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jokeringcutio · 9 months

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Art the Clown x Reader Drabble "Giving Birth to Art's Baby" [ EXPLICIT, Gore]

AN: Nobody asked for this. Summary: If Reader had Art’s baby. (or: You realize you're fucked, birthing a demon's child, but get a bright idea while doing so)

Warnings: Explicit content (Blood/Murder/Birth), Demon!Art, Demon!kid, Cannibalism/Placenta eating. Mentioned Forced Impregnation. Reader gives birth. Reader tries to survive. Reader lives by the end of this chapter. You have Art’s look-a-like baby (not just his head. An actual kid).

The sterile whiteness of the hospital room blurred into a canvas of dread as they told you to push. "You can do this," the nurse said, her voice a harsh command against the silence of your unborn child's heart—a silence that had been haunting you since labor began. The monitors sang no lullaby of life; instead, they hummed a dirge for the creature stirring inside, the one you knew bore no resemblance to a human babe.

"Push!" she insisted, but something primal within you recoiled. Your mind reeled, images of the ultrasounds flickering like a horror show behind your eyes—those glimpses of something otherworldly, something that twisted the midwives' faces into masks of confusion and fear. You felt it squirming, an alien presence in the sanctuary of your womb. Its head, too large, its limbs, too sharp—you remembered the cold gel on your belly and the screen showing a chest empty of a beating heart and a skull with teeth that no other baby ever had.

The images had filled you with nightmares.

"Push, damn it!"

With each word from her lips, you were torn further between the instinct to expel the abomination and the unnatural maternal pull towards the thing you carried. It looked slightly human, yes, but there was no pulse, no thrumming of life—just the void where a heartbeat should echo.

"Push, or we'll lose you both!"

Your muscles clenched, a symphony of pain rippling through you as you fought to obey, to be rid of the living death inside. You tried to calm the tempest in your chest, telling yourself over and over, "I can do this."

Then he invaded your thoughts—Art, the demon, the clown in black and white, a mockery of joy and laughter. His teeth, those sharp instruments of terror, flashed in your memory, evoking the night of unspeakable horror when he had claimed you. Should you have fought him harder? Should you have shouted or cried? His touch was a brand, his seed the poison that grew into the monstrosity within.

You had recognized the shape of the baby’s skull the instant the ultrasound had shown it. His teeth. His head. His heartless frame.

Mass murderer and psycho on the run. A clown who never spoke and was never caught. A criminal the police claimed to have killed time after time again, yet he kept returning. You weren’t stupid. You knew he was no ordinary man, had seen and felt him up close, had lived through carrying his offspring and felt its tiny hands like claws inside your womb.

"Push! I see the head!"

Your scream tore through the air, a battle cry against the violation that had led to this moment. With a guttural cry, you bore down, every fiber of your being straining to bring forth the offspring of darkness. The nurses leaned in, their faces etched with morbid curiosity and professional detachment.

"More! Now!"

And you did. You pushed past the fear, the revulsion, and the anguish. You pushed because surrender was not an option. The child of Art, the silent clown with the soulless bright eyes surrounded by circles of dark, was coming, and you would face it, even as it threatened to tear you apart.

"Head's out!"

The words cut through the fog of your agony, and for a brief, impossible moment, hope flickered. But it was a fool's hope, born of pain and desperation. For what lay between your thighs was neither dead nor alive, neither human nor wholly other. It was the unholy union of your flesh and Art's demonic whimsy, born into a world that would never understand its existence.

"Keep going, you're almost there!"

That nurse's voice, so insistent, so devoid of the horrors that awaited, spurred you on. And you pushed again, into the unknown, into the nightmare made flesh.

The sterile chill of the delivery room clawed at your senses, but nothing could compare to the icy grip of fear that seized your heart. The nurse's declaration was a death knell, ringing hollow in your ears.

"Oh no, look at that color,” she breathed out, her words a ghost lingering in the air. The child’s head was as white as the sheets you were birthing on.

Your gaze fixed on the writhing mass that now slipped free from your body, its skin as white as untouched snow, not a shade of life to be found. Terror danced in the nurse's eyes as she caught the creature you had birthed, fully convinced to hold a stillborn child.

But then it turned its head towards her, lips pulled back in a macabre grin, black and white painted across its face like a twisted replica of Art's mime visage.

It was as you had feared it would be. Any hope you had held that your baby might come out all rosy and normal faded like ice under the sun.

"God!" The nurse recoiled, hurling your offspring onto the bed as if it were a viper.

"Easy! Easy!" You cried out. This was your child, your blood. And there was the little voice inside your head that whispered that Art wouldn’t die. No matter how many shots had been fired at him. No matter how many limbs had been cut off. The man still walked the earth, spreading death in silent joy wherever he went.

What if your child was the same? Already its heart wasn’t beating yet it seemed very much alive. Would throwing it away like its life meant nothing be the solution?

Adrenaline fueled your limbs, and with a grunt, you crawled toward the tiny form cast aside on the cold hospital linen. No. This was your baby too. No matter how evil, you would nurse it.

"Shh, shh," you soothed, half-mad with pain and wonder as your arms closed around the little body. Your hands trembled, cradling him close, the resemblance uncanny—Art's spawn, his legacy. Something soft dangled between the baby’s legs.

"Boy..." you whispered, the realization dawning upon you as you held him against your breast. The baby’s head instinctively sought for your nipple, his already long-grown teeth snapping as he sought.

The sight of his head filled you with terror, and you felt slightly sick to see the baby’s lack of lips and already blackened teeth. Bright eyes stared up at you, black circles around him. The first touch of his mouth to your skin was tentative, searching, before a sharp pain made you hiss. "No biting!"

He seemed to understand or perhaps heeded the command instilled in his dark lineage. You were grateful he started to suck next and didn’t bite your entire nipple off. You wouldn’t put it past him – not with what you had seen his father do and what you had read and heard in the news articles about him.

There amidst the blood and the shadows, you were bound to this child, this extension of a demon's desire, by cords thicker than fear, stronger than revulsion. In the silence that hung heavy, only your harsh breaths and the soft, wet suckling sounds filled the void.

Your arms ached, but you clung to him—the fruit of your womb and a monster's seed. The room spun slightly, the stark white tiles of the hospital room blurring as you focused on the tiny creature at your breast. His lips, so unlike a human’s and too far pulled back, painted in an unseen artist's black and white, suckled with an instinctual hunger.

"Sweetheart,” you tested the word, reassuring yourself that you could do this. That you had to use affectionate terms around him especially because he was the way he was.

A new plan formed in your mind.

If you could bring such true evil to the world, could you perhaps dampen it? You were pretty certain you could not undo it. You could not change a devil into an angel. But if you could not turn evil into good, could you perhaps guide it? Guide it away from harming innocents?

"You're mine," you murmured, studying the little baby in your arms. If not for the head, the child would have looked rather normal.

“My son,” you proudly said, testing the words whilst the nurses and doctors around you stood and watched. You heard their muttering and were vaguely aware of how one of the nurses had pushed an emergency button and alerted someone else in the building about what was going on.

Would they come and take your baby away from you? Would they want to try and murder him?

A fierce protectiveness was swelling within you. “I’ll protect you, sweetheart,” you reaffirmed, determination lacing the single word. “You are my son.”

Some of the nurses took a step back from the bloodied bed, their eyes still wide with disbelief. Behind them, the door burst open with a violence that made every eye swing toward it.

Art stood there, his silhouette like a twisted shadow from a child's nightmare. The nurse at the entrance reached for him. “Sir,” she said, eyes upon the garbage gab he carried over his shoulder. “These are sterile surroundings.” Her concern was cut short by the gleam of steel—a deft flick of Art's wrist—and she crumpled, a scream caught in her throat, blood blossoming on her uniform like a grotesque flower.

The doctor next to her cried out when a blade hit his legs, slashing through the clean white fabric until his shins bled. Another nurse to his side crumpled when Art passed her by, pushed over with blood on her pristine white clothes.

"Stop!" Your voice was a command, even as you recoiled. "Don't."

Art’s head cocked, you could tell he had heard your voice, but he didn’t listen. Whatever knife he had brought with him was launched to land in the middle of a nurse’s forehead, pinching her to the wall. He smiled broadly while he stepped up to the doctor’s tools to get a scalpel from them, obviously pleased with all the sharp things that were within his reach. He threatened to step forth to the Doctor who had already wounded legs and who had fallen to the floor. The man looked up at the demonic clown fearfully, tears in his eyes as Art raised the scalpel.

“Art, please,” you begged, “Don’t hurt them.”

It wasn’t your pleading that stopped him. But something else entirely. A low groan as finally, the afterbirth followed - a final, visceral release that marked the end of your gruesome trial.

His head cocked, the mime's unnerving silence punctuating the chaos he had wrought. He approached, eyes fixed on the bundle in your arms. Between your legs, the heap of blood and tissue drained the sheets. The baby’s umbilical cord was still attached to the placenta that had finally come out.

Art studied it. First, the writhing baby in your arms. He looked at it like he had never seen a newborn child before. He probably hadn’t, you thought. At least, not one of his own. The wonder was visible in those bright light eyes of his. The demonic toothy smile had turned into a black hole of wonder.

Then, the brightly shining eyes traced the umbilical cord and came to rest on the placenta. Something in his eyes changed, and he looked up at you, almost hungrily. His gaze softened then at the sight of his son again, and dirt-covered fingers reached out a few times, indicating he wanted to hold him but was too shy to grab the babe.

Your son’s eyes opened, recognizing his father. But he wouldn’t leave his meal. The teeth nibbled on your nipple while milk kept flowing richly, then bit down a little harder when you moved your arm – an indication that he did not want to be moved.

With a spidery grace, Art extended a hand, his fingers stretching toward his progeny. You tightened your grasp, feeling the peculiar warmth of your son against your flesh.

"Art," you began, voice quivering with a cocktail of fear and resolve. "He's feeding." You met those abyssal eyes, searching for understanding. "We need them alive—the nurses, the doctors. We might need their help..." Whatever could you say to keep him from killing these people? You raked your mind, thought desperately. And then it came out. Unbidden. "For next time."

A pause, and then a different kind of hunger flashed across his face. Another offspring? The idea hadn't crossed his twisted mind until you seeded it there. The possibility of creating more beings like this one, beings that belonged to both of you—it ignited something within him.

"Next time," you whispered, coaxing.

Art's attention shifted, drawn away by the glistening afterbirth on the bed. A grotesque curiosity morphed into action as he reached down, snatching it up with an eager hand. He snapped the umbilical cord with his teeth, igniting gasps throughout the room of the nurses and the doctor – all either petrified or too wounded to leave. You gave them all an empathic stare, a silent ‘I’m sorry’ while you watched as Art descended on his own meal.

The room filled with the sound of his silent feasting, a tableau of horror that paralyzed the surviving staff. They could only watch, too terrified to move, too horrified to look away.

"Good," you breathed, holding your son closer. "Focus on that. Let us be."

Surrounded by trembling bodies and the scent of iron and fear, you rocked gently, whispering promises into the velvet softness atop your son's head, promises of a world where he would never be alone—where he'd have a sibling to share the darkness with. And more importantly, a mother who would guide evil in ways that would save those she cared about. Herself included. ~ AN: This could be a full story, but I was lazy and only wrote the birthing scene. Might upload other parts that can go along with this as I have an outline. If you like my (gross) writing (style), consider following me or browse my masterlists (psst, there's more).

~~ Support me on Ko-Fi - Masterlist - Request Box ~~ The Full Tale: Art saw the pale girl, another of his kind, and realized that he wanted to be less lonely. Someone of his own kind, now that sounded nice. A kid of his own to play patty cake with? So he started looking for a potential carrier for his kid. You were cute, didn't run as hard, didn't make a sound when he tried to harm you. A quiet little human, about the size of the clown kid he had seen. You were perfect. Instead of killing you, he made sure you got pregnant. During the pregnancy, you kept seeing traces of him, found little gifts from the stranger who featured in your nightmares ever since.

You weren't stupid. You found out quite quickly that your clown is in fact the much sought-after murderer who comits the most horrible crimes under the name of Art. You have seen what he is capable of and dive into the archives researching him and his crimes. He seems to survive everything.

When the ultrasounds show you a distorted baby with no heartbeat, you know that you carry true evil inside of you. But getting rid of it is no option, as you can't kill what already seems to be dead. With no other fate, you have no option but to birth the monster's child. How you will handle things after, however, that is something you can influence. You will do anything in your power to survive. ~~

#art the clown x reader #art x reader #terrifier baby #terrifier fanfic #birthing horror fanfic

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olivialau · 3 months

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Shadow's Embrace Ch.2

Sukuna x Reader

Disclaimer:

This is a work of fanfiction based on the universe of "Jujutsu Kaisen," created by Gege Akutami. The original manga, anime, and characters belong to their respective owners and creators.

Notes:

This story unfolds in the Jujutsu world, set in a slightly altered universe where Sukuna inhabits his own vessel distinct from Itadori Yuji's body, making him a separate entity.

Summary:

Ryomen Sukuna, the King of Curses, becomes fascinated with a female sorcerer rich in potential but lacking control. Initially seizing her for his destructive plans, Sukuna aims to bind her abilities through a contract. Yet, as he tries to dominate her, he finds himself intrigued by her strength and determination. Over time, his interest evolves from strategic advantage to a deeper, personal connection.

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CHAPTER 2 - Evil Proposition

The moment your eyes fluttered open, a sense of disorientation and dread washed over you. The atmosphere was heavy, an oppressive white fog that seemed to seep into your very bones.

As your vision cleared, you took in your surroundings with growing apprehension. The once familiar walls of your dorm room had been replaced by a dark, eerie space, the floor beneath you damp and uneven. Jagged rock formations jutted from the ground and walls, bones littered the area, casting unsettling shadows. The sky above tinted with dark hues of green and blue.

You realized with a sinking feeling that you were no longer at Jujutsu High, but trapped within what could only be an innate domain – a manifestation of a sorcerer's cursed energy that warped reality itself. And you knew, without a doubt, whose domain this was.

Sukuna.

Gritting your teeth against the throbbing pain in your wrist, you attempted to rise, only to find your movements hindered by the wet muck under your feet. Panic began to set in as the realization of your situation dawned on you. You were at the mercy of the King of Curses, trapped in his own twisted realm.

A low, chilling chuckle echoed through the chamber, sending a shiver down your spine. "Don't worry, this is only a manifestation of my innate domain," Sukuna's voice reverberated, his presence suddenly looming over you. "I haven't imbued it with my cursed technique... so you should live a moment longer."

Your gaze instinctively followed the sound of Sukuna's voice, and there he was, perched atop a towering pile of bone and skull, looking down upon you with an air of absolute dominance. The contrast in your positions was not lost on you – he, the mighty King of Curses, seated high above, while you, a mere mortal, remained trapped and vulnerable at his feet.

Sukuna's crimson eyes gleamed with twisted amusement as he observed your apprehensive expression. "Ah, I see you've finally graced me with your attention," he hummed, his voice dripping with condescension. "Tell me, human, how does it feel to be in the presence of true power?"

He leaned forward, his gaze boring into you with an intensity that made your breath catch in your throat. "Do you understand now, the futility of your defiance? This is my domain, my realm, where I reign." A cruel smile curled his lips as he spoke.

Slowly, Sukuna rose to his feet, the bones beneath him crunching as he descended from his makeshift throne. With each stride, the oppressive weight of his cursed energy intensified, bearing down on you like a tangible force.

His approach sent a fresh wave of terror through you, the memory of the pain he had inflicted still searing in your mind. Yet, amidst his overwhelming power, a spark of defiance flickered within you.

Cursed energy surged through your veins, a raw, untamed power yearning to be unleashed. Deep down, however, you knew a direct confrontation would prove futile.

As Sukuna drew nearer, his looming presence casting a shadow, you steeled your resolve, refusing to cower. "If you expect me to submit, you're sorely mistaken," you spat, trying to force a sense of bravery that contradicted your immense fear.

Sukuna smiled amusedly, "Oh, I don't expect submission willingly, little sorcerer," he spoke "That's what makes this all the more... entertaining."

Reaching out, his fingers grasped your chin, forcing you to meet his gaze. "You intrigue me," he mused. "Your defiance, your spirit – a refreshing change from the groveling insects I usually deal with."

His grip tightened, a surge of cursed energy coursing through you. "But make no mistake," he growled "I will break you, one way or another. You will serve me."

You glared at him bitterly, resisting the urge to strike. "What do you want from me?" You demanded, unable to grasp why Sukuna would take interest in a young, inexperienced sorcerer such as yourself. You had little to offer, barely a freshman.

"What do I want?" he echoed. "Why, nothing less than total domination."

He leaned in closer, his hot breath caressing your cheek. "You see, I grow weary of the pathetic squabbles and petty power struggles that plague the Jujutsu society. It's time for a change, a true reckoning."

Sukuna's grip loosened slightly, allowing you a brief respite from the agony. "And that's where you come in," he purred, his tone almost conversational. "I need a pawn, someone to infiltrate their ranks and lay the groundwork for my grand design."

His eyes narrowed, a cruel smile curling his lips. "A small... massacre, if you will. Just enough to sow the seeds of chaos and fear."

Sukuna's fingers, now traced the delicate line of your jaw, the sting of his sharp nails like a warning. "And you, are the perfect vessel for this task. Still inexperienced, easily molded, but with great potential."

He's insane, you thought to yourself, absolutely mad. Why would anyone give up all autonomy and throw away their life? Who would willingly agree to something so evil and wicked?

Just as you had found a new purpose in life and promised to use your abilities to protect others from the same fate that befell your dear friend- Ayumi, he was asking you to join a plan that could lead to hundreds of innocent deaths? Never.

It seemed as if Sukuna had been able to read your every thought as he spoke

"Of course, I'm not expecting you to simply agree, not after your feeble attempts at defiance so far," his voice tinged with annoyance. "No, I have other methods in mind."

He took a step back, finally granting you some breathing room from his heavy aura.

"I'm quite familiar with the power of Binding Vows. A contract, if you will, that binds one's soul to the terms of the agreement,"

You had learned about these vows in your first week at Jujutsu High; they were the foundation of Jujutsu Sorcery, and breaking them carried dire consequences.

Sukuna continued, "And once such a vow is established," he paused for effect, "you will have no choice but to obey my demands," his eyes burning with a dangerous light.

Leaning back in, Sukuna's lips hovered dangerously close to yours, his hot breath brushing your skin. "So, it leaves you with a simple choice. You can form a contract with me now, or I can break you, piece by piece, until you beg to bind yourself to me." His voice held a chilling promise, laced with threat.

Then, with a hint of annoyance, he continued to explain, "However, there is a troublesome condition to a Binding Vow that I must adhere to," he sighed as if displeased by the drawback. "You see, it is a two-way street. It needs to be mutually beneficial, or it holds no power."

You couldn't think of a single beneficial condition that would convince you to enter into a contract where you'd have to obey his every command. You valued your autonomy above all else. What could he possibly offer you in return?

"So, that's why I'm granting you the opportunity of a lifetime," his lips curled into a smile. "In exchange for your unwavering obedience, I will train you. Teach you how to channel your cursed energy properly, unravel your cursed technique, and refine it to perfection. I could make you the most formidable Jujutsu Sorcerer of this era." He spread his arms wide, imposing, as he laughed deviously. "How many can claim to have learned to fight from the King of Curses himself?".

The offer was tempting, you had to admit. The chance to harness your cursed energy, to become a true sorcerer, was a tantalizing prospect. You had always had a crave for power, one that scared you at times. But the price was your freedom, your very soul... Besides even with such power, what good would it do if you could only use it to sow destruction and suffering.

So with unyielding resolve you denied him. "Never," you declared. "I'd rather die than become your pawn" your voice unwavering.

Sukuna's eyes glinted with cruel amusement as he listened to your defiant refusal. "Never, hmm?" he mused. "How... disappointing."

"You know, I had such high hopes for you, woman. The power you possess, the potential you hold – it's truly a shame to see it go to waste." He pressed his hand to his face, fingers splayed across his forehead, and let out a long, exasperated sigh, his eyes briefly closing as if to gather patience from within.

Then he continued "But if you insist on this foolish path of resistance, then so be it." His words carried a dark, threatening edge.

Unexpectedly, with a sudden violent kick to your ribs, he blasts you away into the center of his domain. You crash into the wet, gravelly ground, and in the blink of an eye, Sukuna is back atop the massive pile of bones, like a king on his throne. He regards you with a daring expression as he asks. "Are you up for a little game, little sorcerer?"

The impact knocked the wind out of you, leaving you disoriented and gasping for breath.

With every movement you had to grit your teeth against the throbbing pain in your ribcage. You knew this was going to be bad, so you braced yourself, adopting a defensive stance. Maybe to muster a false sense of bravery?

Deep down, you were painfully aware that you were unprepared for whatever twisted "game" Sukuna had devised.

Before you could begin to recover, a sharp snap of Sukuna's fingers sliced through the air. His sinister cackle followed, soon joined by low, rumbling echoes reverberating through his domain. The sound was unmistakable – the presence of curses.

Your eyes scanned the area, taking in the sight of the rock formations that surrounded you. With a sickening realization, you watched as several Grade 3 curses began to manifest, breaking free from the earth itself.

Panic gripped you as the malformed entities emerged, their soulless eyes darting around until they settle on you. You knew you were no match for them in your current state, your cursed energy untamed and messy.

The curses surged forward, their contorted bodies converging on you with relentless ferocity. You still weren't used to the sight of these hideous monsters; they disgusted you, especially knowing the harm they inflicted on innocent people— the harm they had inflicted on Ayumi.

Struggling to stay focused, you summoned your cursed energy, unleashing haphazard bolts from your hands in a desperate attempt to fend them off.

But your attacks lacked precision and control. The Grade 3 curses easily evaded your erratic strikes, closing in on you with each passing moment.

As they closed in, you took hit after hit, your body growing more bruised and battered by the minute. Sukuna reveled in your inexperience and struggle, his delight evident in his expression.

The curses' relentless assault was quickly overwhelming your limited abilities.

Sukuna's laughter, rich and taunting, echoed through the domain, his crimson eyes gleaming with a twisted delight as he observed your futile struggle. "You're putting on quite a show, human" he hummed.

His disdainful remark and complete disregard for you fueled your anger, igniting a surge of energy within. With newfound determination, you unleashed a powerful blast of cursed energy, successfully obliterating one of the curses with a single blow. Sukuna appeared mildly surprised, his eyes widening ever so slightly.

But your moment of triumph was short-lived, as the remaining curses quickly refocused their attention on you and resumed their assault. Battered and exhausted, you struggled to maintain your footing, your body aching from the relentless string of attacks.

Just as you felt yourself succumbing to the weight of your injuries, Sukuna's voice rang out, commanding the curses to pause. A hush fell over the domain, and you found yourself staring up at the King of Curses, his crimson eyes fixed upon you with a calculating gaze.

"Let's make this a little more interesting, shall we?" he called out, his voice laced with a foreboding edge.

With a casual gesture, he reached within the folds of his white robe, and to your surprise, he withdrew a gleaming silver blade with a thick handle. Your eyes widened in suprise as he casually tossed the weapon down the pile of bones, clattering to a stop at your feet.

"A cursed tool," Sukuna went on to explain

"A weapon purposefully imbued with cursed energy, highly effective against curses."

His gaze bore into you, a twisted smile playing on his lips. "I want to see what you can do with it, little sorcerer."

The curses, still held at bay by Sukuna's command, stirred restlessly. With a single snap of his fingers, he released them. They immediately launched another attack, but this time you were armed.

Despite never having wielded a blade before, defending yourself with it felt instinctive. You were certainly relieved that Sukuna hadn't destroyed the wrist of your dominant hand now.

The cursed tool moved like an extension of your own body, allowing you to fend off the relentless attacks with a grace and precision that surprised even you. The blade sliced through the curses one by one, causing them to let out a guttural howl as they disintegrated.

Sukuna watched you from his perch, his eyes gleaming with a mixture of surprise and intrigue. 'Well, well, it seems you're not as helpless as I had thought... but still, nowhere near the level of a high-grade sorcerer,' he exclaimed, dismissing his initial approval.

After what felt like hours, you fought off the last curse, successfully slicing it in half with your blade. Then as if a switch was flipped, you felt the toll of previous injuries catching up to you. It seemed you had pushed your body far beyond its limits.

Suddenly, all strength left your arms and legs, the blade slipping from your grasp and landing on the floor with a loud thud.

Your vision grew hazy, and through the blur, Sukuna's intense eyes locked onto you, the corners of his mouth twisted into a taunting smirk. The world began to tilt and spin, and everything faded to black.

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Thanks for reading and see you the next chapter!

#sukuna #sukuna x you #sukuna fanfic #sukuna x reader #sukuna x oc #jjk fanfic #jjk men x you #jjk men x reader #ryomen sukuna #ryomen x reader #sukuna x y/n

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a-world-with0ut-dr34ms · 1 year

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Ghost x City Girl Reader

You expected Ghost to leave you before the morning; he usually does. However, you're surprised to see him rush to your aid after being woken up by violent night terrors. A sweet and unexpected moment between you, that only ends as quickly as it began.

Tags: Romance, Drama, slight Hurt/Comfort, slight Angst, Intimacy, Fluff that turns sour, Mask-Kissing, Arguing, Swearing, Enemies to Lovers, FWB, Jealousy, Toxic Relationships, "Couples", Arguing, Swearing, A Little Melodramatic, I'm aiming for something more real though, Reader is somewhat bratty and immature, Ghost is bad at communicating his feelings, Damaged people not knowing how to talk to each other and let their walls down, reader has night terrors, I wanted representation!

WC: 4.5k~

Author's Note: I'm back from Vegas! I was on a drunken bender on Fremont St. partying with my brother for his birthday this week (I talked to a lot of interesting people too 😏). This chapter might be a little different, I don't know? I'm not gonna lie, after this chapter, the tone is about to take a shift. Please enjoy~

Also, thank you so much @argella1300 for helping me out when I asked. Your insight was greatly appreciated and it really meant a lot! 💞

Masterlist

It came in the dim shade of dusk, tucked in by shadows of your hall -- the abnormally tall silhouette of a man. Stalking you. Haunting you.

