#he's cold and afraid and hesitant and angry and in pain and so different from her little boy that it's just too difficult for her

[s0fter-sin]

ghost stares at the ceiling, chest heaving in a harsh pant; sweat ice on his clammy flesh and soaked into the sheet he restlessly kicks away.

ears still ringing, his fingertips blindly drift down to trail along his vivisection scar. he half-expects blood to smear in their wake. his own line of solomon, who ordered him split in twain; half of him given to a grieving mother and half left with the grieving to be.

just for both his broken halves to be rejected.

what did it make him that his mother grieved him more than she loved him? that she begged to be relieved of him more adamantly than she begged to receive him? why did his worth spill out with his drawn blood? why was his pain lesser than hers?

his hand flexes, digging into the raised scar like it’ll part beneath his fingertips to plunge into his mangled insides. no one knows the cruelty of reforming the halved; his name, his being, not nearly as important as his body when he was stripped from himself. no one knows the pain of healing and understanding losing pieces of yourself means losing your value along with them.

how many more pieces did he have to lose before he was halved once more? before his very presence incurred grief so strong it was better to be rid of him than cradle his bloodied remains?

did the infant fight himself? did he age always at odds with himself; his halves never truly whole? he hopes he wasn’t, that he was spared the loss of self; the fear that one may be welcomed over the other.

who will he lose when the inevitable comes? when he’s ripped apart again? simon? or ghost? is it better to be cursed with choice just like his mother or live with an aftermath chosen for him? does it matter if in the end, he convinces himself there was nothing of him left to lose?

his head lolls to the side and the wild buck of his chest slows. he watches johnny beside him, his face lax with the rare peace of sleep; his cheek squished against the pillow, his lips pursed as long breaths escape him.

johnny. soap. never torn asunder but two all the same.

he carefully reaches out and ghosts his fingers along the jagged scar on his chin. even in sleep, he presses into his bloodied touch. he’s never fled his half-flesh, never shies away from his gore as it spills unbidden from his cleaved torso. he holds on where his mother let him go; cups his stomach to hold his insides in place and never minds the blood that drips through his fingers.

simon will never let him become his own solomon and cannibalise himself. he will never let him question which half of him has more value; which pieces he can afford to lose before he’s cast aside.

ghost’s soap. simon’s johnny. his.

whole, in any incarnation.

[drgnflyteabox]

red ochre [2]

series masterlist previous || part two -> woad and weld || part three -> tbd

pairing: viking goap x fem! nun reader summary: you recover from the boat, and wonder why you were taken w.c: 3.9k tags/warnings: pain, caretaking, food, stomach issues, threats, mean simon, fears of rape (doesn't happen), viking-typical slavery, unwanted cuddling / massage / touching, alcohol, scars, violence, hunting, laswell hello!, reader has some puritanical attitudes / assumptions but she was a nun so, power imbalance, dubcon comfort, crying, religious themes (dldr)

You're a stone sunk to the bottom of the ocean, pulled under by exhaustion and turmoil. It's the sleep of the dead, dreamless and unreachable.

Vaguely, in moments of semi-consciousness, you hear voices and feel softness against your skin, warmth all around you. The brush of fingers against your cheeks.

When you do wake, it's like crossing between different worlds, with a head full of cotton and fog. Your sense of smell comes alive before anything else, the smell of food permeating the air around you.

Fish. Cream. Something herbaceous, something earthy. A fire crackles closeby, warming the air, warming you. You can feel fur touching your arms and legs, draped over you and flat underneath you.

It only serves to soften to blow of pain, overwhelming pain. True awareness comes then, waking you with a gasp that alerts-

"Did she just-"

"Sh!" Simon's voice, coming closer. "You awake?" his face comes into view above - you only recognize him by voice.

He's scarred, big and small, but the most eye-catching one bisects his face, splitting it into two from his cheekbone to his jaw on the other side. It's deep, raised, angry even if you can tell it's healed.

You scream.

It's a weak sound, the cry of somebody that knows it's pointless and yet can't help but shout into the void and hope that something will answer.

Before, that would have been god. You'd have prayed, lived as a hermit, sequestered yourself to a cave and live as one of the great ascetic saints. A life even further dedicated than nunhood.

Since he had refused to answer you on the boat, you turn away, and whimper like an injured dog when that scarred face turns to a mask of stone.

"Ha!" Johnny doesn't pick up on the tension that's rising, slowly, as you tremble under Simons gaze. Or maybe he does, and he doesn't care. "Havnae seen his ugly mug yet, have ye? Dinnae worry, lamb."

Guilt curls in your belly, dampening your fear. Simon doesn't look shamed, but you weren't afraid of his scars - truly, you were disoriented, barely clothed and towered over by the same man that took you.

"He won't bite," Johnny continues. He walks over and lays a hand on Simons waist, fingers curling in the off-white fabric. "Well, not ye."

A wink.

"Hush!" Simon barks. "Get her up, she needs to eat."

There's no hesitation. Johnny leans down to you, pulling you until you sit up with a wince. You bite your lips to keep from crying out again, pain lancing through your muscles. You're seized by muscle spasms, by the fiery hot pain of your chafed wrists and a gnawing, deep hunger in your stomach.

"How-" you choke, throat dry and voice unused. Johnny pauses helping you up to listen. "How long have I been asleep?"

"Few days, lass. It's the evening," he grins. "Ye should thank us. Kept ye warm, washed, slipped ye broth into that lovely mouth-"

Simon puts a wooden bowl down onto the table, louder than necessary. There's a grumble from Johnny, but he gets you up and waits while your legs get used to weight on them again.

You're half-dragged, mostly carried to the table. All you're wearing is that shirt, nipples pebbled against the front from the cold. Hard to care too much when your muscles scream even holding yourself sitting up.

You lean on Johnny as Simon ladles soup into bowls, hunched over the kitchen hearth, silent as the grave.

"Eat slowly," is all he says.

It smells good, herby and warm. Your stomach groans and gurgles and begs you to eat, but you're weary. Afraid. Only when the men eat that you pick up a carved wooden spoon and hesitantly slurp.

Heat. Satisfaction. Eating is incredible, and you discover the wonderous ingredients loaded into the soap; salmon, potatoes, a green herb that tastes like sharp, citrussy grass.

Then your stomach cramps, and you tilt with nausea.

"Too fast?" Johnny coos, rubbing a big palm up and down your back. "Awe."

"That's enough, then," Simon goes to take your bowl, but you're too fast. You pull it close to your chest, spilling a little onto the table and drops soak into your shirt. "You can have some later. I said that's enough."

You hold fast. Your stomach hurts, but you're desperate for some form of control. All the terror and all the uncertainty rises, rushing through your finally conscious brain into a battle of strength. You took me but I have agency! it says. You took me but I can take this!

He's too strong.

The wood bowl clatters against the ground with a crack, hot soup spilling on the floor. You heave with the force of your breathing, afraid and too-aware of your predicament.

Taken, snatched, at the mercy of men whose intentions are unclear.

You're too slow to cower when Simon's arm shoots forward and grabs your jaw, hard and mean, giving you a squeeze.

"Now we've been nice to you," he starts. His voice is as solid as his arm. You start to shake. "But I can just as easily put you over my knee. That what you want?"

You shake your head.

"That's what I thought."

Johnny leaves after the soup is cleaned and you're tucked back into the bed again, muscles trembling still with the exertion of your first meal. Small, electric spasms make you wince every one in a while. Your wrists are bruised and scabbed, but healing. They feel hot and itchy, but Simon tells you as he rubs an ointment into the wound that they're healing well.

You try to shy away, hide yourself, when he notices your grimace and reaches for a calf. The look he gives you stops you, takes your breath, until he shakes his head and starts rubbing deep circles into the tenderest spot of your muscle.

"God!" you should. A wonder how badly you can hurt from just laying in bed. He snorts. "Ow!"

"Don't be dramatic," his thumb presses deeply, moving down, then back up. Squeezing. The bed dips with his weight as he scoots closer to you.

You take a moment to look around you. The cabin is made of wood, warmed by the fire, and is full to the brim. Clay pots, furs, tools, a couple barrels- they're everywhere, unorganized. Makes you wonder about the sacred items they'd stolen from your convent.

"Why did you take me?" someone bolder has possessed you. Your mouth twists when Simon's eyes find yours.

His hands don't stop moving. They switch legs, pulling the finished one onto his big thigh. It does feel better, relaxed and tender in a good sort of way, pain not so unbearable anymore.

"You're our spoils," he moves down, digging into your arch. You almost yelp. "D'you know what we gave up for you?"

Something in your chest squeezes, something scared and unpleasant. You open your mouth to speak, but nothing comes out.

"That's alright," Simon murmurs. Your anxiety fights against the comfort he's giving you. "You'll be alright."

He flits his gaze downwards, eyeing you. Your breath catches when you realize that the position has left your legs open, shirt ridden up, and he's looking right at your bare cunt.

"Ah!" you pull your knees shut, hands finding where you're exposed and folding over, cupping yourself, face ablaze. Tears prick at your eyes again, fear winning over comfort.

Simon doesn't let you panic for long.

"I won't force myself on you, pet," he grunts. "We won't."

There isn't much choice but to hang on to his words for dear life, to believe that he won't force you. The hope is fragile, but it's there. You take the chance to pull a soft, worn blanket over your body.

"Am I to be your slave?" your voice wavers.

"No," he says simply.

For a long time, you watch him. He putters about, moving things, unloading boxes no doubt full of supplies used for raids. You wonder if that means he doesn't intend to go on another one, then wonder what they'll do with you if they do leave.

Johnny comes back flushed, smiling. You smell sweetness under his sweat, something you can't recognize. His eyes crinkle when he sees you.

"Two nights," he breathes, looking at you but talking to Simon. "They'll celebrate in two nights."

Your stomach tenses, roiling, eyes fluttering with the effort to stay awake. Even a short time is much for you after your journey.

"Price's back?" Simon asks. He's pulling a sealskin from a burlap bag, smoothing it out with his hands onto the table. The silvery, spotted skin reflects the fireplace.

"Tomorrow," Johnny pulls leather boots off his feet, then thick socks. He wipes himself down with a rag from a tub, shuffling to the bed when he finishes. "Then we feast."

Your eyes are heavy slits, mouth open. You hardly move even when Johnny sits next to you and brushes a thumb over your cheek, smiling toothily down at you.

"Awe, she's precious," he says, lowering his voice. "Go to sleep now, little lamb."

You wake the same way as before. A tilt of one world into the next, sliding down into consciousness as slow as thick porridge.

Only this time, you're surrounded by a warmth not brought by thick furs. It's skin, all around you, boxing you in. On your face you feel hair, prickly and soft, comforting and frightening all at once.

Behind you, a chest breaths against your back. Your eyes open, alarm cutting through grogginess.

Johnnys big hand is clutching your breast, squeezing every few moments, snuffling into your neck like a sleepy animal.

You try to extricate yourself, lifting yourself to find Simon looking down at you, eyes half lidded but aware. There's warning there, but there's also contentment. Scars big and small litter his skin, pocked and torn and scraped, all shapes and sizes. Some are silvery while others are such a deep red you'd think they were still fresh.

He looks past you at Johnny, and turns to his side.

"Weren't planning on running, where you?" his voice is low, so as to not wake the other man.

"No," you whisper. Johnny shuffles behind you, sliding a thigh between your legs. "Please help me." you wiggle, trying to move.

Simon sighs, sitting up. He shuffles to the edge of the bed, then reaches to peel Johnnys hands off you. His hand slides against the soft spring of your breast, hands sliding under Johnnys to pull, brushing your nipple on the way up.

"Thank you," you're still whispering, not wanting to wake Johnny up lest it irritate Simon. You roll until you're out of his grasp, body feeling less pained than it did the day before.

"Hungry?" Simon moves towards the kitchen. "Got one more day to relax."

The feast, you think. The divide, the celebration. Frissons climb your skin until your scalp prickles.

"Yes, please," you sit up, weary of Johnny finding your heat in the bed.

The smell of animal fat and the sound of sizzling fills the cottage then. You look around, noting an improvement for the clutter. The sealskin is gone, replaced by two standing up boots.

"They're yours," Johnny says. You startle, almost leap, but he catches you by the hips and puts his face into your hair. "Simon stayed up all night."

"Gets cold," he dismisses. Eggs jump in the pan in front of him, popping in the hot tallow.

You have to be helped again to the table, but it's not so bad this time. You arm goes around Johnnys waist, his under yours, fingers barely brushing the underside of your breast.

Breakfast is good. Fried eggs, seasoned by the fat, over gruel. It fills you with an internal sense of strength, and you can actually finish it all today.

"Good girl!" Johnny claps your back. "Gonnae be choppin all our wood for winter, eh?"

After, Simon has you change into a simple brown wool dress. You try to ignore them looking at your nakedness as you drop the other shirt, but the wool is nice and warm and there's even a soft pale shift to go underneath it.

Then he slips pants on your legs, tied at the waist under the dress, and wraps wool around your calves.

"You're gonna run errands with me," Simon says. He wraps your feet again in wool, securing them with leather twine. "Get your strength up."

His eyes find yours where he's kneeling, squinting at you, expression turning stormy.

"I don't want to re-injure your wrists," he motions to them, and you look at the healing scabs. "But if you try to run, I'll drag you back by your hair n' tie 'em back up. You pick."

Outside, you wince against the light. Simon holds you by the elbow, walking at your weak pace. It's a tight village, houses clumped together, shops close. It's a wonder you haven't heard anyone from inside Johnny and Simons home, until you see how thickly the walls are built when the door opens.

The street is wet with mud, and you're grateful for the footwraps. They're warm against the chill, sliding through the mud beneath you when you lose your footing, legs feeling as new as a fawn.

"Here," Simon leads you to a market-like stall. Dried meats hang from the ceiling in bunches. The smell is pungent.

"Nik!" He shouts. A huge, burly man steps out.

They talk like they've known each other a long time, though not quite friends. An image of two great bears crosses your imagination, both big and still respecting the other. A rare alliance.

Simon hangs a bag off of you, a salty-smelling bag full of cured and fermented meats. The man looks down at you and grins as you leave, laughing lowly.

You bristle, but follow - what else is there to do?

The next stop is a real shop, only you can see a homestead behind a wooden counter.

It's a girl this time, lovely and soft. She smiles at Simon, wordlessly fetching another man from the homestead behind the store.

"Big man!" it's one of the raiders - the young one. Gaz. "And the nun." his brown eyes find yours, friendlier than the last time you saw him.

They talk, too, more amicably than the other man. Gaz folds his forearms over the counter and laughs, peeking at you every once in a while with intense eyes.

"Right," he claps his hands together. "I won't keep you."

You're starting to feel tired, overexerted.

Gaz comes back out with a wrapped package, the soft girl from before on his arm. The apples of her cheeks are high with a smile.

"See you!" she sits back down on her stool, wide hips wiggling until she's comfortable.

"See ya around," Gaz says. He winks at you.

Simon carries this package himself, not looking at you as he leads you further into the village.

People make way for him, not in fear, but because of his size. He's bigger than most, even some of the other men.

The third and final place has you panting, hunched with the effort of keeping yourself up.

It's a house not unlike Simon and Johnny's, just bigger. A wide, squat wooden house with a wide open door and goats bleating from a pen closeby.

Simon glances at you out of the corner of his eye, putting his hand on your lower back as somebody steps out of the doorway.

"Hello again, Simon," it's Price. The leader, or perhaps the chief. It would make sense - his authority, his size, the number of scars on his skin. Nearly as many as Simon. "You bring your end of the bargain?"

Straight to the point then. Price doesn't look at you once, which doesn't do much to assuage the fear that you're the end of the bargain.

"If you've got yours," Simon leaves you behind to follow him inside, where you can hear them talking. Jovial, like old friends.

By the time you get back home, you're wiped. Exhaustion pulls at you like invisible strings dragging you to the bed. Even Johnny with his smarmy expression and his patting the mattress doesn't stop you from crashing.

The men have brought you to a celebration. After letting you sleep a majority of the day after your errands, Simon dressed you in the same wool dress and wrapped a thick cape around your shoulders to ward off the chill.

It's a welcome home. Simon had been the first to see Price at his home - he and a band of fledgling warriors had sailed right past the village and gone hunting.

Price is not the chief, as you had assumed. He is a leader, an explorer, the ambitious spearhead of overseas raids. Nodding heads and a sense of respect, of deference, follows him wherever he goes. Even as an outsider you can see it.

The chief is a woman. It's not something you expected, not with the sheer size of the men around you, not with the brutality in which they regale their exploits. Many of them have wives that trail them, welcome them, carry their children on their hips, or are welcomed as fellow warriors.

These are the fledglings?

You're in a wild, barbaric place.

When you reach the longhouse, a building as short as all the others but stretched much farther and lit orange with light and the smell of honey, you're bathed in warmth.

No, not honey. Alcohol, sweet and cloying on the breath of each viking. Their depravity seems to know no bounds. It's the same sweet smell you'd smelled on Johnny that night he'd left - presumably to speak to the chief.

Laswell, they call her. The chief. She stands on a raised dais with Price, murmuring between themselves, nodding toward Simon and Johnny when they take their seats.

"Right here," Simon spreads his thighs. There are no other spaces on the bench.

"I don't mind standing," you try. He pinches the back of your knee until you buckle into him, tucked into the cradle of his arms. Your heart pounds in your chest.

"Not lettin' ye sit apart from us," Johnny brushes your cheek, and you look past him to the rest of the people gathered.

Decorated, scarred, hardened warriors. Price joins the group, taking a heavy seat by the man from before - Nik - and exchanging claps on the back. Gaz, a woman with dark hair, but Gaz's soft girl is nowhere to be found.

"Welcome!" Laswell shouts. The hall goes silent. "Drink, eat - celebrate a job well done by our boys."

Eruption; noise all around. She's a carefully controlled, steady woman, yet she's inspired this group of a few hundred into the loudest cacophony you've ever heard.

Simon cups his hands over your ears. You try not to be grateful.

Debauchery. You witness debauchery- drinking beyond your most twisted imagination, dancing surely enough to summon a demon, maybe the devil himself. It's enough to make you pray under your breath, turning away from public displays of affection.

Above you, in front of you, conversation. It doesn't slip your mind how high up on the table Simon and Johnny are, right across from Price and Gaz and next to Laswell at the head of the table.

Even she laughs, imbibes, discusses the distribution of goods with a content sort of smile.

"And the nun?" eyes turn to you. Laswell has focused her gaze on you, sharper than before. "You're satisfied with just her?"

Johnny takes a long pull of his mead, before pressing his shoulder to Simons.

"Thas'right!" he only slurs a little. "Found ourselves a proper little wife, we did."

A chill moves through you. A slow freezing. You tense in Simons lap, spine rigid, heart flipping in your chest. Carefully, you try not to show a reaction.

Wife?

"Och! Sorry, lamb," he turns to you and takes your hands. "Didnae mean to ruin the surprise."

"Quite the surprise," Gaz chirps. His girl has found him, and he's made a place for her beside him. You're jealous of her autonomy, especially now. Taken as prisoner, as spoils, and now?

"You promised," you mumble. "You said you wouldn't."

"What's that, love?" Gaz again, but you aren't listening. Blood rushes through your ears.

"You said you wouldn't force me," you look up now, at Simon and his deeply scarred face. He betrays nothing. "Why lie?"

