☆ de fontaine
{☆} characters furina
{☆} notes cult au, imposter au, drabble, gender neutral reader
{☆} warnings angst, suicidal thoughts, hurt / no comfort
{☆} word count 1.4k
This wasn't fair. This wasn't fair. This wasn't fair!
She thought, for one moment, she could put the mask down and breathe – for one moment of daydreaming, she thought she could just be Furina. She thought she would finally get to live the live she should've had in the first place, the life she threw away to play God to an audience who saw her as nothing but a circus animal, dancing to their whims. Furina just wanted to be selfish for one brief and fleeting moment..and it was gone before she could even grasp it in her hand. A comet soaring past far out of her reach.
She can barely keep her hands from violently shaking as she looks down at them – broken and bloody and more a corpse then a person – and she feels so numb she can't even feel the rain pelting against her back. None of this is fair, she wants to scream, why is it always me? But her voice is silent beneath the torrent of rain. She wonders if the ocean would take her if she sank into it's depths – just for a moment, she wonders how it would feel to finally be able to sleep at ease.
Furina is tired.
But Furina is nothing if not useful, isn't she?
So she forces her feet to move, dragging against the stone beneath her heels, and drags their bloodied body into the nearest empty building, letting the rain do the work of washing away the smeared blood following her path. The smell makes her feel sick, the feeling of it sticking to her hands and gloves makes her lightheaded, but she persists. Because Furina is useful, because Furina won't let them die out in the rain, because Furina won't stand by and just let them rot on the streets like some..pest.
Furina wants to go home. She wants to sleep and she isn't she if she wants to wake up, this time. But she keeps going anyway.
Because it's all she's ever done, and the habit sticks.
An Archon she may not be, not anymore, but the expectations of five hundred years still linger like eyes on the inside of her skull. They watch her, pry and prod at her thoughts, mocking laughter and judging eyes following her as she forces herself to dance to the song they weave with glee. Furina never stepped off that stage – she's still there, she thinks, watching the crowd stare at her in disdain as the curtain call looms above her like a guillotine. She still hears Neuvillette deliver her damnation and salvation with a trembling voice, still feels her hair stand on end when electro crackled like the crack of the whip, Clorinde's blade aimed at her like a loaded gun.
She's trapped on that stage and she never left, not really.
She hates it. She thinks she hates them, but it's not their fault. They didn't ask for this, didn't ask for everyone to turn against them, didn't ask for her to save them. Neither did she..yet here they are, she thinks.
She tries to tell herself she's in control this time, though. She can stop performing her part in this horrible, bloody play any time she wants. It makes her feel better, just for a little while, if she convinces herself she's still Furina, painfully human.
And Furina has always been good at lying.
It's the believing that's the hard part.
There isn't time for her to wallow in her own self pity, though. They're still bleeding out onto the dusty, creaky floorboards of some random, broken down house and she's just standing there as the blood stains the wood. She can fix it – she's good at fixing things. She's done nothing but fix things – try to, anyway – for five hundred years. She can fix a little wound, how hard could it be? Her hands are clenched so tight they ache as she kneels down, wincing at the creak of the floorboards beneath her heels– she hesitates just long enough to wonder if she's making a mistake before she peels away just enough of the outer layer of their clothes to see the deep, bloody gash across their chest. She tries not to think about it – it's deep, too deep, and she feels dizzy just looking at it, but she's handled worse, right?
Furina can fix it. That's what she's good at.
She doesn't feel so confident when she tries to wrack her brain for..something. Five hundred years, and a little wound stumps her? No, she had to have learned something, right? She's decidedly not trying to buy time because she's panicking, parsing through hundreds of years of memories like flipping through a book. Furina isn't made for this, not really – she's running on nothing but adrenaline and she's really not sure what she's doing, but she's trying. And just like before, it won't be enough, will it?
She'll fall short again – she'll be too late to fix it before she's alone again.
Furina was an Archon..used to be. What use would she have for that sort of knowledge? Which makes her predicament all the more harrowing and bleak. What was she supposed to do?
Furina had heard it first hand, that vitriol in Neuvillette's voice. She isn't sure she's ever heard him that..angry before. She's not sure he would listen to her if she tried, either. And that scares her more then anything. All of Fontaine was up in arms about this..imposter, yet here she was, staring down at them bleeding out in front of her, and she was trying to save them.
Why? Why is she throwing away her only chance at normalcy for a fraud? Why didn't she just turn them in?
They were dying – that should've been a good thing, shouldn't it? So why didn't it feel like it?