He looms at the brink of your hallway, expressionless, unmoving, and yet somehow inching forward all at once. With each step he closes between you and himself, an encroaching darkness fills the room behind him within the blink of an eye.

Who was he? It's a question you've had since adolescence. The answers never felt as true as his unsettling existence.

The world around you is silent, fogged as though you were being held underwater, your mind racing at an incoherent speed. The only sounds you hear are that of your own screaming. You knew what was happening; your body and mind had just been unable to control it.

Night terrors.

You've never told anyone about them before; you've never felt any need to. It's not exactly a hot topic of discussion, nor something you could even put forth any real value into if asked; you can't explain something you don't understand.

They haven't been anything beyond a waking three-minute inconvenience. An on-and-off occurrence throughout your life. But once it happens, there'd be no avoiding it.

They send your body into a mindless, cold panic, the only emotion coursing through your veins being the unknown fear that first woke you. Your arms thrash frantically as you scream, your body feeling as though it were being grabbed by a million hands...

Don't touch me, your mind cries out. Don't touch me. Don't touch me...

...Until you've felt the one, very real hand touch your shoulder, taking with it the darkness you'd thought had all but swallowed you whole and replacing it with the waking world around you.

The morning returns, as do the rest of its unpleasant realities.

"Hey." That deep and raspy Manchester voice is the first sound you finally register, and for once in your life, it couldn't have sounded any sweeter. "Hey," Ghost says again, placing both hands gently over your shoulders to wake you. "Everything's OK. You're in your living room."

Your chest heaves shallow breaths when sitting up on your couch, taking in your surroundings. That's right, you're still in your living room. You'd almost forgotten you'd passed out on your couch last night, now catching the breaking dawn which pooled through your windows.

It always takes you a moment to regather yourself after it happens, having to make sense of what had been real versus some strange in-between with you and your REM state. In those moments, everything felt real, and fake all at once.

Even the shattering and reforming of reality around you could not take your mind from Ghost's hand, which remained wrapped protectively over your arm, fingers trembling with the hesitancy of his own actions.

"Are you alright?" His dark eyes look your face up and down, taking in every twinge your lips made and how your eyes seemed to look in every direction but his own, still glossed over and dazed from sleep. "You just started screamin' out of nowhere."

Once his words run through your head a few more times, you realize that you'd made a scene right in front of the one person you hadn't wanted to know this about you, a new detail he no doubt did not expect from you at all.

Ghost has known you to be many things -- seductive, witty, cold, distant, and near every other synonym in between. He's heard your voice moan in pleasure more times enough to recognize it within a crowd; he's heard you hurl enough insults his way to send even the hardest of soldiers home crying and insecure.

Never has he heard you scream like this before, with such fear and strife. In fact, he can't think of a single time you've ever been so frightened around him. To see a glimpse of that had been more unsettling than he wished to let on.

He'd only woken up a few minutes shy of you, having slipped away to fix himself up and reset his balaclava. His lips had still felt stained by your kiss from last night, the skin on his face tingling off the memory of your touch alone.

Nearly two months he's spent with you in this odd, little fling and he's never actually kissed you like he had last night before. Never for so long. Never so deeply. He wouldn't allowed himself to. Kissing just for the sake of it always felt like a step beyond casual, as much as he often craved your lips on his most exhausting days.

Ghost must have stared at himself in the mirror longer than he should have, just chasing that feeling again, making himself sick with it. He debated on leaving before you woke, though he'd keep that to himself, having heard your screaming once he'd rounded the corner. In which case, Ghost ran to your aid without question.

His first thought had been that you were in danger; perhaps someone had broken in, or worse, you'd been hurt. You might get on the man's nerves, but he'd be lying if he said he didn't care about your well-being at least somewhat. He never wished any harm to you, and he damn sure wouldn't let anything happen to you if he can help it.

The archway between your hall and you had felt as foreign and distant as space itself, however. When Ghost found you on your couch, your arms writhing, and wide eyes locked on him with confusion and terror, he had frozen in place.

For a split second, he thought that fear had been caused by the sheer sight of him. And then, the strangest thing had happened -- it tore him to pieces being given a glimpse of a reality he didn't know he feared most of all. One where the sight of him brought you complete anguish.

Your screaming didn't stop when he approached you, nor had it stopped when he knelt beside you, saying your name and asking what was wrong, only falling on deaf ears.

Nothing had stopped your screaming, nor these emotions that ripped at him, until his hand had touched your shoulder, and you both felt the sensation of one another.

Your features calmed, your gaze softening at the sight of him, now having been pulled from that sudden trance. In a matter of seconds, you'd just barely managed to get your breathing to a more manageable pace, your heart not drumming so loudly in your ears. You played his words in your head, again and again, until you've slowly regained composure. Everything's fine. Everything's fine.

Had you noticed he had this effect on you? Ghost imagines you'll only carry on as though it were just another thing; the kindest of gestures are often the hardest to notice in the moment, and you never did like to dwell. It only took years' worth of tragedies for Ghost to be able to recognize them himself. Though every now and then, it isn't something he can catch either. He only wishes this hadn't been one of those times.

Embarrassment and shame flood within you like a crashing wave, though you mask it in an annoyed groan, turning your body away from Ghost in hopes he'd take the hint and give you some space. You always hated when this happened around others, most of all around the men you slept with. Slowly, you prepared yourself for your usual dose of reactions.

"I'm fine," you say. "I just... I'm fine." You rub your hands over your face in defeat, before sinking your head into them with a low groan.

There had been reasons you didn't sleep over or have others do the same often, this being one of them. You didn't need to have another guy slowly ghost you because you scared him awake at 2am in a frantic panic; the best way to avoid it would be to not put yourself in the situation at all, right?

But what happened last night hadn't been like any of your normal nights with Ghost. Last night had been something... not quite the same. There had to be some reason you haven't sent him home yet otherwise. You wondered if it had been the same reason why he hadn't gone home yet either.

"Fuckin' hell," Ghost sighs. "You might've woken the neighbors with that one."

"It's nothin' they're not used to," you say casually, though the second you do, you wish you hadn't been so cavalier about it. You hadn't meant to invite him into your world like this.

However, no one had been more understanding of these sorts of troubles than he; Ghost knew what a pain it could be feeling as though you needed to explain emotions you had no control over. So he wouldn't ask you what that was about, or why you think it may have happened. He didn't need to know anything beyond the fact that you were OK.

"Well," Ghost sits down beside you on the couch with a dramatic "oomph", huffing to himself with a certain contentment to it. "I've been there."

"I'm sure you have," you groan. You couldn't help being sly with him, even now. It came out of you impulsively, knowing he'd always reward you with some form of attention you both could get something out of. Something you both let sit at the back of your minds all day.

You stretch your arms over your head feline-like, your body now finally feeling as though you'd slept in your living room instead of your bed. Your shoulder ached dully, your back already popping at each stretch you made with your body. The wonderful joys of aging.

"That's one way to get the blood pumpin' in the mornin', yeah?" Ghost jokes, he always did feel a little humor could lighten any mood. "You never scream like that with me."

"Perhaps you should do a better job then," you tease.

"Don’t tempt me, love."

Love. He doesn't call you that often. Only in your most intimate of moments. You hadn't felt your face smiling, but you knew you were.

You looked so innocently up at him after without even thinking. "Tempt you, Manchester?" You give the man a rather tired but still lurid look, bumping his shoulder playfully with your own. "Perish the thought," you say. "As if it's that hard to do."

"Oh, fuck off." Ghost sighs, and you can practically feel the man smiling beneath his mask. A smile that felt as warm as a heater come after a snowstorm.

Wind chimes clung lightly outside your window, the finches gathered at your bird feeder chirping blissfully. You both laugh lightly to yourselves, your arms faintly brushing at every small exhale from your noses. And you both sat there even after the laughter, simply looking off ahead of yourselves, with eyes still heavy from waking.

It had felt suddenly a tremendous task to look over at Ghost. Once you've worked up the courage, you catch him gazing out your window aimlessly, peacefully, his body settled into your couch as though he'd been with you the day you bought the thing.

And then he looks down at you. Maybe he felt you staring, but you never noticed how brown his eyes are, or how deep they could look in a dimly lit room. Similarly, he's never noticed how animated your own eyes are, always moving and observing some small, unknown detail. It made his skin crawl delightfully. Ghost would have thought that feeling to be a bad thing, and yet it had been quite the opposite.

Why don't we ever do this? You asked him that last night, and though he'd answered you, it hadn't been the entire truth.

A sudden burst of energy springs from you, pulling you from your seat and inviting yourself onto Ghost's lap, who leans back and lets you do so without question. Your legs settle over his boulderous thighs, humming lightly as he rests his hands back against your hips, sighing pleasantly to himself and looking back up at you.

Ghost did his best not to squirm around too much with you on top of him. It hadn't been the worst thing you two have done together. However, it wasn't common for things to feel so... easy. He could stay like this all morning if you let him.

Something tells him you felt the same way; you don't usually take this long to start getting to the point of things physically.

"What is it?" he asks.

"I'm surprised you're still here."

You watch your comment bring him to a short pause and find yourself now at the edge of your seat, arms resting gently over his shoulders and not being used to this sudden anticipation towards his answer.

Ghost had thought about being completely honest with you, admitting that he'd been equally surprised. That's when he woke up and saw you still sleeping on the couch next to him, it had been the hardest thing to even excuse himself to the restroom.

Your arms had been entangled around him, cuddled against his large shoulder like a giant pillow. You slept soundly beside him, peacefully, having felt so at ease with letting your guard down, all things considered. An innocent sight too far and few between bitter exchanges.

He's never slept over after before, nor has he ever held you in his arms like this. Yet, it had felt like the most sensible thing to do now, something as natural as breathing or blinking.

He found himself just watching you sleep for a while, still. In the early morning light that crept through your living room window, he sees all these details to you he's never had the chance to; you are beautiful. Truly. And he hadn't meant it in ways that were superficial or lustful. Genuinely, he really did find you a stunning woman. He's always found you so, even behind the toxicity.

Seeing you next to him had made him happy, and all at once, it hurt him the same, knowing this time would always be finite. You'd bore of him soon enough, only to call him later as another passing thought. Maybe one of these days, he'll gather the strength to stop answering.

Even now, with you over him like this, it's odd. He doesn't want to get up, and yet he does. He wants to pull you in closer, and he wants to leave. He can feel himself breathing, yet the sight and touch of you made the air catch in his lungs each time he went to inhale.

Maybe he could just blame that on the smoking.

"Good thing I was 'ere, yeah?" he finally quips.

"Right," you lean forward, letting your nose brush the tip of his just faintly enough for him to long for its sensation beneath his mask. You watch the blond of his lashes flutter innocently, with eyes wrapped up in you even more than they had been last night. "My knight in shining armor. You won't hear me complaining."

"That's a first," he teases.

"Fuck you."

Your kiss is what truly wakes him that morning, your lips sculpting the shape of his mouth through his mask and gently planting slow, light pecks. His arms hug around you warmly, with strong fingers gently grazing their way up your back. He always did like these rare occasions where you'd treat him softly; he liked to think it had been a side of you that only he had seen. Even as he knew it wasn't true.

You continue to kiss him for a little while, the man's hands only remaining comfortably at your back to keep you over him. Ghost wasn't sure how much more he could take of you wiggling about on his lap before he gave you what you were clearly looking for. But it wasn't until you started reaching for his mask that he felt a sudden bolt of lightning strike him.

Both his hands shoot up to grab yours, large fingers hooping across your wrist like cuffs, keeping you just out of reach from the brim of his mask. His sudden hesitancy makes you smirk, and already does he know that you're about to push his buttons.

"Aw," you tease, purposefully rocking your hips into him. It makes you giggle when he huffs to himself. "Feeling shy?"

"Not shy," Ghost says. "Just..." Vulnerable. Anxious. Wary. Careful. "...You know how it is."

"Aww," you start to pout mockingly. "Is that honor only reserved for the special girls in your circle?" you ask. "Or just the ones you don't fuck?"

"For the ones actually interested in sticking around," he says. "Instead of just being some fling."

You can't help but scoff, and Ghost can't help but tense up afterward, already preparing himself for an outburst. You certainly were good for them, and Ghost hadn't wanted to kid himself here either; this would all end soon enough.

It wouldn't be long now... and he knows he should pull away before that day comes. He's lost enough people in his life to recognize not to get close to something that won't last long enough to really matter. So he won't hold back his words with you. You can't have your cake and eat it too, he thought.

But some small, sad part of himself wanted you to fight his words, however harsh that storm would be, just like you always do.

Your shoulders slouch and your eyes drift off somewhere into the room. You couldn't make it more obvious that what he said had stung, in ways you hadn't even known you'd been capable of feeling towards him.

A fling. A piece of meat. That's how you liked to present yourself -- it's how you've viewed others too -- most of the time. So you can't get mad if that's how he sees it.

Yet every time that truth is brought to attention, it can't help but make your gut twist up in knots. As if some delusional part of you felt you could continue to sleep with Ghost and see other men as well without him caring.

You've been in a losing battle with Ghost since you first slept together. You knew on that night that any real formalities between you two were forever gone; you'd already spoiled so many of the first joys of being with someone, and it often left this feeling of things being too late to change. What you have now will probably always be what it is. So why can't you enjoy it for that while you still can? Why must he complicate things?

"I just wanted to kiss you," you admit.

It's the honest truth. You dreamed about his lips; his kiss had felt that good. You never expected him to have left such an effect on you, yet you've woken up, and the want to taste him has not subsided.

Ghost takes his eyes from you, dark orbs lowering to your lips as though to telepathically share the same thoughts as you.

"I..."

BUZZ! BUZZ! BUZZ! BUZZ!

Your eyes turn to the thunderous rumbling of your cell phone against your hardwood coffee table. A phone call.

Ghost looked back at you, expecting you to sit up and answer it. You merely turn back to him, letting it buzz until the call finally drops. You could always call them back.

As you've opened your mouth to speak, however, the phone begins to buzz again. Another phone call. It's this time that you've decided to sit up and see who it is; you freeze once you read the caller ID. Shit!

"Who is it?" Ghost regrets asking the second his voice lets the words rumble out.

"It's uh..." You stumble on your words, purposefully being coy, knowing he wouldn't like the answer.

"Your boyfriend?" Ghost answers for you, and your silence after speaks volumes.

Your boyfriend. Mr. Sweet and Super Understanding himself. This supposed "doomed" second relationship that has been nothing but highs since you've known him, if anything you told Ghost last night had been true. It figures he would call you so early this morning, you two had seemed close after all.

And like the strike of a match, his entire demeanor runs from cold to ticked off. Ghost can do nothing more than laugh to himself, shaking his head as though you'd just pulled the rug from underneath him and blown the ceiling off the roof of your prior delusions.

After all, you got exactly what you wanted here from him. He fixed your car, fucked you after, and now you get to send him on his merry way while you spend some real time with someone else.

Grumbling to himself, almost without him even knowing, he mutters, "I don't know what else I fucking expected-"

"He's not-" You struggle to find the right words to say, feeling as though every sentence spoken made a true difference between Ghost walking out of your life for good or not. The thought made you start to panic all of a sudden. "I'm not with him like that. You know this already."

You're right; he does know this. You haven't lied about a single thing since he drove over to jump your car. "Besides," you start to argue. "Why does it matter anyway? Why do you care? It's not like you want to be with me. You won't even let me look at you! You've said it yourself; I'm just some "slag" you sometimes like to fuck. Why the fuck do you care if I'm seeing someone who doesn't think that way about me?"

Because he hadn't felt that way about you. Not anymore. Not ever.

Never has he met a woman able to push his buttons so effectively, in ways all too familiar to his childhood. But at the same time, this woman, this human who unknowingly held so much power over him without even being aware, you equally found the littlest of ways to creep into his mind and bring him a bittersweet peace he had not felt since his youth.

But if he said that to you would you listen? Would you even understand? You've never been a woman to be tied down. He's known this. Who was he to think he'd be the difference when what you say is true. He has not been kind to you, not until it was too late, and now you've one foot out. How could he blame you for that?

And yet Ghost stands up, a bubble now having been burst. "As though you're so innocent," his voice raises, emotions finally starting to tip. He matches your hostile energy, his dark eyes glaring down at you, a mirror of wounded gazes. "How many times have I been here for you, only for you to cast me aside like an old toy you can just play with when you're bored? All I've ever been to you is an easy out; you've never cared what I've thought-"

BUZZ! BUZZ! BUZZ! BUZZ!

Ghost's eyes shoot down to your phone ringing in your hand, and you swear you've never seen him more upset.

A passing fear of him stepping over and snatching your phone from your hand passes over you, and your entire body language subliminally shifts in response. You instinctively take a step back from him, lightly turning your body to keep your phone from his reach. You'll be damned if he thinks he can try that.

He notices this small action, and a part of himself felt akin to his father, recognizing that fear in your eyes from his mother, even as you hide it behind a biting glare. That feeling alone could have done him in for good.

Though Ghost wanted nothing more than to answer that call and tell that other man to fuck off already, he had more self-composure and respect than that, along with his own moral obligations.

Still, it didn't take long for the conversation to take a turn, and from that point, it had been as though everything this morning had been but a slow build-up to an inevitable argument between you two. It always did come naturally.

It started out antagonistic from the jump. You questioned and belittled his sudden emotional flare-up, criticizing every one of his reactions and ignoring the obvious signs that you really needed to back off and just let him go. Or it would be better to say you didn't care for it.

To be frank, you didn't understand his frustrations. If other men had been such a problem, why does he keep coming back? What is it that he keeps seeking here?

Ghost hadn't been interested in spending his whole morning arguing with you, and physically feeling a grave be dug for the remains of your tarnished relationship. He moves around you and begins gathering his things, needing the air now more than ever.

"Hold up-" you approach him, throwing any caution or personal space out the window, as you've stopped a few steps shy of him. "Where are you going?"

"Back home." Ghost starts to put his boots on, the frustration he controlled in his voice being taken out by the aggression he used to tie his laces. "It's time I've made myself scarce."

"You're just gonna run off now? Just like that? I didn't take you for such a pussy, Manchester-"

"Don't push me, Spice," Ghost warns you. "I mean it."

"Or what? You'll leave?" you taunt. "I'll do whatever the fuck I want to."

"And that's the problem," Ghost says, standing up on his two feet and towering over you. "All you ever do is what you want. You never care how your actions affect others or what someone might think of them."

"What do you want from me, Simon?" You finally ask him, voice starting to rise, your chest puffing up aggressively. You'd curse him for getting you so emotionally riled up this morning.

What do you want from me? What do you want? A simple question that had been impossible to answer, because answering it would mean being honest with himself about what's happened with him here. It would mean being vulnerable.

"Stop calling me," Ghost says. "Stop seeing me. Stop being with me. We should never have done this in the first fucking place... This has to stop."

No longer did he wish to feel this way, to feel as though the worst parts of himself came at a constant full display with you. No longer did he want to feel himself slowly start to care for you, knowing that at any moment you could be gone. He's not sure he could handle something like that again.

Your mouth opens, and then it closes, and then you frown. Ghost thought you wouldn't say anything to him. He thought you might even cry. But no, you never were one to just leave things at that. You always had to say the last thing in an argument, and you never minced words.

"Then fucking go already," you say. "Get out. You won't have to worry about me calling you ever again."

Ghost didn't say anything after that, though he had looked at you for a little while longer. If you hadn't known him as well as you think you did, you'd say his brown eyes looked rather sad.

He moves away from you, making his way to your front door and unlocking it. He makes sure not to look back as you see him out. The man wouldn't be able to stomach the sight.

He remained on the other side of the door after you'd slammed it, feeling the wind hit his back and the sharp silence that it brought with it. Ghost then cocks his head back and closes his eyes, sighing in defeat. He felt the warm, morning air hit the little parts of his skin left bare for the air to kiss, and as though his mood couldn't drop any lower, he remembered he still had to go to work with you this morning.

Part Seven Coming Soon. Stay Tuned~

Since I'm trying to explore toxic relationships, I wanted to delve into the complexities a little (while not being so on the nose about it). They have their ups and they have their downs; they blend and happen all at once and take each other's places at every positive or negative interaction. You can have genuine moments of care and empathy with people you simultaneously butt heads and take issue with I feel; nothing is ever just black and white. I'm rambling and probably not making a lot of sense.

But, now that Ghost and the Reader are in the pits, they've gotta look within themselves and fix their shit if it's meant to be. I want to write them in a way where it's clear if they could just sit and figure out what it was they wanted from each other, then this could be something real if they let it. However, life waits for no one, and they're about to be in for a doozy. The mission i have planned for them is gonna be 👺👺👺

Taglist: @cabreezer0117, @homicidal-slvt, @deadbranch, @argella1300, @poohkie90, @glitterypirateduck , @sarraa-26, @quincessimus, @0-444-4444, @crazymela, @13thprogenitor, @joce2fine, @sapszilla, @dmitriene, @justherebecauseafarisucks, @zevrajalexxandra, @corvusmorte

#call of duty #ghost x reader #simon riley x reader #ghost simon riley #simon ghost riley #simon riley #ghost #modern warfare ii #call of duty modern warfare ii #mwii #mw2022 #call of duty modern warfare 2 #simon ghost riley x reader #simon ghost x reader #no good men left to spare #Spotify

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emisprocrastinatingbywriting · 5 months

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Alone and Forsaken

Chapter 8 Summary:

Joel Miller wakes with a part of himself missing and a fuzzy memory. After realizing what has happened, he meets people from your past that both comfort and shake him to his core. In a life or death situation, he forces himself into his more brutal side but finds it harder to keep himself in that mindset with thoughts of you racking his brain. All he knows is that he needs to find a way to keep you safe while stuck behind bars. Can he escape and find you? Will he leave those you once loved behind?

Warnings: Past Trauma, Joel is getting biffed around pretty hard this chapter so heavy on the injuries, Angst, Joel needs hugs but so does Jake, some friendly fluff between Joel & Jake, Paul needs to be punched ASAP.

A/N:

Hello folks! I hope the first month of your summer vacay (if you are in uni like me) is going good! We are jumping right in with Joel's perspective. This chapter is super dark as Joel goes through some pretty heavy panic at the seperation and thoughts of self harm do arise. Additionally, we get some more background to Paul and spoiler alert! He is a super creepy and violent guy. I don't go too heavy into detail into what sort of assaults he has perpetrated but reading in between the lines, you can get the jist. As always, take care of yourselves! If this is too heavy then please do not read it. If you want to keep reading but don't want to miss out, always feel free to message me and I can sparknotes it for you. Trauma is tricky and if this will trigger you, opt out babes. Choose you!

Chapter 8/20

Chapter 8: Separated Pt. 1

The first thing Joel heard was an incessant dripping noise. It pulled him from a deep sleep filled with senseless dreams about people with unfamiliar faces. He scrunched his nose at the sound in distaste, sighing at the knowledge that his day would entail patching up whatever hole that had formed on the roof. Joel knew that the frigid breeze would soon be whipping through the cabin and pulled himself from the fog. His bones ached for some inexplicable reason but it simply had to be fixed. The last thing he needed was you getting sick with no antibiotics on hand.

You.

The thought of kickstarted his brain as Joel’s eyes blinked open. Memories rushed back to him as he tried to place himself. The mark on his neck and the matching one on yours, the pancakes, the fight, the confessions he had made and the fire that interrupted the moment. He remembered smacking your ass before he left for the river and stooping down to fill the bucket but after that it was blank.

Joel dug through his memories for anything else but he felt as though pieces of himself had been shredded off in his sleep. He longed for something unknown and it put him on edge. The invisible string behind his belly button that connected him inexplicitly to the only home he had in this world, to you, yanked him from his delirium. The memory he dug for remained elusive but that didn’t matter. Not when the beast within him howled at the absence of his mate.

A voice sliced through the terror that threatened to suffocate him. Joel whipped his head towards it so hard that stars formed behind his eyes. Dizzy and slightly nauseous from the abrupt movement, he dropped his head back down onto the metal with a soft thump.

“It’s weird. If you asked me yesterday what she smelled like, I wouldn’t have been able to tell you but the second they dragged you in here I remembered. You smell like her. It’s weird but hey, congrats I guess.”

Joel’s eyes struggled to adjust to the pulsing fluorescents that hung over him. The light from them reflected off of the metal slab he was laid on and burned his retinas. Straining harder despite the pain, his eyes finally landed on a ragged looking omega locked in a cage across from his own. Alarm bells went off in Joel’s brain and he shot up off the cold surface like a bad out of hell.

A wave of nausea knocked him backwards before he reached the door. An uncharacteristically high pitched whine tumbled from Joel’s lips as he swayed on his feet. His head felt like it had been clamped in a vice. The pressure inside of his skull made his ears ring as he swallowed the bile that rose in his throat.

A concussion. Joel had enough to know the symptoms even before the outbreak. Not much to do for one other than to rest but after looking around, he realized that he needed to figure a way out and fast. Dried blood was caked all over his face and crept down his neck to darken his flannel. A pool of semi-congealed blood was pooled where his head had laid while the fresher blood dripped down to the floor. He watched it splatter against the cement for a second before he righted himself.

“Hey woah there big guy, take it easy. Just take it slow. You probably have a concussion and if you puke, I swear to God I will break out of here just to slap you. I don’t care who you’re mated to,” the omega spat.

Joel coughed and winced at the wad of bloodied spit that sourced his mouth. Swallowing it back, he slowly eased himself down onto the bunk in his cell to take in his surroundings. The omega across from him was bruised but looked reasonably healthy. The scent of his fellow prisoner was muted but Joel picked out soft notes of citrus intertwined with a heavier aroma of cloves. This omega was mated. With no alpha in sight to protect the younger man, he winced. Joel needed to focus on getting back to his own mate who could be in the exact same situation elsewhere.

The room that held him was small with just two cramped cages and a partly decomposed body slumped by the door. The skin of the dead sagged from the bone, the face misshapen and melting towards the floor. Rotted holes stared back at him as he watched a rat claw at its bloated abdomen. The sickly sweet scent of decay assaulted his nostrils and he turned away to keep himself from gagging.

Metal sheets acted as beds in the tiny cells and a rickety office chair sat in the aisle between. It looked like a security office for some shitty strip mall or grocery store. There wasn’t even a toilet for the previous prisoners in the cell, just a bucket that someone had shoved in haphazardly. How nice, he thought.

