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pranabefall · 13 days ago

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ノㅤTHE DEVIL'S ANESTHETIC ;; blade.

syn. [ 22.2K ] you were just a doctor, at the start of it all. then came the chaos, the knife, the bits and pieces of madness and coming horror. and in the center of it all, stood him ( a gentle cruelty ).

CONTENT WARNINGS. slight yandere + dark content ahead. reader is south asian coded, blade is a little fucked up and inevitably fucks the reader up a little too. murder, corruption arcs i suppose, medical terminologies i only half know spare me i'm studying in aslp not pediatrics, breaking of medical ethics, the reader is a wet cat and is absolutely pathetic, gang violence, death, kafka being a manipulative milf, angst, acts of murder and mentioned dismemberment, suicidal ideation, SMUT ISTG SMUT, dub-con, non consensual kissing, hatefucking, blade having violent thoughts bc mara, seriously the reader is not daijobu, blade getting off on being killed.

ENTRIES. HAPPY HALLOWEEN! this work has been marked mature for containing smut & dead dove content. readers below the age of 18 / ageless blogs and antis, do not interact. PLEASE READ THE WARNINGS BEFORE PROCEEDING. ( this is my THIRD fucking repost because tumblr KeePS EATING MY TAGS )

playlist ノ author's notes ノ masterlist.

"you can hold yourself back from the sufferings of the world, that is something you are free to do and it accords with your nature, but perhaps this very holding back is the one suffering you could avoid."

— FRANZ KAFKA.

I. NEWLY DECEASED

“We have another one.” The receptionist echoes out from the front desk.

Another one. The words still the twitch in your muscles, the incessant cleaning and arranging and scrubbing away blood from medical chairs and forceps that should not be here. There are thoughts in your head. They’re dangerous ones, lingering in places that are grimy and soaked in something tarred. They should not be there.

Another one and that’s enough to coat your stomach with ugly, stifling coldness. You don’t reply, keep your eyes down and let the man walk in.

There were never any faces to your clients. They had hands, ringed, tattooed, scarred. Some had suits. Some stank of iron. And they all had guns, or bats, or rusty crowbars and attitudes that were knife edged and brutally coarse. This one is much like the rest. He tells you he was shot in the waist and his voice is static and white noise and discord leaking out of your ears in droves till —

“— will you get moving?! It fucking hurts.”

“Yes.” you choke out. “Yes of course.”

It comes easily to you now, after months of repeating it over and over with varying degrees of perfection and prompt. Find the shrapnel, pull it free, clean the wound, suture it. Find the shrapnel, pull it free, clean the wound, suture it. Find the shrapnel, pull it free, clean the wound, suture it. Find the —

( Your thoughts unravel and they’re a mess in your hands like several bits of coloured petals. The scent has washed away. They almost seem to wither, bit by aching bit. )

You step away. “Done.” you tell the suited man and ask for no payments. Your receptionist does not either when he strides outside and it’s smart because patience was a whim when you reeked of viscera. That brazen naivete was drilled out of her a long time ago ( and you too ) and the rules were set forth, rules that must never be broken. You’d seen too many zipped up body bags scattered in the gutters to dare to. You do not want to be one of them.

( Coward, that spiteful half of you snarls and you know it’s right. )

Only he does reach in and throw some loose notes against the counter. You shuffle up to her, nails crusted with brown and red and count fifty kaas. It’s peanuts. It will do.

You were a doctor.

Or at least you’re certain you were. You’d spent the better part of your decade rooted within a small university where standard IPC dialect was taught as a secondary language and the fans hadn’t been replaced for the last thirty years. It was torture during the summer and the hospital adjacent had patients who spoke in tongues you didn’t quite understand. But you manage. You tried, you graduated.

You were a doctor. Your license reads you specialised in paediatrics. Children were all you needed to deal with, some too loud to listen to their parents' chides for silence. Some so young they were small enough to fit in your desk drawer. Some of them liked to talk too and ask questions during checkups and vaccine appointments ( nerves, you reason and you answer the questions ). It wasn’t much. It was peaceful. It was alright. This is your clinic, something you'd built from sleepless nights and mountains of referral literature.

Then you’d see less children and more of those suited men as the streets grow with a cacophony you can’t call safe after this. The carpet was worn down by blood and heavy footfalls, over the thread work and your mother’s faded name in the bottom.

You weren’t treating children anymore.

Still, you hold it together. This is yours, all of this. This is yours and it's a feeling locked away in your beating heart.

When the man returns — and you know it’s him because the birth mark on his hands were hauntingly similar — he brings company. The company in itself would have seemed unassuming, and they were, lingering by the doors speaking in words too fast to comprehend till the gunfire rang out and the windows shattered.

A part of you is thankful that it’s so late, where the streets are silent and the bustle is calm. The files you were rearranging fall to the floor. You duck beneath your desk and stay there, enclosed within tumult, within chaos, within something you wanted no part of ( and you grip your hands tight, quietly wondering if that persistent cat would be fed, if your father would care to know what happened to you ).

You hear glass break, fall, fall and hit the floor with a sadistic sort of tinkling.

You hear frantic footsteps thundering up by the door.

You hear the screaming.

( You hear your heartbeat. You want it to stop. )

Something crashes into the storeroom. It was large, heavy, clothed and it let out a strangled cry before iron clogs up your nose and heat and cold fizzles up and hammers into every crevice and pore and turns your chest inside out. The man tries to shift, to get up and out of the way, shoulders knocking against the shelves in panic that feels painfully palpable. He’s crying. You see that when you bundle into a corner, eyes burning.

His body jerks and is dragged to the door.

“Don’t,” he begs till the desperation chokes his reasoning and it meters into panicked threats. “You’ll be torn apart by this, I swear, you’ll be hunted down — ”

He’s pulled at again, his limp form slipping out of sight. You hear a sick sound — a squelch, the dripping of blood and viscera and the gamey crack of bones. Your teeth dig into your cold fingers. The stinging is numbed, dim and distant, while you press against the wall and try not to wail.

There is only a single set of footsteps now. It paces like a starved animal, like a caged beast. Leave, your thoughts scramble and correct themselves. Just leave. And it repeats, over and over like a maddening chant. Please leave, leave, leave. The footsteps stop at the door followed by a slow scrape against marble. A shadow falls over the doorway. That’s when you see him.

You think he could have been pretty. But there's terror beneath that veil of frozen numbness. You don’t think he’s pretty now, when he’s stalking into the room, bloodied sword in hand ( it’s mired and cracked and mended like kintsugi but twisted and terrible ). He walks like a man who’d been broken and sewn together and he reeks of death and a sickening sweetness.

His gaze meets yours for that fleeting moment.

( it felt like that throbbing helplessness. Of everything going wrong. )

One of the suited men had not died. Not yet, in some inane act of stubbornness. He’s tackled down immediately and you flinch back and finally scream, watching the writhing pile of bodies smack each other down with ease. The swordsman ends it. There’s a chilling disparity in strength with how his bare hands tear into flesh and rips his opponent’s arm off. He’s laughing, laughing like a madman and the insane hysteria sparks a primal instinct nestled in your mind.

You’re moving before you realise it, when you spot his fingers twitch for his fallen sword. Your hands close around metal. You’re surging forward, taut at the edges. That part of you screams into the void, stripping away morality, reason, the simpler parts of shame that could have stopped you then and there.

When your fractured mind pieces together and lets the spinning room rest into clinical stillness, you’re aware of the hysterical laughter that man trembles into. He slumps against your legs, weighted, boneless. He’s still laughing, like the world had whispered a funny joke into his ear and left him to rot.

The dislodged pole slips out of your hands. You watch him crumple down onto the floor, staining the tiles. A swing, a hit to the back of his head, a break to the vertebral artery, a medullary haemorrhage, a stroke, neuron death —

You spend the next hour tucked away in that storeroom, watching the man’s body convulse, then his breathing still and his body run cold.

II. DISTENSION

Once upon a time, you told yourself that you could get by. You could get by and let yourself think you were a good person despite the ugly cracks tucked away and the bated disappointment breathing down your neck. It’s the human experience, a conditioned way of convincing yourself, a way you wish to live in the quieter corners of you.

It’s a lie. A lie. A lie.

The body does not move, as dead bodies usually do. As a frame of reference, dead bodies don’t do much to begin with. You stand back up and feel nausea coat the back of your throat, then wordlessly stumble to the man. Your fingers press against his pulse. Nothing.

A part of you wants to laugh at yourself for hoping.

The police take it all away. They don’t know what you did. Or maybe they do and care so little they swat that detail aside. Death is so natural here, so common and where is the sympathy for the damned when the damned were everywhere and your kindness wears thin?

( You’re left to pick up the pieces. The cracked photo frames, the toys and magazines salvaged, the bowl of tamarind candy tipped over. Bits and pieces gathered together and sewn back together. There was a heart in these walls. The pain was always there, but a dogged part of you loves this place. )

You answer what questions were asked and let them walk away, knowing they’ll do nothing about the situation to begin with. They never do. Most policemen were tucked up in the pockets and played dogs to gang members. Some lost themselves to apathy. Money could buy loyalty in droves. It was an open secret.

You get back home and let the hot water run into your bucket. You feed the visiting cat. You wipe the counters down and unearth some food from the previous night. You turn the water off. You bathe. You eat.

( “I’m fine.” you lie to Aleena when she calls you, frantic, scared. More frantic and scared than you present yourself to be. You don't tell her you’re a murderer.

“I don’t think you should go back tomorrow. I’m not saying this to get off of work or anything but after all that?” she falls silent.

“Maybe. But I need to keep the income coming in somehow.” )

Walking into the bedroom feels harder than it should. Lead bleeds into muscle as you patter along and try to keep yourself steady against the walls. For a moment, you stop and lean your forehead against it and tell yourself not to cry ( because cowards cry, and idiots cry and it was a pointless endeavour anyway because nothing — nothing about this would change ). Your degree falls into your line of sight, framed up against the wall.

You are a doctor. You are a doctor. You are a doctor.

That guilt knocks you in the knees. The guilt, the disgusted guilt that comes from killing a man.

( It’s engulfing, like tar and cloth pressed up against your face. The breathlessness, the storm rattling against the window, the messiness of it all. You’re screaming at the pillow. You’re clawing at it. You swipe till your arm bleeds and the cacophony dies down. )

The veneer shatters and the frame is clenched and thrown to the floor. The casing cracks. You heave, look at the mess at your feet and think to yourself :

What were those eight years for?

You killed a man.

A gasp tears through. It's painful, heavy and it's glass and shrapnel. The voice in your head whispers. Nothing. It's all for nothing.

Another one crackles through the muffled distortion, straining and rattling. A clear “I told you so.” grating past the chaos, disappointed, smug, knowing.

You shut your eyes and dream of jasmine and marigolds.

( You listened to Aleena when you passed the register and took a day off in the end. It’s the one kindness you let yourself have.

You did not eat for most of the day. Your gut gnaws. Your limbs feel weak. But food, as delicious as the thought seemed, invoked a visceral response. Of corpses and blood and things that you thought yourself too far removed to disgust you. A caved in skull did all this. A caved in skull made you retch and empty your stomach out into the toilet.

You think you deserve it. )

Your watchman stops you when you head back out again a few days later for a grocery run. "Are you alright?" he asks, peering through sleep. The cat curls round his legs and he gives it a gentle pat. You can hear the content purr it lets out from where you stand, and you venture a little closer.

"A little." you reply, smiling a little. The watchman tilts his head in consideration. You'd lost count of how long he's been here. Some of the older tenants mention he'd settled in over a decade ago, when the building still had four floors instead of five and a little more space to park out back.

"You still seem scared is all." he glances over at you again. It's the worry in his furrowed brow that makes you give pause. He reminded you of your grandfather then, strong jawed, stern eyed before that softness pervades through when he'd let you scoot over next to him to sneak a look at the newspaper ( cricket scores and stock prices were all he looked at. And the Sudoku ) .

You shift in place, tugging at the hem of your jacket. "It was a little jarring. The sudden attack, that is." you admit. You don't tell him about the death, the way deceitful monsters do.

The watchman shakes his head. "Horrible thing to go through, I agree. Especially for one as young as you." The cat slinks pat his legs and under the bed. he leans forward, tire heaving at his bones and his joints. A decade. One would assume he'd retire at this point given his age. "Try not to let it wear down on you, is all."

"It's easier said then done." You mumble.

"It is." the watchman snorts. "I told my daughter about you though. She's taking medicine too…Oncology. I scraped together every Kaas I had to pay her tuition fee off." he flexes his arthritic hands. You keep listening, that sliver of curiosity winning out. "She hasn't met you…but she knows about your clinic. the children your helping…suited men aside. It gives her a bit of spark at least. So you keep going too."

You feel gutted, eyes stinging a bit. He puts too much faith in you, you realise. But there is a small touch of warmth against the rattling cold. "Thanks…" you nod. The watchman leans back.

Keep going. What a mess, really.

You return to your clinic, the day after. You decide it's the last time you'd let reckless hope bar the instinctive tearing in your gut.

There is a woman sitting on the waiting room chairs with a dangerous smile. She’s dressed well, like those elegant omen-bringers or dapper businessmen. She’s dressed like the coming consequences and it’s there, that sadistic delight, hidden behind that lazy tilt to her head.

“Good morning.” she greets, like she hadn't broken into your clinic. “Hope we’re not intruding.”

You look to her companion next to her.

The dead man ( and he was dead. He was supposed to be — you were certain ) stares right back.

“Do you have anything to drink?”

“There’s a coffee machine…”

“Hm, never mind. I was never too fond of the instant stuff. What do you think Bladie?”

'The man named ‘Bladie’ does not respond. You’d have laughed a little — if your nerves weren't frayed. You’d have laughed over a silly, inconsequential nickname slapped onto some scary looking man, then gone on your way. But the scary looking man was a murderer. And you were certain, so certain, that he was dead.

( His blood coated your hands days ago. You can’t have imagined it — not something so innately ingrained within your psyche like some sadistic firebrand.

How is he alive? How is he alive?! Why is he — )

“I could pick up some tea.” you suggest, because playing meek was the way of a coward and you were that in the end. You still had to open your clinic in another half hour. There are still parts of the storeroom that need cleaning and a window that needs replacing. The woman laughs. She looks at you like you were an adorable specimen. A pet…or perhaps a bug to be stepped on.

( It’s a cruel sort of beauty that edges her face. You’d hate to admit you were staring a little longer than you should be. )

“There’s no need for that.” she looks to the side for a moment. “Bladie was here a few days ago, you know.” you flinch, perhaps knowing the ugly scene to follow. “Got into a bit of a tussle. Of course, I wasn’t worried…he’s got a knack for seeing things through, you know…” She’s staring straight at you now. “And he’s good at not dying, one could say.”

“That’s nice.” you mumble, shifting uncomfortably. Your cheeks are cold. Don’t look at me, you try to tell the should-have-been-dead swordsman. Like that would have worked ( he keeps staring ).

The woman continues. “It's funny though. After that affair at your clinic, I had to pick Blade up at some hospital’s morgue of all places. Quite the detour if you ask me.”

You still.

She knows.

Fuck. She knows.

“I…I see.” you play into stupidity, wring your hands a bit and force a far away smile. “I wonder how that happened.”

“Yes.” she nods, solemnly flicking dust off of her velvet coat. The playful lilt to her tone is back, delicately poking and prodding away and you feel the walls close in bit by bit. You can see the man tilt his head. You want to disappear. “I’d think you know though…so how about you tell us?”

You don’t look at her. You can’t, with that horror filtering through and spotting your vision.

“Now….listen to me.” she stands, saunters up to you and you stay rooted. Your mind fogs over with cotton wool and the aftertaste of wine blooms through your mouth. There is consideration there, her pointedly dragging her eyes across your figure and taking a sick pleasure in the fear that trembles at your fingertips. A tiny part of you that still remains too torturously aware recoils. “Were you the one who killed Bladie?”

“Yes.” you reply and it isn’t you. You wouldn’t have said that. You wouldn’t have.

Her lips curl. “How did you kill him?”

“I hit him on the back of his neck.”

Her face glows. “Good girl.” she pats your cheek. “We have a favour to ask you. How about you hear us out?”

She gives your shoulders a squeeze and you’re gasping for air. “That wasn’t so hard.” she grins. The cotton wool strangles and is caught at the edges, whisping, grasping, stubbornly trying to stay. You still pull at it incessantly while you back away from her touch. It burns. What did she do to you? What did she fucking do to you —

You’re pulled closer. It’s just a tug, a simple coil of her fingers round your arm. “I’m sorry.” you blurt out. “I’m sorry. I never meant it.” There are cracks against the surface, a spiderweb and it keeps going and going and going the more you talk ( you need to shut up ).

“There there.” She coos. “How about we sit down, hm? Bladie, think you could make some space?”

You don’t want to sit down with them. You try to pull back, to run because that’s what you should have done in the first place; instead of entertaining a pair of strangers with that stupid, naive hope of safety. She pulls back. Bladie catches your wrist when you try to squirm free and you’re half dragged onto the seat between them. “Honestly. A drink would have been nice. Oh don’t worry. I could hardly blame you for that.”

The woman fixes her sleeve. “I take it you don’t know who we are?”

“No.” you admit.

“Ah. the IPC influence here isn't as deep, huh? I heard there was an overhaul a few decades ago. The revolt drove most of them out…I wouldn’t count on it staying that way.” She passes you a measured flash of her teeth. It’s all good manners and etiquette you can’t return. “But we’re not here to talk politics. I’d like you to babysit Blade for a while.”

Blade seems to be expecting it. He does not mirror your dismayed shock.

“Why — ”

“Can’t say. It’s all a part of some very important work.” She holds a finger to her lips. “Would you be a lamb and do it?”

You grip at the metal armrests hard. The room is a blurred scape, a watered down stain ( ink tracked against damp paper ). “I won’t.”

“Come now. After that stunt you pulled with him, it’s the least you could do.”

It settles hard. “I told you I didn’t mean it.” you snap. “I didn’t mean to kill him. I didn’t mean to kill you.” Your unravelling seeps into something dangerous. You try to step back. To keep it together. It tangles, knots, frays and snaps and tangles again and the foundations crumble. You cannot think despite the clarity slowly creeping and the fog metering out. You cannot think because the man you killed is alive and right next to you and dead men don’t just come back to life.

The woman forces you to turn her way. “You didn't mean it?” she repeats, inquisitive, amused. “Doctor please, any normal person would have gone for the head. You made a very calculated move there…and I'm sure that pretty little brain of yours knows the consequences that come with it.”

It’s a coveted part of you that dies there, withering, burning, clipped away and cast aside and you shake your head as you’re retrained. “Don’t touch me!” you scream. “Don’t touch me!”

Because humanity despises the naked truths in the world. They’ll deny, deny, deny what stares them in the face for those fleeting, selfish little comforts skewed in ignorance. Better the downy coverlet to the thin blanket, better the sweeter lie that bitter sincerity. You’re no different. Not really. You’re not different at all.

And that woman was not a liar.

III. RUPTURE

Aleena doesn’t take well to a strange man lurking within the backrooms. Her eyes always flit to the doors and her shoulders stay tense as she directs a few straggling patients to the waiting room and updates their details into the salvaged computers. “I don’t like the look in his eye.” she whispers hurriedly. “Doctor. Have you seen him?”

“Yes . I have.” you reply simply. “Could you pull up the files from a month ago? We have a follow up due today.”

She hums, and you nod to the messy clattering from the keyboard. “He’s not from here, is he? His clothes aren’t local.” her voice dips. “Is he an outworlder?”

“Yes.” You flit through a case history. The ink has run a bit, the edges flicked a dirty red. Bile and acid sears the edges of your mouth. You don’t think throwing up here and now would be professional. And your receptionist has a very nice shawl on. “Have the police called?” you add, helplessly rubbing away at the browned stains.

“You know they won’t.” she clicks her tongue, wrinkling her nose to the injustice of it all. You bite back your tired humour. She might descend into an angry little ramble then curse those men in three different tongues. You were guilty of listening in ( it’s amusing, and she had plenty of anger for the two of you, and then some more for the smaller things ). “They’re too busy sipping cha at the local angadi.”

She keeps tap tapping away. “Do you want me to send a soft copy? Or will you directly look into the logs?”

You cease flipping through the files. “Just send me a PDF.” you mutter. “You still have a few cases to input from yesterday right? I won’t hold you up.” Another report is pushed your way. Two more patients, two more medical histories to pore over. The throbbing in your forehead is incessant and stubbornly clinging on.

Gang activity in your neighbourhood has stifled from its initial raucous to a cautious thrum. There were still glimpses and the ignored nods, and that delicate rope-work still standing strong despite men from their brackets dying some terrible death. They don’t suspect you. It would be stupid to ( because you could hardly hold a gun in their eyes, or fight back. Your claws are chipped and your fangs blunted. It’s not a mystery ).

It does not stop the occasional loitering goon up front as parents grow a little braver and a little more desperate to bring their sick children in.

You settle with your work email, tapping your foot against the faint buzz from the streets outside and the waiting area. There is the occasional loud call. Kids being kids, shushed by mothers and fathers with warnings of naughty ones being fed the nastiest medicines for bad behaviour. You’re not cruel enough to do so maliciously, but it quiets them down amidst the worried ogling.

A ping pulls you from sinking further into your pit of thoughts. The document pops up in your inbox and Aleena slows her typing to two finger taps. “Can I take a week off?” She pipes up, nervously picking at her fingers. “Next month, that is.”

“For the agelu?” you guess, a new sort of weariness settling. “I suppose you can.”

Aleena stifles away a relieved smile followed by a : “You're not going?” She looks a little surprised, then lets her eyes sweep across the clinic. “I mean…yeah I guess you won't, given the state things are in right now…”

You wince. Your father had sent a text in. He asks for you, in his own, distant way. Maybe he misses you. Maybe you miss him beneath the hurt and the anger. But feelings were messy, scary things and it was better to look away and stick your head into papers and books and words that could be read. “I’m not sure.” is the soft admission. “It's a little early, I think, for me to make a proper decision.”

( Going home feels like a fever dream now. You’d almost come to loathe the smell of marigold and incense smoke. )

That and you can't be certain if Kafka would pick your guest up any time soon. She never gave you a timing, or any sense of clarity and control in this mad scramble. Blade was to lurk in his little window in the backrooms with all the year-old files for as long as he should.

“Besides.” You finish with a hint of good humour. “I'll take full responsibility for any ancestral hauntings after. Maybe my great grandmother could make a nice home on my couch.”

Aleena purses her lips. It’s says enough. A little more if you squint hard.

“Okay that wasn’t very funny.” you admit.

“No. It wasn’t.” She tilts her head sympathetically, pressing the pads of her fingertips to the edge of the desk, half pushing up against hardwood and paper. “I have plenty to say…but you’re my boss and that would be unprofessional.”

You bite back that twitch to your lips. “A wise choice. Take care of yourself now…and don’t forget about the rest of the reports.”

Primal fear rear its ugly head and scrapes at the bars when you meet Blade’s gaze.

“I have two patients due in the next hour.” you manage to pull out, turning your heel immediately after. Any inch for a quick escape, really. “So don’t come out. You’ll scare them.” you add for good measure, like he’s a child himself, or a feisty dog muzzled and chained up.

( The kind of dogs who bite at anything and everything. The kind who quietly bare their teeth at cruel hands and kind. You aren’t certain of Blade’s stance here and now, if he was pleased with his arrangements — stuck in a room too small for him, with someone who clearly didn't want him here.

Because you don’t. There’s something about you and your face and the way it’s a traitor. It gives away your thoughts, your heart, the things you want to keep tucked away at the back but seep under the doors and stain the carpets. And your displeasure seeing him is on full display.

His corpse comes to mind. Still, dead, cold took the touch with the beginnings of rigour mortis settling when he was hauled over the stretcher and wheeled away. )

He says nothing back, unsurprisingly. He didn’t even bother speaking out as much when Kafka came in and dropped him off with all the unceremonious sneaking and threatening. You think he’ll carry on with his silence, letting whatever this delicate little semblance of distant amiability stay within its stagnant state. An untouched web.

You turn. Keep walking. You really don't want him here, you think miserably. The paradoxical warmth in his body now, when for a moment there was none. His gaze, unsettlingly intense. You don’t want him here at all.

Still, you turn once more. You speak. “Is there anything else you need?” be polite. Be polite.

Blade considers it. He looks at you. You fool yourself into believing the hunger simmering beneath harsh vermilion does not exist.

“No…” he finally relents. His voice is coarse, heavy, the whisper of a growl.

( You leave faster than you should have. )

He follows you home after the day is done ( you wish he didn’t ).

Blade keeps you within his line of sight — just within reach and just close enough to feel that faint prickle of body heat against the back of his neck. It’s an uncomfortable itch. It’s unwelcome. So you turn your head back to his silent figure and test your fingers against your bicep.

“Could you walk in front of me?” you ask.

Blade seems to consider it. “No.” he finally decides with finality edging every word. “You might run.”

“I don’t think you’d let me get very far to begin with.” you mutter under your breath. His footsteps are heavy, kicking aside loose concrete you avoid. Blade still stays an unwanted spectre behind you, treading in a way that is too soft to be human.

“I won’t.” he agrees, sounding sure of himself. Bored even. There is a scuffing sound, cloth against cloth. You’re tense again, anticipatory ( and yet, you don't dare to look back, to look at him ). “It saves inconvenience. That is all.”

You decide you’d like to be an inconvenient annoyance. That should drive him back to wherever he came from.

“I still don't think you should walk behind me though.” You repeat. Your fingers curl. You wish you had a taser. Your last bottle of pepper spray was spent as is on a few other thugs the past couple months. “You look like a creep. And a stalker. You might mug me.”

“I won't.”

“How do I know that?” You keep rambling, hysteria trickling down. It's a leaky tap, that anxious mess in your chest.

Blade blinks. “Kafka told me not to.” ( like it was the most obvious thing. You might be imagining the heavy condescension oozing through ).

That does not make you feel better. Kafka seems as reliable as a tsunami, or a flood, or any natural hazard creeping into its first few stages of utter destruction. It shows on your face, that muted mix of disbelief and horror. Blade's gaze is sharp, not quite the disconnected distance it held before. Kafka was suffocating as is but blade feels like rubble bearing down, down, down. You hate it.

“And it would be pointless, trying.” He continues. “Killing you would change nothing.”

You wordlessly rub at your knuckles, at the pulled skin of your hand. You do not talk to him for the rest of the walk. You should be more polite, you tell yourself. Be more polite. You killed this man, watched him die as his brain slowly collapsed in on itself. The least you could do after those fifteen and a half dumpster fires is extend some basic human decency, right? Be polite.

A scream ringing out gives you another thing to focus on. They're normal to hear, even as it wrenches open your viscera and leaves something sick on your tongue. It continues, growing increasingly hysterical, then stops.

( You almost run for the source, You want to. You do not. )

By the time you slip into the parking lot of the apartment and head for the elevator, you’re half hurrying Blade along. There’s nothing glamorous about the place — a standard five storey tall building just like the other projects lining most lower middle class neighbourhoods. The watchman was found out back, half passed out from his shift and stinking of beedi smoke, leaving the dog that frequented the neighbour's doors to rip into any intruders.

You don't think Blade is wholly impressed as he nudges at him with his foot. The watchman jolts with a huff and a startled snore, then passes out, head lolling to the side a little. The dog does not bark, simply trotting up to accept a few pats on the head. And indignant annoyance flares up. You sharply tug at the hem of his sleeve.

Blade jolts. The vermilion of his stare burns you.

"Leave him alone." you warn, giving his sleeve another tug for good measure. Blade's lips purse, his displeasure a quiet shift on his face for the most part, burying away immediately into the corners and crevices where things were never brought up again. "I hope you like cats." you add. "I have one who visits sometimes. She's a terror and a half…"

He grunts, stepping to the side as you fiddle with your keys, pulling away the string from your key chain and getting your door open. It’s a welcome ritual, feeling the cool breeze from your apartment filter in after a while. The cat is passed out on the balcony floor, cracking open a single yellow eye in greeting when you shuffle forth to take a peek.

“Hello, pretty girl.” you coo, feeling that heavy warmth in your arms and the softness of her fur against your palms. It eases you just enough to face Blade again.