"Didn't lie," he grunts. "Now be quiet."

"When's that, then?" Price asks.

"Before winter."

The walk back is silent except for the wet slaps of your feet against the mud. The chill is worse at night, biting at your nose and your fingers. At least your future husband - husbands - don't want you to freeze.

The thought hits you like a boulder, heavy and immovable. You stop walking, drawing the attention of the observant men.

"Too tired?" Johnny asks.

You run.

Or try to, as fast as you can.

It's hard in this terrain, slippery and with the cold burning your cheeks. You have no direction in mind, only obeying the mindless terror coursing through your blood, unleashed by this night of truths.

Simon is the one to catch up to you not ten feet from where you started, grabbing the back of your cape and pulling hard until you fall on your butt.

It hurts, the ground has slowly been freezing with the onset of fall and Simon is not nice as he captures you back.

"Ow," you sniffle, fingers wet and muddy.

"Yeah I bet that hurt," his voice has gone hard. "Where did you think you were going?" a laugh, harsh and grating.

"Didnae mean to scare ye," Johnny says. He helps Simon in dragging you back to to cottage.

"In!" Simon barks when you reach the door. You plant your feet, frustrated tears prickling hot and then falling down your cheeks in heavy droplets. "Stupid girl- get inside."

The insult adds salt to the wound as you stumble onto your hands and knees. Pain lances up your wrists.

"Did'ya think you'd be able to what, survive by yourself?" he scoffs. Johnny helps, but mostly just acts as if you're a doll, in removing your cape and sodden woolen dress.

The shift is wet, too. Less muddy than the dress, but still wet. Johnny slips it over your head and you cross your arms to hide your nakedness, still crying.

"Hey," Simon crouches. He puts his face close to yours, noses touching, eyes deadly. "I didn't lie. We won't force you, you'll come to us."

"You'll go to hell," you're upset now, but it only serves to make them shake their heads and laugh breathily, silently. "You stole me."

"Aye, we did," you're wiped dry by big hands. "And you'll be our wife."

Another slip goes over your head, thin and rough on your skin, well-worn.

"Get in bed."

Johnny listens and brings you with him, wiping the tears from your face as he lays you down. You're as helpless as a lamb.

"If I have any choice," you start. "I won't be your wife, and I won't-"

"Wheesht!" Johnny pulls you to him, hand over your mouth, making room for Simon. His other hand goes over your stomach, squeezing. Warmth surrounds you. "You're overexcited, ye need some rest."

God help you, you're so tired you do.

[luviwon]

brat tamer jay spanking reader for misbehaving 😵😵 reader's hands tied above her head with his tie and since he was too pissed off to remove her clothes, he just slipped the straps off her dress off. Going feral rn. Oh and I read 'alluring me' and it was soo good you have a way with words and you do it so well. I hope your blog reaches even more success <3

\\ thank you for your sweet words, love! i hope you enjoy the short drabble, please don’t hesitate to come to me again <3

“will you ever learn from your mistakes?" jay asked, biting his cheek and crossing his arms in annoyance. you found yourself hanging in front of him, your hands tied to the coat rack. "i’m sorry," you whispered, too afraid to meet his eyes. you could feel the weight of how much you had upset him this time, and it was clear he needed to vent his frustration. "let's see for how long you can handle this," he stated.

before you could answer, with a swift, angry motion, he unbuckled his belt and pulled it free from his waist, holding it firmly in his right arm. the leather felt heavy and the metal clinked softly as he moved. his eyes narrowed, and without a second thought, he turned to face you. the sight of him gripping the belt tightly sent a rush of shivers through you, your heart racing in response. it wasn’t much of a fear tense, but an unexpected impatience to be punished by him.

you did him wrong and you needed to be taught a lesson, right? he needed to discipline his bratty girl. your wrists started to get sore in the tight knot formed by his tie, your body feeling heavier as he stepped closer towards you. with a sudden flick of his wrist, he swung the belt up into the air, the leather slicing through it with a sharp crack that echoed off the walls. you knew what to expect.

you wore a dress that felt like liquid silk, the deep sapphire color wrapped around you perfectly, highlighting your curves and drawing in the light. jay stood close, his gaze intense and hungry. he held the cool leather of the belt in one hand, while the other slowly reached for the delicate straps of your dress. his fingers brushed against your skin, sending a thrill through you. as he harshly pulled the straps down, a shiver ran down your spine, igniting every nerve. the straps slid off your shoulders, exposing your collarbone and upper chest.

“be quiet and it will be finished soon” he whispered, unable to hide away a sly smirk.

with a sudden movement, the cold material of the belt hit your round ass with a powerful gesture, making you whimper and move your body forward, while biting on your lower lip to prevent yourself from disturbing his silence. it took jay just another second to spank your butt again, this time harder as satisfaction grew inside him. the view of you crying out and taking your punishment so well awakened something within him.

“does it feel good being reminded to stay a good girl, princess?” he stated, pulling your dress lower to fully expose your perky tits. without second thoughts, he spanked your breasts with the same belt, admiring the red mark formed already on your skin. it looked so good on you, the pure evidence of his punishment. it looked even too good that he had to do it again, harder, another set of marks forming along.

it hurt so much but it felt so freaking good that you couldn’t help but lightly moan out his name. jay noticed how your nipples hardened after the painful impact, only making him chuckle ironically “aren’t you such a nasty girl for enjoying this?” he asked on a sarcastic tone. “jay, that’s no-,” “your nipples say it all” he breathed, lowering his face down to give them a small nipping.

whimpers couldn’t be avoided as you were a whole mess, half naked with red marks on your chest area, much likely under your dress as well. if he wasn’t so pissed off, maybe he would have lifted your dress too to give you a proper punishment and turn your ass into a whole different colour. but wouldn’t that bring you even more pleasure? what kind of punishment is it then?

“jay,” you whispered, crossing your legs as soon as you felt his mouth on your sensitive buds. he stood back up, bringing the belt upon your ass again, seriousness growing on his face. it was all fun and games until he actually needed to make sure you will be obeying from now on. “it will be so sore to even sit down after i finish with you” he ‘assured’ you, spanking your ass again, feeling the pain growing each time, just as your moaning did.

[thisonegirl]

Good Luck, Touya

pairing : touya “dabi” todoroki x reader rating : sfw warnings : mentions of death, implications of suicide and homicide wc : 2.4k (edited)

Touya’s burns looked a lot worse than when he had left. Y/N noticed the piercings that now adorned his face, looking like staples his skin together to not fall apart, and his now black hair in place of the snowy white locks that she admired. 

She watched him, hidden behind the wall and peering into the doorless room where he trained with his blue flames wondering how he endured the pain of getting burned. It was as if he didn’t even feel it. She could feel the heat from such a distance, so she couldn’t even fathom such endurance being humanly possible.

“How did you find me?” Touya’s hoarse voice, damaged by the burns in his throat, echoed across the room of the abandoned building where they stood.

Y/N’s heart stopped beating for a split second as she processed the fact that her attempts at discretion had been futile. At the same time, she couldn’t help but think ‘he remembers me’.

“So?” He finally turned his body to face her completely. “How did you find me?”

He didn’t sound angry or even annoyed. Just indifferent but it still scared her nonetheless. Gulping, she emerged from her hiding place and responded, “I saw you in the streets and followed you.” 

Her voice was meek. As though she were afraid that any louder than that low tone and he’d unleash his fire on her.

“Why?” 

“You ran away from the nursery and I… I guess I got curious when I saw you again, “ she responded. It wasn’t lost on her how ridiculous her reasoning was but it was the truth and to be honest, she was still far too scared to rack her brain for a plausible and sensible lie.

“Risking your life for something so stupid?” He scoffed at her. She didn’t know what to do at that moment so she opted to pathetically nod at his rhetorical question.

“Well, then what do you want?” 

She didn’t know. Why did she even follow him? The danger of the situation had only then hit her. She was in an abandoned building, at night with a shady character. He could do anything to her and no one would even know. Yet she still followed him.

Ever since he had run away from the nursery she often found herself thinking about the boy who burnt himself into a coma with his own quirk. No one expected him to live this long yet here he stood before her. Alive and well - as well as one can be with the state of his body at least.

“Look, I don’t know what you’re doing here nor do I care so leave before you piss me off any further.”

There it is. The threat she had been waiting for.  

Y/N knew better than to oppose him. He didn’t have those kind eyes anymore. The ones he had when he woke up from that coma. No, they were cold and dark now. He was cold and dark now. Eyes that had seen things she probably wouldn’t be able to even stomach.

Knowing better than to overstay her welcome, Y/N turned to leave but before she did so she couldn’t help but ask him “Did you at least end up finding what you were looking for?”

A moment of silence passed.

“What the hell are you talking about?!” he asked, clearly more irritated.

“The reason you left… I figured you wanted to find something. Did you?”

“…no,” he hesitated. “I didn’t, not yet at least.”

“Well… good luck then, Touya” she gave him a weak smile, one she hoped didn’t show the fear she hid behind it, “I hope you do.”

“It’s Dabi now,” he said.

“What?”

“Touya doesn’t exist anymore. Only Dabi. That’s who I am now.”

Dabi. She wanted to ask why but again, she didn’t want to push her luck any further.

“Oh… well then good luck Dabi.” That name felt wrong as it left her lips. It had a taste, a bitter one.

“Why did you really follow me?” He asked in a much softer tone, curiosity peeking through. A stark difference from his current persona.

“I guess I got worried when you left all that time ago and wanted to see how you were,” this time her response left her with much more ease. 

“It wasn’t the place for me,” he said “I’m doing much better on my own.” 

“Will you ever come back?” 

“What’s it to you? You barely knew me.”

“I mean, I did in a way help take care of you for the three years you were there,” she retorted “even if you didn’t know.” 

“Hm…” was all he said in return. “Maybe I will come back.” 

A smile threatened to break out before falling flat at his next words. 

“When it's time for me to die, I’ll need a proper place to hold my funeral,” he said with a cunning smirk. The ease with which he stated that made her believe he already had a plan and that thought alone sent chills down her spine.

“D-die?” She stuttered out, brows furrowed in confusion. He nodded.

“Yes, die. This body wasn’t meant to last long and it's reaching its end, so if I’m gonna die I need it to be on my own terms.”

“Then why come back only to die?”

“I’d like to take someone with me and going back is the best way to get to them.”

He was a lot different from when he left and she couldn’t help but wonder what happened on the time he was away.

“Are you still at-“

“Yes,” she interrupted him, deducing what his question would be “and no. It's a different house now and I know I’m old enough to leave now but it’s home… And it could’ve been yours too.”

“I didn’t need one.”

“Everyone needs one.”

He smugly smirked at that, “Clearly not everyone.”

“I’ll leave now,” she turned away from him “and again, I hope you find whatever you’re looking for.”

“I already told you what it was.”

“You’re not looking for death, Touya,” she said softly.

“Then what do you think I’m looking for?”

“I don’t know, but that's not it. Goodbye now.”

She made her way out of the building, only then noticing how her hands trembled from the fear instilled in her by his mere presence. He had become such a threatening character that she was sure he’d done plenty of bad things, villainous things.

As odd as it may seem, given that they hadn’t even had the time to interact much, it saddened her. The image of the hurt young boy had been etched in her mind for years now and she was having a hard time reconciling it with the man she had just spoken to.

Y/N was so lost in her own thoughts regarding the encounter with Touya that she didn’t even notice him following her all the way home. 

She hadn’t noticed him lingering in the background as she opened the door to be immediately greeted by the yells and cheers of the children that lived in that home with her. All happy to see their caretaker finally arrive safe and sound.

He watched from afar as the frown that seemed permanently etched on her face melted away at the sight of the little ones, to be replaced by a bright smile. He stayed even as she entered the house and closed the door behind her.

At that moment he couldn’t help but wonder what if he had said something when he had gone back home all those years ago and made his presence known. Nothing, most likely , he thought bitterly. Endeavor was still so focused on his prodigal son and the dream of surpassing All Might as the number one hero that he probably wouldn’t even care if I had returned. 

The thought made Tou- Dabi’s blood boil,but it was the fuel to his flames. He wanted nothing more than to show Endeavor that he was indeed better, that he was worth looking at. And he wanted the sight of his power to be that last thing Endeavor ever saw.

Dabi stood there for a few minutes just staring at the house and steaming with his thoughts. When he finally decided to take his leave, the door opened stopping him in his tracks.

He watched as Y/N left the house, now adorning a more comfortable set of pajamas and a cardigan that she wrapped tightly around her body to shield her from the cold.

He watched her, waiting for her next move, only to be surprised when she turned to look at him.

A tight awkward smile spread across her face and as quickly as it had come, it had gone. She waved him towards herself and before he could process what he was doing, his legs guided him to her as though they were loyal subjects to her commands.

“You can stay here for the night if you’d like,” Y/N said, guiding him into the house. It was big, warm and lively. He could hear the children chattering from afar as he entered behind her.

“I don’t need a place to stay,” Dabi said stubbornly, sounding almost offended at the offer even though he was clearly taking her up on it.

“Fine,” she rolled her eyes at him, “stay for dinner at least. Come on.”

She led him throughout the house to the dinner room where five children sat at the table, which in turn was set with plates, cutlery and delicious food. It's been a while… Dabi thought, looking at the steamy meal before him.

The children chattering and playing stopped at the sight of him. The younger ones immediately cowered in fear while the older ones starred in apprehension. Y/N took her seat at the table, motioning to do the same besides her which he obliged.

“Kids, this is To- I mean, Dabi,” Y/N began her introduction with a soft smile to ease the children “He lived with us for a while a few years back before we moved to this house and I have invited him to have dinner with us tonight, so please be on you best behavior.”

“With the way he looks, I think he should be the one to be told that,” a little girl, with big bright eyes and bunny ears, muttered leaning Y/N.

“Emi!” Y/N scolded while Dabi snickered. “I’m sorry.”

“No problem.”

With that, Y/N gave the go-ahead for the children to start eating and just like that the chattering picked up where it left off.

Where’s the sunflower guy anyway?” Dabi asked as he slurped up the soba served to him.

“He’s not here anymore. I’m their only caretaker now,” she responded.

“So this is all you do now?” 

“Well, I have a part-time job at a nursing home,” she smiled proudly.

“Doesn’t sound like it's enough to keep all of you afloat,” he grumbled.

“Oh, no! And it definitely wouldn’t be. We also get quite a bit of funding from Dr.Ujiko.”

Dr.Ujiko…

The name clearly piqued Dabi’s interest, as Y/N went on to add “he’s the doctor that healed you and kept you alive. He said you weren’t meant to live this long but here you are.”

“Where can I find him?”

He noticed a slight hesitation from her as she stopped eating.

“We don’t really meet up with him or communicate directly so I wouldn’t know,” she finally responded.

It was then that he noticed something else about her, her kindness and purity. The reason he had followed her and invited him in. He knew she knew he was a bad person. A villain as society would so kindly put it, yet she overlooked that and still let him in. In all her goodness, he noticed that she could do no wrong. None whatsoever. Not even lie. She shifted uncomfortably under his scrutinizing gaze hoping he wouldn’t know she had been lying.

“Okay, I guess I’ll have to go looking for him by myself then,” he stated before slurping up another mouthful of soba.

“W-why are you looking for him?” She asked, now concerned.

“I have some questions that need answering.”

Y/N wanted so badly to ask but at the same time she didn’t. She knew nothing good could come out of him looking for that wretched man yet as evil as he was she had no choice but to associate with him. She knew that Dabi wanting to find him was a recipe for a disastrous evil. One she hoped he wouldn’t entertain partaking in.

“Uh… s-so how’s your quirk doing?” She opted to change the subject as the children were still around, “you have some nasty burn there.”

“Yeah,” he looked at his exposed arm, “I do but I don’t feel them. My pain receptors are dulled so I was able to train my quirk with no limitations.”

“Oh, um… that’s nice,” she smiled politely, “my quirk is a bit more boring compared to yours but could be helpful in a hospital or something like that, that’s where I’d love to work in.”

“What is it?”

“Tissue regeneration. I can heal any type of wounds but the scarring effects depend on how big it is or how long it sits before I get to it.” He noticed her eyes shift to his neck and he couldn’t help but feel somewhat self conscious under analyzing eyes.

“I probably wouldn’t be able to do much with you-“

“I didn’t ask you to!” He burst out, startling the children into silence. The air became tense as they looked between the two of you before Dabi set his chopsticks and left the table.

“Wait!” Y/N followed behind him as he made his way to the door, “I didn’t mean to imply anything. I just thought… Look, I don’t know what I thought, just- I’m sorry.”

“I don’t care. Shouldn’t’ve come here anyway,” his hoarse voice was cold and mean once again. 

“No, please stay. At least finish your meal,” she asked, almost imploring.

“I’m not hungry. And word of advice, maybe don’t be inviting any person into your house, especially if you have kids to care for around,” he said bitterly.

“You aren’t ‘any person’ though. You’re Touya,” she retorted.

Dabi felt a wave of annoyance surge through him at the sound of that wretched name, “It’s Dabi,” he growled as blue flame manifested from his fist. To his - and her - surprise, she didn’t look the tiniest bit scared. Maybe he made her feel a bit too comfortable and in turn confident. 

“Please stay.”

With a final glare, he put out his fire and opened the door to leave.

He heard a sigh of resignation from behind him followed by a soft “Good luck, Touya.”

As someone who loves reading and writing, thought it would be nice to finally put out my little fanfic pieces out to the world. Hope it's enjoyable!

masterlist

[echotrinityme]

See You Again Chapter 6: A Bittersweet Reunion

Rupert has left his old life to reunite with someone he hasn't seen. After catching up with them, he feels lost and decides to what to do next. 

Rupert was walking through the dark, cold road as the snow fell on him and stuck to him like glue.

Rupert kept walking while shivering in the cold and holding his bags.

The snow crunched as he walked toward a huge building with multiple walls and windows. The building looked like a prison because it was a prison. 

The Wall is an infamous prison that houses the most vile, petty evilest criminals in the whole world. Many criminals were sent here to be contained and serve out their sentences. It was when a certain former dead thief was placed here despite being pardoned and he escaped along with Ellie Rose, another inmate who was there for unknown reasons.

Rupert saw some guards with guns at the entrance of the Wall.

The guards were talking when they saw Rupert, they immediately pointed their guns at him with angry expressions.

"Who are you!" Guard 1 said.

"And state your business!" Guard 2 added.

Rupert didn't say anything. He just stared at them with cold, dead eyes.

The guards were about to ask again when Rupert suddenly shot forward and grabbed the first guard's collar. The second guard was startled when he saw Rupert grab his colleague's shirt and he was about to aim his gun at Rupert when he yelped in pain. Rupert successfully kicked a rock at the second gun and dropped it. 

The first guard glanced at Rupert in fear as he felt himself being pulled closer, the first guard felt hot breath and trembled in fear. 

"My name is Rupert Price," Rupert replied coldly, making the two guards' blood turn ice cold, "I'm here to see my mother. Her name is Rita Petrov and she told me to come here so LET ME IN!" 

Both guards flinched at the yelling, the second guard went to open the gate to the Wall. The gate opened and Rupert let go of the first guard. The first guard dropped on the snow as Rupert started walking, the guards closed the gate and Rupert started heading toward a door to the building. Several guards avoided him and some guards were afraid of him. Not because of the commotion he caused earlier, it was because of what happened between him and Henry. 