Reaching forward, Joel rattled the cage with his hand and cussed at the strength of the thin bars. He wrenched back against their hold once, twice, before he relented. As dinky as the little metal cage was, it would be impossible to tear through without the proper tools.

“Yeah, because I haven't tried that already. I’ve just been sitting here fiddling my thumbs and waiting for them to come back all day.”

Joel snorted and looked across at the omega who was leaned up against the side of the cage with his arms crossed. He had a full mouth and a pair of deeply set brown eyes that oozed sarcasm. His curls were dirtied but still shone in the light of the room. The strands looked as if they had been picked through for blood and filth, placed ever so carefully against his skull. Despite the horrendous circumstance and obvious injuries, the omega managed to look oddly put together.

He wasn’t sure why, but he felt like he already knew the younger man. Joel combed his mind for a tangible connection, searching through his memories of Jackson, of the QZs, and his time on the road but he found nothing. He even pilfered through the rolodex that was buried deep in his brain of Sarah’s former friends but no, this man looked to be in his mid twenties. Sarah would have been about ten years older than him when the outbreak started. If she had lived she would be in her mid thirties, making the omega too young to fit into that part of his life. Joel’s chest ached at the thought of his pup but he shoved it away. It was not the time for that.

It wasn’t until the omega rolled his eyes at Joel’s staring that he knew who it was. He had already seen the action a multitude of times in someone else more times than he could count. The way the corners of his mouth lifted as his face tilted towards the ceiling in an exaggerated eye roll made the identity of the omega click in his brain.

“You’re him,” came from Joel’s mouth.

“What? I’m who? We’ve never met. Pretty sure I’d remember if we had, big boy.”

Joel chuckled at his cheekiness and tried to prop himself up against the bed. Sharp jolts of pain skittered from the crown of his head and burned straight down his spinal cord as he tried to get a good look at the omega he had heard stories about. The bright lights burned his retinas but after a few moments, the stars in his vision dissipated and he could see the man more clearly. He was somehow exactly how Joel imagined he would be. Defiant and saucy, yet with an undercurrent of kindness as the gaze upon Joel both analyzed his character and assessed the extent of his injuries.

The memory of how you had glared at him and forced him down onto the couch flickered in his mind. The thought of how you had swaddled him like a baby and then cleaned his wounds curled his hands into tights fists. The bite mark on his neck stung once more but he shook himself out of despair. Joel needed to focus so that he could get back to you. Never in his life had it been so hard to focus on the task at hand but the bond demanded his attention. It was like half of his heart had been ripped from his chest and some hidden instinct inside screamed at him to slam himself against the bars until they fell open. For the sake of his damaged body, he ignored it.

“You’re - fuck’s sake that hurts. Sorry, you’re him. You’re Jake,” he gritted out as his head pulsed with every beat in his chest.

Jake smiled and strolled over to the edge of his cell. His bruised arms slid between the bars as he sized up the older alpha. Joel winced at the intensified scrutiny. The one good thing about the outbreak was that nobody had to meet the friends and family of whoever they were with anymore. In Joel’s case, they usually didn’t have one and he would be long gone by morning anyways if they did. But somehow, even in the brutal world he found himself in, he was forced to bear the weight of a loved one’s stare for the first time in years.

“Hmmmm… And you know what, I always told her she would go for someone older too. I called that shit didn’t I? Miriam would be so pissed, she had her bets on that younger alpha girl that made the bread,” Jake laughed as he clapped his hands together.

Older? Joel knew he was older. He was 56 years old for Christ’s sake but he wasn’t sure how to feel about the implication that it was a reason for your attraction to him. The humor both comforted and grated at Joel’s nerves. On one hand, it was comforting to hear your tone in Jake’s voice. On the other hand, it refocused his mind back on your absence.

“Where is she?,” Joel pressed.

The other man’s face darkened a bit and he sighed, looking down at his feet as he scuffed the floor. Joel’s heart clenched in his chest and the mark on his neck throbbed uncomfortably. His vision tunneled as he waited to hear the words confirming what he already knew; that he couldn’t protect you, that you were gone, that he was alone again. A deep feeling of dread bit at the lining of his stomach as he resigned himself to his fate.

Death seemed like a small act of mercy in a world without his mate. Fuck it, he thought, at least they will probably kill me soon. If you were dead then he was more than ready to follow you to the grave. Joel couldn’t survive another loss. In fact, he refused to. It would all be so pointless, to be forced to live with the crushing weight of his own inability to perform the most basic requirements of his kind. To protect, to care, to provide, all of these things he consistently failed at. If your death had come, then he decided that he must join you and everyone else that he had been unable to keep safe.

“I don’t know. I wish… Fuck man, I wish I could tell you where she is but I don’t know. Paul tried to bring her in but somehow that bitch got hands now, I seriously don’t know what you have been feeding her but shit. Anyways, he-”

“Wait,” he interjected, his heart stuttering in his chest from the hope that bloomed and spread warmth through his body.

Joel swallowed, trying not to get bogged down with the brief respite from his preemptive mourning and subsequent doomsday preparations. You were alive, that was what he needed to focus on. Alive and somehow capable of taking down a fully grown alpha? He tried not to let the pride he felt get in the way. Gripping the edges of the metal to keep his hands from visibly shaking in excitement and anxiety, his mouth opened and closed like a fish as he tried to formulate coherent words.

“She’s alive?,” he asked, voice faltering as his throat thickened with emotion.

The nod from his prison mate lifted the pressure from his chest and Joel choked on a relieved laugh. His hand rubbed at the mark on his neck as he blinked back tears. His thoughts were consumed with you. Somehow you were alive. That was good. He could work with that. As long as you stayed away, you would be safe. Joel decided he would try his hardest to get back to you but if he died trying, the thought that you were safe from Paul was enough for him. You were young and resourceful.

Maybe you would find one of the maps in his drawers and make it to Tommy. Most of them had Jackson marked off and Joel knew his little brother would never turn away an omega in crisis, especially one that carried his scent. He didn’t know Maria that well in comparison but he knew that Tommy loved the commanding woman for some reason, which meant she probably would welcome you too.

A life in Jackson without him was what he had originally promised you. Despite the comfort of your safety, Joel was surprised that the thought of being stripped of time with you stung a bit. A quiet life with you shrouded in trees taken from him in the blink of an eye. He hadn’t even realized that he had made plans before they vanished, only to be replaced with the knowledge that he may never see them come to fruition.

Skinny dipping in the river in the summer, teaching you how to hunt, cooking in the puke green kitchen and watching you enjoy his creations, strumming his guitar on the porch he built as you make distorted doodles on scraps of paper, holding you close on nights that his mind can’t escape the weight of his past, all of that was gone. As he tried to grapple with the loss of a dream, Joel was shocked to realize that all that remained was fear. He had something to lose and it terrified him.

Jake’s voice cut into his reveries as he explained, “Paul came back a day after they dropped you off. Cooper said his face was all fucked up and he was limping pretty badly when came in. She got away but they don’t know where she went. I’m sorry but your guess is as good as mine.”

The mannerisms that Jake displayed made Joel blink. He watched with rapt attention as the younger man’s hands moved with his words. The resemblance to you was uncanny. The only person who had ever qualified as his best friend was probably Tess, even though he had swiftly denied any attempt of attachment on his end. He wondered briefly if he ever resembled her. He wondered if parts of loved ones lingered on within every person. Maybe that was all being a human was, being made up of memories and others that were once dear.

A questioning look from Jake was enough to snap Joel back into reality. The presence of you in the room was clear through the man in front of him but he reminded himself that your mannerisms were not you. His mate was somewhere alone, that was what Joel needed to think about.

Rubbing at his bruised face, Joel asked, “What is this place? Where are we?”

The omega shrugged and shuffled back to plop down on his own bed. He wrapped his arms around his knees and Joel winced at the sight of bruises darkening his golden skin. They looked worse under the harsh glow of the flickering fluorescents that flickered occasionally over his head.

“Somewhere close to your place. Paul moved us until a couple weeks ago, a raider never came back. After that, they set up shop in this outlet mall. Pfft, so tacky. As if I would be caught dead in these,” Jake muttered bitterly as he picked at the frayed edges of his pants.

“Are you even old enough to know what an outlet mall is?”

Rolling his eyes, the younger man snapped, “You realize that just because the world ended and I got stuck in Josiah’s group doesn’t mean that I don’t have taste. They had an entire section for khakis in this store. KHAKIS, Joel. Be fucking for real right now.”

A genuine laugh bubbled up from Joel’s chest and the younger man granted him a small smile. He always liked the stories you told that involved Jake but after meeting him in person, Joel liked him even more. Despite the similarities between you, the attitude reminded him of a pup with too much sass for her own good and a joke book in hand as they traversed the country. The connection caused him to sigh but he smiled through the bittersweet memory. Joel cleared his throat to ward off any more troublesome emotions that this man pulled from him.

“How long have I been out?,” Joel asked.

Jake hummed and deliberated for a moment before he answered, “They brought you in about two days ago. At least I think so, it’s hard to tell without windows but Cooper usually comes by to sneak me food after Paul goes to bed. He’s done that twice now, so, yeah two days.”

Two days? Two fucking days? Joel swallowed a scream. Anything might have happened while he was out. Were you on the run? Had a bloater ripped you to bits? Did a group of raiders have you? He growled at the thought of unfamiliar hands touching his mate. Possessiveness surged from deep within his being. Nobody could have you except for him, Joel needed that drilled into the minds of anyone who would seek to harm you. Killing them if they dared to cross that line would come as a relief, he needed them to know that too.

Baring his teeth, a low growl rumbled from his chest as his heart rate picked up. It was a purely alpha sound, something that was ripped from him involuntarily and was meant to ward off potential threats. In actuality, all it did was to bring out a worried look on Jake’s face as he watched Joel growl and spit at nothing. The threat was absent in this room but he sensed it nonetheless and it brought out the rage in him.

“Hey,” Jake called out to him softly, “Listen, I know you’re going all Bruce Banner over there but she’s tough. Plus, Paul is obsessed and lost his shit over you claiming her. I honestly don’t know what he would do if he found her. Wherever she is, she’s better off.”

A grunt of affirmation escaped his lips. He knew Jake was right but that didn’t stop him from worrying. This world was anything but kind to an omega. He tried to take some comfort in the knowledge that his mark might safeguard you from the worst of it. Most alphas that sought an omega to breed would hardly be able to sniff you out, just as he barely smelled the omega that sat across from him. Even if they did catch a whiff of your smell, they would likely be repelled by the notes of his scent that were intertwined with your own.

It also helped him to think of how pissed Paul was over the bond the two of you shared. He hated that guy with a passion before a rifle had slammed into his face but now, with his face cracked open and his mate missing, your former betrothed’s days were numbered.

Looking back across the room, Joel spied the indents of a bite mark on Jake’s neck. The omega was mated, he had forgotten that.

“Why are you here?” Joel questioned, “She told me you were mated to his brother. Ain’t you supposed to be with him?”

Jake sighed and looked away. His eyes grew wide and watery, making Joel regret ever having asked. It wasn’t any of his business really and he wasn’t sure why he even asked. Just months ago, he probably wouldn't have. He would have kept silent and made his way out of this place without a care in the world. In all honesty, Joel would have probably left Jake to die without a second thought but your sweetness had infected him. Now he leaned in as the omega continued on with a creased brow, genuinely curious as to his mate’s whereabouts.

“There isn’t… Paul and his guys hooked up with a different group of alphas after everything went down. They’re different from the group we were in before. They’re worse,” he said, choosing his words ever so carefully.

Breathing in through his nose, Joel braced himself as he asked, “Worse how?”

“Worse like that cell has had a lot of omegas in it but none of them ever come back. Neither do the betas or the alphas usually but it’s not the same.”

Joel cocked his head at the dark haired man and waited for him to continue, though he was already pretty sure he knew where this was going.

“The omegas get used however… However they want to use them and then they get tossed wherever. Betas and alphas go to the arena. Cooper doesn’t want me anywhere near the others or the arena, so he stuck me in here. Paul doesn’t ever really come here so… It’s better, it’s safe,” he murmured into his knees.

Joel swallowed and prodded once more, “And the bruises?”

“When Paul doesn’t get what he wants, he can get pretty brutal. He sent a group of guys in here to rough me up, and made Cooper watch to assert some sort of dominance over him. Typical bullshit,” Jake sighed while giving a dismissive wave of the hand.

Typical bullshit. Again, just as it had been with some of your stories, he had no clue how to react. Joel knew cruelty, being a cruel man himself for many years. He understood the purpose of making someone watch as you tortured their loved one. He himself had used that method countless times for the simple sickening reason that it worked. But what he couldn’t understand was doing something like that to a sibling.

Joel tried to imagine a scenario where he would ever force Tommy to watch as brutal men tortured his mate and came up blank. Even if his brother wasn’t married to one of the scariest women Joel had ever met, he still would never put his own blood through something like that. It was unthinkable. Even in his most brutal moments, he would not have been capable of that. It went against his nature. Brutality had been a means to an end for Joel. Senseless violence, in his opinion, was always messy and unnecessary. He only had to think of Salt Lake City to know that. Senseless violence against a brother was merciless.

The screeching whine of rusted hinges halted Joel’s train of thought. The door swung open and banged against the wall. Jake jolted at the loud noise and shrunk in on himself while Joel tried not to roll his eyes at the dramatics. He had been in this position too many times to be scared by a flashy entrance. It typically meant that what was to follow would be lacking in a certain finesse. Still, when the haughty looking light haired man strolled in Joel felt the atmosphere shift as their eyes met. Just as he had with Jake, he knew who the younger alpha was in an instant.

A bruise sagged the underside of one of his blue eyes and three bloodied scratch marks stood out against the pallid skin of his throat. Joel noticed that a clump of his blonde hair had been torn out, leaving behind a patch of raw pink skin on his scalp that gleamed from under the lights. A laugh was swallowed as Joel noticed the blood stains on the younger man’s jeans that bloomed from his upper thigh. The faint outline of bandages under denim and the slight limp to his gait gave it away.

Did you fucking stab him? Fuck, he knew it was probably sick but the thought of you stabbing Paul made Joel fall more in love. It was definitely sick but he didn’t care. Not when pride swelled in his chest at the thought of his omega beating this piece of shit to a pulp. Joel smiled at the light haired man as he imagined your blade piercing his leg, making his captor falter for a second before he continued his approach.

“Paul.”

A grin stretched Paul’s thin lips over his overcrowded mouth. His blue eyes sparkled with amusement as they feasted on Joel’s rumpled form. Again, Joel bit back a laugh. Looking at Paul, he was suddenly reminded of the singing hyenas in the cartoon lion movie Sarah loved in elementary school. He half expected Paul to break out into song.

“Very good old timer. I see the mind hasn’t gone yet,” he jeered, tapping one of his thick fingers against his temple.

Joel didn’t answer. He refused to let this poor excuse for a man get an inch from him. Instead, he kept his face schooled as the blonde stepped closer to his cell. Crossing his arms over his chest and leaning back against his bunk, Joel gave off the aura of someone who was completely unbothered. If anything, the older alpha looked bored at the childish antics. Paul’s face twitched with irritation.

“I suppose you’re wondering why I haven’t killed you yet. I should, given the fact that you stole what was mine,” Paul hissed in contempt.

The comment spiked his blood pressure. Joel’s jaw clicked as he mashed his teeth together to keep up the facade. He breathed in quietly through his nose to calm himself and tried to remember the matching marks the two of you shared. You were his and he was yours, nothing could change that. It didn’t matter what Paul said to get a rise out of him, in the end the bond was the ultimate truth.

“Shame really, I was looking forward to ruining her myself. Such a tight little body but such a fucking tease. But hey, I’m sure if I tried hard enough I could wipe out any trace of you. Might take a couple hundred rounds but -”

Joel was up in an instant, shattering his mask of indifference in an instant. In two long strides, he was face to face with Paul and had the satisfaction of watching his eyes widen at the proximity. Before Paul had the chance to step back, Joel reached out from behind the bars and yanked the younger man against the metal hard.

Paul grunted at the impact of his pale face slamming into the bars and twisted uselessly in his grasp. It was no use. There was no getting away from Joel when the black pit of rage inside of his soul swallowed him whole. Hot torrents of tar pumped in his veins, burning away any trace of remorse in his system and replacing it with wild fury. He needed Paul to die and he needed it to be soon. It was the only thing that could quiet the beast that beat its fists against the walls of his chest.

“Listen to me you fucking pussy, if you so much as even look at her, I will beat you to death with my bare hands. I will fucking skin you alive and that’s not a threat boy, that’s a promise. M’gonna make it nice and slow, you’re gonna be beggin’ for me to kill ya when I’m done,” Joel spat through gritted teeth.

After a few more harsh shoves at Joel’s thick biceps, Paul finally managed to wrangle himself out from his grasp. The younger man stumbled backwards a few steps before he caught himself against the other cell and looked up at him like a petulant child. A soft chuckle rumbled in Joel’s chest as he slunk back onto his bunk. Based on what he had heard about the alpha, he knew that Paul was an ignorant ass. What he hadn’t expected was how lame his attempt at being fearsome would be. This was downright pathetic.

After taking a few breaths, Paul gathered himself and marched back to the front of Joel’s cell. His unblinking stare hardened under the sterile lighting. A stinking smell of rotted maple crept over from the frustrated younger alpha and tickled Joel’s nostrils. He swallowed back a retch as the stench burned the back of his throat.

“If you survive, you get to stay here. Not many do but who knows grandpa, maybe you’ll get lucky. Most of them have been down there a while, hiding from what I can see. Maybe they’ll take it easy on the poor old man,” Paul hissed.

As the blonde stepped forward, Joel saw a dark shadow pass over his face. He smiled but it didn’t reach his eyes.

“I just wanted to tell you in person that your bond means nothing to me,” Paul laughed before he continued, “That fucking brat has been dodging me since day one but now, with you here, well I’ll have her soon enough. I don’t care about some bond, this isn't about that. This is about what is MINE.”

Joel blanched at the statement. Since day one? He remembered you saying that Paul was about ten years older, making him about mid thirties. He would have been about twenty years old, a fully grown man, when a ten year old version of yourself waltzed into his camp. His stomach lurched at the thought of Paul lurking in the shadows, poised to snatch up an innocent child trying to survive a wretched circumstance. Disgust rolled off of Joel in waves and soured the air around him.

“You’re a fucking sick man,” Joel growled.

“Look who's talking, you look old enough to be her dad,” Paul snorted.

Joel shook his head at that. It wasn’t the same.

“Since day one? Shit, I might be into a younger woman but you man, you’re into a girl. A girl that doesn’t even exist anymore. She’s grown now and that bothers you, doesn’t it? Tears you apart that you will never have her. And you think I’m sick?”

The words hung in the air and morphed Paul’s face. Joel saw that they had affected him. He watched as Paul went through the stages of rejection before he realized that Joel was right. Still, he knew it wouldn’t change anything about what the younger alpha had planned. Joel just needed to rattle him a bit more.

“I will have her, one way or another. And hey, maybe if you’re still alive I’ll let you watch when I take her,” Paul sneered before he stuck two fingers in his mouth and whistled.

Three brutish looking alphas stomped into the room and pulled open the door to his cell. Meaty hands yanked Joel off the bunk and got him to his feet. A small whine came from the other side of the room, making Paul turn and growl at Jake. The omega cowered under his gaze and something clicked in Joel’s brain.

Jake had tried to help Joel without really knowing him because of the simple fact that he was your mate. He was your family, which meant he had a duty to protect him too. Despite the excruciating pain in his shoulder, Joel swallowed the pained groan that inched its way up his throat. He threw a comforting half smile to the omega and mouthed it’s okay before one of the guards placed a black hood over his face.

The fabric stunk of countless scents from terrified or angered souls. Joel tried breathing in through his mouth but the scent nipped at his taste buds and made his mouth fill with water. He felt himself being dragged out of the store and across the uneven pavement. In the distance, he heard the crackling of fire and the drunken laughs of some rowdy alphas.

Joel grimaced at the sound of high pitched whimpers of pain from that same direction. He hoped desperately that it wasn’t what he thought it was, but he knew that hope was futile in groups like these. He had run into similar groups in the past. Many times with Tommy and Tess, a few times with Frank and Bill, and even once with Ellie. They all had different leaders or names, but the basis was all the same. Sick alphas on the hunt to grab anything or anyone they could, uncaring of anyone else’s wants but their own. Groups like these were lawless and unkind to anyone that didn’t exude brute strength.

Never had Joel joined a group that took from people like how these alphas did. Sure, he robbed and killed with the best of them. Hell, he was even known for his skills as a torturer. And when times were tough, incredibly so, he bit the bullet and made do with whatever meat the group could scrounge. Even if that meat once had a name and a family waiting for them somewhere. It was better than the feeling of your own stomach caved in from hunger.

However, even when blood and the infliction of brutality was a part of his daily life, Joel never divulged into the depravity this group held. His groups, as heartless and brutal as they were, reserved a sliver of decency. Sure they’d rob, torture, and kill anyone, but they didn’t use the same type of violence he sensed these alphas used. Granted, the small kindness wasn’t much but still. It was a small piece of humanity that he refused to part with under any circumstance. How could he? It was unthinkable.

Joel groaned as the guards carelessly pulled him up a flight of metal stairs before they slammed him to the pavement. Pain crawled up from his bruised knees, activating a dull throb in his hips as he listened to the jingle of a set of keys unlocking a door. He coughed at the pungent stench of the building. Blood was the first thing he smelled but he couldn’t pinpoint how many people it belonged to. A lot, that’s all he knew for sure. His heart thumped hard in his chest as the guards ripped the door open and turned to drag him in.

A burst of adrenaline tightened all of Joel’s muscles, readying his body to ward off an attack as the thick air assaulted his senses. Sweat dripped down his back and he felt himself being led to a ledge before the itchy fabric was lifted from his head. Paul’s face assaulted his retinas once more and a deep grimace formed on Joel’s bruised face. If this was the last face he saw, he was going to be pissed so he looked down.

In the center of the store, the floor had either caved in or had been ripped open. Below him was a dark hole that dropped down two floors to the basement. He squinted, trying to study the features of the furthest floor, but it was too dim to see all the way down. Fear rolled over him again as he tried to steel himself for what was to come. If he could make it up from the basement, the ground floor looked completely empty save for some abandoned boxes of merchandise. From there, he just needed to find a way out. However, planning didn’t change how hard his heart thumped against his ribs.

Joel took a steadying breath. He had never been a huge fan of heights. Even when he was a kid, it was always Tommy who did backflips off of the highest diving board at the local pool. Joel was the one who watched from the lap lane and tried not to wince at the sound of skin slapping against the water. Looking down at the jagged crater he was about to be launched down, he suddenly longed for the days of in ground pools and sunscreen. Jumping off the highest diving board didn’t seem so bad to him anymore.

“I really hope you survive this round. It’ll be such a bummer if they kill you before I find her. I was looking forward to giving you a show but c’est la vie.”

Rage bled into the terror and without thinking, Joel launched a fist directly into Paul’s face. The loud crunch that he heard when it landed filled him with satisfaction. That and the involuntary tears that sprung to Paul’s eyes calmed him slightly. His tears mixed with the blood that poured from his crooked nose and dripped down his face onto his sweater.

“Better hope I don’t make it fuckhead or I’ll be coming for ya,” Joel seethed.

Joel’s face spoke volumes. Any sense of mercy had been shut off, replaced with nothing but a primal need that screamed at him to eliminate the threat to his mate. It didn’t matter that he was an old man. It didn’t matter that he was outnumbered. It didn’t matter that he had spent the last few weeks being softened by your touch. Nothing mattered except for the fact that Joel would find a way to kill Paul. Joel knew this and based on the poorly hidden look of alarm on his face, so did Paul.

The fear in his captor calmed him to the point that Joel barely reacted when he was shoved off the ledge. He felt himself free fall and tried to remember how high a fall had to be to kill him. He knew that at some point he knew, being a contractor who had started out in roofing, but all the safety meetings he attended back in the day had been lost with time. Joel wanted to laugh. A contractor survives the apocalypse, only to be killed by falling through a hole in the flooring. It was too perfect. In that brief moment, pieces of Joel’s life came back to him.

Joel thought of his parents, dead before the outbreak even started, slow dancing in the kitchen after supper to an Etta James song. He thought of teaching Tommy how to drive a stick and how his brother flooded the engine almost immediately. He thought of Sarah’s first steps and how he was so proud that he cried. He thought about the time he taught Ellie how to shoot a gun and how he had promised to teach her how to play guitar. He thought of you making him split every snack and how you had looked at him when he said he loved you. Every memory was crystal clear and filled him with peace. He resigned himself to them being his last as he neared the ground.

Instead of dying, Joel fell two stories and landed with a oompf on solid concrete. His side smacked against the floor hard and all the air wooshed out from his lungs. The fall was agonizing but it was nothing compared to the since healed over stab wounds and bullet holes that littered his body. He ignored the way his shoulder clicked when he pulled himself up. A soft groan of pain escaped his mouth from the way the ache in his hips had doubled. Joel knew that he was too old to be thrown around like this but it didn’t matter. He had a job to do.

Ignoring the way his joints cracked with every slight movement, Joel picked himself up to survey the area. It was a basement of one of the retailers, that much was clear with the mannequins and piled up ancient clothes on stock shelves around him. High shelves formed rows of stinking fabric on one side of the space with piles of boxes littering every corner, waiting for Joel to trip over them.

There were a few bodies strewn across the ground at the end of his aisle and more scattered in the aisles beside him. Some of them were rotting, while others seemed days or even hours old. Looking ahead, he spied an open space with pyramids of products abandoned and spaced out by a few feet. At the end of the maze of piled products sat a set of double doors that remained unobstructed.

Bingo.

Joel stopped himself from sprinting towards his target. As he studied the corpses, he noticed that only some of them had clearly been slain by desperate souls like him. Others looked like they had been torn apart by something else. His pulse quickened at the sight of shredded bodies, knowing that there was no alpha or beta that could have done that. That was the work of an infected.

A soft clicking noise to his left tensed every muscle in his body. Carefully, Joel turned to face the noise and tried not to react to the proximity. The gnarled beast reared its head back and cried out, directing all of its wretched scream at him. It was so close that he smelled its previous victim's flesh in its mouth. Weaponless and injured, he prayed silently to a God he didn’t believe in for it to walk off. It was agitated, probably from the sound of Joel’s fall, and screeched again in his face. He closed his eyes for a moment, steadying himself as much as he could as it twitched in front of him.