Be polite, you tell yourself because you killed him, because he could snap your neck in two, because you think that the last thing you need is pissing off a pair of seeming psychos. “You won’t mind tea, right?”

Blade leans against the wall, maybe trying to make himself as small as possible within the cloistered rooms. “It’s a waste.” he replies, ignoring everything else; the hum from the streets below, the occasional flicker from the lights, the cat settling on the couch and sleeping an arm’s length away.

“Okay.” you mumble and set down two cups anyway.

You do not like Blade’s silence. His silence means he’d rather think about something and him thinking could involve certain death. There is a disturbed sheen glossing over his gaze. He does not look wholly there, the less he talks. Most conversions your parents had with guests were about the weather, then delving headfirst into some obscure gossip about a family three kilometres away.

Another fleeting glance at Blade has you reason that he’s not one for gossip.

( You let this silence settle in. It’s still a suffocating thing, an unwanted presence and an unwelcome guest. You think of the suited men and the gangs amok in the dirty corners and you think the silence looks like them. )

“So…our first meeting wasn’t…wholly ideal.” You speak up after a while, handing him his tea. Blade looks vaguely surprised when he takes it. “I don’t think ‘ideal’ would be the right word for it…”

“You killed me.”

You swallow. “Yes.” your voice shakes. “I killed you.” Your legs are drawn a little closer to you before you talk and you lower your voice, all that shame and guilt subduing the last bits of that cocktail of fear and tumult and annoyance. “I’m sorry for killing you. Even if you’re still alive…somehow…it wasn’t the best course of action, to be fair — ”

Blade’s lips twitch. He takes a sip of his tea, letting you stew there with your fumbling, your shame. It still goes unspoken. That damning ‘how are you still alive’. You don’t bother asking it. He can’t stay dead — Kafka said so herself. The very notion feels like an existential terror moulded to the shape of a man and you want it to stay far away from it.

“Four days.” he finally utters out, inspecting the last bit of tea staining the bottom of his cup. “I was dead for four days.”

Oh. Oh that stung.

“I’m sorry.” your voice cracks and your eyelids start to prickle. Stupid. Stupid stupid, you curse at yourself, claw at the offending load inside.

Blade snaps his head towards you. There is a twitch in his hands, slow, dog-like in the way strays jolt in alarm. You do not comment on it, awkwardly pressing at the surface of your cup while the tears are quickly wiped away and smudged against your cheeks. There's no use crying over it, you scold yourself. Grow a spine.

“Spare yourself the pity. It is not an uncommon occurrence.” is his uncomfortable dismissal. The words are nonchalant and his forehead crinkles to match the perplexed hitch to his shoulders. He probably wants to say more, speak more, tear you apart. Or he was just too put off by how pathetic you are.

“You’ve been killed before?”

“Yes.”

Horror stirs deep in your gut and a small sliver of morbid fascination shunting beneath the murky waters and glimmering up in those seconds of resurfacing.

( Can he not die? He’s still here after dying from a stroke. Does he regenerate? How does he do that? Do his cells simply have a faster metabolism? That means his neurons can too despite their limited replication in most normal people. Does he — )

The tear tracks are drying. Your face feels stiff.

“I was trying to protect myself.” you even talk like a guilty person ( it does not help. It’s subdued, the way you speak. Beaten down, half hearted. You wonder if you even want to protect yourself at all ). You don’t want to look at him anymore.

“I don’t blame you.” he replies. It’s soft, missable, sympathetic and you know that can’t be the case. Blade blinks slowly, setting his cup aside. “Would you do it again?” he asks solemnly. His hands twitch again, out of its usual bent stiffness. Beneath the dim lighting, the paleness of his skin is a corpse like macabre; greyish, sallow. He seems starved. “Would you kill me?”

Your lips part. Bile and acid burn your throat. You shut it again and shake your head and the desperation, you assume, is enough. No, no never again. You don’t want that nausea. You don’t want any more of the griping aches in your stomach and the incessant pound of your capillaries.

Blade straightens up and gives you a long, thoughtful look. He steps back and returns to his stony silence without a word. The air is restive, poisonous in how it melts away the peace.

You really should pray to that nameless god, to soften that blow. You really should pray because nothing good ever comes out of this. There’s that brush of scale against your foot, the shrinking courage when faced with dour vermilion. It’s wolfish; its jaws bear down. The cat cracks open an eye again, letting out an annoyed mewl.

No, never mind that.

IV. EXUDATION OF BLOOD

You should have prayed. The questionable existence of a god or not, maybe you'd have given yourself that tiny bit of assurance.

Even your ancestors would have done well enough. What would your grandmother say?

( Her old spirit's possibly disowned you, if she hasn’t already. She must have burned your seat in the afterlife and spat on the ashes. Bringing a man into your home, no matter the circumstance would have incited all the wrong reactions. )

You learn quick enough that Blade never sleeps. The third night after spent between lurking within the stuffy storage space and wedged next to old folders, you’d spotted him sitting upon the couch in the middle of the night. “What are you doing—” you croak out after the initial scream. He scrutinised you with clinical indifference, sweeping over your bare legs to your face. You tamp down the urge to pull your shirt down, cheeks burning.

“Thinking.” he says. There is no further elaboration to it. Blade turns to peer outside your window and the dead streets below. There is a faint echo of the strays barking trailing behind the occasional hum of a passing car. Your little town was far sleepier than the cities, where the traffic continues on, long past the morning calls and the reedy music from 24-hour bars.

“You scared me for a moment.” you purse your lips, picking at your hands. Blade blinks. “I mean, you're just standing there.” You try to justify it, fumbling a bit and coming across as far more slow than anything else. Blade tugs at his sleeve and smoothens over the damp spots.

“I'm not trying to kill you.” he reasons.

You dig your thumb down into the thicker skinned parts of your palm. It reeks of iron. He always reeks of iron. “Startled me, then. I thought you were asleep.”

Blade considers it. “I do not need sleep. Not more than what is necessary.”

Uneasiness filters in. Your throat bobs with it, unsure. “Everyone needs sleep.” you stumble out. Blade shifts, tracing along his nape with a purposeful look. His regeneration. Yes, his regeneration. Tissue rest and repair would be unnecessary with that, wouldn't it? Sleep, food perhaps, the little necessities taken for granted — peeling that away and pulling back the blinds to peer down that gaping hole, it's strange.

The grislier parts of his curse seemed to strip away those human needs. It likes to gnaw out any sense of humanity from his bones, in fact, scavenging away the bare ligaments and swallowing it whole.

“So…you’re just going to stay there then...” .

“Yes.”

Blade’s shoulders are set into its perpetual hunch. There’s something unfettered about him, roiling within deeper confines with a sense of wildness and entropy. You take your cautious step back and steel the nerves you have left ( there aren’t many to begin with — you still try ). It’s far from the moodiness he usually holds himself with and the cyclical introspection. “Could you be less…disturbing, then…?” you ask.

Silence. “Disturbing.” he echoes, tasting every breadth of the word on his tongue. You feel metal coming to rest in your mouth and dig into the insides of your cheeks. There’s a flicker from the apartment across and sterilised white shines upon the side of his face. He looks worn down, worse for wear. The darkened spots on his clothes are dyed red round his torso and dried blood crests across the rim of his fingernails. Red. Red on his clothes. Red on the floor. Red on your couch. Red —

“Did you leave this room?” it’s not a question. You’re not asking questions.

“No.”

You don't quite realise it, the scrambling and the frantically locked doors till the cold nip from your room settles against your skin and your shaky hand holds up your phone. It takes a moment for the buzzing numbness to fade to a tumultuous undercurrent and for you to dial down that emergency contact, seconds away from calling —

— a notification.

It's an unlisted contact, and a single message.

Unknown. I wouldn't do that if I were you.

A moment of pause. You don't move, balking at the sight of it.

Unknown. There's a good girl. I hope Bladie isn't giving you any trouble. If he's made a mess, just help him get cleaned up, please.

You. Is this Kafka?

Unknown. Look at you playing detective! That's cute. It is, by the way.

You. How did you get my number..

Unknown. Oh I have my ways. And I wouldn’t call the police. I can’t say I’ll stay quiet and pin the blame on you. It would be easy, hiding a few bodies in your storeroom. I like Bladie, you know. Can’t have him getting arrested and all.

It feels like you’re grasping at ice, with the way it feels cold. Cold, so cold and uncomfortably harsh against your cheeks. You want to tear into something, into your pillow, into yourself. You want to throw your phone across the room and scream till your lungs are hoarse. You want to call the police anyway and shove that into Kafka’s face. You want to cast them out into some forgettable void and be done with this fear and this painful grip in your stomach and…

…you do none of that.

Some small defeated part of you whispers its comfort. You ignore it, cast it aside, call it a fool. You’re gutless, maybe a little brainless and honestly, you half consider going back to your hometown and — no. You will not think about that. Not now. Not ever. You broke that life apart, stepped over the fragments and let your bloodied footsteps lead you here. All that hurt is not worth the quiet defeat.

The door creaks open. You peer back out at Blade. “Sorry…” you mumble. He glances up at you. “I just…i was shocked…there’s blood all over you.” You think about what you should say next. You chose your words carefully. “Did you…”

You don’t get to finish. Blade leans back and shakes his head. “I did not kill anyone.” A wry little tug twitches at his lips. “Not now at least.”

It takes a tentative step, then another for you to exit the room completely. Blade doesn’t look bothered, content in his solitude where sits. You look down at the tiled floor trying to summon forth whatever blind insanity you had. It takes a special sort for this, for this specifically where the cracks fissure into the sides and down down down to the foundations. “What happened?”

“Nothing.” A lie. There’s blood on him for crying out loud.

Still, you do not pry. “Should I…” you stop. It takes some struggle, reaching down deep and wrenching the words out into something stringed and legible. “Do you want to clean up?” you offer softly, motioning to the bathroom. “Just…a shower, I guess. I can get those washed.. Blood’s really hard to get off after all and they’re nice clothes…from my personal experience at least…”

Blade watches you, tilting his head a bit. He does look a little like a dog now, one with a wrinkled muzzle and dark, serious eyes. “Fine.” he relents after some consideration, impassively getting to his feet. He follows you to the bath, delicately sidestepping your frame to enter. You let the water heat before letting it run into the bucket, offering him a pitcher and some soap.

“You’ll have to make do with the towel…I might have some spare blankets around.” you add, because you will not have a naked man walking around your house. There’s so much your ancestors might allow at this point. This would be toeing the line from possibly being dragged into the afterlife.

He spares a grunt in response while bandages come undone. You chew against the inside of your cheek, inhaling stale metal and collecting blotched brown linen from him. He’s hesitant, letting you close, but it takes a quick turn of his wrist for you to pick out the worst of his wounds. These ones do not heal away the rawness and the sick pink of flesh. These ones still bleed.

“Can you manage?” you peep out. Blade stares at his hand, at yours grasping his.

“Yes,” he says after a while. His fingers brush against the inside of your palm as you let him go, and you take that shaky step out of the bath, leaving behind a clean roll of bandages and antiseptic at the door.

V. PUTREFACTION

The woman beside you looks tired, worn away at the eyes and around the edges of her face. “Stay still.” she whispers hurriedly, stuffing her phone back into her purse as she gathers the skirts of her seere.

The boy on the bed does not stay still, tapping his fingers away at his lap as you shoot him a reassuring smile. There’s plenty of nervous energy stuffed away in the cracks and crevices of that tiny body of his, and it barely abates with the ticking second hand from your analog clock. “Are you nervous?” you offer, taking a knee beside him. The boy purses his lips, brown eyes focused wholly onto the floor below.

“No.” he decides to be brave and squares his shoulders up. You appreciate the effort as you press at the inside of his arm.

“That’s nice.” you nod. “But it’s okay to be scared sometimes. I know how scary needles can be.”

“I’m not scared.” he insists. He challenges you, looks at you dead in the eye with the most determination he could pluck away at his reserves and gather together. “Last week I chased a ghost away from my room. I turned the lights on and screamed at it.”

You crack a smile. “Is that so? Did it try to come inside?” you entertain the thought, poke away at his imagination till you find the faint blue of a vein. You see how his mother bows her head down, looking a little sick. The boy doesn’t seem to catch on in the way his eyes light up and he draws himself up. You don;t think she wants him to see. Sometimes there are instances where you see parents squirrelling away those bits of childish innocence like uncut diamonds; biting down at grimy hands that try to snatch it away.

You cannot fault her for wanting him to be happy. He was only four.

“Yeah. I was all GRAAAAAHHHH’!” you flinch at his spirited demonstration. He’s pleased with the audience and the invoked emotion as his mother winces and tries to pull at his ear to keep him quiet. It’s too late given his excitement, ducking down to continue his babbling. “And it went ‘AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH’! Then it left and I went to see if amma and appa were alright. They were and I hugged them to make them feel better.”

“That is brave.” you nod. “You be careful out there, okay? Don’t stop hugging your amma and appa. I’m sure they love your hugs.”

“After this, can I have the chocolate at the desk?” he asks, batting his lashes. He flashes you a cherubic grin, and you might have caught yourself smiling a little wider. It’s a rare instance of silly happiness after the mounting strain on your shoulders and the urge to rip your eyes out bloody and raw. “The one in the big bowl.” he adds for clarity; because adults, he might be thinking, needed plenty of that.

You look over your shoulder to the door with a thoughtful little hum. “It’s not chocolate. It’s tamarind candy. The sweet kind. But it’s sour too.” You admit. “Do you still want some?”

The boy draws his lips back. “I’d still like some. I like tammy-rind.”

“Well, listen to your amma and stay still, okay?” he does, his small hand reaching out to grasp at her seere’s pallu. She holds her hand out and he takes it, tugging at her fingers, then her thumb as the nervousness slowly trickles in and scrunches away at his brow and nose. “Don’t get all stiff. Deep breath in…deep breath out. You can tell me about things you like if it helps…what games do you like playing?”

“I like football.” he offers. “My cousins say I'm a baby so I can't play with them. But I'll grow big and tall one day and I will kick their legs and show them.”

“Don’t start there.” his mother warns. “You’re not kicking anyone.”

The boy makes a face just as you give him his shot, then yelps a moment at the pin prick. His eyes squeeze shut for a second, his grip white knuckled till you finally pull the needle out and pat his cheek. “Done. That’s his DTP vaccine done with. He’ll need to get his booster next year as well so keep a reminder on for that.” His mother nods, handing in the little booklet as you scribble away the recommendations and mark away at the sheet.

The boy grumbles, poking at his arm. “Do I get the tammy-rind now?”

“Of course. The brave kids always get an extra one too.” you appease, walking them out.

“Great.” he’s mollified at least, wiping away any residual tears with a discreet turn away. “And i think you’re brave too. I saw a ghost here. In the door at the back.”

You freeze up a bit. “Did you now?” you’re feeling your voice crack a bit at the end of that question. Even the mother glances over, unsettled. You shake your head and the reassurance returns. It’s nothing, nothing at all, you try to say.

“Yes. He looked super scary. But he just looked at me and told me to go back to amma.” the boy sighs.

“I’m sure that was just one of the boys who helps the doctor.” his mother reasons, her words taking a sterner edge. She’s bustling him out, putting away at his back as she straightens her pleats and fixes her pallu. “It’s not nice saying things like that now. You’d better apologise to that man if you said that to him.”

“I didn’t say anything.” the boy insists as you pause by the door and see them off after handing him his hard earned candy, ( “thank you, doctor. Say thank you to the doctor auntie.” the mother urges. The boy echoes it drolly then slips back into his stubborn insistence, pulling at her arm ). Their voices fade into the faint music playing at the lounge and the chatter in the waiting room. Aleena turns to call for the next person, peering down at the files.

A hush filters through. One of the men stands over the row of seated people. They draw some of their children closer, muted shock and fear splayed across and you feel flayed open. “Tell the clients to leave.” you mumble. She nods and sends the word out. Some of them seemed to catch on quick and pack away their folders and gather their companions. A line of men and women mill out, leaving that sole frame standing, arms crossed in wait.

You keep your eyes down as you motion to the doors. Aleena hides away as she usually does ( you’d torn into her when she’d gotten too mouthy, too brave the last time ).

“Is something wrong? I’m sure I paid off the fee two weeks ago.” you test out.

The suited man doesn’t reply yet, sinking into the backdrop of static and the panicked thudding in your ribs. You vaguely remember Blade hiding away within the archives and hope he doesn’t wander back out again. He takes his time, dragging out the seconds as he idles past your framed degree and a few photos from your childhood home.

“A few weeks ago there was an…altercation in your clinic, correct?” he states more than he asks it, rubbing at his chin.

Oh shit.

“Yes…” you nod when you sense his wait. Your nerves wither away and you lose your sense of touch.

“Some of the men on my side died here. I was sent in to get to the bottom of it all.” His narrowed gaze settles on you. “It’s funny. We know there’s a third party involved but his body went missing from the morgue before he could be ID’d. Any footage of him? Wiped clean, and aeons forbid the police trying anything when it comes to getting witnesses to speak a consistent story.” His footsteps are an echo in the back of your mind, too loud, too distracting. Blade, dear lord, his presence here is a mistake. “Now, I'm here to ask if you had a hand in it, doctor.”

“No.” you choke out. “I don’t.”

“Were you working with that man who killed them?”

“No — ”

“Did you see him?”

You're too slow to respond and it takes him grabbing a fistful of your hair to rattle it out faster. “No I did not!” you insist, squeezing your eyes shut. You recall what you tell the boy, and the empty words about bravery. You feel like a liar steeped in bitter hypocrisy. It makes you want to rip your insides out and claw at your viscera.

Nails dig into the softer parts of your cheeks as your face is slammed into the wall. It draws out a choked, gasping wheeze from your ribs and white hot pain screaming at your skull, your muscles. The small, scared animal in you is crying, crying, crying away into bleak emptiness. It tries to run, eyes blown out and mouth hung open. It tries to make you run before you’re gutted clean through. “Are you lying?” the man asks quietly.

“No. No I didn’t.” You stutter it out, pressing your fingertips into the chipped paint. “I was hiding…I-I was hiding till t-they took the bodies.” The pressure against your head builds, builds till you yelp and struggle, terrified of him digging down hard enough to cut away at your airflow and snap your neck in two. For a moment, you wonder if he’ll do just that when he finally, thankfully, lets you go…

( Your eyes flit up, desperate, moving things and you look at him, actually look at him and the cold death in his gaze. You never assumed someone could look like that — empty and scooped clean of any humanity lingering at the edges. He’s hollow, and angry*.*

You made your mistake. )

…You’re slammed back in. The scream in muffled into your wrist. “You saw nothing?” he repeats, guttural in how he addresses and enunciates every word. It’s like reasoning with a man eater. You nod, nod because it’s all you had. “Nothing at all? No faces?” another nod and the man slips back and lets you crumple to the floor with that warning.

“You better not be lying.” he tells you, slipping to the speedy notes of your local tongue. “There will be hell to pay for that.”

You’re lucky, you think, for getting off that easily. The buzz in your mind builds and smothers you against your spot and you shift a bit when Aleena presses a hand to your shoulder. Blade is right behind her and she’s flattening her lips.

“You’re a nuisance.” you tell him, annoyance and anger and all that frustration meandering and stubbornly oozing through the cracks. Blade fixes you with a glare, drawing his mouth back to a half sneer.

“Who did this?” he asks, voice dipping to trembling danger, entropy brewing underneath all that. “Who did this to you?”

“None of your business.” you snip in turn, wobbling to your feet. Your coat is blotched red around the collar and the shoulders. You didn’t realise you were bleeding till your fingertips came away sticky and wet ( you feel like you’re careening off of the edge of a cliff, in a car you have no control of ). “You’re more trouble than you’re worth.” you add, croaking through your words and the buzz and the annoyance. “So just leave. Leave, tell her I can't babysit you if this…this is what I have to deal with.”

Blade narrows his eyes. “I cannot.” he states and leaves no room for argument as his hand grabs you at the scruff and half tugs you alongside him. You’re not spared any more dignity around him, and he treats you like a wet cat nipping and scratching at his arm. “You.” he adds, turning to your receptionist. “She needs to be tended to.”

Aleena mumbles something under her breath but seeks out the first aid kit. She swats Blade’s hands away once she approaches you again. You appreciate it. You don’t want him touching you and the crawling chilliness of his body invites an ugly sort of desperation that blocks away your throat and nudges at all the parts of you you’re less than proud of.

Blade does not leave. He never does, on that bitter note, looming over the two of you by the wall, that beast twisting in his eyes like a snake.

He unsettles you with the way he stalks the emptiness of your apartment rooms, pressing his body to the wall with shaky breaths. You watch him from the crack of your door and wonder if this is what unravelling sanity looks like. If it is the face of a man ripping open his chest and screaming through the guts until that beating heart is carved clean from the cavity.

Blade is more animal than human in how he walks. The room smells strange too. You do not know what it is, in its pungent notes and the unpleasantness of it all. It’s not rot, you’ve smelled rot before, and tasted that stench of decay lain thickly on your tongue.

This is more rancid, like regurgitated food and butter. You spot a single leaf on the floor, fan shaped and dipped in sunlit gold. Then more at his feet.

His form flickers by, rustling past your door. He’s at the balcony, then he’s not. You pad out and scan the dark streets, spotting his hunched frame nestled within the alleyways tucked at the side. There is a glimpse of purple from Kafka’s hair as she presses her lips to his cheek, whispering something to his ear.

Blade seems to melt and you watch on, half transfixed from the scandal, cheeks warming when Kafka leans to the side and waves, a playful grin curling on her face. She whispers something again and has Blade turn too, and you think you’re almost drawn in, dizzyingly close to the edge of your balcony rails till reason snaps you back and you return to your apartment.

( “Bladie…” Kafka coos at him, her gloved fingers pressing up against the seam of his lips. Blade tries to hide away the dry hunger in his stomach and his mouth. “Do you like this one?” she asks.

He thinks about it. The release of death. The warmth of your hands. The tears. He thinks of the man sawed apart on the concrete, down to tendons and bones and muscle and flesh. He thinks of the scattered limbs and the bruise and your blood.

Her hands press to his cheeks. “Listen to me. Push the mara down…we don’t want to keep upsetting her now do we?” she asks, teasing in how her teeth flash. Kafka feels like a dream lost in the haze of it all. He leans into her touch and lets the flowering roots in his chest rupture and decay.

“No.” Blade admits, surreality dragging him under. He does not spare her a reply to that question. Kafka already knows. )

VI. DISCOLOURATION AND DESICCATION

“Tell me who did it.”

“No.”

Blade looks annoyed, scraping and haunting the walls of your apartment as he follows you through the kitchenette like a ghost. The brewing…whatever it was…from the past couple of days seemed to have cowed after that visit from Kafka, nothing more now than a placid beast ( as placid as a rabid mutt could be ). You clench fist into your knife’s handle a little harder than you should have.

She could have taken him back, her little lover boy guard dog and his strange balcony crawling ass —

Blade hovers close, so close. There’s an absence of heat beside you. He’s always cold, colder than a man, warmer than a corpse. That in-between he seemed to linger in. His limbo. “He hurt you. He will do it again. Tell me who it was.”

“Absolutely not.” You state, voice flattened against bemusement. “You'll just kill him.”

He stills, his eye letting out something of a neurotic twitch. He might just strangle you now, carve you open with that sword, eat your insides…maybe. “He suspects something. He must die.” He says it slowly, irritation budding through the dryness of his countenance. Your nose wrinkles at this.

“That's nice and all but you stink of death enough, and ‘enough’ is still far too much.” You angle your knife, pressing into the tender outer layers of the onion till you slice through it. The blade shudders against the impact and your hand strains into it. You bite back a curse.

( You're thinking about too many things.

You're thinking about Aleena turning in her resignation letter, and her apologies. A marriage, she'd said. And how could she turn down her parents’ demands after everything? They care. Despite the pain, you knew that too. It's that painful kind of love where you'd hurt and hurt and keep hurting them when the choices seemed so sparse. Better a bloodied knife, they'd try to say. Better a few cuts than being torn apart.

She only just found out, she admits. There was an uncomfortable shift in her body. She looked ready to crumple into herself and shatter into a million pieces. She's meant to meet him during the agelu. It's been arranged for.

How did you? you'd asked. You were afraid to ask. You shouldn't have asked. That meant looking ugly things in the eye through to the nauseating technicalities. Aleena swallows. She looks more distressed than she should. You let her weep a little and nurse those gaping cuts. Your bruises don’t smart anymore. You’d forgotten they were there.

She shows you a newspaper. And you stare on with an empty kind of apathy as you spot her details within the bridal adverts, down to her college degree and the colour of her eyes. )

( You were reminded that there's a kind of love fuelled by bitter hate. You were reminded of the sight of her shrinking back and fading into the walls of your clinic, like a collapsing black hole. It's how daughters and duties were here, a little better than the north but broken in a way where broken things couldn't be fixed.

You've seen it in a mirror once, hollow and void and dead in your eyes, and your mehendi stained hands tearing apart the the jasmine in your hair. )

Blade tilts his head and angles the knife just a bit before you could cleave a finger straight off. “I’m being reasonable. He won’t hurt you if you let me.” he tries to reason, playing clumsy diplomacy. But Blade still pauses between his words with that perplexed unsureness. He didn’t know what to tell you when you were sobbing on that couch. He doesn’t know what to say now, when your insides were burning away your peace.

You brush him away and viscerally visualise grinding him to a bloodied pulp with your grandmother’s mortar. The violence in your head helps a little.

Blade keeps watching you, turning his head away from the spattering chillies and the sour notes of tamarind staining your hands. The onions are still a bother. You think it can't quite get worse at this point, with stubborn tunicated bulbs and a dull blade. The over-stimulation you're half subjected to feels like claws on a chalkboard, gratingly demanding every bit of your attention.

“Give it to me.” It's not a request. He takes the knife before you could really mutter out sneering ‘no’. He slices through the onion, passes you a pointed look and keeps slicing ( why does he make it seem so easy? Why??? ).

“Give it back.” you try.

“No.”

“Please…?”

He nudges at your shoulder, towards the stove. Your shoulders sag and a frustrated lump gathers at your throat. At least he’s helping, you reason. You shouldn’t be so angry over this. A normal person wouldn’t want to throw a fuss over a stolen chore and a stubborn wraith. You light the stove and gather what you’d prepared. Blade was done with onions. It’s only been a minute.

…You decide to not question that.

( Please don’t kill me, you add in your mind for good measure. )

There’s something therapeutic in indulging with this familiarity. Your old home smells like this, like comfort and nostalgia in the idyllic sorts of memories. They’re the ones you lock away in a box, nestling that key deep inside your ribs. Even so, that horrible weight swells up like a tumour. It could burst any minute. It’s wearing you down and frying the ends of your nerves.

“Aleena is leaving.” you blurt out. Blade blinks. “My receptionist.”

“She told me.” Blade nods.

“She’s getting married.” you continue.

Blade considers this. “She is…young, yes?”

You nod. “Twenty four.” you swallow. Your throat is parched. “Some families do marry their children off at this age. Not all of them, of course…and not every arrangement is all that bad…I've seen some good ones.” He keeps listening, you know it in the way his head tilts ever so slightly to you. Your senses are clumped together, messy, messy, messy. “It’s none of my business.” you add feverishly. “I shouldn’t be getting upset.”

“...why aren’t you?” the question is sudden. You feel your confusion knock away reason. Blade tries again. “Married. Why aren’t you married?”

“That’s a very impolite thing to ask.” you reply quickly.

“I see.” he struggles, pondering over his next few words. “I will not push further.” You purse your lips, the conversation delicately fraying and fading out. You let the silence stagnate, hovering by the stove with your vessel-full of coconut milk.

Something inside you tugs.

“I was supposed to be.” you mumble. “He was a nice guy, was working for a stable job and had plans to buy a house close to the beach. The kid you’d see in movies, you know?” you laugh a little. “And maybe I was a little swept up. But then we talked and we both realised that…we had dreams of our own. Things we weren’t willing to let go of, a relationship he was serious about.”

The chicken goes next, as the gravy settles into a shade of brown-red. Blade is staring, something in his face set in an odd way. He looks off putting. Hungry, like those night spent pacing through your living room.

“We parted ways. There weren't any dramatic rejections…he seemed just as pleased with it, to be fair. I hear he’s settled nicely with his boyfriend…good for him.”

“So you came…here…” Blade works it out.

