearly dropping your mug. 

Lifting your cell phone to check the time, wondering who could be knocking at this hour, it was far too late for any visitors and it surely wasn't the post. The icy snow ensured that most people would be snuggled into their couches with a warm cup of tea, tucked away from the harsh weather. Much like you were trying to do, maybe if you ignored it the unsuspecting visitor would move on. 

But another sharp knock echoes around your living room, urging your feet to move. You pad through your small townhouse, trying to get a glimpse through the window only for the unwanted guest to be standing just out of view. Your heart pounds in your chest as you stare at the thick oak door, debating on whether to open it or not as another knock sounded from the other side. Curiosity with a hint of fear compels your fingers as you click your door onto the chain latch. Opening it slightly, looking out between the crack in the door to see who it was.

“H-hi.” Your eyes caught sight of the man outside your house, pupils widening in surprise at the sight of him. Messy ash blond spikes on top of his head as his hair faded to a low buzz cut at the sides, “Dynamight?” 

The man's scowl morphed into a smirk at your recognition, obviously proud that you knew who he was, his vermilion eyes glistening in the light gleaming from your house as you moved to take the door off the security latch, opening it fully so you could see him properly. His gaze immediately drank you in, glancing at the thigh high socks that hugged your thighs as he made his way up to the hem of your shirt, cherishing the exposed skin of your upper thighs until he noticed the shirt you were wearing. His nostrils flaring slightly at the sight of his best friend's face across your chest. It should be his. 

“My car broke down.” He motioned to the car that now sat motionless at the end of your drive, fresh snow already falling and covering its windscreen, “Can I come inside?” 

"Oh, um…" You're hesitant, technically you didn't know Dynamight but he was a pro hero. That meant he could be trusted right? Snow sticks to his blonde strands and shoulders. His hands and nose were a little red making it seem as if he had been in the cold a touch too long. Swallowing your fear you take a step back from the door, arm gesturing for him to come in. Silently elated he steps in as if he owns the place. What were the odds he would end up at your doorstep? 

"Um, can I offer you some coffee? Coco? Tea?" Your voice sounds small, stupid. Nervousness prickles over your skin as he sinks into your couch. 

"Tea is fine." His voice is silky and foreign in your warm home. He watches you with sharp eyes as you reach for a mug. Your short shorts ride up just a bit as your shirt gives him a tease of your back. 

Meanwhile you're buzzing from head to toe, THE one and ONLY Dynamight, the man you'd been dreaming of since his debut, the only face and voice that you ever imagined when your hands ventured into your soaked panties, was here. In your home, sitting on your couch and oh Gods...Which blanket did you have out? Was it his that you sprayed with his line of cologne so you would feel less lonely in your apartment? 

The kettle howls pulling you violently back to the task at hand. Should you ask him how he'd like his tea? You already know how he likes it, having read it in a magazine once committing it to memory in case you ever met him. But would that come off too strong? You settle on making it perfectly  in hopes it would paint you in the light of a "great hostess."  You grab onto the cup and turn to face the ill tempered hero head on. 

He turns away in time, relaxed on your couch as you offer him his cup. He takes it from your hands, his cool fingers brushing against yours. He takes a sip, peering at you over the rim. His vermillion eyes cause your stomach to flip as you nervously twist the hem of your shirt. His eyes rake over you with a smirk before they land on your worrying hands and that damned Red Riot shirt. Suddenly you're hyper aware of your inappropriate outfit, tugging your shirt over your exposed skin. 

His large palm settles on your thigh, starling you. 

"The outfit isn't the problem. I just think you look much better in my shirt." He tugs at the hem, "Maybe you should take this one off." 

“W-what?” You stammered, your body instinctively shrinking away from his touch.

“There’s just something about the way my face looks stretched against those tits.” He smirked, taking a sip of the warm mug before slipping it into your coffee table.

“What do you mean?” Confusion evident in your tone. What was he talking about? Your Dynamight merchandise? How would he have any idea about how much of a fan you were of him, just how many of his shirts sat in your closet right now. 

“Don’t act all coy.” Bakugou continued, turning his body to face yours on the couch, a dark look in his vermillion eyes as his fingers danced higher up your exposed thigh, feeling a warmth begin to seep from his palm as his cool calloused fingertips dig into your skin, “You know exactly what you’re doing.” 

“I assure you, Dynamight.” Bakugou groaned at the way his hero name sounded spilling from your lips, “I don’t know what you’re talking about?”

“Every day you’re out there being a fuckin’ tease.” He growled, biting your lip as you felt his blunt fingernails digging into the plush of your thigh, “Prancing around in these short fuckin’ shorts and my shirts.” 

Wait, had he seen you wearing his merch before? Had he seen you in his clothes? How? You were certain he’d never seen the multiple selfies you’d take of yourself to upload onto social media, always too scared to tag your favourite Hero. Instead proclaiming your love for him shamelessly on your socials, gushing about how he was the perfect hero. Still, even if he was lurking on your accounts, he couldn't possibly remember someone as lowly as you. 

“You knew I was watching you, didn’t you?” He snarled, his other hand moving up to palm your breast through your shirt, the action catching you by surprise as you gasped, “You wanted me to see you acting like such a slut.”

“N-no, Dynamight. I wasn’t-” You stammer as you think back, trying to remember all of the times you thought you felt a weighted gaze on you. Only to look over your shoulder to find nothing before submerging yourself back into your mundane world.

"Wasn't what? You mean you weren't trying to show the whole neighborhood your ass when you bent over 'pulling weeds'?" His palm becomes uncomfortably hot as his voice dips lower, lips brushing your ear as you drown in his spiced caramel scent. 

"Maybe you heard about your new neighbor Pro Hero Red Riot, wanted to show off for him? Or maybe you're just a slut who loves the attention?" 

Your blood runs cold, icy despite his burning palm, you swallow thickly as he continues to recite your summer as if reading from a list. 

"You know exactly what you're doing don'tchya? So many men have changed their jogging route to include your street, even if it is well out of their way. They slow their pace in front of your house when you're outside. Bent over, head lost in your garden and your skin tight shorts show your plump lips, your thick thighs and that supple, soft ass. Tits almost falling out from your crop tops as you must refuse to wear a bra. But you're such a good girl, reminding everyone who you belong to when you wear those shorts with my name across the ass." 

He leans away from you to hold your gaze. A shiver runs up your spine, you had never posted those shorts. The fan made ones that say "Bakugou's" across the ass, fuck how did he-?

He reads the question across your face, a nasty smirk dances on his cruel lips as he takes delight in the fear that blows your pupils wide. 

"I've been watching you Princess." You feel your heart beating out of your chest at the realisation, “But you knew that already, didn’t you?”

You didn’t.

“That’s why you put on such a show for me every time, isn’t it?” 

 You hadn’t noticed your favourite Pro-Hero had been watching you all this time. You were beyond excited when Red Riot had moved into the neighbourhood, wishing you’d catch a glimpse of him each time you left your house. Getting up early some mornings just to see the red head stretching for his morning run, his muscles taut across his thick frame. But not once had Bakugou been anywhere in sight. You were sure you'd remember the ash blonde standing next to your second favorite hero. 

“You do it on purpose.” Bakugou growled, his hand moving to your exposed waist, stroking against your naked skin as his fingers dipped underneath your top, “It turns you on doesn’t it? Everyone looking at your slutty little body.”

“No, please. It doesn’t- I’m not.” You tried to move away from him, but he already had your body trapped between the arm of the couch and his large, muscular frame. 

“All those eyes on you and you don’t give a fuck.” Bakugou’s large palm grasps your round breast, groaning when he feels your nipple pebbled underneath his touch, “You want everyone to see you.”

Before you have a moment to object, to tell him how wrong he is, his lips are already against yours in a sultry kiss. Your mind hazy as he immediately prods your lips with his tongue, desperate for entrance as he invades your mouth. You couldn’t believe what was happening, The Dynamight was inside your house. Your entire body burning as his heat engulfed you, this was something you’d dreamed about more than you could recollect. The amount of nights you’d touched yourself to the thought of his hands dancing across your body. Trying to imagine how it would feel to be completely ravaged by him, but now that he was here in the flesh you were nervous. The reality of the situation slowly consumes your body as your heart beats with more intensity. 

“God, you’re fuckin’ perfect.” Bakugou rasps huskily as he tugs your shirt up and over your breasts, his vermilion eyes taking in the sight of your exposed chest to his prying eyes, “Even better than I imagined.”

You nervously tried to move your arms to your chest, trying to hide your body from his burning gaze, but his hand was quick to grab your wrist, tugging your arm away with a glare, “Don’t.”

You averted your eyes from his own, biting your bottom lip as he lowered his face to your chest. His tongue tentatively coming out to lap around your darkened areola, closing his lips around your hardened nipple as he began to suck on the tender skin. Your head falling onto the back of the couch as you let out a low whine, one of your hands coming up to brush through his buzzed undercut, stroking against the spiky hair as you arched your back into his touch. 

“You’ve no idea how long I’ve been thinking about this, sweetheart.” He murmured around your nipple, his warm breath fanning against your skin as his teeth grazed against the sensitive skin. An airy gasp leaving your parted lips at the sensation as you involuntarily arched your back into his touch, “Every fuckin’ time I saw you-”

Wait? Every time he saw you? How often did he seek out your address? How many times did his crimson eyes burn into your skin without your noticing? 

Your eyes dart to the large bay window, holding eye contact with yourself as you stare at your reflection. A pitiful and clear sight as the blonde's hands groped your exposed tits. If the pro hero was brazen enough to peer through your unobstructed window, just how many other eyes fall onto you? 

“When I saw you in my signed debut Dynamight shirt, I knew I had to have you.” His lips curving into a grin against your skin as his tongue lapped at your hardened nipple, rolling the other one between his thumb and forefinger, “There’s just something about the sight of you in my clothes.”

At the mention of your rare signed shirt your body goes rigid, numb. If he had seen you in the shirt you mostly kept tucked away for safekeeping, he had seen everything hadn't he? 

“Don’t go all shy on me now, Princess.” He released your nipple with a pop, palming your breast with a grin as he pressed his lips against your own, “Weren’t shy when you were putting on a show for everyone, were you?”

Your bottom lip trembled at the suggestion, worrying it between your teeth as you felt Bakugou lean forward to grab your wrist in a large hand, the scent of his quirk filling the air as you felt the heat radiating from his palm. Vermilion eyes glancing down at your half-lidded ones, a glazed expression over your features as you focused on his touch.

“Look at what you fuckin’ do to me, sweetheart.” Bakugou tightened his grip on your wrist, moving your hand towards his crotch. His cock bulging against his pants, desperate to be released as he lay your palm against him. Gasping at the sensation as your palm made contact with the fabric, feeling just how hard he was for you underneath the denim.

All the while his thoughts are consumed by you, your smell, the look of surprise on your face. The feel of your skin against his and the heat of your breath tickling his ear when he pins you to the couch. 

All of the things he'd been imagining for the last few months. Your small hand against his large, twitching cock. Even through the fabric your warmth is hypnotizing, drawing him in and captivating him with every inch of you.

Bakugou's problem is that he can be greedy, hungry for more. Wanting nothing but the best and much like his sun sign, once he had his eyes set on something nothing could overcome his stubborn ambition. Not even the small look of fear in your eyes but even he can see that it is fading, melding into desire. He watches your fingers flutter, teasingly trying to figure out just how big and girthy he really was. Your heart races as you stare into his clouded vermillion eyes. Blood running hot as your mouth salivates, imagining the same thing he is. 

How does it taste? 

You let out a soft whine, fingers prodding at the head earning you a borderline feral growl. 

"Quit being a fucking tease and take it out, Princess." He groans, you freeze at his bold request.

"B..but…" He crowds you as your protests die in your throat. His lips brushing against your ear as he breathes in your sweet shampoo. 

"But what Princess? Scared I'll fuck you stupid?" He nips at the shell of your ear, chuckling darkly when you shiver, "Or are you scared you'll get addicted to how I taste?" 

"T-taste?" 

"Aw look at you acting all fuckin shy?" He squeezes your thighs with a deadly grip, fingers creeping between them, "You weren't so shy last week sitting in this spot were you?" 

You freeze as you think back to last week, knowing exactly what you were doing, eyes glancing over his broad shoulder to see the snow coming down in sheets through the large bay windows. You thought you were high enough and far enough away from the road, there, there was no way he saw right? 

His fingers press against your clothed sex, rubbing rough circles unable to keep the deadly smirk off of his lips. 

"Your phone in one hand and your other right here. Or maybe," He moves the dark fabric to the side, sliding his fingers to your clit, "It was here." 

You bite back your moans as the rough pad of his fingers circle your clit, just barely grazing over it in an agonizing purposeful fashion. 

"What were you watching again? Amateur porn right? POV with the guy's face hidden but he was in a knock off Dynamight suit wasn't he?" He pulls back to watch your face, twisting with pleasure and horror, body arching towards his touch as your head swims. Cunt clenching as he dips closer to your core for slick. 

"And what did that slutty mouth say?" His smile is cocky, holding eye contact. Silence sits between the two of you as your eyes flutter. He pulls his hand away from your throbbing clit, squeezing against your pulse point.

"I asked a question, Kitten. Now answer it." His voice is dark. 

"Dy-Dynamight." You gasp out, he ruts his hips against your leg. 

"Again." His free hand slips back between your folds, fingers setting a rapid pace that already has you teetering on the edge already. 

"Dynamight!" 

"Again. Say my name again." His fingers work you over as the coil unexpectedly snaps in your stomach. 

"Katuskiiii." You gasp and whine, shamefully cumming all over his thick digits. He groans, shoving his fingers into your cunt to feel you grip onto him, he cannot wait to feel that pretty pussy molding to his aching cock. 

But he would wait, for now. 

"Good girl." He praises, pulling his fingers from your core, licking up them. Savoring your essence as you watch his eyes flutter paying you a high compliment. In quick motions he throws a pillow onto the solid hardwood floor, pulling the hair at the nape of your neck as he pulls you onto the plush cushion. His free hand undoing his belt with deft fingers before he pulls his pants and boxers down. His cock springs free, the head leaking precum as you lick your lips. 

"You're gonna keep being a good girl for me right, Princess?" He coos, dragging his cock across your lips, smearing his sweet and salty pre from cheek to cheek. 

"Fuck do you know how long I've been dreaming of your lips around my cock?" He groans, pulling your hair back to force eye contact. 

"How, how long?" Your question prompts that nasty smile as his crimson eyes gleam with cruelty and lust.

"Months." 

And with that he pulls your hair back hard enough that you cry out in pain. Bakugou takes the opportunity to shove his cock into your mouth. Bottoming out at the back of your throat causing you to gag, your spit eases the roughness of his slow harsh thrusts as your eyes water. 

Nothing could have prepared you for feeling Bakugou inside you for the first time, your wildest fantasies didn’t equate to this. The sheer size of his thick, bulging cock made it difficult for you to take him inside your mouth. The prominent veins that forked along the side dragging against your cheek as he eased you down on his length. Fingers stroking through your hair sweetly, a stark contrast to his previous movements. His husky voice cooing down at you, gentle praises that had you keening, desperate to hear more. The red, swollen tip prodding against the back of your throat as you gagged around him, a mixture of spit and pre dribbling down your chin as you tried to fit more of him inside your mouth hungrily. 

“So fuckin’ greedy.” Bakugou grunted, his fingers carding into your messy hair and tugging harshly against the root, pressing you further down his aching cock. Watching the way your cheeks hollowed around him as you tried to adjust to his size. The movement causing fresh tears to clump in your lashes as you tried desperately to breathe through your nose. His coarse blond pubic hairs tickling your skin as he held your head down on his cock. 

Struggling for oxygen as your tongue lashed against the underside of his length, the salty sweet taste of his cum mixed with the lack of oxygen making you light headed as you felt yourself falling deeper into him. Teeth grazing his sensitive skin as you tried to relax your throat, innocent eyes gazing up at him. The sight almost had him cumming on the spot, it was something he’d thought about for months, stroking himself raw to the thought of your lips wrapped around him. You felt gentle tremors flowing through your body as he finally allowed you a moment of respite, tugging you off his length roughly as you gasped for air.

“So pretty for me,” His warm palm stroked against your cheek, dipping his thumb between your parted lips as he felt you instinctively close your mouth around it. Your tongue swirling around the calloused pad of his thumb as you heard him groan above you, “Look at you.”

“How many times have you played with that slutty little pussy to the thought of me, hah?” Bakugou mused, his thumb slipping from your mouth as he pulled down your lower lip, watching the way your face followed after his hand to try and pull him back in.

“P-please.” You trembled, already feeling your clit throbbing painfully between your thighs, already feeling unsatiated as crimson eyes glared down at you.

“I bet you’ve never had anything this big inside you,” He wrapped his palm around his cock, smirking when he noticed your eyes hyper focused on him, “Have you?”

You shook your head nervously, even the toys you’d experimented before didn’t equate to his sheer size, “N-no, Dynamight.”

“I’m gonna make you feel so fuckin’ good, Princess.” Bakugou’s thoughts already flooding to how your tight little cunt would feel being split around his cock. Moulding it to his size so you’d never be satisfied with anything or anyone else. You were going to be his and his alone, and he’d do anything to ensure that happened, “Wanna feel that tight little pussy wrapped around my cock, yeah?”

His words sending more pleasurable jolts to your core, rubbing your thighs together in anticipation as he helped you to your feet, his large palms keeping against your hips as he dipped his fingers beneath the hem of your shorts. Sliding the material down your thighs with one rough tug, exposing your naked body to his prying eyes. The sight of you completely bare in front of him had his cock twitching almost painfully, you were even more perfect than he had imagined.

“C’mere, Princess.” He cooed gently, a stark contrast to his earlier actions. You keened as you slid onto his lap, feeling his thick cock pressed snugly between your folds as you placed your hands on his broad shoulders to steady yourself. Your fingertips digging into his shirt as you tried feebly to get him to take it off.

“So needy,” He smirked, leaning forward to tug his shirt up and over his head. His chiselled abs now on full display as you focused in on each sharp ridge. He was even more perfect in person, and you couldn’t quite believe that the Dynamight was now in front of you.

Bakugou’s large palms moved back to your hips, pressing you down against his cock as you felt the length stroke against your slit, involuntarily grinding down against him as you tried to give your clit some much needed stimulation. The action did not go unnoticed by Bakugou who smirked at your desperation, digging his fingertips into your skin as he began to circle your hips against his cock. 

“You’re soaking my cock and I haven’t even put it in yet,” He smirked as he felt your slick coating his length, watching in amusement as you continued to grind yourself against him, trying to give yourself some relief, “Bet you could get yourself off just like this, hah?”

“No,” You whined, “Please,”

“Please, what?” He coaxed, his fingers slipping between your bodies to tease your puffy clit, a harsh laugh leaving his lips when he felt the way your body jerked at his touch.

“Please,” You trailed off, suddenly feeling incredibly nervous and self-conscious that you were now very much naked in front of your favourite Pro-Hero.

“You don’t seem to want it enough, Princess.” Bakugou teased, moving you away from his cock as you groaned in displeasure. Your eyes looking down at his shaft that was now coated in a layer of your slick. Fresh pre spilling from the tip as you reached out to grab him between your fingers. Bakugou’s reflexes were quicker as he caught your wrist in his large palm, giving you a warning look as his nostrils flared. 

“So fuckin’ greedy.” He moved his hands back to grab your ass, kneading the round mounds as he moved you to hover over his cock, vermilion eyes gazing up at you as he waited for you to speak, “You want my cock?”

“Yeah-” You felt your head nodding before you’d even had a chance to think, desperate to feel him sliding inside your warmth, splitting you open as he buried himself deep inside you. 

“Yeah?” He mocked, tilting his head to the side as he pressed a kiss against your pebbled nipple, “Then fuckin’ beg for it.”

“Please, Dynamight.” You rolled your hips again, grinding against nothing as you tried to create some friction between your thighs, “Want your cock.”

A groan spilled from his lips at such blunt words leaving your pouty lips, calloused fingertips digging into your supple flesh as he pressed you down on the head of his cock. The tip stretching you out slightly as you tried to drop your hips down on him, wanting to feel him deep inside you.

“You want Dynamight to fuck this slutty pussy?” He pulled you away from his cock which caused a needy whine to spill from your lips, trying to angle your hips back towards his length.

Bakugou’s palm wrapping around his cock to drag the swollen, reddened tip along your sopping folds. Feeling your slick coat his skin as it mingled with his pre, watching the way your eyes fluttered at the sensation of his cockhead brushing against your clit.

“Yes.” You hissed, already anticipating the pleasurable stretch his girth would create inside you. The thick head already back at your tight entrance as he watched you shamelessly try and drop your hips down onto him. 

"Yes what?" His voice is dark with pleasure as he glares up at you, a pitiful mess. He's toying with you, as a cat does a mouse and you feel utterly embarrassed. This was Pro hero Dynamight damn it, you wanted to make a good impression. You wanted to be sexy, not some whiny bitch in heat. 

Little did you know how much Bakugou loved it, lived for it as he gently bounced you on just the tip. Driving you wild as you whined, all the while he smirked. 

"Please Katsuki-sama." Your nails rake down his forearms, "Please, please fuck me." 

"That's my good girl." He slams you down on his cock in one swift motion causing your vision to spot. He relishes the way you flutter around him, adjusting as a shiver runs up your spine. 

"Now fuck yourself on my cock, Princess." 

"But-" He wraps his hand around your throat, malice and lust dance in his eyes as his free hand travels to your thigh. Palm heating with each pound of your heart until it begins to become too much, too hot.

"Ride me like you did your fingers last week. You were thinking of me then weren't you, pervert?” You gasped at his crude words, the idea that he had been watching you while you dipped your fingers inside your tight cunt had embarrassment ebbing in your core. Your body trembling as the object of your affections degraded you, “Wishing it was me finger fuckin’ that pretty pussy, yeah?”

Unable to stop the shameless moan that left your parted lips, the sound restricted to a strangled gasp as he kept his palm wrapped tightly around your jugular. 

“Or were you thinking of Red Riot since you love wearing his merch so much, hah.” Bakugou goaded, you could feel his grip against you tightening as his palms heated up dangerously, “Wishing he’d come in and bend you over like the little slut you are.”

“N-no,” You tried to gasp out, feeling lightheaded from the lack of oxygen that flowed through your body.

Bakugou loosened his grip around your neck, keeping his palm against your skin as he leaned his head closer to yours, his warm breath fanning your face as vermilion eyes bored into your own, “What was that?”

“J-just you, Dynamight.” You rasped, a rush of air filling your lungs as your chest heaved against him, “Only for you-”

“Yeah?” His lips curled into a cocky grin, immediately tightening his grip around your throat once more, “That’s fuckin’ right, you should be thinking about me when you play with that sloppy pussy.”

He squeezes both your throat and thigh harder. You rock your hips, fucking yourself on his fat cock as you gasp for air, hands desperately holding onto toned arms for support as the coil in your stomach begins to snap. 

“Now I want you to fuckin' show me how much of a Dynamight fan you really are." He groans at the way you grip around him, tongue lulling past his smirk for just as second. 

If you had to try and describe this feeling it would be something akin to euphoria, a constant throb ebbing through your cunt at the dull stretch his cock caused around your core. His cock moulding you to his shape as he bounced you on his lap, the thick jutting veins along his girth dragging against your inner walls with each pronounced thrust. Desperate cries of pleasure spilling from your lips as he fucked himself into you, hungrily searching to pull more of those sweet sounds from your pretty lips. You felt pearly tears begin to clump in your lashes as he fucked into your tight cunt with vigour, uncaring for giving you a moment of respite as he hungrily used you for his own pleasure. 

“Aw, you gonna cry, Princess?” He sneered, vermilion eyes gazing down at your own as he kept his pace, “I know you fuckin’ love it. I can feel you squeezing my cock.”

“Please-” You couldn’t think of the words, your mind foggy with the juxtaposition of pleasure and pain overwhelming you as he continued to fuck you with reckless abandon. 

“Don’t tell me I’ve already fucked you stupid, dumbass.” He grunted, the calloused pads of his fingers digging into the plush skin of your thighs, crude noising filling the air as you could hear just how wet you were for him, “That sloppy pussy is drooling all over my cock.”

"Who do you belong to?" His husky voice wraps around you like a vice, pulling your heart into your stomach. 

"You." You gasp as the heat of his palm on your leg begins to burn, skin warping beneath his touch. Hand glowing golden as if he were a God while his quirk begins to really activate. The smell of spiced caramel, smoke and scalded flesh cling to the couch and invade your senses as a crude whimper leaves your parted lips. The skin that he’d just burned throbbing under his touch, as heat surged through your body. His sharp thrusts helping to morph the pain you felt into a pure, unabashed pleasure as he watched you worry your bottom lip between your teeth.

"Good girl. Now everyone will know exactly who you belong to." Your eyes flicker away from his face before he uses his finger behind your jaw to meet his gaze, "Look at your King when you cum."

The combination of pleasure and pain paired with the thought of being his makes that delicate coil snap. Your body tenses and freezes as you shake atop his lap, biting nails drawing blood on his arms. He smirks, fucking up into you as another mind numbing orgasim washes over your body. Without withdrawing himself he flips the two of you against the couch. 

“Fuck, look at you.” Your back presses into the cushions as he towers over you. Gazing down and into your eyes as he slowly thrusts into you, switching hands to place one on your unburnt thigh, “So fuckin’ pretty.”

The telltale sounds of his quirk sound in the room as his hands crackle, heating his other palm, readying himself to repeat the action. To mark your body and claim you as his own, so if anyone dared to look at you they would know exactly who you belonged. Permanent hand prints marking you as his. No one else was allowed to have you, not that you had a choice, at least not anymore. 

Bakugou hissed as he felt your cunt continue to flutter around him in the aftershocks of your climax, snapping his hips as his pelvis hits against your puffy clit, head swimming from both pleasure and your primal need to breathe that was being wholly denied.

Bakugou was going to ruin you and you'd let him. 

"Who owns this pretty pussy?" Another possessive question that rockets you to the edge, body hoping for another mark, to make you symmetrical. 

Whole. 

"You." Another raspy breath but it's enough for Bakugou to hear. A silent moan tears from your throat as you try to keep your eyes locked with his. Pain blooming on your thigh with a delicious bite. 

 “What was that?” He snarled, pressing your thigh up against your chest as his arm slid underneath your knee, resting your calf over his shoulder as he changed the angle of his thrusts, his cock delving deeper between your folds as you felt the swollen tip bruising your cervix with each hard rut of his hips, “Say my name.”

“Dynamight.” You called out, already feeling your body throbbing in the telltale signs of another orgasm, your thighs quivering as you felt Bakugou fuck your body into the couch hard before using his grip on your thigh to drag you back into him. 

The crude sound of skin against skin vibrated around the room as his meaty balls slapped against the swell of your ass, Bakugou’s muscular frame dwarfing your own as he used you for his own pleasure. His own little cocksleeve that would succumb to his every request, you would be his and his alone to use as he pleased. 

“Again.” A low growl sounded from the back of his throat, a possessive undertone to it as he urged you on, “Say it again.”

“Dynamight.” You managed to whimper through sobs, tears trickling down your temples now and soaking into your messy hair. The sound of his name spilling from your lips made him readjust his thrusts with newfound intensity. 

“That’s fuckin’ right. Red Riot would never fuck you this good, hah?” He provoked, a clear sign of dominance over you, “You’re fuckin’ made for my cock.”

A cry slipping from your lips as he gave a particularly hard thrust inside your aching cunt, the tip of his length pounding against your cervix as he worked to claim your body as his own, trying to wipe thoughts of anyone else from your mind so all you could think about in this moment was his fat cock buried deep inside your tight heat.

“God, you’re fuckin’ perfect.” He grunted, his eyes mapping out your body as he worked himself against you, “Feel so good.”

Your breasts bounced with the intensity of his thrusts as he felt your inner walls quivering around his cock, already feeling another orgasm creeping up on you, the coil inside you impossibly tight as you tried to remember to breathe. Your vision hazy as you felt yourself becoming lightheaded, white dots blanking your vision as you shook beneath him.

“You gonna cum again already? Greedy fuckin’ bitch.” Bakugou’s lips curved into a grin as he felt your fingernails dig into his forearms, leaving crescent shapes in their wake as a dull ache tingled against his skin at the sensation, “My cock’s better than your fuckin’ fingers, yeah?”

