#he’s been abused and assaulted and tortured and mutilated | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

naomikozura · 3 months ago

Text

Loss of My Life: Final Part

Heian Era! True Form! Ryomen Sukuna x Sorcerer!Fem!Reader

A/N: I was listening to Ptolemaea by Ethel Cain and the climax of this chapter pairs up so well with the entirety of that song. You’ll see once it gets towards the middle/end of the chapter but I highly recommend listening to that song bc it’s so good and haunting.

This chapter shows INTENSE GRUESOME SCENES including torture, child death/murder (mentioned but not in detail), abuse, gore, massacre of a family, burning buildings and so much more!!! This is a DARK THEME story, it is meant as a work of FICTION and its 18+ ONLY MDNI!!!!

I am not responsible if you feel uncomfortable since you have been warned about the trigger warnings since the beginning! This is a work of FICTION so continue at your own risk!!

Warnings: INSTENSE SCENES, strong language, violence, mention of mass murder, generational trauma, complicated family dynamics, family abuse, murder, emotional turmoil and abuse, sadistic tendencies, corruption of power, dark themes, burning down villages, murder, masochistic tendencies, forced drowning, mutilated bodies, sadistic behavior, bodily harm, mentions of blood, child murder (brief), torture, psychological torture, assassination, drugging, inebriation, physical assault, gore, mentions of guts, angst no comfort,

WC: 12K

Series Masterlist

Part 3

There were many things within the realm that were believed to be for the better of the jujutsu world, many things that the Four families were able to provide for the rest of the realm. Power, protection, resources, and stability. There hadn’t been any of that before the Four became established and marked off the territories that they would reign over for the past few decades. When Sukuna had risen through the realm and word of his power spread across all territories, that promise of protection and stability slowly started to wither away.

He’d sent his destruction into every village he burned and tortured every one who held cursed energy in order for him to absorb it and gain more power. It had given him the reputation that led to his now wicked presence, a presence so overwhelming that even the sorcerers in the Four exercised caution around him. Anything demanded by him would always be met with compliance and if anyone refused, he’d easily exterminate them and absorb his energy, growing his power and solidifying his claim further.

So, when he asked for your hand, your father had no choice but to comply. Your marriage taking place in front of the entirety of the Four and the representatives of the realm. It was a testament of your position by his side, something he believed would ultimately give you the power and claim to keep the foolish sorcerers from threatening you.

You had stayed under his protection, living freely in his territory and becoming one as sorcerers and as divine souls. Even his followers started to see you as the queen to his claim, the perfect position next to their king.

Your influence shifted everything, word of your change had reached the very corners of the Four territories. You were held to a higher regard next to Sukuna than you had ever been considered within your family. Your family had also gained more power due to your marriage with the King of Curses. They were more revered, feared, respected, putting them in the ranks of power next to the Gojo’s and surpassing the Zen’in.

The Zen’in had taken the blow significantly, their anger spiraling as they tried to regain their position in the realm. It seemed as though they were further from power than ever, and all due to the power of your influence as the realm’s Princess of Peace. Even in Sukuna’s presence, you were the embodiment of peace regardless of the dark corners you had hidden in your soul.

You were careful in your position, continuing to visit your family and meeting with the leaders of the other families to talk over political claim. The clans knew that anything against Sukuna was forbidden, but you assumed your position to keep the realm free from war. You had brought in a time of peace, leaving the villages and territories under tranquility within the Four’s territories. Even Sukuna had extended himself to go beyond the clan territory for his absorption of energy.

The Four Families were in a moment of peace thanks to you. Sukuna passed over them in disregard as he moved through the realm to absorb energy elsewhere.

You were with your family again today, meeting them in strategy to keep the villages safe from the imposing threat of thieves that had been spiking in numbers throughout the realm. Your father still held his reservations, but deep down you knew this was in favor of his life and your family’s more than anything.

As the meeting concluded, you found Uraume waiting outside, smiling at her as you walked in step with her to head towards your home. She had been dedicated to your protection since Sukuna had found cursed residue in the territory near your home. He’d already put a bike over your home, hiding your energy and his but still there were remnants of cursed users near the territory where you resided.

It wasn’t uncommon for sorcerers to go after Sukuna, but with the reports of thieves raiding nearby villages, he preferred sending Uraume with you on your runs. She was a devoted follower and when you had married Sukuna, she became devoted to you as well. She was strong and knew that fulfilling her duty of protecting you was of most importance. So when you went back home, she escorted you. When you went out to the villages who didn’t know who you were outside of the clan’s territories, she followed.

As the both of you walked through the woods, the sound of crows above you sounded out. Your head turned towards the trees, looking at the small black birds, four of them perched perfectly on the branches as they watched you and Uraume walk through the woods. You cocked your head slightly, feeling an odd sensation that something was not quite right, but you shrugged it off and continued walking as you reached the village in the outskirts of town. It was quiet, tranquil and seemed to bustle with calmness as people walked through the small market area.

You observed the people moving about with a calm, almost mechanical grace. Their interactions were polite but a strange feeling filled the air as you walked through the booths. The market stalls were filled with traditional items: beautifully crafted pottery, delicate silks, and intricate wooden carvings. It wasn’t often you’d come out to see these kinds of things but the rare moments would mean a lot to you.

As you walked through, you noticed a woman at a stall selling ornate pendants. They were beautifully crafted, each adorned with symbols and designs that seemed to pulse with a strange energy. One in particular caught your eye. It was a pendant with an intricate design that seemed to shift subtly in the light, featuring a depiction of a shinigami—a dark spirit that many jujutsu sorcerers disregarded, but a shift in the color made you uneasy.

As you tried to reach for the pendant, Uraume’s urgent voice cut through your thoughts. “We need to go,” she said, her eyes observing everyone closely, the distrust obvious in her tone.

“What’s wrong?”, you whispered, turning towards her fully as she grasped your hand gently, pulling you out of the market and back towards the woods. “Uraume”, you pressed.

“There was undetected energy there, my job is to keep you out of harm's way and if I can’t detect the energy, I will not let us stay there any longer.”, she answered as the two of you moved through the woods. You clenched your jaw, following closely behind her as you went back home.

The walk home was quiet, Uraume filled with a perceptiveness that left her looking over every tiny thing she felt was strange or off putting. She was tasked to protect you and she would follow Sukuna’s orders to her death, she was one of his many loyal followers, but definitely his most trusted.

When you reached home, you met Sukuna inside, his arms wrapped around you as he stepped out with Uraume for a moment as you changed out of your clothes.

“There was residual energy in the town we’d visited. I made sure we got out of there as fast as possible.”, she filled him in, the hum leaving his throat filled with contemplation.

“There were residuals a few miles from here too.”, he muttered. “It’ll be in best interest to lower a shield over the home.”

Uraume nodded as she finished filling him in, Sukuna dismissing her as he went inside to be with you. He took in your form in a different pair of clothes as you walked over to him, placing your head on his chest as you breathed him in.

“Hey.”, you whispered as you looked up at him. He leaned down, his lips capturing yours as you smiled into the kiss. “How was your patrol?”

“It was fine.”, he muttered, his hands grabbing your body gently to be flush against his. “There was something out in the woods a couple of miles outside the territory. Energy residuals.”

You scrunch your eyebrows, looking at him confused. “Energy residuals?”

“Just another lowlife sorcerer probably trying to get my attention for something.”, he muttered, his energy spiraling in annoyance. “It’ll be taken care of. I’ll put a shield over the home. They won’t come near you.”, he placed a gentle kiss on the curve of your neck.

“You worry a lot, you know that right?”, you looked at him with worry. “You need to rest. You’re going to tire yourself out if you keep staying out all night and morning.”

“I’ll be fine.”, he whispered, his body morphing into his true form and lifting you into his arms. “So long as you’re safe.”

You ran a hand through his hair, his eyes closing to bask in your touch as he carried you to your bedroom. His body hovering over yours as he kissed your neck, your soft laughs turning into gentle moans, moving his way from your lips down to your core. There was nothing Sukuna loved more than pleasuring his wife, he could spend all day doing this.

Indulging in you was something he’d grown addicted to, something he would never tire of. You were music to his ears and the queen of his realm. You were his everything in every way.

He’d do anything for you, even spend all day in bed pleasing you.

Sukuna’s night patrol had been unusually unsettling over the past few days. The residual energy he had picked up on his patrols was different from the usual lingering traces of curses. It had a peculiar, almost faintly familiar signature, and it was closer to your home than he would have liked. As he made his way back, his mind was clouded with suspicion.

He arrived home to find Uraume waiting for him, her expression unreadable but attentive. Without wasting time, Sukuna filled her in on the residual energy and his suspicion as to why it was getting closer to your territory.

“I found more,” Sukuna began, his tone serious. “It’s getting closer. I want you to keep a close eye on Y/n. Don't leave her side when I'm not here."

Uraume nodded, her eyes sharp with understanding. “Of course."

Sukuna moved through the corridors of his home, his steps echoing with a sense of urgency. He found you sitting on the floor witha bucket of water in front of you, your back turned as you scrubbed at a stubborn stain on some clothes. The sight of you, immersed in your task, brought a slight calm to his thoughts.

You looked up as Sukuna entered, his presence filling the room with that familiar warmth you loved. “Everything okay?” you asked, sensing something different in his demeanor.

Sukuna’s gaze softened as he approached you. “I need to talk to you,” he said, his voice gentle. “There's been residual energy found in the outer territories. It's been getting closer to the house.”

He flexed his jaw, contemplating the situation as he continued. "I need you to let me feel your energy anytime we aren't together. I already have Uraume on watch when I'm on patrol."

You met his eyes, understanding the gravity of his words. His concern was evident, and you could see how it weighed on him. You stepped closer, your heart aching with empathy for his worry.

“Okay, I will,” you said softly.

Without a second thought, you leaned in and pressed a tender kiss to his lips. It was a gentle, reassuring gesture, meant to soothe his concern. Sukuna’s lips responded after a brief moment, deepening the kiss, letting the contact ground him and momentarily ease his tension.

When you finally pulled back, Sukuna’s expression was softer, the lines of worry easing just a bit. He placed a hand on your cheek, his thumb brushing against your skin with a rare tenderness.

“Be careful,” he murmured, his voice barely above a whisper. “I’ll be watching over you too.”

You nodded, a reassuring smile on your lips. “I know.”

Sukuna gave a small, appreciative nod before turning to leave, his mind still alert. Uraume’s watchful presence would ensure your safety, and the connection between you two was a bond that couldn’t easily be broken.

As he stepped out, a renewed sense of vigilance accompanied him. You were his priority, your safety was above all else. As he moved through the woods, the felt your energy whirl around him, the connection easing the tension in his shoulders as he continued through the night.

One Week Later

The evening was warm, filled with the sound of birds chirping outside and the evening sun setting the perfect scene for the events that your family had planned. You were in the midst of preparing for the evening when Sukuna found you in your shared bedroom. You watched him as he admired your form, his energy swirling into admiration and lust.

“My family is having dinner tonight, all of our clan will be there”, you whispered as you pinned your hair up, a soft smile aimed towards him as you used the reflection from the glass to look at your appearance.

Sukuna stepped closer, his presence radiating a mix of curiosity and subtle tension.

“I’ve been tracking down some unusual residual energy,” he murmured, his voice soft as he placed another kiss on your shoulder. “I've followed it to a village in the outskirts of the clan lands”.

He had been out late the past week tracking down the source of the residuals in your territory, leaving you with Uraume more often than not, and him staying out late as he tried to find the source. You knew his concern was keeping you safe. You had become a target since you married him, but even with the risks, you wouldn't change your position for anything in the world.

“Is there a special occasion?”, he came up behind you, his face burying into the crook of your neck, placing a gentle kiss on the smooth skin. You loved the way he kissed you, it was gentle and full of emotion. It gave you a sense of peace.

“The celebration of our family name. There’s usually a whole week of celebration, tonight is just dinner”, you smiled up at him, turning your head and meeting his lips in a gentle kiss. “I shouldn’t be back later than midnight”

He trusted your word, after all, he could sense your energy anywhere but a flicker of worry still lived inside of him. With everything happening in your territories, he felt on edge.

“I’ll be in the west,” he admitted. He’d grown more comfortable sharing his plans of stealing energy from nearby villages. You had stopped caring, you stopped caring about everything except him and your freedom. Did that make you as immoral as him? Perhaps. Did that make you an accomplice? Maybe. Did you care? No. Not anymore.

You molded into him, your body fitting perfectly against his even if he was a couple feet taller than you. After your first night together, he’d stopped hiding his true form from you. You admired his body regardless of the state it was in, four arms and all.

“Take Uraume with you.”, he suggested, more so saying to take her but you shook your head. He needed her more than you did, especially to keep lookout if he got distracted with his visit.

“I think it’d be better if she went with you. I’ll be with my family. You have nothing to worry about, okay?”, you smiled at him, placing a hand on his face and stroking his cheek. Your hands were small on his face but you caressed the skin gently as he leaned into your touch.

"I want her to watch over you.", he forced.

"Kuna, my entire family is made up of sorcerers. I have my technique and so does my father.", you pressed, you wanted him safe too and Uraume was good at keeping him level during his raids.

You also knew you'd be okay, your entire family was made up of sorcerers, capable and strong in their own way. Your family wasn’t massive, but 50 of you would be present tonight, there wasn’t anything for him to worry about.

After a moment of silence, he let out a small huff of air that he held in his lungs. “If anything feels even the slightest bit off, send for me.”, he breathed as he kissed your hand and you smiled at him. You looked breathtaking. Looked like the most regal thing he’d ever laid his eyes on. His trust in you was unwavering, your soul tie with him made it easy to sense your emotion regardless of what it was or how far he was. If anything went wrong or you were in danger, his body became hyper aware and he would feel it immediately.

“I will, Ryo.”, you nuzzled him gently, his voice groaning gently as you ran a hand through his hair. “Be careful on your errands.”

His lip twitched at your use of words, pressing his face close to yours as he leaned down to kiss the curve of your neck. “Do you want me to take you?”

“I’ll be okay, Ryo.”, you laughed slightly. “Go on your run. I’ll be here when you get back.”

He hummed slightly, placing a final kiss on your lips, breathing you in as he moved into the other room and calling for Uraume, the both of them leaving as you prepared to head back to your family home. It’d been a few months since you’d last gone home, a part of you anxious on how your family would receive you. Would they welcome you with open arms or would they cast you away in shame? They’d gained their claim thanks to Sukuna, giving them more reputation and power due to their ties with him and thanks to your claim as heir and the reason war hadn’t broken out in the realm.

You smiled at yourself as you arrived at your home across the territories, taking in a deep breath as your family maids greeted you, welcoming you into your familial home.

Across the realm, Sukuna and Uraume moved through the woods, crossing the territory until they reached far out of the regular borders. Uraume walked closely behind Sukuna, waiting for him to find the village he had been looking for. It was a village miles from the regular clan territories, filled with a strong amount of energy, but none that could measure up to him. He just wanted to get in, deal with the sorcerers, and absorb the energy then go home to you. The entire journey all he thought of was you.

Your lips, your touch, your skin, your laugh, the way your eyes looked at him with a deep admiration. He’d never believed in a level of admiration like the one you had for him, he didn’t know why your heart called his name but he didn’t want to question whatever being sent you to him. You were all he needed in this realm, everything else was just an afterthought. The sooner tonight was finished, the sooner he could go home to you.

As the both of them approached the edge of the forest, the looked out to see an open field, the village just below them at the bottom of the incline. His eyes narrowed, watching the small pits of fire as they lit up the homes and the walkways. He could see the people moving through the homes, his energy veiled as he kept him and Uraume hidden. He could sense immense energy down below, an energy he couldn’t wait to absorb. Perhaps this energy might be what gave him the ultimate leverage to continue to gain his claim with ease. Not that it was difficult now, he just preferred leisure when he could regardless of how much he enjoyed prolonging the torture of his vicitms.

“Let’s go.”

“Sukuna.”, Uraume spoke softly, careful to keep within turn. He paused, humming in response as she continued. “I feel uneasy.”

“Why?”, he muttered.

“The energy in the atmosphere is different. It has been that way since we left the clan lands.”, she pointed out, Sukuna looking from her back down to the village.

“It will be fine.”, he pressed. “I have confidence that this will be like any other raid.”

Uraume kept her words silent, watching as the King of Curses moved through the pathway, walking down to the village below. The both of them moved in silence, the energy shifting as his presence became aware to those in the village. He had lifted the veil slightly as to intimate the villagers below. Silence filled the air, the atmosphere filled with an eeriness, the fire manipulated until it huffed out and cast the village into darkness. The voices below had scattered, winding down into nothing as the quiet cascaded through the paths of the road. The intimidating energy sending chills down the spines of every person in proximity, slowly adding to the psychological torture of knowing their impending doom would soon come for them.

The darkness flooded every sense into overdrive, Sukuna’s presence casting a spell of despair and horror over every person he could sense as he approached the village. He was close enough to make the atmosphere feel overwhelmed with his energy, applying pressure to the sorcerers to come out and meet him face to face. The oppressive pressure intensified. It was as though the very atmosphere had become a living entity, reacting to his presence with an almost sentient fear.

The village had a strange eeriness to it, a stillness that prickled at Sukuna’s senses. His intuition told him there was something off about the entire situation, every life force within the village that he had sensed earlier just…. Disappeared.

Uraume stood a few paces away, also sensing the strange shift in the air. Her eyes were sharp and alert, scanning around their surroundings with growing unease. There was something hidden in the depths of the town, something she couldn’t quite place.

Sukuna’s eyes narrowed, his energy whirling in a controlled, explosive surge of cursed energy that rippled outward, an intentional motion to flush out any hidden beings. The ground trembles under the force, the wave of energy sweeping through the village. Sukuna examined the abandoned homes, the emptiness making his observant as he narrowed his eyes.

It was then that he felt it–a subtle shift of energy behind him, a well hidden energy that quickly appeared out of the shadows, surging a powerful hit of cursed energy towards him as the air filled with thick tension. His reflexes allowed him to spin around, blocking the brutal ambush from the sorcerer who appeared from the shadows. They were cloaked in dark robes, wielding a deadly array of cursed weapons, their energy malevolent and potent, ready to kill. They moved quick, almost like a high-speed projectile as the cursed energy swirled into a deadly manifestation and aimed directly at Sukuna.

His response was immediate, moving out of the way with speed as he avoided the attack. The sorcerer slammed to the ground, their energy radiating off of them in waves as they stood still, focused on the monster in front of them. The energy created a violent explosion that sent pieces of the village ground flying in all directions. It just showed the level of power this sorcerer had.

From the periphery, Sukuna watched as more sorcerers emerged, their faces hidden behind masks as they circled around him in precision and patience. They had mastered hiding their energy long enough that Sukuna couldn’t sense their presence even so close in proximity to the village. All at once, like they had prepared for this very moment, their combined cursed energy manifested into a formidable assault. Cursed spirits, grotesque and ominous, surged forward, their twisted forms manifested with the intent to kill the King of Curses.

Sukuna’s eyes narrowed, flickering to the main sorcerer who had attacked him first. They were already summoning another attack, a vortex of palpable energy that was meant to injure him to some extent. With an overwhelming surge, Sukuna unleashed a counterstrike, a power wave of cursed energy that collided with the sorcerer’s vortex, shattering it into fragments of nothing. The force sent the sorcerer flying back before Sukuna turned and exorcized the other cursed spirits and evaporated them into nothing.

This energy felt… familiar.

The village has become a battlefield, Sukuna looking around for Uraume only to find her also under the ambush of six other sorcerers while twelve dealt with him. His jaw tightened. These damned sorcerers were relentless in their attacks. Using their curses to create more energy, alla attempting to make a hit at him. Each time he destroyed their energy, another persisted. The leader began to build another surge of energy, sending a direct hit at Sukuna, forcing him to move out of the way, forcing him to another spot where a sorcerer with a cursed weapon managed to slice his arm open.

A hiss escaped his mouth. There was something off about these sorcerers. They weren’t just attacking him; they were trying to contain him to one place, force him into a corner where they could have the best chance to make a direct hit at him. His cursed energy surged in a torrent of raw power, obliterating another shot of cursed energy with a deafening explosion. He growled in frustration, his eyes focused on getting a hold of the leader of these low life sorcerers.

Sukuna continued to manifest his energy, a strange tug in his gut persistent as he released his energy and sent it towards the sorcerers. The village’s silence was no longer just eerie; it was a telltale sign of something more ominous. The sorcerers’ coordinated efforts and the relentless attacks were part of something bigger than what was in front of him.

Sukuna’s focus remained sharp, pushing through the sorcerer’s defenses and pushing them back as they tried to collectively attack him once again. Tired of the back and forth, he released a cataclysmic wave of cursed energy that shattered all existing energy from the sorcerers around him, sending the sorcerers flying as they slammed into the ground. The destructive wave swept through the village leaving devastation in its wake.

He watched the bodies of the group unconscious on the ground, some of the sorcerers still trying to move as he sliced his hand through the air, causing their heads to roll off of their bodies as he decapitated them. He saved the leader for last, walking towards him in an overwhelming surge of power, his dominance filling the air and flooding through the leader’s veins in cruel certainty. He would die.

As Sukuna approached him, he heard a laugh escape from the leader, a grim smile spread across his features as he tried looking up at the King of Curses from his position on the ground. The leader’s laugh filled the silent air as Sukuna stared at him in a bored expression. Just then Sukuna had realized that the leader’s energy had the same residuals as the energy he’d found miles outside his home. It annoyed him to no end that some lowlife thought themselves cocky enough to try and intrude on his home.

“You’re about to die and yet, you laugh.”, he muttered into the silent air.

“You think… you think you’ve won, don’t you?”, the leader’s voice was shaky, his grin still wide on his face as Sukuna narrowed his eyes. “King of Curses”

Sukuna’s eyes flared with irritation as he remained focused on the leader, his senses bristling with frustration. “You bore me.”, Sukuna raised his hand to end the leader’s life, halting as his voice rang out again.

“You see..” the leader’s smile widened, a sinister gleam in his weak eyes. “You fell for it… we knew you’d come here, we set this whole thing up to keep you occupied long enough..”

His eyes narrowed and his jaw tightened.

“We knew we couldn’t kill you.”, the leader breathed, “We only needed you distracted long enough to ensure our true objective could be fulfilled.”

Sukuna’s annoyance and rage intensifies, his cursed energy radiating in immense waves.

“Sukuna”, he heard Uraume speak but ignored her.

“Speak dog.”, he ordered the leader. “I’ll make your death faster.”

“You’re naive”, the leader smirked. “This entire thing… it was all to misdirect your attention.”

“Sukuna!”, Uraume raised her voice, Sukuna still ignoring her.

“It’s too late.”, Sukuna had had enough of his cryptic tone, slicing his hand through the air as the leader's head exploded into a pool of brain matter and carnage.

“Insolent pigs.”, he muttered.

“Sukuna!”, Uraume forced again. Finally, he met her gaze. “What?”, he spit out, his annoyance lacing his tone.

“Sukuna.”, she breathed. “Y/n’s energy is gone.”

Immediately, his attention snapped to focus. His chest tightened as he felt the sinking realizing sink into his bones, a cold dread gripping at him as he replayed the leader’s words.

This entire thing… it was all to misdirect your attention.

Without a second thought, Sukuna used the energy he could to bolt himself through the woods, leaving Uraume behind as he ran the miles across the territories to make it to your Family’s home. The air in his lungs burned, the dread sinking into the pit of his stomach, the words replaying over in his head. How could he be careless, how did he release the tie to your energy so easily? Did they truly mean to distract him… to get to you?

His energy coursed through his being as his speed picked up, his legs forcing him to run faster, covering as much ground as possible. He was close, just on the other side of the woods, he’d reach your home soon.

The outskirts leading to your home were engulfed in billowing black smoke, thick like the clouds and black like the night, only the light from the red flames that engulfed your home illuminated the night as the ground became scorched from the heat. He barely registered the destruction of L/n House before charging into the source of the fire, his body in overdrive as he pushed through the fire and smoke.

The inferno roared with relentless fury, consuming every part of the structure. Wood crackled and collapsed under the heat, creating a terrifying symphony of destruction. Sukuna wasted no time running into the home, pulling the beams of fire out in order to search for your body. The heat was blistering, and the smoke stung his eyes, but continued his search. His cursed technique flared to life as he attempted to control the spreading flames, his energy twisting through the air in a desperate attempt to contain the fire. Despite his best efforts, the blaze had already claimed every inch of the house, leaving no ground untouched.

The sight of h/c hair caught his eye, throwing pillars across the room, lifting the beams off your body. He lifted your body from the rubble, limp in his arms as your flesh burned from the scorching flames. He pulled you out, laying you down on the ground as he felt the cold touch of your skin on his, the only warmth due to the fire. The sight of your lifeless body was a crushing blow. Desperation took hold of him as he tried to use his cursed energy to stabilize you, his attempts failing. He might’ve been the strongest being to exist in this realm, but he was not healer. He didn’t possess the energy that could help bring you to life. He lifted your body as it lay limp, all source of life having been completely evaporated from you.

As he knelt beside you, the horrific realization sank into his bones. Your body had been stripped of your cursed energy, your body completely void of any ounce of life.

The shock sank into his bones, the crashing realization of your lifeless body in his arms sent a jolt of grief through his core. The gravity of your lifeless body in his arms, the absence of your energy, of your presence, overwhelming him. A seething rage, raw and unrestrained, surged through him.

He brought your face into the crook of his neck, gently holding your frame as he breathed in the smell of flesh from your burned body as it was the only thing he could sense that was you. The touch was tender yet haunting, it was the last connection he had left of you. You weren’t completely burned, only a few spots of your body suffered heavy damage, not like your family who were nothing but charred corpses.

Sukuna’s grip tightened as he let the waves of grief radiate off of his body, his cursed energy flaring to life, sending bolts of energy through the realm.

Almost instantly, through all his unrestrained emotion, he used his cursed energy to pick up the energy around him, soaking in every ounce of tortured emotion he could absorb. He held your body close to his, the only solace he had as he allowed the lingering presence of your essence to flood his being. He let the remnants of your soul show him a fragmented, haunting vision of your last moments, a tapestry of pain and despair interwoven with fleeting glimpses of comfort and warmth.

The energy he absorbed was a mix of raw, turbulent emotions—rage, sorrow, and a hint of peace. Each wave of energy, revealing the intensity of the connection you shared and the impact of your departure on his existence. His grip on your body tightened as if holding onto the very essence of who you were could somehow tether him to the lost fragments of your soul.

As the cursed energy enveloped him, he felt your presence more acutely than ever before. It was as if your soul was whispering secrets through the energy, offering him a glimpse into the unspoken truths and unfulfilled promises that had lingered between you. This communion, though bittersweet and painful, became a source of both anguish and comfort, helping him find a semblance of clarity amid the chaos of his emotions.

What was the sound?

Why did your head feel hazy?

“This is a private dinner, please leave.”, you heard one of the maids by the front door say softly before you felt a sharp jolt of pain in your side. Why did you feel so uneasy?

“Sir, please.”, the maid insisted, her voice growing frantic. You noticed that no one else had taken note of her fear, unsure of why. “Sir. Sir please, wait. No! Stop! STOP!”

The sound of a harsh thud made you snap towards the door. Your energy levels spiking but your head still feeling hazy. You looked down at the cup in front of you, your heart sinking as you looked up at your family, their movements becoming more sluggish.

The movement you caught in the corner of your eye made you turn towards the entrance that led into the dining room. Tall, muscular men dressed in dark clothing entered the room, their cursed energy swirling as you stared at them in the best focus your mind could allow. They wore masks, covering their face with wooden carved masks that looked like the face of wolves. There were black markings that looked similar to those related to underground thieves that lingered in the far outskirts of the clan lands.

You watched as one of the kids ran, trying to catch another one of the children as a string hand grabbed the neck of his neck, a loud help sounding out. Still, everyone in the room seemed to not notice, you tried moving your body but you felt locked in place, like your body had entered a type of rigamortis. The sound of a neck snapping and the child’s body being thrown onto the table sounded out, everyone finally snapping and letting the silent haunt the atmosphere.

One of your aunts let out a shrill of horror, a scream that didn’t even reach its full potential due to the slurring of her cries. Why was everyone slurring, why was everything blurring, why was every movement slowed to a fraction of normal time? And why were these people here?

You watched as six more men entered, each one wearing their own carved mask as the walked over to your family, kicking them down as the sounds of their please sounded out.