“Quite. Those choices weren’t wholly supported by my family. They kept trying to find someone and I kept pushing it away…I was scared I guess, and people got angrier and insistent and I started feeling less…human.” you take a deep breath in. “So I left one day. They never contacted me. My father only started again after my grandmother died. And I opened this clinic up…”

The room is blurred out. All you see are splotches of colour and a blemished, dark blue whee Blade stands, rimmed by the sunset.

You wipe the tears away.

“It’s all I have now.” you whisper, a painful crackle coating the peaks. “All of it. And it’s a nice place…I used my grandfather’s photo frames in the reception…my mother’s carpet too. It was a souvenir from the north. And…and some of the toys were my own. It took some digging and cleaning and repairing but they’re just as good as any other…” It’s flaking at the surface. You aren’t a strong person. It’s always been so easy to crumble with the weight ( like a paper doll ). “So please…please just leave before you make it worse.”

Blade regards you. He always is, watching, watching, watching, like there’s nothing else that could tug him away, take up his mind when he’s not snapping necks till they shatter.

“I cannot.” His brows are set, pulling together just a little.

“You can.” You insist, feeling stupid, childish. Its pointless trying to convince him otherwise anyway, Not without feeling hacked down and near helpless beneath his looming shadow. “You can leave. You and Kafka can, it's not that hard.”

“We have work to do and it must be done.” driven finality settles deep. He feels so far away, repeating words like a robot. It's hard to think of Blade as human in times like these, where he's either too robotic or too animalistic. It feels scripted, all wrong, all twisted up and chewed apart. “You wouldn't understand it. Leave it be.”

“I won't, if it's my business you're intruding on.” You set the coconut milk down, the steel vessel striking polished granite with a sharp ring. Your teeth grit together ( you hate feeling angry. You hate the cloudiness that comes with it ). “What if I run then?”

Blade's glare is cutting. “You will not run.” He asserts, scruffing you so easily, tugging you just a little closer. You fight back the urge to swat at him. At least you could think a little. At least you still had a tiny hand digging it's claws into your self control. “I'll drag you back. I will keep dragging you back till you cease this foolishness.”

( How were you being foolish? All you have are fragmented snapshots, the lingering sense of dread, the knowledge of something sinister brewing beneath the surface. You have a man in your house, a murderer. You have a man in your house you swore you killed. You have a man in this house who doesn't die.

How were you being foolish? You want to scream at him till your vocal chords fray and your arytenoids collapse. But Blade has probably never felt fear. You can't imagine his sympathy.

And you still killed him though. You stop. The guilt is back, and the anxious Turn of it, and the seething edge of your rage burning, burning, burning. )

“Did Kafka tell you to do that too?” poison burns holes into your words. You and Blade are sinking deeper and deeper beneath it, boring holes through your skin.

( You need to stop. You need to stop talking. )

“She wouldn't be as kind.” He asserts simply, rolling his eyes at the mention.

Defeat comes for you from the corners. You huff. “Let go of me.” your arm is shoved back, elbowing his ribs. Blade doesn't flinch, but his grip loosens and he dips his head down in acknowledgement. “Are you ever going to leave me alone?”

“When we collect what we need, yes.”

“...get it over with quickly then.” You mutter, stalking away from him. “Tell me when the chicken is cooked. Leave me alone till then.”

Blade takes a moment. “Alright.”

“Bladie, you're upset.”

Is he? Blade doesn't quite see it. But there is an ache where his heart should be. It's been there since you'd locked yourself away and he’s left to stare at the curry bubbling at the edges. Kafka laughs from the other end of the line, light, airy; she's probably wiping blood away from her swords.

“You are. Has the doctor been softening you up?” She's playful, prodding, poking, stringing along her words. “Cute. Is she why you’re calling?”

“She’s asking questions.” he steadies his phone. It’s so easy, how it slips between his fingers. It’s not the firm immovability of his sword hilt and it’s slippery, almost unusable with his twitching. Blade hears Kafka hum against his ear, kneading away at the issue before her voice picks up again.

“You know you can’t give too much away, right? We need to follow the script and if she meddles too much…”

“I know.” Blade cuts in, apathy sinking deeper. The script, yes, the script. There’s that flash of familiar awareness. The script is something to be followed, right down to the bare details. If pinstripes needed to be worn, then pinstripes must be worn and if Blade must cut a hand off, that hand must go. But even he knows of the variables being difficult, breaching at destiny’s thin skin.

“And she’ll only get hurt, Bladie.” Kafka coos it out gently, placating the tenseness building in his shoulders. “It’s unfortunate how scared little things tend to bite more. Listen to me, try appeasing her a little, yeah? I’m sure a treat or two should keep her from stepping too out of line.”

“How much longer do I have to stay here?”

“You want to leave so soon?”

Blade does not. He can feel the roots tugging at his feet, fixing him down here, leeching, leeching, leeching. The fluttering ache in his stomach has grown worse. Blade fears never slipping away and that won’t do. Wolves aren’t to be leashed. That fractured memory, the writhing ocean in those eyes…there is no place for him here.

( Destiny, destiny, destiny. The unattainable, the inescapable…Kafka whispers something else. He wants to break his wrists. )

And still, Kafka knows. He can practically see the cheshire curl to her lips. “Cute.” she repeats, drawling the word out. “I’m almost done. Just a bit of the usual…we’ll have the stellaron collected in no time and we can head out. Till then, lie low and be a doll for me before I come to collect you, okay?” he can hear the faint echo of her footsteps echoing past empty hallways. She might spare a visit soon, he realises. “And again. Try not to upset the doctor too much, yeah?”

Blade dips his head down, mollified. “Alright.”

The phone cuts away. You’re still in your room, cut away from most of his conversation. The chicken looks cooked so he turns the stove off and gropes about absently till he feels a plastic handle. Then he knocks on your door.

It takes you a moment to open it for him. “Is it done?” you ask. Blade stares down at your wide, tired eyes. “Yes.” he replies, dizzy and blotted out in the centre all at once. He can’t quite stop it, the rapid undergrowth, the rustling call of mara, that need to seize you by the face and tear into the softness of your cheeks, to bite, to taste blood, to break your bones and devour you. To feel the dig of your nails against his arms, something sharper, you scooping out his chest, his ribs and his heart till it’s beat ceases and he curls into your warmth —

“Do you hate me?” he asks quietly, unwavering. Its swelling. “Do you want me gone?”

You swallow, halfway out of your room. Blade wants to grab you, taste —

“I do.” you mumble.

Appease her. Kafka’s echo fades out once more in the back of his head. Blade presses the knife to your hand, holding its edge just over his stomach, pressing till he feels its prickle numb out. It’s where the fluttering was, unfettered when he tore his intestines out upon your couch and let the blood seep into the fabric ( you hadn’t liked that, so he stopped ).

He stops, gripping you just above the beat of your pulse. It speeds up, vivacious, so alive ( Blade is used to his steady thrum, slow, so slow unlike that of a human ). “You can kill me then.” he tells you. “If it pleases you.”

There’s a shift. The handle slips away and you snatch your hand back, face twisting to what he recognises as distress. Then you look angry, slamming the door back shut. “Don’t talk to me.” You scream through, muffled by hardwood.

Blade feels empty. He collects the knife and turns back into the kitchen, temptations spilling out when he lingers a little too long and thinks of sweet oblivion.

He muzzles himself as most dogs should be. His teeth are blunted, his claws filed.

He doesn't want to scare you.

VII. CONSUMPTION

Aleena hasn't spoken much since she'd told you about 'the arrangement' ( you make it sound like some cold business deal. A travesty. Maybe you were being far too pessimistic with this whole ordeal, putting in too many chunks of those ugly memories into that basket. You could be wrong. You could be wrong about it all ). It's an all too familiar disconnect, a silent misery that you'd watch every day after. She's letting it fill out her whittled spaces, and it worries you. Worries you in the way your heart twists and your insides turn.

( Won't you be coming, he'd asked again over a messy phone call. There's a lot of things to catch up on. We'll lay off the insisting, we'll let you choose the groom this time. That would be far better, right?

And your father's words meter out to warbled static, spilling through your ears and onto the floor. )

Maybe you should put something out in penance. Let those ghosts keep to themselves and continue their silent vigils. You're not superstitious, and rituals like these feel more a far away dream since you'd moved away.

"Aleena…"

"Yes?"

"How about we go get some cha during our break?" you offer a kind smile, tired, a little neurotic but you think it will ache a lot more if you say nothing at all. That wound up and coiled-away thing in her, pulling at the set to her jaw and the firm stoicism she displays — it slowly lapses. She looks down at her feet, back up at you and blinks a long, slow blink.

"That sounds nice." she croaks out, pushing aside a stack of papers. You check the analog clock above the two of you. A lunch break was due in another fifteen minutes and there a few checkups and medical records to fill in for school diaries. You could finish soon enough."Is it at the local place? I like the one with the cardamom."

"Sure you can."

Aleena seems to think a thousand thoughts all at once. "Thank you." she whispers when you step back, trained down to the keyboard. She's not typing, tracing the plastic frame itself . You leave her be, let her stew a while before gently gathering her up and leading her to the closest stall.

( Blade was cornered in the stores. You tell him not to stir up any trouble.

"Where?" he asks.

"None of your concern. I'd like some time alone with her, please." He reaches out, curling his hands into the sleeve of your coat. His eyes look like smelted iron. You tell yourself not to flinch, to skitter away because you will not be a rabbit. For once you will not be a rabbit. "I'm going." you repeat with more purpose. "You can't tell me otherwise."

Blade lets you go. )

It's crowded as is, and you try not to let yourself be pushed out by the squeezing throng. Not until you and Aleena leave with your tea and a packet of glucose biscuits to sit by a roadside ledge beneath the tree cover.

She takes a few bites before she starts talking again.

"Sorry about the suddenness of it all."

"The marriage?"

"Yes." She picks away at some of the crumbs.

"It's okay." You pat her hand in assurance. "I was wondering if you were doing alright

Aleena seems to ponder over it. "A little. I know him. We went to the same school…so it's not all bad." She drains the last of her tea, throwing the Styrofoam cup into a dustbin. "I'm just…angry I suppose."

"At your parents?" You guess.

"Yeah." She swallows. "They've been pestering me since my second year in college. I had to keep telling them that I wanted more stability…a job. Something. I can't just keep relying on my spouse for money and all that, you know…my parents said I could do that after. That I was being selfish for putting it off."

You purse your lips. "It's good to be stable." You agree. "Sometimes it's easy to point fingers and blame it on unnecessary worry and paranoia…but from my experience, marriages like these are a gamble. You can't be too sure, even with people you think you know." You must be rambling. Embarrassment floods into your cheeks. You have the grace to look a little sheepish.

"Right! And I told them that and…" She shakes her head. "They don't get it, I guess. I mean…I don't mind settling down, really, but they keep pushing me and rushing into it and then they just put up that advert without saying anything and..." Her wide eyed hysteria is palpable. You might want to hug her, steal her away. Familiar pains tend to do that, stinging at your soft insides.

"Am I not a good daughter?" The fragility spotting it aches, unfurling, spreading forth. You shut your eyes.

"I'm sure you are." You tell her honestly. And she is. You know she is.

Aleena's face stretches, pained. "It feels the exact opposite. I might be making it all more difficult…I should be grateful, shouldn't I? They care about me, I know that and…this…" The words are turned over, thought upon. Her hands twitch, gesturing at the air with wild frustration. Aleena is shrinking by the second, cracking at the corners. "What do I do?"

Your throat dries.

"I don't know. I ran away from mine and now my family refuses to talk to me." You tell her. "There's a lot of different ways this could go. Parents react in different ways…all I can say is…you need to trust your instincts."

"I don't want to lose them." She admits shamefully, wiping away a tear. "I'm a coward."

You purse your lips. "I think we all are." You sigh. Your tea has cooled against your fingertips. “But…but I'd say it's better than being miserable the rest of our lives. It's selfish, I agree…” you feel defeat trickle down — defeat, hopelessness, a cocktail of too-many-things-at-once.. “it could work out too. It could work out and it will be alright after that. But there's a lot more before it all as well…I'm sorry. I'm not very good with advice.”

Aleena shakes her head, rubbing at her eyes. "It's better than people telling me that I'm being a nuisance."

"You said you knew him too." You add.

She scoffs. "He might have changed. The most I remember is him pulling at my hair and calling me ugly."

"Oh. Hopefully for the better, then."

Aleena rubs at her knuckles, humming softly as a trill of birdsong echoes above the two of you. "Thanks for taking me in." She says, and it's spoken so softly you almost miss it. "I learned a lot working under you.and you were good to me. Better than some other bosses I had…hopefully I should still be able to work after…" She breaks away.

A gooey sort of warmth trembles inside. It's the sort that cracks you open. "You're welcome."

She kicks out her feet, letting her footwear flap shutter against the balls of her feet, then stands back up. "We'll head back then? I don't think I'd want to leave you with unfinished work on my last day…"

"That would be terrible." you agree, cracking a grin.

Aleena veers the subject away to the common pleasantries. She talks about the weather, the new park in the better parts of the city and the flowers there. She talks about the old lady who invites her to feed the pigeons. You listen as you do, till you slip back into the clinic and start the afternoon shift again. Clockwork, familiar clockwork. Still, you ache. It's selfish.

"Blade." you call out when you step back into the stores. You're greeted with silence. You're greeted with emptiness.

"Doctor? we have another checkup!" You straighten up, smooth away the frazzle, the jumbled nerves and the frayed ends. There is a time and place for panic. Not now. Not when you have work to do. So you work. You work till the minutes and hours bleed in and the sun spills past the concrete rises. You work till the night falls and you realise the silence in the storeroom seems to have grown past the occasional rattle from the shutters and the wind.

You heave in a breath. Aleena has left, pulling you into a final hug. You find yourself looking for him.

( Where is he? )

It's Kafka who drops by after closing. The anxiety nips at you, your face, your hands, everywhere, between Blade still not making a reappearance and now…this.

You hadn't met her face to face in a while and you've almost forgotten the weight she carries. She'd turned you around before you could walks away any further, her gloved hands snaking round your waist and her lips brushing against the shell of your ear. "Sorry for the visit, doc." she speaks out, like you're old friends. "Had some work to look into."

You hunch your shoulders, cowed of any initial annoyance. Something in you draws back, scared around her. It's the cat-like preening, the way Kafka smiles so emptily at you. "Right." you mumble.

"Bladie's been treating you well? I told him to be on his best behaviour."

"He's…he's alright. If you're here to pick him up…well he's been missing since this afternoon. I…i swear I didn't — "

Kafka shakes her head. "Oh no, I sent him on a little errand." she assures you, sitting down in the waiting room. She pulls you down next to her. "I've noticed he's been doing his best around you too…granted I'm sure some of his habits are a little…of putting." That smile is back, razor edged.

"It's fine." You try to say.

"Mhm. If you say so." Kafka crosses a leg over the other. "I've been souvenir shopping between work and all. I might pack up a larger haul after this final matter is dealt with. So many things to do…" She trails off, drumming his fingers against her chin as if deep in thought. "Have any places you recommend visiting? I've heard the silks here are to die for."

You hadn't known that either. "That's…nice." You lower your head, that far away beeping growing louder and louder against the chills clawing up your spine. You breath in, feeling the point of her nails press up against your cheek and turn you around to face her.

"Oh dear. I don't think you're very happy to see me." she coos. "Bladie hasn't been very good to you, has he?"

You open your mouth.

"You don't have to say anything." she cuts in with what seems to be kindness. You were almost fooled by it, set adrift, running straight into that tangle of webbing. Kafka feels predatory the way Blade does, and in ways that doesn't feel like him either, spinning you around and around in circles for those simple little amusements.

"He scares me." you blurt.

"Is that so?" Pity weighs in her sentence, cloying it together like resinous amber and sundew. She looks delighted.

"He does." you nod, feeling helplessness undo your seams. Kafka leans in close, close enough for the warmth from her breath to spill over your jaw. You want to push her off — you should, given who she is. But she clings so close, drinking it all in with strange euphoria. She's still holding your face, and Kafka was far stronger than she presents herself to be.

"You poor lamb. I hope he didn't bite you too hard." She smiles, caught in a trance as you sink further into magenta and pink and the smell of her perfume. "Then again, Bladie's always rough with the things he likes. I'm almost tempted to take you with us."

You shutter, blank out, flail about internally before all reasoning bears down with the impact of a comet. "I don't want to go with you though." You squeak, the words sinking in so quick and it shocks you.

Kafka considers you, tilting her head with assured grace. "Are you sure?" She asks again, thumb pressing up against the apple of your cheek. "It complicates things quite a bit for you. I'd say you'd be more miserable staying here than giving in, no? For one…" She's enjoying herself, her lazy gaze scanning the clinic again. "…you'll be loosing all of this."

You seize up. "…What — "

"This." Kafka repeats. "All of this. It'll be gone soon enough. Bladie and I have dipped into businesses that most should keep out of…I'll spare you the details, really…though you might just have more popping up in that little head of yours." She taps a nail against your temple.

"What are you talking about." You croak out, falling into a gaping bit. The vestiges of horror start taking root in your lungs. Kafka bites her bottom lip, playing coy.

"Oh dear, I've said too much. May as well let you in on it then." She croons. "The IPC don't have much of a hold here, do they? No wonder…granted it made going through this operation far easier." Kafka lets you go. You lean back, back away from her, sputtering. "To keep it simple, we were here to collect something. A very important something…and out of all the possibilities we had…your little route happened to give us the least amount of grief to deal with."

You grip at the armrests hard. "I don't…I don't understand…" You choke every syllable out with a tongue that feels like lead. "I don't understand." you repeat, the mania arching your higher notes. Your clinic, this clinic, the only thing standing between giving up and going back and…Your clinic ( You remember the money, the scraping together and the loans upon loans and that less naive part of you still folded into the walls and corners ).

Kafka shrugs. "I don't expect you to. You've been a tucked away and coddled into this peace your planet has blanketed you with. There's plenty more in this universe you can't quite comprehend; and there are plenty of big bad things out there that Bladie and I could hardly hold a candle to…" She grins. It's a vicious, predatory thing. Your fear is a feast to her, one lazy bite after the other.

"I don't want this. You're lying — "

"In another five minutes…" Kafka begins. "Bladie will come back , dragging a little friend of ours along with him. He'll have sustained a hit to his head, half healed. The hem of his coat will be ripped off." Her gaze darts to the clock. "Tick tock. I'll be busy after that so you'll need to be quick with what you have to say."

You're stunned to silence. Blade. An associate. It's a nightmare in the making. strangling every bit of air from your lungs. Kafka seems terrifyingly sure, watching the way you move, scramble, feeling disjointed and not all there or all quite present in your body.

"I don't want this." You tear up.

She kisses your cheek. "I know, sweetie." Kafka gives your shoulder a condescending squeeze. You may as well be stabbed in the stomach too, revulsion burning your throat, jerking you away from her. It makes you want to grow claws, to make her hurt somewhere, anywhere. "It's too bad, really. Maybe if you were a little braver, a little more gutsy, we might have struck you from that list." She laughs. "Honestly, I find it adorable. You're like a scared little stray…"

A sickening thunk suddenly echoes out back, soft against the tile, and moving trough whimpered struggles. Kafka's eyes narrow. "That seems to be our cue." she comments lightly. You look at the clock. Five minutes.

Your voice is stolen away, a failed note against the hand crushing your windpipe. You feel dizzy, dizzy, dizzy, almost stumbling over the chair. Kafka is drunk off of it, shoulder brushing against yours. It's just her, those footsteps, the smell of her perfume. "So…" she whispers. "What's it like?" Her touch sears at your wrist, edging higher. "Being scared?"

Blade steps between the two of you. His hand coming to grasp at your arm, smearing a brown, bloodied stain against the expanse and dwarfing your wrist ( he can break it so easily ). He stinks of iron and rot and you don't dare to face that monstrous view of him, just like that first day, feeling his pulse recede and the massacre he left behind under the fading colour of his eyes.

( And still, you feel guilty. Because Kafka is right. You are a coward. )

"Kafka." Blade utters, a warning stained against his stressed inflections. "Leave her be."

Kafka's lips pull at the corners, serene, seemingly innocent. She doesn't even try to hide the deception. "Jealous much?" she snickers, letting you go. Blade feels agitated, the beginnings of a riptide streaking beneath a still surface. He yanks at you, fingertips pressing at your cheek, the spot between your ear and the column of your neck. It's the most he's touched you.

( Has she hurt you, he wants to demand. Has she? )

"Don't touch her."

Kafka holds her hands up in surrender. "Okay." she relents, content and entertained with the way things seem to be. From the corner of your eye, you see a mass…something close to human, move. A scream is lodged in your pharynx. Your nails dig into Blade's hand, a hoarse, wheezing sound heaving from the depths of your lungs. The mass stretches, tries to move away. You see red plaster the white tiles beneath it.

Blade's gait shifts to awareness, sharp eyed, watching the man try to escape.

"You didn't break his legs?" Kafka asks.

"I did. This one is stubborn." Blade snarls. He looks dog like, wolf like, fangs borne between a drooling muzzle. Your eyes sting as you try to tug away, away from him as Kafka stands and saunters over to the body, that elusive little smile still present.

"Well, we have plenty to ask of him. He still has a few details to give away now, doesn't he?" She hums a little tune, yanking the man by the hair till his broken whimpers turn to miserable screaming. "Come on Bladie, I need help. And you…" She fixes that stare on the man. "Listen to me. You can't speak anymore, or scream, or cry. Not till I tell you to."

The man's cries fade out into open mouthed gasps, his face a bruised and bloodied mess of tears and snort. Blade was not kind in handling him, not with his torn tendons and the unearthly jut his legs were angled at. Your skin crawls at the sight. You reach for your bag, your phone, shaking past the initial terror to give a final call for help.

Blade looks at you. It's enough to completely shatter it, unwinding, undoing, pressing down harder against the fragile cracks in your walls and letting that mess slip away past the desperate grasp of your arms and down away on the floor.

You shut your eyes and tell yourself you saw nothing.

VIII. SKELETONIZATION

You don't hear much of the man, save for Kafka's questions muffled behind the walls. The whats, whens, wheres and hows that you can't keep track off without giving too much of yourself up ( you're afraid you do, a thousand different things will split. You tell yourself there's nothing there ). You focus in the clock instead, watching minutes after minutes pass beneath the incessant sound of it ticking, ticking, ticking.

Minutes after minutes after minutes.

There's a final exchange of words. You hear a tumble, a body hitting the ground. Kafka walks out, hardly bothered in the slightest and pristine save for that dampness of her gloves. She shoots you a charming smile, taking in how you'd tucked into yourself. "Well you're a sight for sore eyes. Scared, lamb?"

You're scared of a lot of things now, of the woman in front of you and the man outback and the man whose words they stole and the impending aftermath predicted. You're trapped in your own burning house, doors jammed shut and the window too high to take a jump. You'll suffocate in here, choke till your lungs collapse and your organs scream and fragment.

Kafka cups your cheek. "Hm, a pity. Scripts have to be followed though…sorry about that doc." She draws away and you let out a wet little sob. "Don't be too sad about it." She coos, patting your cheek. "On the bright side, I'll be leaving soon. Stay close to Bladie, okay? Can't have you running off and throwing a fuss now."

Dear lord no. Not Blade. Not Blade after all this. It feels like a joke and a half, an empty attempt at drawing out any laughter from an unenthused crowd of blank eyed faces. You stay seated, wide eyed and insistent. "No." you choke for good measure. Kafka's expression glows.

"No?" she echoes, a hand resting against either side of the armrest. You try to make yourself small, edging away from her farther and farther till her knee slots between your legs and you nearly cry out and kick her off. "Come on now." She coaxes, hand tugging at your waist, sitting you up proper. "Don't be too difficult. Bladie's not half bad."

You shake your head, blanking out through her crooning as your struggle intensifies. "Stop it." you repeat, shaking your head, seized and maniacal till your nails dig in. Kafka doesn't flinch. She's still smiling. "Don't you dare tell me I'm being —" You sob. it's messy, so messy and that pain in your chest only grows, spreading across like blooming rot. " — that I'm being difficult." You spit. "After all this, I'm allowed to. You're both insane, you fucks, I — "

Kafka presses a thumb over your lips. You bite, hard.

"Listen to me." She keeps talking. She won't stop. "Stop crying."

You stop crying. Your mind is empty white and fuzzy static stretching out like elastic. You feel her laughter against you. "Good girl." She praises. "Now, go on along with Bladie, okay? He'll do a good job looking after you."

You claw at the walls, trying to protest as your body lifts, padding out back, trapped within the long winding of corridors that didn't quite look like that once. "Kafka." you hear Blade echo again, his hands resting heavy on your shoulders. It sounds exasperated? Why? You're fine. You think you're fine. You see a magenta blur flutter around you and words spatter apart and stitch back together into nonsense and noise.

Blade takes you by the arm. You're half leaning against him, the soft, shaky breaths against his ribs and his heartbeat ( it's a slow, faint sound ). He seems to linger in place, letting you be as your nose screws against the smell of blood spotting his clothes. Then, he's leading you along the less crowded roads, shuffling past the harsh blaze of streetlights. Vaguely, you remember where this route takes you and you try to join the pieces — the memories feel so far, far away.

The mass tucked under Blade's arm moves. You look the man straight in the eye and do nothing. Your mind, your ribs are barren spaces.

You smell salt, hear the sea, the waves, the wind. The man in his arms struggles ( you're not here ). You see the panic stretched across, the way he pales to what looks like ash grey ( you're not here ). You watch Blade turn your face away, annoyance sparking in his eyes ( you're not here ). You look on anyway, as his fingers claw at his throat, so easily tearing apart soft flesh and tendon and muscle till his hands are stained warm red ( you're not here ). You're lain bare to those death throes, a wheezing from a broken windpipe, the yellow of subcutaneous fat and the ruptured arteries ( you're not here ).

"You should have looked away."

Blade's voice pulls you out. You finally breathe. Take it all in again as the cotton and the fuzz and the silk web is untangled from your notches. The man falls to the sand, nothing more than dead weight at this point.

( This could be you. )

You take a good, long look at him, at that tear stricken, marred face, that distended jaw and the awful angle to his limbs. The sand is already soaking up beneath him — he was alive once. You didn't know this person, you'd never met him and…

( You let him die. You're a doctor and you let him die. )

Blade's brow furrows when you take a shaky step back, two clear words; 'do not'. You look around you, spot one clear rout of escape amidst that hopeless need to collapse, the world spinning faster and faster and fraying and burning away at the far extremities. You try to run.

He doesn't lie when he says it's easy to catch you again.

You're drawn close, your back practically colliding against his chest before you could make it too far. That rabid, scrambling beast in your snarls and you sink your teeth into his wrist, kicking wildly till your foot connects with his shin. Blade grunts, and you slip away just a little, an inch, one more. But he's bigger, bigger and stronger and it takes a moment for you to fall to the floor, swiping into the buzz and feeling his heaving chest pressed against yours.

His hold closes round your throat. "No — " You burst out,. "No, no don't — "

Blade doesn't move as much against your kicks, face drawn to stony apathy while you try to pry his fingers away, vision blurring against tears and snot. His thumb presses down against your thyroid, breaths unevenly paced to an animalistic rhythm. He doesn't seem all there with how he seems so steeped in madness and…

…fuck it, you're terrified.

Your hand gropes to the side, closing round the uneven surface of a stone. You drive it into the side of Blade's skull, a faint crack ringing out. He falters, wide eyed as one hand presses against the wound and comes away wet. You take a gasping breath in, pushing yourself up but Blade drives you down hard, down to your back till it hits something soft, and still and dead —

( No no no nono no no no NO NO. )

The vermilion of his gaze burns you ( just like all those nights ago ).

It's already started to heal, collapsed parts of his skull scraping and pushing itself back out, repairing damaged bone and muscle. And Blade looks half drunk, sunken into rapture and starvation, his hand sliding up from your throat to press at your cheeks. You freeze, ceasing your assault to his chest and stomach.

He curls over your form, shrugging and swatting away your hands to pin you down proper. There is a wet squelch against your arm pressing against that open wound. "Stop…" You whine, trying to tug him back. "Blade. Blade stop — "

He presses his lips to yours. You slam your fist into his sternum, tasting his blood in his mouth. His teeth come next, biting against your bottom lip, taking, taking, taking. It feels infecting, like a disease, like something that shouldn't be there and you squirm. Blade's fingers tangle into your hair, giving it a sharp tug. You feel your back press against the corpse's shoulder, practically crushing you against it.