The sound was slight, so much so that a runner probably would have ignored it, but the clicker turned its body immediately. His lungs burned as he smothered his labored breathing beneath his palm. Another moment passed before the scuff of someone’s shoe against the rough concrete made the clicker leap forward. The shriek of it twisted his stomach and he watched it sprint after the sound. Joel heard the stranger stumbling backwards somewhere in the dark before they broke out in a hobbled jog. The pounding of infected feet against the concrete echoed in the room and he tried to ignore the sound of the injured person trying to get away as he crept towards the end of the row.

Joel steadied his breaths as he eased himself through the wreckage of discarded merchandise. His nose twitched, catching the bitter scent of someone hidden in an aisle nearby. It was an alpha, that much he teased out but fear cloaked the rest of their aroma in battery acid. He eyed the shelves around him, looking for anything to use against any of the beings that lurked in the shadows but all he saw was rotted clothes and useless bottles of expired perfumes.

A human scream echoed throughout the space and he grimaced. He needed to move before it came back. Stepping carefully over a pile of discarded shoeboxes, his eye caught on something at the very end of his aisle. It felt almost too good to be true, but the yellow handle was unmistakable. Laying in a pool of sticky blood was a half opened box cutter. Whoever had handled the blade was nowhere to be seen. Perhaps it was their blood that stained the floor. Either way, it was almost too good to be true.

With the other captives hidden and the infected focused elsewhere, Joel hastened his pace towards the end of the aisle. A crack followed by a gut wrenching squelching noise sent shivers down his spine. His distraction was almost dead.

In three long strides, relief was washing over him as he reached for the blade. With his left ear filled with the nauseating sounds of someone’s body being torn to pieces, he paused to listen for anything on his right side. When Joel couldn’t hear anything, he kneeled down to grab it. The yellow plastic had just graced the palm of his hand when an arm snaked around his neck and wrenched him back.

Before his airway could be closed off, Joel snaked one hand under the arm and grabbed the crook of his attacker’s elbow. He pulled the limb out from around his neck and swiftly wrenched himself from their grasp. Without thinking, he slammed them against the shelf hard. The thud was loud, much too loud in such a quiet space. Joel stopped and locked eyes with the blood soaked alpha in his grasp. He saw the panic that flashed in the woman’s eyes and the nod when he placed one finger over his mouth. With their scuffle mutually halted, the two alphas stood and strained their ears for any sign of infected.

Screechs echoed off the walls and Joel bit back a plethora of swears at the sound of multiple sets of feet running his way. In an instant, he shoved the woman back and turned towards the open space. Ignoring her pleas for him to wait, he darted towards the exit as quickly as he could. Knowing he wouldn’t make it time, Joel ducked behind one of the stacks of goods and cringed at the four runners that sprinted past. Next, the clickers approached and he waited, counting three that shambled towards the aisle.

The infected swarmed where he had left the woman but he continued on. Unfazed, Joel left her to die. It was everyone for themselves down here. At least now, he wouldn’t have to kill her. Behind him, a woman’s voice shrieked. A crash, accompanied by a litany of garbled swears and a flurry of useless slaps against rotted skin eased his mind momentarily.

He continued his soft steps towards the doors but before long, he felt the presence of someone or something gaining on him. Joel didn’t react. Whether it was a human or a stalker trying to get the jump on him, he knew that he needed to act as if he was unaware of it. Slowing his pace as the infected noisily ripped the stranger apart in the aisles behind him, Joel used a particularly loud crack in their bones to whirl around.

The man behind him was startled at the action. So much so that Joel almost felt bad when he wedged the box cutter into the hollow of his throat. Blood spurted from the gash and Joel clamped his hand over the beta’s mouth as a gurgled cry was released. Fearful eyes blinked away tears as blood loss weakened the body and slumped him towards the ground.

Scared of the thud, Joel caught him as he fell. Carefully, he lowered the dying man onto the ground and eased the blade from the jagged hole in his trachea. Red bubbles formed around the corners of the blade, popping with each attempt to draw in breath. The beta’s coughs were muffled by the hand over his mouth as he died.

The light slowly faded from the eyes that were trained on Joel’s face. He humored him for a second and met the gaze of the dying man. In close proximity, Joel realized that he wasn’t a man at all. The beta was no more than sixteen. No more than sixteen, and now he was choking on his own blood as a man who had lived for way too long watched on. Guilt trickled into his blood and made him itchy but he quickly shook himself out of it. Ignoring the crying teen beneath him, Joel focused on the sound of the infected still digging into the woman’s corpse. He didn’t look back down when the boy’s breathing stilled. He didn’t need to be reminded of another teen that had bled to death in his arms.

When it was clear that his kill had gone unnoticed, Joel carefully lifted himself from his victim and stood. His back twinged uncomfortably, the pinched nerve of his buttock sent pins and needles down his left leg but he ignored it. All Joel thought of was Paul’s words. He couldn’t let any of that happen. Even with his body bruised and raw, Joel pushed through the agony and inched towards the doors. He was so close. The taste of freedom squared his shoulders and quickened his pace. It all seemed too good to be true.

And it was.

Joel grabbed the metal knob and twisted, only to be stopped by the lock that sealed it shut. He stepped back in awe. Why did he think it was going to be that easy? It was never that fucking easy. He turned back towards the rest of the room and weighed his options as he listened to the infected dispersing from the mangled corpse. Somewhere in the room was a key and Joel needed to find it.

Where the fuck would these assholes hide a key?

He thought it over for a moment before it dawned on him. Where was the one place none of them would look? Joel bit his cheek in lieu of an audible sigh as he realized the obvious answer. It was hung off of one of the neck’s of infected that patrolled the space.

Fuck.

Joel steadied himself and he knew what he had to do to get out. Taking a deep breath in, he focused back on the threat. He allowed the belligerent fury flow through his veins at the thought of anyone touching a singular hair on his mate’s head. The lust for blood rose from his core and tensed his muscles as he stepped forward unabashedly. He didn’t need the shadows to hide his approach, not when years of loss culminated in this moment.

If it meant that you would live, he would cut through anyone and anything without blinking. If it meant that you would live with him, that he could selfishly have you as his own for just a bit longer, he would do it ten times over.

The next few minutes was a blur of incoherent screeches from infected and the garbled cries of other captives. This had happened before. He wasn’t sure how he did it, but it was like the ruckus of the world was shut off and all that remained was his need to destroy. He didn’t even realize that he was alone until his bloodied fist connected with solid ground and his brain turned back on.

The body beneath him was so badly beaten that it was unrecognizable. His hands dripped with their blood as he shakily rolled himself away from the sight. He cussed and pushed himself up, tearing the box cutter out of the corpse’s side with a wet thunk as he stood. Joel looked around and all he saw was bodies. Four runners and three clickers were discarded with easy stab wounds from the blade in his hand. It was the others that laid before him that turned his stomach. One had their neck snapped, another had been stabbed in the face several times, another had their skull cracked repeatedly against the concrete, and the last one was beaten to a bloody pulp.

At another time in his life, Joel would have felt nothing at his own brutality but you had awoken something in him. The need to fulfill his own needs would have overtaken him and he would have moved on with his life. However, since that day when Joel first smelled the delicious scent of peppermint and lavender wafting over to him from the riverbank, a sense of humanity, of mercy, reawakened in him. Thick guilt weighed down on him but he muscled through it. He knew he would do it all again for you, even if it meant that he was damned to be tormented by the memories for the rest of his life.

Swallowing all of his guilt, Joel reached down and snatched the key that hung from the neck of one of the clickers. He shuffled over to the doors as quickly as he could with his limbs snapping and popping with every step. The key slid into the lock and he held his breath, wiggling the brass before the lock clicked open. He sighed and eased the door open to reveal two flights of stairs.

“Oh fuck me.”

If Joel thought the basement was tough, the stairs were an absolute nightmare. The adrenaline had completely worn off when he began his steady pace upwards, which meant that he felt every nerve in his body being grated by the movement. His head pounded steadily in time with his racing heart and he was forced to stop for air on the last few stops. Joel heaved in air while he stared at the door that led to the ground floor.

He wasn’t sure what hid in the shadows of that room. It hadn’t looked like anything other than boxes earlier but one could never be too careful. Would guards be waiting or could he find a way out through a boarded up window? Were there more stairs to the floor he fell from? Could he escape through there? Endless possibilities raced through his mind but he knew one thing, he would not go another round unarmed at the start.

Taking one last steadying breath, Joel closed the box cutter and locked the blade in place before he slid it into his jeans. The cool plastic rubbed against the sensitive skin in between his legs but he ignored it. As long as the blade stayed close and they didn’t strip him, everything would be fine. The door made a creaking noise when he pushed it open and Joel winced, hoping for no infected.

Before he eased himself into the room, a figure launched itself out from the musty space and tackled him to the ground. He fought against it but a sharp jab to his thigh had him crying out in surprise. Joel wondered for a moment if he had been stabbed or bit but as his brain turned to mush, he realized what had pierced his leg. Sleep tugged at his eyelids and he groggily thought of the blade hidden in his pants as hands pulled him from the floor.

Hushed whispers trickled into Joel’s brain as he existed in a state between wakefulness and sleep. He fought against his eyelids but they had been weighed down with whatever tranquilizer had been injected into him. He heard the world around him, he just couldn’t muster up the strength to thrust himself into it. Instead, he was forced to listen to the heated conversation that came from the cell across from him.

“Well, what do you want me to do? Huh? Do you expect me to just break him out of here myself and do… What exactly? Leave her here to die? I’m trying to figure out a way to get you three out, why do I give a fuck about this guy?”

An exasperated sigh in response to the unfamiliar voice. Joel tensed at the words. Were you who they were talking about? He hoped not.

“Obviously that isn’t what I mean but we can’t just let him die. And if you let Paul get to her Cooper, I swear to fuck-”

“I know, I know, you’ll chop my balls off and feed them to me. You’ve made that perfectly clear J. I’m doing what I can to throw them off but she’s the one making it hard. Do you know how many bodies they found? Just think, that’s half of what I have tried to hide from them,” Cooper hissed back.

A silence filled the space and Joel’s mind reeled. Bodies? There was no way that they were from you. He refused to accept that. It had to be someone else. You had never killed anyone. Or had you? He never even thought to ask.

“Maybe we can get her out of here and then come back for him,” Jake suggested.

“Why is she that important to you? She’s never even been nice to you or those old ladies you hung around with. For fuck’s sake, I’ve never even seen her be nice to her own daughter and she only had the one.”

A pause followed and then Jake sighed before he answered, “I don’t know. She’s not my family but I just think that if I didn’t try, I would be a bad friend okay?”

Joel heard Cooper as he started to fight back against Jake’s words but the omega bulldozed through his protests. It reminded him of some of the conversations he’s had with you where he was cut off.

“You let Paul do what he does because he has Allie locked away. I forgive you for it because she is our daughter and she was safe for an entire year when I thought our baby was dead. You put me in here to keep me away from the others and I agreed.”

A pin drop could have been heard in the room after Jake’s words. They weren’t accusatory. They were plain facts that forced his mate to listen.

“Coop, you do these things because you love Allie and me. I know that. But you do realize that it’s not enough right? We can’t keep living like this. We don’t even know if our pup is still ali-”

“Don’t you fucking dare, I won’t hear it.”

The words were harsh and tight. They sounded like a strange mixture of a command and a desperate plea.

“Then go fucking find our daughter and then let’s get out of here. All of us. I’m not leaving behind my bestfriend’s mate and I sure as hell am not leaving behind my bestfriend’s shitty ass mom. Unlike you, I don’t pussy out when things get tough. Man the fuck up,” Jake growled.

Your mother was alive? Your mother was alive and here? Joel cringed at the new information. He knew that the relationship had been strained, to say the least, but he also knew you never wished harm upon her for her cruelty. Harm that was most certainly being inflicted upon her if she didn’t have anyone here to look out for her. The possibilities clenched his stomach and he fought against the urge to let the sedative take him underwater once more. It would be so much easier but he needed to hear this.

“I’m going to find our daughter. But J, let me remind you that you were the one that ran off when she was a premature infant lying in her crib when the infected broke through. You were the one that vanished with your friends. You were the one that didn’t come back for her. I kept her alive. Me. So, don’t talk to me about keeping Allie safe,” Cooper said coolly.

After a beat, the muffled cries of the omega reached his ears and Joel felt his heart break for both of them. A murmured apology was answered with a quiet fuck you and a sigh came from Cooper as he lifted himself from his place in the cell. The hinges whined as he closed the bars behind him and marked the end of the discussion. Joel listened as the alpha passed his sedated body and moved towards the exit. As Cooper reached the doorway, his footsteps suddenly stalled.

“I told you what Paul did to his other omegas, what he did to our little sister, what he did to,” Cooper’s voice wobbled and he paused, clearing his throat before he continued, “... what he did to me. And now he has Allie. Don’t ask me to risk her life for anybody else because I’ll choose her.”

“Coop, I would never ask that. I’m just saying that at some point you have to fight back. WE have to fight back or he wins. If that happens, we’ll all die and you’ll be left alone with him. Is that what you want? No mate, no pup, just you and him? Please, we have to do something,” Jake begged.

Another pause filled the room and the tension was unbearable. Without the proper context, Joel couldn’t tell which one of them was right. Maybe they both were in their own way, he wasn’t sure. He listened to Cooper’s fingers drum anxiously against the frame and Jake’s restless leg bouncing in his bunk as the two battled with their own demons.

“Everything was so easy before wasn’t it?,” Cooper finally sighed.

A chuckle bubbled up from his mate across the room.

“Oh yeah, hooking up in secret back in the cult was a blast. Remember when you told me that you never wanted to be mated then I fell in love with someone else and ran away with them? Remember how they hung him and then we got forced into marriage anyways? Super light stuff,” Jake said and Joel could practically hear the eye roll.

“Exactly. Easy peasy, just like I said,” Cooper deadpanned.

The laughter that came from the pair lifted some of the despair that clung to the walls. The room felt wider as a crack of sunlight shone through their darkened bond.

“Remember how I was pregnant and you got mad at me for getting caught by them?,” the omega asked with his voice darkened once more.

Cooper stopped laughing at that and cleared his throat. He was seemingly at a loss for words. Something that Joel suspected happened quite a bit given the nervous energy the alpha exuded. Just by scent alone, Cooper seemed like he was on the verge of a breakdown constantly.

“I-”

“You don’t have to say anything. I get it. You didn’t want a mate or kids, and then they forced you to take me. It’s… Well, it’s not fine for either of us but it is what it is.”

“No, I wanted you J. It wasn’t you, it was him. How he is, it’s not good for anyone and I just… The thought of having a mate or a pup around him was unthinkable and when you came back I was so mad. Not at you but - fuck - I don’t know…”

“I understand Coop, I do. I just want you to stop choosing him over us, that’s all,” the omega sighed, his voice tired and dismissive.

“Is that what you think I’m doing?,” Cooper spat before he huffed and continued, “My brother takes what he wants from everyone. EVERYONE. Even me. Paul doesn’t give a shit about anything and I can’t - look, I’m sorry I’m not as strong as you need me to be but you don’t understand what he did to me!”

A soft whine escaped Jake’s mouth and he sensed his mate bristle at the sound, almost like it pained him to hear it but he refused to let it pull him towards the cell.

“But I do underst-”

“NO YOU DON’T! AND I AM MAKING SURE THAT YOU FUCKING WON’T, THAT’S WHY YOU ARE IN HERE JAKE!,” Cooper exploded.

Silence blanketed the room as the string that connected the pair fizzled with conflict. It stirred a bit of anxiety somewhere in Joel but he was too groggy to do anything other than scrunch his nose at it.

The complexity in their relationship was palpable just from the way they existed in a space together. Jake’s energy was loud and bright, while Cooper’s moved around his mate’s. They complimented each other but in a very odd way, with the omega being the one that was almost stifling in presence and the alpha sticking to the sidelines. Joel’s brain couldn’t map out their dynamic at all but he understood it as something necessary nonetheless. Two souls trapped in circumstance who both coveted one thing, a little girl that they shared. Being a father to two girls himself, he understood that small sliver of their bond.

“Okay Coop, I don’t understand. I’m sorry, okay? This isn’t… Fuck, this isn’t how I wanted this conversation to go. I just need you to do something, please alpha. For me?”

The sweet tone would have made Joel chuckle if he had the ability. He knew the sugary words would work on the alpha, just as your sweetness had worked on him. Alphas were like moths to a flame, obsessed with pleasing their mate and proving themselves worthy of their bond. It didn’t matter whether Cooper knew Jake’s intention behind his choice of words, nothing could have stopped him from agreeing.

“Fuck me. Alright fine, I’m gonna - shit - I’ll figure something out for the other alpha too alright? I’m gonna go out looking for a while when Paul’s gone tomorrow. I’ll see you after lights out, m’kay? Just keep him out of trouble please. He can’t hit Paul again or my brother will kill him,” Cooper rushed out as his instincts overpowered his previous frustrations.

“Whatever you say baby, just go get our girl.”

The lightness of Jake’s tone made the alpha grumble under his breath as he stepped back towards the exit. All Joel picked out from Cooper’s mumbled rant was fucking unreasonable, let’s just invite everyone with us, and an extremely exasperated how the fuck does he think that I can pull that off. Nevertheless, the omega across from him buzzed with energy and chirped happily from behind the bars in response.

Joel wondered if you knew about Allie. Surely not, as he had never heard you mention your bestfriend’s child amongst the multitude of tales that had been told about him. The girl must have been born either when you were on the run from Paul the first time or when you had been thrown in the pit by your beloved husband. Either way, her existence complicated things for him.

Joel needed to get to you but he couldn’t leave Jake. Jake wouldn’t leave without his family or your mother. And based on what he knew, he wasn’t sure how the hell he was going to convince your mother to do anything. Plus, the bodies left behind by some unknown enemy would likely be more than enough cause for the group to be on strict lockdown. He hoped that you steered clear of whoever was taking out Paul’s men.

As the chemicals running through his veins pulled him under once more, Joel’s thoughts were filled with half-cocked plans on how he would miraculously break out of his prison. He knew that half of them were a pipe dream but he also knew that he had to try. He wasn’t sure but he had a feeling that the couple across from him could hold the key to his escape, or at least to yours if need be. Joel didn’t care if Cooper left him here, so long as he got everyone else out.

The soft goodbyes said between the two men were drowned out by the call of his name by a soft familiar voice. A sleepy smile stretched across his face as he drifted towards the sounds of his own family bustling around in a kitchen somewhere in Austin. Ellie and Sarah bickered at the table while you laughed at something Tommy said. Maria bounced his nephew next to him and rolled her eyes hard at her mate’s antics. It was all so perfect.

Joel knew it was a dream sprouted from pure fantasy, but he allowed himself to sink deeper into it. Tears formed in his eyes as he felt your fingers scratch at the heart shaped patch in his beard before you kissed his cheek softly. He wanted it to be real so bad that he allowed himself to believe, just for a moment, that it was. Everyone was alive and together, like it was supposed to be. As the weight of consciousness became too heavy to bear, Joel slipped off into his dreams.

#alpha!joel miller #joel miller fanfiction #joel miller x fem!reader #joel miller x reader #joel miller x you #omega reader #a/b/o dynamics #angst #comfort #tlou fanfic #joel needs a hug #past trauma #violence mention

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anakinskywalkerog · 1 year

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My Very Soul (Chapter 32)

Anakin Skywalker x Jedi!Reader

Link to Chapter 31

Warnings: grief, mentions of death, some dissociative symptoms etc. thank you everyone for indulging me in some of my mystical bullshit, which is my favorite thing ever haha

Summary: You are rescued, but not without consequences

Word Count: 2k

You didn't know where you were. You didn't know what you were—you couldn't feel any sense of self, anything embodied. You floated between sensations. You were the rustling of a creek, the sound of a whisper, a hand held up to the cover a mouth; you were a sleeping beast, some alien shape, its breathing loud and heavy; you were a seed floating down to its new resting place; you were the darkest parts of a deep ocean, a sea floor mouth sucking in; you were the creatures traveling through deep space, somewhere far away. Except they weren't far away—you weren't anywhere. You were everywhere at once.

You couldn't remember yourself, what shape you were supposed to take. You were the pleasant breeze in a warm place, and suddenly you remembered what it felt like to breathe. You were a breath. You felt the darkness hiding inside the minds of those too far gone, felt it in the shadows beneath a dead tree, and shuddered in fear. You remembered fear. You felt the dark side and the light in a continuous tug of war, each fighting to overthrow their own delicate balance. You were the Force.

It was then that you heard a voice. Emotion filled you, and you realized that somewhere, somehow, you were able to be filled. You remembered that you had once had a body. You heard the voice again, and you felt yourself shrinking. You knew that voice. You wanted to get to that voice.

"Y/N!" the voice was agonized, and you pulled against the boundaries of your presence, trying to bring yourself closer to the voice.

"Y/N!" the voice continued, pleading. "Y/N, please wake up, please look at me. Can you hear me, Y/N?" You felt the voice's sadness and you remembered sadness.

"Obi-Wan, what's wrong with her? Look at her eyes! What—"

"She's breathing steadily," a different voice responded, and you found you remembered this voice too. "And she doesn't seem to have any major wounds." You felt this other voice's pain, so understated, so controlled compared to the pain of the voice you remembered now to be the most important voice in the universe. You struggled within yourself. Who were you? Where were you? Were you dead? You remembered death.

"Y/N," that most important voice asked, gently, in supplication. "Y/N, can you hear me? It's going to be okay, we're here, we've got you." You found you could feel this voice's body, feel the sweat dripping from the forehead, feel the energy as it changed forms. The body expended energy in a swift motion, and you felt the hum of a long blade of light. You felt, somewhere, shackles being broken, felt their entropy as they fell to the ground.

"Anakin..." the second voice said, in a tone that sounded appalled. You felt this voice's energy, too, felt the inertia as the leg moved and kicked something on the ground, something hard. "It looks like someone's been tortured."

You felt yourself withdraw at the word, felt a heaviness descend over you that you associated with the memory of having a body. You were no longer floating. You tried hard to feel yourself, your arms, your lips, because you remembered now that you had arms, had a voice, too.

"Y/N," the beautiful voice sobbed, "Y/N, please wake up, please come back to me."

"What's that she's whispering?" the second voice asked, and you felt in the Force the voice's dread, anxiety, terror. These emotions descended on you, and you began to remember yourself.

"It sounds like, "Master"..." the wonderful voice responded, anguish ripping through the Force in his presence. You wanted to call out to him, to locate him in this fog. You tried to use your voice, but you couldn't find it.

"Yuma..." the second voice spoke, barely more than a whisper. The voice sounded farther away from you now. You felt the energy expenditure it took this presence to reach down, grab something, something light. Something empty.

"What?" Anakin asked, and as his name broke through your fog, you struggled against the heavy feeling, trying to find him.

"I can feel it...Yuma...she's...gone," Obi-Wan's voice choked. The memory came back to you swiftly, excruciatingly, and as it did, you descended further into the deep darkness, losing your feeling, losing all sensation and thought.

You were in some deep abyss, somewhere, if somewhere existed. You were floating in it, pressed in by it, but somehow, you were the abyss, the pressure. You felt the sense of beginnings and endings, continuously existing side by side.

"Y/N," you heard the voice say again, and you remembered again the importance of finding him. You felt leaden, but you worked to push through your memories, push through to find your body.

It seemed like some time had passed. The energetic impressions had changed—there were lots of voices, a hum of anxious presences. This jogged your memory. You felt great disturbances in the Force, heard the sound of booms and blasts. The disturbances caused you to fear. Where was he? Was he okay?

Ani you thought firmly. Ani. This thought repeated, and it encouraged you. Suddenly, you felt your arms, your legs, felt your head as someone was cradling it. You felt hands touch your face lightly.

"Y/N?! I'm here, little flea, I'm here." The voice said hurriedly, amidst the sound of more booms. You felt the rush of air as a pair of lips met your ear. "I love you," Anakin's voice breathed, in barely a whisper, right next to your temple. "Come back to me."

Anakin was dazed. His head stormed, his heart beating heavily in his chest. He couldn't believe it—it didn't seem possible.

Yuma. She's gone, Obi-Wan had said. The words repeated over and over again in Anakin's mind as he hurried toward the command center. A blast from the separatist advance caused Anakin to stumble, but he kept his balance, hurrying after Obi-Wan and carrying you in his arms.

There was no time to get you, even, to a medical base. No time to try to follow your absent attacker, or attackers, wherever they might be by now. Anakin had argued with Obi-Wan, trying to convince his former Master to let him pursue them, but in the end, Obi-Wan's reasoning had won out. Anakin wasn't about to leave you—not in this condition. The front at the Guild headquarters was crumbling, the battalions of clones unable to hold the line against new separatist platoons that had recently landed, heavily armed. The headquarters shook again under Anakin's feet.

Anakin hastened after Obi-Wan, looking down at you, trying to gauge if he could see any improvement. You looked much the same—your eyes were white, clouded over, their normal color obscured by a foggy, milky film. You moved your irises back and forth, but what you were seeing, Anakin didn't know. You occasionally whispered things—Master, over and over again, when he had found you, and now, nonsense, nothing in any tongue Anakin had ever heard. You wouldn't respond to him, didn't seem to know that he was there. The sight of you, imprisoned within yourself, like this, made Anakin's entire body go cold.

The Guild shook again in response to another blast as Anakin and Obi-Wan rushed into the crumbling command center.

"We need to get her off-world," Anakin barked at Rex, his Captain immediately springing into action at his side. "Once we've transported her to a medical base, we can—"

"It's too late for that," Cody interrupted, joining Anakin, Obi-Wan, and Rex as the headquarters shook on their foundations. "The front is hopeless. We need to order an immediate evacuation."

"What is our status?" Obi-Wan asked quickly, looking, with Cody, at the chrono on the clone's armor that showed the number of troops subsumed by the battle.

"If we lose the Guild headquarters," Rex began, evidencing his unwillingness to give up on a fight, like his General. "We lose the Perlemian route. We can't back down from this fight." Anakin would have smiled at Rex's battle-readiness, had the situation been different. Instead he scowled further, gripping your immobile figure more tightly.