“What is the meaning of this?!”, you heard your father stand, his body slowly down as he couldn’t find his footing. “Leave our home, now!”, he boomed, his voice holding less power than it normally would.

His cursed energy was faltering. It wasn’t at the level it would normally be at, it was nowhere near what the L/n name was known for.

The men walked to your father, meeting his gaze behind the haunting wooden mask. His head tilted sideways slowly, watching him with quiet, dead eyes. It was haunting, the silence and the sound of your aunt's cries at the sight of one of your family’s children lying limp on the table with his neck twisted in a crooked, macabre way.

You couldn’t move, your chest feeling heavy. You watched as the men grabbed your family members, binding their hands with rope as they dragged them into the center of the room, another man grabbing the bottom of the table and flipping it over. All of the contents spill all over the priceless carpet and beautiful wood of your home.

You watched as the man continued to hold your father’s gaze, his hand moving to his leg and unsheathing a dagger. Your eyes widened, your mouth opening to warn him before you felt a hand dig into your hair and pull you back, your eyes looking at another one of the men as his face was right next to yours. His silence gave you chills, his head shaking slowly and a finger raising to the snout of the mask in a “shh” motion.

You looked at him through the side of your eye, the fear slowly showing through. Who are these people?!

You watched as they grabbed your mother, her cries blurred as they kicked her in the side. You could feel the pain that coursed through her, they kicked her with brute force. Her energy was weak but still spiked in the shock. Your father was also thrown to the ground. His energy wavering finally.

“The center”, the main man motioned. “Keep those three over there”

You watched as the rest of the children were placed in the back, your aunts and uncles in the center, and you and your parents at the front of the room facing your family.

Two of the men circled back towards the small children, your family turning and trying to protest hurting them. They were the future of the L/n name. If they disappeared, so did your family. It seemed like the men knew that all too well as they walked over, manifesting their cursed energy and snapping their necks as the walked up to each child. The cries filled the room, your head dropping to keep from looking at the potential life as honorable sorcerers be cut short.

The feeling of hands tangling into your hair and forcing your head up made you feel ill. The man next to you looked at you deeply. Pointing ahead.

“Watch”, was all he said in a deep, distorted voice. At Least he sounded distorted due to your body’s senses being weakened.

Your mother also cried, clenching her eyes shut, but one of the men forced her eyes open, digging his fingers into the skin around her eyes and peeling them apart as she struggled weakly against them. Her thrashes were slow and weak but she insisted on fighting whatever was making her inebriated.

You wanted to throw up. Why were they doing this?

Sukuna…

You wanted to send a signal, wanted to reach him but he was on the complete opposite side of the woods, outside the clan’s territories. There was no way he’d be able to sense you from so far away, especially not when your energy was weak, depleted.

“L/n”, the leader called in a deep timbre, “Let’s see how long it takes for your cunt of a wife to bleed out”

You watched as they shoved your mother to the ground, holding her in place as her tears soaked the wood of the floor, your eyes wide and they forced you to watch by holding your head up and a dagger to your throat.

“If you look away or close your eyes, you’ll die”, the man grabbing you whispered.

Two other men walked up to your mother, your father yelling at them to stop. One of them pulled out a serrated knife, your gut churning as your eyes stung from the pressure and burning of the shock. No…

You felt her screams before truly letting them sink into your bones. Her skin ripped open as the men sawed the knife back and forth from the back of her neck. The blood spilling and staining the ground as her body thrashed against their hold. Your body shook from the shock, your chest feeling like you were having a heart attack, the pain you were watching her go through ripped through you. The men only continued to slowly saw at her head, her words distorted and gargled as she choked on her blood. Her hair went from the light brown to a dark, deep maroon, soaking her kimono and drenching the fine carpets into matted fabric. Her body shook, the screams of agony dying out as her body twitched, the knife finally cutting through the bone of her spinal cord and her head falling limp on the ground. They lifted her body and her head laid like a piece of loose skin, barely hanging on by a thread and showing the bone of her spine.

You watched as your father threw up, his body shaking at the sight of his decapitated wife. You felt yourself go numb, your mind went blank, your heart pounding like it wanted to break out of your chest and let you end the torture they were showcasing.

You watched as they beat your aunts and uncles with switches, the rips in their skin spilling open as the blood painted their skin a deep vermillion, the agony in their slurred words made it worse. They couldn’t even beg for them to stop without sounding drugged. It made the whole thing worse. It made you feel sick at the torture they’d ensued on your family. The L/n clan was being targeted and you couldn’t even think straight enough to protect them.

You were the heir, the inheritor of the Eye of Aurora, and you couldn’t even protect your family. How pathetic was that?

An eternity passed, your energy faltering as you stared blankly at the bodies of your family laying in a pile of torn flesh, crimson blood, and left with no ounce of cursed energy. These men weren’t here to steal energy, you could sense it in the wicked way their souls maneuvered through the room. They were looking to kill every last one of you.

“Y-you baa-stards”, your father slurred next to you. You tried using your energy to put a protective shield around him. Regardless of how poorly he treated you, you couldn’t take anymore of this torment. You tried using your energy to Ryomen, but the veil cast over your home prevented your energy from leaving. They had planned this attack. That much was obvious.

“I-I wi-ll ki-kill yo-uu”, he was getting weak. You needed to preserve your energy as best as you could if you wanted to live. It was him or you.

I’m sorry.

You let your shield fall, having it envelop your own body as you watched as the men pushed your father to the ground. Your eyes weak, your body twitching from the adrenaline but slow because of the drug. How did they manage to drug your entire family from the inside and not even leave grace of doing so? When did they have the time? You were hyper aware of everything, the clarity in your vision due to your technique showing you just how dangerous the situation you were in was.

The leader walked towards you, gripping your face in his hand as he pulled out the serrated dagger he used to decapitate your mother. He ran the blade over your cheek, a cut stinging as you felt the small trickle of blood run down your skin.

“Watch”, he murmured. “Or I’ll kill you too.”

He was going to kill you anyway. You could sense it in his energy and his tone. You truly were trapped no matter what you did, not like you could do anything anyway. Your body was inebriated, everything moving in slow motion and overwhelming you.

Two of the men held your father down, one pinning his arms and the other his legs as the leader walked over, the wolf mask adding more of a taunting aura. He pulled the knife close to your father’s neck, tracing a line that ripped through the robe, causing your father to shake in fear. You watched numbly, your eyes burning from the tears.

No…

You flinched as the leader slammed the dagger into your fathers chest, a cough of blood spilling from your fathers mouth as he grunted in pain. The leader tilted his head slowly, using his other hand to cover his hand in blood and wipe it over his wooden mask. Slowly, he carved the knife down your fathers chest and into his abdomen, cutting him open and sticking his hand inside his stomach, pulling his intestines out and pulling back the skin to show his insides.

You couldn’t contain the scream of horror that escaped your mouth, your eyes drenched from the tears as you struggled against the man holding you back. Your voice turned raw, your throat burning from the choked sobs and the screams of horror.

Why?

Why?!

“Why are you doing this?”, your voice slurred. “Why?”

The leader moved towards you, leaving your father with his guts spilled out of his body as he heaved in pain, his eyes filled with a shock and horror you’ve never seen before. God, what kind of karma was this?

The leader lifted his hand, bringing his blade down but your body manifested enough cursed energy to block his blow, making him tilt his head in humor. He tried again and your body, although weak, held enough cursed energy to block his blows.

The one holding you stood, trying to aim a hit at the back of your head, your shield keeping the blow from landing. They were trying to beat you to death. You couldn’t. You couldn’t let them. If you held them off long enough, Ryomen would come, he’d kill them and save you. He’d take you so far from this realm that no one would know where you went. You’d cease to exist as Y/n L/n and continue life unknown to another realm. You’d be safe from the torment you were living through. Both you and Ryomen.

Please, Ryo.

Where are you?

You felt another blow hit, your body flinching. Their hits repeated, not letting up. You were vulnerable, weak, exposed. If you used the fear, you’d never run out of cursed energy. You could keep your shield up for as long as you needed. The only thing leaving you unsure was how long until you passed out? How long until the drug took its full effect?

There was a split second where you believed this would be it for you, your body fighting in the best way that it could given the circumstance. Ryomen would have these men decapitated, gutted, tortured, flayed alive for having ever considered hurting you and yet…

Your throat was raw, your sobs muffled as you focused on the hits the men were delivering to you repeatedly. You felt weak. How long had it been? How long had they been in your home? How long did they take to snap the necks of the children, to torture your aunts and uncles? How long did it take for your mother to die or your father to stop feeling pain?

How long before you died?

“Bride of Sukuna”

Tears flooded down your cheeks as you stared up at them, the bodies of all your family laying lifeless around you. Your mother limp with her head mere feet from her body, your father completely gutted as his insides lay in a pile next to him, the rest of the L/n clan laying in vats of their own flesh and blood. every tile was covered in the red fluid, staining the pristine floor a crimson maroon.

“Please, let me go.”, your energy was weak. “Please”

“The Devil’s whore begging for mercy? I wonder what else I can get you to beg for.”, his wicked smile spread across his face, leaving you feeling cold inside.

“Aren’t you tired yet? We’ve been at this for hours''. They were forcing you to use your technique. Using cursed objects against you, the only way to stop them from slicing your body was to completely manipulate and discard the cursed weapons they tried to use on you. They’d been at it for what felt like hours.

Hours you believed would be peaceful.

Hours you believed would be full of celebration and love.

Hours you spent being drugged, beaten, tortured, and traumatized as you watched the men saw your mothers head off and pin your father to the ground as they cut him open alive, watching your aunts and uncles be tortured and killed, the children having their necks snapped. It was a massacre. Your entire family, every last one part of the L/n bloodline, lay lifeless in pools of blood and carnage. You were the final remaining member.

Your body was still inebriated from the drug you took to incapacitate you, likely mixed in with the food and water to get inside everyone in your family. Your body was weak, wounded, and you were drained of energy. You didn’t have it in you to continue anymore.

“Let’s eat that spirit of yours. We hear she’s worth a hefty price”, one of them moved towards you, a prominent tattoo in his hand as he wrapped a hand around your neck, the energy coursing through him reaching high levels of mastery. It overwhelmed you. Everything overwhelmed you at the moment. “I can see why that nasty son of a bitch chose you, you’re a pretty face to look at. I’m sure you were a better fuck than those concubines he kept around.”

“Look at me”, his hand clenched your face. “I want to see the life drain out of your eyes”, you felt a piercing hole in your heart, the agony ripping through you as you felt your soul be completely ripped out of your body. You never felt this type of pain before, it felt like a million daggers ripping through your flesh, the ripping of skin elongated as you choked on your screams. You couldn’t scream, couldn’t release the emotion while you felt the burning sensation of your technique being ripped away from you. Your eyes were forced to look into your killer's eyes, his eyes full of sadistic entertainment. He was enjoying watching the life drain from your eyes. More so, he was enjoying watching the life drain from Sukuna’s wife’s eyes, knowing he’d be the one who destroyed his chance at a lineage.

The only thing you could think of was him at that moment. Your heart called his name, your soul yearning for a final look, a final touch. You begged whatever higher being to bring him to you and save you from this torment. You felt it in the marrow of your bones that you would die here tonight, and still you believed he would show up and save you like he’d always done in the past. The quick flash of memories burned into your brain showed themselves then, every training, every secret meeting, every gentle touch and stolen kiss, every night in his bed, every moment in his arms while he breathed in your scent, every intimate night burned into your existence. You loved him in every way that existed, in every way you knew how, with every part of your being. As your life drained completely, you begged for one more touch, one more sacred moment with him in the intimacy of your bedroom, one more glance into your future with him before your soul would be expelled from this life forever.

Your field of dreams engulfed in fire and burned into ash, the arson’s match burning your future into nothing.

Ryo…

Your once e/c eyes had faded into black hues of emptiness.

“I’m finished. What a shame such a pretty face is being wasted on an ugly bastard like him”, the man muttered before throwing your body to the ground, your head against the ground as the red blood stained the beautiful white gown you wore, staining it and leaving it marked in warning.

“Let’s go. We’re done here.”

The ground trembled, the earth cracking and splitting as his anger and despair erupted. There were waves of excruciatingly powerful energy rippling off of him. The echoes of his rage-filled screams cut through the silence, a haunting sound that reverberated through the night. He consumed the energy around him, letting the cruel reality of your fate burn into his consciousness, the final thoughts of his beloved engraved into his brain like a tattoo on flesh.

He felt his body grow heavy from what he could only place as despair, denial, and grief.

Of all the cursed energies that existed, the demons that tried to overcome him, the possession of power, nothing left him weak like your corpse in his arms. No curse, no rival, no force in the world ever got close to bringing him to his knees like this. You, a kind hearted and gifted sorcerer, brought the King of Curses to his knees, leaving him absolutely powerless. Your lifelessness shattered the illusion of invincibility he believed he had, there was one way to destroy him and it was you.

Your body was limp, your head rolling against his chest as he tried to get you up right. Two of his arms held you as the other lifted your head, the hollow of your irises losing him in an immense amount of grief. A part of him wanted to believe that if he held you carefully enough, he could somehow resurrect the essence that had been torn away. They’d sucked the life right out of you, ripped your soul apart all because you were his bride. His forehead rested against yours, asking for forgiveness for having cursed you.

He held your body in his arms, holding you close to his chest as his face buried into the curve of your neck, breathing you in. His hands trembled as they held you, his energy radiating off of him in waves of despair and denial. Your delicate body, tainted by those who sought to kill him, damned by the evil in this realm. You were everything he believed and everything he breathed, your soul meant for him in every way he couldn’t understand and here your body lay in lifelessness while he remained alive. What beings damned him in such a way where his wickedness managed to live and your purity was exorcized from the world.

Was this his punishment?

Was this his hell for having cursed the realm?

He knew you would be angry with him for thinking such things. If you could see him you’d probably kiss him, tell him it wasn’t his fault. his hand lashed back your hair, taking in the beautiful way you dressed for your family dinner. He memorized every piece of your body. your face, not looking into your eyes since he knew they’d haunt him for the rest of his life.

He let immense waves of cursed energy radiate off his body, causing a ripple effect of everything getting caught on fire or exploding. He felt his body surge with insurmountable grief, his screams echoing through the woods as the ground vibrated from his despair. The sound left a haunting cast over the air, his howls of agony heard from every inch of the realm.

Losing you was his greatest weakness, the wound that would never heal, an emptiness making his energy spiral into bigger waves of grief. His body lifted yours, his mind blank and emotionless as he let the waves of anger and denial purge the life around him. His energy made the flames that burned your home bigger, the smoke billowing into dark black clouds that tainted the air causing the surrounding wildlife to flee from the natural disaster he’d created.

The black char that created a ring burned into the ground around your family’s territory was embedded so deep into the ground that the soil began to rot and the energy was far from being salvaged. He’d embedded his energy so far deep into the roots of the ground that even the sorcerers a millennium from now would be able to recognize the patterns scorched into the soil.

There was nothing that tainted his soul quite as much as letting you go to your family home alone. The regret burned his flesh like a pain he couldn’t extinguish, a wound carved so far deep inside of him he’d never heal from it. His heart felt like it stopped pumping blood through his veins, the hollow of his body making him a shell filled with remorse, grief, and agony.

The humanity in him had snapped. Just like you were stolen from him, that final shred had died with you, leaving him an empty shell of a man. What else did he have to lose? He’d spend the years wandering through the realm building his empire to do right by you.

He’d do anything you asked of him.

Even in death.

Even if it meant starting with those who wronged you first.

The smoke signals were sent as warning to the other three families, rallying them to scout the L/n territory. The radiating waves of energy had been sent so far into the territories, that all three families had gathered their men, sending a group to scout out and another group ready for any attack that might happen. The Zen’in clan was the first to arrive, looking over to see the billowing black smoke consume the night sky with its pitch darkness.

Upon arrival to the cliff overlooking the land, every scout stood in wide eyed horror at the scene in front of them. Every inch of territory under the L/n name was scorched, leaving nothing but a massive black charred imprint in the ground. Miles and miles of forest and homes burnt to a crisp, leaving nothing behind but remnants of history burnt into the ground. The house was destroyed, the flames burning as the black char was embedded so far into the soil that not even years of caring after it would revive it to its original state. The air was thick with the acrid smell of smoke and burning wood, the intensity of the flames ravaging the land around them. The sky had gotten darker, adding to the haunting scene in front of them. Proof that L/n House had been burned into nothing.

The murmurs between the men had started to raise up during the onslaught of shock, all of them walking down to the scene to find charred bodies, skulls with burnt flesh, the air filling with the smell of burning bodies, leaving one who stood amongst them with a solid resolve. Zetsubou Zen’in turned towards the men, the Kamo and Gojo men finally arriving at the scene as they took in the scene below. He raised his voice through the night, his firm tone solidifying his words.

“You see what happens to great names when they trust the words of a bastard? The words of a monster!”, he raised his voice. “There is no doubt Ryomen Sukuna burned the L/n to hell. Look at the damnation they brought on themselves!”

The men listened to the Zen’in heir, his words filled with hatred and dripping with venom. “Men, go back to your clans, tell them we need to exterminate him, we need men to bring Sukuna to an indefinite end.”

The men whispered amongst each other, still showing a level of uncertainty in Zetsubou’s words. The Zen’in heir needed to have the two families on his side, needed reason to go after and kill the King of Curses. Zetsubou spotted a seal on the ground, it was one with your family crest upon it.

“What more proof do we need, men? Look at his work, he’s eradicated them!”, he forced, holding the seal towards them. “The L/n’s knew this would be their end, yet they chose hell. He killed them all, killed Y/n!”

The tension filled the air as Zetsubou said his final words. “Stand as men of power. Do not let Y/n’s death be in vain.”

The evidence was in front of them, the burning flesh, the charred forest floor, the collapsed home of one of the greatest families in the realm, there was no denying the blatant truth. Ryomen Sukuna had killed the L/n family, burning their home to a crisp and leaving nothing but burned bodies and broken debris. The Princess of Peace was torn apart and burned to nothing by the King of Curses. The men of the families murmured in agreement, solidifying their decision in taking the warning back to their individual leaders.

In the coming hours, the leaders of the Zen’in, Gojo, and Kamo clans had called an immediate emergency council meeting, taking into account the evidence before them and trying to grasp the gravity of what had transpired. What had driven the King of Curses to kill his bride’s entire family and her in the process? What was the meaning behind such a catastrophic and gruesome display of power?

The Three Families agreed to come together in power, combining forces to set after the King of Curses and exorcize him from the realm for good. Their search for him spanned over weeks, his disappearance leaving a haunting overcast on the realm and the families as their sorcerers would set out after him, but many of them would never return back home.

The eradication of the L/n clan led to the inevitable silence of the jujutsu world, the cloak of darkness absorbing every land in sight for centuries to come. The world felt cold, empty, and ominous. Every sorcerer felt the grief and rage burning through the ground at the ripple of sukuna’s overwhelming emotion.

Due to his domain, he closed off the territory completely, creating a shield that would leave the remnants of the land completely closed off and cursed to anyone who wasn’t part of the L/n bloodline. It left a black border outlining the entirety of the L/n territory. The remaining three families had no choice but to erase the L/n name entirely from records, only leaving the fragmented whispers of their clan before ending it with the wrath of the King of Curses.

The aftermath of the Burning of Aurora led to what would be considered the Dark Age of the Heian era. The once-vibrant land of the L/n clan, now a wasteland, became a haunting reminder of the King of Curses' boundless grief and rage. The relentless, all-consuming flames had not only eradicated the physical existence of the clan but also left an emotional scar that reverberated through the ages. Sukuna had gone rampant, destroying every village he encountered and completely destroying them as a way to seek revenge on those who’d killed his beloved. He tore through the lives of sorcerers across the realm with no hesitation or remorse in the cruelty he showed. He killed countless people, both sorcerers and regular people, innocent and guilty in every aspect. No amount of bloodshed would make up for the death of his beloved, nothing would be sufficient enough to heal that wound. His howls of pain echoed so far through the realm they had embedded themselves into the memory of every sorcerer, leaving a haunting sensation, knowing they would be next once he arrived at their homes.

In the midst of his rampage, the Zen’in family had taken a direct hit to their lineage, the rightful heir being forced under the hand of the King of Curses. There was a cruel reality that was erased by the Zen’in when records of the Dark Age were scribed into the scrolls to be passed down, the reason behind Zetsubou Zen’in’s death. Sukuna had encountered the heir in a fight during one of his raids, having killed all of his men, leaving only Zetsubou standing. There was an undeniable energy that swirled between the two sorcerers, the man who tried to marry his bride standing before him in cocky confidence, his anger whirling inside of his as he continued to attack the bastard.

Zetsubou knew he had the power to manifest the Zen’in clan’s Mahoraga with his Ten Shadows technique, but his call for the powerful spirit would never happen as Sukuna sliced his arm off his body. Zetsubou had his anger, his hatred dripping from his words as he taunted the King of Curses, damning him to hell as Sukuna stared at him with bored, soulless eyes.

Sukuna allowed the bastard to speak, the cruel reality causing Sukuna to burn with an anger that would destroy the entirety of the realm. As Zetsubou lay bleeding out, accepting his death, his final words reached the ears of the very monster that would end his life.

He had outsourced and hired those sorcerers to distract him, he had called the hit on L/n House, claiming it to be his way to exact his revenge for having everything stolen from him. If he couldn’t have you, the ugly bastard Sukuna wouldn’t have you either. The eradication of the L/n Clan, the blood spilled, it all painted the hands of Zetsubou Zen’in.

This was the hidden secret of the Zen’in clan, the final undeniable truth dying when Sukuna elongated Zetsubou’s death, torturing him in his last moments as he flayed him alive, ripping his skin apart before forcing his energy to crush in his skull. There were no records of the truth, not even those within the Zen’in were aware of the cruel heir’s ploy to eradicate the L/n clan. Zetsubou had been able to place the blame on Sukuna, casting him as the stain on the realm that erased an entire family from the world of Jujutsu sorcery. The realm believed his lies due to their fear of the merciless King of Curses.

The darkness spread throughout the realm after the revelation that had been revealed to him, casting every human being and sorcerer into darkness and leaving a stain on the jujutsu world forever.

They say the effects of his rampage caused the death of 10% of the known jujutsu sorcerers at the time, leaving an imprint on jujutsu history as the world knows it, almost tipping the balance of power within the realm. This period was marked with an overwhelming, inhuman level of chaos, the jujutsu realm struggling to grasp the effects of Sukuna’s wrath. This gained him more power, more strength, and ended with him having no morality as his only reason for human emotion disappeared along with his bride.

Even now the land remains cursed, encased in an impenetrable barrier of cursed energy. leaving hope for a future holder to come through and claim the land so long as they held L/n blood. It left Sukuna a sliver of chance that one day his beloved could return, reincarnated if he searched for her soul long enough. The thought of her second bringing was a bittersweet solace, a potential chance to reunite with her soul, even if it was through the rebirth of another.

Even if it was a millennium from now.

In the midst of his unyielding rage, he found a moment of tenderness to spare. Sukuna buried her in the open field where they used to train together, saving what he could of her family’s ancestral crest and heirlooms ensuring her spirit could cross into the next life in peace.

This was his last act of humanity before his soul turned completely black and disappeared from the realm.

His last act was one of love towards his late bride, that fragment of his soul forever lost and never seen again.

Epilogue || Present Day

“Yuji, what are you doing? Why are you crying?”

“Huh?”, Yuji snapped out of his trance, lifting a trembling hand up to his cheeks to feel the small line where the tears had fallen. “What was that?” he whispered to himself, looking out to the empty space in the woods, a black imprint in the ground that spanned for miles.The sight before him—a massive, burned imprint left by the unrelenting force of destruction—overwhelmed him.

Sukuna did this…

“Are you okay?” Yuji felt his heart skip a beat at the sudden realization that crashed over him, suddenly becoming aware of why his body, or rather Sukuna, brought him here. Suddenly, he felt a pang of agony in his chest, an overwhelming rush of emotion as he choked on his words. The intense grief and anguish he was experiencing were not solely his own; they were a flood of emotions tied to Sukuna’s past.

Yuji stared at you in shock and at a loss for words, your bright eyes meeting him in a worried stare. Your eyes reflected the same warmth and kindness that had been present in the memories Sukuna had shown him.

“Y/n Sensei…”, your head cocked at his sentence, wondering why his eyes were red and his cheeks were tear stained. Another flood of emotion overcame him, the thoughts of another flooding his mind as he tried to come to terms with what Sukuna showcased to him. The way he treated her… treated you. Had everything he’d been told… been a lie?

“What’s wrong Yuji?”, your voice was soft, gentle, it sounded exactly like the one in Sukuna’s memories, it was so…. familiar, it almost made Yuji’s heart ache. Your eyes looking at him the same way they had at Sukuna all those centuries ago. They held the same softness and curiosity, an empathy that could make anyone feel safe with you. The way you looked at him mirrored the way Sukuna had looked at you throughout his years in his past life: full of love and longing.

“I .... “ he hesitated, trying to wrap his mind around the emotion whirling inside of him that didn’t belong to him. “Nothing. I was just lost in thought.”

“Well c'mon! We have to get back to Satoru before he leaves us stranded here”, you said, a bright smile on your face. You turned and walked away towards the main road, his eyes following your form as you smiled up at a small butterfly that flew close to your face.

Yuji watched you with a mix of awe and a deep understanding. In that moment, he felt a profound sense of revival, content, and an overwhelming pull towards you. Almost like Sukuna was forcing him to reach you.

Go Yuji Itadori. a deep voice echoed in his head. Take me to her.

A/N:

Ahhhh!! Here is the final part of Love of My Life!!

This has probably been one of my absolute favorite fanfics to write and it was nice being able to experiment with my writing a bit more with darker themes! I truly do hope you all enjoyed this and I appreciate all the love and support you guys have given this mini series.

I highly suggest listening to House in Nebraska, Ptolemaea, and Strangers by Ethel Cain, I feel like those three songs gave me so much inspiration in writing this final chapter because I feel like they set the scene so well.

This story does have a bit of an open ending, I am not saying I'll create a spin-off, but I will consider one-shots that are inspired by this series!

I do also have a Jason Todd x Reader fanfiction called Playing With Fire, so if you like DC and Jason Todd I would highly recommend!

Anyway, once again, thank you guys so much for the love and support and please leave all your comments below!

109 notes · View notes

ladydeath-vanserra · 11 months ago

Text

I'm a fan of the philosophy of 'the devil you know" when it comes to stressful circumstances. bec no matter how miserable u are right now it can always, always be worse

and while it definitely has its downfalls, it has given me a degree of safety to be able to maneuver and navigate around difficult situations

Lucien going to take Feyre back to the Spring Court, imo, wasn't handled well in the books and it sure wasn't handled well in the Fandom

yes. he was going to take her back to the Spring Court where Tamlin was abusive. Rhys is Still abusive, but that's not the point rn for this. What Is, is that what happened UtM was not that long ago

Tamlin and Lucien both had to sit there and watch Rhys sexually assault Feyre for Months. Rhys left a dead, mutilated fae in Tamlins fountain with the night court insignia on them. Rhys has reputation that has been built up for Centuries of being this cruel and capricious faerie high lord who gets his kicks from harming and torturing people and that's not even including the 49 year reign of terror from Amarantha w Rhys at her side OR the vendetta between Rhys and Tamlin

Lucien, Tamlins subject, was likely ordered to bring Feyre back. It isn't "I'm going to bring back my besties wife" it's "this is a direct order from the High Lord of the Spring Court", which Feyre was a Citizen of

both Lucien and Tamlin watched Feyre being abused by Rhys for MONTHS in front of them. so while YES, Tamlin was abusive, Rhys was evil incarnate UtM to Feyre, to Lucien and to Tamlin. why Wouldn't they think she was being mind controlled and tortured and abused by Rhysand after watching her be drugged and sexually assaulted for months on end UtM

#a court of thorns and roses #acotar #sjm critical #anti rhysand #lucien vanserra

121 notes · View notes

chaoticbardlady99 · 1 year ago

Text

Lethal Woman- Chapter 6 (GN! AFAB! Reader x Astarion) 18+ MDNI

Author note- work has kicked my ass left right and center. I also deleted my draft of this chapter like three separate times until I finally wrote something I loved.