He's not gentle. Blade can't be gentle with the violence that comes with him. It's too deeply embedded into the crevices of his bone and marrow and in his veins and blood. It's the oxygen he breathes in, the lead that poisons his alveoli and files away at the pliable parts of his abdomen.

His tongue peeks through, pushing past your lips to take a taste. There's that heady taste in you, disgusting, curling in your guts and just about threatening to batter out. You kick him again.

His eyes flash, dyed more red than orange. He comes away with spit and blood smeared across his lips. You heave, staring up at him, then break down, sobbing openly. Blade keeps you still, bending down to kiss you another time, just at the corner of your lips.

"Enough." You beg him, sounding small. You feel defeated, the load wearing down the bones of your shoulder till you're crushed and collapse. "Please."

Blade blinks. He sits up and sits you up with him, nestled between his legs. You look behind you, the man's larynx having come turn free from your struggle, hanging out a hairs breath and cushioned by fat and crushed muscle fibres. You croak, tipping your weight over and emptying your stomach out onto the beach; till all you are retching out is acid and bile. He pulls your hair back, halting your mess from getting caught in it.

"Done?" he asks, drawing you back close to him, his gaze lidded. You shut your eyes.

"I want to go back home." you whisper.

"Alright." Blade promises you, putting you back down on the sand. "Don't move." You don't think you can. Your limbs weight down more and more with the passing minute. Blade drags the body out into the ocean, for a moment, disappearing beneath the surface. He returns, of course. He can't drown, or die ( He's not human, never will be ). "Come." he tells you.

You allow it, him gathering you in his arms. You don't make a fuss, or shout. "Keys." he reminds you. You hand them to him, leaning your head into his shoulder. Your tears prickle beneath your eyelids.

He takes you back home.

You don't know how he'd avoided the security guard's questioning, or the neighbours, But Blade sets you down on the little stool, pulling the bucket beneath the tap to let the hot water run. You draw your legs to your chest, thoughts collapsing into each other, fracturing and splintering as your trembling grows worse. All you can think of is gargling till the taste of blood is gone and the memory of that kiss is gone.

Blade fixes his attention on you. "You need to bathe." He says, taking a knee. You're exhausted, too exhausted to protest, trembling when he pulls away at your jacket and your pants, letting it pile up by the door.

"I can do it myself." You mumble. You question the necessity of it. He won't listen, after all.

He unhooks your bra and tugs down your underwear. "You're tired." He states. "Your attempts will not be as effective."

"Does that matter?"

Blade hums. "Kafka mentioned the need for hygiene. You could fall sick. Besides, you are a doctor." Not anymore, you nearly snap. He moves on to himself next, unbuttoning his jacket. "Detergent?" he asks when you squeeze your eyes shut and refuse to see any more. The sound of his belt buckle is next and his trousers being pulled down.

"Cabinet under the kitchen sink." you mutter. Blade steps out and you lean up against the bucket, watching the water steadily fill till it reaches your fingertips. You hear the beeping from the washing machine and Blade's returning footsteps. He settles behind you

"Turn around."

You turn. You do not look down.

He spends a moment regarding you, then empties a pitcher-full of water over your head. It's warm enough and you let your eyes slip shut as he works on scrubbing away the blood and sweat from your hair. That rotten thing curls in your belly, ringing round like a centipede crawling.

Blade's thumb wipes away the smudge on your cheek with sandalwood soap and he tips his chin up. "Don't fall asleep yet."

"Okay." you passively reply, opening your eyes. he hums and continues to wash you, treating your body with clinical indifference. You don't know what's worse, the hunger or the distance. The act of being viewed as anything but human leaves a sour taste in your mouth. "What about you?" You ask, filling the empty space. You don't want to think about tonight. You don't want to think at all.

Blade hums. "You can help." He shrugs right after. "We will be done sooner at least."

"Okay." You echo, reaching for the soap. You come to realise that he does need the help. Pulling the bandages off of him was a hard enough task. They were messily strewn on, almost cutting away his blood flow and he sweeps it aside. His wrists and his forearms are next. You don't undo the one on his thigh, furiously washing the dried fluids off of him.

What are you doing?

A part of you laughs at the obscene humour. A few hours ago, you'd have dropped dead at the very idea of doing this, if the hopelessness wasn't torn away from you the reins and left you on the backseat of a crashing car.

"You can…turn around."

Blade grunts and turns. you spurt too much shampoo into your hands. Some of it spills over. "You're scared." He says.

"I am."

He bends down a bit. It's easier to reach his head this way. "You should be. You should have killed me." He states, severity weighing his words.

Your shoulders slump, fatigued. "Please. Just stop." Your voice dips into a whisper. "Just stop. I want to rest, alright?" Blade falls silent, knitting his brow together. He nods wordlessly as you rake your fingers through his hair, undoing some of the knot building up against the shampoo suds.

( Blade thinks you're still too gentle with him, in how you trace one of his scars. But he feels the shudder, the roiling beat under your skin, the fear. He sees how easy it is to bring the tears out again and turn that mind of yours off.

He turns a little, pressing his fingertips to the softness of your thigh, just in case you try to run again. )

When you're both done, he has you swaddled in your blankets and deposited on your bed, clothes in tow. It's horrible, this tenderness. You don't think he's used to it either, in how he shuffles and cautiously pads at your arm like you're a fragile little thing, like he wasn't the one who took the mallet to it in the first place.

"Will you hurt me?" You ask, dead eyed.

Blade's lips part ( sometimes he does, when the mara blooms forth florets in his chest and stomach and he wants to break something that breathes beneath his hands ). "Will you run?" he asks.

"If I do, will you hurt me?"

"Yes." he replies bluntly, his hand resting on your calves. You know what that means. You squeeze your eyes shut and nod, laying down on the bed and curling up into yourself.

"You're a monster." you tell him with a shaky, illegible slur. All this for a preordained destiny, for convenience, because you're a coward. All this and you'll be left with nothing tomorrow. You think of your clinic and what you'd salvaged before opening it. It's foundations and the grey walls of the empty rooms it once had. Your heart poured into it all. "Both you and her."

Blade lowers his head. "We know."

IX. DISJOINTING

You did not sleep at all, last night. Blade still stalks the hallways at the unearthly hours you wake at ( five thirty on the dot ). A man is dead, a man you barely know, whose body now below the ocean's surface. Maybe the sharks ate him. And your clinic…you curse it all, and you curse that compulsion that has you reaching for your phone.

It doesn't take long to find it after browsing the local news network. A few live footage of the collapsed interior and the busted furniture. Years of work torn apart ( At least Aleena quit. At least she doesn't have to see this ).

"Do you know why they did this?" you ask, your voice scratchy when Blade comes to linger by your door frame. He'd washed his clothes last night, having pulled his trousers back on with a loose fitted tank top. Kafka must have dropped by.

Blade looks away.

"You know." You spit out, fury bubbling up, clouding your eyes, painting it all red. "You know, don't you? Look me in the eye and tell me you do, you little — "

"The man." Blade cuts in. "The man who hurt you."

You grip the sheets. "What did you do?" you whisper, numbness taking foot and taking away more and more reasoning.

"I killed him." he passes you a sharp look. "Letting him live would have put both of us at risk."

You let out a mirthless laugh. "So it's your fault then. You…you come in and just assume I would be fine with you just…" You laugh. You laugh and laugh and laugh till your ribs hurt and your sides ache because it was so unnecessary, all of this. He must be sick in the head, him and Kafka, to twist apart your livelihood and step all over it. Monsters, the lot of them. Monsters.

"Oh god you're a fucking riot. Now what should I do? I have no job…should I go back? Maybe you could get a kick out of me being sold off again, right?" You flash him a bright little smile, mania at it's finest, and anger. So, so much anger it boils your body alive.

He narrows his eyes. "You will not be leaving. They'll come after you next."

You giggle. "Of course they would." You whisper. "Of-fucking course they would. Then I'll just die. Let my father douse my ashes, if there's even a body to cremate because that just seems the best way to go." You lay back down, tugging at your hair with frustration. The mattress dips as he lays next to you, lips drawn against your nape.

It's possessive, demanding of every little thing and every little part you had to offer.

"I won't be leaving." You snarl, feeling all that spite gather. "I can't because of you. remember?"

"I know."

You press your cheek against your pillow. You're tired again. You want to sleep. "You may as well just kill me at this point." You state flatly. "There isn't much use keeping me alive. I've served my purpose right? What was it, some glorified shield?"

His grip on you constricts. You're pulled closer to his chest. "You will not die." He tells you, his nose pressing up against your neck. Blade inhales, tangling his fingers into your hair. "And I won't kill you."

You bare your teeth at him. Then you stop, and press your face to the pillow again. "Enough." you tell him, feeling angry and tired and empty and more. You try to push Blade off of you, the small of your back brushing against him. Blade lets out a hiss, nails digging into your forearm and you freeze.

He's pressed up, half hard against you.

You throw yourself away from him.

Your eye sockets burn as you flinch and struggle. "Stop." He rasps his order, pressing you stomach down against the mattress as you curl over the edge, letting out a panicked whimper, a migraine searing through your forehead. It turns into an ugly sob, into cries that bleed into the sheets, tracking saliva down as you're dragged back.

His weight bears down hard on your back, his mane curtaining your line of sight. You try to elbow him off and he wrestles your hands down, pinning them behind you. He's panting, letting out a stray growl every now and then. The edge of his nails dig a little deeper into your wrists, just as the other hand fixes itself firmly against your thigh.

You shake. You don't try to hide the glassy eyed look. You only shake.

Blade's annoyances seem to mount, his forehead pressing against your temple. ( Appease her, Kafka's voice whispers to his ear. Blade feels too much of you beneath his palm, and it stokes a selfish hunger that comes down violently ).

He trails his hand upwards. You lay slack, surrendering to it with a tense form. It tugs your nightwear down, spreads your legs a little more. You cry a little, then give up on it, his fingers exploring the softness of your thighs and slipping to the inside. He lets your hands go and you come to grasp at the pillows, nipping down at your bottom lip.

"Blade…?" You whisper, unsure.

He traces the seam of your cunt, dipping a finger inside to toy at your clit and you squeak, grabbing his arm. "H-hold on that's — "

Blade turns you over, draping your legs on either side of his hips. You look at him, pupils shrunken down at the sight of him surveying you, his lips pressing over the curve of your knee, then further down. You squirm beneath him, movements stilled by a firm hand on your belly. Blade bites hard, tearing into the skin of your thigh, breaking capillaries and drawing blood.

He pulls away to witness the bruising and the wet wail you shudder out, soothing you with his tongue brushing over the wound like a dog. You slam your foot against his shoulder. Blade simply grabs it and hoists it above his shoulder.

"Let me…" he mumbles, groaning up against your skin, spacing your thighs apart some more. You're squirming, and he roughly pulls you closer. "Stay still."

You can't, you want to say. You can't when he's touching you like that and —

He stills. "You haven't done this before, have you?" he guesses. You want to sink, sink down into a place that was far away from here. Blade's eyes are unnaturally bright, burning like coals against the dim lighting.

"Shut up and get this over with." You rasp. There's nothing here, nothing between the two of you. Maybe a few sick feelings from his side. You want it to be done with and let the maggots eat away at your body after ( if that makes it easier for him in the end ). Blade huffs, vague amusement flitting past his expression. His cheek is smushed against your thigh.

"Your first…" he mumbles, a vague story playing out in his eyes. Your legs are pushed back, and he sits himself down before you, teeth grazing through soft flesh till he latches his mouth to your cunt and presses the expanse of his tongue over your bundle of nerves. You mewl into it, jolting under his touch as his hands come to massage circles at your hips.

You stay steadfastly quiet after that, as the assault continues and he licks a strip up your slit while gauging every little shift and twitch on your face. You could have fooled anyone else with the forced apathy, fooled Blade with you looking at anything but him. He suckles at your clit, rolling it over the tip of his tongue and you twitch, bucking your hips into the grind.

Blade demands. He demands and keeps demanding, eating you out half starved and at a pace you couldn't keep up with; feeling that appendage slip into you at some point of it all. You moan ( this doesn't feel goo. It shouldn't. How fucking pathetic are you?! ) trembling at all the new feelings blurring out your mind.

You tell yourself to take it. Take it and let him leave you be after that taste of satisfaction. Blade nuzzles into your cunt, smearing your building slick against your outer lips till smelted orange meets the fatigue in yours.

"You're being stubborn." he comments, pulling away for a moment. You grit your teeth, open your mouth to snap back. Blade dips down then, a finger slipping into you, massaging your insides and pacing himself with more gentleness than you'd expected. Gasping and grasping at the sheets, your narrowed gaze fixates on his, fuming, fuming.

You push his face away when he leans in close and he persists, teeth latching over your neck, licking a delicate strip up the column of it. His chest seems to vibrate — it's not a purr. It rattles at you, it's unnatural.

"Make it quick then!" you sob. "Please."

His finger curls inside you and you curl your toes into the sheets, keening into his hair. You hate this. You hate this. There is a warmth in your insides that stirs and seeps through the cracks. Blade seems to notice and takes it in with a hunger that terrifies you. He presses his pads against that sweet spot, a thumb returning to your clit. You whine, shake your head.

"Good?" he asks. It feels like a taunt.

"Shut up." you grimace, rocking your hips in pace with him. It's little jolts of that buttery feeling that has your mind sink further and farther away. Blade kisses your neck, grinding up against your ass through it all. It's awful. It's all wrong, this facade of gentleness.

You mumble, grinding at his hand as another finger is added and he stretches you out a little, testing your limits with rapture. That heat grows, grows, grows bit by bit, tuned to the way his finger curls into that spot. A moan spills out, then another and you spa a hand over your mouthy, shaking your head. You want it to stop. You want this to stop now and —

Blade's digits nudge against your cervix and he bears down on your clit hard.

It snaps, that warmth. You tighten round his gingers, clenching, sucking him in deeper and his lips part as he watches you fall apart with a jumble of words and begging. You fall back into the sheets as he pulls his hand away, laving at your mess while he undoes the buttons of your shirt. It spares a peak of the sweet of your breasts, the soft expanse of your stomach. He's seen it before. There's nothing new to it.

He bites again, not as deep this time as he pulls his pants down. You spare a glance, snapping out of the afterglow when you catch sight of him. "That won't fit." You whisper.

Blade shudders, his cock resting at your stomach. It's hot, an angry res that makes you feel uneasy. You half expect pain when he slides down to breach you entrance, you expect tears and you expect it with hunched shoulders. Blade is slow instead, thoughtful, almost. He keeps his progress slow, watching you wince against the stretch before he thrusts in deeper, finally nudging his tip to your cervix and staying there a moment.

Somewhere between all that, his hand finds yours, pressing down at your palm in awkward assurance.

You can't take it.

"What are you doing?!" you demand, whining against how full you felt. It's strange, so strange and you think you see the mad ramblings from friends and gossip over how good sex felt sometimes. But this is Blade. Blade, with his violence and his slashed wrists and the way he stank of death.

Blade pushes some of his weight on you. "It's your first time." he replies.

Your first time. A rare consideration. An emotion that bud out too late for your tastes. "Why should you care then?!" You snap, grabbing his tank top. "For fucks sake, stop treating me like I'm your lover! I'm not! You're not doing this to me because you have feelings do you?!"

The question was wholly rhetorical. It's a harsh accusation, mounted by everything else he'd done wrong. Blade falls silent, eyes wide. You leer up at him, then chortle with disbelief. "Oh god, you are." You choke out, feeling violated in a way. Feeling more violated than you were already. Blade keeps staring at you as you cover your face, cackling. "Oh god, oh god this is just unbelievable! You like me? Me?!"

You feel venom drip into your words. You feel that ache, the urge to tear his eyes out then and there. Boys will be boys. The words keep echoing through and it makes you physically ill to think of it.

"You're pathetic. You're absolutely fucking pathetic!" you cut through, grabbing his hair and pulling at it. Blade grunts, annoyed. You don't care, ripping at his face, his neck, his shoulders. "Fuck! Fuck you! After all this bullshit, fuck you!" Blade hisses, trying to shift a bit, move some more but you kick out at his thigh.

"Do not." he grits out, his voice low and angry. "Your anger is an inconsequential thing. I've seen far worse."

"You think I want your guilt, you ass?!" you demand. "You think I want you begging and grovelling for forgiveness?!" Blade thrusts. You dig down, fight against it and the sweet burn it brings. You feel that storm brew in your chest and you spit at him, jarring Blade enough with wide eyed shock ( it's a satisfying thing to see ) to slam your weight into him and roll the two of you over, your hands grabbing at his throat.

He nudges deeper into you and you cry out, feeling his tip coax into your g-spot. Still, you hold on.

Blade still watches, gauging the sudden shift, waiting to see you move. When you take a moment to gain your bearings, he grasps at your hips, guiding you down his cock and you almost falter, feeling his free hand tweak your nipples. sputtering a little, you persist, your thumbs coming to press against his Adam's apple.

Blade lets out a gasp, snapping his hips up again, drawing himself out then back into you. You feel him grind against those sensitive spaces he'd gauged out earlier and a few flustered cries sputter out before your grip tightens round your neck.

He sets his speed, increasing that pace to a faster rhythm, grasping at what parts he could, letting you take from him for a moment. You double over, teeth tearing into his cheek. "I despise you." You tell him. "I hate you for taking everything away from me. I hate you for ruining my life." You pour it all in, all the vitriol and the fury. Blade's eyes shut.

"I know." he grunts, feeling you clench down on his cock.

"I wish you'd stayed dead." You add, feeling it all pile up into a raw mass that eats you alive. "Do you hear me?"

"I know." He repeats.

"I hate you." You sob out, your tears splattering against his jaw. Your thumb presses down harder. Blade moans, his tempo increasing and catching you in it's midst, hitting your sweet spot over and over till it tumbles through to make a mess between the two of you, the baggage and the tucked away harshness. "You're pathetic. Absolutely fucking pathetic."

It feels so fuzzy, the heat, the faint warmth from Blade, blocking out his airflow. His movements grow frantic, almost, his grip on you bruising your hips till finally, you find you release again, legs weakening below you. Still, you hold fast, dragging yourself over the expanse of his body as he keeps up with thrusting faster and faster to a brink of near over-stimulation, all of it animalistic grunts and grows and teeth nudging at your chest.

You press down hard enough and Blade finally cums, his release coming in spurts inside of you. The cartilages in his larynx give out and you feel tissue collapse into itself ( just like that man on the beach with his throat torn out, poetic in a gruesome sense ). You watch him struggle to breath and you push down harder, hysteria bursting as you bare your teeth and drive him closer to another death.

Blade goes still below you. He's cold as a corpse.

You sway a bit, lifting yourself off of his cock, falling into a haze of cotton wool and sick satisfaction, tipping into the space next to him. He's dead. He's dead.

You shut your eyes, and you feel nothing.

You have better to do now, the unsaid and the undone. The empty buzz of pleasure slowly recedes and you grasp your phone between your hands, tapping at the message app. You let out a soft cry, shoulders shaking. There was a life once that felt far too distant. Where you'd been tugged away and folded into silk and gold till you were shackled down and told to stay quiet.

( There are many things you want to tell them. Many angry things, many quiet, introspective things. Many with a little more love lining your words, a little more longing. They still wait for you, even after shutting their doors. You know this too. )

So, you start to type.

Dear Appa…

Blade wakes when the sunlight filters in, and his arm winds round you in the silence, listening to the rustle down below and the coming commotion. Then, he rises, buttoning his pants up proper and drawing the blanket over your head. "Stay here." he tells you.

You listen to the angry voices and the encroaching footsteps from the staircase outside. Blade summons his sword, stalking out of the room, dog-like, wolf-like, his violence returned to him after briefly being cowed by your venom.

The doorbell rings and you draw into yourself.

You are not here. You tell yourself. You close your eyes and think of the garden in front of your childhood home.

#log. [ writing ]#blade x you #honkai star rail #hsr blade #blade #hsr blade x reader #honkai blade #hsr blade x you #honkai star rail x reader #tw dead dove #tw yandere #log. [ m-dni ]#blade x reader

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pretzel-box · 3 months ago

Note

God i need a part 3 to Sunkissed where we eventually get to meet him in his beautiful fishy glory

Bonus points if the reader says something along the lines of "You're as beautiful as the day i lost you" because that line goes so hard

SEQUEL TO SUNKISSED AND MOONBLINDED

Tags: Angst, gn!reader, mentions of attempted suicide

Words: 1k

Authors note: No >:) Maybe next part!

Sebastian had been hiding in the shadows, wedged into a tight crevice between rusted metal pipes, his fluorescent blue eyes glowing faintly in the darkness. He could see your form through a narrow gap, standing in the empty hallway, your back halfway to him and you still looked as beautiful as the day they took him from you. The faint light of the ceiling lamps casted a silver light down on you, making you look like bathed in glittering starlight. You stood still, almost frozen in place,like you were waiting for something or someone. Him, he realized with a pang of guilt.

“To be honest, I pretended it wasn’t a big thing that you died,” you said suddenly, breaking the silence with some words that must have been heavy on your tongue. Your voice echoed slightly in the empty space, soft yet clear, like you were confessing a secret you had kept for too long. Sebastian stiffened. You knew he was there, somewhere in the darkness, listening to every word you will say.

“I did it for your family's sake,” you continued, your voice steady but tinged with a sadness that was impossible to hide. “I couldn’t break down in front of them when they needed someone to keep them afloat.” Sebastian watched as your hands trembled, clenching and unclenching at your sides. The fingernails were digging uncomfortably into the flesh of your palms. You were trying so hard to stay strong, to keep up that cheerful front you always wore around him. It broke his heart.

He wanted to speak, to tell you he was here, but his voice was caught in his throat. How could he face you? After all that had happened, after what he had become. He was ashamed of how he looked now, the monstrous appearance he had taken on to survive in this godforsaken place. He couldn’t bear the thought of you seeing him like this. He would rather die than scar you with the memory of his newfound appearance.

“But it was anything but easy,” you said, your voice cracking slightly, still talking to the endless void. “It broke my heart.” You took a deep breath, your shoulders sagging under the weight of your own words. A small silence filled the space now before you continued with a pained hesitation. “I tried to… I stood in the waves, you know… And I tried to keep walking into them, but I got scared… I got so unbelievably scared of not being alive anymore.”

Sebastian’s chest tightened painfully at your words. The message hit him instantly as he realized what you meant. He could see the tears welling up in your eyes, could feel the tremor in your voice. You had always been so strong, so brave, and now here you were, breaking down in front of him, and he couldn’t do anything to help you. He felt like the coward he always feared he was.

“I was terrified, Sebastian,” you whispered, your voice barely more than a breath. The words hit him like a physical blow, and he felt his own tears begin to form. “I was terrified of what you must have felt when they wanted to kill you.”

Sebastian’s hand twitched at his side as his eyes widened in another moment of realization. No matter what situation you were in, you still had the habit of putting him first. He wanted to reach out, to touch you, to pull you into his arms and tell you everything would be okay. But he couldn’t move. He was paralyzed by his own fear, his own shame. How could he comfort you when he couldn’t even face himself?

He watched as you stood there, alone in the dim lights, waiting for him. The hallway seemed to stretch on forever, an endless chasm between the two of you. He wanted to close the distance, to take that first step, but his tail felt like lead.

He could hear your breathing, shaky and uneven, and it tore at him. He wanted to scream, to shout that he was here, that he had never truly left you. But his voice was gone, stolen by the fear that held him captive.

You finally turned, looking toward the shadows where you knew he was hiding. “Sebastian… please,” you whispered, your voice broken, pleading. “I need to see you. I need to know you’re real.”

And for a moment, just a moment, he almost did it. He almost stepped out of the darkness and into the light. But then the fear crashed over him again, a tidal wave of doubt and shame. He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t face you, not like this.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, though he knew you couldn’t hear him. “I’m so sorry…”

He watched as your shoulders slumped, the last of your strength seeming to drain away. You took a shaky breath, wiping at your eyes with the back of your hand. “I’ll come back,” you said quietly, more to yourself than to him. “I’ll come back tomorrow, and the day after that… until you’re ready. I promise.”

And with that, you turned and walked away, your footsteps echoing down the hallway until they faded into a painful silence. Sebastian watched you go, his heart aching with every step you took and he cursed himself in the comfort of his own mind. He wanted to call out to you, to beg you to come back, but the words wouldn’t come.

He was left alone in the darkness, the weight of his own fear pressing down on him like a heavy shroud. He didn’t know how long he stood there, staring at the spot where you had disappeared. All he knew was that he had to find the courage to face you, to make things right.

Because if he didn’t, he knew he would lose you forever.

Sebastian sank to the ground, tears streaming down his face as he finally let go of the emotions he had buried for so long. His chest heaved with sobs that echoed through the empty hallway, his body trembling with the force of his grief. The shame, the fear, the guilt—everything crashed over him in waves, drowning him in a sea of sorrow. He buried his face in his hands, his three blue eyes wet with tears. “I’m sorry,” he choked out between sobs, his voice breaking. “I’m so, so sorry…” His heart ached, knowing he’d pushed away the one person he loved most.

“Please, come back…”

#sebastian solace #sebastian solace x reader #sebastian solace x you #sebastian solace fanfic #roblox pressure

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eraenaa · 9 months ago

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The Prince and the Poet

Aemond Targaryen x Lannister Reader Tag List

Synopsis: It is established that Prince Aemond hates poems and sonnets; it was just a pity that you adored them.

Warnings: Mature, 18+, Mutual Masturbation, Aemond Writes a Poem, Childhood Friends, Hidden Attraction, Not Proofread

Word Count: 2,900

Inspired by my Original Fic on AO3, The Den of Dragons and Lions

Aemond scoffed and rolled his eye as he watched you completely enthralled by the sonneteer who performed before you. It had been un-endless hours he had to suffer as the court was subjected to watching poets read their works for the day’s entertainment. It was all too boring, all too frivolous, it was an utter waste of time. Aemond could not understand why you would willingly subject yourself to these men's trite and untrue words— whose delusions and desires were projected in their works. Aemond strongly believed that those who write poems and epics are weaklings and cowards. They do not have the courage to go on great adventures and woo their loves, so they can only imagine and write them down on parchment. And you were the sweet, naive fool who brought into their words—declaring their works beautiful and unparalleled. Blinded by flowery verses and empty promises.

You sigh longingly in your seat as the sonneteer before you recited your favorite sonnet of them all. Your lips silently move unconsciously as you recite your most favored work with him. Aemond, who sat by your side, sneered at the sigh that left your pillowy lips and the enchanted look in your eyes. His gaze traveled the court; every young maiden swooned by the words and looks of the sonnet who stood in the middle, reciting the work that you clung on to. When his torment finally ended, Aemond rolled his eye once more as you quickly stood and clapped your hands, an ovation for the young man who had finished his performance. Aemond did no such thing, only staring down the sonneteer who bowed and savored the praises given.

“I hope he shall return soon— and with new material!” You exclaimed to Helaena as you two walked the halls, arms linked together, Aemond trailing behind you. It was an old scene, your actions instilled since childhood. You practically grew up in the Red Keep with the princes and princess, a lion fostered by dragons.

You hear Aemond’s third scoff of the afternoon, making you glance behind only to see the consistent look of annoyance on his face. “I would take it you did not enjoy?” You say and face onward, feeling Aemond fasten his steps and now walking beside you and Helaena. “It is an utter waste of time; why must we spend hours on this frivolity when pressing matters could be attended to?” You roll your eyes at the Prince’s complaint.

“Aemond, your attendance was not required. If you believe poetry is a waste of time, I do not understand why you came there.” You say simply, pausing in your tracks. Helaena, a silent audience as you and Aemond began your ceaseless squabbles once more. Aemond was silent for a moment; the truth of his actions may not be revealed. “We did not force you to sit there and listen to Sir Liam— if anything, I’d prefer if you did not come; your glares and scoffs were seen and heard, and are very much unappreciated,” Aemond clenched his jaw as he had no response that he’d like to share. His eye traveled to his sister, who had a knowing smirk on her lips whilst you waited for his response that would not come.“I’ll see you both at supper,” Aemond grumbled as his eye landed on you, who bit back her smirk, the prince stomping away as you finally let your smile slip your lips.