Rupert ignored them as he went inside.

The door made a loud sound as he closed the door, he then started walking down the hallway. He passed by more guards and staff, he also ignored their looks and stares. Rupert stopped at a door that looked different from the others, he hesitated on knocking on the door. He stared at the door for a couple of minutes but to him, it seemed more like hours. He swallowed as he held up his hand to knock on the door, his anxiety spiked when he knocked on the door twice.

"Come in," said a feminine voice.

Rupert took in a deep breath and exhaled as he entered the room.

An older woman with a small stature was at a desk writing something on a piece of paper, he cleared his throat to get the woman's attention. The woman glanced up and she gasped in shock. She stood up and quickly ran up to him. She stared at him with her golden eyes and touched Rupert's cheek.

Rupert stared at his mom in sadness, it's been a long time since he had last seen his mom. The last time he saw his mom was when he was little. She still looks the same as before she left except she looked more brightly and doesn't always look sad. Her long, onyx black wavy hair was tied into a bun and she wore glasses. She was also wearing a staff uniform and had her name tag.

"Hi, Mom..." Rupert said solemnly.

"Oh, my son..." Rita replied sadly as she hugged him. She knew her son would need her and she's glad he's here. They started talking before Rupert joined the Government and they repaired their broken relationship.

"How are you feeling, my Rupert?" Rita asked gently.

Rupert looked away from his mother, confirming her answer.

"I know it's been tough for you but I'm here for you," Rita said softly.

Rupert smiled faintly. 

He's glad to have his mother to support him during his time of need.

Rupert told his mom everything that had happened recently.

After he told his mom what happened, he put his face on his hands and silently sobbed. Rita pulled her son into a hug and whispered comforting words but he kept sobbing. After a while, he stopped sobbing and just hugged his mom. Rita felt her son stop trembling and become motionless. Then she heard soft snoring and looked down.

Rupert fell asleep in his mother's arms.

Rita smiled softly as she held her son, he must have been so tired. Rupert did have dark circles under his eyes after all. Rita hummed a quiet tune while Rupert slept, Rita quietly and carefully put herself and himself on a chair. They stayed there for a few minutes, Rita still holding Rupert as he slept. The atmosphere was quiet and peaceful. So quiet and so peaceful.

BAM!

Both Rita and Rupert jumped as they turned to the door. Rupert's vision was blurry when he saw a figure at the door, he rubbed his eyes while shaking his head to get rid of any sleep. Rita stared at the figure at the door with wide eyes and a bit of anger.

"Henry Stickmin is dead!" said a deep Russian voice.

Dmitri Petrov, the warden of the Wall burst into the room with a shocked look.

Dmitri Petrov was not only the warden of the Wall, he's also Rita Price's father and Rupert Price's grandfather. 

Rupert looked between Dmitri and his mom. Rupert didn't want to tell his grandfather that Henry was dead and he was the one who caused it. However, he saw his grandfather was grinning. Rupert tried not to laugh since Dmitri lost a couple of his front teeth due to a certain dead thief and he looked silly without his front teeth. 

Rupert nodded slowly as he bowed his head down in shame.

It was silent for a few minutes, and then Rita and Rupert heard laughter.

"Ha... Hahahahaha!" Dmitri laughed as he smiled, "HAHAHAHAHAHA!"

Dmitri kept laughing while Rita and Rupert stared at him in confusion. "Uh... Father?" Rita said tentatively, "You alright?"

"HAHAHAHAHA!" Dmitri kept laughing, ignoring his daughter in the process. He stopped laughing as he stared at his daughter and grandson, He wiped some tears from his face and smiled.

"I'm fine, Rita," Dmitri replied happily.

"Then why are you laughing?" Rita questioned.

"Because Henry Stickmin is dead, thanks to my grandson!" Dmitri exclaimed, making Rita and Rupert feel awkward. Rita nervously glanced at Rupert who was looking at his grandfather blankly. Dmitri either didn't see Rupert's reaction or ignored it.

"Rupert, I'm so proud of you for doing something right for change," Dmitri said as he got out his walkie talkie, "So proud,"

"Grigori! Tell everyone to take the day off!" Dmitri ordered excitedly, there was some static and a deep Russian voice, "Yes, Grigori, I'm serious," he continued, "Why? Because we're going to have a party! For what?! Because Henry Stickmin is dead!"

Dmitri rambled on while Rita and Rupert watched him. Dmitri headed out of the room, still explaining to Grigori about Henry Stickmin's death. Rita shook her head and glanced at Rupert who stared at the ground with blank eyes.

"Rupert?" she said tentatively, "You alright?"

Rupert didn't respond. He just kept staring at the floor.

Rita was about to ask again when Rupert stood up, startling her. Without answering his mom, he left the room. 

A/N: This is an early Christmas present for you guys. Also, refresher, Rita Petrov is an oc created by me and Blue_Fanlady and she is the daughter of Dmitri Petrov and the mother of Rupert Price. 

[jalebi-likes]

MJHT Season 2 Rewrite

ft. Jalebi

Here I write down how I edited MJHT S2 (which occurs after the car accident) to flesh out Gunjan and Samrat especially.

Samrat is torn after the death of Nupur and punishes himself through reckless driving. Mayank is devastated as well but when he meets Samrat, apart from initial anger, is worried on Samrat's alcoholism and depression.

Mayank, reluctantly, tries to make Samrat better and joins Excel only to become an invisible guidance to Samrat. He softens up to Samrat pretty quickly and tries to gently broach it to Gunjan that they need to forgive Samrat.

Gunjan, though, holds on to her anger because she is in depression and it's the only way she deals with Nupur's death.

Gunjan's patient and protege, Ash, falls for Samrat while Excel's new badboy Rohan (himbo in reality) falls for Ash.

Mayank gently brings Gunjan back into Excel, which Gunjan accepts, while Mayank is quietly supportive of Samrat trying to cheer Gunjan up because Samrat snaps out of his funk when he sees how devastated Gunjan is.

Dia visits everyone and talks to Mayank about the inconsistencies in Nupur's death. So while Gunjan tries to deal with Samrat, his attempts to make her life better, Mayank digs into Nupur's death.

Gunjan breaks down and tells Samrat to not make her happy because she's falling in love with him, again, because perhaps she never stopped loving him and she hates herself for it.

Samrat, heartbroken and angry, for all he tried was to make her happy, vows to never meet Gunjan again for her sake and they're both shellshocked when Mayank tells them that Nupur might be alive.

As they all search for Nupur, Ash learns that the man she loves love her Gunjan Di and is heartbroken that her first love never existed and Rohan is heartbroken realizing Ash feels nothing for him.

Nupur pretends to have lost her memory upon the fear of her abuser but she gels exceedingly well back with the gang despite her resistance. Gunjan and Samrat get closer, but she is hesitant, and Mayank knows for sure that this new Nupur is his.

The gang discovers her abuser and Samrat is the first to know the whole truth of why and how Nupur was absent from their lives and devises the perfect plan to get her abuser confess his crimes, put in jail and reconcile all the separation.

Gunjan regrets that she punished Samrat for nothing but Samrat is hopeful that now things will be alright. However, Gunjan is hesitant and tries to be a positive influence to Samrat but Samrat is unable to tell his dreams to Gunjan.

Mayank thinks Nupur would want to study again for college, unheeding to the fact that Nupur actually wanted to work. Both Gunjan and Mayank realize they're forcing Samrat-Nupur to fix their lives and they try to apologize but Gunjan is heartbroken seeing Samrat lie through his teeth about studying MBA (which he isn't).

Uday comes back to meet his family and Samrat-Mayank team up to pacify their miffed beloveds, while Mayank and Nupur patch up with Mayank reminding her it's the anniversary of their date, Gunjan feels she unnecessarily dragged her anger on Samrat over something trivial.

Samrat understands that regardless, Gunjan hesitates to see him in a romantic light. However, when they resume rehearsing for the play and Gunjan talks about Devdas and childhood love, Samrat feels there's hope when she hugs him passionately.

However, Gunjan, afraid of relationships and love walks off leaving Samrat upset and distanced for the first time. Samrat realizes that he must not be a part of her life, and chooses to graciously stay away. Gunjan on the other hand is disturbed by Samrat distancing himself away.

Samrat grows cold, into his shell, realizing his love is pain for Gunjan and decides to step out of her life. Gunjan grows panicked when she sees he is truly stepping out of her life and tries to convey her feelings during the Devdas play.

Although the scenarios are different, Gunjan, as Paro, begs Samrat, as Dev, to not leave her when she is finally ready to move ahead. And Samrat, as Dev, tells Gunjan, as Paro, that time is not by their side. There is only pain in their love.

In the final act of the play, Gunjan offers tearful apology to Samrat and whispers that she loves him which leaves him in complete shock. He doesn't know how to comprehend this because love is not easy for Gunjan.

They're very quiet post play, until Gunjan, shyly, asks him out for dinner and Samrat can't stop smiling because it means she's ready for him for real. He has a huge plan but realizes they spent so much of time in the college that the doors are locked and they're stuck in the college.

They laugh at the situation but Samrat still plans a romantic surprise for her and a date at their canteen. They talk about love, relationships, the three years and Gunjan shushes him, telling him that he has always taught her what laughter and love is.

They get serious when they realize how time has created the gap between them but Samrat eases the tension by teasing her and they goof around until they get romantic again and perhaps not everything is lost.

Ultimately the gang saves their college from a sleazy land grabber and celebrate Diwali together where it is hinted that Nupur is pregnant and

Gunjan apologizes to Samrat, yet again, for everything. Samrat assures her and seeing her wear her engagement ring brings back new hopes and dreams and they kiss in the night.

Then they propose, marry and everyone lives happily ever after!

The End :)

P.S: If you liked this then I have a drive where I edited the show to follow this layout 😉

[rickgrimesdoingrickthings]

It was hard to say if he was smiling or not. His eyes were just so narrow, along with his face, following every single movement that Lou did. Yes she was in pain, she was breaking, she was scared and leaking all he wanted. And as he promised, when she mentioned his kids again, Rick pressed the knife more, not cutting but causing pain and the superficial blood to come out, getting his hands dirty. "You don't learn, do ya?". His voice was so harsh, someone could say he even seemed to be having fun with that, but he wasn't, he was just so angry, very angry and triggered. Anyone who used to know the old Rick would swear it was a different person.

"No. He doesn't care about you. I've met men like him before. If he isn't a sociopath he is very close to being one. He uses people. He used my friend. I wonder what kind of fantasies he planted in your head- do you dream conquering this place with him? You romanticize dying with him? Death ain't glorious, girl. It's painful, it's dirty, full of maggots, and you become one of those things if someone doesn't blow your brains up for you."

His breathing was so fast...the pace...he was agitated, but still keeping control. Daryl looked worried, worried that Rick could return to the previous state he was, when Lori died. But Rick wouldn't. He still was in control.

So that was the plan. She was basically a scout. So the Governor was going to attack....

...

Rick paused, staring the void, afraid.

"We won't quit the prison. If he comes, he will fail just like the previous time. Woodbury is gone. He can't have much resources to take this place." His eyes moved to her. "And you will never inform him. Or lead us to a trap. You won't."

Rick pulled the knife out from her shoulder and pressed it against her throat. His arm contracted hard, he was ready to kill her, slit her throat. He froze through. His cold gray eyes staring right into hers. He hesitated.

Metal sounds surged behind his back and Glenn quickly locked Rick's neck with his arm, trying to pull him back, stop him from taking her life. 'Rick, don't! Don't do it! You've lost it!???' Rick was light and it was easy to take his balance- Glenn managed to drag him out of the cell, but Rick didn't respond well and hit Glenn's face with the back of his head violently, what made both fall to the ground. 'Rick, STOP!' Glenn shouted, trying to contain it. "Let. Go." Rick muttered, an order. A rigid, strict order.

Glenn let go and stood, his nose bleeding. 'Rick...you..you lost it...??' The sheriff paced back and forth, holding the knife so tight in his hands. Daryl had to step in. 'We lock her up. She won't tell anyone anything like that.' Glenn and Rick seemed to agree. The leader stabbed the wall violently with the knife, which got stuck, and walked away.

It was getting late...soon there would be no sunlight. He needed to wash himself so he could try and sleep. He was panting, feeling suffocated, crying silently, aggressive. When Rick was like that, no one dared to cross him.

@sheriffgrimes-archerdixon

@sheriffgrimes-archerdixon

It was a calm afternoon. Glenn and Maggie had just returned from a supply run, but they weren't on their own this time. Glenn went to talk to Rick and Hershel as soon as he arrived. 'We found her. Her ankle seemed hurt...she was alone and...we just couldn't leave her outside, she would die if she stayed alone.' Maggie seemed to have agreed with the decision.

Rick came closer, as well as Carl, Daryl and Carol, to see the stranger. Carl was quiet, still upset with Rick, upset about losing his mom. Carol also was silent, keeping her thoughts to herself. Rick was observing her quietly and Daryl was frowning.

'Could be a spy. It's dangerous to accept new people now, specially because of those Woodbury guys who still are out there.' Glenn countered. 'But we can't be paranoid about everyone. And we already accepted so many people from Woodbury...and they are all good people.' Hershel also spoke. 'Rick....she's alone and lost. Even if she were an enemy...I think she deserves a chance. Once she gets to know people here, she will want to truly side us, if that is not her intention now...it will be. And as a doctor...I can't deny her help.'

Rick kept staring her, trying to read her, finally speaking. "Fine. Let's take her in and treat her ankle, but we will keep an eye on her. If she messes up, we kick her out. Or lock her up for good". He said that staring deeply into her eyes.

[sinnamonrolle]

[ the little moments] ♡ Satan

5 - That moment when you found Satan covered in blood.

✿ part of a series now! ✿

❀  gender neutral reader  ❀

Warnings: Blood (no gore)

“Devildom does not tolerate slander, and I, most certainly, will not sit quietly when my human is being talked about in such a filthy manner. Now, I’m sure you know this, but I have connections in every layer of the Devildom. If I ever hear anything remotely similar again, whether it’d be in text or words, there will be consequences.”

The Devildom was always dark, and it was something you’ve long gotten used to, but it was way, way darker in alleyways where the streetlights never reach. Within the shadows of a small alley, you heard a familiar voice.

“Satan?” you called out. You didn’t want to step into the shadows, knowing of the potential danger in doing so, but you wanted to see Satan again. You wanted to see him safe, and so you hesitated in the walkway, wondering what you should do.

Satan had just suddenly walked away from you earlier. He didn’t say a word to you as he left, only leaving a hint of anger—pure, unfiltered anger, ready to burst into something darker, more dangerous—in the sound of footsteps and in the bond of your pact. You felt it sparking in your chest, like firecrackers going off, but at one point in your search for Satan’s whereabouts, your head spun at the amount of rage swirling in you. You heaved, wanting so badly to thrash and to shout and to destroy something.

You whirled around in circles on the street, the colors and shapes mixing around you in blurs, and you were dangling dangerously on the edge of falling head first into the abyss of wrath until—

Satan, where are you? Satan, please be safe. Satan, are you okay? Satan, Satan, Satan, I need to find Satan, I need to make sure he’s okay. Don’t leave me here, please…

You thought of him.

It was the thought of Satan, of seeing him safe and sound, of seeing that wonderful smile on his face again that pulled you back into a more rational state of mind, enough so that you could restart your search. With one feet in front of the other, you took a deep breath.

And now, you’d finally found him, but…

A heavy silence filled the air. Every second that passed made you worry more and more. From what you heard, you were sure something had gone down. It wasn’t that you were worried about his physical well-being (although, it was still a point of concern for you), you were much more worried about his mental well-being, which had always been rather fragile compared to his brothers.

You weren’t saying that he was fragile, but rather that it didn’t take much to set him off. He might be able to hide his emotions extremely well, but he felt them harder, and they lingered longer—much, much longer. It was this vulnerability that made you worried.

You couldn’t help but call out again, “Satan? Are you okay?”

It was only after that did a familiar figure slowly walked out, the shadows clinging onto the flickering form of Satan. His eyes were a cold, harsh green—so lovely yet so dangerous with that dark glint in his eyes—and they glowed, like a warning, against the backdrop of night.

Several sharp slashes of red stained his cheeks. Droplets hung to the blonde strands of hair hanging above his eyes. And you could see similar splatters dying his gray shirt, although most of it were hidden by his boa.

“My beloved,” Satan murmured, and the flickering between his human form and demon form increased in intensity, almost resembling an old TV with static.

He stumbled towards you, conflict coloring his cold eyes, and you couldn’t help but look behind him at the shadowy corner. If it was you from when you first came to the Devildom, you would have felt sorry for those poor souls, but now—now, the only person on your mind was Satan.

You took his hand and pulled him away from the alleyway to some place with more light, some place with more breathing room, some place safe. He followed obediently behind you, letting you take him to wherever you wanted.

It was this trust Satan placed in you that made your heart clenched tight, beating along to the sound of your hurried footsteps. His breathing wasn’t loud, but you heard it anyway—gasping, pausing, hitching. The wrath had died down the moment you called out his name, and now you were left with nothing but your own thoughts and feelings swirling inside you. You wondered what was going on in his mind, what emotions he was feeling, what you could do for him. You wondered and wondered, and all sorts of thoughts cluttered your head, but you didn’t say anything until you stopped near a street lamp off to the side.

Lit by the pale white light, you finally saw Satan from head to toe. The flickering has subsided greatly, leaving him in his gray dress shirt, his ribbon, his boa, and his spotted pants, but his horns and tail were absent. There was a bit of dissonance at the sight of him in his demon outfit but without the demon features, and it seemed Satan felt it too with how his eyebrows were furrowed, and how the pale green in his eyes was growing agitated.

“You can stay in your demon form, you know,” you said softly, taking his other hand in yours and squeezing them. “You don’t have to hide them from me. I’m not scared.”

“I—” Satan began to say, but then he looked down at your hands, and he was jerking away, pulling his hands from yours.

It wasn’t hurt that you felt first, but rather concern, a kind of fear that has always nested deep at the bottom of your heart, a pain that didn’t come from the rejection but from how Satan was hurting, and you wanted nothing more but to hold him again.

So that’s what you did.

You reached out for his hands, determined not to lose him, but—

“Your, your hands,” Satan breathed out, trembling almost invisibly. His eyes were trained on your hands, and you finally looked down at them.

Semi-dried blood coated the surface of your palms along with your fingers, but you didn’t see any problems with it, especially since it wasn’t your blood. A thought knocked into your head then—you wondered if the blood was his.

You looked back up at Satan, who had taken a few steps back, his hands gripping roughly at his hair.

“The blood isn’t mine. Is it yours? Are you injured?” you asked, the words wanting to jump out of your mouth, but you held them back, urging them to stay calm and steady, lest the hurriedness of your speech scare Satan off.

“No… no, it’s not mine, and that’s exactly—” he broke off, lips pursed, and you couldn’t help but notice how his hands shook as he unintentionally smeared more blood into his hair, turning the once beautiful golden strands into something darker.

Satan fell to his knees.

It came so suddenly. One moment, he seemed like he would break apart into a million different pieces if you were too rough, and the next moment he was on his knees, forehead pressed to the ground, his fingers twitching forward like he wanted to touch something but didn’t dare to.