CW- mentions of still birth, mentions of miscarriage, smut, fluff (I think? Any emotional intimacy is fluff to me 💀), mentions of torture, mentions of rape/sexual assault, mentions of physical and emotional abuse, violence. (I think that may be all? Also this all looks not awesome, but I promise it’s a lot more awesome than you think and not Uber grotesque.)

It’s been mostly edited and I definitely have chapter 7 basically done so I’m anticipating being happy with my draft by Sunday. Happy reading! Thank you for everyone who likes my little self indulgent angst fic!!!!

Also- please remember I take creative liberties. A good chunk of the Nightmasks are dead canonically (RIP my guys) but for the purpose of this story, they are alive. Oh and the names are hard so forgive me for the lack of consistent spelling lmao

Chapter 7

“Ugly, wretched little thing.”

Dahlia’s term of endearment sticks to your brain like- well- an illithid parasite. You are sitting with Karlach and Shadowheart, each of you on your fourth glass of whatever alcohol you could find as the Tieflings jovially celebrate around you. You want to feel the same warmth and happiness everyone else does, but you are too busy trying to ignore the fact that Alfira and Astarion have been talking since the beginning of the party- Alfira immediately walking up to him with her stupid, beautiful face. And her stupid kind heart and pretty voice.

You liked her enough to be her friend, but now? You are struggling not to haul her off by her horns and kick her into the river in the stinking Owlbear den.

Get yourself together Rowan, it was never going to happen anyway.

“Soldier, you might want to stop burning a hole through the Bard with your eyes- Astarion can’t tolerate fire remember?,” Karlach jests and you give her a sour look.

You hadn’t really talked to Astarion since earlier in the day when he had come to your aid when Priestess Gut had a firm grip on your mind, then he fought by your side while you freed Halsin. You had split up after that, him going to help Shadowheart and Karlach and you off to support Wyll and Gale’s group. The fight against Dror Ragozlin and his crew of misfits was easy and Lae’zel evidently enjoyed getting to fight next to you for once. You wanted to enjoy the moment with your companions, your victory just in your grasp, but you had been somewhat distracted during the battle because Minthara’s thoughts had been so Gods damn loud.

You appeared to be the only one experiencing this problem- you assumed that she is specifically targeting you for a reason, but you couldn’t figure out why until she showed you a different image than the fight in front of her.

It was you, standing over a drow female in Menzoberranzan. The alley way is dark with her blood dripping into the cobblestone. You could feel Minthara’s rage- you had killed her lover.

You remember that contract now- It was one of the few you had received where it was required that the target be mutilated and you hated every second of it. Minthara was one of the few people who had ever managed to almost catch you, but you had evaded her successfully. The picture changed, she showed you a flash from Shadowheart’s perspective- it’s you and Astarion, talking in hushed voices and close to each other by the fire. The scene is far more intimate than you realized and certainly incriminating. Her voice boomed in your head.

You killed my lover. Now I’m going to kill yours.

A scream pierced the air as Karlach cried out for Shadowheart. You watched in horror as Shadowheart hit the stone wall hard and dropped flat on her face- unmoving. Karlach was at her side within seconds, trying to get her to wake up. Then Karlach pitched forward after a spell hit her. Karlach was screaming in terror at the top of her lungs and rolling around in pain. You stared at the scene for what felt like hours- rigid and mortified- until Minthara caught your attention again.

Minthara showed Astarion- fighting for his life against her as her blade nicked him and cut him superficially. Thankfully he is a lot faster than her, but your feet were moving before your brain had time to process your actions. Your rage is all consuming- every part of your body feels like it’s on fire.

Between the use of Ghost Step and Spider Crawl, you made quick work of sneaking into the battlefield. You waited for an opening- Minthara and Astarion were neck and neck, blow for blow before Minthara managed to break one of his daggers and slam the hilt of her longsword atop of his head.

Astarion stumbled backwards and fell over on his side. You tried to suppress your own nausea as you watched him struggle to get up as Minthara began menacingly moving towards him. The bloodlust in her thoughts- you could taste it on your tongue. Vengeance is in her reach, but you are not the same you when Tessa died. You will be damned if this bitch of a woman was going to torture two of your closest friends and kill the one person who has made your barely beating, locked away heart a little less heavy to carry.

You cast Evard’s Black Tentacles and manipulated them so that one vine grabbed Minthara’s right hand and ripped it away from the left- her long sword fell to the ground. You picked it up as she screamed profanities at you.

You manipulated another to wrap around her throat and it pulled her down on her knees- she faced the bridge with horror on her face as you stalked towards her with your vampiric stare. You watched as she confronted her own mortality with angry tears- her tadpole hurled profanities at you in Elvish, Drow elvish, and Common. You just smiled at her, sweetly, slowly, like you had perfected for years now.

Minthara’s tears were running down her face and she fought against the tentacles as they squeezed tighter around her throat and wrists.

The next words you had spoken in Elvish- “Say hi to your lover for me”- before you cut her head clean off her shoulders with her own weapon.

You hadn’t looked at Astarion after you had killed Minthara- you were actually too afraid to see the way he may look at you. Would he be repulsed by you? Afraid? You didn’t want to know.

So now, instead, you are stuck watching him flirt with the feminine, beautiful tiefling that you want to go and feed to the resurrected harpies (they aren’t resurrected- yet). You know it isn’t her fault- you just never stood a chance.

“Roo, really, he is barely focusing on her,” Shadowheart says with a roll of her eyes, “he keeps looking over here at you anyway.”

“Oh I’m sure he is after I brutally murdered someone in front of him,” you cross your arms, your tone laced in venom, “yeah that’s a real attractive quality to have- I am capable of brutal MURDER.”

Shadowheart goes to protest, but Karlach beats her to it.

“I don’t know Soldier, he looked pretty dazzled to me.”

You bust up laughing, choking on some of your wine.

“Dazzled, you say?”

“Razzle DAZZLED!” Karlach offers big explosive hands with her statement, “and I mean- he’s into blood so it’s not like you beheading something is all that damning. Maybe he’s really into it.”.

You choke on your wine again, this time it comes out of your nose. You are both dying laughing now, evidently the alcohol had gotten to your heads. It wasn’t because you were making fun of him- it was just the whole idea itself was so ridiculous and the fact that you can nonchalantly talk about beheading a person as an endearing prospect with these two individuals is so bizarre. Shadowheart was laughing despite herself.

Eventually the three of you make your way to the firepit and join Halsin and Gale while they smoke something out of Halsin’s pipe. You ask to try it and it burns your throat as you cough harshly. Halsin laughs hardily and says you’ve passed initiation. Shit, you don’t even remember walking over to the campfire anymore.

Another hour or so passes, Astarion is out of sight and the high has worn off. You feel pleased to see Alfira standing and talking to her friend dejectedly. Maybe he rejected her? You might be a terrible person, but you feel like you already knew that.

You feel overwhelmed all of a sudden by the proximity and warmth of everyone around the fire. You wait for the right moment to remove yourself from the situation- desperately needing a moment of peace and quiet.

If anyone notices you get up, they don’t say anything. You quickly steal another bottle of wine from beside Gale and Halsin and sneak off into the woods.

You crack open the bottle and slowly sip on it as you meander through the woods, finding the secret path to the beach that you have come to adore so much. You had been eyeballing one specific cliff edge ever since you and Astarion had found this place. It wasn’t a massive cliff, but the pool at the bottom of it is deep enough for you to jump into the water without injury. It was something your father used to do with you when you were a child. There was a river that ran outside of your little town and as you moved further into the woods, you could find a waterfall with a deep pool at the bottom. He would teach you flips and different jumps. He had deemed you the world’s finest diver right before he died- cheering you on from the ground below.

You feel warm and melancholy from the memory. Gods you miss your parents.

You drop the bottle of wine and strip down to your underwear and make your way towards the top of the waterfall.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Astarion had finally managed to get Alfira to leave him alone. She is an adorable little creature, but she is not the one on his radar right now. Adorable does not compare to the vision you are- nor the protection you provide.

Astarion had spent the last painstaking hour and a half watching you laugh with quite literally every person in camp who has a crush on you- Shadowheart, Lae’zel, Gale, and even Halsin is fucking smitten now. Gods could you just stop being yourself for five minutes? Astarion needs (and silently wants) your attention to only be on him. It is absolutely crucial to his survival. Speaking of which, where the hells were you?

You were no longer by the fire where he had last seen you before he snuck into Gale’s tent to steal one of the nicer bottles of wine he hoards away from everyone. Astarion had planned on using your shared connection to ask you to meet him at your spot, but now you are nowhere to be found.

Astarion fights the urge to scream out of frustration as he treks through the woods towards the spot on the beach hoping by some miracle that you may already be there.

Astarion stops as your scent hits his nose. He walks around the corner of the rock that you both use as a landmark and freezes when he notices your clothes are sprawled across the ground and a bottle of wine is a third of the way empty. He tries to ignore the ache that is starting to consume his chest. Did you bring someone else here? Shadowheart maybe? You were sitting rather close to her earlier…

Did his three days of stubbornness really just allow you to fall into someone else’s arms?

Astarion’s sinking feeling gets worse when something flashes out of the corner of his eye.

He sneaks around the corner- reminding himself that he is merely just making sure Shadowheart isn’t being… Shadowheart?

Imagine his shock when Astarion doesn’t see Shadowheart at all. Instead, he witnesses you complete a perfect aerial twist before graciously diving into the waves below. He feels completely frozen until you break the water and laugh wildly. Astarion thinks his own heart might start beating from his chest being filled with the sound.

You jump out of the water and race back up to the top of the rock using Spider Crawl- something you had promised to teach him when you found out Cazador had never actually made him privy to the entirety of his capabilities as a spawn.

Astarion grins as he watches you once again go flying into the air, doing a backflip before straightening out, disappearing once again into the water below.

You break the surface and get back onto the shore. You pretend to bow and wave saying “thank you” and “I’ll be here all week.” It’s silly and he’s enjoying every minute of watching you just be yourself.

Astarion knows you aren’t a serious person, not really, but you pretending to bow for an imaginary crowd of adoring fans in a (not) private moment? It feels authentic to your silliness- not just when you and Karlach are joking together.

You are funny, kind, and entirely too cunning- despite what he said three days ago. Your prowess in combat is second to none and you speak a couple different languages- infernal being one of them when he noticed you and Karlach speaking it back and forth like it was also your native tongue.

Elvish is the other one and he only knew that from overhearing what you said to Minthara while he was too busy experiencing shell shock from how quickly you had gotten over to him. Oh and the hit to the head didn’t help either.

Astarion’s thoughts are interrupted when you make eye contact with him and freeze.

You look down at your semi-exposed figure and then up at him.

Astarion flashes you a flirtatious grin and sweeps his eyes up and down your body as you look at him. You are a work of art and the blush that creeps up your neck is an added bonus.

The scars on your body are numerous and varying in degrees of severity. It doesn’t make you any less attractive to him or revolts him by any means; It makes you more real if anything.

“Well hello there, beautiful,” Astarion says melodically as you walk over, “I was hoping I might run into you here.”

“Oh is that so?” you say and put your hands on your hips, teasing him “and to what do I owe the pleasure?”

Astarion smiles widely at you. He holds up the bottle of wine.

“I was hoping I may be able to drink with my most favorite companion at camp,” he looks at you with a sly grin, “but I didn’t think I’d be getting a show. You are delightfully talented in multiple faucets, Darling.”

You smile shyly at him while adorably scrunching your nose.

As you bend down to grab your shirt, you look at your bottle and scratch the back of your head awkwardly.

“I might need to apologize considering I already started without you.”

Not telling me to piss off so that’s an optimistic start.

“Hm,” Astarion hums, cracking open his bottle and taking a drink, “I’ll allow it this once. I suppose I do owe you for my… words the other day.”

“I’ll forgive you,” you say with a mischievous grin, “but for a price.”

“Oh?” Astarion purrs, “and what is your price, my dear.”

“I demand at least half of your spoils in loot.” you say with flourish and over exaggeration- you aren’t even remotely serious.

“No, no, no, “he emphasizes, his finger waving around in the air, “Never. Going. To. Happen.”

“Ugh fine, I guess I’ll just have to accept that you saved my life earlier.”

“I still think you are ahead on that front, but who’s counting really?”

“Definitely not me,” you say and cough a number under your breath.

Astarion playfully glares at you and you giggle in response.

You close the gap between the two of you and gently grab his hand, pulling him to sit down next to you at the edge of the water. Astarion pushes down the giddy feeling that arises- hoping you didn’t notice he flinched when you first went to grab his hand.

You look at Astarion and then your clasped hands- you definitely noticed.

You begin to pull away and he feels his body protest, grabbing your hand back and interlocking them again. Astarion drinks out of his wine, refusing to look at you- this is entirely too intimate. Entirely too much like the lovers he used to hate and envy in Baldur’s Gate, but he can’t bring himself to let go or stop the slight smile that creeps on his lips.

You drink out of your bottle of wine and put your feet in the water. Astarion glances at you and notes the growing grin. He feels a twinge of guilt when he thinks about his plan and how fragile your heart probably is. Astarion pushes it away. Astarion needs his plan to work and so far, it’s working.

The space between the two of you is silent- nothing but the ocean waves roaring in his ears. It’s not uncomfortable, but Astarion doesn’t necessarily know where to start. He wants to begin the process of seducing you, but he’s also unsure of how well that would play out- considering what he’s seen thus far in your memories.

“My dad taught me how to cliff dive,” you say in a melancholic voice, interrupting his thoughts “we would go all the time over the Summer when we lived outside of Daggerford.”

“I was wondering how you had managed to pull off such an impressive feat.”

You guffaw at him and then pout with a glint of humor in your eye. He rolls his eyes at you.

“Fine Darling,” he muses, “I suppose you are rather impressive in all facets.”

Your face is practically burning with his compliment. Astarion has decided he will leave out the bait and let you take it. If you give him any signal or specifically say “I want to have sex” then Astarion will pleasure you and you will see how useful he can be in return for all of your gifts- your blood, your protection.

Your company.

Whatever feelings Astarion felt over the last three days- he never wants to feel again. You have been the one and only person to be kind to him, protect him in 200 years. You treat him with respect and like a friend- not the monster he absolutely is and that you should hate him for being. It had been a very lonely three days without your company-besides, no one else is nearly as fun to converse with. Astarion hears the whisper of a previous conversation in the back of his mind.

“So what does boar taste like?”

“I don’t really have much of a reference, but better than rats and flies,” he scowled.

“Gods, how filthy was that palace?” you murmured under your breath.

Your comment had caught him off guard and he couldn’t help but bark out laughing. You had felt horrible for it- you thought he wouldn’t be able to hear you. In your defense, you had spoken very quietly. Astarion assured you that he found your observation quite peculiar and hilarious.

Astarion likes that you point out the small things and allow him to decide how much of the larger things he wants to tell you. You never push him and Astarion isn’t used to it, but he knows he never wants it to go away- to be treated any other way ever again.

“What else did your father teach you?” Astarion asks softly.

You smile, “My father followed Ilmater. He was a ranger. He dedicated his life to helping others.”

A daughter of Ilmater worshippers turned into a half-dead creature who is forced to kill by an evil vampire, Astarion thinks, I guess even the Gods have a sense of humor.

“What happened to him?”

The pause is pregnant and loud. Astarion notices the single tear that manages to escape your eyes. You clear your throat.

“He’s dead,” you whisper, “a group of Ravagers destroyed our village. They didn’t like that it was a mix of humans and Drows escaping from Lolth- and they especially hated us ‘filthy half breeds’. Made the women and the children watch as they beheaded their fathers and husbands.”

Astarion doesn’t know what to say to something that horrific. He just merely looks at you- waiting for you to continue speaking.

“He just kept telling my mom and I how much he loved us. How he’d always be protecting us,” you manage to choke out, “I can’t even tell you how many times I have prayed to Ilmater for help- only to be reminded how alone I am and that, despite being the God of Compassion, Ilmater doesn’t care.”

Astarion knows that feeling all too intimately, but he wants to hear more.

“How old were you? What happened to you and your mother?”

You are looking at him wearily now, so he gives your hand a squeeze.

“You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to Darling.”

“I want to, I’ve just never talked about it before.”

“Well then,” he states in a flattered tone, “I’m honored to potentially be the first and only keeper of your deep, dark secrets.”

You laugh breathily while you roll your eyes at him. The smile on your face is replaced by an unreadable expression. You take a deep breath before you turn your gaze back to the ocean.

“I was 5. They sold us to a mine outside of Westgate. It was run by a group of fanatics that I can’t even remember the name of anymore,” you shake your head in disgust, “all I knew was that they were terrible people. They threatened us children to get our mothers to do anything they wanted. One of them raped my mother and ‘blessed’ her with a child.”

Astarion squeezes your hand as he feels you tense. You look at him with your teary, angry eyes and the intensity of your emotions- your grief- are written into every crack and crevice of your face. Astarion notes that you look uncomfortable, but he gives you a soft smile, encouraging you to continue. You take a big swig of your wine- he shortly follows.

“I don’t know what happened, but the baby… didn’t make it and mom developed a blood illness. It was the week before she had planned on breaking us out. I didn’t know she was dying- she told me she was going to be okay. I should have known- She gave me everything for the escape and had explained the plan to me so many times in that week she was dying that I can still recite it to this day.”

You chuckle to yourself before pulling your knees up to your chest.

“I asked them if I could have a funeral for her. They took me outside and made me watch while the pigs ate her. They told me that’s the only funeral a Drow deserves.”

“What a bunch of racist assholes,” he states.

“Oh, they were only the biggest.”

“You escaped a prison by yourself then or?”

“I did. I was 9 years old and probably one of the only people who has ever escaped that mine. I haven’t seen anyone from my village since. I went back to Daggerford one time and it was still decimated- no one ever came back to rebuild it.”

You both sit in the heavy silence. Your thumb begins to absentmindedly rub circles along his thumb- the gesture is simple, but it’s probably the softest touch he’s felt in the last 200 years that was not filled with the anticipation of sex.

“I’ve only ever had one failed escape,” you sigh harshly, “I was going to run away with Tessa because I didn’t want to go through the ceremony to be a Deathbringer, but Dahlia didn’t care what I wanted. She was too busy trying to win Obarhk’s favor.”

“How did you end up with Dahlia then? If you didn’t want to be a Deathbringer?”

You scoff and he sees the resentment behind your eyes.

“I was 13 and had been living on the streets for a while by then. I had my little tent and I had managed to convince one of the local inns to let me clean the rooms,” you scrunched up your nose, “it was gross, but decent work and they fed me once a day; let me use the baths. Sometimes they even gave me extra food and if it was cold out, they’d let me stay in a room if there was one available. I didn’t have to steal food anymore which was nice. I was actually very happy. I was saving my money so I could travel to the Underdark and hire a sword to go with me- to my grandparents- like my mom had told me to do.

“Then one day, a few of the other local boys, also urchins, had watched as I was given a decent amount of gold and a burlap sack of food. They followed me to my tent. I had offered to share and to give them some gold to help, but they didn’t want just some of it- they wanted all of it and all of me too. I thought I was going to die- the fight was brutal and they were so much bigger than I was, but I wasn’t as easy to take down as they had thought.

“Right as they had slammed my head into the pavement, right when I thought it was over- an Ilmater Priestess had appeared out of no where. She had killed them all. She came up to me, was kind to me, promised she would protect me, give me a home, teach me how to be stronger than anything else in the dark while she helps me travel to the Underdark. I was thrilled. I thought Ilmater had finally heard all my prayers. Then she took me outside of the city- I thought we were maybe going to a temple. I was so naive and stupid.”

Your voice breaks and you struggle to compose yourself- taking a shaking breath.

“She changed- the kind Ilmater priestess I had just been following to safety ended up being the Queen of Venom and a Sharran priestess nonetheless,” you spit out with disgust, “Dahlia stripped me of my clothes- she beat me, cut into my skin, threw me around. Dahlia kept telling me how ugly, wretched, small, and weak I was for hours- how she would be the only person to ever love me from now on. Then she chained me down to the floor, unmoving for I don’t even know how long in the dark. I just know when she finally came back, I was on the brink of death. She starved me and refused to give me water until I stopped asking her to leave. I stopped, but then I learnt how much worse it could be. I also began to accept that I would probably never be free again.”

“Are you free now?”

“Barely. A bit over a year ago I was assigned to the Faceless himself.”

“What changed?”

“I won the Deathbringer Tournament and Lady Thistle Thalaver, the fucking consort of all people, said that she wanted me to be assigned as her personal Deathbringer. Thistle made the point that we are close in age and it would make her happy to have someone she can talk to and protect her. News flash- I was more horrified by that than Dahlia. How the fuck does someone who is a literal husk of a person become the prize comfort pet of the Consort that is the reason you were even kidnapped to begin with,” you say, throwing your hands up in frustration, “Dahlia hated her. She was envious of her already and boy, when Thistle asked for me? I thought Dahlia might kill me and Thistle right there if Obarhk hadn’t stepped in.”

“She sounds like a sore loser.”

“ Oh she is, this grudge has lasted a little over a century or three supposedly. I can’t ever seem to get the exact date right, but Dahlia had allowed Obarhk to change her and became one of his Nightmasters because she had hoped to be his Queen and consort,” you shake your head, “it was childish- supposedly. Obarhk was going to go through with it initially, but then Thistle’s father had extensive debts to the guild and offered his only daughter as payment.”

“What a shitty father.”

“Oh the shittiest,” you agree pointedly.

“If she wanted you to help her gain his favor, why did she hide you away?”

“There are rules within the Guild for how recruits are to be treated. Obarhk plays with his cards very close to his chest and he has an absurd amount of political pull. He doesn’t want word getting out that the Nightmasks beat their assassin’s and thieves, but not their Deathbringers- it’s bad for recruitment. Guess they used to do that and damn near went extinct, not everyone is into becoming half-vampire” you shrug, “Dahlia had ‘presented’ me to gain Obarhk’s favor- not his consort’s. She lied and said I sought her out days ago, begging to get a chance to become a Deathbringer. When I was asked if it was true, I said yes, the alternative was whatever hell awaited me later. At least if I didn’t survive the ceremony, I would be laid to rest.

“Except Thistle won. Obarhk may not be particularly loving towards Thistle, but he won’t deny her what she wants if it’s reasonable. I was still under Dahlia, but now if I disappeared for days on end or came back beaten, it was noticed. A year ago, Lucia and Ghost found me bleeding out in a street with Dahlia over me- it was the first time she had done serious harm to me since the ceremony and the first time she was caught,” he watches you smile despite yourself, “Thistle wanted her to be tortured for what she had done- for creating the infamous ‘Hollow Deathbringer’ as I was called when I first started, but Obarhk doesn’t interfere with religious affairs and Dahlia claimed it was for her Sharran worship. So the solution was that I would report directly to him, Phultan, Lucia, and Lady Thalaver only. If Dahlia attempts to hurt me again, I am allowed to end her life and if I attempt to attack Dahlia, she is allowed to end my life. She isn’t allowed to send her assassin’s after me either or there will be consequences. That’s the same day I found out Dahlia had been lying to me- she is Obarhk’s spawn, not a Master Vampire. She never would have been able to get away with half of her threats if I had known, but I’m sure that’s partly why she isolated me from the Guild until I was old enough and skilled enough to compete.

“We’ve been in a very strange stalemate over the last year. Unable to find each other, but I don’t even know if I could kill her anyway. At least, not by myself.”

It was a lot to take in at one time. Your entire world is so heavily influenced by vampiric beings- no wonder you were so nonchalant about him being a spawn and him feeding from you.

Astarion will admit though, he isn’t necessarily thrilled to find out another sociopathic vampire might be hunting them- specifically you.

“Darling, if Dahlia ever darkens your door step ever again,” he leans toward you and speaks his next words with conviction, “I’ll rip her throat out myself.”

You smile at him and squeeze his hand.

“ Thank you Star, but you don’t need to do that. I don’t want you to get hurt.”

“Unfortunately, I don’t listen to hypocrites- Miss ‘I’m going to put Cazador’s head on a pike and we can parade it around the city’”

You gasp, “how dare you! I felt like that would be a fun leisure activity.”

“Oh believe me, it will be very fun,” he says with a malicious grin,” but someone needs to keep you humble, my dear.”

“Oh okay,” you roll your eyes, “because I’m the one who needs humbling here. Thank you for your service kind sir, I will never be able to repay you.”

He can tell that you are done with the previous conversation- he’ll have to thank you for sharing later and ask follow up questions. Astarion has a plan to execute.

“Well of course,” he lifts your clasped hands and kisses the back of yours, “ I live to be a hero for the common folk.”

“You’re lucky you’re a beautiful bastard.”

“Why thank you, my Dear. I am rather beautiful, aren’t I?”

You turn, facing him now and you move closer- giving him a light shove. One of your eyebrows is lifted in amusement- a lopsided grin on your face. This is most definitely the moment he has been waiting for.

He leans in, your faces near inches apart and he savors how your heart begins to race.

“I must admit, I was lying to you before,” he muses, “I maybe would like to do a little more than just drink wine with you tonight.”

“Y-you do?”

Astarion smiles at the way your breath hitches.

“Well of course, I believe you may be one of the most bewitching individuals I have ever had the pleasure of meeting,” he says while gently brushing your hair behind your ears, “but only if that would be okay with you.”

You look at him- there is lust in your eyes and you worry your bottom lip with your teeth. One of your canines graze your lip and a bit of your blood begins to paint your lips- Astarion fights the urge to smash his lips to yours. You search his face for deception.

“I want to. Very badly,” you pause, “but I need to be open with you. I’ve only ever been with one man before and it wasn’t my choice. That was over 10 years ago. I’m not sure if I’ll be able to go completely through with it or give you some wildly fun time… it would probably be vanilla at best even if I can get through it…”

You trail off and look at the ground, gently pushing his hand away from your face. Astarion frowns.

“If you want someone who you can actually have fun with, it might be better to go find Alfira again,” you whisper woefully, “I would absolutely understand. No harm, no foul.”

Astarion’s heart breaks for you. He gently guides your eyes back to his. You look sad and dejected -like you are ready for him to get up and walk away. You are expecting him to confirm what Dahlia has always told you- that you are an ugly, wretched, little thing. Unloveable at best and absolutely unforgivably intolerable at your worst. Astarion has slept with plenty of virgins before- he knows how to say all the right honeyed words to get them to bed, but this is entirely different. This is you and your first, consensual time with a man if you choose. If you don’t, then he won’t press the matter, but leave his door wide open. Astarion is not Cazador or Dahlia- he is not going to force you.

“I don’t care about any of that Darling,” Astarion assures you quietly, “I want you, not Alfira. We only have to go as far as you are comfortable with- if you want to.”

Your eyes are wide and searching for any hint of insincerity.

“We could even try multiple times if needed,” he says jokingly, but he knows that you can tell he’s serious.

You beam at him and your posture straightens up- a new found confidence in your eyes.

“Okay,” you finally say, “I trust you. I want to try.”

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

You would be lying if you weren’t feeling slightly anxious. The last person you had been with was Tessa and she’d been in the ground a little over 8 years now. The two of you had made a lot of groundwork in your last year together before she died. You had attempted to be with others before, but it never felt right so you could never go through with it.

This feels right. You just aren’t sure what your reaction will be, but you want him and Astarion wants you. You trust that he won’t hurt you.

Astarion pulls you up off of the sandy floor and gives you a smile, “I promise you, you do not want to try this in sand. I happen to know a very nice spot, but we are going to have to make a brief stop first.”

You smile enthusiastically and allow him to take your hand in his as he leads you back to camp.

The walk is a blur, you barely notice that Astarion had grabbed a blanket, taken you quite far from camp, and without warning, Astarion pulls you in for a breathtaking kiss.

You have to fight the urge to collapse completely into him, your arms snaking around his neck as you kiss him back. The kiss is slow, melodic and soft. Astarion’s strong arms hold you close to his chest as he picks you up before laying you down on the blanket.

You help him discard your clothes and your wet under garments. Astarion quickly discards his shirt and pants before he returns to kissing you sweetly, softly. You let your hands glide up his torso to his shoulders and let your hands fan out as you try to memorize every inch of his body. He groans with approval at the touch and when you go to touch his back- you find if you go a little too far over where there is raised skin, he tenses up.

You stop and look up at him- he doesn’t seem like he is all there.

“Star, are you okay? Are you sure you want this?”

Whatever trance he is in, he seems to snap out of and he kisses you sweetly before placing his forehead against yours.

“I assure you that I want this, that area is just… it has some sensitive spots.”