“Yes,” You hissed, your toes curling as you felt yourself succumb to the pleasure. Your tight heat clenching around Bakugou’s cock as an usual sensation flowed through you, an intense throb in your core as you felt the unwavering urge to pee. Tightening your thighs around Bakugou’s firm body in an attempt to stop it from happening as wracked sobs left your body, your lower lip trembling as the sensation became too much. Too intense, too overwhelming as you allowed it to take over, your body crying out as you came. A clear stream of liquid gushing from between your thighs and soaking Bakugou’s crotch, his pace never once faltering as he fucked you through the sensation.

“Look at you, you messy fuckin’ slut” He howled in pleasure as he watched the liquid seep from your folds, “Look at your sloppy little pussy soakin’ my cock.”

“I’m sorry-” You cried out in embarrassment, feeling your heart pound in your chest as you saw his abdomen glistening with your release, “I didn’t mean-”

“What? You never fuckin’ squirted before?” Bakugou’s lips curled into a sly smile, his chest puffed out in pride, “Let’s see if you can do it again.”

Bakugou slipped a hand between your connected bodies to press four fingers against your clit, rubbing it frantically side to side as he tried to prolong the sensation, watching to see more of the clear liquid escape your heat. 

"I can make this pretty little cunt do what I want. Wanna know why?" He leans in with a deadly grin on his lips,  "Cause I own it." 

You cried out as you felt the sensation flowing through you once more, a dull ache in your lower body as more of the clear liquid gushed from your folds. The sight made Bakugou smirk with glee, his fingers relentless against your sensitive nub.

“Couldn’t help yourself, could you?” He goaded, feeling your body trying to shy away from him as you withered beneath him, the pleasure becoming overwhelming, “That fuckin’ desperate.”

“P-please,” You whimpered, your entire body felt unbearably hot. Unable to think coherently as Bakugou continued pounding his thick girth into your core, his warm breath fanning your face as he hovered above you.

“P-please,” He mocked, tilting his head as he glanced down at you, “Please, what?”

“‘S too much,” You stammered, your hand reaching down to wrap around his wrist, trying to tug his fingers away from their assault against your clit.

The movement made him growl, baring his teeth as his hand moved from your clit, reaching up to wrap around the curve of your neck instead as he instantly tightened his grip against your jugular. The action caused your eyes to widen in surprise before your soft whines turned into hungry pants as you tried to gasp for air. Bakugou’s consistent thrusts into your sloppy hole made it difficult to think straight, your body fully focused on the sight of him above you while his hand wrapped tightly around your neck. 

“Gonna fill that sloppy little pussy with cum, yeah?” You flushed at the suggestion, already feeling your inner walls fluttering around his cock at the thought, squeezing his girth as it created more friction as he dragged his cock along your velvety walls, his grip on your neck tightening as you felt your cunt clench around his cock in response, “You’re gonna look so pretty for me all full of my cum, Princess.”

A guttural groan spilled from his parted lips as you watched his eyes roll back, his thrusts stuttering as he came, bottoming out inside you as white hot spurts of cum splashed against your inner walls. His palms stroking along your exposed skin, sliding against the thin sheen of sweat that coated your body as he came down from his climax, humping a few more sloppy thrusts into your cunt as he cherished the sweet way your walls continued to flutter around him. 

You whined as Bakugou slowly eased his hips back, slipping his softening cock out of your quivering folds. His eyes immediately focused on your abused hole as he watched his cum begin to trickle out of you as it dribbled down towards your ass. Unable to resist reaching a finger out to collect the mixture, scooping it up as he slowly pushed it back inside you. Smirking at the way you tried to bat his hand away from your overstimulated folds, this only making him want to tease you more as he moved his finger to press against your inner walls. Swallowing thickly as he felt your body involuntarily clamping down around him in an attempt to pull him back inside you. 

“Such a good girl for me, Princess.” He moved his fingers up to stroke against your puffy clit, laughing at the way you arched your hips away from his touch, trying to stop him from teasing your satiated clit, “Took my cock so well.” 

You mewl in response, clutching your arms to yourself as you shake from the previous events. You looked so small and scared causing a sharp pain to bolt through Bakugou's chest. God he wanted you in his care even more now.

“You were even more perfect than I imagined.” He pulls you to him, trapping you in his embrace as he presses your face into his chest. Hand smoothing your damp hair as he hums lightly. His eyes catching sight of the Red Riot shirt he’d discarded to the floor, a thought occurred to him, one he cannot keep to himself, as another sadistic smile settled on his lips. 

“Kirishima told me not to come over here, said to leave you alone-” He pulls you back so you can look at him, and gods the look you're giving him. Eyes soft and submissive, hazed over in mind numbing pleasure as you float off somewhere far away. Only Bakugou's arms are keeping you bound to Earth. “But I was right wasn’t I, Princess?”

You'll never be able to escape his gravity now. 

“He just wanted you for himself.” His fingers feather over your body before he stands, guessing where the first aid could be. You clutch onto his shirt, eyes desperately glued to your new God as the fading sun washes him over in deep hues of red. The way you look at him makes his cock twitch, feeling the intense power he already holds over you. 

"You'll let your King go." A growl as his fingers find your throat, you nod with fresh tears catching on long lashes as he steps away. Sobbing from his absence before he returns. 

"Don't be a baby, I wasn't that far Princess." His voice all bite while his hands speak the truth. Calloused and scared fingers pressing ointment into the fresh burns tenderly. 

“But you’re mine now aren’t you Princess?” He dots over the burns, rubbing the salve in gently, “All mine.”

He leans away from you, cruelty ever plastered on his smirking lips. 

“Maybe I should show Red Riot what you look like right now, hah?” He pulls out his phone, going to snap a picture. You're hesitant at first but then move to strike a pose, wide eyes looking into the lens of the camera as Bakugou angles it to get the dark bruises and scars that now marr your perfect skin. "Fuck, I think showing him what a good girl you are in person would be much better." 

“W-we shouldn’t-“ You mumble, your heart hammering in your chest at the thought of your sweet neighbour seeing you like this, utterly debauched because of Pro-Hero Dynamight. 

“Don’t be shy, pretty girl.” He coos uncharacteristically, almost mocking you as he watches your lower lip tremble, “I’m sure Red Riot would love to see you like this. Probably jerks himself raw to the thought of you.”

He eases you to your feet, sliding your shorts over your thighs as you hiss when they get to the fresh brand. Your mouth waters from pain as you look down at them. His perfect palm prints etched into your skin forever. You bite your bottom lip, wanting more from Bakugou who slips his jacket over your shoulders before putting your snow boots onto your feet. He makes his way to the door.

"Comin' pervert?" He asks before you rush to your feet,  “Shall we show Red Riot what a desperate little slut his neighbour is?” 

He wraps his arm around your shoulders, engulfing you in his mesmerizing scent and heat. You nod slowly, wanting nothing more than to please your new caretaker. 

“Gotta remind that asshole who the fuck you belong to.”

[nikkialena]

Not all peaches and cream

As the ship landed the troopers quickly got into position with one bumping your shoulder; however you weren't sure if that was deliberate or if it was a mistake, deciding to be the bigger person and let it go you froze when the sounds of blaster’s  reached your ears along with the metal clank of droids. “Well do your thing” came the snide remark of the clone in blue and it took everything in you not to punch him in the face, reaching into your pockets you caught six miniature daggers in between your fingers before charging into battle head first. All the troopers looked at you like you were crazy and two of them even tried to grab you but you dodged their hands, “damn she’s fast” one of the clones muttered as you continued onto the battlefield.

 The droids had a hard time shooting you because you were small, fast and agile, by the time they had their blasters trained on you you were already gone and they wound up shooting another droid. You gracefully dodged blasts all the while giggling softly, “come on guys I’m not even trying, you know what here I’ll stand still” you suddenly stopped abruptly and threw your hands in the air releasing your daggers to fall where they pleased. “You shouldn’t have done that jedi now you're finished” croaked one of the golden droids as he aimed his blaster at you, the troopers looked at you bewildered as did Obi wan and Ahsoka but Anakin just smiled knowingly and pat them on the back. “Are you sure about that?”

 You cooed as you clapped your wrist together setting off an electrical pulse that fried all of the droids in a five mile radius, as the droids malfunctioned and short circuited the one droid groaned “ah damn I’ve been alive for three hours and I’m already dying”. 

You felt kinda bad for it even though it was literally trying to kill you just two seconds ago; so with one swift slice of your dagger you claimed his head. “Hey, you're not going to torture me are you?”  You scoffed, “first you don’t have a body so no I can’t torture you even if I wanted to second that’s not really my style” you mumbled a smug smirk wiggled it’s way onto your features as the trooper gawked at you momentarily. ‘Who's the shiny now’ you thought confidently, the daggers unheaved themselves from the ground and flew back to you sliding into their designated spot in your forearm armor. 

“That was awesome” the droid whispered from beneath your arm “why thank you” you said cheerfully glad someone appreciated you even if he was the enemy, you winked at the clones and disappeared into the tunnels leading to the base you were trying to take over.  You could hear the onslaught outside as another wave of droids pressed towards your squadron and that alone made you move faster, as you raced down the halls your body swiftly became invisible as you switched to battle mode running on the balls of your feet to conceal as much sound as possible. 

 Crouching low you bounced off the floor with the grace of a leaf fluttering in the wind before ricocheting off the wall and decapitating fifteen unsuspecting battle droids with a flick of your saber, you fell into a barrel roll and quickly jumped to your feet exiting the room before their heads even got a chance to hit the floor. A smirk formed on your lips as you tore through wave after wave of battle droids with ease you hardly even broke a sweat, after tearing your saber from a sizzling spider droid you brushed your hands off and looked around. 

The room was dark and the only real light came from a few torches attached to the wall. This place gave you the shivers, you heard a muffled garbled sound from under you and lifted the decapitated head “stop making noise or I’ll abandon you” you whisper spat to which he responded “that’s not me”, you were about to say something else when you heard it again the same garbled muffled noise but this time louder.

 “See told ya it wasn’t me” the droid head whispered as you gently set him down on the table trying to figure out where the noise was coming from, “keep watch will ya” you asked the head and he just made a slightly annoyed sound “what else am I gonna do?” He hissed and you chuckled softly stepping out of the room and into a narrow hallway; it was almost completely pitch black as you slowly edged forward the air steadily becoming colder with each step, you could hear ragged breaths silent sobs and pained groans from all around you but couldn’t make out where they were coming from.

 The walls around you were completely made out of some strange stone, you rubbed your arms at the frigid temperature and almost tripped down a flight of stairs due to the darkness, tapping your comlink you checked in with your squadron “Sensei come in?” you whispered there was static for a second before his charming voice rang through the depressing halls “yes [Y/N] did you clear the base?” You nodded for a moment before facepalming;  he can’t see you “yes the troopers are clear to move in but there’s this weird basement in the back of the base I’m going to check out”,  you didn’t wait for his reply and already began moving down the stairs when he radioed in “Just wait for reinforcements [Y/N] we’ll be on our way” but you didn’t feel like waiting. 

So down the stars you went slowly placing each step carefully since you didn’t know how far down the stairs went,  as you descended it became increasingly colder and the muffled sobs groans and breaths were much clearer and you shivered when your foot landed in a warm puddle of black liquid.  It took everything in you to swallow the scream building in your throat as you vigorously shook the mysterious liquid from your foot before stepping over the puddle and continuing forward, a distant roar paralyzed you as you fumbled around the wall for a light switch as you groaped the wall for anything they eventually landed on a circular knob which you turned slightly. A blinding flash of white light engulfed the room and stabbed your eyes giving you a soft migraine and making you lose focus on your invisibility, after your eyes adjusted to the blinding light all the color drained from your skin as your eyes widened to the size of saucers. You were standing in a room of cages with nothing but wounded or dead clones in them.

 The clones shied away from the light as you had done a minute ago and the sounds of labored breathing violent sobs and pained wails soon became a deafening symphony of sorrow, your entire body trembled viciously as your eyes slowly turned to the mystery liquid on your foot. Blood.It was Blood. Yea that scream from before came back with a vengeance and even brought some friends; and you let it rip holding back nothing, the clones feebly blocked their ears from your high pitched screech that echoed through the walls sounding like angered banshee. 

That surprisingly made you feel better; you’d completely forgotten that your comlink was on Obi wan and the troopers heard you,  they called out to you but you became tone death as you stared at the poor soldiers, stripped naked and forced to lay on the cold hard floor in an already freezing room. The soldiers that weren’t in the cages were sprawled across the ground covered in gashes, blisters, slashes, bruises you name it they had it. And they were also dead. But they died defiantly, their faces were scrunched up in determination and their eyes were hard as stone. 

One of the clones who’d seen you enter slowly reached a trembling arm out to you and latched onto your wrist, you screamed and turned around grabbing for your lightsaber until you met his brittle glass eyes. “Help us” he whispered in a hoarse voice before slumping to the floor out of exhaustion, you caught his hand in your own and gave it a tight squeeze, “don’t worry guys I-I’m going to get you guys out of here you’re going to be okay” but even you heard the trembling in your voice and didn’t really believe that. 

 You quickly went to work ripping the cage doors down with the force and freeing the clones, the only problem was most of them were so badly injured that they needed assistance out of the cage and into the open. There were ten healthy clones, fifteen seriously injured clones and thirty dead clones but even the ‘healthy’ clones looked so ill you could almost see their ribs, they looked like they could be blown away by a gentle breeze. There was also the problem of twenty five butt naked clones with no armor clothes or weapons, you chewed on your bottom lip before coming up with an idea that was so stupid it might just work, but lucky for you you’d never have to try it because just as you were about to do something desspertly stupid you heard two fimmilar voices screaming at the top of their lungs “[Y/N]”. Once they entered everyone froze at the ghaustly site, with the help of the other troopers you all manged to escape even the droid head who you named Goldie. 

After Obi Wan grilled you Anakin laughed at you and Ahsoka just pitied you you safely left the planet and were cooped up in the med bay with some of the injured troopers; the blue trooper and Cody were also there but they hadn’t really spoken since they came across the troopers.

 Blue trooper finally took off his helmet and you were a bit surprised by how hot he was, he had tanned skin just like Cody but his hair was nearly atomic blonde and he had the prettiest golden eyes, his lips were pressed so tightly together they merged into one and his foot rapidly thumped the ground as he waited patiently. 

The only people in the med bay were clones, yourself and Ahsoka; general skywalker and Obi wan were in the cockpit discussing what they could’ve possibly been trying to drag out these clones, at the unconscious men you suddenly felt a wave of grief wash over you and your eyes locked with the blue trooper. He quickly looked away but you’ve grown accustomed to reading people in a short amount of time, and behind his eyes was nothing but pain and fury, of course he was angry you’d be to if everyday you rushed into battle fighting a endless war watching your brothers bodies drop one by one likes flies, it’s enough to drive someone insane.  

You got up and Ahsoka looked at you questioningly until she followed your gaze, walking over to the blue trooper you sat down in an empty seat next to him he was too busy staring at his brothers to notice you grabbing his fidgeting hand until your hand was completely interlocked with his own. 

He looked down at your hands and then at you but you weren’t facing him even though you felt his eyes burning holes into the back of your head; you thought for sure he’d rip his hand away but allowed your hand to linger.Despite your tiny size of your hands they were warm and comforting; come to think of it everything about you was small well...not all things, he gave your hands a little squeeze and cast a glance at your face. He felt a twinge of pain deep in his heart at the site of your face streaked with dried tears twisted in concern and ultimately saddened, “I’m sorry for sassing you...earlier...and that you have to go through this” she squeaked in her bubbly voice. 

He sighed deeply and grumbled “yea well I shouldn’t have underestimated you...you are actually pretty skilled on the battlefield..so I’ll let this one slide” “really?” You whispered eyes sparkling like a child who’s just achieved something great, he nodded and the smile that formed on your face was so bright and contagious that he felt a small barely noticeable smile  grow on him too. “What’s your name or would you prefer I call you blue” she quipped and he snorted “My name is Captain Rex”

[yzareenxiv]

FFXIVWrite2021 - 14: Commend

Commend

((Sequel to Prompt 13. TW: Blood, TW: torture (minor) ))

Zareen had always been comfortable in her own skin but standing before the assembled courtiers and the monarch and her consort, she truly felt naked. She was shaking, badly, so weak she could barely keep on her feet. Her body was a shell of itself- bones showed clearly through skin stretched tight over them by near-starvation, all of her soft curves burned away in her body’s desperate bid for survival. The gilded collar rubbed harshly against her collarbones and the shackles on her wrists could almost slide off her hands.

Worst yet, her hair had been shorn sometime recently in her captivity and she could not remember when. Long enough ago that the growth was perhaps two or three ilms. It was that insult, that incredible insult to her person, that was giving her the sheer energy of rage that allowed her to keep her feet and keep her head upright, green eyes glaring defiantly as she looked around the room at the monstrous beings around her.

The Queen-Mother, one of the only two beings in the room that was a splash of color in the near-monochrome group in an overly-elaborate gown the deep blue-purple of venous blood, moved up to Zareen in a sinuous motion. One of her hands reached up to caress Zareen’s cheek in a proprietary manner that immediately made the miqo’te snap at her. The courtiers gasped as one but the Queen-Mother only laughed in delight, especially when the sharp motion threatened Zareen’s delicate sense of balance and she swayed in place.

“Such spirit. I really must commend you- my huntmaster has never failed before to bring a beast to heel. You made him so angry he screamed himself hoarse…” Her voice trailed away and the courtiers laughed in the pause, just as she had intended. One of them is a little too loud and laughs a little too long and the Queen-Mother’s eyes flick to them as another hand gives a subtle gesture to her consort. The Crimson King doesn’t move, but four ill-defined shadowy figures encircle the offending Lady and drag her away, kicking and screaming and flailing, begging for forgiveness.

There is a beat of silence before the Queen-Mother smiles and begins walking around Zareen, observing her from all angles as she shakes and struggles. Impossibly long nails- or perhaps sharpened bone?- trail across Zareen’s hipbone and along her lower back just hard enough to leave a red mark without breaking thin skin. “You really are remarkable, you know. So delicate but with such strength riding just below the surface. You really are wasted in the kennels though you did so very well in the last Great Hunt. Barring that… unfortunate display, of course.” Several of the courtiers shifted uncomfortably at the memory but the Queen-Mother continued on.

“You really did leave me no choice, refusing to even apologize.” She paused, looking at Zareen expectantly. Zareen just stared back, eyes narrowed and dangerous, ears pinned back. There was no way in any of the hells- including this one- that Zareen would admit that she had no idea what was being said to her. The language grated on her ears and in her soul though she had heard enough of it now to at least start to understand the inflections of emotion and expectation. She knew the monarch expected a reply and she might have done so had it not revealed her ignorance. Every weakness, no matter how insignificant it seemed, could and would be exploited in this place and Zareen knew it. So she kept her silence- and the silence stretched between them.

And stretched.

And stretched.

The Queen-Mother’s anger palpably grew in the room, making the small space feel oppressive.

Finally, the Crimson King spoke up in his rolling voice, tone almost lazy. “It appears the cat has her tongue, Your Majesty.”

Silence amongst the assembly, breath held, then the Queen-Mother let out a laugh and everyone immediately laughed along save for the miqo’te in the center of the room. “So it does, my love. So it does. Let us remedy this, hm?” She turned her eyes to one of the figures behind Zareen and beckoned. Two tall Lords walked forward to flank the miqo’te and her eyes flitted from one to the other. They dwarfed her, easily 8 fulms or so a piece and built wide and heavy. The Queen-Mother gave another gesture and the two Lords moved smoothly in a way that suggested they had done this many times in the past. One stepped behind Zareen and grappled her, pinning her arms to her body and lifting her off her feet in a smooth motion. The other grabbed her head in a huge palm, pinching her nose shut as the other hand pried at her jaw. Zareen was weak from her privations but she thrashed and fought violently and earned several pained grunts from well-placed strikes of her heels. The lack of air and her general state, though, meant she was forced to open her mouth to take a breath, which allowed the huge Lord to wrench her jaws open as wide as they could go. She screamed and roared and the Queen-Mother smiled before reaching into Zareen’s mouth and grabbing her tongue in a vicious grip. Claws of sharpened bone curved and slashed and the miqo’te gurgled and tried not to choke as she was unceremoniously dropped to the floor where she promptly collapsed.

Her body didn’t have the extra moisture required for tears but her eyes burned as she curled up protectively, swallowing the blood as quickly as she could not only to keep from choking on it but because she was so, so thirsty. The Queen-Mother held Zareen’s tongue in her claws and gave a thoughtful hum before devouring it in neat bites, expression making it clear she was savoring the treat immensely. The last bite she turned to feed to her consort, the Crimson King making much of licking the blood off her claws. When he was finished, he leaned in and murmured something into his lover’s ear which made her cast a thoughtful, considering gaze back at the moaning, rocking miqo’te on the floor.

A smile suddenly curved cruel lips and the courtiers- save for the Consort- felt flutters of fear race through them. That expression boded ill for someone. “Take her to the General’s quarters. Inform him that I am tasking him, personally, with her recovery and well-being- as well as her education in the ways of the Court. Perhaps once she has regrown her tongue, she might be more informed on it’s proper use as a servant.” Several of the courtiers tittered, others shared glances as this masterful move by the monarch could significantly change the political board. The General, out of favor since the collapse of his campaign and relegated to his own lodge out in the territories, was being given a rare chance to redeem himself.

As the Queen-Mother and the Crimson King swept out of the room, only the two tall Lords remained behind. One, with a gentleness that belied his previous actions, took one of the tall drink glasses from a table and gave it to Zareen, encouraging her to drink the liquid as she began to go into shock. She could not fight it- not once she felt the soothing cool running down her throat and easing the incredible pain on the stump of her tongue. He removed his cloak and wrapped it around her while the other Lord frowned.

“You shouldn’t do that.” He grumbled, eyeing his companion as he lifted Zareen in a bridal carry. “You know what she is.”

“I do. I remember what we were, too. So do you, even if you pretend you don’t.” The first Lord retorted sharply.

Silenced, the second man frowned and looked away. “Those memories are useless. You need to let them go. They’ll only cause you trouble. Which causes me trouble.”

“Mmm. Pretend I’m doing it to curry favor with a potential playing piece if you want.” The Lord carrying Zareen said as the two began to walk to the stables. They would need to ride to the General’s lodge.

The other snorted derisively. “You think she is going to be anything but a pawn? You’re more delusional than I thought.”

“Who’s to say? Better to hedge my bets than dismiss a possibility out of hand.”

The other grunted, unable to argue with that.

And even in her pain and suffering, Zareen clutched the gift of that cloak close to her naked body.

[ejzah]

A/N: This chapter deals with the second part of Little Angels. I tried to trim it down to scenes where it could be from Deeks’ POV.

***

The Agent and the Lawyer, Part 13

“What did Callen say?” Kensi asked, glancing at Deeks briefly before she returned her eyes to the road.

“Andre Maragos has requested a lawyer,” he said dryly. “Do you think he’d accept me?” Kensi snorted at that, glancing at him again. Her eyes were appraising.

“Well, you certainly can look the part of a lawyer a guy like Maragos would hire.”

“Again, not sure if that’s a compliment,” he said with a frown. Instead of making another joke at his expense, she said,

“I really am glad you’re here today. You’re making this whole thing a lot less terrible.”

“Anytime.” He glanced behind them where the transport van was following. “So what do we do if Lucas doesn’t actually know or show us where the bodies are?”

Kensi’s eyes narrowed on the road, her expression deadly. Suddenly, Deeks was very glad that he wasn’t on the receiving end of her rage.

“Then you might have to stop me from shooting him.”

***

“I think this is one of the most horrific things I’ve ever seen,” Deeks muttered to no one in particular. And he’d been party to some pretty awful stuff.

Lucas Maragos had lead them directly to the edge of a small hill, radiating smugness the entire time. It wasn’t clear if he was enjoying bossing them around, or having the opportunity to finally show off his work.

Either way, Deeks was reconsidering his position on guns. He sighed as several forensic experts dug up the spots Maragos had pointed out.

“Mr. Deeks, Agent!” A woman dressed in protective gear said, motioning for them to come over. “We found something.” If her expression was anything to go by, it wasn’t pleasant. Then again, that’s what they were hoping for.

Kensi, who’d been talking with Maragos, hurried over. They both glanced in the small grave, where the skeleton of cat lay.

“Well, now we know he wasn’t lying about the cat part.” Deeks said, holding back a shudder.

“You should call Sam,” Kensi told him, a deep frown growing between her eyebrows. “I’m going to see if I can’t get anything else out of Maragos.”

“Sam, you need to get out here,” he said when the agent picked up.

“So far they’ve found the remains of five cats,” Kensi said once Callen and Sam had arrived. “Lucas isn’t being particularly helpful at the moment. He keeps repeating that his brother is responsible.”

Sam and Callen shared a dark look, something unspoken flowing between them. There was clearly something going on with Sam, but now was definitely not the time to ask about.

“Any other sites?” Sam demanded.

“You should ask my brother, these are his,” Lucas responded, apparently trying to appear genuine.

“You seem to be enjoying the attention. Give me the keys.” He directed the last part to Kensi, grabbing the keys to Lucas’ cuffs from her.

“Is that a good idea?” Deeks asked as Sam unlocked the handcuffs. Lucas’ legs were still bound, but Deeks didn’t trust the man not to make a run for it. Or try something more violent.

Kensi caught his eye, shaking her head as Sam dragged Maragos several feet away, ignoring the man’s protests. Sam seemed to just barely be holding himself back from inflicting physical damage. Callen watched it all with obvious concern, but didn’t attempt to intervene.

“Does Sam have a personal history with this guy or something?”

“No,” Callen answered shortly. Sam returned a few minutes with Lucas, who actually seemed a little frightened and was in a much more sharing mood

Deeks could only imagine what Sam had used to gain his cooperation and that worried him.

How strong could the team’s case be if they resorted to threats and potential violence?

***

“What do we now?” Deeks asked, as they drove to the mission.

They’d found the remains of the third girl who was originally buried, but not Amanda. Both Lucas and Andre had proven uncooperative, blaming the other for the murders.

Then Andre had made an ill-planned attempt to leave the country with his family. It was certainly suspicious behavior, but they’d taken a swab from Andre and it didn’t match any of the DNA on the remains.

They also had a signed statement from Andre’s mistress and a home video the two had made. Deeks could have happily lived without ever seeing Andre Maragos naked. To say that Sam had not been pleased when they interrupted his interrogation with Andre to tell him would be an understatement.

“We look at the evidence again. We look for what we missed before,” she said and then sighed deeply. “And we pray that we come up with something before Amanda runs out of time.”

As they watched the video of Amanda for the countless time, it was not lost on Deeks that they were grasping at straws.

“Hey, take a look at this,” Sam said suddenly, pointing to a bare finger that was just visible at the edge of the video. There was a note of something close to excitement in his voice. “When he picked up the camera, he took off his glove.”

“Different MO,” Callen said. “Makes sense, glove would have been shredded after all the digging.” Sam wasn’t about to be talked down from whatever idea he had. Kensi walked over as Deeks stood up, to get a better look at the screen.

“Hear me out on this, G. What does this guy do with his gloves afterwards?”

“Well, first thing you would, uh, burn ‘em, shred ‘em. It’s full of DNA.”

“What if he’s going fast, got careless?” Sam continued, sounding like he was telling a story. “Left a glove behind, like in a box or in the dirt in the hole.”

“The case is closed,” Deeks said immediately. “I mean, we catch him the second we find that glove.”

“But there is no glove,” Kensi said, echoing Deeks’ own thoughts.

“We don’t know that,” Sam said and Deeks heard warning bells going off in his head. “Maybe neither does the killer. He’s going fast, he’s scared, he tosses everything only to realize, he left a glove behind.”

“Right, but he didn’t,” Deeks said, not liking where this was going at all. What Sam was suggesting was sketchy at best.

“We could make him believe that he did,” Callen said, nodding in agreement with Sam.

“What if it doesn’t stand up in court though?” Deeks asked, thinking of how he’d tear apart “evidence” like that.

“We’ll do whatever it takes to make it stick,” Kensi said as Sam instructed Eric to modify the video. He turned them out for a minute, distracted by his concerns.

“You’ll need to sell it to Lucas Maragos, Deeks,” Sam said, drawing him out of his thoughts. “Make him believe that the glove is real. We’ll do the same with his brother.”

“Me?” Deeks repeated, startled by the suggestion, especially coming from Sam.

“You’ve already got a connection with him. It’ll be easier than if Callen or I do it. Kensi will back you up if you need it.”

***

“I do not like this,” Deeks muttered, his voice barely audible as they waited in the interview room again.

“You’ll be fine,” Kensi said. “And it’s for Amanda.” She flashed a warning look his way as the sound of guards drew closer and he pressed his lips together, holding back any further comments.