“Must you really tease him? You perfectly know why he sat through the readings,” Helaena said as you and she sat in the gardens for tea. You picking at the candied lemons that you and Aemond would usually fight over. You smile as you lick your finger clean of the sugary syrup. “Yes, I know why he suffered through the readings. However, he is not aware that I am knowledgeable of his intent,” Helaena sighed, “How long will you make him suffer?” The princess asked, already impatient for the day her closest friend and brother would finally admit their attractions.

“Suffer?” You ask in shock, “I do no such thing! He inflicts his suffering himself—“ Helaena shook her head and laughed. “You’ve known of Aemond’s attraction to you for years! Yet you still act so clueless with him!” She reasoned. “I am a lady! I am expected to act chase and reserve. I cannot just go up to Aemond and confront him with his secret attraction!” You exclaimed with a fake and exaggerated look of scandal on your face, making Helaena laugh.

“If you are waiting for my brother to acknowledge and confess his attraction towards you, then you must wait— it might take him a lifetime.” Helaena mused, a hint of frustration and pity in her voice, for Aemond had wanted you since childhood; he was just afraid to let it be known. “Then I pity him… he could have had the golden beauty of the realm, but he chose to stay silent.” You say confidently— proud with the title bestowed upon you by lords and ladies, small and noble folk men who agreed that your beauty was as valuable and desirable as the gold your family was known for. Helaena hummed quietly and quickly prayed to the gods that her brother would soon admit his attraction, for Helaena knew that your pride would not subject you to confess your feelings first.

“Just because you do not understand or care for poetry does not mean they are a waste!” You exclaimed as Aemond picked another fight with you. You were peacefully seated in Helaena’s chambers, stroking your cat's fur mindlessly as Aemond’s own pet lay beside you. You were in no mood to fight with him and battle his views of poetry. “They are! They’re pointless. If you must say something, then say it— why must they dance around the matter? Why must they go on and on about something that could be said in one sentence? Cowards, the likes of them are!” You let out an exasperated sigh, making Aemond smirk at your annoyance.

He finds you quite endearing at the state, which is why he often takes time out of his day just to annoy you. Relishing at the roll of your enchanting eyes, the sighs that leave your plump, pink lips, and the furrow between your perfectly arched brows. If he were lucky and had annoyed you to quite an extent, you’d stomp your foot like a spoiled child. Or simply wave him off with your pampered hand because you no longer had a word of defense.

“Because they are poets! They do not wish to come to the answer and their intentions all at once— they create beauty with their words. They are capable of making subjects so dire be of great interest that they, in turn, create spectacles upon it!” You defended but Aemond only rolled his eye and shook his head, the former action he had gotten from you. Ever since you two were young, you would always roll your eyes when you found something disagreeable; Aemond would mock you for it— would mimic your actions in hopes of getting more from you. However, in time, he managed to adopt the same mannerisms.

“Archmaester Sisco believed that poetry is of great danger,” he said, taking a goblet to his lips. Your eyes followed the way the ball on his throat booed as you waited for him to continue his thought. “He says they mislead and are obscure and false— that poets are seducers of the mind,” He finished, noting the way your eyes were on his throat. Guessing you’d want to strangle him out of annoyance, Aemond was amused with the thought of you thinking about strangling him.

“The Archmaester’s proclamation and thinking is old— irrelevant in our times. Even his student, Archmaester Aristedes, disagrees with his views on poetry. He reasons that it is not harmful— it is a form of expression! Cathartic to those who read and write it!”Aemond let another scoff of derision slip his lips, pushing your annoyance into frustrated anger.

“You would not understand the beauty of poetry because you keep everything you feel inside you! You do not know what great relief it is to say or even write what you desire and hope for!” You exclaimed, and Aemond tensed in his seat. Silence surrounded the room as Aemond could not work out a response. You saw him fisting the arm of his chair, the knuckles of slender fingers turning pink from his tight grip.

You sighed heavily, “What I meant is… I understand that you do not like poetry and find it pointless and a waste— but I don’t. I am not forcing poetry onto you, nor am I trying to change your views upon it. I enjoy and adore poetry— I just wish you would stop discouraging me from enjoying it.

“Why do you enjoy it?” Aemond asked after a short while. You try to hide your surprise at his question. “Because… I find it romantic. For someone to take time to depict you with such beautiful imagery and flattering words, to love and admire you enough to dedicate a work of literature to your name… for me, it is the best way to express to someone how much you truly love them.” You could not look at Aemond as you said the words. In truth, a part of you felt silly because your love for poetry was only solidified because you loved a boy who you knew would not subject himself to create such works. When you read your favorite epics and songs, you would humor yourself and imagine it was Aemond who wrote it for you, knowing he would never do such a thing.

Days passed since your and Aemond’s interaction and you noticed that you had scarcely seen his presence. You would pass by him whilst in training and join him and his kin for supper— but other than that, you could not feel a trace of his presence. He would usually join you and Helaena for tea or would suddenly appear by your side as you walked along the keep. He didn’t even pick fights or tease you anymore. Him growing more silent and reserved. Now you regret speaking— wishing you had just held your tongue and let him continue to disparage the sacred thoughts of poems and songs.

It was high night, and you sat silently in your chambers, staring at the fire, trying to find ways to approach Aemond. Already missing his teasing presence— the only presence you would muster the patience to endure.

You furrowed your brows as you heard shuffling at your door. Your eyes catch the shadow of a figure outside. You cautiously and quietly stood, going to your door only to see a piece of parchment being slipped at the slit of the wooden door. Your confession only grew. You quickly took the parchment and opened the door, revealing its sender. Three eyes went wide as you were met with Aemond, who blended in the dark. However, his silver hair shined in the light of the moon. “What are you doing?” You ask and turn to the parchment he had slipped.

“Nothing— I… this—“ Aemond fumbled for words; you had never seen him in such a state. He was usually composed and stoic. You thought seeing him bashful and embarrassed was a nice gift from the gods. “What is this?” You ask and unfold the parchment. “No! Don’t—“ Aemond bit his tongue as it was too late to hinder you. Your eyes already consuming what was written.

I’ve known you for half of my life yet; you consume the whole of it I’ve had you near and close to me yet, I only gaze from afar

I do not know how to proclaim I’m not certain how to say it without blame, but you, my beauty, are the cause of my desire and, most of the time, my ire

I know I pick countless squabbles, but I do it because I love to hear you babble about things I have no care for but you just simply adore

We disagree for many reasons, but I’d rather fight you through the seasons You, my beauty, so lovely and carefree my heart could not help but love you, most ardently

Aemond watched you bite your lip as a wide smile started to spread. Aemond felt heat all over his body— anticipation did not sit well with him. He was ready to meet your laughs at his attempt to make you a poem. Ready to face rejection, but instead of the pessimistic thoughts in his mind, he was met with your sweet, pillowy lips. You were so excited and thrilled that you could not help but kiss him. Show him how you adored him as well.

What was supposed to be a short and chaste kiss turned deep with passion. Lips dancing and refusing to part. You and Aemond stumbled to your bed, uncaring and ignorant of the teachings of the gods, for you and him had long surpassed your desires, and they could no longer be denied. They were ready to claim without thought of consequences because both of you knew that you’d happily take all punishment that would be presented if it meant neither of you had to stop your actions.

“Gods, I want you,” You uttered as his lips traveled to kiss your soft cheeks, then trailed downward to the side of your neck. His hands were on your waist and threading dangerously close to your bosom. “Say it again,” Aemond almost begged. Savoring your scent, delighting at the way you feel against him. “I want you, Aemond. I’ve wanted you for years— you, only you.” You sighed as he left marks on your necks, earning quiet moans from you at the new sensation.

Aemond let a low moan rumble as his cock painfully strained against his trousers, throbbing at your admittance of want for him. It was all he wanted. He thought his deepest desire in life was to have a dragon, but that was wrong. He desired you more than claiming a dragon— his deepest desire was to claim a lioness.

Aemond tangled his hair in your hair, finally letting his other hand move from your waist and cup your breast. Your hand, in turn, went to palm him through his trousers, watching as his jaw clenched and the ball of throat bobbed once more. “We… we must not lay until we are married,” Aemond said, voice pained and filled with impatience. Yet, he still did not move atop you; he kept his hold, but you relinquished yours. “We don’t have to,” You said, trying to push away your need for him to touch you. Aemond sighed and hurried his face in your neck, his lips and breath tickling your skin. “Then how…” Aemond trailed, and a thought passed your mind. “We must not touch each other….yet. However, I do not recall teaching forbidding us to touch ourselves,” You whisper, Aemond’s lilac eye flying to you, dark and filled with lust, mirroring yours.

Aemond moved to remove his weight from you. You keep your eyes locked as you back away to the back of your bed, resting yourself on the pillows as Aemond kneels by the edge of your feathered bed, watching each move you make with his glazed, lone eye.

You bit your lip harshly as your hand threaded a path that it threaded plenty of times, the thought you had as you did the actions now watching you. You slipped your hands, and you resisted moaning as your fingers brushed over the pearl of your cunt. Aemond admired the way your breasts peaked and traced through your silk nightgown. The way your eyes were hooded and how your plump lips finally parted and moaned his name.

Aemond could no longer resist. Slipping his hand into his trousers just like he did every night, the image of you no longer in his mind but now sitting before him, calling out his name.“A-Aemond,” You stuttered as you felt the familiar cold within you. How desperately you wanted it to be, him to make you feel such a way. Aemond groaned and tilted his head to the heavens as he felt his cock twitch; he was quick to reach his peak; just the way you called for his name was enough for him to spill so quickly.

Aemond closed the space between the two of you, each of your hands still pleasuring yourselves while lips met and wanted to be together when both of you reached your peaks. “You will be mine soon, my heart… mine to pleasure and please, all mine,” Aemond swore against your lips. You nod your head as you fasten your pace. “I’ve always been yours, Aemond.” You said truthfully, the final push for Aemond to come undone; you quickly followed as his moans spurred your peak. Aemond kissed your lips once more and boldly prayed for patience, patience, and restraint to not take you that night.

It was not enough for Aemond; pleasuring himself as he watched you pleasure yourself was not enough, but it had to be for now. Because when morning comes, he’ll demand that you shall be his, just as it ought to be.

If you enjoyed the premise of this story, you might like the inspiration for it!

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bullet-prooflove · 2 months ago

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Bad decisions prompt

34. You're a fuckin bitch, hope you know that shit

With richie?

Tagging: @kmc1989 @lostinwonderland314 @fallout-girl219 @wabi-sabi1090 @morgthemagpie

Companion piece to:

86 - Richie 86es a patron at The Bear.

The Better Man - Richie confronts your ex-husband.

‘You're a fucking bitch, I hope you know that shit’ is written on the note Richie finds trapped under the windscreen wiper on your car. He’d been heading to his own vehicle to run an errand for The Bear when he’d caught sight of it fluttering in the breeze.

Rage courses through him, the paper crumpling in his hand as he marches back into the house and sets it down on the breakfast bar where you’re stirring sugar into your coffee.

It’s Sunday morning and you’re barely awake, your hair is a complete birds nest from the past few hours that Richie has spent ruining you and you’re wearing one of his t-shirts with a clean pair of black panties.

He can tell you aren’t surprised which makes him realise this isn’t the first one that’s crossed your path. It’s just the first one that he knows about.

“Who is it?” He asks you despite the fact he already has a pretty good idea of the kind of coward that would pull this shit. “And how many more are there?”

You sigh as you tilt your head up towards him, your lips still swollen from his kisses.

“There were three.” You tell him. “Each one left in a place where you could see them because he wants you to have a reaction.”

The reaction being that he punches your ex-husband in the face and then gets sent straight to jail because Richie, he’s on his third strike. You can’t stand the thought of that so you’ve been throwing them out, long before he even lays eyes on them.

“And this is what?” Richie asks you, trying to figure out what the point of all this is. “Him trying to get back at us for 86ing him from the restaurant?”

You clear your throat as your gaze lowers to your coffee cup and it’s in that moment Richie realises that there’s something else you’ve been keeping from him.

“I heard from a mutual friend that he was going to get the reviewer to tank the restaurant so I stepped in.” You say quietly as you wrap your hands around your coffee cup to warm them. “I may have encouraged him it would not be in his best interests to do so.”

Richie rubs his palm across his mouth. He never envisioned your personal lives would interfere with the business they’ve poured their heart and souls into. A review like that, in a paper that prestigious…

It would have killed The Bear completely.

“When I was planning to divorce him, I had a PI follow him so I could get some extra leverage just in case he decided to challenge the petition. I ended up with some compromising pictures of him with an investor’s wife, ones that could destroy his business if they found their way into that investor’s hands.” You inform Richie as you take a sip from your cup. “I went to his office last week to remind him of what I had in my possession and what could happen if he kept trying to fuck with The Bear.”

Richie doesn’t know what to say. He knows how hard it must have been to face Peter after the shit he put you through. The fact you marched into his office, for him, for his livelihood…

If he wasn’t already married to you, he’d be on his knees, begging to put a ring on that finger.

“I’m guessing the notes are his way of trying to take away the one thing that actually matters to me.” You say, your fingers smoothing out the paper before your gaze flickers up to meet his. “Do me a favour and don’t play into it, I know this pisses you off but I can’t stand the thought of living without you and I don’t think I’m equipped for a jail break.”

He smiles then, despite himself, despite the situation. The Richie he was back when the two of you met would already be in cuffs by now for murdering the son of a bitch, this Richie has worked on his anger management issues, he knows he doesn’t want Eva to spend the next few years visiting him in prison. It’s another testament to just how far he’s come since you stepped into his life.

“Don’t worry…” He promises you, his forehead coming to rest upon yours as he squeezes your hip lightly. “I won’t let him take me away from you.”

“Good.” You say, your fingertips trailing over the beard that lines his jaw. “Because we’ve made a pretty great life together and I don’t want anything to ever fuck that up.”

Love Richie? Don’t miss any of his stories by joining the taglist here.

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Like My Work? - Why Not Buy Me A Coffee

#richie jerimovich #richie jerimovich x reader #richie jerimovich the bear #richie jerimovich imagine #the bear

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mirandasidefics · 10 months ago

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But Home is Nowhere- Chapter 2

Pairing(s): Lucien x Plus Size Reader, Azriel x Plus Size Reader, Ruhn Danaan x Plus Size Reader

Chapter 2 Summary: Lucien and Rhysand argue over Reader's imprisonment, only one cell is traded for another. Lucien reaches out to an unlikely alley for support in getting Reader free.

Word Count: 6.3K

Warning(s): Mentions of injuries, mentions of self harm, mentions of body issues/insecurities.

A/N: I was too excited to wait the full month so here is part two a bit early! I apologize that this gets a bit dialogue heavy at the end. I may fix it later. This is going to be a long slow burn fic with a lot of angst. This will also have crossover with some of the Crescent City characters. It also probably goes without saying, but this will not follow canon past the events in HOSAB. Comment on this post if you want to be included on the tag list.

Series Masterlist

Previous: Chapter 1

Seven days. Seven days he’d been arguing and advocating for her release with Rhysand. For seven days he listened to the same rehearsed list of excuses as to why Rhys wouldn’t budge in his decision.

“You and I both know that the gate to Velaris was sealed with blood magic. Only those whose blood is linked to the seal can pass through, which she shouldn’t have been able to do. On top of that we don’t know what world she came from. I’m not risking the lives of my family-my court, which includes you- on what equates to no more than a hunch.”

While the High Lord’s statements were reasonable and valid points, his insistence she remained confined in that dark and dank cell was not. Lucien hastily made his way down the main steps that lead into the catacombs, thoughts of his last spat with Rhysand swirling in his mind.

“Why do you care so much about what happens to this woman?” Rhys had questioned. Lucien had asked himself the same thing; but how could he say that it was less about her and more about what she represented? That when he saw her cowering form in the corner of that cell, images of Feyre, Elain, and Jesminda flashed through his mind. He had failed the two sisters. He had failed his first love. He would sooner have the Cauldron blast him from existence should he fail to protect another innocent female. He’d kept his composure standing in Rhysand’s office at the River House long enough. A simmering rage permeated the space as the raven-haired male stared him down. A silent challenge in the already tense atmosphere.

“How can you stand your own hypocrisy?” He seethed, “You sit there thinking of yourself so high and mighty, yet a simple human frightens you? You allowed Feyre into Velaris the second week she spent with you. You allowed Bryce into your home within minutes of her crashing into our world. Yet this human…this woman scares you so much you have her imprisoned in one of the most dangerous areas of your court?”

“ENOUGH!” Rhysand bellowed, his own violet orbs simmered with rage. Lucien felt his flames rise up and encircle his palms. Rhysand’s High Lord command held no sway so he continued.

“Are you that much of a coward that you could not have just asked her a few simple questions? You couldn’t have just looked into her-”

“I could not enter her mind!” Rhys’ breaths were ragged. “Something is protecting that mortal, and it is strong enough to keep me out. So long as those shields of hers remain impenetrable I cannot trust her. I must keep my mate and child safe.” Lucien scoffed, his fire dwindled. “Which is not something I can say I see you doing for your own.”

Lucien could still feel the cracking of bone and cartilage of Rhys’ nose as it connected with his fist. The argument surly would have resulted in them demolishing the entirety of the business wing had Azriel’s arrival not stopped the two males in their tracks. The Shadowsinger’s haggard appearance set them both on edge, but his words allowed Lucien to breathe a sigh of relief.

“I’m done with this Rhys. I cannot keep hur- I cannot do this… she knows nothing.” The High Lord merely looked between the Emissary and the Spymaster. Expression relaxed and revealing nothing, even as blood dripped over his lips.

“Bring her up to the Moonstone Palace,” the commanded was towards his brother, “Since Lucien is so smitten with the woman he shall remain with her there for the time being.”

Lucien soon found himself outside of her cell. Only darkness and cold emanated from beyond the door. He paused his own breathing, wondering if she was even still alive. The last time he saw her, she hadn’t hesitated to slice open her own skin. Azriel wasn’t far behind and pushed past Lucien to enter the room. Lucien’s breath remained caught in his throat as he took in the mangled sight of her.

You had no idea how long you’d been in the darkness of your cell. Hours had turned into days, but just how many days you weren’t sure. You had gone silent on what you assumed was the third day. You knew nothing of how you got there, and you had no idea where to begin when Azriel-who’s name you gathered early on-asked you about the world you came from. Its not like he would believe you if you said your world had no magic, at least not in the same way it was here. Then again, that was clearly an incorrect assumption on your part. And after everything that has transpired you determined that this was no dream. It was a nightmare come to life. You weren’t sure how much more your psyche could tolerate. Surely death would be better than the horrors that would plague your mind for years to come if you were allowed to live. You prayed silently to whatever deity would listen to let you die. You started as the metal hinges of the door screamed into the darkness.

“Mother above,” The horrified yet soft baritone drifted to your ears and you strained to open your eyes. You recognized the voice and Lucien’s warm body was immediately next to yours as you dangled from the ceiling. The male made quick work of the metal shackles holding your wrists high above your head, a bright light flooding the small space making you hiss. His large hand encircled your wrist and you could feel the skin repair itself. Lucien slowly lowered your arms down.

“Her name is (Y/N),” Azriel’s voice was barely above a whisper, as if he was ashamed of the space his normal speaking voice would take up in the small cell. As if what he said would break you further. Lucien held you up, warm hands around your rib cage holding you steady.

“(Y/N),” His testing of your name tentative, “(Y/N), my name is Lucien…I’m going to take you out of here.” His arms wrapped around you, and you could have sworn you felt your skin get warmer, the cold melting away like ice. His grip never lessened, which you were grateful for as you weren’t sure your legs could fully support your weight.

“Do you feel safe enough to come with me?” You couldn’t speak, couldn’t move your head in agreement. Couldn’t specify that you felt safe with him. You could only muster enough strength to cling to the front of his shirt, hoping it conveyed your trust towards him and him alone. Your eyes burned with tears. He shushed you as one of his hands rubbed up and down your spine. A footstep echoed in the chamber, and then you felt Azriel’s shadows attempt to wend their way over your bare feet. Your flinch was followed by a low warning growl, one that you felt more than heard.

“Follow me,” Azriel’s swallow was audible.

“Can you walk?” Lucien’s hand lowered to your waist, pushing you back far enough so he could meet your eyes. They felt swollen and your vision was unfocused and hazy, but you tried to keep them open so he could see that you would try your best. You shifted your weight back onto your heels and slowly slid your right foot in front of you. A lightning like bolt of pain traveled up your leg. Air harshly sucked into your lungs.

“I’ve got you,” his voice was reassuring as he continued to support most of your weigh in his arms. You took another step forward. Then another and another. His hands never faltered from their place on your torso as he moved himself to walk behind you. Ready and poised to keep you balanced and catch you should you fall. “Good girl,” he praised, “Let’s get you cleaned up so I can heal you yeah?”

The walk up from the catacombs to the palace proper was brutal. Your legs burned from the muscle strain and you were regretting not accepting help from Lucien while you bathed. However, the last thing you wanted was to have anyone see you naked. Lucien had helped enough with getting the large sunken in bathtub filled. The scent of vanilla and lavender contrasted with the grime and dirt that filled your lungs for the last week. You had specifically asked for the water to be scalding, wanting it to burn away the memory of everything that had been done to you in the dark. The deep cold that laced your bones was finally seeping out in the hot water. A soft knock rapped on the stone archway leading into the bathing chamber. Unable to move your neck freely you covered your chest and turned to face the male. He walked over to the bench set near the tub, a bundle of cream-colored fabric in his arms. Unless it was a bedsheet you doubted that any clothing he found would fit you. Then again, magic existed so its possible that the fabric could be altered instantly. He sat on the bench and set the garment next to the towel that awaited you.

“Are you certain that I can’t be of assistance?” He looked beyond you towards the open windows that overlooked the absolutely stunning expanse of wilderness below the palace. A darkened city jutting out from the base of the mountains the only thing that disrupted the sight. You were thankful for Lucien’s offer. Truly you were, and despite the feeling-knowing- that you could trust the male, your self-conscious nature surrounding your body was too strong.

“I-” You cleared your throat of the gravel you were certain had lodged itself inside from screaming against the rocky surface of your cell, “I’m good.” The vibration of your vocal chords felt like sandpaper as they rubbed together. He looked at you then and reflexively you squeezed your arms tighter around yourself; gripping your elbows as you dipped down into the water until everything below your neck was submerged. You were grateful for the tub size making you look small. It could easily fit two full grown adults and deep enough to reach your waist when you stood to full height. It almost reminded you more of a jacuzzi rather than a bathtub.

“Then I’ll leave you to bathe in peace,” He stood and clasped his hands behind his back, “I’ll be in the room just beyond these arches. Just call our if you need anything. I’m here to ensure that you’re taken care of.” You nodded your understanding and turned towards the side of the tub lined with soaps and lotions, his foot steps retreating against the stone tiles. While you had difficulty with your range of motion, you managed to rid yourself of the dirt, grime, and dried blood from your skin. Your hair felt silky, soft, and light compared to the heavy oily mats from not washing it for a week. You had also found a razor nearby and took the opportunity to shave, savoring the feeling that you were becoming a person again. Drying off was easier with the relaxed muscles. The vanilla scented lotion felt like heaven as it penetrated your dry skin. You surmised that the bath had really only removed one layer of nightmares as you scanned your form in the mirror on the opposite wall. Your eyes first saw the plethora of cuts in every size cover the expanse of both your arms, shoulders, and collar bone from the dagger-Truth Teller-that Azriel had used during your interrogation. Next you took in the dark red and purple bruise on the left side of your jaw. The discoloration spanning from the joint below your ear to your chin. It was a miracle that he hadn’t knocked any of your teeth out or broken your jaw from the force he hit you with. Eyes trailing further down you saw a second healing bruise, its blue-green hue spanning the length of your ribs on the right side of your body. Laying down on your side was going to prove difficult still. Finally, your eyes landed on the only injury that you yourself were responsible for. The shadows had played too many tricks on your mind, too many whispers promising to break you. The psychological and emotional pain was worse than the physical injuries and honestly became too much for your soul. Something in you broke. You still couldn’t figure out exactly how you managed to grab Truth Teller from him, too focused on plunging the black blade into your left inner thigh and dragging it along the flesh. You couldn’t reach your throat, so you had been aiming for the next major artery you knew of in the hopes that you’d bleed out fast, but Azriel was quick. His attempt to get the blade back from you pushed it away from where it would do the most damage. That was the last day that Azriel brought any form of weapon with him, and the last day he put his hands on you. Rhysand had only managed to stop the bleeding, but a large and deep jagged slice remained. Had you paid more attention you may not have doubted the guilt that lined his features as he worked to heal you. You didn’t want this to be real. You still held out hope that if you somehow managed to end your life you’d wake up on the cold concrete of the path leading up to your front door. You didn’t belong here.

You shook the memories from your mind and picked up the fabric on the bench. You expected the intrusive thoughts and nightmares, but you didn’t think that they would be plaguing you so immediately. You slipped on the airy cotton tank top and loose-fitting matching shorts. You were indeed surprised they fit as well as they did, let alone fit at all. Your bare feet padded along the cool stone floor and entered the massive bedchamber. The room encapsulated a warmth with its cream and ivory base colors. Splashes of blues, teals, and turquoise giving it a calming effect. The dark cherry wood of the four-poster bedframe provided an interesting accent color adding to the space. Lucien sat on an ivory colored couch that faced a white marbled fireplace. Sadly, the flames did nothing to help illuminate the space and only seemed to cast heavier shadows. You glanced around the room again and noticed that the bedsheets had been turned down for you, for whenever you were ready to sleep. But you knew you wouldn’t be able to get any real rest with your injuries being what they were. Rhysand had only stopped the bleeding in your thigh. He did nothing for the other injuries. So, Lucien stated he would heal those for you. Carefully walking over, you sat your self on the couch, keeping enough space for another person to sit between you and the crimson haired male. He turned towards you with a slight smile that quickly faltered as he took in your appearance. He moved closer towards you and examined every inch of your skin. His one real eye held no warmth even as a flame seemed to ignite the iris. He took your chin in his hand to get a better look at the bruise on your jaw. His touch was gentle, but even you could tell that the male was furious with what he saw.

“I had hoped some of this had been dirt,” He turned your head to the side, a finger tracing down along the side of your neck. A metallic scent permeated the air as the hand cupped the left side of your face, covering nearly the entire bruise. His gaze slowly traveled down to your shoulders and the cuts that littered and marred the skin of your arms and shoulders. The skin warmed and tingled under his gentle caress. His eyes paused at your torso, no words needed to understand that he wanted to see the injury to your ribs. You carefully gathered the material and lifted as high as your stiff shoulder and neck muscles would allow. His fingers traced the outline of the mark, and you cringed at the touch of his hands moving your fat rolls out of the way so his palms could lay flat against the skin. Embarrassment colored your cheeks. Lucien continued his healing wordlessly. He motioned for you to stand, grasping your calf and propping your leg on the cushion of the couch. Your inner thigh completely exposed to him allowing the full extent of your wound to be seen. You watched as skin healed almost instantly. His gaze then shifted to the healed scars on your upper thigh, near the junction where it met your hip. “Um…y-you can leave those,” you brought your leg back down to stand before the male, “Thank you Lucien.”

“You’re most welcome,” His smile didn’t reach his eyes. You started to pick at your already blunt nails, a nervous habit you used to ground yourself. You glanced around the room for the third time, almost not believing that you were no longer in the cold and dark. The white walls and bedding opened up the space.

“Is…is that for me?” You pointed over towards the massive bed covered in decorative pillows. Lucien’s red hair swayed with the movement of his head as he followed your gesture.

“The bed is for you,” He stood and walked over to the small bedside table to the left of the headboard, “As is this sleeping draft.” He picked up a deep cobalt vial, giving it a slight shake before setting it back down. You hummed and nodded, but didn’t move from your spot in front of the couch. It went without saying that the potion would be needed after what you experienced over the past week. And you would only feel guilty if you woke him in the middle of the night.

“There’s water for you as well,” His voice softened as he noticed your hesitation. You chewed on your lower lip. The sun was still up, but you didn’t know how its position revealed the time of day. Depending on the time of year and how far north, or south, on the planet you were, you estimated it could be anywhere from 3pm to 9pm. You supposed it didn’t really matter as sleep was sleep and you’d likely remain unconscious for several hours, Gods willing at least.