“Okay,” you whisper, “I’ll be mindful of that and try to avoid them. Is it mostly in the middle of your back?”

Astarion stares down at you and for a moment, you think he might start crying. Astarion’s face looks so raw and appreciative in that moment- as if you are the first and only person to ever take the time to listen. Maybe you are. Maybe this is just as much of a fear of his as it is for you.

“It is,” he says huskily,” I- thank you.”

You beam up at him and gently cup the left side of his face with your hand. He leans into the touch and you stroke his cheek bone with his thumb.

“Of course Astarion, I want you to feel safe too.”

Astarion kisses you with a neediness that wasn’t there before. The kisses are still soft and innocent, but a bit more urgent as his hands begin to slowly roam your body. Everywhere he touches leaves you feeling like you are on fire and you find that you never want it to stop. You are intoxicated and so wrapped up in his cologne, his lips- everything. Him.

Astarion’s lips leave yours and you breathlessly look at him. He smiles down at you and slowly moves his hands up to your breasts.

“May I?”

You shyly nod in approval. Astarion slowly begins to pinch and tease your sensitive buds with his fingers- you arch your back and cover your mouth as you whimper needily at the touch. It’s embarrassing how touch starved you are. Astarion pulls your hand away from your mouth and he stares at you through hooded eyes.

“None of that, my Dear,” he commands, “I want to hear every little sound you make.”

You blush and then are quickly squirming underneath him again as he gently takes one of your nipples between his mouth, sucking, licking, and teasing it while he rolls the other between his thumb and forefinger.

You are a complete mosning mess underneath him by the time Astarion’s fingers move from your breast to your throbbing clit- earning a loud, despairing whimper from you. You need so much more- you can feel your own slick coating the inside of your thighs, weeping in anticipation.

“My, you are a very needy lover,” he chastises you as he slides a finger in,” Gods you are so wet for me already. If I had known you wanted me this badly, I would have said something a long time ago.”

“Astarion-“ you gasp as he enters another digit inside you, causing you to arch your back keening as he teases your G-spot. His other finger continues to play with your now very swollen clit and with every moan you make, he praises you. The praise alone is enough to send you over the edge.

“You are being such a good girl for me,” as he enters another finger inside.

His mouth hovers over your clit, “I’m absolutely certain the Gods sent you to ruin me.”

“You taste like the heavens,” after his tongue has been flicking inside of you in tandem with his fingers.

You come undone underneath him- your hands have made purchase in his hair, and struggle to be as gentle as possible. He groans as you gently tug him up to your mouth, kissing him, tasting yourself on his swollen lips.

“Do you want to continue Darling?” Astarion whispers as he kisses up your neck, along your jaw, and slowly nips at your earlobe.

You need him inside you and you want him to be as close to you as possible. It’s like a Dam had broken open inside you and you never want it to stop flooding.

“Fuck- Astarion,” you pant, “please continue.”

Astarion kicks of his undergarments and dips his fingers between your folds and coats his cock with your orgasm. You are speechless as you watch him slowly stroke himself, looking at you.

Astarion puts himself in between your legs and you feel him tease your entrance.

“Before I start,” he says, “you need to tell me if it’s too much and if we need to stop. You will not offend me nor hurt my feelings. We can try again another time if you want.”

“The same goes to you.”

There was that look again. Astarion grabs your bottom lip between his teeth, the neediness has certainly grown since the last statement.

You feel him begin to guide himself inside you, slowly moving until he’s bottoming out- curse words and your name leaving his lips like a prayer. You feel the tears prick your eyes at the pinching and pressure as you adjust to his size. He slowly rocks himself in and out, barely making any movement, but enough to stimulate you more.

“Are you okay?” He says with alarm, wiping your tears.

“Yes- I promise,” you say between panting whimpers, you press your ankles into his lower back to keep him there. It’s beginning to feel better and you open up through the tadpole to show him you mean it. The thoughts were probably far hornier than you meant to show him and he smirks at you.

“Cheeky pup.”

Astarion begins to make his thrusts longer as your moans became louder and more euphoric sounding. You kiss him with fervor as he pumps in and out of you, keeping a slow pace.

“You can speed up now,” you whisper between kisses, “you feel really fucking good inside of me Star.”

Astarion moans against your mouth, the kiss becoming sloppy as he teases your bottom lip between his, pulling slightly. You feel his hips begin to snap slightly harder against yours and you cry out as he begins to hit that perfect spot faster and slightly harder.

“You are so beautiful,” he says while grazing the sensitive skin on your neck, “and you feel so fucking good around my cock.

“I’m not sure I’ll be able to stand any of our other companions looking at you sideways ever again.”

“Then give them a reason not to.”

That seemed to be enough for Astarion as he immediately goes to work leaving hickeys along your neck, your shoulders. You will have to ask him how he’s able to do it so gently.

Astarion’s thrusts inside you are getting sloppier and you have your hands dug in the earth as he slightly lifts you off the ground to get more leverage. You moan his name in between curse words and whimpers as another powerful orgasm rips through your body. You feel him stutter as you tighten around him and finish inside of you. Astarion’s pace moves to a slow rhythm before coming to a halt.

Vampire and half-vampire perks- the whole kid thing? Basically not even remotely possible.

Astarion lays gently on top of you, kissing your neck lazily.

“How was that, Darling?” Astarion asks as he looks into your eyes with concern and worry.

You gently grab his face with your hands and leave a chaste kiss on his lips.

“It was absolutely perfect,” you say, your brain foggy and swimming in the throes of bliss and your deep fondness of the man above you, “you are absolutely perfect.”

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

You had fallen asleep quite some time ago in Astarion’s arms. The concept of what happens after sex (normally) was quite foreign to him. Usually he was dragging people to their death after sex, but now he gets to sit and enjoy you- have you all to himself. After it had all been said and done, you had curled into one another, practically nose to nose and just talked. You caught up with each other about what the other missed over the last three days, picked the next ideal type of book to read, and how disasterous the Crèche is likely going to be considering Shadowheart is insisting on going. Lae’zel is positively miffed about it. You laugh and he asks about Minthara. You tell him about the vision she showed you, but he could tell you were holding something back. You don’t push him- he won’t push you.

You tell him about your mother- a former Lolth sorceress who didn’t align with the Spider Queen’s ideals. She was shunned by her parents when she denounced Lolth and she moved to the surface- meeting your dad. Your mother was practical and pragmatic- calculating and protective. Your father, on the other hand, was like a warm breeze on a perfect sunny day.

Astarion tells you about what little he remembers of his life as a Magistrate and his parents. You both ponder what they could possibly be doing in the world right then- pretending there is a possibility that you could find them together when this was all over- even just so he can know.

Astarion’s head is swimming with confusion. It was all very different than when Astarion had gone out hunting for Cazador.

You and him had spent at least a two and a half weeks getting to know each other extensively, spent quality time together over mutual hobbies, and you’ve even seemed to meld together as a fighting duo. You are friends- Astarion expected it to be maybe slightly different, more enjoyable than usual.

Astarion was quickly proven wrong.

This was eons different. Despite the feelings of it being tainted to some degree due to his past, it had been jaw dropping, sweet, simple, and, dare he even say it, intimate. Astarion finds that he actually craves more of you this way, but he also still wants you the way you had each other before. The shame and self-loathing are choking him. There is no way you’ll see him as something other than sex now.

Right?

Astarion honestly isn’t sure and that terrifies him. You were so kind to him tonight while you were in his arms. You respected his boundaries; you avoided that part of his body even though he didn’t tell you not to; you wanted him to feel safe with you too. You took the time to talk to him and play with his hair while he spoke about his parents, becoming a bit emotional.

Vanilla is hardly the word to describe what just happened between the two of you- it was wonderful and frightening. Astarion questions if it’s selfish to want more, to abandon his plan all together.

Astarion stares down at your sleeping face as your limbs are tangled with his. He wants to stay, but he wants to run away from you too. Except Astarion needs your protection- that’s what this was all for, wasn’t it?

That’s what compels him to leave soft kisses on your forehead and to hold you a little tighter- it’s why tears fall from Astarion’s cheeks onto the blanket beneath you when he thinks about the day you’ll end up letting him go.

#astarion acunin #baldurs gate 3 #astarion #astarion x reader #baldurs gate astarion #astarion x you #bg3 spoilers #astarion romance #astarion x tav #bg3 #karlach #astarion x gender neutral reader #astarion x gn!tav #astarion x gn! reader

63 notes · View notes

eretzyisrael · 11 months ago

Text

by Debbie Weiss

At least one-third of the 136 hostages still in the Hamas terror group’s custody in Gaza are at imminent risk of death, a disturbing report released on Tuesday found.

The report came a day after several former hostages, who were released during a temporary Israel-Hamas truce at the end of November, testified that those still in captivity in Gaza had been subjected to extreme forms of violence, including sexual assault at gunpoint and amputation.

“The testimonies from those who have been released reveal severe mental and physical abuse. This includes brutal sexual assault (men and women) mutilation, torture, starvation and dehydration, and a lack of medical care, with no access to Red Cross representatives. The worsening health of these hostages, both men and women, is alarming,” the report, released by the Hostages and Missing Persons Families Forum, stated.

The forum was established by families of the abductees who were kidnapped to Gaza during Hamas’ Oct. 7 onslaught across southern Israel, as well as by the families of people who went missing due to the attack.

A third of the hostages are suffering from chronic illnesses that need immediate treatment, including diabetes, Crohn’s disease, cancer, and heart and kidney disease. The hostages suffering from those diseases include young people — such as 22-year-old Omer Wenkert, who has ulcerative colitis, and 35-year-old Dolev Yehud, who suffers from kidney and thyroid diseases — and older people, Israeli Jews and Arabs alike.

A chilling testimony by Agam Goldstein-Almog, 17 — who was released after 51 days of captivity along with her mother, Chen, 49, and siblings, Gal, 11, and Tal, 9 — was screened at a rally in Tel Aviv.

“One day we moved from a house to a tunnel, suddenly a door opened, and we met six girls. We realized that there were girls who were alone. Many girls experienced severe sexual abuse, they are injured — very, very serious and complex injuries that are not being treated,” she said. “They dress their wounds themselves, or we helped them.”

In captivity in Gaza, “you live death,” she said.

“You don’t know when it will catch you and how it will look, if it will happen through torture or if they will just shoot you or even if it’ll be by the bombings from the air force,” she continued. “You’re always thinking about what death will look like.”

Goldstein-Almog’s mother, Chen, a social worker, said she saw some of the female hostages still being held in Gaza during her time there, and they had suffered weeks of isolation as well as sexual abuse.

“There were girls who spent 50 days and more alone. When they were sad, crying, their captors would stroke them and touch them. They described accounts of sexual abuse under gunpoint on a regular basis,” she said.

“Some of the girls were badly wounded and haven’t been getting proper medical care. Gunshot wounds, even lost limbs. They said they can cope with the disability but not with the manner they were constantly violated,” she added.

Chen Almog-Goldstein’s other daughter, Yam, 20, and husband Nadav were among the 1,200 people murdered by Hamas terrorists during their Oct. 7 massacre.

Eighteen-year-old Ofir Engel’s testimony, in which he described the pride with which he was shown off like a trophy, was also screened at the Tel Aviv rally.

“In Gaza we were immediately brought to a home, as if they were proud to show what they managed to catch,” said Engel, who was released after 54 days. “We were constantly told that we won’t return alive, that no one wants us in Israel, and that our families don’t care about us. Every day, they broke us a little more, and then a little more.”

Tuesday’s report, which was released to coincide with the three-month anniversary since Oct. 7, was accompanied by a letter from eight Nobel Prize laureates who urged the UN, Red Cross, and World Health Organization to advocate for the hostages’ release and to facilitate access to medical aid in the meantime.

Prof. Hagai Levine, head of the forum’s medical team, issued a stark warning: “All the hostages face immediate mortal danger. Some will not survive 100 days in captivity without proper care.”

A day earlier, Israeli media reported that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) is aware of the exact whereabouts of Yahya Sinwar, Hamas’ chief in Gaza, but is refraining from carrying out a strike because the terror leader was surrounding himself with dozens of hostages as human shields.

#hostages #hamas #gaza #yahye sinwar

35 notes · View notes

hopefulatrocity · 1 year ago

Text

From The Ashes Masterlist

Summary: Pheonyx Greene is the oldest of the Greene siblings. He’s always been different than the rest of his family; having endured abuse from his biological father as a kid and growing up as bisexual/transgender in conservative rural Georgia. He finds himself on the family farm recovering from top surgery when the world falls apart. As the dead begin to rise, Pheonyx finds himself becoming the sole protector of the farm as his family lives in denial about the Shadows of loved ones past. His life is changed the day Rick Grimes shows up on the farm, and shortly after a certain gruff archer as well. Daryl is drawn to younger man but how does he deal with the internal prejudices he’s grown up with?

Series CW/TW: Homophobia/transphobia/biphobia, zenophobia/racism/sexism(Merle), age gap romance(11yr difference. Pheonyx is 28, Daryl is 39 ), sexual assault/rape, child molestation, canon character deaths, body mutilation, child abuse, torture, hunting, smut 18+( P in V, unprotected sex(please practice safe sex!), creampie, breeding kink, rough sex, marking/biting, oral sex, sub/dom undertones), animal deaths(NOT KISMET), scars, blood, corpses, depression/anxiety, body dysphoria, religious trauma, menstruation mentions

AO3 FF.net

Playlist (Songs that remind me of Pheonyx/the story, or just songs I listen to while writing in general)

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

#twd daryl #daryl x oc #twd fanfiction #daryl dixon x trans!reader #daryl dixon fanfiction #daryl dixon #the walking dead #daryl dixon smut #daryl dixon masterlist #daryl dixon x omc #daryl dixon x oc #daryl x ftm oc #daryl x male oc #daryl dixon x trans!oc

76 notes · View notes

bluewavesofchange · 5 months ago

Text

The guardians of the Pharaoh

The rise of a new darkness

I don't own Yugioh or it's characters

This chapter has mention of child abuse and implied assault. So a warning is in place.

Chapter 11

The sun had set over Domino city…the helicopter landed at the hanger where the zeppelin for the Battle City finals was kept. Lillian had passed out during the flight, the pain and exhaustion had been too much and in a way Seto was glad she was out. Rather that than having to sit in agony the entire flight. He had wrapped his coat around her to cover her wounds, not caring if her blood ruined the fabric, he had another one anyways.

He got out of the copter, a few members of his staff waiting with a stretcher and anything else they would need to help the wounded girl. He had informed Roland about had happened and instructed him to put the medical staff on standby.

The tall teen laid her down on the stretcher, laying Lillian on her side so that her wounds weren’t pressed against anything, knowing the pressure would cause her pain. He stroked her cheek and moved a few strands of her hair out of her face before stepping back so that his staff could get to work, watching as the doctor checks her vitals before they move her onto the aircraft.

Seto wanted to follow and stay by her side but there were other things to attend to. The obvious plan of action would be to cancel the tournament before anyone else got hurt…but that would probably send Marik back into hiding. And he wanted nothing more than to enact his vengeances on the bastard, to make him suffer like no one’s suffered before. To make him beg for mercy as the brunet breaks every bone in his bone one by one…

But he can’t right now. He needed to ensure that the tournament continued…he could let word get out that one contestant had tried to kill two other competitors, a civilian and not to mention torture and mutilate another. The media would have a field day and his sure reputation of his company would plummet. He could lose everything he worked so hard for…and if he were honest he and Mokuba would be well off (after all he had more money than what he knew what to do with) but the people that worked for him did not and would suffer if Kaiba Corp went down.

So for now he would let things continue. The Battle City Finals would continue and when the time came he would make Marik pay for what he did. Yugi and his friends might hate him for this but he didn’t have a choice. There was a lot at stake and he needed to consider the risks. Besides he could always let Marik fall to his death from the zeppelin once they were away from the main land…

His turned back to the helicopter and saw that Mokuba hadn’t moved since they landed; in fact he hadn’t said a word for the entire flight. Seto was sure the kid was trying to deal with what happened…he was still a child and yet he had been kidnapped twice and had watched his friends nearly die and listened as another was tortured. The brunet had tried his best to ensure the Mokuba never went through what he went through while they were growing up. Seto thanks the stars every day that their step father had never laid a hand on his little brother. Mokuba didn’t deserve to get hurt…he may seem like an indifferent a spoiled rich boy to the rest of the world but he truly did care for the people closest to him. He wanted the best for his little brother and for Mokuba to have a great life and bright future…it’s why he endured years of pain and humiliation from Gozuburo. It was all for him.

Mokuba was always the cheerier of the two Kaiba brothers; he wore a smile on his face and had a positive attitude. Seeming him so downcast and bleak was a sin. Seto walked over and stood by the door of the helicopter, “We need to get going. The finalists will be arriving soon.” He spoke in his usual monotone voice. Mokuba didn’t respond and kept staring at the floor; Seto sighed as he got into the copter and closed the door as the pilot was making preparations to take off again.

The older Kaiba turned to the younger, “Look…I know what happened was…hard. But I need you to get over it and move on. I need my commissioner to help run the finals…”

He watched as his little brother’s hands slowly close, tears forming in his eyes as he finally spoke, “How can you be so cold after what happened?”

“Because someone needs to stay focused. Listen Mokuba…there will be time to cry over what happened later but we can’t risk anyone else getting hurt. We need to concentrate one making sure everything else runs smoothly and that we don’t have any other surprises.”

“But—“

“No buts.” Seto’s expression turned stern, “I know that what happened was hard to experience…I know that Yugi, Téa and Joey are your friends, although I don’t get how you can stand to be around Wheeler.” He says as he rolls his eyes as he folds his arms, “And that nearly losing them was traumatic for you…I’m not even gonna talk about what happened to Lil but you can’t let it drag you down…not when we need to ensure that everything else goes smoothly and that we ensure that the person responsible for all this gets what’s coming to him...” he looked out the window, watching as people were running about, preparing the zeppelin for take-off.

The helicopter lifted off the ground as Seto turned back to his brother who was still trying to fight back tears. Mokuba had taken his brothers word to heart and in a way he was right like usual. He just didn’t want to admit it. The whole ordeal had truly terrified him; his friends had nearly died right in front of his eyes. He had appreciated who his big brother had tried to shield him from everything, going so far as to deafen the sounds of his friends pained screams. He knew Seto was only trying to protect him and even know his big brother was trying to keep him safe in his own cold hearted way.

He couldn’t distract himself with feeling grief over what happened. It would only distract him from doing what needed to be done to ensure the safety of everyone else. He knew his brother was probably thinking of the future and other things that Mokuba couldn’t see right not. He was always considering things that others wouldn’t even think about. He just wished that Seto wouldn’t be so cold all the time but he should’ve expected this reaction from him…well it was either this or loosing himself in a fit of rage. He was rather surprised at how calm Seto had been about what happened…he was hiding his rage rather well considering his expression had remained blank since pulling Lillian out of the water…

Mokuba sniffled softly as he rubbed his eyes, trying to stop the tears. He froze for a moment when he felt his big brother’s arm wrapping around his shoulders and pulling him into a tight hug, “We can deal with this later once the tournament is over. But we have sometime before we arrive at the stadium to greet the finalist, even if it isn’t much time.” Seto spoke softly, glancing down at Mokuba, “So let out whatever you need to get out. Cry if you need to, scream if you want to…but once we land I need my little brother to be at his best, to stand at my side as my commissioner and my second in command…because there’s no one else I trust to handle this more than you Mokuba…”

The kid started tearing up as he looked up at his big brother, “…Honestly I don’t think I would’ve made it this far in life without you little brother…everything I’ve ever done was for you. After our parent’s passed and our relatives stole our inheritance and abandoned us at that hell hole, I wanted nothing more than to ensure our future and that we would never suffer financially again…I wanted you to have a life you deserved. Even if I had to endure the brunt of our step father’s aggression, I do not regret challenging the man that day…because it meant that you could have a good future.” He ruffled the boy’s hair as tears were running down the younger Kaiba’s cheeks, “You are one of the most important people in my life, and possibly the most important…the other person can’t be here right now. You are the reason I strive to be the best and to do what I do and Lillian gives me the strength I need to be best.” He turns his gaze to the window, looking at the city lights.

“But she can’t be here right now…she got hurt because I hosted this stupid tournament…and you could’ve gotten hurt too…” for the first time since he pulled Lillian from the depths his emotionless mask started to crack as a tear forms in his eye and threatens to run down his cheek, ”I don’t know what I would’ve done if anything happened to you again…I couldn’t even keep you safe from Pegasus, I had to rely on Yugi and Lillian to save us both…if Marik turned you against me like how he turned Joey and Téa against Yugi…or if he had hurt you like he…” Seto could feel his hands tremble, slowly losing more of his composure. He took a deep breath in and released it slowly, “…I would’ve snapped and burned the world to the ground till everyone involved in your suffering knew the pain we both felt…

Mokuba it’s hard to express what I’m feeling right now…it feels like weakness even though you and Lillian have told me many times it’s not. I need to be strong, to be the best, to protect my heart…and that means that I have to protect you both because you two are my heart. And right now I need to ask you a difficult task…to be my strength while the other half of my heart is healing. So use this time to grieve and let out your sorrow…because the storm is yet to come and I will need my little brother at my side.”

Mokuba slowly let the walls break and he buried his face in Seto’s shirt, letting the tears flow freely as he silently cried. This was the brother he knew from long ago, the brother he thought he lost when they were adopted, the brother who wasn’t afraid to be vulnerable, and the brother he knew lay buried beneath the person their step father had created. He was always there, hidden behind this egotistical and arrogant man. This was the side of Seto that would only show itself when he was with Mokuba and Lillian because they only ever wanted him to be himself and didn’t push any unrealistic expectations onto him the way Gozuburo had over the years.

Seto held his little brother as he cried, a single tear running down the brunet’s cheek, letting out a small ounce of the turmoil he was feeling deep within his mind and soul. He’s brother had been taken from him again but he returned to him faster than last time…but the woman he loved had suffered immensely. He knew the pain she had felt with the whip had licked her flesh with each strike, the scars on his back were a reflection of that same pain…only difference was that her wounds were inflicted to make Yugi suffer while his wounds were created to teach him to submit to his step fathers will.

The pain and screams were still the same…he heard it echoing in his mind even now while they flew over the city. She felt so fragile and small when he held her in his arms after the ordeal, so far from the girl who had snuck into his room every night since they found each other again after being adopted and had given him the strength to keep going, the girl who had consoled him every time he nearly broke from his step father’s abuse…even the night he did break…the one night the monster came into his room and held him down, doing unspeakable things to him while he struggled under the man…

He promised himself he would never speak of that night…he locked that memory so far back in his mind…and yet here he was thinking about it. He had never felt so violated and humiliated in his life. He had truly felt afraid that night…because if his step father could do something like that to him, then it meant he could do it to Mokuba. But he never touched his brother…and strangely enough he never touched him that way again after that night…and Lillian was to thank for that.

She had told him a few months after that night that she had seen what had happened to him. She arrived at the manor same time she did every night to patch him up, only she found someone else in Seto’s room with the boy that night. She had told him that she froze up as she watched, she felt ashamed that she didn’t do anything to make it stop but Seto was relieved she didn’t in a way…because if she had tried to stop his step father, the man would’ve hurt her, possibly killed her.

Lillian had explained that after he left Seto’s room she wanted to kill him…to end the abusers life…she had gone to the kitchen to grab a knife and ended up outside Gozuburo’s room, stopping when she heard the man enjoying a drink while boasting about what he did to his man servant Hobson. The man asked his employer what would happen if Seto exposed the man for the abuse…to which he responded that he had plans in place if anything were to happen to him, that Seto would be sent away to a mental institute and Mokuba would either end up back in the orphanage or be disposed of. She went back to Seto’s room, finding him curled up under the sheers…crying…a pillow over his head…muffling his screams of agony. She had never heard anything like it and she never wanted to hear it again.

If she had killed the man, Seto would lose everything, including his little brother. And she wouldn’t let that happen…so she came up with a plan. She stole some of her mother’s sleeping pills and mixed it into Gozuburo’s favourite bottle of bourbon, he would have a glass every night at dinner and would be dizzy and tired half an hour later. He would go to bed and sleep through the night, meaning he left Seto alone.

The beatings weren’t as frequent but they continued…however that night never happened again…

Seto was angry and grateful at the same time…she had prevented the worst night of his life having a repeat performance.

They never spoke about it after that, they promised never to speak about it again and he buried that night deep down, his personality shifted after that, becoming the cold indifferent person people saw him as today…it was after that night that he started plotting to take everything from his step father and make him feel as humiliated as he had made Seto feel…

Lillian respected his wishes and gave him the support and strength he needed to continue. She never pitied him for what happened and stood by his side every night, staying longer to help him deal with his nightmares. And she still loved him despite the change in personality and his behaviour, she still stood by him…even after he hit her she love him…he felt like he didn’t deserve her but he was selfish and would keep her by his side till his last day…

The helicopter landed in the stadium and the brothers disembarked, Mokuba hugging Seto one last time as he whispered, “I love you big brother.” The brunet returned the embrace and ruffled his hair, “Love you too Mokuba.”

They separated as the copter left and they waited for the finalists to arrive.

#yugioh #seto kaiba #mokuba kaiba #puzzleshipping #yugi mutou #yami yugi #fantasy #ocs #alternate universe

8 notes · View notes

rise-my-angel · 1 year ago

Text

Its very interesting that we have three separate instances in season three of men being victims of rape at the hands of female perpetators, but we hardly ever discuss it as such.

I've gone into much detail before about how Jons experiences with Ygritte are a blatant case of rape and abuse, that gets romanticized in a very damaging and toxic manner. So I won't rehash my many points again here.

But then there is Theon. Who has been tortured and tormented for months on end, and one day gets bombarded with two women seducing him when he clearly has little agency to voice his discomfort. And considering this was all a ruse to mutilate him, it clearly strips Theon of a real ability to consent.

Then we have Gendry, who once more is brought to Dragonstone under false pretenses. Is seduced by Melisendre who takes advantage of his clear inexperience to hide her ruse of leaching blood from his body including putting a leach on his cock as he begs her not to.

One season and three instances of male victims of rape and sexual assault all comitted while holding the threat of death and mutilation over their heads. And all three men are never given the chance to properly reflect on how those experiences clearly changed and traumatized them.

Interesting that I don't think I've ever seen this trio collection of assaults examined in any detail in regards to the motifs or themes of the season.

#game of thrones #a song of ice and fire #asoiaf #jon snow #theon greyjoy #gendry waters #tw rape #rape tw

19 notes · View notes

laughing-hellblazer · 1 year ago

Text

⛥TIMELINE⛧

trigger warnings: suicide, violence, csa, death, child abuse, dark themes

the 50's

1953: John is born in a complicated birth that kills his mother and twin brother. His father, Thomas, refuses him for the first two weeks of his life, which are spent sickly in the hospital. A single nurse is put in charge of his care, and holds him to her chest to listen to her heartbeat. Because of this, John survives his infantile illness. The duty of taking care of the baby John is left to his older sister, Cheryl, who is only 8 years old.

the 60's

1961: John's father is sent to prison for seven months for stealing women's underwear, during which time John and his sister, Cheryl, are sent to live with their Aunt Dolly and Uncle Harry in Northampton, UK. John is accosted by three teenage boys who deeply burn his chest with cigarettes for being a Scouser.

1967: John casts his first spell, locking his childhood innocence away in a toy house, which he later buries in a time capsule at his school. John is later expelled from school, and his father blames this on his obsession with the occult, turning far more abusive. John curses his father by binding his soul to that of a roadkill cat corpse, but later halts the spell by storing the cat in formaldehyde. This doesn't break the spell, and leaves Thomas Constantine frail, but just as abusive.

1968: John runs away from home and gets to just outside of London. He stays with a woman named Estella, who teaches him how to use tarot cards and divination magic. He is later caught by police at a satanic party and sent home to his furious father in Liverpool.

1969: John runs away to London again, this time successfully arriving in the city proper. On his way he rides along with a serial killer ex-priest who attempts to assault and mutilate him. He meets Chas Chandler, who is a prisoner of his mother, Queenie, and her familiar, Slag. John murders Slag the Monkey, thus killing Queenie and freeing Chas. Chas owes him a debt that John never stops cashing in.

the 70's

1974: John attempts suicide at age 21, overdosing on sleeping pills with alcohol. During attempt he has visions of a purgatorial demon named Araethos, who tries to lay claim to his soul while he's dying. He is found and rescued by roommate and childhood friend Gaz Lester, who stays with him at the hospital. Gaz calls Cheryl, who comes to London for a night to visit him, even though the two are estranged. The two talk for a while and rekindle their relationship, with Cheryl and Gaz both encouraging John to take better care of himself.