He pulled in a slow, shallow breath, trying to calm himself. This was no different that cross examining a difficult witness. He just had to play to his audience, frame the story they needed to hear, and pretend he believed every word he said.

Deeks snapped his eyes back open the second the guards were at the door, adopting a relaxed posture as they led Lucas in. Kensi said nothing as he opened the laptop on the table, started the DVD with Amanda’s video, and sat next to Lucas Maragos.

“See that little sucker right there? It’s a glove that got left in the dirt,” he told the man. Lucas’ eyes were laser focused to the screen, a change from his earlier careless attitude. “And it is filled with DNA.”

He didn’t glance at Kensi, putting all of his attention on Lucas. Deeks hoped he wasn’t playing it up too much. Maragos cleared his throat after a moment, now looking anywhere but at the laptop.

“I don’t know why you’re showing me this,” he said. Kensi leaned forward then.

“Because when we get a DNA match, we’ll be able to find your partner. And believe me, we’ll get him to turn on you,” she said, her matter of fact tone chilling.

“You can take him back,” Deeks called to the guards. “But let us know if he has decides to talk. Who knows, he might be able to escape a death sentence.”

It was only after they were outside again that he allowed himself to let out a shaking breath.

“You ok?” Kensi asked, eyeing him with concern.

“Yeah.” He was surprised to find it was true.

“Eric’s calling,” she said, putting her phone to her ear and had a rushed and confusing conversation. She shoved the phone in her pocket and started jogging towards the SUV. “Eric says we need to get to Angeles Forest now. Callen and Sam are following someone in one of Andre’s vehicles.”

***

“I can’t believe it was Andre’s kids,” Deeks said, shaking his head as Kensi returned from putting the younger boy in the back of an LAPD cruiser. He knew they were hardly the first to commit a heinous crime, but it was still shocking.

“I guess they learned a lot from their Uncle,” Kensi said darkly.

“What will happen to them?” Deeks had defended juvenile clients before, though never one charged with attempted murder. And in his own experience, the courts could be pretty brutal when it came to kids.

“Well, I’d guess their dad is going to higher them the best lawyers he can find,” Kensi started. “And then it depends on how they’re charged. I could see the FBI wanting to try them as adults, but I doubt it’ll go through.”

“I don’t know if I’m relieved or disappointed,” he said and Kensi rolled her eyes.

“C’mon, we’ve got lots of reports to file.

“Not me, I’m just a legal consultant.” Kensi made a rude noise at this.

“Nice try. You never get out of paperwork. And if you don’t do it, Hetty will hunt you down. And no one wants Hetty hunting them down.

***

“You know, you did really well today. I was surprised, but you did good,” Kensi told him as they walked out of the mission, taking their time.

It had been eye opening to watch Deeks question Lucas. She had expected him to hold back and certainly hadn’t considered that he would taunt Lucas. The images he’d produced had been horrifying, and affective during their first interview.

“I think you’ll find I’m full of surprises, sugar bear,” he said, grinning that annoying smirk of his. Kensi held up a hand, turning to face him so he was forced to stop in the middle of the hall.

“Woah, sugar bear? I don’t think so.”

“What, I think it’s very appropriate. You’re very sweet and-“

“And you are absolutely forbidden from calling me that anywhere another person might hear it,” she finished for Deeks, shaking her head. Of course, now she’d left herself wide open to being called “sugar bear” in private.

“What about “Princess”?” he asked, undaunted by her implied wrath. She started walking again before he could see her slight smile. Their shoulders brushed as they walked, an unnecessary physical reminder of Deeks’ presence. Technically, it violated the rules of their bet, but Deeks didn’t mention it.

“Definitely not.” Before he could suggest something even more ridiculous she said, “Be serious for a second. Ok? I know that defusing tension is a big thing for you, but I really need to know how you’re doing.”

He sighed and this time he was the one to stop. He tossed his head back for a second and it was amazing how suddenly his face transformed. She saw the weariness and a surprising amount of anger that he’d hidden for the majority of the case.

“I’m...good,” he decided after a pause. “Which I know is weird to say. I didn’t realize how much I needed to see someone like Lucas Maragos get what he deserves.”

“So we didn’t scare you off with our serial killers?” She was actually curious; he’d been obviously horrified, but not nearly as much as she’d expected. He’d dealt with the possibility of seeing girls buried alive better than many seasoned Agents would.

“I mean, the kids following in their uncle’s footsteps is pretty awful, but again, I’m glad they’re not out there hurting more people. I don’t see nearly enough of that as a lawyer. And it’s even worse if you’re a public defender or district attorney.”

“And here I thought you’d be running out of here after a couple days,” she said.

They were in the parking garage now, which was mostly deserted and had stopped walking again. Kensi found she was reluctant to go to her own vehicle.

“You’re not going to get rid of me that easily Kensi Marie Blye,” he said, then made a face that she recognized meant he was holding something back.

“What?”

“Nothing...just um,” He rubbed his chin before continuing, “How often do you threaten people or make up evidence to get results?” She nodded, knowing he was thinking of the way Sam had treated Maragos and the planted glove.

“Sometimes you do what you have to,” she said simply. “The important thing is that we found Amanda in the end.” He still looked serious, so she cleared her throat and added, “And now, I think you owe me some Mexican. I’m calling in my first special delivery. I expect it on my doorstep in an hour.” She did a smug little dance to accompany her victory.

Deeks rolled his eyes, chuckling under his breath.

“Yes, technically you did win,” he agreed. “Although I would point out that if this wasn’t such a tense case, you would have been all over me.”

“Those sound like the words of a loser,” Kensi teased, ignoring the thought of being “all over him”. Deeks scrunched his face at her.

“You are a very annoying winner.” Kensi grinned at him. His hair was more disheveled than normal after tramping around in the heat all day and his light blue shirt was now untucked. He looked anything but a high price lawyer. He also looked completely delectable.

“But as I am a man of my word-“ Kensi grasped the sides of his face, cutting him off mid-word as she kissed him roughly, pushing her tongue past his lips and letting out a sigh when his hands settled on her waist.

“Oops, I guess I lost,” Kensi gasped out several moments later. She stepped back from him, her skin feeling flushed and a deep need running though her body. His answering grin was breathtaking as he pulled her back to his chest.

[meteor-cities]

Þú ert jörðin | Feitan Portor

Yeah yeah I know I don’t write all the fucking time anymore. Anyways, I thought I might put something up and it’s really not a canon idea of mine but who cares?

CW: Mention of wounds

You sat at the vanity in your room, watching the rain, not daring to address the bruises and open wounds that covered your shoulders. 

It was 5 in the morning, hence the sky started turning to a lighter shade of gray than it had been for the past few hours. You couldn’t truly sleep, despite taking many measures to relieve your lingering pain from the events that occurred earlier that night.

You didn’t turn on the light. You didn’t put on your clothes. You didn’t return to the bed, where your lover was sleeping. You didn’t make any noise and you didn’t move. The thought of provoking Feitan, the man you’ve loved for a long time, was one you didn’t cope with well. He hated being woken up. More than the typical sleep lover would.

You exhaled slowly, glancing at the mirror in front of you. The blood had long ago disappeared after you showered, however, the bite marks and scratches and cuts still had traces of dried blood that would hurt to touch. 

You pondered over the methods you’d need to use in order to cover them up. Bruises were easy. Open wounds, not so much.

Some of them would definitely scar, which wasn’t a problem. The smooth, pale scars you’d accumulated over the years from nothing but rough interactions with Feitan were some of the few things you found enjoyment in. Abuse, people who had no idea of your dynamics would call it. However, you’d asked for them. Begged, even. Your masochistic nature was what drove you into such a complex relationship. It wasn’t something people would understand, except for maybe other people who did many of the same things as you and Feitan had. The only difference is that Feitan rarely showed mercy. He liked fear, he liked it when you cried and when things got pushed to the border of consensual and non-consensual touch. You enjoyed it, too. You never complained, and you never would. This is what you begged for. Regardless of how things had ended up.

You glanced at the time. Soon. Soon you’d have to stop sitting naked in front of your messy vanity and decide to reach for the scar creams and concealers and color correction products. Soon you’d have to get dressed, make coffee, make his coffee, find something for yourself to eat, leave to go to work. 

Your thoughts were disturbed after you automatically reached for the scar cream in the drawer of your vanity. You heard shifting, then you felt some type of warmth on your shoulders. You looked in the mirror.

“It’s a little early for you to be awake, don’t you think?”

Feitan was obviously still tired, but nonetheless he was awake, standing behind you, making eye contact with you in the mirror with his hands on your shoulders, moving down to your sides. You nodded slowly. 

“I couldn’t sleep. Did I wake you? I’m sorry.”

Feitan shook his head automatically, sighing. You checked the time again. He didn’t have to be awake for another few hours, two at the least, you’d guessed. So why was he awake now?

“You look cold,” he muttered, running his hands over the bumps on your arms. You’d adjusted to the temperature of the room a while ago, so you hadn’t noticed the goose bumps on your skin. You shook your head.

“It doesn’t bother me.”

The feeling on your skin was strange. It was very much his touch, sure. But this time there was some sort of emotion towards it. One that was different from either of his two defaults: lust and indifference. You looked up. He seemed to be thinking.

“Feitan.”

He looked at you, raising an eyebrow, acting as though he hadn’t spaced out into some other world you couldn’t touch.

“What’s on your mind?”

A confused look appeared on his face. You rarely asked this; usually it was because you were trying to figure out a behavior of his that wasn’t typical of himself. He thought for a moment again, replaying his actions from the time he woke up. He guessed that maybe it was because he was being gentle, being human for once. It wasn’t like those things didn’t exist in his personality; he certainly had his moments. But they were rare. Even if you’d known him from the time you were kids, only knowing him as someone who worked for your older brother, and having worked alongside the pair for some time since you two had become teens. You rarely saw a calm moment for the man, minus the times he spent reading or thinking or sleeping. Even then, though, he’d had some disturbance.

They were rare, yes. But not out of character.

Feitan let out a sigh, running his fingers through your now dry hair. You closed your eyes, enjoying the slight tug that came with him detangling your hair with his fingers.

“Darling, how long have I known you?” he’d asked. This wasn’t a question you were used to receiving minus the times he wanted to prove a point. You shrugged. 

“Many years, Feitan. Many, many years.”

He nodded, pulling the cream from your hands and opening the small bottle, slowly applying it to the new wounds. Also not a common action, but sometimes he’d do it to reflect on the actions that created such violent features onto your skin.

This time he had another motive.

He paused, examining the numerous bruises and abrasions he’d inflicted. “Why do you let me do things that hurt you?”

You held your breath, exhaling after a moment, returning yourself the the present world. Preparing your answer.

“I don’t know.. Maybe because there’s never been an ill intent. You’ve never tried to kill me. You’ve never done things that damaged me later on. You’ve never wanted something I didn’t, I guess. If you needed to kill, you found something or someone else to soothe the need, but it was never me. Never my family, never my friends and especially never Chrollo.”

He thought over this answer for some time, returning to the gentle application of the cream to your broken skin.

“Except, I’ve had so many urges to kill Chrollo.. Many times for selfish reasons..”

“Like what?”

He paused, making eye contact in the mirror again. You knew the answer, and he knew that, but he also knew you wanted to hear it from him.

“Like wanting you for myself,” he muttered. You nodded. It was an answer you’ve heard many times, mostly for the times you asked him why he did away with someone who’d been hurting you or interfering with his plans he had in mind that included you in some sick way at times.

“Feitan. Do you know what love means?”

He stopped, nearly dropping the tube of cream in his hands. The question caught him off guard, since nobody dared to discuss the topic with him. Not even you, at least until now. Love wasn’t a concept the two of you discussed. You never discussed concrete concepts either, like relationship roles. Had anybody asked, you preferred to call him your husband, yet nothing of the sort was ever established between either of you. You knew him to be someone you adored and you knew he thought of you as something that belonged to him, regardless if it was in an objectifying sense or not. Neither of you spoke the word ‘love’ to each other. It simply was deemed unnecessary to the both of you.

And you knew it was because both of you knew that both of you thought of it. Both of you would give up anything for the other. So there was no need to speak it into the world if it could be seen in how the two of you acted towards the other.

You hummed, standing up and grabbing the robe you’d discarded to the side, putting onto your body. He watched you carefully, some of the sadistic motives remaining in his expression, even if it was diluted to the point where he could control it.

“You love me, Feitan. Even if you don’t say you do. You always have. Maybe in some sick, complex way that only you and I and maybe the Troupe understand, but I’m yours, and you’re happy.”

He listened, nodding slowly. You were right, he knew that. He wouldn’t try to object to it.

“I don’t need to hear it ever, Fei, not ever. And I hope the same applies to me, yet I’ll say it anyway, because I do love you, and I know you know that.”

He shook his head, grabbing your hands, running his thumbs over your knuckles. You could tell he wasn’t trying to put up his usual walls at the moment. It was a vulnerable moment that people would never see because he only trusted you with his insecurities. You smiled at the thought, moving to intertwine your fingers with his.

“How do you do that?”

“Do what?” You tilted your head, seeing his confusion.

“How can you read me so easily?”

You giggled quietly, kissing his cheek. “You know the answer, love.”

He nodded, pulling you tightly into his arms. It was a tender moment that he never really thought much of. He hated watching people display such affections. However, it was safe when you were home. It was safe to love you and to display it when the door was locked and the shades were shut. It was safe for him to cry and experience emotions and to smile. Because to him, there was no other safe place than you, and there wouldn’t be another one if you left. 

And that’s why you said you were married. Because in the end, no document could correctly explain what the two of you meant to the other. It couldn’t show how much understanding and patience and practice it took to end up where the two of you were in the other’s life. It couldn’t show the mistakes made when it came to understanding the other person, couldn’t prove that the both of you made improvements to make the other happy.

And he was grateful you understood that as much as he did. 

And he was grateful you trusted him to do the things he’d done to you.

And he was grateful because he was safer than he’d ever been in his life.

And he was grateful you loved him, too.

And he understood, no matter the effort, nobody would remove you from his life. And that’s all that mattered to him when it came to the outside world. That nobody would touch you. Nobody would give you the satisfaction and the care and the love he did because he was the only person who could do such things. He knew you were aware of it as well, which is why you gave into his wants and needs and why you let him torture you endlessly when it came to something going wrong. You were an outlet and in his mind there was nobody stronger than you, not even Chrollo, because of your ability to handle him and understand.

And now he could smile a genuine, happy smile. And that made you smile, too.

A killer, sure. A sadist. Someone who could never be happy, who could never have empathy. That’s what people knew him to be.

But you knew differently. And you wouldn’t listen when someone told you things you’d heard before. And that’s why he would never give you up.

Special.

You are special.

[tsukoyomi-fumikage]

Quirk Sicknesses (Mul-Ships)

Please, PLEASE can someone make these random-ass small drabbles into real fanfictions - then tell me - I wanna read em!

Ships - BakuKiri, MiriTama, EraserMic, ShoToko, ShigaDabi, Mineta. 

--- 1st BakuKiri ---

Bakugou slid into a fighting stance, narrowing his eyes at his sparring partner, who's arms automatically hardened into the quirk-enabled mode. "You ready, Shitty Hair?" He growled out, impatient to start and punch away at his anger of the day.

Kirishima nodded, determined. "Yeah, bring it on, Kacchan!"

"Don't call me that!" He yelled, charging forward, preparing an attack in his right hand, slamming said hand into his opponents head, smashing the rock-hard male to the side. "You know I hate it."

Red Riot stumbled slightly, reaching a hand to awkwardly rub along the spikes. "That..." He stopped dead, bringing his hand away to find blood and flaked skin coming off of his face. "Hurt...?"

Confused, his vision blurred as pain tore through his face, and at his stomach as Katsuki hit him again, unaware of the searing pain his friend was feeling. Gasping out, he lost all control of his quirk, reaching his maximum strength so suddenly and irrationally he cut the blond right across the cheek with his skin. "Shit." Swore the older boy, and he quickly stopped his attack, reaching up his fingers to press on the wound before looking down at Kirishima. "Fuck, dude! Your face!"

Kirishima Ejiro was barely hearing anything anymore, too busy trying to focus on his erratic breathing. He felt a hand touch his now slouching, soft shoulder and he flinched against it, making more skin fall off and more blood to appear. "What's happening?" He asked aloud to no one in particular, moving slowly to his knees to quell the shaking in his legs. Bakugou was in front of him, eyes wide and full shock, yet the rest of him held an expression that screamed calm... For once.

"It's a quirk thing." He said simply. The hurt man didn't understand, quirking a brow before hissing at the tug on his skin at the action. "For example my quirk thing is that I sweat more in my hands, meaning yes, bigger explosions, but more damage for me." He poked at his friends skin, watching it fall away. "Yours is... I'm not sure, actually."

Ejiro snorted sarcastically. "That's obvious."

Katsuki smiled, leaning back on his heels, swinging a little to keep his balance going. "Wanna head back to the dorms and get takeout? On me."

The sick student's eyes lit up. "Free takeout from you?" His mouth watered. "So many possibilities - man do I hope you have a lot of money!"

They ended up curled in Bakugou's room, watching netflix and eating takeout Takoyaki and clams. It made Kirishima think of Amajiki as he curled next to his friend, being held securely so his quirk wouldn't hurt as much as it had earlier.

Kirishima could say he was mad, but he pretty sure he was dying at being pressed into his crushes side. Luckily the lights were off, otherwise Katsuki might have caught his red complexion and killed him for real.

.

--- 2nd MiriTama ---

"Wo-woah!" Mirio steadied himself, balancing on his two feet, eyes squinted in concentration as he fought to keep his balance. "This is ridiculous." He spoke out loud, despite his big smile at the stupidity of his quirk.

Amajiki was sitting on the sofa in the far corner, curled up with his knees tucked against his front. "You need assistance there?" He offered, though there wasn't much he could do for someone who's quirk was for him to phase through things. That had already made itself known when Togata had shattered a glass while drinking juice, the liquid and cup going everywhere before he himself phased through the floor and landed in their neighbors apartment, completely naked and smiling awkwardly at their shocked faces. "Should I get Mr. Aizawa on the phone? Maybe he can come over?"

"No." Mirio bit his lip tightly, keeping his arms out to balance himself incase he phased again. "I've got this - they only last a few hours like your bellyaches, it's fine."

Tamaki clearly wasn't impressed, coming over to land a palm on his boyfriends cheek, surprised at the heat and the face his hand didn't just phase through the man's skull.  "You should rest." He said quite obviously. "But.. like that probably isn't a good idea."

The indigo man was at a loss of what to do for the blond, so he sighed, slowly sitting himself on the couch until Togata joined him, sitting on his legs, which were the only points of his body he was able to control at the minute; his arms phasing through the other student as he tried to wrap a arm around his shoulders. "Uh..."

"It's alright." The smaller man chuckled, switching on the TV and opening Netflix. Mirio smiled in embarrassment. "What do you wanna watch?"

.

--- 3rd EraserMic ---

"This is so shit."

Eraser dropped several doses of his dry-eye medication, then tied a bandanna to his eyes, pressing down on sore swollen skin, trying his best to completely block out the light. It wasn't the best solution to his quirk-illness, but it did quell some of the pain. Aizawa relied completely on his vision, so he obviously called work to say he was sick before beginning all of this 'treatment'. Now he just had to suffer alone for a few days before his eyes would return to normal. Until then, pure darkness it was. Gosh, he sounded like Tokoyami - he'd been talking too much with that emo-bird student of his.

Shota let out a squeak when a hand landed on his shoulder. "Hizashi?" He asked out loud, but heard so response. His skin tightened and burned at his eyes moved under his eyelids, wanting to look and gouge who was in front of him. His boyfriend always talked even if he wasn't being asked questions - unless... "Are you sick too?"

A hand tapped once on his forehead: Eraser smiled. That was their sign of a 'yes'. When Present Mic got his quirk-illness, it makes his voice go completely - he can't even mutter quietly under his breath: It's the one time where the house is filled with the quieter man's voice only. "I'll call in for you." He offered, but realized he couldn't see where he'd put the phone down. "Could you - uh..."

Something metal touched his arm and he grabbed it, feeling over the bumps and pressing the correct numbers for the schools teacher line. After a few years of getting to know his quirk, he knew it would be best if he could read braille, and like him, Hizashi had also found a way to combat his quirks problems by learning sign language - though that sign language couldn't exactly help him communicate now.

After making the call, he sighed, sitting himself on the sofa, feeling the silent adult slump next to him. "We're ridiculous." He supplied a conversation, knowing his boyfriend hated silence. "I become your mouth when your sick and you become my eyes vise versa."

A weird noise made Aizawa know he'd made Yamada laugh - it was a wheezing huff of a laugh, barely as loud as a whisper. "You sound like a dying cockatoo."

He could only imagine the reply: "You look like a recycled character on BirdBox."

.

--- 4th ShouToko ---

Tokoyami couldn't believe his eyes as he walked into his boyfriends room after school, coming face to face with a bin full of tentacles, some with eyes, mouths and ears, and some with none at all. If his face could pale, it would. "Shoji?" He called out, feeling sick as his eyes refused to look away from the bin.

"Yeah I'm just in the bathroom, give me a second!"

Right. Right. He remembered that they all had bathrooms in these new dorms. Fumikage tried not to throw up and look at the dead limbs, forcing his head away from it, staring at the wall opposite instead.  

"You okay, Fumi'?" Came the concerned voice from none other than Mezo as he stepped out the bathroom, doing up his mask from brushing his teeth. "You aren't looking too well."

His thoughts went back to the arms, and he imagined them slowly decaying - how was he supposed to be okay looking at his boyfriends ripped off arms? Duple or not? "I think I'm going to be sick." He muttered, pushing past Mezo and sprinting into his own-suite, getting to the toilet just in time to throw up, curling up over the object, shivering violently.

A hand found itself on his back, and he flinched, mind going back to the Camp Incident, the blood, the missing hand on the floor, the pained expression etched into Shoji's face as his other limbs curled around the hurt one. "Hey." Came a soft voice right by his ear. "It's alright."

Wiping his beak, he coughed, looking up at the taller. "How is it okay?" He croaked out, eyeing the teen with an almost furious look. "Your arms are coming off! That's not normal!"

"Oh, that's why? I thought you were really ill!" Shoji was obviously smiling behind his mask. Kneeling down to be on the birds level, he pressed a kiss through the mask onto his feathers. "Like with your feathers, my arms 'molt'" He explained, scooping the smaller up, he brought him back into his room. The emo boy squeezed his eyes shut as they passed the limbs. "It's perfectly normal."

They both sat on the bed, and Shoji leaned over, grabbing one of the arms with nothing on and wiggling it around. Fumikage gave him 'the look' and he chuckled. "Wiggle wiggle wiggle"

.

--- 5th ShigaDabi ---

Shigaraki exhaled slowly, breath misting in the cold air as he trudged towards the bars opening, hands covered by special gloves that quelled quirks tucked carefully in his pockets. Shouldering the door open, he was met with Toga and Twice, who were both fretting over a kneeling Dabi, who was clenching his hands and tucking them into a bucket of water. "Oh sweet Jesus-" He muttered under his breath. Everyone turned at the sound of his footsteps etching closer. "What happened this time?"

"Quirk-Illness." Twice explained happily, then his mind switched, and his mouth clenched. "Bad, bad, bad!" He scolded no one in particular, waving his arms around.

Toga gave a smirk at all the boys' personalities. She was probably wondering how they ever became what was considered a 'family'; "Honestly Dabi, you could just take a quirk suppressant." She offered.

The black-haired, scarred male looked at her - any normal person would see calmness, but they all knew he was irritated. "They don't work." He said simply, eyebrows furrowing. "I'm basically just like Shigaraki in this situation right now."

Although the multiple-handed male could argue that was a bit offensive at the hint of how his quirk was uncontrollable, he shrugged. "Yeah yeah, scar-face." He drawled out, coming to sit  in front of the man and his bucket. "I take it your quirk-illness is that your hands become actual fiery magnets?"

A nod came from the taller. Shigaraki smirked under the hand over his face. Taking his own hand out, he removed his 'father' and placed him on his shoulder instead so the man could see his face. "I don't know if this'll work, but they work for me and hey-" He smiled; he knew he shouldn't, he knew it was terrifying when he did, but he smiled. "-My quirk is much more erosive than those large hands of yours."

"Yeah yeah." He took his hands out the water, watching as they lit up in dimmed blue flames. He hissed. "Fucking hurry then."

Taking both hands out of his pockets he pulled the gloves off, feeling his own quirk come back full throttle. Taking his ring finger and pinkie off of the cloth to avoid destroying the outer later, which was not quirk-suppressant, he handed them over to the man. "Here."

"oH mY gOd ShIgArAkI iS bEiNg KiNd." Twice fangirled over in the corner, probably grinning like an idiot as Dabi pulled the gloves on. "I'm So PrOuD."

"Shut it Two-faced dickhead!" Snarled the blue-haired boy, standing up and trying to grab him, but being stopped by the blue-fire quirk user. "Let me at him!"

Toga giggled, sitting up on one of the chairs, swinging her legs as she adjusted her scarf. "Boys."

.

--- EXTRA - MINETA ---

"Guys...?" Mineta asked, kicking his legs out as he fought to free himself. He was alone in the classroom way past school times. The grape-haired boy realized he probably fell asleep at his desk again and had tried to move, only to find his hair was attached to the desk. "Help?"

[wolfpawn]

I Hate You, I Love You, Chapter 57

Chapter Summary - Danielle wakes in the middle of the night feeling very sick, but doesn't tell Tom, when he finds her a while later, he realises she is not fully at ease with certain things, telling him that their talk is all the more important. The next day, feeling better, they talk about their issues and insecurities, hoping they are on the same page.

Previous Chapter

Rating - Mature (some chapters contain smut)

Triggers - references to Tom Hiddleston’s work with the #MeToo Movement. That chapter will be tagged accordingly.

authors Note - I have been working on this for the last 3 years, it is currently 180+ chapters long.  This will be updated daily, so long as I can get time to do so, obviously

tags: @sweetkingdomstarlight-blog​ @jessibelle-nerdy-mum​ @nonsensicalobsessions​ @damalseer​ @hiddlesbitch1​ @winterisakiller​ @fairlightswiftly​ @salempoe​ @lys-syl @youcantcatchafallingstar

If you wish to be tagged, please let me know.

When Danielle woke, she groaned slightly; her head was spinning and all she could think about was how much everything seemed to be hurting. She gently removed herself from Tom's arms and rushed to the door, choosing to go to the main bathroom and not her en suite one. Keeping as quiet as she could, she ran to the toilet bowl and vomited violently, after several minutes, she finally finished dry-heaving and realised she had a splitting headache to go with her nausea. Grabbing the towel from its rack, she placed it on the tiled floor and lay her head on it, her breathing slowing again now that she did not feel like her blood was on fire.

Tom's brows furrowed as he felt the sheets next to him for Danielle, only to find them empty, forcing himself to awaken more, he turned on the light next to him and looked around. There was no light from the en suite, the door of which was slightly ajar and the sheets next to him were cold and...as he felt them, he realised they were damp, as was the pillow. Concerned, he rose to his feet and grabbed his boxers, which were still beside the bed from the night before and rubbed his hand over his face to help wake himself, the cold chill of the winter night caused him to shiver slightly and he then realised the bedroom door was opened slightly, so he walked into the hallway. "Elle?" He called as he opened the door, noticing the light beaming out from under the main bathroom door, he walked over and knocked. "Elle?"

"Tom," Tom's heartfelt as though it was about to explode in his chest when he heard how faint and pathetic her voice was. "Tom."

He pushed open the door and winced slightly. The stench of sweat and vomit were the first things to hit him, but when he saw Danielle covered in sweat and shivering on the cold tiled floor, he forgot the foul smells and knelt down to her. "Elle."

"I think I'm sick."

Tom looking at her for a moment before he chuckled, "I think you might be." he agreed. "Why didn't you call me?"

"I didn't want to disturb you."

"You are the silliest woman." he shook his head. He reached down to pull her into his arms and walk her back to bed. "How long have you been here?" He asked worriedly, realising just how cold she was.

"I woke at about one."

"Elle, it is four-thirty, you have been here for over three hours on a cold floor, what were you thinking?" He snapped worriedly.

"I'm sorry."

Danielle's response was so feeble and meek, Tom felt guilty for even sounding clipped. "I know, I'm sorry if I sound mad, I just don't want you to be getting more sick." He stroked her hair and scooped her into his arms.

"No, I smell." Her attempts to wriggle out of his grip were laughable.