"What happened?" Marlo asked, looking shocked at your motionless body in Anakin's arms. The building shook again, rubble falling from the ceiling.

"It will take some time to discover that," Obi-Wan responded quickly, looking back at you with worry before facing Marlo head on. "I agree with Cody. An immediate evacuation of our remaining troops is top priority. The front is theirs."

"Yuma?" Marlo asked, breaking protocol by calling his General by her first name. Anakin swallowed, hard, his head feeling heavy.

"Lost," Obi-Wan uttered softly, turning his face away from the group to hide his reaction.

Anakin gripped you more firmly still, the heavy feeling in his head turning hot, turning to anger, to rage. Whoever had done this would pay, Anakin thought, this anger settling deep within him. Anakin would make sure of it. He would discover who had harmed you. Their days were numbered.

Anakin allowed the anger to wash through him, feeling the command center shake as Cody, Rex, and Marlo ordered their troops to fall back to the rendezvous point, while Obi-Wan contacted the command ship, ordering the landers to begin the evacuation. Everyone took on the tone and the demeanor of soldiers, but Anakin felt the grief beneath their focus. The daze he had felt at the news of Yuma's death had turned sour, turned to militant concentration, turned his thoughts toward the kill, toward revenge.

He looked down at you, feeling, in the view of your face, his anger fade to a small flicker, a flame that would become necessary later. Your eyes were still clouded, your mouth slightly parted. He touched your face tenderly, cradling your head with his other hand. You would be okay, he told himself. He would make sure you were okay. He would not leave your side.

"Ani," you sighed softly. Anakin jumped slightly, looking into your eyes, trying to see whether or not you might be beginning to rouse.

"Y/N?!" he asked excitedly, cradling your face closer to his. "I'm here, little flea. I'm here," he told you fervently. Anakin knew that whatever was happening to you was some great mystery of the Force, knew that he could not understand the way your mind encountered that great energy barrier. Still, there were some things of which he was sure, and that you and him were, and would always be, connected in the Force, he knew in his whole being. His love for you was more powerful than any curse, than any poison.

Anakin glanced up at his former Master and the other clones that still littered the command center. No one was looking his way, except for Rex, who, when meeting Anakin's eye, very plainly and intentionally turned away. Anakin pulled your form closer so that he could whisper in your ear.

"I love you," he told you fervently, trying to infuse a power into his words, breathing the living Force into his lungs. He looked at your face, cradled in his hands. "Come back to me."

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

hopefully some of this makes up for the previous chapter.

NEW CHAP UP NOW GO READ

if you care about this story I 🖤 you

I also 🖤 purrgils

divider credit to @racingairplanes

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cocomochicakes · 10 months

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I WAS THROWN INTO A FANTASY WORLD AND NOW I'M A SORCERER [CHAPTER 1]

A/N:: WOW YA'LL! This is my first FF in over 6 years and it was inspired by @nim-arts and this post to write and create a BG3 Isekai story. I had to give it a title like a play on so many Isekai anime where it's exceedingly long and ridiculous bc why not? This may be a tad cannon divergent toward the end but it's pretty close to at least the original story (I tried my best). Please let me know what you think!

(And if you wish to be tagged for updates, please comment below!)

RATINGS: T-M (may change)

WARNINGS: Adult language, Crude Humor, Sexual comments, Implied sexual interaction

PAIRINGS: undecided

SPECIAL TAGS: @susstardust @mushi42 @underdarque

[Chapter 2] [Chapter 3]

Tip. Tap. Tip. Tap.

A mess of tousled hair stirs beneath coarsely woven blankets and furs with a groan, turning the mass of fabrics and sending a pillow tumbling off of the bundled mass.

"Gooood morning sleepyhead! Time to rise and shine and slice and dice and all that fun stuff!" a loud feminine voice bellows somewhere nearby. It's close, too close.

Tip. Tap. Tip. Tap.

The bundle stirs and once again groans begrudgingly at the foreign sounds that have suddenly become all-too grating, grasping at a well-worn blanket before violently pulling it over the splayed mess of brown hair that has become entwined in the chaotic heap of pillows, pelts, and blankets and letting forth an unintelligible slew of words.

“Oh come on! You have to get up, we agreed to be up and out by midday! Gale even made you extra eggs this morning,” the voice says with a hint of enticement upon the mention of eggs. The bundle mumbles another slew of words lost beneath the layers of blankets as a shuffle of footsteps on gravel and dirt approaches. Gravel and dirt. The bundle shifts uncomfortably patting the hard ground beneath their blankets as the fog of sleep begins to dissipate and the mental cogs begin to turn slowly towards an uncomfortable realization. “I’m on the ground….I AM ON THE GROUND. Why am I on the ground?!”

There’s a sensation of panic bubbling up within her bowels and threatening to boil over.

Tip. Tap. Tip. Tap.

The fine hairs on her body begin to stand skyward and her eyes shoot open underneath what she now realizes is not her blanket and this is most certainly not her bed. Her heart is racing and her breathing begins to escalate as her mind floods with thoughts. Was she kidnapped? Is she being trafficked? Did someone break into her apartment and is now suddenly holding her hostage at an unknown location and is using her for ransom? In the midst of her spiral, the forgotten footsteps have suddenly stopped.

An irritated huff.

It’s mere feet away and she’s trapped under an unknown blanket without anything to defend herself and there’s a stranger in her vicinity. She curls up ready to flip over and run as fast as she can.

“Okay since you’re not getting up on your own, I’m coming in! Don’t say I didn’t warn you!”

There’s a rustle and suddenly, the warmth and comfort of the pelts and blankets is gone and staring down at her is a giant red woman with golden eyes and horns. Horns. There’s a moment of confusion as the blanket that was violently tossed from her body settles off to her right before a scream of terror escapes her lungs.

“OH MY GOD THIS IS A DREAM” she screams as she scurries on all fours beneath the giant red woman with horns and golden eyes, her hands grasping for purchase on coarse dirt and rocks before she is able to bolt upright and face the woman who is now staring at her confused with both hands raised before her to indicate non-threat.

“It’s okay Soldier, it’s just me, Karlach. Sorry to startle you but I suppose you were having a bad dream. It’s okay, you’re safe” she coos softly, her bellowing voice dropped to a gentle lull as she crouches over and slowly approaches.

“By the gods! What the sweet hells is all this ruckus?” an irate voice calls from behind.

Slowly removing her eyes from the woman in front of her, in a frozen state she cautiously turns her head and torso in a singular languid twist and sets her sights upon a man in a loosely ruffled white shirt with eyes as red as rubies and delicate white strands of hair curling around a set of pointed ears.

Pointed ears?

Pointed ears.

POINTED. EARS.

She halts her movement. Her breath stills before suddenly her body grows limp and the sky turns black behind her eyes. The last thing she remembers is an ache deep within her skull and a flash light on a screen.

••••••

“Oh no! Is she going to be okay?!”

“Karlach, what the hells did you do!”

“I didn’t do a think Fangs, I swear it! I just went to wake her up and then she-“

“Make some space!” a woman commands. “Tav can you hear me? Can you wiggle your fingers to let me know you’re okay?” the soft feminine voice says from above her as a sudden flood of comforting warmth undulates in waves over her body. Her head and shoulders have a dull ache that is slowly subsiding as the warmth passes over her body and she carefully opens her eyes, her blurred vision becoming clearer as the seconds pass.

“What…what happened?” she asks, blinking, her eyes remaining fixated on the sky above. Her mind feels fuzzy and her fingers and toes feel numb.

“I was about to ask you the same thing. We all heard you scream and the next thing I know, I hear Karlach and Astarion calling for me and you’re on the ground collapsed.”

She shoots upwards and her head nearly makes contact with the head of a woman with green eyes and black hair whose hands were glowing. Glowing.

Hazel eyes dart back and forth as her heart hammers inside her ribcage and her chest begins to heave. “Wher-what, h-how? This can’t be real, there’s no god forsaken way this is real. Is this my voice? WHY DO I HAVE AN ACCENT?!” She can hear the words spill from her lips but the voice sounds foreign and her tongue is contorting against her teeth in an unfamiliar manner. She begins to mutter words under her breath and no matter how hard she tries, they don’t come out the way she intends them to. Her o’s are long and her a’s are hollow. This isn’t her voice. Hazel eyes are blown wide like a deer in the face of death and she can feel herself spiraling into a panic attack, chest tightening as her breathing begins to increase rapidly.

“Tav, I need you to breathe for me” the woman with green eyes and black hair says.

Tav?

Who’s Tav?

Unmanicured hands grasp at an all-too-loose linen shirt before they begin to pat over a chest that doesn’t feel like hers with calloused hands covered in fresh bruises and scratches that surely do not belong to her. Kicking her legs and rocking into a standing position, her eyes dart around her. Her chest is heaving. There’s a river, a lake, ruins, tents with knick-knacks and mirrors. Mirrors. She breaks out into a sprint toward a mirror resting upon a table at a red tent. What she sees suctions the breath from her already compressed lungs: glowing hazel eyes, a dainty pointed nose, light freckles dusting her cheeks, and beneath a messily braided mop of chestnut hair, two slightly pointed ears.

“Oh no…oh gods…OH GODS” she says in horror, her hands patting and touching at the expanse of her face and pinching the pointed tips of foreign ears that were somehow attached to her face.

“Tav, are you quite alright? Wyll, Laezel, and I have just returned from scouting ahead and we heard you yelling?” a man with warm brown eyes, dark brown hair peppered with grey, and a finely trimmed beard says placing down a basket of various plants.

“Gale…YOU’RE GALE!” she practically yells, her body leaning backwards onto the damaged wooden table. He tilts his head befuddled, his brow knotting itself deeply as he eyes her suspiciously.

“The one and only but I feel as though I have clearly missed out on an event that I might need to be privy to. Shadowheart, can you please enlighten me on why our resident leader is looking at me as if I had already sprouted tentacles?”

“While I would like to say it’s the tadpoles, your guess is as good as mine to be quite frank with you.”

“Hmm intriguing…” he trails off, crossing his arms in front of his chest and resting his chin between a thumb and finger as he glances over and evaluates Tav, who looks like a hare corner by a predator.

“Oh come now Gale, Tav looks terrified. Maybe we should give her some space for a moment?” a man with dark skin, massive curled horns, and mismatched eyes says.

Gale exhales before stepping back, firmly crossing both arms and shifting his weight to a leg before he tilts his head quizzically. “Yes I suppose you’re right Wyll,” he acknowledged “and apologies Tav! I merely am concerned since you seem quite…alarmed.”

She closes her eyes and takes deep, focused breaths. In, one, two, three, out, one, two, three. Her heart beat slows to a calm flutter.

Suddenly, the sound of scraping metal rings out from her left. “Her mind is slipping and she is but mere moments away from losing herself to madness! Move out of the way before she turns into a ghaik!”

Wyll races to move towards the woman with green skin whose eyes are set in a murderous rage “Laezel she’s not turning this has to be something-“

No sooner than he steps in front of her to speak, she is shoving him to the side with her forearm and quickly encroaching on Tav’s heaving form slouched against the wooden side table. Just as Tav finally succeeds in bringing her breathing into a normal rhythm she looks up and no sooner than she does, it’s as if time slows. A blade is swinging downward toward her body and whether it be by chance, instinct, or pure fear, as she puts her hands out in front of her, a buzzing sensation wells from within her palms and two mysterious words tumble from her lips: dolor.

In a flash of radiant red light, she feels the air part from her hands and a thunderous echo radiate across the cliffs behind her, a flock of birds cawing and screeching fearfully departing in droves from a nearby treeline. There’s a palpable vibration slowly fading from her hands and as she opens her eyes and unclenches her jaw, a shocked silence washes over Tav.

There before her and everyone in the camp lies the groaning form of Laezel blown some distance away, her sword cocked off to the corner a significant length from her hands. Tav looks to her hands in awe and then again at Laezel, who appears disoriented grasping at her head and wobbling to a very unsteady standing position.

“ISTIK HOW DARE YOU! I am saving you from misery!” Laezel shouts, her voice rasping. However her angry yelling falls upon deaf ears as Tav is lost staring at her hands and the buzzing electricity she feels sprinkling into her fingertip from her palms. She just did magic. SHE. JUST. DID. MAGIC. Tav is vibrating out of her skin.

“Oh my god I did magic…I DID MAGIC!” she yells in excitement before her mind switches to Laezel’s form being held back by a pleading Wyll and a Karlach who had rushed over whilst her mind was in limbo. It then hits her that she just blasted Laezel directly in the chest and the excitement once again turns to fear and panic, her voice stammering “OH GOD I’M SO SORRY! I-I-I don’t know how I did that I didn’t mean to hurt you like that!” Tav is power walking to Laezel to apologize profusely before Gale clears his throat to interject.

“Tav while that was a fantastic Eldritch Blast, I do believe we all best avoid further animosity first thing in the morning before we head to the Goblin Camp. Our energies are best spent on actual enemies, not each other.”

Astarion huffs and clicks his tongue at Gale’s commentary, crossing his arms dramatically “Oh dear old Gale, aren’t you simply just the biggest spoilsport. And here I was getting my hopes up for a little fight to the death first thing in the morning.”

“Hmm I must side with Astarion on this. It really would have made for a fine show and one less headache down the road” Shadowheart admonishes, a single brow quirked and her lips pursed in displeasure. Laezel clicks her tongue and growls low in response, shaking off Wyll and Karlach before stomping over to get her sword.

“I really am sorry. I honestly don’t know how I did that,” Tav says, her hands together at her front, eyes downcast. Her mind is reeling. Should she tell them the truth or should she lie and try to pretend? Pretending would have been great but she knows she’s already blown her cover with some of the things she had said as well as her panic attack moments earlier. Internally Tav weighs her options in silence as her companions begin to bicker amongst themselves. She considers her current predicament and comes to the conclusion that perhaps the truth would be less stressful for her to endure than lie and keeping up false pretenses, especially knowing that she is capable of accidental explosive magic in moments of intense emotion.

In one, out two, Tav breaths until she can finally look towards the band of misfits before her. She’s thinking about how to form words and tell these people her identity however, before she can recall even her real name, a pain strikes the side of her temple, forcing her to the ground with her head in her hands. The shock subsides and before she even opens her mouth to speak, the pain strikes her down again with equal ferocity. Her skull is pounding behind closed eyes and gritted teeth.

No one speaks, but a concerned Gale is immediately at her side, a hand on her back as he kneels down beside her. As he is about to speak, Tav waves her hand to shush him and suddenly it’s as if a celestial nebula crashes through her mind, memories exploding and overwhelming her senses. She sees flashes of books, a home, a grey sky beneath steel wings, illuminated letters clicking under her fingertips, a hall of statues and paintings. No sooner than the images collide and implode upon one another in her mind, her body stills, the pain fades, and the images cease.

Tav lifts her eyes to Gale and then to everyone who has come closer to surround her. “I…I think there’s something all of you need to know. I can’t tell you my real name or the name of where I come from but what I can tell you is that this is not really me. I am not the ‘Tav’ you think I am.”

#baldur's gate 3 #bg3 #bg3 fanfiction #bg3 fanfics #bg3 companions #gale #gale of waterdeep #astarion #bg3 headcanons #baldurs gate #karlach #lae'zel #shadowheart #wyll

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hhighkey · 2 months

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Decode // Chapter Six, Mad Woman

Dracule Mihawk (opla) x OC (female)

Rating: mature

Story Contains: live action characters, related and non-related one piece plots, unspecified religion, OC is a nun on sabbatical, trauma, violence, age gap (40 v 23), insecurities and self doubts, possessive / protective behavior, kidnapping, true loves, eventual smut

Note: idk how i feel about this chapter but just wanted to get the story moving

Masterlist

Inky black tentacles swarmed her limp body. A heavy fog wafted through her nostrils, past her lips and through her ears swirling her mind into a dark haze. It felt like something large laid itself on her, she wanted to scream, to thrash, to do anything other than lay there. She tried to scream. Nothing came. Fingers unmovable at her side. Bells tolled in the background. Once. Twice. Three times. An ache resurfaced. An incomprehensible densely packed knot twisted within her chest, pushing on her lungs as a choked intake of air turned perilous–

Sabine shook her head, pushing back the unwanted intrusion in her head. She forced herself to smile, not wanting to tell Mihawk of her nightmare from last night that still haunted her six hours later. He’d probably notice any odd changes in her behavior, he seemed so pleased when she reported sleeping through the night. Though if she woke, he’d have too- nobody was ever safe from her night terrors it seemed. It would only be a matter of time before he saw that vulnerable side of her…

Sitting across from him as they ate a late lunch, Sabine began to think about how he’d once been nothing but a stranger at a bar. Then the man who’d dueled Zoro, only to say to her upon parting she’d be his. And now Sabine didn’t even consider him a stranger, which probably made no sense considering- The man was a vicious killer, a warlord, yet he treated her with the utmost respect and care.

And there was something about it all.

Sabine couldn’t quite place her finger on it, but she trusted him. Deep in her gut, in her heart, and in her mind. He drew her in, like an overpowered rip current that refused to let her swim back ashore. As if fate itself intervened for them to meet. The butterfly effect of it all had managed to change her life- one day a girl separated from home, then a nun exorcizing a supposed demon that would cause her nightmares, which led to a sabbatical, leading Luffy, which led to Mihawk. It was absurd.

“So,” She hummed, “What do you think?”

They’d paid the marine base a visit after breakfast, sat and combed through reports from last year and then the last month. All while an onslaught of marines came to see if the rumors were true, that the strongest swordsman was actually in their base. The two were an unusual pair to look at, an infamous pirate and a nun.

Upon reading said reports and piecing them together with information from Sabine, Mihawk understood what was going on. Blaringly so. He didn’t need to see the church’s archive reports or to read the books Sabine talked of. A devil fruit user was at large on the island experimenting on the population, the pattern was evident and he’d be damned to admit an actual demon was doing this. But Sabine wasn’t catching on as quickly as he had.

“I believe you have a devil fruit user on your hands. No exorcism would have helped.” Mihawk wanted to be gentle in this unusual process, it was becoming more clear how much real world experiences the young woman lacked. Her education was what the church had deemed acceptable, to her everyone deep down had good intentions or else the ideas of salvation would be shattered. But he sees it; the wavering of those feelings, her disdain at times, and Mihawk wonders how much Sabine had faked over the years in order to be a good nun.

She nodded, trying to push down the guilt that would resurface. Instead she focused on his handsome features, his beard and thick brows, sharp and masculine that made a rush of tepid liquid roll through her.

“But how? I understand it but- I know what I saw, can a devil fruit cause such a thing?”

“Probably. The woman you saw back then touched you, correct?”

“Yes, it felt like touching any other person, not an apparition while it could move like one.” Sabine shivered. A sudden chill down her spine as she remembered the brutal feeling of that wretched monster’s claw-like grip on her wrist. How it’d held her so tight there was a mark afterwards for weeks. Only Sister Sienna’s homemade salve helped it heal.

“Hm, I see.”

“What?” She inquired, anxiety riddling her as he blocked her from seeing any changes of his facial features, “Tell me what you’re thinking.”

“I think this is beyond the scope of your abilities.”

“Huh?”

Mihawk pushed his food around his plate with his fork before setting it down, “I don’t know why your church foolishly sent two people to investigate demonic activity before going to the marines. I don’t want you to get hurt, so let me handle this from here.”

“But… Why? This seems beneath you, it has nothing to do with the sea.”

“If I handle this, would you trust that the danger here is gone for good?”

“Yes.”

“If it ends your nightmares that’s good enough of a reason for me to handle it.”

“Please let me help still. I promise I’ll listen to whatever you say! I know this city well, I’ve met the families of those impacted last year they could help. We only figured the connections of everyone to be religious, perhaps they came into contact with the devil fruit user-demon-person another way. Same knitting group maybe?”

Mihawk couldn’t stifle an amused smile or the way his eyes crinkled at the corners, “Maybe.” He let out a defeated sigh and she knew she’d won, “I guess we’ll be playing detective. This is not my forte.”

“Well I appreciate it more than you know. I can go and deal with all the people, everyone’s scared the moment they look at you.” She giggled, calmness taking over the fear she’d had. Her heart swelled. If it weren’t for the table between them she would have thrown her arms around him to thank him through an unbreakable hug. The fact he was doing this for her, was mind boggling, absolutely solidified the growing fondness for him she had.

“I will stay by your side regardless.”

“Are you sure?” Another skip in her heartbeat from his words.

“Yes, I will not let you gallivant around this city blind, you’d foolishly get yourself killed.”

“I see that now and I agree. Sure scary ghosts I can handle, but a person? No. Don’t rely on me in a fight.”

“Would never dream of it my dear.” Any smile she got out of him she’d treasure. Her fingers tingle with nerves as they want to reach out and grab his own.

They continued eating in a comfortable silence. Sabine kept her gaze low as her face burned, her stomach painfully fluttering due to those gold eyes that made her feel intrusive emotions. How her body had yet to cool down from how close in his orbit she’d been. They’d slept in the same room for god's sake! She recounted each of his words, how protective they’d been, him wanting her out of harm's way. How this was probably child’s play yet he entertained it for her, took it as seriously as she was.

“I would like to go visit Cardinal Joseph if you don’t mind, to fill him in.”

Mihawk nodded, “Finish up and we’ll go.”

The pair walked side by side through the weaving streets, looking like the most unusual of pairs. A large man with an even larger sword. And a nun.

But none of that mattered. Sabine felt secure walking inches from him, their arms occasionally brushing, her body a pleasant warm with humming emotion. The air smelled faint of the salty ocean water that wafted up from the port. Slowly a faint scent of tangy iron and the raunchy human smell of the crowd that had gathered. It made her heart skip a beat as she choked in a breath. Faint murmurs in a rounded opening below the few storied buildings that looked right out of a story book.

Mihawk felt like an anchor for her as her chest tightened suddenly, the familiarity of certain buildings that brought back a litany of memories once she saw through the crowd. Her steps slowed. From beyond the masses of people, a cascade of string lights that led to a door that reverberated through her entirety. The red paint. The floral arrangements that grew along the cracking bricks. And a man so vibrantly out in front with gaudy clothes and a jeweled scepter- him.

She knew his name instantly. DiPont Giorgio. The wrench in their plans last year. How loudly he spewed his feelings of the church and how they couldn’t get a handle on the demonic deaths. Whatever popular story was the news for the day or weeks, he latched onto it and milked it. He made grand spectacles of issues just to turn them on those most impacted, all while wearing that giddy smile. Other’s pain brought him pleasure.

Mihawk noticed the change in her body language; how she tensed up, a fist clenched, legs locked in place, and her eyes fixed so that they stared past the crowd. He inspected every face and body his golden eyes could see, upon seeing the man dressed as a jester, he assumed that was the point of her sudden behavior.

He pulled her to the side.

The two alone in a side alley, him pressing her to a building’s side. He brushed a hand along her hair, feeling her clammy skin as sweat beaded along her hairline. She shivered as his fingers prodded into the sensitive skin going down her neck then pulling at the constricting neckline of her clothes.

“Breathe, dear.”

Sabine shook her head furiously.

“Breathe. In then out.” The sound of his voice lulled into her brain, scraping and whirling until it could pull her out her trance. Her pupils returned to a normal size, lashes fluttering as she looked at Mihawk like she was seeing him for the first time, “There we are.”

“Mi..hawk.” She whimpered. A cascade of frigid sentiments made her extremities numb.

“Tell me what’s upset you. Is it the man that drew the crowd?”

Nodding, her lips parted, then closed only to open again. She sucked in a shaky breath, “Yes.”

If looks could kill- the way his fingers flexed and shoulders straightened, Mihawk immediately honed in on the man as his aura began to bubble. To boil over into the world of anger, into a fiery red over the fact a single person could cause Sabine such discontent. A surge of impulsiveness, a feeling he rarely felt or indulged in or bothered with, consumed him. Anything that disturbed him on the sea or in the way was worthy of him unsheathing a blade, but in this situation he couldn’t understand why he wanted to cut down that jester of a man. How a hand subconsciously went to unsheath Yoru, Mihawk stopped himself.

Sabine’s fingers had curled into his coat as she stared up at him with watering eyes. It took all his strength not to pick her up and whisk her away until those tears were no more. Yet years of intense training and discipline went wayward in the moment as his pulse hiked and skin tingled warm. Instead he brought a hand up to her face, stroking a thumb along her cheekbone as she’d calmed down due to his lapsed moment of judgment. He felt guilty.

“Who is he?”

“Giorgio. He’s a wretched man.” Sabine sighed, “Takes joy in toying with others. Will latch on to someone suffering just to make some berry.”

“Ah, I’m guessing he was an unwanted presence last year?”

“Yes.”

Mihawk could feel the negativity that whipped around this man, Giorgio. Through his toothy grins and erratic hands waving about, there was something unnatural in how he spewed nonsense that riled up the crowd.

“What’s he saying?” She asked meekly, tugging on his coat to regain his attention.

“I’m not sure, would you like to move closer? I can go on my own-”

“No! Don’t leave me.”

Fear. Mihawk could smell it reek off her, the patheticness along her features tugging at his heart strings. He wanted to, selfishly, believe her words were meant for him alone and not for the reason she didn’t want to be left aside. He wondered if she’d cling to anyone like this in her vulnerable state as her tinier body began to shake.

“I never could explain it, he gave me the creeps. Which I know isn’t a punishable offense. Cardinal Joseph simply found him annoying whereas, I have a gut feeling he’s just… scum. Again nothing to be done, he always knew when to stay away and not engage in our work.”

Mihawk watched as her fright turned into something else as she rambled about the man, he assumed it was annoyance glimmering in her eyes. She huffed, smoothing down her skirt with her hands as a way to regain composure. A little shake of her shoulders and arms, another huff, and she was walking past him.

“Sabine.” He clasped a hand on her shoulder and tugged her back. A gasp left her lips as another one of his hands clamped on her waist, “Do not leave my side, just like I promised not to leave yours.”

A protectiveness surged through him. He wouldn’t let her get past him, he’d keep her by his side whether or not by force. This place brought her pain and he was growing sick of sudden reminders everything seemed to give her. On top of the fact, this was all a mess, he’d rather be on the sea fighting an entire armada than this slow give and take work that should be up to a paper pusher.