“That’s exactly the reason why,” Satan whispered. His voice was so small, so weak. Each syllable quivered delicately on his tongue as they escaped him, hoarse and afraid. “I, I’ve stained you. Let you see something you should never have to see. Your beautiful hands should never have to touch something as dirty as blood. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so, so sorry.”

You stared at the way he was almost curled into himself on the ground. Satan, who has always been so prideful, so full of confidence in himself and the vast amount of knowledge—Satan, who has always been aware of how he handled himself, every move thought out, every remark a well crafted reply—Satan, who used to look down at you, now, was in front of you, not daring to look into your eyes.

“I never wanted you to see me truly angry, to, to see me violent with my wrath. Violent with bloodshed and bodies and carnage. This side of me you should never see, it’s unsightly, and something so unsightly should never grace your eyes. And because of it, I left you alone when I shouldn’t—”

“That’s not it, is it?”

“Huh?” Satan lifted his head up in surprise, eyes wide with a hundred thousand emotions flying past them, yet you could understand none of them except for one. He had always been a mystery to you. A carefully composed mystery that lured you in deeper and deeper, until you were completely unable to extricate yourself from him. But sometimes, he hid himself so well, he composed himself so neatly, he closed himself off so tightly that he, himself, would forget what he was truly feeling.

“That’s not it,” you repeated, but this time as a statement. Squatting down to get closer to him, you ran a hand through his hair, brushing some of the blood away, and swiped your thumb against his bloody cheek.

He tensed under your touch but gradually relaxed to it, enough to fully switch back into his human outfit, and you noticed how his eyes were glossy. There was a light wet sheen over them, but you were sure you were also the same. Between the two of you, all differences revealed themselves in the forms of adjacency, of opposites, of analogs.

You cupped his face in your hands, and he finally looked at you. You’ve always loved his eyes—that dark, forest green with a depth that you could never decipher.

“You’re afraid,” you murmured, thumbs tracing the slope of his face. “But what are you truly afraid of? Will you tell me?”

Satan stared at you for a moment with his eyebrows furrowed, as if he was trying to find answers from your face alone. You waited for him. You would always wait for him. You would wait centuries for Satan, if only he didn’t feel so close to disappearing in your hands.

“Of course,” he said, and the silence broke under the weight of the promise underlying his words. He gently held your wrist, his thumb settling on top of your pulse. “Of course, I’ll tell you. Only you.”

A pause.

Then, Satan looked down, and you felt something wet settle on your fingers.

“I’m afraid that you will disappear,” he whispered. “I’m afraid that one day, you will really see me for who I am and leave me behind. Every moment seems so unreal, and I feel like if I don’t confirm your presence, I will wake up and realize this is all a dream. A beautiful, wonderful dream that I could never experience again. I don’t want this to end. I want you to stay by my side forever, until all eight layers of the Devildom collapsed, until the end of time itself. I’m afraid of a day without you. I’m afraid of never seeing you again. I’m afraid of losing you. I’m afraid of so much, but there is so little I can control.”

He stopped and took a deep breath, like he was living his fears in his mind, but when he saw the tears building up in your eyes, he pulled out a green handkerchief from his pocket. You vaguely saw embroidery of your name on a corner as he pressed it against the corners of your eyes, careful of the blood on his hand, even though you could see a tear rolling down his face.

“My beloved,” he said softly, as soft as a kiss, “I can’t imagine my world without you, so please, please, don’t suddenly disappear one day.”

You disregarded everything and pulled him into your embrace, squeezing him hard. There was so much in your mind, clanging against each other in an effort to be first in line to be said, but any thoughts were overshadowed by the pain in your heart, consumed by that clenching sensation where you felt like your heart was being crushed by an invisible hand.

“I want every side of you, every piece, every emotion,” you sniffed. “I want everything that is yours, and in return, you can have everything that is mine. I’m not afraid of you, Satan, and I never will be. No matter what, no matter if all eight layers of the Devildom collapse, no matter if time ends, there won’t be a moment I would go without loving you. So please, please don’t be afraid. Not when I’m here with you.”

You set his hand on your chest, where you could feel your emotions running rampant, where you could feel the fear chewing away at your insides, where you could feel your heart beating—badump, badump, badump.

“Can you feel it?” you asked. “Can you feel what I’m feeling? My soul is eternally linked to yours. Our pact is the first proof of that.”

Satan smiled, a breathtaking smile that had his eyes curving, the vibrant emerald green of his eyes soft with love, and while he didn't say a word, you could feel it—

The overwhelming relief.

-------

Masterlist!

[pillage-and-lute]

@thequeeninyellowlace requested “ Geraskier discovering that angry, testy Lambert is actually a big kitten? ❤️❤️”

Warning: some derogatory language, especially anti-sex work slang (although all the witchers are canonically pro-sex work)

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“I can’t believe you brought your bard to the keep,” Lambert groused. It was the same complaint he’d had all week, ever since Geralt arrived with Jaskier in tow.

“He’s my bard, this is my home,” Geralt said. “I wanted to bring him here.”

Lamberts stood, slamming his mug on the dinner table and glaring at Jaskier. “You wanted a whore to warm your bed in the winter.”

“No,” Jaskier said calmly, turning over a page in the book he’d borrowed from the keep’s library. “Geralt wanted a slut to keep his bed warm in the winter. That’s me.”

“I don’t see a difference,” Lambert growled.

“Lambert c’mon,” Eskel groaned. “This is getting old.”

“The difference,” Jaskier said, speaking over the scarred wolf but not looking up from his book. “Is that I love Geralt very much and I fuck him for free.”

Lambert stormed out, presumably to go throw things about in the armory. Geralt pressed a kiss into Jaskier’s hair.

“Sorry,” he muttered. “He’s not good with change.”

“It’s okay, dear heart, I’m sure he’ll warm up to me.”

Eskel stood and began clearing the dinner dishes. “Good luck with that,” he said.

Vesemir smiled across at Geralt and Jaskier, who were sitting so closely entwined. It was good to see his reclusive pup happy, and he had an idea what had gotten under Lambert’s skin. Before he retired to the library, Vesemir paused, resting a hand on Jaskier’s shoulder. 

“I’m glad you’re here.”

Jaskier smiled in return.

-- -- -- -- -- -- 

Some days later the younger wolves were relaxing in the hot springs after training. Vesemir had well and truly put them through their paces and their muscles needed a good, long soak. 

Jaskier appeared, looking almost as beat as they felt. He’d been tending the handful of sheep and two goats that Vesemir kept, mending their fence today. In the cold, with the animals butting in and distrustful, it was hard, slow work. He slid in beside Geralt with a sigh.

Lambert huffed, but, exhausted, wasn’t about to leave the hot springs. Eskel eyed him in amusement.

Geralt, to the shock of everyone but himself and Jaskier, curled himself in and rested his head on Jaskier’s shoulder. Jaskier didn’t even blink and instead reached around and began stroking Geralt’s back and shoulders soothingly. This continued for a few minutes, the other wolves watching a little dumbly. Then Geralt pressed a light kiss to Jaskier’s collar bone and turned around on the ledge, resting his arms out of the bath. Jaskier took this in his stride too and began firmly kneading out the knots between Geralt’s shoulder blades. 

Lambert saw the difference now. Jaskier wasn’t a whore, because even the best paid ones wouldn’t touch so...reverently. They didn’t gentle the tension out of scarred skin and pull the knots from muscles. He shot a glance at Eskel, who was watching with the same half envy half hunger that he felt.

Then Jaskier just got up and walked over to a basket settled next to the wall. He and Geralt had brought that too, it had soaps and oils in it. Jaskier hesitated for a moment, then he picked up the whole basket and brought it to the edge of the hot spring. 

He settled back in, seemingly unaware of the eyes on him, and handed Geralt a bar of soap. It was the usual pale yellow-white color for soap, but Vesemir made all his soap in a big vat and it smelled to high heaven and cleaned by taking a layer of skin off every time it was used. This stuff smelled nice.

“Chamomile,” Eskel said, sniffing. “And bergamot?” 

“Very good,” Jaskier said. “It’s Geralt’s favorite.”

Geralt having a favorite soap was news to his brothers, but they didn’t comment. Jaskier poured a little oil into his hands, but it was mixed with soap or something, because he rubbed it into a bit of a lather and began to work it through Geralt’s hair. 

Geralt reacted like a pampered housecat, arching back into the touch and humming as Jaskier worked. The bard seemed to be doing something of a scalp massage while cleaning and the wolves heard a rumble start up in Geralt’s chest.

It wasn’t purring, not exactly. But all witchers could do it, only when they were truly relaxed of course. It was a whole chest rumble that always seemed to soak into their bones. Lambert scowled. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d purred.

Eventually, with Geralt boneless against the side of the pool, Jaskier finished, rinsing the suds from snow white hair and kissing the back of Geralt’s head.

“Alright,” Jaskier said, pulling two more bars of soap from his basket. “Pick one, each of you.”

“What?” Lambert said. 

“I brought five types of soap, Geralt told me about what you all have up here. So I brought his and mine, and one for each of you. Vesemir already picked his.”

“Did he?” Geralt asked.

“Yes dear heart, he gave me the tour the other day, picked that fig and goat’s milk one I brought”

“Hmmm,” Geralt replied, seemingly fast asleep.

Obediently, and somewhat hypnotized, Eskel and Lambert leaned forward to sniff each soap bar. 

The first made Eskel’s nose crinkle, and he quickly moved on to the second one, but Lambert lingered. The first one was nice. 

It was slightly green, which was weird, but it was nice.

They each picked the one they wanted and Jaskier smiled. “Excellent,” he said. “Now let me wash your hair.”

“Geralt,” Lambert said, immediately on edge. “Your bard is trying to fuck us.”

“My bard,” the white wolf answered drowsily, “Is trying to help you. Be nice.”

“You first,” Lambert muttered to Eskel. Eskel just shrugged and let Jaskier work on his back, settling in to a very similar position to the one Geralt had taken. He let out a few grunts as the bard worked skilled fingers into the cords of muscle on either side of his spine, but they certainly didn’t sound pained. Eskel even chatted quietly with Geralt as Jaskier worked. Then, obediently, he let Jaskier wash his hair.

“The soap you picked is oat and lavender,” the bard said. “So I have lavender oil for your hair, but tell me if it’s too strong, we can use something else.”

Eskel sniffed as Jaskier poured some of the faintly purple liquid into his palm. “Smells fine,” he said. Jaskier smiled, humming faintly as he worked it into Eskel’s hair, commenting a few times on how well kept it was. 

“Geralt always let’s his turn into a rat’s nest whenever I’m away.”

That made Eskel and Lambert raise their eyebrows. Geralt had always been meticulous about his hair, more so than was practical for a witcher. Eyebrows raised further when he blushed slightly and avoided their gaze.

The scalp massage continued and, to Lambert’s complete surprise, Eskel began to purr quietly. Jaskier smiled, but not mockingly or cruelly, and continued his work.

Eventually Jaskier finished with Eskel’s hair and then looked towards Lambert questioningly. “I don’t have to wash your hair if you’d rather I didn’t,” he said. “But I like doing it, and I think you’d like it too.”

“Let him, Lamb,” Geralt grunted before Lambert could say anything. 

“I was going to,” he grumbled as he turned around. 

The first press of hands into his back nearly burned. 

Money was scarce on the Path, even with Toss a Coin playing in every tavern. This year had been harsh on many of the villages Lambert passed through too, and they paid him what they could. 

Sometimes he was in the business of returning most or all of the payment, if things were bad.

All that to say, there had been no prostitutes, or bed mates of any kind, all year. Maybe one or two the year before that. Apart from his brothers, who he sparred with and got drunk with, almost no one touched him.

Jaskier touched him like being afraid of him was a foreign concept. Calloused fingers found every knot and point of tension and worked them out. Lambert felt like dough under a rolling pin.

“Where did you learn this?” he wondered aloud. “And why?”

Jaskier chuckled, digging his fingers into Lambert’s neck as he did so in a way that should have set off alarm bells but instead just sent electricity down his spine. “See,” Jaskier said. “I spent my time at university working for a bathhouse to make extra money-well, it was mostly a brothel but it offered baths. I just warmed up towels and sliced soap.”

“Mmmhm,” Lambert said, feeling his mind numb under the onslaught of touch.

“And one of the older women there, Rosie, lovely lady, taught me to make soap and find the right ones. Also taught me about massage, not the happy ending kind, that education I got elsewhere, but good information.”

It must have been, Lambert thought. It felt like Jaskier’s hands were touching his soul through his skin. 

Then Jaskier moved on to his hair. 

Lambert let the feeling wash over him as gentle fingers kneaded into his head, taking away headaches he hadn’t known were there. Manicured fingernails scratched lightly at his scalp. 

It was so good.

It was so nice to be touched when it wasn’t sex or sparring. It felt like a balm on Lambert’s soul and he’d been so jealous. Geralt had brought the bard and gotten all the touch he could want and left Eskel and Lambert without, but he was sharing this. It was like honey inside his brain. To his shame Lambert felt his eyes prickle. 

Witchers could cry. Their eyes didn’t tear up with wind, dust, or pain as much, because that could compromise their eyesight in battle, but emotion could bring tears. 

“It’s okay,” Geralt whispered, although not so low that Jaskier wouldn’t hear. “He won’t judge you.”

“I did too, a little,” Eskel said. Had he? Lambert hadn’t noticed. He let tears fall mixing with the moisture from the steam on his face. Jaskier reached around to get more oil and one landed on his hand, so he brushed a thumb down the tear track on Lambert’s face.

It could have, should have felt either patronizing or romantic. It wasn’t. It was just intimate. Gentle, intimate, platonic touch. Lambert began to cry a little harder. 

Geralt sidled over and leaned against him, pressing their shoulders together. Eskel joined in on the other side so that Lambert was sandwiched between his older brothers. 

They sat like that until Jaskier rinsed out Lambert’s hair.

He’d taken longer on the wash, Lambert noted, even though he had the least hair of the three of them. He was grateful for it. 

Eskel and Lambert watched as Geralt washed Jaskier’s hair, passing Geralt the bottle of oil--mint, to go with the mint and honey soap Jaskier favored--whenever Geralt needed it.

Lambert realised he was purring, and wondered how long he’d been doing it, but he had a pretty good idea.

[shorkbrian]

Ushijima scaring anxious, kindly u into submission every time he asks for u to spend time or something but really he just wants to spoil and cuddle u before bedding u, and you were never trained to say no to him

AHHHHHH BUT

(What to expect - Gender neutral reader, NSFW, kind of coercion but not really, noncon, Dubcon, Ushijima is a jerk. Ignored signs of clearly not wanting whatever he’s selling and he does it all anyway)

He’s so intimidating, acts like he doesn’t know it but he does, and he uses it to his advantage.

Makes sure to always approach you when you’re sitting down, when you’re eating lunch or sitting in your cubicle. That way he can loom over you, asking you in a quiet, steady voice if you’d like to go get drinks with him after work.

You’re such a shy, quiet thing, he’d immediately set his sights on you the second you had gotten hired. Tendou tried to complain about how boring you were, how you didn’t seem to like his teasing or his jokes, but Ushijima brushed him off, telling his coworker to stop bothering you.

Diligent and honest, ever the hard worker, you tried to tell him no. Well, tried as in opened your mouth, then shut it again. Ushijima took that as an assent. 

So he takes you out for drinks, sometimes dinner. Invites you over to his place, asks if you’d go for a walk with him. When he asks what you enjoy doing, you’re so intimidated by the big man, how he fills the space of your cubicle, that you stammer out a reply, ducking your head submissively because you don’t know what else to do.

Ushijima listens though, and finds you like dogs and swimming and hot cocoa.

 He takes you to a dog cafe the next week during your lunch break, buys you coffee while you pet the puppies. He kisses you afterwards, when you’ve both taken a sip of your drinks. He tastes like the coffee he drinks, warm and bitter and not something that you could ever see yourself liking.

But you don’t know how to tell him that.

A trip to a local lake was unexpected and quite frankly alarming - Ushijima had asked for your address on Friday, and you really did not feel comfortable giving it to him. But when you tried to tell him no, all that got out of your mouth was a pathetic little squeak before your throat froze up. He was staring at you so intensely, those bushy eyebrows stuck in the position they always held, framing his piercing brown eyes, the ones that never seemed to leave your face.

But he showed up at your house on Saturday in his truck, wearing swimming trucks and with sunglasses on his head, telling you to get into your swimsuit and bring a towel.

The water was cold, but Ushijima didn’t seem to be affected, and his grip on your hand was unrelenting, so you had no choice but to follow him into the lake.

He kissed you then too, while you’re trying to tread water and not freeze. Your teeth are chattering, but he pushes his tongue past your lips anyways, and you hear a soft little sigh when his hands make contact with your waist.

Apparently, he can stand at this depth, even though you can’t. You’re left floundering in his strong grip, giving up on trying to stay afloat because his hands hold you up so easily. 

You can’t tell him to stop when he starts to grope at your breasts, his mouth devouring your own. All you can do is grab his wrists and feebly kick your legs in the water, but Ushijima can pretend that you’re trying to steady yourself. It’s not like you’d be brave enough to tell him “no” even if your mouth was free.

When he invites you to his house, he doesn’t even leave room for you to turn him down. He’s curt, but blunt, and as soon as he leaves your cubicle you’re bursting into tears. You don’t want to go.

Ushijima can tell you’re anxious and nervous, but he doesn’t care all that much. He’s taken the right steps, done the wine-ing and dine-ing and you hadn’t said no at any point to any of his courting. 

Yes, you’d trembled when he kissed you the first time. but every girl he’s kissed has been like that.

When he’d felt you up while making out in the lake, you’d been shivering so hard you were making little ripples, squirming under his heated touch. That’s to be expected.

As you step into his house for the first time, your face loses color and looks sick with fear. Ushijima just gives you a quick hug, leads you to the dining room despite your hesitancy, barely saying a word.

He asks you generic questions while the two of you eat, and you try to compliment him on the food, but you can’t find the words between the roaring in your ears, the alarm bells screaming at you to leave, to stand up for yourself, to be brave and make yourself heard.

The questions are answered timidly, with the softest voice, but it just makes Ushijima harder for you, eager to make you scream and lose control.

Dinner is finished, even though you try to drag it out, so Ushi moves to the couch with dessert, chocolate strawberries.

It’s awkward, and you feel sick to your stomach when he looks at you, biting into the berry, licking his lips clean. You take a bite, making point to look down at your lap to avoid eye contact, but Ushijima watches you nonetheless. 

After just one strawberry, your stomach is in knots, and you’re ready to go home. Ushi must read your body language, because before you can stand he’s pressing a giant hand to your thigh, scooting a bit closer, holding a strawberry.

He presses it to your lips insistently, and when you inch backwards he follows you. You want to cry, feel like crying, and you almost do as you try and build up your courage to say a simple, two lettered word.

Opening your mouth to tell him “no” has a strawberry getting shoved into it, Ushijima’s face finally breaking into the smallest of smiles. He’s always so serious and somber, it’s almost a shock to see such an expression cross his face. 

Then you’re getting kissed again, Ushijima biting off the other end of the strawberry, swallowing it quickly just so he can swallow your lips even faster.

Pushed down onto your back so Ushijima towers over you, pulling back to find you with tears in your eyes and a flush on your cheeks. He wastes no time in stripping off your clothes, watching the trickle of tears turn into a waterfall, body wracked with violent shudders. 