1977: John and his friends Richie, Beano, and Gaz form new wave punk band Mucous Membrane. Chas becomes a roadie for the band, traveling with them across the UK as a struggling opening act. In their travels John meets Brendan Finn, a music manager who quickly becomes a close friend. The two part on good terms before their gig at the Casanova Club in Newcastle.

1978: After sensing dark magic at the Casanova gig, John investigates to find a girl, Astra, being used as part of dark rituals at the hands of the club's owner, her father. With a group of band members, roadies, and fellow magic users, John forms the Newcastle Crew, a group with the mission to put an end to the dark magic being cast over the Casanova Club. As they discover, Astra has been possessed by a demon se summoned, Norfulthing. Their mission fails when John attempts to summon a demon, but fails to bind it, and Astra is killed. John has a mental breakdown and is sent to Ravenscar Secure Facility for two years.

1979: John is tortured by the guards and doctors at Ravenscar for his assumed crime of killing a child, and he accepts all the pain as punishment for failing Astra. He is subjected to conscious E.C.T. and physical abuse every day until his release in 1980.

the 80's

1980: John wanders the North Yorkshire countryside and is taken in by traveling Brendan Finn, who then takes him across the country in a soul searching journey. John develops feelings for Brendan, but doesn't express them. The two return to England, where John meets Brendan's girlfriend, Kit Ryan.

1982: John meets and courts Emma, an American artist, the two become a steady couple, with Emma knowing about and accepting John's magic. She becomes the first girl John ever introduced to his family.

1983: John and Brendan steal the Ace of Winchesters, a demon-slaying gun, from Voodoo priest Papa Midnite for collector Jerry O'Flynn. Jerry and Brendan get into a fight, and John has to separate them. John, Brendan, and Kit have one last drink together before John sets out for London again. Once in London, John befriends a man named Seth before finding out he's abusing his girlfriend, Annette, who John then offers a place to stay and sleeps with. Annette uses his occult book collection to make a deal with the Third of the Fallen to kill Seth, then ends her own life from horror.

1984: Beano contacts John, desperate to have his house rid of ghosts. Taking Chas with him, John investigates, and he finds the ghosts of a little girl and the man who murdered her. John let's the girl's ghost go free, and she ascends to heaven, but the murderer's soul begins to fall to hell, and he drags John with him. John is able to escape from hell through a deal that he's never shared the details of, and shows up just in time to be at his own funeral. A succubus and angel turn to John for help when expecting a baby. John is able to hide Ellie, the succubus, but not Tali the angel, or the baby being born. Tali is killed by fellow angels, and the angels then take the baby.

1985: Able to sense the balance of the planet changing, and something dark approaching, John gets in contact with the Elemental Swamp Thing and enlists his help to defeat the Brujera. Over the next two years, several members of the Newcastle Crew are killed by the encroaching Darkness, including Emma.

1987: Eventually, John gathers a group of magic users including Zatara and his daughter Zatanna to form a magic circle. In this circle, two will die, including Zatara protecting his daughter. After returning from the circle, John finds his old friend and bandmate, Gaz Lester, in need of help after releasing the demon Mnemoth in New York. Turning to Papa Midnite for help , John manages to contain Mnemoth, but not without paying the price of Gaz's life. John begins to see ghosts of the Newcastle Crew haunting him, as well as his old lover, Emma.

1988: John meets Zed. The Resurrection Crusade and the Damnation Army both rise up as new gangs in London, and John finds himself entangled with the gangs through his niece being kidnapped. After rescuing her from the Damnation army, Zed goes missing. After jumping out of a moving train and nearly dying, John is approached by Nergal in the hospital with a deal to end a prophecy which would mean slavery under Heaven. Nergal gives John some of his own blood to regenerate him to perfect health. John finds Zed, now part of the Resurrection Crusade, and has sex with her. John is then possessed by Swamp Thing in order to conceive a child with his wife, Abby, who then becomes the host of the Sprout. This neutralizes the prophecy, assuring neither Hell nor Heaven have claim to Earth just yet. After finding out that Nergal is the same demon who kille dAstra in 1978, John uses his connections with the disembodied technomancer, RIchie, to destroy Nergal at the gates of Heaven. Richie then takes the body of Nergal and becomes a demonic entity who is trapped in hell.

1989: At the request of the Aspect of Dream, Morpheus, John tracks down the Bag of Sand, running into his old girlfriend after she's become addicted to the dreamstuff in the sachet. Morpheus repays John by temporarily relieving him of nightmares for the return of his item. While on the run from the police after a spurious article about him is published, he meets Marj and her daughter Mercury, a pair of Travellers who he befriends and lives with for a time. Mercury, a psychic, is drawn to a secret facility that is later found to be one of the locations for a covert operation known as the Fear Machine. This turns out to be part of a masonic plot to bring forth the God of All Gods, Jallakuntilliokan. Turning to Zed, who has become a Pagan Sex Witch, Marj, John, and Mercury are able to summon forth the feminine counteraspect to Jallakuntilliokan, and all of reality is saved by their union. John is unable to remember most of this in hie waking life, but still has vivid nightmares about it in the Dreaming.

the 90's

1990: John has a run in with a serial killer known as the Family Man, unknowingly giving him the names and addresses of his next victims. When he becomes haunted by the ghosts of those the Family Man killed, he begins to track the man down. The Family Man, in retaliation, kills John’s father, Thomas. John hunts the Family Man down and shoots him with a gun Chas got for him t put an end to his killings. At his father’s funeral, John notices Gemma is seeing the ghost of Thomas Constantine, and realizes it’s tied to the curse he cast when he was 14. John and Gemma burn the cat corpse, releasing his father into the afterlife. Accompanied by the other members of the Trenchcoat Brigade, John introduces a young mage, Timothy Hunter, to the occult. Timothy finds the time capsule John buried as a child, and John urges him to rebury it and keep the innocence locked away. Timothy reluctantly agrees.

1991: John finds out, after a horrific night of literally coughing up a lung, that he has terminal lung cancer. While touring a cancer ward he meets and befriends a patient named Matt, who is also dying of terminal lung cancer. He visits Brendan Finn in hopes that the older warlock can cure his lung cancer, only to find out that Brendan, himself, is dying from liver failure. To protect Brendan’s soul from the First of the Fallen, John tricks him into drinking holy water and breaks a bottle of sacramental wine over his head. The First of the Fallen lays claim on his soul by insult, damning him to hell. In a bid to keep himself alive and out of hell, he tries to make deals through Ellie and through the Archangel Gabriel, both of which fall through. As a final attempt, after saying his goodbyes to his loved ones, John makes deals with the Second and Third of the fallen, deadlocking his soul between the three Lords of Hell. The First of the Fallen cures his lung cancer in the most excruciating way possible, then remakes his entire body from scratch, without once killing or allowing Constantine to go unconscious. John is then made ageless to prevent him from dying and setting off a war in hell. He also meets Kit Ryan for the first time in 8 years. Matt dies from his cancer right in front of John.

1992: The First of the Fallen attempts to use Ellie against John, but she instead turns to him for protection. John carves a sigil into her soul that severs and hides her from hell. Kit and John begin to go steady with the promise that John’s magic work will not enter their relationship. Gemma attempts magic and Cheryl tells John to deal with it. He finds the boy who introduced her to it and gives him a fright, while Kit talks to Gemma about the seriousness of casting magic. In the end, Gemma decides not to pursue the same profession as her uncle, and stays away from magic. The King of the Vampires offers John immortality, but John turns him down and insults him. John and Chas go to visit Chas' uncle, only to find him dead from a heart attack. At the funeral, they discover body snatchers stealing his body, and in tracking him down, find a private militia operation testing ammunition on corpses. John releases the souls of the bodies, who then kill the director of the project.

1993: After crossing a noble-tied Neo-Nazi group, John is kidnapped and Kit is attacked. John’s friend, Dez, is murdered in front of him. John, seeking protection from the Lords of Hell, causes Gabriel’s fall and claims his heart. Due to trouble having come to Kit from their relationship, she severs ties with John and leaves him for Belfast. John spirals, having felt love for the first time with Kit, and enters into a six-month depressive episode filled with alcoholism and homelessness. During this time, he meets a young man named Davy, who is a male prostitute and homeless as well. The King of the Vampires finds them asleep together for warmth, and kills Davy. John gives in, and is fed upon by the vampire, who rejects his demon blood. As the blood dissolves his jaw, John drags him into the sunlight, killing him.

1994: After New Years Day, John has a contact encounter with the ghost of a WWII fighter pilot which inspires John to get his life back together and move on. John goes to New York for a holiday, and is poisoned by Papa Midnite and forced onto a Witchwalk through a pocket of Hell while his body is vulnerable on Earth. He’s able to escape with the help of Midnite’s sister, and the threat of her revenge forces Midnite to jump off the Empire State Building.

1995: Chas seeks John’s help with his daughter, Geraldine, who has gone into a coma since giving birth to her daughter, Trish. John finds that her soul has been severed from her body and taken to Los Angeles. Chas joins John on a trip to LA, where they confront Beroul, her captor. Beroul is keeping Geraldine’s soul inside of his own body, and demands that John hunt down a list of demons that are interfering with his business. John uses the ancient god Mictlantecuhtli to eliminate the other demons, but Beroul and Mictlantecuhtli instead make a deal behind his back. John later makes another deal with Mictlantecuhtli, who can stitch souls back together with their bodies. Restoring Geraldine back with her body, John then plays chicken with Geraldine’s soul using an ancient spell. Mictlantecuhtli relinquishes Geraldine’s body and soul in response, and John and Chas safely see her back to London.

1996: John is tricked by Ellie into opening and reading from the Fuhajd’haersk, or in human tongues, The Book of Mirrors. John is then trapped inside the pages of the book, each of which contain a gateway to another reality. For the next eighteen years, John is trapped inside of the book and the infinite realms and realities contained within its pages. Cheryl, after John's assumed death, takes in John’s belongings, storing them in her attic. These items include the Book of Mirrors, which is packed away.

the 00's

2008: During his travels through realities, John ends up in a magical realm where witches and wizards are commonplace. Here he meets a witch named Elias Blackburn, who turns out to be quite the dashing rogue. The two begin a torrid relationship and work together on a heist of the Academy library. They plan to steal a book containing a spell that could release John from the Book of Mirrors, but instead John is abandoned by Elias and captured by the city guard. Imprisoned, he slips through realities again, leaving behind nothing but the amulet Elias gave him.

2014: While emptying her mother Cheryl’s attic, Gemma’s children Sally (7), Topaz (5), and Cher (3) get into some of John’s things, including the Book of Mirrors. Through trying to read the book, they are sucked into the stories along with John, disappearing from their grandmother’s living room. John finds them and guides them through the dangers of multiple realities, protecting them from several dangers ranging from a fantasy novel’s dragons to a horror novel’s killer. Eventually, Gemma opens the book to a page they’re all on, and reading aloud from the book opens the gateway John needs to escape with all three kids in tow. Gemma is shocked to see the uncle who went missing back in 1996, and relieved that her children are safe and sound thanks to him. They try to burn the book, but flame has no effect. They wrap the book up and seal it away behind some bricks of the foundation. John stays with Gemma for a short time while adjusting to the missing years of his life, but eventually he moves back to London in search of Chas, who is now dying of lung cancer due to second-hand exposure.

#timeline #tw suicide #tw death #tw violence #tw sa mention #tw csa mention #tw child abuse

11 notes · View notes

passportclown · 2 years ago

Text

Overhaul's Punishment

Let's talk about Overhaul.

This post may be edited frequently with new information or new opinions.

(Hey! Here from the year 2024. Some of the info in this post isn't elaborated on well enough or doesn't have enough specifications mentioned. But someone in the reblogs pointed those things out if you want quick corrections. If I made this post now I would've changed a few things and mentioned other things, I just don't feel like doing that. Still wanted to mention that here, though.)

Content Warning: Discussion of torture and child abuse.

The United Nations set the max amount of time in solitary confinement to 15 days, which is more than enough to have permanent trauma. Let's assume that in the BNHA universe, these laws still hold up. When we see him appear again he's in a secluded cell, we can assume he was in solitary confinement or that's just where he resides.

Kai Chisaki was in Tartarus for months.

Tartarus is, from what we can tell, a glorified torture home. Patients like Overhaul aren't given prosthetics (the bare minimum for an amputee) nor healthcare for their quirks or mental state. From what we know, there wasn't even any investigation into how he lost his hands. He was already detained and no longer a threat when his hands were removed, there should've been an investigation.

He deserved punishment, to go to prison and pay for his crimes and realize why what he did was wrong. However, Kai didn't receive a psychiatrist or a psychologist, nobody who could officially diagnose him and help him repent.

Tartarus is a prison in which the prisoners never leave, they spend the rest of their lives there as punishment. We can assume from what we've seen that Tartarus doesn't cater to the prisoner's quirks [which should be a basic human right, even for 'bad' people. (Toga, Twice, Shigaraki, Dabi, and many more have been mistreated for one reason or another due to their quirks.)]

We've seen no accommodation to Overhaul's Mysophobia, in fact, he actually looks quite dirty when we first see him in Tartarus.

Let's list Overhaul's crimes, Mass murder [including child murder] Usurpation Gaslighting Mutilation Abuse [physical and psychological, including child abuse] Torture Drug dealing Attempted cultural genocide Destruction of property Assault and battery Jailbreak Organized crime [-Villain Wiki]

Crimes of this amount, would [in places in our world] result in the death penalty.

Speaking of penalties, in the universe of BNHA, we don't see any lawful punishments that include removing quirk factors, it actually seems quite taboo. Child abusers deserve immense punishment [nobody is arguing on that] but the actions taken towards Overhaul were illegal and objectively immoral.

He was assigned a life sentence [Which was deserved however you could also argue that he deserves the death penalty. I personally believe he should live with his sins and be punished for them but I can understand if your opinion differs.], repenting for his crimes and no longer being able to cause any harm. Shigaraki took his own revenge by removing Overhaul's hands. I feel as if only one of these punishments would've sufficed. In serving his life sentence he'd repent for his crimes and no longer be able to cause any harm. As soon as his hands were removed, he experienced immense distress that caused him trauma.

The current Overhaul is not a functional member of society, he's a broken husk, a shell of his former self. When Shigaraki made him an amputee, we could see that Overhaul was immediately broken. He'd no longer be able to use his quirk, to do basic daily tasks which accommodate his phobia [Cleaning, etc] or to heal his father.

Overhaul put his father into a coma that [supposedly] only his quirk can cure, it's either that or the doctors aren't putting much effort into waking up his Pops. [We've already seen the corruption in this universe, weaker people are afforded fewer rights and opportunities. Pops not receiving proper medical care could be because he has a weak quirk or his affiliation with a criminal.] With people like Overhaul, Eri, and the nurse I think it's safe to say there'd be at least one doctor able to attempt something. [We could just not be shown this but there is an actual effort being made, not just seeing him in a bed with doctors.]

More effort is put into restraining people with powerful and 'dangerous' quirks, Muscular, AFO, and Stain. But Overhaul is effectively quirkless. It wouldn't be far-fetched to assume they just threw him in a cell, made sure he was fed, and were done with it. [We can see from Overhaul's prominent muscles that he's at least been afforded exercise and a somewhat healthy diet.]

Even when serving out life sentences in our world, although the prison system is corrupt prisoners have some semblance of rights and access to mental health experts. These rights aren't given in the BNHA universe.

Opinions on Overhaul's treatment and punishment vary, if you think he deserves all of this then that's fair. He abused and permanently traumatized a girl who is almost definitely younger than 10 years old.

However, you can also see he is almost certainly not neurotypical [which isn't a bad thing]. Overhaul growing up in the yakuza [who we know weren't doing well financially, even if they were that doesn't guarantee he'd get any help.] wouldn't give him much if any access to somebody who could diagnose and assist him. Of course, nothing justifies his crimes, they are only possible explanations.

If you believe that his punishments were overkill, then it's not hard to understand why. He was effectively tortured and thrown into a cell. Without the context of who he is and what he did, you'd pity him and advocate for his rights.

I can understand and somewhat agree with the people who say he deserves it, but maybe I'm biased since he's my favourite character.

I'd like to see others' opinions and any corrections to any mistakes I may have made. I'm not at all an expert on any of these topics, I was just interested and did my own research.

#BNHA #MHA #boku no hero academia #my hero academia #Overhaul #Kai Chisaki #Chisaki Kai #Analysis #Passport Speaks

33 notes · View notes

writing-to-nobody · 2 years ago

Text

Aftermath - I

Every night since Andy brought Annemarie to live with him, he’s woken up to the sound of her screaming. This morning, things are quiet.

Content warnings (this story): implied incest, suicide

Content warnings (rest of the series): ableism, abuse dynamics, gaslighting, referenced sexual assault, unwanted pregnancy, referenced torture, referenced miscarriage, gynecological exam, transphobic violence (recounting a past event, not in the present), domestic violence, mutilation with a knife

Part 2

Rating: T

Words: 1,299

Andy awoke in the middle of the night to heavy silence. He looked slowly around the dark room through half-shut eyes, as if he might find the source of the strange, choking feeling that had roused him. He took a deep breath, but the pressure on his chest didn't ease.

With a groan, he sat up and scanned the room again. Nothing was obviously out of place, but he couldn't shake the uneasy feeling. It was too quiet.

At that realization, he stiffened. That was it. It wasn't what he did hear. It was what he didn't.

His eyes darted to the clock on his nightstand. It was two hours to sunrise, and the house was utterly silent.

He was on his feet so fast that the room spun around him. His stomach churned mutinously. He was halfway across the hall before the sick feeling in his gut sharpened into a wrenching, vomitous guilt. He froze, his hand stretched out toward the guest room door.

He swallowed back bile before it could wet his parched tongue and let his arm drop at his side. He took a step back from the door. He couldn't do it. He couldn't face her. Not after what he'd done.

He slunk back into his room, his whole body feeling hot with shame. Skin prickling, he crawled back into bed and buried himself beneath the sheets.

He lay there, waiting for the sound that was already far too late. It didn't come.

When the sun began to peek in beneath his curtains, he finally dragged himself back out of bed.

He looked warily out into the hall, but it was empty. There were no signs that anyone else lived in the house. The door to the guest room was still shut as tightly as it had been two hours ago.

He grimaced and turned instead toward the bathroom. He scrubbed his teeth until his gums bled.

He spent the rest of the day listening for the slightest creak in the hall, or for the sound of a door opening. Anything. But all he could hear was his own heart. It beat an uneven rhythm in his ears and did nothing for his nerves.

Pacing the halls, the sound of his shuffling socks against the dusty wood floor joined his juddering heart. Still, nothing from the hall. Nothing from that room.

He was being a coward, and he knew it, but no matter how he berated himself, his legs refused to carry him back to that room. Where his body would not go, his mind insisted on traveling. Flashes of memories banged on his skull like unwelcome visitors and he could not turn them away. They hadn't let him be since…

He felt sick to his stomach again, but he hadn't eaten all day, so there was nothing to throw up. Coward. The word repeated in his mind again and again. Coward. Coward.

He was outside the door again, arm half-raised to knock. His hand was shaking. He lowered it slowly. Squeezed his eyes shut.

"Annemarie," he called, before he could think better of it. "Are you in there?"

Silence.

He didn't blame her. He hadn't been able to face her since that night. He'd heard her screaming every night at midnight, or shortly thereafter, but he didn't go to her anymore. He couldn't. His shame trapped him in his room and condemned him to listen: listen, and do nothing.

This had been the first night of silence since he'd brought her to live with him.

"Annemarie, I am—" He broke off. What was he going to do: apologize? Words couldn't bridge the gap he'd torn between them. He sank a sharp canine into his tongue and felt his nerves screech in protest. "You do not have to speak to me," he said. "I do not deserve it. I just want to know that you are all right."

No response.

The choking feeling that had woken him that morning tightened its grip on his throat. At last, his hand closed around the doorknob. It felt like ice against his sweating palm. Cautiously, he turned it and pushed the door slowly open.

Time seemed to stand still. Or perhaps it only stretched out. All he knew was that an eternity seemed to pass before his mind registered what he was seeing.

He couldn't move. His brain was screaming at him, but his legs weren't getting the message. Finally, after what could have been minutes or hours, he stumbled forward like a sleepwalker and dropped to his knees beside his sister's too-still form.

It couldn't have been an easy death. Her chest was hollowed out like a forest after a wildfire, singed at the edges. Her eyes were hollow too: dark as bloodstains and rust-dull.

He rested a hand on the side of her head, his fingers brushing rough, splitting hair. His thumb came to rest on her cheek, and she was dreadfully cold.

Oh how he'd hated her, once. It seemed foreign now, that feeling that had once burned in his gut whenever she was around. Like a memory of a story someone else had told. She'd always been stronger than him. Faster than him. Cleverer than him. He'd resented her for it.

He'd been glad when she'd disappeared. It had almost been peaceful, going about his day without the possibility of her turning up to spoil it. He hadn't questioned where she'd gone. In fact, he'd rather hoped she was dead.

She wasn't, though. Oh, no. The truth was worse. He'd found out just how much worse the day her ghost found its way to his doorstep. She'd still been alive then, in a manner of speaking, but the sister he'd known was gone.

He didn't know why he'd told their father. He didn't remember anymore. She'd begged him not to. Maybe that was why he'd done it.

The months that followed still haunted him.

He'd tried to do right by her son. It was the least he could do, he thought, after their father tossed her aside like the week's garbage. Oh, how he'd tried, but the boy had had too much of his grandfather in him, and before Andy could stop it, he was gone too. Violent lives, violent ends.

He'd lived, if one could call it that. Then, he'd died.

Then, somehow, he had found her again. The sight of her, chained to that pipe in that dark, dusty warehouse had nearly knocked him off his feet. With shaking hands, he had cut the snakes from her belly and carried her home. He'd sworn he'd never let her down again. He'd promised himself that.

The night he'd made that dreadful mistake, things had gotten so confused. He hadn't been thinking straight. He'd only ever wanted to comfort her. He would have given anything to see that smug smirk he'd hated so damned much in life, or hear one of her obnoxious verbal jabs she'd always thought herself so clever for.

He hadn't been thinking.

He couldn't face her after that, and so, he'd left her alone. He'd let her down for the last time. No more chances.

He bent his head, eyes stinging, and pressed his forehead to hers: blazing skin against ice.

"I am so sorry," he said, now that it was far too late. "I am so—"

There was nothing else to say. He knelt, and shook, and no tears came.

Time passed. He didn't know how much. Then finally, when the cold numbness had seeped from her into him, he rose.

There was nothing else to do, except to give her the burial their father had deemed her unworthy of. He'd failed her in every possible way. This was nothing. This was everything. All he had left to give.

#stories #andy #annemarie #darkfic #oh andy #you troubled troubled soul

2 notes · View notes

olive-branch-witch-library · 4 months ago

Text

Lightbringer Book 2: The Blinding Knife by Brent Weeks

Series Warnings: SA, non-explicit smut, violence, slavery, sex slavery, classism (the main villain wants to put magic-users above non magic users), assassination attempts, body mutilation (someone loses fingers, the antagonists modify their bodies with magic), drug abuse, large age gaps (19 year old with ~60 ish year old, used as a political scheme), PTSD, identity theft, fratricide, ceremonial killings to prevent insanity, Politics, lots of creepy men, betrayal, cheating, torture, insanity

Book Warnings: SA, non-explicit smut, violence, slavery, sex slavery, classism (the main villain wants to put magic-users above non magic users), assassination attempts, body mutilation (the antagonists modify their bodies with magic), drug abuse, PTSD, identity theft, fratricide, Politics, lots of creepy men, betrayal, cheating, insanity

Notable POV Characters: Kip Guile, Gavin Guile, Dazen Guile, Aliviana 'Liv' Danavis, Adrasteia, Karris White Oak

Ahhh I'm so excited! The plot twists and cliffhangers keep getting better! And there's more characters that I hate with my whole being!

First of all, Andross Guile? Can suck my dick. I hate him and everything he stands for. He made his grandchild play him in a card game to keep his friend from becoming his slave. Same with Teia's old mistress. The bitch gave her olive oil as a reminder she could become a sex slave in a brothel?? They both need to die and they need to do it now.

Speaking of Teia though, there's a new color on the spectrum! Paryl is completely invisible to everyone except paryl drafters and maybe superchromats (people who have perfect color vision), idk I don't think it was ever really explained who can see it. It's below sub-red on the color spectrum, meaning in our normal world it would have really long wavelengths.

Most of this book surrounds Kip's Blackguard training, and oh my god I adore these kids so much. I just want them all to be happy forever but I know that's not possible.

While Kip does that, Young Gavin takes a bunch of refugees and places them on an island that already has people living there. I'm sure that won't cause any problems. Anyway, after he does that he kills Old Gavin! And gets raped because he thought it was his room slave 'attending' to him after being around Karris constantly for 4 months. And then he thought it was Karris. He like immediately feels disgusted when he learns not only was it neither of them, but it was one of his students and I'm pretty sure a minor (by our standards). He did kill her almost the moment he got back to his room after trying to explain what happened (and failing), but then it's like... never talked about again? And I really feel like it should have been. Male characters are almost never assaulted like this in fiction, much less one who has as much power as Young Gavin does. Maybe it gets talked about in a later book, since there is currently a war going on and he's desperately trying to get the Spectrum (government) to help. He could just be pushing it down at the moment to focus on stopping the thing that will literally destroy the world because there's also giant monsters and the villains are trying to resurrect old pagan gods to tear down the Chromeria.

But then he marries Karris (he does explain what happened there and that he's really Dazen)!! I'm gonna be horny on.. not main really but you get it and say that I really want to be in a sandwich between them. Like both of them are my ideal concept of a partner. Young Gavin is smart, incredibly charming, and doesn't shy away from pleasure, and Karris is such a fucking badass and I know she could 100% kill me in like 10 different ways just with her legs.

I know how I said in my last post the author does the male fantasy author thing where he sexualizes women a lot, and it genuinely didn't bother me. But in this book a lot of the women being targeted are either underage or just barely legal. And that makes me really uncomfortable. For the most part Kip is the one doing the sexualizing, which is again acceptable because he's 15. But in the case of other characters doing it it feels gross. And I know this is a fantasy world, and their definition of an adult isn't necessarily someone who's over the age of 18 especially because it's wartime, but I still don't like it.

But back to the positives, the cliffhanger!! Kip and Young Gavin are both kidnapped on ships by separate people! Young Gavin is now completely colorblind! Kip killed a god! Liv is still a bitch and I hate her!

#lightbringer #olive reads #tw slavery #tw sa #tw drugs #tw body modification #tw body mutilation #tw age gap #tw cheating

0 notes

hopefulatrocity · 2 years ago

Text

From The Ashes Prologue

Gif credit: hellodollfac3.tumblr.com

Note: This prologue hasn’t been proofread, if you find any mistakes let me know please! I’m looking for someone who might be willing to beta read the story if at all possible. Also, this story is going along with my experiences as a trans guy. Everyone’s transition is different. For me, I have little bottom dysphoria, so I use typical terms for AFAB genitalia when writing smut between my oc and Daryl. I also chose not to use HRT, which is how I wrote Pheonyx as well. In regards to passing, I write sometimes about Nyx having some more “feminine” aspects to his appearance, because this is an issue I have with passing in public. If any of these things are a trigger for you, please proceed at your own risk. Take care of yourselves, lovelies! Remember, every trans person transitions differently and I’m simply trying to portray my experiences as a trans guy.

If you would like to be added to a taglist for this story, please let me know!

Summary: Pheonyx Greene is the oldest of the Greene siblings. He’s always been different than the rest of his family; having endured abuse from his biological father as a kid and growing up as bisexual/transgender in conservative rural Georgia. He loves his family but the past has made him weary of strangers and love. He finds himself on the family farm recovering from top surgery when the world falls apart. As the dead begin to rise, Pheonyx finds himself becoming the sole protector of the farm as his family lives in denial about the Shadows of loved ones past. His life is changed the day Rick Grimes shows up on the farm, and shortly after a certain gruff archer as well. Daryl is drawn to younger man but how does he deal with the internal prejudices he’s grown up with? As the search for Sophia ensues, Daryl is forced to group up with Pheonyx. Will he push him away? Or will Daryl allow himself to put the past aside and let Pheonyx in?