His lips hovering just along an ear made her heart thump painfully in her chest. Her bold confidence simmered like a snap of a twig, “Sorry, I don’t know what got into me… I don’t want him to see me, even though I have choice words for him. He used to seek us out, taunt us, he’d touch my hair or tug at my habit. A disrespectful man with no boundaries or shame.”

“Then let’s go, especially before I do something regrettable.” Mihawk said under his breath, a dangerous tone seeping from his words. His grip on her tightened.

“Yes, let's.” A chill ran down Sabine’s spine at the thought of the things Mihawk could do to Giorgio. Not that she wished death upon anyone, but that man had karma coming to him one of these days, perhaps it would be fitting for it to come from a man aligned with her.

They went along the outskirts of all the noise, heading down the road that would lead to the church where they’d find Cardinal Joseph. And then make a plan to pinpoint how to find the devil fruit user. Simple- Sabine highly doubted that would be the case. She squeezed Mihawk’s bicep that she clung to.

But Sabine couldn’t help herself as she went to strain her neck turning around. From that glance alone, her eyes connected with his. Giorgio, still mid preaching, gave her a twisted smile. An intoxicating, ambergris musk invaded her nostrils and her surroundings went null as Mihawk kept them moving forward, her footsteps more an inebriated march as they clunked against the cobbled streets.

The remaining day was that of following the motions.

Then it turned into a week, then another.

A grueling death had shut the Island down, trying to leave would have been futile. Sabine and Cardinal Joseph had investigated the perimeter of the murder, checked the victims belongings for anything that matched- and it did.

Over a year ago, the demon had left burnt and flipped crossed over the victims, whose eyes were black as night and limbs gaping, mushy, cold.

And there, a body with a similar modus operandi laid at her feet.

Sabine had fallen to her knees due to the note beside the cross, the sound of her hitting the floor spurred Mihawk into the room to aid her. She still couldn’t fathom why he stayed at her side, didn’t mock her for her inability in this area of work, in her lack of understanding about the world they lived in. How dutifully he explained things to her over the last few weeks and answered all her questions. She selfishly loved how he hovered, how they grew closer while the island was going up in flames.

‘Come get me!’

The written words taunted her. She wanted to rip the note up, throw it into a fireplace and watch it burn along with her bubbling feelings of failure.

Oh how wrong had the church been. Even if this wasn’t someone who’d eaten a devil fruit, the powers and natures of this world were immense. So much was still unknown. But demons couldn’t write! More proof this was a human or creature doing this! That ridiculous exorcism and belief in faith had been futile, foolish, stupid, hasty, and it made her want to scream. To cry. To bleed. To slam her head into a wall or throw herself out the window much like a victim had last year too. Sabine thought of that nun, her body splattered on the ground and how the decay of her flesh melded into the dying grass. For the first time she believed her faith was a facade she’d forced on herself.

Sabine thought that her life had been a waste, that if she’d been more competent, able to think for herself- this person wouldn’t have died.

posted: july 24 2024

taglist: @zzbloody-animezz @honeybeezgobzzzzz @mythical-goth @iraaiitz @moonmaiden1996 let me know if you wanna be added!

#hhighkey’s decode #hhighkey decode #dracule mihawk #mihawk #one piece mihawk #mihawk x oc #mihawk fanfic #opla #opla fanfic #one piece #one piece live action #angst #mihawk headcanons

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saints-who-never-existed · 4 months

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Rereading The Terror

Two short chapters combined for you today, each more gut-wrenching than the last!

Chapter Fifty-Five: Goodsir

Goodsir's first few days in the Mutineer Camp have not been pleasant, needless to say. He begins describing Hickey as The Devil and the other men as an "Infernal Legion" celebrating with a "Feast of Human Flesh" after the confrontation with Crozier.

There are a few familiar and unexpected faces within that 'infernal legion' including Billy Orren, John Morfin, and Billy Gibson, all very much still living so far. Interestingly, several of the Mutineers are still actively resisting the descent into cannibalism - Morfin and Hodgson most notably - but Goodsir suspects they won't be able to hold out much longer - "the smell of Roasting Human Flesh is Horribly Enticing".

Just like the main party, the Mutineers also appear to have found leads in the ice. 17 men pile into a boat only meant for 8 and begin to paddle northward but it's clear quickly that they cannot continue to do so for long, and it's not because of the leads themselves: "I Heard Hickey and Aylmore whispering after we landed to pitch Tents this Evening - they made Little Effort to lower their Voices. Someone will have to go. ...now that they do not need Man-haulers, which Men will be Sacrificed to the Food stores so that the boat can be Lightened for tomorrow's Sailing?"

Chapter Fifty-Six: Jopson

Oh gang... I'm afraid this is it...!

Jopson doesn't understand. He doesn't fully understand what's happening to his body anymore - why his teeth and hair are falling out and he's bleeding from every orifice. And he doesn't understand why he's being left behind on this, his literal birthday: "...but he was not an old man. He was thirty-one years old today and they were leaving him behind to die on his birthday." :(((

He has just enough wherewithal to smell the roasting of the seal meat Des Voeux's men brought back to camp, and to note the stream of men visiting his tent, unwilling to show their faces but leaving behind a pile of mouldy ships biscuits for him "like so many white rocks in preparation for his burial."

Jopson can only really protest in his own head - against the men and their actions and, interestingly, against Crozier... "Hadn't he stayed by Captain Crozier's side a hundred times during the captain's illnesses and moody low points and outright bouts of drunkenness? Hadn't he quietly, uncomplainingly, like the good steward he was, hauled pails of vomit from the captain's cabin in the middle of the night and wiped the Irish drunkard's arse when he shat himself in his fever delirium? Perhaps that's why the bastard is leaving me to die." Good Christ if that thought doesn't actually fucking destroy me! It's not even the idea of doing all that for someone and it somehow not being good enough, it's almost as if it was too good instead. Like something about reaching that level of intimacy being too unbearable in some way and somehow being the thing that dooms him? Ooh lordy I'm unwell... :(((

Soon enough, Jopson's birthday becomes more surreal and yet more literal as his crawling from the tent is described almost like labour, like an actual birth - "He had grown used to the canvas-filtered dim light and stuffy air of his tent-womb that this openness and glare made his lungs labour and filled his squinted-shut eyes with tears."

Crawling over food - "brought to him as if he were some damned pagan idol or sacrificial offering to the gods" - Jopson exits the tent which all too quickly fades into the fog behind him so he can't go back, and tries to shout after the departing men.

He's so weak but so utterly utterly desperate that he even tries to use his fucking chin to drag himself along the ground when his arms fail him. But of course it's not enough. Just like that, the departing men are gone. "It was as if they had never existed."

#The Terror #The Terror AMC #Observations #Random Observations #Meta #Rereading the Terror #Terror Spoilers #Harry Goodsir #Thomas Jopson #Cornelius Hickey #I'll read it so you don't have to my sweet babies!

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shady-tavern · 2 years

Text

WIP from the Story “The Shape of a Soul”

With her hunting gear in tow, Marya paused by their little shrine to pray to the dragon. Their family was the only one around to still worship the big sky lizards, as Ivan, one of her little cousins, liked to call them with a mischievous grin.

There had been a time where such a thing had been different, when dragons had truly existed, but they had disappeared one by one and new religions had popped up, so things had changed.

Dragons, once mighty protectors and fierce warriors, had turned into greedy storybook monsters, jealously and gleefully burning everything to the ground and feasting on the flesh of mortals while sitting on mountains of treasure.

Marya had a blurry memory of her parents, before they had died to the blue fever, asking them why they worshipped something everyone else thought was bad and evil. She remembered her mother and father chuckling softly and a big hand gently brushing over her hair.

'Don’t mind what other people say', Mother had said to her. 'They long since forgot the truth as it got overwritten by different people saying new things. We will stay true to ourselves, never forget that my sweet.'

Marya very quietly and softly clapped her hands together twice as she bowed to the carved wooden dragon, a relic that had been in her family’s possession for over three hundred years.

Below the protective arch of the dragon's body and its calm, steady gaze was a small wooden house with faceless people waving up at it. Trees and farm animals had been carved out of the wood as well, the dragon's tail curving around it all securely. It was one big piece of beautiful craftsmanship.

"I will hunt well today," she whispered determinedly to the dragon as she closed her eyes for a moment. "To take meat to the market to buy things to make the children happy and ensure they have everything they need when I travel. Please protect this house and them in my absence."

Lowering her arms and straightening, she felt herself fill with purpose as she eased the creaking front door open and slipped outside, closing it just as gingerly. The sky was just starting to grow lighter along the horizon and she saw the outline of crows sitting atop the buildings around her.

"Good morning, guardians," she whispered and lifted the heavy lid of a small clay pot beside the house to grab a fistful of seeds. She left a trail of seeds as she walked to the edge of their little village, the crows flapping down to eat, some trailing after her for a moment longer.

She had no idea who had started the tradition of feeding the local crows, but it had certainly proven useful. They saw the village as their own by now and had grown to like the people here. The crows had helped them out a few times since then, be it by bringing the occasional coin or pretty thing a traveler had lost or causing an incredible ruckus when one of the children had fallen down the well without anyone else around. The boy had been pulled out in time thanks to them.

Everyone called them the guardians of their village, a settling too small to be on any map or to have a proper village square for trading, but the locals liked to call this place Green Rock. It was named after the incredibly big and incredibly mossy boulder that was right at the entrance to their village. Sometimes the elders liked to joke that it had been a gift of a rock troll or even that it was a troll itself, sleeping here until the end of the world came.

Part 2 here. Part 3 here.

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llostwriter · 4 months

Text

The Husky And The White Cat Shizun With Their Baobei

Chapter 12

The sea of white fog increased rapidly as the smell of the Hundred Butterfly Perfume spread.

A figure bumped into you, and as it screamed “Daoist Priest, save!” you attempted to grab onto the figure upon realizing that it was Mistress Yao, the wife of the eldest son Chen Buhuan; however, there was nothing in front of you. You summoned back Xian'ye (your holy fan), performing a swinging movement in hopes of dispersing the fog. It was successful until the fog returned after a few seconds. Something wasn’t right; it was so easy for Chu Wanning to disperse with hardly a flick of his finger. But when it comes to your turn, it’s not working.

Xian’ye was also strangely not responding to your attempts of inner communication. It was quite a weird moment, since he was clearly venting out his frustration in your head just a few seconds ago.

You: “Shizun! Mo Ran! Shi Mei!”

You shouted, but there was still no response.

The only other sound was the clear tinkling sound from the single silver bell earring of yours accompanied you as you walked deeper into the fog. With every single additional step, it seemed to tinkle louder.

——

In the heart of an elaborate bridal chamber, you find yourself enveloped in a scarlet wedding veil, perched on the edge of a grand four-poster bed. Your consciousness resides within a foreign entity, an ethereal presence that controls a delicate feminine form. The heavy weight of anticipation hangs in the air, and you are left motionless, a mere spectator to the scene that unfolds.

Subdued whispers and barely contained snickers echo from behind the intricately carved wooden door. Two female voices engage in a hushed conversation, their words a dagger to your heart as they mock the name of a stranger. “Did you know that Princess Changjun has waited for Master Chuyi for seven long hours? I'd wager he's long gone by now, abandoning her in her moment of need!' The first voice is like a venomous hiss, dripping with saccharine sweetness yet laced with underlying malice. The second voice, while softer and more gentile, struggles to conceal its disapproval. “We should not speak of Princess Changjun in such a manner. Who knows what she may do if she learns of our disrespect?”

A surge of indignation and frustration courses through your veins, inciting a tempest within your chest. How could these heartless women belittle another's suffering? The body rises from the bed, and you soon realize the truth: you are merely a passenger within this vessel, a silent observer of the actions taken by its rightful owner. You were unable to control the body.

As the door creaks open, the lithe form strides forward, capturing one of the gossiping women by the throat with an iron grip. The other hand clutches a slender, otherworldly blade, pulsating with a crimson spiritual energy that radiates fury. The weapon hovers precariously close to the servant's cheek, a silent threat that leaves her trembling in terror. “Speak another word and lose your tongue; remain silent, and your life may be spared... for now.” The body's rich, seductive voice reverberates through the air, a velvety caress that sends shivers down your spine. The tremor in the servant's voice is a testament to the power behind that husky, commanding tone, a voice that requires no physical presence to strike fear into the hearts of its victims.

Despite your initial confusion and anger, the vehemence and authority emanating from the woman's form leaves you breathless, awestruck. The power dynamics have shifted dramatically, and the two women, once confident in their gossip, now cower in the presence of the body.

——

The illusion ended in the horrifying screams of the servants.

The fog has finally dispersed by itself. However, the sight that you saw wasn’t to your liking. You weren’t sure if it was the aftereffects of the illusion that made you feel bitter.

You watched from afar as Mo Ran shamelessly clasped Chu Wanning's wrist and quickly kissed him on the lips before he could react. Mo Ran's robes were completely drenched in the mysterious spring water. He looks almost attractive and tempting, but those thoughts were interrupted by the reminder of his past actions.

You tried so hard to fix him. Yet he still is shameless as ever.

That thought alone has you furious, with the intention of roughly pulling Mo Ran off and giving him a slap to clear his mind and extinguish your own fury.

Chu Wanning was firmly pressed under Mo Ran's body, struggling to get him off. Just when things were to get further, your frustration reached its peak and roughly grabbed onto the back of Mo Ran's robes, yanking him backward. Landing him straight into the spring water.

"You shameless bastard!" For the first time ever, your emotions exploded. Stunning both Chu Wanning and Mo Ran. You glared furiously at him.

Mo Ran stood there shocked, staring at you, before realizing what he had done. The one that he kissed wasn't Shi Mei, but Chu Wanning. To make matters worse, you have seen his humiliating action.

—-

“… Don’t hit me anymore; I’m going to die.”

After you gave Shizun a handkerchief to wipe off the unwanted gesture of Mo Ran, Chu Wanning summoned his willow vine, giving Mo Ran a beating. To which you didn’t stop that from happening. And you did nothing to intervene. It wasn't until later, when the bitterness and frustration had left your body, that you realized the gravity of your inaction. Mo Ran’s liking score is likely lowered by your inaction.

“Could it be Shi Mei?” Mo Ran wondered aloud upon seeing movement in front of him, his eyes scanning the area in front of him.

Chu Wanning frowned. "In this illusion, you can't imagine who you will see in advance. If you can't help it, you will see what that person looks like. Eliminate all distracting thoughts."

Mo Ran tried to follow his instructions, but it was of no use. The dagger of energy that formed in Chu Wanning's hand was a stark reminder of the pain that he was in. And when it was thrust towards his arm, Mo Ran couldn't help but cry out in agony.

“Don't shout,” Chu Wanning barked, his tone cold and detached.

Mo Ran held back his tears, nodding pitifully as he tried to stifle his sobs. “It's good that it hurts,” Chu Wanning continued. “Other than this pain, don't think about anything else. Follow me; we'll go and take a look.”

But Mo Ran couldn't help but wonder why Shixiong hadn't received the same treatment. It seemed so unfair and cruel.

[Extra:

Xian’ye: “I think I saw something that I wasn’t supposed to see…”

You: “What?”

Xian’ye: “A bulge…”

You: “…Mo Ran?” ]

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therealmintedmango · 2 years

Text

Cerberus - Part Three

Genre: Werewolf/ Shifter AU; Medieval AU; Strangers-To-Lovers AU; Heavy Angst; Soulmate AU; Eventual romance/ smut

Rating: NC 18+, Explicit

Words: 7,396

Pairings: (Eventually) ot7 BTS x Human Female Reader

Warnings: Dark themes; Yandere Vibes; Death; Gore; Murder/ Killing; Dark Dreams; Wolf Centric Chapter

Tag List: (Please notify me if you wish to be added/ no longer want to be apart of the tag list!) @openup-yourmind, @deeepvibes, @xxsunny-side-upxx, @heoniebaby

Cerberus Playlist — Apple Music (Let me know if you have a good song to add to the playlist and I’ll chuck it in there!)

——————-

The hunt is on,

For it is night.

I lurk in the shadows

Under the pale moonlight.

All creatures tucked away in their beds,

Slumber taking its hold and pressing

Down, down, down.

Either a fairytale or a nightmare,

I get to decide,

For you cannot run and

you cannot hide.

Though she does not see me nor sense me,

I can see her sweat and shake,

A virgin so pure and fragile,

I dare not defile.

Not until she is heady and ready,

Shivering in my claws — it’s not too late.

For she is mine.

…Mine…

Mine…!

MINE!

I wake with a fright, my heart is beating viscously, thumping clean out of my soggy skin. I sit up, the bed frame creaking under my movements as I push the heavy sheets to the side. My body glistens, dripping in a hot-cold sweat under the moonlight that baths my room in her silver, pale glow. My nightgown is soaked, covered in my perspiration, the cream-colored silk clings to me for dear life. The hairs around my neck are plastered in place. My breaths come out in heaves, my hands shake with terror.

Shuddering at the nightmare I just had, I stare at the princes’ family portrait as my eyes adjust. There are no teeth here, nor claws—no looming figures that stalk me in the throes of the velvet night. Just seven sets of rust-colored eyes staring down at me. I tear my eyes away and stare at the tree branches outside, there is a heavy fog relaxing among the wood in an eerie cloak, blanketing the night.

I’m awake. I tell myself as I rub my face in my hands, feeling a cold night sweat occur. I am awake and I am alive and that is all that matters. I gulp, trying to regain some composure.

That nightmare was truly hellish.

Twigs snap under my bare feet, branches slice the skin on my face and arms as I race as fast as I can muster. A giant wolf or dog was chasing me deeper and deeper into the bog, the thicket of trees and vines so tall, there was no room for escape as my path came to a dead end. Its eyes a light golden color, its fur shrouded in the night as it hunted me, stalked me like I was pretty prey. The creature snarls, bearing its blinding white teeth, claws like sharp knives ready to pierce my skin raised above me as it let out this feral, ghoulish howl from the depths of its belly. It sounded like it was almost gleeful, a chorus of wailing howls surrounded me, forming a circle of terror with their sunset eyes, fangs, and ferocious sounds. I called for help, for someone to save me, but there was little to be done. Within the next instance, a whole pack of wolves smiled at me as the moon fell from the sky…then they descended upon me.

Then I awoke.

I shudder once more, a ripple of uncomfortable remembering races through my body.

My eyes sweep a glance at the fireplace, the stone hearth is dead, as it is well into the early hours of the morn, not even a peep of the sun shimmering gold and reds on the horizon. No autumn birds sing outside in their nests. All is still in the house and in the wood. I take some deep breaths and try to compose myself, still sitting in the guest room the princes’ have allowed me to reside in.

Why they are so kind and gentle to me, I shall never understand.

My tongue is dry and I long for a glass of water. I have a bell next to my bedside to call upon the staff if I need something, however I like to do things myself, much to the princes’ dismay. Besides, it is far too early to call upon someone at this hour. I shall go to the water pump outside beside the kitchen and fetch myself a glass of water. An easy feat, I tell myself as I slink out of bed.

I quickly light the long eggshell-colored candle in the holder next to my bedside, feeling the cool of the floor under my feet gives some relief to my anxious body. As quiet and gingerly as I can, I open my door and make haste for the stairs. I have been residing in this home for around a month or so and I have gotten to know these halls a fair bit. There is still an air of mystery and glamor to this house, the grounds, and the people inside the walls.

The princes’ all delight in doing various activities with me throughout the week such as poetry reading with Seokjin after breakfast on the days he isn’t taking care of his royal duties. I have noticed his voice and his demeanor change when he reads about romance, which he does not do often…he almost appears wistful. Yoongi likes to play the piano in the study with me, though he is much better than I at the instrument. It is mesmerizing to observe him play such intricate melodies.

Hoseok is particularly active. He delights in taking me for strolls any time of the day and has promised to take me hunting once the ball has come to pass. Namjoon and I discuss various books in the study's library. He has so many first editions to such classic tales—I enjoy his vast knowledge of the world. Maybe one day I will make it out there. Jimin has asked for my opinions on the gardens, though he says they are not fully ready to view and walk through yet. He brings a brand new bouquet to have in my room every fortnight which is incredibly thoughtful.

Taehyung is so fascinating to be around. He is neither too loud nor too quiet, he is neither too sharp, nor too soft. He is so many things and I believe that’s why he paints and creates many things. Jungkook is the biggest enigma out of the family. He does all the things his brothers do, but he is the most secretive by far. I suppose being one of fourteen myself, I understand you are a combination of all good things your siblings are.

Getting to know these princes’ is a touch overwhelming, but it certainly leaves me craving more from our interactions. Those amber eyes they all share bore deep into my skull at times, speaking to me in a language I can’t quite understand.

The wolf decor in the hallway to the dining room catches my eyes and I almost freeze in my tracks, the candle flame flickers as I suck in a tight breath. In my haste to procure some water and my wandering ,rabid thoughts, I have failed a few things: I do not have on the proper attire to be roaming around late at night, I don’t exactly know how to get to the water pump outside, and I haven’t realized just how eerie the castle looks shrouded in the blackness of night. I tear my eyes away from the stone wolf heads and their hollow eyes as I slink through the dining room quickly. The only sound I can hear is the slight crackling of the flame and the soft padding of my feet across the lush carpets and wooden floors.

At last I have reached the kitchens and I know the pump for the water is not far. Dawning on me, I have not seen the space where my food comes from. There are several large hearths for cooking, brick ovens, a pantry that is as long and wide as my room upstairs, cupboards filled with intricate plates and dishes that are in mint condition though they look centuries old. Dried herbs hang along the walls and the counters are so clean, I think to myself as I glide my fingertips across the cool, smooth stone surfaces. It smells of faint spices from last night’s roasted pheasant and slightly sweet from the cranberry pie that was served for dessert.

Mice are maybe quieter than I, but I secure a glass out of the cupboard—one that looks neither too fancy nor too breakable. I am a clumsy fool most of the right time. Never saying the right words or feet tripping over invisible laces.

There is a small door in the corner of the kitchen and a slim hallway one leading to a staircase upstairs to where the staff live, I assume. I gingerly press the wooden door open, fearing I have stumbled onto someone’s living chambers. The wood groans slightly as I push the latch free from its metal confines and I have come this far to give up on my conquest for water. I suck in a breath and close one eye in anticipation, mustering strength up to thrust the door open.

I feel it before I see it. The cold of the dead of night.

Before I go and do anything else brash, I quickly scan the ground around me. I see a singular brick on the ground outside and I place it between the threshold of the door, so I will not be locked out of the castle.

The darkness outside is thick, palpable. The fog is like cold, faint whispers of ghosts floating around my body. A breeze whips up and I clutch my candle close, fearing the yellow flame would be whisked away. I look for the water pump close to the house, wandering along the side of the brick and marble stone. The night air sends a wave of shivers down my spine. It turns my nipples to hard pebbles under my nightclothes. The fog is dense and the night is dark and the little hairs on the back of my neck start to raise in warning. I am determined to find some water, even though I am inching further and further away from the only door I know will grant me entrance into the house.

My body is telling me to run, run far away! Dash away like a mad person! Dash away like you did all those many moons ago!

However, the need for this water to survive is all that is keeping me stitched together at this moment.

To calm my nerves, I hum a tune I have not heard nor sung in years. A lullaby my mother used to sing to me. It’s a relaxing melody, the notes light and sweet. It usually coaxes tears to my eyes, though I cannot be swayed to dwell too much on her memory. The wind and my lullaby are the only things that my ears pick up on.

The little light from my candle finally catches the gleam from the metal pump, glimmering in the tiny glow. I have to make haste I think as I work quickly. I work in a flurry, setting the candle on the edge of the pump and placing the glass right where the water will flow out. I wish not to be out and about on this night any further. The metal groans and sputters awake, cutting the eerie silence wrapped up in the fog of the early morn with a knife. The noise sends a shutter down my spine as I continue to rouse the liquid from the mouth of the water pump. My throat is metaphorically in the middle of a barren desert, sticking to the roof of my mouth, tongue shriveling away placed behind my parched lips.

Something underfoot snaps in the wood close to me as soon as the water springs to life, filling my glass up.

The liquid spurts out, spilling everywhere, dribbling over my cold feet, my dry throat stiff and useless as I cannot even utter a simple whimper. I stop pumping, the groan of the metal pump clunking back into place with a thud. My heart is beating clean out of my chest, a black figure seems to emerge from the shadows; my nightmare is still very prevalent, swimming around in my brain as I nearly pass out from the fright of something lumbering toward me in the throes of the foggy, velvet night. My mind is doing spins, searching for the right thing to do. Do I run? Scream? Do nothing and pretend I don’t exist? Play like I am deceased? My stomach is empty, falling into pits on the frigid ground, my heart pumping blood into my ears.

It looks like a bear? It is very large and lingering, a snarl protruding out of the creature's jaws. No, a dog? I wish to vomit. The thing is stalking the tree line like a wolf—

“Y/N?”

I spin around, nearly tripping over myself, eyes blown out in shock as Taehyung's deep baritone fills the night with its earthy tone and rich timbre. He is in his night clothes, a quizzical expression on his face as he looks down upon me. The second youngest brother’s eyes flit to mine, the water pump and the tree line of the somber wood. Taehyung’s candle is raised to illuminate his strikingly handsome face in the soft golden flickering glow.

“What are you doing out here?” His amber eyes look down at my feet as a smirk dawns his lips. “You have a penchant for being barefoot, I see.”

“Prince Taehyung…” I whisper, my heart still beating rapidly, buried within my chest cavity. A blush blooms over my face. I am now acutely aware he can see straight through my silks, the cool, night air making my chest perky.

After a moment of awkward silence, the dog-creature nearly forgotten, Taehyung says, “I needed a midnight snack and there was a draft in the kitchen. I saw someone propped the kitchen door open and I heard the water being pumped so I came to investigate.” The sixth eldest prince smiles as he regales his discovery of me outside. “Let's get you inside, little bird.” He says softly, picking up my now mostly full water glass. “Hold my night clothes so I shan’t lose you in this thick fog.”

With haste, I do as he commands. Taehyung leads me back through the door of the kitchens and off to bed with a cold glass of water finally.

I miss his expression when we are outside: the way his thick brows are knitted together, eyes wild and unhinged, teeth are bared, gleaming in the glow of the candle and moonlight. This was his way of sending a silent warning to the creature hiding in the fog and tree line.