You feel so pathetic, unable to speak a word, letting him pull off your clothes, manhandle you to your feet with one hand, pushes you over the arm of the couch so your legs are spread and your face is buried in the seat cushions.

Ushijima calmly takes off his pants, taps the buckle of his belt gently against your bare ass in... warning? promise? Trying to think about it makes your stomach want to heave, and you’re doing everything not to throw up into the cushions.

They’re already drenched in your copious tears, in your snot and the slightest bit of saliva where your mouth has been open while you sob loudly.

But you still don’t no how to tell Ushijima “no”.

Even when he’s fishing in his pants pockets for lube, squirting it onto your hole, rubbing it in.

Even when you hear the slick sounds of him lubing up his cock, you can’t find the words.

When he guides himself inside, you realize that it’s hopeless, and give up.

You let him stretch you out painfully, sliding in inch after horribly thick inch, his hands rubbing your sides, one slowly stroking what part of his cock that he can reach as he exercises patience for your body.

It’s awkward, and that one hand bumps up against your slit on every upstroke, and it’s embarrassing how you clench around him when he accidentally brushes against the sensitive outside of your hole. It all just makes you cry harder.

The sound is muffled by the couch cushions though, so Ushi rocks you forward a bit, until your chest is resting on the couch now, and he has to stretch a bit to stay at a good angle to enter you, your lower half almost pointing to the ceiling as it gets situated over the arm of the couch.

Legs completely off the ground, you sob out a shrill whine, praying that he’ll be done soon. The man pulls your head up then with a quick handful of your hair and you scream for real, the movement hurting your scalp, pushing you further back onto his cock, making you ache and hurt in different places.

And it’s all Ushijima ever wants to hear.

So as soon as the sound tapers off, he rams his hips flush with your body, and you shriek; a long, drawn out sound that Ushijima can’t seem to get enough of.

He’s fast and ruthless, handling you like a toy, slapping at your ass to make you wail and yelp on each thrust.

When you quiet down, he spits out that he wants to hear you, he wants you to be loud, and it sounds like he’s almost angry. You don’t know why he’s angry.

Isn’t this what he wanted? 

You’re trying to process, but Ushijima wants noises, so he pulls out for a second, before cruelly slapping at your most sensitive parts and you make a noise that you don’t even register, something like a whine and a scream all at the same time, fresh tears bursting from your eyes as you body tries to curl in on itself, away from the pain.

But the man quickly catches your hip and drags you back onto his cock, makes the stretch burn again. Were you even stretched out in the first place?

The pain is hot, and you feel swollen and you’re even more sensitive down there, yelping on each hard, vicious thrust where his balls smack against your red skin, when his hand comes down hard on abused flesh.

It all hurts so bad, and he’s so big, and you’re overwhelmed.

If only you’d figured out how to tell him no the first time he’d talked to you.

This was all your fault for being compliant, for following him around like a meek little lamb afraid. If you were a meek little lamb, he was a herding dog, big and muscular, watchful. He’d bite you, hurt you, claim it’s good for you.

You kept making noises, if only to stop him from hurting you so callously again. Soft whimpers and loud groans of pain, sobbing around groans of pain mixed with pleasure before gasping as he smacked your ass again. In this position, feet off the ground, you really were nothing but a rag doll against him, for the man to use as he pleased.

When he pulled out again, you felt fear shoot through you. Scrambling in an attempt to turn over got you nowhere, but you feared another harsh hand to your abused hole.

Begging loudly, tearfully, as if it was the only thing between you and death had Ushijima groaning. You could hear slick sounds, and that’s when it clicked that he was jerking off over you.

A small mercy.

His cum hit your ass cheeks, then your hole, spurting out onto your skin before beginning to follow gravity and roll down.

When he finished, you felt big hands rub the liquid into your skin, smoothing it over your inflamed ass, massaging it into your wet, lubricated hole, reaching around to flick between your legs with a humored huff, watching you twitch before he resumed using his cum as a lotion for you.

Only when Ushijima seemed satisfied did he let you up, and it was a long while before that happened. Long enough for you to calm down somewhat, violent sobs giving way to little sniffles, body feeling numb, brain tired and ready for sleep, to forget about this horrible experience.

Hands spread your ass cheeks one last time, hefting you up so Ushijima could look at your twitching hole, see the puffy red skin. Then you were getting hauled to your feet with an arm around your waist, Ushijima laughing when you tried to stand and your legs gave out in their numb, deadened state.

He carried you to his shower, promising to make you feel good the whole way there, especially since you were so submissive and screamed when he wanted you to.

And you couldn’t do anything, still too afraid to go against his desires.

[cherryjuicegf]

the way it ends

for @geraskeferbingo prompt: too good to be true || geraskefer, pov jaskier, 1.5k, T, angst, hallucinations, implied/referenced torture

ao3

When Jaskier wakes, a faint light seeps inside the room from the corridor.

He squints as it reaches his eyes, blinds him. He doesn't remember how long it has been since he last saw light, since he last had the barest hint of hope blooming inside him. Probably long enough, if he thought about the aching of his heart. Probably too long.

There are two figures standing on the door. Insinctively, he recoils. He has grown used to it, it's always two figures, one to carry him and one to strike down if he dares to resist. As if he has any chance resisting. As if he hasn't accepted that he wouldn't get out of this place alive. He laughs to himself as the figures continue standing there. He has played with death, countless times, and he has lost. He has nothing to wait for now. No rescue, no miracle, no ray of light. Only the final blow.

And yet, the light doesn't fade.

The figures approach, and it's not an armor they're wearing, at least not the one he expects. No, there's something gentle in their form, something painfully familiar and he lets out a breath and curls to himself more, afraid, afraid to hope, afraid to believe. They had played with his mind so many times, this can't be different. This can't be real.

He is afraid to believe, to hope, he.

He knows, if he does, if he's proved wrong, he won't be able to bear it. There's already a suffocating weight on his chest, like someone stepping on him and never going away. If he's proved wrong, the weight will suffocate him, push him down, harder still. And he has barely any breaths to spare.

And yet, and yet.

Achingly familiar. The silhouettes, the wild curls, the imposing posture. The scent, lilac, gooseberries, and he thinks he will faint. And that sweet, rough, whispering voice that reaches his ears. "Jaskier."

It can't be. It can't be a dream. It's too real, too bright. He's too weak to hold back, even if succumbing will end him. So he lets out a gasp, and sits up, and cries, not in the way he does when they hit him, break him, and throw him in the corner, but in the way he did, once, moments before he fell into the arms of his lovers. "Geralt!"

And then, oh, then. Then strong arms are around him, and violet eyes are piercing him, and he's too lost to realize and they're too drenched in light for him to see them properly, but he knows, by the way he fits into Geralt's arms, by the way a sharp, honey dripping voice says, "It's alright, Jaskier," and Yennefer looks at him like it's the most natural thing in the world, coming for him, loving him.

And he clings, and sobs and shakes, this can't be a dream, this can't be a dream, too good, too desperate to be a dream. "I missed you," he says between sobs and chokes and Geralt smiles at him. He closes his eyes, feels Yennefer's hands on him searching, finding, the hurt, the wounds, and even though she searches there are wounds that are still bleeding open and will not close, not ever. His own hope is a wound, his love and longing, and the stabs that their eyes mark on his skin, these are wounds too. And yet, oh how sweet is their blood, how welcomed their bleeding.

Yennefer searches, and heals, and yet he feels no pain, not anymore. And if he was able to think, if he was able to see past the white veil that covers them both as though refusing to render his hope requited, he would know, it can't be. It can't be that he, half-dead, stumbling precariously on the land of the living, feels no pain, absurdly healed, as though by his own relief, by his own hesitant joy.

He's tired of being hesitant, being afraid. He's tired of leaving evrything behind, leving his own self behind in order to go through whatever this torture would bring forth next time. Exhausted. There, into their arms, drowning in the sea of their eyes, murmuring the song of their voices, there he knows he can rest.

He hears his own mind laughing at him.

"You're here," he whispers and this voice that hadn't come out in speech but screams all this time, now feels foreign on his tongue. Should his voice feel foreign? Geralt smiles again, smiles too much, too wide. "You came."

Yennefer's eyes glint, too bright, too big. "Of course we came for you," and her voice rings in his ears, makes him wince and, again, he recoils. Why, why, why. Yennefer tilts her head and suddenly, her voice sounds distant, cold. "Did you think we'd leave you alone?"

Alone.

Jaskier's mind is twirling. Alone, alone, alone.

Yennefer's eyes are glowing now, and Geralt is laughing and his hands are holding him too tight, suffocating and he can't breathe and they fade, the light brighter and brighter and that veil, oh, covering them still, and they look at him and laugh and laugh and laugh and he screams.

He hears a voice and he knows that voice, he knows it's not Geralt or Yennefer's, it's the voice of that mage, the one he had seen the few times his eyes were open. And yet it comes out of Geralt's mouth, outworldy, terrrifying. "You're alone, Jaskier. No one is coming for you."

He weeps and cries and pleads, "No, no, no, please, come back," and he runs and stumbles and crawls into the light and yet still drowning into the darkness, the one that pulls him back, sucks him to the bottom, "NO, don't leave me, I didn't say anything, please, I love you, please," and the figures are on the door again, drenched in light, laughing and he drowns and chokes and slips into the void, that same voice wailing into his ears, no one is coming, alone, alone, no one, you're alone, you're alone, alone, alone, alone.

And then, falling in agony, he screams one last time, and sinks into darkness.

When Jaskier woke, the room was dark.

He opened his eyes but he didn't need to squint, for there was no light. Only the bricks, and the despair, and that glooming pain that towered over him, invaded his body, his mind, made him shake and tremble.

He looked around the room as though he didn't know where he was, as though he could ever forget. He couldn't. Even after death, he knew, he would remember, for death was the only certain ending for him in this place. For the barest of seconds, he deemed the irony poetic. He would remember his torture, but the faces of his lovers were already blurry in his mind, covered by this light and this veil that never let him get close to them. He had. He had felt them. He had heard them. They had come for him, of course they would. That's what Yennefer said.

But now he was alone.

And as the realization settled in his mind, he whimpered and wrapped his arms around himself, broken fingers clawing on tattered shirt. No one would come. The wall was cold and damp behind him. A dream, a dream, everything, a dream once more. He gasped, tears welling in his eyes, and fell, crawled, until he reached the corner. There, between two walls, he could at least pretend someone was holding him. If he closed his eyes hard enough.

He shouldn't cry. He had no reason to, he knew this would happen. And water wasn't spare at the moment.

He should've known. Too good, too desperate to be true.

He shouldn't cry. And yet, defeated, drained, devoured by his own hope, he rested his head on the wall, pulled his knees to his chest, and closed his eyes. And let his tears fall. Let the sobs wrack his body, even though the barest move sent a wave of pain through him, made him numb.

Alone. No one would come. He couldn't blame them, they couldn't have known. He wasn't angry. He would die. He thought, dehydration would make for a quicker death. He thought he had to cry more. He knew he would die, he wanted to, for this suffering to end.

But, oh, what he wouldn't give to die in the arms of his loved ones.

He would give his life. It's all he had left anyway.

The door of the cell opened with a bang and two figues stood tall, but he didn't jump. He was used to it. Instead, as if by instinct, he recoiled. Hid his head inside his knees, and waited. He had found a game, to deceive himself. The hands that would grip him and send him on the ground writhing, he would pretend they were Geralt's. The voice that would lull him to nightmares and illusions, he would pretend it was Yennefer's.

The pain was sweeter then, he had discovered. And how sweet, how morbid, to endure the pain for one's love. At least then, he remembered he loved them.

At least then, he wasn't alone.

[mckennamayfairgoode]

The Songbirds Keep Singing Like They Know the Score

Wilhemina Venable x Reader

Word Count: 5.8k

Summary: Wilhemina vs. the voices that haunt her.

Warnings: Angsty angst as requested and fluffy fluff because I am a marshmallow.

A/N: @lucyintheskywithxanax Hi, this is for you x.

Song: Songbird by Fleetwood Mac

When Wilhemina was a child, when she was small and broken and scared, when she could no longer see the world in front of her past the tears in her eyes, when the voices would overwhelm her and threaten to swallow her whole, she’d picture a place in her mind: a field of wildflowers, of daffodils and daisies and sunflowers, and a large weeping willow tree. She’d sit against the trunk, feel the bark against her back and the wind brushing her face, and she would close her eyes and breathe in the smell of sunshine and just be. In her mind, she was safe. In a place of beauty and freedom that was hers and hers alone, no one could touch her.

She thinks about that place now - or tries to - as she watches you smile at someone that isn’t her. You laugh at something the other woman says, real, sincere, the way you laugh with Wilhemina in the evenings when you trade anecdotes in bed and she draws that beautiful sound out of you like coaxing butterflies from your belly.

You giggle and squirm, brushing her teasing fingers away from your bare stomach. “Mina,” you admonish playfully, capturing her hand and pressing a kiss to her knuckles.

Her expression is amused, dark eyes transfixed on her own fingertip as it traces the curve of your lips. “Yes, my darling?”

You melt under her ministrations, pressing another kiss to the tip of her finger. “Nothing, baby,” you murmur, eyelashes fluttering as the pad of her thumb brushes your cheekbone. She loves it when you're like this: soft and sleepy and so full of love that it shines from your eyes. You reach around her waist and pull her flush against you, bare skin and flesh melding until it feels like you are one person and have never been anything else.

She knew they were coming before she could feel them, your fingertips on her shoulder. They always start there, a warning, a sign, a whispered hello in the moonlight. Don’t be frightened, it’s just me, you seem to say. Can you feel my love? your heart will whisper. You’ll trace patterns on her skin, follow the curve until you reach the back of her neck. You’ll play with the strands of red hair you find there before slowly brushing your fingers down her spine. You’ll be slow and gentle - like you are enchanting a lioness who has shown you her belly and not a woman who is afraid of tenderness.

She doesn’t want to be scared of you. She wants to crawl into your heart and whisper poetry so that you might feel her love for you. She closes her eyes, imagines she can hear songbirds outside your window and melts against you, nuzzling the crook of your neck with her nose. She breathes you in just as your fingertips tease the back of her neck. You smell of sunshine.

Her body aches.

She watches, transfixed, as the woman reaches out and brushes your shoulder with the tips of her fingers. She can feel the cold creeping over her, passing over her skin and down her spine like morning dew clinging to blades of grass in the front lawn that you share.

She tries to conjure the wind, the flowers, the weeping willow tree but all she can see is you. She can’t look away - from you, from her, from the way you gaze almost adoringly at a woman that is beautiful and tall and normal. She does not have a crooked spine or a sharp tongue or hands that hurt more than they heal. She is not broken.

She raps her cane against the ground, one loud motion that claps around the room. It might as well be thunder. You and the woman both jump, heads swiveling in her direction. Wilhemina thinks she knows her but her mind lashes angrily, ocean waves slamming against the bow of a ship, and she can’t bother to remember her name. Her eyes brush past her - to you.

She wants to find the guilt in your eyes, to watch your pupils bloom wide like flower petals when you meet her gaze but all she can see is love and warmth. It sickens her, churns her gut, twists her insides until all she can feel is pain. She sneers. “Don’t you two have work to do?”

The woman offers a charming smile like she doesn’t know Venable at all. “Yes, of course, Ms. Venable. See you later, Y/N.” She winks at you and struts off down the hallway. Venable feels her blood boil but doesn’t give her the satisfaction of watching her leave. She is not worth her time, but you... you are worth all of it. But she is too angry to listen to the heart that loves you, too blinded by rage to realize that the look in your eyes is adoration and not contempt. The blood in her veins turns to ice. She looks at you and doesn’t recognize you at all.

Without a word, she turns and walks away.

-

The ride home is silent. She can feel you looking though, turning your head every so often to gaze at her when you think she’s not paying attention. She doesn’t know how to decipher your expression. She can’t tell the difference between the seasons, between the feelings pressed beneath her chest, between your heart and hers, much less the shadows painted on your beautiful face.

Your favorite song comes on the radio. You don’t even sing. You are probably thinking about her, she decides. That woman who must have snuck in when Wilhemina was happy and content and unaware, and stole you from her arms, from your bed, from the home that you built together brick by brick until it was a towering fortress in which she felt safe. She should have noticed, should have seen that the stars in your eyes were not for her at all. Not anymore. She should have realized that at some point, you had reached up and plucked them from the sky and replaced them with something entirely new.

Maybe you had finally seen them, all the things she had warned you about. Maybe one day you had woken up and seen the Wilhemina peeking out from within and been disgusted by her weakness, her vulnerability. Any moment now, you will turn to her with that pitying look in your eyes and explain, gently and with that tone of voice you reserve for those with less patience than you, that you are in love with someone else. You must be and that’s what the shadows must mean. They are your guilt put on display, an exhibit of black curtains and a moonless night sky and she is waiting for the day she arrives at your museum only to find it gone like you had never been there at all.

The thought makes her heart drop into her stomach. It annoys her, taunts her, reminds her that the ache in her chest is something she could have prevented if she had not let you in, if she had not allowed you to crawl inside her and make a home in her heart. Her gloves creak when she tightens her grip on the steering wheel. It echoes in the car, in the silence that you have made.

You will not break her. She is already broken.

-

You try to speak to her when you get home. She hasn’t looked at you since that moment in the atrium and she thinks maybe you have finally caught on. Or maybe you finally know what to say. She wonders if you have rehearsed this moment in your head, if the tides have finally turned and they are just now rushing in her direction to smash against her shore.

She stands at the counter, takes her gloves off one by one, and watches from the corner of her eye as you look at her and struggle to speak. A part of her takes joy in watching you flounder. A part of her wants you to squirm, to feel, to hurt. Just like her. The other part of her, the Wilhemina inside that bangs at the door and screams to be let out, only wants you to hold her. She hates it. Seethingly. With a ferocity she didn’t know she was capable of anymore after falling in love with you. She is broken, but she is not weak. She tells it to shut up and slams the door in its face.

“Mina?” Your voice comes from behind her. Not hesitant, but cautious. So at least you are aware of her ire. Good. You should be cautious. The Wilhemina inside reminds her that she could never hurt you, that it is useless to pretend otherwise. She locks the door and puts her hands over her ears so that the voice is muffled.

She raises an eyebrow, feigning indifference. “Is there something you need? Or have you finally worked up the courage to say what you so desperately need to say?”

You frown, eyebrows furrowing. “What?”

She tilts her head, annoyance clear in the downturned pull of her lips. “You’ve been sitting there like a daft moron for an hour. I was wondering if you’d finally grasped enough vocabulary in order to get on with it.” The Wilhemina inside flinches. You’re going to regret this, it says. She doesn’t hear it. She doesn’t want to.

“Get on with what?” You take a step closer, looking up into her face and studying her expression like you can figure out what's going on in her mind if she will only meet your eyes. She hates it. She hates that you can make her feel seen. She hates that she used to love it. That it used to make her feel safe. That once upon a time, she thought she could be someone. That she could be yours.

Her nostrils flare in annoyance. You are playing with her. She is just a pawn in your chess game, one you mean for her to lose. You want to make her say the words so you don’t have to. Coward, she thinks.

No, she’s not, the Wilhemina inside her says. The only coward here is you.