"I know, because you are sick and I am going to bring you back to bed and you are going to get some medication and we will have you right as rain again soon," he promised as he walked through the hallway and back to her room.

"But the bed."

"Elle, the sheets are already damp because of you."

"I'm surprised you are not trying to take credit for that." Tom chuckled at her words. "I'm sorry I ruined Christmas."

"Elle, you did not..."

"I went into hospital Christmas Eve, I made Emma mad again Christmas day, and I am sick on Stephens' Day." She listed.

"You had a fall, Emma is being a brat and you cannot help whatever this is, what is it anyway? I am not sick, so I don't think it is food-related."

"I don't know," Danielle groaned, curling into a ball as soon as she was placed in the bed.

Tom went to retrieve some paracetamol and ibuprofen she kept in the bathroom. "Which ones?"

"Only the panadol, you can't mix ibuprofen with diffene," she explained. Tom fed her the painkillers and got in beside her, using his body heat to warm her. "I am so run down." She moaned.

"Could you be...?" Tom asked warily.

"Could I be what?"

"Pregnant?"

Danielle froze for a moment. "I could, but I don't think so." She dismissed.

"We have sex, a lot, and I don't think in the time we've been together, you've..."

"Bled? No, I don't on the bar. It is the reason I am on it, if I wasn't, you'd know, trust me. As for pregnancy, it's the best thing on the market and I don't feel like my boobs are sore or bigger, nor do I feel bloated, I don't think it's anything like that, so I don't think you have to worry."

"It's not that I am worried, it's just..."

"Too soon?" She answered. "If Emma thought us spending the next few months seeing if we can go without strangling one another was bad," she laughed. "I think it is just being run down, not enough sleep, food and fresh air, my body is telling me to behave and look after myself." She dismissed as she began to warm up again. "Don't worry."

"Well get some more sleep, and I mean it, wake me if you feel ill again, alright?"

"I promise," Danielle swore, falling back asleep, her body warming as she did.

A few hours later, it was actually Danielle that was first to wake, and bar a small twinge in her temple, felt as though she was well-rested, if not tender-stomached and hungry. Tom was snoring ever so slightly in his sleep, causing her to grin and look at him before slipping out from under the covers, and even with the heating having warmed the house, she shivered for a moment as she made her way to the bathroom and took a diffene for her wrist, knowing it would help her head too. Feeling crap from her night, she decided to just throw on the shower and begin the day feeling fresh. As soon as the steam began to come out of the showerhead, she jumped in, moaning as the warm water hit her, making her feel almost human again. She was in there a few moments when she remembered she was wearing the brace and took it off, popping it on the radiator in hopes of getting it to get dried once more.

She was barely in there a few minutes when a shadow came into view. "Are you joining me?" She grinned.

Tom opened the shower door, naked and smiled at her. "Feeling better?"

"Stupid migraines, I haven't had one with vomiting in years, that wasn't fun."

"I can well imagine." He stepped in and closed the door behind him, sighing contently as the warm water hit him too. "I am glad you feel better, but you are going to have to start talking to me when you are sick."

"I know." She gave an apologetic smile. "I will."

"You say that, but you said so after your fall too, why won't you trust me?"

"I do trust you."

"Then why is this something you fight so ardently?"

"Because you're Tom Hiddleston and can have any woman you want and I am just a no one, frumpy, short and boring, seeing me sick is not going to make me any more attractive and when I am injured, I am not the strong sort of woman you like." She explained.

Tom stared at her for a moment, in truth, he thought she had to be joking, but her sheepish demeanour told him that she genuinely thought herself beneath him. "Elle, we all get sick, everyone does, the sexiest person alive gets sick and no one can pull off sick as sexy, and as for you not being strong, you came over here, alone, and made the life you wanted for yourself, you refuse to take shit from anyone, including the biggest brat to ever hit the music industry and you got her to back down from you, not the other way around and you think yourself weak, you are terrifyingly strong." He declared. "I am terrified you want someone stronger than me, someone, who can deal with things better than I can."

"You deal with everything so well, you don't ever seem phased."

"I shit myself all the time, interviews, auditions, hell even if I see a camera pointing at me or a fan walking over to me in the street, because I have no idea what is going to happen and I can't control it, but you, you take control, Taylor Fucking Swift came up to you and you dismissed her as a talentless nobody whose opinion was irrelevant, think about that, she had the gumption to state she was not complicit in any of that song of its lyrics, then was caught lying on camera and still held her head high as though she was not caught out and you had her scuttling off like a beetle. You are terrifying and fiery and I am so often terrified I am not good enough for you."

Danielle gave a small grin, "Well, yeah, when you say it like that I sound badass." She let the waterfall on her face for a moment before wiping it off again and looking at him. "How about we have breakfast and have that talk?"

"I think we need to." he agreed. "But before we go any further, this is not to end things, not to destroy what we're building, right?"

"I want to talk about everything, not just the random statement about two to three kids and a house in a suburb, a proper conversation on it all."

"Well, any boy is going to Eton, that's a must, and don't let Benedict say that Harrow is better because that is bullshit, I will tell you that now." He stated, causing Danielle to smile before she reached for her shampoo.

*

"So, sitting room or in here?" Danielle looked at Tom as she placed the last of their dishes on the side of the sink to drain. "To talk." She looked at him slightly apprehensively. "You seemed so sure about it a short while ago."

"I was hoping we could go out and do it." Tom frowned at her. "Walk Mac and talk. I feel like I haven't walked my own dog is a couple of weeks and after being cooped up all yesterday and for ages before Christmas, I want some fresh air."

"What if someone spots us?"

"We'll go to the woods, if there is someone there, they deserve to get photos. We don't have to." she backtracked.

"You...you want to risk being seen?" There was a glint of excited hope in his voice.

"I want to be with you, Tom, I don't particularly like the idea that someday, I will be on a tabloid comparing me to Taylor and being viciously attacked for existing by random people online, but yes, I want to be with you in public, well, start the process anyway." She smiled.

"I'll get Mac's lead," Tom stated, rushing off with a large goofy grin on his face. Smiling, Danielle dried her hands and retrieved her jacket. "We'll take the car out since you were ill this morning; actually, should we call the hospital, you did have the fall, are they related?"

"I don't think so, I think it was just an exhaustion migraine."

"Maybe we should anyway..."

"Tom, if I feel ill again, I will fully consent to you bringing me to the hospital, but I feel fine, so please, let's just go." She stated.

"Fine, I need a cover for the back seat, I cannot imagine Mac is going to be overly clean after our walk."

"In the press where his lead is, there are plastic-backed blankets just for him." She instructed. "Here."

"No, you're injured, I have them," Tom went and got what was needed. "I am going to get some old clothes so I don't care if I get ruined, you get yourself and Mac ready." He instructed.

"Yes, sir." Danielle gave a small military salute and giggled. "Tell your mam where we are going too, she would go mad if the day after she warns me to be good, I run off and ignore her."

"She'd appreciate that." Tom nodded. "Off with you." He walked over to his mothers, his Jaguar still outside Danielle's door from collecting her from the hospital two days previous, when he entered his mother's, he chuckled slightly. His niece had apparently not forgotten she only say half of the movie and forced them all to watch it again, much to her father's chagrin. "Elle and I are walking Mac in the woods, we'll be back in about two hours." He informed them.

"The two of you?" Sarah smiled.

"Yes, we need to talk about a few things, and Mac needs a walk, so it makes sense to sort it all together."

"Is everything alright?" Diana asked worriedly.

"Great, we just want to talk about some things in general mum, nothing to worry about," Tom promised. "She just wanted me to tell you we were going because she knows after the last day, you would be worried."

Diana gave an uncertain smile, "Thank you, darling."

Giving his mother a kiss on the cheek, he ran upstairs and got what he needed before he ran down again, with his car keys in hand and ran out to his car, where Mac and Danielle were waiting patiently. "Ready?"

"We are." Her smile filled him with confidence that they would easily be able to talk through everything and achieve whatever they needed to.

There was very little said between the house and the woods, both thinking over everything they had to say, Mac Tíre happily lying on the back seat looking at the world going by. They parked up at the gate that Danielle had waited for an ambulance at. "Where is your bike, by the way?"

"It got badly damaged in the fall," She sighed. "The guy that found me works for the park, he said they will scrap it, it's all it's good for now." She explained as they got out and locked the car. "Will this be alright here?" She pointed to the car.

"How many are going to try and rob the only Jag I have ever seen around here?" Tom chuckled. "It is fine." They walked in a little, Mac off the lead so he could sniff around, but Tom kept his lead ready in case they needed it. "Where do we start?"

"Well, we could do a loop and come back here, but you have to makes sure on the fourth crossroads you take a right."

"I meant in this conversation, Elle."

"I know, I was just trying to not be the one to start it," she explained. "Right, so I guess we start with what we want from this. Both of us aren't in this for some fun I take it, this is a serious, wanting to try and start a life together relationship."

"Aiming towards marriage and kids down the road in a few years if it works," Tom stated.

"So that's a start. I am not overly bothered on marriage, I mean if I get married, great, but to me, it is a piece of paper, it is not as important as people make it out to be." She explained.

"You still feel like that?" Tom asked, remembering her saying something to Emma a few years previous on the matter.

"I want a proper happy relationship, a piece of paper does not dictate your happiness in a relationship." She explained further. "If in a few years, you and I are still doing this, and marriage seems like a good step, I would happily do so, but it is not a requirement for me is what I am saying."

"Alright, and kids?"

"Nice, but again, not a requirement. I have plans I want to get done first." She explained. "You?"

"I don't want to have children in the same position as I was in, I want it to be done properly, two parents, happy together."

"Is that part of the reason you discuss my parents, you think I have the background that would make it more likely to happen?"

"I never thought of anything like that, consciously anyway, but it could be that; I cannot say what my subconscious thinking, but in truth, no I had not thought of that," Tom answered honestly. "Does my parent's break-up make you feel somewhat worried?"

"No, we are not our parents, their good or their bad. Your parents were not happy, what is the point them being in a bad marriage if it would have affected you, Em's and Sarah negatively. You had two homes where your parents were more at peace, and in turn able to parent you better than one toxic home." She stated.

"Fair point." Tom conceded. "So this plan of yours?"

"I want to further myself in this job, I want to be the one that the studio contracts, not being called in by a firm for a studio." She stated. "I want it that I answer to me, if I am up at four am for a shoot, then I am the one bringing home all the cash, not someone else sitting in a swivel chair in an office getting the lion's share and me pulling only a salary." She explained.

"You see, you have so much drive." Tom pointed out. "What do I need to do to help you achieve that?"

"If I say that I need to study, let me; if I pull a fifteen-hour day, drag me away from said study for food." She suggested.

"Only if you do the same with me and scripts."

"Deal." She smiled fondly. "I promise to keep you in tea and other sustenance too."

"Well then, it appears we have an accord my darling." He grinned, taking her injured hand and gently kissing it. "What are we going to do when this comes out?"

"Us?" Tom nodded. "Do we get a warning?"

"Magazines, usually yes, fans and online, usually no."

"I think we should be prepared, we should have a picture, one of us, happy and pre-planned, doing something natural, at home on the couch, out with Mac, something that is really us, and when they all come for their blood, we use that, give it to your social media, take their power off them, give people the details before they can."

Tom smiled, "That is a great idea."

"I want this to be ours for as long as we can, but if there is a chance we are spotted, I want you to do what you can to release it first. If there is a situation where we know it will be public, say an event where we can't prevent it, do it as far in advance of it as possible."

"Alright."

"I am not a very public person Tom, I am not good with dressing beautifully and looking good for a camera, I am not sure if I can ever do for you what Sophie does for Ben."

"I disagree with your idea of your beauty, but would never force you to. If you are not willing to go on a red carpet, I don't want to do that to you." Danielle said nothing for a short while. "What is it?"

"I thought things were getting better with Emma, but she went back to being mad as soon as we mentioned me staying with you."

"She needs to get over herself, she is five months older than you and half your maturity," Tom growled. "She and Jack moved in together and I said nothing, literally nothing, because I knew they were happy together and he would treat her right, she needs to extend the same courtesy to us."

"I just want my friend back."

"I know, darling." Tom pulled her close to him. "What other concerns do you have?"

"How do I prepare for people saying I am nothing but a golddigger?"

"I'm afraid I have no idea."

"Really, not even after the summer, I mean, every second paper was saying you were after a Sugar Mama."

Tom scoffed. "Really?"

"Yes."

"I never noticed."

"How do you ignore that sort of thing?"

"I don't read about myself online, I once did it, and they were all discussing what I am like in bed, that put a quick end to that."

"I hope they were at least complimenting."

"There are social media pages dedicated to discussing my size." He exclaimed.

"Were they generous?"

"Not the point, Elle."

"Well, at least they are nice about you."

"Some are, others aren't, especially after..."

"Well some people were never going to be happy anyway, others probably just held that opinion of her, to begin with, and wondered what brought you two together."

"Do you wonder?"

"No, I don't, and I don't care." She stated firmly.

"Why did you react like that?" Tom asked. "So vehemently against even knowing."

"I don't want to know Tom, I don't discuss Paul, I don't want to discuss Taylor, it is weird to focus on exes, I don't mind discussing her new songs or how Paul is doing, but the relationships, no, unless there is something long term as a result, I'm good not knowing."

"Okay..."

"Do you want to know the intricate details of my time with Paul?" Tom's facial expression answered her question. "Well, same here. They both have their lives, we are trying to sort ours, so we will leave it at that."

Tom gave her a loving smile. "You are so mature, you know that?"

"I am in my late twenties, if I wasn't by now, I would be worried."

"Well so many people remain bitter."

"Why, though, I mean, then they are taking up space in your head and preventing you from being happy if you do that, so off with them."She shrugged. "Now, enough on that, what else do you and I need to talk about?"

"The house?"

"Yours or mine?"

"The one in London."

"So yours."

"If it's your home Elle, it is not mine, it is ours."

"Your name is on the deeds."

"That shouldn't matter too much, should it?"

"I suppose not." Her tone defeated.

Tom looked at her, "You can choose not to stay if you want."

"I want to, I am just scared."

"Of what?"

"If I alter things, put new books in, borrow one and you go looking for it; if I do something to something you don't want to be touched..."

"Hey, stop that now." Tom stood in front of her, "I gave you that key because I wanted you to feel comfortable, because I know you are going to be very busy and tired for the next few months with work and to ensure we got to see each other as often as possible in that time, I did not do so without thinking of the alterations that would no doubt happen with us both being there. I saw how you were over the past couple of weeks, and I know you were so busy you did not get a chance to actually get comfortable, but bar your terrible book organisational skills, I know you're tidy, jovial and quiet the most of the time, I actually like that."

"Really, attacking my books, again."

"Darling, there is nothing wrong with your books, how you organise them is the issue."

Danielle threw her eyes up at him, causing him to chuckle before getting serious again. "Are you worried about when I am away?"

"About being by myself, not that no, I can handle that."

Tom processed her words, "But you are concerned?" Danielle failed to respond. "What are you scared of?"

"You work with gorgeous, funny, intelligent women." Tom froze, knowing what she was implying. "If you rather one of them, could you please just, I dunno, send me a text, ring me, do anything other than waiting until after, or not tell me and let me find out some terrible way." she looked at him pleadingly. "I don't want to be made a fool of Tom, especially, Jesus, if it ended up on a rag paper and the whole world knew before me, I couldn't take the looks or sympathy, or in some cases, delight."

Tom looked at her for a moment, he was hurt she would think him capable of that, he was never one to consider such a thing, but he wasn't an idiot, it happened a lot in his industry, every second week if rag mags were to be believed. "I would not do that, you know that right? But, if by some chance I did find myself wanting to do such, I would never hurt you like that." He promised, looking directly into her eyes. "I mean it, Elle, I could not do that to you."

"Okay, please just remember that. I rather be heartbroken that we didn't last than crushed by you trying to say you're sorry or you didn't want to hurt me. I rather be hurt by the honesty than by betrayal."

"I will, but on that note, I know I am not always home, I know I am gone a lot and that has been a reason why I have not partaken in relationships a lot over the past few years, I don't like the idea of leaving someone behind. If I neglect you if another man realises just how amazing you are when I am not there, if he..." Tom swallowed hard at the words he was forcing out. "If he gives you what I can't, please, I..."

Danielle gave him a comforting smile. "We respect each other enough to do the right thing, deal?"

"Deal." Tom's eyes were glassy, the idea of Danielle casting him aside for someone else, alone hurt him more than he thought it would. She was not someone who would cheat, she seemed to be almost aggressive towards those who were, it was something she had never understood or stood for, even when a friend of hers in a terrible marriage had cheated, as much as she hated the husband and thought the friend should leave, she still snapped at the woman for lowering herself to such a level. He felt somewhat unsure of what to do next until Danielle placed her hand in his.

"So, really, you'd want to ship your hypothetical sons to Eton?"

"I didn't mind it."

"I thought you said you felt alone there?"

"But it is a good education."

"And what of your daughters, should you have some?" She asked curiously.

"Why don't you like the idea of private schools?"

"Private schools is one thing, boarding schools are another; I hated it." Tom paused and looked at her. "I lasted one semester, and when I came home for Christmas, I refused to go back."

"I didn't..."

"I know, so when you said my parents didn't want to invest in my education, they did, I just didn't want that. I was happier in a normal school."

"I never should have said that. Did I even apologise for it, I am so sorry for the horrible things I said to you that day, for how I acted, when you had had such a terrible night."

"In your defence, I used the 'p' word, so I sort of deserved it." She countered. "So, are we okay?"

"I think so, I cannot think of anything else right now. I cannot believe I am finally discussing these things, I thought I had ruined any chance of all of this for myself."

"How so?"

"I kept pushing people away."

"Why did you let me in?"

"Because when I think about having something with you, I feel excited. I have not felt that before."

"Well, I mean, I am fabulous." She grinned, fanning herself.

"I concur." Tom smiled, taking her hand and kissing it again. "Are we already nearly back to the car?"

"Yep."

"Good, I want lunch."

Danielle laughed, "How are you as lithe as you are?"

"Well of late, I have been partaking in some very amorous acts that aid me in maintaining my physique."

"Is that right?" Danielle gave a smirk and a raised brow. "How very good of your significant other to be so selfless as to assist you in such a manner."

"I know, and I think I know how to thank her."

"Well now, you have me wanting to run back to the car."

"Good." Tom burst into a sprint.

"What! Not fair, I'm short." Danielle shouted as she started to run.

"Excuses." Tom laughed as he ran on, seeing her follow, Mac Tíre easily outstripped them, circling around the pair several times as they ran as though taunting them of his speed and durability.

"That was mean." Danielle puffed as she slowed down at the car.

Tom leant against it, feeling somewhat out of breath himself. "I won."

"You had a head start and long legs you fucker, that's cheating."

"I can't help my height."

"Neither can I." she walked over to him, but before she could poke or elbow him, Tom pulled her to him and looked down at her.

"I am so glad I finally have you."

"You're not so bad yourself, Hiddles." She leant up and kissed him.

"What if someone catches us?"

"Fuck em." she grinned, kissing him again.

[thetravelerwrites]

A New Generation (Pt. 2)

Rating: Teen Fandom: 魔法使いの嫁 | Mahou Tsukai no Yome | The Ancient Magus Bride Relationships: Hatori Chise x Elias Ainsworth Characters: Elias Ainsworth, Hatori Chise, Chise Hatori, Silver Lady, Silkie, Ruth, Titania, Oberon, Shannon, Stella Barklem, Angelica Burley, David Burley, Althea Burley, Lindel | Lindenbaum, Merituuli Trigger Warnings: Pregnancy, Childbirth, Babies, Infants, Depression, Anxiety, Discrimination, Unplanned Pregnancy, Abandonment, References to Abuse, References to Abandonment, References to Child Murder Words: 8551

As Chise's pregnancy progresses, Elias is consumed with worry that his child will be rejected by both fae and humans, as he had been. Chise struggles with the fear that she might abandon or harm her own children, as her parents did. 

When Elias returned home from London, he sat down with Chise and had a very long, solemn conversation with her about the pregnancy, and for the first time, they talked about a future that also involved their child. Or children, if Chise was correct in her belief that there were two.

He told her about going to speak with Lindel, Simon, and Angelica and what their advice had been. Like him, Chise found Angelica’s tale the most consoling. Knowing that the artificer had felt similar apprehension about procreating helped Chise feel less isolated.

Calling Angelica and talking to her at length also did much to improve Chise’s disposition, not just about Chise’s ability to parent but also about the pregnancy itself. It didn’t cure her of her worries, but having someone to talk to who knew exactly what she was going through was a great comfort to her.

Finally managing to convince Elias to install a landline in the house had been a pretty recent accomplishment. He fought this "modern indulgence" for quite a long time, but when he finally understood that it meant she didn’t have to walk to town to use the public phone every other day, he was more open to the idea, especially since walking long distances was going to become rather difficult for her as time went on. The noise the device made was annoying, but seeing her smile when she answered it was enough to keep him from being too bothered by the sound.

The change in her mood greatly eased Elias’s mind. Watching Chise spiral into a deep, black pit of terror and depression was difficult for him to bear, especially given there was little he could on his own to improve it. As much as he wanted to help her, he had eventually come to understand that sometimes people could only find solace in others who’d had comparable experiences. This was just not his ken, so it was better left to those suited to the task.

He tried to quash his own fears for her sake, but she knew him too well to let him get away with keeping those thoughts to himself. At night, before they slept, she would talk to him; just talk, not expecting him to respond if he wasn’t in the mood to do so, and it helped him. Hearing the sudden shift in her voice from cold despair to tentative hope had done much to alleviate his woes. She encouraged him to be honest with her about what he felt, but didn’t push him to talk if he didn’t want to. More often than not, though, he would. They would lay bear their worries to each other and try to find the bright side. They were both still afraid, but they were facing that fear together.

And it helped.

Summer was in full swing, and Elias was twice as busy as normal now that Chise was limited as to what she could do. He didn’t grumble about it much; after all, he had done everything himself before she had come along. But they had become a well-coordinated, efficient team over the years and he had come to treasure her reserved, supportive assistance in all things, whether practical or magical. He rather missed working in tandem with her.

Though she was no longer allowed to do any of her normal seasonal chores beyond a little light weeding and watering, she would often sit in the garden with him as he worked and help whenever she could, not content with staying in bed all day like an invalid. Besides, having Chise within Elias’s sight and hearing was good for his heart and mind.

Ruth spent his time keeping a close, watchful eye on her, reporting any physical ills that Chise might keep to herself to Elias. As long as she was at rest, though, they were happy enough.

Late one night, he walked into their bedroom to prepare for sleep and found her naked in front of a mirror, standing to the side, looking down at her belly.

“What are you doing?” He asked curiously.

“Look at my stomach,” She said, her hands gently probing her lower abdomen. “It’s bigger. And it’s hard, too. Feel.”

Elias came close and laid his hand on her stomach. It was indeed hardened, as though she had swallowed a large stone, and there was a swelling between her hips; not big, but definitely noticeable.

And perhaps he imagined it, but he thought he felt a strange swirl of energy embedded there underneath the flesh and muscle, lodged deep in her body. No, two swirls. Perhaps Chise’s instinct was more credible than he first thought.

“Hmm,” He said. “Why is that?”

“Angelica says the uterus thickens and becomes more solid to protect the fetuses,” She said, reaching for a book on her nightstand. “It says so in this, too. Alice sent it to me. I told her about the babies, by the way, but I swore her to secrecy. I haven’t told Stella yet, but she’s busy at university and I didn’t want to bother her during finals.”

Elias bent to peer at the book. “What is it?”

She flipped through the rather large paperback volume. “It’s a book about pregnancy and birth. It’s actually pretty informative. So many things make sense now.”

“May I read it, then?” He asked. “There is much I still need to learn. I have a distinct dearth of knowledge about this particular subject and I feel compelled to rectify that.”

“Sure,” she said, handing it to him. “I’ve read up to the third trimester, so I won’t need it for a little while. I hope it helps.”

In some ways it did, and in others it didn’t. During gestation, he learned, the woman’s body produces excess blood to carry extra oxygen to the baby, which in turn causes the mother’s heart rate to accelerate for the duration of the pregnancy, which in turn causes her core temperature to rise. That explained that part, at least.

But other aspects of pregnancy and childbirth were, to put it mildly, horrifying. Things like nosebleeds, strange cravings, extreme mood swings, increased sex drive, swelling of the extremities, sudden hair growth or hair loss, violent fits of vomiting that lasted for months, soreness almost everywhere, food aversions, heighten sensitivity of smell, touch, and taste… the list of physical oddities was extensive. Bones would often be pushed out of the way and change position to compensate for the growing child, sometimes even fracturing or breaking in the process. And all of this was considered normal.

And those were just minor possible symptoms. The more severe ones were downright ghastly. There was no end of ways that it could go wrong, no end to the possible damage to the mother, no end to the ways the child could be born ill or malformed, and that was just for regular, non-magical children. There was no telling what kind of ailments could befall the child of two mages, especially if both parents were cursed.

And the descriptions of the birthing process itself, including the many, many things that could go awry, was nothing short of nauseating. Several times, he had to shut the book and put it aside for a while, appalled at what he learned. He hated to admit it, but sometimes knowledge for knowledge’s sake wasn’t always a good thing.

Once the first physical changes had begun, time seemed to speed up. Chise’s body changed rapidly, her stomach growing larger every day to carry the new life safely. She seemed especially breakable these days, and Elias couldn’t help being even more protective than he had been before.

For years before he had bought Chise, nothing had changed. Things went on as they always had, and it was as comfortable as it was dull. Then, once he met her, things changed, but it was a slow change. Even though things happened that never had before, it came at a pace he could understand and absorb.

Now, everything was new and happening too fast for him to process, and he was trying his best to keep up. He did not adapt well to change.

One afternoon in late July, while Chise was having her afternoon nap, Elias awoke her with a touch to her cheek.

“I’m sorry to wake you, Little Bird,” He said softly. “But there is a guest downstairs who has come a long way to see you. Are you feeling up to greeting them?”

She smiled. “Sure.”

Downstairs, she saw a tallish, pale man standing in their sitting room in modern clothes, looking around the room curiously. His blonde hair was separated into two bunches and hung over his shoulders. The the pupils of his bright blue eyes were slits, like that of a wild predator.

“Lindel!” Chise exclaimed in surprise.

When he saw her enter the room, a wide smile split his face. “It’s good to see you, my daughter,” He said, his arms open toward her.

She rushed forward to give him a hug. “What are you doing here? The dragons--”

“Can survive me being gone for an hour or two. Besides, Merituuli is to inform me right away if anything should happen while I’m here. I haven’t heard from you in a while and I wanted to check on you.” He held her at arms length and looked at her belly. “You’re coming along rather quickly, aren’t you? I sense very strong life essences brewing in there. Your offspring will be incredibly powerful mages. I can’t wait to meet my grandchildren; you must bring them to the aerie once they’ve been born.”

“More than one?” Chise asked.

“Oh, yes,” Lindel replied. “Two separate, distinct energies, hale and healthy, growing well.”

“Ha,” Chise said quietly. “I knew it.”

“Now,” He took her hand and hooked it around his arm. “Why don’t you give me a tour and tell me all about your preparations for the little ones? I’ve never actually been to Thorn’s home, you know. The ungrateful brat has never so much as extended an invitation.”

Elias sniffed slightly and sat in his chair, picking up a book he must have been reading before Lindel arrived.

“Of course,” She said, turning. Silver was looking in shyly from the kitchen, where Ruth was having a snack. “This is Silver Lady. She’s a neighbor who runs the house and looks after us. She’s been a big help to me.”

Lindel bowed. “A pleasure.”

Maybe it was Chise’s imagination, but she could have sworn Silver blushed.

“Good to see you again, Ruth,” Lindel said pleasantly. “Keeping a sharp eye on our favorite girl, are you?”

“Of course,” Ruth said. “She’s been getting plenty of rest, but she’s not eating as much as I’d prefer.”

Chise sighed heavily. “Elias’s fussing is bad enough, but having a fae nanny breathing down my neck all day is really irritating.”

Lindel laughed softly. “I would imagine so.”

Chise showed him her old room upstairs with Ruth trailing behind, where Silver had surprised her one day by converting it into a nursery. Silver, at least, seemed very excited about the new additions to the family and was going to extraordinary lengths to make sure the house was ready for their arrival.

The brand-new cupboards were stacked with blankets and swaddling and dressing gowns and cloth diapers, all handmade by Silver. There were double changing tables and bassinets, set side by side, and even a rocking chair next to the window. Chise had no idea where all the new furniture had even come from. Silver had used neutral colors to decorate the room: a mix of light and dark browns and soft purples and blues. The walls had been painted with a mural of wildflowers and trees, and the floor was plush grass-green carpet, as though the room was outside in a meadow. It was beautiful. Chise had cried and hugged Silver for quite a while when Silver presented it to her.