“I will be in the room next to yours,” He pointed over to a door opposite from the entrance to the bathing chamber, “If you need anything, anything at all you come to me. We’ll get you some food in the morning.” You nodded again as your eyes started to water. You didn’t want to be left alone, but you also didn’t want to take up his time more than you already were. So, wordlessly you forced your feet to move and made your way over to the bed. You crawled in under the blankets that had been moved aside. You grabbed the vial from the bedside table and uncorked the stopper. The scent of chamomile, lavender, and something unknown wafted to you. Before you gave yourself time to reconsider you downed half the contents and set it back down. Lucien was patiently waiting at the door and smiled his first genuine smile towards you.

“Goodnight (Y/N).”

“Goodnight Lucien.”

Lucien had answered all your questions, to the best of his ability, during your first day in the Moonstone Palace. He filled you in on the basics of the Night Court and Prythian. For each bit of information he provided about the land or himself, you matched it. He also informed you that while here, Rhysand insisted that you work on finding any potential information of your world and how to get back to it in the texts that he sent. A new stack of books was brought into the small library within the palace every morning. So far, your hours of reading yielded no results. Then again, you could only read a fraction of the texts given to you. Most were in languages that you couldn’t even begin to understand. Still you scanned the tombs for any words that even looked remotely similar to names of places within your universe. Sadly, all you could find was information related to a Midgard, which was frustratingly NOT the same as the mortal realm described in Norse mythology. Lucien then explained that they had already received visitors from this Midgard that were set to return to Prythian soon. You had gathered that one of them was Bryce, but you’d not been given names for anyone else.

In addition to the books you had also been gifted a small wardrobe filled with clothing in your size. It had been awkward when the half wraiths appeared to measure you. But you were provided with some simple dresses, pants, shirts, and under clothes. Nothing fancy, which you were grateful for. Lucien explained the clothes were an apology gift from Rhysand. You told Lucien that if the High Lord was truly sorry he could at least express as much to your face. You couldn’t complain in the grand scheme of things. Rhysand wasn’t obligated to house, feed, or clothe you. He could have easily dumped you in the Mortal Lands, leaving you to fend for yourself. Although, Lucien stated that he knew of two people that would have taken you into their care. Regardless, you did as Rhysand bid, reading for hours day after day and never asked for anything in particular.

Another two weeks went by and you and Lucien developed a little routine. Breakfast followed by hours of research. Then lunch and various exercises and tests to determine if you held any sort of latent magic. Lucien explained that his initial assessment of you that first day showed nothing, but that didn’t mean you were completely without power. Truth be told you felt he was keeping something from you. Then came dinner, after which you were free to spend your time however you wished. Mostly you spent time on the veranda studying the night sky, letting the wind caress your face and hair. There was one night you swore you heard voices held within the breeze. A song encouraging you that you would find peace again. In your world the night time hours used to provide a comfort, but here there was nothing familiar about the constellations that dotted the dark sky above. Instead, the lack of familiarity just made you feel all the more alone. It wasn’t that Lucien wasn’t good company, you just felt bad that he was stuck with you. He tried really hard to get you to relax and fall into the playful banter he likely needed to survive his own punishment. While he never said as much, you had gathered that his babysitting duty was linked to your release and apology from the High Lord. Lucien made your days easy, filled with witty remarks and a warmth that felt natural. An easy friendship had definitely taken root.

However, the nights were hard. You already suffered from extreme insomnia without the added fear of night terrors. So, your sleep cycle was suffering greatly. The first two nights were dream less thanks to whatever Lucien had given you. But the third night resulted in his bursting through the doors of your bedroom at the sound of your screams. As much as you hated yourself for feeling weak, you begged him to stay in the room. He obliged, of course, and slept on the couch. His presence helped slightly. It didn’t chase away the nightmares, but it did make the darkness that permeated the night more tolerable. You had never been fearful of the night before, having even preferred it to the hustle and bustle of the day. You had always the quite of the night to bring you a comforting serenity. But since your time in the cell…you insisted on a fire in the hearth and the faelights to remain lit, believing the light would chase away the shadows that plagued your dreams.

You felt bad forcing Lucien to sleep on the couch. But you also didn’t want him to feel uncomfortable if you offered to share your bed with him. He told you about his mate, Elain, and you felt even worse that your arrival took him away from her. Even if he explained that their relationship wasn’t what would be expected between mates after nearly 4 years of being in each other’s lives. So, you kept the offer to yourself.

Today started out like any other. Lucien and you sat down to a breakfast of eggs, toast and jam with orange juice. You never really cared for tea and coffee appeared to not be available in Prythian if your companion’s confusion was anything to go by. The only difference today were the two additional place settings.

“Are we expecting visitors?” You asked. You immediately wanted to kick yourself for asking what was an obvious question.

“Yes,” Lucien answered, pouring a cup of tea for himself, “I’ve asked some people to come and meet you. As much as I enjoy our time together, it seems that the High Lord still needs convincing that you should not be kept in a cell.”

“I’m not in a cell,” You countered. However, you didn’t miss the fact that his glare told you that your new cell was just a lavish one.

“Our guests may be able to help me make a stronger case for you to be able to move freely about the court, if not Prythian as a whole.” You pondered who he would have contacted. To your understanding, not many members of the High Lord’s “Inner Circle” particularly cared for the emissary. There was also no way that members from another court would be able to hold any sway over the inner workings of the Night Court.

“So, what do they need to know about me?” You asked, spiking the yoke of your egg. In the time spent with Lucien you were able to be yourself for the most part. You held back on your swearing, meme related jokes, and slang, but tested out your sarcasm and dry humor. One of the main things you were worried about was how to speak with others. While you had manners, you had no formal etiquette training. Something that Lucien found utterly hilarious when you asked for clarification on how to address him.

“Relax, its an informal introduction,” His gentle smile reassured you, “Just be the sweet girl that I’ve come to know.” His smile widened. You gave him a doubtful look, tucking your lips into a thin line to suppress a laugh. He batted his irritatingly long eyelashes and the two of you broke out into a fit of laughter. While you weren’t cold or bitchy by any means, you also weren’t a sweet and demure woman either. No, Lucien quickly pointed out that you had a fire within you…at least on your good days. The laughter was cut short by the sound of a thud in front of you on the stone patio. Your eyes immediately tracked the large bat like wings and you stood from your seat. Metal and glass clanged against the stone as your thighs hit the lip of the table. Your chair knocked to the ground, causing you to nearly trip as you backed towards the metal railing. Blood rushed in your ears and your vision started to tunnel. Lucien was next to you in an instant.

“Hey. Hey," He gripped your right shoulder to keep you steady, “Shh, it’s okay. It's not him. You’re safe.” Your gaze remained fixed on the unknown winged male that looked on with worry etching his features.

“See what you did,” the voice of the female he’d been carrying was distant in your ears. Lucien’s other hand cupped your face, forcing you to turn towards him.

“Eyes on me (Y/N),” He encouraged, “Breathe. There you go.” Your eyes focused on his features; the jagged scar-raised and tight, the deep reds sprinkled amongst the warm honey brown iris. Your breath evened out, and you covered the hand on your cheek with one of your own to let the red head know you were okay. You took another breath and released Lucien. However, his hand remained on your shoulder. You turned back to the couple that stood on the opposite side of the space. At first glance, the winged male held features that you noted were similar to Azriel in regards to skin, hair, and eye color. Although, Azriel’s held more flecks of green than the honey gold of the male before you. The unnamed male was taller and broader, his shoulder-length hair softly jostled in the breeze. Your eyes wandered over to the female that was with him. Her striking blue-grey eyes would have reminded you of steel had it not been for the soft sadness that shown in them at your display. You hadn’t expected to react in the manner you did. Your heart still hammered in your chest. You cleared your throat and smoothed down the front of the simple sage green dress you wore.

“I-I must apologize,” You started, “I guess I…sorry.” You wrung your hands together and looked at your feet.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” the female spoke up, "It’s this idiot’s fault. We should have given you a warning.” You nodded slightly in acknowledgment. Lucien’s hand trailed down your arm to your hand. He gave it a quick and gentle squeeze before he bent down to pick up the chair you’d knocked over in your haste to get away.

“(Y/N),” He motioned for you to sit back down, “This is Cassian, the General of the Night Court’s Illyrian army, and Nesta Archeron, Valkyrie, sister to the High Lady and fellow emissary.” Lucien gestured to each as they took their own seats across from yours.

“It’s nice to meet you,” You reached across the table, your hand extended to shake theirs. When neither returned to gesture you pulled back. “Sorry, I’m used to hand shakes as a form of greeting in my world.”

“So, you are from another world?” Cassian asked, scooping some eggs onto a plate and handing it to Nesta.

“Yes, we call it Earth,” you searched the table for a spare fork, yours having fallen to the ground. When you couldn’t find one, Lucien handed you his. You raised your eyebrow at him, but he just shrugged and began to spread a blackberry jam on his toast. “And before you ask, there is no magic, at least not the same as what you’re familiar with. Also, creatures such as fairies-the Fae- shapeshifters, vampires, mermaids, nymphs, and so on - are all non-existent. Just stories that have been reduced to myths.” The two regarded you closely, listening to your spiel. When they didn’t say anything you continued, too nervous to allow silence.

“I’m not sure how I got here. There are stories of humans traveling through portals into the realm of the Fae or other worlds, but they are simply stories. Ones made to keep children out of trouble or explain natural occurrences. All prior to finding scientific explanation, of course. Like the changing of the seasons,” You realized you were now rambling, “or fairy rings-rings of flowers or more often mushrooms…” The three non-humans stared at you.

“Don’t Lu,” you warned as the corner of the male’s full lips ticked up, “Yes, I talk when I’m nervous. Yes, I’m nervous because I really don’t know how I got here. I don’t know why I’m here. I don’t understand why…I just…want to go home.” Lucien took your hand in his again, his grip reassuring and comforting.

“That’s what we’re all working on,” He assured, “There is a library that, should we manage to convince Rhys-”

“Wait, she can’t leave here?” Nesta interrupted, her eyes blazed. Cassian tensed in his seat and gave Nesta a warning glance. It was clear that not everyone knew of your predicament.

“She’s restricted to the East Wing of the palace,” Lucien clarified, “There are barriers up that she can’t pass through. Just like what Tamlin did with your sister.” If Nesta had been upset before, she looked down right lethal now. Of course, Lucien had filled in you in on what transpired with Feyre and his former home in the Spring Court. Cassian cleared his throat, his gaze falling to the other male.

“What is it you need from us exactly?” He looked to you, seemingly trying to figure out why you posed such a threat that you required to be locked away.

“I need your voice in your High Lord’s ear. I have no magic, and we’ve tried various ways to test that out.”

“Which you’re welcome to see,” Lucien interrupted.

“Yes. I don’t really know how to use a weapon, nor do I have much interest in doing so. And, as I already mentioned, up until a month ago I firmly believed that yo-the Fae were not real.”

“What did my brother say his reasoning was for holding her here?” The question was directed towards the other male.

“He can’t enter her mind.” Cassian’s surprise was not well hidden, “He believes that something or someone is guarding her-” It was your turn to interrupt your friend.

“If I was being guarded or protected, then whatever was responsible has already failed me,” Your voice was soft. A silence fell across the table, and most of the food had grown cold. You didn’t know what else to do or say to convince the General and the Valkyrie of your innocence. All they had to go on was your and Lucien’s word. Even if you were to demonstrate the exercise that Lucien put you through each afternoon with no results, how would they believe that you weren’t just pretending. A ruse to fool them. You desperately tried to quell the pinpricks of tears behind your eyes. You feared that if Lucien’s efforts failed you’d be sent back to the catacombs or worse left to rot on that-

“(Y/N),” Nesta’s clear and calm voice cut through your thoughts, “I’d like to hear more about where you’re from.” You nodded.

“What would you like to know specifically?”

“Let’s start with you. Your family, your up brining.” She leaned back in her chair, arms crossed comfortably in her lap. You swallowed and nodded again.

“I can do that.” You spent the next few hours pouring every detail of your life to the trio. Most information Lucien already knew, some he didn’t. You talked about your family and your friends. You briefly talked about your work and academic studies in music. This caught the oldest Archeron’s attention, which launched a discussion regarding your dissertation topic. The two males excused themselves as you continued to talk with Nesta. The topic changed to books and Nesta promising to bring you some of the spicier romance novels that she found to enjoy the most on her next visit; to which you were grateful as you desperately needed a reprieve from only reading books provided by Rhysand. Cassian and Lucien eventually returned as you made a raunchy joke that had you and the female High Fae laughing loudly.

“It’s time to go Nes,” Cassian set his hand on her shoulder. He looked to you and smiled. The expression was genuine. After spending the few hours you did with the male, you had concluded that he was much less frightening than the other Illyrian. At least for the time being, that is. Nesta rose from her seat and joined her mate.

“I will speak with my sister,” She told you, her features hard with determination, “It’s not right that you’re kept any where against your will when you’ve done nothing to justify imprisonment.”

“Thank you,” You smiled, “I hope to see you both again soon. I’m certain this fool is getting tired of having to entertain me.” You gave the male a wicked teasing grin. Cassian let out a booming laugh as ‘your fool’ placed his hand to his chest in mock offense.

“And here I thought you loved my company,” He stated. You laughed as you stood to join him at the patio entrance.

“Yeah, yeah,” You brushed him off, the smile still plastered to your face. The two of you said your goodbyes and watched as the guests flew off in the distance.

“I think that went rather well,” you looked to Lucien, “Don’t you?”

“Yes, it did,” He held his arm out for you to take, “Cassian agreed to speak to Rhys. He said that he and Nesta would allow you to stay in their home or at least help you get in and out of the library.” You hummed in response as you slipped your arm around his. Your mind wandered, and you felt lighter than you had since you’d been here. He walked you to your room and began prepping the couch to be his makeshift bed for the evening. The sun was quickly setting, and you hadn’t noticed that you spent the entire day talking. You paused near the entrance to the bathing chamber.

“Lu?” he hummed, looking up at you while shaking out the quilt. “Thank you, for everything.”

“Of course, sweet girl,” You rolled your eyes at the term of endearment.

“That’s sticking now isn’t it?” His russet eye brightened with mischief.

“Now that I know it irks you, yes.” You leveled a glare at his to which he just laughed. You huffed a breath.

“If you’re just going to be mean, you can leave,” You stuck your tongue out at him as you made your way into the bathing room. He continued to laugh as he excused himself to his own rooms. When he returned, you were already snuggled in your bed, breathing deep and steady.

Next: Part 3

Tag list: @jenniferpendragon @impossibelle @sweet-chai-amore @myheartfollower

#acotar x reader #azriel x reader #lucien x reader #acotar fanfiction #lucien vanserra x reader #plus size reader #lucien vanserra x plus size reader #azriel x plus size reader #BHINfic

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swarvey · 4 months ago

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paper rings | harvey x f!reader

summary -> harvey forgets something a bit important; you make a surprise appearance. warnings -> self-deprecating thoughts, panic attacks, drinking wc -> 3284

a/n: alternate chapter title: all too well. (just between us, did the love affair maim you too?)

ugh another chapter with a hard title to pick! i was completely torn between betty and all too well, but betty ultimately ended up fitting the story pretty well.

hope you enjoy!! <3 there is more to come, so let me know if you want to be tagged in the following parts!!

ch. 9 | ch. 10 | ch. 11

paper rings masterlist

chapter ten: betty -> "so i showed up at your party."

Harvey quite liked the snow. It wasn’t as gloomy as the Spring rain, nor was it as draining as the Summer sun — it simply fell peacefully from the sky, covering the earth in a chilly blanket. Pelican Town looked beautiful during the Winter, and although it was the busiest season for the clinic, Harvey would say it was his favorite time of the year.

Usually it was, anyway. It was a bit hard to enjoy the first snowfall when he was locked up in his room, dried tears sitting on his skin as he flipped through the photobook you gave him as a gift after he graduated high school.

He was sure he looked pathetic; he hadn’t left his apartment for three days, barely eating and not bothering to change out of his pajamas. What was the point? Nothing was really making sense anymore. His life had been stable for so long, but now, he felt like everything had changed. There was no one to blame except for him, of course.

So, instead of dealing with the present, Harvey chose to dwell on the past, sniffling as he looked at your picture smiling up at him. His head throbbed, surely due to dehydration, but he ignored it, continuing to wallow in the memories where he was still just your best friend from Pelican Town. He stopped at one particular photo that carried a bit more meaning to him, though he was sure you would write it off as just another day.

The two of you were standing in front of Harvey’s first car — it was used and beat to hell, but it was his nonetheless, and, not to mention, a gift from his parents. He was seventeen at the time, and had already been borrowing the family car for ages. To make the occasion even more special, you’d been visiting him when they surprised him with it, clasping your hands together as he walked up to it in awe.

“Quick, you two, let’s take a picture!” his mom had said, holding up her old polaroid. “Oh, Harvey, stop being shy, get closer. There you go, ready?”

It was a nice photo, he couldn’t deny that. What Harvey remembered the most from that day, though, was what happened after.

Your phone rang, your new boyfriend’s name taking up your phone screen. Harvey always had to bite his tongue whenever you mentioned him — he was his complete opposite, after all. He’d always subtly question you about him, asking how he treated you and if you were happy, but was never convinced he was really right for you.

That is, until he saw how your face lit up; how your laugh rang loudly in his ears, only when you were talking to him; how you were undoubtedly happier than you’d ever been, all because of him.

Harvey never made you laugh like that, did he? Would your eyes ever shine like that because of him?

That day, a new insecurity was lit inside him — was he even enough for you? Was it selfish to want you all to himself, when you found so much joy in others? What if he made a mistake that made you regret being with him?

Harvey let the photo album slip from his fingers, landing on the floor beneath him as his head fell into his hand. He hated being such a coward, but at that point, he figured it must be in his blood. He couldn’t remember a time where he wasn’t so weak, so dependent. It made him an easy target throughout grade school and middle school, only lessening up in high school when he started to keep to himself more. Although it was a bit of a cold thought, he remembered being grateful you didn’t live near him at the time. It meant you never got to see his true self; a loser who ate lunch by himself every day and was in love with his best friend, but didn’t have the courage to do anything about it.

I suppose some things never change.

As he solemnly lifted his head, Harvey’s glassy eyes focused on the snowflakes falling outside his window. The only image stuck in his mind was of your devastated face as he left you on your porch, shocked that he had managed to do the one act he’d sworn to avoid with his life — he hurt you, and he was sure it was by far the most shameful thing he had ever done.

By some twisted reasoning, though, he was convinced it was for the better.

Harvey was weak where you were strong; he lacked confidence where you took charge; he hid and lied while you spilled your truth to him, and all he could do was panic. You were the blazing Summer sun, bringing life and hope to the land, while he was the bitter Winter snow, killing anything in its path. He wasn’t meant to be with someone like you. He was beyond disappointed in himself for not realizing it sooner. You were the one shining flame of light he’d known his entire life, and he put you out.

The falling snow looked as if it were dancing, and Harvey had never missed you more.

As he bent down to pick up the photo album, his eyes caught the calendar beside the window. His eyes widened slightly, humorlessly laughing to himself as he put the photos away.

It was his birthday, and he hadn’t even realized.

You knew what day it was. Of course you did, it was the only date you had yearly reminders set up for, not that you really needed them. Since Harvey’s birthday was during the Winter, it meant you almost never got to celebrate with him in person, except for the rare occasions where you would go and see him. You could still vividly picture the first time you surprised him in college during break — you kept in touch with his parents so you could plan out your trip with them, much to their delight.

“Don’t tell him I said this, but Harvey’s always had a bit of trouble making friends at school,” his mom once told you, a soft sadness in her eyes. “He’s very lucky to have you as a friend, you know. You’re good to him.”

Not good enough, apparently, you sourly thought. “Angry” was an understatement to how you felt — you were frustrated and exhausted, not just because he’d shut down your feelings, but because it felt like Harvey essentially threw away all the years you spent being his best friend. None of it made sense to you, how he said he cared about you and then had the nerve to walk away. Honestly, it felt like you were dealing with a moody teenager who blasted angsty music in his room all the time. You scowled.

“Moo.”

One of your cows looked at you expectedly, and you realized you were still holding the bundle of hay in your arms.

“Sorry,” you apologized, quickly throwing it in the trough. She seemed to huff a thanks to you as she slowly bent her head down, blissfully careless about any complex relationship problems. You envied her.

As you left the barn, you couldn’t help but let your guilt consume you. You had never missed a birthday text to Harvey before, and although you weren’t quite sure what terms the two of you were on, it still felt wrong. You knew him well enough to know there was probably some stupid reason for his actions that he was hiding from you, but you couldn’t figure out what it was. You hated it when he pulled stupid moves like this — in the past, he would always keep his mouth shut whenever you tried to plan something with him, never failing to say, “We can always do what I planned next time. I don’t mind, really.”

You scoffed at the words he’d said to you countless times over the years, angrily letting your front door shut as you threw your gloves on your table. It sometimes felt as though he thought being a couple years older than you meant he knew everything, that his needs should always be put last when it came to you. Sure, it was cute the first couple times, but it didn’t take long for you to start feeling bad. You couldn’t remember the last time he got first pick for a movie or a restaurant — unless, of course, you “coincidentally” wanted to do the same thing. It was infuriating, really, and definitely not thoughtful or heartwarming at all. You hated it. You absolutely hated it.

At least, that’s what you kept telling yourself.

Deep down, you knew it was one of the reasons you adored Harvey so much. No matter the situation, his care for others always prevailed above any of his other feelings, even when it meant he would get hurt. A fatal flaw, really. You reminded him of his habit whenever you got the chance, but he always brushed off your comments with a light laugh.

“Now who’s worrying too much, hm?”

You let out a sigh as you sat on the edge of your bed, eyes flitting over to the collared shirt hanging in your closet. You quickly realized the grave mistake you’d made after leaving Harvey’s apartment that day, as you swore your entire house smelled like him now. It probably didn’t help that you hadn’t done many renovations yet, so the space was pretty confined. The lasting power of his cologne was impressive, to say very the least, but not impressive enough to make your mood any better. The smell made you miss the person you felt was your other half.

Truthfully, you doubted anything could lift your spirits. The last time you felt so lost was after you quit your job at Joja, but at least your grandfather’s note had saved you back then. You choked up at the thought of him, wishing more than anything that he was still alive to give you some wisdom. There wasn’t a day that passed where you didn’t think of his warm hugs and tender voice.

With him gone, who was left?

You paused at the thought, looking back at Harvey’s shirt. You could practically see his little smile and sunkissed cheeks.

No. You couldn’t see him, you didn’t want to see him, not after what he’d done. You had enough self-respect to put your foot down when you knew you needed to. Who needs him? I was fine without him then, I can be fine without him now.

That’s what you told yourself for a solid couple of seconds, maybe.

Then, you thought about all the times Harvey never got to eat at his favorite restaurant and missed the movie he’d been wanting to watch, just so he could see you smile.

You hadn’t even fully registered your thoughts as you grabbed the cursed shirt from your closet and took the dried bouquet off your wall, running down your porch before you could change your mind.

Harvey hadn’t cried so much since he was a kid. A sad reality he had to face on his birthday of all days, but it was true.

Actually, the last time he’d found himself bawling so hard his chest hurt was when he’d been saying goodbye to you the last summer before the two of you entered high school. The place you were attending was a bit further away, and mixed with the fact that Harvey would begin to take summer courses, you both knew your visits to Pelican Town would be limited. Even back then, he couldn’t bring himself to shed tears in front of you. As far as you knew, he left you with a smile and a wave, not the hiccuping sobs he dealt with back at home.

Now, a familiar, suffocating feeling consumed Harvey’s chest as he buried his tears in his arm, the nearly half-empty bottle of whiskey on the table most certainly not helping his case. It wasn’t like him to drink his feelings away, much less on his birthday, but he figured it was a special occasion. It wasn’t every day he lost the one person he’d sworn to never lose.

God, it hurt to think he would never make you laugh again, make you happy. That’s all he ever wanted, ever since he was little. Even on the days where he got home from school sporting a fresh bruise on his face, his face would light up at the sight of a phone call from you, feigning a happy tone as he listened to you talk about your day. It helped him get through it, in a way, to hear about your life. The way your voice pitched higher every time you got excited was something he would always treasure.

He loved you, more than anything, and in the end, that was what made him push you away.

Harvey lifted his head, wiping his face as he stoically poured himself another glass. The liquor went down smoothly, leaving a satisfying burn on his tongue. Part of him wished Elliott or Shane was there to console him, but he’d been adamantly ignoring their texts and calls. He hoped they would find it in themselves to forgive him.

Two knocks on his door broke him out of his thoughts, making him jump in his seat.

“Harvey? You there?”

He froze.

No, it couldn't be. Am I really that drunk?

“Open up. Seriously, Harvey, come on.”

He was on his feet in an instant, his hand resting for a moment on the doorknob before pulling it open.

Snowflakes were scattered on top of your hair and eyelashes, making you seem to glitter in the light of his kitchen. He wished he could tell you how beautiful you looked.

“Y/N,” Harvey breathed, and he felt a stray tear run down his face at the sight of you. “Y-You’re here.”

“How could I stay away, asshole?” you asked, voice filled with a mixture of anger and sadness. He let out a light grunt as you forcefully shoved something into his chest, pushing past him and into his apartment wordlessly. After closing the door, he turned to face you, noticing your crossed arms and how you were looking at the ground, certainly in an effort not to start crying. It was a tactic he’d seen you pick up over time.

“Y/N,” Harvey repeated, savoring the sound of your name leaving his lips. “I—”

“Save it.”

He looked down to realize he was holding the shirt you borrowed from him, along with the bouquet you usually had beside your bed.

In other words, he was holding a bouquet. A dried one, sure, but a bundle of flowers nonetheless, and it was from you.

His heart seemed to lurch, and he gently laid both on top of his bed.

You didn’t even mention the items you handed him. Instead, your nose scrunched as you turned to his dining table, picking up the whiskey bottle. “Have you been drinking? Yoba, Harvs, you know you’re supposed to do something fun on your birthday, right?” He didn’t miss the slight shake in your voice as you put it down. “Seriously, have you been home all day?”

Harvey cleared his throat, wiping his face with the back of his hand. “Yes, um, I’ve been home for quite a bit, actually,” he admitted, feeling the haze of the alcohol fog his thoughts. “I . . . couldn’t bring myself to leave.”

You paused to think about his words, then shook your head. “You know you fucked up, right?” you questioned, a fiery look fueling your eyes — though Harvey could also see the hurt lying underneath. “I’ve called you a lot of things over the years, but a liar has never been one of them. You said everything’s about me, that you love me—”

“That wasn’t a lie,” he interrupted, suddenly desperate. He stepped towards you, feeling a part of his heart break off when he saw tears shining in your eyes. “Please, if there’s anything you take away from that, from us, just know everything I said was true.” Harvey took a shaky breath, fighting to keep his voice from breaking. “Everything reminds me of you — the sun, the beach, the forest, the city, this entire damn town is filled with bits and pieces of . . . of just you. There’s not a moment that goes by where you’re not on my mind, Y/N, I assure you. You truly are the light to my darkness.”

You took one step back, looking at him with emotions swirling in your gaze. “You say that, and yet, there’s still a part of you holding back,” you whispered brokenly, and Harvey had never hated himself more.

“Why are you so scared, Harvey?”

“Because I don’t deserve you!” he cried, tears running freely down his cheeks as an all too familiar panic swelled in his chest. He turned away, rubbing his face with both his hands in an effort to steady himself. He kept his back to you as he spoke to the floor. “I love you, with all my being, but I know I’ll only hold you back. It’s what I’ve been doing since we were kids, it’s what I always do. I-I can never be enough, no matter how badly I want to, no matter how hard I try—”

Strong arms wrapped around his torso from behind, and Harvey felt as if his world was crashing down.

“That’s the thing, Harvs,” you said quietly, and he could tell from your voice your own tears had broken loose. “You’ve always been enough, but we’ve both just been too dumb and blind to see.”

Harvey managed a defeated laugh at that, making sure his breaths were even before turning to see your face. You looked at him with a sad smile, keeping one hand on his back as you reached over to swipe his wet cheek with your thumb. He leaned into the warmth of your palm and closed his eyes, reveling in the contact he’d missed dearly.