The thought chills her to the bone. The ice intensifies, freezing her heart solid like a stone in her chest. She can’t breathe, she can’t think. All she can feel is the weight of it sinking like an anchor. She turns her head to face you and looks into your eyes. God, how she loves you. A part of her melts. The tips of her fingers drip on the floor at your feet.

She can see it all now up close: the confusion, the despair, the worry gathering like storm clouds in your gaze. They can’t be real. You must have created them to fool her, to pull the wool over her eyes and lead her to believe that you are innocent. You have called upon the storm to wash away your sins, but Venable can see them still, washed up on the shore like seashells. The Wilhemina inside her can’t see them; she only sees your footprints in the sand as you walk away and she wants to chase after you, to melt in your arms and beg for forgiveness, but Venable rises up like the dragon buried underneath the mountain rubble, looks down her nose at you, and snarls. “I saw you today,” she says. She will not be fooled by the lie in your eyes.

You blink. “Saw me when?”

“Don’t play stupid,” she snaps. The Wilhemina inside her shrinks back. Don’t, please, it pleads. Venable turns her back on herself, on the weakness inside her. She pretends not to see when it cries.

You take a step towards her, hand reaching out like it alone can bridge the gap between you. She ignores how her stone cold heart clenches at the sight of it, at the memories those hands have created for her, the comfort that they have brought. She turns her nose up at it and moves away. “I hope she had something important to say. It looked like her head was full of hot air, but clearly looks can be deceiving.”

“What? Who are you talking about?” You stop trying to reach her finally and stand still and small in the middle of the room. You look so sad. Wilhemina swallows the lump in her throat and turns away.

“That woman you were speaking with,” she hisses, venom and poison laced within the words. “You two are certainly very familiar with each other.” Her mind conjures images in her head, things she would rather not see but that play on repeat until there is nothing else but them, them, them. Fingertips brushing your shoulder, a wink directed your way, a hand on the small of your back, your thigh, fingers sweeping hair away from your neck, lips against your skin, down, down-

“Valarie?”

She jerks like she’s been hit by a bolt of lightning. It is your storm. It has to be. “Is that her name?” she asks, her voice deathly quiet in the frozen tundra of your house. When did the cold spread so far? Was it touching you? Could you feel it?

“Baby-”

“Don’t,” she snaps.

You ignore her and look at her from beneath your eyelashes. “We’re just friends, Mina.”

She sniffs disdainfully. “I’m sure.” Her lips purse. A picture hangs on the wall she stands in front of. She looks at it and remembers the overcast Sunday morning she told you about the place she felt safest. You had pulled the comforter over your heads and she had whispered the details in your ear - the meadow, the flowers, the weeping willow tree - and you had listened and stroked your fingers down her bare back and it felt like she was telling you a secret and trusted you to keep it. One day not long after, you had given her the painting and she had looked at it and seen her happiness and sunshine depicted in brush strokes and splashes of color. You told her that she’d never have to go inside her mind to feel safe ever again, that she was never going to be safer than she was right here, in the home that you built together, with you. She had cried.

Tears well in her eyes, and she curses under her breath, wrangles the Wilhemina inside her back under control and turns her head to face you. She tries to conjure up the weeping willow tree, to picture it in her mind instead of the gentle way you had kissed her goodbye that morning, but the image only comes to her for a second before fizzling into dust and in its place is you.

That sweet smile you greet her with each day, sleepy and soft and just for her. How you rest your hands on her hips when you pass behind her to reach for your toothbrush, your gazes locking in the mirror and your eyes twinkling with mischief. Fingers brushing when you exchange cups of tea, fingers brushing when you reach out to turn the page of a book, fingers brushing as you walk down the driveway to your car, brushing, brushing, brushing.

She blinks, finds the love still staring back at her, patient and calm and she does not know anything anymore. She saw you with that woman. She heard your laugh, recognized the adoration on your face. She can’t be wrong. The ice builds and builds until it is a wall surrounding her heart. “Did you fuck her?”

You reel back as if she had slapped you, pain flashing across your face and Wilhemina trembles at the realization that she put it there. “What the hell are you talking about?”

She draws up to her full height and curls her lip and she pretends that you are just an employee at Kineros and that you are not the woman she loves and she does not hurt at all. “I saw you throwing yourself at her today - like a whore.” You’re wrong, the Wilhemina in her heart whispers, shrinking back, shaking and curled up in the dark corner of her mind she hasn’t seen since she was a child. You’re wrong, wrong, wrong.

“You can’t be serious,” you say, blinking up at her in disbelief. She ignores the tears welling in your eyes, the crack that shatters the ice around her heart at the sight of them, and arches an eyebrow, giving you the look she reserves for lowly employees too stupid to recognize her ire. You recognize it. Realization flashes across your face. You shake your head. “I’m not doing this, Mina,” you finally say. You blink and look away from her, trying to prevent the pain from showing on your face, but she can see it. She put it there.

“I can see that you’re hurting and that you’re in your head, but whatever you think I did, I didn’t. And you know that.” Your beautiful face pleads with her, your eyes large and wet and loving, but she refuses to give in, knowing that if she does, the ice around her heart will melt and she’ll feel everything all at once. She does not want to ache. Not like she did before you, not like she will after.

“You are a fool,” she hisses. You are the fool, it says.

You shake your head, wipe tears from your eyelids. You look like you might walk away, body turned toward the stairs, but you step towards her instead, so close that she can feel your warmth. It makes her body shudder. You search her gaze, looking so deep into her eyes that she thinks you are looking directly into the Wilhemina she tries to keep buried inside. “I love you,” you tell her. She hates that she believes you. “You own my heart and my soul and I know you know that I would never do that to you. Whatever’s going on up here -” you touch your fingers to her temple, warm and cold all at once, a direct link to the voices freezing her soul, “- whatever that voice is saying, it’s wrong,” you whisper. You reach down to place your hand over her chest. “Your heart knows me,” you pause, desperation in your eyes as they flicker back and forth between hers. “Don’t you?” Yes, the Whilemina inside whispers. I know you.

The warmth that had threaded through her being disappears the moment you drop your hands. She watches you walk away, wants to call out for you, to beg for mercy, to tell you that she is the fool and that she is sorry and that she loves you, loves you, loves you, but she doesn’t.

She tears her gaze away and looks down at her hands. They’re shaking.

-

That night, she climbs the stairs to your shared room and finds you already in bed, your back to the door. You don’t say a word and neither does she. She moves around the room with purpose, changing her clothes and brushing her hair free from its ponytail. She can’t help but watch you out of the corner of her eye. You are motionless, a still life in her bed. Your bed. Yours, together.

She crawls under the sheets next to you, turns off the bedroom light, rolls on her side and looks at you facing away from her. The distance between you is miniscule; she could reach out and touch you if she wanted, bridge the gap and pull your back against her chest. She raises her hand, reaches for you but does not touch. It lingers in the air between you, shaking and desperate. After a moment, it drops to the mattress. She closes her eyes and feels herself weep. She doesn't know how to fix herself.

When she opens her eyes again, she finds herself standing alone on a beach. The sky is overcast and grey, angry clouds forming on the horizon and wind coursing through her hair. Where are you? Her heart thunders in her chest. She tries to quell the panic but it rises and rises until it becomes a chokehold around her neck. It threatens to consume her.

“Y/N?” She looks down and notices a trail of footprints in the sand. They dance away from her, following the shoreline and circling back and around again. She knows they are yours, that they could belong to no one else. She has to find you.

She has to tell you that she loves you.

She puts her foot in a rivet in the sand, stands where you stood and imagines that you are with her, that you are laughing and your pinkies are interlocked in that way she knows makes you smile. And then she remembers that expression on your face when she asked about that woman, the tears in your eyes when she hurled a slur at you to make up for the pain that she alone inflicted on herself. She has to find you.

She has to tell you that she’s sorry.

“Y/N?” She calls your name again and again, listens to it bounce off the water as the waves lap at her bare feet. The footprints end where the sand bleeds into grass. She looks down at her feet, studies the area like she knows it well even though she doesn’t know it at all. Her heart whispers, pings, right there, and she looks up like she had known where you would be all along to find your silhouette standing at the top of a bluff overlooking the ocean. She knows that it's you, that it could be no one else.

You stand at the edge, looking out over the jagged rocks and thrashing waves below. “Y/N!” Your head swivels in her direction and you wave cheerfully down at her, shuffling too close to the brink for her liking. Her heart jumps into her throat. “You stay right there! Don’t you move, I mean it!” She doesn’t think you can hear her. She wonders if the words are leaving her mouth or if it’s just her soul sighing your name. She has to get to you.

She has to, she has to, she has to.

The trail up to the cliff looks different when she gets closer. Darker, full of tall, imposing trees and a treacherous climb she knows will hurt her back. She doesn’t care, doesn’t hesitate, just pushes past the first branch and marches on. Nothing will keep her from you. She thinks she can feel eyes watching her from the darkness between the trees, black beady eyes that disappear when she turns to look. They make her skin crawl, but she silences the warnings in her head and ignores them. They don’t matter. She clutches her cane and moves forward and prays that you are staying put.

Then the whispers start.

“You’re no good for her,” a voice murmurs into her ear and she startles and jerks back, glancing behind her to see a shadowy figure that closely resembles your father.

Wilhemina swallows the lump in her throat and looks away. “I know,” she says and continues on.

“We’ve talked about this, darling, stand up straight,” a familiar voice purrs from over her shoulder. She doesn’t look, doesn’t need to see to know who will be waiting there. “No one will love an invalid.”

“She loves me,” Wilhemina snaps, head straight forward, dark eyes fixed on the patch of light she can see up ahead. The sky. Safety. You.

A figure steps out of the tree line into Wilhemina’s path causing her to jerk to a halt. “Look what you did, twisting your fears and projecting them onto the one who loves you most,” the woman sing-songs, her tone playful and barbed like a rosebush. Valarie. Tall and beautiful Valarie. “She’d be happier with me, you know.”

Wilhemina looks into Valarie’s soulless black eyes and glares defiantly. “She is happy with me.”

Valarie chuckles, dancing and spinning around Wilhemina’s form as the other figures get closer. Surrounding her, crowding her, boxing her in like predators to weak prey. “She didn’t look happy last night, did she?” Valarie leans her chin on Wilhemina’s shoulder and whispers in her ear. “You made her cry.”

“You called her a whore,” your father says from behind her.

Her mother clicks her tongue disapprovingly, appearing in front of her and adjusting the collar of her shirt. “You accused her of infidelity, my dear.”

“I made a mistake,” she snaps.

“You seem to be making a lot of mistakes, Mina,” Valarie taunts.

Wilhemina’s blood runs cold. No one calls her that. No one but you. She shoves her mother out of the way and darts up the trail, her back screaming in protest. She can feel them following her, the wolves nipping at her heels, but she doesn’t stop.

“-could do better-”

“If only you were normal-”

“Maybe she’ll finally leave you and come to m-”

Their voices sound like they’re coming from the very trees themselves, winding through the branches and leaves and floating down like lightning bugs to settle in her ears.

“- a failure -”

“- never should have let you lea-”

“-fall in love with a cripple.”

“When you wake in the morning, she’ll be gone.”

“SHUT UP!” Her voice echoes into the forest and birds burst from the tree line in a cacophony of sound. When she opens her eyes, the figures are gone and the voices are silent.

She finds herself standing at the edge of the forest and feels her eyes well with tears as she looks upon her meadow. Sunlit and beautiful, full of flowers in bloom and honeybees and songbirds. The wind nuzzles her cheek as if greeting an old friend. The horrors of the forest melt from her weary bones and she feels at peace. A part of her wants to stay here where it is safe, where she is safe, but her heart urges her onwards. What is a life of safety if you aren’t in it?

Her willow tree stands tall and proud in the center of the clearing and behind it, overlooking the ocean, is you.

“Y/N!” She breathes a sigh of relief to see you standing where she left you.

You turn to face her and smile, soft and sweet and just for her. “Hi, baby,” you say. “What are you doing here?”

“I’ve come to take you home, sweetheart,” she murmurs, looking imploringly into your eyes.

You frown. “I don’t have a home, Mina. You don’t want me anymore, remember?” You take a step back from her, toward the cliff’s edge and she follows you, hands reaching out as if she could grab you from where she stands.

“Wait,” she pleads. “You do have a home. It’s with me.”

You cock your head. “It used to be,” you state. Like it is a fact. Like you have always known it to be so. Her heart aches.

“Please, Y/N. Step away from the edge.” Her voice is hard, lined with barbs but not directed at you. Only to herself. She wants them to hurt, to sting, to make her hiss in pain. She wants to feel anything other than this ache.

You giggle softly, familiar and lovely, the sound that never fails to make her head spin, but she doesn’t hear the joy in it now. It sounds haunted. "I know your heart,” you say, taking another step back as she steps forward. You meet her eyes. “Do you know mine?”

She can only watch in horror as your foot lands on empty air. You tip backwards - and then you fall.

Wilhemina screams.

She gasps and shoots up in bed causing her back to protest but she can barely feel it over the throbbing in her chest. She moans like a wounded animal, leaning over and curling into herself like it will muffle the pain, like she can smother it so she won’t have to feel anything. She clutches her hair and pulls at the strands as if physically capable of plucking the image of you falling out of her head.

My fault, my fault, I’m sorry, baby, I’m so sorry, I know your heart, I promise, I know it.

She doesn’t realize she’s murmuring out loud until she hears your voice in her ear, breaking through the mantra like a siren song. “Shh, baby. I’m right here, Mina. It’s okay.”

Her eyes snap open and she turns to seek out your eyes. She finds them instantly, warm and loving and tender. They’re shining, real and alive, and her own flood with fresh tears at the sight of them. Her voice comes out in a broken whisper that scratches her throat, “Y/N?”

“I’m right here, baby. Everything’s okay.” You reach out a hand as if to touch her but hover right before it makes contact with her skin. “Can I touch you?”

Wilhemina manages to nod, her eyes not leaving you for a second as you reach forward and brush her tears away with your thumb. They fall faster than you can wipe them away, but you try. You always try for her. She feels your other hand cup the back of her head before you lean forward and press your foreheads together in the way you always do when you comfort her. Your noses brush. “It was just a nightmare, baby,” you murmur, gazing into her eyes, deep pools with shadows that reflect the terrors she had seen. “I’m not going anywhere.”

She can only stare at you in disbelief, tear tracks trailing paths down her cheeks. Once she had felt nothing at all, now she feels too much. The ice around her heart has shattered into a million tiny pieces and the only evidence that it still lies within is the persistent ache beneath her ribcage. She doesn’t know what to say. She doesn’t know where to start. She called you names. She doubted your love for her. She hurt you. A tinge runs down her spine. A muffled sob presses against her closed mouth and she nudges into you, brushing her trembling tear-stained lips against your own.

She feels your hand on her spine, the warmth of it soothing the trembling ache of her body. Your lips press against her forehead, long and hard like you want to seep all of your love into her skin. “I know, baby. Whatever you can’t say, I already know.” Your hand brushes a strand of hair back from her eyes. You cup her cheek in your palm, press a kiss to it followed by the other. Then one to each of her eyelids. You peck the tip of her nose before capturing her lips with your own. She gasps into your mouth, passes her tongue between your lips and tastes the saltiness of her own tears. When you pull away, your eyes are shining. You are brighter than the sun. “I love you and I’m not leaving you. Not now, not ever,” you say and she believes you. God, she believes you.

You settle back into the pillows and gently pull her with you, tucking her into your arms where she is safe, safe, safe. The shadows in her mind disappear. She doesn’t even remember what they said. Only that they were wrong.

She places her ear over your heart and listens to it beat. Lub-dub. Lub-dub. It soothes her own into submission and she melts into you, boneless and spent. Your fingers appear at her shoulder just as they always do and the familiarity of it coaxes a new wave of tears from her closed eyelids. Can you feel my love? your heart asks. “Yes, I can,” she whispers. Your fingertips trace the curve of her shoulder to the back of her neck. “I’m sorry I hurt you,” she manages to say around the lump in her throat.

“I know you didn’t mean it,” you soothe, brushing your fingers into her hair, down her neck and back again. “I know you love me.”

Wilhemina bites the inside of her cheek. She doesn’t want to cry anymore, but she doesn’t know what else to do. She doesn’t deserve your love, your patience, your kindness, your beautiful heart. She is broken and you deserve better than her. You deserve more from life than just picking up her shattered pieces.

“That’s where you’re wrong,” you say, interrupting her thoughts. She blinks. Had she been speaking out loud or did you just live inside her head? “Picking up your pieces is not a chore. It is a privilege.” Your finger traces a line from her neck to the top of her spine. She tilts her head to look up at you. She can barely see your face in the darkness of your bedroom, but your eyes are on fire. “You are not broken, baby. You are a songbird and I’m going to prove to you that you can fly.” She presses her face into the crook of your neck and cries.

As your hand trails down her back, gentle and revering like you are enchanting a lioness that has shown you her belly and not a woman who is afraid of tenderness, you start to sing. Your voice soothes her soul, wraps around her like a comforting blanket, and warms her shivering body until it no longer feels like ice. She recognizes the song. It’s your favorite, the one she’s heard you sing a thousand times. The words piece together from her memories, from morning showers before work, from those nights you spend swaying to the sound of it in the kitchen, from bits of it sung under your breath as you walk side by side, your hands brushing, your pinkies intertwining. Wilhemina buries her face in your chest and realizes that you had been singing about her all along. God, how she loves you.

She does not conjure up her meadow or the wild flowers or the weeping willow tree. She does not think of the wind on her face or the bark against her back. She breathes in the smell of sunshine, feels your fingers stroke her spine, and does not think of anything at all. She is exactly where she wants to be.

“And the songbirds are singing,

Like they know the score

And I love you, I love you, I love you

Like never before.”

Tag List: @supremeinlilac @lovelypeasantjellyfish @angelxsarahp

[rulerofstars]

i love your writings! but maybe we could have some angst??? like um.. levi had an argument with his s/o before an expedition over something and they made up after they came back to the walls?

Sunsets and Mishaps

Pairing: Levi Ackerman x Reader

Genre: Angst, light fluff.

Warnings: Swearing, mentions of blood, gore, deaths.

Word count: 2,600 words.

Angel: Thank you so much for requesting and for the kind words, anon! I enjoyed writing this one. <3

 The taste of the warm, strong tea eased the coldness caused by the chilly morning of an expedition. You have the habit of waking up early and being productive whenever there is one, just to calm yourself down and have a good start before heading outside the walls and encountering titans. Being out there could have two outcomes only, the first, you’d come back alive, and the second, you don’t. Every second spent before every venture is special to you, for no one will ever know what could happen next.

An assuring warmth from the rays that slipped through the window pain sent solace through the dubious mind that bothered your entire system. If the sunrise is this beautiful, then should you be looking forward for the day?

“You’re early, (Y/N)!” Moblit greeted, sitting next to you, and Hanji who has a bunch of different food in their hand sat across you. The latter, your best friend and squad leader had notable dark circles under their eyes, accompanied by the messy hair. Staying up late for experiments, again, you thought.

A piece of bread has been shoved in your hand as Sasha, one of your favorite cadets passed by your table and greeted you with a wink, you smiled at her.

“You are, too.” Hanji scoffed at your reply and glared at Moblit.

“He woke me up!”

“Of course, you told me to wake you up!”