"Why you?" Her voice breaks as she speaks in harsh tones, grabbing the front of their shirt in trembling, bloodied hands. "Why now?" She wants to scream, to demand answers they can't give, to claw back the reprieve she was promised after five hundred years of agony..and all she can do is sob into their chest, pleading for an answer that will not come. "Why me?"
Silence is their answer, and it hangs heavy on her trembling shoulders as she cries.
Of course they don't, she thinks bitterly, no one has ever answered her pleas spoken in hushed sobs. Not her other self and certainly not them.
Furina has always been alone. Furina will always be alone.
Because Furina never left that stage, never left that moment when she looked at herself in the mirror and took up a mantle too heavy for her to bear. She always finds her way back eventually. There's no one on the other side anymore – she stands alone on a stage, waiting for an inevitable end she isn't sure will come.
"Please," She pleads through tears and choked sobs, clinging to them like they are all that keeps her from sinking. "Please don't leave me, too." The words burn on her tongue – how pathetic is she that she craves companionship from the bloodied body of the imposter? Perhaps she's truly lost her mind after all these years..perhaps she's finally gone mad. She must have.
But their presence is like the first feeling of gentle warmth upon her skin as the sun crests the horizon, like the gentle lap of tides along her heels, the sway of branches and leaves as the wind blows through them like an instrument all it's own. They are the soothing sound of rain against the window as she watches the dreary skies in fond longing, the first bloom of spring as color blooms upon the landscape like paint had been spilled across the hills and valleys.
They are like the faint spark she carefully nurtures and stokes, so fragile even the smallest wind could blow it out like a candle. She cradles it within her palms, pleads with whoever will listen – prays that someone finally listens, because if not for her, then for them.
She's failed to protect too much already, let too many people with so much trust in her fall between the cracks of her fingers like grains of sand. She won't let them go – she can't.
If nothing else, if she couldn't be saved when she begged for salvation from that five hundred year long agony, even if she never got that chance..
Furina will make sure they do.
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cubs. (jack russell)
halloween brings all the little monsters out. aka, jack gets baby fever.
(warnings: mentions of pregnancy, planning for children, allusions to sex, descriptions of physical intimacy and making out, and jack smelling his wife, if that counts. nothing technically fully n/s/f//w//, but a bit saucy. word count 2.4k )
Jack’s head tilts sideways before the doorbell even rings, one ear higher than the other to catch something she can’t hear. He turns in his seat on the couch, arm strewn over her shoulder, to look behind them in the direction of the front door, tilts over, kisses her temple, and pops up in the seconds before the slightly-jarring “ding” echoes through the house. He’s already at the door, bowl in hand, beaming down at the gaggle of children and chaperones by the time she’s even stirring on the couch to come to join him.
“Oh, who do we have here?,” Jack coos excitedly, scanning the miniature crowd. “Are you the little one from--”
“Stranger Things!,” yells a small child in a pink dress, blonde wig askew, tendrils of the plastic hair stuck to their face. “I’m Eleven!”
“Yes, sí, can you do the--” --Jack sticks his hand out and makes a face, and the child eagerly matches him, giving him their best furious expression and most powerful psychokinetic pose-- “Yes! That’s so good!”
He quickly glances up at the three adults standing behind and asks if there are any allergies in the group (and there are none, thank goodness) as his wife comes to stand next to him, smiling at the Eleven who is now turning their powers onto their group of friends. Gesturing for the kids to bring their bags closer, Jack begins dropping generous fistfuls of candy into eagerly opened pillowcases and treat sacks, small hands darting out to show off the newest snacks to one another.
“Hey there, Mirabel,” says Mrs. Russell, waving at a young girl in a blue skirt and white t-shirt, sporting a giant pair of glasses and a pink flower in her dense curls. The little one is wrapped up in a purple puffer jacket on this cold October evening, and while it is a truth universally acknowledged that a big coat is the bane of Halloween costumes, the effect of her adorable smile and ‘Encanto’ printed trick-or-treat bag is more than enough to convey the essence of the character. “Is Uncle Bruno with you tonight?”
The girl shyly shakes her head and wrings the handles of her bag in her fingers but is smiling widely when Jack speaks a few quick words of admiration for her costume in Spanish and passes her a scoop of candy for her bag.
“I’m Ariel!”, adds a small child in a green tube skirt with flared tulle flippers sewn on, a purple strip of cloth tied around their tummy over a slightly off-skin-tone longsleeve tee.
“And I’m Harry Potter!” A wand is brandished at Jack, who puts a hand over his chest in shock.