“I love you,” he murmured, opening his eyes.

You nodded, bringing your hand down to the nape of his neck. “I love you, too,” you replied, “no matter how much of an idiot you are.”

He huffed another laugh, feeling lighter than he had in weeks. “Well, I suppose you’re not wrong. I did go to medical school, you know.”

“They obviously didn’t have a class on, ‘Telling Your Best Friend You’re in Love with Her,’ did they?”

“Not exactly.”

You rolled your eyes. “The flowers are your gift, by the way,” you mentioned, suddenly growing a bit shy. “Not my best effort, I know, but think of it as karma.”

“Your karma backfired, then, because that was the best gift you could’ve given me.” His arms tightened around you. “I knew there was something suspicious about it.”

“Whatever.” Your fingers grazed through his hair, and Harvey shivered at your touch.

“We’ll take things slow,” he promised quietly, and by then, the two of you had leaned impossibly closer to each other, lips grazing against each other’s as you spoke. “If that’s okay with you, of course.”

You hummed, smiling. “More than okay on my end,” you said, pausing before you added, “but a kiss isn’t too much, is it?”

He pretended to think before shaking his head and leaning forward. “Not at all.”

As Harvey’s lips gently met yours, he imagined he was healing the cracks he put in your heart, hoping you could feel all the unspoken words left on his tongue.

I missed you, but we’ll be okay.

81 notes · View notes

aloesarchives · 11 months ago

Text

Tags/Warnings: Fem!Reader/Pronouns, Swearing, Gojo has a hard crush on you, Gojo vs Toji Part 3, The word ass being used, Toji straight up having beef and fighting a bunch of teenagers, Nicknames such as beloved and hon(ney), JJK OCs, Out of pocket moments and sayings, Me being an annoying narrator

[Semi-proofread, informal formatting, and edited as of 12/22/2023 10:18am CST]

Summary: One of the truths behind Toji's beef with Gojo

Word count: 2.8k words

(A/N: I spent 10pm-6am writing this because I just need to or I would never forgive myself if I didn't! I promise I will have some of the "Toji lives" AU posts ready by next week because your girl got her ADHD meds back in stock!! Thank you for being patient with me and my inconsistent updates!!) (12/22/2023 6:05am CST)

💙I love you all! 💙🥰😚💙

💙❤️Please Enjoy!!!💙❤️

The REAL reason Toji has major beef with Gojo is because Gojo had a crush on you during his high school days when you would sub for Yaga in the classroom and training sessions. He did try his best to keep it under wraps but Geto was like,

"Bro, she's the same age as Yaga-sensei. . . Stop reaching, Satoru. . . Do I need to remind you who (L/N)-sama is married to again?"

The Gojo responded with, "Suguru, I don't give a shit about that loser. He's a bum, anyway. The question you should be asking is why (L/N)-dono is fucking married and still in-love to a deadbeat like him. I would have been a better option. Face it Suguru, I'm right."

While Satoru has a point, as Suguru noted, it doesn't change the fact that Satoru was crushing on a MARRIED woman who had TWO kids.

Though it was true, Satoru would have technically been a good husband/father/lover. However, there are many reasons why it must be ruled out.

Satoru is over half your age. Picking him meant allegations and a prison cell. Gojo tried reasoning with you, "But (Y/N)-dono! Age is just a number, give me two years!" "And Prison is just a place, Satoru-kun. I don't want to be labeled as a child predator, let alone be framed for "seDuCinG" the Gojo heir. I want to have a clean record."

While his personality brought you happiness, his carefree nature would clash a lot with you. He can mature but his child-like spirit and carefree persona isn't something you would personally deal with.

He was more of your protégé/junior/student if anything. You saw him more as your son and acted like a parental figure. You wanted to watch him grow and mature. Not become his lover.

To spite the higher-ups and Jujutsu elders(excluding your clan). Given you were a powerful and skillful sorcerer, marrying Gojo would be "BeNeFiCiaL" to Jujutsu society. However, it meant that you were on a watchlist 24/7 and pressured to have an HeIR. It made you physically sick and ill thinking what those old useless dementia white-haired cowards are allow to do that just to better "society" but not its citizens.

You are MARRIED to a man who is trying to step up after his major fuck ups. It's not perfect but Toji is his best trying after you gave him his life and freedom. Since he technically can't leave your home or go to Jujutsu High without your supervision, he's basically househusband duty. And he was getting pretty damn good at it too. Plus Toji's hot, he got you feral and gnawing at your teeth with his signature smile and smirk. And the way his arms flex when he crosses them, or how they feel when you link arms together.

While it wasn't super obvious, okay it was obvious, you always shot down Satoru's playful confessions and light-hearted shenanigans. Basically rejecting him every time. Usually, Suguru would warn you in advance but you know it would happen with each interactions. While you firmly turned him down, you made him understand why it can't and WON'T happen. You still care for him, just never romantically, only platonically and motherly. You made it clear that his "love" for you was just a strong admiration and infatuation disguised as a crush.

Though he was heartbroken, at first. Satoru slowly understand what you mean and his crush slowly fades away as it's replaced with immense respect for you.

HOWEVER, it still linger and not widely known because Toji finally gets word of this through the grapevine. A.K.A, through his two children Megumi and Tsumiki. It happened one day when you brought the two to the school so you can keep a close eye on them since they didn't have school that day. Toji was out doing errands so the two kids are accompanying you. Megumi and Tsumiki were occupied with their books and toys while you taught and trained the students. Megumi and Tsumiki went to find you because they were hungry and you had their lunches. As they looked for you, they see you talking to Satoru. They meet him a couple of times but he's still a stranger to them compared to Shoko or Suguru. So when they see Gojo with you, all alone with no one around, they thought it was major sus.

As they snuck closer, they could hear bit and pieces of what Gojo is saying to you. Megumi lowkey thinks Gojo is super annoying and acts more of a child then he does. But what catches his ears first was something with along the lines of, "(L/N)-dono, please consider it-" "Satoru-kun, how many time will I need to say no to you? You know I can never feel for you that way. Plus it's bad for me to agree to it. You know that it's admiration and infatuation if anything. Not love."

See Megumi knows you only use love as in 'I love you" to him, his sister, and his dad. But to this dude? Nah, something fishy is going on and Megumi gotta tell his dad about it. Megumi comes running, yelling "Mommy!!!". You and Satoru turn to see your son running to you and colliding with your legs. You crouch down and pat your son's head and smile at your daughter following behind him. Megumi hands your hand tightly as you lead them away to have lunch with your kids. Satoru made a face at Megumi when he saw the kid glare at him.

Once you three made it home, you're in the bathroom changing into some home clothes. Meanwhile, Toji was cooking dinner while Megumi and Tsumiki were waiting for you at the dinner table. As Toji was asking them about their day with you, Megumi brought up Gojo's advances and confession towards you. When Megumi said this, the beef Toji was about to flip plopped right back onto the pan. He looks back at Megumi and asks if there's anything else that he can share. As Megumi shares what he has seen through his perspective, Toji asks Tsumiki to confirm is this is all true, to which she said yes, backing up Megumi's claims.

"Yeah, Papa. Satoru-kun is weird. Even though Mama keeps saying she's married to you, he still does it. Tsumiki saw it too."

"I see... Thank you, Megumi and Tsumiki for watching and taking care of Mama for me. I appreciate it a lot. Can you tell her that dinner is almost ready?"

The kids nodded and went to go get you. After dinner and putting the kids to bed, you were sipping your favorite drink as Toji is doing the dishes. You would have helped him but he said no. While you two were talking, he brings up Satoru and his school crush on you.

"Toji, beloved, you know that it's just a small crush. It's nothing more then puppy love for me. Nothing more and nothing less. And you know that you're the only man that I am willing to give my heart to."

"I know that, (Y/N). But what does this brat got on me to think he's a better match for you? Just because this kid is practically a god doesn't mean everyone will bow down to him. I'm definitely not one of them. And to know that said brat is flirting with you even though you're visibly married with kids, he needs to read the room. I will be going with you to school tomorrow. The kids go back to school the next day, and I already got this week's groceries and cleaned the house."

You would have protested if Toji didn't give you a searing kiss while caging you in his arms. Fuck he looked so hot. Curse him and his good looks *punching the air*.

"Fine, you can come. BUT, Toji you need to behavior yourself. You already knew the deal. You better not be doing any funny business."

"Yes, Ma'am. You're the boss, I promise you." Toji says as he gave you a kiss on the cheek before lightly patting your ass.

After dropping the kids off, Toji accompanies you to the school. Toji is just silent and sits in one of the chairs as you do your lessons. Toji is leaning on the chair with a smirk plastered on his face. Not a care in the world. After a few lessons, you were going to teach and train Gojo, Geto, and Shoko for the rest of the school day. As you went to their classroom, they greet you, especially Gojo. However, the mood changed when they saw Toji walk in behind you, wearing nothing but a black slim fit t-shirt and grey sweatpants. Toji gave a head nod to the teens while he just takes a seat in a chair to lean on it. The three were shock to see him.

Particularly because they did expect him to come with you to the school at all. Suguru had an idea but he hoped it wasn't going to be it. After teaching a lesson, you told the three to practice their curse techniques and let their curse energy loose. While doing so, you told them that you would have to speak to Yaga for a bit on something and would be back 15 minutes tops. You told Toji to behave, and he nodded and gave a thumbs up. As you leave the kids and your husband on the train grounds, that's when the storm started brewing. Toji walks up to Gojo and is 3 feet from him. He smirks while looking at him up and down, sizing him up. Shoko and Suguru are on the sidelines as Toji, a married adult male in his 30s, was beefing with a 16 year old high school student.

Suguru: "Satoru, I don't think this is a good idea-"

Satoru: "Hush now, Suguru. . . It's my time to shine. . . Watch the master at work."

Suguru proceeds to roll his eyes but becomes a little weary after his last encounter with Toji was. . . unideal. Given one of their teachers was shot in the throat by Toji saving Anamai, and himself getting injured. It wasn't something he wanted to constantly get reminded of. But ever since you liberated Toji from the higher ups and explained it to your students, Suguru has slowly been changing his views on Toji. It will take a while but it's getting there. Anyhow, Suguru told Shoko to book it once the two were going to throw down.

Satoru: "So, what brings you back here, Toji~? You just couldn't get me out of that little mind of yours~? You're mad I'm 1-0 with you?"

Toji: "Kid, I'm pretty sure that it's 1-1 since I won our first battle. Anyway, I heard through the grapevine that you gave (Y/N) a love confession. Don't you know it's bad to confess and hit on a married woman who has kids? Were you taught any manners? Then again, by the way you act, you probably have none."

Satoru: "You're just mad, Old Man. That I, Satoru Gojo, would treat (Y/N)-dono better and treat her worth. Face it, Old Man. I'm a better match for her than you'll ever be."

Toji: "Like she ever goes for someone half her age, Brat. Plus, you'll never look at you as a lover ever. You're more of a son to her and that's the closest you'll get."

Satoru: "Well, she doesn't need a bum like you around. Imagine fighting a bunch of teens and getting your ass beat by said teens. Skill issue if you ask me."

Toji: "Watch your tongue, Boy. Remember who made you struggle for the first time in your life and actually killed you. While, you know, fucking up your best friend, the second strongest sorcerer, with no curse energy? I got your ass with no gifts other than being a superhuman with weapons. You can never beat me, I'm just built different, Kid."

Satoru: "You wanna test that, Toji~? You got no curse weapons with you. I can pack you up like you're a school lunch."

Toji: "Kid, please. I don't need any weapons to beat you, let alone kill you. You see this? This is a rock, and I can use it to beat you. I also still have my hands too. And I am more then willing to give it to you, Gojo~kun."

Satoru: "You think I'm scared of someone like you? I've ascended, enlighten if you will. If you even know what that word is. Throughout Heaven and Earth, I alone am the honored one. Remember those words, Fushiguro-san? Remember them good because I will put you six feet underground."

Toji: "I see then, Kid. . . So you're playing God? I guess that makes me a God Slayer then. . . Prepare yourself, Kid. . ."

Satoru: "Alright, bet then, Bozo."

Thus, Gojo and Toji started to go at each other for round 3. Shoko was already gone and the two started fighting in the training grounds. Five minutes have already passed and they have made five decently sized craters. Just as both of them were about to throw a punch at each other, they suddenly felt a powerful presence which halted them. They turn to you walking towards them with a furious face unimaginable.

"GOJO SATORU AND TOJI (L/N) FUSHIGURO!!!! WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON!?!?! I LEAVE FOR LESS THAN HALF AN HOUR AND I GET CALLED BACK BECAUSE OF THIS!?!?"

"(Y/N)-dono!!"

"(Y/N)!"

You moved like a blur and appeared next to them vice gripping their forearms tightly. You dragged them to the nearest empty classroom you can find or any room. You were just so livid that you didn't hear Gojo whining about your grip and asking to let you go like a child. As you let them go once you dragged them far enough, you smacked both of them hard on the head. Shoko and Gojo were watching this as Yaga appeared right next to them shortly. It was interesting seeing two of the most broken people in the world kneeling with their heads down in-front of a woman who doesn't have god-like abilities.

"GOJO, WHAT DID I SAY ABOUT USING BOTH OF YOUR ABILITIES DURING TRAINING SESSIONS!?!? YOU KNOW THE CALAMITY AND DAMAGE YOU COULD'VE CAUSED!?"

"BUT (Y/N)-dono! He-"

"NO BUTS, GOJO!! AND YOU, TOJI, I LITERALLY JUST SAID NO FUNNY BUSINESS AND YOU'RE ABOUT TO CREATE THE NEXT SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. I DON'T NEED ANOTHER RAPTURE HERE. I'M STILL DEALING WITH THE AFTERMATH FROM THE TWO OF YOU AS IT IS!!!"

"Okay, Hon. I take full responsibility for my actions today."

"YOU BETTER, TOJI!!! YOU'RE A FULL GROWN MARRIED MAN WITH TWO KIDS!!!"

"But (Y/N)-dono, I was not going to kill him last time-"

"NO ONES DYING HERE!!! NEITHER OF YOU WILL NOT DIE AS LONG AS I AM AROUND. I WON'T LET THE BOTH OF YOU KILL EACH OTHER OVER SOME PETTINESS AND A BOY CRUSH."

You start to calm down but you are still firm with them.

"I know this started because of Satoru's crush on me. . . Satoru, I will not love you romantically and date you. Please understand that. I care for you like family and that is said for the rest of you. Yes you, Suguru, Shoko, and Yaga. And Toji, I'm not leaving you for a child. I would be in jail and not working here. . . Geez, I saw this from a mile away but never expected this to happen. Now, you two better behave yourselves or else. You two don't have to say sorry or anything like of the sort. Just don't go tearing at each other's throats when I both am and am not around. Please, for me. . ."

The two looked at each other before saying a soft yeah. After that, Yaga told you to go home early and he would take it from there. You had to patch up Toji a bit but it wasn't anything of concern. From then on, Toji and Gojo just banter and bicker with each other. It's funny to watch except for Megumi since he's seeing his dad beefing with his unofficial adoptive older brother 24/7.

Satoru eventually grows out of his crush for (Y/N) but Suguru and Shoko never let him down. Hell, it's a running gag in the school about Gojo's old crush on you. Gojo always gets super embarrassed about it, especially when you join in but it's all fun and games with you all.

The only person who genuinely hates it is Megumi because the thought of Gojo having romantic feelings for you and trying to woo you made Megumi visibly ill and sick to his core. He would lowkey help his dad beat up Gojo if Gojo's crush on you became serious again.

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💙Author's Notes💙: 💙I am truly grateful to each and everyone of you in showing me that my writing is enjoyable to read!!! I appreciate you all from the bottom of my heart for making my comeback worthwhile! I hate to sound giga cringe but every single one of you that likes, reblogs, and comments on my writing post make me want to continue writing because I know that there are people out there that like what I make.💙 💙So once again, I am truly grateful and feel appreciative that everyone single one of you enjoy what I have been writing. I hope you all stay healthy, drink your water/favorite drink, treat yourself kindly, and take a break because you earned it!💙🥰 ❄️💙💙Happy Holidays to all of you, my GOATS!!!💙💙❄️

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chuuyascumsock · 2 years ago

Text

My Sin Against Humanity: Electric Boogaloo, Second Coming (Cumming) Of A Bottom Man || Minors DNI

Summary: Welcome back to my personal turmoil of bottom-izing men who are the embodiment of red flags.

Tags: Dazai Osamu/Reader, Female reader, Femdom, Bottom Dazai, Pegging, Riding, Hair Pulling, Multiple Positions, Praise, Degradation, Breath Play, Overstimulation, Pet names, Beware Of My Deviously Lecherous Descriptions, No beta we die like Chuuya.

Dazai had always been a tease, enjoying every second he pushed someone’s buttons and watched their patience fade away by the second. But when it came to you, you were simply unfazed, even going as far as to turn the table on him and play him at his own game. And by god were you good at playing him.

“What’s the matter, pretty boy? Having second thoughts? I thought you said you could take me,” You mocked with a small pout gracing your swollen lips, unable to keep them from twisting into a smug grin after. With manicured nails biting into his hips, you watched as the silicone phallic disappeared inch-by-inch further into his tight, sopping entrance. Dazai let out a bated breath as you bottomed out of him, his own blunt nails digging into the skin of your shoulders.

“What do you take me for, Belladonna, a coward?” Dazai attempted to bite back, a weak smile presented on his flushed face.

You hummed, your fingers thrumming against his hip bones lightly as a shiver crawled up his spine from your delicate touch, “You try so hard to keep that mask on, but it’s slipping.” You conceited with a taunt, “But continue, I’m going to love seeing how hard you fall apart.”

“I don’t know what you mean by that,” Dazai spoke like he hadn’t a clue in the world about the words coming out of your mouth. Like you didn’t just subtly hint that you were going to revel in his unraveling.

“In due time then,” Your eyelids fell into a lidded stare, “Pretty boy.”

A faint moan slipped past Dazai’s lips, his hips jerking upwards for a moment to feel something, anything. Feeling the strap-on nudge at his prostate, he pressed his lips together tightly to muffle another whine. The desperation he felt was evident by the way his hard cock weeped with precum, smearing against his lower abdomen as it slapped against his stomach from his faltering hips.

You amusedly chuckled, “That gets you off? A simple little pet name? How pathetic, you really are a feeble man, Osamu.”

“You’re one to talk, darling, you must be dripping knowing that you’re the only one who does this to me,” He huffed out with a gleam in his dark brown eyes that matched yours.

“How could I not? It’s a sight to behold, you look so lovely crumbling under my touch, like a delicacy,” Your hands gilded just above his hips to grip at his lithe waist as you snap your own hips into his.

The jolt sent Dazai forward slumping into you with a strangled mix of a moan and yelp, his loosely bandaged arms wrapping around your shoulders for support. “You’re so cruel to me, Belladonna,” He groaned as his forehead dug into the crook of your neck.

You tilted your head as his messy brown tresses caressed the skin of your cheek, your lips pressing into his wild bed hair against his head, “I have my reasons, now be a good boy and ride my cock,” You murmured faintly.

Lifting his hips, Dazai began to bounce himself at a consistent pace along your strap-on, biting back whimpers every time he fell to the hilt. It didn’t help when your hands fell to grab the fat of his ass and force him down harshly into your shallow yet brutal thrusts. He nuzzled his face deeper into your neck as he busied his mouth against your skin, nipping and grazing his tongue over blooming hickeys.

“Being quiet only irritates me, you know that, ‘Samu,” You sigh through your nose, your dominant hand coming up to intertwine within his hair, the latter hand squeezing his ass with warning.

You felt his lips shape into a small smile against your bruising skin, his hips now rolling into the toy, “I do,” He confirms knowingly, the slightest tone of eagerness spilling through.

“So you’re doing it on purpose,” You acknowledge, your dominant hand clenching tufts of hair near the nape of his neck and yanking his head away from your neck until you're faced with the long expanse of his throat, his adam’s apple bobbing under the wrapping of his bandages.

He strains out a broken groan, his hips slowing to a halt, “And if I was? Are you going to punish me?”

You didn’t miss the way how hopeful he sounded in his last sentence, his cock twitching in excitement as you continued to manhandle him, “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say that it sounds like you want that.”

“Maybe,” He whimpers out, your grasp tightening in his locks of hair, prickling pain washing over the back of his scalp.

“Oh?” You shift your legs to fold into themselves until you’re able to push off the bed and roll over to hover above Dazai, “You want me to be rough with you?” You bowed over him, a hand still tangled in his hair and the other now treading over the side of his thigh, surprisingly untouched by bandages. “Want me to fuck you hard until you’re drooling and stupid, baby?” You coo perversely, pulling at his knotting tresses once again, “Til’ there’s nothing left in that pretty little head of yours?”

His lips parted to answer weakly, “Please, please fuck me,” He begged, long legs wrapping around your waist to pull your hips closer into him as he bucked his own urgently, looking for any kind of friction.

A noticeable, satisfied expression fell over your face as your hand untangled from his hair, falling over to the pillow lying just aside from the other that his head lay on. Leaning back on the soles of your feet, Dazai whined at the way you pulled back, the strap-on slipping out of his clenching walls. You were quick to lift his hips and place the pillow beneath him, his posture shifting into a small arch.

“Want you so bad, please,” He mumbled, barely coherent as his voice pitched in and out shakily.

“I know, I know,” You hum, curving your back until you hover over him again, the false cock in hand as you align it against his entrance. “M’ gonna take care of you, pretty boy,” You peck the corner of his lips.

There’s a short, breathless gasp as you stretch him back open, fingers twisting into the bed sheets under him as his legs wrapped to constrict around you, “F—Fuck, Belladonna, I can’t, I’m—“ He whimpered, his eyes flickering to the back of his skull, speech slurred and jumbled as cum spurted out across his lower stomach, the rest flowing in thick rivulets from his tip and collecting at his v-line.

“You came already, how cute,” You coo, “Just from entering back in too, you really are a slut. I wonder if you can handle another.”

With his chest jouncing in heavy breaths, Dazai panted out, “Please…”

You sigh out a short laugh as your hips gyrate into his. “You’ve just come too and you want more? You just want it all, huh?” You trailed off into a mumble near the end, admiring how the apple of his cheeks flushed and eyes glazed over.

“Want you to…” Dazai stumbled over words, barely comprehensible, but you heard clearly.

“Choke you?” You tilted your head slightly, hips now snapping in and out at a steady pace, “You want my hand around your neck?”

Nodding eagerly, Dazai visibly shuttered at your touch, your thumb on one side of his throat, the other four wrapping around the other side. You thrusted harder into him, Dazai letting out a salacious moan that was quickly choked out by your fingers pressing up and into his throat, blocking his airway. The sheen of sweat that enveloped your bodies made it difficult to keep a grip, so you curled your fingers as tightly as possible.

You focused on the debauched, pitchy whimpers that managed to escape Dazai and the slapping of skin against each other as you loomed closer to his face, your eyes meeting his. Dazed with glassy, tear-filled, and nearly blown-black eyes, a line of drool spilled from the corner of his open mouth. “I think I was right,” You huffed, your hips starting to feel stiff with each thrust, but you ignored it. “I’m loving how hard you’re falling apart,” A strained grin curled its way across your lips.

You jolted your hips brutally against him, sure to leave a bruise or two from the force as he continued to struggle finding air, his mind growing fuzzy from the lack of oxygen. His eyes began to roll back again soon after, back arching towards you as yet another orgasm crashed over him. More cum oozed from his dripping cock and over the crevices of his lower half onto the sheets.

When you pull your hand away from Dazai’s neck, he’s gasping for air and still cumming, not bothering to wipe the drool from his cheek that now seeped into parts of his damp hair. Treading your fingers into his hair, you push his bangs away from his sweaty forehead and lean over to press your lips against his forehead, “Did so good for me, pretty boy.”

A hand slips behind your head and slim fingers tangle into your own hair, Dazai pulling you towards him, but this time to his lips. You melt against the slow and sloppy kiss, a heavy sigh leaving your nose before you pull away.

“You’re such a tease, you know that?” You utter, your lips molding against his again in a quicker kiss before you slide out of him, “Turn over.”

Almost as if he was disoriented, Dazai’s face twisted into confusion, “Belladonna… What? I—“

“I’m not done fucking you dumb, now turn over,” You cut him off, demanding.

Dazai whimpered as he weakly pushed himself up and shifted onto his hands and knees. The cum that painted his stomach now dripped onto the sheets, neither of you caring as you slid right back into his sloppy hole. You watched as Dazai’s arms shook before giving out under him, a small groan falling from his spittle-covered lips as his arms stretched in front of him to wrap around the pillow he had just been laying his head on.

As he buried his face into the pillow, one of your hands found its place on his hip as the other gripped at his tense shoulder. You wasted no time as you began to slip in and out of him with ease, each thrust met with the harsh jerk back of your hands for intensity to increase tenfold. You were sure the backside of his thighs and ass were bright pink, nearly— if not, bruising from the abuse of skin colliding against each other.

“T—Too much, too—“ Dazai babbled incessantly, a slew of mewls and whimpers tumbling from his lips as one of his hands flew back on top of your hand on his shoulder.

His short nails clip into your skin as you huff out, “Just one more? C’mon, pretty boy, I know you’ve got one more in you, yeah?” You glance where your strap-on and his ass meet, moaning quietly at the obscene view before you. Watching him clench around the silicone toy with a ring of his own cum mixed with lube coating the base only spurred you to pull him into you harder, your thrusts deeper at a medium pace, “Wanna cum all over my cock and make a mess for me?”

Dazai let out a merge of a sob and a long, pitchy moan, “Yes, yes, yes—“ He repeated, his own hips falling back into yours as his legs trembled.

“Go on, cum all over my cock, pretty boy,” You groan, your hand falling away from his shoulder with his still on yours to entangle into his knotted, damp locks and yank his head up.

His back collapsed to your chest as you vigorously thrusted into him, his jaw unhinging into a silent scream as he came for a third time. It hardly made a difference from the amount of cum and sweat he had already been covered in, the thick fluid cascading from the tip, down his shaft and dripping over his balls onto the sheets.

You both were left stiff with heaving chests as you caught your breath, Dazai’s body leaning on you for support. You were the first to recover, your hands uncurling from Dazai’s hair and skin before they softly encircled him from behind and locked together into a back hug. Sitting on the soles of your feet again, you pressed your face into Dazai’s bandaged back and inhaled deeply.

“You fall apart so well for me, Osamu.”

—————

Moral of the story: No man with a slutty waist is safe from me.

#dazai smut #dazai osamu x reader #dazai x reader #sub bsd #sub bungou stray dogs #sub dazai #devious dambi smuts

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germhammy · 11 months ago

Text

“Meeting with Esther”

Enid: no. I do not think it would be a good idea to give my mom the house number to talk. And especially not a cell phone number. She will spam it to no end! Even an email address!

Morticia: we do not want that. I and Wednesday would not want accounts filled with that. Our accounts are for business purposes only. I must be tagged in correspondence to Wednesday as she is considered a minor. I think many forget that because of how and what Wednesday writes about

Enid: maybe you can create another email account? My mom is pestering me to have a Zoom call with you and Gomez. She is sure that you have put a hex on me!

Wednesday: does your mother always screech your name like that?

Enid: yes. And my brothers imitate her or call me doormat. Except Evan. But he is the eldest and he looks out for me the best he can. I don’t want him to lose his ‘golden child’ status so I tell him to be careful.

Wednesday: he still attends Nevermore?

Enid: yes. He takes the university levels. He chose to stay at Nevermore to ‘keep an eye on my brothers’ and make sure they become good strong werewolves. But in reality? He told me it was to keep an eye out on me.

Wednesday: have you told him about our relationship?

Enid: No. and not because I am hiding it. I just don’t want to burden him with that knowledge. But you know? I just may consider it? He could help keep Xavier away from you?

Wednesday: I have been able to keep him at bay. But if it becomes something I may need help with? I will consider asking for your help.

Enid: thank you. Please do.

Morticia: are you saying your parents would not be as accepting of your relationship with Wednesday?

Enid: I must find a ‘proper mate’.

Morticia: Wednesday is not I take it? How sad and narrow minded.