Series Trigger/content warning: Homophobia/transphobia/biphobia, zenophobia/racism/sexism(Merle), age gap romance(11yr difference. Pheonyx is 28, Daryl is 39 ), sexual assault/rape, child molestation, canon character deaths, body mutilation, child abuse, torture, hunting, smut 18+( P in V, unprotected sex(please practice safe sex!), creampie, breeding kink, rough sex, marking/biting, oral sex, sub/dom undertones), animal deaths, scars, blood, corpses, depression/anxiety, body dysphoria, religious trauma, menstruation mentions

Chapter Content Warnings: Transphobia/biphobia, religious trauma, child abuse, depression/anxiety, childhood molestation, self harm/suicidal thoughts, puberty, bullying, menstruation talk, body dysphoria, sexism

Next Chapter

Pheonyx Greene spent the majority of his childhood hiding. So much so, it became second nature to him.

From the day he was born to the age of 8, he hid from his father’s fists and hateful words that he didn’t understand. Words he wouldn’t understand for years to come. Bruises and lashes were concealed behind baggy clothes. Practiced smiles and rigorous play with neighborhood kids disguising the pain of every movement. His mother, Annette, would stare at him with guilt. Guilt for not having seen the abuse for 5 years, not wanting to see what was going on when she wasn’t home. Guilt for not noticing the flinches at innocent touch. And guilt for letting it continue as she worked to pull away from the monster that held them under his thumb. She never spoke of it to Pheonyx. Simply holding him after each “punishment”, silently cleaning his wounds and wiping his tears. That silence hurt worse than the switch on his back. His eyes begged for just a word from his mother. Something to tell him that it wasn’t his fault. That she was there for him or that she was going to do something to protect him. But those words never came. Annette gave birth to his brother, Shawn, when he was 6. 2 years later, they finally escape Pheonyx’s hell. The scars littering his body and the night terrors were always a reminder that he never fully escaped, though.

At 8, Pheonyx no longer had to hide from his father, but he had to hide from other things. Schoolyard bullies tormented him. They asked him why he only wore jeans and long sleeves? Why did he play with boys instead of the “other girls”? Why did he cut his hair short using the scissors in art class? Why did he roll around in the mud while the girls were playing House on the other side of the playground? They would pull his pants down in the cafeteria, laughing about checking to see if he was a boy or a girl. It confused him. Why did it matter? Couldn’t he just be himself? But apparently it did matter. He would spend his entire schooling years, hiding from those bullies.

At 9, his mother married his stepfather, Hershel. He was a nice man. Much older than his mom, but he accepted and adopted, both Pheonyx and Shawn. He had a daughter, only a year younger than Shawn who had just turned three, named Maggie. Her mother died shortly after giving birth to her. While devastated about the death of his late wife, Hershel was strong and took on the role of a single father. He and Annette met at the local grocery store. A wailing Maggie in his arms, Hershel was trying to find the right formula product for his growing daughter. Annette was a godsend, taking Maggie and calming her before helping the man find the correct food for his daughter. They exchanged numbers and were married not many months later. The way Pheonyx’s stepfather tells the story, the older man fell for Annette the second she held Maggie in her arms.

Hershel was a good father to both Maggie and his stepsons. But Pheonyx was weary of the man at first. His only father figure was a devil of a man and the young boy waited for months for the other shoe to drop. It never did though. He would purposely break dishes or get bad grades at school, just trying to see what would be the final straw before his step father finally punished him. But aside from a small scolding and increased chores for his bad grades, Pheonyx was left unharmed. Hershel was kind and he treated his step children as if they were his own. He would often take the boys on house calls with him, whether it be helping birth a newborn calf or checking a swollen ankle on a neighbor’s gelding. Pheonyx loved the animals and looked forward to any time he could spend helping Hershel with his duties as a veterinarian. The only thing Pheonyx hated about the man was how devout Hershel was. Pheonyx went from never going to church, to going every Sunday and Wednesday. Plus attending all holiday functions, youth group trips, and bible camps. He had lived in true hell for 8 years. The Christian version seemed like child's play compared to his father’s belt. It was at the church he also had to hide. Hide from the side eyed glances of older neighbors. Hide from the whispers wondering why he refused to wear a dress or why he didn’t act like a “proper young lady”. He had to lie when his mother asked why he didn’t want to attend Sunday School with Shawn and Maggie. He couldn’t explain that the teacher looked at him with evil eyes. That the man’s hands were cold as he slipped them under Pheonyx’s button up blouse. That the touches made him feel worse than when his father would make him kneel and count the lashes.

When Pheonyx hit puberty, around the time his half sister(Beth) was born, he began to hide within himself. How did he explain to his mother and stepfather that the sight of his budding breasts made him want to claw his own skin off? How did he explain that when he got his first period, he contemplated taking all of his mother’s antidepressants and putting an end to the feeling of wrongness in his body? How did he explain that everytime someone called him “miss”, “sweetheart”, or “girl”, he felt physically sick? What would he say when his mom knew that he kissed Caroline Allen under the maple tree at school? That same week he also kissed Jeremy Mason by the soccer field. Both of those kisses made his stomach flutter in ways it only should with a boy. The preacher that previous Sunday had told them that any desire for people of the same sex was the ultimate sin. How did he explain to his mother and stepfather that, in their beliefs, he was destined to go to hell? He couldn’t. So he hid everything. The depression from not feeling at home in his body and from not being able to be himself at home. The anxiety of not fitting in with southern conservative values. The disgust with his own appearance as he let his hair grow and wore dresses to get his mom to smile. The weight of it all became too much.

Maggie found him one day, crying in the barn, a razor held to his wrist. The 20 yr old thought Maggie would be mad, but she wasn’t. At just 13, the girl was wiser than most adults. She had seen her sibling struggling. She didn’t understand it, but she listened as Pheonyx explained what was wrong. Maggie held him as he cried and led him to the house. There, she helped Pheonyx cut his hair. The cut was jagged and patchy, as all they had were some dull kitchen scissors, but he loved it. She called him her brother and it felt like the cloud of depression and anxiety disappeared for a short amount of time. It was the first time Pheonyx felt truly accepted. That night, Maggie held Pheonyx’s hand as he told their parents and siblings everything. Beth was mostly too young to understand and Shawn was just confused. As were Annette and Hershel. They tried to tell him it was just a phase and that it was normal to be confused at such a young age. They refused to even consider the possibility of him being a boy. Of God having made a mistake when he was forming the child’s body. Despite their non acceptance, Pheonyx felt freer than he ever had. He had been working for 5 years at local horse stables and also as an assistant for Hershel at his clinic, so he used his savings to buy more masculine clothing. Maggie was the one who suggested the name “Pheonyx”. The meaning behind it felt right to him. From that day forward, he went by Pheonyx Archer Greene.

The years following were rough. Maggie accepted him, never once misgendering or dead-naming him. But the rest of his family continued to have issues with it. Shawn and Beth picked it up faster than his parents. It took 3 years before the older couple even began to come around to the idea of Pheonyx being trans. They consistently pushed him to go to Church, to repent, or to go to “counseling” with the local preacher. This created a divide between the family and Pheonyx, one that still existed even after his parents began gendering and naming him correctly 75% of the time.

He lost his innocence the day he turned 22. His body, that he had finally begun to love, became a broken shell. A layer of grime covering his already marred skin. No matter how hard he cleaned or tore at his skin, the filth never disappeared. The state of Georgia was suddenly a prison. The rolling pastures and never-ending forests that were once home suddenly held memories he needed to escape.

Once his physical body healed, Pheonyx took the first flight out of the Bible Belt and landed in Michigan. He took shitty jobs just to get by at first. Long hours with little sleep just to avoid the memories that haunted him at night. Solace came in the form of a friend, another trans guy that frequented the diner Pheonyx bused tables for. Small talk became long conversations over burnt coffee. The other man offered him a job at his tattoo shop, Zombie Ink, as a receptionist/custodian. From there, he healed. Slowly. He had more nightmares and more scars than before but his skin finally felt clean.

He kept in touch with his family, but he avoided visiting. The memories were still painful. It took 6 years for the man to finally gain the courage to go back to his home state. His impending top surgery being the motivation to finally put his demons to rest. He would need some help after his surgery, and truth be told, he missed his siblings. Even his parents. So, he opted for a surgeon closer to his hometown. Afterwards, he would spend the next month healing on the family farm. Pheonyx didn’t realize that by making the decision to put his nightmares to bed, he was changing the whole course of his life.

Maybe it was fate that brought him back home just shortly before the world collapsed. Or maybe it was just shitty luck. Pheonyx wasn’t sure. All he knew was that everything changed.

Next Chapter

#daryl dixon #daryl x oc #daryl dixon smut #twd daryl #daryl dixon fanfiction #twd fanfiction #twd x oc #The Walking Dead #daryl dixon x trans!reader #transgender OC #dary x omc #daryl dixon x omc #twd mxm #daryl dixon x oc

30 notes · View notes

ahdraftingco · 2 years ago

Text

Chapter Four: Never Touch What Isn’t Yours | Series: Lesson Learned

Pairing: The Mandalorian x Reader

AO3 Crosspost: https://archiveofourown.org/works/40653303

Rating: Explicit, readers are advised to read the warnings below before proceeding.

Series Warnings (in no particular order): Porn with Plot, Dark!Din Djarin, Implied/Referenced Sexual Assault, Extremely Dubious Consent, Hate Sex, Master/Slave Relationship, Knife Play (Minor Cuts/Blood), BDSM, Rough Sex, Genuine Fear, Sexual Coercion, Power Play, Degradation, Face Slapping, Spanking, Choking, Gagging, Enemies to Lovers, Possessive Behavior, Spit, Forced Orgasms, Hair Pulling, Multiple Orgasms, Threats of Violence, References to Death/Suicide, Stockholm Syndrome, Emotional Manipulation, Book of Boba Fett Spoilers

Chapter Summary: The Mandalorian doesn't understand what kind of game you're trying to play. It's obvious you have feelings for him but why do you hesitate on admitting them? That won't matter in the long run. He'll get you to confess, one way or another.

Word Count: 12.5k+

***This chapter is part of my Lesson Learned series, if you haven’t read the other chapters, go to the series masterlist: here!***

A/N: As always, please read ALL of the specific warnings for this chapter before proceeding: ptsd, fluff/comfort (lol the fact that this is a warning for this story I cannot–), mentions of slavery, implied/referenced physical abuse, graphic depictions of violence, threats of sexual violence/attempted sexual assault (someone's getting murdered for this!), blood (so much blood!), body mutilation, references to torture, semi-public sex, degrading insults, misogyny, morally questionable actions, LOTS of angst & feelings!

Please read with caution (mind all the warnings!) because this chapter is one hell of a rollercoaster ride ~ ♡

The bruises on your neck never heal. Why? Because the moment they do, the Mandalorian finds another reason to strangle you and then they're back.

You never thought you'd mind the way you looked with splotches of sensitive skin decorating the rim of your metal collar but…you can't help wondering how much more he's going to strip away from your identity.

You long to be free again, but this collar binds you to him.

You're a slave now.

You have been but it didn't sink in until he asked you to tag along on a job with him. There's a bounty he needs to kill, the head of a slave trafficking operation. In order to get in, the Mandalorian needs an escort and since you're actually his slave, you're stuck fulfilling that duty.

It makes you uncomfortable, knowing that there will be other slaves there who are in similar positions as you. Or worse, much worse.

The thought has been weighing you down and Din sees your visible discomfort, commenting, "you're never this tense."

You chew on your lip for a moment before answering, "there will be others there."

"Yes, and?" He acts as if that's nothing to even think about. Must be easy for him to ignore such struggles, but you can't.

You made an oath a long time ago. Only rob those who have more than they need. That means you've encountered a lot of slave Masters. You've also picked the locks for a good handful of slaves, helping them get their freedom. You've heard the stories of the horrible treatment they've endured and you aren't ready to hear more…

"Nevermind, I'm sorry." You try to calm yourself down. "I'll behave."

You clutch your collar for a moment, feeling the bruises. You shouldn't say it, since it's not all that great of a praise, but you're thankful that Din doesn't actually inflict any forms of harsh pain. He threatens to, but he never follows through. A part of you believes he doesn't want to hurt you that badly. You can handle some choking and slapping, even some nicks from his knife, but not the kinds of torture you've seen some slaves endure or the brutal beatings you've experienced because of the bandits.

"We have to go now." Din elects not to say much else to you, gesturing for you to follow him.

After a long ride in the N-1, you both land on Daiyu. You've only ever been here once. You hitched a ride in a cargo ship and stayed there for a week before stowing away in another ship to get back to Tatooine. You were following some big money at the time. You rarely do that but you try to pick easy pockets to sneak your hands into and people with too much tend not to notice when things go missing.

You're prepared to be thrown right into the ring but the Mandalorian drags you into a hotel instead. It's actually quite nice, which surprises you. Though, you'll have to get used to breathing in the artificial air after living in the forest for quite some time. That, and the sleek black metallic details and the red lighting.

It's a bit…much? You're so used to the cave that seeing such a high tech space is jarring. You've never been one for the "city life" since you're mainly a desert dweller.

"Do you not like it?" The helmet shifts in your direction.

"Are we staying here?" You don't actually know if he has booked a room here or if you both are just passing through the lobby.

"Answer me first." He waits for you to respond.

"I don't mind it." You hope that's a good reply.

That's enough for him to grab the key to the room you're staying in, which of course has to be with the Mandalorian. There's no way he'd booked two rooms. You hold in a sigh, rubbing the itchy turtleneck you're wearing to cover up your slave collar.

Let's just say, Din is not all that great at picking clothes, but you can't really say anything. You're too tired to fight with him today.

The last few days have been…bad. Not because of him, but because you've been waking up frequently in your sleep. You keep having nightmares about your time back with those bandits. It got to the point where you can't sleep in his arms because you're constantly keeping him up and you'd rather not deal with an irritable madman on low sleep, so you've been huddling against the cave wall.

You can't really do that in a hotel bed, but you'll have to make due. Hopefully you won't have a nightmare tonight. You don't even know what's triggering it, though it might be because he told you about this job a week ago. It makes sense for those two things to correlate.

Once you're both in the room, Din sets your bags down in the closet and then immediately grabs you, dragging you to the bed. You don't have the energy to resist so you let him pull you onto his lap the moment he sits down.

"Tell me what's wrong." He's demanding like always.

"It's nothing." You don't want to talk about it. "I'm just tired, that's all."

"You haven't been sleeping." He notes the obvious.

"Yeah." You don't know why but you lean in, resting your head on his shoulder, feeling the cold beskar against your cheek. "It's been hard to sleep."

"Why?" He wants to know about the nightmares. You haven't talked about them. You really don't want to.

"Is it okay if I don't answer?" You wrap your arms under his, wanting to hug him for a moment, needing that comfort you shouldn't want. "I don't want to relive it."

"Is it about the bandits?" He reads you like a book and you nod. "They can't hurt you anymore. I killed them all."

"It's not them I'm afraid of." You finally let out that sigh you've been keeping in. "I'm afraid of people like them. Other people who could hurt me like that."

"No one will ever hurt you like that again." He tells you firmly. "No one will ever touch even the smallest hair on your body and live. I'll kill them if they do. I'll kill anyone who scares you."

"Why?" You ask him, genuinely wondering. "Why would you want to protect me, the person you hate the most?"

"Because you're mine to hate." He states the facts, "you're my thief. I'm the only one allowed to touch you, to fuck you, to do anything I want with you. No one else, just me."

"Promise?" You lift your head from his shoulder to look at him right where his eyes should be in the helmet.

"I promise." His gloved hand rests on your face and you lean into his touch.

"Then I don't mind being yours, at least for now." You say with a light smile.

"You'll always be mine." Din doesn't let you wriggle your way out of his reach and you laugh.

"Just enjoy me giving you a break. I'm not being a brat but I definitely still can be." You smirk.

"Bad girl." He shakes his head. "Why not strive to be good for your Master?"

You shrug. "Being good is boring. I have to keep you on your toes somehow."

He lets out a small chuckle. "You do bother me relentlessly."

"It's my job." You flash him a toothy grin and he groans in annoyance.

"But you're on a break from that, right?" He's seeking verification.

"Until you give me a reason to be bratty, I'll behave." You go back to hugging him, feeling a little better than before.

In a fluid motion, Din lifts you into his arms, his hands cupping your ass as your legs wrap around his waist. He carries you over to where the bathroom is and there's a hot bath already drawn, waiting for the two of you. He helps you to your feet so he can pull off his armor plates, setting them aside.

Then, Din walks up to you and takes off your collar. You're so shocked you can't feel it around your neck anymore, the turtleneck now scratching at the exposed skin.

"Wait, but why–"

You can't ask a thing when his lips land on yours the moment he has the helmet off. His kisses are just as shocking with how gentle and slow they are. He holds you securely as you both kiss for a moment and you can feel your heart start to race.

Why don't you ever fight back when he's kind to you? You shouldn't allow yourself the luxury of this other side of Din but it's just too fucking hard to resist. He always times it for when you're feeling down and vulnerable…

Once he lets you breathe, he says against your lips, "don't ask questions. Let's just pretend to be two normal people sharing a hotel room together for tonight. Okay?"

Two normal people? You and Din are the furthest thing from normal. A Master and his slave. A Mandalorian and his thief. There's nothing normal about the two of you and yet…you wouldn't mind pretending for a little.

Oh no, this–this is going to break you, but you can't say no. You can't because you want this too.

So, you answer, "okay."

"Come here." He pulls you in close to him. "Let me see that beautiful face of yours."

"Din, are you–"

He cuts you off before you can ask are you being serious. "Don't make me put the collar back on. I really don't want to right now, so listen to me when I say don't ask questions."

You nod, saying instead of asking, "I want to touch you too."

"Then touch me." He gives you full reign so you reach forward, tugging at his shirt until you can pull it off over his head.

You run your hands along his skin, touching every curve of his body. You don't ever touch him this much. You just felt like doing it tonight, if you both are pretending to be normal.

"I want to keep doing this but in the bath." You tell him and he nods.

You both strip down completely and he takes your hand, guiding you into the bath with him. You find your way onto his lap, feeling relaxed from the warm water surrounding the two of you. You cup his face in your hands, playing with his stubble beneath your thumbs.

"I really like your face." You admit to him.

"What do you like about it?" He asks and you chuckle.

"No questions, Din." You pinch his cheeks and he glares at you.

"That doesn't apply to me." He tries to argue but you roll your eyes at him.

"You're not my Master tonight. We're just two normal people. Equal footing means equal treatment." You pull him up towards you, kissing him on the forehead. "Now be a good boy and don't disappoint me."

"You are never saying that to me again." He grabs you by the hips, dragging you more onto his lap, letting you feel his cock harden beneath you.

"Aww, I knew you liked being a bad boy better." You tease him because you can, giggling at his deadly stare.

"I'm this close to ending our normalcy. You're being more of a brat now than ever." He threatens and you can't help but smile.

"You're cute when you're angry." You nudge his nose with your own before batting your eyelashes at him all innocently.

"I'm always angry." He leans forward to bite your bottom lip, dragging his teeth along the sensitive skin before releasing. You can feel it swelling up already.

"You must like being cute then." You move your hands back to touch his bare chest, gliding upwards along his collarbone and then downwards to feel his strong arms.

"You're cute like this." His words make your heart skip a beat all of a sudden. "You seem relaxed."

"I am." You surprise yourself by saying that because it's true.

You are oddly at peace right now with Din. Maybe it's because you know it's pretend, so you won't carry any of the weight of his words or actions with you when you wake up.

It's nice to pretend every now and then.

"I want you to be relaxed all the time." He's just saying things, he doesn't mean that.

At least, that's what you have to tell yourself. There's no way he actually means that…

"I like it when you're relaxed too." If he's just saying things, then why can't you?

"I would be more relaxed if you didn't fight me so much." Din smiles lightly as he goes, "but you love to fight me."

"I do, it's my favorite pastime." You share his smile, liking the way he looks when he's happy.

Is he happy? You can't ask, but you can feel, so you lean in and kiss him. He smiles against your lips before kissing you back and your heart soars. It really does feel like you're in a normal relationship with Din.

That's a frightening thought to have when this is all make-believe…

"You're holding back." He catches you red-handed.

"A little." Your hands find their way into his hair, looking at the curls as they settle between your fingers.

"Don't, please." You're taken back by his plea. "I don't want you to. Not tonight. Not while we're just being normal. You can hate me tomorrow, but give me all of you tonight."

"Din…" His name trails off your lips.

You can't think of the right words to say right now. You want to ask so many questions which is probably why he put that as the one condition for tonight.

"Be mine tonight." He brings your face closer to his, pressing his forehead against yours. "I want to know what it feels like to have you all to myself."

Are you going to regret this? Of course you are.

Are you going to do it anyways? Fuck it, you don't have anything else to lose.

"Only if you're mine too." You lay out your conditions. "I'll give you all of me if you give me the same. Equals, just for tonight, in every way possible."

"I won't hold back then." He breathes out, his hot breath tickling your lips.

"You better not." You chuckle happily. It's nice to tease him without expecting some kind of punishment in response.

"I'm sorry." Din's apology grabs your attention. "It must hurt. I should've been more careful."

You don't know what he's referring to until his hand goes up to graze the bruises on your neck. Is he really sorry for hurting you? It's not like it hurts all that badly. You're kind of used to it by now.

"You will be more careful." You decide to answer a bit more hopeful. "If that's what you truly want."

"I would never hurt you like they did." He traces down your skin, moving along all the scars that remind you of what happened with the bandits. "You're too pretty to mark up so harshly."

"I was prettier before." You joke but he shakes his head at you.

"You were pretty then and you're pretty now. Nothing changed. I could stare at you all day, just like this." He sounds so genuine, it chills you to the bone.

You're suffocating under all his affection, wishing this was real. You have to keep reminding yourself that it's only for tonight.

"You should." You give into your desires and stop holding back, speaking your mind. "I wouldn't mind staring at you all day. You're a very handsome man, Din."

"I'm glad you think so." There's the softest smile on his face when he says that and you want to believe that it's real.

You want to smother him in affection so you can see that smile again. "I really do. I like being close to you so I can see your features clearly. I like them all, especially your stubble."

"Tell me more." He brings your hands up to hold his face, keeping his hands on yours.

"I like the way it looks, all uneven and rough. I like the way it scratches my face when we kiss. I like the way it brushes along my skin when you kiss my body. I like the way it tickles my thighs when you're between my legs. I just like it a lot." You take a moment to kiss along his jaw, feeling his beard against your lips, admiring it in your own subtle way.

"I like making you feel good." He breaks away from your touch for a moment to place kisses along the bruises on your neck. "I like making you feel better when you aren't feeling good."

If that's true, then you have a desperate need to ask him if that's why he's doing this tonight. Was he worried about you this last week so he booked a hotel room just to comfort you? He didn't need to do this. You assumed you and him would be here for the job and then go right back to Ossus.

Din sure does enjoy surprising you, even when you know it's all pretend.

"You make me feel so good that it scares me sometimes." You sigh in pleasure at the feeling of his lips against your skin, his beard tickling you as it always does, that smile of his present because of your words.

"There's nothing to be scared of tonight." He keeps kissing you as he speaks warm words to you, "you're safe here with me. I won't hurt you. I want you to enjoy yourself so don't be afraid to give into it tonight."

Your hands rest in his hair as he takes a moment to admire your breasts. You tug on his curls when his mouth takes hold of one of your nipples, his tongue swirling around it. There's an undeniable need to grind against him so you do, rubbing up against his hard cock. The bath water swishes around with your movements and you like the way it sounds mixed with your raspy moans.

"Fuck," he curses against your collarbone, "I just want to bury myself inside of you right now."

"Not until we're in bed." You want to enjoy this soothing soak for a little longer.

"Please sit on my cock. I just want to feel closer to you." Din grabs your hips, lifting you up slightly to guide himself to your entrance, but he doesn't force himself into you. He leaves it up to you to do what you want.

It takes you a moment to debate but then you throw your worries out the window and slide down his length, gasping as you slowly fill yourself up with him. You grip onto his shoulders for leverage until you're sitting back on his lap. You shiver from how deep he feels inside of you.

"Perfect." He breathes out a long sigh and for once, you're staring at him and he isn't staring back with eyes filled with rage or hate.

Din looks…blissful. You have to touch his face because you don't believe the look he's making is real but when you can feel him grin against your palm, you go, "I wish you looked like this all the time."

"Me too." He moves his hand to cup your face, mimicking your actions as his thumb brushes lightly along your cheek. "I wish things were different."

He doesn't mean that. Don't fool yourself. Don't trust him. Don't.

You've been burned before. This is just another game that you're playing with him. You can't let him win.

Not even when you're desperate to lose yourself in him right now.

"I would still hate you." You whisper, not because you want to, but because you have to remind him and yourself.

Din's lips curve into a half smile and you can almost hear the guilt as he goes, "I would deserve it for what I've done to you."

Before you can think much about his words, he slips his hand beneath the water to rest his fingertips at your clit. He rubs lazy little circles that force you to bite your palm so you don't unravel too quickly. He really is good at distracting you at just the right times.

"Come, my pretty little thief." He tells you. "I want you to feel good."

"We're supposed to be having a bath." You mutter into your hand and he chuckles.

"Doesn't mean I can't give you pleasure right now too." He uses his free hand to pull your hand away from your face. "Don't hide from me. I want to look at you and hear your voice."

"I'm going to come, Din." You say to warn him and yourself. "It's–"

"That's it, let go, I've got you." He holds your hand in his as your orgasm consumes you, his fingers rubbing you just enough to bring you right over the edge.

Every breath you take is drawn out and you're dizzy from the heat of the bath but it makes everything feel so much better. You're tingling all over, tightening around his cock, wanting to move so you can feel more of him.

"You came very well. Good girl." He finishes his praise with a kiss on your cheek and the heat rises in your body even more to match your racing heart.

"I want…" You need to catch your breath before you can say, "I want to make you feel good. Let's get out now, please."

"You don't have to." He seems wary that you even want to, like he's afraid of his own pleasure.

"Please let me." You bring his face close to yours, pressing light kisses all over. "I really want to."

"Okay, just don't force yourself to do anything for me." He states his conditions and you nod in response, smiling.

"I promise I won't bite." You smirk and he rolls his eyes at you.

"You'll choke on my cock before I'd ever let you bite it." He smirks back and you laugh.

"I look forward to it." You give him a quick peck before getting up, biting back a whimper when you pull off of him completely. That's a feeling that's hard to get used to. The emptiness.

You both dry off and then you take his hand, but you don't take him to bed. You drag him over to a rather fancy looking chair beside a window that overlooks the city. He looks surprised when you shove him into the chair and get down on your knees in front of him, spreading his legs so you can get a nice view of his cock from this angle.

Your eyes gaze up and he's stunning in this artificial light. You opted to keep the lights mostly off, letting the outside world illuminate you and him. Flashes of bright red, blue, yellow from the streets below fill the dark room.

Since the chair is beside the window, you get to see every curve highlighted on his body. You love how subtly muscular he is but he still has a softness to him that reminds you that he's human just like anyone else.

"I've always wanted to do this." You speak your truth, your fingers tracing along the length of his cock. "I like this view a lot."

"It can't be better than my view." He says as he looks down at you, his hand brushing the hair away from your face. "So beautiful."

"Enjoy yourself, Din." You want him to stay true to his words. "Don't hold back, not tonight."

"I won't, so make me feel good." He urges for you to continue and you do so happily.

After you've enjoyed touching him with your fingers, you move your hands to caress his legs as your tongue takes over. You've always wanted to taste him. Why? You have no idea. Maybe because you've never done it, which is shocking in and of itself honestly.

Though, you think it's because he was certain you'd bite it off if you had the chance. Would you have? Definitely a possibility if he was being a real ass that day…

However, you want to see him unravel at your will tonight. Din has spent more than enough time figuring out what makes you come like crazy. You want to even the playing field and find what makes him go wild.

So, you take the time to diligently explore every inch of his cock with your tongue. You want him to get impatient. You want him to want you, which is why you meet his eyes the moment your lips wrap around the tip of his cock, sucking lightly.

"I'm going to fuck your face if you keep stalling like this." His words come out all airy. You can see how tight his body has gotten. He looks incredible like this.