She is MINE. STAY AWAY.

The early morning hours, where breakfast is served and everyone is flurrying about, are some of my favorite hours here in the Bangtan brother’s castle. I enjoy watching the brothers and staff mingle and mix, the princes’ keeping each other up to date with their lives and what they are going to accomplish each day. It inspired me to rise with them, not only to dine with all seven of them, but to hear what they are working on. It reminds me of my brother’s back home. My chest aches at the thought of them, sadness and misery clutch the edges of my mind and the morning sun rays permeate the curtains in my room.

The ball they hold for their kingdom on the night of the pregnant harvest moon is fast approaching. Not only are the staff deep into preparing, but the princes are as well. Each brother is doing something exquisite and unique which I am looking forward to seeing. Seokjin and Namjoon are splitting the duties of organizing the ball, though Seokjin is focusing on the food mostly and Namjoon is strengthening ties with other kingdoms as each of the neighboring states have been invited as well. Yoongi is taking care of the music; he is out with the Royal Bangtan Orchestra most afternoons, though he always has time to sit in front of the piano with me. Hoseok is handling entertainment like jugglers, fire eaters, and palm readers, which sounds fascinating to me as I’ve never experienced anything like that. Jimin is in charge of the gardens as well as adding impressive bouquets at every table and ropes of bright flowers that line every threshold. Taehyung is taking care of displaying Bangtan’s most eloquent and opulent paintings and statues on display. He is also very concerned about the fashion choices for the ball as wigs are all the rage right now and he wants to impress the crowd with his stylish, yet sensible choices. Jungkook has a surprise happening in the evening when cocktails and dessert is presented and though I press him for information, he holds tight to his secrets, smiling like a smug dog who has just buried a giant bone in the wood for safe keeping.

I’m grateful to them. Amidst the planning and preparation for this ball, they have still kept me in the loop and connected them, nor have they cast me out of their lives. If anything, I feel more entwined with them than at the beginning of my stay. A pang of sour guilt eats at my heart as I dress for the day in a simple, yet chic light blue gown. I hope that my brothers have received an invite and are coming so I can see them again and they will take me home. It’s not that I do not enjoy the company of the princes of Bangtan. Nay. It is the loss of my own thirteen brothers that consumes me, dread prickling my senses, the thought of torture or death backing me into a corner. I feel like a rabid dog, bothering the staff about anyone calling upon me or any letters received in my name. Nothing has turned up, no matter how much I write…or worry…It seems like I am at a stalemate, losing one family and being taken in by another…

I shake my head as I reach the end of the stairs, my stomach growling desperately for food as I try to shake a bad feeling from my mind.

Although I have made it my mission to rise and not waste the precious hours of the day, due to my roaming around before dawn even set in, I overslept. Taehyung gratefully escorted me back to my room last night with my water in hand, though he looked as if he had seen a ghost and barely said anything when we were back inside the castle. I am greeted by a few lingering staff leaving the dining hall in a flurry, concern painting their expressions. It smells of bacon, eggs, mapel, and tension hanging in the air. Wrapped up in my own thoughts, I have missed the angry dialogue protruding through the air. Like a silly moth to a brilliant flame, I am entranced; I wander closer as everyone scurries away from the ruckus.

“WHAT WOULD YOU HAVE ME DO? LET THESE DEMONS WIN?! LET THEM DESTROY EVERYTHING WE HAVE BUILT UP?! IT IS UNACCEPTABLE TO LET SOMEONE DIE LIKE THAT, NAMJOON!”

I almost gasp as my fingertips ghost the door to the hall. I have never heard Seokjin speak so angrily to anyone, let alone his brother.

There is a wicked snarl and something is shattered in the room. I recoil with the noise, the shouting and glass breaking reminding me of my father. Since no one else will, I should try and stop their bickering at once I think as I push open the door. I am greeted by Namjoon’s back to me, his large body and posture was menacing. Seokjin’s hair is standing on end, lips pulled back to reveal a set of pearly white teeth. Seokjin deflates when he sees me silently walk into the room, amber eyes that were narrowed and wild locking onto mine, turning into solem orbs at the sight of me.

“WE SHOULD NOT HAVE TAKEN HER IN! SHE IS GOING TO BRING NOTHING BUT MISFORTUNE AND DEMONS INTO THIS HOUSE!” Namjoon shouts. He then turns once Seokjin looks away shamefully, nodding to me frozen behind Namjoon.

They are talking about me.

Tears well in my ducts instantly, I bite my bottom lip to keep from crying in front of the princes. My heart dies and falls into my stomach, my throat feels tight, and I desperately wish I was anywhere but here. I wish I were millions of miles away from this place and all the gloom I carry around with me.

Namjoon sags, looking terribly remorseful, lifting his hands to reach out to me. “Y/N…”

I flinch away from his outstretched hands.

“I apologize, dear princes.” I whisper the words out as I turn to leave, throat going hoarse. “I-I never realized what a burden I was here. I-I-I will leave at once!”

“No!” Seokjin and Namjoon both yell, but it was too late.

I fled out of the dining hall and into the grand entrance of the building, running outside. I let my feet guide me as salt tears blurred my vision, the bottom of my gown was ruined as it was getting stained by the mud my boots were kicking up. Me. They were arguing about me. I choked on a sob, strangling my throat. I didn’t realize I was such a burden. Of course I am. I am doing nothing but pestering them, eating their food, and staying in their home for nothing in exchange. I ran into the hedge maze winding round and round until I was so utterly lost and exhausted, I took rest at the closest gazebo I found.

Stupid! I chastise myself. Stupid girl! Of course you are a burden! Your whole life you have been a burden! You make messes and hope that someone will come along and clean it up for you!

More tears and cries fill the space in the garden as I replay the short portion of conversation I heard between the two brothers. My heart is breaking. I should have never been so reckless with their kindness. They have done more than enough for me and I should never have overstayed like I have. Though I am feeling more comfortable everyday in the Bangtan castle, this is not my home.

I watch a monarch butterfly flit and flounce through the air once my tears have ceased. The autumnal butterfly’s wings beat like it is trying to get away from something, moving frantically up and down, then side to side. It carries itself past me, turning to me briefly as if to say RUN and I have an unnerving feeling looking at the beautiful creature.

A sinister feeling crawls up my spine…The same eerie and odd one I got last night…As if I was being watched…My eyes blow wide as I quietly scan the spot I am sitting upon. There is no movement in the hedges, no autumn breeze or sway of the foliage, the garden is silent. No movement is heard from any discretion, but I feel like I am being stalked. I am isolated out here in the garden; who will save me if I am in danger? I shake my head slightly. I am no one else’s burden. I have to save myself. All the baby hairs on my body stand though I cannot bring myself to stand. I am tired physically and frozen to the spot on the shaded gazebo spot in terror. My heart is beating when I hear a slight rustle coming from behind me. Do I dare look?

A head pops out from behind a tall, lush hedge and I nearly scream. The fifth eldest amber eyes lock on to my wide orbs at his sudden appearance. Jimin is like an air elemental, I never hear him coming; he is silent, cunniling deadly, or fragrant and sweet, but he can be boisterous and whipped up into a tornado if provoked unfathomably. I have only seen him act that way to Jungkook though when they spar in a wrestling match.

“Y/N?” Jimin smiles as he sees me sitting under the gazebo. “What are you doing out here?” His golden, amber eyes really drink me in as he approaches, seeing the sorry state I find myself currently in. His eyes flick to something behind me as he takes my hand in his suddenly, pulling me promptly up, his puffy lips moving into a tight-lipped frown. Jimin’s presence calms me down immediately, though his worry still makes me slightly concerned. “Come now, you have somewhere to be soon, though it is a surprise.” He says in his feather-soft voice as he leads me away.

I give a chaste look over my shoulder to find the butterfly floating down and landing in the spot I was just in.

—

“It is a marvelous day to go to town, wouldn’t you say so, Y/N?” Seokjin says as we step out into the busy and boisterous town in the middle of the afternoon. He takes my gloved hand as I step from the royal carriage.

“It is, yes, your majesty.” I say, gingerly avoiding puddles of water or urine on the cobblestone pavement. I could not discern what was what.

Seokjin apologized profusely for the outburst I witnessed from earlier in the day. He was extremely sorry (I thought I caught a glimpse of a tear swimming in his golden eyes) and he vowed to repay me by taking me to a surprise. On the way here, I knew we were headed to the dressmaker as she lives in the south-east side of Bangtan. I easily accepted his apology for I knew how remorseful and ashamed he was for his behavior and words. Seokjin explained how they all voted to have me stay at the castle and Namjoon was really the only one against it. He was worried I would bring a kingdom of angry citizens and an army of guards to them. It was nothing more than worry and concern coloring his view of me and a potential situation I’ve put them all in. Nothing more. Nothing less.

Still, I felt more like a burden to them now more than ever.

During my stay in the Bangtan castle, I told them about some of my past and only that I’ve run from an abusive and oppressive kingdom. No lies, but not half truths. I am not ready to admit to any person that I am a murderer. That I’ve killed my own father at that…

“Paisley, will you escort Y/N inside, please? And give Madam Hwasa this to settle the payments.” Seokjin handed her a fat velvet bag full of jingling gold coins. Paisley, one of the staff I have become closer over the weeks with, has come along as our chaperone. Though, I suspect part of the reason she is here because she fancies Jongbak, the footman.

“Yes, your majesty.” She says softly as she ushers me into the dressmaker.

Madam Hwasa barely says a word as we enter. She is older than me, I gather, but not by much. She has a face that is ethereal and otherworldly, dazzling to look at, though she always seems so sad. It is as if she is waiting for a lover to return to her forlorn heart and she speaks in a meak manner. The princes have taken me to her twice now as they did not have too many spare clothes lying about fit for a woman. They say she only apprenticed for only a year before she took over for the master dress designer because she was so talented. They say her silks and fabrics have magic in them.

Paisley hands her the sack of cash and I am once again whisked away behind the dressing room curtains. She undresses me in a flash, the garments protecting me from the autumn cold are stripped from my body—my undergarments stay as I await Madam Hwasa to return. She works quickly and quietly, her small fingers working with haste in an expert fashion.

A slight chill runs down my spine down into my stockings. I feel like I am being watched again, but Paisley has stepped out of the enclosed curtain room. It’s just me, my garments, a chair, and a half-circle of mirrors. The little hairs on my neck stand at attention, the eerie, aching chill blooms throughout my body making me shiver. Jeonghan had told me that spine shivers are caused by people in the future stepping on your grave. I wrinkle my nose in disgust. What a terrible thing to think about.

I fold my arms across my chest in a protective stance, my senses are on high alert since last night. Dreams were the windows into your soul, were they not? Why was I dreaming about dogs or wolves or beasts? What about the creature last night, out in the fog, stalking the tree line? And what about those teeth, those claws….and those golden eyes—

“You have the mark of a demon.”

“Pardon me?” I turn around in shock as Madam Hwasa floats into the room behind me silently. I hadn’t even heard the curtains flutter or the floorboards. She has a cream colored garment with gold and silver gemstones in a dazzling display which swirl and cascade down the luxurious fabric. Since I’ve been here before, she knows my measurements and with her skill I doubt she’ll need any adjusting as she is excellent with her craft.

“The mark of a demon is there,” she raises a beautiful, long finger to the middle of my back, “in between your shoulder blades.”

I look down sheepishly. This is the bane of my existence, this off-colored mark that stains my skin. My mother had it too. She said it was good fortune —in the shape of tiny bird wings. Yet another thing of my skin that isn’t mine but, in fact, belongs to someone else. “Tis’ only but a birthmark, ma'am.” I mumble.

“I never noticed before.” She almost snickers. “And your clothes are filthy! You smell like those mutts!” She snaps her fingers and I place my arms straight above my head.

“Pardon me, ma’am?” I stammer as she wastes no time throwing the heavy ballgown over your shoulders. It had no sleeves and showed off my whole collarbone and the top of my chest. My eyes pop open. This was quite a daring garment, but it was beautiful, with the crystals placed so delicately and perfectly, it hugged my torso until the middle of my rib cage, fanning out in lush plumes of fabric—I looked like a fallen star. “Madam, I am sorry? I do not touch the hunting dogs per the princes’ requests—“

“You are a foolish girl if you cannot figure out what your dreams are and what I am telling you.” She snides as she ties me into the dress. Dreams? Demons? That’s twice today each has been mentioned. My tongue runs dry.

I was not only astonished by how I looked but by how Madam Hwasa was speaking to me.

Madam Hwasa clicks her tongue as she stalks me in a circle, eyes running up and down my body. “Watch out for those wolf boys. They are going to gobble you up.” Her eyes narrow, her stare catching mine like blazing fire. I am not sure she approves of what she is seeing though her fixation gives me a sense that she is challenging me.

“Madam, you are frightening me.” I whisper as I notice I was trembling. Was it anger or terror? Mortification or loathing? I wasn’t quite sure. Another woman had never spoken to me in such a manner, so direct, so merciless. “I need to go.” I look at myself in the mirror and my ducts are pricked with tears, my arms limp at my sides.

“My apologies Lady Y/N.” She clicks her tongue once more and pulls her long gaze away from mine. “You are going to be a beautiful, dangerous creature when you bloom into your full potential.”

I haven’t a clue what she means and my face twists in shock.

She calls Paisley in and they reformat me back in my original frocks and skirts. Under Madam Hwasa’s cold stare and long fingers, I feel more exposed now than when I was in that dress or standing in my undergarments. Madam Hwasa packs my ballgown and hands it to Paisley who share the unit exchange of fingers slinging over one another and long eyelashes fluttering and mouths curling up in shy smiles in the afternoon sun.

Maybe I am a demon for I don’t believe anything like that will ever happen to me. I am a burden and an annoyance. To my mother, my father, my brothers, and now the princes I live with.

Prince Seokjin steps out of the carriage and escorts Paisley and I back inside as we are whisked away from the dressmakers shop. She waves as we drive off, I see her as I am facing backwards. A cat-like grin spreads across her lips and I swear her sad eyes suddenly flash a brilliant green-yellow color.

“How did you like your outfit for the ball? Was it to your liking?” The princes asks like an eager puppy would, wide eyed and excited.

“It was very marvelous, indeed. Thank you for such a lovely dress, your majesty.” I replied in earnest because I truly felt that way.

“Nothing but the best for our little bird.” I flush at his words and Paisley looks at me out of the corner of her eye and I try not to be smitten lava with his nickname for me.

I have an uneasy feeling as Seokjin prompts Jongbak to stop for a stroll at the park in the middle of town. The park is massive and reminds me of paintings and books as it looks like it shouldn’t belong in the middle of town. There is a crystal clear river that runs through, with exquisite bridges, intimate gazebos, and lush gardens to boot.

The eldest prince sticks out his elbow for me to take as we meander through the gardens. I take it and he carries me through the park. Paisley and Jongbak stay by the carriage, no chaperone needed in such a large, populated space.

I still feel like my stomach is in knots and I am having trouble finding the words, but Seokjin’s presence is calming me down. It is hard to feel unnerved with such a fine gentleman with me though. Prince Seokjin is tall, handsome, a great conversationalist, compassionate yet he has a wit and hilarity to him that makes him all the more charming. He was the full package and I would have loved to see him when he was but a young lad. Men bow and ladies curtsy when they see him; they light up like fireflies in June under a full moon when they come upon him. He greets everyone yet keeps conversation with me, smiling. His amber orbs sparkle when he tells a tasteful joke about a gentleman caravan and I give him my full laugh from my belly, though it is undignified for me to make such a noise.

“Pardon me, your highness!” I say breathlessly, still laughing at his nonsensical story as we come to the edge of a gorgeous bridge across the river. “My apologies for producing such boisterous noise!”

“Do not fret.” He simpers down at me, the shadow from his top hat blocking the brilliant sun. “Little bird, my favorite part of my day is when I get to see you smile. You are unraveling more and more every day.”

Immediately my cheeks blaze at his words and his stare.

I remember the look Paisley and Jongbak share and for one fleeting moment, I could have sworn he looked at me with half-lidded bedroom eyes.

“Your majesty, good afternoon.” Voices like silk and honey call behind us.

I turn, breaking the hold I had on Seokjin as the prince almost stands in front of me. “Good day, ladies of Twiceland.” Nine beautiful goddess-like women in brilliant colored dresses simper, glowering down at us as they make their descent on the bridge.

“Where is your pack?” A tall one questions in blue. “Your wild and untamed brothers?”

“What brings you to our kingdom?” Seokjin ignores her being as polite as he can, though his tone is short and curt.

“Is this your ward?” One with doe-eyes and a bright pink smock coos at me. They snicker as I introduce myself much to Prince Seokjin’s dismay.

“Yes, indeed. She is a guest of Clan Bangtan and will be treated as such.” Prince Seokjin is seeming to lose his cool with these vibrant women and I can see why. They are relentless. “If you will excuse us, we were just leaving; on our way home for dinner.”

“Careful, Lady Y/N.” One with a square jaw and short hair giggles as Seokjin takes my arm as lightly as possible, ushering me away from these strange women with haste. “Be wary of beasts such as canines!” They cackle as we rush away, returning to the carriage in a strained silence that has not happened to me since my arrival in this kingdom.

My head is dizzy and my breath is coming out in short bursts. I look at Prince Seokjin and he looks like he is absolutely seething. His aura is dark, nasty hornets shaken and enclosed in a glass container.

As we make our way home, the sun setting, casting the land in a luscious orange and yellow. The castle is far from the town, rich, thick wood surrounds the grounds, encasing the large mansion in its own halo of trees and thickets. glow I hear the call of a lonesome wolf. Fear pricks at my heart and I clutch my skirts. “Everyone keeps mentioning dogs and wolves to me, your majesty. It is frightening to me.” I open once more to the prince who looks startled across from me.

I know I can trust him, I feel it in my marrow and sinew. With my whole beating heart and fizzing brain I know I can trust Seokjin.

“Little bird.” Concern colors his tone as he gingerly places his large, warm hand over mine. “Canines, specifically wolves, is our family animal.” He taps the metal wolf on his chest. “It is our crest. Canines have been intertwined for thousands of years with the family members of Bangtan. If someone says something about dogs or wolves, they are referring to us as a form of insult.”

I nod my head. That does make sense I suppose.

“Nothing will ever harm you.” He gently squeezes my hand. “I promise you. All seven of us will do everything in our power to keep you safe.”

I say nothing but give him a wry smile in which he returns with a beautiful smile that makes my heart throb, trapped in my chest.

——-

I did not go to dinner. I need to apologize to her earnestly. My outburst was childish and uncalled for. Hoseok and Yoongi reprimanded me, sparing in wolf form. Though I am the bigger out of the two, they always win. Pinning my neck just so. I shall be licking my wounds, physically and emotionally, for a long while. It wasn’t right. I let my emotions win like the terror I am. I am more calm than this. I chastise myself as I emerge from the wood. But still….I cannot help the way I feel!

My mind wanders to her lashes, her voice, the way she is soft, yet powerful. She is full of potential, a most excellent queen if she only opened her eyes a little more. Does she see that we hang on her every whim? Her every desire? If only she just picks one of us…What we wouldn’t do for her…

I find her in my study an hour after dinner should have dispersed. She has fallen asleep reading a book about wolves in my favorite red velvet armchair. I give a soft snort as I stalk closer to her quietly as not to disturb her. Her chest softly rises and falls, her cheeks flushed with sleep.

Stooping down, I inhale her scent from the top of her head. Fresh elderberry and sunflower. How badly I want to mark her. How badly I want to rub my face against her neck, tilting her head back, watching her gasp, swallowing saliva down her throat, and scent her vulnerable jugular. My amber eyes lock into her flesh as her head was tilted to the side, exposing her veins. What would it feel like? To run my lips across her flesh, feeling her pulse throb, the sharp inhale of her nostrils, the moan that escapes her breathless lips…

What would it feel like to sink his sharp wolf fangs into her, feeling the life drain from her? The blood ooze from the puncture wounds, her organs fail trapped inside her withering, frail body? To see the light leave her eyes?

Enough with these thoughts.

I scoop her up swiftly as if she was but a babe or a rag-doll and take her to her room, calling upon the maid named Paisley to undress her and prepare her for slumber.

His ears prick as she stirs. “Thank you, Namjoon.” She mumbles quietly. I don’t say a word. I shed my human form once I get to the edge of the wood. I give a cry to let the others know I will not be back this eve and only Jungkook responds.

Hyung, be safe.

It is not him the brothers should be worried about. The thing they need to worry about is safe in the castle—for the night.

———-

In my dreams that night, I am led by seven different colored wolves to a brightly colored carousel. The wolves are all friendly, large, and each smelt rather different from each other. Their fur is soft and exquisite, I run my hands across the canines as they rub their heads against mine. In my wonder, I wish to ride them, but I refrain. Their amber eyes glow with knowledge behind them and they grin wolffish, cunning smiles, revealing their sparkling, pearly fangs. They whine and pant and yip as they lead me up to the shimmering, merry fair ride in the middle of the wood.

They each jump on the slow moving platform, following some pattern, transforming into seven men in waist jackets, complete with top hats and masquerade masks upon their faces. I can’t help but feel like I know them. They call you with their howls, beckoning me with items in their hands: books, foods, flowers, sheet music, paintings, dancing shoes, and gloves. Do I know them like this? Do I want to?

Everything echoes in this space. I suddenly feel like I am suffocating, it is hard to breathe as they try to pull me onto the platform, but I pull away. I made a mistake and I need to flee. I am in danger.

I turn to go. The wolf men growl in warning and I freeze. My blood is ice, my pulse is in my ears, and I feel the seven sets of eyes upon me like they are going to gobble me up. I am prey!

WE WILL KEEP YOU SAFE. YOU ARE OURS. YOU ARE MINE! They cry in unison, an awful noise like they are wounded, shot animals.

The wolf-men lunge at me, their bodies piling on top of me, covering me as they growl and whine and snarl. Gnashing teeth and hungry claws tear me limb from limb as they pull me apart, ripping the pink muscles away under my flesh. My blood is pooling around me as I lie paralyzed in my own sticky, red mess or hair and skin, and organs.

A scream rips through my throat.

Two large, amber eyes glimmer at me from the end of my bed as a giant black wolf lays near my feet, its head slightly cocked to the side, its ears perked at attention. I faint from the frightening sight and my mind plummets back into darkness once more.

———

Part Two And A Half l Part Four

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exitpursuedbyavulcan · 2 years

Text

The Silver Dragon (37/?)

Pairing: Aemond Targaryen x Original Female Character

Word Count: 2666

Story Summary: Lady Arianwyn Targaryen, the Lady of Runestone, was seeded by her father, the Rogue Prince Daemon Targaryen, in an act of unbridled hatred, and borne of her mother, the late Lady Rhea Royce, as a desperate grasp at revenge.

Ignored by her father, and alone following the death of her mother, she is raised in King’s Landing alongside her cousin, Prince Aemond Targaryen. As they grow, the two find themselves indelibly bonded. But their lives are far from the fairy tales they read, and as tensions in the family rise, they find their paths may diverge.

Will they be pulled apart when the dragons dance?

Chapter Summary: Chaos erupts at the coronation and Princess Rhaenys, mounted on her dragon, Meleys, bursts from beneath the floor of the Dragonpit.

Warnings: none

Series Masterlist

Taglist: @thelittleswanao3 @trap-house-homiecide @50svibes @literishdegree99 @dc-marvel-girl96 @henriettadreaming @multiple-fandoms-girl @gyuxmilk @somemydayy @kittykylax @whore-of-many-hot-men @slavicvvitch @crazymusicgirl104

(Please let me know if your tag isn't working, and I'll do my best to correct it! And if you would like to be added to the list, just shoot me an ask!)

Author's Note: I know this one was a little bit short, but I hope y'all enjoyed it still!

And I forgot to mention this on the last chapter, and although I edited it in later, I'll still mention it again: The first Daemon POV is up! It's posted under the title "Silver Dragon Stories." That unfortunately won't be updated as often as this, but I am trying to keep it in chronological order. Please let me know if there are any POVs y'all are really interested in!

The Beast Beneath the Boards

Arianwyn had never seen anyone move so fast as Aemond did to protect her from the eruption of dust and stone that came from within the Dragonpit itself. He pulled her back with the hand he still held, away from the wave of debris as he turned to wrap his arms around her, tucking her head into his chest as he shielded her with his body.

Even still, the dust made its way through, and she began to cough. Just as she had in the tunnel at Driftmark.

The sound sent Aemond into a panic. This couldn’t be happening. Not again. He pulled away and took her face in his hands. “Aria!” he called, brushing her hair from her brow. “Aria, you have to breathe. Please!”

She took a shaky breath, coughing again as she exhaled. His blood boiled with fury, but before he could react, her eyes grew wide, and she pointed over his shoulder. “Aemond, look!”

Then he turned, and he saw.

The floor of the Dragonpit had been broken from below, scattering great hunks of stone into the helpless crowd. Light streamed through the dust that still hung in the air like a storm, casting a gleaming gold around the shape of the great red beast before them.

Meleys.

The dragon roared, the sound drowning out all the screams – from the onlookers in the stands who could do nothing but watch to the poor, helpless souls trapped in the arena with the ‘Red Queen.’

A gasp came from their left, and a hand wrapped around Arianwyn’s arm.

It was Helaena, leaning in to take shelter behind her brother. Her violet eyes were wide but not with terror. No, the familiar fog that Arianwyn was beginning to find even more terrifying than what was before them had once more taken root.

She opened her mouth to speak some frightening new prophecy. Yes, Arianwyn thought, that’s what they were – prophecies. But a new roar filled the Dragonpit, scattering the dust and sending Helaena’s hands flying to cover her ears.

Aemond’s hand shifted around Arianwyn’s waist as he held her in place while he turned to face the beast before them. “Stay back, my love,” he whispered, his voice somehow cutting through the din as he moved his hand to the hilt of his sword.

They both watched in horror as Meleys swept her tail through the crowd, throwing some men dozens of feet through the air while others fell into the dragon dens below. Those that had thus far evaded the dragon ran anywhere they could – to the walls of the arena, the dozens of alcoves surrounding it, or to the only open door on the eastern wall, the same one they had been forced through not long before.