“I’m Batman!” The petite hero jumps into a pose to show off the padding of his armor, his light-up shoes kicking to life and casting green flashes over the porch.
Jack turns to his wife and grins, gesturing enthusiastically at the crowd of kids. “I think these are the best costumes we’ve seen all night, no?” She nods, and the kids all let out little shrieks and giggles as Jack procures a few extra pieces from the bowl and adds them to their bags.
The chaperones guide the straggling children into a chorus of “thank you”s before shuffling them down from the porch, past the jack o’lanterns, and on to the next house, as Jack and his wife remain in the doorway. She leans her head on his shoulder and listens to him sigh sweetly, his eyes tracing over the sunset-lit streets swarming with seas of children and their families, all screaming and laughing over one another, racing past on the sidewalks, weaving in and out of lawns decorated with tombstones and inflatable specters, plastic skeletons and felted spiders.
“You know, at the rate you hand it out, we’ll be out of candy before the street lights come on,” she teases, nudging his shoulder. Jack chuckles and puts a hand on the small of her back, shrugging as he steers her back towards the couch.
“It’s Halloween, bebé; do you want us to be known as the stingy old couple, or the cool couple that gives out extra candy to the little monsters? Besides, that Mirabel, oh my God--”
“Total heart-melter,” she agrees, sitting and cuddling into Jack’s side as he hooks his arm back over her shoulders and pulls her body close. “I think between her and that four-month-old dressed as Grogu, we may have seen the two cutest costumes in all of North America today.”
Jack lets out a groan at the memory of the adorable baby, who he had greeted at the door with a delighted peal of laughter, and squeezes his wife tightly in his arms, as if hugging her in the baby’s stead. The abrupt squish pushes a small squeak out of her, and Jack giggles, bumping the blunt tip of his long nose into her cheek.
“Sorry,” he murmurs. “You okay?”
His slight frame conceals a rather intense strength, something that comforts her, even if it still sneaks up on her every now and again that he is, in fact, as strong as he is; Jack’s touch is grounding and warm when so few things in the world are, and she’s glad, especially in the cold months, for the over-active heat of his body and the power of his embrace.
He traces the tips of his broad, tan fingers along the curve of her upper arm, pale nails leaving wake trails of gooseflesh and pleasant shivers. She realizes he’s waiting for a response before going any further with his affections, and she nods, cupping the square of his chin and running her thumb along his bottom lip. When his olive green eyes fix on hers, and his lips part to reveal the brightness of his smile, crooked to the left by the jut of his snaggletooth, she feels heat wash over her face and down her body, familiar and fluttering as he dips his face close and keeps her gaze.
“You know what I’m thinking?,” Jack purrs, voice dropping low and soft as he begins inching nearer. When he’s this close, his breath falls on her skin like a warm fog, sticking sweetly to her neck and cheeks, and the scent of him gets stronger.
He smells like their bed, she thinks. Cozy, fuzzy, and tinged with a modicum of not-at-all-unappealing sweat, there is also that distinct canine note that can only be detected in this kind of proximity. His arms are still wrapped around her, and one of his hands is coasting, flat-palmed, up and down the length of her side, following the curves of her ribs and belly, while the other finds itself resting on her shoulder, idly fingering an errant lock of hair. His face is so close to hers that she swears she could count each of his eyelashes, individually, and the hairs that form his growing stubble.
This Halloween, Jack has chosen to go as a vampire, which he thinks is exceedingly funny. Dark makeup rings his eyes and the grey in his hair glows almost blue in the low light of the fading day, lending him an unearthly quality that fits his costume well. The powers of the vampire, too, seem to be his: he has her under his thrall, certainly. His smile is mesmeric, and she can imagine that if a vampire were to look like him, there would be no end to the line of people willing to be bitten by that self-same smile.
“What are you thinking, Puppy?,” she asks, trying to redirect her own wandering thoughts. She scratches lightly at the underside of his chin and, on reflex, his head tilts up, eyes fluttering shut as a contented noise rumbles in the back of his throat. He’s so easy to please.
“I’m, uh--” He seems distracted by the sensation of her scratching at that Just Right spot between the back of his ear and the crook of his jaw, a distraction that only worsens when she begins scratching the hair at the nape of his neck. “I was going to say that I… I was thinking we…”
His hands lie still on her, twitching every now and then when she finds a particularly pleasing spot to scratch, and she relishes the sensation of being the one who now has her beloved under her own thrall; Jack leans his head into her touch and follows the motion of her hands, chasing her attentions. A sigh leaves his lips and he unclenches his shoulders, melting into her as she leans back against the armrest of the couch and Jack follows, laying his head on her chest.