"I thought you wanted me to enjoy myself." You pout at him. "I've never gotten to go down on you before…"

"Fine." He grunts, leaning back against the chair, giving you a better view of his body. "Do whatever you want."

You beam, a happy smile curving on your face. "Thank you."

"Don't thank me now. Thank me later when I go down on you in return."

Now, you have something to look forward to. But, you've got something more important to pay attention to at the moment.

You lick your lips, making sure he's watching when you finally sink your mouth onto his cock, taking him as far down as you can. His hand grips your hair tighter in response. You try not to gag when he hits the back of your throat but fuck, he's huge. It's going to take you a while to adjust.

You could say the same for him because he's breathing heavier now while he guides you gently with his voice, "you can do it. Don't force it. Go slow."

With a nod, you pull off him a bit before going back, fitting more of him down your throat this time. You repeat the process, sucking and licking along the way, and when you sneak a peek at him, he looks proud.

"Good girl. Keep going." He's letting out short huffs and it's so incredible to hear him breathless for once.

When you finally fit him completely down your throat, you hum, elated that you did it. He throbs in your mouth so you know he liked your little moment of joy.

"You look way too good on your knees like this in front of me." Din pulls you off of him by the hair, watching as you make a pop sound when your mouth moves away. "I want to burn this image into my mind."

"Tell me what you want and I'll do it." You give him the control you know he desires.

"Let me fuck your face until you're crying those tears I love so much." He's very upfront about it.

"Okay." You squeeze the hand he has in your hair. "Take over and use me for your pleasure, Din."

There's a moment where he just stares down at you, like he's reading your expression to see if you're being serious. You nod lightly to urge him to go ahead so he does. He forces your mouth down onto his cock, stuffing himself deep down your throat. You gag and the tears are building in your eyes uncontrollably.

Din lifts his hips just enough to start thrusting into your mouth, hitting the very back of your throat. It burns but you suffer through it, blinking away the tears that are streaming down your face.

"So fucking beautiful." He loves the sight of you like this. "Taking my cock so well, so deep in that pretty mouth."

You have to swallow the saliva that's building up and he groans when you do, feeling the tightness in your throat around his cock.

"Swallow just like that when I come." He instructs and you nod. "Don't waste a single drop."

It doesn't take him long after that. It's so hot, his release. It spills into your mouth all of a sudden and you almost don't swallow it all fast enough, some of it dripping out of your mouth. Din pulls you off of him to let you breathe so you can lick up the rest of it with your tongue, matching your heavy breaths with his own.

"Clean me up." He drags you back towards him and you take your time, swirling your tongue around his cock, tasting every bit of him. "What a good girl, making me come so much like that."

You lay your head on his lap and he pats your hair down neatly after having such a tight hold on it earlier. You like the feeling of his hand on your head. It's always so gentle and comforting.

After a few minutes of just idling like this, he goes, "let's go to bed."

Din helps you to your feet and then picks you up, making you chuckle as he carries you to bed. It feels almost romantic in a way. Your heart hasn't stopped beating like crazy and you know it's not going to end anytime soon.

Not when he's holding your legs open with his hands, staring down at your body. Why does he look so perfect hovering over you like this? Why do you like having him there?

"Look how wet you got from sucking my cock." He's vulgar as always, his fingers dipping into you to show you your own slick on them. Then, you watch him lick them clean, smiling. "I love the way you taste, almost as much as I love it when you come on my tongue."

"Stop stalling then or I might just have to fuck your face." You joke.

"Good idea." His words stun you as he lays down beside you, gesturing for you to climb on top of him. "Get up here and sit on my face."

"Din–" You can't protest when he's grabbing you by the waist and lugging you over to him.

"Hurry up, I'm starved." He growls with the hunger apparent in his voice.

You don't know why you're feeling a bit self conscious out of nowhere but you hesitate and he notices so his fingers slowly press lightly into your lower back, massaging it.

"You don't have to." He reassures you. "We can sleep now if you want."

"It's not that…" You sigh. "I just don't want to look at myself. I'm sorry."

Din lays you back on the bed, getting on top of you again, saying, "I'm not lying when I call you beautiful."

"I know." You hope that's real. "It's just hard sometimes, that's all."

You don't mind the bruises on your neck or the faint lines on your wrists from when he ties you up but the scars you permanently have from being locked up by those bandits, those haunt you. You try not to think about them but if you're looking down at Din, you can't not see them. It's why you close your eyes when he's between your legs. It's why you're okay with him fucking you from behind, stuffing your face into a pillow.

You don't have to look at yourself in those moments and remember.

"I'm sorry. It's my fault this happened to you." It's scary that you're unsure how genuine he's being.

"I'm the one who stole your ship." You note the facts.

"I'm the one who made you want to steal it in the first place." He states the truth.

"We can play this blame game all day, but it won't solve anything." You reach up, wanting to touch him a bit, to remind yourself that he's really here. "It happened. I'll get over it."

"You don't have to." He leans down, kissing one of the scars on your stomach. "Take your time processing what happened."

"It's been months, Din." The reality of your captivity is setting in.

You've really been with him for months now…

"You were tortured for a week. It took you more than a month to recover physically from what happened. You have every right to take as much time as you need to heal." His words should give you comfort but they just make you feel weak. He must see you retreating into yourself which is why he goes, "tell me what I can do to help."

"Tell me this is real." You choke back a sob. "Tell me you're being real and this isn't another trick because if it is, I can't handle the mental games right now. I want to take a break from that, for tonight."

"This has been real. I'm real. No tricks." Din looks right into your eyes as he swears, "I won't hold anything that happens tonight over you, I promise. Tell me what you want from me and I'll do it for you."

You hide your face in your hands, unable to hold back the tears any longer. Why does your heart ache terribly right now? Why do you want so much from him if he's offering it?

Why do you want him to love you?

It's stupid, but you just feel so alone sometimes. He's there, but he isn't at the same time. You both may be connected at times but it never feels real.

If it's real tonight, then you want all of him.

So, you choose for just one night to be selfish and say, "I want you to hold me like you would if we were in love. Just so I can pretend for a night that I can be loved."

You know he can't ask any questions, which is why you have the guts to be real with your desires. You don't need to give any reasons tonight.

And he doesn't ask for any. Instead, he answers, "you can be loved."

"Please show me." You plead to him. "If you truly believe that, make it known to me."

"I will." Din declares. "I'll show you what it means to be loved by me."

You wish you didn't cry when he started kissing you, but you did. It's hard to hold in your emotions when his lips are kissing yours so softly, like you're precious to him.

"Cry as much as you need to, my pretty little thief." He presses a kiss on each of your eyes after he wipes the tears away. "I'm here for you."

There's such a comfort in that. You can't explain it. You always felt like such a burden, crying so much at times. You're easily overwhelmed, which makes sense for your current situation, but it's still difficult to work through.

It's okay to feel tonight, so you let it all out. You allow yourself the freedom to be emotional when Din's hands run along your sides, caressing every part of you as if he worships your very existence. He couples every action with an affirmation.

"I've never met anyone as pretty as you."

"I love your body and the way you react to my touch."

"Nothing about you has changed at all, you're still you and you're all mine."

"You'll always be safe by my side, my pretty little thief. No one will ever hurt you again."

You admit to yourself how much you love being comforted by Din. He always knows what to do and what to say to make your pain disappear for a moment. Maybe that's why you don't close your eyes when he's between your legs.

You want to watch for once.

You witness the way he looks when his tongue finally has a taste of you, seeing the pure delight. He catches you staring and says, "put your hands in my hair and let me show you how much I love making you feel good."

You nod, listening to his orders, lacing your fingers through his soft curls. You pull at them playfully and he grins all too sweetly at you, like you both are actually lovers having fun together. You don't hold back your tears in reaction.

You want this to be real so badly. That way, you wouldn't have to deal with the heartache when it's over, because it wouldn't be over. But, this moment won't last. It never does, but you can hope, right?

"I don't want tonight to end." You let out a quiet sob with your words.

Somehow, you can almost feel the longing in his voice as he goes, "me too."

Does it have to? You can't ask questions, but if you could, that's what you'd ask him.

"I want more moments like this." You say that instead.

"We'll have them." He breathes out another promise. "So, don't think this is the end. This is just the beginning."

After that, Din begins getting closer to you and you open up more, inviting him in. If this isn't the end, if this can happen again, then you want to revel in as many of these moments as he's willing to give you. You won't shy away from them anymore.

"There's my pretty girl." He smiles at you. "You look good, spreading your legs for me like that."

"You'd look better if you quit stalling." You smile back.

He doesn't keep you waiting anymore. You adjust yourself a bit so you're sitting up more. You want to see everything today. He gives you quite the show on purpose, his tongue dipping inside of you all of a sudden. You gasp, not prepared to feel him fill you up in that way.

You squirm a little when he presses his thumb against your clit, flicking it back and forth as his tongue slips in and out of you. The wet sounds make you feel embarrassed and you instinctively squeeze your legs shut but he doesn't let you close up. His arms are keeping you in his grasp and you whine a little in response.

"You're being naughty." He calls you out on your display of protest. "You need to stay still if you want to come."

"You're too noisy." The comment slips from your lips and he laughs.

"It's not my fault you're this wet." His tongue finds its way inside of you again. He purposefully makes a loud slurping sound and you scream, tugging at his hair.

"Stop doing that!" You glare at him and he hides his smirk in your thigh.

"You're really cute when you act shy." He taunts you and it reminds you of his true nature.

Of course he's acting like this. You should've expected it. He enjoys getting on your nerves!

"You know what to do if you want it." Din waits for you to beg and you hate him for it but you want it too much not to.

"Please don't leave me hanging anymore. I want you." You pull him back towards you by the hair and your eyes roll back instantly the moment his tongue is on you again. "Yes, just like that, please don't stop."

You have no idea how much you unknowingly crave the feeling of him like this. The need has built up from all those times he's done this to comfort you that you can only ever associate it with comfort. Your body gets all warm, your toes curl, your back arches and your hips grind against his face because you keep wanting more.

"Fuck, if you keep doing that, I'm never going to stop." He's aggressive with his words but you love it. "There's nothing better than seeing you give in to the pleasure I can give you."

Real or not real? You don't know and you're too afraid to contemplate it…

So, you just keep drowning in it, "please give me more. I want so much more, Din."

You don't fall asleep until many, many hours later. He ravaged you in the most tender ways, coaxing orgasms out of you with such ease. He truly showed you what it meant to be loved by him.

Everything was just perfect.

The way he smiled when you kissed him, the way he held you close as he fucked you, the way he told you all these caring words that made your heart swell tenfold, you couldn't have dreamed of a better night with him.

It's only when you wake up that you wonder if it was a dream or a nightmare.

Will the memories of last night haunt you? You fear they will because they will make you want something you cannot have. Him.

That's why when you wake up and he's still asleep, you get up from the bed and go into the bath. You sit in the water, sobbing your eyes out. You just need some time alone. You just need a moment to process what happened.

But, the more you think about last night, the more the ache in your heart eats away at you.

I wish things were different. He said that, but you can't find it in your soul to believe him.

It's worse that you think it wasn't all a trick because if it was real, then…could he love you? No, no, stop!

You can't think like that! It'll only break you apart more and that's what he wants! He's toying with you, trying to convince you to fall in love with him. That's all this is. Stop thinking otherwise.

The Mandalorian hates you. You hate him. You are his slave and he is your Master.

You're bound to him…but not right now.

You graze your bare neck with your fingers. He never put the collar back on. You can run right now. He's asleep. You know Daiyu. You can find a cargo ship to hitch a ride in.

You can run far away from him and never look back.

So, why don't you do it? Why are you hesitating? Why are you sitting in this fucking bath, crying because you don't want to go?

You don't want to be a slave but you don't want to leave him either. You're torn.

Are you not strong enough to run away anymore?

No, it has nothing to do with strength and has everything to do with this stupid hope of yours.

It's stupid. So fucking stupid. But you hope for a better future. You hope that what he said last night was real and that you two will have more moments like that and maybe…just maybe…you'll only have moments like that.

No more games, no more hate sex, no more heartache.

Just love.

You laugh at yourself over how dumb you sound. Anyone would think so. You're like a storybook princess trapped in the highest tower by the deadliest of creatures and yet you've fallen in love with the beast that's holding you captive.

Why? Because he cares about you sometimes?

Ridiculous.

You curl into yourself, hugging your knees to your chest. You breathe bubbles into the water so that you don't have to hear your own sighs anymore.

That's when the door opens suddenly, slamming against the wall. You jolt in response, your heart racing from the loud noise. You turn and…

"Why the fuck weren't you in bed?" The Mandalorian's modulated voice catches you by surprise.

He's dressed in his full armor. Why is he dressed? Why is he breathing so heavily?

Why does he have his hand around your throat, lifting you up out of the bath until you're standing straight? You wince at the feeling, the swirling thoughts in your mind shattering in an instant.

This is the real him. Why were you trying so hard to believe otherwise?

"Answer me." He loosens his grip just a bit to let you speak.

"I-I didn't want to wake you with my sobs." The tears are flowing back down your eyes. "I'm sorry. I should've–"

"I thought you left me again."

What? You blink away your tears so you can look at him but you see nothing except your reflection in his helmet.

What face is he making under there? Is that why he's dressed? Was he going to go look for you, in case you had run away?

"I'm right here." You touch his helmet with your wet hand, watching as the water glistens the beskar. "I'm not going anywhere."

Din pulls his hand away from your neck, letting you breathe again. Then, he goes, "never leave my side like that again. Do you hear me? Answer your Master."

"Yes, Master." You're back to being his slave again. "I won't do that again. I'm sorry."

Before you can ask any questions, the collar latches around your neck once again and you hear it seal shut. That might have been your only chance to run and you gave it up over a night of pretending.

"Are we heading out soon?" You should probably get out of the bath now.

"Yes, so hurry up." He throws a towel at you and you catch it against your chest, the force of his throw winding you slightly.

You can tell he's angry and you muffle a sigh into the towel. Din watches over you the entire time, not letting you out of his sight. You get dressed in the outfit he has picked for you, since it has to match the other slaves' attire.

You're thankful it's at least a bit modest compared to the kind of outfits you've seen before, but if it weren't for the silky white robe you're wearing that covers your scarred up body, your breasts would be practically hanging out and your ass too. You aren't wearing underwear underneath this robe, just a loose négligée. You hope wherever he's taking you, it's at least warm…

"Listen carefully." He pulls you onto his lap in that chair you sat him in yesterday. "No one, and I mean no one, gets to touch you except for me. If they do, they're dead. Got it?"

You swallow nervously. "Do you…expect them to?"

"I don't trust any of these fuckers and no one would miss them if they were dead so if they even look at you provocatively, I will kill them." His words send shivers up your spine.

Would the Mandalorian really murder for you? You have no clue if he's just over-exaggerating but then you remember the carnage from when he slaughtered those bandits. You know what he's capable of. You just choose to be ignorant at times.

"Stay by my side and you'll be safe. I won't let anything happen to you." He tries to be comforting but you're as stiff as a board right now.

"C-can I look at you for a second?" You don't know where that comes from but it spills out of your mouth before you can think it through.

He doesn't answer verbally. He just nods his head so you go to lift his helmet up, looking at his face underneath.

Then, you lean in and you kiss him. Why? You can't seem to reason through it, but you do it anyway. You want to remind yourself that he's not a monster, even if he has to be sometimes.

Din slips the helmet back on the moment your lips part from his so you couldn't see the look on his face. Maybe that's for the best.

"Let's go." He picks you up and helps you back to your feet.

You follow him out of the hotel and once you're both in a dark alleyway, Din flicks his cuff and the link to your collar appears. You touch it out of curiosity, since it looks like it would sting, but it just feels like a normal wire, which is surprising considering the electricity buzzing around it.

"It isn't designed to hurt you. It's for the other people who want to steal you from me."

You're shocked, pun intended, but in a way, you're grateful he purposefully doesn't want to electrocute you. Though, he did mention before that the collar could zap the shit out of you if he willed it so. Best not to think about that right now.

The Mandalorian pulls on your leash and you choke just a little from the tug, trying to get used to being led around like a pet out for a walk. It takes you a bit of stumbling but you figure out how to walk properly at his pace like this.

You both sift through the shadows and it creeps you out that you're inching closer and closer to a darker part of the city. Illicit activities have to happen somewhere. You aren't an innocent child. You're a grown adult who has seen the horrors of the universe and yet witnessing it firsthand still kills you inside.

You and Din walk down a set of well-maintained metal stairs and the moment you see them sprawled out in the swanky lobby space, you want to cry. You keep your eyes down but the visual floods your mind. This place, whatever it is, it's not a place for people who treat others well. It's a place for the worst of the worst, a place where Masters can openly do things to their slaves that you're opting not to think about. It'll find its way into your dreams if you let it affect you.

"How may I help the two of you today?"

You look up to meet the eyes of a human woman like yourself. She can't be much older than you. She has her own collar, with her own Master standing right behind her, her chain wrapped around their waist. Much like the Mandalorian, her Master is covered from head to toe so you have no idea if they're human too. You try not to think much of it.

"We're looking for someone." Din answers for you, as he should in this scenario. "They call themselves the Owner."

"Ah yes." She nods at you both but her eyes catch yours rather nervously as she asks, "are you looking to buy or sell today?"

What? You gulp. The Mandalorian wouldn't sell you…would he? You turn to him but he doesn't look at you.

He just faces her and says, "I'm looking to negotiate."

Well, that's not comforting in the slightest. Fuck, should you have ran? What was all this talk about protecting you if he's putting you up for auction? Unless you're bait for something, in which case it would've been nice to know…

"I will let him know that you're interested in placing an offer." She nods at him. "You can wait in the private business lounge, it's right through those doors over there. He'll find you when he's available."

The helmet nods and you nearly don't catch yourself in time as he drags you by the neck over in that direction. Thankfully you didn't trip, though maybe he wanted you to. You're so anxious now, you could throw up.

You know he has to act cold to match the other slave Masters, but you wish he would say something.

Is that asking too much? Probably.

When you both get to the doors to the lounge, he shoves you forward and you take that as a signal to open the doors for him. You're really being treated like a slave right now and it doesn't feel good at all.

You bite back your feelings over the situation as you look at the lounge and forcefully hold in your puke. You're going to be sick. You're suddenly so nauseous just looking at the sight in front of you.

That's why you uncontrollably squeeze your eyes shut and whimper when you hear someone crack a whip against one of their slaves while screaming profanities at them. The whipping doesn't stop and the other slave Masters present are cheering.

What could the slave have done to deserve that?

You look at them, hunched over on their knees, with their back slashed open.

Does your back look like that? It must.

There are people looking at you now, seeing how obviously disheartened you are by what's going on. Though, they might just be checking you out. Their eyes are glazing over your body and you feel awfully naked despite wearing clothes.

"Stop staring." The Mandalorian speaks up and you don't know if he was talking to you or them as he pulls at your chain. "Let's go sit down."

He leads you over to an empty booth away from the center of the action and pulls you onto his lap, flicking off your leash. You settle your arms around his neck and you're overcome with the need to be held so you hug him, sobbing into his neck. You feel his gloved hand sneak beneath your robe so he can rub your back.

"It'll be over soon." He whispers rather kindly.

"I'm scared." Your voice comes out so shaky. "I don't want to be here."

"I know. I'm sorry." He uses his other hand to lift your head out of his shoulder so he can look at you. "You're okay, though. I'm not going to hurt you like that and none of these fuckers will either."

Sadly, the Mandalorian has spoken a little too soon because someone joins the two of you in the secluded booth. You tense up when you hear their footsteps. Whoever it is sits down on the bench across. You wish there was a table separating you and them but there isn't. It's just two couches in a walled off square, facing each other.

"Aww, sweetheart, is your Master making you cry?" The man's mocking voice instills such fear into your soul. "Why don't you come play with me instead? We can trade for a moment. I'm sure he'll enjoy my bitch better. She isn't a crybaby like you."

"Not interested." His modulated voice vibrates so close to your ear and you have to hold in your sigh of relief.

It's not like Din would ever trade you, right?

"Oh, come on now. It looks like you only have that one bitch. Aren't you tired of fucking the same cunt? Go over there and help this man out for me." The man must be talking to his slave because she walks over and you look up to see her.

She…there's nothing in her eyes, like she's lost all hope for her situation. Will that be you someday? You bite back another whimper.

"I said I'm not interested." Din is firmer now, but that doesn't matter.

Not when this man's slave shoves you off of his lap and you drop to the hard metal floor with a thud. The man looks down at you and you turn away from him, not wanting to see what he looks like, not wanting to remember his face so he can haunt your dreams.

"Haven't you taught her properly?" The man scolds Din. "What kind of bitch can't service a Master when he asks?"

Suddenly, you're being grabbed by the hair and yanked in the opposite direction, away from the Mandalorian. You scream, but the man clamps his hand over your mouth before you can make much sound.

"Shut up, annoying whiny bitch. Don't act like you don't like this." He growls in your ear and you want to die.

You can feel him harden beneath you, grinding up against you. When did he pull you onto his lap?

You're not wearing anything underneath, which makes you feel all too much. He could just–

The man drops you out of his hold all of a sudden and you fall to the ground once again. You don't want to glance up and look at him but you don't know why he let you go. Not until you see the blade being held to the man's neck and Din's the one holding it.

"She's not interested." He clarifies, gesturing for you to get away from the man.

You scramble back to your original seat and you turn to look at the other slave, who is cowering in terror. You wonder what Din said to her that made her so frightened.

"She must suck your cock real good. I've never seen a Master become such a bitch for his slave." The man laughs maniacally at Din, like he's not afraid of dying.

"Laugh at me again and see what happens." The knife gets pressed harder against the man's neck, but he doesn't back down.

"You can't kill me, Mandalorian. I'm protected by all the other slave Masters here." He flaunts his connections and then threatens, "if you kill me, they'll kill you, but not until after they rape and murder your precious little slave in front of you."

The helmet shifts to look at you and you're trying to keep it together but all the trauma is consuming you slowly. You don't want to die here, not like that.

"You're really pissing me off." Din looks away from you then, turning fully to the man. "I'm going to give you a chance to apologize before you're dead meat."

"I wouldn't fuck with me." A devilish smile curves onto his face. "I'm the Owner, after all."

"Does it look like I give a shit who you are?" The fury in the Mandalorian's voice is ever present and you're surprised the Owner isn't budging. You're well aware of the kind of man he's angering right now.

The Owner offers a deal instead. "I can still let you walk out of here alive if you give me the girl. She seems fun. I bet she's a good f–"

There isn't a single ounce of hesitation in Din's actions after that. He proceeds to stuff his gloved hand into the Owner's mouth, pulling his tongue out. With a clean swipe of his blade, he chops it right off. The Owner tries to scream but Din just shoves his tongue down his throat to silence him.

"Will you shut the fuck up?" He groans with annoyance over the Owner's panic. You think he's actually choking on his own tongue. "I'm not interested in what you have to say. Not from the mouth of a disgusting man like you."

"They're going to kill you." The slave beside you says with such anxiety building in her voice. "There's no way you're going to get through all those Masters."

"I’ll deal with them." The Mandalorian throws you something. "You need to help her and the others."

It's…a lockpicking set.

Wait, does he want you to–

A bullet narrowly misses you, scraping your cheek all of a sudden. The air stings the newly formed cut and you can feel the blood dripping down your face.

Where the fuck did that come from? Then, you see it.

The Owner had pulled out a blaster and tried to kill you. That makes Din very angry.

"Oh, I'm going to have a lot of fun killing you." He tells the Owner, knocking the blaster away from him. "But for now, I need to deal with your friends so…"

You watch as Din takes his blade and stabs the man right in the groin, driving the blade deep enough to pierce the couch. The Owner is being held to his seat by the balls, literally.

"We'll deal with him later. Can you get the others out?" The helmet shifts to you.

"I-I can try, but is there an exit?" You turn to ask the slave.

She nods. "I know where it is. I can lead them there if you can get us out of our collars, but we all need to make it out of this lounge first."

You quickly fumble with the lockpicking set and once you see the kind of lock her collar has, you pick it with ease. She breathes a sigh of relief when it pops off. Then, you watch as the slave goes up to her former Master and she uses her foot to drive the knife further into him, causing him to scream more profusely.

"Fuck you." She spits in his face. "Fuck you and all these other Masters for stealing us from our homes. You'll never live to see another day."

He tries to grab her but she steps back in time, the fear resetting in her face. Her confidence weakens and you get up to take a hold of her, telling her, "you're safe now. He can't hurt you anymore."

She looks at you with a thankful expression, taking a deep breath to steady herself.

"What's your name?" You ask her.

"Willa." She says back like she can't believe the sound of her own name.

How long was she held captive by him? You don't even want to know.

"We need to go now." The Mandalorian pulls out the DarkSaber, the sight of the black glow giving you goosebumps. "Stick behind me and then meet me back here once you've gotten them all out."

You nod at him and then grab Willa's hand, pulling her behind you. She huddles close as you all exit the booth and there are more than a handful of blasters pointing at the three of you.

Oh, that's just lovely.

"Look, Mandalorian, we don't need this to get all bloody." One of the slave Masters waves his gun at you and Willa. "Just hand us the girls."

"Point your gun at her one more time and it'll be your blood that I drain first." Din grips the DarkSaber and positions himself to take on all these Masters.

That particular Master jokingly points the gun back at you and in the matter of seconds, his hand is sliced off and the sound of his screams echoes through the lounge.

"I'm going to enjoy gutting you later." The Mandalorian says, spinning his blade in his hand. "Who's next?"

Before long, an array of blaster shots decorate the room. The sound of them hitting his beskar rings in your ears and you hold tightly onto Willa, hoping she doesn't accidentally get injured in the process.

While Din fights off the Masters, you guide Willa over to the other slaves who have been left to fend for themselves, helping them out of their restraints. You try not to watch as body parts fly all around the room and people get chopped in half.

There's so much carnage and it feels never-ending.

Guts spill out right next to you which causes you to jump and you feel a gloved hand on your neck, startling you as you're pulled away from the body.

"The exit is clear." Din gestures to the double doors. "You can take them out now."

You can't do much besides nod and Willa follows you out with the rest of the slaves you've helped. You all have to dodge shots as you make your exit because there are waves of people coming in to prolong this fight. You hope Din will be okay but at the same time, you wonder why you're rooting for him to make it through this.

What makes him any different than the Masters he's killing?

You don't pay too much mind to that thought as Willa shows you where the slaves that are being put up for auction are being held so you help them get out of their restraints. Then, she shows them all to the exit so you give them instructions on how to stow away on a cargo ship that will hopefully take them somewhere far away from here. You urge Willa to go with the group because you still have to go back and free the slaves who may have gotten stuck with their Masters.

"But, what about you?" She asks and you give her a faint smile.

"I'll be okay, so go." You say as confidently as you can, though you aren't completely sure if you will be okay after all this.

"I'm sorry for shoving you earlier. I had to–"

"Don't apologize. It wasn't in your control but now you're free. Don't look back, okay?" You squeeze her shoulder, nudging her to go on. She gives you a hug before leaving to guide the others using your orders.

You turn back to this horrendous place and you feel…different.

You don't know what it is about the sight of all these Masters, bleeding out on the floor, crying out for help that will never come. Maybe it's the fact that you had just witnessed them abusing their slaves and now they're being left for dead.

There's an odd sense of justice that courses through you and you can't say you don't like it. It gives you a kind of rush, to see such horrible people dead.

Is that bad? Morally, probably.

You shake yourself out of these thoughts to go help the slaves that are chained to their dead Masters. You give them the same instructions as you did the previous group and they all follow you out to the exit. The woman who spoke with you and Din earlier asks you if you're really going back and you tell her that you have to.

Just because you freed them, doesn't mean you're free.

You come back to see that the lobby is filled with cut up bodies. There's limbs everywhere. Blood everywhere. It stains the floors and your shoes as you walk over body after body.

Some of these bodies don't have eyes anymore. Din must have gouged them out. You realize those specific bodies are the ones that looked at you like you were a hunk of meat when you came in with him.

That's…definitely one way to send a message.

You walk over to the double doors that lead into the lounge. There, the Mandalorian waits for you, spinning a blade between his fingertips like he's bored. As if murdering all these people was just another day on the job. That should frighten you, but it doesn't.

It reminds you of the kind of power he holds. He's a Mandalorian. He's a bounty hunter. He's capable of this level of slaughter without even breaking a sweat. He's just that good at what he does.