Ah, mood swings.

Elias had not been prepared for these emotional outbursts and, quite frankly, neither had Chise. She’d go from really happy to really sad to really annoyed all in the span of a few minutes. It was rather dizzying for the both of them. Ruth tried to warn Elias when they were coming, but he couldn’t always tell, so they were often blindsided by a sudden explosion of emotion that even Chise didn’t always understand. He supposed there was some comfort to be found in the fact that she was just as confused as he was.

Chise showed Lindel Elias’s study, and her workroom beyond where she practiced her spellcraft, and then decided to take a break in the garden. Lindel sat with Chise, talking animatedly about the baby dragons and happily eating Silver’s sandwiches and cakes. It was probably a nice change from stew. He even coaxed a song from Chise, one he had taught her in Icelandic about a hungry raven that slept beneath rock rifts. She had missed singing with him.

The sound of their voices raised in song brought Elias out to join them. He hadn’t heard her sing in some time and was pleased to hear it. She only sang when she was in a good mood. The resonance of their voices made the trees stand straighter, the flowers bloom brighter, and the sunlight shine gently upon them without being overpowering. When Lindel and Chise worked together, everything they touched was magic. Elias couldn’t help but be a little jealous of that.

The visit was a splendid one that did much to brighten Chise’s spirit. Before long, Lindel felt the aerie calling his heart home and left Chise with a hug and well-wishes. He even shook Elias’s hand.

Lindel snapped and sparked and was gone in a flurry of snow and cinders. Chise was sorry to see him go. She really felt as though Lindel was a surrogate father. When he called her his daughter, there had been weight to it. He genuinely meant it.

Chise made to go inside, but Elias took her by the hand to stop her, looking off into the woods.

“I believe we may have further visitors,” He said, taking his veil and flinging it over his face. He pointed to the treeline.

There, almost invisible under the dappled sunlight filtering through the trees, stood a fae woman of indescribable beauty. Her black hair trailed behind her and brushed the ground as she walked, and her skin was as smooth as the petals of a lily. Her eyes, the colors of which shifted as though iridescent, were locked on Chise from where she stood motionless in the shadow. How long she had been there, no one could say, but her attention was on Chise and nothing else.

“Lady Titania,” Chise breathed.

As though summoned, Titania stepped out of the shelter of trees and began to walk toward them. Spriggan stepped out of her shadow, the gold rings adorning his staff jingling as he walked. He looked as surly as ever.

“My dear, sweet robin,” Titania said, holding her arms out to Chise and she stepped forward. “Oh! Isn’t it so wonderful!”

“I assume the little folk have informed you of Chise’s condition,” Elias said.

“Oh,yes, my child. I can’t tell you how pleased I am! Oberon is beside himself.” She glanced back to the forest’s edge. Chise and Elias followed her gaze to see Oberon running to and fro, giggling like a child and throwing flowers into the air. Chise laughed softly and shook her head.

Titania returned her attention to Chise and touched her hand to Chise’s belly. “Look how far along you are! I must say, though, I am terribly put out that you hid it from us for so long.”

“I’m sorry,” Chise said. “I… it’s been… difficult.”

Titania took her face in her hands. “Poor child,” She said. “Do not despair. This is a blessing. What a wondrous gift it is to be mortal. The fae do not breed well with each other and as such, our children are rare. That’s why there are so many old tales among mortals about halflings, though such things are far less likely in this millenia.” Her gaze brushed across Elias’s tall form briefly. “I suppose it’s how your race proliferates so effectively. You’re like rabbits, in that way.” She giggled.

“Oh, what a wonderful turn of fate!” Oberon crooned gleefully, skipping around the group of them. “I can’t wait to see the new little mages. Is there any chance at all they’ll be blonde? Oh, nevermind, they’ll be adorable either way!”

“Titania,” Elias started, ignoring Oberon as he pranced around them, laying a flower crown on Chise’s head. “You have the gift of foresight. Can you…” He paused, clutching the fabric of his shirt over his chest, as though in pain. “Is there any way to tell… that is to say…” He stumbled to a stop.

“Elias,” Titania said kindly. “Ask your question plainly, and I shall answer as best as I can.”

Elias sighed. “The children… our children… will they be… like me? Half-creatures, hated and shunned for the sin of merely being alive in a world where they do not belong?”

Chise’s heart bled for him. It must have quite a blow to his pride to ask that question. She knew he’d never admit it to anyone, not even her, but the constant reminder that he was neither one or the other was something that caused him perpetual grief. The idea that he was terrified his own children would share this fate made Chise’s heart ache. She took his hand in hers and squeezed it consolingly.

“Oh, Thorn,” Titania said sadly. “I see branches; roads that split and diverge like serpents in the sea of potentiality. I see many possibilities, though some are more likely than others. I cannot give you a solid answer because the paths are still many and multiplying. I cannot tell you for certain what will be.” She laid a hand on his chest and smiled. “But would you like to know what I feel?”

He nodded, apprehensive.

“I feel love and joy,” She said. “I hear laughter echoing within the walls of this dwelling. Your children will have fragments of their father residing in them, as all children do, but they will have the protection and favor of all who love them. And there will be many who love them. They are blessed by the Queen of the Fae herself, and my blessing is no paltry trinket.”

“Titania, I…” Elias said, unable to continue.

Oberon slid over to his wife and winked at her, a wide smile on his face. He then turned to Elias.

“Do not fret, thorn child,” He said. “However tainted your lineage may be, you are still one of us, and your bride is beloved by our kind. Your children, then, will be doubly revered by all fae. You have no cause to worry.”

“Thank you. That is… very comforting,” He replied, though his tone said to Chise that he was still rather troubled.

Chise endured another few minutes of Titania and Oberon’s doting before they decided to depart. She felt rather relieved when they left. They could be a lot to handle all at once.

That night, lying in bed with Elias, the question he had asked the Faerie Queen revolved over and over in her mind.

“Elias?” She asked softly, trying not to wake Ruth. “Are you still awake?”

She couldn’t see his pupils, but he did answer. “Yes.”

She lay her hand on the back of his neck and stroked it. “Are you really worried about how the children will turn out?”

Elias sighed. “It does not matter to me what they will look like,” He said somberly. “But it will matter to humans. Experience has taught me well that mankind does not adapt quickly to things that are strange or unusual.” He turned his head to look at her. “The fae will not care about their appearance, either, but they will see them as my children, spawn of the halfling failure. That alone may be enough to draw the ire of the fae against them, despite what Titania and Oberon said. Those two have never failed in their kindness to me, but it is borne out of pity, not respect, and the rest of the fae are not so magnanimous. Some are indifferent to me, but most, like the Spriggan, are openly hostile. I do not wish for my children to suffer because of who their father is.”

“Oh, Elias,” Chise said, holding him close. “I wish I could--Oh!” Chise sat up abruptly, pulling the covers down and placing both hands on her belly.

“What?” He asked in alarm, turning to sit up. “What is it? Are you alright?”

“I felt them.”

“You did?” He asked.

“Yes,” She said, moving her hands around gingerly. “I felt a thumping on the inside. I felt some flutters before, but I was never sure what they were. That was definitely a kick.”

“Are you sure?” He asked, looking at her abdomen.

In response, she took his hand and laid it down on her stomach, instructing him to wait. He did so, and it took nearly five minutes, but there was a distinct nudge against his hand.

Chise looked up and smiled at him, but his heart was in his throat. He couldn’t decide if he was excited or panicked. Talking about the baby, seeing her belly expand, making preparations: for some reason, none of that made it feel real. But this did. Feeling the tiny movements of the child on his own skin from the inside of her body was what made it reality to him.

“We should call on Shannon tomorrow,” Chise said. “I’m twenty weeks. It’s about time for a check-up.”

“Y-yes,” He said vaguely. “Of course.”

She took his face in her hands. “Are you all right?”

“I do not know,” He answered honestly. “I am… frightened.”

“I know,” She said. She laid her forehead on his.

They stayed that way for many minutes, their foreheads touching, his hand on her belly, feeling the little jumps and thumps of his children moving about inside. Frightened was not an adequate word for what he felt. He didn’t know if there was a word strong enough.

Time seemed to move very fast for a while, and then suddenly slowed to a snail’s pace. Before they knew it, it was winter. Chise had grown very large, and Shannon expected the babies to come a few days after the new year.

Chise kept to the house exclusively now, since moving was more difficult, not to mention that Elias was highly paranoid about her catching an illness in her condition. She spent much of the time nesting, which is an instinctual habit among mothers-to-be to make sure everything was in its proper place and perfect. Silver had taken care of most of that for her, but it didn’t stop Chise from folding and refolding all of the babies’ linens and making sure things were just so.

As the time for the birth came closer, the atmosphere of the house grew more and more anxious. Chise was rather sick of being pregnant and was ready to be able to stand without assistance and not eat what felt like half her body weight every day. Ruth was restless and impatient. He could feel the time getting closer just as acutely as Chise did.

If Chise was anxious and Ruth was restless, Elias was downright terrified. He spent a lot of time alone in his study, unable to control this emotion. He didn’t want to worry her more than she already was, but he couldn’t push away the awful feeling of dread.

He had slowly grown accustomed to the idea of the children, but not the possibility that they would take after him. The idea that they could be subjected to cruelty and discrimination for simply being his children made his blood run cold. How could he protect them against that kind of hatred? How could he shield them from the animosity of both humans and fae? He could weather it just fine; he was used to it, and some of it was deserved. He had once been a monster, after all. But they would be innocent and guileless. They didn’t deserve to be treated as he had been.

As much as he tried to hide his worry from Chise, he knew she felt it. He could see it on her face when she looked at him sometimes. It wasn’t pity that she showed him, but empathy. If anyone would understand, it would be her, but this was just one thing he couldn’t talk to her about. She always tried to soothe him and tell him things would be fine, but she had no way of knowing that for certain. Blind optimism just didn’t work for him.

Very late on the night before Christmas eve, a sharp yelp of pain woke Elias from sleep. It had been Ruth: he had bounced out of his bed and shot to Chise’s side, immediately switching to his human form. Chise was sitting curled around her stomach, gasping.

“Chise?” Elias asked.

“I think my water broke,” Chise gasped. “I’ve been having contractions, but they weren’t bad until now. We need Shannon.”

“Shannon! Silver!” Elias called.

A flash shot through the room. Elias turned on the lamp and found Shannon standing next to Chise, trying to pull her to her feet. The silky came through the door in an instant, a tub of hot water and many towels in her hands. It was almost as if she were waiting for the call.

Shannon had Chise sit on a wooden chair with a curved back, urging her to recline with her pelvis tilted out, putting a pillow behind her to support her back. Silver helped Chise out of her underwear and flipped the hem of her nightgown up over her stomach, exposing her entire lower half. Chise didn’t have the wherewithal to be embarrassed about her tender bits out for the entire room to see. The pain was pushing everything else out of her brain.

“Is it supposed to hurt this much?” Ruth gasped, his arms wrapped around his stomach.

“There are two living creatures the size of watermelons attempting to tear their way out of her body, Ruth. Yeah, it’s gonna hurt,” Shannon said dryly.

“Sorry, Ruth,” Chise said, breathing heavily. “I’m trying to block it.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Ruth said. “I don’t really care about me right now.”

“What can I do?” Elias asked anxiously.

“You and Ruth, get on either side. Both of you hold her hand with one of yours and then let her use your other hand to brace her feet on. She’s going to need the leverage when she starts pushing.”

Elias and Ruth, took their positions. Chise had already begun to sweat profusely and was breathing shallowly. Silver stood at her head, stroking her hair gently and ready with a cloth to wipe her brow.

“Deep breaths, Chise,” Shannon said, kneeling on the ground and pushing a gloved hand into Chise’s body to gauge her dilation. “Nine centimeters,” Shannon said, removing her hand. “Not quiet ready yet, but it’s going to be soon.”

Chise could only nod, attempting with little success to take deep breaths as she was instructed. Her head rolled to look at Elias with fear in her eyes.

“It’s too early,” She said in a terrified whisper. “I’m not due for another three weeks.”

“It’s all right,” Elias whispered, knowing he might be lying. “It will be all right.”

Chise had no choice but to wait until her body opened up enough to start pushing, and it took a few long, miserable hours of pain and sweating. By the time Shannon got into position, it was only an hour before dawn.

“Okay,” Shannon said. “Elias, Ruth, take one foot each and push it toward her chest, but not forcefully. Chise, take several deep breaths. When I say, take a very deep breath, hold it, and start pushing. When I count to ten, you can let go and breath again. Understand?”

Chise nodded, already very tired from the waves of pain she had been suffering over the past few hours. She steeled herself and began to take slow, deep breaths.

“Ready? Okay, deep, deep breath and push!”

Chise pulled in as much air as her lungs could take and held it, bracing her legs against Ruth and Elias’s grip, and pushed with all her might, her face pulled back in a grimace of pain and exertion.

“One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten, and breathe,” Shannon instructed. Chise blew out her breath explosively and gulped in air.

“Okay, again. Deep breath, and push!”

It went on like this for quite a time. They only paused the pushing for Chise to drink water and for Silver to wipe the sweat from her face and neck. Elias talked in Chise’s ear during these brief moments of rest, telling her that she was strong and that he had faith in her. She seemed so tired, but she smiled at him and dotted a kiss on his nose in reply.

Finally, as the first rays of sunlight shone through the window, Shannon pulled a small, reddish-purple infant from Chise’s body. It shrieked as it took it’s first breaths of life, it’s color changing as it took in oxygen. Shannon placed the sticky ball of outrage on Chise’s chest for a moment, allowing the new mother to inspect the little creature for herself while Shannon detached the umbilical cord.

“It’s a baby girl,” Shannon said, smiling.

Chise let go of Ruth and Elias and wrapped her fingers around the tiny thing as it screamed it’s fury at them all. Chise was crying, too, but not in anger. Her face, red and sweaty though it was, lit with joy as she held her newborn daughter.

Suddenly, she seized up with a sudden contraction and hissed with pain. The baby was whisked out of her arms by Silver, who took it to a nearby dressing table to clean it.

“We’re halfway there,” Shannon said. “Let’s get ready. On the next contraction, we start the pushing again.”

Chise nodded, letting Ruth and Elias take hold of her feet and push them back.

Once the first baby was out, the second wasn’t far behind. It wailed more loudly than it’s twin, thrashing about angrily on Chise’s chest, though Chise clearly didn’t seem to mind.

“It’s another little girl,” Shannon said with a grin.

Tears poured from Chise’s eyes as she held her daughter, gasping from the effort of pushing. The touch of her mother’s hands had calmed the baby and she was no longer writhing spastically, but wiggling and making little grunting sounds, lying on her belly in Chise’s grasp.

After a moment, this child, too, was taken away for cleaning. Then there was more work to be done. The afterbirth had to be removed from Chise’s body, which caused a small fountain of blood to escape. Elias and Ruth panicked, but Shannon said this could happen sometimes and it wasn’t serious as long as it was contained quickly. She gave Chise a tea that would help stop the bleeding and once she had finished it, Silver lifted Chise as if she weighed nothing and took her to the bathroom for a proper cleaning. Shannon followed, leaving Ruth and Elias alone with the newborns, lying side by side and safely bundled up in the crib near Chise’s side of the bed.

While she was gone, Ruth went to inspect the babies up close. “Elias,” He called to the mage, who was still sitting in a daze. “Come and see.”

Elias stood with his heart pounding in his chest and walked to stand by Ruth, looking down at his brand new daughters with a lump in his throat. Now that they were cleaned, he could see them better. They were still wiggly and wrinkly, but there were distinct differences between the twins. One had a full head of white-blonde hair and a peachy-pink complexion, while the other had fine red fuzz on her head and was as pale as bleached bone.

“I remember the day that Isabelle was born,” Ruth said solemnly, lost in his memory. “I had only been with the family for a few months and I didn’t quite understand what was happening at the time. I didn’t know what a baby was. She was so tiny and weird-looking, but I loved her right away. We were together all the time after that. I existed for her; I’d have done anything for her.”

He stared down at the two sleeping infants, his eyes dark with recollection. “I took it for granted, thinking she’d always be there. I didn’t see the dangers until it was too late. I should have done more to protect her. If I had been a better brother, she might have lived a long, happy life. I didn’t do enough, and she died.” He reached out but stopped just short of touching the one with red hair. “For them, I’ll do better. I’ll be better. I promise.”

Elias did not respond. He stared down at his sleeping girls rather blankly.

Yes, He thought to himself. I, too, must be better.

Silver and Shannon returned with Chise, clean, wearing a fresh nightgown, and remarkably able to walk unassisted. Elias helped ease her back into the freshly changed bed, then Shannon handed Chise the white-haired baby girl. Shannon insisted that Chise try to breastfeed the baby, as it would help promote clotting. Silver went to work cleaning the gory aftermath off of the floor. Ruth, as a grim, sniffed each child keenly with his tail wagging.

It took a few tries and some urging to get the baby to latch to her breast; apparently babies weren’t born knowing how to do this and had to be taught, but once she found her way, she seemed to be content and fell asleep while feeding, her tiny arm resting on Chise’s skin. Elias watched curiously.

“You probably won’t be able to produce enough milk to fill both babies at the same time, so you might want to supplement with formula. You may even decide to go formula exclusively, which is fine. As long as they get the enzymes from your breastmilk at the start, it’ll be a big boost to their immune systems.”

Chise nodded without looking up, absorbed in the tiny little girl at her breast with it’s little fist around Chise’s finger. She seemed to finish quickly, and Chise lifted the baby for Elias to hold.

“Chise…” He said nervously. “I don’t… I can’t… I don’t think…”

“It’s okay, Elias,” Chise said with a smile. “You’re going to have to hold them at some point. Might as well be now.”

“Just remember to support the head,” Shannon said. “The neck muscles are underdeveloped.”

“Here,” She sat up and, holding the baby in one arm, used her hand to make a cradle of his. “Like this.”

Exercising more care than he ever had in his entire existence, he took the tiny bundle into his arms, cradling it gently. He could feel the warmth of it’s little body through the blankets, as though he were holding a glowing coal. He lifted her up so he could inspect her more closely. As he did so, she opened her eyes for the first time and looked up at him. Her eyes were the color of evergreens, like her mother. But unlike her, the pupils were not round but slits, like that of a wild creature. The eyes of a fae. The eyes of a mage.

“Chise, look,” Elias said, bending to show her. Chise, who had taken the red-haired babe and was feeding her from the other breast, peered at the child Elias held and smiled. Her smile faded and her eyes narrowed curiously.

“What is it?” Elias asked.

“Look at her head, a little bit above the hairline. There’s a bump. No, there’s two, one on either side. Do you see them?”

Elias brought the baby close to his face, examining her closely. There was, indeed, some sort of bump there. Carefully readjusting his grip, he felt the bumps with his finger. They felt like… bone? No, not bone…

“Horns,” Elias said softly. “She has horns.”

Chise laughed softly, her eyes warm with affection. “You certainly can’t deny she’s yours, can you?”

He looked down at her, a new warmth spreading though his chest. “No…” He said. “I cannot.”

“Have you decided on names?” Shannon asked, sitting on the other side, monitoring the mother and her little ones closely.

Elias was taken aback. It wasn’t something he had even thought about. He’d been so preoccupied with his doubts and fears that he hadn’t room to think of anything else.

“It is Christmas Eve,” Chise said, looking out of the snow covered windows. She looked at the little redhead, sleeping peacefully in her arms. “Her hair reminds me of holly berries, so why don’t we call her Holly?” She smiled and gazed at the white-haired child Elias clutched to him. “And with her green eyes, she should be named Ivy.”

Elias sat down on the edge of the bed next to her, bending to nuzzle her head.

“Yes,” He said fondly. “It’s perfect.”

After both parents had a turn holding both of their infant girls, they gave Silver and Ruth a chance. Ruth was anxious and attentive, fearful of being clumsy or accidentally jostling his new nieces and upsetting them, but Silver seemed overjoyed to hold the tiny babes, smiling brightly and giggling at their noises. A better nanny than Silver Lady could not be found anywhere, either in the mortal realm or the kingdom of the fae. Chise had a feeling she was going to be relying heavily on her for the next few months.

While holding Holly, Silver made a small noise of surprise.

“Silver?” Chise said. “What is it?”

Silver brought the baby to the bed and knelt down between Elias and Chise, where the parents could see the newborn’s eyes. The irises were solid black and didn’t reflect light, instead seeming to consume it. The pupils, however, were red. Not the bright holly red of her hair, but a dark crimson red, like blood on snow, and they too were mere slits.

“Oh,” Chise breathed. “Look at that. Aren’t they beautiful?”

Elias, seeing the trace his own eyes looking back at him from his daughter’s face, was at a loss for words.

His children were mostly human, it seemed, but they retained a piece of him, a fragment of his fae blood, just as Titania said. Before, this thought made him worry about their future, but seeing them now, he felt… what was this? It was a good feeling, but it carried weight with it. Pride? Was that it? Did he feel proud? Perhaps so.

After a while, Shannon insists that everyone leave the room to the new parents and their children, and Elias settled himself in a chair beside the bed, with Chise on his left side and the crib on the right. All three of his girls were sleeping peacefully. Ivy seemed content in being wrapped up in her swaddling, but Holly had kicked her way out of the blankets so that she could move freely.

He watched them sleep with mixed emotions, laying his hands on the stomachs of the babes, comforted by their warmth. As if waiting for this, they both reached out and gripped his fingers in their fists and held on with a surprisingly strong grip.

The world could have been falling down around them, but as long as they were safe and happy, it wouldn’t have bothered him. He found he didn’t care all that much at the moment about the concerns that had plagued him before the birth, though he knew they would come back eventually. He felt warm and calm, with none of the anxiety that had been gnawing at his mind for months. Was this feeling happiness? Peace?

He could identify at least one emotion well enough: love. It was different than what he felt for Chise, but no less consuming. Chains of gold and silver had wrapped themselves around his heart. They sprung from the touch of his tiny daughters’ small hands on his own, an unbreakable link that bound him to his newly-born flesh and blood. Instinct drove this behavior, and it was obvious what it meant. They had laid claim to him.

They do not belong to me, he realized. I belong to them. How fascinating.

He had lived for centuries never having tethered himself to any other being. Back then, loneliness and being alone were mutually exclusive concepts. He’d had friendships and acquaintances but felt no obligation to any of them beyond an occasional favor or trade. At the time, he had thought himself content.

When he had acquired Chise on a whim out of mere curiosity, he had not anticipated how his life would change. The connection that developed between them, as slow as it was to manifest openly, was unlike anything he’d felt before. It brought with it many good feelings, as well as many unpleasant ones. Chise’s love was easy enough to earn, but he soon discovered that while love could be unconditional, trust was not. He hadn’t known there was a difference between those emotions until he had betrayed them.

For a while after, their bond was fragile and could snap with any slight pressure he applied to it. It had taken much time and effort on his part to repair the damage he had done, and he had sworn never to do anything that could sever that link again.

But the bond he felt to these two new lives was instantaneous and indestructible, something over which he had no control. He was, for lack of a better term, spellbound.

“I don’t understand.”

Elias jumped slightly at Chise’s soft whisper. He looked over to see that she was awake and staring are her children.

“What is it you do not understand, Little Bird?” Elias replied quietly.

“I thought,” She said. “I thought when they were born, it would make more sense, but it doesn’t. I thought it would help me understand why they did it.”

“Your parents,” He said. It wasn’t a question.

“I thought that once I was a parent myself, I could see it from their perspective, and I’d understand. But I don’t. I would never, ever leave them. I could never hurt them. Never.” She looked at Elias and took his hand. “What they did still makes no sense to me. I guess you were right, Elias. I am different.”

“Yes,” He said, holding her hand to his cheek. “Do not be sad, Chise. That is a wonderful thing.”

She smiled, and her gaze returned to the infants. “You’re right. It is.”

During the first two months, which Chise and Elias used to get accustomed to the new routine of parenthood, the twins developed personalities that were as different as their appearance. Holly was an independent little thing and didn’t like to be swaddled or held for too long, while Ivy loved to be cuddled and preferred to be held by Elias over anyone else. He was more than happy to hold her at all times and soon became deft at doing things one-handed.

After this necessary adjustment time, they decided to have a small gathering of friends over to properly introduce their children. They had invited Stella, the Barley family, Alice, a few friends from the college including the brooding Adolf and enthusiastic Tori, and even Renfred. Over the years, Elias and Renfred had forged a tense acquaintanceship. Chise encouraged them to be better friends, but in the end, she figured anything was better than open hostility.

They had invited Lindel, too, but he didn’t want to leave the aerie again. He insisted they bring them to him instead, which they promised to do when the children were a few months older.

“Aren’t they darling?” Angelica said, looking at Holly sleeping in sixteen-year-old Althea’s arms.

“They really are,” Stella said, now nineteen, as she tickling Ivy’s feet while David held her. The baby cooed at Stella as she did so.

“Ya did good, Chise,” Alice said. “You cooked up some real nice babies in there.” She poked Chise’s stomach, which was now much smaller and thankfully no longer sore.

“That’s a weird phrase, Alice, thank you,” Chise said.

Renfred had been mostly quiet during the gathering. Alice had told Chise that babies make him nervous; he liked kids better when they were old enough to follow orders.

Elias was similarly uncomfortable with so many people in his house at once, and eventually, it drove him outside to the garden. Cold though it was, he sat at the garden table with his tea and sighed.

“Are they not lovely?” A voice said to him from his right. He turned to see a small, child-like figure standing there nearby. She wore a simple white gown made of thin silk and a crown of baby’s breath around her head. A circle of snow underneath her feet had melted away and flowers had sprung up all around her. Her hair was black, her skin like petals, her eyes like the wings of a dragonfly.

“Titania,” Elias said, standing. “You’ve come alone.”

“I have, though I shan’t be long,” She said, her voice belying her youthful appearance. “I bring with me gifts for your little ones.”

“Gifts?”

“Yes. The heartache you expressed when last we met has stayed with me. I felt compelled to do something to set your mind at ease.” She opened her hands, and lying in each palm was a ring carved of dark wood, one on a gold string, the other on a silver one. “I told you your offspring held my favor, did I not?” She asked. “That was not a lie. You need not worry for their safety from our kind. These will tell all fae creatures that your babes are my godchildren and therefore under my protection.”

Elias did not recall agreeing to such an arrangement, but accepted the rings with a bow.

“Thank you, my Lady,” He said. “This is most generous.”

“You must bring them to visit us, Thorn,” Titania said. “It’s been so long since there were children in the Faerie Kingdom. Oberon is dying to meet the new magelings.”

Elias nodded without speaking, not committing to this. He wondered if her favor extended to not trapping them in the faerie realm.

“Be well, Elias. Take care of our sweet robin and those beautiful children. Dwell no longer on the darkness in your past and look instead to your future. Your legacy now resides in those new souls that you created, and not the mistakes you have made. You have been given a divine gift. Do not take it for granted.”

“I assure you, Lady,” He said seriously. “I have no intention of doing so.”

She smiled at him, and the body she inhabited burst apart into flowers and floated away like the seeds of a dandelion, carried away on a sudden wind that smelled strangely of spring grass.

Elias lifted his gaze to watch the petals drift away, putting the charms in his pocket.

Once everyone had gone home and the house was quiet again, Elias picked up a wailing Ivy, who quieted immediately, and sat with Ruth and Chise as Silver laid out their dinner. Chise fed Holly with one arm and fed herself with the other. Once Holly finished, Chise passed her to Ruth to be burped and held out her arms for Ivy, who Elias passed carefully over the dinner table. Silver waited at Ruth’s elbow with a spit-up cloth. They all seemed to be easing into this new normal well.

Elias and Chise took the children to their room and laid them down for sleep, with Ruth curled up on the floor between them. He was better than a baby monitor. Ruth was taking his oath to Elias to protect the children very seriously and was just as involved in their care as every other person in the house. It seemed there was no shortage of babysitters to be found for the new parents, and Chise found that comforting. The nightmare she’d once had of being overwhelmed with caring for two children at once with limited help faded from her mind.

With the children abed for a least a couple of hours, Elias and Chise took this time to spend with each other, something they hadn’t had much opportunity to do since the birth. They sat together on the couch of the sitting room, Chise in Elias’s lap and wrapped up warmly in his arms. She was so tired, she could have fallen asleep if she let herself.

“I’m sorry the party got too claustrophobic for you,” Chise said, twining and untwining her fingers with his.