“Not this early!”

“It’s your normal wake-up time! You’re just sleep-deprived, squad leader!”

Because of the noisy quarrel in front, you wanted to walk away and just sleep for a little bit more. These two never seem to hear each other even when they are millimeters close, they always shout!

The atmosphere of the mess hall transitioned from light to heavy when the intimidating aura of the elite squad entered the room. Their mere presence is enough to justify the reasons why they belong in the so called Special Operations Squad, and the number of titans they have obliterated is mind-blowing and you can’t help but to wonder, are they really human beings?

A familiar back profile made your heart flutter, his undercut makes you weak, and the way he held the tea cup as if he’s afraid to break it into pieces.

So he’s up early, too.

“Aren’t you going to kiss your lover?” Hanji asked, making you blush furiously. That question was so sudden!

Moblit immediately interfered, “Lovers don’t kiss all the time, Hanji-san!” He said, earning an approval from you.

Little by little, your whole squad appeared and occupied the empty spaces available. Your eyes occasionally dart onto Levi, who’s quietly listening to the conversation of his own squad and speaks every now and then. You wanted to go to him and spend the rest of your morning with him before you set off outside the walls, but you don’t want to interfere with his time for his squad. You are well-aware of your boundaries. How you should keep your feelings out of missions and focus on the objective. You and him had talked about this kind of matter ever since you’ve started dating.

And how you should keep your relationship as lowkey as possible.

Gentle yet meaningful habits pacified the yearning that burned for the both of you, the littlest things that you make, the slightest details that he considers, is what kept you sane. After all, it was you whom he would come home to.

But, you would not deny how much it irks you. . . to see him too close to another woman, yet not being able to do something to ease the slight pang of jealousy and pain.

“You okay?” Nifa asked, noticing the glint of uneasiness in your eyes, but you quickly shook the feelings away.

To make it believable, you forced a smile on your lips and answered your friend, “Of course!”

You hated how his certain squad mate looked at him the way you do, too. You are too aware of the woman’s feelings towards your lover, and you can’t help but to feel upset. How her small actions that meant something else find their way towards Levi, and how he does nothing about it, how he lets it happen, as if he’s giving her a chance.

Trust is one of the core foundations of your relationship, but you weren’t doubting your boyfriend, you are just. . . jealous. The two of you talked about how you should be open and tell each other everything you feel without any kind of hesitation. It was what made you strong as a couple- the thick line of communication never grew weary.

-----

Preparations weren’t that tedious an hour before the expedition because everything is already put together, thanks to Erwin. Everyone’s already in their uniforms, ODM gears have been checked, so no one is really having a hectic time, or so you thought.

The four corners of Levi’s office sealed every kind of noise from the outside, encaging you both with silence that is sometimes interrupted by the sound of papers shuffling. The captain sat on his chair, facing his desk, while he scanned a pile of paperworks to sign to. Thanks to Erwin.

You sat on the chair in front of his desk, sighing and arranging the scattered papers neatly.

“Levi. . .” You started, trying to gain his attention but to no avail, he did not even raise his head to look at you, but he did acknowledge you.

“Hm?”

Thoughts pervaded your mind, doubts about yourself and the matter that you would bring up to your lover. For once, you became hesitant of the things that you would tell him, but the way your jealousy permeated through the deepest part of your heart offered you no chance to analyze if this was the perfect timing, or not.

“Petra Ral. . .” His eyes focused on you since the mention of his certain squad mate, making you grow slightly more jealous of the girl, “Her actions. . . her actions towards you make me uncomfortable,” You looked at him and tried to read if any kind of emotion slipped through his steel grey eyes, but you found nothing but nonchalance.

“I’m jealous, Levi. I just want to tell you that.” You admitted, looking down and pressing your nails on your fingers. Agitation rushed through every vein of yours, you were nervous and you didn’t know why. Maybe for how her would react or what he would say.

He stopped what he’s doing and sat up straight, staring directly into your anxious eyes, “What do you want me to do?”

You shrugged, “I don’t know, tell her to stop? Tell her about us? About me?” You suggested, and your heart almost stopped when you caught the slightest glint of irritation in his eyes.

“I thought we’d keep it low-profile?” He asked, looking at the papers one more time before arranging it neatly and staring at you again, “We talked about this, (Y/N).” His austere voice sent shivers to every part of your body.

“This isn’t about us,” You muttered, looking down and avoiding his cold stares, “It’s about me, my feelings, Levi.”

A scoff flee from his mouth, making you feel like what you just said was so dumb that he could not stand it.

“You’re being unreasonable,” He spat your name like it was poison out of his lips, and you stared at him in shock. For a moment, words would not come out of your mouth. For a moment, you were frozen and you couldn’t believe what you just heard. For a moment, you were hurt.

You bit your lower lip, eyes furrowed as you stared back at him with the same intensity. “Oh, I’m sorry. I thought we were supposed to tell each other things.” Sarcasm coated your voice like sugar on spice.

His fingers flew on his face, massaging his forehead, as if it was too bothersome and stressful to talk with you, “Stop being childish, (Y/N).”

“Then stop being insensitive!” You spat back, raising your voice. Your heart never beat this hard because of a different reason. The way pain and disappointment embraced you right now felt so wrong.

A sigh left his lips, as he pointed towards the door of his office. And you felt yourself drop, never have you ever had an argument so bad that he would resort to kicking you out, or parting ways without talking about it.

“I can’t deal with you right now. . . just leave.”

Tears pooled in your eyes like a puddle being filled by the chilly raindrops of a hail. He made you feel so petty. Your feelings were never invalidated, and you never thought that it would be him to make you feel like this.

-----

You gripped the end of the reins tightly as you waited for the commander’s signal to advance. Hanji questioned your puffy eyes the moment they saw you earlier, and you lied by saying that you accidentally fell asleep while waiting.

What irked you the most is the noise caused by the Elite squad and how they tease their woman to the captain. You wanted to combust so bad because you had no choice but to endure hearing them. Childish? Fine.

As Erwin shouted, you wasted no time waiting and you immediately followed Moblit, with Nifa behind you and your other squad members at the back. You rode your horse like there was no tomorrow, occasionally being told to slow down to not ruin the formation.

Once the big-ass trees greeted your sight, you shifted to your ODM gear and slaughtered every titan that came across your vision. How you are extremely offensive right now surprised your squad mates, because you were never like this before. It was as if you were angry, and hell you are.

You let your body get taken away by the emotions that overwhelmed your system, that you didn’t notice how far you got and how long you were fighting. But you did not seem to care, you were going to fight until Erwin decides to retreat. The good thing is, you knew how to conserve gas, Levi taught you himself.

Like a thunderbolt, a titan rushed towards you, jumping through the branches of trees, and catching you off guard, making a sharp piece of the wood graze the side of your cheek slightly. You hissed at the sting yet resumed slaying the titan.

Time passed by and you lost count of how many titans you have killed, the second to the last blade in your hand is now starting to get weary, and you badly wanted to kill the one in front of you. You advanced in full speed and positioned your blade in a way that it’d execute the titan in one slash, but an arm stopped you before you could cut.

“Stop it.”

Your body shook, not because you were tired, nor exhaustion is starting to creep up your body. But it was because you heard your lover’s voice. And you did not know why, or for what reason could your body react like this.

“It’s time to head back.” He whispered on your ear. His voice was nothing compared to his cold ones earlier, because this one. . . it’s warmer than the sunset.

You bit your lip, letting your emotions take over you once again and yanking your arm away from him just to get back to the formation all by yourself. Your squad mates nodded at you the moment they recognized your form, and you were greeted by the sight of several bodies of people who suffered the fate of being taken too early.

The entire way back to the walls was coaxed with the heat provided with the orange sunset. Gone was the coldness that bothered everyone in the morning, it was engulfed by the warmth that reminded you of how every expedition ends like. The only warmth that reminded you of losing someone important.

-----

On an open field is where you sat, where they had experiments with the boy- the titan shifter. Of course, you knew, you were there. In front of you was the sunset that would soon say goodbye and leave its remnants of purple and deep pink. And the scent of your favorite soap sent comfort in knowing that you are already home, freshly showered, with a piece of snack in your hand.

You felt your lover’s presence slowly approaching you, his heat was greater than anything else. But visions of what happened earlier repeated in your mind, causing you to walk away from him, away from the feelings.

“(Y/N).”

One word from him, and you halted. And you hated it.

Not a minute had passed and you found Levi in front of you, his brown jacket now discarded, and what protected him from the cold solstice was a thin long-sleeves that you used to steal from him. His hand caressed the wound on your cheek, lightly letting his fingers kiss the fresh cut, but your eyes continued to avoid his.

Because of the schedule and trainings, you were deprived of the chance to spend time together. And you would not deny that you miss it. How you would sneak into his office late at night and come back to you and your roommates’ room before dawn. How you would steal food from the mess hall and share it with him. Or the late-night walks that you have done with him, pretending that no one would see. And you were sure that someone did.

You were never a secret, but you were extremely private.

“Look at me.” He said, his hands still cupping both of your cheeks. You pouted, not wanting to look at him because you knew how frail you get when it comes to him.

Your eyes met his, and it felt like you haven’t for a while.

“Look at me,” He repeated, and you stare directly into his, letting him read the emotions you have felt earlier. You looked at him as if you were complaining to him about himself and his actions earlier. “I’m sorry.”

Your lips trembled. Cheeks flushed and puffed, lips pouting, while warm tears filled your eyes once again. And Levi kissed your tears away even before they could paint your pretty face.

“Don’t cry,” He whispers, gone was the harsh tone that he used on you earlier, gone was the Levi that made you feel invalidated and puerile, “Fuck! Don’t cry. I’m sorry, baby.”

Sultry kisses on your forehead, and how his voice burned in apologies saved you from the cold breeze that wanted to touch your skin. He held you so close to him that you could feel how fast his heart beats for you, muttering how sorry he is, how he told not just Petra but his whole squad about you, how much of an asshole he was.

“D-don’t do that again. . .” You sobbed, face still buried in the warmth of his chest while your hands gripped his shirt.

“I promise.” He responds immediately, wiping the sadness and pain you have felt for hours and replacing it with the fire that dwells within him; the fire that you both made.

You were beneath the moon, and tonight, it was more beautiful. It was your witness, along with the stars that smoldered like a fiery heat. And within the coolness of  the dusk had you both realized, that the once searing sunset has kissed you both goodbye.

[ichorai]

the golden daggers ; j.yh

pairing ; enemy!yunho x princet!reader

summary ; in which your kingdom is destroyed, and you come across a soldier from the enemy realm in the forest.

words ; 1.7k

warnings / includes ; mentions of death and weapons but nothing graphic, yunho being a lil shit but also being a softie </3

a/n ; here's my second drabble for @ficscafe's royalty drabble event !! fyi for those who don't know, princet is a gender-neutral term for prince / princess ! i might be turning this into a full-fledged fic, who knows 👀 special thanks to @minghaofilm and @subways-stuff and @gyukult for reading through and tolerating my onslaught of frustrated rambles <33

The brisk morning air whistled past you, brushing against your skin in a wintry kiss. With muted footsteps, you stepped over the forest foliage, gentle and cautious. You lifted your sleek wooden longbow, keeping the feather-tipped arrow nocked. Just in case.

In times like this, you couldn’t be more careful. There could be traps anywhere.

Your kingdom had only just collapsed yesterday. To be quite frank, you had no idea what you were going to do. Where was a royal princet to go once everything you knew burned to the ground?

The memory of smoke and flames still played vividly in your mind, a staggering mirage of harsh ambers and furious carmines and sooty blacks. The smell of death had filled your nostrils, slowly seeping into you, wrapping its grimy dark fingers around your heart as you sobbed over what you lost.

Death had poisoned you, and you just barely managed to pull away before it could see you choke.

That was last night. Today was going to be different. You had nothing left to lose now.

“Your Highness,” a voice rumbled from behind a nearby tree. With your heart thudding angrily against your ribcage, you swiveled around on your heels, watching the man stride out of the shadows with open arms. “Though, just how high could a princet be without their kingdom, hm?”

This man, evidently, was a soldier of your kingdom’s worst rivals. You could tell by the glimmering silver medallion he bore on his jacket, their intricate insignia etched precariously into the metal. Wars were fought for centuries, and thousands of battles found your nation victorious and proudly arrogant. Until… well, until last night.

You wouldn’t be surprised if you were the last survivor of your kingdom.

Without giving it a second thought, your pinched fingers let go of the arrow’s feather-tip end. It sailed through the short distance between the two of you with a resounding hiss, slicing through the air like a hot knife through butter.

A tumultuous concoction of apprehension and awe roiled about you as you watched the man pull two gold-encrusted daggers out of their scabbards, side-stepping at lightning speed and cutting down your arrow as if it were paper.

You paused for just a millisecond, before reaching behind for your quiver, grappling for another arrow. What a fool you were, thinking you could beat him in a game of speed. In just a blink of an eye, he stood in front of you, the cool metal of his dagger rested gently against your jugular. One wrong move, and you would be dead in a matter of minutes.

“I’m Yunho,” he murmured with a sinister grin, blowing a strand of dark hair away from his narrowed eyes. He practically towered over you, glancing down with a mischievous glint in his gaze.

You didn’t bother to grace him with a response, muscles frozen in place.

“Are you afraid of me, Your Highness?” He attempted once more, leaning down slightly to meet your angry stare. “I won’t hurt you if you don’t hurt me. Drop your bow.”

With a gentle huff, you slowly moved your hand away from the quiver, coming to slowly wrap around the wrist that held the dagger against you. It pained you to see that your own fingers were trembling uncontrollably. Were you afraid? You couldn’t quite tell. Yunho watched you with a strange look of curiosity, his pupils flitting from your ashen face to your nimble fingers, wondering just what you were planning to do next.

And that was when you jerked your head away, keeping his wrist still with an iron-grip, taking advantage of his momentary surprise. You hooked your leg around his buckling knees, shoving him backwards. Yunho fell onto the damp leaves of the forest floor with a pained groan.

Though he was a giant of a man, you managed to kick the daggers across the damp forest foliage, toeing them farther and farther away from his reach and pinning his hands above him as you situated yourself just above his hips.

“My, my,” Yunho crooned breathlessly, chest rising and falling just centimeters away from yours. “Never thought I’d be in a position like this with a princet of the enemy kingdom. You smell better than I expected. Is that fougère I detect? A hint of honeyed-peach eau, perhaps? Forgive me, it’s hard to tell underneath the stench of burnt fabric, Your Highness.”

“Shut up!” Were the first words you managed to snarl out. “You… you took everything from me.”

“And we had nothing to begin with, princet,” he murmured coolly from beneath you, regarding you with a well-hidden anger broiling in his narrowed gaze. It took all you had in you not to pummel your fists against his perfectly sculpted features. “Are you going to kill me? If so, I ask you to do it quickly. You don’t quite strike me as the torturing type.”

There was a tense pause lingering between the two of you as you huffed out a small breath, hanging your head in shame. It almost physically pained you to let go of his wrists as you clambered off of his larger frame.

“Thank you,” he said.

You remained silent, a frivolous symphony of death wailing into your ears. If you let him go now, you’d be a goner. And despite that, you knew that you hadn’t the courage to end his life.

After all… he had every right to be angry.

You curled your hands up into tight fists, balling up the wet leaves of the forest floor. Yunho watched you with bated breath, arching his eyebrows. “You know I have to take you in, right? You’ll be a prisoner for the rest of your life.” His question was asked softly, tentative. You were no longer the villain he thought you were.

“I know.”

“I won’t hurt you.”

Swallowing around your clogged throat, you bobbed your head once more. “I know.”

The two of you pushed yourselves off the damp floor. After you grabbed your longbow, he snagged his daggers (kicked an impressive distance away), then the two of you proceeded to stride through the forest in unvocalized tandem. Several times, he pried his lips open to say something, but promptly snapped his jaw back shut, a bashful expression gracing his features. You weren’t entirely sure where he was taking you, but you doubted that it’d be anywhere good for you. You could already picture the musty cell they’d throw you in.

Following several tepid seconds, Yunho spoke up to ask with a slight air of curiosity, “you had a chance to be free. Why didn’t you take it?”

You winced slightly, fiddling with the notched wood of your longbow. “I have nothing left, Yunho. What’s the point in running?”

His throat bobbed as he swallowed uneasily. A gentle breeze ran through the trees, tousling the withered foliate hanging on the gnarled branches. Bits of dead canopy fluttered downwards. Out of the corner of his eyes, he spotted a browning leaf catch against the strands of your hair, a minute frown marring your lips. You reached upwards to pluck out the weather-beaten frond, flicking it away in the midst of your silent brooding.

“Stop,” he commanded after a moment’s hesitation, lifting an arm to your abdomen to halt you mid-step. “I can’t… I can’t do this. You have to go.”

Incredulity seeped into your voice. “What?”

In frustration, the giant of a man carded his hands through his ink-hued locks, screwing his eyes shut.

“Yunho—!”

“I’ll pretend like I never saw you. Please, just go. Get on a boat and sail far away from here.” He paused to unsheath one of his gold-encrusted daggers, glinting almost maliciously against the filtered sunlight. You had to hold in a gasp when he held the hilt out to you, gesturing for you to take it. “I hope to never see you again, princet.”

With nimble hands, you slowly curled your fingers against the handle, the cut-jagged gems cold against your skin. You twirled the blade with surprising agility, and Yunho almost found himself grinning at your natural talent.

“Why are you doing this? Why are you letting me go?” You couldn’t help but be slightly suspicious.

Yunho refused to meet your gaze, shame sitting heavily on his shoulders. “I… I don’t want to hurt you. I wasn’t lying when I said that before. You lost everything, and it’s my Kingdom’s fault. My people are proud, and they don’t want to admit when they’re wrong. For that, Your Highness, I’m sincerely sorry. I just… I don’t want to be the reason you’re rotting away in prison.” One of his hands reached out to grasp yours, laying his warm palm over both the dagger and your knuckles. You almost flinched backwards, eyeing him warily. “If you head far enough east to where no soul knows of ridiculous trivialities like Kingdoms and royalty lines, you can… you can start over. No titles, no responsibilities, no ties. I’m giving you a chance to leave behind your bloody past. You’ll be safe. Or, as safe as one can be in these times.”

When he slipped his hands away from yours, you could almost feel all of his warmth pull away. Reality seemed to sink into your consciousness, and you also staggered backwards, sucking in deep breaths of cold forest air.

“Thank you, Yunho,” you whispered, clutching his dagger and your bow. “I won’t ever forget about this.”

He dipped his head just slightly, the smallest of smiles quirking his lips upward. “Have a safe journey, princet. I know I said I hoped I’d never see you again, but… I don’t think it’d be too awful, would it?”

“Far from awful, soldier.” You were pleasantly surprised to find genuine mirth coloring your words.

You were well aware of Yunho’s gaze piercing holes into the back of your neck. There was a queer concoction of relief and dread roiling about in your stomach. Nonetheless, you swiveled on your heel, thumbing the grooves and bumps of the sleek dagger he had given you, striding away from the enemy who let you go.