His weight is surprisingly heavy atop her as he lays himself on her belly, slotting between her knees and positioning himself for ease of scritching. He’s not a big man, by any means, but there’s a density to him, and she’s feeling it now as he presses her into the couch with his body.
She pauses her petting briefly as she adjusts to the new position, and her hands still in his hair, which causes a growl of displeasure to part his lips. At that, she looks down at him and sees one green eye peering up at her (the other still shut and squished into her chest), and sticks her tongue out at him before continuing the strokes to his salt-and-pepper pelt.
It’s rather soothing, playing with his hair like this. There’s a therapeutic element to the combination of his body weight, intense warmth, rhythmic breathing, and the texture of his hair under her fingers, and she lets instinct carry her, as salient thought drifts away into the blissful mist of repetitive motion and familiar feelings. She traces the lines of his scalp, watching his black and grey and still, sometimes, brown hair forest up around her fingers, content to just match the tide of his breaths with her own, their ribs pressed together and expanding in synchronicity.
After a moment, Jack stirs. Turning, he cranes his face so that he can look at her squarely, and she feels the irresistible magnetism of that green gaze tugging her deeper into his spell.
“I want to try for one of our own,” he says, shattering the stillness like a foul ball through plate glass. “Tonight, if you’re ready.”
It takes her a second to blink away the haze that had settled around her head, and when she does at last manage to, she finds herself staring down into Jack’s face, taking him in with utmost fascination. If she heard him clearly, and she believes she did, he asked her--
“A baby, by the way. In case I wasn’t clear.” He flashes her a smile and a breathy laugh, and he pats her side playfully. “I’m sure you could figure that out, amorcita, but I like to be direct.”
“Oh.”
It’s all she can think to say: not because she is unhappy, or undesiring of the same things, but simply because the effect of Jack Russell, staring up at her with his big, moss-colored puppy eyes, brazenly stating that he wants to try and conceive with her, is flooring. He pushes up on his forearms, and suddenly he is above her, his face lit starkly by the shadows of the setting sun and the television, marking him out in black and white. His eyes glow, even in the darkness.
The wolf’s smile slips into his features as he stares down at her, watching her reactions with delight. He can hear her heartbeat, she knows, smells the minute shifts that not even she is aware of. He knows her, inside and out, and surely knows which way she is swayed, but he waits patiently for her to give him a sign, a command, an enthusiastic yes or a firm no. He won’t move without her urging.
She cups his face and lets out a shaky, excited breath, one that shivers in her sternum and makes Jack grin. There’s that crooked canine of his, sharply glinting in his smile, and she trembles joyfully at the sight, wondering if their child would have their father’s snaggletooth. She hopes they do.
“Tonight,” she repeats. Jack’s eyes widen.
Gently, she tugs him down and presses his pouty lips to hers, and the dam breaks. Jack lets out an inhuman groan of delight, dropping his center of gravity low to lean into the kiss, and uses his blunt incisors to pull at her bottom lip, nipping and sending the wet, lapping sounds of kissing echoing through the room. He uses one hand to hold her jaw in place, then begins trailing kisses down and around her chin, working his way to her throat.
“Look so pretty in your costume,” he rasps, voice low and clouded. “‘S hard for a man to keep his hands to himself.”
Before she can snidely remark that he, in fact, has not been keeping his hands to himself for almost the entirety of the evening, Jack sinks his teeth into her neck: not hard enough to wound her, but certainly hard enough to make her forget every other thought, her mind now focused completely on the reality that her husband is leaving marks all across her throat.
“You smell,” Jack groans, “So good. And, oh, God, when you have our cubs…”
He pushes his face into the crook of her neck and inhales, a series of Spanish and English curses flowing from his lips as they wander across her skin, and his hands begin rucking up the bottom of her blouse when--
“DING.”
Jack’s head whips up, and the two of them stare with wide eyes at one another. His face is flushed a deep umber and his lips are shiny, hair a fluffed mess, and she can only imagine she looks even more sordid and knocked askew. They exchange a communicative glance before the doorbell rings a second time and Jack, ever the gentleman, kisses her forehead, rapidly apologizing.
“We’ll get back to this, querida, I promise, I swear, I want to--”
She waves him off with a smile, and sees him bolt for the door, candy bowl in hand. He throws it open with gusto, and as she watches, she sees the transformation come over him; the brightness in his eyes, the giddiness of his smile, the sincerity of his sweetness. He’s going to make a magnificent father. And she’s going to have a very, very happy Halloween.
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