“It’s all right,” Elias said. “I am actually glad for it. I’d much prefer that the girls were introduced to all our friends at once rather than make many trips to achieve the same result.” Reaching into his waistcoat’s pocket, he pulled out the ring pendants he had gotten. “Besides, while outside, Titania left a give with me.”

Chise took the trinkets and looked at them curiously. “That was nice of her. What are they for?”

“Protection, she said. It’ll ward off any of her kind that would do them mischief.”

Chise smiled. “She’s very thoughtful for a fae.”

“Yes,” Elias agreed. “I wonder if she will extend the same blessing to any additional children we may have.”

Chise swung and looked up in surprise. “You want more children?”

“It's not outside the realm of possibility. We can talk about it later,” Elias replied.

“You're serious. You really want another baby?”

“I merely said we’d talk about it.”

“That’s not a no.”

Elias laughed.

“Give me a year, at least,” Chise said in exasperation. “My body isn’t ready for another one so soon.”

“If you wish,” He said, hugging her tightly.

They sat happily in each other’s arms for the next hour, taking a well deserved rest, until one of the babies began to cry. Elias released her and followed her up the stairs to the childrens' room, where he consoled Holly as Ivy fed. When Ivy was done, they switched. After feeding, the infants resumed sleeping. Before they left, Elias affixed the charms to the wall above their bassinets, the silver one over Ivy, and the gold protecting Holly. The parents, exhausted, climbed into their own bed and fell asleep at once.

Every day brought something new, and Elias was learning so much so quickly. His entire universe had shifted, and thought it had taken time to get used to it, he greeted each wonderful development as they happened with an open heart. He awoke eagerly every morning in his new life, looking forward to what might be.

Since my work is no longer searchable, please do me a favor and reblog this story if you enjoyed it. Help me reach a wider audience! To help me continue creating, please consider buying me a Kofi, becoming a Patron, or donating directly to my PayPal!

Thanks for reading!

My Masterlist

The Exophilia Creator’s Masterlist

[what-the-fuck-is-anime]

For the sake of people who are uncomfortable reading about sexual assault this is under a cut. TW

Every time. Every time I think this episode, or even this show is at its worst it manages to make me even more nauseous. This is disgusting. She is literally being assaulted as a joke, after she was turned into a pretty near-corpse, after she had the climax of her taken from her and given to Jojo, after both Cars and Jojo made fun of her for being a weak woman, after they established she was the strongest Ripple user on the planet. Lisa Lisa had any respect taken away from her and was turned into a sexy plaything and pardon me for being blunt but how the FUCK can anyone write all of this and not feel, what is the word, bad? Nauseous? Guilty? Any sort of voice that says “hm gee maybe we do not need all of this to happen...” or “Hm maybe anyone respects her ever” or “HM MAYBE WE SHOULD LET LISA LISA HAVE HER MOMENT OF COOL THAT SHE SUFFERED THROUGH THE ENTIRE SEASON FOR”

This is not even the first time someone gets casually sexually assaulted this is at LEAST the FIFTH this season

I am trying so hard to put these thoughts into words. I am mortified. Honest to fuck I thought she would die and it would be over. First I thought her being made fun of for being a woman was the end. Then I thought her being stabbed was the end. Then I thought her being left to die was the end. Then I thought her being called a prop was the end. I

There is such a world of a difference between calling sexual assault bad and becoming so incredibly comfortable portraying it in such horrible ways. And given how frequently this has happened and how protagonists were complicit in it (Jojo threatens to assault a girl to get her to move. Jojo watching girls get assaulted at gunpoint in an EXTREMELY UNCOMFORTABLY LONG SEGMENT OF THEM CRYING and using it as an opportunity instead of trying to help or caring at all! Caesar casually assaulting a passerby! Not quite nearly as bad but Jojo trying to peak on Lisa Lisa! Stroheim forced women to lick his face and now is getting portrayed as a hero while Lisa Lisa is faced with THIS)

I have no idea how to put this into fucking words. I have no idea what words are appropriate to how to express how appalled I am.

But here are some!

And here are some more!

And some more!

Every single woman in this season is either used in terms of being sexy or to be assaulted. Except for Erina, because she was already assaulted last season. Here is a rundown of every woman with more than a few seconds of screen time. In order. And if I missed any, let me know.

-Woman in the cafe. Jojo threatens to assault her.

-Journalist who got kidnapped. She got kidnapped, had a man shove his hand in her mouth, had her molar ripped out in the most sexual way possible, and was left screaming in pain after Jojo called her an ugly bitch.

-The women being forced to shave Stroheim. The one that messed up is forced to lick his face while her friends are powerless to help.

-The women trying to get back into their town. They were forced to strip and were molested at gunpoint. And then Jojo responded with this shit

-Caesar’s date. She exists only to be used as a kissing dummy while showing off to Jojo.

-The tourist girl. Caesar grabbed her, forcibly kissed her, hypnotized her, and then Jojo shoves a fucking bird in her mouth.

-Lisa Lisa is introduced in terms of not being cute. Called ugly. Repeatedly insulted for being a woman. Repeatedly had her entire life disrespected. Had her arc taken away. Jojo tried to peep on her naked. She got stabbed and left for death, she got molested while dying.

-Susie Q. Love interest. Almost all dialogue is either flirting or her being attacked, controlled, tortured, and used as a pincushion.

There are TWO new named women in this season and those are Lisa Lisa and Susie Q. And I bet you anything that if Jojo did not need a love interest that Susie Q would not exist in the first place or would have been killed off.

This show is so hyper sexual in fifty different uncomfortable ways, and so...horrible? People discuss the assault right? Nobody considers that entertainment right? Am I the only one who feels sick to the stomach watching this? Am I the only one that wants a girl to have a good day for once? There are no girls having a good day here. There is nothing positive happening to any of these women aside from Susie Q looking forward to presumably marry Jojo, and that is only happening because I presume he needs to have a son somehow.

I received a lot of messages that were hesitant to admit that this show is misogynist. Some said it was, but that it was appropriate for the 80s. I hate to break it to you but assault is not appropriate for the 80s, and THIS MUCH SEXUAL ASSAULT IS IN A SHITTY LITTLE LEAGUE OF ITS OWN. And that aside, women are not a new invention! They have existed for quite a bit longer than anime!

There are hentai. They exist. They have assault in them. But I cannot think of anything that is considered a “classic” that has everything listed here going on at once without being considered some form of porno. This is violent and gory and violent against women and has so much stuff that judging from the reactions I have been receiving these past few days, have been completely disregarded by the bulk of the fandom. So here comes my speech again.

I do not give two hecks if you like this show. You can love it until the moment you die, more than anything else in the world. But NO amount of love is going to cancel out all of the horrible and terrible things that are portrayed. And NO amount of love should exempt anyone from acknowledging these things. The fact that I feel physically ill watching every shitty segment aside, there needs to be more conversation critical about this.

Everyone needs to examine the things they enjoy, examine their faults, and acknowledge them. And make it perfectly clear that some jokes are not funny, and probably should be tolerated a tiny bit less in popular media! And before yet another person makes a joke about how all anime is like this, no! No the fuck it is NOT! I cannot think of anything that has less respect for women without advertising itself as being a horny anime! And absolutely nothing else comes close with this big of a following, with this bad of writing, and this little respect for women! And yes I have in fact watched plenty of anime before! Including SAO!

And when I say respect for women, I am somehow less concerned about how Lisa Lisa’s arc was handled, which I never thought was possible, and more concerned looking back on every single time I felt uncomfortable beyond words and almost too uncomfortable to watch. There is so much sexual assault, SO much sexual assault that is just brushed aside, and apart from the number of times that has happened, just the way that these scenes are animated is even worse. The segments are long. In your face. Uncomfortable beyond everything. Personal. After so much high speed action, some of the only times the show slows down from talking or fighting is for one of these numerous assault segments. The body language is violent. The women are horrified and miserable and powerless and often crying. And then every single time the women are left to suffer, and the viewer is forced to watch. And then every single time, these events are moved on from. Jokes are made about them, even.

In a show that was described to me as BAM! BAM! BAM! ENTERTAINMENT! ENTERTAINMENT! FUNNY! TURN YOUR BRAIN OFF! HIGHEST FORM OF ANIME! to see assault played off as a joke, and I cannot believe I can even say this but THIS MUCH ASSAULT played off as a joke, this

This is definitely groundbreaking I would say! It probably did do a lot of things for the first time! But I cannot, at all, under ANY circumstance understand ANYONE watching so much happen time and time again and not feel...sick? Uncomfortable at the very least? Do people who love Jojo love to watch those scenes too? I seen so much discussion of Jojo, so much beyond most anime I have seen discussed online, and I have never ever ever ever ever ever ever seen anyone discuss, mention, hint at, or acknowledge any of the sexual assault. I am caught so off guard here and that makes it worse. Usually with shows people say “yeah it has some shitty stuff, BUT” or something along those lines when introducing it to someone but nobody has ever acknowledged any of these things, and considering how powerfully horrifying each of these scenes are, I am so, so, so, so confused. I was not prepared for any of this. I expected fighting. I expected poses. Betrayed is another word I would use for how I feel right now.

I have felt this sick watching anime maybe once or twice before but nothing has ever come close to watching all of this. Please. Please. Please. Anyone. Anyone out there. Tell me I am not the only one that finds it all so difficult to watch. Tell me there is discussion about this. Tell me the sexual assault is acknowledged in the fandom.

I need to take a break before pressing play again and I am not looking forward to it.

what the FUCK

[dinafbrownil]

‘You’re Going to Release Him When He Was Hurting Himself?’

When Joe Prude called Rochester, New York, police to report his brother missing, he was struggling to understand why Daniel Prude had been released from the hospital hours earlier. Joe Prude described his brother’s suicidal behavior.

“He jumped 21 stairs down to my basement, headfirst,” Joe said in a video recorded by the responding officer’s body camera in the early hours of March 23. Joe’s wife, Valerie, described Daniel nearly jumping in front of a train on the tracks that run behind their house the previous day.

“The train missed him by this much,” Joe said, holding his thumb and pointer finger a few inches apart.

“When the doctor called me and told me that they released him, I’m saying, ‘How you going to sit here and tell me you’re going to release him when he was hurting himself? Come on. You weren’t sworn to do that,’” he said on the body camera footage.

At the point of this recorded conversation just after 3 a.m., Joe and Valerie Prude knew only that Daniel was missing, delusional and vulnerable. They didn’t know his next encounter with the police would be fatal.

Police would find Daniel minutes later ― naked, acting irrationally. Because he spat in the direction of officers and allegedly said he had the novel coronavirus, officers placed a white hood, called a “spit hood,” over his head. When he started trying to stand up, despite being restrained by handcuffs, an officer placed much of his body weight over Daniel’s head and pushed it into the pavement.

Daniel died a week later when his family took him off life support. The county medical examiner’s autopsy described his death as a homicide and listed the immediate cause of death as “complications of asphyxia in the setting of physical restraint.” The incident garnered widespread attention as another example of a Black man killed after an encounter with police.

Less attention has been paid to what happened to Daniel Prude in the preceding hours, when he was treated and released after a psychiatric assessment at Strong Memorial Hospital, run by the University of Rochester Medical Center.

Joe Prude called police at about 7 p.m. on March 22 because he needed help getting Daniel to the hospital. Daniel had been having problems with a PCP addiction, Joe told officers. Now he had begun telling Joe and Valerie that people were out to get him, and he wanted to die.

By about 11 p.m., Daniel was released from the hospital, according to Joe and police records. “He was calm as hell when he got back here,” Joe told police.

That didn’t last.

“He was fine for a little bit, then all of a sudden started acting crazy,” Joe said. He told police that Daniel asked him for a cigarette, and when he went to get one, Daniel took off running. He was barefoot, wearing only a tank top and long johns in 30-degree weather.

“He was gone. Track star status. Hauled ass like Carl Lewis,” Joe told

Around 3 a.m. the next day, four hours after his release from the hospital, emergency dispatchers started fielding calls about Daniel Prude. His brother reported him missing, and a tow truck driver spotted him, naked and bloodied, on West Main Street, police records show.

Police body camera footage shows that by 3:20 a.m., officer Mark Vaughn was pressing Daniel Prude’s head into the pavement.

While restrained, Prude stopped breathing. An ambulance crew resuscitated him, but he was in critical condition. His brain was damaged after being deprived of oxygen. He died a week later at Strong Memorial after being taken off life support.

The University of Rochester Medical Center said patient privacy laws bar it from discussing the specifics of Prude’s treatment and release, but, in general terms, spokesperson Chip Partner said, the hospital is bound by a New York state law that requires patients to be released within 24 hours unless they have a mental illness that is likely to result in serious harm to themselves or others and that requires immediate observation, care and hospital treatment.

The details of Prude’s encounters with law enforcement and the health care system offer a look into the practice of emergency psychiatry, and how, as in many branches of medicine in the U.S., mistakes in that field are disproportionately borne by Black people.

Medical decisions in a case like Daniel Prude’s are high-stakes, with little margin for error, said Dr. Ken Duckworth, chief medical officer of the National Alliance on Mental Illness.

“Emergency psychiatric assessment is very challenging, and the potential for catastrophic outcomes following your decision is very real,” he said.

The hospital where Prude died has faced scrutiny over its treatment of psychiatric patients and discharge procedures before.

In April 2018, federal inspectors found security officers at the hospital had used law enforcement restraint techniques against a pediatric psychiatry patient, breaking her arm and sending her to the emergency room.

Months later, inspectors found the hospital discharged a patient who was in the emergency room with a history of dementia and multiple medical problems despite a discrepancy in her address between her medical record and the information she gave hospital staff.

Two years earlier, inspectors found that hospital staff had placed patients in ankle and wrist restraints without an order to do so, and placed another patient in restraints without documenting when the restraints were released. Restraints are meant to be used only with a physician’s order, and federal rules require precise documentation of their use.

None of these incidents at Strong Memorial Hospital garnered media attention at the time they happened or at the time the reports were made public.

Strong spokesperson Partner said that immediately after the April 2018 inspection the hospital changed its public safety protocol to eliminate the use of law enforcement techniques to manage a violent patient unless that patient is being arrested.

He said updated staff training and discharge protocol after these incidents now mitigates the risk of discharging someone who was not ready to be released. “These protocols were well established in 2020 and had absolutely no bearing on the evaluation or treatment of Daniel Prude on March 22,” Partner said.

Prude’s case is unusual because the consequences of the decision by doctors to release him have played out so publicly, said Duckworth. Usually, emergency room psychiatrists never find out what happened to their patients.

“You make a very big decision, which usually has no known outcome. You put this person in the hospital, you go on to the next patient. You send this person home, you go on to the next patient,” he said.

Duckworth said he would not second-guess the actions of Prude’s hospital team in the moment, but with the benefit of hindsight, “there’s overwhelming evidence that he had a psychotic illness and was quite vulnerable,” he said. “He didn’t need to die.”

In a statement, URMC said its treatment of Prude was “medically appropriate and compassionate.”

Several oversight organizations are investigating.

The Joint Commission, which certifies hospitals to receive federal funding, said it’s reviewing Prude’s treatment at Strong. New York state’s Justice Center is investigating on behalf of the state Office of Mental Health.

The university medical center itself is still conducting an internal clinical review.

In response to questions from NPR and KHN about whether the hospital’s treatment of Prude could have been affected by his race, Partner said the medical center asked Dr. Altha Stewart, past president of the American Psychiatric Association, “to conduct a third-party independent review through her lens as a national expert on racism and bias in psychiatric care.”

In a separate interview before the request from URMC, she described how unconscious bias can cloud clinicians’ judgment and make it difficult for them to make the best possible decisions for their patients.

“It is very clear that in today’s health care system, bias is built in structurally,” Stewart said. “Seeing a tall, imposing Black man who is behaving aggressively puts in place a series of ideas and thoughts and assumptions that direct decision-making.”

Psychiatric disorders in Black patients are less likely to be taken seriously than in white patients, Stewart said. Unequal treatment starts early.

Black boys are viewed as adults more often than white boys of the same age, said Stewart, who is also the director of the Center for Health in Justice Involved Youth.

“So a Black child with a meltdown is described as aggressive, obstinate, oppositional,” she said, “as opposed to traumatized, depressed, anxious.”

Those expectations follow Black boys through adulthood and in the health care system, increasing the odds that doctors will view Black men as a lost cause and provide subpar care, Stewart said.

She stressed that she does not have any direct knowledge of deficiencies in the care of Daniel Prude, but she said that Black men, like Prude, are disproportionately likely to be misdiagnosed, mistreated and written off as a result of structural bias and unconscious racism.

A group of medical students at the University of Rochester wrote in an open letter that Daniel Prude was “sentenced to death by our failed healthcare system.”

“Not only do our current models of healthcare leave gaping holes for individuals such as Daniel to fall through, but they do so in manners which are fraught with racism,” the students wrote.

Partner, the medical center spokesperson, said the psychiatry department’s Office of Diversity, Inclusion, Culture and Equity will evaluate Daniel’s treatment for potential bias. He said the medical center “recognizes that we have a long way to go before we can confidently say that our policies and practices are universally culturally appropriate to the populations we serve.”

Both Stewart and Duckworth said reducing the role that police play in addressing mental health crises would increase the odds of survival for a person released too early from psychiatric care.

Federal inspection reports show that hospitals across the country have released patients who, like Prude, ended up in grave danger only shortly thereafter.

In March 2018, a patient with a history of schizophrenia, post-traumatic stress disorder and suicide attempts arrived at Russell County Hospital in Kentucky complaining of alcohol withdrawal, depression, anxiety and pain. An hour and a half later, the patient was discharged with instructions to “follow up with his/her primary care provider and take medications as prescribed.” Two hours later, the patient was back in the same hospital. A physician’s notes said the patient had drunk a bottle of Benadryl “in effort to kill self.”

In August 2018, federal inspectors found that UT Health East Texas Pittsburg Hospital discharged a patient who had verbalized a plan for suicide. The patient got a ride to his truck from the county sheriff. Later that day, the patient was found dead in the truck from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

Last summer at Stafford County Hospital in Kansas, a patient arrived in the emergency room saying she had drunk half a liter of vodka because she was upset and wanted to die. She told hospital staff that she started drinking that day after two years of sobriety and that she “did not feel safe to go home due to the presence of alcohol.” The hospital discharged her 11 minutes later.

Earlier this year, inspectors found that a patient with a history of psychosis went to the emergency room at Mercy Hospital in St. Louis and told staff she needed to get back on her medication. She was delusional, disoriented, homeless and unable to give her name. She was discharged with a voucher for cab fare but no follow-up appointments or services and no plan to ensure she got her medication.

A spokesperson for UT Health East Texas said the health system has since implemented a process for staff to more thoroughly document mental health concerns in patient records. Mercy Hospital in St. Louis said it takes the health and safety of each patient very seriously “regardless of race, ethnicity or ability to pay.”

Neither of the other hospitals responded to emails or calls seeking comment.

This story is part of a partnership that includes Side Effects Public Media, NPR and KHN.

Kaiser Health News (KHN) is a national health policy news service. It is an editorially independent program of the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation which is not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente.

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from Updates By Dina https://khn.org/news/youre-going-to-release-him-when-he-was-hurting-himself/

[kenzieam]

Regret - Chapter 2 (Eric X Fox)

Rating: M (swearing, violence, smut - everything you’ve come to expect from me :* )

Genre: Drama/Angst

****Trigger Warnings - Sexual Abuse, Domestic Violence, Child Peril****

Thanks everyone for the re-blogs and support!!! IT IS SO AWESOME!!!

@emmysrandomthoughts @beautifulramblingbrains @iammarylastar @tigpooh67 @bookwarm85 @elaacreditava @badassbaker @captstefanbrandt  @treeleaf  @beltz2016 @lilu46  @girlwith100names @gaia25 @readsalot73 @slayer0507 @stone-met @lostinthebeans @lauraaan182 @girlslovestorys @tonyt1995 @lacy-love @fuckthatfeeling  @sparklemichele @vitaevandal @jojogoo65 @micolegg @frecklefaceb @jaihardy  @bookgirlthings @queenara4  @bluelassbird @mom2reesie @pathybo @letmagichappen @littlesouthernrebel @shaunarcanine @equalstrashflavoredtrash @sterek-foreverandever

***********************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************TRIGGER WARNING - SEXUAL ABUSE, RAPE, DOMESTIC VIOLENCE***                                                        ****************************************************************************************************

Fox’s blood ran cold. Oh hell no. She’d put herself in this situation with Ethan, but keep her son out of this. Wordlessly, she launched herself at Ethan, maternal rage and protection racing white hot through her. But Ethan was cunning as well as smart and was anticipating her violent reaction, had deliberately stoked it. His hand closed around her throat as they crashed to the floor and he twisted their bodies, pinning Fox beneath him. Ethan, two years Eric’s senior and four years Fox’s, had excelled in his initiation year by being unparalleled at submission holds and anticipating his prey’s moves. He hadn’t goaded Fox without this exact plan in mind. In their nearly four years together there were still parts of his reptilian mind Fox had not seen, had no idea even existed.

Fox froze when she felt the blade of the knife bite ever so gently into her throat. Her eyes locked on Ethan’s, her chest heaved with a chaos of swirling emotions: shock, rage, dawning horror and genuine fear, the man gazing coolly down at her was one she’d never seen before.

“Are you listening now?” He continued with a conversational tone, even more out of place now, with their current positions. His free hand squeezed Fox’s breast and she slapped at it. The knife bit deeper and Fox froze, realizing with fresh horror what was about to happen. She’d given her body freely to this man’s younger brother, now he was going to take it back by force.

“Don’t move sweeting, don’t force me to demonstrate my knife skills. Now,” he yanked hard at her shirt, tearing it apart, “this is mine, no one else’s. And you will give it to me whenever I want it.”

“Ethan, no-”

“You were asking for it honey, now be a good little girl and lay still for me.” He flexed his grip on the blade just enough to make it move ever so slightly against Fox’s throat, and she felt a trickle of blood.

Fox’s mind raced as she scanned her limited options. The knife pressed to her throat and the fresh trickle of blood she felt on her skin had chased away any doubts she had about Ethan’s seriousness. He was willing to kill his own son to punish her, he was definitely going to take what he wanted from her right now. The knife in his hand was razor sharp and despite his nerdy appearance, he’d always maintained his Dauntless training. Fox had underestimated him today, and she was trapped, literally. His reflexes were sharp, and Fox knew with certainty that he would be able to slash her throat before she was able to twist out from underneath him. He had won this battle, Fox had to look ahead to the upcoming war.

Ethan’s lustful grunt grated on Fox’s ears, it was nothing like the sexy, mind-blowing sounds his younger brother made. His hand tore her boyshorts away, and she lay naked and exposed beneath him, Fox fought a shiver of revulsion as his hand trailed away from her breast to pull at his belt. She set her jaw, blinking away tears, closing her ears to her son’s wails and her eyes to the sight of her husband rising above her, his jeans pushed down his hips. A tear trickled down her cheek as he shoved inside her. ______________________________________________________________________________________________________

Fox sat up straight, stretching her back. In the week since Ethan’s attack, Fox had done her utmost to avoid Eric, he had been in meetings all week, but that wouldn‘t last. Her mind raced endlessly, turning over rock after rock searching for a solution, but few options were feasible, let alone palatable. She knew she had to avoid seeing Eric as long as possible, at least until her neck healed, if not longer. Eric had a sharp eye, even after her cut healed he would know something was wrong, Fox was chronically unable to keep her emotions off her face around him, he could read her like a book. And Fox knew that if Eric figured out what happened, he would kill Ethan, would lose control, hunt his own brother down and violently snuff out his life.

Fox carefully touched the bandage on her throat. As Ethan had raped her, as he’d forced himself inside her, he’d kept the knife at her throat, and, when he came his hand had slipped, biting deeper into Fox’s throat. As he’d arched above her, groaning in orgasm, his hips snapping against hers, forcing his seed inside his unwilling lover, Fox had felt a brief moment of mortality. Fuck, she was going to die here, right now, raped by a pig and with her throat cut like an animal. But his hand had stilled and he’d collapsed on top of her, muscles trembling and she’d felt the blade pull away.

The doctor on duty at the infirmary had just spent the last hour breaking apart fight after fight between two drunken assholes in his care who were still arguing over a woman, who’d no doubt already gone home with someone else and had replaced the stitches they had torn out of each other three times already. He’d accepted Ethan’s lie about Fox’s wound with a tired nod, a black eye already darkening his face. Seven stitches, first blood.

“Okay Tanner,” Fox returned to the present, addressing the man laying on the table in front of her, “we’ve been here before, you know how to care for this new tattoo, right?”

The black-haired man nodded and gifted her with a grin. His eyes flicked briefly to her bandage. “You cut yourself shaving?” His tone was light, but there was a deeper question attached.

Fox shook her head and grinned. “Nah, never take the dare to stand in front of the target, no matter how drunk you are.”

It was a weak excuse and Fox knew it, but Tanner nodded nonetheless. This was Fox Coulter in front of him, the dominant female in her initiation year, there was no way she was being manhandled by anyone. Definitely not by her husband, Ethan was a nice guy, refined and smart; nothing like his younger brother Eric, known throughout Dauntless as not only it’s youngest leader, but it’s most ill-tempered.

Fox sagged on her stool after Tanner left. She’d seen that in his eyes, she knew how the compound viewed Ethan, he was the good brother, an Erudite genius who was humble enough to mingle with the savages, head and shoulders above his younger brother, who was cold and arrogant and volatile. Few, if anyone would believe the truth; that behind closed doors Ethan was capable of being a coldly cynical jerk, arrogant and selfish. He played a good game, and was always careful to project respectability and professionalism. Those few times his temper had betrayed him on the job, his normally spotless reputation had given him the benefit of the doubt, had gifted him with an invisibility cloak.

Eric was the ‘bad’ brother, the troubled one. Moody and cruel, he tormented his initiates and swaggered through Dauntless like King Shit. Only with Fox, only with Remy, only alone with them did the true Eric appear, the side he could no longer show freely; because his reputation was so tied to the idea of him, no one would believe he was genuine. The true Eric was kind and gentle, loyal to a fault. His circle of trust was so small that no one else but Fox and her son fit in it, and it hurt Fox endlessly to hear him dismissed throughout the compound as ‘an asshole’, or ‘that dick, he should take lessons from his brother’. Why he had decided to project such a contrast was anyone’s guess, and Eric himself had never had an answer for her when she’d asked, so she’d dropped it, accepted him because she knew the truth, the truth about both Coulter brothers.

It hadn’t always been like this. Fox’s thoughts wandered as she cleaned her tattooing equipment, her motions practiced and automatic. When Fox had transferred from Amity to the warrior faction she too had been deceived by appearances, had been charmed right away by the elder brother, wary immediately of the younger. Eric had been her trainer, and a hard-driving one at that. Fox was never hung over the chasm personally, but she had witnessed two in her class cling desperately to the walkway, and another outright quitting, choosing a factionless life to death on the rocks. Ethan had started sniffing around right away, still in the first stage of initiation, and Fox had been naive, starved for love and a father figure, willing to overlook more than what was healthy because she hadn’t known any better. There had always been a slight edge to Ethan, a hint of manipulation with Fox, but he loved her, right? She had never witnessed depravity to such a level as she had seen this last time, and she still reeled from the shock of realizing that he was capable of such acts, had successfully hidden it from her this long.

Fox had become pregnant not long after graduation, and had decided on a career of tattoo artist, transferring to a trainer during the initiation cycle. Her life with Ethan had never been completely smooth, either before or after the wedding, but everyone had told her how lucky she was to be with him, how he was such a catch, and such a stand-up gentleman to ask Fox to marry him so soon after meeting, since she now carried his child. That rumour had rode her for awhile, everyone saying she’d ‘trapped’ Ethan into marriage by becoming pregnant. She hadn’t trapped him really, she had panicked at the thought of becoming a mother so soon, but Ethan had seemed to take it all in stride, smiling at her indulgently when she’d confessed to her new condition.

It was during her pregnancy that she’d started to see Eric more. She’d avoided him like the plague since initiation, interacting with him only when necessary, and only about upcoming initiation training matters, but Ethan was finding himself gone from Dauntless more and more often, and he’d asked his little brother to check in on her. At first it had been stilted and awkward between them, his visits short, their conversations shorter. Eric had made it perfectly clear right from the start that he was only doing this because Ethan had asked him, and for awhile they had endured near silent meetings, Fox nervously darting through Ethan’s apartment, not yet used to a hostess role and Eric following stonily behind, asking her monotone questions and sounding like he was reading from a list from the ‘unwilling baby-sitter’ handbook.