[minor-solemnity]

Invention and Intrigue pt.4

Tag List: @jinxqsu​ @naps-and-lemons​ @riddles-wifey​ @mainlynonsense @cakesarecute

You look at him and see raw, unfiltered ambition, power and intellect combining to create a formidable young man who won’t be satisfied until the world is remade in his vision. You also see the way he looks at you, as though you are something precious and fierce and delicate and dangerous in your own right. He isn’t afraid of violence, you think he might enjoy it, but when he touches you, he’s gentle and careful. Protective and maybe a touch possessive. 

You still spend a lot of your evenings with Tom. The only difference being that he touches you more often seems to reach for you without conscious thought or effort. You’ll be sit side by side and his fingers will tap rhythmically on your upturned palm. He’ll kiss your cheek after he’s walked you back to your common room and when he leaves, he’ll pause before letting your hand drop from his, as though he has to consciously remind himself to let you go. For someone who so rarely displays joy in physical proximity in public, he is surprisingly demanding behind closed doors. You’re charmed. 

In public, you both keep your distance. You smile at him politely in the halls and he nods in acknowledgement in return. You like it this way. It makes the moments when his guards drop that much more satisfying, and honestly, you’re not sure you’d be able to stand Melanie’s excited gushing if she were to find out that you were dating. 

There’s also the matter of his Slytherin cohort. 

If you were a more idealistic person, you would probably be annoyed by the fact that he keeps his distance. You would probably question what you are to him. If he viewed you as something fun to pass the time with, but not good enough to be seen in public with. You’re not an idiot, no matter how much you might act like it sometimes; you know that your blood plays a large role in why he is so keen to keep your budding relationship a secret. 

But you aren’t a more idealistic person and therefore you understand perfectly that his friends (though really, you’re not sure if you can call the boys he spends time with his friends) would likely abandon him if they knew about you. You’re honestly not sure how Tom even managed to build such a loyal following in the first place. You’ve not spoken about it, but you’re aware that Riddle isn’t a pureblood surname.

And so you spend two glorious months sheltering your relationship from the world, wrapped safely in your shared love of magic and the possibilities it holds and, more often than not, the green blanket that Tom had gifted you. 

It’s on one of these nights in early summer, when the sun has only just started to set, and you’re making the most of the warmer weather that it all goes horribly wrong. 

Tom leaves you in the entrance hall because he is Head Boy and apparently that means he has responsibilities that don’t include walking you back to your common room. You’re halfway up the steps to the first floor when the stunning jinx hits you. Distantly you hear footsteps and then there is a shadow looming over you and a familiar loud cackle ringing in your ears before everything fades to darkness.

You come to in a classroom you vaguely recognise as the one that Tom had taken you to when you’d kissed for the first time. You spare a moment to appreciate with grim irony that you weren’t wrong in your prediction that going into the dungeons would lead to (a probably very painful) death. Lestrange stands in front of you and your heart starts hammering when you see he’s holding your wand loosely in one hand whilst his own is pointed directly at your chest. You glance at the door behind him, wondering briefly if you try and make a run for it, but Lestrange is bigger, stronger and faster than you and without your wand, you are more or less helpless against him. “People like you contaminate everything,” He spits. You know exactly what he’s talking about. He must have seen you with Tom, must have realised what you were to him. By the looks of it, he isn’t best pleased. In fact, his aristocratic features practically distort themselves under the weight of his disgust.

Lestrange raises his wand and you are preparing yourself to welcome death with open arms when the door slams open. Tom is a rigid pillar of anger. There’s absolutely nothing behind his eyes and whilst he isn’t the most expressive person under normal circumstances, it’s nothing compared to the blank, cold rage that you see in him now. In front of you, Lestrange stills, something flashes in his eyes that you think might be fear before it fades. “Stay out of this, Riddle, if you know what’s good for you,” He says, and he’s angry, yes, disdainful and haughty, but you don’t miss the slight hesitation in his voice.

Tom doesn’t either because the mirror that is his expression cracks and a slow, cruel smile twists his upper lip. He looks terrifying and you’ve never been more grateful to see him. “Put your wand down,” He says, and it’s soft, cajoling, completely at odds with the predatory gleam in his eyes. “Put your wand down and look at me.” 

And the thing is, Lestrange does. If you were unconvinced of the sway that Tom holds over his peers before, you aren’t any longer. You think that they would walk through fiendfyre if he ordered them to. Tom doesn’t say anything, doesn’t move a muscle. He isn’t even holding his wand and a thought begins to form in your mind that he might just tell Lestrange to leave. You hope he doesn’t. You don’t care if it’s cruel of you, but you want him to suffer. 

Lestrange makes a strange choking noise, and it takes you a moment to realise that he’s trying to suppress a sob. For a moment, you wonder how Tom is managing it without his wand but then you remember the book he’d been reading months ago and your wonder morphs into shock and then awe. Legilimency. 

With his back turned to you, you can’t see what’s playing across his features, but his hands are shaking and your wand clatters to the ground. Seeing the opportunity for what it is, you dart forward and scoop it up, immediately feeling safer and less afraid. Tom motions for you to join him, and for the first time since he appeared something resembling human emotion flashes across his face. As soon you’re close, he wraps an arm around you and presses his mouth against the top of your head in a vague approximation of a kiss. From where you’re now standing, you can see Lestrange’s expression all too clearly. His features are no longer distorted in disgust but rather in anguish. Eyes wide and unseeing, he shakes in front of you, any sense of superiority reduced to ash.

“Leave.” A single word. An order, a command and Lestrange is scrambling out of the room. It’s only when you can no longer hear his footsteps that your breath hitches and you begin to shake. You’re not sure how long you stand there, face buried in the folds of Tom’s robes, his hands rubbing gentle, comforting circles against your back, but finally, you begin to calm down enough to disentangle yourself from him. He leads you back out of the dungeons and towards safety.

When you get to the entrance hall, Tom turns and offers you his hand. “Walk with me.” His eyes are still hard, as though he still hasn’t shaken the cold contempt he’d exhibited earlier. 

He must see the trepidation play out across your face because his expression softens marginally, dark eyes searching yours almost imploringly. Slowly, tentatively, you reach out and curl your much smaller hand in his. The dry warmth of his skin seeps through you, calming you in a way that you’re not sure is entirely advisable. 

Six months ago, you had thought of Tom Riddle as an enigmatic, child prodigy. The finest wizard to step through the gates at Hogwarts since Albus Dumbledore himself. A portrait of politeness and charm. Now you look at him and see raw, unfiltered ambition, power and intellect combining to create a formidable young man who won’t be satisfied until the world is remade in his vision. You also see the way he looks at you, as though you are something precious and fierce and delicate and dangerous in your own right. He isn’t afraid of violence, you think he might enjoy it, but when he touches you, he’s gentle and careful. Protective and maybe a touch possessive. 

It’s an intimidating thought, to say the least. To feel safe and assured in his presence is probably akin to self-destruction, but here you are: walking, hand in hand, through the rose garden. 

“You know, I thought I had a good idea of what my future would look like,” He murmurs, running his thumb across the back of your hand. You hum noncommittally because your suspicion that his interest in the darker aspects of magic isn’t entirely academic is now confirmed. He has plans for his future, and now, you suppose, he has plans for yours too. “I think that the future might look very different from now on.”

“How so?” 

“I’ve decided to take Slughorn’s advice and go into politics.” The words themselves don’t surprise you. Tom’s ambition, his intelligence, his ruthlessness all spell the beginnings of a lucrative career in politics. What surprises you is the fact that this wasn’t his original plan. But then you think about how you even came to know him and what drew you to each other in the first place and you begin to understand that Tom’s plans likely never constituted anything you could call legal. “When I first came to Hogwarts, I knew immediately that if I wanted to get anywhere in this world, I would have to ingratiate myself with the old families. They’re the ones who hold the real political power in this society. They’re the ones who have the final say on what legislature passes and what fails before it even reaches the Wizengamot. I’ve worked hard to… cultivate a loyal following, purebloods who will carry out my will without complaint.”

That still leaves you though. You’re not so modest that you’re unaware that you are, at least, a factor in Tom’s change of heart but that still doesn’t erase the unspoken issue that Lestrange’s actions had dragged into the light. “They might complain if you were to be seen with me, Tom. They will complain.” You sigh and regret for a future that has not yet come pass fills you. You can see it now, Tom, as Minister for Magic (because you cannot imagine that he would settle for less) with a beautiful pureblood wife to give him credibility in the eyes of a traditionalist society. “As you said, they’re the ones with the real power.”

“You misunderstand me.” He says and he leads you to a bench where you both sit. He turns his body towards you, sitting so close that your knees knock against his. He doesn’t let go of your hand, instead, he interlaces your fingers, holds it against his chest. You don’t want to hope that maybe this isn’t the end like it surely must be, but you find yourself hoping nonetheless. “They’re weak,” He says plainly. “They’re weak and they’re frightened. Lestrange attacked you from behind and stole your wand because he is afraid of you. I would burn their entire world to the ground for you.” He pauses and then smiles, slightly sinister, slightly cruel, entirely lovely. “As it stands, I merely intend to irrevocably change it. They will follow if they know what’s good for them.” 

Melanie says that you’re dramatic, but you don’t think you hold a candle to Tom. Conviction and sincerity blaze across his face and you can’t look away. You pull the hand which is still wrapped tightly around yours to you and kiss his knuckles. “I'll be with you every step of the way.”

END

(part 1) (part 2) (part 3) (part 4)

A/N: Tom becomes minister for magic - his political enemies always seem to mysteriously disappear or otherwise change their minds. Reader makes sure that no one can prove anything tho. The Statute of Secrecy is dismantled and integration is in baybee. 

[octopus-reactivated]

Title me Miss

You remember Decima? If not, here she is.

Tw/cw: Pet whump. legal slavery, stress position, maybe? low self-esteem, dehumanisation, unreliable narrator, derogatory language

__________

The cage was small, much smaller than cages usually used in stores. He had to bend while kneeling. His back hurt and he wanted to lay down, curl up on cold floor, but then he wouldn't be able to get at kneeling position fast, and if someone would look at him, and see he isn't even kneeling, then he won't be bought and taken to new home and new Master and it’s not like his chances were high to begin with.

He had to stay in this uncomfortable position. Of course stupid Pet like him deserved anything better, anyway.

__________

That's bad - thought Paparazzi realising the celebrity saw her taking a photo of him. Except that she wasn't a paparazzi, and he wasn't a celebrity.

Caretaker quickly turned around trying to walk away without getting into a confrontation. It was most likely that she would be able to get away, and even if man would demand to delete photos, she already switched memory cards, so the evidence was safe.

She took a glance into a reflective surface. Yep. Mr. Politician was following her, and even pointed at her. Rude. She hid behind the nearest corner, taking her jacket off. Then she hopped into the closest shop and got wig off - good thing she actually decided to start using them. She walked into the furthest part of the shop, hiding clothing, wig and camera in a bag and done! Caretaker can be a different person now! It took her 15 seconds no more. Still far away from a perfect time of 7 seconds, but most likely 15 seconds would be enough.

Caretaker calmed herself down, and crunched behind a cage

And then she saw where she was. A “Pet” shop. She realised There was a human in a cage, and he looked at her with hopeful eyes. Oh no. She suddenly felt guilty. She never was brave enough to go after a big company. Did this combination of events happen to show her what happens to people because she refuses to take action... Even if this action is just spying on corrupted politicians?

She will have to pull herself together and inform Justin she's ready to hunt down big fish.

Caretaker stayed a little longer, until she decided it was safe to go. She stood up and at that moment a man in a cage whimpered. She looked at the boy. He had teary eyes. Was it because she didn't want to buy him? Why would anyone be sad for not getting bought? Maybe Pets were punished when someone decided to leave them? It made no sense, but common sense probably got beaten out of them. Whatever it was, the boy was authentically sad.

"I'm just... looking at the description, don't worry" she sent him a reassuring smile. What the what was she doing? She's not here to buy anything? Maybe she would be able to steal him? No, she's a simple photographer playing spy, not a thief. And THAT would be illegal, and she can't have a criminal record. Caretaker looked at papers glued to the board over the cage. Age, physical attributes, placing of scars, training facility, 'one previous owner' note, price - cheaper than she would expect for a human being- what he was trained to, blablabla...

"Interested in-" without thinking, she turned around and punched the owner of a voice in the stomach. He bent in half. Only then she realised it was one of the employees.

"I'm so sorry i didn't mean to hurt you, you terrified me" she apologised quickly, and she meant it. She really was sorry for punching an innocent person. Oh wait, this guy works at Pet store. Nevermind, she's not sorry. Unless that would make a fuss and affect her reputation. Then maybe a little.

Employee straighten up

"You're stronger than you look like" He said, quite impressed.

"Thank you. I didn't meant to use that strength on you"

"No problem, it was my fault anyway. I tend to walk quiet" He said, but to be honest it sounded a little forced. Later on he will trash talk about her to his friends for sure. "Anyway i was meant to ask if you're interested in this Pet"

"Well, I am considering... "

"We also have many others here, or you can visit our website and..."

"No thank you... I think… I think I will talk to my friend, he's like 78% of my impulse control. I will be back in a few minutes."

"Of course if you want to discuss it with someone..." Employee looked disappointed, but he also didn't want to come out as pushy, so he didn't stop her.

When she was walking away Pet sniffed, and an employee kicked cage saying something angrily. He switched from servile to cruel in seconds. Disgusting, absolutely disgusting. She will stop this. But first she had to make a call.

__________

Pet was waiting, hoping for the impossible, and then- then someone walked in and looked at him! Mistress with exotic blue hair! She was looking at him! Maybe she will pet him and decide he looks adorable and take him? He tried so hard to look cute!

Of course it wasn't enough. Mistress stood up. Why would she want a disgusting, horrible Pet like him? He whimpered and shut up immediately. He didn't get permission to make a sound. Bad, untrained Pet.

"I'm just looking at the description, don't worry," Lady said. Of course, you stupid mutt. Humans won't just decide by looking at face, they would want to know... all those important stuff written in his document, that he was to stupid to understeand.

One of the Masters came and talked to Lady... but she just punched him! And the Master was in pain, but still didn't get mad... Did it mean that Lady was so cruel she wanted to hurt even other humans and powerful enough to get away with this? Pet trembled.

Master tried to convince her to purchase one of Pets, him or some other, that was less useless, bu the Lady apparently didn't liked anything, so she used banal excuse even dumb Pet was able to look through and left.

He tried not to cry.

Master kicked his cage.

"Can't you even try to be less hopeless?" he said angry

__________

"Justin, my beloved, my light, my braincell and my source of income i need your advice"

Sigh.

"What is this time?"

"So I was doing as you said, and you were right, they really met and there was a third man with them, and I got photos, but he saw me and..."

"Did you lose evidence?"

"Nah, don't worry it's safe like a baby in your mother's arms. The thing is I had to flee and I went into the first open store and there was Pet and he looked so sad, and I have to take him now, but..."

"I see, do you want me to gently sway you from making decisions you already know it's bad, or do you look for my genuine opinion about your capability of taking care of a pet with your job?"

"No no no no no. You misunderstood me. It was A Pet. And I want to take him, because I'm afraid they will beat him to death if i don't but I also don't want to give them my money. I don't want to contribute to the system, but stealing is bad and I don't know what to do anymore."

"Okay. Okay, wait a moment i need to think about it for second"

"Okay"

"Alright, I have an idea: big companies like that always have some dirt. So do like this: go to this store and buy him casually, but look for old ventilation, unsafely placed things or anything. Note that and take photos if you can, and we will later snitch on them for WHS violation or something"

"Okay. Thank you i knew i could count on you"

__________

Pet was kneeling in the cage. He could have a new home by now if only he wouldn't be so disgusting. The last customer was really scary, and cruel and even she didn't want such an awful Pet. He tried not to cry. Crying wasn't cute and he had to look cute even if it was pointless.

Then he heard quick angry footsteps. The blue-haired lady was back. What did it mean?

"I'M TAKING HIM!" She shouted. She had fire in her eyes. It took all of Pet's strength not to move away to the back of the cage.

She will buy him, and she was angry, maybe because the pet was scared of her, or maybe her Friend failed to control her impulse, or maybe it was something different, but the Pet will pay for that.

He was scared, but he will take all the pain if she would want him, please he wants to be wanted, even if it doesn't matter what he wants, take him away, he will be good...

Master rushed and took Lady to the back, where the documents were signed. Pet glued eyes to the doors. She still can change her mind when she will look deeper and realise how bad and ill-trained animal he is.

Or maybe she would like to have a broken animal to train up to herself? Was it about it?

__________

"Here are all his files. We have to make sure you had read them, especially the last page"

"Sure, give me some time"

"Also if you have any questions, i'm here to help"

"I don't have any..." she said, but then the idea hit her "actually, do you have any more detailed record of his training?"

"We do have records for all our pets, but we can show them only to the owner. We can email them right after purchase. They're quite large"

"Works for me" She said. Maybe the records will say more about his conditioning, and help with recovery. Anyway it won't do harm if she will have them.

Now onto reading stuff she will sign. Make sure the company won’t hide anything in small print.

It took longer than she would like to admit and hopefully she understood all the words just right… There was one page left.

There was something about being "ready to handle" and "responsiblebleble..." and

oh

Employee must have seen that she got to that part.

That part... changed the light she looked at the boy.

And she hesitated for a moment.

“May… may i know the circumstances of an incident?” she asked

__________

Master- no, the former Master now opened a cage and threw him on the ground. Pet felt his shoulder hit the hard floor and he holded cry in .

"Looks like you got purchased after all. Unbelievable. Ayway, how long do you think it will take for you to mess up and get returned?" former Master said. Pet was stupid, yes, and he had trouble learning rules but he knew that he can't break them now, and he wasn't allowed to speak

"Answer me you dumb Pet"

now that was an order

"A- a month maybe?"

"Ha! you aim high. I doubt you will be able to last two weeks"

Pet didn't want to go back at all, but if the former Master says he won't be able to enjoy new home for longer than two weeks then it was true. He had to bear Mutt for so long!

He took off one collar and put on another. It was so soft, softer than a pet ever had. Finally he grabbed him by the shoulder he felt on and took to the new owner.

"See you soon," former Master whispered to Pet.

And there she was. New owner. The scary Lady. Pet trembled.She didn’t clipped a leash or grab him by hair, instead she put her arm around him. Didn't she want him to have even this piece of freedom? Or was she afraid he would try to run away? He won't, he will be good and Pet hoped he would be allowed to speak to tell he will be good. But he wasn't allowed so he just quietly walked by her side. He couldn't crawl with her holding him, will he be punished for walking on legs like a human?

They walked outside. The sun was so nice, and the air was fresh. But he knew it was not to enjoy, he wasn't allowed to enjoy those things.

"We will have to wait here for a while. My friend - the one I mentioned before - will give us a ride. Anyway, what's your name?"

Was he tested already? He knew how to follow rules, he could follow them...

Owner looked at him in scary silence

"Oh. I forgot. You can speak. I wouldn't ask if i didn't expected any answer"

Oh no. Oh no no, they didn't even get home, and he disappointed Owner already.

"I don't have any name, Mast- Mistress"

“Hmm well then how did the.. shop employees call you then?”

“Disgusting, Mutt, Dirty…”

"That won’t work. We have to give you a real name. And you can call me by mine. I'm Decima. 'Mistress' sounds like some annoying character from a historical drama. But if you feel uncomfortable without honorifics then you can title me 'Miss'. But I prefer to be referred to by name, okay?"

"Yes, Miss Decima"