His presence before you is so impactful, so dominating that the previous rush you felt fills your senses again and you don't know what to make of the tingling that's surging through you.

Especially not when he hands you the blade he's been holding and says, "do whatever you want to him."

Din gestures to the Owner, who is still alive and fully conscious. You're taken back by the offer, saying, "I-I don't know what to do…"

"Anything." Din tells you, the spite building in his voice. "He wronged you, violated you, touched you. I'm going to kill him, but before I do, you can do whatever you want to him. Slice him up. Poke his eyes out. Make him eat his own cock, though that's kind of difficult to do now but you still could."

Anything. You look over at the man who tried to assault you. The man who grabbed you and forced you onto his lap, spitting profane things at you. The man who called Din a bitch.

You don't know where the rage comes from. It's partially from the fact that you never got closure for the bandits. You didn't get to do this to them for hurting you, but you can get your retribution now for the hurt this man caused.

So, you do.

You walk over to the Owner and look him right in the eyes and say, "now look who's crying, bitch."

You take the knife and stab him right in the hands that he used to grab your hair and silence you. You smile as he cries from the pain of you pulling the blade out, his blood splattering all over your white robe. Then, you do the same to each of his thighs for making you sit on his grimy lap and having to feel his erection under you. You finish by taking the blade that's been pinning him to the couch out, marveling at the way the blood is pooling between his legs.

Why does this feel so good? You feel incredible, having this kind of power, being able to inflict this kind of pain on someone who has wronged you. You have never hurt someone like this before but this just feels right.

Once you've finished dealing your damage to the Owner, you turn to Din, who has been watching you this entire time, and you ask, "will you kill him the way I want him to die?"

"Of course." He waits patiently for you to pick what that is.

You like that the Mandalorian wants to listen to you. You like that such a powerful man is willing to hear your thoughts and do your bidding as he sees fit. It's a nice feeling. Rewarding, almost.

"I want you to slit his throat slowly. For Willa." You drag the dull side of the blade along the Owner's neck before handing it back to Din. "And for all the other slaves he has hurt."

"As you wish, my pretty little thief." He pats you on the head and then kneels in front of the Owner until they're eye level with one another. "Remember when you called me her bitch? I'm not her bitch. I'm her Master and this is how you should treat a very good girl, by listening to her when she wants someone dead."

Lesson learned: never touch what isn't yours.

With that, Din slices his throat open ever so slowly. The blood gushes out with every inch of his skin ripping apart. His eyes shut once his neck is fully slit and then he's dead. Such a wave of relief washes over you as Din gets up and tucks the knife away before opening his arms.

You immediately run and hug him, not even minding all the blood on his armor that's getting all over you. You look up at him and say gratefully, "thank you for freeing those slaves."

"Do you feel better now that you've let off some steam?" He asks as he brushes your hair back, his helmet tilted down to look at you.

You nod. "Is that bad?"

"No." He shakes his head. "He deserved it and you needed the release."

That's true in more ways than one because as you and Din leave that place and walk through the dark alleys again, the adrenaline flooding your veins makes you crave him, so much so that you stop walking all of a sudden. He turns to you, obviously puzzled by your actions.

That, and your words. "I need you, Din."

"We should get cleaned up." He reasons with you but you pull him closer to you, grabbing him by the helmet.

"I need you right now, just like this, buried deep inside of me, fucking me like you own me." You're the demanding one for once.

"I do own you." He reminds you and you smile.

"Prove it." You lift your robe up ever so slightly, flashing the way you're completely bare underneath. "Take what's yours."

There's a moment of silence between the two of you where all you hear are the sounds of the busy streets nearby. It doesn't take long for something to happen.

You're so wet that when he thrusts himself inside of you all of a sudden, you don't feel anything but the greatest surge of pleasure. You wrap your arms around his neck as he grabs your hips, lifting you up and pressing you against the wall of the alleyway. You don't even care if anyone can hear you. You don't hold your voice back, wanting Din to know exactly how good you feel being fucked by him.

There's just something about him, something about the way you have to be taken by him right now. You can't explain it but it's almost like a primal need to give yourself to someone with the capability to protect you, to kill for your sake, to defend your livelihood.

You're completely overwhelmed by him and his power over you.

"Harder." You want more. "Please."

"Tell me you're mine and I'll fuck you so hard, your knees will give out from coming so much." He commands and you feel yourself getting closer to your orgasm just from that.

"I'm yours. I've been yours." You say it like it's the only truth you know. "I'm never leaving you."

"You'll never be able to." Din pulls out of you and you cry out from the loss, having been ripped away from your orgasm. "I own you completely now. You need me."

"I do. I need you, please." You grind against him, wishing he would just slip back inside.

He doesn't, not until he flips you around, pushing your body into the wall, with his hand wrapped around your neck. He drives his cock back inside of you from behind, squeezing your throat the moment he hits that spot deep inside of you, and you completely melt. He fucks you through your orgasm and you lean back into him, loving every second of it.

"That's it, good girl. How does it feel to be fucked out in the open by your Master?" He asks in such a degrading tone of voice but it sends such a thrill through you.

"It feels so good. Please don't stop." You beg, handing yourself over to him entirely.

Thankfully, Din listens and he keep fucking you until you're dripping with his release and when he finally lets go of you, you drop right to the ground. Your legs can't hold you up anymore and you're breathing like you've never tasted air before. There's so much spilling out between your legs and you're shaking all over.

The Mandalorian kneels down in front of you, his hand gripping your chin so you're staring right at him. He brushes his thumb along your bottom lip and you open your mouth slightly, panting from how hard you came because of him. You can taste blood and leather when his fingers slip into your mouth but you don't mind it for some reason. You just keep looking right up at your Master, letting him do whatever he wants to you. His helmet tilts up and down, like he's trying to memorize the way you look after being fucked out of your mind here of all places.

Then, he says in a voice so low that it shakes you to the very core, "I like this version of you very much. We're going to have a lot more fun together from now on."

You have no clue why those words make you both terribly afraid and extremely aroused at the same time but you kind of like the feeling.

A lot more than you should…

A/N: Come to the dark side, we have cookies (and murder!) ~ ♡

All jokes aside, I guess you could say Din is a very bad influence! Though, ethics/morals in this universe are a bit different so who's to say what you did is all that bad when your Master is a bloodthirsty bounty hunter? I wonder who's corrupting who. He's definitely softening up to you, but what does that really mean in this kind of scenario? I guess we'll have to wait and see!

Also, I would like to note in the original draft for this chapter, you and Din were supposed to do the deed in the same room with all the murder but I was like hmm maybe that's a bit much? Can't tell what's "too much" anymore for this story honestly LMAO but I wanted to let y'all know this could've been a lot crazier (do I regret not keeping the first draft? maybe…)

Previous Chapter | Series Masterlist | Next Chapter

#the mandalorian x reader #din djarin x reader #din djarin smut #the mandalorian fanfiction #the mandalorian smut

128 notes · View notes

with-love-from-hell · 2 years ago

Text

Attrition

{ft. Barbatos}

Part 9 of the Fortification Series (based on this request)

Genre: hurt/comfort, angst, some fluff

Written for a GN!MC, though the partner is written as male.

WC: ~4.4k

TRIGGER WARNING: Each part contains graphic depictions of various types of abuse, please see specific content warnings for each individual part.

CW: sexual abuse/assault, physical abuse, emotional abuse, threats, intimidation, graphic torture, graphic violence and gore, strangulation & hanging via rope, eye mutilation, self-harm via cutting, urination/incontinence, swearing

Series Masterlist

Note: Though I do have a masters degree in Psychology and clinical training in treating survivors of abuse, I am not your therapist, nor is this fic intended to take the place of professional help. If you are experiencing any type of abuse, please seek support from a professional. Utilize the Victim Connect Resource Center to get connected to the appropriate helpline.

THIS ONE IS PRETTY GRAPHIC, PLEASE MIND THE WARNINGS. I figured I’d crank out a longer finale to the series because I wanted to end it with a bang, and also because I love Barbatos and haven’t written a lot for him!!!

“Welcome everyone! I am glad you could all join me this evening!” Diavolo beamed, pleased with his gathering of the exchange students for a fun weekend at the castle. “We will be having dinner in about two hours; please take some time to find your respective rooms and explore the castle. Since the brothers wont be joining us until tomorrow evening, you will all have solo rooms for the night!”

You gulp, fidgeting with the hem of your shirt. A “retreat” at the castle with only the other exchange students meant that you would be away from your primary protectors- the ones who vowed to keep you safe from your boyfriend as you figured out a way to end the relationship peacefully. You really thought he would change after coming to Devildom. But in reality, the tense atmosphere and laissez faire rules surrounding interpersonal conduct only enabled him to treat you worse. You had tried your best to work up the courage to end things, but the more violent he became, the harder it was to do.

Mammon was the first to realize something was wrong. You begged him not to tell anyone for fear of retaliation, but he knew you needed more help. Soon enough, each of the brothers were always around you, ensuring your boyfriend couldn’t hurt you (mentally or physically) as long as they were by your side. Lucifer had been trying to make an official report to Diavolo, but it appeared that with their interventions, they didn't have any recent enough evidence to address it. So you went on with their protection; to intimidate him enough to back off...and it worked, too.

Until tonight.

You gulp, feeling your boyfriend’s hand squeeze yours threateningly. You knew that he knew you were going to try to leave, and that the brothers were always there in order for you to avoid his “punishments.” That’s why he suggested this little “retreat” to Divaolo in the first place- to finally get you vulnerable enough to do whatever he wanted.

Diavolo relieved you all to your quarters, and your boyfriend tugs on you aggressively. As he drags you in the direction of the west spire stairs, you hear your name called from behind.

“Mc, I am actually needing you to stay behind with me.”

You and your boyfriend turn, seeing Barbatos approaching from Diavolo’s side. He eyes your boyfriend before turning his attention back to you, a warm smile decorating his face.

“M-me? Why?”

Barbatos stops in front of you, extending his hand for you to take instead of your boyfriends. “Diavolo has requested that the cuisine prepared tonight incorporates some food from the human world, as we have yet to really taste any delicacies from your culture. I know you are quite fond of cooking, so I figured having your aid in this venture would be useful for preparation and tasting.”

Before you could answer, your boyfriend squeezes your hand tightly- so tight, that you feared of your fingers breaking under his grip. You clamp your mouth shut, knowing that this was a sign for you to be quite and let him speak. You try to hold back tears as you feel the joint of your thumb pop- clearly dislocating like it had so many times in the past.

“I don’t know why you would pick them, of all people.” The man scoffs and shakes his head. “The food they make isn’t much better than the slop you all eat here.”

Barbatos’ eye twitches in annoyance, his warm smile quickly dropping into a frown. “I apologize that our food isn’t up to your standards, (name), but I have faith in Mc’s ability to assist in this matter. If you’re standing in opposition, I would like a better reason than you having poor taste in food.”

Your boyfriend continues squeezing your hand, Barbatos’ challenging of his words increasing his anger. After a tense moment of staring each other down, your boyfriend drops your hand and turns away. “Whatever. Do what you want.”

He storms off, pushing one of the little Ds out of the way as he trudged up the stairs. You breathe a sigh of relief, the panic of being alone with him subsiding slightly. You turn to Barbatos, who still has his hand outstretched to you.

Barbatos takes your hand, not missing the wince crossing your features as he gently directs you along. Silently, the two of you walked to the kitchen, and you settled in chopping some vegetables while Barbatos and some of the little Ds worked on the pastries and attended to the pots on the stove. Some of the tension you felt in your muscles released as you focused on your tasks, entranced to the point where you didn’t notice Barbatos’ concerned glances at you between his own tasks.

He was a very perceptive demon, and he could easily see the rage brewing behind your boyfriend’s eyes when he grabbed your hand and dragged you along with him. Barbatos also had enough of a glimpse into your timeline to know of the horrid things this man had done to you, and he had warned Diavolo of having both of you here together for the exchange program, but the prince insisted that the exchange program could somehow resolve or mend these wounds. Barbatos could almost laugh at the naivety of it, if the situation wasn’t clearly life threatening to you.

He found his mind wandering to the incident shortly before you came here- the last thing he had seen in your timeline before having enough of the sickening visuals of the man's behaviors. Forcing you into such obscene acts when your distressed “no’s” could be surely be heard by anyone within a mile radius still haunted his mind when he found his thoughts wandering to you, and he struggled in feeling guilt for not demanding the prince do something about him sooner. While he was glad that the brothers took notice, he couldn’t help but feel as if he enabled the abuse, and Diavolo suggesting such an isolated retreat- under your boyfriend’s suggestion no less- only made him feel worse.

“Barbatos?”

The butler snapped his attention up from the dough he had been kneading, meeting your uncertain eyes. “Hmm?”

“I said I’m finished with the carrots and beets.” You swallow, unsure of why the usually attentive butler had failed to hear you the first time. “Is there anything else you need me to do?”

Barbatos smiled, turning to grab a mixing bowl and some other ingredients. “Yes, I will have you mix these together here. I have the measurements written down here.”

He hands you the open cookbook flipped to a recipe for brown-sugar glazed veggies. As you grab it, you feel the lingering pain from the dislocated thumb jolt through you. You hiss at the sharp pain, dropping the book and sending various ingredients and spices spilling all over the counter and the floor.

“Shit!” You quickly hop off your stool trying to clean up the ingredients as fast as you can despite the throbbing in your hand. Your heart pounds in your ears, completely horrified to what your punishment from the demon would be for your clumsiness. You knew he rivaled Lucifer in his strictness, and his controlled demeanor suggested anything less than perfection would not be tolerated. You yelp as the pain continues up your arm, clutching it to your chest to sooth it.

Barbatos rounds the counter, coming to aid your injury. What he didnt expect, however, was for your to flinch underneath his attempts to console you, and beg for forgiveness for your error. His heart drops as you sob, begging him not to hit you for what you’ve done.

Barbatos slowly sinks down to one knee, gently rubbing your shoulders and reassuring that he had no intentions on harming you. He felt sick, thinking that this is what you had been reduced to as a result of your boyfriend’s abuse. As your tears finally slow, he aided in wrapping your hand, ensuring your thumb would be set into place as you continued to sit with him in the kitchen. There was no way he would send you back out to two straight hours of abuse.

Instead, he let you play some music from the human world, lightening the mood a bit and teaching him things about how various genres sounded in comparison to the Devildom. After the primary dishes were finished and popped into the oven, Barbatos turned to you, reaching across the counter to study your hand injury. You watched him, nervous about what he was thinking as he traced the injury with his index finger.

“He did this...” Barbatos looked up at you, his hardened stare meeting your anxious eyes to confirm what he already knew was the truth.

You gulped. “I...uh...”

“It’s okay.” He cooed, closing his hands around yours and rubbing your wrist gently with his thumb. “I already know... I’m sorry I didn’t help you sooner.”

You blinked at him in surprise. “Wha- I...How...?”

Barbatos gave a short, sad smile, before his lips fell back into a frown. “It isn’t important how I know of the things he’s done to you, Mc. What is important though, is that I will stop at nothing to prevent him from hurting you again.”

You look away, tears slowly sliding down your cheeks. “I...I don’t think you can do anything. I mean, he’s been getting away with it for so long, I-”

Barbatos hushed you, wiping away stray tears from your cheeks. “Let me take care of it. Trust me when I say that he will pay for what he's done.”

You smile weakly as Barbatos pulls you into a gentle hug. Feeling the warmth of his body as he caressed you made you feel safe. You wanted to believe him- to believe there would be an end to this awful, awful nightmare.

It took so long for him to get you alone, but finally, he managed to do it.

After having your fill of socializing for the evening, and you had said your goodnight’s to everyone, you had gone off to bed. Barbatos reminded you to double latch the door- something he had put in place specifically because of your vulnerability- but he didn’t account for the fact that your boyfriend seemingly had more magic affinity than anticipated. He easily bypassed the locks on your door as you readied yourself for bed, slamming the door open and approaching you with pure disdain in his eyes.

“So, what- you’re telling the help all of our private business now too?” He snarled as he approached you, backing you completely into the wall.

“N-no! I didn’t say anything, I swear.” You squeak, trying to hide your exposed body away from him.

“Bullshit.” he spat in your face, quickly grabbing you by the arm and throwing you onto the bed.

You panic, trying to run away, but he grabs you by the arm and jerks you backwards again, this time pinning you against the plush mattress. You feel the ache in your arm as he grips you tighter, hurling accusations and insults at you, and threating to punish you unless you prove your devotion to him. Your heart stops when you feel his posterior press against you, nausea creeping up in your stomach.

Not again.

You beg him to leave you alone, saying you don’t want any of the things he was going to do, but your pleas fall upon deaf ears. He rips what little clothing you have away before making work of his own. You cry in desperation, screaming for help before he silences you with a harsh slap to the face.

“Shut the fuck up.” The man hisses, posturing himself over you.

You whimper, closing your eyes as you prepare for the worst. But the sound of the door slamming open stirs you from your dissociated state.

No words are spoken from your savior, only the growls in anger from your boyfriend, followed by the sounds of a physical struggle.

and then...silence.

You open your eyes, noticing some furniture flipped over in the room and an unfamiliar afghan thrown over the edge of the bed, but other than that no one else was there. There’s a soft nock at your door, followed by Simeon’s voice asking if you were okay. You quickly dress yourself in a robe and shakily greet him, Luke, and Solomon, asking if they can keep you company while you process what had just happened. They each sit around you, Simeon letting you rest your head in his lap, Solomon fixing up your room, and Luke holding your hand while you come down from the panic. You hoped that, where ever he was, your boyfriend would not be returning.

Barbatos forced the door open with ease after hearing your desperate cries for help, requesting that the other concerned exchange students stay back until the room went quiet. He had intended to give you fresh blankets and to teach you a spell to teleport yourself out of your room if you needed to, but he had underestimated that horrid man’s tenacity in exerting his control over you.

Seeing the man attempting to sexually assault you threw him over the edge. Barbatos quickly threw him off you, holding him by the neck with his tails. The man thrashed as he choked for air, but his attempts at freedom were worthless under Barbatos' hold. Barbatos stole a sad, longing glance at your trembling form, feeling immense guilt for you having clearly been hurt again. He made a silent promise to return when he was finished with the scum of a man before disappearing through a portal.

He stepped through to his room, the man kicking and yelling as he dragged his naked body along the brick floor. Barbatos’ mind swarmed with all of the things he wanted to do to him, but he couldn’t settle on just one. Oh- no, no. This man needed to suffer for all he had done.

Barbatos made his way swiftly to the small side room off to the left from his bedchambers. The man squealed as a few bats hissed and flapped around his face, trying his best to shoo them away by flailing his arms. Barbatos scoffed at his trivial fear of a small, harmless animal. He would surely show him what true fear was.

Throwing him into the wall upside down, the man yelped when his back hit the cragged brick. He fell on his neck, groaning at the strain as he tried to right himself. While the man was preoccupied, Barbatos flicked the door shut, 7 locks latching in place at the snap of his fingers. He paced in front of the man, thoughts of how he would make him suffer first racing through his head.

“What the fuck, man?!” the man yelled, trying to find his bearings as he got up off the floor. “You can’t hurt me! I...I’m an exchange student!!”

Once the man was able to adjust his vision to the dark, his heart began to beat faster with anxiety. Seeing Barbatos’ lips curled up into a snarl, his teeth glistening in the moonlight feeding into the room from the large window struck terror into his heart. His serpent-like eyes burned brightly in a viridian hue, piercing the man’s soul. His tail, thrashing behind him, shimmered turquoise, the veins glowing brighter the angrier he seemed to become.

“Just who do you think you are!” He snapped, now standing up to confront the demon. He thought perhaps Barbatos was merely just trying to frighten him, and convinced himself that his status as an exchange student would grant him immunity from harm. “What we do in the bedroom is none of your god damn business!”

Barbatos stopped pacing, fully turning to face the man. His snarl grew, giving the man a better view of his sharp fangs. He felt intense fury flare within his heart as the man tried to assert that you had consented to sexual acts in any way, and he found it difficult to restrain himself from straight-up killing the man. If only this bull-headed man was wise, he would shut his mouth.

“Is that so?” Barbatos hissed. “Because I seem to recall you having no qualms with making it everyone's business in the past. And I don't think screaming for help means anything consensual is going on in that circumstance.”

The man’s eyes widened. “W-what are you talking about?”

Barbatos smirked. “I know much more than you think I do, (name).”

Barbatos stepped forward, now toe-to-toe with the crumbling human before him. Every attempt to back up was met with another forward step, until the man was backed against the wall with no hope for escape.

“At first I was surprised at seeing such despicable behavior from a human.” Barbatos growled, his eyes transfixed on the man’s. He followed his gaze as it darted around the room, searching desperately for some way out. “And I must say, Most demons wouldn’t behave in such a manner toward someone so virtuously innocent. Though, after looking back on human history, it appears that scum like you have done terrible things since the beginning of time.”

The man gulped, trying to side-step the demon and make a run for the door. Barbatos punched the wall next to his head, the brick giving way beneath his fists. Remnants of the brick wall burst from the impact, showering the floor with clay fragments. The man froze, realizing that brick could easily have been his head.

Barbatos cocked his head to the side as the man began to tremble before him. He smirked, knowing he had really begun to strike fear into the man. “I think it’s time your debts came due.”

The man gulped as Barbatos turned away, disappearing into the darkest corner of the room. The man bolted for the door, fumbling with the locks as best he could, though the magic seals rendered them frozen in place.

“Attempting to escape is futile.” Barbatos hissed from the darkness, causing the hairs on the back of the mans neck to stand on end. “Though, it is somewhat amusing that you think you can circumvent justice...”

Before the man could react, a noose fell over his head and he was yanked backwards. A 7-pointed star was painted in black ink on the ground, only barely visible in the low light of the moon. The man was hung in the center, his feet just barely able to touch the ground. He attempted to stand on his toes, desperate to lessen the bite of the rope against his windpipe.

Barbatos approached from the corner, murmuring a spell in a tongue the man didn’t understand. The man tried to speak, but his voice was rendered inaudible over Barbatos’ chants. Barbatos then held up a knife to his own palm, slicing just enough to draw blood and dripping it into a small wooden bowl. After tossing in a few more ingredients, He approached the man.

“I give you the curse of eternal life.” Barbatos remarked, kneeling before the man and dowsing the star in the liquid he created. “It can only be ended by the separation of your brain and heart from your body.”

The man furrowed his brow in confusion, managing to choke out a “W-what?”

Barbatos glanced up, muttering more incompressible words before whispering to the man. “You will soon see.”

The star began to glow a yellowish-green, completely blinding the man for a moment. His skin prickled with electricity for a moment, but it was fleeting as the light faded. He blinked into the dark, finally adjusting enough to see the outline of Barbatos’ figure in front of him.

“Time for a test to see if the curse was successful.” Barbatos noted, a slight curiosity present in his tone, before reaching behind him and yanking down.

Suddenly the man was 5feet off the ground, his ability to breathe completely cut off. He clawed desperately at the rope, trying to free himself, but was unable to get his fingers around the thick fibers that continued to tighten around his neck. He hung there for what seemed like an eternity, praying that death would find him to end the suffering instead after being unable to break free...but death never came.

“Perfect.” Barbatos mused, a nefarious smirk playing on his lips. He dropped the rope that held the man, watching as he fell to the floor.

The man’s body slammed on the ground in a fit of coughs and gulps of air, trying to fill his lungs with as much of it as he could. It wasn’t long before he again felt the pull of the rope on his neck, choking him as he was dragged across the floor.

He wasn’t quite sure when the texture of the floor shifted, but soon enough he felt gritty dirt beneath him rather than the jagged brick of the room he was previously in. He was able to see the remnants of a portal when his eyes focused on the distance, but it quickly dissipated into the low candle light. He could make out some old doors in the dim lighting, but between the tension on his throat and the clouds of dust, his vision could not focus long enough to get any bearings for his surroundings.

Barbatos pulled the man through one of the doors, stopping only to just barely to restrain the man by his arms and neck. Barbatos kicked his knees in from the back, forcing him down in a kneeling position. He gathered his instruments, not caring to ensure they were clean from their previous uses, but being mindful of their sharpness.

Barbatos turned to the man with the long blade he had selected, trailing it across the man’s cheek as observed him. He was eerily silent as he circled his prey, calculating what his first move would be. He felt the ground below wetten as the man soiled himself in fear of what was to come. He scoffed at the cowardice, continuing to trail the blade down the mans bare back to make him tremble in terror.

“I will tell you now, though you may have figured it out- my purpose of giving you eternal life was to prolong your suffering.” He mused, beginning to push the blade a bit harder as he outlined his plan for the man’s torture. “The audacity you have in harming Mc deserves such a punishment.”

Before the man could speak, Barbatos thrust the blade into the left of the man’s upper back. He screamed, begging the butler to end his torture before it had even begun. Barbatos smirked, finding joy in the man’s pain- knowing that he was serving justice for you and what he had put you through for so long.

“Pleading will get you nowhere, you unctuous swine. I have no intent on bringing you mercy,” Barbatos hissed, ripping away the layers of skin and muscles away to expose the bone and organs beneath. He did the same with the right side, relishing in the agonized wails of the man as he skillfully sliced back the flesh.

The man sobbed, trying to thrash against his binds, but giving up when the attempts to flee made the pain worse for him. He even attempted to cast magic to stop Barbatos, not realizing that the butler’s magical affinity was much stronger- especially given the man’s weakened state. Barbatos pinned the tissue back and tethered it magically to the walls of the cell, almost creating a grotesque sculpture of a human with wings.

As he finished pinning the right side, his mind wandered to you, and he found himself longing to return to your aid and ensure you that your safety had been prioritized...but he knew he needed to complete this first. He sighed, finding himself speeding through the last bits of the man’s torment. He aggressively ripped the man’s lungs from their place and pulled them through either side of his spine, producing pained wheezes and coughs as he again struggled to breathe. He stepped back, admiring his work and how he managed to escape with very little blood covering his person, though the cell was coated from top to bottom. He walked around to the front of the man, tilting his chin up with the knife to look him in the eyes.

“You are the lowliest human I have ever had the displeasure in meeting. I only wish that your torture could continue on by my hand, but I am pleased to know that your life will only be agony from here on. Perhaps another day I will return and finally offer you the release of death...that is, if the maggots don’t consume you first.”

The man screeched, demanding Barbatos free him at once. The butler frowned, irritated by the man’s bold attempt at ordering him around. With a few flicks of his wrist, the man’s eyes were cut clean from his skull, plopping onto the floor amongst the mixture of urine and blood. With only a grin in response, Barbatos turned on his heel and left the cell, triple locking the door for safe measure. The man’s screams could be heard through the catacombs of the castle, silenced only when Barbatos closed the portal to his room.

A soft knock at the door jolted you from your slumber. The others had returned to their rooms once you insisted you were okay, ensuring you that you could call on them should you need something. You weren't sure why, but the only one you wanted to hold you at that point was Barbatos. You felt comforted by his presence, and after your talk earlier that evening and his assurance that he would protect you, you felt safer with him than any of the others.

You shuddered in the cool night air as you padded toward the door, unlocking and opening it just a crack to greet who was there. Part of you feared it was your boyfriend, back from wherever he was carted off to. To your relief, it was Barbatos, who was holding a tray of tea and sweet rolls.

“How are you doing?” He cooed, rubbing up and down your back gently.

“I'm aware that it’s late, but...may I come in?” Barbatos' voice was saccharine as he spoke, obviously being careful not to cause you much more stress.

You eagerly welcomed him in. He put the tray down on your nightstand, then turned toward you. Before you had a chance to sit on your bed, he gathered you in a tight embrace. You blinked rapidly in surprise, but melted into his arms, squeezing him back just as tightly.

“Mmm...okay, I suppose...” you murmured back, nuzzling your face against his neck. “Is...is he gone now?”

Barbatos pulled away, a shimmer of something sinister passing by his eyes. He assumed you could have guessed it was him who had taken care of the man you once called a boyfriend, but it still made his chest swell with pride that you were able to identify him so easily as your savior. “Yes. He will not be harming anyone anymore.”

You nod once, relief washing over you in waves. Barbatos sat next to you on the bed, giving your shoulders a gentle massage after pouring you some tea. You almost found his light scolding on your posture aggravating, but you knew they came from a place of reassurance that you were now safe- as long as the loyal butler remained by your side.

112 notes · View notes