Gradually however, they had started to thaw around each other. Fox got used to Eric’s abrupt manner and long silences, and he in turn seem to relax around her, lighten up. Fox was surprised to discover that, not only did Eric possess an actual sense of humour, but, underneath his grumpy exterior he was startlingly considerate towards her, bringing her foods he’d learned were her favourites, books he’d found out she’d like to read. He paid attention to her, and not in the negative or domineering way she was so used to. Ethan’s attentions had started to skew towards overbearing and paternal, often treating Fox like a disobedient and stupid teenager.

Although he’d been a hard trainer, and then an awkward pseudo-babysitter, Eric had never been condescending or autocratic towards her, and it was balm to her soul, to be treated like an equal.

As they grew more comfortable around each other, a normal progression considering that Eric was now spending more time with Fox than Ethan was, the stringent barriers they’d erected at first encounter had began to crumble. Fox had little time to ensure she was well-groomed, little drive to maintain a flawless appearance anymore, she had better things to do, like care for her baby. As a result, even around Eric she found herself wearing less than clean clothes, wrinkled shirts, pajama pants, her hair caught up in a messy bun, no makeup beyond lip balm. Eric relaxed his personal appearance as well, it was a surprise the first time Fox looked up at Eric’s entrance to the apartment to see him in jeans and a t-shirt, rather than the leader’s uniform she’d always seen before.

On more than one occasion Fox found herself watching Eric hold Remy, cradling him gently in his arms to put him to sleep, or soothe his cries and was struck with the thought that Eric was more of a father to Remy than Ethan was. When he was home, Ethan paid little attention to the baby, saying he would interact with Remy when the infant could interact back. Eric was always gentle with the newborn, always listening for sounds that he needed to be held or changed or fed. When he passed Remy to Fox, she would do her best to ignore the tingles she’d begun to feel when their hands brushed each other. More than once she saw Eric jolt ever so slightly at their contact, but didn’t say anything.

Fox even grew at ease nursing Remy in Eric’s presence, fuck, he was around so much helping that the little guy would starve if she didn’t eighty-six her modesty eventually. More and more she’d glance up from Remy, content at her breast, to see Eric gazing at them, his eyes soft, almost longing. At first they would both flush and look away, but soon would only exchange companionable smiles and go back to their tasks.

Fox felt faint stirrings of guilt as her feelings towards Eric grew stronger, so she did her best to ignore them, telling herself it was only natural to begin to feel a fondness for someone who was unfailingly at your side during a hard time, that what she felt towards her former trainer was gratitude, nothing more. Surely Eric didn’t feel the same, he was quite attached to his nephew sure, but he had his pick of women at Dauntless, why would he want her, a drab Amity transfer with a self-esteem problem? He had promised his brother to care for his family while he was gone, nothing more.

Eric too fought his burgeoning feelings for Fox. At first she was only an initiate, then an obligation, tied to him through family, carrying his brother’s child, but then he woke up one morning and his first thought was of her, specifically the gentle smile she’d given him the night before as he’d held Remy, found himself tenderly stroking his nephew’s cheek. Soon, his heart would ache when he wasn’t near her, he would find his thoughts drifting in the office, wondering what she was doing, how she was faring alone for the day because Ethan was off in Erudite or Candor, banging away at a keyboard. He looked forward to changing clothes at home and heading over to her apartment, the latent tension he always carried disappearing when he crossed the threshold. More than once now, he’d indulged in a tender caress of Fox’s cheek as he’d pulled a blanket over her wherever she’d fallen asleep, on her bed or the couch, usually with little Remy cradled to her. Eric would find himself just standing there, gazing down at the mother and son and thinking to himself that Ethan didn’t deserve them. And you do? a voice in his head would growl back. Yes.

It was only a matter of time.

Remy was a month old, and Ethan was gone again. He was heading a major computer systems upgrade for Erudite and had been home one night in the last nine. Eric had been all but living at the apartment, to the casual observer who didn’t know any different, he would be mistaken as the father of little Remington Maxwell Coulter.

Remy was fussy and Fox was overwhelmed. She’d healed physically from the trauma of birth, having ingested a vial of healing serum at Ethan’s request, but was still tired, hormonal and awkward. Her body had not yet returned to it’s pre-pregnancy shape and she still felt ugly and disgusting, a sagging milk machine that constantly stank of panic and baby spit-up. Ethan’s latent disapproval of her when he was home, of her seeming inability to bounce back quickly wore at Fox, her sense of worth too strongly tied to her physical appearance and Ethan’s opinions. Ethan had always found stealthy ways of voicing his preference for a thin, fit woman and Fox now found she was similarly hard on herself.

Finally, she’d nursed and soothed Remy enough that he’d fallen asleep and she’d stumbled out to the living room, collapsed onto the couch. Eric had been cleaning up in the kitchen, and, seeing her slumped over, brought her a glass of water, sitting easily at her side. Fox lifted her head when Eric nudged her arm and smiled wearily in thanks.

“Can I bring you anything else?” He’d murmured.

Fox shook her head before mumbling, “a nanny? My husband? The drive to get off my ass and do something?” She scrubbed her hands over her face, exhausted. Eric grabbed her wrists and turned her to him. His actions surprised Fox, he’d never been this direct before.

“Don’t think like that. You are doing just fine Fox. You have a newborn, it’s going to be tough for awhile.”

Ethan’s words tumbled from Fox’s lips. “I’m not trying hard enough, I’m being lazy and self-indulgent.”

Eric blinked in surprise, his grip on her wrists tightening. “Who told you that, Ethan? Fuck. Fox you are not being lazy and what? self-indulgent, you are busting your ass to take care of a baby while my asshole of a brother runs around the city! Fuck him, he’s never home for you!”

Fox was already shaking her head. looking down at her feet, “no, Eric he’s right. I’m not getting back in shape fast enough-”

“What?!” Eric sounded aghast. He let go of Fox’s wrists and grabbed her shoulders. “Fox, look at me.”

Fox shook her head, she had started to cry, tears of misery dripping into her lap. Eric let go of her shoulders and cupped her face, his touch startlingly gentle, and raised her head to meet his gaze.

“Fox? Look at me…. please?” His thumb stroked across her bottom lip.

Sniffling, Fox raised her eyes, focusing unwillingly on his gaze, blinking rapidly.

“You are not lazy. You don’t need to be busting your ass at the gym, you’re beautiful….. I’ve always thought so.”

Fox scoffed and tried to pull away, “you’re supposed to say that Eric, I’m the crazy new mother and your sister-in-law, it’s expected-”

Eric’s lips crushed to hers, startling Fox silent. A flash of heat and what could only be described as relief shot through her and she frantically deepened the kiss, reaching up to claw at the back of Eric’s head, pulling him closer. Eric’s arms wrapped around Fox, pulling her into his lap as they continued to devour each other’s mouths. Finally Eric pulled back, resting his forehead to Fox’s.

Panting, he gasped, “Fox, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have-” his words were lost as Fox cupped his face, pulling him back to her, their lips connected again and Eric’s fragile hold snapped.

Turning, he pushed Fox back down onto the couch and crawled over her. Their bodies snaked together, both making desperate sounds of need as they ravished each other. Fox pushed Eric’s shirt up, hands grazing over his muscular abdomen and he grabbed it with one hand, yanking it roughly off, tossed it carelessly away.  Neither could stop, they were feeding off each other’s desire and pent-up attraction, the floodgates finally opened. Eric curled his hands under Fox’s shirt, skimming along her fevered skin, pulling it over her head. Her bra quickly followed and his lips closed around Fox’s nipple, she arched underneath him with a mewl, her hand starting to stroke roughly at the bulge in his jeans. Groaning, Eric attacked her mouth again, clawing at Fox’s shorts while she pulled at his zipper. Frantic now, Eric ripped Fox’s shorts away, and yanked at his jeans, pushing them far enough down his hips to free himself. Spitting on his hand he rubbed his cock then pushed urgently inside her; Fox moaned sharply underneath him, he was larger than Ethan. She wrapped her legs around his hips, desperate to feel him deeper.

“Oh fuck,” Eric groaned into her neck, thrusting violently, completely lost in bliss.

Fox clawed at Eric’s back, crying out his name. A wave of unbelievable desire had crashed over her, Eric felt so fucking good inside of her, his helpless groans in her ear igniting her blood all the more. There was only them, only this moment and Fox let herself explode. Screaming his name Fox writhed in ecstasy, and Eric roared in release, throwing his head back, slamming his hips to hers, his cock pulsing deep inside. Gasping for breath, they collapsed together, too spent to move just yet.

Fox panted, curling into Eric’s heaving chest. Sex with Ethan had never affected her like this, never made her body sing and heart race. This brief, desperate encounter with Eric was far and away the most passionate and visceral she’d ever felt. Fox tried to feel anger, tried to feel used or wronged, but she couldn’t. All she could muster was the strangest feeling of rightness, that she was finally….. home.

Eric groaned above her, his hand stroking her hair and she felt the exact moment he came back to his senses enough to realize where he was and what had just happened. His muscles went tense and his breath caught in his chest.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck!” Fox heard him breathe and he scrambled off of her, the sudden lack of his body heat making Fox shiver. She sat up quickly, abruptly aware of her nakedness and looked for her clothes. Unable to reach them she pulled a cushion against her body instead. Eric glanced at her as he scrambled for his shirt, and the flash of emotions in his eyes took Fox’s breath away; if he hadn’t been feeling so goddamn shocked right now, he’d be reaching for her again. He was still cursing as he pulled his shirt over his head and Fox was suddenly terrified that he was going to run out the door and never come back. She scrambled to her feet and moved to stand in front of him, gripped his biceps, sobbing his name, hating the way her voice broke but more scared of losing him.

“Eric, please!” She begged, tears streaming. She pressed her face to his chest, letting the cushion drop and cried, felt her tears soak his shirt, felt the way his chest heaved underneath her. Eric exhaled raggedly, and his arms reached slowly up, wrapping around Fox and pulling her closer. His hand gently stroked her hair and he pressed a kiss to the top of her head, let his lips linger.

“Fox-” he tried but couldn’t finish.

Fox lifted her head and pain flashed in Eric’s eyes as he saw the misery in hers. His hand came up and stroked her cheek.

“Don’t leave me,” she begged.

Eric swallowed hard, then shook his head. Hating himself, hating more the way his movement made Fox cry harder, he pulled out of her arms and strode to the door.

[rachaelwatchestv]

Baywatch - Season 1 Episode 1 Panic at Malibu Pier

My mom was obsessed with this show when I was a kid (for reference, I’m about to be 25), and the “remastered version” just appeared on Hulu so why not see what the fuss is all about. I’m gonna put a read more line here, so anyone who comes across this post but doesn’t want to scroll down through what could be miles of me talking doesn’t have to.

DISCLAIMER: There are a few things in this episode that some people might find triggering, there’s a character who is extremely mentally ill, has delusions, and is mentioned harming herself.  If you might find that upsetting, please do not continue on with reading about this episode.

So this is the “Pilot”? And it’s a whopping 95 minutes long so I guess we should just get right into it.

Okay I know this show was like an 80′s/90′s show but already the swimsuits have me dying...so 80′s lmao.

I already cannot get over how young David Hasselhoff looks.

The theme song is literally just beautiful people running on the beach.  I knew that was the premise of the show but I didn’t expect it to start right away

So we start with David Hasselhoff (whose name is Mitch, apparently) in a kayak  water ski boat thing with a kid (who is his son), racing another one of the lifeguards from the theme song.  Mitch and the kid win, and the lady lifeguard (Jill) accuses him of gaining weight.

So Hobie, Mitch’s son asks if it’s okay to rub sunscreen on a girl’s back and admits that he said no because he thought it would be too embarrassing.  To which Mitch (HA) tells him that under no circumstances should he ever say no to rubbing sunscreen on a girl’s back. This conversation has extremely creepy undertones.

This is Craig.  He’s a lifeguard and a lawyer and he’s decided to skip out on his lawyer job because the weather is just so nice that he has to go to the beach.  He also drives a corvette.  I want his life.

Rookie Shawnie came in 46th in her class, Rookie Eddie came in number 1.  Shawnie clearly has a crush on Eddie and clearly doesn’t take her job too seriously.  More trouble to come I assume.

Craig gets to the lifeguard headquarters right as Hobie is arguing with Mitch about having to go live with his mom.  He has to go to summer school and she thinks it will be too distracting to live so close to the beach with his dad.  I don't think she's wrong on that count.  It also seems like there might still be some feelings between Mitch and his ex-wife.

Craig meets up with an older lifeguard, Al, and says that he found a loophole in the mandatory retirement age so he won't have to retire.  Craig then gets his truck stuck under the pier as the tide is coming in.  Rookie mistake.  It’s lucky that he was there though (for the plot), because a girl was stupidly trying to balance on the Pier’s railing and she fell off.  Imagine that.

Craig saves her and gives her mouth to mouth.  She very creepily strokes his hair.  Later, someone at the lifeguard tower gives her Craig’s sweatshirt to keep her warm.  Seems like a bad idea to me...a later conversation between the two shows that she’s clearly into him.  Also we find out her name is Lori.

Mitch got promoted to lieutenant and everyone makes fun of his new uniform, yet they’re throwing him A GALA to celebrate.  Not a party...a GALA!! Seems a little excessive to me but what do I know? Also Craig and Mitch are BFFs for life and no one will convince me otherwise.

Back to the Rookies, Eddie gets assigned to tower 27 but Shawnie wants it because that’s where all of her friends hang out.  Mitch assigns Shawnie to a boat with Jill, but not until she changes swimsuits because what she’s wearing is not practical at all.  It really just seems like a way to make her character look stupider, and to give gratuitous near nudity to all the male viewers.  I guess in the 80′s this was viewed as a win-win for TV, but nowadays it just hits very differently.

Lori sneaks through Craig’s bag and grabs his key to the lifeguard tower before she's sent home.  

And we have our first lifeguard montage!  This one's not nearly as bad as I'm sure they're going to get.  Just a lot of random shots of lifeguards doing lifeguard things while an uplifting song plays in the background.  Also everyone on this beach (even the tourists) seem to have a perfect body...just feels unrealistic. 

Now we're introduced to Captain Thorpe who isn't sure that Mitch is the right person to be lieutenant.  He also seems skeptical of Shawnie and Al. And he forces Mitch to wear his dress shoes...the horror!

While Jill is complaining to Mitch about Shawnie, an Australian lifeguard from a private beach named Trevor climbs up the flagpole and into Mitch's office. His business card reads "shark fighter and virgin converter" and that's really all you need to know about him.

Lori surprises Craig with a visit on the beach, and is upset when she sees him with a girl who needs help (Yeah girl, you're not special).   Foreboding music plays as she watches him fix the other woman's toe. She then gets real freaky and keys the other woman's car.

Eddie gives us his backstory by telling a six year old kid that he was in foster care growing up.  Dude, that kid probably doesn't even know what foster care is.

A bunch of people are caught in a riptide and all the lifeguards jump in.  Shawnie freezes when a little girl stops breathing and needs CPR.  Trevor passes two drowning people to save the pretty girl who was drowning at the same time even though Mitch was much closer to her.  This, of course, is a problem between them.

Hobie UNHOOKS A GIRLS BIKINI STRAP and goes to put suntan oil on her back, but some kid swoops in and does it instead.  These kids are 13, and honestly the children actors look even younger...something seems so wrong with this story line.

Mitch and his ex get in an argument about custody because his ex wants Hobie to live with her so he doesn't grow up only wanting to be a lifeguard.  She wants him to have options.

Meanwhile, Lori the crazy girl (Whose name is shown to actually be spelled as Laurie) shows up in Craig’s tower at the end of the day with wine and in just a silk robe.

He very nicely gets her to leave the tower and tells her that he has a wife, Gina.  Laurie tries to kiss him and reveals that she's naked under the robe (Gasp!) right as another lifeguard drives up and sees.  Laurie runs off before he can say anything else.

Shawnie's in the shower crying over freezing earlier that day.  Jill comforts her and reminds her that the job isn't "all fun in the sun".

Captain Thorpe comes back and insists that Al be put on desk duty until mandatory retirement.  Mitch goes to talk to Al and finds him painting on his back porch.  Damn this guy can paint!!

But also how does a man on a lifeguard’s salary afford a massive oceanfront house like that?  

Anyways, Al offers to talk to Gail (Hobie's mom) about the custody arrangement and take Hobie out for a fishing trip.  He also declines Mitch's offer of a desk job.

It's time for Mitch's gala...which is more of a simple party at a really nice house.  No idea why they were calling it a gala in the first place.  But they also have a live girl group playing?  And Shawnie is dressed up like Madonna while Eddie swims laps in the pool AT THE PARTY?  This is the most confusing party I've ever seen.

Laurie shows up to the party (big shocker there) and creeps on Craig's wife, Gina in the bathroom.  She tells Gina that a lifeguard saved her life, kissed her, and then they "made love right there in the tower" Lovely Gina offers to help her find the lifeguard at the party and is stunned when Laurie points out Craig in the crowd.

Gina kindly but sternly points out that Craig is her husband, then Laurie causes a scene, shouting that she didn't know he had a wife and he's embarrassing her in front of the whole party.  The lifeguard from earlier that saw her naked basically confirms her story by staying silent when asked, and Gina storms out of party with Craig running after her.

At home, Gina is very obviously upset while Craig tries to insist that nothing happened.  Crazy Laurie calls the house and tells Craig to meet her at the tower or she'll kill herself. Gina tells Craig to call the police and not do it himself, but Craig insists.  Gina decides to tag along to try to help.

At the life guard tower, they find Laurie in the corner crying not to take her back to her parents.  She has bruises on her neck and tells Craig and Laurie that it was her father.  Craig decides to take her back to their house (bad move).

At home, Craig and Gina talk and Craig decides to go to Laurie's house tomorrow to talk to the parents before he calls CPS.  They kiss in their bed and surprise, surprise, the camera pans to reveal Laurie watching them

In the morning, Laurie goes through Craig's bag and finds a diving knife. She goes to the beach and practices her stabbing motions while having flashbacks to Craig and Gina's relationship.

Craig meets with her parents and is surprised to find that Laurie's father died ten years ago.  Her mom explains that Laurie gets violent and hurts herself and just got home from the psych ward at the hospital.  

Back at the house, Laurie sneaks up on Gina who by the way is an actual saint.  Like Gina treats Laurie so nicely and sweet and doesn't even care that Laurie stole her shirt, she just goes, "It's fine, it looks pretty on you." Laurie's craziness could not have happened to a nicer person.  Laurie convinces Gina to drive her back to the beach so she can release a letter she wrote Craig into the ocean and release all of her feelings towards him.

Laurie tries to get Gina to go into a super creepy place under the pier, to which Gina wisely says "No thanks." So Laurie runs in on her own and Gina chases after her out of the goodness of her heart.

Craig comes home to find the house empty and quickly drives to the beach to try to find them.

Gina catches up with Laurie who tricks her to get her to turn her back and pulls out a knife.  Gina realizes that the letter Laurie wrote is a fake suicide note to make it look like Gina killed herself.  Laurie tries to slit her wrist but Gina is able to pull away and throw sand in Laurie's eyes so she can escape. She runs, calling for help as Craig pulls into the parking lot and sees her car.  He hears her cries for help and finds her right before Laurie catches up.

Craig manages to talk Laurie out of killing his wife for a minute, but then she sees his wedding ring and freaks out again. Craig is able to grab the knife through the fence and stop the whole thing.

While the drama at the pier is gong on, Al and Hobie are out on a boat for their fishing trip.  Al overhears a woman remarking on how he’s too old to be a lifeguard. A crew member goes down into the cabin to cook Hobie's fish for lunch, but accidentally causes an explosion while changing out a propane tank. Luckily the whole boat doesn't blow up, but a massive fire breaks out and Hobie falls through the floorboards into the hull of the ship while Al shouts at everyone to jump off.

Back at Baywatch headquarters, the team assembles to go help, and they all know that Hobie and Al might be on the boat.  Al is shown in the water telling everyone not to panic and helping everyone grab onto floating pieces of wood.  Mitch, Jill, Shawnie and Eddie are all parts of the rescue team.

Mitch gets to Al but they don't know where Hobie is.  They find him in an air pocket in part of the boat that is now completely submerged.

Al and Mitch work together to get everyone out of the boat safely, but Al gets stuck on some rope on his way out.  Mitch finds him but it's too late, he has drowned and they are unable to revive him.  I don't know why, because we got very little screen time of him, but Al's death actually made me sad.

They hold a lifeguard funeral for Al which involves a bunch of trucks driving on the beach, and some boats lined up in the water.  Mitch gives a very touching eulogy about all the lives that Al saved over the years and how they'll never forget him.  

The episode ends with a montage of the lifeguards working the beach presumably the next day with an overarching feeling of "life goes on". No word on what happened to Laurie, but Gina and Craig are still happily married so I guess all's well that ends well.

[monitorsscrawlings]

On Ghosts And Other Undead

Below I've compiled some rough notes for later perusal, since this stuff is important, and I vow this is the absolute last time I let myself spend literally hours on end holed up in the families secret library. Morty has helped fill in some of the blanks, but there is still much more to learn. I can already hear Grunk impatiently stomping around upstairs so best to write this all down quickly, while it's still fresh.

Firstly all undead, regardless of their nature, form or disposition come in two very broad categories: those being either Corporeal or Incorporeal. Now lots of entities that are technically incorporeal can still exert their will on the material plane, still posses a more or less tangible form and can still be perceived by the naked eye. Likewise there are a few corporal who can and will flip physics the bird and explode into a swarm of cockroaches or melt into slime or dissolve into mist or the like at will. Sometimes trying to apply a label to such entities is an utter waste of effort, frankly. The main difference I've found is that incorporeal entities are a soul or conscience expressing itself through a body with an ectoplasmic base and thus not bound by the laws and limitations of meat-space, where as a corporal entity is a being rooted in a physical body that no matter how strange or dangerous still has at least some physical limitations. More than most incorporeal entities I've encountered anyways.

Haze: Incorporeal. A weak spirit, less a proper ghost and more an uppity glob of ectoplasm super-charged by an overabundance of usually negative residual emotions that have become ingrained into the underlying fabric of a place; things like grief, anger, fear and despair. Typically manifests as a misty, ill-defined humanoid figure composed of smoky ectoplasm, usually using smog, dust, sands, bits of trash and the like to give it actual solidity once it grows strong enough. Not a ghost in the true sense, more like fragmented echos of strong emotional imprints. Prolonged exposure to a Haze may cause hallucinations, disrupt recording devices and other electronics, but they're more a petty nuisance than any kind of real threat.

A stiff gust of wind or a handful of salt is usually more than enough to disrupt them, as they're barely strong enough to survive being sneezed at, much less a light breeze. Typically incredibly short-lived as one might imagine, and often preyed upon by stronger more malicious entities as a quick and easy snack to revitalize their own essence.

Shades: Incorporeal. A kind of low-level ghost or spirit. Usually a lost or restless soul clinging to the material plane to deliver a message or seeking help. A struggle that often leaves them weakened and confused, since they lack the stability or focus of true ghosts. Practically no physicality, though touching them for any length of time will seriously sap your body-heat, and letting one latch on to you is just a bad idea in general, since if allowed to they can pass on visions or posses you, which speaking from experience is seriously dangerous and not at all fun, and we should never let that happen again. Potentially dangerous, as emotions and belief can have a nourishing effect, giving them more permanence and clarity of thought as well as more focus and direction. Usually however, they only whisper, guide and hint, and will pass on of their own violation once they've passed on their message to its intended recipient or revealed their killers identity.

If a shade starts to become violent or latches on to an unwilling host, exposing them to sanctified iron, throwing a handful of salt their way or dragging the victim out in to strong sunlight will weaken the shade and force it to release its victim.

Phantasm: Incorporeal. An incredibly strong personality impressed into the fabric of a place, sometimes catalyzed by a traumatic death or catastrophic event. The sort of people that spawn these things usually just aren't nice or pleasant people, quite the opposite really. Many are simply mindless recordings that lash out blindly and invisibly, pushing people out windows or down stairs, creating disturbances and growing both stronger and more violent as the responding emotions and raw belief from the people who bear the brunt of these outbursts or happen to witness them in action floods in.

Some phantasms tend to gain more visibility and cohesion over time, but remain mindless echos of those who have already passed on, albeit more complex and better defined in the scenarios they act out. Great potential for harm and mischief, avoid if and whenever possible. A ritual cleansing or exorcism of the problem area is usually enough to destroy and erase these things, but it's altogether too easy to mistake a phantasm for any number of other things, and the wrong treatment can actually make things like this worse.

Ghosts: Incorporeal. Human or other sentient who have died and who's soul or spirit persists after death, bolstered by all kinds of ambient magical, ectoplasmic and miscellaneous energies. Usually people who have died in a dramatic or spectacular way, violently and unexpectedly, though there are always exceptions. Personality, behavior, as well as where and how they died all can have an affect on a ghosts appearance, and their particular powers, if any. There are two things that define them. The first is that all ghosts--true ghosts--are self-aware, conscience, and retain their free-will. The second thing is that most ghosts tend to start their unlives temporarily anchored to the area they died in, though I'm not quite clear on exactly why. Aside from that they all tend to be pretty varied. Most are sub-categorized by what they do and how they operate, since ghosts are one of the most varied groups of undead.

Firstly you've got Specters. Just regular ghosts. Many go about their unlives in a drifting, dream-like fugue-state, like sleep-walkers. Others have been known to act as guardians or household spirits attached to a particular individual or household. Practically indistinguishable from a living person nine times out of ten, specters tend to be a very placid and down to earth bunch in comparison to both Haunts and Poltergeists. This however does not make them harmless, and an angry specter is likely to make its displeasure felt in a violent and explosive manner if pushed too far or threatened. Often kept sustained and strengthened through prayer, remembrance, and offerings from those they knew in life.

Next you've got Haunts. Spookers and tricksters, most Haunts delight in frightening, pranking and in some cases even outright tormenting the living, causing mischief, grabbing attention and creating a ruckus. Everything from shape-shifting and ectoplasmic manipulation, petty tricks and spoiling milk to borderline poltergeist-like behavior, heavy-duty terror tactics and full-scale hauntings of anywhere from a single person to an entire household of people. Basically the polar-opposite of Specters in both motive and temperament. More attention demanding but less likely to lash out violently if angered. These are probably what most people think of when they think 'ghost'. Usually non-violent, often very spirited and characterized by strong personalities, haunts can be stressful and deeply annoying to deal with, but they're rarely actively malicious or deadly. Incredibly varied in appearance, I don't think I've ever actually seen two that looked much alike.

Finally, there's Poltergeists. Ghosts who are motivated by anger or frustration, either with themselves, their demise and current state of being, or the world around them. Some might not even be entirely aware of their current circumstances or trapped in a state of shock or denial and unwilling or unable to move on or adjust to their new existence. Poltergeists as a general rule tend to be territorial, antagonistic, temperamental and the most likely to lash out violently at their surroundings with very little prompting. Poltergeists in particular should be handled with care, compassion and discretion.

Salt, fresh blood--human, animal, monster, fae or hell even demonic ichor seems to work--sanctified iron or polished silver all work at keeping ghosts either in or out, providing the boundary-lines forged through these methods remain secure. For some reason sleep-catchers work on lassoing or stymieing most haunts. Mirrors of glass or polished silver are likewise excellent at capturing and containing them, provided you know you're doing and how to go about it. If a ghost persists in endangering others or acting in a violent fashion, an exorcism will work as a last resort to forcibly boot them off in to the afterlife. The religion or culture the exorcism is rooted in doesn't matter, so long as it's performed correctly and the proper materials are used.

[ There's a hastily scrawled note under the last entry for this page. Clearly someone was in a rush. The note reads: 'Ending this here for now, Journal. Hands cramping up something fierce and I can hear Grunk banging on the lab-door. Guess my times up. Note to self: fill in and compile rest of notes later ASAP.' ]

Author Note: This is one of those written pieces I originally wrote up on my other blog, and really not a heck of a lot has changed, though I did try to tweak and clean it up a little. Mainly to make it a little more stylistically consistent with the second half, which I think reads better of the two. 

Special thanks to @delistylehardcore who indirectly inspired this and who’s awesome characters and artwork help inspire me and make me want to keep writing more. If you’ve made it this far might I recommend checking them out?

[justalonesomepotato]

Rant? Personal Talk? Eh?