Enid: my father always says you do you. But he’s too much of a coward to stand up to my mom. Evan would I know it. But I don’t want him to ruin his pack status on my behalf

Morticia: understandable. Just know that you are a part of our family no matter what. Friend or girlfriend. We have welcomed you.

Wednesday: you are first and foremost my friend, Enid.

Morticia: and in case you have not noticed? We Addams take care of those close to us. You have become quite important to Wednesday and a friend to Thing

Enid: thank you. As for my mom? She’s probably going to start pestering me again tonight. Wanting to talk before Christmas

Morticia: I’ll ask Pugsley to help set up another email account for me separate from the one I use for Wednesday’s correspondence. In the meantime you and Wednesday discuss what you want to reveal to your mother.

#wednesday addams #enid sinclair #enid x wednesday #wenclair #wednsday addams #enid and wednesday #wednesday x enid #wenclair au #mortica addams

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rottenpumpkin13 · 1 year ago

Note

Speaking of Lucrecia, Sephiroth is presented with a posthumous gift from his (supposedly deceased) mother. Since this has always been a sore subject with him and the gang of idiots, what sorts of sad or happy hijinks ensue?

• Sephiroth has a package delivered to his office one morning. Far too busy for unsolicited gifts, he asks the delivery person to take it back. The person insists he keep it, as it was part of the delivery instructions.

• After letting it sit in the corner of his office for most of the morning, Sephiroth caves and grabs the small box, brings it up to his desk and checks the shipping label.

• How curious. The package is clearly for him, with the correct address and name. But the return address....

• From Lucrecia Crescent had an added note under it done in blue ink: To Sephiroth, my baby.

• His hands grow numb from gripping the box so hard. He rips the tag off, then promptly makes for the R&D floor.

• "Who is is Lucrecia Crescent?" he demands of Hojo as soon as he sees him.

• The scientist doesn't look up from his work, and barely acknowledges Sephiroth's question with a cryptic smirk. He can sense the trembling, panicked undertone in Sephiroth's voice.

• "And where did you hear such a name?"

• Sephiroth doesn't have the patience for this. Not today. "Who is she?" He pushes, finally prompting Hojo to face him.

• The scientist lacks the urgency Sephiroth demands of him, and surveys his creation with a judgemental look he hides behind his dark glasses.

• "If you must know, boy, Lucrecia Crescent was a coward, a vessel for the development of my work and nothing more."

• "She was my mother, wasn't she?" Sephiroth presses.

• Hojo's response is laughter. His wheezy cackles fill the tense air, and last as long as Sephiroth can take them. He can't stand the sound mocking him, and finds the professor's crass response an answer enough. He leaves.

• Genesis and Angeal find him two hours later at a secluded area on the building's rooftop.

• "Running away like a rebellious teenager now, are we?" Genesis scoffs as soon as they see him.

• Angeal, on the other hand, is far more concerned with the box sitting beside Sephiroth and the small tab in his friend's trembling fingers.

• "We've been looking for you," he says. "Why did you run off? Is everything okay?"

• Sephiroth shakes his head, and takes the box in his hand as Angeal and Genesis sit on either side of him. Silently, he hands Angeal the tag and Genesis the box.

• Genesis analyzes the box, then looks to Angeal for a clue.

• "From Lucrecia Crescent," Angeal reads. "To Sephiroth.....My baby?"

• Sephiroth looks down, avoiding what he assumes to be judgemental eyes pinning him in place.

• "Lucrecia..." Genesis repeats breathlessly. "Is she your—" He looks at Angeal for help. "—Is this–is she...Is she your mother?"

• Sephiroth nods. "I think so. And if she is, what you're holding is what I assume to be a posthumous gift."

• Angeal nods. "She organized it before her death?"

• Genesis looks down at the box. "What's inside it?"

• Sephiroth squeezes his eyes shut and shakes his head. "I don't know. I don't know. I can't bring myself to open it."

• "I'll open it for you!" Genesis starts to rip the packing tape, but is reprimanded by Angeal before he can.

• "Gen!" he snaps "Don't even think about it!" Then he turns back to Sephiroth with a gentler tone. "Seph, you don't have to open it right now if you don't want to. These things take time to process. You need to go at your own pace."

• Sephiroth doesn't respond, and Angeal doesn't dare overstep.

• After a few minutes of comfortable silence, Genesis shrugs. "And whenever you do decide to open it, we'll be there with you."

• Sephiroth looks up at him, and Genesis can't help but gently brush a stray hand of hair away from his face. "For whatever you need," the redhead assures.

• Sephiroth nods, then looks back down at the box.

• A few more minutes pass, then Sephiroth takes it in his trembling hands.

• "We'll do it on three, alright?" Angeal says.

• Sephiroth and Genesis nod.

• "One, two..."

• Sephiroth tears the tape away and rips open the box flaps. A note is the first thing he sees, quickly reaching in and pulling it out.

Sephiroth, my darling baby boy and brightest star in the whole sky,

May your life be filled with more light than I could have ever given you, my love, and may the future be kind to you. I love you more than words can say, my son, my star, my baby. Forgive me.

Be good.

- Mother

• They sit in silence huddled over the letter. When Sephiroth finally finishes his nth read through, he peers inside the box.

• Staring back at him is a teddy bear.

• That was the first and only time in Sephiroth's life that he ever broke down crying.

• Angeal and Genesis are there with him, pulling him close, rubbing circles on his back. Angeal tells him it's okay to cry, whispers sweet words and gently takes the box away from him. Genesis ties his hair back and dries his tears.

• That night, Sephiroth doesn't let go from the stuffed toy for even a second. He's an unconsolable mess. Angeal has him stay in his apartment to keep an eye on him, and Genesis stays over too.

• They finally get him to eat a little bit of dinner, then get him to bed. Sephiroth falls asleep clutching the toy so hard his knuckles stay in a permanent blanched state.

• Angeal and Genesis sit back afterwards.

• "We could get him to try therapy," Angeal suggests.

• "We could also torture Hojo for more information on Ms. Crescent," Genesis shoots back.

• In the end, they both look at each other and crack small smiles.

• "This won't be easy, but at least we're starting somewhere," Angeal says.

• Genesis reaches over and fixes the blanket around Sephiroth. "At least now he knows who his real mother is."

#ffvii #ff7 #final fantasy 7 #sephiroth #genesis rhapsodos #ffvii crisis core #final fantasy #ff7r #angeal hewley #final fantasy vii #final fantasy 7 crisis core #lucrecia crescent

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underdark-dreams · 1 year ago

Note

I just binged all your Rolan x Tav fics on here (about to go to A03 and give kudos ❤️) and just wanted to say 😩😩 Perfect! AND! I saw you wanted suggestions! i would love to see the first interact/first meeting of Rolan and Tav from his POV if you felt inclined! No pressure! Thank you, keep up the good work! ❤️

I've grown so fond of this vague fem Tav I keep pairing with Rolan...so I hope these pronouns are ok for this request! Tav gets her name finally. (Cal and Lia also barged their way into this one in a big way)

Blades and Spells

A sanctimonious soldier isn't Rolan's idea of a good person to know, but is seems Tav is doing her damnedest to prove him wrong. The day of their first meeting at the Grove.

Tags: Fem Tav, Fluff, First Meetings, Sibling Bonding

Word Count: 4,322 [Read on AO3]

"We don't even know these people—"

"They're the closest thing we've got to kin, and you know it!"

The bright and promising midday had been punctured by a bloody ambush at the gate. Kanon was dead—a goblin booyagh's arrow and a nasty fall behind the front wall. No doubt his body was still cooling just a short walk from where the three siblings stood inside the shaded mouth of the Grove.

Their caravan's brief respite was shaken by the attack. Zevlor had retreated to strategize; the other Tieflings were on edge, a few downright panicked, the fresh tension around them only fueling the siblings’ words.

It had been weeks since he and Lia had a proper fight—Rolan felt all the pent-up anger rolling out now.

Lia stood with fists braced on her hips. "And what about the goblins? I know you're handy with a spell, Rolan, but I seriously don't fancy our chances alone on the Risen Road."

"Did you not see what just happened?" Rolan said, casting an arm behind his sister toward the gate. "That treasure-hunting idiot just led them right down on our heads. There’s bound to be more, and I don’t want us sticking around to find out how many."

"That’s all the more reason to stay!” Lia’s voice rose to match his. “These people aren't fighters, Rolan. We’d be cowards to leave. We can protect them—we should—"

“Or keep making a scene,” Cal said from the sidelines, to no one in particular. The other Tieflings had grown used to their bickering many miles ago.

Lia was undeterred. "Is this about your precious Lorroakan? Because I promise you, Rolan, he'll still be there when we finally get to Baldur's Gate."

Rolan's voice dripped with sarcasm. "Oh of course not, why would I want to achieve my lifelong dream, see my family finally be safe and provided for along the way—"

"Don't put this on me and Cal," his sister warned. "It's all the same excuse, you'd have left these people yesterday—"

"Because they're not my kin!" Rolan practically shouted, not caring how far his voice carried. "No matter how many times you say it! I'm not going to risk all three of our lives, our futures, on people who can't seem to keep themselves alive. How do you think I'd feel if I let anything happen to you? Either of you?"

"We know, Rolan," Cal interjected, trying to bring a little understanding.

"If you care about me and my future—" Lia jabbed a sharp nail at Rolan's chest—"you won't ask me to turn my back on these people when they need our help."

As Rolan opened his mouth to respond, he caught motion in his periphery. He turned to see an unfamiliar face standing at the edge of their conversation. The stranger rested a hand on her sword pommel, looking on quietly curious at the scene.

"Yes?" Rolan snapped at her. Sticking your nose into a private conversation hardly deserved politeness.

“Wait," Cal piped up beside him. “I saw you at the gate after the goblins."

Lia was quick to follow, disagreement all but forgotten. “You fought out there just now?” She sounded practically jealous. “Sweet hells, that must have been a rush. We owe you.”

"Good timing, that’s all," the stranger replied, shifting her weight a little. From real or false modesty Rolan couldn't tell.

He finally recognized her then—the one he saw speaking with Zevlor for quite a while immediately after the attack. Judging by the flecks of wet blood on her equipment, and on that of her companions behind her, these were the surprise reinforcements he'd already heard other refugees chatting about in energetic tones.

They weren't so impressive in person. Scrappy, in Rolan's private judgment. His eyes passed over the pouting cleric, the murderous-looking Githyanki with a massive sword on her back, the elf who was glancing around himself as though trying to decide which element of his current surroundings he disliked most.

The other wizard looked sane enough, Rolan allowed. He could practically feel the ripples in the Weave all around the man's shoulders. Perhaps Rolan would have a chance at an intelligent conversation in this place after all.

As for the one in front—she smiled pleasantly at Rolan despite having just walked from a goblin ambush. That, to his mind, marked her as the most eccentric of all.

"Tav," she said, extending her sword hand. Rolan glanced down at the dark stains on her fingers.

Wasn't this hovel filthy enough? His clothes already smelled of smoke and grease from days in close quarters; he drew the line at smearing them with goblin blood.

Tav tracked his eyes, letting out an awkward laugh as she moved to wipe her palm on her pants. From beside him, Lia firmly intercepted the handshake.

"Lia. Forgive my brother, you know how wizards are about their robes." His sister's tone was light, but she shot him a look from the corner of her eye.

As if Rolan cared what some passing stranger thought of him. If he’d had his way, they wouldn't be here to have this conversation at all. But Cal introduced himself as well, looking a bit starstruck.

“Well met,” Tav told them, Rolan included. “Sorry, I know I’m interrupting.”

Perhaps sensing Rolan was about to agree, Lia jumped in. “Please. It’s a pleasure to meet people willing to risk their necks for a bunch of strangers, especially Tieflings. You all heading to Baldur’s Gate?”

“Aye. Same as you, I imagine—”

The inanity was enough to drive Rolan mad; it was like their first days on the road from Elturel all over again. He crossed his arms and zoned out as she and his sister made their meaningless smalltalk. He'd rather get his tail stepped on than do this painful getting-to-know with one more person they’d never see again.

Then he heard Lorroakan's name, and his ears perked up.

“He’s taken Rolan as an apprentice,” Cal was telling Tav proudly.

"Have you met Archmage Lorroakan?" Rolan asked her, suddenly interested in the conversation again. Tav looked at him with hesitation.

"Not personally. Gale said—" She glanced down the slope deeper into the Grove, and Rolan realized that the companions behind her had all trickled away in the short moment he hadn’t been paying attention. Seeking rest and recuperation, no doubt. "Gale was saying he's heard of him."

The human wizard, Rolan gathered. Hearing a stranger speak the archwizard’s name somehow rekindled the fire in Rolan’s chest, one he hadn’t realized had grown so low on fuel. He clenched his fist beside his robes and felt the crinkle of Lorroakan’s letter there in his pocket.

Tav was regarding him with a quizzical expression. "I mean, if an archmage that famous has an apprenticeship waiting for you…I guess I can’t blame you for wanting to move on sooner than later."

"Naturally," Rolan said, a bit stiff. It annoyed him that this newcomer could see more sense than his own siblings.

Then she continued. "But Lia's right. You three seem like you can handle yourselves, and I'm not sure the same could be said for everyone here. We'll need every fighting soul to defend against that goblin nest. Especially you—" Tav directed the comment to Rolan. "Having another Weave caster could make all the difference."

Well, so much for sense. Speaking of we and us as if they all had the same goals. A transparent tactic. Rolan wasn't sure what altruistic world Tav had waltzed out of, but he'd heard enough rousing speeches on kinship and unity from people like Zevlor to last him a lifetime. He wasn't about to listen to one from a stranger.

She was correct, however, to acknowledge the value of his skills. No one on the road here had displayed anything close to what Rolan knew he was capable of.

He glanced one more time between his siblings. The set of Lia's jaw told him her mind was well made up. Cal just looked hopeful for a resolution.

Rolan swore. "Fine. We've only taken our damn time getting here, what’s a few more days lost? If we’re lucky, we’ll reach the city with a good story, at least."

"Thank you, Rolan." Lia was meek now that she'd gotten her way.

“You must be quite skilled,” added Tav, sizing him up a bit. "To catch the eye of the Archwizard of Baldur's Gate."

Rolan didn’t miss a beat. "I am.” Cal rolled his eyes over Tav’s shoulder, but Rolan ignored him. “I’ve been manipulating the Weave since I was a child.”

“It’s true,” Lia confirmed. Still feeling guilty about winning the fight, perhaps.

“Really?” Tav broke into a grin, clearly impressed. Rolan drank in the admiration. "Good thing you're staying, then."

Behind his pride, Rolan couldn't help but feel a bit manipulated. Perhaps Tav wasn't the unsophisticated sellsword that she’d appeared at first.

"Well, I should go find the crew before they make too much trouble.” Tav was turning to leave before she paused, sheepish. “Say—don’t suppose druids keep a blacksmith around? One of those worgs’ teeth put a big scratch in my baby here.” As she spoke she looked down at the sword belted to her hip, almost like an indulgent parent.

“Dammon can fix you up,” Lia told her at once. “He’s one of us, a Tiefling. And he’s damn good. Take a left down the hill and you can’t miss him. Follow the loud noises,” she added, with a grin to match.

“Cheers,” Tav told her. “See you all later?”

The three of them watched her figure disappear deeper into the Grove.

"She stabbed a warg right up close,” Lia murmured, sounding morbidly inspired. “That’s incredible.”

Rolan scoffed at her. “Better to kill it from a distance and not damage your most valuable piece of equipment in the process.”

“Hey.” Cal glanced over to his older brother. “Did you even tell her your name?”

Rolan wasn’t concerned. “I’ll tell her later, if she’s still around.” She and her companions would remember his name soon enough—them and all of Baldur's Gate.

—

In these cramped quarters, it didn’t take long before they encountered Tav again. Her hands swung a bit awkwardly at her sides, as if she didn’t know what to do with them. Her scabbard clanked empty against her greaves; presumably, Dammon was hard at work repairing her blade.

Cal and Lia practically swooped down beside her as she approached. Rolan tried to hide his scowl at their eagerness.

"Have you been around the place yet? Cal and I can show you around, if you’ve got time.”

“I’d like that,” she told them both with a genuine smile. “Perhaps later, if you’re willing? Zevlor told me about your…druid problem. I promised him I’d have a talk with Kagha.”

Who had elected her emissary? Rolan glowered. "I assure you, the druids will tell you it's a foulblood problem."

It wiped the smile from her face, and Rolan found it difficult to feel bad. She wanted to dig through other people's problems? She could get used to uncovering ugly things.

"Yes…well. I'd prefer to keep an open mind," she told him evenly. With another small comment to his brother and sister, she continued on toward the deep clearing where the druids were gathering in preparation for their rite. A place strictly off-limits for Tieflings.

Lia rounded on him. "I swear, you embarrass me worse than Cal sometimes."

Cal frowned. "Hey—"

"Because you care too much about what people think," Rolan answered his sister. "Believe me, she and her people don't care about us. Didn't you hear her little speech before? She only wants more bodies for the fight."

Internally, Rolan was still bristling at the idea that Tav had complimented and cajoled him into staying at the Grove. He didn’t truly believe that was the reason for his decision, but the fact that she’d gotten to him at all unsettled him.

“Come on.” Lia knocked her arm against his playfully, an effort at reconciliation. “I’m just saying, Rolan. It costs nothing to be a bit nicer to people around here.”

Rolan heaved a sigh. Even he was growing weary from all the bickering they’d done today, though he’d never admit that to his sister. “All right. I’ll try, if it makes you happy. But believe me—people like her look after themselves. And I intend to look after us.”

—

Tav hadn’t been in the heart of the Grove for more than ten minutes before she reappeared, practically stomping up the path from the Kagha’s inner sanctum. Apparently the emissary work wasn’t going so well. Without her sword, her hands were clenched at her sides in empty fists. Her expression was thunderous.

“Have you seen Zevlor?” She asked the three of them as she approached, bypassing the smalltalk Rolan was beginning to expect from her. He directed her back toward the carved door in the corner of the cave.

“Everything all right?” Rolan asked, curious in spite of himself.

Tav exhaled sharp through her nose. “Kagha was having a grand time interrogating a hostage. That little girl, Arabella.”

“What?” Cal’s voice rang with alarm.

“I guess she tried to steal the druids’ carving of Silvanus,” Tav told him. “The one they need for their ceremony. Her mother was nearly out of her mind…the child’s all right,” she added in haste. “Back safe with her parents now, but shaken up.”

Lia quivered with outrage at Rolan’s side. “Thank the hells you intervened.”

“Of course,” Tav replied at once, as if the situation called for nothing less. “I understand it’s the idol of their deity, but by all the gods…Kagha was ready to call her asp down on a terrified child.”

“That fucking viper."

Cal wasn’t referring to the snake; his siblings both glanced at him in surprise. He was a gentle soul, but if Cal cared about anything, it was protecting the young ones.

Tav seemed of the same mind. “There’s something about her,” she agreed with a dark look. Abruptly, she wheeled on Rolan. “What do you think?”

She sought his opinion as a wizard, he realized. All three of them were watching him, in fact, hanging on for his answer.

“Ritual magic is quite different from the Weave,” Rolan replied carefully. “Especially druidic magic. I don’t have the same feel for it. But Kagha…”

He cast his mind back to the first day their bedraggled caravan arrived in the Grove. The lot of them exhausted and bloodied after fighting off goblins and gnolls just up the road. Halsin, the massive elf who was then First Druid, squaring his shoulders above the smaller woman who somehow seemed to tower to his same height.

“She’s powerful,” Rolan decided. “Quite. Where it comes from, I couldn’t say.”

Tav was staring at him with an intensity Rolan hadn’t seen on her face yet. She looked far more intimidating than she had to him before.

But then she let out a thoughtful hum, and her features were back to their usual lightness. “I guess that’s one more reason to find this Halsin sooner rather than later.”

They all watched her take her leave toward Zevlor’s makeshift war room, the stone door sliding shut again behind her.

—

As the sun dipped below the horizon and a stiff evening breeze picked up at the cave’s entrance, Rolan and his siblings settled toward the insulated back wall of the Grove where Okta was tending hearth. Whatever the old woman had simmering in her massive cauldron smelled a bit like damp wool, but the warmth of the coals underneath was toasty and wonderful against the skin on Rolan’s face and hands.

Cal and Lia were in wistful discussion on either side of him—something about which landmarks of the city they wanted to visit first. Rolan let the feel of the conversation wash over him without hearing the words. His eyes were on the glowing coals, but his mind was also on Baldur's Gate—that and its great archwizard.

You are fortunate, young Rolan. The flourish with which Lorroakan had written his name floated through his mind's eye. Even the parchment itself was heavy and fine, almost promising of better things. Rolan’s fingers brushed the hip pocket of his robes again as if to assure himself. He still carried the letter with him everywhere, though he’d long since memorized its contents.

From behind him Rolan heard the sounds of a friendly disagreement and turned to look. Tav again. He shouldn’t be surprised; the woman seemed to be everywhere today.

Across the path, she was engaged in a polite argument with Dammon at his tent. The smith held a hand up as if refusing something. Rolan caught sight of the polished sword pommel back in her scabbard once more, and surmised that Dammon must be turning down payment for the repair job after her help at the gate today. That seemed like his chivalrous style.

Indeed, Rolan watched her tuck her leather coin purse away and offer a hand instead. Dammon accepted and shook it with a warm smile.

As he continued watching, the two struck up a friendly conversation. Rolan supposed a soldier would find much more to talk about with a smith than with an apprentice wizard. Her hand was draped at rest over her sword hilt again; that seemed to be an idle habit of hers.

He remembered the city guard back in Elturel displaying the same gesture while posted at watch, and wondered whether she might be in a similar line of work. Back in…wherever it was she hailed from.

Insipid questions that Rolan nevertheless filed away in his mind to ask her at some point. If nothing else, it would make Lia happy to see him making an effort. Being nice.

Rolan glanced again at the dark stains on her fingers. She hadn't taken time to wash and rest yet since the fight. It was all over her, goblin blood and human, small flecks of it visible on her clothing and chestplate and even on the side of her face. Didn't she find it unpleasant? It would drive him mad. But it didn't seem to concern her, and Dammon certainly didn't look bothered.

The smith said something that made her laugh then, and a dimple appeared in Tav's blood-spattered cheek.

Dammon had an easy way about him that always seemed to earn him fast friends. Right now, Rolan found he was a bit envious of the trait. He didn't intend to come off as such a prickly ass, as Lia so affectionately liked to call him—though time and again he seemed to manage it.

The constant setbacks between them and Baldur's Gate had just soured Rolan's mood in recent weeks, he told himself. His apprenticeship was all his mind could dwell on at rest, and each delay was harder to bear than the last.

But none of that was really Tav's fault. Inwardly, he could admit that Lia would have talked him into staying on her own anyway. Rolan found himself hoping that he'd made a non-terrible impression on the newcomer.

An elbow in his ribs broke his line of thought. "What?" Rolan looked around, rubbing the spot with a hand.

"I said, you're staring," Cal repeated. He and Lia were both looking at him—Rolan didn't like the expression on either face.

"Shut up," he said, though neither of them had spoken. "She's got blood all over her, who wouldn't?"

"I'm just saying." Cal put up both palms, his eyebrows raised. "From your face, you didn't seem that put off."

"Maybe she’d like to see your Thunderwave, Rolan," his sister suggested.

"You're both idiots." Rolan turned around with arms crossed, watching Okta pluck a dead chicken as though it might be interesting. The idiots on either side were not so easily deterred.

"There’s something about a woman in armor, isn't there, Cal?"

"I've always thought so." Cal leaned a forearm on Rolan's shoulder, sounding quite sincere. "Hey, you could offer to magic the bloodstains off her stuff for her. Use that presto—presti—"

"Prestidigitation," Rolan supplied, eyes still on Okta's cooking. A shockingly good idea from Cal. But it would be strange to offer that to a person he'd just met; Rolan dismissed the thought.

"She should've just taken the time to clean it herself before it all dried," Rolan said aloud. "The way her companions did, no doubt. Instead of running back and forth back here all day."

"Yeah," Lia drawled. "Saving little girls from pit vipers. What a waste of time."

“Well, only one way to find out if she’s interested.” Cal turned around and cupped a hand to his mouth. “Hey, Tav—”

Rolan would have smacked the back of his brother’s head had the woman not already turned toward the sound of her name. She approached their spot near the hearth looking politely curious.

“Lia was just wondering,” Cal started in—leaving Rolan’s name out of it, a smart choice for his skull— “won’t it take a long time to get all the stains out of your armor?”

“Oh.” Tav sounded taken aback, but glanced down at herself as if just now noticing the state of her equipment. “Oh yeah, this’ll cost me a good half hour at least. And probably both my elbows,” she added with chagrin. “Damn. Got distracted by everything, I guess.”

“Because Rolan can magic it off in a second,” Lia said in a rush.

"Really?" Far from averse, she was looking at Rolan with sudden enthusiasm. "I didn’t know magic could—I mean, of course it can. I guess. Why, are you offering…?” She glanced between him and his siblings then, as if finally picking up on the strange energy between them.

Rolan felt all three pairs of eyes come to rest on him. He could hardly back out now. “If you’re interested,” he told her.

“Hells yes,” Tav laughed. “Are you kidding?”

Lia clapped her hands together softly. “Excellent. Well, since Tav’s interested—” She placed a strange emphasis on the word, one Rolan hoped only he noticed— “Cal and I should get going to set up camp. See you both later?”

“Right,” Cal agreed at once. With that, the pair of them slipped off in a few flicks of the tail.

What a couple of damned children. Rolan let out a heavy sigh; they seemed determined to try every last slip of patience he had.

Tav followed him to a spot closer to the back corner of the Grove, a bit removed from the sounds and smells. A stream of cool air seeped in from somewhere outside the walls, and Rolan breathed in gratefully. He had found it hard to concentrate in the stale surroundings of this place.

“Right.” She stood opposite him, looking a bit unsure. “How does this work, exactly?”

“Just keep still,” Rolan advised her. This would be easier if she took off the pieces of her half-plate first, but asking her to do that seemed unthinkably familiar.

She did as he directed. “Sure you’re not going to transform me into a pigeon or something? Give me wings?”

“This is the simplest spell there is, I’m not an idiot.” Rolan’s tone was irritable, but it only made her laugh. He realized that she was teasing him.

Regardless, Rolan steadied his stance and reached out to the Weave. Whether or not it was technically correct, it was the way he’d taught himself.

Breathe in—quiet each thought—feel the air above and the ground below—

Like a warm embrace from the oldest friend, the Weave flowed as a golden light into his cupped hand. Rolan formed the clear intention in his mind and guided the magic toward her.

“It tickles,” Tav said in surprise, but he could tell she was doing her best to keep still. Her eyes were squeezed shut for some reason.

Rolan blinked at her, not sure how long she had expected this to take. “You can—it’s done.”

“Really?” Tav looked across her chest and shoulders and the greaves on her legs, admiring their new shine. “Wow…neat trick, that. So you’re saying Gale’s been watching us polish our armor and weapons every night when he could just use the Weave for two seconds?”

“The manipulation does take energy,” Rolan told her, not wanting to discredit a fellow wizard while he wasn’t here to defend himself.

Her expression changed a bit. Then she reached a hand to his shoulder. “Thanks for this, Rolan. It might be simple to you, but—” She dropped her arm and cast around with a tired laugh. “Life has honestly been…kind of terrible lately. Thank you for making it better.”

Rolan felt he could stand to hear more of that story, but he doubted she'd want to tell it. “You’re welcome,” he told her instead.

It was a bit awkward traveling back through the winding Grove together toward the entrance, but it could hardly be avoided. Their camps were both in the same direction.

The night patrol were watching vigilantly from the wall; the massive carved gate raised before them as if in anticipation. Rolan stepped out into the dark, cool evening with another grateful breath.

Beside him, Tav sighed wearily. "Well, 'night. Off to enjoy my extra sleep," she said with another smile to him before she turned away.

No such easy goodnight for him, Rolan knew. He imagined Cal and Lia perching awake on their bedrolls, eager to hear what chaos or embarrassment or both their meddling had caused for him this time.

More concerning to him right now was the way his shoulder seemed to radiate where she'd placed a grateful hand before. Rolan rolled his arm a little, trying to shake the tingling warmth near his collar bone. It didn't quite work.

But perhaps he'd think about that tomorrow.

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