Arianwyn prayed the dust would never settle, so she would not have to see the bodies that now doubtlessly lay strewn across the sand of this place she loved so dearly.

And though it was hopeless, she prayed that the figure atop the dragon was somehow not its sworn rider.

But there she emerged from the settling sand. Princess Rhaenys.

Arianwyn pressed her forehead into Aemond’s back as she squeezed her eyes shut. Perhaps when she opened them again, she would wake from this nightmare.

She had seen her cousin only the day before. Though their conversation had not been pleasant, by any definition of the word, she thought they had come to an understanding.

“Daemon could not be King.”

Surely Rhaenys agreed. She knew Daemon had killed Rhea. That he had all but killed Laena by denying her the home she so desperately wanted. That he had conspired with that soldier to kill Laenor and free himself to marry Rhaenyra.

It had been Rhaenys who showed Arianwyn the secret passages of the Red Keep. Who begged her to use them, to run as far as she could from her father. And it was she who had been glad when she disobeyed and married Aemond.

Yet Arianwyn could not deny what was before her eyes.

Otto began bellowing for the gold cloaks to open the bronze doors of the Dragonpit, though whether they could hear him over the screams of the fleeing crowd was doubtful.

Meleys took a lumbering step toward the dais. Rhaenys sat proudly astride her dragon, clad in armor the same blood red as Meleys’ scales. With cold eyes, she surveyed all those atop the dais.

The Septons and Septas cowered, clutching their holy relics.

The Hand stood tall. But, for the first time that Arianwyn had ever seen, he had fear in his eyes.

Ser Criston Cole stared in awe as he was pushed toward Helaena. All his training and discipline disappeared as he stared into the face of an enemy he could not fight.

Alicent, the now Dowager Queen. Who did not cower but ran forward to stand in front of her son, shielding him even when she knew it would do nothing to protect him from dragonfire.

Aegon clung to her as if the thought of dying in his mother’s arms was a comfort, not a tragedy.

The new Queen, Helaena, was not afraid. Instead, she smiled slightly, holding out a hand to calm Meleys as if she were a startled horse who simply needed to hear soothing words, and all would be well.

Rhaenys’ look of detached contemplation only wavered when she turned to Aemond and Arianwyn.

His right hand was on his sword, ready to draw, while his left held her pressed against his back. It was nearly the same stance he had taken only a few days prior, when he held her in his arms in that secluded courtyard after Vaemond Velaryon’s murder.

Just as then, Arianwyn held onto him with all her strength, one hand clutching the side of his waist and the other on his atop the hilt of his blade.

She knew if she removed her hand from his, there would be very little to stop him from attacking. He loved her so much that he would face a dragon armed only with his sword to defend her.

“Aemond…” she whispered, wresting his fingers from his blade and lacing them through her own. He instantly squeezed her hand so hard her breath faltered. She didn’t know what to say. Would these be her last words? The last thing she would ever say, and the last thing he would ever hear?

There was nothing to say. They had already said it all. Their souls were as one, and always would be. As she buried her face in his shoulder with a whimper, she prayed that wherever the gods sent them next, they would be together.

She heard the great intake of breath that always preceded dragonfire and braced herself for what would come next.

Nothing.

No fire. No great jaws closing around them. Not even a roar.

Arianwyn looked back up and locked eyes with her cousin.

Rhaenys did not look like a prisoner or a conqueror. And certainly not like a kinslayer. Rather, she looked sadly upon Arianwyn, then Alicent, the look almost an apology.

Then the Queen Who Never Was turned her dragon away and took flight.

The last thing they saw before the doors slammed shut was Meleys tucking in her wings and emerging into the sunlight.

“Aria? Aria, please open your eyes,” Aemond begged.

To his great relief, she did. It took a moment for her to adjust to the low light, and he watched every movement of her pupils as she did. At least there, he found nothing of concern.

But he was not yet satisfied. He ran his hands over her hair, clearing it of as much dust and sand as he could, feeling for injuries along the way. Nothing there either.

Carefully, he pulled aside her cloak, examining the bruises on her neck. Though the sight still sparked a murderous rage within him, he was comforted that there were no new wounds.

Arianwyn finally seemed to realize what he was doing and held his hands to prevent him from continuing his examination. “I’m fine, Aemond.”

“You couldn’t breathe.”

“What are… of course, I could.”

“You were coughing.”

“There was dust, my love,” she almost laughed as she smiled at him, running her thumb across the back of his hand to calm him. “It was only dust.”

He sighed and nodded, pulling her into his chest. Of course, it had only been dust. He was panicking needlessly, his mind again betraying him as it brought him back to his worst memories.

Arianwyn was safe. She was safe. She was safe.

“Aemond?” she asked quietly.

“Yes?”

She hesitated, then asked tremblingly, “Is it very bad?”

He did not have to ask what she meant.

Helaena still stood with her hands covering her ears, while everyone else on the dais gathered together before the altar. The Hand, the members of the Small Council, the Dowager Queen, and even the new King himself all argued with raised voices about what to do next. Only Cole had abandoned the debate to direct the guards within the Dragonpit.

The Dragonkeepers were already running about the arena as if possessed. Acolytes hurried to light the lanterns lining the walls while the Elders hurried to the dragon dens below. The few guards – gold cloaks and Targaryen house guards alike – slowly began making their way through the rubble, their torches illuminating the broken bodies of the dead and wounded.

Far worse than the sight of the devastation were the sounds that echoed through the Dragonpit. Shrieks of terror. Screams of pain. Cries of grief. Desperate shouts for the doors to be reopened. Even the dragons below had started to stir, disturbed by the frantic emotions that roiled from within their home.

Aemond turned back to his wife, kissing her still dusty hair. “I don’t think you want to look.”

She seemed to agree, until there came a sound he could not identify. A wordless, bleating wail. Arianwyn’s head shot up, looking out into the arena for its source. She moved as soon as she seemed to see it, leaving Aemond to chase after her.

Thankfully, her Runestone guards also spotted her movement and raced from where they had scattered within the Dragonpit to come to her side.

Aemond was nearly entranced. She was singularly focused on whatever had made that sound, stepping over the wounded and dead without ever looking down. He knew her heart must ache with the desire to help every person she passed, but whatever this sound was, it was somehow more important than even that.

She finally stopped before the arena wall, in one of the few places the Acolytes had not yet lit the lanterns. But each of her guards carried a torch, their flames revealing the source of the pitiful sound.

It was the sheep. The same one she had pointed out to him before the coronation began.

Its white wool was covered with dust and spattered with blood. The short fur on its face was entirely red, the stain growing deeper and darker as it continued to push into the bleeding side of the man who had been protecting it earlier.

It was trying to wake him. But there was no hope.

Oh gods, the poor man. A piece of the shattered floor had embedded itself in his chest with such force that he was thrown against the wall, cracking his skull. Aemond prayed that whichever blow had killed him had done so quickly.

Arianwyn fell at the shepherd’s feet, lurching forward as she vomited at the gruesome sight. “I’m so sorry,” she cried, over and over and over again as she was wracked with sobs.

Aemond could not tell whether she was speaking to the shepherd or the sheep. He knelt beside her, guiding her back into his arms. “We can’t stay here, Aria. It’s not safe.”

She shook her head, pulling away from him. “They didn’t want to be here,” she choked out through her tears. “They were forced to come. And now they’re dead. Now he’s alone.”

Her hand was extended towards the sheep, who backed away further into the wall, the rejection causing another sob to pulse through her.

One of her guards – one of the new ones that Aemond did not know – also knelt between them and the sheep on the sand. He had a long, gaunt face and deep-set brown eyes. Had he not been wearing the bronze armor of Runestone, Aemond would have been reluctant to trust him.

The guard looked pensively at Arianwyn’s face, then the sheep. “It is not a ‘he,’ Princess,” he said, his voice softer than his appearance would suggest. “She is a ewe, a female.”

He leaned toward the creature, which did not cower at his outstretched hand. On the contrary, it seemed to calm at his touch, allowing him to run his hand over her ears until he found a small iron stud. He examined it carefully before turning back to the small crowd around him. But his focus was entirely on the Princess.

“She is from a wool herd,” he explained. “A small one, I expect. I would know its brand otherwise.”

“How do you know?” Aemond asked, curious even as he was grateful that the guard had helped to calm Arianwyn.

He seemed surprised the Prince would address him. Lowborn, then. But if Ser Gerold had assigned him to Arianwyn, he had to be good.

“My father has one of the largest herds in the Vale,” he said. “That is, among those not owned by a noble house. I grew up with sheep. They are fine creatures. I actually–”

“Where is the rest of her herd?” Arianwyn asked, still holding her hand out to the sheep. “I don’t want it to be alone, Conin.”

The guard – Ser Conin of the Sheep, apparently – smiled sadly as he turned back the ewe. “That, I cannot say, Princess. I can try to find them, but if this is their shepherd…” he looked again to the corpse of the man before them.

Aemond said a prayer for the shepherd’s soul. He did not know his name or anything about him other than that he had valiantly protected his sheep from the surging crown. Still, that was enough to admire him.

He finished his prayer and pulled Arianwyn closer. She did not fight him this time.

“Please find them,” she commanded with a whisper. “Find out who he was and if he has any family. Make sure they are compensated for this loss. Generously.”

“Yes, Princess,” Conin said before standing to speak in hushed tones with another Runestone knight.

Arianwyn stood, with Aemond’s hand to keep her steady, and began walking back to the dais. This time, she saw the devastation before them and leaned heavily into him as they made their way through the bodies. He knew if he pulled his arms from around her, she would be unable to stop herself from trying to help each person she saw.

He never let go of her. Not as he led her up the stairs, nor as he embraced Helaena as they passed her by, nor as they took their place within the debate that was still raging. Even when they returned to their carriage – the Kingsguard had insisted the discussion continue in the safety of the Red Keep’s walls – he held onto her, sitting by her side rather than across from her.

Yesterday, she had stayed with him even as his mind carried him far away. He knew he would never be able to do the same for her – she was stronger than he was, she would never be so broken as him. But whenever she did need him, whether it be to dry her tears or hold her when she cried, he would be there.

Even if it meant fighting a dragon, or kneeling in the sand with her while she cried over a bloody sheep.

Next Chapter

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putwerewolvesindbd · 4 months

Text

anniversary stream notes

twitch drops again. oh boy. until may 28th.

announcing new dbd game. what the fog is a co-op roguelite which you can get for free if you have a behavior account for a limited time

year 9 roadmap announced, including:

addressing rubberbanding issue, hopefully in the current ptb

six new chapters, some survivor-only:

june is the dnd chapter

july is a licensed survivor

august licensed killer & survivor duo

december original killer & survivor

march '25 licensed killer-only

april '25 original survivor-only

modifiers in july and september

special event-specific queues so you can play vanilla dbd if you like

adding new game mode in summer, 2v8 mode. has bigger maps, replaces perks with classes. no hooks, uses pyramid head's cages. can only choose from 5 original killers, but plan to add more if it goes over well. killers cannot both play the same killer.

more dlc bundle packs

new challenge system, can complete passively without having to select them & can do multiple at once

inbox system to remove news popups while still conveying announcements

finisher mori changes- basekit but can only use on last remaining survivor. mori offerings changed to just offer bp for finisher moris

cross-progression coming later this summer between console and pc dbd

expansion for the dbd board game, bringing in original characters up to knight

dnd chapter:

killer is vecna. he casts spells. survivors can pick up magic items from chests, specific contents determined by roll of d20. voiced by matt mercer.

killer perk: weave attunement. first time an item is depleted, survivor drops item. survivors in range of the dropped item have auras revealed. survivor who picks up item is oblivious.

killer perk: languid touch. if a survivor scares a crow within the terror radius they're exhausted

killer perk: dark arrogance. killer is blinded and stunned for longer but gain faster vault speed

survivor is aestri yazar. like legion, can play a different character with cosmetics, baermar uraz

survivor perk: mirrored illusion. after finishing a generator, can press ability button near a generator, chest, totem, or exit gate to conjure and illusion

survivor perk: bardic inspiration. do a performance around other survivors with different results depending on the roll of a d20.

survivor perk: still sight. stand still for a bit to see auras of generators, totems, and chests

[shoutout to dvveet on twitter who posted graphics with the perk details! they did not tell us on stream]

new map is a dungeon

new mechanic- passage. magic teleport doors

casting of frank stone updates: it's a game that exists. new trailer.

some bits from the unnamed pve game by midwinter was shown. given codename "project t." play as trespassers in the backwater, fight thralls, shoot them with guns. maybe drive trucks.

anniversary event masquerade details:

pre-masquerade login events with outfits + currency boosts each week

mad designer makes an appearance. not a playable character. will show up in trials with bag of tricks. will give players abilities at start & after certain "points" are accumulated, with up to 5 tricks in play per match.

do not have to escape with invitations to get cosmetics. cosmetics connected to even currency. can also get older masks in the store

new masks for: clown, doctor, hag, plague, skull merchant, twins, adam francis, kate denson, renato lyra, david tapp, thalita lyra, yun-jin lee

survivors can use invitations to go into quiet mode and not make noise. killers can use them to immediately send downed survivors to a hook

outfits for the unknown, bill overbeck, and the pig

dbd 7-piece dice set up for pre-order

CASTLEVANIA CONFIRMED

#dead by daylight

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beewolfwrites · 2 years

Text

The Oar in the Sand - Chapter Twenty: Negotiation

Girlboss! Girlboss! Girlboss!

Hope you all enjoy it :)

As always, the AO3 link is here for anyone who wants it.

_______________________________________________

The darkness settled like a thick fog, comforting yet suffocating. Aside from the faint scuffles and voices from back in the guardroom, the cell was silent. As my eyes adjusted to the thin beams of light filtering through the mesh window, I began to make out the outline of the sink and the toilet.

How did I end up here, in this cell? In this prison?

In this world?

Perhaps I had done something wrong in my previous life, committed such irreparable damage that even God wanted to sentence me. And now here I was, emerged in this darkness. Emerged in my own failure. It was all too much. These games, seeing death at every turn and constantly wondering whether it would be my turn next. The confidence I had felt after arriving here and winning my first few games had burned away with the Beach, long since ashes by now. All I had left was this darkness. And a failing relationship with a man who couldn’t even understand the concept of love.

My fingers found my right hand, craving comfort from the ring that I always wore, only to discover that it was gone.

What? My ring!

I patted down my pockets, scrabbling to find the only thing I had left in this world. And then I remembered. I had taken it off right after my argument with Chishiya back in the furniture store. It felt like such a long time ago. That day I had been so angry with him, and I placed it on the bedside table so that I didn’t lose it. The next morning, when I had found him missing from our bed, I was so scared he had joined a Diamonds game that I rushed out without a second thought to find him.

I never put it back on.

How had I not realised until now? Chishiya surely had. Nothing escaped him. He must have thought I was a terrible person, forgetting the one gift he gave to me. Cold tears rolled down my cheeks, dripping into my lap.

Nothing I did was right. I had never been more wrong.

‘What’s happening to me?’ I tried to hold back the sobs, but it was impossible. ‘I can’t do this anymore.’

My face sank into my palms, and I only wished I could hide from my own mistakes. But I only thought of this game, how I had been left alone, surrounded by betrayal. I no longer cared if the others could hear me weeping loudly. Why should it matter when I would be dead within the hour? Time had become lost in this cell, and my life was careening towards death with every second that pass—

A drip landed on the back of my neck.

The wetness pooled, trickling down my shoulder blade. And then there was another drip, this time sticky against my skin. I lifted my head slowly towards the ceiling. A dark, oozing liquid dribbled over my chin and neck, and although I could taste a metallic tang on my lips, I was unable to tear my eyes away.

The teenage girl. Suspended from the ceiling, her hair fanned around her face like a willow, each strand stringy with crusted blood. Her jaw had dropped in an O of terror, fresh blood dripping from the cavern of her mouth. And her eyes, bloodshot and weeping, had one singular focus.

Me.

A scream erupted from my throat as I stared, stared, stared, unable to shake the weight of her gaze. Then she dropped, her body limp and falling down ever closer towards me. I drew my knees to my chest, hiding my face and clamping my jittering hands over my ears.

Stop! Leave me alone!

My fingers twisted in my hair, pulling at the roots. I focused only on the pain.

It’s not real it’s not real it’s not real it’s not real…

And then silence.

She was silenced. I had silenced her. After a few beats of quiet, I finally raised my head. The ceiling was a dark plane of bare concrete. She was gone. My heart shuddered, my breath shallow as I tried to shake away the ghost of my crimes. I coughed and wiped the tears from my face with the back of my palms.

She’s gone. Don’t keep looking.

I stood and felt around for the sink, using the bowl to pull myself upright. Splashing cool water on my face helped a little, washing away the reality of it even if I could still feel that drip, drip, drip. My shaking fingers clutched the bowl as I plugged the drain and let it fill up. I stared into the water at the black outline of my reflection. It couldn’t have been real. This was no different to what had happened in the bathroom at the furniture store. It was a mirror of my own guilt. I murmured the same thoughts over and over like a mantra, lulling myself into a steady calm.

I need to think clearly.

That girl’s death wasn’t for nothing. It was for my own survival, and even if my heart was still in shock and my body was close to giving up, the least I could do was make sure her death wasn’t in vain.

I need to do this. I need to survive, for her sake and mine.

Clearly, I couldn’t depend on Chishiya to deliver. Nor did I want to. No, this time I had to come up with my own solution. But what?

The water in the sink glistened in the dim light from the mesh window. Perhaps I could harness it and create a pinhole camera? I looked between the light and the water, and my heart sank. Of course it wouldn’t be possible; the angles just weren’t right for a pinhole camera.

So what else do I have?

I looked up, noticing the glint of the blown lightbulb. If I were to smash it, take a shard and angle it right over the sink, there was a chance I could see the suit in the water. However…

‘PROHIBITED ACTIVITIES - USING REFLECTIVE OBJECTS TO SEE YOUR SUIT.’

Any hope I had vanished a little. The rules had been crystal clear, meaning using the lightbulb to reflect my suit was totally out of the picture. Despite the lack of light, the water created ripples on the ceiling. Maybe if I leant backwards slightly over the sink, I could…

No. I would just block out the light.

But there had to be something. I couldn’t just give up and wait for death to take me.

I thought back over the game, the setting, the rules, each of the players. Right from the start, everything had fallen into place for the Jack; the group had broken down, pairs had turned against one another, and right before I was forced in this cell, I had noticed that Urumi and the old man had disappeared too. They must have been eliminated in the previous round. That narrowed down the suspects nicely. And what else had happened so far? I was in a partnership with Banda and Enji, and Chishiya had communicated with me through cookies…

Cookies.

Cookies!

All at once, it hit me. The one detail I had missed, and it had been right under my nose this entire time. Even the way my partners suddenly turned on me, the timing of their routines… It was all so clear now, so obvious. I couldn’t help but laugh, wondering why I hadn’t noticed it sooner.

This information… I would have to use it to my advantage if I wanted to get out of this place alive and breathing. In my head, I ran through everything I knew so far, deciding how best to use this knowledge. I wouldn’t have much time left, after all. If my hunch was right, he would be coming to visit me soon. All I had to do was wait.

So, I waited. Sitting in the darkness of my cell, I mentally rehearsed my Japanese, working out several scripted sentences to ensure I didn’t mess up. I stared up at the tiny window of the door, waiting and waiting, knowing for certain that he would appear eventually.

He has to.

And sure enough, it must have been fifteen - no, twenty - minutes later when footsteps sounded down the cell block, growing louder and louder. I stood up, waiting by the door until a familiar face appeared through the small window. He spied me immediately.

‘Banda.’

His eyes never failed to make me shiver. ‘You were expecting me.’

I didn’t feel confident in my Japanese whatsoever, but even if I messed up some of my tenses, the meaning would come across. So long as I stuck to small sentences, I would be okay.

‘I had a feeling you would visit me before the end of the round,’ I said.

After a few moments silence, he mused, ‘It’s funny, the others were all so focused on you, they never questioned the fact that we lied to you about your suit. Fear truly has the power to blind people. You must think I’m the Jack.’

His words were chilling. And how he spoke in that low, steady tone, as if he thrived on the panic and pandemonium of this game… I had to swallow my fear.

‘I know you’re not the Jack, even if you did lie to me.’

‘What makes you say that?’

‘Because for some reason,’ I said, ‘you want me alive. I’m not sure why, but we both know it’s true.’

‘I see.’ For the first time, his eyes glinted with a cold amusement. ‘But even if you’re telling the truth and you’re not the Jack, who’s to say you’re not one of these citizens? You’re the only one in this game who doesn’t quite fit in with the others, and not just because you’re a foreigner. Perhaps I want you alive because it could be fun to extract information about this world.’

I tried keep a poker face. It wasn’t difficult to read between the lines. If the deadness of his expression was anything to go by, he probably relished the thought of torture. Steeling myself, I replied, ‘It’s an interesting idea, but I’m not a citizen.’

‘So then,’ he said. ‘If you’re not a citizen, and you’re not the Jack, then why should I bother keeping you alive?’

And here it was, my final solution. My bargain.

‘Because I know who the Jack is.’

Something shifted in his demeanour. It was so brief, I could have easily missed it. But it meant that I had caught him off guard. In other words, Banda had not yet worked out the Jack’s identity. The advantage was mine.

‘That’s not all,’ I continued. ‘I know about your secret partnership with Yaba-san.’

Banda smirked softly. ‘I don’t have a secret partnership with Yaba.’

‘Yes, you do.’ I stepped closer to the window until I was eye to eye with Banda. ‘And you should know, the Jack is targeting him.’

He was silent for several long seconds. I could see him thinking this over, trying to work out whether I was telling the truth or lying to his face. However, he didn’t have a choice but to listen to me. Yaba was his failsafe, his backup plan just in case Enji lied to him. And without me there as a partner, he couldn’t lose Yaba. If he allowed me to die, the Jack would target Yaba and Banda would be left without a failsafe. Likewise, if he walked away now and allowed the Jack to kill Yaba, he would have to keep me alive as his backup partner.

‘How did you find out that we were partners?’ Banda asked quietly.

I shook my head. I needed something tangible in return. ‘Give me my suit first.’

‘No.’

‘Give me my suit first,’ I insisted firmly, ‘and then I’ll tell you.’

He huffed lightly, a slight smile creeping over his lips. ‘You’re a difficult woman,’ he said. ‘Turn around.’

Yes!

I turned on my heel and pulled my hair back, showing him my collar.

‘Spade.’

Shifting my hair back into place and facing him once more, I finally answered his question, speaking slowly to avoid stumbling over the tricky pronunciations and unpracticed words.

‘I noticed it right from the start,’ I said. ‘Every time you went to the bathroom, I ran into Kotoko alone. If she was alone, that meant Yaba must have been in the bathroom too. He never leaves her side, and I’m pretty sure she’s not allowed to talk with anybody else.’

Banda nodded slowly. ‘That’s fascinating. But you still haven’t told me who the Jack is, or how exactly they’re targeting Yaba.’

I shook my head once more. ‘I’ll tell you. Just not right now.’

Banda stepped even closer to the window and his dark eyes bored into mine, searching for something. I held my gaze, unwilling to back down. I wouldn’t let him control this bargain. I wouldn’t let him control me.

‘THE HOUR IS ALMOST OVER. PLEASE MAKE YOUR WAY TO THE CELLS.’

Banda ignored the announcement, holding steady. It seemed as though we were at a stalemate, until he finally sighed softly.

‘You will tell me in the next round,’ he said. Then backing away from the door, he left.

I released a long breath. Although he wasn’t a gangster, or even brawny like Aguni was, Banda was intimidating in his own right. God only knew what he wanted with me, but that didn’t matter right now. So long as he needed me alive, I could use this to my advantage.

As I paced back and forth in my cell, attempting to shake off this nervous energy, a new shadow suddenly blocked the light from the window.

‘Is it true that you might be the Jack?’

The familiar husk stirred something within me, but after everything that had happened in this game, I felt nothing but animosity. I turned, seeing Chishiya’s sly smirk and wishing I could slap it right off his face. It took all my strength and inner peace not to scream at him right here and now. It wouldn’t do me any favours.

‘I’m not the Jack,’ I said, playing my role perfectly, just as Headband and Glasses ushered by the cell, glancing nervously between Chishiya and me.

‘Hmm.’ He tilted his head with that same knowing expression. ‘If you’re not the Jack of Hearts, then you must be one of the other citizens. The Jack of Spades, perhaps?’

Although it was useful having Chishiya around to confirm my suit, I really, really didn’t want his input.

‘Whatever,’ I muttered. ‘Just leave me alone.’

‘IT IS TIME TO MAKE YOUR GUESS. EVERYONE, PLEASE ENTER A CELL. ONE PERSON PER CELL, PLEASE.’

Chishiya gave me a pointed look. There was no need. His secret message was already well-received, and I didn’t need him looking down on me like this. It only hurt more.

All I could bring myself to say to him was, ‘Please look after Ippei. Don’t sacrifice him.’

Chishiya looked vaguely amused by the notion. And without even humouring me with a reply, he left to find an empty cell.

It was one thing stabbing me in the back, but Ippei didn’t deserve to be used that way. Even though I had only met him briefly, I had already seen the pure goodness in him. He deserved to win, to go home and enjoy the freedom of the city and the sun on his face.

I leaned against the sink, waiting patiently.

‘PLEASE MAKE YOUR GUESS.’

It was a comfort, knowing that I was going to survive at least this round.

‘スペード,’ I said. Spade.

Waiting in the dark was so much more surreal, but sure enough, the buzzer sounded before long. The lock made a grating noise, revealing that something was blocking it from the outside. Just to make sure, I tested the door handle. As expected, it was still locked. However, I heard the creaks of other cells and whispers as the other players stepped out and examined their surroundings. Peering though the window in the door, I could see Yaba, Kotoko, Banda, Enji, Chishiya and Ippei.

So Glasses and Headband?

They must have lied to one another. Now that they were out of the picture, it wouldn’t be long until the Jack made a move. Eventually, once the game had whittled down to just a few strong partnerships, he would have to go on the offensive in order to end the game.

But there was nothing I could do right now. All I could do was wait until Banda’s return. Time had no place in this dark cell, but I was already running out of it.

#alice in borderland #chishiya #chishiya shuntaro #aib #Imawa no Kuni no Arisu #Chishiya x reader #chishiya x oc

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