It feels wrong, weird, stupid even. Its makes my brain go so muddled, and it makes my chest start to ache, whenever I start typing or explaining. I want to explain to these people why, I want to figure this out and try to solve the riddle that is my literal mind, but whenever I start writing everything feels wrong. It feels so fucking pathetic when people are going through so much more. It feels so open and exposed, and nothing terrifies me more than that. It feels like useless, not worth the effort, because for all the anxiety that its going to produce, I know that only one person is going to pay attention. And this is the person that I am most terrified to know. Talking about personal crap is one of my biggest personal struggles, but I’ve always found it harder to talk about things with people I know than people I don’t know. Words are a hard thing to muster. So I don’t know how far into this I’m going to go, how much of the fucking long, long, long-ass haul I’m going to rant about. No matter how much I talk about, I always seem to come away wishing I had said more, or thinking of more that I needed to say. So, I guess we’ll get started? Now the awkward place is where to start, heh. I guess we’ll start from the beginning. My Mum is from a a bad background, abusive parents, leaving home and moving away when she was very young. She was pretty much forced into marriage with another disgusting, perverted man, my father. He didn’t do much use, with my Mum doing all the housework and home care while we lived on a farm, paying for all the expenses, caring for us, etc. Fortunately they divorced when we were quite young, which wasn’t so great for my Mum. She was left alone on a big farm having to manage all the expenses and massive tasks, young children, no family support, and continued trouble with my father. The same man who went behind my mothers back and befriended her family. To this day, he visits and has a close relationship with her abusive family, absolutely adoring tempting and teasing her. Later on, she started dating another man. An alcoholic, an abuser, another lazy asshole. We moved. She gave birth my younger sister, which to this day suffers the effects of an alcoholic background and highly violent behavior. He couldn’t deal with a child, left us to move across the other side of the country somewhere. He too provided my mother with absolutely nothing to assist her, and the court is still chasing for the debt he owes. Myself and my younger brother continued to see my father, who also remarried to a woman with two children. She was horrendous, still is… A woman who slaps her children in dedication to her religion. He would spoil us with outings and sweets, but he was never there when it mattered. There were times when he would slip up, make comments, curse, get drunk. He put ideas in our heads, made us says, manipulate us. Things went downhill when I got ill. I don’t know how it happened, where it came from, why it was happening. I don’t recall anything from that time, about how I was feeling, or how I looked apart from pictures my Mum had of me. I got diagnosed with anorexia nervosa and obsessive compulsive disorder, and was in and out of hospital visits, therapists offices, doctors officers. I was probed and touched and questioned. There was a time when another alcoholic, crude family member made me strip off my clothes until I was naked, and stand in front of the mirror while they poked and chastised me. There were times when things were particularly bad. My Mum got uncontrollably angry at one point, screamed and threw glasses at me because I couldn’t eat. I got scared, called my father, and he called the police. When they arrived, they ridiculed me for a while about how I should respect my mother. I agree, but I don’t think it was the best solution for a terrified child. There was a time in the heat of summer when I was locked away in my bedroom for days, because I was told no one wanted to see my face. One time at my fathers house, I couldn’t eat, my stepmother left, told me that it was my fault her marriage was being ruined. And one of the worst nights… When I was locked in a hot car, yelled and screamed at while my father stood back smirking, only to come home where I thought I was safest and have a bottle of pills thrust in my face, demanding that I take them and quote “never have to be seen again.” After that, I moved into my mothers house where I am now. He used to try to send me stuff, until I started fighting back and telling him no. He used to send my cards with creepy quotes, one time for a birthday sending me poems of rape, incest and domestic abuse against women. Around the same time, I found out that he as one of the authors, that he used to get my mother involved in the production of his little stories. Schools always been hard… Through it all, I’ve always been the weird, anxious outcast kid that gets laughed at and things thrown at me. Highschool was alright at first, until my anxiety started getting worse. When I was 15 years old, I started self harming… I thought it was bad back then, heh. When I was 16, I tried to commit suicide three times, everytime unknown to everyone but myself. Twice with suffocation, once with pills. I could never go through with it, no matter how much I wanted it at the time. It was around this time that I made my deepest cut. It probably needed stitches, bleeding for 3 days straight, but I dealt with it on my own beneath my school skirt. The anxiety got worse. I tried working in hospitality when I was 16, but I found myself throwing up before and after work due to the anxiety of it. My coworkers laughed at me, being the awkward, clumsy kid, and there was no reason for me to stay, so I left. I’m at a point now, where my anxiety is so fucking bad that even the simplest of things is a struggle… Talking to others, eye contact, being called on, paying for things, leaving my home, anything Social, noise, crowds, shaking hands, revealing my body in any way, assessments… Each and everyone gives me an anxiety attack. I hate my fucking hands because of all they’ve suffered and continuing to suffer, showing the extent of my anxiety, past disorders and childhood scarring. So much so, that now with my anxiety peaking so high, I have to wear a jumper/sweater/cardigan to pull over my hands all year round. I avoid any form of hand contact, my hands fucking disgust me, and people only stare with judgement when they finally see or notice. T-That’s something I’ve never admitted before, and never will again. A few weeks ago, I had a school retreat that was compulsory to attend. It was one of the most open experiences of my life, and it terrified me. When we were forced to go on a date with someone of the opposite sex, I physically couldn’t. When I had locked myself away, and I was crouched on the ground unable to breathe, I knew how bad my anxiety and the pressure had gotten. A coupe of teachers made me come out and talk with them, while I was gagging on a fucking anxiety attack. These are people I see everyday, and now I cant even fucking look at them, I’m so ashamed that anyone had to see me like that. Its been a few weeks since then, and its still managing to get worse, everything has. For years now, I’ve been struggling with another illness… Doctors have bounced around with diagnosis’, but nothing fits. Nausea, throwing up, dizziness, fatigue, weakness, headaches, pain in my sides and back, excruciating pain down my legs… Other stuff has started happening too; hair falling out, problems with my skin, bruising, joint pain. I have an idea, but I don’t want to say it incase it might be true… Maybe I’m just exaggerating. No one knows the extent of that either, what's truly happening with my health and how much I've physically deteriorated over the past year or so. On top of that, there is the constant never ending anxiety, the self harm, the panic attacks, the depressive episodes that draw me away from others at months on end. I will hopefully be going to university next year, despite that causing us more debt, and worrying me about my anxiety which will no doubt be sky rocketing with this unfamiliarity. The future terrifies me, how bad my anxiety will be when everything is so unfamiliar, how bad it will get when I have to do so much scary adult stuff. My head is filled with this all day, every day, and I don’t want any one else to have to experience that. I don’t want people to have to deal with me, I don’t want people to experience that burden. And even if they insisted, I physically can’t, not with everything in my being, I can’t. No one knows about this story, absolutely no one knows about my whole story out there. Even this here, this is not my whole story and there are many elements I have avoided speaking of. People call me weird and stupid and an outcast, even my friends look towards me with judgement, and I ducking hate myself for it. But even so, they could never know what was really happening behind the happy, carefree mask. So I’ve well and truly accepted that I’m going to be alone for a long while, until I’ve done what I need to, and I can allow myself leave. I don’t trust anyone that much to get that close, it terrifies me to get that close, to reveal myself in that way only to be consistently judged as I have in the past. I know how people respond, but they don’t know it like I do, how corrupt absolutely everything else and how every single aspect of life is strenuous on me and those around me. Those people who insist otherwise… You don’t know me, and you will hopefully for my sake and yours never get the chance. So that’s why… That’s why I can’t… That’s why I’m like this. I’m sorry. 

[punk-in-docs]

You Were Always Mine, Chapter 19

AU Tom Hiddleston - Romantic, Historical Romance, Victorian Fic. Based off the imagine; ‘Thomas spying on you after your divorce and doing anything to get you back. Including threatening your new beau.’ Prompt found on ​this blog. Link to the imagine here…. Chapter number: Chapter 19 Author: punk-in-docs (Masterlist for more chapters…) Triggers/warnings: Angst. More Violence. After the next chap, no more violence! I promise! Wakeman is a BASTARD! you’ve been warned!

He slid from the coach, quickly paying the driver, and bounding across the street. The gait of a man with no time to waste. The Foundry was directly ahead, he scurried fast across the street, his strong, long legs carried him quickly, his mind set to the dire consequence of the damages this incident may have caused to his workers, and his machinery. He wets his lips as he treads through the yard, seeing it was unusually empty. They must’ve cleared everyone. He thinks. His foreman, Thompkins, his able, right hand, probably sent everyone home with a day’s pay whilst he sorted out the catastrophe. He headed for the main factory floor, pushing open the heavy, solid sliding door, reveals a bustle of people, he can see, thronging in his office. Through the misty, murky windows, he sees a gaggle of men, stood, most likely awaiting him.

Breathless from his scurrying from the cab, and the tug of his straining, tired muscles from pulling open the heavy door. He proceeds forwards. Through the swathing path that cut through the bulking, heavy machinery, now, it was silent. When it should have been roaring. That settles a certain something in him, something stirs, becoming uneasy. It was just before five at night, they weren’t scheduled to stop yet. And he saw no signs of any machine being damaged from an explosion. The place was as spotless as usual. He slows, coming to a stop. Realising. He shut his eyes, and cursed under his breath. Especially when he heard feet shuffle behind him. The clang of the door behind him, makes him turn, and he sees two, scruffy, brawny men stood behind him. Smirking as if they knew their pockets were soon to be lined. They didn’t advance on him though. They stayed stood in front of the door, guarding it. Shielding him from an easy escape. He turns back around, seeing more strangers now opened the door to his private office, and two men now flanked the door, but Thomas can make out another one, sat down, comfortably. At his desk.

His fists, and his jaw, clenched. He narrowed his eyes into the room ahead. Prepared to face this monstrosity, if this was how it would come to a nasty head… then maybe this way, he could sever it, and he and Vianne would be left alone, for good.

“He who hides behind numerous faces to cause his harm, must be the worst sort of coward. St. Clair.” Thomas calls into the office before him. As he stalks slowly, coming to the door, he glares coldly at the two men stood there, until they both part, backing away, allowing him to enter his own office.

And when he does, he is startled to see that he wasn’t addressing Henry St. Clair, as he’d thought. But instead, he was instead talking to a man he’d never seen before. And he certainly didn’t look threatening, but his behaviour, and company, suggested otherwise. He looked like a stout, genteel old lawyer. Gleaming gold spectacles, a balding head, and a figure that wasn’t deprived of culinary extravagance. His rows of flabby chins disappeared behind his stiff collar, becoming one with his neck, the flabbiness well hidden behind a neat tie. His face was podgy, and his belly was rotundas, barely contained by a stiff, proper waistcoat and fine coated dress. A man of money, and wealthy, judging by the cut of his clothes, and the width of his waistline. In any other space, Thomas thought, the man would look no more threatening than that of a fluffy teddy-bear. But in here, sat at his desk, his flabby, thick-as-sausages fingers enclosed around his private possession, the silver photo frame, made Thomas realise the coldness of his grey, dead eyes behind his spectacles. Almost unseeing, unfeeling. Cold, and devoid of any feeling. Those eyes made Thomas think briefly, fleetingly, of Lucille’s. Calculative, sharp and piercing. Because maybe this man, wasn’t scary, maybe he did have to outsource thugs to carry out violence in his stead. But there was a manipulative, and deviously cunning breed of hatred in his eyes that made Thomas’s blood turn to ice. This man was not threatening, but he was, most certainly, not, to be perceived as stupid, or unintelligent.

“Do you know, it’s funny, I expected you to look more monstrous. As it is, Mr. Sharpe, my first, overall impression is one of…deflation on my part. I expected a monster. A cad, a scoundrel. You look like none of those things. You look like a feeble villain conjured from a female mind, living in the pages of some drippy, bodice-ripping, novelette. I expected the man who committed such atrocities as the ones I know you have, to be….” He paused to sigh. “Just. Well…..more.” The stranger explained. Slamming down a thick folder atop Thomas’s desk. Seeing the man didn’t even flinch at the movement. He relaxed back in the man’s study chair, hearing it creak and crack under his new weight, the shift of his position. He folded his arms to rest on his gigantic belly, his thumbs twiddling as he relaxed back in the office that wasn’t his.

Thomas walked closer, though his brain was shouting at him not too, and on the desk, he sees that the thick paperwork, was in fact a paper folder, emblazoned with his name. Written in indifferent typewriter font. Sharpe, comma, Thomas. Ex-Husband. He smiled, wryly, lifting the cover and seeing a black and white photograph of a sight he never thought he’d lay eyes on again. All the more intimidated by the fact that someone had been keeping a sick form of highly detailed surveillance on him. He let the folder shut, lifting his hand away, and smirking at the man opposite. It was both amazing and anti-climactic to see a folder, containing, and listing all the paper minutia of his life, bound together. It was flimsy, and unbelievable, in an odd sort of way.

“You’re very well acquainted with me. Sir. But I am afraid I don’t return the happy favour…” Thomas spoke snidely. His humour made the man chuckle, and those grey eyes, gleam coldly behind the pane of glass that separated them from the world.

“I’m very intimately acquainted with one of your, cherished, confrère’s, Shall we say…” He explained, reaching to his side, and slapping down another set of photograph’s. Thomas baulked at their contents, though he didn’t show it. They all contained images, black, white and grainy, of him, and Vianne. And they were not pictures of delicate content. There was one, dark, but recognisable, them at the opera house, entwined, to make Henry jealous. Both their hands roaming one another’s bodies. The second one, was a snapshot of later that night, of them embracing on the street. When they’d donned their coats to leave, Thomas had tucked her lithe form into his coat with him, enclosing his arms, and his jacket about them as they kissed. The third, was a lurid shot, through Vianne’s bedroom window, it showed the pair of them, consummating, their reunion, after the Opera that night. The first time in two years that they’d had lustful contact with one another, naked, pleasured and writhing together in ecstasy in her bed. The shot had clearly been taken from far away, but he could make out the form of her, below him as he loved her. He could see the wide flare of his broad back and shoulders, and her curves, spread under him. He tried not to shake with rage, and disgust.

“Vianne.” He whispers harshly. Looking at the pictures. Before his raging eyes snapped back up to the slithering, wretched stranger opposite.

“I’m her Uncle. Hector Wakeman. Pleasure to meet you. At last, Mr. Sharpe. I can’t say I’m pleased. To finally meet the absent bastard who, in her ill judgement, my niece decides to, fuck, instead of staying true to her engaged vows.” He snaps across to Thomas. His face contorted to spit the curse word out foully.

“Oh, believe me, Sir, it’s a hell of a lot more than just, fucking.”  Thomas promises just as vulgarly as he had. His eyes were lethal, and ice in their gaze to this ‘supposed relative’ of hers he’d never heard a word of.

He laughed. He barked out a short, staccato burst of laughter that made Thomas’s body tense, wanting to plant his fist violently into the side of the man’s face.

“You believe she can love a man such as you? My, but you are both romantic, blind, naive fools if you believe that for even a second. To think, the pair of you could ever dream of having a future together? It’s laughable…” He commented, chuckling. “You trust her, though, don’t you?” He asks. Thomas makes no effort to reply to the man who was making his stomach turn.

He shook his head. Grinning. Amused by the sheer idea of them being anything more than bed-mates. “You really shouldn’t.” He adds.

“She’s lying to you. And I have a sneaky feeling you haven’t told her all about those big, preying skeletons gathering dust in your closet, either.” He remarks.

Thomas can’t speak. He is too angry. Too livid. If he opens his mouth, he wonders what would happen to him.

“Me and Vianne have no secrets.” He tries to insist in the calmest voice he can muster.

“Yes you do.” Wakeman replies, annoyed, at the idiot opposite him trying to put up a façade of a healthy relationship between he, and his niece.

“Why do you think she left you Thomas? How do you think she managed it so easily? I helped her arrange, everything. The money, the train ticket. The divorce papers. I helped her gather, and sort out the miserable scraps of her ruined marriage match to you…. You know, for a while there, I was truly gutted. The pair of you swanning off, sneaking away to Gretna Green to say your vows. Disappearing under the very eyes of society, to so laughably, aspire to what the pair of you, so hopelessly, daned to call a marriage match. Though, I take my hat off to your tenacious sister. I really do. I thought her clever poisoning methods would truly finish Vianne off. But, no…” he sighs. “My niece was too canny, even for that. I’m surprised you sanctioned such a thing. Really, I am.That’s the mark of a truly, cold, man. Even for me to say so….“ He remarks.

"Don’t you dare degrade me and align your actionswith mine.” Thomas sneered.

Wakeman continued, unfazed.“Even your cold hearted, killerof a sister couldn’t cause her noticeable harm. I really curse my niece for that sometimes, you know. Her penchant, for being so affable, charming, caring. She’s such a skilled nurse. It really is a bother. She wrote to me she could taste the strychnine Lucille snuck into her food. Shame. Mores the pity, after that, Vianne really tricked her into letting her guard down. I think, actually, your twin developed a keen tendre for her. Her thoughts of harm, instead turned to ones of kinship. Exactly what I didn’t bloody need.But then again…” He tuts “Women. We can expect no more of them than the usual fickleness of their sex.” He scoffs in disappointment. Thomas remained silent.

“But… I digress. I am being a trifle, unfair, I have to say, I must thank you. Were it not for yours and Lucille’s disgusting, dark love for each other, it never would have driven her back to London, and back to me… Oh, how she ran to escape from you, Sharpe. So scared, so feeble.” He mutters.

“Stop it.” Thomas growls in a reedy voice. The man’s obnoxiousness making his head spin.

“Stop what? Telling you what kind of man you are?” Hector chortles.

“I’m not that man anymore.” Thomas insists.

“What, the kind who fucks his sister, or the kind who can’t even keep a wife for a year?” He asks cruelly.

“SHUT IT!” Thomas snaps loudly. Wakeman looks at Thomas coldly. Coolly surveying his outburst of anger. And then he calmly sneers. “Sore spot?” He coos nastily.

Thomas would have leapt over the desk and slit his throat right there and then, were he not hopelessly outnumbered and unarmed.

“I’ll tell you why I don’t want to do that. It’s because that man, that sick, incestuous, bastard, is standing in front of me now. But he’s so eaten up by his secrets, all he can do is blindly give me some claptrap about how he and her are so in love. They don’t know what love is. And they certainly won’t hold such a feeling when they finally learn the others darkest secret.” He explains calmly. He looks outside the door to see the two stood, and he nods at them. Summoning them in.

“Why did you call me here? Merely to insult me?” Thomas asks in a thunderous voice. Wary of the two thugs behind him now moving into the room, his back was too them. But he could hear them. The whine of the doors, the rustle of their clothes, the clunking tread of their heavy boots underfoot.

“No. The purpose for your invitation here was twofold…” Hector explained as if he had grown bored, he reached across, idly rifling through Thomas’s desk drawers. The man was a vermin, Thomas had decided.

“First…” Wakeman began, looking blandly up to the men stood behind him. By the time Thomas turns to look, it was too late. One had seized his arm, hoisting his shoulder up, holding him in place. The next minute, he felt a searing pain slash across his right thigh. He cries out, slipping to his knees, the pain doubling, screaming like fire through his veins as his hands clutched round his upper thigh. When he looks down, shuddering, he can see a large, fairly deep slash marring through his black breeches, oozing ruby-black blood down his thigh, as he clutches he can see  the crimson of his blood staining his hands, dribbling fast down his leg. He hissed and cursed through the pain. He hated blood. The smell of it, the feel, the taste, all of it repulses him. He mumbles something under his breath. “Right handed…” He gasped. Wakeman ignored him, but eyed him shrewdly.

“Second…” Wakeman continues on. Barely having batted an eyelid. Not even changing a shade at the fact that he had just mortally wounded a man, two paces across from him. He was still flipping through Thomas’s work documents with a fascination that was morbid in its serenity. It was then that Thomas noticed something. Something that Wakeman did, as he had picked up Thomas’s own ink pen, and that sent his heart pumping full of rage, as he tried to ignore the pain coursing through his body. With every beat of his heart, there came more agony.

“The reason, I am so, unforgiving, of your recent presence in Vianne’s life. Is that you drove away the man I had been trying to set her to marry, for almost a year and a half. They’d only been engaged for a mere month when you swanned back into her life. I needed her, to marry St. Clair, before you could seize hold of what was rightfully yours by marriage. Luckily, my existence, Vianne had kept a secret from you and your murdering sister, probably for fear of my safety, the dear sweet idiot, she is. I couldn’t risk it being lost to me a second time…”

“It?” Thomas panted. “What it?” He grit out.

“Money.” Hector explained. “Lots, and lots of money. She’s an heiress, after all. She didn’t tell you just how rich she was, did she? No. She’d rather give her money to grubby little orphanages, like St.- cursed bloody - Anthony’s, and fritter it away donating to hospitals,  Nun’s orders, and homes devoted to helping the poor.” He spewed with disdain.

Thomas was speechless. He grunted through the pain of the cut, feeling panic start to flood his veins. But he fought not to let it. He thought what Vianne would say, Panic can kill you faster. Remain calm, retain rationality, and try and stem the danger, if at all possible… It was as if he could hear her voice so distinctly, as if she was there, cooing her soft voice into his ear from those rosebud coloured lips. Her breath tickling his ear. He could hear it all so clearly.

“How does her, marrying that…” He hissed in pain. Sucking in breath harshly. “Bastard, St. Clair get, you, her fortune?” Thomas asks.

 “It’s a confidential family matter.” Wakeman defended. “Besides which. He’s my godson. And thus far, he has made an utter pigs ear of trying to get her back, on good terms.” He growled, upset.

“Vianne’s too clever for a… “ Once again, he panted. “abusive, thug, like him. He’s so self-absorbed in his own arrogance, I’m surprised he had it in him to notice another person enough to be engaged to them, when he’s so busy bedding other women and crowing about how fantastic-a doctor he is…” Thomas seethed. Wakeman looked behind Thomas’s head once more. Sharpe braced himself for the sting of whatever would happen to him next. He almost bit his tongue when a booted foot is brought down sharply on his wounded thigh from behind. He screamed aloud. Puffing breath, fighting the blackness of pain that threatened to cut him off from this reality entirely. He grit his teeth, soldiering on, though he wanted to sob and scream. He wouldn’t give this sick bastard the satisfaction. He winced, and he met Hector’s eyes again.

Wakeman watched him, threatening to slump on to the floor. But he straightens his back, and through panting, remains upright, glaring at him. Sweating, bruised, and battered. But defiant. He hated that.

“You didn’t cut too deep? Now did you, Phil?” We’ve been burned by that before. Have we not?”  Wakeman asks, Pointing a glare at the left of Thomas’s shoulder.

“…In order for the plan to work. We need him alive…. Which he won’t be if you’d have cut his femoral artery any deeper. You damned, bloody fool. Now find the man a tourniquet, and let’s move it out of this… dank place. Shall we?” Wakeman ordered civilly.

“You lay one filthy hand on her, Wakeman, and I will rip your spine out through your teeth, I give you my word on that, you foul bastard…” Thomas seethes. Wakeman merely smirks.

“Pathetic…” He sneers down at the man as he comes to a stand, barely looming over him. When he stood, Thomas could see the true extent of the man before him. He was fat, short, and a poor picture of a man to be scared by. He could see that now. “Truly pathetic…” He grimaced.

“You think that it would be any strain on my behalf to have you killed? It’d be like swatting away a flea.”  Wakeman growled. “Just wait til your hear this. Me and Henry drew straws. I get to summon you, and he is in charge of bringing Vianne to our agreed, little meeting place. He’s waiting for her as we speak. Best not to imagine what he’ll do to her when he gets her alone…. It’s unsavoury though, I bet. Usually is with him. He does so enjoy, violently, exerting his dominance over women. They are such darling, weak little things when it comes down to it…” He explained pettily.

“Not. Vianne.” Thomas pledged simply. Because she was strong. She was a survivor through and through. For hell’s sake, she’d survived Allerdale Hall, and the wrath of Lucille Sharpe. And not with violence, or intimidation. But with geniality. She really had killed her enemy with kindness, she could survive the tenacity of his formidable relative, she could surely survive the scrutiny, and betrayal of her own. He had to believe that. He had too. It was, his only hope. Otherwise he’d perish from the worry, right here on his office floor…

Even though he wanted to wring the man’s neck ten times over for knowing that he’d sent St. Clair to prey on her, to lie in wait, as they spoke. It made his heart twist, and turn, and his stomach churn with icy dread. If he could have had his way, he’d run the miles away to Great Russell street, even with a cut leg, to go and save her from harm. St. Clair was a vicious bastard, and he would harm her. That much he believed.

“”Do you know all I’ve had to do to get my hands on that money? It was bad enough thinking that you and your rotten sister had got your grubby hands all over it. So when I learnt she was leaving you, and returning home. It was like a second coming. I had my chance, at last, at the money I’ve been denied all my life. Do you know how much is safely in that trust fund that I can’t touch? Almost half a million. And my stupid, oaf, of a brother, Artmeis. Left it all to her, in his will, Wasted on his snivelling, little red-headed brat. They left her in my care, too. All I had to do, was raise her, without issue, and wed her to an amenable man. Then, in her marriage, that money could, finally, be mine. I thought Henry was so right for her. He’s, arrogant and, his gambling debts I believe you saw the nasty end of, and I knew his temper ran hot, but I thought he could make a decent job of it. But, unsurprisingly, he too failed me. And now… you.  You, are my most recent annoyance.”  He clarified.

“I’m glad to have been an inconvenience.” Thomas spat. For which he received a solid kick to the ribs. Winding him in an instant. As if someone snuck in and stole the very breath from his body.

“Better you had stayed in Cumbria, with your lover. Than get involved with me, Henry, and Vianne.” He seethed. “What’s more. I’ll let you in on my dirty little secret, one more for you to carry, can’t hurt.”  He told. Leaning down now, He stayed close to Thomas’s ear, and began to whisper.

“The way I finally get my hands on that money? I slit her worthless throat, and when you are framed for the crime. I get, her money, that she’ll leave me in the will I’m going to have drawn up.” He explained. “She dies, tonight. At my hand, Sharpe. And you’ll rot in prison for it.”

Thomas lunged for him. Despite the pain in his leg. He kicked, he thrashed, he wanted to scream his lungs right out. But he is restrained, on his knees. And a pinching tourniquet is tied around his wounded thigh.

“You’re a rotten, worthless, reprobate.” Wakeman snarled.

“The feeling’s utterly mutual.” Thomas rumbled back. “I may have a dark past, yes. I’ve never admitted I hadn’t. And I’m ashamed. I’m so ashamed, it kills me, It kills me thinking of every single minute I didn’t love that woman properly, like she deserved. I thought I was a monster, but you… you. steal the biscuit...” Thomas shook his head in disbelief.

“To raise your brothers child you so clearly hated, just so, years later, you could get her fortune after….” He felt sick even thinking the word ‘kill.’ “…Rearing your own niece, like…like-like a prized lamb for slaughter. That sweet, wonderful girl, whose only ever helped, cared and nourished people. How fucking could you?” Thomas spits. Tears clouding his eyes. He tried to squirm again, but he is held tight. Braced back by strong arms behind him.

Wakeman shrugged. Thomas knew in that moment the man was a pure, sociopath.

“Boo-hoo. I’m a bad man. Congratulations on working it out. Now. We really had best be leaving. Or we’ll miss our dear, dear Vianne. And the remaining hours of her life, she has left. Now, before we get to opening the champagne to her unfortunate demise, may I ask… DO you know her dirty secret?” He enquires.

Thomas glares. Wakeman chuckles.

“I’ll let her explain, then. Oh, it’s so damn obvious, when you think about it. However, of course, It’s a good one, you’ll be floored. You really will.”  He predicted. “I can’t stand the grubby little things. But I’m sure we have our differences towards them..” He told. Thomas doesn’t ask anything more.

“One thing…” Thomas speaks up.

Wakeman seems irritated by his interjection. He turns and exhales angrily, glaring down at Thomas.

“You’re an obvious, despicable, showman. And you’ve overplayed your hand saying that it was, entirely Henry, who messed up with Rose. You’d happily lead me and Vianne to believe that it was St. Clair who’d killed her last night…. But it wasn’t, was it, Wakeman?”

The first hints of something, akin, to panic crossed those bland, grey eyes. And his mouth twitched in nervous anger. His brow started to prickle with sweat and panic. Thomas gestured with a nod of his chin to his desk.

“Couldn’t help but notice… You hold the pen with your left hand.” Thomas snarled. “I won’t be rotting anywhere if the police seize such information…” He threatens. Fighting back.

It was Wakeman who attacked first, one shuddering blow to the side of his head, and Thomas can feel the dripping, warm substance that could have only been blood, dripping down the side of his face. The next ones leaves his lungs empty, his face ringing, and one name on his lips before blackness takes him.

“Vianne.”

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